Creation/Evolution

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
Just curious:

To anyone following this thread:

Does ANYONE here agree with my position on this?

-I am wondering if I am the only one here that thinks there is no such thing as “moral” or “immoral“.

Ethics is really not my subject and I don't pretend to be able to follow some of the discussions surrounding it in this thread. However these are my thoughts regarding your question:
I don't think that such a thing as "moral" exists as an entity or absolute law that is not derived from something else. But I do not entirely agree with your position on the subject either. I don't know if this is a good analogy, but would you equally argue that "happiness" does not exist?

I believe that morality arises from conscious entities and that there are certain properties that are relative and certain properties that are near universal. I also do not think that there is any good reason (other than self interest perhaps) why a conscious entity should be required to 'follow' morality. But as relative and arbitrary as morality may seem, I do not think we can simply dismiss it and claim it is all a figment of our imaginations.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Do you know anything about the 'n(a)ga babas'?
I heard that they were these dread-locked dudes in India that did not much else than smoke pot and sway on their haunches forgoing nearly all material desires.

I was called 'baba shiva' once by a certain 'wandering monk' and he gave me the mantra " o-shiva-namoa-shiva"

The meeting of this particurl ...[text shortened]... ause 'life' wont wait forever, and the 'earth' is tired and wants to move on

I think that “naga” refers (symbolically) to Shiva’s serpents of wisdom. The “naga babas” are ascetics who are following the way of Shiva wisdom (I have some references here; I’ll look for them; there is a wonderful book called A River Sutra that mentions them).

The way I have heard the mantra (there are different renditions) is “om nahma shiva”—but I had a Hindu (Shaivite) priest tell me that there are different ways to say it, so stick with the one you were given. Basically, it means taking refuge in Shiva.

In Kashmiri Shaivism, Shiva is the name for the “All-in-all without another”. So it is a non-dualist form. Shakti (symbolized metaphorically as Shiva’s spouse or consort) is power or energy. The shakti energy generates the manifest forms of the cosmos via spanda, vibration. This is not the same as dualist-theistic views of Shiva. Although Kashmiri Shaivism uses theistic symbolism, it is as non-dualistic as Advaita Vedanta.

“Shiva ohum” means, “I am Shiva”. Sarvon khalvidam Shiva means “everything is Shiva”. If Shiva is the “all-in-all without another”, what else would we be?

Some gurus say that one should not use the mantra you were given unless it is given to you. If a wandering monk called you “baba shiva” and gave you that mantra, then simply accept it.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
I presume my view on this is actually not the same as that as typical/most atheists for I don’t think there is such thing as “moral” and thus I think all “morality”, at least in the sense of it being beliefs in what is “moral”, is a kind of superstition and hence totally irrational.

The premise for this belief is:

1, There is no non-arbitrary c ...[text shortened]... s are unnecessary for this? -note that emotions don’t require ‘justifying’ (unlike beliefs).

I have a question of clarification concerning your stance. It seems clear that your stance is anti-realist in that you would deny that there are any actual referents for moral terms and concepts. For instance, I am sure you would deny that the moral faculty (as in, our ability and propensity to think in moral terms, to make moral judgments, etc) is actually in the business of detecting real-world facts and properties (because I am sure you would deny that such things as moral facts and properties actually exist). But I am confused as to whether your allegiance to emotional activity is merely etiological with respect to the subject of moral activity, or whether it is something more. Basically, I am trying to ask whether you are a non-cognitivist or an error theorist. For instance, if you think that moral beliefs/statements serve to express propositions but that such propositions are always false because there are no moral facts to which they could correspond, then that would constitute a form of error theory (and, of course, this could be coupled to some etiological claim about how you think the manifestation of moral activity is related at bottom to emotional activity). On the other hand, if you think moral beliefs/statements serve principally to express emotions (not propositions), that would constitute a form of non-cognitivism. I am pretty confident that you are putting forth a form of error theory (which is also the conclusion that Lord Shark reached), but I was hoping you could clarify.

I would also challenge you to give an argument that the belief that there is such thing as “moral” is not a superstition.

Suppose you have some subject, S, who sees moral facts and properties where there are, in fact, none (maybe, for example, in a way consistent with moral projectivism). For instance, suppose S naturally thinks and believes often in terms of prohibitions, obligations, fairness, desert, rights, etc, etc; where, in fact, no such terms have actual referents. This, as I understand it, is something you claim is "totally irrational" and "superstitious".

But in what exact sense is this "irrational"? Here, I think you will have to be careful how you proceed. For, you made a claim about irrationality of beliefs; but, by most accounts, discussion of epistemic rationality is not wholly descriptive but rather also concerns normative ideas and terms. In other words, epistemic rationality is usually not just concerned with how cognizers do form and maintain beliefs, but rather is also concerned with how cognizers ought to form and maintain beliefs. But given your error theory, you are in no position to employ any normative ideas or terms. If you are committed to a stance under which there exist no facts concerning what ought to be the case, then you are in no position to claim anything about what ought to be the case about people's beliefs. So then you are left with some wholly descriptive understanding of what it is for a belief to be irrational. What is this understanding, exactly?

If your error theory is correct, then moral beliefs are all false (because there are no moral facts to which they could correspond). But, simply that a belief is false doesn't thereby make it irrational. Furthermore, I think one could make a case that, even supposing that your error theory is true, your use of 'irrational' is confused due to considerations related to voluntary cognition. Not all mental operations are subject to the agent's control. For example, visual representation of your surroundings just basically comes to you, and if it happened to be inaccurate (or even wildly inaccurate), that doesn't seem to be something we could reasonably call irrational. However, if somehow you had strong evidence that your visual representation was inaccurate, then perhaps it would be irrational if you persisted in thinking it to be accurate. The point is that there is a difference between these two: the latter endorsement is subject to some manner of introspection which yields some control over the cognition, whereas the mental operations under which the visual representation comes to you are not introspectible in the same sense. I think this example could relate to our discussion of morality in the following way. Thinking morally is so deeply ingrained in us (indeed, we go through characteristic stages of moral development starting from young age) that I think one could argue that formations of basic moral beliefs are not introspectible on the level that could make it appropriate for one to blanketly call such beliefs irrational. Similar to how visual representation just comes to us, it seems that often so does moral representation (regardless if there are no actual moral facts or attributes). If one had good reasons to doubt the moral beliefs that spring up from such propensity, then perhaps it would be irrational for him to persist in them. But that certainly doesn't show that moral beliefs are irrational simpliciter.

Back to an earlier point, given your error theory, it seems you are left with some wholly descriptive understanding of what it is for a belief to be irrational. It seems the worst you can level is simply that, as a matter of descriptive fact, our mentality is such that we have propensity to form a whole bunch of false moral beliefs. This is not so implausible since natural selection deals principally with differential survival, not with production of true beliefs (although, surely in many areas, accurate beliefs are more suited to survival than inaccurate beliefs). In other words, supposing that moral faculty is the result of natural selection, then moral faculty should presumably be suited toward encouraging successful behavior, but not necessarily suited toward detection of a realm of real-world entities (like facts or properties). So, this allows the possibility that we are naturally very strongly disposed to the formation of moral beliefs that are, in fact, false. Is that sufficient to call the beliefs "irrational"? Per above, considering the first-order moral beliefs that simply naturally spring up from such a deeply infixed propensity, I doubt there exists a level of reflexivity or introspection that would make the term 'irrational' appropriate.

why not dispense with the unnecessary superstition of “morality” and just admit to our selves that we can (and often do) want to do things like be nice to people etc for purely emotional reasons and thus "moral" beliefs are unnecessary for this?

But most of the time, it seems it is not the case that we perform for purely emotional reasons (which is probably a good thing in the case of, say, strong negative emotions toward another). From my studies, there is little doubt in my mind that there is in general an etiological claim that can be made between moral thinking and emotional activity (and I think a principal way in which natural selection led to moral faculty was through modifications in emotional centers). But that doesn't mean that moralized/normative thinking is not central to deliberations and acting and to the encouragement of certain social behaviors. You could imagine two different groups of people. In group A, you have persons who display certain social behaviors because they simply have strong desire to behave as such or because they are just emotionally inclined to behave as such (whatever exactly that would mean, but which nevertheless wouldn't seem to require moralized thinking, so suppose people in A don't think morally at all). In group B, you have persons who display the same certain social behaviors through a regulating mechanism that tends to encourage such behaviors, such as the propensity to engage in moralized thinking (which may still have strong relationship with emotional activity). We seem to largely resemble B in our deeply infixed propensity to think in moral terms. And there are some plausible reasons why natural selection bothered with the moral faculty as such a regulating mechanism (instead of just producing persons who simply behave "morally" by desire and emotion, without ever actually thinking "morally'😉. For instance, moral considerations and judgments carry a lot of practical clout, and they are communicative and public by their nature, meaning that the motivations they provide for behaviors lend themselves to the public sphere (and both the clout and the public nature occur to a degree to which more private emotions would not). Bottom line seems to be that moralized thinking carries a lot of practical force in regulating social behaviors. Consider behavior motivating things like guilt or blame or etc (which can be leveled publicly at others or even self-directly). These are no doubt bundled up with emotions; but they also cannot really be divorced from the realm of moralized thinking because they encompass ideas like transgressions, desert, etc.

At any rate, my only point is that I doubt people could simply stop thinking in moral terms even if they wanted to. Of course, if your error theory is correct, then people could come to some heightened understanding how the propensity for moral beliefs is also a propensity for false beliefs. But, even so, it would seem that thinking in moral terms (whether we like it or not, and even if there happens to be no actual referents for such terms) is pretty deeply ingrained in us.

I'm just thinking aloud. This interesting topic could easily support numerous threads. In this thread, I am not arguing against your meta-ethical stance (which is a huge topic in itself). I'm arguing that, even given the truth of your meta-ethical stance, your calling moral beliefs irrational seems confused. Or at least, I am confused as to what wholly descriptive understanding of doxastic (ir)rationality you are employing.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Do you know anything about the 'n(a)ga babas'?
I heard that they were these dread-locked dudes in India that did not much else than smoke pot and sway on their haunches forgoing nearly all material desires.

They are warrior gurus and not to be messed with.

I saw one on tv who drove a motorbike!

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
They are warrior gurus and not to be messed with.

I saw one on tv who drove a motorbike!

cool! so they have an existence outside my imaginings!cool!
I've too have heard they are warrior gurus not to be messed with but I try to call on outside agencies to back up any of my claims!🙂

Originally posted by twhitehead
Ethics is really not my subject and I don't pretend to be able to follow some of the discussions surrounding it in this thread. However these are my thoughts regarding your question:
I don't think that such a thing as "moral" exists as an entity or absolute law that is not derived from something else. But I do not entirely agree with your position on the o not think we can simply dismiss it and claim it is all a figment of our imaginations.

I think this issue boils down to language.

Can I put some morality in a jar? No, it doesn't exist as a substance.

But I can attach the descriptive label 'glutton' to somebody who eats six hamburgers at a sitting and expound on the 'sin of gluttony', which is clearly a deleterious behaviour pattern the roots of which might well be usefully brought to light.

You could call gluttony (the abstract concept, which does not exist as a substance) by another name if its medieval associations made you uncomfortable; the same behaviour pattern would continue to incur general disapprobation. (I see no reason why you couldn't call bacteria 'demons' and continue to maintain a rational, albeit erroneous, theological worldview (you can see I read LemonJello's post before I wrote this one)).

I suspect that Andrew Hamilton's attack on ethics is grounded in emotion.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I think this issue boils down to language.

Can I put some morality in a jar? No, it doesn't exist as a substance.

But I can attach the descriptive label 'glutton' to somebody who eats six hamburgers at a sitting and expound on the 'sin of gluttony', which is clearly a deleterious behaviour pattern the roots of which might well be usefully brought ...[text shortened]... one)).

I suspect that Andrew Hamilton's attack on ethics is grounded in emotion.

Yes it may well boil down to language! and if it does your off the hook!
you read lemonjellos post did you ? I'm lazy, could you offer me a synopsis?

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Yes it may well boil down to language! and if it does your off the hook!
you read lemonjellos post did you ? I'm lazy, could you offer me a synopsis?

No, LJ's posts eschew word wastage and are therefore insusceptible to summary. You have to make a cup of tea, do some relaxation exercises, and patiently, attentively, read them through.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Yes it may well boil down to language! and if it does your off the hook!
you read lemonjellos post did you ? I'm lazy, could you offer me a synopsis?

Pointing out that the problem may be linguistic is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Originally posted by daniel58
"The fool saith in his heart, there is no God".

How does that phrase relate to what I asked in my post?

Originally posted by vistesd
I don’t know whether or not we agree. If you define “morality” as following some “divine command” system of fiat behavior, then yes: I reject such a system.. If you mean Kantian deontology (which I see as a kind of “divine command” system without the “divine” ), then yes, I reject such a system.*

However, as one Nietzsche commentator (I’ll find the ref ...[text shortened]... nt tried to ground his views on “oughts” that would be recognized by a perfectly rational agent.

…If you define “morality” as following some “divine command” system of fiat behaviour
...

-I don’t. I don’t personally take the word “morality” to have anything to do with “divine” although I am sure there are no end of religious nuts that take one as having a lot to do with the other.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Pointing out that the problem may be linguistic is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Oh I'm 'in-jail',no doubt.
Still without a synopsis you have put yourself behind me, and thats a shame. Considering I didin't read all of lemonjellos post and you did!
There are no 'get-out-of-jail-free-cards" here and I wait for your synopsis! (of how lemonjello's post was pertinent to my speculations)

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Oh I'm 'in-jail',no doubt.
Still without a synopsis you have put yourself behind me, and thats a shame. Considering I didin't read all of lemonjellos post and you did!
There are no 'get-out-of-jail-free-cards" here and I wait for your synopsis! (of how lemonjello's post was pertinent to my speculations)

You're better off reading his post than my doubtless faulty synopsis. Don't be scared. Then we can compare synopses and see whether we were reading the same thing.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
You're better off reading his post than my doubtless faulty synopsis. Don't be scared. Then we can compare synopses and see whether we were reading the same thing.

Ok. fair enough. give me a couple o minutes

Originally posted by twhitehead
Ethics is really not my subject and I don't pretend to be able to follow some of the discussions surrounding it in this thread. However these are my thoughts regarding your question:
I don't think that such a thing as "moral" exists as an entity or absolute law that is not derived from something else. But I do not entirely agree with your position on the o not think we can simply dismiss it and claim it is all a figment of our imaginations.

…I don't know if this is a good analogy, but would you equally argue that "happiness" does not exist?
...

-I can experience the emotion of "happiness" so I know the emotion of "happiness" exists (even though I don’t know how to define it).
I would not deny the existence of anything that is verifiable by experience/evidence.