Philosophies: Liberalism vs. Conservatism

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You’re special pleading again. If you wish to emphatically claim that one is better than the other, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t attack secular morality with skepticism without leaving yourself open to the exact same attack. I can equally claim that morals given by a deity are arbitrary and meaningless. How do you KNOW your deity’s morals are correct? Because the deity says so? Because the deity created the universe? Well then the deity must have created both good and evil. How do you know the deity prefers good over evil? Why not have a deity that prefers evil?


It isn’t any more ex nihilo than anything else. It comes from human thought. If you argue that morality must be independent of human thought than I can argue that it must be independent of a deity.


It’s more neutral because it’s a more common subset. It has rules that most people can agree on. A lot of it is a subset of Judeo-Christian values. It’s also a subset of values from other religions.



Well that’s very convenient.

You’re going to say this is all irrelevant, but f*** it. I have to look at things in a practical light when people’s beliefs put the human race in danger of self annihilation.

The problem is many humans THINK God wants them to do things like kill the nonbelievers. At this point it doesn’t matter what the deity actually wants. To them it’s a moral duty to kill the unbelievers. If masses of people believe a deity wants them to commit genocide they will do it without question. Who are they to question their god’s morality?



Then I’ll use the term “ethics” rather than morality.



But you do argue on the side of objectivism. But what do you base the objectivism on? I don’t get how invoking a deity automatically makes something objective. I can just keep asking “why” and “how” until you eventually can’t provide a reason. Then I can dismiss your objectivism as no better than nihilism. That’s exactly what you do to any argument for non-theistic morality.

I think of 'oughtness' in terms of consequences. If shooting a machine gun into a crowd causes pain, suffering and death, it is morally wrong. If we were in a dimension where that same action brought about health, happiness, and long life, it would be morally good.

I think that hou we evaluate oughtness is partly innate, and partly develops (or is ret*d by various belief structures). Infants aren't terribly empathetic outside the relationship with the mother, but they aren't naturally mean. They can learn consideration and compassion for others, or they can learn nonsense like blacks and Jews and Mexicans are inferior and don't need to be treated like people.

What does Liberalism and Conservatism mean?

Because the deity designed things. Yes, he said so, and the deity has special powers that we as mortals do not know. If evil is preferred then why isn't evil considered good? Can a deity really be evil?


No, because I argue that morality must be built into the universe and into a metaphysical part of the universe. There must be a spiritual world in order to have morality in this case.


Common subset? I don't see that as distinctive because how can we separate some elements of moral truth from others without being immoral?

Yes it is.
What is practical?
Yep, who are they?


Yes, I do. Objectivism is based upon definitions. A deity or other spiritual being is necessary for fulfillment of the definition. Nope, because we fall back to premises and morality just IS defined the way it is. Which means that we will be forced to agree to disagree at that point. Then we are stuck. I do that with any argument for non-theistic morality, but seriously, if I argue that morality is something metaphysical built into the nature of the universe then there must be a metaphysical device to insert it. In any case, based upon my definitions morality MUST be objective, and this objectivity demands something beyond pure reductionism. Ultimately, my reason for objective morality being caused by a deity is because only something defined as greater than that which can be understood can create morality, otherwise morality cannot be created. This holds against nihilism because my method of skepticism can only work against the knowable and not the fundamentally unknowable.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 30 Nov 2007, 5:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The political left and the political right respectively.

Someone wrote about AG's arguments:
"A lot of your arguments style reminds me of a game that kids like me used to play with adults in order to annoy them. Anything someone says you can always question it and ask “why”, and you can continue doing this until the person either has no answer, runs in a circle, or contradicts themselves. Skepticism is fine, but it isn’t a fair argument when it is applied to everything except your own personal beliefs. That’s special pleading."

Thank you, I've been trying to figure out how to say that for a long time here. I am perhaps one of the most philosophically analytical, questioning, non-conforming people here, but I don't take it to such an illogical and counter-productive level that AG does. AG has serious mental issues, and how could anyone trust a guy who boasts about how selfishness and greed are such glorious traits?
I mean he talks about "logic", but when he argues in circles and sets the bar to where NOTHING can ever count as evidence, how logical can he really be? If everyone played the "why" game to every discovery and finding under the blue earth, how could we ever gain knowledge to progress? I mean part of solving a problem is recognizing the problem.
If anything, greed and selfishness are the reason why our world is so f****d up. Rather than using this as a "human nature" crutch and trying to legitmize hurting others for blatantly selfish purposes, maybe people should make a conscious effort to do the RIGHT thing. This isn't biologically impossible, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Unless you've got to take an immoral stance or what could be viewed as an immoral stance for survival, that's different.
Sad thing is, many people aren't intellectually capable of having morals out-side of a pre-defined frame work such as PC or religion, and it's sad, it really is. If people only knew how dumb television and propaganda makes them they'd turn off the TV, take their kids out of school, and stop going to church/mosque/synagogue/coven/whatever. Even if they believe in religion, or god, lemme tell you that the church is the word of MAN, not a god. Even if I were Christian or something I'd still stand by that statement. It's an institution of man.

I mean like, I can watch the tv and not be effected by it, propaganda just bounces off of me because I've awakened to it for so many years now. But some can't watch the TV without being brainwashed, and those people really shouldn't watch TV.

No, no... Not in the meaning of my original post.

Conservativism means "responsibility", and liberalism means "irresponsibility" (aka "Someone else clean up my mess!").

Really?

Why I didn't thought about that before...... silly me.

Wow! Makes me wanna live on an island and having a select few Aspies invited; I know who's not welcome!

lol, I was being sarcastic, he wasn't I suppose.

So good is whatever the deity decides? But how do you know the deity isn’t lying in his revelations to man? The deity has the ability to define lying as good when he does it. Obviously the moral rules that apply to man don’t apply to a deity, so there is no reason he couldn’t be permitted to lie. If you say the deity wouldn’t lie you’re imposing a subjective morality on him.


I was talking hypothetically. If the goal is to live in a common society and not kill each other off it makes sense to choose a common subset of values from different cultures. That’s all I’m saying. I see this is going nowhere if you only want to argue metaphysics so lets just forget it.


And that’s why I don’t trust it.


In this case “practical” is preventing the human race from killing itself off in the name of religion. That I don’t want the human race to kill itself off is part of my own subjective values that I am not going to try and defend logically.

If Christians followed their religion to the logical conclusion it would be a moral imperative to convert everyone in the world to Christianity, including the bloody Muslims and everyone else. The use of force could certainly be justified if the end result is saving souls from eternal torture in hell.


Exactly. There’s nothing more to argue here.



The second sentence is a positive claim that you can’t prove. Why is a deity necessary? Why couldn’t an objective morality exist without a deity? Please answer this.


Why? You give no reasons why such a “metaphysical device” is necessary.


This statement makes no sense. Why must there be a being? Please define “being”.

Yep. You don't. The reason is that it could be against his nature. It can be argued that morality is a part of the deity.


Yes, it could.

Morality makes no sense, therefore it takes something with the ability to do the inconceivable to exist.

There is no logical way to derive an ought from an is.


Being? A being is exactly what it is. A thing that exists. Why must it exist? Because the challenge is perhaps logically impossible except for a being defined as capable of doing the logically impossible.

Depending on which context you put it, in a philosophical way it may be it may not, depending on your philosophical branch, in a case when a course of action is imperative...........

But lying doesn’t have to be against his nature. The moral standards that apply to man don't necessarily need to apply to the deity. Lying could be good in the case of the deity even if it's bad for a human to lie. He could lie for any reason and it would always be moral. The only way to accept a moral code revealed to man is to trust that it isn’t a lie. Saying that the deity wouldn’t lie is imposing your subjective morality on him.

The point is that objective morality is unknowable even if you assume on faith the existence of a deity. You also have to assume on faith that you’re not being mislead about what that constitutes true objective morality.


That isn’t a logical statement though. It seems like a variation on the “prime mover” argument. It’s not a logical argument but an appeal to our intuitive feelings of causality. The fact that thinking outside the framework of causal structures is difficult for humans doesn’t imply that everything must have a cause. I still don’t see how stating the existance of objective morality without a deity is logically inconsistent.


But when you use words like “doing” you are assuming a causal structure exists. I don’t even understand how it makes sense to say that a deity does anything if the deity exists outside of causal structures. Ugh. It seems like in the end all arguments boil down to nothing of substance when we try too hard to analyze things. This stuff makes my brain hurt. I really need a break.

Nope, it has nothing to do with subjective morality as I think that the term is inherently an internal contradiction. It has more to do with beliefs, faith, and all of that stuff. I never said that a deity cannot possibly lie though.

I never denied that issue at all either.


No, I disagree. I say that morality logically shouldn't exist, therefore if it does exist then it requires something beyond logic. The universe does logically exist though, so it is different.


Well, yeah, I am explaining the origin of something. All arguments do boil down to nothing of substance if you argue philosophy.