There’s too much here for one man to refute all the wrong stuff, so I’ll just take a whack at one chosen at random, and leave the rest for others.
First, it is only inevitable that ontological reductionism leads to ethical and existential nihilism. There is no materialistic reductionist approach to human nature, whether it is transhumanism, utilitarian hedonism, or Marxist sociology, which is capable of avoiding this problem.
This is not correct; or to the extent that it is, it applies equally to religious justifications of morality. The assertion that your god is the source of moral rules merely puts the question at one further remove: Why do you choose to obey the god? It cannot be because you fear punishment if you don’t; that may be a pragmatic reason to obey, but it is not a moral one. So immediately we’re back to individual choice: You choose to obey this particular moral code. Bing, nihilism.
I think you’re partially right. If a certain ethical code is chosen simply because it is regarded as having a divine source, there would be something necessarily nihilistic in giving the said source a positive weighting. However, it would only deny rationality itself as having any intrinsic value: but if the super-intellectual divine has absolute, intrinsic value simply as a part of its definition, the ethical code deriving from it would as well, and certain actions would become intrinsically desirable.
My point here is that there are many people who regard themselves as abiding by material reductionism as an overall worldview, but who simultaneously admit that the core of morality is essentially non-rational (Ex. the “void” described in the 13 Virtues of Rationality), and this is not internally consistent. My criticism is that attempts to answer ethical questions from a purely rational standpoint usually yield incorrect conclusions, when questions concerning the nature and origin of that non-rational component are removed from the equation.
Your reply is based on multiple misunderstandings. I cannot correct them all, but I will take a stab at the most obvious ones. First, “the Void” is not a nonrational component of morality, and the fact that you would attempt to thus make it fit your theological framework is… telling. Second, the sentence “if the super-intellectual divine has absolute, intrinsic value simply as a part of its definition, the ethical code deriving from it would as well” is nonsensical. Who is doing the defining? Either you are, in which case we’re back to your choices; or the divine thing is, in which case it’s saying “I’m good because I’m good, you better pay attention to me”. That is seriously incoherent as a moral argument. You seem to think that saying “Moral code X is defined as a good moral code, therefore it is a good moral code” is ok if you wrap up the obvious circularity in verbiage.
Tim was saying that he agreed with the original existentialists about how, from any external objective perspective, there’s no meaning to our lives, and meaning is something we create entirely for ourselves. And then he said something like, “The difference is that I don’t see why that’s a problem. Sure, I create my own meaning. So what? That’s fine with me. Sartre and Camus and that whole crowd thought this was a barely-tolerable psychological state that had to be struggled with on a daily basis… but I don’t see what the big deal is.”
There’s too much here for one man to refute all the wrong stuff, so I’ll just take a whack at one chosen at random, and leave the rest for others.
This is not correct; or to the extent that it is, it applies equally to religious justifications of morality. The assertion that your god is the source of moral rules merely puts the question at one further remove: Why do you choose to obey the god? It cannot be because you fear punishment if you don’t; that may be a pragmatic reason to obey, but it is not a moral one. So immediately we’re back to individual choice: You choose to obey this particular moral code. Bing, nihilism.
I think you’re partially right. If a certain ethical code is chosen simply because it is regarded as having a divine source, there would be something necessarily nihilistic in giving the said source a positive weighting. However, it would only deny rationality itself as having any intrinsic value: but if the super-intellectual divine has absolute, intrinsic value simply as a part of its definition, the ethical code deriving from it would as well, and certain actions would become intrinsically desirable.
My point here is that there are many people who regard themselves as abiding by material reductionism as an overall worldview, but who simultaneously admit that the core of morality is essentially non-rational (Ex. the “void” described in the 13 Virtues of Rationality), and this is not internally consistent. My criticism is that attempts to answer ethical questions from a purely rational standpoint usually yield incorrect conclusions, when questions concerning the nature and origin of that non-rational component are removed from the equation.
Your reply is based on multiple misunderstandings. I cannot correct them all, but I will take a stab at the most obvious ones. First, “the Void” is not a nonrational component of morality, and the fact that you would attempt to thus make it fit your theological framework is… telling. Second, the sentence “if the super-intellectual divine has absolute, intrinsic value simply as a part of its definition, the ethical code deriving from it would as well” is nonsensical. Who is doing the defining? Either you are, in which case we’re back to your choices; or the divine thing is, in which case it’s saying “I’m good because I’m good, you better pay attention to me”. That is seriously incoherent as a moral argument. You seem to think that saying “Moral code X is defined as a good moral code, therefore it is a good moral code” is ok if you wrap up the obvious circularity in verbiage.
Greta Christina, Will Atheism Become Easier?