[MD] The Moral Landscape

[Ian Glendinning]

Hi Platt, you said

"[Emergence] only describes what happened".

Which is good surely, ie it's honest and empirical ?
Any explanation that doesn't would therefore be dishonest.

Ian

On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 1:45 PM,  <plattholden at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> Well said. Science constantly ascribes the creation of new patterns to
> "emergence" which doesn't explain anything. It only describes what happened.
>
> Best,
> Platt
>
>
> On 19 Oct 2010 at 22:14, 118 wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Steven Peterson
> <peterson.steve at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi Mark,
>>
>> >> Steve:
>> >> This is a typical Platteral shift. The question was not about whether
>> >> religions have any true moral beliefs. Of course they do, and since
>> >> religions contradict one another's moral teachings they also obviously
>> >> have a lot of false moral beliefs. If there are any people of faith
>> >> who are not deceived (if one religion actually is true), then there
>> >> are certainly millions who are deceived.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Mark:
>> > Steve, I think you are confusing truth with belief.  I believe I like
>> > pistachios, that does not make it true.  It is only true that I believe
>> > that.  All religions are true in that sense.  The deception is realized
>> when
>> > one changes his/her mind, it does not exist before that.
>>
>>
>> Steve:
>> I understand completely that believing something is not the same as it
>> being true. But in your odd example, I can't see how you could believe
>> that you like pistachios when you don't really like them.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Steve:
>> >> The question is what is the basis for moral truth? Is it (1) the
>> >> authority of prophets and clerics? Or is it (2) the fact that some
>> >> things are better than others and therefore the distinction between
>> >> good and bad is open to rational inquiry?
>>
>>
>>
>> > Mark:
>> > Yes Steve, that is the question, but you are missing a few choices in the
>> > multiple choice question.  If I had to choose from the above I would say
>> > number 1.  The so called authority of prophets and the resulting clerics
>> is
>> > arrived at through rational inquiry, it is not just made up out of
>> nothing.
>> >  They are directly addressing the question of moral truth, so the
>> underlying
>> > premise to their answers provides more basis.
>>
>>
>> Steve:
>> Such authorities generally conflate morality with "the will of God"
>> and claim special divine revellation rather than a reasoned argument
>> in support of their "moral" pronouncements. They speak on God's behalf
>> about how to please God rather than speaking on the topic of how to
>> maximize human well-being.
>>
>
> Mark:
> OK Steve, instead of saying "the will of God" I were to say: "the will of
> the primary physical forces which have expressed themselves through a big
> bang, and, coupled with random chance make this anthopocentric universe
> possible", would that be more acceptable? It sure has a lot more words, but
> it still doesn't explain a thing.  Or perhaps I could say that by "the will
> of the evolutionary process, which selects in favor of those of the species
> which collect in groups and express moral tendencies, as demonstrated though
> an analysis of bones through the ages".  Is that better?  No matter what one
> says it is the will of, it is simply a description, not a truth.  I can
> think of a hundred ways to describe our moral behavior, this doesn't mean
> that I understand it, it just means I have strung a bunch of words together
> and by virtue of them supporting each other I have created one big God.
>
>>
>> It is clear that we simply aren't talking about the same thing when we
>> use the word "morality." I doesn't look to me as though you could
>> possibly contribute anything to a discussion of morality (any one that
>> I am interested in) if you don't see morality as being concerned with
>> conscious experience but rather as whatever a given ecclesiastical
>> authority decides God wills.
>>
>
> Let me say, that I follow no-one.  My conscious experience dictates all.  I
> derive things empirically through experience.  I am not one of those theists
> that believes everything the physics textbooks tells me, nor am I an
> agnostic waiting to really see the electron before I  believe in it, nor am
> I an atheist that needs to deny some phantom, that I have created, in order
> to justify my behavior.  So you may be right if a discussion on morality
> means creating a moral system scientifically and then forcing it on people,
> we have nothing to discuss.  The whole concept of defining morality in such
> a way smacks of a highly dogmatic Religion which will be forcing us wear
> burkas because it has been scientifically proven to be highly moral.  Such
> an encapsulation of morals is not only dangerous, it is immoral.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>>
>> Best,
>> Steve
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