I am glad I gave you pause; generally, that is the best you can achieve in debates anyway, save, perhaps, tipping over undecided bystanders; as so, I'll consider anything else that follows in this conversation a bonus.
Anyway, lemme address some of your concerns in the rest of the post.
I have to admit, you've taken me out of my depth with this post. I can't pretend to have good answers right now for some of your points, and you've inspired me to do seek a deeper understanding of different ethical systems.
What are some ethicists/philosophers you (and everyone else in this thread, too) would recommend reading?
I have a few responses and questions regarding several points below.
For now, I would like to borrow again from Sam Harris, that eloquently confronted that in the context of morality. He asked his listener to imagine a state of ultimate suffering, that he called the "maximum amount misery to the maximum amount of subjects for the maximum amount of time". Now, if we are having any discussion about what are our goals, both as individuals and as a species, I think it should be quite uncontroversial that such state is to be avoided, that we should not strive for the maximum suffering for the most people for the longest of times, but we must strive to get as far away from that as possible.
The problem I see with this is that the vast majority of humanity is far more concerned with their individual misery and the misery of those they love than about the misery of the human race as a whole. Misery for "other people" is abstracted, while misery for "me" or "those I love" is real.
If you are moving away from that, stands to reason that we should strive for the polar opposite; the maximum amount of happiness for the maximum amount of subjects for the maximum amount of time. These premises seen, again, to be quite uncontroversial, so I'll presume you won't challenge them here.[/i].
This sounds an awful lot like a sort of communal hedonism, although I'm unclear if you draw a distinction between pleasure and happiness. I'm tempted to argue that this would fall afoul of the paradox of hedonism, but need some clarification before I do so as I do not want to argue past you.
The same is true about morality; there are some obvious answers to morality, like, no murder,. no theft, no slavery; and there are much less obvious stances that admit variations, from also important/structural (should guns be forbidden or allowed?) to casuistic (should you go through a red light if you are fearing being attacked by bandits in a deserted street?), to cosmetic (how much skin can people on a given society show before being in violation of decorum?).
Alright, so what happens when the desires/happiness of a "moral majority" (I regret using the term given its history, but I'm using it in a purely numerical sense) clash with the desires/happiness of a "moral minority"?
Would you say that the majority happiness should always be sought, even at the expense of the minority, as given the contradictory views the "moral majority" would be happiness for the maximum amount of subjects for the situation?
I had to separate this bit for a technicality. Every time Nazis are mentioned, I call Godwin, for instant debate-winning bonus. So I guess I already won, but I'll continue arguing so the conversation won't go stale.
I'm fully aware of Godwin's law
Nevertheless, the Nazis are an excellent case study given that
(a) everyone is fairly familiar with them
(b) their actions are near universally condemned, and thus provide many points of philosophical common ground
(c) Nazism is relatively internally coherent
But, truth be told, we don't even need the empirical base here; the mere fact that the argument is internally inconsistent, because it protects humans by either destroying other humans, or dehumanizing them, is grounds for rejection of this as an "example of valid ethics" on logic alone.
No, this is actually an incredibly important question for any ethics system. How do you protect an individual's or society's well-being or happiness when a different individual or group is bent on destroying it?
This brings us back to the Nazis
Sure, they may not have subscribed to humanitarian ethics, but what is the ethical response to them?
I don't see a coherent answer from your system.
And in doing so the theist would defeat the purpose, and any supposed advantage, of divine law. See, if god is perfect, no matter how flawed his subjects are, god should be able to teach anything, morality included, perfectly, in the first attempt; as I said in this forum in the past, the limitations of the subject cannot constrain god, or the consequence is that they are also the limitations of god. A perfect being is expected to be able to teach quantum physics to a donkey using only the vowels of the Greek alphabet; an impossible task, sure, but isn't god capable of doing the impossible? Creating energy is harder than what I just described, and yet, fiat lux.
Do you expect a deity to do everything that he is capable of? If a deity has a will or personality, he may not always choose to do what he is capable of.
Do you expect every human to always do what he is capable of?
But I am happy that you have bought the issue of free will, because see, if by free will you mean that people have the ability to disobey god's ethical mandates, than the consequence is that choosing to adhere to god's ethics pertain an evaluation of reasons why god's ethics should prevail by the person adopting it.
I would argue that a core assumption that goes along with a deity existing and also establishing a moral code would be that there are divine consequences, whether in this life or in eternity (if there is an immortal soul).
To put it crudely, if you don't want to go to hell you follow the deity's commands.
If there were no consequences for rejecting the deity's laws, then of course there would be no particular reason to do so.
But assuming a caring, loving, god (as it is the point of argument for most modern religious), and his set of impeccable rules; well, if they were mandatory, not only in observance, but in form of observance, than you could argue a pragmatical superiority to an experienced base ethics. however, if, as you argue, the interpretation of god's edict is a work in progress, than you are again using experience to show that previous interpretations were wrong.
Most modern religions would say that there are explicit laws (taken from a literal "do not do this" revelation, and which aren't really open to interpretation), and that there are interpreted laws (laws based on a certain intrepretation of a holy text, and which do not have an explicit "do this" or "don't do this"). These intrepreted laws would have to be consistent with the explicit laws in order for the moral system to be coherent.
You inevitably fall in the same trappings as the ones you argued against a experience-based morality, but convoluted by series of added problems given that removal of human centrality and the arbitrarity of the source. And this is the secondary problem of your argument, as I mentioned earlier; You are falling, again, in the problem of infinite regression, like it always happen when one argues a priori sources, be it for the universe itself, or for just a part of it, like the human effort to enunciate ethics.
There are certain questions which simply do not have answers outside of a faith-based belief (note that "faith" doesn't have to mean religious).
But those acknowledge as humans, as members of society, were not subject to slavery. Nobody wanted to be enslaved, nor wished it upon their children. Even those who accepted it, accepted it just for others.
And there goes my experience criteria again: given the choice of being free, or being enslaved, how many people choose to be enslaved? Very few? Then check - slavery is a bad value, that will move our placement in the continuum closer to the wrong end.
And yet every society, then and now, has enshrined methods of removing humans from society when they contravene the accepted moral or legal standards. Members of society were subject to slavery, as a punishment.
I agree that slavery is evil, but on a different philosophical basis.
I agree, it isn't; because in truth, all morality is human-based; the supposed external authority is fictional, and you have no more choice in adapting to experience than us. In my language, I am talking about human-based and deity-based as different, accepting as an axiom this false dichotomy, as it was convenient in my exposure that your perspective does not solve the problems that you yourself posed.
It's only a problem if a deity does not actually exist
You assume that while I assume one does exist.
If one does exist, then whether or not you believe in one is irrelevant, just as if one doesn't exist, whether or not I believe in one is irrelevant.
Unfortunately, while I can't definitively prove one DOES exist, you can't definitively prove one DOESN'T, which is why I had wanted to avoid the question in this thread as it would eventually simply take over the discussion. I admit that I was perhaps wrong in that, though, as it seems your view of morality depends on your views on the existence of God as a more basic question.
It is wrong as a fundamental. As an election of a primal value that human beings are worth something, and their necessities matter. In this point, I need to specify that this is an axiomatic approach, an election of values. Think of this in the same terms as you think on the choice of obeying god. Why you do it? because you chose to believe. Why you chose to believe? Because you believe god exists! It's believe justifying believe, a circular argument, no better than valuing humanity because we are human.
At some point one have to enunciate a primordial value one wishes to uphold, to serve as the foundations of posterior decisions. I think the idea that, being humans ourselves, the well being of creatures such as us, as political a decision as it is, should be adopted as a cornerstone, is a pretty solid and acceptable axiom.
I repeat; when your argument for the necessity of divine ethics has to rely on the philosophical doubt if pain is a bad thing, your thesis is in trouble.
Indeed, I agree that without that assumption there is no foundation in a system without a deity. So, I actually think I agree philosophically that your ethical assumptions in a system without God are probably the best way to go.
But again, as I have seen throughout our discussion, it really comes down to your assumption regarding the existence of God, which I think is where our fundamental disagreement lies.
This is only a problem if you elect society as your focal point.
I think humans have value, and societies are tools that can be legitimate or illegitimate depending on their commitment to further the happiness of humans. The fact that it is the channel through which we elect behaviors does not give it center stage.
If anything, what you say is yet another example of how taking humans away from the center is dangerous, because if society is your focus, than you can destroy humans if it is good for society. Or god. Insert any non human focus here and the problem is the same.
Whatever you have here is not human-based morality.
I think your ethics have an incredibly difficult systemic issue, as I've pointed out earlier in this post. And that issue is how do you balance society vs. an individual?
Thinking again on it, though, I think every ethical system battles this issue, but again, I'm struggling to see your solution.
Did I come across as saying that religion is the cause of all violence? Because I never intended to. I don't want to dispel the idea that I am pretty much hostile to religion, though, because I truly think it's a force that became destructive as it became outdated, but no, I never considered that religion is the source of all evil.
Sidebar - I don't think religion will become outdated until we can definitely answer the question as to "where the universe came from."
He has much reason to fear that influence in our society. But, specifically about the quote, his point is a very condensed version of mine; that when religion, not humanity, dominates your thinking, you are very much at risk of loosing perspective if you are doing right or wrong with your actions; hence, a good person might unwilling do extreme harm.
My rejoinder would again be that very few think of the "greater good", instead focusing on what is happening to themselves and to those they love, which would just as easily lead a good person to doing extreme harm.
Again, you've taken me out of my depth. I still see issues with the system you have supported, but I think most of those issues stem from our differing foundational assumptions. But you've helped me see some reasonable philosophical bases for morality without God, which I appreciate. You've also inspired me, like I said, to do additional digging into this issue as it's one I find fascinating.
I'll end this post
here.
