http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/02/maine-teenagers-deny-animal-cruelty-charges-alleging-put-kitten-in-running/
A few months ago we had a discussion of whether non-human animals can be the subject of morality.
Over on UD, Mung opined that animals are meat robots, incapable of suffering.
EDIT: Wrong UD poster. Mapou, not Mung. Apologies.
The Myth of the Continuum of Creatures: A Reply to John Jeremiah Sullivan (Part Two)
Apparently the Bible neglects to mention the possibility that animals can be the subject of morality, or that torturing animals can be a sin. But some IDists have declared that torturing babies is self-evidently wrong.
So is microwaving kittens self-evidently wrong? Or self-evidently okay, because it isn’t forbidden by scripture? What Would William Do? Or Mung? Apparently we have secular laws against this. Why?
I’d like to ask this at UD, but I can’t.
Rumraket,
So it should be illegal to insult someone, because that could cause one to suffer, right?
Or should we do what causes our species to survive best? In that case it would seem to make sense to kill off those who are not productive. We have limited resources.
And what do you mean most of us want to avoid suffering? For themselves you mean? Like, most people don’t want to be poor, because that is suffering, so they should steal things to be less poor?
Or you mean the morality is based on others not suffering, not on your own comfort? In that case, people should be forced to give away their money if it makes someone else suffer less.
Are you really going to conflate practicality with morality?
They are the same thing?
I read that as “No, I can’t supply any examples of your anti-christian bigotry despite it being something I just said a moment ago. I’ll pretend that I missed that comment”.
Here, let me help:
So, please supply an example so we can determine who are the bigots here.
Yes, I have a preference for accusations being backed up. It appears you do not share that preference.
Do you think that homosexuals deserve equal treatment, both in the eyes of the law and religious institutions?
Yes, and the desire of most for all of history. That is no small thing. I don’t see why we would need more than this. To have a moral system, it is enough.
Where was this “admitted”? I have expressed no such opinion and I do not hold to that. You will have to derive this conclusion for me explicitly by laying out the premises in a deductive syllogism, because otherwise I simply don’t see how you can entertain this statement.
That doesn’t follow. You should not conflate legality with morality. We don’t legislate legally on all moral questions, and there are definitely gray zones. Allowing some kinds of suffering, or suffering in some small amount, may in fact be preferrable in some situations.
Though, you could, if you are continually insulted to some great extend in your daily life, even while trying to avoid interactions with people liable to insult you, maybe sue them for harassment of some sort.
But for example, if you feel insulted on TSZ, you could just elect to stay away. It would be different if your mail is spammed and people send letters to your house/work/family etc.
I think there’s a case to be made for reasonable personal responsibility to avoid things that make you suffer. Deciding on individual cases (and whether there even is a case to be made) should be up the the courts.
Do you think it sould be illigal to insult someone? Can’t anyone just claim to be insulted then, in order to shut up dissenters who disagree with them?
No. And that doesn’t follow from my view at all. If you think it does, prove it with a deductive argument.
It doesn’t follow that they should steal simply because they want to avoid suffering.
I think my statement was pretty clear, it’s based on both. Pretty well encapsulated in both the negative and positive formulation of the golden rule:
One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. (Positive form)
One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated .(Negative form)
I don’t have much patience for deliberate obtuseness surrounding what I mean when we agree most people don’t want to suffer.
Yes to some extend. We call it “paying taxes”. You’ll note that even though there is quite divergent opinion on how much tax we should pay, most people agree we should pay some taxes, that people don’t simply throw their arms up in the air and give up trying to figure out what the “correct” amount to pay is.
We don’t need absolute, perfect, eternal and inviolable standards to have a moral system that works for the majority of people a majority of the time.
Theistic moralities offer necessary and absolute consequences. Avoiding these negative consequences and achieving the positive consequences provide me motivation to strive to be moral even when it doesn’t serve my personal, immediate comfort, safety or financial interests. If morality is just a matter of avoiding a bad empathy-based feeling, I can just train myself not to feel bad about whatever it is I want or need to do.
I only back up the ones I feel are reasonably in question . I never try to demonstrate the obvious to those who deny it.
Is suffering a feeling? Is it subjective?
Not inevitably. Logically. Obviously, since many atheists hypocritically attempt to judge the morality of others (notably, condemning Christian morality) even while admitting morality is subjective, it is not “inevitable” that atheism leads to the view that less empathy = more moral; it’s logical. However, one can hardly expect someone who roots their morality in irrational emotions to think logically on the matter.
But, we can spell it out:
IF “moral wrongness” = bad, subjective, empathy-based feelings;
THEN less bad, subjective, empathy-based feelings = less moral wrongness,
AND no bad, subjective, empathy-based feelings = no moral wrongness.
Thus, one can avoid doing anything immoral simply by becoming a sociopath.
Jesus. I cannot believe you’re having so much trouble with this simple concept. Don’t you remember, your own Lord already commanded you this: go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.
What don’t you understand about that?
Necessary? Necessary for what?
So instead, you’re merely acting “moral” according to your own long-term self-interest. In this case, the self-interest that you want to avoid suffering in hell, and want to experience happiness in paradise.
How’s this different from wanting to avoid suffering and wanting to experience happiness in life?
So your argument against a secular and for a theistic moral system is that you think theism prevents psychopathy? Or that it is less likely that extremely selfish indivduals would try to exploit a theistic moral system? Would you like to test that hypothesis?
We don’t have to get specific about what various individuals consider suffering or not. There will always be outliers. Different people also suffer different amounts even given the same basic circumstances.
What matters is the two basic rules:
* One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. (Positive form)
* One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated. (Negative form)
We can even add a third one:
* If you’re in doubt, ask first!
You’ve yet to produce a single logical argument in support of this statement.
This is now the fourth(?) time you make this statement, still not supported.
I will be taking these statements seriously once you engage in actual logical argumentation instead of unsupported blind assertions.
What does this even mean? Seriously, you will have to put in some effort to “spell it out” as you say. This is just vague word-salad.
IF “moral wrongness” (according to who?) =
bad, subjective, empathy-based feelings (who’s feelings?)
You will have to actually spell these things out before your “argument”(and I’m being generous calling it that in it’s current form) can even be analyzed. You haven’t even come close to accurately representing the position you’re attemptint to criticize.
THEN less bad, subjective, empathy-based feelings (who’s feelings?) = less moral wrongness (according to who?),
AND no bad, subjective, empathy-based feelings (who’s feelings?) = no moral wrongness.
It’s easy to knock down simplistic strawmen of your own construction. Especially incoherent, vague ones.
You don’t seem to get the part that the moral standard isn’t decided by the indivdual, but by a general societal agreement.
Again:
* One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. (Positive form)
* One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated. (Negative form)
Please explain to me how you, as an individual, deciding to become a sociopath**, and stops adhering to these two generally accepted rules, means nothing you do is immoral. I’m sorry William, but that simply doesn’t follow. If you go and make someone suffer, you are in violation of the rules.
If you argument then is “but people can elect out of the social contract, or exploit it for their own gains”, then please detail me a moral system that is immune to such problems.
Last I checked, all the same issues exist on theistic moral systems. People either elect themselves as god’s chosen enforcers of doctrine and allow themselves all manner of despicable acts, because as they rationalize, they’re doing god’s work. Or sometimes even worse, crazy people think they hear god’s voice in their head and start running around killing prostitutes, homosexuals and bombing abortion clinics. Or they think they’re somehow simply “chosen” by god, steal from others or commit massive fraud.
What good is the promise of hellish punishment and heavenly reward when it functionally doesn’t really alter human behavior after all? You guys even admit it all the time, you keep saying “we know atheists have a moral compass, that isn’t the issue”. So your supposedly “necessary and absolute” moral system doesn’t actually solve any of these problems in the real world. Then what good is it really?
**(I wasn’t aware one can just decide to become this. Try as I may, I find that I generally really do care about other people, and close friends and family in particular)
A good Christian: someone who lives by Christian precepts. A not-so-good Christian: someone who wants to enforce others to live by Christian precepts. As Joe Felsentein pointed out, this does not apply exclusively to Christian fundamentalists. Islam and Judaism have their fair share of bigots too.
Really? How so? And supposed?
What is this religion you subscribe to, again? The secret, is it?
Do you recommend us to follow your route?
I just got back from an entertaining round-the-dinner-table discussion with a polyglot group of people (nationalities French, Dutch, Croatian, Australian, Irish, English and an American – I’ll call him David – who grew up in Colorado in the bosom of the Southern Baptist Church – he’s lapsed!).
David described how he never found the type of Christianity that he was force-fed as a child convincing but developed a survival strategy of being more “born-again’ than anyone else to preempt any prolonged arguments on religiosity – “I’d out-religion ’em”. He told me he found the Satan card was often the best one to play. For example when Mitt Romney was running for president in 2012 he would admonish his friends and family for considering voting for this “tool of Satan”.
Alan Fox asked:
No. I don’t subscribe to any religion. I invented my own, remember?
No.
How are atheists any different? Are you saying that there are not any atheists that want to force their moral views on others?
Really? I did not know that! On the other hand, human invention is the source of all the religions we have to choose from so far, so I should not be surprised.
Forcing, no. Of course, anyone who thinks they have a good idea hopes to be listened to and convince others.
Name an atheist who wants to force others to… well, whatever you think he might want to force others to do.
Rumraket said:
Then if the general social agreement is to gas the jews, or to own slaves, or to mutilate female genitalia and wed and bed them as young as, say 8 or 9, then because those are general social agreements, then those practicing those agreements are behaving morally, correct?
You seem to have switched your answer, Rumraket. At first you said that it is suffering and empathy to suffering in others that is the root of your morality; now you seem to be claiming that morality is a set of social conventions that may or may not have anything to do with the suffering of others.
For instance, if I live in a society where it is the practice to stone to death women who have been raped, am I behaving immorally (wrongly) if I try to save her from this fate by helping her escape those who pursue her? If, in Nazi Germany, the social rule is to turn the Jews over to the Nazis, am I behaving immorally if I hide Jews in my attic?
But wait. You changed your moral principle yet again. First, it was based on empathy and suffering. Then, you claimed it was about following social rules. Third, you said:
As if these are objectively true moral guidelines. Are they objectively true moral guidelines, Rumraket? If so, what makes them objectively true? If they are not objectively true, why should I adopt them personally?
Well, that’s not my belief system. I can say this: my belief in necessary moral consequences keeps me from hurting others as much as possible. I can’t speak for anyone else. In any event, my argument is not about under which kind of system people behave better. My argument is also not about which system is more likely true. My argument is that atheistic subjective morality has certain inescapable rational consequences that atheists cannot admit or live by.
No, it isn’t.
Uh … perhaps you are unfamiliar with Mao’s cultural revolution in China? You are aware that China is ruled by an atheist regime, right?
In the USA, do atheists not VOTE on morals laws, such as gay rights, drug laws, prostitution, healthcare, etc.? Isn’t every vote an atheist makes about such a law the attempt to force their moral views on those who disagree with them?
Here’s a question for the atheists (especially rumraket):
If I am a person living in Iran, and it is almost universally considered in Iran to be moral to stone a woman to death if she has been raped, what is the moral thing for me to do:
1. Try and save her from that fate, or
2. Pick up a stone and chunk it at her head.
I suppose, in a sense, that all laws, however formed and by whomever enforced, are forcing people who disagree with them to obey them. That’s kind of the definition of a law.
The same is true even if God is the promulgator and enforcer of the law. It’s the same if nature is the source and enforcer. that’s kind of what it means to be a law, as opposed to a suggestion.
As for morality, I would suggest that morality is the set of laws and traditional behavioral restraints having religious provenance. Sexual behavior, and the like.
Property rights and torts have long since become too complicated to be adjudicated by religious authorities or by platitudes.
Ah, I guess getting to define what is obvious helps with the whole ID thing too!
No matter, my words and yours are all a matter of record.
Do you consider it moral to throw the stone? Then the moral thing to do is throw the stone!
There is no objective right and wrong. There is only what happens and what people think about it. When people are all gone, dust will have no morals. You ignored my question about how destruction of property can be objectively wrong to a society with no concept of property.
Do I consider it the right thing to do to throw the stone? Of course not! Does the person throwing the stone think I am wrong? Of course he does!
Do I think that such a society will out compete the society I live in? No!
Here’s a question for you William. You are visiting an alien planet, It’s very advanced and there is no crime. Everyone seems happy. Your hosts take you to visit a garden. One of the members of your party steps over a low barrier onto the grass, and is immediately arrested. The punishment for all crime is death! And there was a “no walking on the grass” sign you missed.
Do you allow your crew member to be punished as the law demands?
Okay, let’s dance.
The moral thing for you to do, from my perspective as an atheist, is to try and save her. If you were an Iranian who believed in such an extreme form of Sharia law then for you the moral thing to do would be to throw the stone.
Now, let me ask you a question. Suppose we polled the women of Iran – or,indeed, women around the world – asking if they thought it was morally right – or in any other way a Good Thing – that they be stoned to death if they have been raped, what do you think the result would be?
No they don’t. They offer contingent consequences, which anyone with the proper ritual instruction and capacity for bribery can mitigate.
As familiar as you are likely to be.
Wrong!
Crazily wrong! What the hell difference is an atheist vote from any other vote?
Of course, if you change the rules, then what is considered moral will be acting according to the rules. Is this some kind of great revelation to you? Your argument here basically amounts to saying “If the rules were different, morality based on those rules would be different”. Well done William! lol
Funny thing is, the things you list were primarily perpetrated by people adhering to theistic moral systems. Abrahamic religions, to be more specific. White christian slave owners in the south held slaves and gave biblical arguments in support. The majority of germans, including the nazis during world war 2 were christian and used the rationalization that the jews had killed Jesus. The people who marry 8 or 9 year olds are muslim theists.
No. The basis is still suffering, but the guide to moral behavior is codified in the rules. Those rules exist because they lead to less suffering, that’s why those rules in particular were decided upon.
According to the two rules, no. According to the society you live in, yes. Good luck trying to convince the muslims to stop stoning people with the bible as your argument. Last I checked, the bible commands stoning too. I’m not a muslim, so I’m not the one you have to convince that stoning for rape is wrong. What you’re really showing here is that my secular moral system is superior to the islamic theistic one(and the christian one, by the way) according to your own moral compass. You agree with me that stoning someone for being raped is morally wrong. Clearly we agree everyone should adhere to my secular moral system, not theistic ones that command stonings.
Exactly the same answer as above.
Nope. The basis is still to prevent suffering, the way to do that is to follow the rules.
What do you mean by “objectively” true? There’s way too much waffling around on that point. It is objectively true that if everyone follows these rules, they lead to less suffering.
You have catastrophically failed to carry your argument then.
Nonetheless, we may expect WJM to declare himself satisfied with the “debate” any time now. 🙂
This is a confusing answer. You seem to be mixing your personal, admittedly subjective moral views with answers about the general structure – as you see it – of morality. I don’t understand the relationship between the three principles you have provided (suffering, golden rule, social rules).
It seems to me that you are saying that your personal morality contains those three principles, but that, generally speaking, you don’t hold that everyone’s morality necessarily encompasses all three of those principles. IOW, while you and some others might value the anti-suffering and golden rule principles over social norms, in some other place a person’s principles might be different – social norms, obeying the bible or koran, and something along the lines of living by “an eye for an eye”.
If I understand you correctly, then, your concept of “what morality is” indicates that intrinsically, there is no substantive value difference in principle between your moral code and some fundamentalist christian or muslim because the very choice of principles – which moral principles to guide one’s moral behavior – is subjective in nature. I may choose, for my personal morality, the golden rule – or I might choose an eye for an eye. I might choose anti-suffering as a principle to live by, or I might choose survival-of-the-fittest or might-makes-right. I may go along with social mores, or I may feel that they are not proper moral values and disobey them and/or work to change them.
Would it be correct to say that people can take or leave your three principles in developing their own morality, and that for them, behaving in accordance with whatever their principles may be, is the definition of moral behavior for them? IOW, if under their principles it is moral to mutilate female genitalia or burn witches or murder everyone who disagrees with their views, then it is a fact (inasmuch as there are any moral facts under moral subjectivism), that they are in fact behaving morally?
The problem with this statement is that it fails to recognize the difference between admittedly subjective judgements and judgements that are assumed or claimed to be according to an objective standard. I would never claim that some personal, subjective preference was superior to anyone else’s personal, subjective preference. IMO, that’s a silly, irrational claim to make.
And that’s where the moral perspective of atheist subjectivists clashes with their behavior and generates irrationality; they want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to assert that morality is subjective, but then live and argue as if their morality is objectively true.
By all available theistic evidence, homosexuals are immoral. Therefore homosexuality is objectively immoral.
Yet you support homosexual marriage. You are asserting that morality is objective, then acting as it if is subjective! As if you can ignore parts of it on a whim.
You can’t even live up to your own standards.
Can you give an example of this in the real world, other then with regard to statements about morality?
I.E. what actual consequences follow from this irrationality?
Exactly what does this add to the DEBATE, Mr. “Moderator”? I mean, other than painting yourself as part of some “we” that is smug and condescending towards those you disagree with?
Coming back to this, yes, and so? How else should people act?
I know full well that my moral drive not to torture children is not embedded in the universe at any level other then in human brains. That there is no divine karma keeping track, that nothing outside the sphere of influence of humanity would change were I to torture/not torture a child.
And yet I act as if it were “objectively true”. And that’s because it is as “true” as anything gets.
Let me tell you a story. There are deer that have learnt not to cross the wall between east and west Germany. In past times they would die/be injured by the various traps set to catch people. Over time they learnt to avoid that border area.
Now the deer stay away from the “wall” despite the fact it is no longer there. They have taught following generations that that place is dangerous.
Yet now there is no wall, no danger. They deer act as if there is a wall, yet there is not.
eta: No living deer has ever been in danger from the area around the wall, yet they act as if they have seen danger personally.
This from the guy who said
Yes, delicious irony indeed.
And what sort of debate is it you think you are having?
Yes, a debate is a wonderful think when you don’t have to “demonstrate the obvious” aka back up your claims.
What it adds to the debate is a demonstration of the level of “learned behaviour” where “we” expect you to act a certain way when certain conditions are met.
You have only yourself to blame by training “us” so very well in your ways….
Also, William, I’ll ask you one last time. I don’t consider myself a “Anti-Christian bigot” so I’d ask you to provide supporting evidence for that claim. I might feel a bit sorry for people who believe such stories but I’m not particularly against them in any way unless they try to inflict their beliefs on others.
How I feel about IDers on the other hand, well, that’s a different story.
So please demonstrate my anti-Christian bigotry or, you know, become satisfied with the state of the debate etc etc.
WJM said:
Alan Fox said:
As I told OMagain, I generally don’t bother trying to support the obvious, but in this case, I can’t resist pointing out the outrageous nature of your response. I made a statement about the regime that rules China; you refer to a Wiki page about the religious and spiritual history and population of China.
From Wikipedia’s page on the Communist Party of China :
Alan Fox said:
There is no difference between an atheist vote and any other vote, Alan. That’s the point. We all vote on legal propositions and for candidates that will try to instill our values into the government. Atheists are no different.
SeverskyP35 said:
Why?
I get it now, morality is “majority rules.” Gee, you guys should have said that from the beginning. So killing defenseless animals is basically only immoral in America in 2014.
In Spain, killing defenseless animals for sport is absolutely moral.
Well, at least atheists morals are convenient.
Ah, I see what you mean. Notwithstanding claims of 20 to 150 million practising Christians in China today (depending on who you listen to) and the fact that there is a limited guarantee of freedom of religion enshrined in Chinese law, you seem to be technically correct in quoting that Chinese communist party members are prevented from publicly acknowledging or promoting a religion. Indeed the Chinese are being oppressed.
Well, that’s the hope!
Except in Catalonia.
Most Spanish consider themselves at least culturally Catholic, last time I checked. Bizarre you want to lay blame for bullfighting at the door of atheists.
Oh and if you think Camargue bulls are defenceless, you are welcome to try wandering in amongst a herd of them and pat them on the nose!
I’m calling a foul on that.
I take it that Alan was participating in the discussion and not acting as a moderator when he made the cited statement. So the “Mr Moderator” does not belong there.