First cousin to the question of determinism is the question of free will, followed by ethics. We have already established that nondeterminism exists. This means that the ability to exercise discernment in the making of decisions, exists. And of course that is also the definition of free will.
But does it follow that ethics, presumably a man-made concept, actually exists? What is it?
"The field of ethics, also called moral philosophy, involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/ethics.htm
Now "recommending" concepts of right and wrong behavior presumes that there exists no absolute moral law. This demands an Atheistic mindset. So from the outset there will be non-objectivity to deal with. This very issue renders the pursuit of ethics useless but not harmless. "Ethics" will always and forever be defined by moral skeptics and religious rejectionists; it cannot therefore ever be considered unbiased or objective or taken outside of a worldview with both social and political overtones.
Because of these obvious necessary biases, ethics is a flawed concept. It cannot be considered anything less than socio-political commentary from religious apostates with agendas toward utopianism. A sure test of this is the concept of "good". Objectively "good" is not a benchmark of behavior; "good" is a measurement of fit, as in a "good fit" for a particular function. This is not moral essence. However, a typical ethical "good" is the "good for mankind" concept, which usually boils down to "happiness".
Now happiness is not a guaranteed outcome of any human pursuit, yet it is ethically demanded as a "moral" essential. In fact happiness, if it is ever achieved is transitory and quickly evaporates. Why? Because dissatisfaction inevitably replaces happiness. It is part of the human condition. Why should happiness be a moral value?
There is a clue in the history of humanism. A stated goal of humanism is to achieve happiness for the human race, for the masses; this requires that the individual relinquish his moral right to happiness in order to serve the happiness of the masses. This is utopia, and humanists are utopians. Moreover their vision of utopia is indiscernable from totalitarianism, as practiced by the infamous humanists from the 1789 French Revolution to the 20th century furnaces and gulags, both fascist/socialist and communist/socialist. Under these utopias, the stated goal of mass happiness degraded into mass servility to the state, aka totalitarianism, ultimately unencumbered by either ethics or morals. And so it goes with human derived ethics: it is designed by elitists to utopianize totalitarianism. It can be no other way, because there are no absolutes to run up against, no external checks and balances. Ethics is just the tool to get it past the starting blocks.
Ethics proves to be the competitor for the governing of bodies as well as behavior. And it is amoral, by definition. It is immoral in practice.
15 comments:
[Beelz says]
Quoting you:
"This is utopia, and humanists are utopians. Moreover their vision of utopia is indiscernable from totalitarianism, as practiced by the infamous humanists from the 1789 French Revolution to the 20th century furnaces and gulags, both fascist/socialist and communist/socialist."
This seems to be the in-vogue way conservatives in America conceive humanism and any effort to derive "utopia." It's the pessimism that we'll ultimately "get it wrong" if any attempt is made, or alternatively, that there will always be those that thwart the will of the people in constructing a Good humanist society. But there isn't anything in the concept of humanism, and certainly not in utopia that necessitates this. Also, one should not consider attempts like Nazi Germany a try for humanist utopia, or even an instance of not grounding morality in absolute law. Hitler, in his own crazy way, thought he was serving a moral justice that came to him from on-high. If anything he should be considered a cautionary tale for believing anything other than our own innate ability to discern right from wrong.
Beelz, You need to educate your self on the origin and practice of humanism. Auguste Comte was the philosophical successor to the French revolutionists until Nietzsche came along. Lenin, Stalin, Mao all read and "admired" the French humanists, and each also read and admired Nietzsche. (Possibly not Stalin, who was a known disciple of machiavelli, and acquired an already functional dictatorship). Each of these came up with almost identical versions of the "New Man" philosophy, as did Che Guevara and Pol Pot.
Utopianism is always a top down definition, and the utopian's behavior is not compelled by any other external force than personal vindication and control.
Denying that is denying a huge part of history, which is a major objective of Atheist logical inversion. The most recent versions of the Humanisto Manfesto, II & III, have concealed the objective in PC language, which became necessary after the unquestionable murderous cruelties of both the USSR and Nazi Germany were revealed. It is still there, under the blanket of verbiage.
The fact that humanism keeps changing its manifesto should be a clue that they in no way believe in any fixed code of conduct.
Realism is a better way to describe a viewpoint based on factual historical instances of humanist murders that now are estimated to be over 280 million humans. Humans that don't conform to humanism are eliminated. Those are the facts.
Oops I forgot the obligatory reference to Hitler. The Nazi regime, including Hitler is a good example of defining one's own set of ethics, no matter what the source. There were no external absolute values for moral behavior in any of the supposed Teutonic myths that they picked from. They picked whatever would work best under their preconceptions. And the individual came last in their priorities.
i'm all for an atheistic mindset, and for the concept of nonexistence of moral absolutes.
however, this article presumes that there can be no deity that lacks absolute moral standards.
one cannot logically conclude that no religion can be hypothetically established who's members are not advised to adhere to a set of codes of conduct. therefore, this argument is unfortunately invalid.
as to the other comments left here in rebuttal, what a bunch of hogwash. correlation does not imply causation.
and i'm not even sure it's correlated to nazism to tell the truth. they ruthlessly enforced their own set of ideals, which mandates that they have some sort of absolute moral code in place.
if there is any legal enforcement of anything whatsoever by a government, there is a necessity for it to be at least held to them that it be absolute in order to be applied to everyone.
unless of course their constitution or equivalent thereof states otherwise. then they're just collectively ignorant.
i'm too uneducated in my world history to know whether this is the case with them, which is why i said i wasnt sure it was correlated.
Kameron Donaldson said,
"one cannot logically conclude that no religion can be hypothetically established who's members are not advised to adhere to a set of codes of conduct. therefore, this argument is unfortunately invalid. "
Even though that is not in any way a premise necessary to the argument, I'll address it: The religion to which you refer, exists; it is Atheism.
"and i'm not even sure it's correlated to nazism to tell the truth. they ruthlessly enforced their own set of ideals, which mandates that they have some sort of absolute moral code in place."
It was not a set of universal absolutes; it was local prejudice.
"if there is any legal enforcement of anything whatsoever by a government, there is a necessity for it to be at least held to them that it be absolute in order to be applied to everyone."
This is not the case; judges have the ability to assert leniency due to circumstances. However that is the judiciary; the executive branch is supposedly admonished to administer to the letter of the law, as a de facto absolute duty.
no it does not refer to atheism, for atheism necessitates that no deity be in place whatsoever.
if there is a god, it automatically becomes monotheism or polytheism.
if a deity or deities exist(s) however, they needn't hold their religion to any standard to do so as your article presumes.
also, i was refering mostly to spirit of the law, as well as the police. not the letter where concerned by the higher branches of government.
de facto and de jure rarely overlap one another.
In no manner is your hypothetical deity any refutation of the article. If you choose to attempt a refutation, then you must take specific premises and show that they cannot be ever be the case. Further you must show that the form of the argument is incorrect, or that the argument is not grounded.
You have done none of that. You have merely invented a "story" which you claim is outside of the stream of thought, and then you claim that such a story refutes the argument.
It does not.
You said,
"if there is any legal enforcement of anything whatsoever by a government, there is a necessity for it to be at least held to them that it be absolute in order to be applied to everyone. "
And I showed that there is no such "necessity"; judges exercise conscious grace due to circumstance all the time. So your complaint is without merit.
"also, i was refering mostly to spirit of the law, as well as the police. not the letter where concerned by the higher branches of government."
No you weren't; you said "legal enforcement of anything whatsoever by a government".
You were wrong and now you change it to pretend that you mean something else. That is dishonest.
We are through here.
you are such a hypocrite.. do you not know how asperger's syndrome works? we aspies use poor word choice when making our points.
i in no way changed the meaning behind what i said, you merely interpreted it that way if you yourself arent intentionally strawmanning me.
you however, have provided no evidence to the contrary of my statement of this "hypothetical deity". the article clearly states "Now "recommending" concepts of right and wrong behavior presumes that there exists no absolute moral law. This demands an Atheistic mindset."
"demands an atheistic mindset" being the key phrase here. the article therefore has operated under the assumption that a deity cannot be established who does not mandate an absolute moral law. since such an assumption is fallacious, we can conclude this article is invalid.
unless of course i too misinterpreted something you'd like to point out? we aspies are known for misinterpretations as well.
So now it's "Appeal To Aspberger's?"
You are playing the troll game. So let's analyze this fully. There is no proposal by any culture at any time, certainly not that you have provided, that supports the contention that their "deity" wants them to have no rules for behavior. Further, the concept of theism as opposed to deism is that theism presupposes an interactive deity which interacts with, cares about, and provides rules for behaviors. If you are proposing Deism, which is the lack of caring or interaction with humans, then the opposite of that would be a-deism, not a-theism. By its very terminology Atheism is the non-belief in an interacting, caring and rule-making deity.
Your concept of deity, then, is a false abstraction which is not represented in real life. Yet you insist that the argument is invalidated by your abstraction.
You cannot win at this, because your position is logically trivial.
i am far from trolling you on, i legitimately possess this diagnosis. you are taking advantage of my mental handicap by continuing to strawman me even after i pointed out you were doing it.
as for my real point, hypothetical means just that, hypothetical. it doesn't need to be rooted in currently existing religions to be theoretically possible for a deity to come about who has no rules for his people.
the saying "any god not requiring anything of his people is no god at all" or however it went, is an invention of christianity. not theology. you're essentially metaphorically invoking that same ideology used by the christians, and therefore cannot be taken seriously when saying you are an advocate of atheism.
before you point out the apparent self-contradiction here between the previous two paragraphs, i'm fully aware of it, i just don't know how to word-choice it properly. my vocabulary is good, but not that good.
to clarify what i mean as best i can here pre-emptively, i shall state that i dont mean christianity invented the concept, merely the statement. insufficient clarification, i know, but it's the best i can do at the moment.
i was unaware of the existence of the terms "deism" and "a-deism", therefore i always interpreted "atheism" to mean the lack of belief in any figure possessing omnipotence whatsoever, regardless of reason, nature, caring, rule-making, or interacting standards.
they needn't even be a god by my line of reasoning, rather they only need be all-powerful, as well as possess those who believe they exist.
my definition may have been erroneous, but it doesnt mean my presumption is inherently by extension the same.
still, since you pointed out the true definition to me, i cant exactly call it irrefutable proof this article is 100% wrong however..
i thank you for pointing out my error. it helps me to hone my debate skills.
then again, that's probably common knowledge amongst those intellectuals who aren't mentally ill like unto myself, so i don't rightly know why i brought it up except perhaps to at least try not to sound like an ingrate.
however. this does not mean i'm through. it is not a false abstraction, except where currently existing religions are erroneously concerned. it is very possible for one to come about in reality which possesses these qualities.
" it is very possible for one to come about in reality which possesses these qualities."
That is merely an unsubstantiated assertion, made in total absence of any justification whatsoever. Until you provide some proof, either deductive or empirical, for that claim, I choose to ignore it, because it is irrelevant to the article and to "reality" which you claim for it.
well, you're free to do that. but it isnt irrelevant.
nor am i obligated to provide this evidence you seek, because it's common sense that the people who are part of the religions that currently exist would not be the ones responsible for establishing this new hypothetical one, for they would be content in their current atmosphere.
and only the people who are part of the currently established religions, or their sympathizers, would ever venture to go by the logic you've gone by.
seriously, how is it you figure that one cannot establish such a deity?
i know it sounds sort of like i'm begging the question here but... help me out here..
i'll do my best and keep clarifying it myself though.. establish such a deity meaning establishing it. not necessarily being accepted by other religious communities, which tend to be irrational when it comes to trying to refute other religion's values anyways, but to establish it.
one who believes a god should exist neednt be a part of any pre-existing notions of a god.
Comment all you want here, it's OK by me. But I'm done wasting my time on nonsense. I won't respond to any more of this.
very well.. do and think as you wish. "nonsense" however, was entirely irrelevant.
not that it's my place to do anything further but get my voice heard.. now it's up to the world whether to listen or to ignore.
as usual, i'd wager the latter is the case but.. oh well.
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