Posted on 01/17/2014 6:50:09 AM PST by Heartlander
If you do not assume the law of non-contradiction, you have nothing to argue about. If you do not assume the principles of sound reason, you have nothing to argue with. If you do not assume libertarian free will, you have no one to argue against. If you do not assume morality to be an objective commodity, you have no reason to argue in the first place.
- William J Murray
This philosopher has been laboring under an unexamined assumption, namely that there is such a thing as right and wrong. I now believe there isnt The long and short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must therefore embrace amorality I experienced my shocking epiphany that religious fundamentalists are correct; without God there is no morality. But they are incorrect, I still believe, about there being a God. Hence, I believe, there is no morality.
Marks then quite boldly and candidly addresses the implications of his newfound beliefs:
Even though words like sinful and evil come naturally to the tongue as say a description of child molesting. They do not describe any actual properties of anything. There are no literal sins in the world because there is no literal God nothing is literally right or wrong because there is no Morality yet we human beings can still discover plenty of completely naturally explainable resources for motivating certain preferences. Thus enough of us are sufficiently averse to the molestation of children and would likely continue to be ( An Amoral Manifesto Part I )
For the last 30 or so years, our public school systems have employed subjective morality to teach children how to think about everything.
The plan was to separate children from their parent's moral bearings and children have been set adrift to fend for themselves morally.
Then we wonder how a kid could go into a school and shoot to kill his classmates.
Public education is creating sociopaths and Bill Ayers crows about their success.
Although I agree with author up to this point, he is not necessarily correct on this point. The moral subjectivist here is not necessarily acting as if his ethic was objectinvly binding on others, rather, he is just imposing his will to achieve his subjective desires. He doesn't necessarily believe this will is "objectively valid and binding on others", he just feels no compunction in forcing others to do as he wishes becasuse that's what HE wants and he sees no reason not to. Objective ethics of "right" and "wrong" don't enter into it at all, just the personal desires of the actor - he's forcing others to act this way not because he thinks it's "right" but becasue it's what he wants. That's all subjective "morality" leaves, personal preference and social convention.
The truth endures and good Lord abides.
Morals are metaphysical. Ideas are metaphysical. Concepts are metaphysical. Words have meanings....& meanings are metaphysical. You can’t touch, taste, smell, see, or hear the meaning of a word or an idea. Basically, “materialism” is the idea that there are no such thing as ideas—which is a logically contradiction, similar as saying “It is true that there is no such thing as truth”. Things have “value”. VALUE also is metaphysical. That’s liberals’ biggest problem and why Al Gore screwed up his Biblical quote about the heart & what it treasures. And why Democrats think that the more valuable something is, the cheaper it should be for consumers to buy, ie trickle-down stupidity.
I understand but this does not necessarily become an either / or situation it can also be a both. IOW the atheist could both think it is right, and do it because that is what he wants.
No, because the whole concept of "right" the way you use it suggests an ethical norm and the initial assumption of a subjectivist leaves this out. Once he incorporates any concept of "rigiht" he is no longer a subjectivist but a hypocrite who assumes an objective ethic but cannot identify any foundation for the same. In that instance he is exactly what the author suggests. Thus, while what the author suggests in paragraph 4 is a possibility it is not the only conclusion, as my alternitive is equally possible.
Yes, 4 gives the atheist the benefit of the doubt that they are not a sociopath as stated in 5.
Paragraph 5 merely reveals that "moral subjectivist" is a contradiction in terms and violates the law of non-contradiction. Morality presupposes an objective standard. Subjectivist excludes such a standard. Both by definition. One cannot be both at the same time. A cannot equal not-A.
Materialism assumes that reality is defined by the empirical, yet there is no basis in logic or reason for such an assumption. This a major contradiction for a worldview which prides itself on its reliance on "reason" as the ultimate arbiter.
Correct
If your purpose is to make a Dead Baby Float, what ought you then to put in the blender?
Regards,
Given two different Earths -
(a) an Earth on which morality was the result of cultural evolution, to the extent that all but two percent of humans had the same general concept of right and wrong, the remaining two percent being clinically sociopathic, and
(b) an Earth on which a God had instilled identical moral laws in all humans, but had also instilled the potential for rejecting those laws, and in which two percent of humans had taken advantage of that potential,
- how would an external observer tell the difference?
The answer to that is the title of an Alice Cooper song on the "Killer" album.
But that wouldn't be morality, rather, it would just be social convention.
Challenge every moral argument they make as being subjective to their point of view or reliant on Christian morals.
The standard of value is the goal
2. The question Is it moral to gratuitously torture children?
Not if the ultimate goal and standard of value is life and life proper to a rational being. Life is the ultimate goal of a rational ethics based on reason and reality.
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