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| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
I'm digressing here, but I have a question. I was wondering what place morality has in a strictly rational world view? |
Not much, in my opinion. I wrote the following in this thread:
| quote: | As I see it, there are two fundamental flaws in the most common approaches to constructing a moral system:
1) The notion that "correct" moral beliefs can be deducted via reason (that if we think long and hard enough, the "right" mode of action will be revealed to us) and that modes of action can be thus be evaluated and modified based upon these "higher", rationally formed, more "general" principles of morality (the top-down approach).
2) That morality should be considered as a logically perfect (or at least self-consistent) system and/or that any system of morality that fails this consistency test can be rendered invalid as a result. Mortality, it must be remembered, is not inherently rational or logical in nature.
On the first point, contrary to what Kant and the rationalists thought, no amount of contemplation will bring you to an inherently correct moral principle or axiom. This is because, a la the second point, morality is not inherently rational (from a neurological perspective, it originates in different parts of the brain to where we process logical decision making - more closely tied to emotion than rationale) and because it makes no sense to believe that specific actions should be dictated by general, universal axioms and principles. In Eastern philosophy, general moral principles are derived from specific actions ("murder is wrong because we shouldn't kill Billy without any good reason") rather than the other way around in western philosophy ("we shouldn't kill Billy without any good reason because murder is wrong"). As Satre pointed out, there are many circumstances in which no system of morality or general moral principle is going to assist us in our moral quandry. Here he cites the example of a young man torn between fighting for his country and staying home to care for his frail mother. In this situation, as with many others, no Golden Mean, Categorical Imperative or Hedonic Calculus is going to be of any assistance to him. Each man must create his own moral stance for himself, ex nihilo, by committing to a decision in cases like this. By making moral decisions like this, man defines his own morality (and, by extension, himself) and creates for himself a moral system by which to act (from the bottom-up). Although simply expressed here, this subjectivist method of the creation of moral principles and convictions forms the basis of Satrean and most existentialst morality. |
That is not to say that reason has no place at all in the development of functional moral systems, but I agree with you that reason alone won't lead you to discover what is right and what is wrong in a moral sense.
| quote: | Originally posted by ::TranceVanDyk::
1) I see the theory of evolution as the change of genes in successive generations, that over time, eventually create new species from existing ones. It is an undirected process by which the process is not guided by some intelligent outside force, but by natural selection. |
Yep, good enough.
| quote: | | The basis for my rejection of this theory is because of the apparent 'design', and purposeful functions of the laws of physics, and of biological processes. I just can't see how the physical laws of nature could have come about simply by chance. There's too much purpose. From grandiose galaxy clusters to the smallest sub-atomic particles, they all come together in just the right way that allows for the predictable nature of the universe to operate. Therefore, I cannot eliminate the implications of a 'fine-tuned' universe, that would be a higher power. Of course, there is the probability that I am wrong, but the probability that a higher power is the reason behind the universe, I simply can't ignore. |
You're confusing stability for order. All existent things in the universe - on the scale of the atom right up to the scale of large clusters of galaxies - are stable structures: if they weren't stable than they wouldn't exist. In this sense, all systems - from solar systems, to ecological systems, to molecular systems, to biological systems - tend, in a sense, towards stability. This is not through design or omniscient forethought, but for the simple tautological reason that if these systems did not tend towards stability then they just simply wouldn't exist. If you ever find your credulity stretched about how something seemingly so "ordered" could have arisen without design, think about how it could have arisen though some system - or process - tending towards stability: just about everything, from evolution to the motion of the planets, no longer seems quite so extraordinary if you can conceive of them in these terms.
In any case, even if you were to successfully argue that what we see in the structures of the universe is order rather than stability and purpose rather than inexorable necessity, then I'm not sure why that would lead you to the automatic assumption that there must be a God behind it all. Positing a supernatural being of infinite power and knowledge only poses more questions than it solves: if it is impossible to accept that the rather tenuous stability we see in the universe could have arisen without prior cause, how is it possible to accept the idea that something as stable and 'perfect' as God could have come into existence without prior cause?
| quote: | | What makes ID scientific is that it attempts to answer the questions such as, 'Why does the universe seems to be fine-tuned?', by using an empirical, scientific method approach as scientists are supposed to do. |
That isn't really a scientific question though. If the question can't be phrased in a "what" or "how" format, that's usually a pretty good indication that it has no scientific merit. There is no empirical or scientific way of answering the question you just posed: it demands and presupposes a higher purpose just by the way it's phrased.
If the question was rephrased "How did the laws of the universe come to be the way that they are?" then we can attempt a scientific response. At the moment there is no clear answer, but that is not to say that there will never be. Super-string theory, for instance, posists an explanation for origin of the universe and the reasons behind some of the more seemingly "extraordinary" coincidences of the universe (the fact that all the matter and energy in the universe balances out in such a way so as to ensure that space-time has virtually no positive or negative curvature whatsoever, for instance) without the need for a God. I think once we come to understand the nature of dark-energy (which accounts for some 70% of the energy in the universe), we will be much better placed to answer these questions. But until then the only reasonable response is "we don't know".
| quote: | | But when ID and evolution come to debate, the debate isn't (ID evidence vs. evolution evidence). It becomes a controversial arguement over who has the backing of reason. So the evidence isn't even considered, because ID is considered religion. |
There is no direct evidence to support ID, though. At best, ID is just the placid acceptence of science with arguments from personal incredulity and "God did it" tacked on the end. What direct evidence is there for any of the claims made by ID proponents?
| quote: | | Secondly, evolution provides an excuse for a non-belief in a higher power, because it assumes that the cosmos is all there is, was, and ever will be. If someone doesn't want to believe in an absolute moral authority, they have evolution as a great excuse to believe so. To say 'this is what drives evolutionists', is stereotypical, I think it may be true for some. |
To quote Camus:
| quote: | "Everything is permitted" exclaims Ivan Karamazov.
[...]
[This] is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgement of a fact. The certainty of a God giving meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to act with impunity. The choice would not be hard to make. But there is no choice, and that is where the bitterness come in. The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorise all actions. [...] [It] does not recommend crime for this would be childish, but it restores remorse to its futility. Likewise, if all experiences are indifferent, that of duty is as legitimate as any other. One can be virtuous through a whim. |
Sartre wrote about the same passage from The Brothers Karamazov:
| quote: | | The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. |
I don't think anyone could find joy or relief in the realisation that there are no absolute morals. People do not become atheists to abandon moral responsiblities - in fact, I'd argue that responsibility is stronger within atheistic world-views, for the simple reason that we recognise that we and we alone are responsible for how we treat each other: there is no God to judge or punish us, so we are left personally responsible for the consequences of our actions.
I have never met anyone who believes that he can act with impunity just because God does not exist. If the only thing stopping you from raping or mudering someone is the idea that there is a God who would not look favourably on such actions, then I am genuinely concerned for you. Whether you like it or not, it is you - not God - that is responsible for your actions and for treating other people with the respect they deserve. The existence of God then, in this regard, is completely irrelevent.
| quote: | | 3) If a higher power were to exist, it would transcend time, and space, because it is not bound by the physical laws of nature. If we were to know for a fact that other universes exist, and that somehow the Big Bang could have come about by some interaction of these universes (M-Theory), then I would be forced to look at evolution in a new light. Because physical laws and time stop at 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang, we go into the rhealm of the supernatural, which can't be explained thru' natural means. I come to the belief that all things cannot be explained thru' natural means, and so I cannot ever accept the veracity of the theory of evolution. |
None of this has anything to do with evolution, though. The theory of evolution must necessarily accept that the laws of the universe are as they are and it does not require an explanation for the origin of these laws to be an accurate explanation for the biological processes we observe here and now on Earth. Is there any part of the evolutionary theory specifically that you have issue with, or is your problem solely with the unlikelihood of the physical laws of the universe being as they are?
Also, as an aside, why do you presume that Plank time necessitates a supernatural explanation? All Plank time represents is the point as which all our current systems of physics break-down, which is not the same as saying that what occurred prior to Plank time necessitates an explanation that transcends the physical laws of our universe. As I said earlier, an understanding of dark energy will likely give us an indication of what happened prior to 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang: at the moment, the physical laws that we are familiar with (gravity, electromagnetic forces etc.) are incapable of explaining the conditions that must have existed before this time. This, yet again, does not require a supernatural creator: the explanation is far more likely to be natural in origin, given that we don't have any reason whatsoever to suspect that a supernatural realm exists to begin with.
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