can you still explain to me how a world where a God given morality exists is different from a world where it doesn’t?
See a couple of steps above: “Like natural law” here means “will lead to certain consequences regardless of whether you believe so”.
because I’d define “the greater good”
You can’t. Under Christianity you do not have the power to define “the greater good”. In physical parallels this would be similar to “I define gravity to repulse objects instead of attract and I literally don’t care whether that definition corresponds with whatever tricks nature wants to play”.
If Christianity is true, then you can’t define away things like “this action puts me in Hell”, but I wouldn’t call that being unable to define the greater good; I’d say that in that situation I am still defining the greater good but Hell is now decoupled from it.
It would be like saying “I define gravity to repulse objects” and then adding “Of course, this means that I am now using some name other than ‘gravity’ for the force that makes things fall”. It’s not at all clear that this is wrong. At most, it’s just not very useful, because if I look around for things that satisfy my new definition of gravity, I can’t find them. But that objection doesn’t seem to apply to the “greater good” case—if I define :”greater good” to mean something other than “doesn’t get me sent to Hell”, I can in fact find things that meet my definition, and I have a reason to want to talk about them as a category.
To give a concrete example: Imagine that forcibly converting Jews gets you sent to heaven and refusing to do so gets you sent to Hell. Why can I not say that someone who refuses to forcibly convert Jews is acting for the greater good, but some people who act for the greater good get sent to Hell? That seems like an equally sensible way of describing it, rather than “forcibly converting Jews is for the greater good”.
Because of the difference between the map and the territory.
We’re talking about a counterfactual universe where Christianity is true. This is a different universe from the one we live in, different in many subtle and profound ways. It’s not just the same old world that happens to have an angry old guy sitting up there in the clouds, chucking souls alternatively into a fire pit and into a line for harps.
One of the differences is that in the Christian world morality exists not in your mind, but in the world. It is objective, not subjective. It is built in into the fabric of reality. It is part of the territory.
You can redefine the greater good no more than you can redefine the value of pi or the Planck length.
Now maps, sure. You can draw whatever maps you like and tag things with whatever labels you want. You can make a map of the desert, call it a mountain, and start constructing a ship in the middle of it. That’s all fine—but all you’re doing is scribbling on a map and the territory is not changed by that.
That’s, by the way, is why occasionally Christians classify atheism as a mental disorder. From their point of view claiming to define the greater good yourself is tantamount to claiming to define the gravitational constant yourself—clearly a crazy thing to do. You’re constructing false maps.
Your ability to name things does not change what things are.
That’s like suggesting a hypothetical world where diamonds are red and made of corundum, while rubies are a form of carbon.
We use terms such as “diamonds”, “rubies”, and “greater good” because we are trying to convey some concept. They’re defined that way. In this hypothetical Christian world, “greater good” no longer means the same thing as that concept. If so, how is it meaningful to even call it greater good? It clearly is nothing like what I would otherwise think of as greater good.
The point is that I use the label because I want to express the concept. If something doesn’t match the concept, I’m not going to use the label for it. I’m “privileging” my concept because I’m the one doing the communicating and I’m not going to deliberately communicate something other than what I want to communicate.
Answer your same question with the above definitions of diamonds and rubies. Are you really “privileging your concept” if you insist that because clear gemstones made from carbon are not what you mean by “ruby”, you’re not going to call them that? “Greater good” in this hypothetical Christian world is as far from what I mean by “greater good” as rubies are from “clear gemstone made of carbon”.
I’m “privileging” my concept because I’m the one doing the communicating
A communication involves two parties. As I said, you can define things any way you like, that neither affects what they are nor helps your attempts to communicate.
The metaphor of diamonds and rubies works against you because the standard, default presumption on the part of most people in the real world is that morality is objective, not subjective. Most people would agree that you can’t define your own morality. So when you come and say “I can define the greater good to be anything I like”, you are the minority who says that corundum stones which everyone calls rubies should not be called so—you personally define rubies to mean “the gleam of red in my eye” and so there!
In any case your disagreement with the Christians is deeper than just terminology. You insist that the gems are just an illusion and you can make them be anything you want in your mind’s eye. They say that the gems are real and whatever you’re imagining is your own problem and does not affect the real gems in the real world.
the standard, default presumption on the part of most people in the real world is that morality is objective, not subjective.
There’s a wide gap between “I can define it to mean anything I like” and “I can define it within a certain range”. Given the hypothetical where forcibly converting Jews is for the greater good, most people in the real world would say “in that hypothetical, ‘greater good’ is so far from what we ordinarily mean by ‘greater good’ that there’s no point in even calling it that”. People in the real world give lip service to morality being objective but wouldn’t carry that to its conclusion.
...most people in the real world would say … People in the real world give lip service to morality being objective but wouldn’t carry that to its conclusion.
Please provide some evidence for these assertions. I happen to think they are false. I think you’re projecting your personal bubble onto the entire world.
Given the hypothetical where forcibly converting Jews is for the greater good, most people in the real world would say “in that hypothetical, ‘greater good’ is so far from what we ordinarily mean by ‘greater good’ that there’s no point in even calling it that”.
Except if you claim to be a utilitarian, you’re not allowed to say that.
See a couple of steps above: “Like natural law” here means “will lead to certain consequences regardless of whether you believe so”.
You can’t. Under Christianity you do not have the power to define “the greater good”. In physical parallels this would be similar to “I define gravity to repulse objects instead of attract and I literally don’t care whether that definition corresponds with whatever tricks nature wants to play”.
Why can’t you define “the greater good”?
If Christianity is true, then you can’t define away things like “this action puts me in Hell”, but I wouldn’t call that being unable to define the greater good; I’d say that in that situation I am still defining the greater good but Hell is now decoupled from it.
It would be like saying “I define gravity to repulse objects” and then adding “Of course, this means that I am now using some name other than ‘gravity’ for the force that makes things fall”. It’s not at all clear that this is wrong. At most, it’s just not very useful, because if I look around for things that satisfy my new definition of gravity, I can’t find them. But that objection doesn’t seem to apply to the “greater good” case—if I define :”greater good” to mean something other than “doesn’t get me sent to Hell”, I can in fact find things that meet my definition, and I have a reason to want to talk about them as a category.
To give a concrete example: Imagine that forcibly converting Jews gets you sent to heaven and refusing to do so gets you sent to Hell. Why can I not say that someone who refuses to forcibly convert Jews is acting for the greater good, but some people who act for the greater good get sent to Hell? That seems like an equally sensible way of describing it, rather than “forcibly converting Jews is for the greater good”.
Because of the difference between the map and the territory.
We’re talking about a counterfactual universe where Christianity is true. This is a different universe from the one we live in, different in many subtle and profound ways. It’s not just the same old world that happens to have an angry old guy sitting up there in the clouds, chucking souls alternatively into a fire pit and into a line for harps.
One of the differences is that in the Christian world morality exists not in your mind, but in the world. It is objective, not subjective. It is built in into the fabric of reality. It is part of the territory.
You can redefine the greater good no more than you can redefine the value of pi or the Planck length.
Now maps, sure. You can draw whatever maps you like and tag things with whatever labels you want. You can make a map of the desert, call it a mountain, and start constructing a ship in the middle of it. That’s all fine—but all you’re doing is scribbling on a map and the territory is not changed by that.
That’s, by the way, is why occasionally Christians classify atheism as a mental disorder. From their point of view claiming to define the greater good yourself is tantamount to claiming to define the gravitational constant yourself—clearly a crazy thing to do. You’re constructing false maps.
Your ability to name things does not change what things are.
That’s like suggesting a hypothetical world where diamonds are red and made of corundum, while rubies are a form of carbon.
We use terms such as “diamonds”, “rubies”, and “greater good” because we are trying to convey some concept. They’re defined that way. In this hypothetical Christian world, “greater good” no longer means the same thing as that concept. If so, how is it meaningful to even call it greater good? It clearly is nothing like what I would otherwise think of as greater good.
To you. Why do you privilege your concept over the Christian concept? I bet more people believe in objective morality than in subjective morality.
The point is that I use the label because I want to express the concept. If something doesn’t match the concept, I’m not going to use the label for it. I’m “privileging” my concept because I’m the one doing the communicating and I’m not going to deliberately communicate something other than what I want to communicate.
Answer your same question with the above definitions of diamonds and rubies. Are you really “privileging your concept” if you insist that because clear gemstones made from carbon are not what you mean by “ruby”, you’re not going to call them that? “Greater good” in this hypothetical Christian world is as far from what I mean by “greater good” as rubies are from “clear gemstone made of carbon”.
A communication involves two parties. As I said, you can define things any way you like, that neither affects what they are nor helps your attempts to communicate.
The metaphor of diamonds and rubies works against you because the standard, default presumption on the part of most people in the real world is that morality is objective, not subjective. Most people would agree that you can’t define your own morality. So when you come and say “I can define the greater good to be anything I like”, you are the minority who says that corundum stones which everyone calls rubies should not be called so—you personally define rubies to mean “the gleam of red in my eye” and so there!
In any case your disagreement with the Christians is deeper than just terminology. You insist that the gems are just an illusion and you can make them be anything you want in your mind’s eye. They say that the gems are real and whatever you’re imagining is your own problem and does not affect the real gems in the real world.
There’s a wide gap between “I can define it to mean anything I like” and “I can define it within a certain range”. Given the hypothetical where forcibly converting Jews is for the greater good, most people in the real world would say “in that hypothetical, ‘greater good’ is so far from what we ordinarily mean by ‘greater good’ that there’s no point in even calling it that”. People in the real world give lip service to morality being objective but wouldn’t carry that to its conclusion.
Please provide some evidence for these assertions. I happen to think they are false. I think you’re projecting your personal bubble onto the entire world.
Except if you claim to be a utilitarian, you’re not allowed to say that.