tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post1155378709316574157..comments2024-03-28T05:47:54.177+00:00Comments on Philosophical Disquisitions: Morriston on God and the Ontological Foundation of Morality (Part 2)John Danaherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-3503961903872082242012-04-24T10:26:02.732+01:002012-04-24T10:26:02.732+01:00Re: Warrant
Perhaps, but even on Plantinga's ...Re: Warrant<br /><br />Perhaps, but even on Plantinga's model of warrant, I'm not sure that moral beliefs would be as strongly warranted as other kinds of belief. In other words, they may be more vulnerable to defeaters. Haven't thought about it too much.<br /><br />Even then, though, Craig's moral argument is an exercise in positive apologetics not negative apologetics so it seems like he couldn't avail of the warrant approach here. (Indeed he has objected to certain aspects of the Reformed approach in print before, see <i>Five Views on Apologetics</i> edited by Steven Cowan).<br /><br />Re: Non-naturalism<br /><br />There are several naturalistic moral realist views (e.g. Railton's moral reductionism, Jackson's moral functionalism). I prefer the anti-realist views myself and have argued that evolutionary debunking arguments might provide one reason to favour anti-realism over realism. I think I did that on the blog before, can't remember where though, possibly buried somewhere within the series evolutionary debunking arguments. I don't think Morriston is objecting to Ruse's views per se but, rather, Craig's use of Ruse's views. Nevertheless, it may be that he misrepresents Ruse, having not read Ruse's original article I can't say.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-32483838111261775942012-04-24T01:33:35.829+01:002012-04-24T01:33:35.829+01:00So, in the evolutionary debunking argument section...So, in the evolutionary debunking argument section, Morriston is actually attacking Ruse's naturalism? Ruse describes himself as a moral non-realist, but not a non-cognitivist (eg http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?author=29). Morriston quotes Craig as having problems understanding atheistic moral realism as an intellectual stance, though Morriston obviously doesn't - but I would imagine that atheistic moral realism has to be non-naturalistic. Regarding warrant, I presume Craig has a similar idea to Plantinga: moral realism is so intuitively obvious that you need strong evidence to discount it.David Duffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12142997170025811780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-90909855318772838582012-04-23T06:24:37.807+01:002012-04-23T06:24:37.807+01:00Craig and Aquinas beg the question of God's na...Craig and Aquinas beg the question of God's nature being good.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-28040956437893897342012-04-22T17:45:30.934+01:002012-04-22T17:45:30.934+01:00So, I wouldn't disagree with any of that. That...So, I wouldn't disagree with any of that. That's what I meant by saying that the evolutionary debunking argument undercuts the warrant for believing in objective morality, but that's distinct from saying it proves that objective morality does not exist. As I then said, Craig needs the latter not the former.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-21535412446770448182012-04-22T17:25:06.631+01:002012-04-22T17:25:06.631+01:00"(15) If the truth of a proposition contribut..."(15) If the truth of a proposition contributes nothing to the best causal explanation of our belief in its truth, then that proposition is not true. <br /><br />But this is a deeply flawed principle. It commits the genetic fallacy in assuming that if the origins of our belief in a proposition are suspicious then so too is the truth of that proposition. This is not good reasoning and so Ruse’s argument can’t help Craig to defend thesis 2."<br /><br />I would actually support said principle as a core epistemological principle. Or at least something very much like it, which I think better represents Russ's apparent thought here. Perhaps,<br /><br />(15') If the actual truth of something cannot cause anyone to believe in it (through rational reasoning), then there it is irrational to believe in it. <br /><br />Specifically, supposing absolute morality exists as some "standard" somewhere. If this fact is not causally connected to us in a way that would allow us to discover it, then believing in it will be irrational. For another example, there may very well be a parallel universe where I am the King of England, but given that there are no causal links between that universe and ours it would be irrational on my part to believe that this universe exists. Asking us to believe that objective morality exists is then just as absurd as asking us to believe that an invisible angel paints every rainbow, that every earthquake is caused by the wrath of Vulcan in the "Olympian" plane of existence, or any number of baseless hypothesis for which there is no and cannot be a shred of evidence.<br /><br />Indeed, one can phrase it as a semantic issue. Let us call the "objective morality" that exists O and the thing we talk about when we talk of "objective morality" as T. What we are referring to when we're talking about T is T, not O. When we are talking about moral issues we are talking about our moral intuitions T, which definitely exist; if there is anything O that exists but does not affect T, then our talk of T is simply not about O. [O would need to cause T in specific ways for us to talk about it when we talk of T, much like the existence of trees makes us talk of "trees"; but it first needs to affect us, in any way, at all.]<br /><br />This is the same problem mathematical Platonism faces. And my rejection of Platonism seeps through to my rejection of Objective Morality. Even if some standard of "morality" exists, if it does not affect human thinking then it might as well be called "norality"; it has nothing to do with what we speak of when we speak of "morality".<br /><br />Yairיאיר רזקhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15798134654972572485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-71822371150775562932012-04-22T14:30:25.005+01:002012-04-22T14:30:25.005+01:00Thanks for these posts. I would love to hear how ...Thanks for these posts. I would love to hear how Craig or his legion of defenders respond to these points.The Atheist Missionaryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07191035196328725888noreply@blogger.com