Strong Atheism

April 25, 2005

The experience by a human of any phenomenon be it a slap in the face or a syllogism cannot take place apart from the physical structure of that human. Acquiring information from the environment is necessarily a matter of sense for a biological being. A biological being knows its environment and its state in respect to that environment by feeling. (see Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens) Therefore the understanding of a syllogism such as you presented must include feeling/emotion. At the very least in order to understand the Socrates syllogism one must be interested in one way or another.

It is a mistake to think that logic or any means of knowledge can be purely objective. It is equally a mistake to think that knowledge can be purely subjective

[Objectivism] boils down to the reaffirmation of their fundamental concern with "absolute truth" and "objective meaning," entirely independent of anything having to do with human functioning or understanding. Against this, we have been maintaining that there is no reason to believe that there is any absolute truth or objective meaning. Instead, we maintain that it is possible to give an account of truth and meaning only relative to the way people function in the world and understand it. (P. 217) [On the other hand] subjectivist positions all hinge on the basic assumption, namely, that experience has no natural structure and that, therefore, there can be no natural external constraints upon meaning in truth. Our reply follows directly from our account of our conceptual system is grounded. We have argued that our experiences structures realistically in terms of experiential gestalts. These gestalts have substructure that is not arbitrary. Instead, the dimensions that characterize the structure of the gestalts emerge naturally from our experience. (P. 224)

It would seem, to me anyway, that logic cannot be divorced from feeling simply because the human physical structure will not allow it. To ignore that is to ignore facts that can contribute to the best understanding of the universe that humans are capable of.

April 26, 2005

I agree, in a general sense, but objectivism is a epistemological standard, not a lifestyle. Our senses are the only way determining our immediate reality, but they can also be deceptive when it comes to larger issues such as religions and deeper scientific truths. The main problem I and all other objectivism's have is when people confuse subjective emotions or experiences for proofs of an objective epistemological claim. If they just admit that their subjective experiences are subjective, and stop assuming there is an objective reality behind them we would not have a problem.

Empiricism is an extension of our senses, it relies ultimately on them, but also reduces the bias they are subject to as tools of our minds. Without senses would have no empiricism, but without empiricism we'd live in a world governed by our senses, with no certainty of knowledge except our "commonsense" which would be extremely limited to our experiences. Whereas science has taught us that commonsense is useless in determining real truths, and that senses can be repeatedly fooled. Objectivism is used to determine the truth using every method available, but also making sure that the more reliable methods holds sway over the least reliable ones

April 27, 2005

AUB, I'm not ignoring you just thinking.

April 28, 2005

Don't worry, I'm busy on a dissection, it'll be up in an hour and I'd like people's views on it. I think it's my best work to date. +Plus I've tons of research to do.

April 29, 2005

I agree, in a general sense, but objectivism is a epistemological standard, not a lifestyle. Our senses are the only way determining our immediate reality, but they can also be deceptive when it comes to larger issues such as religions and deeper scientific truths. The main problem I and all other objectivism's have is when people confuse subjective emotions or experiences for proofs of an objective epistemological claim. If they just admit that their subjective experiences are subjective, and stop assuming there is an objective reality behind them we would not have a problem.

Empiricism is an extension of our senses, it relies ultimately on them, but also reduces the bias they are subject to as tools of our minds. Without senses would have no empiricism, but without empiricism we'd live in a world governed by our senses, with no certainty of knowledge except our "commonsense" which would be extremely limited to our experiences. Whereas science has taught us that commonsense is useless in determining real truths, and that senses can be repeatedly fooled. Objectivism is used to determine the truth using every method available, but also making sure that the more reliable methods holds sway over the least reliable ones

Yes this is a problem. However, the reverse is also problem. That is objectivism can be as tyrannical as subjectivism disguised as religion. Objectivism can and does lead to absurd situations and behaviors from human perspective. The religionist is right when she complains that objectivism sucks the life out of human existence. In the developed West, and -- I presume now -- the westernized developed East people are as much objects as any consumer good. As such people are devices to be manipulated to buy and or exploited for work. In fact, the human factor is seen as a detriment to the objective whatever that may be. As a result the culture attempts to eliminate the human factor is much as possible. (See The McDonaldization of Society by George Ritzer)

Objective empiricism seems like it is the human's particular survival niche. But I think we make a mistake to look down on the senses from the "heights of reason". I ask, how did humans survive the hundreds of thousands of years before the rise of reason that coincides with the rise of totalitarian agriculture?

The earth was a pretty good place to live up until we decided that reason puts us above and outside of nature. With our reason we have managed to take the whole planet to a place where we may not be able to live on it at all. Of course modern versions of religion have contributed to this mess. However, it is no longer clear to me that religion in general and Christianity in particular is "the problem".

The problem is that we think we are "something special". The religionist expresses this as being chosen people. Objectivism expresses this through the implication that we are the chosen species. We all act as if we're supernatural. Certainly we could use reason to figure out that this is not "the truth". But back when reason was balanced by feeling, such mental exercise was not necessary.

Myth has a greater hold on us and we care to admit. We on the objectivist side don't dare to challenge the story that tells us we are the chosen species anymore than the religionist will challenge his story that his people are the chosen ones.

Reason and science certainly give us a better grasp of the physical world. I can't argue with that. However, they tell us very little if anything about relationship -- not just relationship with other people, but with the cosmos in general.

If we manage to get rid of religion -- and we won't -- the human condition as we know it wouldn't change. This is because we won't have changed the story. Given the condition of the world that coincides with the explosion of knowledge in the last couple of hundred years, I'm not sure that objectivism actually gives us access to the "most reliable methods" anymore than religion does.

Objective empiricism is reliable for explaining that the earth circles the sun rather than the reverse. However, it tells us nothing about how we shall then live. Of course, religion doesn't do it either.

May 1, 2005

I’ve been doing other threads so long I’ve lost the flow on this one, I may re-direct the focus somewhat at times, bare with me.

Yes this is a problem. However, the reverse is also problem. That is objectivism can be as tyrannical as subjectivism disguised as religion.

How? The reverse of subjective lies is objective truth, what other basis for anything can there be? This is no false dichotomy, you either show a respect for truth or you don't, and as neither faith, emotions or ideology gets you any what else it left? Objectivism prescribes no social or political system, just a recognition of what is real, it no more says we should be tyrannical than Evolution says we should be selfish or cruel. Besides with objectivism comes the hope of better moral values, empirical ethics could well be the best way to avoid all such tyrannies that faiths and despots throw at us. All despotism’s are based on an idealistic lie of a world-view, and are never objective, same applies to ethics.

Certainly tyrannous subjective xtian morality pretends to be objective, but it's based on the mere presupposition of God's existence, which cannot be defended logically, or empirically. Objective morality can at least be defended using reason, therefore its "dictates" have at least a foundation in reality. You may be object to it on principle simply because it reminds you of religious morality and its certainty, but you have nothing else on. Atheism doesn't lead to communism, and objectivism doesn't lead to any tyranny, just a rigid standard for determining truth. Would you prefer a more flexible and the less reliable system? One that constantly makes mistakes, and has us basing our values and ethics on chicken entrails? Objective morality is not a despotic ethical sytem like xtian commandments, but a standard used to determine how best to fashion and apply values to help huamanity, one with the best chance to be right. A moral system based on a lie may at first appear to help, but ultimately you cannot help mankind by misrepresenting it, sooner or later the truth will conflict and the whole system will collapse. Besides I'm not saying what is right and wrong, merely giving reasons why ethics has to be formed according to empirical and rational standards. Descriptive not prescriptive at this point, it only goes further after that standard is agreed upon.

Objectivity is about respecting the truth, that does not mean we undervalue human life, just because we lack religious or emotional sentiments. We do not a ban emotions or empathy, we just rely on truth seeking methods less prone to error and bias, once the truth has been arrived that, you can be as emotional or "spiritual" as you like. I regard religious morality as unreliable and inhumane because of its subjective but also fictional basis. If morality is to be worth the name, then it should be based on the facts, I think this is a reasonable proposition, and it's not as if there was any alternative. Moral relativism doesn't work, it may appear more tolerant and progressive to those of a ambiguous philosophy, but it is impractical and leads to greater suffering. The moral problems in the West today are the product of Christianity, it is to blame for creating a moral system bound to belief, that is not only inhumane in itself, but also subject to outright destruction in the minds of former believers when their faith leaves. A morality that is constant, objective, and not dependent on a person's beliefs is the better choice. It will not end when your faith leaves you, and can be held over and above religious dogmas, so as to keep them in line.

If all religions were answerable to a single set off decent moral principles, that would help to alleviate the suffering they cause. For eg. religious commandments still have no legal authority over that of proper laws, even in the US. No matter how fundamentalist a person maybe, they'll still get arrested for stoning gays, etc. I'm just calling for a moral version of legal supremacy, so that faiths can be held to a standard that they consistently failed to reach, not just logic and empiricism, but also superior ethic. You yourself can hardly regard religious morality as the even remotely adequate, given that you have seen what a failure it is, particularly among xtian's. There are better morals in various religions such as Buddhism and paganism which are successful, but they are still flawed by having a mystical element, and they don't apply to anyone outside these religions, and thus they can have no sway over the less non-ethical faiths such as a xtianity and Islam.

Objectivism can and does lead to absurd situations and behaviors from human perspective.

Such as? If there was anything absurd about it I would know, I’m not some idiot blinded by ideology or faith, I don’t side with things unless they check out very thoroughly.

The religionist is right when she complains that objectivism sucks the life out of human existence.

“She” is talking like a theist, i.e. shite. Her complaints are a matter of (biased and irrational) opinion, I think most of this boils down to attitude, you can be religious and regard life as depressing and miserable, or be secular or objective and regard it as wonderful and fantastic. You can't just claim on behalf of religions that objectivism takes the fun of life, when you are not an objectivist, and don't know what effect it may have on you. I as an objectivist can say for certain that it makes life better, at least for me. Religious people criticising a epistemological philosophy they don't have just because it's not theirs, is narrowminded and bigoted. This is as just as false as a xtian claiming atheism makes life meaningless, we both know this is false, (it's just lacks their collective meaning) and I expect better arguments from you.

In the developed West, and -- I presume now -- the westernized developed East people are as much objects as any consumer good.

You are confusing objectivism with the objectifying of people, in the same way that Theists confuse philosophical materialism with a shallow materialism. If this is the quality of your arguments, I won't bother to dissect the rest. This has got nothing to do with economics or excessive capitalism, but is a moral and truth seeking issue, not social. People have always regarded each other as a commodaties when their prioroties are dictated by money, this has nothing to do with recognising the non-supernatural nature of the universe. This concerns only one issue, whether reality and morality should be dictated by religion or reason. Stop making irrelevant objections.

As such people are devices to be manipulated to buy and or exploited for work.

Objectivism has nothing to say regarding economic issues, its deals with truth, and it's ethics deal with things such as human rights and dignity, in which case many of your objections would cease to be a problem if people would act more humanely and considerately towards each other. The reason they don't is either because there priorities are screwed, or because they are religious, objectivism seeks to rearrange mankind's priorities, and destroy religion. Objective morality can be approached in many different ways, but the procedure I am recommending places life before anything else, ethics next, providing it is geared slowly to serve life, and philosophy third, providing it recognises the supremacy of ethics, and the supremacy of life over ethics. This 3 stage hierarchy is the more humanistic approach to objectivism, and although not the only approach, certainly stands against the kind of problems you are obsessing with, as much as the ones I’m upset with, (religion and so forth.)

There may be less ethicaly concerned versions of objectivism which either fail to deal with the problems you are concerned with, or do not acknowledge them, but none I'm aware of encourages them. Are you suggesting that supranaturalism is the only way to fight societies avarice? No, then what is left? Secular emotionalism? That’s just xtianity without the jesus, just as subjective and flawed. If more people would recognise that ethics can be objective then more objective philosophies would be able to deal with these issues. You're suggesting that as an objectivist I approve of these problems? They are not what I regard as the most severe issues of the world today, but I do oppose them, to suggest that I don't merely because I mostly deal with religion from an objective position is insulting. And to suggest that as an empiricist I approve of materialism is even worse. I couldn't be less material if I tried

In fact, the human factor is seen as a detriment to the objective whatever that may be.

What are you blathering about? Humanity is objective, therefore it is a factor that needs to be taken into consideration, and giving its nature (as the only sentient and reasoning beings known to exist) the most important factor. You can't have objectivism without humanity, it is the only source of such a recognition of reality. The only aspects of humanity that needs to be screened from objectivism are emotional and personal bias, and then only when determining empirical facts.

As a result the culture attempts to eliminate the human factor is much as possible. (See The McDonaldization of Society by George Ritzer)

Objectivism is a naturalistic philosophy which regards existence as being determined by empiricism, what the hell is that got to do with McDonald's? Capitalism is the issue, not objectivism, which is not as you seem to think an umbrella term for all the secular social ills. There are problems not due to religion, but down to the same myopic view of things, objectivist try to see things in a broad context, free of personal goals, the very opposite of a mere seeking of money. Capitalism is a different issue, FT may defend both but that’s just his choice.

Objective empiricism seems like it is the human's particular survival niche.

It is one of humanity's many survival traits, and the most useful when determining truth.

But I think we make a mistake to look down on the senses from the "heights of reason".

The senses are the basis of empiricism, the scientific laboratory is nothing more than a refinement of our senses, capable of seeing more with greater precision and clarity, and also with less of the bias that render our senses occasionally unreliable. Reason dictates that our senses are extensively correct, (more so than our imaginations or religious "visions") it does not seek to demean them, merely ensure that what they sense are real, and receive greater information than prescribed by their limitations. Without reason (or at least instinct) all our senses would give us a meaningless jumble, and without our senses reason is blind, and has no basis, they complement each other, they don't try to out do each other. I don't know where you get your ideas from, but they are very ill-informed.

I ask, how did humans survive the hundreds of thousands of years before the rise of reason that coincides with the rise of totalitarian agriculture?

Instinct, and trial and error. I know this "TA" thing is a pet fixation of yours at the moment, but you can't just use it to dicredit every opposing position, in every debate you have. Neither you or I can trace all the origins of reason, it may have its origins purely in the Enlightenment, it may have slowly developed with the Greek philosophers, it may have even existed in a proto-state during the ice-age, or it may be instinctive, and pre-date your TA event, simply lumping it with your pet hate is a sloppy tactic, and serves to satisfy only yourself. Give me a better alternative than reason, and I'll refrain from calling you an idiot.

The earth was a pretty good place to live up until we decided that reason puts us above and outside of nature.

Reason didn't do this, faiths like xtianity did, they are the source of our arrognace, not reason which puts us back with nature, or have you been ignoring Evolution? I'm sure it was better long ago, but its pretty good now, pollution is an economic issue, don't try to blame enviromental problems on reason that's just silly, without reason and science we wouldn't be aware of problems we cause, and wouldn't be able to fix. We also wouldn't be able to fix other environmental problems that are not our fault, but remain eternally ignorant, until the next comet wipes us and all life out.

Using reason to determine flaws and problems in society and the enviroment and then blaming reason for them is hypocritical. Back when we where respecting the enviroment and things, we had other social, biological and moral problems we have since solved, besides our old respect for nature was derived not from culture or religion but from trial and error, observation and reason that was later turned into a religion. To deny reason is to deny humanity, we are not purely animals anymore. Many of us today (like yourself) have re-discovered respect for nature, but not through reverting to a pre-Neolithic state, but my being informed about our world, by learning facts and details given by science that happens to confirm that our tree worshiping ancestors where right.

We harmed our world through an incomplete picture of it, before we had all the facts, in the understanding the cycle and balance of the nature we know why we should do what is right, whereas before they did what was right without fully knowing why. The Pre-Neolithic did have some good things going, but we can go one better by a full comprehension of nature, not just one with religion and tradition used to fill in the gaps. Besides what about disease and other causes of suffering? Reason can end them, having more trees and species is nice but you can't appreciate them if you die before your 3rd birthday like most of humanity used to. If we had our greater knowledge of the world before the Neolithic and Industrial Revolutions these problems you abhor would not have irrisen, and they wouldn’t still be an issue now if it wasn't for greed and ignorance, flaws which I doubt came after reason.

Your hatred of progress and modernity is a bias, rendering your arguements invalid. Just because reason can be linked to environmental problems doesn't mean it isn't the best or only way to determine truth. If you have no interest in the truth, merely say so, but as you offer no better way to determine what is real, then any objections along the grounds that "the world would be better off" does not change its nature as the best option. If you would rather we all lived in ignorance, then as an objectivism and thusly a lover of truth our positions are diametrically opposed on a fundamental level. There is no point in debating or arguing if no matter how successful my attempts to show the supremacy of reason in both matters of truth and ethics may be, you would reject both truth and ethics in order to do without reason. This is a rather illogical argument as you wouldn't be able to determine whether or not you were right, without knowing the truth, and without using reason.

If you wish to be blind to the things that we do better now and focus only on the bad, then you're no better than the xtian's who pray for the end times, and try to ban rock music. Reason is an ability the animal world lacks, therefore it makes us "beyond" nature, this is a defining feature of the human race, not a source of arrogance but merely a fact of our nature, you may wish to remove reason from humanity, but it is as irrational and impractical as my desire to remove God from humanity, but at least I acknowledge my goal is but a dream. You may wish to hark back to some idyillic Eden, like nature worshipping pagans do, but that is just idealism, as foolish as the dream of eternal Paradise is to the xtian's. We are reasoning creatures, deal with it, don't just dream of setting the clock back, like an xtian fundy. We were creatures governed by instinct, lacking morals or any consciousness, then we got bigger brains, became self-aware, and developed among other things reason and a belief in a God in order to cope with our new-found status. These are historical fact, wishing they were not so doesn't get you anywhere.

With our reason we have managed to take the whole planet to a place where we may not be able to live on it at all.

And with our reason we have determined that this is going on, and only with reason can we solve the problem. The state of the environment won't suddenly get better by us all living in tents and foraging from bushes, it needs science to solve the problem, (pollution negating agents, solar panels etc) and science to determine what the problem is in the first place.

Of course modern versions of religion have contributed to this mess.

No half, I have long seen this link, it’s one of the biggest blunders xtainity made. Again due to an anti empirical view of life. If we had remained pagan we’d have better ethics, science and enviroment

However, it is no longer clear to me that religion in general and Christianity in particular is "the problem".

"A problem" certainly, and I know of no objectivist who calls for pollution, again this is down to our attitude, reason does not dictate we are above nature, reason is why we are above or beyond nature. Descriptive not prescriptive, attitutes are a matter of beliefs not abilities, xtianity and other faiths made us look down on the animal world, Evolution shows us we where wrong, but also that we have reason that allows us to know Evolution, which no animal can do. It seems you have turned against religion and reason, and I don't see that leaves you with much of a worldview, and indeed you appear to be using both the flaws of religion and the benefits of reason to attack both.

The problem is that we think we are "something special".

Are you saying that we are in every way identical to non-sentient animals on this planet? If all our abilities and achievements don’t constitute a higher level than animals then you have a very odd view of humanity, you’d make a lousy humanist. We can do more, but our not above, that’s all. We are physically animal mentally something else.

The religionist expresses this as being chosen people. Objectivism expresses this through the implication that we are the chosen species.

Objectivism expresses no such thing, have you even read my posts? You seem to be projecting your preconceived bigotry onto Objectivism. We know more than any other what we are saying, and it isn't what you think we are, you are misrepresenting our position the way theists do with Evolution or atheism. There is no "chosen" and what's the difference between being a chosen species and a people? It seems to me that religion says both, and reason says neither.

We all act as if we're supernatural.

Objectivists deny he supernatural, I have made that abundantly clear.

Certainly we could use reason to figure out that this is not "the truth".

We have done, as have you, further demonstrating your hypocrisy.

But back when reason was balanced by feeling, such mental exercise was not necessary.

Balanced? And when was this perfect time exactly? How can truth be more easily determined through emotion? There is no balance, empiricism and emotions are in conflict, or why would science be making so many strides when free of emotional, sentimental or religious constraints? Emotion is the centre of religion, detachment is the centre of Objectivism. You admit that reason determines truth, therefore you have shown that I'm right, and failed to show that emotion is in any way a necessary "balance" for it.

Ojectivism isn’t invalid just because you’d like to see more emotion in it. Emotions have a part to play, but they must always bow to empirical facts, and never lead the way, that is what creationism is trying to do, and I no more trust then to get to the truth than your odd standards. Our ancestors used "feelings" to fill in the gaps of their knowledge, it was a temporary solution, and there is no reason why we cannot use pure knowledge and reason, now we know how to achieve it. Sure you may continue using "feelings" to fill in the gaps, however since there are very few gaps left, and they are ever shrinking, and as feelings are not a specific phenomena, but a combination of instinct, chemicals, subconscious processes, and for all you know a emotionaly charged form of reason, I failed to see how that would help.

And having difficulty understanding your argument, however I will attempt to deal with it. Instinct can sometimes be proven correct, as can the sentimental beliefs of a culture, but their beliefs and emotions were a product of reason, you seem to think that they somehow got to the truth using those feelings alone, that is just plain false, they used generations of trial and error, combined with observation, they "felt" what was right but that was just their way of articulating their thoughts, no more accurate than prescribing them to be the words of a deity. Their thoughts were mixed with emotion, because they were less developed and didn't quite understand what was driving their minds. They mixed up emotion which drives us to merely survive, and reason which drives us to achieve something better. There is no reason the think that these "feelings" as you ambiguously put it where any standard of truth at all, just an imperfect version of reason today, or at least an unnecessarily tainted version.

Reason leads to truth, this knowledge can be misused, but it isn't reason that is to blame, any more than science can be blamed for the miss-use of its inventions in the cause of war or oppression. If you wish for knowledge to be more correctly used, then it needs more knowledge in order to determine the best way, it can't just rely on "feelings" as that is self-evidently unreliable, besides morality can also play a part, and that must be based on reason. It's about application, you can't hate knowledge because it is occasionally used for bad, we could have used the same technology to help nature instead of harm it, we just miss apply our knowledge, but is was still knowledge, it was still the truth that reason had discovered. Occasionally that truth can be used to do harm, as well as good, however that harm cannot be used as excuse not use reason.

The alternative you offer is very badly thought out. We could use "feelings" to do enormous harm to the environment, and indeed that was partially the reason we did. You seem to think that "feelings" are some sort of infallible authority that will always do right. This is no more correct than the idea that reason will always lead to good things. Both emotions and reason our tools, we need to fix the tool user, not stop using the tool proven to be more most successful. Especially as the best way to help mankind with its attitude problem is reason. If you are saying that reason needs to be tempered with humility and morality, then I agree, however humility comes from the truth of our existence, dictated by reason, and as I have previously stated morality has to be a product of reason.

Emotions are interwoven throughout, but they assist, they do not dictate. They provide motivation and drive, to do many things bad and good, including using reason. If you can blame reason for the problems science has had a part in, then I can blame emotions for the part it has played in the atrocities of religion, it is foolish to do either. Science can be misused by the unscrupulous, in the same way that emotion is used by religion to manipulate and control humanity. But as you fail to see the part reason and emotions play, you falsely accuse reason, and unrealistically favour emotion, in the same way religion accuses reason, while miss-using emotion. Both have a part to play, neither should be disproportionately favoured or demonised.

Myth has a greater hold on us and we care to admit.

Not really, what if you've never heard any mythology? It holds those who look back, not those who look forward. I love mythology, (Hellenistic, The Kalavara etc) and appreciate what it says and its past achievements, however I also recognise its dangers. Mythology is merely religion and tradition that is no longer recognised as literal truth. It has "truths" in it, but also an equal share of falsehood.

We on the objectivist side don't dare to challenge the story that tells us we are the chosen species anymore than the religionist will challenge his story that his people are the chosen ones.

You've started talking shit again.

Reason and science certainly give us a better grasp of the physical world. I can't argue with that.

And as the physical world covers everything, that's that..

However, they tell us very little if anything about relationship -- not just relationship with other people,

Science can tell us about the chemical and neurological phenomena responsible for emotion, the basis of relationships, cognitive anthropology, the social implications, you just don't keep up with the scientific literature, again like a theist. This is just god of the gaps again, trying to destroy reason by pointing out what you think are holes in its picture of reality. Emotions do not "tell" us anything, it makes us react in a certain way, but that does not constitute knowledge, only motivations. They may let us "know" we love someone, however science can also determine that. Emotions are just a quicker and more convenient method at this point. Besides it could be argued that emotions don't tell you anything, they merely make you do or react to something using feelings, which you later acknowledged consciously, then use reason to determine your emotions means you have reached a state, that you then conceptualise using language.

but with the cosmos in general.

The cosmos is physical, as are you, we cannot know either except through reason. what kind of relationship is based on ignorance? Besides again this points to attitude, you can have a existential or pantheistic relationship with the universe, but this could be as much a product of intellectual thought as emotion. My objectivity determines my true status within the universe, which I can then express or experience using emotion, but objectivity forms the basis for my understanding, without which my emotion would be chaotic and irrational. We need to know the cosmos before anything else.

If we manage to get rid of religion -- and we won't

Well not with that attitude you won't!

the human condition as we know it wouldn't change.

It's just wouldn't screw us over so much. Objectivity prevents human nature from harming humanity. By forcing us to recognise the truth, (we invariably harm each other over a lie) and creating a better standard of ethics.

This is because we won't have changed the story.

Or to put is another way, the human condition as we know it wouldn't change. What's with all the redundant mysticism?

Given the condition of the world that coincides with the explosion of knowledge in the last couple of hundred years, I'm not sure that objectivism actually gives us access to the "most reliable methods" anymore than religion does.

Miss-use of the truth does not stop it being the truth, any more then social Darwinism makes Darwin wrong. And once more you sink into theist style "crap-talk". Are you denying the achievements of science? Are you saying that it found no more truth than religion? Reason, objectivity, empiricism and science have proven themselves beyond any reasonable doubt, where as religion has consistently failed, to put the two together is absurd. The Industrial revolution caused an environmental disaster, but it was still based on discoveries that created good things as well, and they still remain the truth, and no doubt you benefit from many of them. It’s just stupid to turn down truth, because someone else used it to do harm, Al Quida did not invalidate the science of the Wright brothers just because they used planes in 9/11.

Objective empiricism is reliable for explaining that the earth circles the sun rather than the reverse. However, it tells us nothing about how we shall then live.

Of course it does, it doesn't just explain the crude realities of our universe, it tells us how we got here, it tells us about our instincts, our minds, our psychology, our society, our history. If you think they're of no use in determining how we shall live, what the hell are you using? The best choices are the most informed choices, empirical knowledge must be the basis of any decision both social and moral, otherwise we'd be acting in blind ignorance. Your understanding of science is at least 300 years out of date, its not just physics and gravity now.

Empathy and emotions provide the impetus to create a moral and harmonious society, but for morals to be followed and applying it requires objectivity, without any at all we would be entirely bound to our own subjective worldviews. The only way to prevent social and moral outrages perpetrated by religious "ethics" is through objectivity, emotions are subjective, and if morals are to be more than relativistic and unique to each individual then we need some form of external objective standard. This is what religion fails to provide, as there is no god, and as the subjective cannot be used for morality, therefore the objective must, there is no other way.

Of course, religion doesn't do it either.

It's certainly tries to.

I provide you with a standard of truth and morality, you throw inadequate attacks at it, all with the message that we need some "back to nature" emotionalism as a basis for our lives, you may have fallen for some new trendy "progressive" mind set, but I'll stick to what works thanks.

We Objectivists are not saying you need to do without emotion, (why does everyone assume that? Oh right, ignorance) but it is not how you find reality, just how you feel towards it. Insisting that objectivly hasn’t enough emotion is just trying to cram something unnecessary into the issue, (for eg creationism in science class) aren’t there enough emotions in life? We just ask for a less in one area. You seem to have a sentimental attachment to emotion, a bias perhaps?

Reason is not all there is, but it is important, attacking it will just make you appear irrational, I was not attacking emotion, just warning those who rely on it too much that is must be guided by the facts, any decent "balance" must recognise what part emotion and reason have to play, I think the objective "balance" is the best, it's not a detached tryanny, but the most responsible position, certainly more well thought out than our oponants, theistic or otherwise. Blaming reason like you did just made you look like an environmentalist hypocrite cursing science over the Internet. If you would just listen to us instead of jumping into the deep end, assuming all sorts of ridiculous things, and then you'd realise our position is just common sense. Fine use emotions, but they are subjective and can determine “personal truths” but nothing to assist society or the cause of morality, any more than the subjective emotionally upheld falsehoods of theism.

May 2, 2005

Thanks AUB for poking holes my budding theories, I'm thinking again.

May 4, 2005

AUb,

You wrote so much that I'm going to have to do this in stages. I don't have your mental stamina.

First I’m not arguing for subjectivism as opposed to objectivism. I’m arguing against both as separatible entities. I’m arguing for Experientialism meaning that the human act of cognition is in the center of understanding. The act of cognition cannot take place outside of the physical structure of the individual attempting an understanding of what is. That structure necessarily uses the senses, feeling, emotion, experience, what was eaten for breakfast, and goodness knows (yet) what else.

Second, I’m not entirely sure of that which I write yet. I’m still figuring it out.

Third, I see the debate between the subjective and the objective to be something like insisting that one can have a coin with a head but no tail.

How? (can objectivism be as tyrannical as subjectivism) The reverse of subjective lies is objective truth, what other basis for anything can there be? This is no false dichotomy, you either show a respect for truth or you don't, and as neither faith, emotions or ideology gets you any what else it left?

The melding of the two is another basis. It is a mistake to think that the subjective does not tell a human something about reality. I have the notion that if this was so we would have been extinct long since. The need of the scientific method and the difficulty we have applying it shows that experience of cognition that gets labeled subjective is first in the order of understanding. This seems understandable to me in terms of evolution. When I see a snake’s head darting at me I don’t have time to rationally determine if there is any objective danger to my person. By means of my subjective fear I jump out of the way, later I may suffer a bit of embarrassment when my reason assures me it is only a garter snake. When I relate to my wife, the rational seems to play a secondary role and has often proved to be detrimental. My subjective cognition tells me more about the state of the relationship then my objective rational analysis of its components. Many smokers know rationally that they ought to quit, but they don’t. Something about their cognitive structure overrules the rational objective decision to quit. This ability of the structure of humanness to overrule the rational objective understanding cannot be primarily destructive, for obvious reasons.

Consider my reading glasses. When I hold them in my hand and look at them my primary understanding of them is objective. When I put them on to read my experience of them is primarily subjective. When I try to view them objectively as I attempt to read through them, I find my ability to read greatly diminished. The are useful for reading only if I submit to my subjective experience of them. From my experience my subjective views of the world are not always or even mostly “lies”.

Strict adherence to the rational causes irrational behavior or outcomes. Example the quest to make business systems rationally efficient:

Rational systems, contrary to the promise, often end up being quite inefficient. For instance, and fast food restaurants, long lines of people often format the counters, or parades of cars idle in the drive-through lanes. What is purported to be an efficient way to obtain a meal often turns out to be quite inefficient.

... even the vaunted Japanese industry of the 1980s and nearly 1990 said its inefficiencies. Take the "just in time" system discussed in chapter 3. Because the system often requires the parts be delivered several times a day, the streets and highways around the factory often become cluttered with trucks. Because of the heavy traffic, people were often late to work or for business appointments, resulting in lost productivity. But the irrationality (of the rational system) goes beyond traffic jams and missed appointments. All these trucks using great deal of fuel, very expensive in Japan, and contributed greatly to pollution. The situation grew even worse when Japanese convenience stores, supermarkets, and department stores also began to use a just in time system, bringing even greater numbers of delivery trucks onto the streets.

P. 125 ... 1) Rational systems are not less expensive, to) they force people to do unpaid work, and 3) most important here, they are often inefficient. It might be more efficient to deal with the human teller, either in the bank or in the drive-through window, then wait in line at an ATM.

P. 135 ... Speaking of the automobile assembly line: it has experienced extraordinary success in churning out millions of cars a year. But all these cars have wrecked havoc on the environment. Their emissions pollute the air, soil, and water. And ever expanding system of highways and roads has scarred the countryside. And we must not forget the thousands of people killed and the far greater number injured each year in traffic accidents.

Rational science tells us how to build an effective car, an effective atom bomb, an effective medical procedure, but it doesn’t tell us the best way to use them or even if we should use them at all. Something else is needed. I’m saying at this point that subjective vs. the objective is a false dichotomy. Yes it is a gross simplification.

Objectivism prescribes no social or political system, just a recognition of what is real, it no more says we should be tyrannical than Evolution says we should be selfish or cruel. Besides with objectivism comes the hope of better moral values, empirical ethics could well be the best way to avoid all such tyrannies that faiths and despots throw at us. All despotism’s are based on an idealistic lie of a world-view, and are never objective, same applies to ethics

I’m not up on my Ayn Rand but I understand that her objectivism prescribes political and social systems. The objective experience can tell us that this or that moral is not producing a humane situation, but it is our emotion that tells us this or that is not a humane situation. When I help at the food bank, it is not a rational expectation of reciprocity that compels me, but compassion.

I don’t see how “empirical ethics” can come about without taking the whole of human empirical experience. I think that Zero Tolerance in US schools would be a rationally derived ethic. It leads to absurd acts like expelling a child for possessing a nail file or giving a friend an aspirin. This happens because human sensibilty is not allowed.

How would objectivism not become an ideology? What would be the checks and balances. I for one find what I know of Rand’s objectivism inhumane ideology. I don’t know it well because I find it distasteful. That is my emotion tells me don't bother with this.

May 5, 2005

Certainly tyrannous subjective xtian morality pretends to be objective, but it's based on the mere presupposition of God's existence, which cannot be defended logically, or empirically.

You know my feelings about Christianity. It is not the source of morality. I doubt it is even a source. I am not defending Christianity. I’m just saying that there is more to being human then objective reason, and that “more” is something that contributes to knowledge of reality.

Objective morality can at least be defended using reason, therefore its "dictates" have at least a foundation in reality. You may be object to it on principle simply because it reminds you of religious morality and its certainty, but you have nothing else (to go) on.

I don’t think I’ve ever really seen an objective moral. I wonder if you could list 10 objective morals that have been completely derived from objective reason and have not been judged moral or immoral by what I’m going to call human sensibility, meaning all the feelings and emotions that accompany moral behavior and disappointments.

Atheism doesn't lead to communism, and objectivism doesn't lead to any tyranny, just a rigid standard for determining truth.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “rigid standard”. I sounds a good deal like “absolute morality” to me. If I am forced to obey something that doesn’t feel right to me, I’m going to feel tyrannized. How do you deal with the fact that human sensibility often trumps reasoned objectivity?

Would you prefer a more flexible and the less reliable system? One that constantly makes mistakes, and has us basing our values and ethics on chicken entrails?

It is precisely the inflexible top down absolute morality that I find inhuman. If the source excludes the experience of the individual and the community* (experientialism) it is suspect whether or not it takes into account all the laws of physics, mathematics, and logic. Humans (and I think other animals) are not just objects. They are also subjects.

*A cooperating group of people living in physical proximity wherein each individual knows each other individual and her/his relationship to the group.

Objective morality is not a despotic ethical sytem like xtian commandments, but a standard used to determine how best to fashion and apply values to help huamanity, one with the best chance to be right.

Where will the objective morality come from? Are you speaking of the Philosopher King, or maybe the Philosopher Council? That sounds rather Orwellian to me. Will, objectively reasoned morality be decided democratically? If so, how will it be kept objective while being decided by so many subjects?

A moral system based on a lie may at first appear to help, but ultimately you cannot help mankind by misrepresenting it, sooner or later the truth will conflict and the whole system will collapse.

I agree. Except that a moral system that does not take human sensibility into account would not be dealing with reality, and human sensibility approaches said reality differently then objective reason. If human sensibility is not included in the making of the moral system it will be doomed to failure.

Besides I'm not saying what is right and wrong, merely giving reasons why ethics has to be formed according to empirical and rational standards. Descriptive not prescriptive at this point, it only goes further after that standard is agreed upon.

And I’m saying the empirical rational standards are insufficient.

May 5, 2005

Objectivity is about respecting the truth, that does not mean we undervalue human life, just because we lack religious or emotional sentiments. We do not a ban emotions or empathy, we just rely on truth seeking methods less prone to error and bias, once the truth has been arrived that, you can be as emotional or "spiritual" as you like.

Human sensibility is not just something that is nice to have like a puppy. It is part of the experience that determines how the animal relates to reality. Human sensibility is likely to be expressed religiously. That is not the problem. The problem is the myth that we are the chosen (or the pinnacle of evolution) and that there is only one right way to live.

I regard religious morality as unreliable and inhumane because of its subjective but also fictional basis. If morality is to be worth the name, then it should be based on the facts, I think this is a reasonable proposition, and it's not as if there was any alternative. Moral relativism doesn't work, it may appear more tolerant and progressive to those of a ambiguous philosophy, but it is impractical and leads to greater suffering. The moral problems in the West today are the product of Christianity, it is to blame for creating a moral system bound to belief, that is not only inhumane in itself, but also subject to outright destruction in the minds of former believers when their faith leaves.

Yes, but it seems that you are ignoring the fact that human sensibility is one of the facts. Evolution has woven human sensibility into moral behavior. If objective reason were the source of morality how do explain evidence of moral feeling and behavior among other social animals? If you have a beautiful and desirable woman, and if I want her and have the means to take her what objectively reasoned moral value would have more restraining power over me then my sense of compassion, or if necessary my sense of shame?

It is apparent that these feelings are expressed and the meanings of the feelings are taught mythically. The problem is not that they are tied to myth. The problem is the myth they are tied to. When the myth contains the command that “there is only one right way to live” it is destructive by definition. That is the core of any ideology, and could be expressed, “This is the ideal way to live. All other ideas must perish.” Christianity contains this command. Capitalism contains this command. Communism contains this command. Islam contains this command. Even United Statesism Democracy contains this command. It sounds like objectively reasoned empiricism also contains the command.

A morality that is constant, objective, and not dependent on a person's beliefs is the better choice. It will not end when your faith leaves you, and can be held over and above religious dogmas, so as to keep them in line.

This germ of an idea comes from http://cacsi.com/Education/GattoTheNeglect...gregational.htm

Part of human sensibility is the fact that humans cannot relate to an unlimited number of others. I heard on a Discovery program that our brain size and structure limits us to a community of 250 max. After that relationship is abstract. A moral imperative that is constructed outside of that community is necessarily an abstract one size fits all thing. It cannot help but be inhumane because it is missing something – the subject.

May 6, 2005

Chef,

What you lose as an ex-Christian:

To illustrate, just suppose suppose some Christians are sitting around a table at church planning a lunch for the next Sunday after the services. (AUB would probably inject that, being Christians, it is more likely they were up to no good such as planing to hate homos or burn some witches, but lets leave this viewpoint aside for now.) During the meeting a man shows up at the church door saying he is hungry and needs some money for food. The group of people at the table discuss the situation, and being humans, they express their feelings for the man's position, and some even empathize with this plight. Then someone pipes up, "We are commanded by Christ to help this person," and then recites some Bible reference. The group discusses the issue some more, and then, in this case,decides to help the person, at least partly influenced by the belief that this is what their religion requires.

Now suppose that a group of non-religious people is sitting around a similar table at the community center planning a lunch for the next Sunday afternoon as a fun activity for their neighborhood. During the meeting a man shows up at the center door saying he is hungry and needs some money for food. The group of people at the table discuss the situation, and being humans, they express their feelings for the man's position, and some even empathize with this plight. Perhaps the group decides to help the man, or maybe the decide to call the police and have him arrested for vagrancy. An ex-Christian at the meeting can not stand up and make an argument from a religious perspective that they are compelled to do anything.

THa case for helping the man becomes more difficult, after all if the groups merely sends him on his way with not help they have in no direct way deprived the man of his life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. Of course nothing stops any individual of the group from helping the man, perhaps just for their own satisfaction. But the argument fro helping the man based on some notion of common humanity is more difficult to formulate. I see this as a lose.

AUB argues that humans are basically good but have been corrupted by Christianity. Perhaps he is right that on balance more harm than good has been done. But I have trouble seeing that also abandoning the positive portions of religious teachings somehow strengthens the foundation of a moral society by un corking some repressed wellspring of inate human kindness.

Chef, what I am arguing is that I believe your positions against globalization, dehumanization, etc. are easier to support from a religious perspective than from a non-religious one.

May 7, 2005

NorthenSun

You make a good argument but one I’ve tackled earlier, "christ" is just used as a justification for what their innate humanity wanted to do anyway, if all xtianity is is a justification then there are better ways to justify, more complex maybe but lacking the side effects. With so many better alternatives, which you don’t seem to have studied, why cling to this old and deseased carcass of a cult, which not only on balance has done more harm, but may well do even more in the future? It is used to justify good and evil don't forget, and the little good it does cannot be worth the bad that always goes with it, you cannot remove the fact that god or jesus or the bible can be used as the authority and justification for anything due to its pliable and contradictory nature, if you let xtianity function as a justification for good, then you let it for evil also, can you live with that?

Besides none of this changes the fact that xtianity is a lie, a Noble Lie maybe but on principle we should still oppose it, falsehood has a negative effect beyond the simpler moral dimensions. I've already dealt with the fact that most good xtians are really just humanists using a god or bible they know nothing about as the galvanising force they don't need, and as far as I'm concerned, waking up to the truth and getting to know a more positive philosophy, although not as "pat" as using a name to do good or evil is a more suitable approach for an intelligent species. We can do so much better than lies and crude authority, is it asking too much for mankind to try a little harder? Think, not just pick bits out of a bible that is mostly immoral, as part of a religion that is built on hate and with a heinous past no tyranny can match. Any “way” to rationalise good has got to be better, to defend the worse “way” just because it can be a “way” strikes me as a tad irrational.

You "lose" nothing, no good is unique to any faith, it can be achieved better more honestly and with fewer problems with a secular philosophy. Yes there are positive teaching that will be abandoned but so what? You don't keep a car that doesn't run just because the wipers still work, you get a car that does everything a car is supposed to, otherwise you might as well walk. There’s positive in many ideas most people will never encounter, and better ones in virtually all other philosophies that many are prevented from knowing. Xtianity’s are derivative and so tainted by doctrine and lies, you’d really have to be desperate to insist it should be preserved just for the sliver of decency that remains. We will not miss it when religion is gone, our sentiment holds us back but morally there is no good argument for its continuation. Nice try though.

And chef, I’d love to dissect all your posts but I lack the time for now, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree, as you seem very hung up on introspective emotionalism. Still it is interesting and I hope to continue later.

May 8, 2005

Chef,

What you lose as an ex-Christian:

...

AUB argues that humans are basically good but have been corrupted by Christianity. Perhaps he is right that on balance more harm than good has been done. But I have trouble seeing that also abandoning the positive portions of religious teachings somehow strengthens the foundation of a moral society by un corking some repressed wellspring of inate human kindness.

Chef, what I am arguing is that I believe your positions against globalization, dehumanization, etc. are easier to support from a religious perspective than from a non-religious one.

Yes, and no.

In the sense that religion is not about morality AUB is correct. Religion is about control that is necessary to get large groups of people to conform to what I will call here "project civilization". Project civilization is basically the notion that there is "one right way to live". Religion makes the subjugation of others to the "one right way" a holy act of eradicating evil. Witness the treatment of the 1st Peoples in the Americas.

Globalization and dehumanization are the continuation of the process and the religious mind set. Organized Christianity must subjugate everything that it does to the notion of "one right way" That includes a moral act of feeding someone. For the most part Christians will feed the hungry as long as the hungry submit to hearing the gospel "the one right way" and then show signs of submitting to "the one right way". For the most part if the hungry refuse to hear and show signs of submission, at best they will be turned away. At worst they will be subject to coercion of anything from sanctions to violence.

On the other hand, human sensibilities tend to be informed by myth. That is we make sense of sensibilities in conflict via myth. That is the myth helps me decide whether I should obey my feeling of compassion for the hungry or the fear of depriving my family and friends. It is by these feelings/emotions we make moral decisions.

Objective reasoning by itself will decide nothing, though certainly it informs the decision. Emotion by definition is what motivates action. AUB is right in the sense that objective reason is better than a destructive myth like "one right way". However, most people will have other things to do besides going through some reasoned formula to make a moral decision. Something like WWJD is a short cut, though in this case a primarily destructive short cut. However, for the most part, religion must have worked in the millennia before "one right way" arose in Mesopotamia 8-10 thousand years ago.

May 8, 2005

And chef, I’d love to dissect all your posts but I lack the time for now, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree, as you seem very hung up on introspective emotionalism. Still it is interesting and I hope to continue later.

AUB

I'm hoping that we are engaging in a dialectic here rather than trying to establish The One Right Way. On my part I intend to adjust my thinking according the flaws you and others show me. Six months ago I would have considered myself as objectivist as you, proud of having abandoned subjectivism. You will find this a failure, perhaps, but MG showed me morals cannot be based in objectivism. Having already seen that neither can they be based in subjectivism I'm looking for the real system. I am of the opinion that it must be based on the whole human and not just one isolated human mental function.

What I have emphasized above could be taken as an expression of contempt. I'm not construing it in this way at this time. However, if it is an expression of contempt, it serves to illustrate what I’m getting at -- emotion is a if not the deciding factor. Oddly enough, If that is the case, to ignore subjective emotion would not be rational.

I understand the time constraints. Anyway I haven't finished answering your post.

chef

May 8, 2005

If all religions were answerable to a single set off decent moral principles, that would help to alleviate the suffering they cause. For eg. religious commandments still have no legal authority over that of proper laws, even in the US. No matter how fundamentalist a person maybe, they'll still get arrested for stoning gays, etc. I'm just calling for a moral version of legal supremacy, so that faiths can be held to a standard that they consistently failed to reach, not just logic and empiricism, but also superior ethic.
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You yourself can hardly regard religious morality as the even remotely adequate, given that you have seen what a failure it is, particularly among xtian's. There are better morals in various religions such as Buddhism and paganism which are successful, but they are still flawed by having a mystical element, and they don't apply to anyone outside these religions, and thus they can have no sway over the less non-ethical faiths such as a xtianity and Islam.

Without engaging any human sensibility how would a “moral version of legal supremacy” be objectively established?

What objective standards, sans human sensibility, would determine when a “moral version of legal supremacy” had been reached?

Since “legal supremacy” implies enforcement by the weight of the state and since you have argued that those that find themselves under compulsion cannot act morally, how will the new religionless society be any more moral then what is extant now?

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I’m not defending Christianity. I’m merely looking for a moral philosophy that includes the whole human.

I agree that many religions have a better moral system than Christianity. I disagree that they are flawed by myth per say. They are flawed to the extent that their myths support “one right way to live”. I find that of the religions I know, Buddhism gives the lest support to “one right way to live”. I also find it the most moral.

The Prophet Chef: When Objectivists have sufficient power to establish their superior ethic, nothing will change except the source of oppression.

May 8, 2005

Objectivism can and does lead to absurd situations and behaviors from human perspective.

Such as? If there was anything absurd about it I would know, I’m not some idiot blinded by ideology or faith, I don’t side with things unless they check out very thoroughly.

I have pointed out some of these things above. I just want to draw attention to the human sensibility this remark implies. If you want to argue that human sensibility has no bearing on deciding issues then a statement like this is off limits to you.

I have read much of the work on your web site. It is fine writing. Paradoxally, part of what makes your writing so good is your passion for objectivity.

May 8, 2005

The religionist is right when she complains that objectivism sucks the life out of human existence.

“She” is talking like a theist, i.e. shite. Her complaints are a matter of (biased and irrational) opinion, I think most of this boils down to attitude, you can be religious and regard life as depressing and miserable, or be secular or objective and regard it as wonderful and fantastic. You can't just claim on behalf of religions that objectivism takes the fun of life, when you are not an objectivist, and don't know what effect it may have on you. I as an objectivist can say for certain that it makes life better, at least for me. Religious people criticising a epistemological philosophy they don't have just because it's not theirs, is narrowminded and bigoted. This is as just as false as a xtian claiming atheism makes life meaningless, we both know this is false, (it's just lacks their collective meaning) and I expect better arguments from you.

You are mostly right here. My statement is too broad. Adjustments will be made.

May 8, 2005

In the developed West, and -- I presume now -- the westernized developed East people are as much objects as any consumer good.

You are confusing objectivism with the objectifying of people, in the same way that Theists confuse philosophical materialism with a shallow materialism. If this is the quality of your arguments, I won't bother to dissect the rest. This has got nothing to do with economics or excessive capitalism, but is a moral and truth seeking issue, not social. People have always regarded each other as a commodaties when their prioroties are dictated by money, this has nothing to do with recognising the non-supernatural nature of the universe. This concerns only one issue, whether reality and morality should be dictated by religion or reason. Stop making irrelevant objections.

How are morals objective or otherwise not about economics? Are you sure that morals have nothing to do with how we live? Where do I get the idea that other humans are not commodities? Where do I get the notion that commodification of anything is not right? I think it comes from my human sensibility informed by my experience.

Again I will point out that I am not arguing for supernaturalism. I’m arguing against what appears to me to be a false dichotomy: reason or religion is the source of morality. I’m merely arguing that human morality is not something apart from humans. Morality is not out there in objective land or heaven. Neither place exists.

May 8, 2005

As such people are devices to be manipulated to buy and or exploited for work.

Objectivism has nothing to say regarding economic issues, its deals with truth, and it's ethics deal with things such as human rights and dignity, in which case many of your objections would cease to be a problem if people would act more humanely and considerately towards each other. The reason they don't is either because there priorities are screwed, or because they are religious, objectivism seeks to rearrange mankind's priorities, and destroy religion. Objective morality can be approached in many different ways, but the procedure I am recommending places life before anything else, ethics next, providing it is geared slowly to serve life, and philosophy third, providing it recognises the supremacy of ethics, and the supremacy of life over ethics. This 3 stage hierarchy is the more humanistic approach to objectivism, and although not the only approach, certainly stands against the kind of problems you are obsessing with, as much as the ones I’m upset with, (religion and so forth.)

You objectivism then must be something different then Ayn Rand’s if it can leave out economics.

5. Right Livelihood Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.

I’m tempted to leave it there. If objective morality is about serving life how is it able to ignore making a living?

(I would add as a general remark and not really part of this argument to right livelihood 5. denying the necessities of life to other beings.)

There may be less ethicaly concerned versions of objectivism which either fail to deal with the problems you are concerned with, or do not acknowledge them, but none I'm aware of encourages them. 1.Are you suggesting that supranaturalism is the only way to fight societies avarice? 2 No, then what is left? Secular emotionalism? That’s just xtianity without the jesus, just as subjective and flawed. If more people would recognise that ethics can be objective then more objective philosophies would be able to deal with these issues.
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You're suggesting that as an objectivist I approve of these problems? They are not what I regard as the most severe issues of the world today, but I do oppose them, to suggest that I don't merely because I mostly deal with religion from an objective position is insulting. And to suggest that as an empiricist I approve of materialism is even worse. I couldn't be less material if I tried

1. As above: no I’m not arguing for supernaturalism. 2. Again this is a false dichotomy, and it has been answered above.

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I’m not concerned here about which problems are most severe. What I have used here are examples. I would be glad to apply the ideas to other examples, if that would clear up my position for you.

I’m sorry you feel insulted. However at the risk of more insult, I have to ask the following questions: How can you not be material? Are you implying that there is something else? I am a materialist. If the only way to judge the moral is objective reason, why do you pay attention to your feeling of being insulted as a way to judge what I’m saying?

May 8, 2005

I'm begining to think educating non-theists as to the shear depth of the interlectual fire power we have against religion is more important than taking on religion itself, as we need a more unified and organized "front" on issues that can be clarified. Educating people here is very rewarding...

The cause of a lot of needless division is ignorance. The misconception concerning each others positions can be easily cleared up, as for eg. most agnostics and other groups simply misunderstand atheism, or other positions otherwise they'd be more open, so a regular clarification of each view is always needed, there's a lot of miss-information out there.

AUB, I've been reading most of your posts since I came onto this site in late summer. Sometimes I feel I just can't devote the time right then to reading a whole thing... sigh. Anyway, I am fascinated by your first paragraph in what I've quoted above. Some other people on here have begun to say things like this, too, including on the main part of the board today.

I've always been scared off from Ayn Rand. Are you an objectivist in her tradition? On the other hand, I think there is much in Aristotle, Epicurus and other Greek philosophers, and the one objectivist I used to talk with a lot liked Aristotle very much; her boyfriend back then was and is a philosophy prof/ historian of Aristotle. I am intrigued by your observation that ethics must pick up where the Greeks and their successors left the discussion, so as to repair it from the damage done by Christianity.

I'm also intrigued by your observation that the ease with which ex-theists fall into relativism, as though that's the only other option, can be explained in part by the lies Christianity gave them: viz. that God is the ground of ethics. I love your statement that this crisis is a symptom of the death of Christianity. I chuckle, having read some long articles in "Il Giornale" about how Ratzinger/Benedict XVI dedicates himself to trying to fight the same battle but with the broken weapons of Christianity. Like you, I think, Ratzinger opposes those who call the notion of truth itself into question. Too bad there's so much untruth mixed up in the system of which the guy now is the CEO.

If you're still with me, I wonder what you and Chefranden think of the view of Bryan Magee, which he traces to Hume, that morality rests on right sentiment. That way of thinking sounds consistent with that of the brain research, social biology crowd.

enjoy the rest of the weekend

May 9, 2005

I’m not defending Christianity. I’m merely looking for a moral philosophy that includes the whole human.

I agree that many religions have a better moral system than Christianity. I disagree that they are flawed by myth per say. They are flawed to the extent that their myths support “one right way to live”. I find that of the religions I know, Buddhism gives the lest support to “one right way to live”. I also find it the most moral.

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Chef, I understand the point you are making about any religion demanding that they have an exclusive insight on the truth and therefore a mandate to proclaim a "one right way to live." But there has to be some common set of moral principles that all humans can agree to build an ethical society on. You must already have some mental list of moral criteria that you use to compare various religious doctrines in order for you to make that statement that you find Buddhism to be the most moral. AUB is saying that objective reasoning is the proper and only acceptable method for developing this list. I agree with him, especially since the "use" of emotions is in no way excluded from this process: http://www.whatisobjectivism.com/consequences/page5.htm . But objective reasoning is just the method for developing the list. This does not mean you have to buy in to all the conclusions of Ayn Rand's Objective Philosophy.

Its AUB's turn also to provide his list of moral principles. Its clear that he doesn't like religion, especially Christianity. But what are the basic moral principles that result from secular philosophy? If AUB states humanism, please provide a reference.

Ultimately I will contend that without religion, there is "one right way" to develop a society. It must be some form of democracy that uses a free market economy.

May 9, 2005

ficino

AUB, I've been reading most of your posts since I came onto this site in late summer.

Thanks, I am well aware that I need to shorten the length of my writings, but I have a lot to say, and prefer to thoroughly dissect when I regard my opponent's position as completely wrong.

I've always been scared off from Ayn Rand. Are you an objectivist in her tradition?

Sort of, I am not as into economic issues, and base my morality on altuistic concerns rather than an egoist basis. My overall position is eclectic, but it includes humanism, scepticism, naturalism, rationalism, empiricism and other positions that I generally agree with. For me Objectivism is an extension of empiricism, but I also recognise the supremacy of reason, as I have personally experienced its power.

On the other hand, I think there is much in Aristotle, Epicurus

I regard Epicurus as the first modern European, and the greatest pioneer of materialistic morality, to me ethics has to be based on strictly naturalistic terms, that does not mean a lack of emotion, but the recognition of empiricism as the most reliable means of truth, and thustly morality. As for Aristotle, he got some things right and some things wrong, due to the fact that he preferred rational introspection over empiricism, which led to his "scientific" work being eventually totally negated by modern science. Apart from this flaw his many other ideas were certainly very helpful, however due to his idealistic tendencies he became a tool for the xtian Church, which is why I prefer the strictly materialistic philosophers, but we have less of their work as most of it was destroyed by the Church.

I am intrigued by your observation that ethics must pick up where the Greeks and their successors left the discussion, so as to repair it from the damage done by Christianity.

Ethics began with our instincts becoming emotional motivations, (Chef will like that) and then reached a higher intellectual level, more suited to our mental development when the greatest thinkers of Greece established better foundations for morality other than simply instinctive altruism or empathy. They saw morality as purely a human standards designed to protect our species, which is of course what it is. It was not a matter of a deity's will, or any universal or pre-human standard. It was practical and it worked, I can name many examples of great and ethical people who were vastly superior to the greatest xtian moralists. The Church has of course blotted out of the memory of these great people, and in the case of Pliny the younger, out right libeled him, turning a second generation ethical philosopher into a Torquemada style monster.

What the Epicureans, cynics and stoics achieved was not to be matched for over a 1000 years. When the Church took over, morality was a secondary function of divine authoritarianism, and the story of western ethical values came to an end. As far as I am concerned nothing from 400 AD to 1400 that anyone wrote or did is worth a damn on ethical issues, other than as an example of what not to do. There are no saints, no martyrs, no kings and no peasants whose actions were guided by any decent ethical system, as even when their actions were good they were always for strictly non-ethical motivations.

I'm also intrigued by your observation that the ease with which ex-theists fall into relativism, as though that's the only other option, can be explained in part by the lies Christianity gave them: viz. that God is the ground of ethics.

This is something I noticed the moment I got here, here's a summery of a debate I had a year or so ago,

http://www.humanism.me.uk/essays/Ex%20Xtians.htm

(You may remember it.)

I love your statement that this crisis is a symptom of the death of Christianity.

It is a little parting give they left us, inevitable when you base morals on a belief that can easily removed by anything from common sense to a lifetime of scientific study. Some might say at least we were better off with religious ethics, I think that is short-sighted and ignorant. When morality was based on the Big Lie it was not only a false ethic due to its degenerate origins of bronze age cultural taboos and personal opinions of long dead zealots, but subject to the divine command flaw, biblical inconsistency, and to a certainty which created more harm than good.

Now that we have this secular uncertainty, it appears to leave us worse off, but that's because we still have this idea that certainty is always a good thing. We need to be sceptical, we need to debate, we need to work ethics out like the Greeks of old, because that is the only way to reach a decent moral standard, as well as find the truth. Some may be tempted to run scared (or lazily) back into the fold, others with maturity and bravery must face the future by creating ourselves, the Greeks were not afraid to do this, and neither should we be. Religious ethics is an oxymoron, for the word to have meaning it has to be responsible and rational, but first we must unlearn all that xianity taught us.

Like you, I think, Ratzinger opposes those who call the notion of truth itself into question.

I find these people very irritating, however "a" "truth" does not do unless it is the actual truth. Others may be willing to settle for a Lie, just to have a comfortable certainty, I cannot do that.

If you're still with me, I wonder what you and Chefranden think of the view of Bryan Magee, which he traces to Hume, that morality rests on right sentiment. That way of thinking sounds consistent with that of the brain research, social biology crowd.

I have to do more research on the matter, but I do take neurobiology and cognitive anthropology very seriously, as it forms a significant part of my rebuttle against religion.

As to Chef, I regard emotions as the origins of morality, as empathy and altruism are instinctive, and affect us emotionally, and were our moral basis before we began to reason. Now that we can have a more well thought out approach to ethics, (more accurate and thorough) morality does not an emotional basis. Indeed as it has to be based on epistemological standards, in other words objective truth, emotions has to be removed from the first stage of the process, as we need a strictly empirical basis of knowledge, before we can proceed to prescribe ethics to humanity. I can be very emotional at times, and I do trust that my emotions are mostly correct, but that is only because they are based on the knowledge I have dispassionately collected. I do not trust them to find truth, just to react to it correctly. That I think is the basis of the disagreements between myself and Chef, he trusts emotions, I trust empiricism.

May 10, 2005

Dear AUB, no time to say much now, but thanks for your reflective reply, which merits a second reading from me. Maybe there will be topics we should take to a new thread.

One such, perhaps, is a question that strikes me upon reading the end of your post, when you talk about morality/ethics beginning in emotion and then in later philosophers becoming grounded in true judgments, or something like that. I then think of the question, how much emotions themselves, though not reducible to cognitive states, still have cognitive content. The Stoics did a lot of work on this question. Chrysippus and others considered how much an emotion rests on beliefs. If I'm angry at you, usually I believe you've treated me unjustly; if I realize that's not the case (say, you did something by accident), usually my anger abates. And so on. I've put a lot of thought into the cognitive base of emotion in recent years, though nowhere at the point of articulating a position. (A good study: Peter Goldie's The Emotions. A Philosophical Exploration. Also various works by Martha Nussbaum.)

OK, enough on that for now. Cheers,

May 10, 2005

Chef, I understand the point you are making about any religion demanding that they have an exclusive insight on the truth and therefore a mandate to proclaim a "one right way to live." But there has to be some common set of moral principles that all humans can agree to build an ethical society on.

As it stands, I find this to be a bit naïve, but perhaps you can fill it out a bit. I have lived in a loving relationship with one woman for 32 years. I can guarantee you that we do not see eye to eye on all moral issues. If one couple cannot agree to a common set of morals, how will 6 billion mostly strangers to each other manage it? I may be misunderstanding, but the very notion sounds utopian to me. Will the new objective morality be so self evidently correct that every last person will just give themselves a dope slap and say, “well of course”? Or will it take a new reign of terror to get folks to comply?

I’m going to say that given human sensibilities, this new philosopher stone of turning people into agreeing moral agents is as objectively impossible as the one that was supposed to change lead into gold.

You must already have some mental list of moral criteria that you use to compare various religious doctrines in order for you to make that statement that you find Buddhism to be the most moral.

Yes I do. As I mentioned above Buddhism, of the religions I know, is the lest supportive of “one right way”. But forgive me, I don’t know how this applies to what you are saying here. Are you saying my list of one item is, at least in my mind, the “one right way”?

AUB is saying that objective reasoning is the proper and only acceptable method for developing this list. I agree with him, especially since the "use" of emotions is in no way excluded from this process:

And I’m going so far as to say that to the extent objectivism excludes, or fails to take into account subjective human experience it has no chance at all of finding a meaningful list of any kind, let alone the “one right way”. Above AUB writes, ” The reverse of subjective lies is objective truth, what other basis for anything can there be?” I took that to mean human sensibility is opposed to truth, or at least will not produce truth.

I will also go so far as to say, that the “use” of emotions will be the judge of any list objective or otherwise. When AUB manages to write his list, I suggest that he will know it is “right” by the way he feels about it. I also expect that he will be pissed when I disagree because I don’t feel it is right. I suspect that he will passionately try to get me to see how wonderfully objective the list is, or dismiss me as being subject to emotionalism.

However, from below it would seem that AUB is not that opposed to experientialism, so I could be wrong in guessing his reaction.

<snip>

Ultimately I will contend that without religion, there is "one right way" to develop a society. It must be some form of democracy that uses a free market economy.

And I contend that your “one right way” will not be exactly the same as even one other person, let alone more than remotely the same as the other 6 billion. If your “one right way” is to hold sway you will have force billions to comply, which will require oppression, or in other words the same mess as now only with different hierarchs.

May 10, 2005

Northernsun

But there has to be some common set of moral principles that all humans can agree to build an ethical society on.

Exactly.

You must already have some mental list of moral criteria that you use to compare various religious doctrines in order for you to make that statement that you find Buddhism to be the most moral.

Yes, and the problem will lie in that the criteria is tainted by mysticism, and would not pass a more thorough examination. Buddhism may be superior to xtian morality, (not that that means much) but it's still has "doctrines" such as reincarnation which have caused moral controversies such as certain Buddhist's attitudes towards the disabled. This is an un-objective standard, because it is based on a belief that is empirically false. And therefore unethical. All I am asking is for ethics to be based on pure objective facts, so as not to make these kinds of mistakes. Even the smallest error can corrupt the whole system, as evidenced by some of xtian's worst atrocities committed by the smallest biblical quote or doctrinal position.

I agree with him, especially since the "use" of emotions is in no way excluded from this process:

Yes, because emotions have their place, they must not be the guide as they can be miss-informed, (they don't always "know" the truth, we arn't animals doing everything by instinct anymore, life isn't that simple) they must always bow to empirical reality, anything else is irresponsible and ignorant. I still cannot see why chef objects to this, other than is dislike of emotional detachment.

But objective reasoning is just the method for developing the list.

Exactly, emotions are involved in many stages of the process, but as in science, facts needs to be objectively verified, before they can be used as the basis for ethics. Once the facts have been collected and confirmed, not even necessarily by ethicists, emotions may once more be allowed to roam, but we cannot use them at every stage, because they ultimately reflect our beliefs, and unless we are totally objective and logical, our beliefs will be error ridden.

This does not mean you have to buy in to all the conclusions of Ayn Rand's Objective Philosophy.

I am certainly not convinced by all of it.

Its AUB's turn also to provide his list of moral principles.

That would take an essay of epic proportions, as I would need to defend each position. At this point I do not regard it as necessary, I do not wish to dictate like some Moses, but encourage people to base their morals on a better foundation. I will accept other people's standards as long as they are empiricical, as there won't be ground for disagreement, providing that the reasoning and facts are not biased or corrupted. In a sense this is like science, whatever the facts happen to be, they must dictate the hypothesis or theory, as long as empiricism remains absolute, I have no problem with any hypothesis or theory. I do not feel the need to promote or defend any scientific models or concepts, but merely to defend the scientific method, as that is the best way to get to the truth. So in objective morality, I need to defend the method, and help others to understand why it alone can be trusted, before I start telling people how to live their lives. They would resent this and choose to disbelieve me if they did not recognise the supremacy of empiricism. In other words, one thing at a time. Objective ethics are best demonstrated by offering the solution to a suggested scenario, not really "listing", they're a way of dealing with all the infinite possibilities, not trying to fit all possibilities into a narrow set of rules. The virtue of this method should prove self evident, in itself, without any list, as the arguments for any alternative are weaker.

Besides I have demonstrated my ethical values on numerous occasions here, they are nothing special and are pretty much what you'd expect from a humanist. Also objective morality again like science is a method to be applied, not a "path" or set of moral rules, but rules for morals, as such we have "laws" like scientific ones, they are desriptive not prescriptive. We invented the "laws" of physics to describe objective phenomina, and objective morality is what you have when descriptions of objective humanity are used to reason the subsequent ethics.

We invent ethics, but in response to reality, the term "objective" is used to denote this relationship. We may have decided to create ethics from pure reasoning of practical human concerns or emotional drives, that is not important, as long as you go about it in the right way. Also you can't really codify morals, because they would then cease to be responsive to circumstances, http://www.humanism.me.uk/essays/Evolution...ality%202.0.htm and circumstance dictates results. Morality derives from what the result of our actions will be, in other words all morals originate from the empirical observation of the results of our actions, all, even those claiming to be the product of a deity. The horror of moral absolutism, is that it dictates things, ideas actions are intrinsically bad or good in themselves regardless of circumstances or effect, as demonstrated by Jason Gastich's inablility to admit that lying can be moral if it saves lives. Such "written on stone tablets" laws, the kind you can list are never very helpfull. Instead you have principles, flexable and responsible, not blind and un-caring, like Judeo-Christian moral authoritarianism, the greatest evil of all time, that makes people do self-evidently wrong things in the name of right simply because it claims to right, not because it can be demonstrated to be so.

I will give you some references, but all in empiracism is tentative and subject to change, and therefore so are objective morals, but these should give you a rough understanding of the values I hold. This may look like I'm dodging, but this is about the origin and definition of what morality is, and how it is best applied, not what the resulting morals actually are, which is not actually that relevant here. We (chef and me) may well have very similar principles, generally describable as "liberal", tolerance, progressive etc. But derived from a very different philosophical discipline, this is about which discipline is correct, as it is possible to reach the same conclusion as a moral objectivist's, by a less correct method, simply because the results we get you are pretty easy to reach with a bit of commonsense. The only real enemy is the psudo-ethical nonsense of religious rules.

http://www.atheistsforhumanrights.org/index.htm#f1

http://www.secularhumanism.org/intro/declaration.html

http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/conten...asp?chapter=309

http://www.atheistalliance.org/library/morals.html

http://www.atheistalliance.org/library/morality_god.html

http://andrew_redux.blogs.com/redux/2004/0...roblem_of_.html (this one seems to contradict me, but only does so for a definition of objective morality I am not defending, and agrees with my basis)

http://members.aol.com/okhutor/essay/part1.html

I will provide more later, I also need to deal with all of chef's posts 1st.

Also of course, unlike divine commandments I do not need to lay it out, as anyone using empirical reasoning will come to the same conclusions. It may not be what you are looking for but we tend not to "list" them, but apply them when the need arises. I am not, as chef seems to think prescribing a objective tyranny, but asking people to back up their moral positions with some facts. It's a process of elimination, and I feel that discrediting religious morality is a significant step forward.http://www.atheistalliance.org/library/brown-religion_source.html After them, then other less reliable standards, and eventually reach the solution.

Ultimately I will contend that without religion, there is "one right way" to develop a society.

There are a infinite number of ways to develop a society, all the cultures of the world are alternative approaches to the problem. All have achieved something, all have elements we need to consider. I regard Utopia as what may be reached if you combine all the successful and virtuous elements of all the civilisations that have ever existed, the trick is recognising those points that should be included. There is no right or wrong with a society, merely a moral standard all should obey.

It must be some form of democracy that uses a free market economy.

Democracy yes, (the "meaning" of life dictates that) as for economics, (the subject in general is of no interest to me) I would rather we had a system where all are provided for in every necessity, housing, food, transportation, medical care, and all education. What we want beyond that would provide the impetus for work, but those content with a more spartan existence would be happy to simply do what may wish, poetry, pavement art whatever, for the rest of their lives, getting no money, either due to no interest in it or because (as in my case) payment for it is unlikely. No one stuck doing a job they hate in order to survive, But that is just me, I've funny opinions regarding economics.

ficino

And so on. I've put a lot of thought into the cognitive base of emotion in recent years, though nowhere at the point of articulating a position.

The emotional basis for morality is the instinctive principles of empathy and altruism, the issue of emotional reactions being wrong when corrected by facts is the main course of my disagreement with chef.

Chef

I'll deal with your latest post first, please try not to respond with a lengthy post, as I'll never get round your earlier ones.

I can guarantee you that we do not see eye to eye on all moral issues.

Has neither of you are of objective moralists that just further proves my point.

If one couple cannot agree to a common set of morals, how will 6 billion mostly strangers to each other manage it? I may be misunderstanding, but the very notion sounds utopian to me.

Utopia is the ultimate goal of every civilisations of some get closer to it for others, these tend to be the most rational ones. If all human beings can be rational and objective, then all human beings will agree on morality, this is not Utopia, it is the same phenomenon we find in science, where agreement is reached by a eventual accumulation of enough data to constitute an objective "fact", which no scientist would disagree with. Such as with Evolution, which is only disagreed with by religious nuts, claimed to be scientists, all the while working to undermine it. Within the confines of the scientific community however, all are one on this matter. If we can expand such a unified respect for empiricism to include all of humanity, then all would agree on Evolution. If morality can be empirically demonstrated, then such an expansion of acknowledgement would result in a universal morality. Simple really.

Will the new objective morality be so self evidently correct that every last person will just give themselves a dope slap and say, “well of course”?

Yes, when free of irrational bias. They will at least be able to come to the same conclusion as everyone else. If there is a chance that all can acknowledge the same scientific facts, (with enough education and the removal of psudo science and religious misinformation) then if morality can be made a science, that chance exists for morality.

Or will it take a new reign of terror to get folks to comply?

Now you are just being paranoid, scientists don't go around forcing people to accept their theories, so why should objective moralists? I don't see fans of Ayn Rand going around overthrowing governments somehow. It this paranoia just fear of some sort of religious style absolutism, (like those x-xtians in my previous debate) or has MG been filling you full of his kind of paranoia? I've seen him say the most ridiculously alarmist things concerning Humanists and atheists, similar to be all the "atheists are Communists" crap that fundys spew at us. I even had to stop a debate with him as he disgusted me so much, despite pleas for me to continue.

I’m going to say that given human sensibilities, this new philosopher stone of turning people into agreeing moral agents is as objectively impossible as the one that was supposed to change lead into gold.

If you condemn the endeavour to fail for no other reason than it seems too good to be true, then you go from constructive criticism to defeatism. We have a mountain to climb, but no more formidable than ending religion itself.

And I’m going so far as to say that to the extent objectivism excludes, or fails to take into account subjective human experience it has no chance at all of finding a meaningful list of any kind, let alone the “one right way”.

It does not fail to take into account subjective human experience, it merely prevents them from dictating the truth, ensures that we acknowledge them to be subjective, and places them in the proper context, as being part of the human condition, but not a epistemological standard. A part of our knowledge regarding humanity. Very few of us ever acknowledge objective facts for what they really are, and those who do still have very few compared to our subjective opinions, but so long as we can tell the difference, truth can be ascertained. Most of what we experience in our lives is subjective, many of these things are an important part of whom we are as individuals, however morality deals with more than just the individual, I deals with humanity as a whole, and thusly has to be objective. It would be incomplete if it did not take into account all the variables such as subjective beliefs and experiences. It does not attempt to say you're subjective experiences are in no way relevant, but it does attempt to correct people when they claim their subjective experiences are some way of objective, Their limited understanding and experience are insufficient for an all-encompassing moral value system, based on the highest standards of evidence.

Above AUB writes, ” The reverse of subjective lies is objective truth, what other basis for anything can there be?” I took that to mean human sensibility is opposed to truth, or at least will not produce truth.

There is the subjective and the objective, we need to be able to tell the difference, and base truth on the objective. That is what I mean, sometimes our feelings and emotions can actually reflect empirical reality, but we cannot tell just by the emotions whether this is so, but by analysing the objective facts dispassionately, then putting next to the emotions to see if they correlate. If you attempt to verify the objectivity of your emotions via your emotions or just with them, rather than removing them so as to conduct a objective study you will bias in the results. The need to be aware of the dangers of emotion, their relative nature and their insufficient standing as a basis for any objective truth. There are truths to the individual and truths to reality, you can't use the individual truths method to verify the objective truths. This is what Theists do when using their feelings to confirm that Jesus exists and loves them, this does not help, and create a moral system that we both acknowledge are wrong.

I will also go so far as to say, that the “use” of emotions will be the judge of any list objective or otherwise.

Not necessarily, if we list a criteria or effect that are either required or not required in order to correlate with the prior arrived at definition of moral, then it can be done quite dispassionately. Besides as I said I don't really think a "list" would help.

When AUB manages to write his list, I suggest that he will know it is “right” by the way he feels about it.

Even if I did, the emotions would be based on the empirical knowledge, they would be a complimentary to the facts, allowed to roam free after the objectivity process has been completed. I have already stated there is a time and place for emotions, I can feel as emotional as I like once the objective method is over. Besides these feelings would not assist me when determining the best course for individual scenario is, I would have to reason, I would also have to have the best facts available. Both to determine the course of action, and in order to determine what the results were. Also these feelings would not dictate what was right for wrong, just because they may make me think so, as their chances of being incorrect are far greater than a dispassionate inquiry. "Is" is not "ought".

I also expect that he will be pissed when I disagree because I don’t feel it is right.

You may well use your emotions to determine your opinion, and that would annoy me if I had not relied on emotions to come to my conclusions. I would conclude that sentiment was clouding your judgment, like it does with Theists so often.

I suspect that he will passionately try to get me to see how wonderfully objective the list is, or dismiss me as being subject to emotionalism.

I would not need to do so passionately, but merely outline my reasoning, point out that you fail to poke holes in them, and justly claim your inability to defeat reason with emotion.

However, from below it would seem that AUB is not that opposed to experientialism, so I could be wrong in guessing his reaction.

I have nothing really against experientialism, it is not the usual type of philosophy I argue against, so I am unclear on how to proceed. It just seems that you put too much emphasis on subjectivism as a basis of truth, when an objective and therefore reality based standard would seem to make more sense. Its may all be down to a simple misunderstanding. Also I have less inclination to endlessly debate a non xtian. It is not quite as productive as destroying a Theist's arguments.

And I contend that your “one right way” will not be exactly the same as even one other person, let alone more than remotely the same as the other 6 billion.

Has has been previously stated, reason, empiricism and logic are uniters, they are not dividers, people can independently come to the same conclusion using the same method. Using the method of objective ethics all people will independently come to the same moral conclusion, if it works for logic, if it works for empiricism then it should works for morality if defined by the same objective principles.

If your “one right way” is to hold sway you will have force billions to comply, which will require oppression, or in other words the same mess as now only with different hierarchs.

Again you're making the error of assuming force is necessary, you're forgetting that this is objective, it may not be, but if it is then all such results as you describe, never derive from objective truths, oppression results from beliefs based on nothing, they are over compensation. They are the kind of things that subjective religious or ideological ideas need to do, to spread out like cancer and create uniformity through oppression. Assuming objective morality is subjective will of course allow you to assume this needs to happen for it to be universally recognised. If it is objective, then this will not need to happen. Assuming it will be tyrannical by disbelieving its principal feature and concluding it is the opposite is using one assertion to back up another.

I hope to deal with the rest of your posts when I've had some sleep. As to the list, I just think morality has to be based on objectivity, period. If I cannot defend that part then the rest is pointless.

Strong Atheism

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