Board index ‹ Morality

[J Lord]

> Morality can't be "that which contributes to human well-being", or else a guy like Hitler can slaughter 6 million Jews and say, "Hey, I just made the world a better place!"

He could say that regardless of how (or by whom) morality is defined. But he would be wrong because as you already know, a society that institutionalizes killing of people based on race is likely to reduce the well being of nearly everyone in it. To think that such a thing improves well being would require you hold false beliefs such as thinking that Jews are subhuman and are trying to destroy society. But even Hitler would probably have agreed that morality was connected to human well being. It was through false beliefs that he thought what he was doing was good for society.

The fact that morality corresponds to human well being does not mean that there will be a universally agreed upon answer to all moral questions. Nor does it mean that morality is somehow going to be magically enforced on people who choose to ignore it. But in these respects it is no different then where we would be under the theory that morality is determined by god.

> "Well-being" is too easily a contrivance of opinion is there is no reference point from which morality stems.

Well being is the only reasonable reference point because there is no way to demonstrate what god thinks about morality or what his rules are. Also the only moral rules that are generally agreed upon outside of any particular religion are all related to human well being. So even though the most accurate meaning of a word would not depend on whether it is "too easily a contrivance of opinion," I think that claiming god decides morality is far worse in this regard. Nobody can demonstrate what god thinks or what his rules are so under this model nobody knows anything about what I moral or not. It is totally dependent on each individual's beliefs about what they think god wants.

Under your model Hitler could simply say "God wants me to kill Jews" and there would be no way to prove him wrong. Under my proposed explanation you can actually show where he went wrong and explain why you shouldn't think he acted morally.

> Ironically, I would say in the context of this conversation, the whole point of the Bible is to reveal God.

But there is no reasonable basis for thinking that any of the authors of the bible had any information about god.

> This is spurious, unsupported, and illegitimate.

Well for example, we both agree that to have a healthy society where human well being flourishes it is not a good idea to allow people to own other people as property. According to the bible you can own others as property and there are numerous rules detailing the rules of such ownership. Following these rules decrease well being. So if god made these rules then he wants us to live in a state that does not maximize human well being. If you knowingly make rules that will hinder well being then I believe it is fair to call you immoral.

[jimwalton]

> He could say that regardless of how (or by whom) morality is defined.

What I am saying is that unless there is a standard by which the word is defined and the concept understood, there is no such thing as morality. "Good" that changes based on the individual and the situation, perceptions and definitions of "well-being" isn't "good" at all, but mere opinion. If there is an idea of "well-being", there has to be a plumb line of well-being against which the opinions of people and the practices of any given culture can be assessed. If "morality" has any meaning, it has meaning as a concept and definition that exists outside of what an individual human being thinks. Hitler claims he was working for the well-being of society; the Allies claimed we were working for the well-being of society. Is "well-being" defined, then, by who won the war? Or is there an object standard by which such opinions can be measured?

> there is no way to demonstrate what god thinks about morality or what his rules are.

As I'v said, the Bible is filled with "what God thinks about morality [and] what his rules are." The laws of America were founded on Biblical ethical principles. What God's rules are are fairly easily discernible.

> Under your model Hitler could simply say "God wants me to kill Jews" and there would be no way to prove him wrong.

In the Bible, when God commanded people to kill, it was always accompanied by a miraculous sign so that nobody could just cavalierly claim, "God wants me to kill ________" and get away with it. If God really commanded it, God confirmed it with evidentiary signs to verify it wasn't just someone's lust for blood and/or power.

> But there is no reasonable basis for thinking that any of the authors of the bible had any information about god.

Thousands of times in the Bible, the writers wrote, "And the Lord said..." THOUSANDS. So I guess it all comes down to what YOU mean by "reasonable basis." It sounds as if you've judged the Bible as guilty before proven innocent, and you *a priori* don't believe anything it says, therefore we have no reliable information there. If that's the case, I consider that prejudicial and biased on your side.

> own others as property

I believe you are guilty of anachronistic reasoning, a perspective known as "presentism." In an agrarian society such as Israel, people didn't hire employees, they "owned" people for temporary periods of time, almost always to relieve a debt (not a whole lot different than our system of employment, actually). People would work for others who "owned" them until their debts were paid off, and the people were set free. It's more a matter of terminology than immorality. The Old Testament is pretty strict about the rules of such "ownership," that it be designed and implemented to increase well-being, not to be abusive, treat people as less than human, with no rights or respect. The OT configuration insisted on humanity, well-being, honor, and integrity throughout the whole system. And every 7 years, even if the debt wasn't paid off, the rest of the balance was to be forgiven and the ledger wiped clean. Often "slaves" were trained in trades, in an apprenticeship manner, and then released to created their own businesses.

Too many people think of the antebellum American South when they think of ancient Israel, and the two have nothing in common.

[J Lord]

> Is "well-being" defined, then, by who won the war? Or is there an object standard by which such opinions can be measured?

There are numerous objective ways to measure human well being. And there are many subjective measures as well. Compare this to the fact that there if a god exists there is no known way to determine what rules he wants us to follow. Referencing the bible does not help because there is no reasonable basis for believing that the people who wrote the bible had any information about what god wanted either. And even if there was some reason to think god had a hand in writing the bible there is no agreement on what says about many moral questions. Large sections of bible contain specific rules that no Christians follow anymore because they are clearly not conducive to human well being. So it doesn't get anywhere closer to an objective standard to reference the bible because it is silent on most moral questions and there is no demonstrable way to know if you are interpreting it correctly.

> Thousands of times in the Bible, the writers wrote, "And the Lord said..."

Thousands of other times numerous other people have written religious texts claiming that god told them things as well. People today claim that god tells them things. There is no known way to verify whether any of them are true. So the most reasonable position would be to disbelieve all such claims unless given a reasonable basis for belief.

> So I guess it all comes down to what YOU mean by "reasonable basis."

I mean the same basis that would be required to accept any other similar claims. If someone is claiming something that violates the known laws of the universe, what would it take for you to believe them? Probably more than just an anonymous book claiming that it's true.

> In an agrarian society such as Israel, people didn't hire employees,

I've never heard this and I find it hard to believe.

> People would work for others who "owned" them until their debts were paid off, and the people were set free.

I don't think this is a good system for maximizing human well being, but regardless this only applied to some people. I'm talking about the people who were permanently owned, the owner's family inherited them, and their children became the owner's property.

From Leviticus 25:
44 As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. 45 You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. 46 You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.

There are numerous other rules regarding slavery that are clearly detrimental to human well being such as allowing fathers to sell their daughters as slaves. But the most obvious one is probably owning other people as property, as described above. Surely you agree that following these rules would not maximize well being within a society.

[jimwalton]

> There is no known way to verify whether any of them are true.

That's just verificationism and logical positivism, which has not even been close to have been proved. At its core, the notion of verifiability cannot so much as even be explained, let alone defended. There's no way to identify data that has objective validity. Without a workable definition, no one can say whether religious statements are or are not verifiable.

You take "violation of the known laws of the universe" as a workable definition of an untenable epistemology, but on what data or proof do you make such a claim? It sounds as if you are taking a representationalism approach to epistemology, but there are plenty of truths that don't have a verifiable content to them. Ultimately, verificationism is self-refuting. The principle of verification (all statements that are not proved true are false) is a universal, and thus cannot be proved, and thus if it is true, it is false.

> "In an agrarian society such as Israel, people didn't hire employees..." I've never heard this and I find it hard to believe.

It has been established by archaeology that greater than 90% of the ancient Israelite population was engaged in small farming. It has been established by historians and theologians that almost all of "slavery" in ancient Israel was debt slavery—the service of one human to another to pay off a debt. The Torah had rules about debt slavery so that they would be equitable to both parties, not abusive to the debtor, and not even a long-standing situation: 7 years maximum for any given debtor. Their economic system was that of individual proprietorship fed by apprentices. There were occasionally "hired workers", as is mentioned by Jesus in the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Mt. 20.1-16).

> Leviticus 25

Let's start here. My response is that God is accommodating, not endorsing, and his allowing is not to be mistakenly construed at endorsing immoral behavior. For my evidence I'll refer to Mt. 19.8: "Moses (and hence God) permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning." The ideal will of God (moral perfection) can make provision for human sinfulness without endorsing the sin. The sin is denounced, and neither authorized nor sanction, but still tolerated. Jesus is using an established legal category of actions allowed out of consideration for wickedness or weakness. The point is not to make divorce acceptable, but within the framework of human failure to limit sinfulness as much as possible and control its consequences. Only moral perversion creates the kinds of divorce scenarios that prompted the question, but ideal is quite different, and the text says so. If we extrapolate those principles of Scripture to the subject of slavery, we find similar principles in Scripture. While God accommodated the practice, he instituted laws to make it not harsh, and always treating people as human beings and not as property. You need to understand this: Only Israelites were allowed to own land in Israel (which ultimately belonged to YHWH: Lev. 25.23; Josh. 22.19). The only way for a foreigner to survive was to be incorporated into an Israelite home to serve there.

My analysis is this: YHWH created us to be free, to have a relationship with him as priest and priestess in his temple (the earth), to be stewards of the earth and take good care of it, to love God with all our beings, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. As such, chattel slavery (our subject at hand) is immoral, just as divorce, polygamy, adultery, misogyny, and many other practices. And yet people (God's people! nonetheless) divorced each other, married more than one woman, slept with people not their own spouses, oppressed women, etc. God's ideals were still God's ideals, and his accommodation of humanity's sinfulness is not to be interpreted as approval or endorsement.