tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post2191511476608025543..comments2024-02-29T19:21:32.831-05:00Comments on Possible Worlds: Alternate Accounts of Objective MoralityRandy Everisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06870605678781409126noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-30755201859760152622011-03-10T09:48:37.326-05:002011-03-10T09:48:37.326-05:00Oh, and one last point, just in case you're in...Oh, and one last point, just in case you're interested. The reason Luke M., mentioned above, is into desirism is that it may be a candidate for bringing about Friendly A.I. For people interested in morality, it's an interesting project. How do we create morality for a machine? And how do we create it in such a way that it will maintain our interests? And should such a project even be done? If anyone is interested in that, you can search for "friendly A.I." or "Eliezer Yudkowsky."Mike Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05034037930336299849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-43621071525518537732011-03-10T09:43:16.391-05:002011-03-10T09:43:16.391-05:00Well I would dispute that it has been shown that a...Well I would dispute that it has been shown that an omnipotent being must exist, but you're right that it would take us too far off topic. <br /><br />I don't really want to press anything further because I don't think we're really in disagreement over whether a coherent account can possibly be given. I was simply questioning whether we have good reason to think that's the case. But that would lead into a variety of areas not really related to your original post.Mike Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05034037930336299849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-41302974873363821922011-03-10T08:17:51.409-05:002011-03-10T08:17:51.409-05:00What's interesting is that typically other arg...What's interesting is that typically other arguments do indeed establish certain properties. There have been journal articles showing an omnipotent being must exist, the moral argument suggests the ground of morality as good (which is where we get omnibenevolent), and of course the ontological argument in all its forms gets us all of the properties. Of course, that discussion gets us quite far afield.<br /><br />A material conditional should be regarded as true if one holds either the denial of the antecedent or the truth of the consequent, but not both. So, you should grant that above conditional as long as you think it to be the case that the Christian account of God is not true or morality is objective (of course, the antecedent may be sufficiently vague: do we mean the Christian account of God would be true were God to exist, or merely that the Christian God is true, and hence exists?). You're right that as it relates to the moral argument, I'm only trying to defend (1) of the moral argument by asserting its logical coherence; an offensive presentation would be made elsewhere. Thanks for the discussion Mike! :)Randy Everisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06870605678781409126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-32715677336490575022011-03-09T09:47:36.715-05:002011-03-09T09:47:36.715-05:00Hi Randy,
Your syllogism is clear to me and I'...Hi Randy,<br /><br />Your syllogism is clear to me and I'm fine with (1), (2), and (3) laying out the case from which to argue. I would also add "in the traditional account" to the end of (5) and (6) since you laid that out in (4). Otherwise, you could argue they don’t follow necessarily. <br /><br />A couple of questions arise from this. What makes something a traditional account? There is obviously much disagreement among theologians, and it could be difficult to adequately define an orthodox view. Is the method of determination biblical, majority view, or something else? And why should we accept the traditional account as mapping to truth? Our lack of epistemic access would seem to make this a difficult task indeed, if not impossible. Finally, we have the very tricky metaphysical issue of essential properties of a necessary being. It may be the case that the only necessary property is existence. In fact, I do think that's all we can say with certainty. Assigning properties beyond that must rely on theological assumptions. <br /><br />But I think you only want to say that, if the Christian account of God is true, then morality is objective, given your last sentence. I would grant that conditional if there were good reasons to think properties other than existence were essential. But falling back on the traditional notion puts you in danger of it only being trivially true. It’s kind of like saying that morality is essential to God because the traditional view is that morality is essential to God. And it would have fairly narrow scope, but I suppose that you’re not interested in defending the notion of God in general as much as the notion of Christianity in particular.Mike Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05034037930336299849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-48449079496414836102011-03-08T23:07:51.311-05:002011-03-08T23:07:51.311-05:00Hi Mike-you are correct that I view God's attr...Hi Mike-you are correct that I view God's attributes as being necessary whereas his actions may be different (to be fair, Christian theologians have famously disagreed about this or the extent of its application).<br /><br />When we say "God exists" is necessary, it holds the same referent in every possible world, namely, God. Now, for a philosophy of identity, what is essential to X's being is X's nature (in the realm of theology, this is quite confusing, because what one means by "nature" theologically is not what we mean by "nature" philosophically). I guess we could try a syllogism:<br /><br />1. For any X, if the absence of P changes the identity of X, then P is essential to X.<br />2. For any metaphysically-necessary being, whatever essential properties are possessed are so necessarily.<br />3. God is metaphysically necessary.<br />4. The absence of love changes the identity of God in the traditional account.<br />5. Therefore, love is essential to God (from [1, 4]).<br />6. Therefore, love is possessed necessarily by God (from [2-3, 5]).<br /><br />(1) just is a take on the law of identity and thus should be uncontroversial. It is (2) which I suspect you would want to know. But if a property is essential to a person/being, then the lack of it necessitates a separate being (no X can be the negation of itself) entirely. But since the being in question is metaphysically necessary, it follows this is impossible. (3) is just the postulation as a hypothetical, so it need not be challenged. (4) is definitional, and so can only be challenged on the basis that God doesn't actually possess that property (whether by some kind of inductive argument or appeal to logical incoherence). But in any case, it is true that on the traditional account, (4) is wholly true. (5) and (6) are logically-entailed conclusions and so cannot be false. I hope it was clear; I came up with the syllogism myself and have not checked it with anyone else. :) I am only attempting to show an internally-consistent account of a necessary grouding of objective moral values.Randy Everisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06870605678781409126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-71333810561689554832011-03-08T10:48:28.682-05:002011-03-08T10:48:28.682-05:00Randy,
I agree moral epistemology can be a challe...Randy,<br /><br />I agree moral epistemology can be a challenge. That's something with which every theory has to cope.<br /><br />I think I’m beginning to understand why you view moral values as necessary. It seems you’re saying that God’s traits will be the same in every possible world, while God’s actions, like creating humanity, are contingent. Is this correct? Are there any aspects of God’s nature that you do not view as necessary?<br /><br />I guess I would question why God’s traits are necessary. Even if you think the proposition “God exists” is necessary in every possible world, it’s not clear that these traits follow in the same way. Intuitively (for whatever it's worth) there doesn't seem to be the same force for moral values as there is for creating a square circle. They are, at least, not obviously impervious to change compared to logical contradiction. It is certainly conceivable that God could create a world with different moral values.<br /><br />Is there a deductive argument for why these values would be the same in every possible world or do you simply find it plausible or probable?Mike Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05034037930336299849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-5522733338168916982011-03-07T18:03:53.553-05:002011-03-07T18:03:53.553-05:00Hey Mike! Moral epistemology can be a challenge, b...Hey Mike! Moral epistemology can be a challenge, but it's worth noting the Bible is not essential to a divine command theory (though it is the primary source). It's also important to know that the Bible is largely not a list of "dos" and "donts" (aside from the first five books); it contains guiding principles for action. What's interesting is Craig's account of what is permitted, commanded, and prohibited (Reasonable Faith, 181-183, I believe). So that if the Bible does not cover a particular topic, or if it does not fall under a category of guidance, it is permitted for the believer. Further, the divine command theorist is not forced to say that God is necessary to know moral values and duties. Indeed, we may appeal to all the same grounds as a "moral naturalist" would (of which I think moral intuition is largely helpful).<br /><br />To answer the last question, God is viewed as a metaphysically necessary being by theists. This being said, if he is the ground of moral values and moral values are necessary (and not arbitrarily chosen), it follows such a grounding is necessary as well. But whatever is essential to a necessary being cannot change (on pain of logical contradiction). So the Euthyphro is avoided here by this alternative. :)Randy Everisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06870605678781409126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-58447264095343001412011-03-06T22:50:12.312-05:002011-03-06T22:50:12.312-05:00I'm not sure that places us in a better positi...I'm not sure that places us in a better position than the social contract. So, if we imagine our perfectly rational being behind the veil of ignorance, then the decisions she makes from that position would be grounded in objective reasoning. And stemming from that, there would be right and wrong actions. You might question if we can ever really know what a perfectly rational being would choose in this circumstance. That is certainly a dilemma, but I'm also wondering how we know God's moral commands. The Bible, while being quite a large book, cannot possibly cover everything. Are we then turning to intuition, prayer, etc.? This seems like shaky ground that would be fraught with many incorrect interpretations.<br /><br />Now, I might want to say that the moral values comign from the social contract are universal, rather than objective. And I would wonder if God-based morality would have the same problem. You've said God could not change moral values, but I'm not sure why without getting into the Euthyphro dilemma. It would seem like you don't want to say these values are external to God, and it would also seem like they emanate from God and could possibly have been different.Mike Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05034037930336299849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-1716297281078293202011-03-06T17:04:13.043-05:002011-03-06T17:04:13.043-05:00Hi Mike, thanks for the resource I may indeed chec...Hi Mike, thanks for the resource I may indeed check it out!<br /><br />To be completely clear, we should distinguish between objective moral values (things that are good and evil) and moral duties or obligations (things that are right and wrong). With God as the grounding point of objective moral values it follows even he cannot change something which is good into evil. However, he can, in divine command theory, assign specific duties. Here's a brief example:<br /><br />It is a morally good value to save lives, and it is always good. Doctors save lives. Suppose Jim the Christian wants to be a doctor. Suppose further God tells Jim (unmistakably, for the sake of argument) he wants Jim to become a Christian lawyer and take cases for free or something. This is also a morally good value (to help people for free out of charity). However, to disobey God is always evil, and objectively so. So a command given to Jim by God constitutes that becoming a doctor, for Jim, is wrong (insofar as a moral obligation goes). If Jim commits this wrong, that action itself entails a moral evil. So, we can see that something that falls under a moral value of good could potentially result in an entailed action which is evil (since it is always evil to reject God). This wouldn't make Jim's being a doctor evil inherently, but his being a doctor in this case is only in rebellion against a moral obligation.Randy Everisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06870605678781409126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-38353215295523452372011-03-06T14:51:39.207-05:002011-03-06T14:51:39.207-05:00I should also say Alonzo Fyfe has been doing a fre...I should also say Alonzo Fyfe has been doing a free podcast with Luke from Common Sense Atheism called Morality in the Real World. In it, they are laying out the case for desire utilitarianism (desirism) as a moral theory. You may be interested to check it out.Mike Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05034037930336299849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1433428682510068517.post-8323165377665769452011-03-06T14:49:36.148-05:002011-03-06T14:49:36.148-05:00Randy,
I'm wondering if truly objective moral...Randy,<br /><br />I'm wondering if truly objective morality can really be had outside of some sort of platonic form type of existence. It would seem that moral values determined by God are subjective and could possibly change. Subjective in that they are grounded in the attitudes of a single being, and open to change upon the moment of creation (I think Craig's view could entail this). Your thoughts?<br /><br />For my own views, I've traditionally thought of myself as a type of Social Contract theorist (a la Rawls). This gets kind of tricky because the view seems fairly objective, but I think you would want to say it isn't ultimately objective. I think Craig's debate with Shelly Kagan is a good back-and-forth on this topic.Mike Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05034037930336299849noreply@blogger.com