Right, if they are. But a devout Catholic, for example, might think they're not. Our society generally views abortion as morally acceptable, for instance. A traditional Catholic would say we're failing at (1) by not correctly identifying abortion as a sin. Thus even though our moral system is "more effective," i.e. it's very good at (2), the Catholic would say it fails at (1) because it does not correctly identify sin in the first place.
But, that's not what I'm saying. If you look at ALL behavior Catholics(or most Protestans for that matter) identify as 'sin,' the numbers are STILL lower for modern society. Even if you count every baby aborted as 'murder,' the numbers STILL are in favor current society as being more efficient at preventing 'sin.' So, I still am here:
Right, if they are. But a devout Catholic, for example, might think they're not. Our society generally views abortion as morally acceptable, for instance. A traditional Catholic would say we're failing at (1) by not correctly identifying abortion as a sin. Thus even though our moral system is "more effective," i.e. it's very good at (2), the Catholic would say it fails at (1) because it does not correctly identify sin in the first place.
But, that's not what I'm saying. If you look at ALL behavior Catholics(or most Protestans for that matter) identify as 'sin,' the numbers are STILL lower for modern society. Even if you count every baby aborted as 'murder,' the numbers STILL are in favor current society as being more efficient at preventing 'sin.' So, I still am here:
I never understood this sentiment outside of the context of the Rosy retrospection cognitive bias.
Your position is that a conservative, devout catholic should agree there is less "sin" in western society today than there was, say, 100 years ago? I can't imagine how that could be true.
Again, we're talking about a devout catholic who would define all of the following as "sin": abortion, gay sex, extramarital sex, extramarital cohabitation, masturbation, viewing pornography, the use of birth control, "taking the lord's name in vain" (e.g. saying "oh my God," a phrase in common use today that was relatively taboo in America 100 years ago), being transgender, etc. Are you really saying modern society is more effective at preventing "sin" if we count all of these things as "sin?"
Also, I think you're underestimating the number of abortions per year, or overestimating the number of murders. Just under 15,000 people were murdered in the US last year. There are about 730,000 reported abortions in the US each year. If we start counting abortions as murder, the murder rate jumps something like 5,000%.
Again, we're talking about a devout catholic who would define all of the following as "sin": abortion, gay sex, extramarital sex, extramarital cohabitation, masturbation, viewing pornography, the use of birth control, "taking the lord's name in vain" (e.g. saying "oh my God," a phrase in common use today that was relatively taboo in America 100 years ago), being transgender, etc. Are you really saying modern society is more effective at preventing "sin" if we count all of these things as "sin?"
Looking at the list of "mortal sins," you might well be correct.
I don't really have the will to search and properly research the decline vs growth of the various things on that list. I will say -generally- the ones that involve the habit being a mortal sin, like masturbation, are on the increase, while the one-shot-you're-going-to-hell ones, like rape and murder, are on the decrease.
Homosexuality levels have likely been consistent throughout human history (but I don't have the will to find out), and -you'll note- "being transgender" isn't on the list.
But, in the end, many of those things are on the increase, sure.
However, I will say the fallacious idea humans were better off 100 years ago than they are currently might very well help my overall point.
Metrics created centuries ago are clearly incorrect.
Again, we're talking about a devout catholic who would define all of the following as "sin": abortion, gay sex, extramarital sex, extramarital cohabitation, masturbation, viewing pornography, the use of birth control, "taking the lord's name in vain" (e.g. saying "oh my God," a phrase in common use today that was relatively taboo in America 100 years ago), being transgender, etc. Are you really saying modern society is more effective at preventing "sin" if we count all of these things as "sin?"
Looking at the list of "mortal sins," you might well be correct.
I don't really have the will to search and properly research the decline vs growth of the various things on that list. I will say -generally- the ones that involve the habit being a mortal sin, like masturbation, are on the increase, while the one-shot-you're-going-to-hell ones, like rape and murder, are on the decrease.
Homosexuality levels have likely been consistent throughout human history (but I don't have the will to find out), and -you'll note- "being transgender" isn't on the list.
But, in the end, many of those things are on the increase, sure.
However, I will say the fallacious idea humans were better off 100 years ago than they are currently might very well help my overall point.
Metrics created centuries ago are clearly incorrect.
I'm not sure I understand your point. The fact that a "metric" or idea is old does not necessarily make it incorrect. In fact, we might imagine an idea that has "survived the test of time" is more likely to be correct, on average, than a younger idea. Certainly if one is analogizing (as you are) the emergence of moral ideas to the process of evolution, then long-surviving ideas are those that have proven themselves most fit for survival.
Sure, I personally disagree with the archaic claim that homosexuality is wrong, but I agree with the claim that murder is wrong. The idea that murder is wrong is at least many thousands of years old, predating the Ten Commandments and the Code of Hammurabi. There are many old ideas that are true.
Simply observing that the catholic holds old ideas about morality does not disprove his position. If it turns out that his old ideas are correct (or at least more correct than our current moral ideas), then his claim that modern society is making sin easier to commit might well be right.
I'm not sure I understand your point. The fact that a "metric" or idea is old does not necessarily make it incorrect.
Right. But I would say saying humans were better off 100 years ago IS incorrect. Therefore, any metric used to land on that fallacious conclusion must also be fallacious.
Certainly if one is analogizing (as you are) the emergence of moral ideas to the process of evolution, then long-surviving ideas are those that have proven themselves most fit for survival.
But, the first half of your argument relies on those ideas waning.
You can't in one breath tell me homosexuality acceptance is on the raise and going to church in on the decline -showing an overall moral decline- and in the next breath tell me hating homosexuality and going to church is evolutionarily fitter than the reverse. I understand the position you're currently taking isn't one you hold to, but please try to keep it consistent. I know I'm already fighting against a strawman, but I'd rather it be a consistent one.
Simply observing that the catholic holds old ideas about morality does not disprove his position. If it turns out that his old ideas are correct (or at least more correct than our current moral ideas), then his claim that modern society is making sin easier to commit might well be right.
It well might be. I'm not saying the catholic church holding moral ideas makes it wrong; I'm saying any metric that says humans were better off 100 years ago is wrong.
Regardless, I'm fairly certain bakgat is a Protestant. I only mentioned Catholicism because I'm familiar with it and it has fairly consistent beliefs. I really have no idea what flavor of christian bakgat is, nor how constant his beliefs are or should be given the dogma of whatever church he goes to on Sunday.
I'm not sure I understand your point. The fact that a "metric" or idea is old does not necessarily make it incorrect.
Right. But I would say saying humans were better off 100 years ago IS incorrect. Therefore, any metric used to land on that fallacious conclusion must also be fallacious.
This is begging the question. We're debating whether society was more or less moral 100 years ago. You can't simply assert that society was less moral 100 years ago and declare yourself the winner.
Now, if by "better off" you mean that modern life is easier and more comfortable, I would agree with you. But that doesn't mean modern society is more moral. Improvements in quality of life could be attributable to the rapid improvements in technology over the last century. It's completely possible that society's moral values have declined even as peoples lives have become more comfortable due to technology.
Certainly if one is analogizing (as you are) the emergence of moral ideas to the process of evolution, then long-surviving ideas are those that have proven themselves most fit for survival.
But, the first half of your argument relies on those ideas waning.
You can't in one breath tell me homosexuality acceptance is on the raise and going to church in on the decline -showing an overall moral decline- and in the next breath tell me hating homosexuality and going to church is evolutionarily fitter than the reverse. I understand the position you're currently taking isn't one you hold to, but please try to keep it consistent.
You misunderstand, I'm not advancing the argument "an old idea is more likely to be true." I'm taking no position about whether the age of an idea is inherently correlated with its correctness. Our hypothetical Catholic doesn't necessarily think old ideas are more likely to be true, he thinks ideas espoused by the Catholic church are true, regardless of age.
What I'm saying is that you're not allowed to advance the argument that "metrics created centuries ago are clearly incorrect" because this is logically inconsistent with your premise that moral values compete for survival in an evolution-like process. If, as you claim, the survival of an idea is indicative of its moral correctness, then you should conclude that metrics created centuries ago that still exist today are more likely to be correct than metrics created recently. You are contradicting yourself if you argue otherwise.
I know I'm already fighting against a strawman, but I'd rather it be a consistent one.
To nitpick, even though I'm not a Catholic and I don't personally believe in the position I'm arguing, it isn't a "strawman." A strawman is usually defined as "a sham argument set up to be defeated." I'm advancing a very real argument that's representative of the views of real people. I know some devout Catholics who would agree with the positions I'm advancing. My conversations with them about their beliefs is one of the reasons I'm able to make these arguments.
Simply observing that the catholic holds old ideas about morality does not disprove his position. If it turns out that his old ideas are correct (or at least more correct than our current moral ideas), then his claim that modern society is making sin easier to commit might well be right.
It well might be. I'm not saying the catholic church holding moral ideas makes it wrong; I'm saying any metric that says humans were better off 100 years ago is wrong.
Regardless, I'm fairly certain bakgat is a Protestant. I only mentioned Catholicism because I'm familiar with it and it has fairly consistent beliefs. I really have no idea what flavor of christian bakgat is, nor how constant his beliefs are or should be given the dogma of whatever church he goes to on Sunday.
I like using Catholicism because it has fairly clear and defined moral beliefs. But in theory we could have this argument from the perspective of a conservative Protestant or a conservative Muslim. There are many belief systems that would conclude the world is becoming a less moral place over time.
True. I thought about that after I wrote it. Let me rephrase: All available data seems to suggest humans are better off -by any reasonable metric- than they were 100 years ago. There are more of them and they live longer healthier lives.
While you might claim less are going to heaven than used to, there is no data -I'm aware of- to support this claim.
then you should conclude that metrics created centuries ago that still exist today are more likely to be correct than metrics created recently.
Not if the new ideas are winning out. Homo erectus was around for over a million more years than the newer homo sapien has been, but I doubt you'd find much evidence it was more evolutionarily fit in the general sense.
A strawman is usually defined as "a sham argument set up to be defeated."
I was using the term because you clearly know your argument has flaws in it and where they are, or you'd subscribe to it. I understand the merit of taking up certain axioms to flush out the logical conclusion to them, but -let's face it- neither of use agree with the argument you're presenting. If you don't like the use of the term "strawman," fine. But, please acknowledge we both know I'm only punching a 'practice dummy' at the moment.
I like using Catholicism because it has fairly clear and defined moral beliefs. But in theory we could have this argument from the perspective of a conservative Protestant or a conservative Muslim. There are many belief systems that would conclude the world is becoming a less moral place over time.
Well, I agree -for reasons mentioned above- we really should pick a steadfast religious ideology for you to fake uphold. But, I'm unsure of your motivation since you originally started this discussion to "white knight" bakgat. I'm not sure if you wanted to best stick to his perspective or not.
But, it sounds like you care about as much as I do, which is to say very little. So, pick something and stick to it. It makes no difference to me.
True. I thought about that after I wrote it. Let me rephrase: All available data seems to suggest humans are better off -by any reasonable metric- than they were 100 years ago. There are more of them and they live longer healthier lives.
There's no question that humans live (on average) longer, healthier, and more comfortable lives than they did 100 years ago. But this does not necessarily have anything to do with morality.
Earlier you said "The goal of a moral society is to make sin harder to commit." Not that the goal of a moral society is to maximize lifespan or comfort. As I said, gains in life expectancy might be due to technology rather than morality. Morality can decline while quality of life increases.
Indeed, it could be the case that a moral life is more compatible with physical discomfort than with physical comfort. Most people who are looked up to as moral leaders (e.g. Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, Mandela) are lauded for their poverty and self-sacrifice. Maybe being "better off" (as you're using that term) tends to make you less moral.
then you should conclude that metrics created centuries ago that still exist today are more likely to be correct than metrics created recently.
Not if the new ideas are winning out. Homo erectus was around for over a million more years than the newer homo sapien has been, but I doubt you'd find much evidence it was more evolutionarily fit in the general sense.
Sure, not all old ideas are right. No one's making that claim. But, all other things being equal, something that has survived a long time is more likely to be evolutionarily fit than something new.
Species go through periods of rise and decline throughout time. If you're committed to this evolutionary framework, you can't declare something unfit until it's extinct. As long as you have two "live" competing ideas, each has a shot at winning out.
A strawman is usually defined as "a sham argument set up to be defeated."
I was using the term because you clearly know your argument has flaws in it and where they are, or you'd subscribe to it. I understand the merit of taking up certain axioms to flush out the logical conclusion to them, but -let's face it- neither of use agree with the argument you're presenting. If you don't like the use of the term "strawman," fine. But, please acknowledge we both know I'm only punching a 'practice dummy' at the moment.
I think the only flaw in my argument is that God doesn't exist. Or, more specifically, the Catholic God doesn't exits. If he did, then presumably the moral views of traditional Catholicism would be correct.
And since I can't prove God doesn't exist, I'm not aware of any provable flaw in my argument.
There's no question that humans live (on average) longer, healthier, and more comfortable lives than they did 100 years ago. But this does not necessarily have anything to do with morality.
Earlier you said "The goal of a moral society is to make sin harder to commit." Not that the goal of a moral society is to maximize lifespan or comfort. As I said, gains in life expectancy might be due to technology rather than morality. Morality can decline while quality of life increases.
Well, you're coming at it from two different angels here. One is what I said Catholics think, and the other is what I think. The Goal being to make sin harder to commit is what the Catholics think, but I think any metric that would say people living healthier, happier, and longer lives could be "bad" isn't a good metric.
Now, -within the Catholic perspective- we've established that some things Catholics think of as a mortal sin, like murder, are on the decrease. And, I think we've established part of the reason is because those sins are being made harder to commit. However, other mortal sins, like not going to church, are on the rise.
So, I could sit here -within the Catholic perspective- and tell you many awful sins are on the decrease and harder to commit. Maybe not all and we still have stuff to work on, or something, but the "important" ones are going down. I could maybe make something up about how people living healthier, happier, and longer lives is proof that God must be happy with what we're doing, or something. I feel I could make a strong case -within the Catholic perspective- that society is moving forward morally, and that's why things are looking up.
However, I refuse to do so.
I'm not going to try to spin some Catholic perspective for why things are increasing morally to someone who I know isn't Catholic. I'm not going to change my axioms to something I don't believe in while arguing with someone who ALSO doesn't believe in those axioms. The fact of the matter is -even within the Catholic perspective- there is a wide range of axioms to choose from, and you can easily pick the ones that make it look like humanity is going to hell in a handbasket, or the ones that make it look like it's all sunny days and roses from here on out. However, in this case it's not going to come from some clever argument on my part, appealing to your inner understanding that people doing better IS better, it's going to come from however you pick your axioms. And, I know you'll pick them so I can't prove we're doing better.
If you where actually Catholic, I might be able to appeal to that inner understanding that people living healthier, happier, and longer lives is proof we are doing the right thing, or -as a Catholic might call it- "on God's path." That we are listening to the inner light God put within each of us, or whathaveyou. But, you're not, so you'll just deny that. Thus, we're not going to get anywhere because we're not going to find common ground, by design.
but I think any metric that would say people living healthier, happier, and longer lives could be "bad" isn't a good metric.
Counterargument: what if the reason those people are living healthier, happier, and longer lives is because of atrocities?
We can distill what you're saying into: "people are benefiting, why would this be bad?" Except, people profit from bad things all the time. Just because people are profiting off something does not make it good. Neither a Catholic, nor any other person, should agree to this because it is logically fallacious.
It's also extremely questionable why you would insist that a Christian would necessarily equate the maximization of lifespan and comfort with that which is morally right.
Quote from bitterroot »
There's no question that humans live (on average) longer, healthier, and more comfortable lives than they did 100 years ago. But this does not necessarily have anything to do with morality.
Counterargument: what if the reason those people are living healthier, happier, and longer lives is because of atrocities?
Well, they're not. Its because of scientific advances, but -I guess- you're going for more "hypotheticals." It's a shame no one wants to talk about what they really believe, or what's really happening.
We can distill what you're saying into: "people are benefiting, why would this be bad?" Except, people profit from bad things all the time. Just because people are profiting off something does not make it good. Neither a Catholic, nor any other person, should agree to this because it is logically fallacious.
If 1% are exploiting 99%, then "people" aren't living healthier, happier, and longer lives, "few people" are.
You'd likely have to argue that the exploited aren't "people;" are you willing to do that?
It's also extremely questionable why you would insist that a Christian would necessarily equate the maximization of lifespan and comfort with that which is morally right.
That's not even close to what I said. I said if bitterroot were a real Catholic I could potentially make the link. I never claimed any "necessities," I simply claimed it would be possible. Since, however, he's not picking axioms based on true beliefs, he can quite easily pick them as to make the argument unwinnable for me. Again -note- I'm not saying this is a "necessity." I even explicitly stated he could pick them so I couldn't lose, if he so chose. I just didn't think he would.
If you go back and reread what I wrote you will seem terms like "I might be able to" and "I feel I could make a strong case;" I'm not sure how someone could read that and think "This guy is insisting a Christian would necessarily equate..."
There's no question that humans live (on average) longer, healthier, and more comfortable lives than they did 100 years ago. But this does not necessarily have anything to do with morality.
bitterroot is correct.
It is also correct to say it doesn't necessarily not have to do with morality.
There's no question that humans live (on average) longer, healthier, and more comfortable lives than they did 100 years ago. But this does not necessarily have anything to do with morality.
Earlier you said "The goal of a moral society is to make sin harder to commit." Not that the goal of a moral society is to maximize lifespan or comfort. As I said, gains in life expectancy might be due to technology rather than morality. Morality can decline while quality of life increases.
Well, you're coming at it from two different angels here. One is what I said Catholics think, and the other is what I think. The Goal being to make sin harder to commit is what the Catholics think, but I think any metric that would say people living healthier, happier, and longer lives could be "bad" isn't a good metric.
...
I'm not going to change my axioms to something I don't believe in while arguing with someone who ALSO doesn't believe in those axioms. The fact of the matter is -even within the Catholic perspective- there is a wide range of axioms to choose from, and you can easily pick the ones that make it look like humanity is going to hell in a handbasket, or the ones that make it look like it's all sunny days and roses from here on out. However, in this case it's not going to come from some clever argument on my part, appealing to your inner understanding that people doing better IS better, it's going to come from however you pick your axioms. And, I know you'll pick them so I can't prove we're doing better.
The point of this debate is to see whether morality really has a "direction," and if so, which direction it's going.
If your position is correct (society is becoming more moral), then you should be able to meet your burden of proof by doing one of the following two things: (1) prove that the Catholic conception of morality is wrong, whereas your conception of morality is right; or (2) prove that under both the Catholic and the Taylor conception of morality, society is becoming more moral.
If I can pick a valid set of moral axioms that prevents you from being able to meet that burden of proof, then your statement "society is becoming more moral" is not objectively true. It's only true if you agree with Taylor's axioms. This would mean that different observers with different axioms could see morality going different directions, and all of them could be correct simultaneously. If that's the case, there's no real "direction" to human morals.
So that's why I'm raising this argument. I'm not just trying to play games here.
If you where actually Catholic, I might be able to appeal to that inner understanding that people living healthier, happier, and longer lives is proof we are doing the right thing, or -as a Catholic might call it- "on God's path." That we are listening to the inner light God put within each of us, or whathaveyou. But, you're not, so you'll just deny that. Thus, we're not going to get anywhere because we're not going to find common ground, by design.
What you're doing here is basically a more polite version of an ad hominem. You're arguing against the person not the argument. I'm an anonymous person on the internet. As long as I only make arguments that a reasonable, rational Catholic would make, then debating against me is indistinguishable from debating against a "real" Catholic. (And how could you know whether any person on here claiming to be Catholic actually is?) If I take a position that's incompatible with Catholic beliefs, feel free to call me out.
Well, they're not. Its because of scientific advances, but -I guess- you're going for more "hypotheticals." It's a shame no one wants to talk about what they really believe, or what's really happening.
...
If 1% are exploiting 99%, then "people" aren't living healthier, happier, and longer lives, "few people" are.
You'd likely have to argue that the exploited aren't "people;" are you willing to do that?
Ok, here's some of what I really believe, if that's what you want to hear.
Your premise seems to be that more total happiness and longer average lifespan equals a more moral society. I think that premise is wrong.
What if 1% of people have to be enslaved so that 99% of people can have better lives? Suppose it's the case that this results in a higher level of "average" or "total" happiness and a longer average lifespan than allowing all 100% of people to live free. Is enslaving 1% of the population the morally preferrable choice in that case?
Or let's use another example: what if technology advances to the point that engineers and doctors determine the best way to maximize happiness and lifespan is to strap people into chairs, stick feeding tubes down their throats to provide them with a perfect cocktail of nutrients, and use electrodes to stimulate the opoid receptors in their brains. This results in a state of absolute, uninterrupted bliss and extends the average lifespan to 150+ years. All human needs are taken care of by autonomous, benevolent robots, and this system is sustainable and produces less environmental impact than traditional human society. There is no war, no inequality, no pain, no sadness. But that entire life is spent in a chair in a heroin-like state of semi-consciousness, never interacting with family or friends, never loving or being loved, never knowing or doing anything.
If morality is all about maximizing happiness and lifespan, then not only is this lifestyle preferable, it should be mandatory. A person who tries to refuse being strapped in the chair is committing an immoral act. By not maximizing his own happiness and lifespan, he is dragging down the average happiness and lifespan of mankind.
I think there are a few people (myself included) who would have a problem with a system of morality that can produce these results. You don't have to be Catholic.
If your position is correct (society is becoming more moral), then you should be able to meet your burden of proof by doing one of the following two things: (1) prove that the Catholic conception of morality is wrong,
Sure. Dum Diversas is a Papal Bull saying slavery is OK in the eyes of God. In supremo apostolatus is a Papal Bull saying slavery is not OK in the eyes of God. Contradiction. Therefore the Pope doesn't speak for God through Papal Bulls. Therefor Catholic Dogma is wrong.
I've got more. "Is what God says good because God says its good or does God say it's good because it is good?" Now, do you want to rehash Thomas Aquinas and I can point out the flaws in his argument from there? Cuz, I can say -in all honest- I really don't want to. I don't want to debate this with someone that ALREADY DOESN'T BELIEVE.
As for 2) it would depend on what kind of Catholicism we're talking about. Something to which you get to define defining.
If I can pick a valid set of moral axioms that prevents you from being able to meet that burden of proof, then your statement "society is becoming more moral" is not objectively true.
Two things.
One, just because a non-contradictory sent of axioms can be constructed such that something is false within them does not make that something "not objectively true."
Two, name one thing that IS provably "objectively true." If you're saying I must prove my statements about morality "objectively true," I'm not even going to bother since we both know I would be wasting time.
That's up for debate. I'm pretty sure -under many definitions- that by espousing beliefs you find false on the internet in an attempt to win an argument, you are -by those definitions- "just playing games."
What you're doing here is basically a more polite version of an ad hominem. You're arguing against the person not the argument.
Incorrect. I'm saying that by getting to pick and choose your axioms, while I am forced to only go with what I truly believe, you have an unfair advantage in this debate. I will explain further next.
As long as I only make arguments that a reasonable, rational Catholic would make, then debating against me is indistinguishable from debating against a "real" Catholic.
And, we both know there are many real Catholics to which it would be literally impossible for me to convince. And, you're free to "become" one of them. I'm saying, just do that and let's be done with this charade. Just be like "I axiomatically believe the bible definitively says the end times are upon us, and most everyone is going to hell" or something and lets call it a day.
Suppose it's the case that this results in a higher level of "average" or "total" happiness and a longer average lifespan than allowing all 100% of people to live free. Is enslaving 1% of the population the morally preferrable choice in that case?
In this hypothetical case are you saying there is absolutely no other way to increase average/total happiness? That -quite literally- the only way to obtain maximized happiness is to have 1% enslaved? Because this seems rather counterintuitive to me. Hasn't history shown slavery decreases happiness? Regardless, I need clarification on this point.
Or let's use another example: what if technology advances to the point that engineers and doctors determine the best way to maximize happiness and lifespan is to strap people into chairs, stick feeding tubes down their throats to provide them with a perfect cocktail of nutrients, and use electrodes to stimulate the opoid receptors in their brains. This results in a state of absolute, uninterrupted bliss and extends the average lifespan to 150+ years. All human needs are taken care of by autonomous, benevolent robots, and this system is sustainable and produces less environmental impact than traditional human society. There is no war, no inequality, no pain, no sadness. But that entire life is spent in a chair in a heroin-like state of semi-consciousness, never interacting with family or friends, never loving or being loved, never knowing or doing anything.
If morality is all about maximizing happiness and lifespan, then not only is this lifestyle preferable, it should be mandatory.
Again, I don't think I have to defined (or even believe, see this thread) that morality is just about maximizing happiness and lifespan. I just need to show that living now is 'better' than living then. Something I already believe, but would like to see if I can convince people that seem to subscribe to the Rosy Retrospection cognitive bias. I would like to see if can show them -even within their own person metric- they're wrong about a moral decline. Or, perhaps, they will convince me of the reverse.
Most people don't know about the Flynn Effect or the overall historical decrees of violence. They just think the new generation is stupid and lazy, and that technology makes killing impersonal and easy. But, -normally- they think that do to anecdotal evidence and cognitive biases.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel this needs to be spread around more:
The point of this debate is to see whether morality really has a "direction," and if so, which direction it's going.
Then explain to me if you actually think we're on a moral decline, and let's go from there.
I am not the party making an affirmative claim. I am simply rebutting your claim and explaining why it's wrong. I don't need to supply the "right" answer.
If someone posts a debate thread claiming "Led Zeppelin is the best band of all time" I can debate against them without claiming I know who the best band of all time is, or whether there even is such a thing as the best band of all time. All I need to do is show that their reasoning is wrong.
So I will freely admit that I don't have morality all figured out; I'm not smart enough to do that. I live my life according to my conscience and hope that this is enough. I do not know which direction morality is going, and I suspect the question itself may be incoherent in much the same way the concept of "the best band of all time" is incoherent.
What you're doing here is basically a more polite version of an ad hominem. You're arguing against the person not the argument.
Incorrect. I'm saying that by getting to pick and choose your axioms, while I am forced to only go with what I truly believe, you have an unfair advantage in this debate. I will explain further next.
I will drop the Catholic angle for now since it seems to bother you, but let me just address one thing.
As the party asserting the affirmative position, your opponents will always have an "unfair advantage" in the debate since you bear the burden of proving that you are right, whereas your opponents need only point out ways in which you have not met your burden.
So if we go back to the imaginary Led Zeppelin debate, I could respond by saying "many people think the Beatles are the best band of all time, and they have such-and-such arguments for their position. Can you prove those arguments wrong?" If the Led Zeppelin proponent can't disprove the Beatles-lovers' arguments, then he can't prove that Led Zeppelin is the best band of all time because it's possible that the Beatles are the best band of all time. All this is true whether I personally like the Beatles or not. My personal musical tastes have no bearing on whether the Zeppelin-lover's arguments are right or wrong.
[quote from="bitterroot »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/outside-magic/debate/religion/591994-evolution-of-the-idea-of-god-a-direction-to-human?comment=37"]Suppose it's the case that this results in a higher level of "average" or "total" happiness and a longer average lifespan than allowing all 100% of people to live free. Is enslaving 1% of the population the morally preferrable choice in that case?
In this hypothetical case are you saying there is absolutely no other way to increase average/total happiness? That -quite literally- the only way to obtain maximized happiness is to have 1% enslaved? Because this seems rather counterintuitive to me. Hasn't history shown slavery decreases happiness? Regardless, I need clarification on this point.
I'm saying in this hypothetical that enslaving 1% of the population would produce more total/average happiness and longer average lifespans than any other societal configuration we are able to devise at that point in time.
Let me make it less counterintuitive with an example:
We have a planet populated by 1000 people. The two best options we can come up with for maximizing health and happiness look like this:
Option 1: 100% of people live free lives in society. The average life expectancy is 80 years. People have an average happiness score of 100 on some sort of happiness scale.
Option 2: 1% of people (10) are enslaved. They work without pay for the benefit of the free people, but they are still fed well and get adequate living conditions, so have an average happiness score of 50. When they hit age 40, they are killed and their organs are harvested for use in transplants for the free people. So let's assume their average life expectancy is 35, since some will die younger from disease or accidents.
99% of people (990) are free. The free slave labor makes them slightly richer and their lives slightly easier, so they have a slightly elevated average happiness score of 105. They also get the benefit of more organs available for transplant, so their average life expectancy increases by 2 years to 82 years.
The average life expectancy in option 2 = (10*35 + 990*82)/1000 = 81.5 years. 1.5 years longer than option 1.
The average happiness in option 2 = (10*50 + 990*105)/1000 = 104.5 or 4.5 units of happiness more than option 1.
Or let's use another example: what if technology advances to the point that engineers and doctors determine the best way to maximize happiness and lifespan is to strap people into chairs, stick feeding tubes down their throats to provide them with a perfect cocktail of nutrients, and use electrodes to stimulate the opoid receptors in their brains. This results in a state of absolute, uninterrupted bliss and extends the average lifespan to 150+ years. All human needs are taken care of by autonomous, benevolent robots, and this system is sustainable and produces less environmental impact than traditional human society. There is no war, no inequality, no pain, no sadness. But that entire life is spent in a chair in a heroin-like state of semi-consciousness, never interacting with family or friends, never loving or being loved, never knowing or doing anything.
I'm talking about something similar to the experience machine, but different in some ways. In my example we don't even pretend to give people meaningful experiences. We just crack the code to pure, raw happiness, and build machines that makes people blissfully happy, but robs their lives of most of the things human beings think of as meaningful.
Also, your link doesn't seem to squarely say whether you think the experience machine is moral or not. The closest I can see you come is in the following statement:
Except my theory values fitness before happiness. Clearly, the experience machine doesn't augment fitness; it is of no use to the evolutionary process, either biological or social. And is, in fact, detrimental in many cases. So, trivially my theory would reject it.
"Fitness," in an evolutionary sense, means the ability of an organism to prolifically reproduce within the organism's environment. (One might also argue that fitness includes the ability of the organism to survive a long time, but presumably the evolutionary benefit of survival is to allow more time to reproduce.)
In any event, we've already said that my happiness-machine-world significantly extends human lifespans. Let's also say that my happiness-machine-world allows humans to reproduce at unprecedented rates, since a huge number of people can now be packed into a small space. All the space a person will ever need is the size of a chair. The benevolent robots in my example continually collect sperm and eggs to grow many, many, humans in test tubes, allowing humanity to enter into an era of reproductive success never before seen.
Isn't this a highly moral world, by your definition?
But, again, I'm pretty sure defense of my own personal morality is really the point of the thread. Only if things are getting better as a moral trend.
...
Again, I don't think I have to defined (or even believe, see this thread) that morality is just about maximizing happiness and lifespan. I just need to show that living now is 'better' than living then.
No, you have to convince me that living now is morally "better" than living then. Not just more comfortable or happier, but more moral. In order to do that, you need to define a measuring stick for "morally better" and show that your measuring stick is correct.
Something I already believe, but would like to see if I can convince people that seem to subscribe to the Rosy Retrospection cognitive bias. I would like to see if can show them -even within their own person metric- they're wrong about a moral decline. Or, perhaps, they will convince me of the reverse.
Most people don't know about the Flynn Effect or the overall historical decrees of violence. They just think the new generation is stupid and lazy, and that technology makes killing impersonal and easy. But, -normally- they think that do to anecdotal evidence and cognitive biases.
I am not the type of person who would prefer to have lived in the past rather than the present. The present seems to me a safer, happier, and more comfortable place than the past.
But I attribute this to things like technological advances, not necessarily to "improvements" in morality.
I also want to address the point made in the xkcd strip: I think the same mental fallacy that gives rise to the assumption of societal moral decline also gives rise to the assumption of societal moral improvement. Old people look at the moral standards of young people, see that these differ from the moral standards they grew up accepting, and therefore decry the youth as less moral. Likewise, you look at the moral standards of the past, see that these differ from the moral standards you presently accept, and therefore decry the past as less moral.
If one applies the prevailing societal moral standards of the present to any point in time in the past or the future, that point in time will seem immoral compared with the present. This is because the people living at that point in time will be operating under a different set of moral standards, and will thus engage in some behavior(s) we presently consider immoral. This does not mean that the present is the most moral time in human history. It means the present will always appear to be the most moral time in human history by the standards of the present.
Option 2: 1% of people (10) are enslaved. They work without pay for the benefit of the free people, but they are still fed well and get adequate living conditions, so have an average happiness score of 50. When they hit age 40, they are killed and their organs are harvested for use in transplants for the free people. So let's assume their average life expectancy is 35, since some will die younger from disease or accidents.
There's a pretty stock utilitarian counterargument to this, and it is to say it would be acceptable in principle given the premises you've proposed, but that those premises are wildly unrealistic. In practice, slavery is a negative utility monster: a slave's average happiness score would not be 50 but approximately negative one arbitrarily-large-number. (Especially if they're going to be harvested for organs. Jesus, dude.) And this is precisely why slavery is wrong, and why we think it's so wrong. So what you're doing from a utilitarian perspective is basically saying, "Assume slavery isn't wrong. Therefore slavery isn't wrong. But slavery is wrong. Contradiction!"
Another approach is John Rawls', where you evaluate a society based not on the average happiness but on the lowest happiness, and treat improvements in the happiness of everyone else as supererogatory. Basically forbidding that happiness come at a cost to others.
Option 2: 1% of people (10) are enslaved. They work without pay for the benefit of the free people, but they are still fed well and get adequate living conditions, so have an average happiness score of 50. When they hit age 40, they are killed and their organs are harvested for use in transplants for the free people. So let's assume their average life expectancy is 35, since some will die younger from disease or accidents.
There's a pretty stock utilitarian counterargument to this, and it is to say it would be acceptable in principle given the premises you've proposed, but that those premises are wildly unrealistic. In practice, slavery is a negative utility monster: a slave's average happiness score would not be 50 but approximately negative one arbitrarily-large-number. (Especially if they're going to be harvested for organs. Jesus, dude.) And this is precisely why slavery is wrong, and why we think it's so wrong. So what you're doing from a utilitarian perspective is basically saying, "Assume slavery isn't wrong. Therefore slavery isn't wrong. But slavery is wrong. Contradiction!"
Another approach is John Rawls', where you evaluate a society based not on the average happiness but on the lowest happiness, and treat improvements in the happiness of everyone else as supererogatory. Basically forbidding that happiness come at a cost to others.
Obviously I think "Option 2" is morally abhorrent; I designed it to be morally abhorrent. Hence the organ harvesting.
I'm aware of some of the utilitarian counterarguments. But Taylor doesn't seem to be advancing a true utilitarian position, so I wanted to see how his "moral fitness" arguments would stand up to these stress tests.
To more directly address counterargument #1, I'm not sure how a rational person's lifetime utility could ever drop much below zero. If your life has an expected value of below zero utility, isn't this the point at which any rational actor commits suicide? At that point suicide becomes a "profitable transaction" because the state of being dead presumably has no utility value associated with it, so a person with a lifetime expected utility of -100 is worse off than a dead person, whose "lifetime" expected utility is 0. But we don't observe people in slavery committing suicide en masse, so the utility derived from living the life of a slave must be at least slightly positive (though much lower than a free person).
And even if your counterargument were correct for the specific scenario I've proposed, can you prove as a general proposition that the configuration of society that maximizes average human life and average human happiness does not result in the abuse of some individuals? If not, is Taylor willing to recognize that his moral framework may lead to the conclusion that the abuse of the few for the good of the many is "morally best?"
I will leave Rawls' argument untouched since it seems to have no bearing on the position Taylor is advancing.
To more directly address counterargument #1, I'm not sure how a rational person's lifetime utility could ever drop much below zero. If your life has an expected value of below zero utility, isn't this the point at which any rational actor commits suicide? At that point suicide becomes a "profitable transaction" because the state of being dead presumably has no utility value associated with it, so a person with a lifetime expected utility of -100 is worse off than a dead person, whose "lifetime" expected utility is 0. But we don't observe people in slavery committing suicide en masse, so the utility derived from living the life of a slave must be at least slightly positive (though much lower than a free person).
First of all, people often behave irrationally, so observation of actual human behavior is not particularly illuminating in this regard.
But the answer to your question is "no" anyway. Utilitarians have to account death (at least violent/avoidable death) as an overriding negative utility monster, and integrate the happiness in society over time to account for people who are not currently alive. If they do not do this, then their problems go way beyond negative utility and suicide. Imagine one person has a happiness slightly lower than the rest - mathematically the average could be improved by simply executing this person.
I will leave Rawls' argument untouched since it seems to have no bearing on the position Taylor is advancing.
It was proposed specifically to create a moral evaluatory system where the abuse of the few is never permissible, so I think it's got a lot of bearing.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
If someone posts a debate thread claiming "Led Zeppelin is the best band of all time" I can debate against them without claiming I know who the best band of all time is, or whether there even is such a thing as the best band of all time. All I need to do is show that their reasoning is wrong.
See, I would assume they just want to talk about people's opinion on music. If someone disagreed with them they're like to flush out the viewpoint. And, if someone agreed, maybe talk about that a bit as well.
I don't think they'd be looking for someone to make a hypothetical view point with the sole purpose of showing there could be real viewpoints out their in which Led Zeppelin isn't considered the best. Mainly, because I assume that it would be self evident some people disagree, and it wouldn't be necessarily to construct a fake perspective just to prove it.
So if we go back to the imaginary Led Zeppelin debate, I could respond by saying "many people think the Beatles are the best band of all time, and they have such-and-such arguments for their position. Can you prove those arguments wrong?"
So, you're saying that a thread about Music opinion, you feel it would be your civic duty to advocate every other band ever -one at a time- is better than Led Zepplin?
So -by extension to this actual discussion- before you'd even consider debating whether or not you feel we're on a moral incline or decline, you'd want me to debate everyone of the potentially infinite viewpoints saying it's on a decline? "Well, you might have been able to rebuff the Eastern Orthodoxy perspective, but what about the Polish National Catholic Church? We have to do this before moving on to Hindu perspective on universal static karma..."
My personal musical tastes have no bearing on whether the Zeppelin-lover's arguments are right or wrong.
Expect "best band" can only really be adequately defined within someone's personal tastes. There is no absolute metric for musical appeal all sentient creatures must subscribe to. Or, are you saying that their must be some absolute truth about sound sensuality that even aliens without ears would have to agree on?
So what you're doing from a utilitarian perspective is basically saying, "Assume slavery isn't wrong. Therefore slavery isn't wrong. But slavery is wrong. Contradiction!"
But, BS said is more succinctly than I would have managed, likely.
Isn't this a highly moral world, by your definition?
Depends. I would assume at some point we'd be utterly destroyed by a culture that DID advance. Sitting there and waiting to be killed by something else doesn't seem to be a good overall strategy for fitness, but I've been wrong before.
Sounds like it would have the same problem Anarchy has had historically: it works fine as long as everyone subscribes to it, but everyone inevitably doesn't. Only for this, everything would have to. Cockroaches or something would take over at some point.
If not, is Taylor willing to recognize that his moral framework may lead to the conclusion that the abuse of the few for the good of the many is "morally best?"
If it did, why would it matter? Biting a Bullet doesn't make one wrong.
If someone posts a debate thread claiming "Led Zeppelin is the best band of all time" I can debate against them without claiming I know who the best band of all time is, or whether there even is such a thing as the best band of all time. All I need to do is show that their reasoning is wrong.
See, I would assume they just want to talk about people's opinion on music. If someone disagreed with them they're like to flush out the viewpoint. And, if someone agreed, maybe talk about that a bit as well.
I don't think they'd be looking for someone to make a hypothetical view point with the sole purpose of showing there could be real viewpoints out their in which Led Zeppelin isn't considered the best. Mainly, because I assume that it would be self evident some people disagree, and it wouldn't be necessarily to construct a fake perspective just to prove it.
We're talking about the Debate forums here, not discussion forums like Water Cooler Talk. And I'm not talking about someone who posts a debate thread saying "I really like Led Zeppelin, what's your favorite band and why?" (I assume a thread like this would get moved out of Debate, since it doesn't really take a position). A casual discussions over a beer is great, but that's not what a debate is.
If you post a Debate thread with the premise "Led Zepplin is the best band of all time," then you're implicitly saying "and no other band is the best band of all time." That's what it means to be "the best [whatever] of all time."
Of course, in any debate thread it's "self-evident that some people disagree." But when you post a debate topic, you're saying "I think I'm right about this issue, and people who disagree with me are wrong." If I post a debate thread with the premise "God doesn't exist," that necessarily means I think any religion that believes in a god is wrong. If someone comes at me with what you call a "fake perspective" (i.e. the real perspective of a real religion), then it's my obligation to defend my premise against that perspective by showing why I'm right and my opponent is wrong. That's how a debate works.
Of course, it's fine to change your views or concede things in a debate. But you don't get to say "I'm not going to address that argument because I don't want to."
So if we go back to the imaginary Led Zeppelin debate, I could respond by saying "many people think the Beatles are the best band of all time, and they have such-and-such arguments for their position. Can you prove those arguments wrong?"
So, you're saying that a thread about Music opinion, you feel it would be your civic duty to advocate every other band ever -one at a time- is better than Led Zepplin?
So -by extension to this actual discussion- before you'd even consider debating whether or not you feel we're on a moral incline or decline, you'd want me to debate everyone of the potentially infinite viewpoints saying it's on a decline? "Well, you might have been able to rebuff the Eastern Orthodoxy perspective, but what about the Polish National Catholic Church? We have to do this before moving on to Hindu perspective on universal static karma..."
You are obligated to show that those who disagree with your position are wrong.
You could do this by addressing every single religion, though obviously that's not a very efficient way to go. You could also give a general proof of your position that shows why a large group of opposing views are all wrong.
I can't tell you specifically how to do this, because I think your view is incoherent and thus (I believe) it's impossible to construct a logically sound argument that shows your view is correct.
My personal musical tastes have no bearing on whether the Zeppelin-lover's arguments are right or wrong.
Expect "best band" can only really be adequately defined within someone's personal tastes. There is no absolute metric for musical appeal all sentient creatures must subscribe to. Or, are you saying that their must be some absolute truth about sound sensuality that even aliens without ears would have to agree on?
Right, which is why I don't think anyone could ever win a debate in which they advance the position "[Band X] is the best band of all time." The concept "best band of all time" is entirely subjective to each listener. It isn't an objective concept.
For the same reason, I don't think anyone could ever win a debate in which they advance the position "morality is [improving/declining]" because I believe the concept of a moral "direction" is not an objective concept.
So what you're doing from a utilitarian perspective is basically saying, "Assume slavery isn't wrong. Therefore slavery isn't wrong. But slavery is wrong. Contradiction!"
But, BS said is more succinctly than I would have managed, likely.
Both of you have said this, but neither of you have established this. I took the time to flesh out a hypothetical world that certainly seems realistic, or at least plausible, to me. The two of you have basically just said "nah, couldn't happen." Why not? Show me where I'm wrong.
Isn't this a highly moral world, by your definition?
Depends. I would assume at some point we'd be utterly destroyed by a culture that DID advance. Sitting there and waiting to be killed by something else doesn't seem to be a good overall strategy for fitness, but I've been wrong before.
Sounds like it would have the same problem Anarchy has had historically: it works fine as long as everyone subscribes to it, but everyone inevitably doesn't. Only for this, everything would have to. Cockroaches or something would take over at some point.
By your framework, when cockroaches finally do take over the world, they would have demonstrated themselves to be morally superior to humans. Right?
If not, is Taylor willing to recognize that his moral framework may lead to the conclusion that the abuse of the few for the good of the many is "morally best?"
If it did, why would it matter? Biting a Bullet doesn't make one wrong.
No, but if it's a bullet you're willing to bite then this opens up some interesting avenues of discussion.
If someone comes at me with what you call a "fake perspective" (i.e. the real perspective of a real religion), then it's my obligation to defend my premise against that perspective by showing why I'm right and my opponent is wrong. That's how a debate works.
Of course, it's fine to change your views or concede things in a debate. But you don't get to say "I'm not going to address that argument because I don't want to."
When did I do that? Really, if you feel I've done that, circle me back to the argument you feel I've neglected.
You came to me with a perspective you already felt was wrong and tried to get me to talk about weather or not the perspective you felt was wrong was wrong -which isn't what the topic is about. When I finally DID just that, you went belly up and didn't defined the preservative. You can claim I'm not doing my part in this debate, but the fact of the matter is as soon as I actually attacked your dummy Catholic position, you essentially said "I'm not going to address that argument because I don't want to." (As you did with BS's Rawls' agurment). I know Extremestan wouldn't have let my weaktea arguments against his religion stand unopposed as you have.
So, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you're really qualified to truly define a true Catholic perspective. The perspective we're all best at defending is our own. I'm fairly certain the Christian perspective is pretty alien from your own. Despite your claims, your emulation never was going to be as genuine or robust as the real thing.
You are obligated to show that those who disagree with your position are wrong.
Do you actually disagree with me? As of this writing, I'm still not sure. If you don't actually disagree, then what are my obligations with respect to you? I understand what they are with respect to bakgat who -as you say- disagrees with my position. But, you're not him.
Right, which is why I don't think anyone could ever win a debate in which they advance the position "[Band X] is the best band of all time." The concept "best band of all time" is entirely subjective to each listener. It isn't an objective concept.
For the same reason, I don't think anyone could ever win a debate in which they advance the position "morality is [improving/declining]" because I believe the concept of a moral "direction" is not an objective concept.
I agree with you, but saying it doesn't exist as an absolute objective truth isn't the same as saying it doesn't exist in ANY objective sense. It exists as an objective sense within a subjective one.
I expected at this point you've been able to have guessed that proving anything 'absolutely objectively true' was never my intention.
I'm looking at it from an "Ought-Goal" perspective. "Oughts" and therefore "morality" only ever made sense to me from within a goal perspective. Once the subjective goal is set, objective truths about that framework can manifest. There are -objectively- more effective ways of achieving things.
Both of you have said this, but neither of you have established this. I took the time to flesh out a hypothetical world that certainly seems realistic, or at least plausible, to me. The two of you have basically just said "nah, couldn't happen." Why not? Show me where I'm wrong.
There's a pretty stock utilitarian counterargument to this, and it is to say it would be acceptable in principle given the premises you've proposed, but that those premises are wildly unrealistic. In practice, slavery is a negative utility monster: a slave's average happiness score would not be 50 but approximately negative one arbitrarily-large-number. (Especially if they're going to be harvested for organs. Jesus, dude.) And this is precisely why slavery is wrong, and why we think it's so wrong.
The issue is you -bitterroot- are attempting to remove the part of slavery that makes EVERYONE think it's wrong -the human suffering component- in an attempt to make utilitarians wrong for saying this modified version of slavery isn't wrong.
But, if you remove everything that makes slavery wrong from your version of slavery, then it ISN'T wrong -even if 'slavery' sounds wrong.
If not, is Taylor willing to recognize that his moral framework may lead to the conclusion that the abuse of the few for the good of the many is "morally best?"
If it did, why would it matter? Biting a Bullet doesn't make one wrong.
No, but if it's a bullet you're willing to bite then this opens up some interesting avenues of discussion.
I'd have to be pretty thick-headed to not admit it "may" lead to such a conclusion. With or not it "does" -however- isn't something you've shown.
When did I do that? Really, if you feel I've done that, circle me back to the argument you feel I've neglected.
You came to me with a perspective you already felt was wrong and tried to get me to talk about weather or not the perspective you felt was wrong was wrong -which isn't what the topic is about. When I finally DID just that, you went belly up and didn't defined the preservative. You can claim I'm not doing my part in this debate, but the fact of the matter is as soon as I actually attacked your dummy Catholic position, you essentially said "I'm not going to address that argument because I don't want to." (As you did with BS's Rawls' agurment). I know Extremestan wouldn't have let my weaktea arguments against his religion stand unopposed as you have.
So, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you're really qualified to truly define a true Catholic perspective. The perspective we're all best at defending is our own. I'm fairly certain the Christian perspective is pretty alien from your own. Despite your claims, your emulation never was going to be as genuine or robust as the real thing.
What does bitterroot's religious stance have anything to do with this? bitterroot's not required to argue the merits of only his own stance and no others.
Frequently in educated discussion does one argue the virtues of an argument that he/she does not necessarily believe in. It's how we have discussions with anyone who disagrees with us, and it's why dismissing bitterroot on the grounds that he's not Catholic and therefore cannot possibly understand Catholicism is absurd. It implies that no person can possibly speak with any authority of a position unless he necessarily agrees with it, which is nonsensical; one is perfectly capable of understanding a position without necessarily holding to it. One is not required to agree with a person's position to understand what person is arguing. How the hell do we even have a debate forum otherwise?
No, you're just trying to blanket dismiss him. "I don't have to argue with you, you're not even Catholic, so how can your argument hold any merit?" This is an ad hominem argument. That bitterroot is not Catholic is completely irrelevant to the merits of his argument. Just as there's nothing preventing people of non-European ancestry from speaking with authority on European history, there's nothing preventing non-Christians from understanding Christian arguments. What is relevant is not his personal stance on religion but whether or not his understanding of Catholicism holds. If it doesn't, then you're more than capable of pointing out specifically where his understanding is erroneous, but you have no basis, however, in saying that just because he's not Catholic, he is somehow incapable of understanding Catholicism. If bitterroot's misrepresenting the Catholic stance by creating a strawman, then that is a problem, but it's a problem with his argument, not his supposed right to make such an argument.
Writ simply, if you're going to criticize weak tea, don't follow up by serving tap water.
No, you're just trying to blanket dismiss him. "I don't have to argue with you, you're not even Catholic, so how can your argument hold any merit?" This is an ad hominem argument.
Did you even read what you quoted? I even said -in the very thing you quoted- that if there was something he felt I missed (which is quite possible) he should reiterate it so I could go over it. The complain wasn't that I didn't have to argue with him, the complaint was that when I DID he immediately abandoned the position. I am certainly complaining about the current situation, but I'm not -as least I don't think I am- allowing counterarguments to my position go unopposed, regardless of origin. When have you ever known me to do otherwise?
I'm saying it's going to be really annoying if he moves the goalpost every time I muster a counterargument. I'd rather he pick a position he has some attachment to, not one he's going to drop as soon as I write... what was it... ~8 sentences refuting it. Do you think Extremestan would give up the ghost on Catholicism after 8 sentences? Do you think I would abandon my position on Deism after 8 sentences? Do you think there are 8 sentences in all the world that would make YOU -Highroller- renounce Christ? Of course not, we care too deeply about those positions to be so easily swayed.
But, more to the point, debating the merits of theistic positions is tangent to the thread's true topic.
A) Advancing an argument that you might not necessarily subscribe to, but is relevant and valid within the premises of another person in the discussion.
B) Wasting everyone's time by setting forth meaningless arguments that you can already see flaws in within the context of the discussion.
Quote from Example of A »
Person 1: I'm against gay marriage, because the bible's against it.
Person 2 (atheist): Assuming the bible is worth living life by, why are you wearing garments made from 2 different threads? The bible's also against that.
Person 1: Well, that's the old testament.
Person 2: So is the banning against gay intercourse.
The atheist here doesn't hold the argument, "Gay marriage is fine because the bible isn't against it" as a valid argument, any more than someone would hold "A triangle cannot have 4 sides because friendship is magic" as valid. But in the context of the first person's claim, it's a valid way to try and show someone issues with their thinking.
Quote from Example of B »
Person 1: I'm against gay marriage because the bible is against it.
Person 2: How do we know the bible exists?
Person 1: What are you talking about? Everyone knows the bible exists.
Person 2: That's an unsubstantiated claim within this discussion.
Person 1: Are you telling me you don't actually think the bible exists?
Person 2: No, I'm not saying that, but how would you refute that claim?
Person 1: Why should I? You don't even accept it, it's not relevant.
Person 2: An argument stands on its merits regardless of the person making it.
It seems some people seem to think certain arguments are falling more into category B than A here. Whether that's true or not, it's important to recognize the difference here. The first example is a useful argument to advance the discussion. The second example is a waste of time and derails the intended discussion. It might be a valid philosophical question, but it wasn't the point of the thread.
One hundred percent incorrect. I don't really know what else to say here. Ancient peoples didn't even have the prerequisite beliefs about the existence of people in other areas of the world,
What the hell are you talking about? Of course ancient peoples knew about people in other areas of the world. Who do you think they were fighting in their wars? Do you think Carthage amassed a great empire accidentally while being totally ignorant of the people they were conquering?
much less that the supernatural way they believed the world worked would apply consistently to people unknown to them. Or even that it would apply consistently to them over ensuing generations unless they fulfilled rituals/practices/etc that they believed their deity wanted.
Complete garbage. People believed that, for instance, whatever deity they had to represent the Earth, the sky, or the sun was THE representation of the Earth, the sky, or the sun.
Once again, the impact or non-impact of belief systems not in question is... not in question.
Their existence pokes a hole in your theory, so ignoring them is disingenuous.
The argument is NOT that Judeo-Christianity had its impact as evidenced by it being the only known belief system that held to certain tenets.
However, if Christianity is not the only religion with such tenets, and religions with such tenets precede it by hundreds, if not thousands, of years, then how could it have the impact you're claiming by virtue of having those tenets? That doesn't make much sense, does it?
Whether it was or wasn't the only one doesn't matter. The evidence that the impact came from Judeo-Christianity is based in the fact that certain thinkers and peoples styled themselves as Judeo-Christian, and that the religious developments in that area of the world, such as Islam, made explicit reference to figures in Judaism and Christianity.
So? Why is that relevant? Wouldn't the more relevant issue be, oh I don't know, technological/scientific advancement? Wouldn't the proliferation of scientific ideas be more relevant to the advancement of science than the proliferation of Christianity?
Also you don't get to say Christianity was responsible for science and then lump Islam in there. Nope, sorry, try again.
Whether the same sort of objective world view I'm talking about would've prevailed had people believed more in Zeus, or Ahura Mazda, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't matter at all, because people didn't.
The idea that we all live on the same damn Earth is not some novel innovation brought by Christians. It existed long before that.
The way I see it, the only perspective really interested in showing how unique and original Judeo-Christianity was
Ok, this is getting absurd.
"Christianity was unique and original in its objective world view!"
Highroller: Well, no, it wasn't. First of all, having a singular God figure as opposed to polytheism does not equate to an objective world view, and isn't what early Christians believed anyway. Early Christians believed every god existed, they didn't just believe that only God existed. Second, the idea of an objective worldview existed with most cultures. It's not like they believed that the laws of reality altered the moment they left their particular land. The Romans didn't believe the laws of the universe ended the moment they set foot in Carthage. Third, other religious views advocating monotheism precede Christianity by hundreds, and some by thousands, of years.
"The existence of other religions doesn't matter!"
So this is asinine. You keep making an argument that makes no sense, and every time I point out why something is not unique to Christianity, you respond with, "Well we're not discussing that, I don't see why it matters."
For ****'s sake, dude, when you're trying to establish something as unique, whether or not it actually IS unique does sort of matter, right?
What was Judaism's impact? That's what you're going to ask?
You know exactly what I'm asking. If Judaism existed for thousands of years before Christianity, advocating the same qualities you ascribe to Christianity, where is this revolutionary impact? Why didn't it happen thousands of years earlier?
Indeed, why didn't all of that science come from Judaic cultures instead of pagan Greek and Roman ones?
My point was the the world view existing in the areas of the world where it predominated lent value to the type of objective observation that forms the basis of science.
You believe that Judaism influenced science more than Greek, Roman, and Islamic cultures? That's historically inaccurate.
But first, my point wasn't based on that theology rejecting the idea of other Gods, or really any specific tenet at all.
That WAS your exact point, actually. That monotheism somehow led to an objective worldview unique to Christianity.
Let me put it this way. Suppose for argument's sake that we pin down Judeo-Christianity as being polytheistic, to what I'm sure would be the disagreement of current and historical members of these religions.
You're distorting my words. A polytheistic religion worships other gods. The Jews and Christians of antiquity did not worship other gods (well, some did, but that's another discussion) but that doesn't mean they didn't acknowledge the existence of other gods. Paul himself affirms their existence.
Them aside, we're supposing that they're polytheistic. So what? Now that they're polytheistic, that theology can't, as a rule, have the historical impact that the record shows it to have had?
What a disingenuous statement. You are arguing that Christianity's monotheism gave it a unique worldview that made scientific advancements possible, and now you're saying, "Well if they were polytheistic, same deal"?
I'm not even going to address the rest of your argument, because if you can't keep track of what you're arguing, I'm not sure why you'd expect me to.
If you're attempting to talk
Quote from Jusstice »
about the impact of the idea of Judeo-Christian "Monotheism"
and you then say that they'd have the same impact if they were polytheistic, that undermines the idea that their monotheism has the impact you were claiming it did, doesn't it?
I do not believe there is an objective moral code. There is an evolution of ideas definitely, but those grow within the contexts of cultures, not as a human race as a whole. Though with the advent of globalization, cultures begin to fade more and more creating more of a global culture. But even if there comes a point when humanity as a whole accepts a global morality, it is still the result of an intersubjective agreement rather than some natural law outside of reality.
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Your position is that a conservative, devout catholic should agree there is less "sin" in western society today than there was, say, 100 years ago? I can't imagine how that could be true.
Again, we're talking about a devout catholic who would define all of the following as "sin": abortion, gay sex, extramarital sex, extramarital cohabitation, masturbation, viewing pornography, the use of birth control, "taking the lord's name in vain" (e.g. saying "oh my God," a phrase in common use today that was relatively taboo in America 100 years ago), being transgender, etc. Are you really saying modern society is more effective at preventing "sin" if we count all of these things as "sin?"
Also, I think you're underestimating the number of abortions per year, or overestimating the number of murders. Just under 15,000 people were murdered in the US last year. There are about 730,000 reported abortions in the US each year. If we start counting abortions as murder, the murder rate jumps something like 5,000%.
I don't really have the will to search and properly research the decline vs growth of the various things on that list. I will say -generally- the ones that involve the habit being a mortal sin, like masturbation, are on the increase, while the one-shot-you're-going-to-hell ones, like rape and murder, are on the decrease.
Homosexuality levels have likely been consistent throughout human history (but I don't have the will to find out), and -you'll note- "being transgender" isn't on the list.
But, in the end, many of those things are on the increase, sure.
However, I will say the fallacious idea humans were better off 100 years ago than they are currently might very well help my overall point.
Metrics created centuries ago are clearly incorrect.
I'm not sure I understand your point. The fact that a "metric" or idea is old does not necessarily make it incorrect. In fact, we might imagine an idea that has "survived the test of time" is more likely to be correct, on average, than a younger idea. Certainly if one is analogizing (as you are) the emergence of moral ideas to the process of evolution, then long-surviving ideas are those that have proven themselves most fit for survival.
Sure, I personally disagree with the archaic claim that homosexuality is wrong, but I agree with the claim that murder is wrong. The idea that murder is wrong is at least many thousands of years old, predating the Ten Commandments and the Code of Hammurabi. There are many old ideas that are true.
Simply observing that the catholic holds old ideas about morality does not disprove his position. If it turns out that his old ideas are correct (or at least more correct than our current moral ideas), then his claim that modern society is making sin easier to commit might well be right.
But, the first half of your argument relies on those ideas waning.
You can't in one breath tell me homosexuality acceptance is on the raise and going to church in on the decline -showing an overall moral decline- and in the next breath tell me hating homosexuality and going to church is evolutionarily fitter than the reverse. I understand the position you're currently taking isn't one you hold to, but please try to keep it consistent. I know I'm already fighting against a strawman, but I'd rather it be a consistent one.
It well might be. I'm not saying the catholic church holding moral ideas makes it wrong; I'm saying any metric that says humans were better off 100 years ago is wrong.
Regardless, I'm fairly certain bakgat is a Protestant. I only mentioned Catholicism because I'm familiar with it and it has fairly consistent beliefs. I really have no idea what flavor of christian bakgat is, nor how constant his beliefs are or should be given the dogma of whatever church he goes to on Sunday.
This is begging the question. We're debating whether society was more or less moral 100 years ago. You can't simply assert that society was less moral 100 years ago and declare yourself the winner.
Now, if by "better off" you mean that modern life is easier and more comfortable, I would agree with you. But that doesn't mean modern society is more moral. Improvements in quality of life could be attributable to the rapid improvements in technology over the last century. It's completely possible that society's moral values have declined even as peoples lives have become more comfortable due to technology.
You misunderstand, I'm not advancing the argument "an old idea is more likely to be true." I'm taking no position about whether the age of an idea is inherently correlated with its correctness. Our hypothetical Catholic doesn't necessarily think old ideas are more likely to be true, he thinks ideas espoused by the Catholic church are true, regardless of age.
What I'm saying is that you're not allowed to advance the argument that "metrics created centuries ago are clearly incorrect" because this is logically inconsistent with your premise that moral values compete for survival in an evolution-like process. If, as you claim, the survival of an idea is indicative of its moral correctness, then you should conclude that metrics created centuries ago that still exist today are more likely to be correct than metrics created recently. You are contradicting yourself if you argue otherwise.
To nitpick, even though I'm not a Catholic and I don't personally believe in the position I'm arguing, it isn't a "strawman." A strawman is usually defined as "a sham argument set up to be defeated." I'm advancing a very real argument that's representative of the views of real people. I know some devout Catholics who would agree with the positions I'm advancing. My conversations with them about their beliefs is one of the reasons I'm able to make these arguments.
I like using Catholicism because it has fairly clear and defined moral beliefs. But in theory we could have this argument from the perspective of a conservative Protestant or a conservative Muslim. There are many belief systems that would conclude the world is becoming a less moral place over time.
While you might claim less are going to heaven than used to, there is no data -I'm aware of- to support this claim. Not if the new ideas are winning out. Homo erectus was around for over a million more years than the newer homo sapien has been, but I doubt you'd find much evidence it was more evolutionarily fit in the general sense.
I was using the term because you clearly know your argument has flaws in it and where they are, or you'd subscribe to it. I understand the merit of taking up certain axioms to flush out the logical conclusion to them, but -let's face it- neither of use agree with the argument you're presenting. If you don't like the use of the term "strawman," fine. But, please acknowledge we both know I'm only punching a 'practice dummy' at the moment.
And there are people out there that really and truly believe the "straw man feminist" argument, but there is a reason "straw man feminist" is a term.
Well, I agree -for reasons mentioned above- we really should pick a steadfast religious ideology for you to fake uphold. But, I'm unsure of your motivation since you originally started this discussion to "white knight" bakgat. I'm not sure if you wanted to best stick to his perspective or not.
But, it sounds like you care about as much as I do, which is to say very little. So, pick something and stick to it. It makes no difference to me.
There's no question that humans live (on average) longer, healthier, and more comfortable lives than they did 100 years ago. But this does not necessarily have anything to do with morality.
Earlier you said "The goal of a moral society is to make sin harder to commit." Not that the goal of a moral society is to maximize lifespan or comfort. As I said, gains in life expectancy might be due to technology rather than morality. Morality can decline while quality of life increases.
Indeed, it could be the case that a moral life is more compatible with physical discomfort than with physical comfort. Most people who are looked up to as moral leaders (e.g. Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, Mandela) are lauded for their poverty and self-sacrifice. Maybe being "better off" (as you're using that term) tends to make you less moral.
Sure, not all old ideas are right. No one's making that claim. But, all other things being equal, something that has survived a long time is more likely to be evolutionarily fit than something new.
Species go through periods of rise and decline throughout time. If you're committed to this evolutionary framework, you can't declare something unfit until it's extinct. As long as you have two "live" competing ideas, each has a shot at winning out.
I think the only flaw in my argument is that God doesn't exist. Or, more specifically, the Catholic God doesn't exits. If he did, then presumably the moral views of traditional Catholicism would be correct.
And since I can't prove God doesn't exist, I'm not aware of any provable flaw in my argument.
Now, -within the Catholic perspective- we've established that some things Catholics think of as a mortal sin, like murder, are on the decrease. And, I think we've established part of the reason is because those sins are being made harder to commit. However, other mortal sins, like not going to church, are on the rise.
So, I could sit here -within the Catholic perspective- and tell you many awful sins are on the decrease and harder to commit. Maybe not all and we still have stuff to work on, or something, but the "important" ones are going down. I could maybe make something up about how people living healthier, happier, and longer lives is proof that God must be happy with what we're doing, or something. I feel I could make a strong case -within the Catholic perspective- that society is moving forward morally, and that's why things are looking up.
However, I refuse to do so.
I'm not going to try to spin some Catholic perspective for why things are increasing morally to someone who I know isn't Catholic. I'm not going to change my axioms to something I don't believe in while arguing with someone who ALSO doesn't believe in those axioms. The fact of the matter is -even within the Catholic perspective- there is a wide range of axioms to choose from, and you can easily pick the ones that make it look like humanity is going to hell in a handbasket, or the ones that make it look like it's all sunny days and roses from here on out. However, in this case it's not going to come from some clever argument on my part, appealing to your inner understanding that people doing better IS better, it's going to come from however you pick your axioms. And, I know you'll pick them so I can't prove we're doing better.
If you where actually Catholic, I might be able to appeal to that inner understanding that people living healthier, happier, and longer lives is proof we are doing the right thing, or -as a Catholic might call it- "on God's path." That we are listening to the inner light God put within each of us, or whathaveyou. But, you're not, so you'll just deny that. Thus, we're not going to get anywhere because we're not going to find common ground, by design.
We can distill what you're saying into: "people are benefiting, why would this be bad?" Except, people profit from bad things all the time. Just because people are profiting off something does not make it good. Neither a Catholic, nor any other person, should agree to this because it is logically fallacious.
It's also extremely questionable why you would insist that a Christian would necessarily equate the maximization of lifespan and comfort with that which is morally right.
bitterroot is correct.
If 1% are exploiting 99%, then "people" aren't living healthier, happier, and longer lives, "few people" are.
You'd likely have to argue that the exploited aren't "people;" are you willing to do that?
That's not even close to what I said. I said if bitterroot were a real Catholic I could potentially make the link. I never claimed any "necessities," I simply claimed it would be possible. Since, however, he's not picking axioms based on true beliefs, he can quite easily pick them as to make the argument unwinnable for me. Again -note- I'm not saying this is a "necessity." I even explicitly stated he could pick them so I couldn't lose, if he so chose. I just didn't think he would.
If you go back and reread what I wrote you will seem terms like "I might be able to" and "I feel I could make a strong case;" I'm not sure how someone could read that and think "This guy is insisting a Christian would necessarily equate..."
It is also correct to say it doesn't necessarily not have to do with morality.
If your position is correct (society is becoming more moral), then you should be able to meet your burden of proof by doing one of the following two things: (1) prove that the Catholic conception of morality is wrong, whereas your conception of morality is right; or (2) prove that under both the Catholic and the Taylor conception of morality, society is becoming more moral.
If I can pick a valid set of moral axioms that prevents you from being able to meet that burden of proof, then your statement "society is becoming more moral" is not objectively true. It's only true if you agree with Taylor's axioms. This would mean that different observers with different axioms could see morality going different directions, and all of them could be correct simultaneously. If that's the case, there's no real "direction" to human morals.
So that's why I'm raising this argument. I'm not just trying to play games here.
What you're doing here is basically a more polite version of an ad hominem. You're arguing against the person not the argument. I'm an anonymous person on the internet. As long as I only make arguments that a reasonable, rational Catholic would make, then debating against me is indistinguishable from debating against a "real" Catholic. (And how could you know whether any person on here claiming to be Catholic actually is?) If I take a position that's incompatible with Catholic beliefs, feel free to call me out.
Ok, here's some of what I really believe, if that's what you want to hear.
Your premise seems to be that more total happiness and longer average lifespan equals a more moral society. I think that premise is wrong.
What if 1% of people have to be enslaved so that 99% of people can have better lives? Suppose it's the case that this results in a higher level of "average" or "total" happiness and a longer average lifespan than allowing all 100% of people to live free. Is enslaving 1% of the population the morally preferrable choice in that case?
Or let's use another example: what if technology advances to the point that engineers and doctors determine the best way to maximize happiness and lifespan is to strap people into chairs, stick feeding tubes down their throats to provide them with a perfect cocktail of nutrients, and use electrodes to stimulate the opoid receptors in their brains. This results in a state of absolute, uninterrupted bliss and extends the average lifespan to 150+ years. All human needs are taken care of by autonomous, benevolent robots, and this system is sustainable and produces less environmental impact than traditional human society. There is no war, no inequality, no pain, no sadness. But that entire life is spent in a chair in a heroin-like state of semi-consciousness, never interacting with family or friends, never loving or being loved, never knowing or doing anything.
If morality is all about maximizing happiness and lifespan, then not only is this lifestyle preferable, it should be mandatory. A person who tries to refuse being strapped in the chair is committing an immoral act. By not maximizing his own happiness and lifespan, he is dragging down the average happiness and lifespan of mankind.
I think there are a few people (myself included) who would have a problem with a system of morality that can produce these results. You don't have to be Catholic.
Sure. Dum Diversas is a Papal Bull saying slavery is OK in the eyes of God. In supremo apostolatus is a Papal Bull saying slavery is not OK in the eyes of God. Contradiction. Therefore the Pope doesn't speak for God through Papal Bulls. Therefor Catholic Dogma is wrong.
I've got more. "Is what God says good because God says its good or does God say it's good because it is good?" Now, do you want to rehash Thomas Aquinas and I can point out the flaws in his argument from there? Cuz, I can say -in all honest- I really don't want to. I don't want to debate this with someone that ALREADY DOESN'T BELIEVE.
As for 2) it would depend on what kind of Catholicism we're talking about. Something to which you get to define defining.
Two things.
One, just because a non-contradictory sent of axioms can be constructed such that something is false within them does not make that something "not objectively true."
Two, name one thing that IS provably "objectively true." If you're saying I must prove my statements about morality "objectively true," I'm not even going to bother since we both know I would be wasting time.
That's up for debate. I'm pretty sure -under many definitions- that by espousing beliefs you find false on the internet in an attempt to win an argument, you are -by those definitions- "just playing games."
Incorrect. I'm saying that by getting to pick and choose your axioms, while I am forced to only go with what I truly believe, you have an unfair advantage in this debate. I will explain further next.
And, we both know there are many real Catholics to which it would be literally impossible for me to convince. And, you're free to "become" one of them. I'm saying, just do that and let's be done with this charade. Just be like "I axiomatically believe the bible definitively says the end times are upon us, and most everyone is going to hell" or something and lets call it a day.
In this hypothetical case are you saying there is absolutely no other way to increase average/total happiness? That -quite literally- the only way to obtain maximized happiness is to have 1% enslaved? Because this seems rather counterintuitive to me. Hasn't history shown slavery decreases happiness? Regardless, I need clarification on this point.
Robert Nozick's Experience machine? I've debate that here.
But, again, I'm pretty sure defense of my own personal morality is really the point of the thread. Only if things are getting better as a moral trend.
Again, I don't think I have to defined (or even believe, see this thread) that morality is just about maximizing happiness and lifespan. I just need to show that living now is 'better' than living then. Something I already believe, but would like to see if I can convince people that seem to subscribe to the Rosy Retrospection cognitive bias. I would like to see if can show them -even within their own person metric- they're wrong about a moral decline. Or, perhaps, they will convince me of the reverse.
Most people don't know about the Flynn Effect or the overall historical decrees of violence. They just think the new generation is stupid and lazy, and that technology makes killing impersonal and easy. But, -normally- they think that do to anecdotal evidence and cognitive biases.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel this needs to be spread around more:
I am not the party making an affirmative claim. I am simply rebutting your claim and explaining why it's wrong. I don't need to supply the "right" answer.
If someone posts a debate thread claiming "Led Zeppelin is the best band of all time" I can debate against them without claiming I know who the best band of all time is, or whether there even is such a thing as the best band of all time. All I need to do is show that their reasoning is wrong.
So I will freely admit that I don't have morality all figured out; I'm not smart enough to do that. I live my life according to my conscience and hope that this is enough. I do not know which direction morality is going, and I suspect the question itself may be incoherent in much the same way the concept of "the best band of all time" is incoherent.
I will drop the Catholic angle for now since it seems to bother you, but let me just address one thing.
As the party asserting the affirmative position, your opponents will always have an "unfair advantage" in the debate since you bear the burden of proving that you are right, whereas your opponents need only point out ways in which you have not met your burden.
So if we go back to the imaginary Led Zeppelin debate, I could respond by saying "many people think the Beatles are the best band of all time, and they have such-and-such arguments for their position. Can you prove those arguments wrong?" If the Led Zeppelin proponent can't disprove the Beatles-lovers' arguments, then he can't prove that Led Zeppelin is the best band of all time because it's possible that the Beatles are the best band of all time. All this is true whether I personally like the Beatles or not. My personal musical tastes have no bearing on whether the Zeppelin-lover's arguments are right or wrong.
I'm saying in this hypothetical that enslaving 1% of the population would produce more total/average happiness and longer average lifespans than any other societal configuration we are able to devise at that point in time.
Let me make it less counterintuitive with an example:
We have a planet populated by 1000 people. The two best options we can come up with for maximizing health and happiness look like this:
Option 1: 100% of people live free lives in society. The average life expectancy is 80 years. People have an average happiness score of 100 on some sort of happiness scale.
Option 2: 1% of people (10) are enslaved. They work without pay for the benefit of the free people, but they are still fed well and get adequate living conditions, so have an average happiness score of 50. When they hit age 40, they are killed and their organs are harvested for use in transplants for the free people. So let's assume their average life expectancy is 35, since some will die younger from disease or accidents.
99% of people (990) are free. The free slave labor makes them slightly richer and their lives slightly easier, so they have a slightly elevated average happiness score of 105. They also get the benefit of more organs available for transplant, so their average life expectancy increases by 2 years to 82 years.
The average life expectancy in option 2 = (10*35 + 990*82)/1000 = 81.5 years. 1.5 years longer than option 1.
The average happiness in option 2 = (10*50 + 990*105)/1000 = 104.5 or 4.5 units of happiness more than option 1.
Which is more moral, option 1 or option 2?
I'm talking about something similar to the experience machine, but different in some ways. In my example we don't even pretend to give people meaningful experiences. We just crack the code to pure, raw happiness, and build machines that makes people blissfully happy, but robs their lives of most of the things human beings think of as meaningful.
Also, your link doesn't seem to squarely say whether you think the experience machine is moral or not. The closest I can see you come is in the following statement:
"Fitness," in an evolutionary sense, means the ability of an organism to prolifically reproduce within the organism's environment. (One might also argue that fitness includes the ability of the organism to survive a long time, but presumably the evolutionary benefit of survival is to allow more time to reproduce.)
In any event, we've already said that my happiness-machine-world significantly extends human lifespans. Let's also say that my happiness-machine-world allows humans to reproduce at unprecedented rates, since a huge number of people can now be packed into a small space. All the space a person will ever need is the size of a chair. The benevolent robots in my example continually collect sperm and eggs to grow many, many, humans in test tubes, allowing humanity to enter into an era of reproductive success never before seen.
Isn't this a highly moral world, by your definition?
No, you have to convince me that living now is morally "better" than living then. Not just more comfortable or happier, but more moral. In order to do that, you need to define a measuring stick for "morally better" and show that your measuring stick is correct.
I am not the type of person who would prefer to have lived in the past rather than the present. The present seems to me a safer, happier, and more comfortable place than the past.
But I attribute this to things like technological advances, not necessarily to "improvements" in morality.
I also want to address the point made in the xkcd strip: I think the same mental fallacy that gives rise to the assumption of societal moral decline also gives rise to the assumption of societal moral improvement. Old people look at the moral standards of young people, see that these differ from the moral standards they grew up accepting, and therefore decry the youth as less moral. Likewise, you look at the moral standards of the past, see that these differ from the moral standards you presently accept, and therefore decry the past as less moral.
If one applies the prevailing societal moral standards of the present to any point in time in the past or the future, that point in time will seem immoral compared with the present. This is because the people living at that point in time will be operating under a different set of moral standards, and will thus engage in some behavior(s) we presently consider immoral. This does not mean that the present is the most moral time in human history. It means the present will always appear to be the most moral time in human history by the standards of the present.
Another approach is John Rawls', where you evaluate a society based not on the average happiness but on the lowest happiness, and treat improvements in the happiness of everyone else as supererogatory. Basically forbidding that happiness come at a cost to others.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Obviously I think "Option 2" is morally abhorrent; I designed it to be morally abhorrent. Hence the organ harvesting.
I'm aware of some of the utilitarian counterarguments. But Taylor doesn't seem to be advancing a true utilitarian position, so I wanted to see how his "moral fitness" arguments would stand up to these stress tests.
To more directly address counterargument #1, I'm not sure how a rational person's lifetime utility could ever drop much below zero. If your life has an expected value of below zero utility, isn't this the point at which any rational actor commits suicide? At that point suicide becomes a "profitable transaction" because the state of being dead presumably has no utility value associated with it, so a person with a lifetime expected utility of -100 is worse off than a dead person, whose "lifetime" expected utility is 0. But we don't observe people in slavery committing suicide en masse, so the utility derived from living the life of a slave must be at least slightly positive (though much lower than a free person).
And even if your counterargument were correct for the specific scenario I've proposed, can you prove as a general proposition that the configuration of society that maximizes average human life and average human happiness does not result in the abuse of some individuals? If not, is Taylor willing to recognize that his moral framework may lead to the conclusion that the abuse of the few for the good of the many is "morally best?"
I will leave Rawls' argument untouched since it seems to have no bearing on the position Taylor is advancing.
But the answer to your question is "no" anyway. Utilitarians have to account death (at least violent/avoidable death) as an overriding negative utility monster, and integrate the happiness in society over time to account for people who are not currently alive. If they do not do this, then their problems go way beyond negative utility and suicide. Imagine one person has a happiness slightly lower than the rest - mathematically the average could be improved by simply executing this person.
It was proposed specifically to create a moral evaluatory system where the abuse of the few is never permissible, so I think it's got a lot of bearing.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I don't think they'd be looking for someone to make a hypothetical view point with the sole purpose of showing there could be real viewpoints out their in which Led Zeppelin isn't considered the best. Mainly, because I assume that it would be self evident some people disagree, and it wouldn't be necessarily to construct a fake perspective just to prove it.
Mainly because I didn't make this thread to discuss if Catholicism is right or not, which is the direction you've been dragging us.
So, you're saying that a thread about Music opinion, you feel it would be your civic duty to advocate every other band ever -one at a time- is better than Led Zepplin?
So -by extension to this actual discussion- before you'd even consider debating whether or not you feel we're on a moral incline or decline, you'd want me to debate everyone of the potentially infinite viewpoints saying it's on a decline? "Well, you might have been able to rebuff the Eastern Orthodoxy perspective, but what about the Polish National Catholic Church? We have to do this before moving on to Hindu perspective on universal static karma..."
Expect "best band" can only really be adequately defined within someone's personal tastes. There is no absolute metric for musical appeal all sentient creatures must subscribe to. Or, are you saying that their must be some absolute truth about sound sensuality that even aliens without ears would have to agree on?
I swear I was -in my own roundabout way- getting to: But, BS said is more succinctly than I would have managed, likely.
Depends. I would assume at some point we'd be utterly destroyed by a culture that DID advance. Sitting there and waiting to be killed by something else doesn't seem to be a good overall strategy for fitness, but I've been wrong before.
Sounds like it would have the same problem Anarchy has had historically: it works fine as long as everyone subscribes to it, but everyone inevitably doesn't. Only for this, everything would have to. Cockroaches or something would take over at some point. If it did, why would it matter? Biting a Bullet doesn't make one wrong.
We're talking about the Debate forums here, not discussion forums like Water Cooler Talk. And I'm not talking about someone who posts a debate thread saying "I really like Led Zeppelin, what's your favorite band and why?" (I assume a thread like this would get moved out of Debate, since it doesn't really take a position). A casual discussions over a beer is great, but that's not what a debate is.
If you post a Debate thread with the premise "Led Zepplin is the best band of all time," then you're implicitly saying "and no other band is the best band of all time." That's what it means to be "the best [whatever] of all time."
Of course, in any debate thread it's "self-evident that some people disagree." But when you post a debate topic, you're saying "I think I'm right about this issue, and people who disagree with me are wrong." If I post a debate thread with the premise "God doesn't exist," that necessarily means I think any religion that believes in a god is wrong. If someone comes at me with what you call a "fake perspective" (i.e. the real perspective of a real religion), then it's my obligation to defend my premise against that perspective by showing why I'm right and my opponent is wrong. That's how a debate works.
Of course, it's fine to change your views or concede things in a debate. But you don't get to say "I'm not going to address that argument because I don't want to."
You are obligated to show that those who disagree with your position are wrong.
You could do this by addressing every single religion, though obviously that's not a very efficient way to go. You could also give a general proof of your position that shows why a large group of opposing views are all wrong.
I can't tell you specifically how to do this, because I think your view is incoherent and thus (I believe) it's impossible to construct a logically sound argument that shows your view is correct.
Right, which is why I don't think anyone could ever win a debate in which they advance the position "[Band X] is the best band of all time." The concept "best band of all time" is entirely subjective to each listener. It isn't an objective concept.
For the same reason, I don't think anyone could ever win a debate in which they advance the position "morality is [improving/declining]" because I believe the concept of a moral "direction" is not an objective concept.
Both of you have said this, but neither of you have established this. I took the time to flesh out a hypothetical world that certainly seems realistic, or at least plausible, to me. The two of you have basically just said "nah, couldn't happen." Why not? Show me where I'm wrong.
By your framework, when cockroaches finally do take over the world, they would have demonstrated themselves to be morally superior to humans. Right?
No, but if it's a bullet you're willing to bite then this opens up some interesting avenues of discussion.
You came to me with a perspective you already felt was wrong and tried to get me to talk about weather or not the perspective you felt was wrong was wrong -which isn't what the topic is about. When I finally DID just that, you went belly up and didn't defined the preservative. You can claim I'm not doing my part in this debate, but the fact of the matter is as soon as I actually attacked your dummy Catholic position, you essentially said "I'm not going to address that argument because I don't want to." (As you did with BS's Rawls' agurment). I know Extremestan wouldn't have let my weaktea arguments against his religion stand unopposed as you have.
So, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you're really qualified to truly define a true Catholic perspective. The perspective we're all best at defending is our own. I'm fairly certain the Christian perspective is pretty alien from your own. Despite your claims, your emulation never was going to be as genuine or robust as the real thing.
Do you actually disagree with me? As of this writing, I'm still not sure. If you don't actually disagree, then what are my obligations with respect to you? I understand what they are with respect to bakgat who -as you say- disagrees with my position. But, you're not him.
Then, isn't showing THAT your obligation towards me? Seems like something you'd be better suited at than pretending to be Christian, at any rate.
I agree with you, but saying it doesn't exist as an absolute objective truth isn't the same as saying it doesn't exist in ANY objective sense. It exists as an objective sense within a subjective one.
I expected at this point you've been able to have guessed that proving anything 'absolutely objectively true' was never my intention.
I'm looking at it from an "Ought-Goal" perspective. "Oughts" and therefore "morality" only ever made sense to me from within a goal perspective. Once the subjective goal is set, objective truths about that framework can manifest. There are -objectively- more effective ways of achieving things.
That's not fair to BS: The issue is you -bitterroot- are attempting to remove the part of slavery that makes EVERYONE think it's wrong -the human suffering component- in an attempt to make utilitarians wrong for saying this modified version of slavery isn't wrong.
But, if you remove everything that makes slavery wrong from your version of slavery, then it ISN'T wrong -even if 'slavery' sounds wrong.
I assume -then- you see the issue with your plan?
Degrading bellow cockroaches -I hope- you would agree is undesirable.
I'd have to be pretty thick-headed to not admit it "may" lead to such a conclusion. With or not it "does" -however- isn't something you've shown.
Frequently in educated discussion does one argue the virtues of an argument that he/she does not necessarily believe in. It's how we have discussions with anyone who disagrees with us, and it's why dismissing bitterroot on the grounds that he's not Catholic and therefore cannot possibly understand Catholicism is absurd. It implies that no person can possibly speak with any authority of a position unless he necessarily agrees with it, which is nonsensical; one is perfectly capable of understanding a position without necessarily holding to it. One is not required to agree with a person's position to understand what person is arguing. How the hell do we even have a debate forum otherwise?
No, you're just trying to blanket dismiss him. "I don't have to argue with you, you're not even Catholic, so how can your argument hold any merit?" This is an ad hominem argument. That bitterroot is not Catholic is completely irrelevant to the merits of his argument. Just as there's nothing preventing people of non-European ancestry from speaking with authority on European history, there's nothing preventing non-Christians from understanding Christian arguments. What is relevant is not his personal stance on religion but whether or not his understanding of Catholicism holds. If it doesn't, then you're more than capable of pointing out specifically where his understanding is erroneous, but you have no basis, however, in saying that just because he's not Catholic, he is somehow incapable of understanding Catholicism. If bitterroot's misrepresenting the Catholic stance by creating a strawman, then that is a problem, but it's a problem with his argument, not his supposed right to make such an argument.
Writ simply, if you're going to criticize weak tea, don't follow up by serving tap water.
I'm saying it's going to be really annoying if he moves the goalpost every time I muster a counterargument. I'd rather he pick a position he has some attachment to, not one he's going to drop as soon as I write... what was it... ~8 sentences refuting it. Do you think Extremestan would give up the ghost on Catholicism after 8 sentences? Do you think I would abandon my position on Deism after 8 sentences? Do you think there are 8 sentences in all the world that would make YOU -Highroller- renounce Christ? Of course not, we care too deeply about those positions to be so easily swayed.
But, more to the point, debating the merits of theistic positions is tangent to the thread's true topic.
A) Advancing an argument that you might not necessarily subscribe to, but is relevant and valid within the premises of another person in the discussion.
B) Wasting everyone's time by setting forth meaningless arguments that you can already see flaws in within the context of the discussion.
It seems some people seem to think certain arguments are falling more into category B than A here. Whether that's true or not, it's important to recognize the difference here. The first example is a useful argument to advance the discussion. The second example is a waste of time and derails the intended discussion. It might be a valid philosophical question, but it wasn't the point of the thread.
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Complete garbage. People believed that, for instance, whatever deity they had to represent the Earth, the sky, or the sun was THE representation of the Earth, the sky, or the sun.
Their existence pokes a hole in your theory, so ignoring them is disingenuous.
However, if Christianity is not the only religion with such tenets, and religions with such tenets precede it by hundreds, if not thousands, of years, then how could it have the impact you're claiming by virtue of having those tenets? That doesn't make much sense, does it?
So? Why is that relevant? Wouldn't the more relevant issue be, oh I don't know, technological/scientific advancement? Wouldn't the proliferation of scientific ideas be more relevant to the advancement of science than the proliferation of Christianity?
Also you don't get to say Christianity was responsible for science and then lump Islam in there. Nope, sorry, try again.
The idea that we all live on the same damn Earth is not some novel innovation brought by Christians. It existed long before that.
Ok, this is getting absurd.
"Christianity was unique and original in its objective world view!"
Highroller: Well, no, it wasn't. First of all, having a singular God figure as opposed to polytheism does not equate to an objective world view, and isn't what early Christians believed anyway. Early Christians believed every god existed, they didn't just believe that only God existed. Second, the idea of an objective worldview existed with most cultures. It's not like they believed that the laws of reality altered the moment they left their particular land. The Romans didn't believe the laws of the universe ended the moment they set foot in Carthage. Third, other religious views advocating monotheism precede Christianity by hundreds, and some by thousands, of years.
"The existence of other religions doesn't matter!"
So this is asinine. You keep making an argument that makes no sense, and every time I point out why something is not unique to Christianity, you respond with, "Well we're not discussing that, I don't see why it matters."
For ****'s sake, dude, when you're trying to establish something as unique, whether or not it actually IS unique does sort of matter, right?
You know exactly what I'm asking. If Judaism existed for thousands of years before Christianity, advocating the same qualities you ascribe to Christianity, where is this revolutionary impact? Why didn't it happen thousands of years earlier?
Indeed, why didn't all of that science come from Judaic cultures instead of pagan Greek and Roman ones?
You believe that Judaism influenced science more than Greek, Roman, and Islamic cultures? That's historically inaccurate.
That WAS your exact point, actually. That monotheism somehow led to an objective worldview unique to Christianity.
You're distorting my words. A polytheistic religion worships other gods. The Jews and Christians of antiquity did not worship other gods (well, some did, but that's another discussion) but that doesn't mean they didn't acknowledge the existence of other gods. Paul himself affirms their existence.
What a disingenuous statement. You are arguing that Christianity's monotheism gave it a unique worldview that made scientific advancements possible, and now you're saying, "Well if they were polytheistic, same deal"?
I'm not even going to address the rest of your argument, because if you can't keep track of what you're arguing, I'm not sure why you'd expect me to.
If you're attempting to talk
and you then say that they'd have the same impact if they were polytheistic, that undermines the idea that their monotheism has the impact you were claiming it did, doesn't it?