A shared challenge regarding the foundation of ethics

[Anomaly]

values change over time.

I noted the significance of the compatibilist view of reality some posts ago. The pattern for coexistent value is clearly seen in material existence: the various configurations of matter can only mutate with respect to the immutability of the laws of nature. Change defers to and is supervised by the unchangeable. Using this as a guide it's pretty intuitive that this is the structure of reality--the workings of material and immaterial reality tend to share principles. Despite the logical strength of this most atheists focus on only the mutable aspect of reality and try to force it on value discussions. Why? What do you find loathsome about the idea of immutability in value, and why does the notion of permanence in a purely material universe not bother most atheists?

[siam]

......
For me, truth (as one grade of a broader “value”) isn’t just a participant in the assortment of goods perceived relationally, via patterns. It’s the attraction, power, or force that forms, pulls or draws matter into particulars in the descriptive realm. On this view, patterns, unity, congruity, electron spin, mass, etc. are just various measures of essence or value. In other words, cause is value-driven.

.....
I understand the scholastic method of assigning knowledge to only true statements. That’s fine for academic considerations, but I take a more practical approach that knowledge is, like everything else that exists in this life, value-fragmented. Hence, knowledge is just value-fragmented information which leads to a diversity of worldviews. Each worldview is some combination of true and false beliefs, and each belief is—depending on its complexity—itself made up of value-fragmented information. Fragmentation leads to varying beliefs. This is another reason I see the Christian worldview as the most coherent—the notion of salvation expressed in Scripture as the eventual elimination of falsity (the root cause of sin), which serves as a sort of pathogen in reality, would logically result in an “all in all” unity of harmony in viewpoints in a single, ultra-coherent union of a universe of wholly true “informational particulars” with absolute Truth.

I outlined in an earlier post how resistance between prescriptive truth and falsity could, with regard to a false belief held as true, provide the impetus to automatic resistance in the apprehension of a conflicting true proposition, i.e., to truth itself. I find this view of diversity in value leading to correlated diversity in worldviews to be strongly applicable to the reality I find myself in.

I like your amalgam of relational apprehension of individual and universal, even though we have somewhat different notions of how truth works. I agree that truth is in essence, but believe that true and false exist also and are conveyed in articulated/interpreted information. Every expression of information is one of value and referent(s) (particular(s) to which it applies) as I see it. Seems to me this is necessary because all information has to have this shared structure (value/particularization) from tiniest bit to full blown universe as informational construct.

This brings me back full circle to the question: if value exists in our reality, what is its source? Given the most recent exchanges in this thread, I'm curious to know how my atheist brethren answer this...?

Yes, we do seem to have different definitions, understanding of terms....
I differentiate between essence ("is") and value (perception of "is")
"Unity" is not homogeneity (or a mono-system).

If we presume that "Knowledge" exists and its "value"---harmful/beneficial--- is a relational perception---then there is a difference between the essence (Knowledge) and its value perception.
Essence just "is"....think of it as a non-relational singularity. Therefore knowledge as essence simply "is"---its perception by the human intellect is relational---therefore, to a degree, benefit/harm, true/false (value/value-fragmentation) is determined by the human intellect. The terms "true/false" are themselves relational....the conceptual existence of one depends on the conceptual existence of the other. The assigning of Good/bad (value judgement) are also relational.

The various world-views are simply an articulation of the lived reality of a group of people to whom that particular articulation makes sense of their lived experience.
Any one religion/meta-narrative cannot be the sole/exclusive criteria/repository of "Truth/Reality"(as essence). Essence just "is". Essence of "Truth" is universal....its nature is Unity/harmony(Tawheed) and its manifestation is balance (Qadr).

Human laws (ethics/morality), like natural laws, must lead to balance (the weight/measure of two ends are equivalent) if they are to be comprehensive and consistent. The criteria is therefore internal---whatever the articulation of particular ethical/moral codes may be---it is not the true/false --in relation to other articulations that matter---it is whether or not these articulations produce balance within their own framework/meta-narrative.

A system based on the exclusive privilege/worth of one particular group of people over others will create imbalance, on the other hand a system based on the equivalent worth of all people will lead to more balance....a system that encourages co-operation and reciprocity will create balance, a system that encourages privilege and inequality will create imbalance....
The "nature" of humanity and group dynamics creates patterns (relational to "reality")---patterns that promote Unity create the potential for benefit and patterns that promote fragmentation create the potential for harm.

So---there can be many articulations of ethics/morality and in their implementation/application, have the potential for good where they promote unity/balance (in practice) and have the potential for harm where they promote disunity/imbalance....The label/name of an ethico-moral system is irrelevant---it is the practical content of the system as whole that matters....


Thankyou for an interesting discussion. Perhaps we will have a chance to converse again.

[shunyadragon]

I noted the significance of the compatibilist view of reality some posts ago. The pattern for coexistent value is clearly seen in material existence: the various configurations of matter can only mutate with respect to the immutability of the laws of nature.

Roughly true, but need more clarification.

Change defers to and is supervised by the unchangeable.

This is a Theist assumption,

Using this as a guide it's pretty intuitive that this is the structure of reality--the workings of material and immaterial reality tend to share principles.

Another Theist assumption. This is only intuitive if you are a Theist.

Despite the logical strength of this most atheists focus on only the mutable aspect of reality and try to force it on value discussions.

Needs to be clarified. An assumption that value discussion are the result of physical brain is not forcing anything. It is the only evidence available without Theist assumptions.

Why? What do you find loathsome about the idea of immutability in value,

The atheists consider the physical existence immutability in value.

and why does the notion of permanence in a purely material universe not bother most atheists?

The notion of the permanence of purely material universe does not bother most atheists. That is the assumption of most atheists.

[Anomaly]

If we presume that "Knowledge" exists and its "value"---harmful/beneficial--- is a relational perception---then there is a difference between the essence (Knowledge) and its value perception.

This is of course the real dividing point in any discussion of ethics between theist and atheist. By placing it outside essence man is free to control value as he wishes. I don’t see how good/evil being relational in perception necessitates a difference between value and essence. Conceived reductively, a relational principle also exists in essence as value. While true and false can’t occupy the same space (same principle for concreta and abstracta), in complex multiples elements T and F produce relata. A relation is just one of thousands of expressions of value. What do we say of the relation “Lew Alcindor is taller than Kevin Hart”? We say it’s true. Value is found in semantic, grammatical, propositional, logical, etc. settings because these are conceptual tools we use to perceive/evaluate the value of essence.

A system based on the exclusive privilege/worth of one particular group of people over others will create imbalance, on the other hand a system based on the equivalent worth of all people will lead to more balance....a system that encourages co-operation and reciprocity will create balance, a system that encourages privilege and inequality will create imbalance....

Yes, this is the ideal, and it seems to me to illustrate the superiority of what I call the Bible’s “spiritual mechanics”. You’re pointing out the evaluative distinction of exclusivity, probably most closely associated with pride. Evils like pride and hatred can be intuitively [causally] traced to falsity. Fragmental falsity in otherwise true complex informational structures like intellects create dispositions to think and act in ways adverse to the perfection a wholly true intellect would think and act. Exclusivity, undue privilege, propensity to unite with false propositions [Drugs are good because they make me feel good], etc. are parts of the system of imbalances you describe. They would naturally be found in informational systems that naturally develop and project these corruptions by operation of an appropriately falsified perception.

Your “…system that encourages co-operation and reciprocity…”, the value of which can’t be suitably argued against, represents the sort of life all reasonable people, theist and atheist alike, want to pursue. But I see no real impetus—no possibility of success—in a model that places value in the hands and minds of human beings charged with “convincing” value-impeded minds to change distorted attitudes. This “humanist-cultural” approach to a spiritual or prescriptive dilemma seems to me to lack any real mechanism for fixing the problem. Values determined by humans are mutable, without legitimate point of reference. “Don’t hurt others” as a standard is subject to whim. If “A”s perceived good causes harm to “B”, removing that perceived good causes harm to “A”. Does morality just end in a mathematically precise utilitarianism of achieving the greatest number of goods?

If the ethical betterment of society is to be pursued, a realistic blueprint for a fix has to be found. I don’t separate metaphysics from practicality because I feel the proper answer to the problem begins with and springs from a metaphysical foundation. If people obtain badness from stained internal and external values with respect to a fixed antecedent (as laws of science supervise the activities of matter), then culturally imposed values can’t be effective unless they just happen to align with the antecedent. In fact, the notion of a causally efficient "essence-as-value" predicts that even in secular systems, as we largely have now, cultural decisions will naturally approximate fixed or antecedent truth by strength of attraction between T in the essence of intellectual operation with T which endues reality—supervised by and anchored within absolute or fixed truth. Thus, patterns in moral perception, rarely fully unambiguous or lucid, will exhibit truth appropriate to the degree of its possession by perceiver(s).

Unlike the internalist (with respect to value) position which adheres to absolute truth somewhat inadvertently, the Christian (or theist, or externalist) position, while its adherents are in roughly the same boat as our internalist brethren as truth-bearers, stands out in matters of moral perception by means of stronger union and [in theory if not always in practice] corroboration with fixed truth toward which every intellect, if sufficiently truth-bearing, would naturally move if not impeded by the falsification of the soul.

The fix is converse the cause. Because the assorted values of individual minds in this model finds cumulative expression in societal values, an increase in falsification naturally brings about equivalent increase in false moral beliefs (false propositions held as true) within that society. Truth in social contexts predictably become more relative as union with fixed truth fades. Assuming the fundamental principles of the Christian paradigm stand in conformity to fixed truth as claimed, it follows that the gradual acceptance by societies of homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex, etc. reflects the falsification of constituent minds forming societies that embrace them. Falsity begets falsehoods, which spread in hierarchy from moral and ethical to normative values, as the increase in negative valence associated with the various forms of “political correctness” (recognized erroneously as positive in the soul with higher content of falsity) will correlate to an increase in falsification (not surprisingly referred to as “spiritual death” in Christianity), decline in truth-bearingness and its associated deterioration of compatibility with fixed truth.

The call to a return to the “old” values is more accurately an exhortation to the practice of constraint, to resist the appeal to falsification found in the abandonment of that union with antecedent truth which allows falsified morals and norms to wound our society. The fix is spiritual and beyond human achievement, but we can still participate in holding destruction at bay in volition.

Thankyou for an interesting discussion. Perhaps we will have a chance to converse again.

I look forward to it; you’re an honorable correspondent.

[Anomaly]

Roughly true, but need more clarification.

Anomaly dies, his body begins to decay. (For that matter, the body mutates throughout life, but the analogy is already started…) Decay is mutation. Anomaly’s matter mutates in with respect to the laws of science which are, for intents and purposes, immutable. The laws only allow matter to change state, not disappear or be destroyed. Change and immutability inhere the same reality simultaneously, thus a system of compatibility.

Change defers to and is supervised by the unchangeable.
This is a Theist assumption,

No. This is the reality we occupy. See last entry.

Another Theist assumption. This is only intuitive if you are a Theist.

Yes. The interesting question is, what are the motives for acceptance or rejection of intuitive evidence?

Needs to be clarified. An assumption that value discussion are the result of physical brain is not forcing anything. It is the only evidence available without Theist assumptions.

I don’t think the fact that most atheists are materialists and argue along those lines needs clarification. As to evidence, you’ve already made clear that you and the atheists arguing here do not accept theist presuppositions and this has been duly noted.

The atheists consider the physical existence immutability in value

Wrong wording maybe. The question intended was, what is loathsome about the notion of absolute [immutable] value?

[Tassman]

That makes no sense Tass, how can what the Hutu's did to the Tutsi be a moral atrocity if the Hutu government did not define it as "wrongful?"

Those outside Hutu society recognise the wrongfulness of the genocide just as when we view moral atrocities anywhere worldwide and throughout history.

Yes, I do believe that His law exists, especially as articulated by Christ and the New Testament in general. But my point is that the law of God is not dependent on our knowledge of it,

Just as well. Because when asked previously what the law of God is, you’ve never been able to answer...apart from vague references to the Golden Rule.

just as the laws of logic would be valid even if there were no rational beings to understand them.

We understand logic. It consists of the principles governing correct or reliable inference. We use it on a daily basis

I'm not sure what your point is. Sin can blind us from the reality of God and His law.

Well "sin" doesn't blind us to the laws of logic, so your analogy falls down because you can’t tell us what God’s Law is...apart from platitudinous generalities?

[seer]

Those outside Hutu society recognise the wrongfulness of the genocide just as when we view moral atrocities anywhere worldwide and throughout history.

Tass you are not making sense, if the definition of "wrongfulness" is relative as you suggested then you have no ground to condemn the Hutu.

Just as well. Because when asked previously what the law of God is, you’ve never been able to answer...apart from vague references to the Golden Rule.

No Tass, I listed a number of New Testament ethical principles in our discussions, not just the Golden Rule, though if we just follow that the world would be a much better place. But we don't.

We understand logic. It consists of the principles governing correct or reliable inference. We use it on a daily basis

You, we, don't understand the Golden Rule?

Well "sin" doesn't blind us to the laws of logic, so your analogy falls down because you can’t tell us what God’s Law is...apart from platitudinous generalities?

The laws of logic make no moral demands on a man, requires no humility, no ethical obedience, no self-abasement. The law of God does, and that is why sin effects our judgement on this matter.

[Tassman]

Tass you are not making sense, if the definition of "wrongfulness" is relative as you suggested then you have no ground to condemn the Hutu.

Genocide is no longer acceptable behaviour, whether by the Hutus or any one else. E.g. if Moses did today what the OT tells us he did to the Midianites, he would be hauled before the International Court for Crimes against Humanity like Saddam Hussein.

No Tass, I listed a number of New Testament ethical principles in our discussions,

“Ethical principles” do not equate to God's Moral Law. Every society has its "ethical principles".

not just the Golden Rule, though if we just follow that the world would be a much better place. But we don't.

Certainly! The Golden Rule embodies the principle of reciprocity, which is one of our basic instincts as an evolved social species. It long predates Christianity and is valued in all cultures.

You, we, don't understand the Golden Rule?

I was referring to the Moral Laws of God, which you claim (without evidence) exist eternally. The Golden Rule is an evolved instinct.

The laws of logic make no moral demands on a man, requires no humility, no ethical obedience, no self-abasement. The law of God does, and that is why sin effects our judgement on this matter.

But you still can’t tell us what the law of God is, apart from platitudinous generalities.

[seer]

Genocide is no longer acceptable behaviour, whether by the Hutus or any one else. E.g. if Moses did today what the OT tells us he did to the Midianites, he would be hauled before the International Court for Crimes against Humanity like Saddam Hussein.

But Tass, as we discussed, the majority of countries have not signed on to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Saddam was tried by the Iraqi Interim Government, not the International Court. The UN as a matter of fact did not support the trial or execution. And where did this International Court bring Hutus to trial? So I have no idea what you are talking about.

“Ethical principles” do not equate to God's Moral Law. Every society has its "ethical principles".

So? The point is where do those principles come from? I say God, you say by chance through the evolutionary process. We just happen to develop, ethically, one way, and not another.

Certainly! The Golden Rule embodies the principle of reciprocity, which is one of our basic instincts as an evolved social species. It long predates Christianity and is valued in all cultures.

Yes a God given moral intuition, which of course would predate Christianity since all men are created in the image of God.

But you still can’t tell us what the law of God is, apart from platitudinous generalities.

That is false, I have listed many a number of times. Things like adultery, murder, theft, homosexuality, fornication, greed, fraud, drunkenness, idolatry, kidnapping, lying, blasphemy, etc, etc, etc... So stop your nonsense Tass...

[Anomaly]

you can’t tell us what God’s Law is...apart from platitudinous generalities

The law of God is simple, it's one: truth. All religious texts at the end of the day defer to it in the form of a thousand different generalities, though the Bible is the most focused, accurate and reliable in both its literal and [especially] allegorical senses. We either move toward or away from truth--value has only two grades, true and false. Everything in thought toward God is truth, all 'awayness' is falsehood.

The theist-atheist controversy boils down to who God is because God is Truth: the theist places God without, the atheist places god within. Not sure why you haven't noticed, all discussion on both sides of the fence consist in "platitudinous generalities" of one sort or the other.

[Charles]

Charles we have been through this! If you claimed that something is good you too will end up in a circle, there is no way around it. I'm simply saying that a universal moral Mind can be the source of universal moral truths. It doesn't matter if your opinion agrees with His law or not, or even if you know His law or not. That is not the argument, the argument is that logically a universal moral Mind could be the source for universal ethics.

So, if that universal moral mind finds killing to be the right thing to do then I should go and kill and not reflect? If not then why do you say: "It doesn't matter if your opinion agrees with His law or not, or even if you know His law or not." It reminds me of what we hear from religious terrorist.

[seer]

So, if that universal moral mind finds killing to be the right thing to do then I should go and kill and not reflect? If not then why do you say: "It doesn't matter if your opinion agrees with His law or not, or even if you know His law or not." It reminds me of what we hear from religious terrorist.

Sheesh Charles, you keep moving the goal posts! Do you agree that a universal, omnipresent mind could be the source for universal moral truths? If not why not?

[Charles]

Sheesh Charles, you keep moving the goal posts! Do you agree that a universal, omnipresent mind could be the source for universal moral truths? If not why not?

Please answer the question, seer.

[seer]

Please answer the question, seer.

You are being dishonest, and you have moved the goal posts time and time again.

You asked: I would like to see you show how God could logically be a source for universal values. Where is the logic in that?

And I said, why couldn't a universal mind be the source of universal values. What is illogical about that? What rule of logic does that violate?

[Charles]

You are being dishonest, and you have moved the goal posts time and time again.

You asked: I would like to see you show how God could logically be a source for universal values. Where is the logic in that?

And I said, why couldn't a universal mind be the source of universal values. What is illogical about that? What rule of logic does that violate?

Because the fact that a specific opinion or some specific values are held by some mind does nothing to prove that those ideas are moral or of any value.

And back to the question, seer:

So, if that universal moral mind finds killing to be the right thing to do then I should go and kill and not reflect? If not then why do you say: "It doesn't matter if your opinion agrees with His law or not, or even if you know His law or not." It reminds me of what we hear from religious terrorist.

I know this is a difficult question for you to answer, seer.