As I said to Doublethink, it's a response. It's not an answer in the sense of 'answer' posed in the question (since if it were the question would be trivial).
I think it's more complex than that, although as I said up thread it rather scuppers the scientific argument that justifies morality on the grounds that it evolved.
Only if you think morality must be expressed in "oughts". Please give me good reasons why this is the case.
Morality is normative.
That doesn't work, unless you're going for some form of Kantian idealism or stronger about the external universe.
Why?[/quote]If only I had gone on to explain why I think that...
If cosmology can describe the universe before humans existed then logic and mathematics applied before humans existed.
Who was applying them then?
Nobody. (Or God.)
As I said to pease, in the act of knowing or believing has a subject (the one who knows or believes) and an object (what is known or believe). Terms for disciplines often refer ambiguously to either. (So 'biology' can refer to a body of knowledge, or to the workings of the organisms that knowledge is about; history can refer to what is known of what happened or to what happened; etc.) And confusing the sides just produces more confusion.
In this case, logic and mathematics are being used to refer not to bodies of knowledge, the subject side, but to the truths expressed in those bodies of knowledge. Asking who applied those truths is a category error.
I don't suppose you can give or link to a written summary for those of us who take information in better by reading? (And prefer to avoid YouTube.)
I’ll look for something more helpful, but in the shorter term, here’s Krauss speaking about his book in to an interview on NPR’s Science Friday:
As has been said, a quantum foam - assuming I'm right in thinking that 'quantum foam' refers to the kind of activity that Krauss is talking about here - is not really what most of us mean by nothing.
I suppose, if I'm following, we can envisage the set of possible states of the universe as analogous to a group, so that we have the set of possible states along with possible transitions from state to state. So then you could have one possible state which is genuinely nothing.
But even if the nothingness is genuinely nothing, there exists - in some sense of exist - the set of possible transitions from that state to other states. The rules that govern the set of possible transitions have to be the case somehow - and they don't look like the kind of things that are necessarily so.
More generally, I think you've pointed out that that atheism has traditionally been associated with secular/scientific rationalism. Thinking about the range of views expressed on various threads, I wonder to what extent that is still the case.
Aaannnnndd, we’ve reached the point in this thread when I’m having to re- and re-re-read people’s posts — LOL. I’m a musician, and if someone is needed to count-off “4” I’m your guy. Much beyond that, though, I’m NOt aLWayS piCKinG uP wHAt yOu ARe LaYinG dOWn.
@Martin54 — you really have a duty to let Dr. Krauss know how confused he is! If anyone could…
Correct, @Dafyd, which is why the first clarifying point he often makes is the range & meanings of “nothing.”
I defer to the greater understanding of my fellow shipmates here, and/or Dr. Krauss to the extent I can comprehend him.
Only if you think morality must be expressed in "oughts". Please give me good reasons why this is the case.
I don’t think I’ve heard of the idea of a morality that someone believes in that is anything other than expressed in “oughts.” Isn’t this literally what it is?
Although most philosophers do not use “morality” in any of the above descriptive senses, some philosophers do. Ethical relativists such as Harman (1975), Westermarck (1960), and Prinz (2007), deny that there is any universal normative morality and claim that the actual moralities of societies or individuals are the only moralities there are. These relativists hold that only when the term “morality” is used in this descriptive sense is there something that “morality” actually refers to. They claim that it is a mistake to take “morality” to refer to a universal code of conduct that, under certain conditions, would be endorsed by all rational persons. Although ethical relativists admit that many speakers of English use “morality” to refer to such a universal code of conduct, they claim such persons are mistaken in thinking that there is anything that is the referent of the word “morality” taken in that sense.
On the contrary.Especially if you're an ethical relativist.
Is this too special-case?
In the case described, where there is no universal morality for statements of morality to refer to, statements of morality can have no referential content and must be purely normative.
As I said to Doublethink, it's a response. It's not an answer in the sense of 'answer' posed in the question (since if it were the question would be trivial).
So, asking unanswerable questions, or questions to which the answer is not yet known, is the ultimate "gotcha" against atheists. Hardly sporting, theist.
I think it's more complex than that, although as I said up thread it rather scuppers the scientific argument that justifies morality on the grounds that it evolved.
Only if you think morality must be expressed in "oughts". Please give me good reasons why this is the case.
Morality is normative.
Some forms of morality are normative. The evolution of morality in the absence of god(s), stemming from (or as viewed in) our natural inborn inclination to empathy, altruism, generosity, etc., gives us a pretty stable base. As Lewis noted (belaboured) in the appendix to The Abolition of Man, the basic moral code is pretty universal across faiths/religions/whatever-Confucianism-is. Enforcing that code doesn't require deriving oughts from ises, a very western, post-Enlightenment way of thinking.
That doesn't work, unless you're going for some form of Kantian idealism or stronger about the external universe.
Irrelevant.
If cosmology can describe the universe before humans existed then logic and mathematics applied before humans existed.
Who was applying them then?
Nobody. (Or God.)
As I said to pease, in the act of knowing or believing has a subject (the one who knows or believes) and an object (what is known or believe). Terms for disciplines often refer ambiguously to either. (So 'biology' can refer to a body of knowledge, or to the workings of the organisms that knowledge is about; history can refer to what is known of what happened or to what happened; etc.) And confusing the sides just produces more confusion.
In this case, logic and mathematics are being used to refer not to bodies of knowledge, the subject side, but to the truths expressed in those bodies of knowledge. Asking who applied those truths is a category error.
The "truths" of logic and mathematics live inside the brains (and in the books and videos) of humans. If there were no humans, there was no logic or mathematics. That is not a category error. Thinking they are some kind of eternal truths existing outside of humans is the category error. I'll be next to invoke Kant.
But what a strange argument you have here. The tenets of logic must have applied then, therefore God. Do you also say, the laws of physics must have applied then (or at least a second or two after the Bang), therefore God? The universe isn't capable of running itself, but needs God. So you already have an answer all figured out, and no matter how I answered the logic/math question, your response would be "nuh-uh." In fact that's usually the counteranswer to any question a theist asks an atheist. Your belief system is locked in stone, and the questions, any questions, are gotcha questions.
Unless you're asking to find out what an atheist believes. Then there would be no "nuh-uh" response, but only "Oh, okay," or a request for clarification. But in my experience the whole "Questions atheists can't answer" game isn't played for honest reasons.
I find the mathematics of the natural numbers both inescapable, and also beyond my full comprehension, to the extent that it leads me to towards, at least, deism.
I find the mathematics of the natural numbers both inescapable, and also beyond my full comprehension, to the extent that it leads me to towards, at least, deism.
For me, getting something supernatural from something natural is akin to getting an ought from an is.
So, asking unanswerable questions, or questions to which the answer is not yet known, is the ultimate "gotcha" against atheists. Hardly sporting, theist.
Oh if only I'd already said something like this upthread:
Not that questions to which one has no good answer (yet) are a gotcha (looks at the problem of evil).
Oh, wait. I have said that already.
Morality is normative.
Some forms of morality are normative. The evolution of morality in the absence of god(s), stemming from (or as viewed in) our natural inborn inclination to empathy, altruism, generosity, etc., gives us a pretty stable base. As Lewis noted (belaboured) in the appendix to The Abolition of Man, the basic moral code is pretty universal across faiths/religions/whatever-Confucianism-is. Enforcing that code doesn't require deriving oughts from ises, a very western, post-Enlightenment way of thinking.
Ummm.... I apologise that I'm unable to find a polite way to say this but... this is not even wrong.
I don't know what you think 'normative' means, but I do not think it means whatever you think it means. 'Normative' means any standard from which the actual facts may depart. For example, 'this statement is true' is a normative statement, since not all statements are true, yet truth is a standard that statements sometimes depart.
An anthropological description of how people do in fact behave is not normative. "The Presidential candidate said such and such" is descriptive. "The Presidential candidate said such and such which isn't true" is normative.
All of the pretty basic moral code that Lewis compiles at the end of Abolition of Man is normative, since it does not describe how people invariably behave.
As soon as you talk about enforcing a code, you are by definition treating that code as normative.
Also, Lewis is being selective. If he'd looked he could have found people from all cultures praising glorious warriors who conquer and kill their enemies and give plunder to their followers. Lewis didn't include those because he didn't think killing your enemies and plundering their towns was part of morality - rather the opposite. But based solely on the criteria of universality, natural inborn inclinations, and so on, the adulation of strong rulers, hatred of outgroups, and so on, have as good a claim to be part of morality as altruism or empathy.
If a politician gets up and encourages hatred of immigrants, then he is appealing to universal natural and inborn inclination to defer to people who appear strong leaders, and to be hostile to people not like us. If you consider those not to be part of morality then you are doing so on criteria that are not universal, natural, or inborn - criteria that come from some other source.
Deriving 'oughts from ises' was what Hume said pre-Enlightenment moralities required and were unable to do - which his metaethics did not require - "Enforcing that code doesn't require deriving oughts from ises, a very western, post-Enlightenment way of thinking" is almost exactly 100% the opposite of the truth. (It's also really rather strange in this context to use "post-Enlightenment" in the way one would use a pejorative.)
The "truths" of logic and mathematics live inside the brains (and in the books and videos) of humans. If there were no humans, there was no logic or mathematics. That is not a category error. Thinking they are some kind of eternal truths existing outside of humans is the category error.
So - without applying logic or mathematics to events that happened before human beings existed- why do you think mammals evolved from synapsid reptiles? Or why do you think the earth is significantly older than humanity?
But what a strange argument you have here. The tenets of logic must have applied then, therefore God.
I was unaware that 'you have here' meant the same as 'I am putting into your mouth'.
Firstly, I have already said that the question of where logic comes from is just as difficult for a theist to handle.
Secondly, I restricted this particular part of the critique to secular naturalists, not to all atheists.
You're shadowboxing.
Then there would be no "nuh-uh" response, but only "Oh, okay," or a request for clarification. But in my experience the whole "Questions atheists can't answer" game isn't played for honest reasons.
The questions were originally posted on this forum by someone who was apparently an atheist and he got them from an atheist podcast.
Besides which, I've already said that the question of where logic comes from is just as difficult for a theist to handle.
(Would you say the same about "Questions Theists can't answer?" Or is it only atheism, specifically scientific rationalism, that must be spared critique?)
I think it's more complex than that, although as I said up thread it rather scuppers the scientific argument that justifies morality on the grounds that it evolved.
Only if you think morality must be expressed in "oughts". Please give me good reasons why this is the case.
Morality is normative.
According to the Stanford page previously referenced, these days, "morality" comes in two flavours:
"normative morality" - most philosophers (traditionally just "morality")
"descriptive morality" - anthropologists and others
They both refer to codes of conduct (or certain codes of conduct), but the "ought from is" question is firmly in the remit of normative morality. But this doesn't mean all "morality" is about "ought".
According to the Stanford page previously referenced, these days, "morality" comes in two flavours:
"normative morality" - most philosophers (traditionally just "morality")
"descriptive morality" - anthropologists and others
They both refer to codes of conduct (or certain codes of conduct), but the "ought from is" question is firmly in the remit of normative morality. But this doesn't mean all "morality" is about "ought".
Descriptive morality is just a description of another person's normative morality.
According to the Stanford page previously referenced, these days, "morality" comes in two flavours:
"normative morality" - most philosophers (traditionally just "morality")
"descriptive morality" - anthropologists and others
They both refer to codes of conduct (or certain codes of conduct), but the "ought from is" question is firmly in the remit of normative morality. But this doesn't mean all "morality" is about "ought".
Descriptive morality is just a description of another person's normative morality.
The discussion on the Stanford site suggests that a significant number of people consider it to be useful.
“Morality”, when used in a descriptive sense, has an important feature that “morality” in the normative sense does not have: a feature that stems from its relational nature. This feature is the following: that if one is not a member of the relevant society or group, or is not the relevant individual, then accepting a certain account of the content of a morality, in the descriptive sense, has no implications for how one thinks one should behave. On the other hand, if one accepts a moral theory’s account of moral agents, and of the conditions under which all moral agents would endorse a code of conduct as a moral code, then one accepts that moral theory’s normative definition of “morality”. Accepting an account of “morality” in the normative sense commits one to regarding some behavior as immoral, perhaps even behavior that one is tempted to perform. Because accepting an account of “morality” in the normative sense involves this commitment, it is not surprising that philosophers seriously disagree about which account to accept.
Why did you evaluate that post in terms of being contradictory?
Because your previous posts were all asserting contradictions of my statement that morality is normative. I assumed you were continuing the conversation along the pre-existing lines.
Why did you evaluate that post in terms of being contradictory?
Because your previous posts were all asserting contradictions of my statement that morality is normative. I assumed you were continuing the conversation along the pre-existing lines.
What was its purpose?
Illustrating that non-normative approaches to morality have utility.
It would be more contradictory to suggest that descriptive morality is able to address a wider range of moralities in that it doesn't have to consider the extent to which those moralities are normative. For example, codes of conduct founded on religious precepts of purity and sanctity.
Do you consider christian morality to be normative?
Illustrating that non-normative approaches to morality have utility.
It would be more contradictory to suggest that descriptive morality is able to address a wider range of moralities in that it doesn't have to consider the extent to which those moralities are normative. For example, codes of conduct founded on religious precepts of purity and sanctity.
Do you consider christian morality to be normative?
As I said before, all morality is normative for the person whose morality it is.
The extent to which a morality is not normative is one extent to which it's not a morality.
As I said to mousethief, I don't know what you think 'normative' means but I don't think it means whatever you think it means. What I think it means is that it has to do with a standard that the actual facts may or may not meet, and by which the actual facts can be judged or evaluated.
When the article talks about "universal normative morality" the "universal" is not a pleonasm; it adds something to the sentence.
Etiquette is not universal, but it is normative. Purity rules and sanctity rules are normative. In Judaism the requirement for Jewish males to be circumcised is not considered universal, but normative for Jewish families.
(Morality is not the only normative area of discourse. Truth and rationality form another normative area of discourse; so do aesthetics; so does competence. If I say someone successfully threw their plastic cup into the litter bin, the word 'successfully' introduces a normative element into the sentence since people are not always successful in what they do, regardless of what I think of throwing plastic cups into litter bins as a general pattern of behaviour.)
I don't know what you think 'normative' means, but I do not think it means whatever you think it means. 'Normative' means any standard from which the actual facts may depart. For example, 'this statement is true' is a normative statement, since not all statements are true, yet truth is a standard that statements sometimes depart.
I notice you've subsequently added the phrase "and by which the actual facts can be judged or evaluated". Which seems relevant, in relation to the definitions of normativity on wikipedia:
Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in this sense means a standard for evaluating or making judgments about behavior or outcomes. "Normative" is sometimes also used, somewhat confusingly, to mean relating to a descriptive standard: doing what is normally done or what most others are expected to do in practice. In this sense a norm is not evaluative, a basis for judging behavior or outcomes; it is simply a fact or observation about behavior or outcomes, without judgment. Many researchers in science, law, and philosophy try to restrict the use of the term "normative" to the evaluative sense and refer to the description of behavior and outcomes as positive, descriptive, predictive, or empirical.
Normative has specialized meanings in different academic disciplines such as philosophy, social sciences, and law. In most contexts, normative means 'relating to an evaluation or value judgment.' Normative propositions tend to evaluate some object or some course of action. Normative content differs from descriptive content.
Though philosophers disagree about how normativity should be understood; it has become increasingly common to understand normative claims as claims about reasons.
Comments
Morality is normative.
Why?[/quote]If only I had gone on to explain why I think that...
Nobody. (Or God.)
As I said to pease, in the act of knowing or believing has a subject (the one who knows or believes) and an object (what is known or believe). Terms for disciplines often refer ambiguously to either. (So 'biology' can refer to a body of knowledge, or to the workings of the organisms that knowledge is about; history can refer to what is known of what happened or to what happened; etc.) And confusing the sides just produces more confusion.
In this case, logic and mathematics are being used to refer not to bodies of knowledge, the subject side, but to the truths expressed in those bodies of knowledge. Asking who applied those truths is a category error.
I suppose, if I'm following, we can envisage the set of possible states of the universe as analogous to a group, so that we have the set of possible states along with possible transitions from state to state. So then you could have one possible state which is genuinely nothing.
But even if the nothingness is genuinely nothing, there exists - in some sense of exist - the set of possible transitions from that state to other states. The rules that govern the set of possible transitions have to be the case somehow - and they don't look like the kind of things that are necessarily so.
More generally, I think you've pointed out that that atheism has traditionally been associated with secular/scientific rationalism. Thinking about the range of views expressed on various threads, I wonder to what extent that is still the case.
@Martin54 — you really have a duty to let Dr. Krauss know how confused he is! If anyone could…
Correct, @Dafyd, which is why the first clarifying point he often makes is the range & meanings of “nothing.”
I defer to the greater understanding of my fellow shipmates here, and/or Dr. Krauss to the extent I can comprehend him.
I don’t think I’ve heard of the idea of a morality that someone believes in that is anything other than expressed in “oughts.” Isn’t this literally what it is?
So, asking unanswerable questions, or questions to which the answer is not yet known, is the ultimate "gotcha" against atheists. Hardly sporting, theist.
Some forms of morality are normative. The evolution of morality in the absence of god(s), stemming from (or as viewed in) our natural inborn inclination to empathy, altruism, generosity, etc., gives us a pretty stable base. As Lewis noted (belaboured) in the appendix to The Abolition of Man, the basic moral code is pretty universal across faiths/religions/whatever-Confucianism-is. Enforcing that code doesn't require deriving oughts from ises, a very western, post-Enlightenment way of thinking.
Irrelevant.
The "truths" of logic and mathematics live inside the brains (and in the books and videos) of humans. If there were no humans, there was no logic or mathematics. That is not a category error. Thinking they are some kind of eternal truths existing outside of humans is the category error. I'll be next to invoke Kant.
But what a strange argument you have here. The tenets of logic must have applied then, therefore God. Do you also say, the laws of physics must have applied then (or at least a second or two after the Bang), therefore God? The universe isn't capable of running itself, but needs God. So you already have an answer all figured out, and no matter how I answered the logic/math question, your response would be "nuh-uh." In fact that's usually the counteranswer to any question a theist asks an atheist. Your belief system is locked in stone, and the questions, any questions, are gotcha questions.
Unless you're asking to find out what an atheist believes. Then there would be no "nuh-uh" response, but only "Oh, okay," or a request for clarification. But in my experience the whole "Questions atheists can't answer" game isn't played for honest reasons.
For me, getting something supernatural from something natural is akin to getting an ought from an is.
Not that questions to which one has no good answer (yet) are a gotcha (looks at the problem of evil).
Oh, wait. I have said that already.
Ummm.... I apologise that I'm unable to find a polite way to say this but... this is not even wrong.
I don't know what you think 'normative' means, but I do not think it means whatever you think it means. 'Normative' means any standard from which the actual facts may depart. For example, 'this statement is true' is a normative statement, since not all statements are true, yet truth is a standard that statements sometimes depart.
An anthropological description of how people do in fact behave is not normative. "The Presidential candidate said such and such" is descriptive. "The Presidential candidate said such and such which isn't true" is normative.
All of the pretty basic moral code that Lewis compiles at the end of Abolition of Man is normative, since it does not describe how people invariably behave.
As soon as you talk about enforcing a code, you are by definition treating that code as normative.
Also, Lewis is being selective. If he'd looked he could have found people from all cultures praising glorious warriors who conquer and kill their enemies and give plunder to their followers. Lewis didn't include those because he didn't think killing your enemies and plundering their towns was part of morality - rather the opposite. But based solely on the criteria of universality, natural inborn inclinations, and so on, the adulation of strong rulers, hatred of outgroups, and so on, have as good a claim to be part of morality as altruism or empathy.
If a politician gets up and encourages hatred of immigrants, then he is appealing to universal natural and inborn inclination to defer to people who appear strong leaders, and to be hostile to people not like us. If you consider those not to be part of morality then you are doing so on criteria that are not universal, natural, or inborn - criteria that come from some other source.
Deriving 'oughts from ises' was what Hume said pre-Enlightenment moralities required and were unable to do - which his metaethics did not require - "Enforcing that code doesn't require deriving oughts from ises, a very western, post-Enlightenment way of thinking" is almost exactly 100% the opposite of the truth. (It's also really rather strange in this context to use "post-Enlightenment" in the way one would use a pejorative.)
So - without applying logic or mathematics to events that happened before human beings existed- why do you think mammals evolved from synapsid reptiles? Or why do you think the earth is significantly older than humanity?
I was unaware that 'you have here' meant the same as 'I am putting into your mouth'.
Firstly, I have already said that the question of where logic comes from is just as difficult for a theist to handle.
Secondly, I restricted this particular part of the critique to secular naturalists, not to all atheists.
You're shadowboxing.
The questions were originally posted on this forum by someone who was apparently an atheist and he got them from an atheist podcast.
Besides which, I've already said that the question of where logic comes from is just as difficult for a theist to handle.
(Would you say the same about "Questions Theists can't answer?" Or is it only atheism, specifically scientific rationalism, that must be spared critique?)
"normative morality" - most philosophers (traditionally just "morality")
"descriptive morality" - anthropologists and others
They both refer to codes of conduct (or certain codes of conduct), but the "ought from is" question is firmly in the remit of normative morality. But this doesn't mean all "morality" is about "ought".
What was its purpose?
It would be more contradictory to suggest that descriptive morality is able to address a wider range of moralities in that it doesn't have to consider the extent to which those moralities are normative. For example, codes of conduct founded on religious precepts of purity and sanctity.
Do you consider christian morality to be normative?
The extent to which a morality is not normative is one extent to which it's not a morality.
As I said to mousethief, I don't know what you think 'normative' means but I don't think it means whatever you think it means. What I think it means is that it has to do with a standard that the actual facts may or may not meet, and by which the actual facts can be judged or evaluated.
When the article talks about "universal normative morality" the "universal" is not a pleonasm; it adds something to the sentence.
Etiquette is not universal, but it is normative. Purity rules and sanctity rules are normative. In Judaism the requirement for Jewish males to be circumcised is not considered universal, but normative for Jewish families.
(Morality is not the only normative area of discourse. Truth and rationality form another normative area of discourse; so do aesthetics; so does competence. If I say someone successfully threw their plastic cup into the litter bin, the word 'successfully' introduces a normative element into the sentence since people are not always successful in what they do, regardless of what I think of throwing plastic cups into litter bins as a general pattern of behaviour.)
I notice you've subsequently added the phrase "and by which the actual facts can be judged or evaluated". Which seems relevant, in relation to the definitions of normativity on wikipedia: