"The Abolition of Man" discussion thread

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Yes, he would be. But he can make it objective. He could make it so that there is a particular set of criteria, priorities and the like, which are the objectively correct ones to take, should we wish to know whether something is good or not.
[/QUOTE]
No, I reject this. He could set up differing arbitrary consequences, rewards and punishments (and in some religions has reportedly done so) but that doesn’t change the fact that that the final determination of what is actually good is inherently subjective and left as an excersize to the subject in question. If some loudmouthed entity declares that the rules he’s written are objectively correct from an objective standpoint of “goodness”, rather than simply being a way to appeal to his subjective preferences and earn rewards, then that loudmouthed entity is dead wrong. By definition.

For example, I think that it is better to burn in hell forever than to subjugate yourself to and condone the actions of an entity who would sentence people to burn in hell forever. (Morally speaking, anyway.) It doesn’t matter how much the diety protests, how many punishments he threatens, or how many rewards he offers; there is nothing objective about his opinion at all, and I need not accept it as overriding my subjective opinion of the morality of the situation.

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Yes, but this is about how we come to our own personal views. I don’t deny that in order to see whether something is good or not, we need to look at whether what we define good is present. But that’s in opinion forming! We need all that to decide whether something is good, yes. We don’t need all that for something to be good.

To go back to Stalin, imagine that killing him as a baby was “good”. Do we need to look at priorities, measures, and the like to make that good? No. We just need to do those things in order to find out for ourselves, or come to opinions if we’re wrong.. Opionions, whether they are held or not held, have zero effect on what something is. They just say what we think it is.
[/QUOTE]
Outside of opinion, “good” doesn’t exist. “Goodness” is a value judgement; an opinion about the relative values of things that do objectively exist, like the various effects the object might have on family and society and whatever else. There is no coming to opinions “if we’re wrong”. It’s all opinions either way, and none of them are “wrong”, except by someboy else’s equally subjective opinion about what “wrong” is.

Good, bad, right, wrong; these are all inherently subjective assessments, by definition. There are no “objectively correct priorities, measures, and the like”. (Those things are always subject to a set of preferences and/or goals; they’re inherently subjective too.)

Oh, and if you define a fish as a carrot, then you are making an additional definition, not really replacing the old one. (Not even God can eradicate a definition…by definition. :slight_smile: ) So calling the fish a carrot has no effect on anyone else who does not accept your new definition. (And you haven’t conviced me to switch to any set of definitions that allow an objective good. Incidentally.)

62

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
You misunderstand, I think. I would agree that we need to look at those things to try and figure out what it is ourselves. But we do not need to look at it in order to make it so. Something isn’t neutral until we come to look at it and judge it. If someone had tried to kill Stalin as a baby, whether it was good or not wouldn’t have hung in abeyance until we started talking about it in this thread.
[/quote]
YES IT WOULD!! Or at least until someone evaluated it. And for each person who evaluated it, the answer would (potentially) be different.

“Correct priorities” is another example of an objective value, which is the very thing we’re debating the existence of. Priorities are the same as (subjective) opinions–they can’t be wrong.

Post 36.

63

[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
YES IT WOULD!! Or at least until someone evaluated it. And for each person who evaluated it, the answer would (potentially) be different.
[/quote]
Ah, ok. So let’s imagine Stalin-as-a-baby is killed, but immediately the universe ends. No one has a chance to have an opinion on the matter.

Does this mean it was a morally neutral act?

What if I killed someone, but no-one ever found out. I’m the only one who ever knows about it; and I think what I did was good. Does this mean that what I did was, actually, morally good?

Your approach would mean we shouldn’t evaluate anything, because until it’s evaluated nothing is bad. Let me ask you this; once you’ve made your evaluation, was the subject in question morally neutral from the time it happened until the time you evaluated it?

Why not? Let’s say A’s priority in such things is that one death isn’t justifiable to save many. B says the opposite - killing one to save many others is a morally good thing. They contradict one another. They cannot both be right, since one being right means the other is not. One of them must be wrong (or both); priorities can be wrong.

Could you quote the relevant part? I’m still not seeing it.

64

Sure.

Not sure what to say to the rest. In each case you’re asking me to evaluate something. The answer in each case would be “In my opinion yes,” or “In my opinion no.” If no one has an opinion, if no one evaluates it, then there is no evaluation. That’s the point.

65

[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
Sure.
[/quote]
Ah, I get you. Well, I tended to assume that what you meant was what does he physically (or.. mystically, I guess) actually do to make it good. What button on the universe does he press, for the lack of a good vocabulary. But either way, you asked me what objective good was. Not what I thought was good - which would be my subjective opinion. I don’t know the former, but I certainly have an opinion.

I suppose then what i’m trying to say is that there is no active evaluation, but that there could be a nebulous “true” priority that it could be evaluated against. And that the evaluation itself is not necessarily required for something to be good or not, despite the fact that it would play a big role in your (and sort of my) definitions of good.

66

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Ah, ok. So let’s imagine Stalin-as-a-baby is killed, but immediately the universe ends. No one has a chance to have an opinion on the matter.

Does this mean it was a morally neutral act?

What if I killed someone, but no-one ever found out. I’m the only one who ever knows about it; and I think what I did was good. Does this mean that what I did was, actually, morally good?

Your approach would mean we shouldn’t evaluate anything, because until it’s evaluated nothing is bad. Let me ask you this; once you’ve made your evaluation, was the subject in question morally neutral from the time it happened until the time you evaluated it?
[/QUOTE]
Not to differ from Alan, here, but there’s another way of looking at it: if anyone ever has, or even will define a moral system by which events and acts can be assessed, then by that version of morality, the murder has a “moral value”, even if there’s nobody around to calculate it. Like any other defined system of rules, it remains ‘true’ within its own rules, even if it’s not used or it’s forgotten.

Of course, in actuality lots of people have developed lots of different moral systems (something approaching one per person who’s ever lived); none of these systems are objectively better than any other. By somebody else’s subjective measure they might seem good or bad, but that assessment is based on a different system of rules, and has no effect on the value of the priories in the system of rules they were developed in.
It’s kind of like how, even after everyone’s dead, 1+1 will still = 2. Except in binary, where 1+1=10. Both equally right, subject to their systems, neither one more objectively correct than the other.

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Why not? Let’s say A’s priority in such things is that one death isn’t justifiable to save many. B says the opposite - killing one to save many others is a morally good thing. They contradict one another. They cannot both be right, since one being right means the other is not. One of them must be wrong (or both); priorities can be wrong.
[/QUOTE]
Not to be offensive, but have you any idea what the term “subjective” means? It means that from different perspectives, based on different rules, different things are correct. In a way this idea is the foundation of logical thought and it’s certainly the foundation of any sort of compromise, thus underpinning most forms of peaceful human interaction.

67

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Not to differ from Alan, here, but there’s another way of looking at it: if anyone ever has, or even will define a moral system by which events and acts can be assessed, then by that version of morality, the murder has a “moral value”, even if there’s nobody around to calculate it. Like any other defined system of rules, it remains ‘true’ within its own rules, even if not used or forgotten.

Of course, in actuality lots of people have developed lots of different moral systems (something approaching one per person who’s ever lived); none of these systems are objectively better than any other. By somebody else’s subjective measure they might seem good or bad, but that assessment is based on a different system of rules, and has no effect on the value of the priories in the system of rules they were developed in.
It’s kind of like how, even after everyone’s dead, 1+1 will still = 2. Except in binary, where 1+1=10. Both equally right, subject to their systems, neither one more objectively correct than the other.
[/quote]
Right. I guess what i’m trying to say is that there might be a system that is actually more objectively good. A system of rules that is the correct system of rules. 1+1 = 10 is right in binary. 1+1 = 2 is wrong in binary. The question of what is objective is the question of what system are we operating in.

I would hope I do. I don’t see what anything you’ve said in this part says that horribly contradicts anything i’ve said.

68

Begbert’s offline, and this keeps itching, so I’ll go ahead and answer for now. Decimal and binary are not analogous to different worlds, they’re analogous to different moral systems. And there is no world in which binary is correct and decimal is incorrect or vice versa. If you think there could be, I don’t know what to say–you’ve gone beyond reason and logic.

As to the second bit, you said that if A and B have different (and exclusive) moral stances that one must be wrong. Saying that morals are subjective means that both positions are right from their respective positions and that neither has a privileged perspective. Opposing views can both be true IFF (if and only if) the views are both subjective.

69

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Not to differ from Alan, here…
[/QUOTE]
No, you’re not. I just meant that some system has to be used to assess the value of something. I conflated systems with the people using the systems for simplicity’s (or maybe just obscurity’s) sake, but you can certainly define a system abstractly and in the absence of anyone actually holding it.

70

[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
Begbert’s offline, and this keeps itching, so I’ll go ahead and answer for now. Decimal and binary are not analogous to different worlds, they’re analogous to different moral systems. And there is no world in which binary is correct and decimal is incorrect or vice versa. If you think there could be, I don’t know what to say–you’ve gone beyond reason and logic.
[/quote]
Imagine a computer program, in which we’ve created some form of artificial life. We’ve written that program in binary. It might be fair to say that those artificial lifeforms in that program that used binary were doing so in accordance with the way their universe was built.

I disagree.

How about this; you’re an athiest. ITR Champion is a thiest. Both of you are correct. Correct?

71

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Imagine a computer program, in which we’ve created some form of artificial life. We’ve written that program in binary. It might be fair to say that those artificial lifeforms in that program that used binary were doing so in accordance with the way their universe was built.
[/quote]
No, it wouldn’t. It might be fair to say that the underlying composition of their universe is in some sense binary (meaning that every detail of their world would correspond to a physical bit in one of two states), but that wouldn’t make binary math more or less correct than any other base. Scientists may argue over whether there are 4, 10, or 11 dimensions to our universe, but no one has yet suggested that base-4, base-10, or base-11 math is therefore better.

No, because whether God exists or not is an objective question! I have to echo begbert here: Are you sure you have any idea what these terms mean?

72

[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
No, it wouldn’t. It might be fair to say that the underlying composition of their universe is in some sense binary (meaning that every detail of their world would correspond to a physical bit in one of two states), but that wouldn’t make binary math more or less correct than any other base. Scientists may argue over whether there are 4, 10, or 11 dimensions to our universe, but no one has yet suggested that base-4, base-10, or base-11 math is therefore better.
[/quote]
I didn’t say “correct”. I said “in accordance”. As in, “likewise”; their form of maths would be akin to that of the one on which the universe is based. It’s a different question.

I was merely asking to find out whether you thought anything was objective. It seems you do. So what exactly is it about “the existence of God” that means that it is an objective question, one with no possible requirement that this existence must first be evaluated, when “this action is good” can never be objective, and must have evaluation as a possible requirement? Why must “good” be defined as an evaluation, whereas for God’s existence the possibility that it could be defined without an evaluation is perfectly reasonable?

73

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
I didn’t say “correct”. I said “in accordance”. As in, “likewise”; their form of maths would be akin to that of the one on which the universe is based. It’s a different question.
[/quote]
It would be akin to the form used to create it, but it wouldn’t be any more in accordance with or appropriate to anything. The similarity would be entirely coincidental, just like our base-10 numbering system has nothing to do with how many dimensions or quantum states there are. If they match, it’s not even a coincidence worth noting.

Again, do you know what these words mean?

74

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
I guess what i’m trying to say is that there might be a system that is actually more objectively good. A system of rules that is the correct system of rules.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t mean to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong (I’ve not read the title story), nor do I wish to put words in your mouth, but it seems to me that mentioning Plato and the Form of the Good might approach an explanation of what you’re getting at. That is, the Ideal of the Good objectively exists; anybody’s grasp of the Good (relative to another) may be subjectively different (although one of the two would necessarily be closer to the Good than the other).

My apologies if that doesn’t help…

75

If RT is trying to make an argument from Plato, he’s not explaining it very well. And simply appealing to Plato is not enough. For one thing, I doubt anyone today would want to adopt Plato’s theories unmodified (and doing so would require even more explanation). Also, it begs the question. IIRC, Plato started with the idea that values and ideas are objective and then decided that they must be instantiated in the metaphysical realm of Forms.

76

[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
It would be akin to the form used to create it, but it wouldn’t be any more in accordance with or appropriate to anything. The similarity would be entirely coincidental, just like our base-10 numbering system has nothing to do with how many dimensions or quantum states there are. If they match, it’s not even a coincidence worth noting.
[/quote]
Fair enough.

I suggest to you that when a person who believes in an objective good says so, what they are saying is that their particular system is actually likewise akin to the form of the universe. A universe “built” with their particular form of good as a part of it.

Either I was lying when I said I thought I did, in which case I don’t see why you think i’d stop now, or I was mistaken, in which case this question is redundant. Or i’m right. :wink:

How about this, then; do you agree that it is possible for you to be wrong? That despite what it appears, perhaps the world doesn’t work like you or I think. Perhaps it is possible that there can be an objective good, but that we are incapable or just don’t understand that? It seems to me that your abject dismissal of it suggests an absolute certainty that you are right and cannot possibly be wrong.

Edit: Oh, and no, I wasn’t trying to make an argument from Plato, although it may be the same argument.

77

I would now like to state that this discussion has become totally incomprehensible to me.

78

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Fair enough.

I suggest to you that when a person who believes in an objective good says so, what they are saying is that their particular system is actually likewise akin to the form of the universe. A universe “built” with their particular form of good as a part of it.
[/QUOTE]
There are two problems with this. The first is that, as has been repeatedly noted, the definition of “good” that is under discussion is by defined according to a specific set of preferences, priorities, and goals; therefore, every different combination of preferences, priorities, and goals defines a different yet equally correct definition of what is “good”. Which is to say, again, good under this definition is inherently subjective. Even if the universe has some preference for what is good that we don’t know about, that doesn’t make that definition of good/set of values objective. It doesn’t even make them better. It just means that there’s another set of values out there, one more among billions, by definition no better than the rest, objectively speaking.

The second problem is, we have a name for things built into the universe; they’re called natural laws. We can detect them through observation; if this area of the universe has any opinions at all about what’s good, they’re things like “It would be good for things to be attracted to each other in proportion to the product of their masses over the square of their distances apart”. Clearly the universe doesn’t have anything like “it’s bad to kill/destroy nearby life forms” built into its workings. If it did, wewouldn’t have moral discussions about it; the universe would have answered those questions for us, very directly and literally.

Unless you want to propose that the universe might have this ‘univeral subjective good’ built into it in an entirely impotent, ineffective fashion that has no effect on the workings of reality, like grafitti spraypainted on the side of a bridge has no effect on the functioning of the bridge. In that case, of course, I would point out that impotent statements that have no effect are at best opinions and at worst meaningless, since they (literally) have no real effect on anything.

In fact I’ll go so far as to agree that your moral code is written into the universe. There are actually countless things ‘written’ in the random arrangements of molecules in the universe; if you look in the right place and use right interpretation method, I’m sure your moral code is out there written into the universe, whatever your moral code is. Of course, in spite of the fact that it’s written into the universe, your moral code is still just one of many, no better than any other objectively speaking.

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Either I was lying when I said I thought I did, in which case I don’t see why you think i’d stop now, or I was mistaken, in which case this question is redundant. Or i’m right. :wink:
[/QUOTE]
Or you’re wrong in your definitions, and the questions as to whether you are sure prompted you to do additional reading and correct your misconceptions, which will rapidly lead to harmonious agreement and many rounds of ‘kumbaya’.

(Well, one could hope, right?)

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
How about this, then; do you agree that it is possible for you to be wrong? That despite what it appears, perhaps the world doesn’t work like you or I think. Perhaps it is possible that there can be an objective good, but that we are incapable or just don’t understand that? It seems to me that your abject dismissal of it suggests an absolute certainty that you are right and cannot possibly be wrong.
[/QUOTE]
I’m fairly sure that both Alan and I are correct in our understandings of the definition of these words. And when you get down to it, what we are dealing with here are words. “Good” is not an idea that starts out based in an real objective thing and then is abstracted up, like “rock” and “tree” are; it is an abstract concept that is generalized from a collected analysis of individuals’ subective priorities and goals. The fact that “good” is an abstract concept means that one can talk about “good” quite effectively without referring to the world at all. Based on the definition of the words alone, “good” is not “objective”. As this is something that can be resolved entirely in the theoretical realm of language, it doesn’t really matter what the world’s like; this isn’t about the world. This is about theorerical concepts.

Yes, there might be some unknown objetive thing out in the world, (and probably is,) but it is not an objective good; it won’t fit the definition of “good”, since objective things are (by defintion) not "good"s. (By the definition of “good” under discussion, anyway.)

79

Either i’m just incapable of understanding what you’re saying (which is quite possible) or i’m incapable of putting across what I mean well (which is also worryingly possible). So i’ll attempt to take the coward’s way out.

Your reasoning, my reasoning, all of it is uncertain. It’s based on how we look out at the universe, and our ideas could be entirely wrong. What we think of as logic, in fact, could be wrong, just given the appearance of correctness by seemingly-connected randomness. It is possible that we understand nothing about the universe.

In those terms, it is possible for an “objective good” to exist, just as it is possible the universe doesn’t in fact exist at all as we know it. I as an atheist don’t believe in any gods, and in fact I believe there are logical flaws in the existence of certain gods which mean they couldn’t exist. But I accept that what I consider logical, and indeed the whole system of logic at all, could be wrong, and that such gods do exist.

I feel I need to point out again i’m only arguing for the possibility of an objective good. I don’t believe there is one either.

80

This seems to confirm something I began to suspect after reading this in you previous post:

You don’t seem to have an actual argument except that maybe, somehow, in the vast strangeness of the universe, we could be wrong. Your disagreement doesn’t seem to be with our actual position (though you say it is) but with our sureness. Perhaps you think we’re arrogant to keep arguing as if we knew, with absolute certainty, that we’re right.

But here’s the thing: what we’re saying we’re right about is what we mean by good. And yes, I am one hundred percent certain that I know what I mean. Nothing could change my mind about that. Even if I were, in the future, persuaded to use the word “good” to mean something else, I still would have been right that on January 11, 2008, at 11:57 AM Mountain Standard Time, when I used the word “good” I meant something subjective and only something subjective.

And if something else is discovered in the universe (or in any other universe), that somehow gets labeled “objective good,” I’ll try to find another name because that’s not what I mean by good! And even if, for the sake of everyone else, I agreed to call it “objective good” because they do, it would be an additional meaning of “good,” a homonym, not the kind of good we’ve been debating here.

Please notice that I haven’t even insisted on using my definition of “good.” I’ve repeatedly asked you what you mean, and all you come back with is something to the effect of, “But it could mean something else!” Fine. It could. If you want to use it to mean something else, go ahead. If you want to defend the right of beings in alternate universes to use the word how they want, go ahead. But I’m not wrong about how I use it! And the way I use it (and everyone else I know) specifically excludes something objective.