You said - incorrectly - that “capital-G ‘God’ cannot be proven to exist similar to how universals cannot be proven to exist”.
And I showed that you are wrong - with a consistent chain of reproducible, reasoned logic. If you insist that only your own personal definition of God can be used - and that my definition, which is currently shared by millions of adherents, cannot be - then you are not interested in anything I’d call meaningful or useful communication. Language is a method for moving ideas from one mind to another, but if your mind is completely closed to new ideas, and you won’t agree to using a common language, then there’s no point in conversation.
In reality, the universe appears to be rife with invariants - “universals”, some would say. They are a subject of study by both physicists and theologians. Some philosophers have tried to reconcile these universal values with human morality, with highly arguable results.
Ha ha, no you didn’t. You showed me a chain of “logic” that you declared as being reproducible and reasoned, but which I do not agree is either.
Right. If I don’t agree with you and see how flawless your self-declared flawless arguments are, then my mind is closed to new ideas, but not vice versa. Sure. I agree that there’s no point in conversation if only one person gets to dictate what is logical and true, sans supportable justification.
Much like with Walter here trying to say “Look, trends exist, and therefore there is universal morality”, to which I say “that’s a huge leap of logic, why do trends = universal morality”, to which Walter has yet to actually explain or rationalize - in his mind this connection simply “is”. Likewise, here you say “God can be any definition anyone wants it/him/her to be, and therefore God can be proven to exist”. But this is also a huge leap in logic - People can use any definition for God, sure, but none of these definitions can be proven to in fact be God. They can’t be proven not to be, either, both are unprovable. Pantheism presupposes that God MUST exist, and therefore it winnows down what that definition can or will be, and settles on reality. That can be used for God, but that’s a subjective use.
In short, you can maybe prove that reality exists, and decide “god” is this reality, but you cannot prove that “god” has to exist at all, that anything ever has to be considered “god”.
That said, you also only maybe can prove reality exists. “I think therefore I am” presupposes the existence of “I” in order to prove the existence of “I” - “I” must already exist in order to be confirmed as an extant entity that thinks - classic circular logic. When someone claims “I think”, they can’t actually prove that they exist TO think, so what they’re calling “them thinking” is only arbitrarily defined as them thinking. Read Kirkegaard or Hume is you must have classical philosophical reference points for this.
Highly arguable, yes, we agree there. Though I’d like to point out that my argument is not against invariants or what Walter calls “trends”, it’s that these trends/invariants are completely tied to reality, aka the specifics of time and place (or you could say that in reverse order - time and place unfold as dictated by reality). Morality does not exist outside of this, and as such, is not an objective constant for all people at all times in all places.
Of course it does. That’s my entire argument - that perspective aka subjectivity informs morality.
You mean people who believe that all killing is right? Those also exist, possibly in greater number than absolute pacifists - they’re called anarchists and/or those who believe in “Survival of the Fittest”. In both cases, nothing is forbidden in regards to killing, it’s up to you to stay alive and/or keep those who could kill you from wanting to kill you.
“Murder” is not the same as “killing”. “Murder”, like “exploit” is a term that specifically is used to denote “bad” versions of otherwise non-bad things. “Murder” is any kind of killing that is forbidden/immoral, but what each person puts under the banner of “murder” differs from person to person. Of course there’s a consensus that “murder” is wrong - murder is specifically the word we use to denote whatever people want to call the wrong kind of killing. But there is no consensus across different groups as to which killing is in fact murder.
Pass laws? Why are we talking about passing laws? (Note: Monarchs can pass laws single handedly. There is no set way to pass laws any more than there is set morality. But why did you even jump to law passing?) Also, it’s YOUR logic, and I agree, it’s not good logic. That’s why I pointing out how it isn’t any good.
Because majority opinions from the past do not match majority opinions of the present, and majority opinions are basically what “trends” are, so it’s an easy example of trends that only exist at specific times and place. How exactly this is me “restricting myself to a specific time period” when I’m plainly the only one pointing out that trends are not the same at different time periods, I don’t know.
No, not in the way you are using the word “define” (so this is a perfect case in point then). We’re arguing whether anyone uses the consistently defined words for the same things or not. If they don’t (and they don’t) then agreeing on the definition of the word is meaningless from a utilitarian/application standpoint.
Communication is not the same as agreement. Also, communication is arduous and hard, especially when crossing cultures and mores. This is why diplomacy is so very very hard. If “communication” of generalities was all it took, it would be easy. But instead it requires communication of specific applications. All communication truly requires this, it’s why we often get into conflict when we generalize and just assume everyone is on the same page.
It means without inconsistencies. If there are inconsistencies, then it isn’t consistent.
No, I do not disregard them - I disAGREE with them. Jesus dude, reading comp is your friend. As I keep saying: your argument only works IF there are absolutes. We agree that there are none. But you argue this doesn’t matter. I argue it does.
Most people in America believe Hiroshima was “right”, if tragic. Most people in Japan think otherwise, go figure. These are not “mixed” but general consensuses. There is still a large swath of the world population that disbelieves the Holocaust or thinks it’s right - so much so laws had to be passed outlawing such speech and advocacy. If it was such an insignificant part of humanity, those laws wouldn’t be needed. Once again, you’re simply calling majority beliefs proof of generally shared morality.
My claim is not that there are no trends, you even quote me explicitly saying this further below. My claim is that the existence of “Trends” in no way magically supports your view, just because you say they do. I have not even attempted to disprove your example as BEING a trend - I pointed out there were trends that do not match with your position of general morality. Therefore the existence of trends that do align is not proof that morality is universal simply because trends exist that you approve of.
Yes, this is correct, utility is dependent on time and space, however I’m not claiming anything about arbitrariness. It’s your own odd obsession that I’m arguing about patterns not existing. I’ve stated multiple times now that this is not my argument. Continue harping on it all you like, though.
Sigh. I’M arguing that absolutes don’t exist. I’m ALSO arguing that IF they don’t exist, your argument doesn’t work. You keep trying to argue that “coming close enough” is good enough and is still proof of your view about morality. But it isn’t. That’s my entire counter in a nutshell, minus all the details and actual in-depth rebuttals.
No, I’m not arguing that, I don’t know why you think I am. At this point, I’ve been emphatic about what my argument actually is.
But, I’m not denying that. At all.
Funny, I’ve long suspected the same about you. Certainly your reading comprehension skills are borderline non-existent.
You said (or I took you to mean) “morality is MORE complex than this other guy was making it out to be” and then tried to make morality out to be what I would consider to be inordinately simple. “Contradictory” isn’t the right word for that, but ironic or “funny”, yes.
And let me try this to get away from getting buried in minutiae, here’s my argument re-stated as clearly as possible:
We (I think) agree that:
There are no universals aka absolutes.
Morality is utilitarian in nature
Trends exist
My own personal stances are:
The argument that morality is objective requires universals within morality.
There are no universals.
Trends cannot be used as “close enough” versions of universals. If universals don’t exist, then you can’t successfully argue for stances that require them, only placing “trends” in their place as the only thing that reality allows which comes the closest to the concept of the universal. This would be like saying that if the laws of physics required matter to travel the speed of light, then finding out that it could only approach the speed of light, then saying “yeah, well, the laws of physics that require matter to go the speed of light are still good, just obviously they’ll have to work with matter going only close to the speed of light.” I mean, maybe, but you’d have to prove it, you can’t just say it. This seems to be the crux of your stance (trends = proof of objective morality), but it’s something I honestly do not see any logic in.
Utility is dependent on time and place (how could it not be?), therefore if morality is utilitarian then it also is dependent on the same.
If something is dependent on time and place, then it’s subjective.
