When I use the term “materialist” I mean it in a philosophical/scientific sense. That all that seems to exist is what we refer to as “matter” which can be described by physics. I do not mean it in a colloquial sense, that simply values money or acquisition of wealth over other values. Two different things. Apples and oranges.
Consequently I don’t object to references to the “spiritual” or “spirituality” as practice or metaphor. What I reject is the idea of “spirit” as a substance that exists in distinction from matter. That because there’s no evidence for it. (I’m happy to be corrected.)
My views on ethics and morality follow from this viewpoint.
Stephen, I know I should get back to my bridge games and garden clubbing etc. but it’s too fascinating having this entre where such topics are discussed.
Hasn’t such as quantum physics shown a kind of “matter” that cannot be detected by the five senses and beyond that there may be even more, along the
lines of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Why can’t God be in that sense but knowable for those of us who seek Him?
And am I thread-drifting again?
I would claim that the concept of “objectivity” in the sense being used here is itself incoherent. Science does away with certainty and absolute authority right from the start. Scientific conclusions are always subject to modification and disconfirmation as we increase our knowledge. “Facts” are simply conclusions with very high probabilities.
I would vehemently disagree. There is a big difference between epistemic uncertainty (we aren’t sure what is true, or even, we aren’t in a position to know what is true) and denying that there is any truth or any objective fact to know. Depending on your interpretation of QM, you might hold that in quantum systems there isn’t always a difference . . . indeterminacy really means there is no matter of fact, there are no hidden variables. But that is one interpretations that naturally applies to one specific domain. (And, by the by, Schrodinger originally came up with his cat thought experiment to show that the Copenhagen interpretation was nonsense–obviously the cat is determinantly alive or dead, not suspended in some superposition of alive and dead until we open the box.) If I ask you how how many stars there are beyond the edge of the visible universe, you might point out that it is literally impossible to know, but that doesn’t imply there is no matter of fact. Stars are there or they aren’t, even if you don’t know, even if you can’t know. If I ask you precisely how many cells are in my heart at some given moment, you might say the best you can give is a rough estimate, you can’t know precisely how many there are at any given moment. And yet, certainly at each moment there is some determinant number of cells.
Morality is a description of the relationships and interactions between members of a social species.
But morality–at least as people use the term–doesn’t describe how we actually behave, it names how we (think we) ought to behave. People do, with some frequency act in ways that they and others deem immoral. People do cheat on their spouses, and yet there is a general agreement (often shared by the cheaters) that cheating is morally bad.
These relationships and interactions change over time. This is not simply moral relativism because some courses of action really do contribute to human flourishing, and thus, sustainability, just as some mitigate against it. (Like the idea of “objectivity”, the idea of “subjectivity” in the sense being used here is incoherent.)
This seems to be a different idea, and I’m not sure how to square the two. Here you seem to be postulating the flourishing of the species as an objective moral value, and morality is determined by whether our actions serve that global objective.
I suppose now would be the time to show my cards. I’m a . . . determinist.
Here we get to the nub of the matter. If you are a determinist, then moral ‘ought’ (in the emphatic sense, in which most people spontaneously use the term) makes no sense whatever. Statements of moral ‘ought’ make no sense if we don’t have genuine freedom in choosing our actions.
By the way, there are lots of other–more interesting–examples:
E.g., does P = NP? Is the Riemann hypothesis true? Or any of the the other famously unsolved problems in math. Again, surely there are answers to these questions, even if we haven’t figured them out. And just as certainly there are answers even if we never will figure them out.
Judith asked
Hasn’t such as quantum physics shown a kind of “matter” that cannot be detected by the five senses and beyond that there may be even more, along the
lines of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Why can’t God be in that sense but knowable for those of us who seek Him?
I agree there is a lot we don’t know and the idea that we are currently aware of everything that exists is certainly wrong. But we are constrained by our senses and past that point we get into the world of personal experience. And we have to ask then why can one person be aware of God and another not? And why do those aware of God mostly disagree about what they are aware of? These folks are describing their inner conscious experience. But one person’s revelation is another person’s hearsay. Perhaps it is a weakness after all but I am constitutionally incapable of accepting a second hand revelation. (Another factor is that I was raised to believe in the Lord of Hosts who appeared out of the whirlwind. So the “ground of being” or “ultimate concern” of our modern theologians is awfully thin gruel.)
Jesus blew Paul off his horse. What can’t Jesus blow me off mine? Presumptuous? Arrogant? Perhaps. But still…Jesus seemed a lot less bashful in the old days than he seems now.
Porphyry wrote
I would vehemently disagree.
As I said before I was only hitting the high spots so I suspect we probably agree more than you think.
The specific forms of “objective” and subjective” morality I am rejecting are these. First, that there are moral precepts that are always true in all times and places, supported by an absolute authority. Second, that no moral system can be preferred over another. In the popular realm it is usually these two points of view that are portrayed as being in opposition. What I am saying is that this dichotomy is itself false, really, meaningless.
The reason I reject this form of objectivity is that the perspective from which it could be determined simply doesn’t exist. All you are left with is trust in some kind of so-called “authority”.
The reason I reject this sort of “subjectivity” is because there are quantifiable, functional differences between say, Nazi Germany and 21st century America.
Just because we can’t know everything doesn’t mean we can’t know anything.
Just because we don’t know the right answer doesn’t mean there aren’t wrong answers.
Ok, as far as what “objective” or “subjective” morality might be said to reasonably mean, the best example I’ve heard uses the example of the game of chess. The rules of the game of chess can be said to be in some sense arbitrary, as are the rules of any game. But if you and I accept the rules of chess, then within those parameters we can determine what is in fact, “right” behavior and “wrong” behavior. In that sense the rules of chess could be said to be “objective”.
But am I saying that all systems of morality are merely arbitrary? No, because we can determine from observation that some forms of morality, the result of the evolution of a social species, are more conducive to the flourishing of that social species than others. In this case nature made the rules. Whether there could have been other games, other rules is of course an open question.
Look, I’m perfectly aware of some discontinuity here, even a hint of circularity. The problem is that we’re building the bridge while we’re crossing it. We’re on the inside looking out rather than on the outside looking in.
If we accept that current states of affairs are the product of previous states of affairs, that the mind is the functioning of the brain, and so, subject to physical laws, some we know and probably some we don’t, then it’s hard not to arrive at a determinist position. And so, yes, as I said, morality is descriptive rather than prescriptive. (There are still some philosophers who want to hold onto a form of free will however. They would say that if you are allowed to act on your desires then you can be said to be “free” even though your desires are determined.)
But one person’s revelation is another person’s hearsay. Perhaps it is a weakness after all but I am constitutionally incapable of accepting a second hand revelation. . . . Jesus blew Paul off his horse. What can’t Jesus blow me off mine? Presumptuous? Arrogant? Perhaps. But still…Jesus seemed a lot less bashful in the old days than he seems now.
Nicely put. Although, to your rhetorical question, I suspect it may be first and foremost that you haven’t got a horse to be blown off.
The reason I reject this form of objectivity is that the perspective from which it could be determined simply doesn’t exist. All you are left with is trust in some kind of so-called “authority”.
I think of morality as rooted ultimately in no authority other than our own individual reason. I think Kant was basically right on this: man legislates morality to himself, not in the sense that he chooses his morality or that his arbitrary will is the supreme authority, but in the sense that certain general moral conclusions are demanded by rational consistency. And not only Kant, Cicero (among many others) spoke in almost identical language. Sin is doing violence to ourselves as rational beings. And this morality is objective insofar as rationality itself is objective. Morality is objective in a manner analogous to that in which logic (and its foundational rules of reason) is objective. Thus, I think something like logic or mathematics is a better analogue than chess for objective morality–there is no open question about alternative rules. We literally can’t even conceive of a world in which they could be otherwise.
There are some really fundamental, unsolved problems in metaethics. The very idea of normative, as opposed to descriptive, statements being true is inherently problematic. What grounds such statements? What does “truth” mean applied to a statement that is by nature not descriptive of any actual state of affairs? But I think something like Mackie’s error theory is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I suspect it may be first and foremost that you haven’t got a horse to be blown off.
I can accept that. This gets to the issue of “divine hiddenness”. The idea that there are people who simply cannot believe no matter how sincerely they desire it is a real problem for the believer it seems to me. The believer is reduced to questioning motives. How can the sincere non-believer exist?
I think of morality as rooted ultimately in no authority other than our own individual reason. I think Kant was basically right on this: man legislates morality to himself, not in the sense that he chooses his morality or that his arbitrary will is the supreme authority, but in the sense that certain general moral conclusions are demanded by rational consistency. And not only Kant, Cicero (among many others) spoke in almost identical language. Sin is doing violence to ourselves as rational beings. And this morality is objective insofar as rationality itself is objective. Morality is objective in a manner analogous to that in which logic (and its foundational rules of reason) is objective. Thus, I think something like logic or mathematics is a better analogue than chess for objective morality–there is no open question about alternative rules. We literally can’t even conceive of a world in which they could be otherwise.
Actually I don’t disagree although I would want to nuance it and clarify it. Exactly why the bookshelves groan! As someone who thinks ethics is descriptive of the relationships between members of an evolving social species I would say that morality is how we act. Ethics is the description of how we act. There is a wide range, a continuum, of possible human behavior. But there are centers of gravity in that continuum.
The perfect illustration I think is the institution of slavery. The most ethical person alive in the first century Roman world (whoever that might have been) never intuited that slavery was immoral. It was simply part of the structure of the universe. I have a translation somewhere of a treatise, a primer, done by a Roman official instructing young Romans on how to treat their slaves. This man is not a sadist. By his own lights he is very thoughtful. He believes he is working for the betterment of society. Does this make slavery moral? Well not to me but then how long did it take human culture to evolve to the point where I can make that statement?
When I see someone in distress I don’t organize a symposium on ethics. I help because I have empathy and sympathy. But in the ancient world unwanted members of society (which included the very old and very young) were taken out and exposed to the elements and left to die. What changed? During the Civil War southern slave owners used the Bible to defend slavery. Abolitionists used the Bible to attack slavery. Who was right?
If we had lived in ancient times we would have thought like they did. We think like we do now because we live now. This should give us pause when we feel he need to criticize the ancients or indulge in self-righteousness.
The perfect illustration I think is the institution of slavery. The most ethical person alive in the first century Roman world (whoever that might have been) never intuited that slavery was immoral. It was simply part of the structure of the universe.
I’m not sure I will grant that without some gentle probing. Seneca ** you do not have permission to see this link ** against slavery as practiced in his day. Now, you may object that he didn’t go far enough–he doesn’t say outright there should be no slaves–but he does eloquently insist on the equality of master and slave, and he insists that masters should be friends to their slaves. Moreover, it isn’t clear to me that he could have objected to “slavery”, as Latin makes no distinction between terms for slaves and for servants; If servants were treated as Seneca insists they should be, I’m not sure we would recognize them as “slaves” at all.
Attempts to moderate and regulate an institution are implicit endorsements of that institution. My point is that it is a mistake to judge the ancients by modern insights that we received with little if any cost to us. And to illustrate how what we call “morality” evolves over time. And hopefully to demonstrate as best I can that talk of “objective” morality tends to meaninglessness.
Attempts to moderate and regulate an institution are implicit endorsements of that institution.
unless the moderation of that institution amounts to its dissolution. That is what I was getting at in pointing out that there is no difference between a servant and a slave in Latin. If we moderated “servilitas” in all the ways that Seneca says we must, I’m not sure we would any longer apply the word “slavery” to it.
it is a mistake to judge the ancients by modern insights that we received with little if any cost to us
I do see the point. But that is just the thing. It is one thing to say we shouldn’t judge individual ancients as good or bad, because they were blinded by the culture they grew up in, while we, through no excellence of our own as individuals can see better. To move away from ethics, I don’t think I’m somehow a better person because I know of the existence of electrons while Archimedes didn’t; It’s through no merit of mine that I do know of subatomic particles and it’s no personal failure of his that he didn’t.
But it’s an entirely different claim to say we can’t judge another culture and its norms as objectively right or wrong; To go back to the analogy–I can say, with some confidence, that, in at least some respects, Archimedes’s understanding of the world was less accurate than mine–though personal merits don’t enter into the question at all.
I’m happy to say that we can’t fairly judge Plato for extolling pederasty as divine, because he was blinded by his culture, and–not being subject to that cultural milieu–we can’t possibly judge fairly how much of his mistake was just a result of his culture and how much was his own personal failing. If our places were changed, I’d probably think like he did. But that doesn’t commit me to saying he was (objectively) right, only that that I can’t fault him, all things considered, for thinking as he did.
I feel like that is precisely my point, we can’t judge individuals, but, at least in principle, we can judge the norms of other cultures and societies.
I’m happy to say I can’t judge *Socrates*–the historical individual–for endorsing pederasty. But will you say we can’t hold that–objectively–men having sexual relations with adolescent boys is wrong? Or, even weaker though more to the point, will you not admit that our culture’s claim that such relations are morally problematic purports to be a universal (not time- and context-bound claim) and would you not then also admit that, as a purportedly universal, moral claim, it is open to being either objectively true (there really is objectively, always, a moral reason not to engage in such relations) or objectively false (there might well be times and places that there is no objective reason not to engage in such relations)?
…unless the moderation of that institution amounts to its dissolution.
Which of course didn’t happen with the institution of slavery. It’s worth pointing out the slave laws in the ante-bellum South had the same protections for slaves as are found in the ancient Roman writings. It was still a horror.
Look I’m not saying we can’t critique the past. And hopefully learn something. But now we’ve got people who, when they learn that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, are prepared to completely dismiss him. I’m just saying that self-righteousness blinds us to the truth. And it seems to me to be rather worth the effort to consider, free of cant and phony sentimentality, how such a brilliant advocate of human freedom could be so blind to his own prejudices. One of my favorite early American writers, Nathaniel Hawthorne, opposed abolition! How could the sensitive soul who wrote The Scarlett Letter, and who created a luminous and beautiful character like Hester Prynne, get that wrong? Finger wagging is too easy and misses the point. Friends, how many of our ideas, presently completely unexamined, will seem barbaric to our descendants? Perhaps we should be pitiful to our ancestors so our descendants will be pitiful to us?
But will you say we can’t hold that–objectively–men having sexual relations with adolescent boys is wrong? Or, even weaker though more to the point, will you not admit that our culture’s claim that such relations are morally problematic purports to be a universal (not time- and context-bound claim) and would you not then also admit that, as a purportedly universal, moral claim, it is open to being either objectively true (there really is objectively, always, a moral reason not to engage in such relations) or objectively false (there might well be times and places that there is no objective reason not to engage in such relations)?
I just don’t think, in consistency with my views about nature, that either “subjectivity” or “objectivity” have any real meaning. I don’t see any evidence of any non-material aspect of existence. Meaning that our thoughts are the product of our brains. Which are subject to the deterministic laws of physics. Meaning that what we call “free will” doesn’t exist. Meaning that morality is descriptive not prescriptive. There is no “ought”. There only “is”. What we can say is that the ancients thought one way and we think another. And we can try to understand why such views changed over time.
I understand why some folks find this pov appalling. In some sense I suppose we must assume our values are true in some “objective” sense. Authorized by the universe. But the Nazis thought that way too!
This Great Course should shine some light on the answer to the question, Were Gods even real in historical antiquity:
The Pagan World: Ancient Religions Before Christianity
Hans-Friedrich Mueller, Ph.D. Professor, Union College
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** you do not have permission to see this link **
Another less older thread that mutated into a fun discussion about morality.
As to the interesting question as to how the ancients viewed their own beliefs let me recommend ** you do not have permission to see this link ** by French philosopher Paul Veyne. I don’t agree with all of Veyne’s conclusions but his overarching point, that concepts of “truth” change over time, is well put.
I have always been interested in the question as to whether ancient believers in Christ can be said to “believe” in the same way that modern believers do. We use the same words but do we mean the same thing by them? Is it possible for the words to change meaning without us realizing it? Are we translating ancient concepts into modern concepts without being aware? And the kicker for me is the realization that the overwhelming majority of the doctrines of Christianity originated and developed in a conceptual world profoundly different than ours.
The perfect example is the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. This doctrine rests on a view of human biology that we no longer share. What meaning can it have for us? If the doctrine cannot be said to be meaningful in our frame of reference then what meaning can it be said to have? Any modern interpretation must begin with the admission that it does not resemble the interpretation possible for the ones who invented the doctrine in the first place. Believers never seem to ponder this stuff. The Virgin Birth is simply reduced to a “fact” that must either be accepted or rejected.
A glorious beautiful sunny day. Now I’m turning off this danged computer and heading out. If I am successful I will accomplish nothing useful for the rest of the day.
The idols ειδωλον were very real and known ειδω in the sense that an idol can be seen ειδω and touched. The idols had a very visible form ειδος to see ειδω and could be created by the hands of mankind through stone-carving and clay-forming.
ειδωλον
ειδω
ειδος
The God of the Old Testament is very much the opposite of an idol. God could not be seen nor known much, nor created by mankind. God had created mankind with clay and forbid stone-carving.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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