by cantleave 122 Replies latest watchtower bible
I take it you mean human happiness? Does the well being of animals figure in your ethical scheme?
Happiness is a subjective concept, and not necessarily associated with ethical outcomes.
Whose measure of happiness are you using?
As John Milton said:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven...”
I think you decided to go down the flat earth route when your ethical argument was floundering.
No I raised the example of your nit-picking style to illustrate how your epistomological skepticism makes conversation impossible.
I already clarified that hapiness isn't the measure. Well being is a more useful term that Harris uses. The well being of conscious creatures.
I asked whether you would assent to the proposition that a world with hapiness was better than one of maximum misery to see if you would be open to useful discussion - you weren't.
If you read what I wrote you wouldn't need me to repeat it multiple times.
Do you think well being is less subjective than happiness? Who defines what well being is?
It is not necessary to define well-being in positive terms any more than it is necessary to define health.
For the third or fourth time - Imagine a world where every conscious creature experiences maximum misery all the time.
This represents the lowest point in the "moral landscape".
Any move up from this point is an increase in well being.
I have no idea what the highest peak would look like. I also have no idea what the epitome of health would look like but that doesn't stop us making objective statements of fact about what promotes health and what damages it. Vomiting until you die a painful death is not good health. If anybody doesn't agree with this they are wrong. Objectively wrong. Wrong as a matter of fact.
Ethical decisions will lead us to higher or lower points in the moral landscape.
When the Taliban oppress 50% of the population and blind little girls for wanting an education they are moving to a lower point in the landscape. This is not an opinion it is a fact.
Infant mortality, age expectancy, poverty and a thousand other metrics of well being that we could use proves they are wrong. They value the wrong things.
Imagine a world where every conscious creature experiences maximum misery all the time. This represents the lowest point in the "moral landscape". Any move up from this point is an increase in well being.
That reminds me of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs?
The illustration of health is a useful one.
Moral skeptics often object - as SBF did above - that some people choose not to value the same things that we may consider important and therefore it must all be subjective.
When it comes to health we have no problem dismissing quacks and nutters. It is not a matter of subjective opinion that homeopaths and christian scientists are wrong about health. It is a provable objective fact.
Similarly if somebody thinks it is a moral good to discriminate against gay people or mutilate the genitalia of children we should not be reluctant to condemn such mistaken judgments as objectively wrong.
There are facts about morality. Some things increase the well being of our world - move us higher on the moral landscape - and some things do the opposite.
We may not have the tools to be able to make those judgments reliably but that doesn't mean there aren't facts to be discovered.
Edited to add - Cantleave, that is useful in helping to illustrate the sort of things that promote our well being.
Not that I would hazard to say much here, but when I've had discussion of moral good or evil that has bogged down in finding a common starting point/idea, I start with this proposition: can we not agree that avoidance of pain is a thing that all creatures understand.
It is so universal that we hardly disagree about to how cause it for another creature. Buying a gift that is certain to please for a familiar someone is a far more difficult proposition. But pain--I don't have to have any details about you to figure out how to hurt you. I can hurt a total stranger--easily.
Small wonder that the Golden Rule is appreciated as principal of good conduct far beyond Christianity.
I may be off topic--this discussion is far over my head. Just my two penny's worth.
Maeve
p.s. thank you FH for clearing up that thing on theists.
p.s. thank you FH for clearing up that thing on theists.
You're welcome.
Cant, I only kind of grazed the comments on that graduation speech thread.
This is an ancient debate that's been going in philosophy for millennia. Google Euthyphro dilemma
Yes Yadda I explained the Euthyphro Dilemma to Serpaphim a few pages back and challenged him to comment on it but he never did.
