The question may be if this statement is true.
I'm of the opinion objective morals do exist. IOWs what is moral in one culture MUST be moral in ALL cultures. What is immoral in one culture MUST be immoral in ALL cultures.
Pakistan mob burns man to death for 'blasphemy'
- Thread starter Michael
- Start date
I'm of the opinion objective morals do exist. IOWs what is moral in one culture MUST be moral in ALL cultures. What is immoral in one culture MUST be immoral in ALL cultures.
No, I am of the mind that morality is subjective (i.e. it doesn't exist outside the scope of a person's thoughts).
Ok, in the absence of a human mind, what is morality? What is it made up of? How do you measure it?
Don't know.
Jeez, that site really needs to beef up on it's science. There are very good theories on the emergence of morality based on evoluationary biology; however, those are merely objective underpinnings of something that is still subjective.
I added this:
To take another, more Scientific approach regarding moral objectivity:
(1) Morality is the concern with the welfare of conscious beings.
(2) The welfare of a conscious being exists.
(3) Consciousness exists in the physical properties of the brain.
(4) The physical properties of the brain can be observed and measured.
It seems to me that it should be possible to find objective morals do exist in the modern human brain. Consciousness is a product of the brain, which is a physical substrate. Thus there is a physical bases for making the claim objective morals do exit.
What are your ideas?
I am of the mind that without a conscious brain, then there can be no morals. Interestingly, I think there are some AI discussion around this.
Regarding evolutionary biology: It seems a reasonable hypothesis that because humans share 99.99% DNA, all human brains have reached equivalent brain (structures) and (IF) objective morals exists - they'd be in the structure of those brains.
As such, without a conscious brain, then morals wouldn't exist. I'd argue the same is true of action potentials though. Without electrically active membranes with potential (muscle, neurons, etc...) then action potentials wouldn't exist. Likewise, without brains capable of consciousness, morals wouldn't exist either. But they do exist - don't they? If so, then there must be an objective basis for morality. Wouldn't there be?
We ARE conscious aren't we?
As such, without a conscious brain, then morals wouldn't exist. I'd argue the same is true of action potentials though. Without electrically active membranes with potential (muscle, neurons, etc...) then action potentials wouldn't exist. Likewise, without brains capable of consciousness, morals wouldn't exist either. But they do exist - don't they? If so, then there must be an objective basis for morality. Wouldn't there be?
We ARE conscious aren't we?
Michael, you do realize that in order for there to be a single universal correct morality there has to be a single universal philosophical truth. Most people would refer to such a thing as religion. The only way to absolutely define what is morally correct is for there to be a higher power, a god, so to speak.
Considering you seem to be making arguments against the idea of a god, then perhaps you should not argue for the existence of an absolute truth, or morality.
Morality is determined by what the majority of people in a particular group agree to. Kinda like etiquette online. Is there anything supernaturally wrong about writing in all caps? No. But the majority of people agree that posting in all caps is rude and hostile so we agree that it is improper (immoral) to post in all caps.
We have people here, in the good ole' USA fighting for the death penalty, for abortion, for gay rights. I have known plenty of people fighting for all these things but they would never execute anyone, never have an abortion, or marry someone of the same sex. Then we have people fighting against these things. They fight until they are put into a situation where they have to take a life to protect their own or want to take a life out of vengeance when a loved one is murdered, choose whether or not to keep a child they are unable to carry to term without substantial risk to their own life, or have to accept that their child is gay and face the reality that they would be taking away their child's right to happiness. Where is the morality in any of these situations easily defined? It isn't. Because morality is subjective not objective. And there are no absolute truths.
Considering you seem to be making arguments against the idea of a god, then perhaps you should not argue for the existence of an absolute truth, or morality.
Morality is determined by what the majority of people in a particular group agree to. Kinda like etiquette online. Is there anything supernaturally wrong about writing in all caps? No. But the majority of people agree that posting in all caps is rude and hostile so we agree that it is improper (immoral) to post in all caps.
We have people here, in the good ole' USA fighting for the death penalty, for abortion, for gay rights. I have known plenty of people fighting for all these things but they would never execute anyone, never have an abortion, or marry someone of the same sex. Then we have people fighting against these things. They fight until they are put into a situation where they have to take a life to protect their own or want to take a life out of vengeance when a loved one is murdered, choose whether or not to keep a child they are unable to carry to term without substantial risk to their own life, or have to accept that their child is gay and face the reality that they would be taking away their child's right to happiness. Where is the morality in any of these situations easily defined? It isn't. Because morality is subjective not objective. And there are no absolute truths.
Lived Free and Died
The functional challenge there is that factors affecting conduct, and the choices people have or face, differ from society to society.
I think objective, fixed, and global morality, such as you suggest, would interfere with your libertarian objectives. Perhaps most obviously, such an ethical or moral standard would interfere with the free market.
For instance, I still like what I call the Galactica Proposition. At the end of the opening miniseries of the recent Battlestar Galactica series, Admiral Adama argued with President Roslin. Adama wanted to fight a losing war because he wasn't going down without a fight. Roslin wanted to run, keep the species alive, and avoid the fight as much as possible since it was a losing proposition. In the end, she won the argument. Adama returned to the Combat Information Center and met with his officers. Colonel Tigh asked what the next step was. The Admiral responded that they needed to stay alive, and start having babies. Tigh turned and glanced at Billy Keikeya and Petty Officer Dualla, who were obviously flirting with one another. "Is that an order?" asked Tigh. Adama responded, "Not yet."
Now, ethically, morally—however you want to describe it, really—I find the notion of forced reproduction repugnant. However, if I was facing the potential end of the human species, yes, I would consider it. Imagine the human epitaph: "Liberty Over Life"? "Determinedly Apathetic"? "Lived Free and Died"?
The functional challenge of identifying objective morality is that we are still guessing at the objectively-defined constraints. The functional challenge of fixing those constraints permanently is that circumstances change. What was, in better times, moral, might in difficult times be suicidal for the species.
Michael said:
The functional challenge there is that factors affecting conduct, and the choices people have or face, differ from society to society.
I think objective, fixed, and global morality, such as you suggest, would interfere with your libertarian objectives. Perhaps most obviously, such an ethical or moral standard would interfere with the free market.
For instance, I still like what I call the Galactica Proposition. At the end of the opening miniseries of the recent Battlestar Galactica series, Admiral Adama argued with President Roslin. Adama wanted to fight a losing war because he wasn't going down without a fight. Roslin wanted to run, keep the species alive, and avoid the fight as much as possible since it was a losing proposition. In the end, she won the argument. Adama returned to the Combat Information Center and met with his officers. Colonel Tigh asked what the next step was. The Admiral responded that they needed to stay alive, and start having babies. Tigh turned and glanced at Billy Keikeya and Petty Officer Dualla, who were obviously flirting with one another. "Is that an order?" asked Tigh. Adama responded, "Not yet."
Now, ethically, morally—however you want to describe it, really—I find the notion of forced reproduction repugnant. However, if I was facing the potential end of the human species, yes, I would consider it. Imagine the human epitaph: "Liberty Over Life"? "Determinedly Apathetic"? "Lived Free and Died"?
The functional challenge of identifying objective morality is that we are still guessing at the objectively-defined constraints. The functional challenge of fixing those constraints permanently is that circumstances change. What was, in better times, moral, might in difficult times be suicidal for the species.
Golden Rule. Requires no God, in point of fact.
Doesn't encompass this case.
About all you can do is say that a human brain objectively exists and is wired in such a manner that humans have a psychological tendency to subjectively judge each other in a manner approximated by the golden rule.
If you want to make the case for morality objectively existing, then it has to exist outside the scope of a person's conscious experience.
Bells
Staff member
Oh, for Michael it does.
Interesting..Michael said:
One culture deems that it is immoral to discriminate against, say, blacks and then decide to, for argument's sake, enact laws to ensure that people are not discriminated against based on their colour, sexuality, sex, age, etc.. All cultures would then deem this to be the only moral course. However, interestingly enough, there will be some within the culture who would deem that to not be a good thing and would instead prefer to allow the free market to determine if someone is racist or not..
Do you see how moral transfer to all is not a reality?
Now, lets apply it in this frankly revolting case...
Here we have a man, murdered by a frenzied mob intent on killing him because they were religiously insulted, or they felt their God had been religiously insulted. To ask if this is moral or not is really, well, troll bait.
Of course it's immoral, Michael. It kind of goes without saying. Which begs the question, why even ask?
So what led these individuals to commit such an act? Their lack of morality? The environment in which they live in where they are subjected to and bombarded with the incorrectness of religious insult? What led the mob in India to burn a missionary and his two young sons in a car? What led a group of people to murder nearly 1 million people in Rwanda? What led normal Germans to accept and take part in the political and war machine which led to the slaughter of over 11 million people? Are all of them immoral?
No.
Look at the incitement.. Look at the few individuals who have decided that they will be insulted and who then go on to infect others with their particular brand of belief. If you are bombarded with that kind of information from those around you, at one point, you will start to cave. Lets look at Rwanda as a prime example. We had people murdering their spouses and even their own children, who in the weeks before, they loved and cared for them... What they had was weeks and weeks of propaganda, priming the population to the point where people were killing their own family members and their neighbours and friends, men, women and children...
Apply that rule to this particular crime. If you have religious leaders, even just one is enough, pushing his congregation about the evils of any perceived insult to Islam (as per this case), you will get that tipping point. Now bring in lack of education, lack of health care, lack of facilities.. it is a perfect place to actually turn people into mobs who commit such acts. It is not acceptable in any society. But all you need is the blank canvas by which a couple of individuals can start to lay down the groundwork for their twisted ideology. Consider a poor region, where education and health care is provide by those dangerous few, you can easily start to manipulate people.
You can hit all the objective underpinnings of the conscious experience, but for objective morality to exist, it has to not be confined to a person's conscious experience.
Murdering one mentally disabled man for blasphemous criticism of the sky-father doesn't begin to approach any nebulous ethical borderline.
Bells
Staff member
No..!!
I am shocked!
*Claps hands to [face] cheeks*..
I guess in regards to the comments to Michael regarding free market forces, you kind of had to be there..
Of course it was not a moral act. No one in their mind would say it was a moral act. Nor would anyone really think it should even be asked.. Just as I don't think allowing racism to be left to free market forces is a moral act. And yet, Michael does..
Ergo, his claim that what is moral for one society should be moral for all is kind of ironic..
My personal preference is to murder a healthy person, harvest their organs, and then save the lives of 10 people with those organs :3.
No. Islam isn't being "misused" in this case. It is in fact being implemented. Death is the punishment for blasphemy in Islam. People can be good or bad, but it takes religion to make a good person do something bad.
Mmmm I know you're hoisting him on a petard, I'm just not sure what the petard's made of here. Was that really his argument?
East Korea has already copyrighted that medical system. Hand over a lung and we'll forget all about it.
Islamic texts actually chastise such behavior but for sake of argument lets assume that Islam (the Qur'an, that book you have probably not read) does condone horrible atrocities. Who wrote the Qur'an? Who invented Islam? Who willingly accepted Islam as an authority? That's right, humans. Human beings invent religion, human beings interpret the meanings of what they invent, and human beings decide how to act on the thing they invented.
So, it goes back to humanity. Unless you have some evidence that a god exists and created the religion and controls the people, then you cannot blame the religion, rather blame what invented it and followed it, HUMANS.
I could write a book of my own personal philosophies and insist that a deity inspired me to write it. It may have a lot of good intention but because it is invented by an imperfect human being, it has faults. Most people today, being somewhat educated, would not allow my writings to compete with what they already accept as divine instruction. But some would. Gradually numbers would grow until my teachings achieved cult status. Jesus was considered a cult leader for a while. Given enough time, my teachings could become a modern organized religion. Why? Because human nature causes us to accept what makes us feel good about who we are in comparison to others. Someone else mentioned that humans are Pack community animals. I tend to agree with that. But we also have compassion and empathy in our nature. These two aspects of us could be detrimental to our survival in some situations. When competing for resources we have to deprive others of basic life sustaining materials. Food, water, and building materials for shelter. We know that in order to take what we need to survive we will be preventing someone else from surviving. This is a sad reality but it is one that every animal on the planet must face. As far as we know, animals do not have religion. They also do not seem to have the same propensity for compassion or empathy. I say SEEM because, maybe they do but they express it differently. Or maybe they are just more capable of logical thought over emotional thought.
But back to my point. We take what we need knowing it will deprive others of what they need. This conflicts with our compassion and empathy. So we devise a way to justify denying others of their needs. By having religion or any other label defining our group, we can justify that we deserve the resources more than the people outside our label or religion. We deserve it more because we are better than them somehow.
You say it takes religion to make a good person do something bad. No it doesn't. Example:
An adult female is pregnant and has one 3 year old child with her. She and her child is stranded away from any other human help. The environment is harsh and she has enough food to last one person 3 days if they eat just the bare minimum to survive. The amount of time it would take her to walk to the nearest source of food, water, and civilization.
She can try to keep the child alive by feeding it and risk running out and starving before they reach help. If she dies, surely her child will die as well as the unborn child. If she allows her child to die, she stands a good chance of reaching civilization saving her own life and the life of her unborn child.
If she chooses to not feed her child, the child will die a slow agonizing death. She will have to watch the child die, torturing herself. Or she could kill her child by suffocation allowing the death to be rather swift. She will still have to live with her act but at least she didn't prolong unnecessary suffering.
So she suffocates her 3 year old and makes it back to civilization where she gives birth to a new child.
The media asks her how she survived and she tells them what she did. Suddenly she is thrown in prison for murdering her 3year old and is told that she committed a terrible immoral act. Did she really? had she not killed her child, they all would likely have died. Killing one's own child is a terrible thing. But it does not require religion to make someone do it.
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Of course all religions are man-made. That doesn't make any difference in my opinion. Whoever created it formed a mental trap of totalitarianism to all those within the infected area. It's main driver is fear of and faith in a cosmic rule enforcer.
To address your point about Islamic texts. This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Islam isn't the Quran alone. Islam is the totality of the religion as practiced. Sharia law was created to defend Islam, and that makes it just as part of the religion as the Quran. Blasphemy laws are found wherever Muslims have the political power to implement them.
To address your point about Islamic texts. This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Islam isn't the Quran alone. Islam is the totality of the religion as practiced. Sharia law was created to defend Islam, and that makes it just as part of the religion as the Quran. Blasphemy laws are found wherever Muslims have the political power to implement them.
Islam originally was JUST THE QUR'AN but humans added to it what they willed. The Qur'an forbids anything outside the Qur'an being used to define Islam. So it is humans who make it up as they go that are to blame. If I took a toyota and make a bunch of modifications to it, then drive it and my modifications caused an accident leading to the death of innocent people, would you blame toyota? The car is still technically a toyota. It is still a toyota under all the modifications. But the wings I added caused a problem. That is not toyota's fault is it?
Unless the original inventor endorses the modifications, you cannot blame the original invention.
You cannot modifiy an original invention, have bad results because of the modifications, then blame the original invention.
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After Mohammed wrote the Quran, one of his subsequent acts was to wipe out a neighboring community of Jews because they insisted on remaining Jewish. If the Prophet's actions cannot be an example of Islamic actions, then what is?
The No True Scotsman fallacy applies here perfectly. You are claiming that whoever performs actions that we in modern western society would call bad are not true Muslims. This despite the fact that they are Muslims using their religion to justify these acts. Note that I'm not merely blaming the Quran, I'm blaming Islam as it exists today (and religion in general, specifically faith). The Quran provides cover for those who insist the Hadith and Sharia are proper and just implementation of the Quran in public life. Just like so-called moderate religion provides cover for fundamentalists.
Modern apologists for capitalism do the same thing. They say that the worst aspects of capitalism are the result of the markets not being truly free, and if they were allowed to be free, everything would work out fine. They don't realize that the flaws of capitalism are inherent in the belief structure. Likewise, the atrocities of the Islamic world are a direct result of a flawed ideology.
The No True Scotsman fallacy applies here perfectly. You are claiming that whoever performs actions that we in modern western society would call bad are not true Muslims. This despite the fact that they are Muslims using their religion to justify these acts. Note that I'm not merely blaming the Quran, I'm blaming Islam as it exists today (and religion in general, specifically faith). The Quran provides cover for those who insist the Hadith and Sharia are proper and just implementation of the Quran in public life. Just like so-called moderate religion provides cover for fundamentalists.
Modern apologists for capitalism do the same thing. They say that the worst aspects of capitalism are the result of the markets not being truly free, and if they were allowed to be free, everything would work out fine. They don't realize that the flaws of capitalism are inherent in the belief structure. Likewise, the atrocities of the Islamic world are a direct result of a flawed ideology.