Stop trying to weasel out of every claim you've made the second someone rebuts it.
The Relevance of the Concept of God
- Thread starter Syne
- Start date
Stop trying to weasel out of every claim you've made the second someone rebuts it.
To me, the concept I have of God is both relevant and irrelevant.
I can tell myself it's relevant because logic is relevant, and God is not "rational". Logic exists because illogic does, that's the nature of everything. Without the duality, logic would not be meaningful because there would be no meaningless, or not meaningful.
Therefore, logically speaking, God encompasses everything I don't need to know. Ultimately it is irrelevant whether or not I have a concept of God, or think of one. "Cannot be meaningful in a logical way", perhaps, or "Only meaningful when not attached to any meaning", possibly. "Logic not required", maybe.
I can tell myself it's relevant because logic is relevant, and God is not "rational". Logic exists because illogic does, that's the nature of everything. Without the duality, logic would not be meaningful because there would be no meaningless, or not meaningful.
Therefore, logically speaking, God encompasses everything I don't need to know. Ultimately it is irrelevant whether or not I have a concept of God, or think of one. "Cannot be meaningful in a logical way", perhaps, or "Only meaningful when not attached to any meaning", possibly. "Logic not required", maybe.
If you can offer rebuttals to more than the strawman arguments Capracus has, have at it. Trying to defend strawman arguments I never made is an unproductive, and foolish, waste of time.
they can figure it out by scrutinizing their own proposals of what morality is. If morality is simply self-preservation, the word doesn't apply in the sense it has been used over the centuries, and then someone could call rape or forced genocide "morally good", if those acts serve a purpose genetically. I highly doubt anyone here will make that claim, so we need a different definition than, "it's how monkeys like us act".
Why should they?
Especially when discussing with you?
These are genuine questions.
It's more that discussing morality is generally quite pointless, because people cannot and will not forego their actual interests for the sake of having a "rational discussion."
it seems most people here follow some element of socrates suggestion in making an attempt at an examined life. I do. I have to scrutinize my own proposals and weed out the koans from the things that make sense.
because nobody is going to scrutinize their own proposals if they are preaching to their own choir.
ok, but some ideas are worth discussing in that they may just keep our attention on something valuable.
hahaha. what about this -wynn said:
Nietzsche said:
A scholar is made alone and in sobriety.
So what? It's not like they care.
And this world is a place full of friendly people eager to cooperate, investigin all their time and money toward a greater good for all. Yesssss.
The words of a weakling ...
You’ve stated that your concept relies on an observer.Syne said:
How does the real or imagined observer in your concept of observation have an effect on the development of the conscience of the observed if not through a real or imagined process of accountability?
I can’t decide if you’re unaware of the implications of your statements or are unwilling to acknowledge them.
The above definition of conscience is not synonymous with moral regulation?
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I'm not a hard biological determinist. I believe we do make choices based on reasoning and learned experience. But I also recognize we have innate evolved instincts for love, cooperation, altruism, and tribal loyalty that inform and guide how we choose to act. This moral structure is itself embedded into the very structure of our brains and relies heavily on our ability to empathize and mirror other people's feelings and experiences. A morality of command and punishment has no role in the operation of this moral function within our brains. In fact it detracts from it by relocating the source of moral action from empathy to obedience to an higher will, quite literally a slave morality of only doing what someone else tells you. That is a false morality that is based in other primal instincts of fear of punishment and devotion to authority figures. See old testament tales of genocide committed by the Israelites on the tribes of Canaan. See Islamic jihad. See torture methods of the Catholic Inquisitions.
So you are retracting your initial statement that a morality of command by higher authority is necessary?
Most people claim their own hard-wired mental capacities as their own and take credit for them. People don't say "I'm smart because of my parent's genes." They just say they're smart. Same with moral capacities for empathy and courage and honesty. We acknowledge these traits as virtues we and others' possess and do not dismiss them as our parent's genes. There is also a clearly self-cultivated element to this genetic predispositions. People can exercise them more or less thus either strengthening them or weakening them. Morality is thus viewed as something more than what you do. It is viewed as something you are. Some people are really good and some people are really bad. Moral properties see? Not genetic determinism.
Why is the metavalue of self-interest or group interest a detraction from the validity of moral traits like compassion and loyalty? Do we say because our love for our parents is self-advantageous to our survival that it is no longer valid either? No. Drives and instincts have practical value to the survival and well-being of those who act on them. Besides, it's not immediately evident to me that all moral behavior equates to self-interest. I give a starving homeless man 20 dollars. How has that helped me? Or I join the military to fight terrorism and defend my country. My self-interest is certainly not availed by this action. In fact it is quite threatened. There is an element of self-sacrifice in morality that suggests it is ISN'T just about self-interest. That we really do authentically give up fulfilling our own needs in order to fill those of others.
Even if morality WERE always about self-interest, which I highly doubt, why can it not have more that one purpose? I do right and it comes back to me somehow. So what? Some people would call that karma and argue it is further proof of the goodness of doing good. Morality has practical value in our lives. Does that invalidate it? Ofcourse not. It confirms it.
A moral creature is not better or more good than an amoral creature. An amoral creature is simple innocent no matter what it does because it is driven by pure instinct. I'm wary of applying our human concepts of right and wrong to animals like apes since it is not certain to what level they ever act on their moral instincts consciously. For the time being I see all animals as innocents like children who haven't developed the consciousness to decide for and against their own moral perogatives.
I agree. So what are we arguing about? Oh wait. That's right. You were saying a religious element was mixed in there too. Of having to be commanded by a higher authority. Right?
I can see how in the beginning, in small tribes and communities, altruism WOULD have been more self-interestedly orientated since what good you did for someone would more immediately come back to you. If you saved a fellow hunter's life for example it would definitely prompt him to save your's in the future. Furthermore in small groups a reputation for being good is more easily cultivated, thus enhancing your status among the other group members. But in a society now of tens of thousands, that cycle of practical benefit is less certain. I help a stranded motorist on the side of the road at night. I don't know the guy, I never see him again, and nobody I know sees me do this. How has this moment of self-sacrifice availed me? It hasn't. Unless you believe in karma that somehow the universe will return the good you put out. Some people believe this. Perhaps this the spiritual element to morality you were talking about?
Plus something else. We do such things CONSCIOUSLY, with the ability to not do it at any time. This is where accountability comes into the picture. We are not just innocents like animals or children. We have the capacity to reason and to choose moral options. Or immoral ones.
That has yet to be decided. As science more and more clearly traces psychopathy to brain conditions, it may be difficult to judge psychopaths as completely accountable for their actions. Certainly there is an element of freewill among the sociopathic in that not all of them become criminals. Among the psychopathic that's probably less true. The insanity defense might better apply here, in which case we would still incarcerate them, but less for punitive reasons than for therapeutic reasons. Or at least for practical reasons, like how we would cage a wild ravenous beast to protect society.
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
It isn't circular reasoning. It's circular causation, much as we see in other cycles of nature like autocatalytic chemical reactions, feedback loops, protein synthesis, self-referential Godelian statements, Shepard tones, quine programs, etc. The brain does indeed influence the course of its own synaptic firings, their timing and their synchronization and amplitude. That in turn determines what the brain consciously experiences, feeding back into itself a cascade of feelings and thoughts and memories that in turn colesce and exert further top-down influence. This is known as a strange loop. A theory Hofstadter writes alot about:
In I Am a Strange Loop, Hofstadter defines strange loops as follows:
“ And yet when I say "strange loop", I have something else in mind — a less concrete, more elusive notion. What I mean by "strange loop" is — here goes a first stab, anyway — not a physical circuit but an abstract loop in which, in the series of stages that constitute the cycling-around, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in a hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive "upward" shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one's sense of departing ever further from one's origin, one winds up, to one's shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop. (pp. 101-102)"---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop
EoDEo
Registered Senior Member
Perhaps this word is throwing you:
postulate
1. a thing suggested or assumed as true as the basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief.
1. a thing suggested or assumed as true as the basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief.
Since I explicitly stated that I was not assuming the existence of a god, the postulated observer is only suggested...as the basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief. I have already said that the postulated observer only serves as a pattern for developing individual, objective self-awareness. The only accountability is of the individual to himself.
Since you have not raised any similar objections to the analogous 100% surveillance, I will assume all this stems only from your distaste of a god concept. I can equally argue my point from the perspective of an individual being raised and taught by someone subjected to such a thorough surveillance state. I did not provide that alternative analog for no reason.
Perhaps you do not see how easily moral relativists dismiss even analogs to a god concept. That should tell you something.
Since you continually fail to elaborate, even minimally, I must assume you are the one who is unaware of all the implications.
Contrast that definition with:
moral
1. The lesson or principle contained in or taught by a fable, a story, or an event.
2. A concisely expressed precept or general truth; a maxim.
3. morals Rules or habits of conduct, especially of sexual conduct, with reference to standards of right and wrong
1. The lesson or principle contained in or taught by a fable, a story, or an event.
2. A concisely expressed precept or general truth; a maxim.
3. morals Rules or habits of conduct, especially of sexual conduct, with reference to standards of right and wrong
The obvious and simple difference between the two is that conscience is wholly contained within the individual, as personal urging, while morals necessarily include a social influence, as morals are only expressed in order to regulate social interactions.
There are even definitions of moral that reflect exactly what I have said about conscience informing morality:
mor·al
4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/morals
4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/morals
So what "implications" do you imagine I have either been "unaware of" or "unwilling to acknowledge"?
That is no more than a description of free will (a thing that causes itself, after a fashion). Regardless of if you want to call it circular causality, there is no way to determine a primary causal factor, whether brain or will. In this regard, it can hardly be called science without some backing studies.
I’m fully aware of what you’re attempting to assert.Syne said:
Capracus said:
You and I can assume a fantasy based observer, but the individual subject must give some credence to the legitimacy of the observer for it to have any effect on their sense of accountability.Syne said:
On the contrary, I was only trying to get you to acknowledge that both concepts rely on the same premise, that each holds the individual to a standard beyond their own through a perceived process of accountability. In either case the effect on conscience is dependent on the perceived legitimacy of the observer. When a culture or individual comes to the realization that there is no evidence of a mystical observer, or that the surveillance cameras are dummies, the element of accountability vanishes, as does the continued influence on behavior.
Conscience is a psychological expression based on moral calculation. Without the possession of moral knowledge there would be no expressed calculation. Conscience would not exist without some internal moral base.
Mainly that your observer concept implied accountability and moral regulation.
that is exactly how I see what I am calling authority. It informs and guides us. If either biology or authority can be used to disclaim responsibility, we have a problem.
the thing I don't understand about your problem with those actions is how you would blame people with biologically low levels of compassion for their lack of compassion. (I am just imagining that a person who could torture and kill for political or philosophical reasons, simply can not have an evolved sense of compassion). Arent they just following their genetically appropriate behavior? I mean people that do horrible things are sociopaths aren't they? Or are they highly compassionate empathetic people who just happen to kill and torture others? You are saying they still have a choice, and I agree with that, but we need to ask the question, "if a sociopath can act in accord with morality, without being led by their inner voice of compassion, aren't they doing so based on being guided by an authority other than themselves?" When the biology fails they still have the agency needed to follow the thing they "should" do right? As opposed to their own sense of morality which is saying, "do whatever you want to anyone, it's not your problem."
i have already stated, and stated again, over and over, that command, i.e. "I did it because I had to", is not what I am proposing as a valid morality. How many times do I have to say in this aspect of his thought I agree with Nietzsche? I don't know how anyone could be more clear about not accepting behavior based on command as a reasonable adult level of morality.
I have also made it clear that a viewpoint within which morality is simply another word for biology is not acceptable.
I am confused as to how a person can say, "altruistic behavior in apes and monkeys", and also "no one chooses to have compassion", and not be equating biology with morality, but you seem to have figured out how to do it somehow, so I am willing to try to understand your ideology.
and some compassion-less, or very slightly compassionate people act morally, listening to an authority of some kind to tell them how they should act, don't they? Are they good or bad people? I think that line of reasoning is a bit misleading. Good people are people that do good, bad people are people that do bad. Wanting to be kind, and then acting cruel certainly does not make someone a good person. If Hitler was the same emotionally but acted differently, we certainly could not call him a bad person. And if you say he couldn't have done things differently because he was such a bad person, then you relieve him of responsibility.
so if you were to do good with that ancillary purpose of getting good karma that is moral, but someone wanting to go to heaven is not moral? I don't see the difference there.
i don't know what "moral instincts" are. Instincts are survival mechanisms right? Instincts are unconscious biology, they are not equated with the word "feeling". That is where I get hung up on making sense of your position. There is a short section on Wikipedia about instinct "in psychology" that I think would be helpful if we are going to reference the word instinct, I would like to know how you differ from the ideas there, basically that instincts are not things that we choose or do not choose to follow, and also that instinct is a word best suited to discuss animals. So when you use the word, I assume you are using it to talk about the human animal, in accord with the book discussed in the quote I posted, and that may be one of the places we are not communicating with each other.
and I am even more wary of that. earlier you were talking about some animals who had group behaviors being relatively more moral than lizards, which you said are amoral. I think it would behoove us to define instinct differently, I feel my ideas about instinct are more in accord with the generally accepted scientific usage, but I am also sure you and I have some misunderstanding here as well, which may be part of what is leading me to think you are slightly misusing the word, or using it more in the lay usage which is less strictly defined. I do realize that people use words in conversation differently than in writing a paper, for example, and we have to allow for leeway because of that aspect.
i never mentioned religion in specific in relation to my claim that we either rely on some higher authority, whatever that may be, or we have relativism which is not ok. If we have relativism, then the inquisition is morally good for those people who choose to see it that way. My point about morality being tied to religion was historical. There is no history of humanity within which religion was not intertwined with the emergence and development of morality. That doesn't mean it "had to be that way" and religion becomes necessary for morality, but rather, it just was that way. Can you understand it as an intellectual point rather than a churchy one? I am saying that humanity does not operate on a morality born in a "secularly clean" environment, it just didn't develop that way. We are going to start going in circles starting about now I think. But at least we can have tighter definitions agreed upon if we have to back through the ideas again.
but you are acting based on the instinctual compassion and empathy you say you would feel as a post-primate, you ARE dependent on a brain that evolved during that small-group period regardless of the period of history you are in now. One may not need to help one's neighbor but their brain hasn't figured that out yet, it is still an "old-timey" brain.
Let's say people evolve past those small group instincts the primates share with us, would it be "morally good" for those non-compassionate people to reference a time when people gave a crap about each other, passed on from their past, rather than depend on their own feelings which don't rely on group dynamics. Essentially I am asking if you are a relativist, and if not, what authority do you take as more valid than whatever any old person can claim as a positive morality?
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Let me ask you again. When you help someone, do you do it because some authority told you to? Or do you do it out of compassion? I'm not seeing authority commands playing any role whatsoever in what I call moral action. Even when the moral dilemma is more complicated, like do I whistleblow about something I saw at work, no authority is informing you how you decide. It's based entirely on your own ethical reasoning.
If someone kills or tortures someone, I won't blame it on anything other than their choice to do it. Like I said, we all make the choice to act or not act morally. In the case of people who lack the ability to be compassionate, sociopaths perhaps, moral culpability still exists in that they choose to act immorally. Then again there's other people who are probably just really selfish and more motivated by self-interest. These people can still choose not to act immorally. That's what we base accountability on. The conscious decision to act or not act.
Like I already said, we still have the capacity to reason and decide for ourselves what moral action to take. We have innate biological drives to be compassionate and altruistic, and these help guide us in what moral decisions we make. I don't know how you can possibly deny this obvious fact. Haven't you been reading the articles I posted?
Depends on their motive. Are they acting because they really empathize with someone, essentially acting FOR the person themselves. Or are they acting because they were told to and are concerned only with their status with some authority figure?If the latter, then I'd say they aren't really acting morally. They're more concerned with obeying and avoiding punishment than the person they are trying to help.
I never said good karma is a legit motive for performing moral acts. But then I don't think many people perform compassionate acts to gain some karmic benefit any more than they do because they are commanded to by higher authorities.Some may. But that calls into question the authenticity of their actions. "Oh I just loaned you my umbrella because I knew it would bring me good karma someday." "Gee thanks friend!"
Instincts are innate capacities to feel and to behave in certain ways. I see empathy as an instinctive capacity in us that allows us to identify with other people's feelings and motives. Just like sexuality, or competitiveness, or self-preservation, or self-gratification. There is no hard dividing line in us where these instincts end and our conscious feelings begin. They provide the template that structures how we act and feel.
Psychology has distanced itself from applying the word instinct to humans in an attempt to preserve our dubious distinction from animals. "Drive" is the preferred term. I don't see any difference. I think we have a instinctive level in us that is as much in play as it was in animal. Only with us it is suplemented by reasoning, logic and self-awareness.
Go ahead then and provide a term to describe these innate capacities for feeling and behavior that have evolved in us. Don't you think sexuality is instinctive? And yet, despite its instinctive basis, a whole superstructure has evolved over it consisting of romance and love that have a higher virtuous quality to them. I think morality is the same. We have basic instincts for altruism and loyality and empathy and out of this substrate we have a rational judging conscience that adheres to principles and performs moral actions.
I'm not so sure there isn't a universal sense of right and wrong that we can apply to all humans at all times. If anything this moral sense is precisely the empathic capacity that has evolved in us. So I don't know if moral relativism provides a complete picture. Maybe part of it, but certainly not all of it.
Ok then. You are not making value statements about religion-derived morality. Just factual statements that it is historically the case. Good.
No I'm not a relativist. But then I don't believe morals exist objectively either as absolute rules of behavior. The ultimate authority for moral behavior is reason guided by the an instinctive sense of empathy and compassion for your fellow man. I can't think of a better way to conceive of morality in this day and age.
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Wow. You claim you understand what I am saying only to immediately prove you do not. The individual must only be able to conceptualize the possibility of such an observer, not lend legitimacy to any actual thing.
Again, only proving that you do not understand my assertion. Yes, it is useful to tell children that such a thing actually exists, but only because they cannot yet conceptualize such a viewpoint for themselves. Once they can, any idea of accountability to some other becomes redundantly useless. At this point, they conceptualize themselves as this postulated other.
This is a prime example of the "only wrong if you get caught" mentality, and illustrates the critical importance of internalizing such a thorough, objective self-awareness.
Where is the evidence for this opinion?
That is only your own misunderstanding at work.
Hilarious, every time someone refutes or rebuts your argument, they automatically don't understand it, even when it's crystal clear that they do. :roflmao: