Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The hospital wing and the cure

Imagine a hospital wing in which lie 100 patients, in comas and unresponsive to external stimuli for the past 6 months due to a so-far incurable and terminal illness, which happens to move slowly in comatose victims. You are the admin of that wing and know that a cure, the only possibility, is being worked on, but is not ready yet.

Scenario 1: The cure is announced to be close, within the next few weeks, and you have every reason to expect it will be delivered on time. The cure is projected to bring ~20% of the patients to recovery, and that's the best that can be hoped for at this time.
Question on Scenario 1: Is it justifiable to harvest the patients' bodily organs (thus killing them) for medical experimentation before giving them the cure?

Scenario 2: The cure is discovered to be far off, ~5 years or more, and the projected recovery rate is ~20%. The patients' conditions are generally not expected to worsen in ~5 years.
Question on Scenario 2: Is it justifiable to harvest the patients' bodily organs (thus killing them) for medical experimentation while waiting for the cure?

Scenario 3: The cure is nearly available, but only 80 doses are available anytime soon. 80 of the patients are around the age of 40. The other 20 are teenagers and in their 20s. You as the hospital admin have no access to any info about their lives or families.
Question on Scenario 3: Is it justifiable to give the doses to the 40-year-olds because they are more developed and have greater ability and intelligence?


Now, if you haven't figured it out yet, conduct the following replacements:
-"terminally ill patients" -> lines of fertilised embryos that are frozen in stem-cell lines
-"medical experimentation" -> medical experimentation
-"cure" -> implantation into a woman's uterus in order to grow to full-term and be born like normal
-"recovery" -> surviving the implantation process and being born

26 comments:

The Jolly Nihilist said...

As you know, I depart from most secularists in doing something that I believe is rationally required: taking Darwinian evolution by natural selection to its obvious end and drawing the inescapable conclusion. If there is only one tree of life, on which every species has a place, and every species has descended, by purely natural processes, from a single common ancestor that existed a few billion years ago, there is no reason to value the human species (or any species, for that matter) more than any other.

If humans and orangutans are both tiny branches on the tree of life, why should the human branch be granted superior value or importance? I can understand the subjective argument, that being we are humans and, thus, we naturally assign higher value to our fellow humans, but this is pure speciocentricity and about as far from objective assessment as one can get.

Might we say humans have more value-adding traits, such as sentience, ingenuity, innovativeness, complex emotions and intentionality? We do indeed possess those traits, but who is to say whether they are “value adding”? Why not say having a really cool, thick mane is a value-adding trait, or gorgeous plumage? Who is to say that complex emotions and intentionality result in higher intrinsic worth than antennae or a brachiopod’s lophophore?

The stem-cell research debate, just like the abortion debate, takes for granted that humans hold an exalted place in the tree of life; although it is pleasing to suppose that we do, I do not see any reason, scientifically speaking, to suppose it is true.

LearningIsFun said...

@Rhology

I just dropped in to let you know that I responded to your comment on AiD.

While I'm here:

@Jolly Nihilist

I agree with you that, given our common descent with all life, one cannot defend the stance that humans are the only organisms that deserve ethical consideration. However, equal consideration does not entail equal rights.

I agree that assigning objective value to intelligence or mane would be arbitrary, but I do not see this as a problem for ethics, because I don't think that rights are based on objective values. I won't spend the time now constructing a defense of subjective morality, but if we assume it, then we can address the animal rights / abortion issue in the following way.

We can subjectively evaluate for ourselves the pain of losing a loved one or getting burnt or being deprived of sensory input. We can subjectively evaluate the joy of eating ice cream, having children, or constructing a home. We can then objectively understand the mental processes required to appreciate these experiences (albeit incompletely) and objectively determine which organisms have which of those processes, and to what extent. Based on these subjective values and objective facts, we can assign values to ethical outcomes for all organism without undue speciesism.

For example. primates are known to experience boredom, so it would be wrong to lock a chimp in a cage without windows for a long time just for the fun of it. However, grasshoppers appear to be incapable of experiencing anything like boredom, so leaving them caged up would not be of great moral concern. A clear separation between right and wrong is not as important to me as the degree to which something is right or wrong.

According to this view of ethics, the cruelty of factory farming practices is unacceptable. As a result, I have been vegan for the last 9 years.

As for abortion, because the cognitive abilities of a fetus are inferior to even those of an adult rat, I do not assign them very many rights. The concerns of her adult mother matter far more to me. But the morality of a decision to abort are very much dependent on the situation. How developed is the fetus? What would be the negative impact on the mother if the baby is born? It's not something for which I could define a nice rubric, so that is why I think government should stay out of it and leave this complicated decision to the people directly involved. So, I'm pro-choice, but my stance on the morality of abortion is very complicated.

LearningIsFun said...

I never actually responded to your abortion post, so let me do so with a question:

If the hospital wing in question existed, and adults by the thousands were having their organs harvested by a doctor, all with the sanction of the government, would it be morally acceptable and consistent with the teachings of Christianity to kill the doctor?

I assume that the answer is yes. It would be for me. So now why don't you think it's morally acceptable to kill stem cell researchers? I'm guessing that it is because your analogy doesn't even resonate with you. You don't actually value the life of a fetus as much as you value the life of an adult human.

PChem said...

Learningisfun,

I think you need to clarify what you mean by "is it morally right to kill the doctor." Do you mean killing in a vigilante style or killing through appropriate legal channels (i.e., capital punishment)?

LearningIsFun said...

PChem,

I mean, would it be morally right to do whatever it takes to, as Rhology put it in another post, kill "in defense of others who are defenseless"?

So, yeah, I mean "vigilante style". Because the doctor's actions are legal, capital punishment isn't an option.

Would you end his life to save the lives of those who would otherwise die? I would. Screw the consequences. I'm not going to sit around and let innocent people get slaughtered.

Rhology said...

LiF,

Do you realise what you sound like?
You're the Pope of morality, the god of your own little moral world.
Bad idea - God is the one who reserves for Himself the right to define what is moral and what isn't. You're subtly taking His place, and He's not happy about it. I'd stop.



would it be morally acceptable and consistent with the teachings of Christianity to kill the doctor?

It's a tough question, but I'd lean toward no, not if it were against the law of the land. But it would be incumbent on the Xtian to try to stop it thru non-violent means, even hiding ppl from going there. A great example is the actions of the early church in, despite being themselves persecuted by the gov't, didn't revolt, and at the same time would go around rescuing and adopting babies who'd been exposed to die b/c they weren't what the pater familias wanted.


You don't actually value the life of a fetus as much as you value the life of an adult human.

This is nothing more than an appeal to possible hypocrisy on my part, and is thus an irrelevant ad hominem.
It's also an appeal to emotion. Give me a good reason to think the value is different; don't try to psychoanalyse someone you've never met.


I'm not going to sit around and let innocent people get slaughtered.

Sounds like you'd enjoy these two posts.

Dr Funkenstein said...

Bad idea - God is the one who reserves for Himself the right to define what is moral and what isn't.

You're subtly taking His place, and He's not happy about it. I'd stop.

'X is more powerful than Y, so you'd better respect what X has to say otherwise there'll be consequences' is hardly an argument for why X is right and Y isn't

Your average dictator takes exactly the same tack as you've presented in that quote, but it doesn't therefore follow that they were right just because they were the guy running the show and noone had the power to talk back

Additionally, if God 'reserves for Himself the right to define what is moral and what isn't.' then this just falls prey to all the many, many objections to divine command theory

I can never fathom why you think 'God says so' (or equivalent) is any argument that you have some sort of objective basis for morality.

As Gene Witmer pointed out on Gene Cook's show ages ago, you could as easily just say 'killing people for fun is bad' is a necessary truth, no further explanation needed - as Witmer remarked on the show, it's not any worse of an explanation than 'because God says so' or so on.

Rhology said...

Your average dictator takes exactly the same tack as you've presented in that quote

True, but in that case he'd be wrong, and God is right. I'm only expressing truth, but "the average dictator" wouldn't be.
If the dictator is wrong, no prob. But if God is wrong, there is no foundation for any objective morality, at all, and then I'd be in the same situation as you.


this just falls prey to all the many, many objections to divine command theory

Please, don't hit me with the Euthyphro baseball bat made of cotton balls!



you could as easily just say 'killing people for fun is bad' is a necessary truth, no further explanation needed

Could you? Let's see how well you answer my questions, then.
How do you know it's a necessary truth? What is it based on? What makes it necessary?

LearningIsFun said...

Hi Rhology,

This is nothing more than an appeal to possible hypocrisy on my part

Didn't you notice that your original post is entirely an appeal to possible hypocrisy? Wasn't that whole point? You wanted to get people to see the inconsistency between their feelings on abortion and their feelings about the thought experiment? If that's not a valid form of argument, why did you use it?

I presented an alternative explanation, besides hypocrisy, for why people would have different stances on the two scenarios. I, personally, feel differently about the two scenarios because my moral sense doesn't equate the life of a fetus with that of an adult. I had a strong inkling that the same was true for you, but by the way you answered my question, you proved me wrong. You can maintain the equivalence without hypocrisy.

However, I'm genuinely surprised that you would not save the innocent people by killing the person systematically murdering them. It just seems unimaginable to me that you would care more about obeying the law than saving innocent lives. Nonviolent methods don't appear to be working, in the case of abortion. More than 1 million abortions happen per year in the US. You'd probably only have to kill about a dozen doctors to make the rest too scared to continue. Twelve lives vs. millions of lives. It seems like a no-brainer, unless you don't really think that what they're doing is equivalent to murder.

By the way, I'm not advocating violence. I'm advocating that pro-lifers stop equating abortion with murder, as you did in your original post, so we can have an honest moral debate about it.

The Jolly Nihilist said...

I do not think subjective ethics, or subjective moral thought, are meaningless pursuits; indeed, discussions of this sort can be quite stimulating. I guess I am not compelled by such arguments simply because I recognize them as ultimately subjective and arbitrary, and thus, not actually hitting upon truth.

I respect Sam Harris a good deal, and enjoyed his book The End of Faith, but I think he goes woefully wrong on the issue of morality. He essentially declares, by fiat, that morality is related to human happiness and suffering--that is, those actions that promote human happiness are moral, whereas those that inflict human suffering are immoral. He does not support this declaration with evidence, though, so I feel comfortable dismissing it out of hand.

Let us take the simplest declarative moral statement: “Murder is immoral.”

My first question: Why is murder immoral?

A hypothetical interlocutor might say, “Because it inflicts suffering on a fellow human.”

I would respond, “Why is it immoral to inflict suffering on a fellow human?”

He might say, “Because it does harm.”

I would respond, “Why is doing harm immoral?”

Can anybody actually prove the connection between “immoral” and (a) doing harm, (b) inflicting suffering or (c) depriving of life or liberty? I am not being facetious.

It all seems to come down to either a supposition that morality relates to human happiness and suffering or a declaration that this is self-evident. I do not agree, as an impartial investigator.

Perhaps moral actions are those that yield financial reward, whereas immoral actions lead to financial losses. Perhaps moral actions are those that improve the environment, whereas immoral actions harm it (and actions with no environmental impact are morally neutral). There is just as much evidence for this view as the happiness/suffering view--no evidence.

LearningIsFun said...

Hi Jolly Nihilist,

The way I think of morality is like this. Despite being a nihilist, you still make moral decisions, right? You weigh outcomes and make decisions grounded in your own moral sense. Now you can't ground this moral sense in anything objective, but that doesn't stop you from using it for practical decision making, just like the subjectivity of your taste buds doesn't stop you from identifying ice cream flavors you like.

So if we're willing to give up on the idea that moral facts exist or have anything to do with objectivity, then why not ground out our discussions of morality in our subjective moral sense? This requires you to throw away the idea of being an impartial investigator, and instead think of yourself as an active participant in a negotiation process.

To evaluate "murder is immoral" between the two of us, we attempt to find common ground. If you disagree that murder is immoral, but you agree that life is valuable, then we can speak objectively about the logical connection between those claims. I might help you discover a flaw in your logic that prevents you from making that connection on your own. Indeed, from my experience, moral disagreements are often the result of flawed reasoning, rather than differences in core values.

There will always be some differences in core values, so what then? Well, we construct social contracts to compromise. Because social interactions are rarely zero-sum, there is reason to believe that we will find a social contract that would benefit each of us more than resorting to might makes right.

Now you may say that this isn't morality at all. This is some kind of fake morality. Well, fine, if that makes you feel any better, but I would argue that the reason people are so fixated on the idea of objective morality is because they worry that subjective morality leads to a complete inability to resolve differences of opinion. Even if subjective morality is philosophically empty, it is just as valuable (if not more) than objective morality in practice.

I can hear the responses now: "So whatever you say is right is right?" No, I'm saying that "is right" is meaningless, but that it need not stop us from discussing moral issues because "is right to me" and "is right to you" is a good enough starting point for most discussions.

We can talk about the rare extreme cases when no common ground can be found. In that case, the majority gets to decide who the psychopath is and put him away. Could they be wrong? To them no. But to an outside observer, yes. Again, where's the problem?

As I've said, I'm not interested in developing an objective method for evaluating the truth value of moral claims. Instead, I'm interested the pragmatics of moral decision-making. I've heard many philosophical complaints about subjective morality, but I have yet to hear an actual, tangible, practical problem with the system I'm describing. I'd love to hear one.

Rhology said...

it need not stop us from discussing moral issues because "is right to me" and "is right to you" is a good enough starting point for most discussions.

I'd like to know your response to my scenario, LiF.

PChem said...

LiF,

A few thoughts about your response to Rho's original scenario.

1. I am not aware of any proscriptive scripture that condones vigilante acts like you described. God did provide execution as a means to deal with murderers through government. Currently our government does not recognize abortion as murder, and does not apply capital punishment to what should be a capital crime.

2. On a pragmatic note, the actions you describe have been tried, most recently in the murder of abortionist George Tiller. Did it significantly impede the number of abortions conducted? Did the clinic shut down? No, about all it did was besmirch the pro-life movement. Why would you expect anything less if Rho or I did the same thing?

3. Similar arguments are frequently brought up by moral relativists such as yourself. However, I rarely see them taken to any other applicable situation. For example, millions of people oppose the Iraq war because they view it as an unjust war. As such, many Iraqis who otherwise would still be alive have been killed by American coalition troops. According to your scenario, all that is needed to end this injustice are a few vigilantes to kill top ranking generals or government officials.

Dr Funkenstein said...

Please, don't hit me with the Euthyphro baseball bat made of cotton balls!

Please don't block it with the cotton ball-soft response that 'good is what's in God's nature' then ;-) Besides, for an apparently soft argument it seems to have done a good job of keeping philosophers busy for the last 2 and a half millenia!

being serious though, it seems you actually fall into one horn of the dilemma in your blogpost a few days back comparing Islam atheism and Christianity, when you point out that Islam has an objective morality source as does Christianity (ignoring any other problems either view might have for the time being), yet also state that both views endorse opposite actions such as suicide bombing people and not suicide bombing people.

just as the ED points out, this seems to make morality arbitrary or vacuous since it just boils down to 'whatever God (or Allah) demands etc is good'

Could you? Let's see how well you answer my questions, then.
How do you know it's a necessary truth? What is it based on? What makes it necessary?


A necessary truth is one that is impossible to be otherwise eg that no square circles exist is a necessary truth, because by definition a square cannot be a circle. Likewise 'all squares have 4 sides' is a necessary truth because a square is by definition a 4 sided object.

As Witmer said on the show, is 'because killing people for fun is not in God's nature and is therefore good' (or equivalent) really any better an explanation than saying 'killing people for fun is good' is necessarily false (ie it's logically impossible for it to be true)? It's by no means an especially great answer, but Witmer's point is that it isn't really any worse than what's being offered up by the theist.

True, but in that case he'd be wrong, and God is right. I'm only expressing truth, but "the average dictator" wouldn't be.

But this is the crux of the question, isn't it? What is it that 'makes' God (or his actions/commands and so on) good that doesn't apply to the dictator?

But if God is wrong, there is no foundation for any objective morality, at all,

That might be true (there would probably be a number of atheists who would dispute it - but that's obviously their argument to make), but what I am more interested in is what makes God right even if he exists?

and then I'd be in the same situation as you.

Maybe so, but that's hardly a problem for my viewpoint!

LearningIsFun said...

Good points, PChem.

There are a lot of practical problems with my scenario, and I think that you have managed to convince me that there are good reasons not to kill abortion doctors, even if you really think that every abortion they perform is murder.

There are also a lot of problems with your comparison to the Iraq war that that we could quibble about, but I don't think are very important.

My grand point is that people who oppose abortion rights often bring up a comparison to murder, but then when pressed don't really equate it with murder. For example, it would be hard to find a Pro-life US Senator who would endorse a law to sentence women who seek abortions to capital punishment. In fact, just the other day on Hardball, Chris Matthews couldn't even get a Catholic priest to agree that women who get abortions deserve jailtime.

When someone has a miscarriage, they react very differently than if they lost a 1-year-old child. Some pro-lifers make exceptions for rape, when you would never do the same if the result was the death of an adult.

Anyway, I see a lot of nuance and complexity in the abortion debate that gets thrown out the window when people act as if it is as simple as abortion=murder as Rhology did in his original post. That position certainly doesn't agree with my moral sense, and it doesn't seem to agree with a lot of Christians' moral sense either. So let's stop pretending like this is a simple moral question and recognize why even Christians are so divided on this issue.

Rhology said...

Just b/c some are hypocritical or wrong about it means nothing. I'm sure you think that since the majority of Americans doubt evolution, that doesn't mean much either.

When someone has a miscarriage, they react very differently than if they lost a 1-year-old child.

Not some close friends who lost their child a week before the due date. They mourned, we mourned with them, they had a funeral and it sucked.
Losing my own first child to miscarriage wasn't any picnic either. Still isn't.
The question is a factual question and a question of objective ethics, not about how more ppl feel. I know, YOU reduce moral questions to feeling, it would seem, and that's b/c your worldview allows you no way to test moral questions objectively.

LearningIsFun said...

Hi Rhology,

I read your scenario. G-Man's first response seemed pretty good.

Whether you are trying to persuade the man or I am, we have to establish common ground with him for the argument to be persuasive. You will have to convince him of the existence of your god, before the authority of that god will be persuasive to him. I would have to find common ground in another way, such as our subjective experiences of empathy, being separated from our parents, or enduring physical pain. The details would be more of a conversation than a lecture, so I can't really lay it all out.

So the question really boils down to who has a better chance of establishing common ground, me or you? Considering that he already believes in different gods, I don't have a lot of confidence in your approach getting through to him. But I've never met anyone who had no capacity for empathy, didn't love their mother, didn't experience pain, etc.

Rhology said...

OK, now leave Tkalim the rapist aside for a moment.
Persuade ME that your way is better than his. That it has sthg going for it that his doesn't. Is it just "most people prefer my way"? Since when do we decide moral questions by counting noses?

LearningIsFun said...

Hi Rhology,

Why do I need to persuade you of something that you already believe to be true?

I don't claim that we can arrive at moral facts through argumentation. Therefore, I don't claim to be able to convince someone who is a "devil's advocate" in the way that I could about objective reality. My ability to persuade you of a moral claim depends very much on your subjective moral values. I am confident that if you present those honestly, then coming to an agreement about the moral status of Tkalim would be very easy. I'd ask you, "Do you think rape is wrong?" You'd say "Yes" and we'd be done.

While my failure to convince a devil's advocate means that I'm giving up objective morality, I still don't see the practical problem with it. I only need to persuade real people of my moral claims, not hypothetical psychopaths.

Rhology said...

You need to persuade me b/c I'm challenging your position. It's called a "hypothetical" or a "thought experiment".

I don't claim that we can arrive at moral facts through argumentation.

So there's no way to say "it is a fact that Tkalim is right to do what he does" or "it is a fact that Tkalim is wrong to do what he does". Correct?
So any claim to superiority by your view over his would simply be a matter of preference, much like preference of ice cream flavor, correct?


then coming to an agreement about the moral status of Tkalim would be very easy. I'd ask you, "Do you think rape is wrong?" You'd say "Yes" and we'd be done.

If I'm Tkalim, I say "no, actually, rape is RIGHT and morally obligatory. You are wrong not to rape."
Is there any way to KNOW whether he's wrong to say that?


psychopaths

That's all a question of majority rule, but I thought morality was "what one SHOULD do", not "what most people do".
To Tkalim, YOU'RE the psychopath. Prove you aren't and he is.

LearningIsFun said...

The presupposition of objective morality is built into the English language with "right" meaning both true and morally good and "wrong" meaning both false and morally bad. To prevent confusion, we should probably avoid using the words "right" and "wrong" moving forward.

So there's no way to say "it is a fact that Tkalim is right to do what he does" or "it is a fact that Tkalim is wrong to do what he does". Correct?

Correct, I don't see a way to evaluate the morality of Tkalkim's actions, independent of my own subjective moral sense.

So any claim to superiority by your view over his would simply be a matter of preference, much like preference of ice cream flavor, correct?

Almost. I can't claim that my lowest-level subjective moral values are superior to his, but if the conclusions he draws from his moral values are based on faulty logic or incorrect facts, then it is still possible for my moral framework to be superior to his in that objective sense.

If I'm Tkalim, I say "no, actually, rape is RIGHT and morally obligatory. You are wrong not to rape."
Is there any way to KNOW whether he's wrong to say that?


If his conclusion is based on sound logic and the best observations available, and his subjective evaluation of outcomes is just very different than mine, then no, I have no way to say that his position is objectively false. However, that does not for a second make me hesitate to determine from my own moral sense that his actions are morally reprehensible. That his values are different than mine is irrelevant. I make my moral judgements base on my own moral sense, not his or anyone else's. I just never claim that my moral judgements are independent of me.

So, I think we agree that neither one of us could convince Tkalkim that he is wrong. You and I agree that his actions would be morally bad. And we both have the ability to pass judgement on his actions in a way that is consistent with our own understanding of the nature of morality.

And yes, the majority gets to determine who the psychopaths are. The shared ancestry of humans have created a population that is largely in sync about core moral values, with psychopaths being very rare. In real life, I've never met someone who is using the best evidence available and sound logic, but at their core their values differ so greatly from mine that they could defend rape as morally good. Even Tkalkim doesn't fit the bill, because his stance is based on the false belief that there is a god who is appeased by human sacrifice.

Rhology said...

I don't see a way to evaluate the morality of Tkalkim's actions, independent of my own subjective moral sense.

And that doesn't trouble you? Even a little?
I mean, we're talking about figuring out whether it's OK to rape children and murder them.


if the conclusions he draws from his moral values are based on faulty logic or incorrect facts, then it is still possible for my moral framework to be superior to his in that objective sense.

1) Incorrect facts? Like what? You're committing the naturalistic fallacy, confusing IS with OUGHT.
2) Prove it's morally praiseworthy/good to have a superior moral framework.


I think we agree that neither one of us could convince Tkalkim that he is wrong.

1) That question is irrelevant.
2) It wouldn't be ME convincing him, but the Holy Spirit of God, convicting him of sin.
3) Again, if we're talking MY worldview, there is an objective good and evil and an objective way to know it. Don't project yours onto mine.


And yes, the majority gets to determine who the psychopaths are.

So to him and in his society, YOU'RE the psychopath. Guess it all comes down to might makes right for you.


Even Tkalkim doesn't fit the bill, because his stance is based on the false belief that there is a god who is appeased by human sacrifice.

1) Oh, so now it's morally reprehensible to believe in a false god? What's your argument for that? More naked assertions?
2) You can prove there's not a god like this? How would you do that?

LearningIsFun said...

And that doesn't trouble you? Even a little?
I mean, we're talking about figuring out whether it's OK to rape children and murder them.


Nope. I find it morally wrong, and Tkalkim's opinion is irrelevant to that judgement. Where's the problem?

Incorrect facts? Like what? You're committing the naturalistic fallacy, confusing IS with OUGHT.

I am not confusing facts with moral claims. I am just making the obvious point that we use facts when evaluating moral claims. For example, to make a well-informed moral decision about whether it is morally good to execute a particular person for murder, we need to establish the factual claim that they did, in fact, commit the murder.

Prove it's morally praiseworthy/good to have a superior moral framework.

I must be misunderstanding the question because it sounds like a tautology.

If convincing someone they are morally bad is irrelevant to the discussion, then I misunderstood what our discussion was about. I thought that you were going to show me the practical problems with subjective morality.

So to him and in his society, YOU'RE the psychopath. Guess it all comes down to might makes right for you.

I don't know what "it" is in your last sentence, but if you're asking how justice is decided in a human society, then yes, ultimately, it's might makes right. But if you're asking who is morally good, then no, everyone decides that for themselves. Even if the whole society thinks I'm a psychopath, that doesn't change my moral stance one bit. They're still the bad ones in my book.

Oh, so now it's morally reprehensible to believe in a false god? What's your argument for that? More naked assertions?

If you base your moral decisions on good moral values but incorrect facts, it could lead to actions that you, yourself, would find immoral, such as executing an innocent man. It's not that having a false belief is necessarily morally bad, it's just that false beliefs may cause you to act in ways that are inconsistent with your values. The same holds true for applying sound logic. Being illogical isn't necessarily immoral, but it may cause you to make immoral decisions.

I didn't think that these would be controversial points.

You can prove there's not a god like this? How would you do that?

I can't prove anything outside of logic and mathematics. If you're asking how I would try to convince Tkalkim that such a god doesn't exist, I would ask him what I should expect if such a god does exist and then demonstrate that that doesn't hold up. For example, I could demonstrate how the crops will still grow even without sacrificing little girls. Of course, Tkalkim may have as little respect for reality as you do, in which case no amount of evidence would matter to him. To the loony bin you go!

Dr Funkenstein said...

And that doesn't trouble you? Even a little?

Argument from consequences fallacy - how likable the conclusion is has no bearing on whether it's true or not

secondly, in the event it [the idea there are no moral facts] is true, why complain about it? It's like complaining about not being able to fly by flapping your arms - not much anyone can do about it.

Rhology said...

I find it morally wrong, and Tkalkim's opinion is irrelevant to that judgement. Where's the problem?

The fact that you can't tell me why someone should blv you rather than Tkalim w.r.t. the question.
Why should I blv what you blv rather than what Tkalim blvs?


I must be misunderstanding the question because it sounds like a tautology.

I'm just backing up the question one step. It SOUNDS like one, but it isn't.


If convincing someone they are morally bad is irrelevant to the discussion, then I misunderstood what our discussion was about

Proof is not the same as persuasion. You've been talking about the hoped-for end result - someone being convinced. I'm asking you to make your case.


But if you're asking who is morally good, then no, everyone decides that for themselves.

1) You don't live that way.
2) A one-person morality is no morality at all. Where's the OUGHT?
3) If this were true, I don't see how society could have formed itself.


They're still the bad ones in my book.

So, make your case. Why should I care what's in your book?


I can't prove anything outside of logic and mathematics.

You can't prove those either, not in a naturalistic universe, but anyway.
See, on Christianity, I CAN prove these things wrong or right. It's pretty nice, actually.


Dr F said:
Argument from consequences fallacy - how likable the conclusion is has no bearing on whether it's true or not

True. It wasn't really an argument. It was more like an appeal to someone who is totally lost and clearly needs spiritual help.



secondly, in the event it [the idea there are no moral facts] is true, why complain about it?


That's the question I ask you, and LearningIsFun, and the Jolly Nihilist, and Paul C, and everyone else, like every time you make any moral claim. Physician, heal thyself.

LearningIsFun said...

1) You don't live that way.
2) A one-person morality is no morality at all. Where's the OUGHT?
3) If this were true, I don't see how society could have formed itself.


Maybe this will help. We can separate the people involved in moral decisions into:
1) The evaluator: the person making the evaluation of moral status
2) The actor: the person taking the action to be evaluated

Sometimes people get confused about subjective morality and think that the only actor within the evaluator's jurisdiction is the evaluator, himself. And you're right that no one lives THAT way.

But that's not how it works. I am an evaluator for all actors, including you and myself. You are an evaluator for all actors, including me and yourself. When evaluating an action by some actor, you and I may agree or disagree about how we evaluate the action.

Societies work because of a sufficient overlap in values. The overlap in values is explained partly by evolution. For example, evolution can explain why we have a negative association with pain. It can also explain the benefit of empathy to social relations and ultimately gene propagation.

Even in the case of a single person, there is still the possibility of an OUGHT because it's possible to disappoint yourself and not meet your own ideals. If I were the last man on earth, and I squandered my time, I'd feel bad about it, and feel like I OUGHT to spend my time more wisely.

It wasn't really an argument. It was more like an appeal to someone who is totally lost and clearly needs spiritual help.

I'm glad that you recognize that subjective appeals have their place in discourse along with objective arguments, as long as we're clear which is which. Now perhaps you can understand what a subjective moral argument might look like, as an appeal to common values. And you might even react differently to my statement that Genesis 1 was vague, since vagueness is clearly subjective.