When people claim, that a moral prescription needs a personal prescriber do they have a certain theory of communication in mind? On David Lewis's theory this seems to be a tautology.
Craig's response is similar to Evan's: _The defender of a DCT might respond by arguing that these “prior obligations”to obey God are not actual obligations but just hypothetical ones: To say that we have a prior obligation to obey God is just another way of saying that we are obligated to obey God if God issues commands, but there is no actual obligation until a command is issued. The conditional proposition itself can be understood as simply spelling out the meaning of the claim that God has moral authority. To say that God has moral authority (as the proponent of a DCT certainly must) is just to say that he has the right to issue commands that ought to be obeyed. There are certainly moral truths (such as “God has rightful authority over his human creatures”and“ God’scommands should be obeyed”) that do not stem from divine commands, but a DCT does not deny this. The DCT says only that there is a category of moral truths, truths about actual moral obligations, that are linked to divine commands. There is certainly a sense in which it is true, antecedently to God’s actual commands, that humans ought to obey any commands God issues, but the truth of this “ought”statement is not one that a defender of a DCT should find troublesome._ He continues: _However, if a DCT is correct, and our moral obligations are identical to divine commands, then by issuing such a command to obey his commands, God would convert the antecedent fact that humans ought to obey his commands into an actual moral duty, in what we might call a “bootstrapping” manner. On this view it is both true independently of God’s commands that one ought to obey God, but also true that“one ought to obey God” is in fact a moral obligation, because God has commanded us to keep his commands_ So basically DCT need to "bootstrap" god's commands first. Its not enough just to assert that we need to obey god's commands because god has commanded us to obey them but to establish that god is relevant moral authority in the first place.
See Cuneo's review of Evans at ndpr.nd.edu/news/god-and-moral-obligation/ I was considering adding Evans' four replies to the 'prior obligations' objection and Cuneo's replies, but the video was getting long.
Didn't christian philosophers/theologians like Augustine in the past ground roundness, laws of logic, numbers and stuff in the mind of God and Goodness in His nature, as in He is all His attributes at once, one being Good. Just like water is wet, but not water itself. (i know we talked about this and you think i'm confused on the use of generic good as opposed to specific moral good, i.e; omnibenevolence ) Edit- great content though as always!
Augustine was a divine conceptualist. Divine conceptualists think propostions are God's thoughts and properties are God's concepts. So, roundness would be a concept of God. There are lots of problems with divine conceptualism. But more pertinent here is that when people make moral arguments for God they are saying morality is special in a way that roundness isn't. If God grounds roundness in the same way that God grounds 'the good,' then 'the good' becomes fairly uninteresting because it's not special. So, most DCT-ists want to go beyond conceptualism for morality; they want to say that God is identical to 'the good,' while God isn't identical to roundness. That makes 'the good' special.
I personally don't think God is identical to ''the good'' (in a platonic form sense ) like water is to h2 or Clark Kent and Superman. It's an attribute/property as explained. as for the normative aspect; the christian can take the WLC route if they want to double down on categorical or say something like God is worthy of worship by my lights (subjective) and i believe i was created after His image and want to live that out(relative/subjective/ hypothetical). Or by definition as a maximally great entity, necessarily existing in all possible worlds as the standard for Goodness (objective/categorical in a descriptive sense and frame of reference not imperative unless you ground it in His commands like WLC does but the logical and causal distinction you pointed out is a good point). Anyway, thank you for the reply DGH!
I'm not sure they would be epistemic oughts. Maybe. With epistemic oughts I'm thinking about having reasons to believe something or that you ought to believe something; e.g., given the scientific evidence you have a categorical reason to believe in an old earth. Some people object to moral realism because of the "queerness" of categorical reasons. What Cuneo does is draw a parallel between moral reasons (or norms) and epistemic reasons. They are equally queer, so if you reject moral categorical reasons because of queerness, you should also reject epistemic reasons. So, IP was using Cuneo's argument to argue for moral realism, but when he defended DCT, he argued against Cuneo's argument. The objectors to DCT say that since epistemic norms aren't grounded in God, why do moral norms need to be? IP replies that epistemic norms are different (i.e. pragmatic) in his God=good video, so God doesn't need to ground them. If I'm to interpret him charitably, he changed his mind about epistemic norms between videos.
I think the definition of morality is insufficient. The basic definition: "principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior." That normal definition assumes that duties are first, or that what morality explores is duties (to principles). So I think that's a broken definition. I propose that morality is: A communicated mental feedback loop between two, or more conscious entities that generates, or maintains harmony in the relationship of those entities. I feel my definition is better, but I doubt it will catch on. My definition gives up on oughts as the central concept of morals. When talking about morals people tend to love their duties. So my definition would probably be dismissed without a second thought by most. I think duties don't matter that much for morality. I think duties might be more like side effects of some other process. Duties matter to people a lot so most people think duties matter to morality too. Perhaps a different word instead of "morality" is needed to suit my definition, and to mitigate confusion.
InspiringPhilosophy is like the shaman of the last "uncivilised" tribe of Earth, unable to explain what is the big thing they have seen flying over their heads. Thus, in order to keep his status among the tribe, he has to invent a story in relation to his god. The difference is that InspiringPhilosophy is not in an isolated tribe and he is just voluntarily ignorant and/or demagogue. He has the possibility to know what is an airplane (it is an image here, evidently, for Science).
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Very interesting! Thanks :)
When people claim, that a moral prescription needs a personal prescriber do they have a certain theory of communication in mind? On David Lewis's theory this seems to be a tautology.
Craig's response is similar to Evan's:
_The defender of a DCT might respond by arguing that these “prior obligations”to obey God are not actual obligations but just hypothetical ones: To say that we have a prior obligation to obey God is just another way of saying that we are obligated to obey God if God issues commands, but there is no actual obligation until a command is issued. The conditional proposition itself can be understood as simply spelling out the meaning of the claim that God has moral authority. To say that God has moral authority (as the proponent of a DCT certainly must) is just to say that he has the right to issue commands that ought to be obeyed. There are certainly moral truths (such as “God has rightful authority over his human creatures”and“ God’scommands should be obeyed”) that do not stem from divine commands, but a DCT does not deny this. The DCT says only that there is a category of moral truths, truths about actual moral obligations, that are linked to divine commands. There is certainly a sense in which it is true, antecedently to God’s actual commands, that humans ought to obey any commands God issues, but the truth of this “ought”statement is not one that a defender of a DCT should find troublesome._
He continues:
_However, if a DCT is correct, and our moral obligations are identical to divine commands, then by issuing such a command to obey his commands, God would convert the antecedent fact that humans ought to obey his commands into an actual moral duty, in what we might call a “bootstrapping” manner. On this view it is both true independently of God’s commands that one ought to obey God, but also true that“one ought to obey God” is in fact a moral obligation, because God has commanded us to keep his commands_
So basically DCT need to "bootstrap" god's commands first. Its not enough just to assert that we need to obey god's commands because god has commanded us to obey them but to establish that god is relevant moral authority in the first place.
See Cuneo's review of Evans at ndpr.nd.edu/news/god-and-moral-obligation/
I was considering adding Evans' four replies to the 'prior obligations' objection and Cuneo's replies, but the video was getting long.
Didn't christian philosophers/theologians like Augustine in the past ground roundness, laws of logic, numbers and stuff in the mind of God and Goodness in His nature, as in He is all His attributes at once, one being Good. Just like water is wet, but not water itself. (i know we talked about this and you think i'm confused on the use of generic good as opposed to specific moral good, i.e; omnibenevolence ) Edit- great content though as always!
Augustine was a divine conceptualist. Divine conceptualists think propostions are God's thoughts and properties are God's concepts. So, roundness would be a concept of God. There are lots of problems with divine conceptualism. But more pertinent here is that when people make moral arguments for God they are saying morality is special in a way that roundness isn't. If God grounds roundness in the same way that God grounds 'the good,' then 'the good' becomes fairly uninteresting because it's not special. So, most DCT-ists want to go beyond conceptualism for morality; they want to say that God is identical to 'the good,' while God isn't identical to roundness. That makes 'the good' special.
I personally don't think God is identical to ''the good'' (in a platonic form sense ) like water is to h2 or Clark Kent and Superman. It's an attribute/property as explained. as for the normative aspect; the christian can take the WLC route if they want to double down on categorical or say something like God is worthy of worship by my lights (subjective) and i believe i was created after His image and want to live that out(relative/subjective/ hypothetical). Or by definition as a maximally great entity, necessarily existing in all possible worlds as the standard for Goodness (objective/categorical in a descriptive sense and frame of reference not imperative unless you ground it in His commands like WLC does but the logical and causal distinction you pointed out is a good point). Anyway, thank you for the reply DGH!
Would then Grice's Maxims be a form of epistemic duties or obligations as to what we "ought" to do in conversations?
I'm not sure they would be epistemic oughts. Maybe. With epistemic oughts I'm thinking about having reasons to believe something or that you ought to believe something; e.g., given the scientific evidence you have a categorical reason to believe in an old earth. Some people object to moral realism because of the "queerness" of categorical reasons. What Cuneo does is draw a parallel between moral reasons (or norms) and epistemic reasons. They are equally queer, so if you reject moral categorical reasons because of queerness, you should also reject epistemic reasons.
So, IP was using Cuneo's argument to argue for moral realism, but when he defended DCT, he argued against Cuneo's argument. The objectors to DCT say that since epistemic norms aren't grounded in God, why do moral norms need to be? IP replies that epistemic norms are different (i.e. pragmatic) in his God=good video, so God doesn't need to ground them. If I'm to interpret him charitably, he changed his mind about epistemic norms between videos.
9:00 It's bewildering to imagine minds exist without bodies. Minds as mere abstractions...
@InspiringPhilosophy
Damn son get memed
I think the definition of morality is insufficient.
The basic definition: "principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior."
That normal definition assumes that duties are first, or that what morality explores is duties (to principles). So I think that's a broken definition.
I propose that morality is: A communicated mental feedback loop between two, or more conscious entities that generates, or maintains harmony in the relationship of those entities.
I feel my definition is better, but I doubt it will catch on. My definition gives up on oughts as the central concept of morals. When talking about morals people tend to love their duties. So my definition would probably be dismissed without a second thought by most. I think duties don't matter that much for morality. I think duties might be more like side effects of some other process. Duties matter to people a lot so most people think duties matter to morality too.
Perhaps a different word instead of "morality" is needed to suit my definition, and to mitigate confusion.
InspiringPhilosophy is like the shaman of the last "uncivilised" tribe of Earth, unable to explain what is the big thing they have seen flying over their heads. Thus, in order to keep his status among the tribe, he has to invent a story in relation to his god. The difference is that InspiringPhilosophy is not in an isolated tribe and he is just voluntarily ignorant and/or demagogue. He has the possibility to know what is an airplane (it is an image here, evidently, for Science).
25:02 much dot the
IDK why TTS did that.
You forgot the space after the period.
Nice... please make more videos challenging theist claims