Hitchens' moral challenge

[Syne]

I understand logic just fine. That's why I have such an easy time recognizing silly illogic and trolling when I encounter it.

So how exactly is answering a challenge trolling? At best, that opinion is only subjective because you find my answer somehow offensive.

Let's go ahead and suppose that's true, for the purposes of this thread.

What you've missed in your haste to troll, is that the implications cut both ways - for a believer to "affirm the basis of his ethical system" is necessarily for him to attack the basis of the ethical system of all non-believers, and all believers in alternative theologies. This is then clearly immoral, as per your insistence, and so you haven't managed to construct an ethical act that is available to believers but not to non-believers. The situation is, in fact, perfectly symmetric, just as Hitchens contended.

That would merely be an inferred negation based on a positive assertion. It is not necessarily implied by the positive statement. The positive assertion does not itself constitute a refutation of another proposition. The divine and reason is not a mutually exclusive dichotomy. Quite the contrary, just as I've said, a believer is capable of agreeing with the reasons for a non-believer's ethics. Asserting his own divine basis does not itself refute a reasoning, and thus allows agreement in this direction.

So the only symmetry here is assumed in the haste of your own trolling.

Oh dear... I recommend you try to stay out of the deep end. You're already in way over your head without getting into things like determinism.

Affected condescension will get you nowhere.

No, that's silly. If a believer "honestly agrees" with an atheistic, "pragmatic" basis for ethics, then he is clearly stating that he doesn't not honestly hold any theological basis for his own ethical system, and so is disqualified from the category of "believer."

What you could assert is that a believer is capable of recognizing that there are alternative bases for ethical systems that produce workable results. But then, so could an atheist. There is no asymmetry here.

No. As I just said, the two are not mutually exclusive, so faith doesn't deny such reason while such reason does deny faith. You must show how faith and reason are completely and mutually exclusive in order to support such a symmetry. While these two definitely have varying degrees of conflict and compatibility, it is a false dichotomy to claim they are mutually exclusive.

I think you'll find that atheists don't generally have well-developed, complete, detailed logical systems of ethics that precede their morality. And not do theists.

Do you really believe that a given religionist would suddenly become unclear on whether it is immoral to kill, or rape, or steal, if he were to encounter serious doubts as to his theology? I don't. I contend that he probably knew all those things were wrong well before he came to possess any recognizable theology. Indeed, human history is replete with people shifting between different theologies (or none at all) without any apparent consequences for their moral systems.

Finally, let's note that your whole premise in the OP - that theists are can recognize the "pragmatic" functionality of atheist ethical systems - argues directly that the final ethical system doesn't depend on the theological "basis" (or lack thereof) in any strong way, and so there is no inherent impact on said ethical systems in challenging said "basis," whatever it may be.

People, especially adolescents, quite often rebel against former moralities in ways which include the blatant breaking of secular laws and other normative societal ethics. There are also plenty of people who do not seem to have a native empathy with which to inform any intuitive morality.

Any supposed "final ethical system" does nothing to alleviate the vacuum of a basis or authority when a morality is undermined. There is an inherent impact which postulating some distant future only avoids. And yet again, faith doesn't necessitate an absolute exclusion of reason. Any such "final ethics" is not incompatible with maintaining a divine basis.

 

[Syne]

No, you speak like a typical internet troll who has almost no grasp on the language he speaks. I'm not the first to point this out about you, either.



That's simply not true. As I demonstrated, a non-believer is perfectly capable of agreeing with a believer's moral actions. They can both agree murder is wrong, that theft is wrong, that lying for personal gain is wrong. At no point must the believer agree to a divine warrant for their moral foundation.


Quad already covered this extremely well, but I'll reiterate: this assumes that without divine warrant, a believer (now a non-believer, in this scenario) has no idea how to behave, and has no sense of right and wrong. This simply is not true, as evidenced by the fact that non-believers in fact have moral centers.



That's interesting, because you said the direct opposite several threads ago:

"It is the respecting of certain criteria for accepted behavior which is morality, regardless of motivations. "​

Trollsmash.



You have not. You have not explained how the opposition or disagreement with a moral basis in any way undermines said moral basis. You've only said it does and failed to qualify the statement.



"Someone trying to convincing you?"

Again, that is not the case. They are simply disagreeing with you. There is nothing sneaky or insidious about it.



As I've demonstrated, it is you who is using the word incorrectly.



This is why others are calling you a troll, and why I had you on the ignore list. I have already done this, and yet you pretend I haven't. Yours is the intellectual bankruptcy and disruptive behavior of a forum troll.



Gainsay? What a pretentious douche.

By saying the opposite of subvert is uphold, you prove that your entire vocabulary (outside of "butt hurt", obviously) is the result of thesaurus.com searches. Clearly, "subvert" is the incorrect term in this situation, as is "uphold." Subvert and disagree are not synonyms, nor are uphold and agree.

Seriously, you only make yourself seem more stupid than you likely are when you write like this. Just use your own words. At worst, you'll give your posts a clarity they lacked before.

Pedantic and uneducated trolling that is no longer worth my attention. Arguments by consensus to justify ad hominems, straw man arguments that have already been corrected once, and just general trolling retaliations.

Congrats, yous wins the internets, troll.

 

[Balerion]

Pedantic and uneducated trolling that is no longer worth my attention. Arguments by consensus to justify ad hominems, straw man arguments that have already been corrected once, and just general trolling retaliations.

Congrats, yous wins the internets, troll.

Translation: I have no answer for your points, I concede defeat.

Sciforums: 1
Trolls: 0

 

[quadraphonics]

So how exactly is answering a challenge trolling? At best, that opinion is only subjective because you find my answer somehow offensive.

You're going to have to troll a lot harder than that if you want to impress anyone around here.

That would merely be an inferred negation based on a positive assertion. It is not necessarily implied by the positive statement. The positive assertion does not itself constitute a refutation of another proposition. The divine and reason is not a mutually exclusive dichotomy. Quite the contrary, just as I've said, a believer is capable of agreeing with the reasons for a non-believer's ethics. Asserting his own divine basis does not itself refute a reasoning, and thus allows agreement in this direction.

Hey, throw around all the overwrought prose you like - you're still clearly aknowledging that the "divine basis" is, in fact, tangential to the moral system in question (else the believer would not be able to endorse the atheist moral reasoning as "agreeable"), and so attacking such does not constitute any attack on said moral system.

Affected condescension will get you nowhere.

On the contrary, it makes for trollbait par excellence.

No. As I just said, the two are not mutually exclusive, so faith doesn't deny such reason while such reason does deny faith.

And this neatly demonstrates that faith is tangential to the moral system in question: you can remove it, and nothing happens to the moral system. By your own assertion, the putative theist in question here is perfectly able to endorse the moral system propounded by the atheist, and to agree with all of the rationale in support of it. Thus there is zero basis to claim that an atheist who denies somebody's theology is undermining their ethical system. They are, quite obviously, proposing that the ethical system be kept intact entirely, and the illusory dependence on theology discarded in favor of some form of rational consideration.

So you have not constructed an "ethical act" on the part of the believer, nor a corresponding "unethical act" on the part of the non-believer. You've simply aknowledged what the atheists already know, which is that systems of morality don't depend on theology in the naive way that you presuppose they do.

People, especially adolescents, quite often rebel against former moralities in ways which include the blatant breaking of secular laws and other normative societal ethics.

So what? We aren't talking about "rebelling against former moralities," we're talking about people changing their minds about theology, and what impact that may - or may not - have on their ethical systems.

There are also plenty of people who do not seem to have a native empathy with which to inform any intuitive morality.

And there are people who are blind, deaf, or otherwise deprived of normal senses and functions. So what?

Any supposed "final ethical system" does nothing to alleviate the vacuum of a basis or authority when a morality is undermined.

Again, you've already aknowledged that such "basis" is entirely illusory, and your own constructed example depends exactly on theists recognizing that and regarding the alternative, non-theological ethical systems as perfectly adequate and well-based. Which is to say that no morality gets "undermined," rather the morality is asserted to be decoupled from the theology. Else, the theist couldn't endorse the atheist morality.

You keep trying to have it both ways, but that is silly. Either there's a problematic vacuum (in which case the theist can't recognize the adequacy of the atheist's reasoning and so there's no asymmetry) or there isn't (in which case there's no offense against anyone's ethics involved in challenging their theological beliefs - and so no un/ethical acts under consideration at all).

Of course this vacuum premise is just silly theist paranoia. I'd worry very much about anyone who didn't see why it was immoral to rape and kill unless there's a magic bearded man in the sky who dictates all this and punishes transgressors with eternal torture. Fortunately, the set of theists who are really that craven appears to be vanishingly small.

Any such "final ethics" is not incompatible with maintaining a divine basis.

I didn't say it was. I said that there is no particular link between the two. And you agree - you're whole construction here requires that theists recognize that the divine "basis" is entirely extraneous and could be discarded without any impact on the ethical system.

Meanwhile, we can get back to the supposition that it is inherently immoral to do anything that would undermine or weaken somebody's ethical framework. This is also a very silly idea. It is perfectly possible for somebody's ethical system to be wrong, and to endorse immoral actions. There would be nothing immoral about undermining such things and proposing to replace them with something more defensible. Moreover, we have limited means to really figure out which of the myriad ethical systems - if any - is the "right" one, and so are confronted with a profusion of competing ones. Your prohibition there would mean that it is immoral for any one to challenge anyone else's ethical system, even when they directly, materially conflict. If I hold that it is moral to steal from you, and you disagree, are you really doing anything immoral by challenging and undermining my ethical framework?

 

[Syne]

Translation: I have no answer for your points, I concede defeat.

Sciforums: 1
Trolls: 0

Typical troll baiting by claiming victory, either despite defeat or prematurely. I simply realize that there is no engaging a person who refuses to accept common definitions, nor an unbiased criteria for the demonstrable.

 

[Yazata]

But this was not the challenge.

I'm responding to what was quoted in this thread's first post.

"Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer."​

You're talking semantics, Hitchens is talking actions.

Hitchens said: "an ethical statement made or an action performed".

Not having the phrase "God's will" or "meritorious acts" in the language of the non-believer does not exclude them from doing or saying the action that the believer considers to be "God's will" or a "meritorious act."

That might very well be true. But the ethical non-Christian is unlikely to make ethical statements in the conceptual vocabulary of Christian ethics and the non-Buddhist is unlikely to make ethical statements in the conceptual vocabulary of Buddhist ethics.

Language is not important here; only the moral itself is.

The language of religious ethics is critically important in determining what kind of statements a religious person is likely to make.

You certainly have not met it. You've only failed to understand it.

I think that the first ("an ethical statement made") clause of Hitchens' challenge is easily met. Just sincerely make ethical statements in the manner of Christan, Buddhist, Islamic, Confucian or any other variety of religious ethics. Just by definition, these are ethical statements that non-believers in those particular forms of religious ethics probably wouldn't be making.

Turning from statements to other forms of action...

Again, prostration is not moral or ethical, so you still fail to meet the challenge.

It might not be an ethical act in your or Hitchens' scheme of things, but it may very well be in the Buddhist scheme. Buddhists prostrate themselves to center and calm themselves, to recollect the Buddha's enlightened virtues, and to move themselves into a less self-centered state. To Buddhists, ethical motivation is the place that the rest of ethical action comes from. That's where vital work needs to be done.

It has nothing to do with excluding religious acts, it has to do with excluding acts that are not within the realm of morality. Genuflecting is not a moral or immoral act; confession is not a moral or immoral act.

Would the people who perform those acts agree? Why not let them explain what they take to be the ethical dimension of what they do?

We're talking about actual morality--the concept of what is right and good.

If we exclude everything that doesn't already pre-conform to some religion-free vision of "actual morality", we run the risk of rendering Hitchens' whole challenge circular.

 

[Balerion]

Typical troll baiting by claiming victory, either despite defeat or prematurely. I simply realize that there is no engaging a person who refuses to accept common definitions, nor an unbiased criteria for the demonstrable.

Everyone watching this thread knows who won that exchange. I don't need to say anything.

 

[Chipz]

Everyone watching this thread knows who won that exchange. I don't need to say anything.

I'd vote for Syne.

 

[Balerion]

I'm responding to what was quoted in this thread's first post.

"Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer."​

Hitchens said: "an ethical statement made or an action performed".




That might very well be true. But the ethical non-Christian is unlikely to make ethical statements in the conceptual vocabulary of Christian ethics and the non-Buddhist is unlikely to make ethical statements in the conceptual vocabulary of Buddhist ethics.

It does not matter if the statement is made in the "conceptual vocabulary" of the Buddhist or the Christian. What matters is that they could make the the same ethical statement as any theist. You're focusing on semantics; the framework of the statement is not the ethical part of the statement.

The language of religious ethics is critically important in determining what kind of statements a religious person is likely to make.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. I'm not even clear one what you're trying to say here.

I think that the first ("an ethical statement made") clause of Hitchens' challenge is easily met. Just sincerely make ethical statements in the manner of Christan, Buddhist, Islamic, Confucian or any other variety of religious ethics. Just by definition, these are ethical statements that non-believers in those particular forms of religious ethics probably wouldn't be making.

Again, you're focusing on the semantics, and you're way off base. Here's an example:

Theist: "I feed the homeless because Jesus tells me to."

Atheist: "I feed the homeless because it's the right thing to do."

The qualifiers (in bold) are not the ethical part of the statements. By your assertion, these two comments would be making entirely different ethical claims, and that's simply not true.

Turning from statements to other forms of action...

It might not be an ethical act in your or Hitchens' scheme of things, but it may very well be in the Buddhist scheme. Buddhists prostrate themselves to center and calm themselves, to recollect the Buddha's enlightened virtues, and to move themselves into a less self-centered state. To Buddhists, ethical motivation is the place that the rest of ethical action comes from. That's where vital work needs to be done.

Judging by your comments, I sincerely doubt you have much of an idea what ethics are to Buddhists. None of this makes any sense, and you're still talking about actions that are not ethical or unethical.

If we exclude everything that doesn't already pre-conform to some religion-free vision of "actual morality", we run the risk of rendering Hitchens' whole challenge circular.

All we're excluding are qualifiers. We're talking about ethical statements and actions--deeds that can be agreed upon and done. And you have failed to mention one that a non-believer cannot do.

Don't feel the need to defend yourself, because the challenge cannot be met. As I said before, Hitchens used it as rhetoric. He knew full well that there is no ethical statement or action that cannot be said or done by a non-believer.

 

[Balerion]

I'd vote for Syne.

Hardly surprised by that, Chipz. Trolls stick together.

 

[Syne]

You're going to have to troll a lot harder than that if you want to impress anyone around here.

Not looking to impress nor inflame, only mistakenly assumed people participating in a philosophy forum were up for the task.

Hey, throw around all the overwrought prose you like - you're still clearly aknowledging that the "divine basis" is, in fact, tangential to the moral system in question (else the believer would not be able to endorse the atheist moral reasoning as "agreeable"), and so attacking such does not constitute any attack on said moral system.

See above, and my similar comments to JDawg about poor vocabulary and lack of knowledge in philosophy, or even just logic in your case. You're clearly exercising your confirmation bias rather than reading what I've written. Reason and faith are not mutually exclusive. There's really no simpler way to say that.

And this neatly demonstrates that faith is tangential to the moral system in question: you can remove it, and nothing happens to the moral system. By your own assertion, the putative theist in question here is perfectly able to endorse the moral system propounded by the atheist, and to agree with all of the rationale in support of it. Thus there is zero basis to claim that an atheist who denies somebody's theology is undermining their ethical system. They are, quite obviously, proposing that the ethical system be kept intact entirely, and the illusory dependence on theology discarded in favor of some form of rational consideration.

Reason is just as removable from a moral system and especially your "intuitive morality". So you've demonstrated nothing but the fact that faith is no more tangential than reason, by your own argument. In lieu of faith a believer has reason, but in lieu of reason a non-believer has no faith. Both being at a parity of superfluity, only the believer is left with some grounds for their morality.

All of this is just a diversion though. Equivalent ethical acts do not mean that the grounds for those acts are equivalent, otherwise you could not argue against faith. Your distaste of a faith driven morality is equivalent to the believer's distaste of you faithless morality.

So what? We aren't talking about "rebelling against former moralities," we're talking about people changing their minds about theology, and what impact that may - or may not - have on their ethical systems.

And these are examples of a change in the basis of an ethical system.

And there are people who are blind, deaf, or otherwise deprived of normal senses and functions. So what?

Complete red herring.

Again, you've already aknowledged that such "basis" is entirely illusory, and your own constructed example depends exactly on theists recognizing that and regarding the alternative, non-theological ethical systems as perfectly adequate and well-based. Which is to say that no morality gets "undermined," rather the morality is asserted to be decoupled from the theology. Else, the theist couldn't endorse the atheist morality.

You keep trying to have it both ways, but that is silly. Either there's a problematic vacuum (in which case the theist can't recognize the adequacy of the atheist's reasoning and so there's no asymmetry) or there isn't (in which case there's no offense against anyone's ethics involved in challenging their theological beliefs - and so no un/ethical acts under consideration at all).

Of course this vacuum premise is just silly theist paranoia. I'd worry very much about anyone who didn't see why it was immoral to rape and kill unless there's a magic bearded man in the sky who dictates all this and punishes transgressors with eternal torture. Fortunately, the set of theists who are really that craven appears to be vanishingly small.

Straw man, as I've said a believer could agree with the reasoning behind a secular morality, not that they would find it "adequate" or "well-based". It is only a justification to say that no morality is likely to actually be undermined. The fact is that the action is meant to undermine the basis for a morality. Period. A theist can agree with reasoning while not endorsing it as sufficient. You keep introducing words like "adequacy" as a dodge. If a theist completely endorsed the reasoning of a secular morality, he would not be a theist.

I didn't say it was. I said that there is no particular link between the two. And you agree - you're whole construction here requires that theists recognize that the divine "basis" is entirely extraneous and could be discarded without any impact on the ethical system.

Meanwhile, we can get back to the supposition that it is inherently immoral to do anything that would undermine or weaken somebody's ethical framework. This is also a very silly idea. It is perfectly possible for somebody's ethical system to be wrong, and to endorse immoral actions. There would be nothing immoral about undermining such things and proposing to replace them with something more defensible. Moreover, we have limited means to really figure out which of the myriad ethical systems - if any - is the "right" one, and so are confronted with a profusion of competing ones. Your prohibition there would mean that it is immoral for any one to challenge anyone else's ethical system, even when they directly, materially conflict. If I hold that it is moral to steal from you, and you disagree, are you really doing anything immoral by challenging and undermining my ethical framework?

Yet another straw man. Only you have made it sound like a simple agreement of reasoning amounts to acceptance. People can agree, say, that a person is gay. This doesn't mean that they accept it, and especially doesn't mean that they'd be likely to adopt it as their own lifestyle.

In your subjective view, sure, it wouldn't seem wrong to undermine someone's seeming erroneous ethical basis. Objectively though, undermining a person's ethics in general is unethical. Yet again, you are making a point I've already addressed. You can morally refute a particular moral/immoral position without undermining the entirety of a person's ethics.

Material conflict between ethical systems is always a pragmatic matter of particulars, not of overall basis. If I challenge your "moral" prerogative to steal, I have only challenged that particular point. I have not challenged your entire morality indiscriminately of whatever virtue it may impart.

 

[Syne]

Everyone watching this thread knows who won that exchange. I don't need to say anything.

And yet again you feel you need to imply a premature/erroneous victory.


@Yazata

Your argument makes the challenge completely trivial. That's why I stuck to an answer that Hitchens would have been likely to accept. The trivial answer can always be dismissed by an atheist as not recognized as moral. There's no leverage with that tact.

 

[Balerion]

Back on the ignore list for the troll.

Don't worry, guys. He won't be here long.

 

[wynn]

Where? More productive crops? AIDS treatments?

Ain't selective observation grand, eh?

 

[wynn]

Sciforums: 1
Trolls: 0

Wow. Just wow.

You think you are Sciforums, don't you?

 

[wynn]

@Yazata

Your argument makes the challenge completely trivial. That's why I stuck to an answer that Hitchens would have been likely to accept. The trivial answer can always be dismissed by an atheist as not recognized as moral. There's no leverage with that tact.

Hitchens has left the building, and the resident atheists who follow in his lead here do not accept your answer.

I think Hitchens' challenge is misleading to begin with, and trivial: on the one hand, he apparently sets out to operate with a notion of an objective moral hierarchy (as only that way, we can make meaningful comparisons between people or systems of belief), but on the other hand, he doesn't want that this objective moral hierarchy be explicitly stated.

 

[wynn]

Again, you're focusing on the semantics, and you're way off base. Here's an example:

Theist: "I feed the homeless because Jesus tells me to."

Atheist: "I feed the homeless because it's the right thing to do."

The qualifiers (in bold) are not the ethical part of the statements. By your assertion, these two comments would be making entirely different ethical claims, and that's simply not true.

Person 1: "I feed the homeless because I want them to die, and I have laced their food with arsenic."

Person 2: "I feed the homeless because I want them to get themselves together and vote for me and my program of racial segregation."

Person 3: "I feed the homeless because I want to be perceived as a nice person, so that I can better conceal my criminal activities."


Yeah, intentions have nothing to do with ethics.

 

[Balerion]

Hitchens has left the building, and the resident atheists who follow in his lead here do not accept your answer.

Neither would have Hitchens. His answer was not an answer at all, and two different posters have demonstrated that to him.

I think Hitchens' challenge is misleading to begin with, and trivial: on the one hand, he apparently sets out to operate with a notion of an objective moral hierarchy (as only that way, we can make meaningful comparisons between people or systems of belief), but on the other hand, he doesn't want that this objective moral hierarchy be explicitly stated.

Hitchens knew there could be no answer that would meet the criteria, and therefore knew the challenge would serve as powerful rhetoric, particularly in the debate setting in which he spent most of the last years of his life. That was the point of the challenge; had there been an answer to it, he never would have posed it.

Your point about moral hierarchy is ludicrous, of course. All he does is use the challenge to demonstrate that our morals do not come from religion.

 

[wynn]

Neither would have Hitchens. His answer was not an answer at all, and two different posters have demonstrated that to him.



Hitchens knew there could be no answer that would meet the criteria, and therefore knew the challenge would serve as powerful rhetoric, particularly in the debate setting in which he spent most of the last years of his life.

Your point about moral hierarchy is ludicrous, of course. All he does is use the challenge to demonstrate that our morals do not come from religion.

Just more "powerful rhetorics," eh?

 

[Balerion]

Just more "powerful rhetorics," eh?

That's what it was for. He was on a book tour for his latest, "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" and he posed the challenge at every stop to the theist he was debating at the time--and to the audience in general--but he only did so because he knew that it could not be answered.