Killing in the name of...

[_honorentheos]

Anyhow, I'd love to hear from any of you who took the presuppositions to imply the answer of True to 1 & 2.

Sethbag -

I agree fully with your points when it comes to the real world. And, in my opinion, Brade's conditions [3] and [4] represent the way things actually are at the highest level of assurance anyone can have who may have justified belief in God.

Conditions [1] and [2] are, in my opinion, special cases that only exist in the realm of thought experiment. Under these conditions, we know that God is real, we know that God is good, and we know that God has commanded us to kill our one child. No belief necessary, we KNOW these things. Given the condition that God is good, and that it's the will of God that we undertake to kill our own child - to not do so would be against good.

I think Brade's thought experiment is a useful way of examining the question from the perspective of a believer by making "God is real" a condition of the problem.

I think it's reasonably hard to engage the question as it's presented rather than tackling the much more broad moral dilemma of Abraham/Isaac precisely because of how morally abhorant the idea of killing one's own child must be for most of us. Yet the issue why God would command such an act, and how Abraham should have reacted is a messy matter. Brade's experiment has eliminated some of the messiness by requiring us to consider God both real and good, thereby placing believer and unbeliever on equal footing when examining it.

So, in my opinion, [1] and [2] require us/the other person to act in accordance with God's will IF we know that God is real, good, and is the being commanding us to kill our own child.

Now, in the case of [3] and [4], I think your points are spot on. While we have knowledge that God is both real and good, we only have belief that this good God wills that we undertake to kill our own child. I appeal to Kant's view here that, given the high degree of conflict between my understanding of "good" and the command to kill my own child, it should be equally questionable that the being giving this command is God.

[_Gadianton]

h,

I read your response as refering more to Brades item [1] where A and B remain the same, but the C is that God HAS commanded me to kill my own child. The difference being that while I believe it's the case, I don't have the same level of assurance as in [1]

Yeah, you are right here. I concede this point.

then I am curious if you could explain why you see them as similar, and deserving the same reaction.

They would not be unequivocally the same, you are right. However, I think they could be the same. To underscore the burden every LDS person carries to act as the Lord's executioner if the occasion should arise, I gave the impression that the call to act in this capacity might be trivial. With your sound clarification, if I felt very strongly I should do the killing, this alone might be good enough reason to act, but it might not be. It depends on why I feel strongly, and I will get to this.

Therefore, even within this thought experiment the cost of killing one's child but being wrong about it being the will of God far, far outweigh the cost of not killing one's child but it being the will of God that you do so.

Reevaluating my response in light of your corrections above, I still disagree with your final assessment and I may or may not disagree with Brade's friend, depending on what he meant by "evidence" though my position needs some fixing as well. Your sentence above in reference to (3) I think works only to the extent that you remain within the divine command structure assumed from (1). You can't say, God's will is in theory compatible with a killing (because we accept Brade's thought experiment) but we should jump ship and reject God's will by utilitarian cost/benefit analysis. If God willed a person dead, in his mysterious workings, not killing that person could have incalculable eternal consequences. However, you might be able to go this route: We don't have perfect knowledge of God, but faith in God. God has commanded generally, that we should not kill, and killing is one of the worst sins one can commit. Therefore, if we have a "strong belief" that we should do something that otherwise is a near unforgivable sin, and given we can't perfectly know the mind of God, we should error on the side of our own fallibility. And I can nearly come into agreement with this, but there is a major problem.

The scriptures are clear that at times, God has demanded killings in several contexts, and thus, we must be ready for God to so command again, despite the horrible stakes involved if one's apprehension of God's will is fallible. We must work to tune ourselves to God's will such that he may ask the supreme sacrifice from us and we shall obey, without making a mistake. However, having said this, I was wrong to make the request sound as if it could come so easily. You are right that Brade's question merely said we have a "strong feeling" that we should kill, and in an LDS context, this alone isn't enough. From a modern LDS view, the Holy Ghost can only give us "feelings" to act within our stewardship. Many church members have strong feelings about things that are in disagreement with the Brethren, and this leads them to excommunication. But, the prophet and even the fifteen could command you to make this sacrifice. And if they did, you would be required to get a testimony of it, and do it. If you had a good feeling to kill someone after being instructed by the Brethren to do it, then you should do it. At best, Brade's friend's demands for evidence is only a reasonable objection (in an LDS context) if the evidence is in regard to the command's legitimacy through an official LDS channel.

That's really scary. And even more, it gets to the heart of why I think anyone who feels the LDS church has no responsibilty for what happened at mountain meadows is flat out wrong. With or without a direct command from Brigham Young to attack the Francher party.

True. The interesting thing here was this guy was otherwise very liberal, he wasn't one of the handful of BYU religion profs who have a reputation for extreme religious views. He was teaching the Laban story, and acknowledged that if God commands to kill, then that is what you must do. The way he expressed the hypothetical scenario for today involved the directive coming from the prophet somehow. Now, I don't believe the brethren would ever ask such a thing in today's world. And I don't believe Mormons are trained to take their prophet seriously, it's all lip service.

[_honorentheos]

Gad,

Your sentence above in reference to (3) I think works only to the extent that you remain within the divine command structure assumed from (1).

It was my understanding of the OP that this is the case. The only difference between [1] and [3] or [2] and [4] is in the first instance we know God's will while in the second we only have sincere belief. But in both instances God is real and Good. In the first group a person's choice is between obeying a good God's command or not. In the second, there is an evaluation required as to whether or not one's sincere belief is, indeed, God's will. So I think this sentence suggests you and I are seeing the conditions in the second group differently -

God's will is in theory compatible with a killing (because we accept Brade's thought experiment) but we should jump ship and reject God's will by utilitarian cost/benefit analysis.

I read the second group as leaving the door open as to whether or not it's God's will.

I contend that Brade's friend is not evaluating the question itself, but only made a statement about his confidence in his own standard for sincere belief while suggesting other's may or may not have as rigorous standards for sincere belief. Yet no condition is setup in the argument to make this justifiable. He, the friend, asks us to take at face value that he has rigorous standards for sincere belief. Ok.

My suggestion in that case is anyone who would differentiate between other's and their own fallibility is likely to be someone who fails to understand human nature and just how fallible we are in our judgements. I think the question of rigor in judgement is a faulty basis for considering the second group as we have no built-in conditions that justify this belief. In fact, Brade's friend described every religionist I've ever met who, like your BYU professor, may be very rational good people but fail to consider just how wide the divide is between sincere belief and knowledge.

Given this divide, I think it is required that we set up fail-safe standards by which to defend against false positives.

I think you and I are not so far in our thinking, but maybe I misread Brade's point that in all four instances we are to assume that God is real as well as Good. If my understanding is correct, which may not be the case, then I think Kant provides the framework on which we can build our fail-safe structure. In this case, if God being Good is a given, then the degree that a potential command from God contradicts our understanding of what is Good should call into equal question that the command is of God.

If I had Stak's formal training in philosophy I suspect there would be a way to transcribe the argument formally that might make my point more clear.

Anyway, Brade's insight into the base conditions might be helpful.

[_brade]

I hope to respond more on this. I'm going through the comments so far. I have to say, I'm very bothered by this whole thought experiment, and the fact that it's something that we can even have a serious discussion over because of scriptural instances of this sort of thing.

Among the things I'm so bothered by is that my answer to (1) and (2) is 'true' or 'yes'. That I think those come out true disgusts me. But I don't know of a way to disagree. The fact that these are hypothetical questions doesn't relieve my disgust as much as I would like. I've been thinking about this all weekend.

[_just me]

I think the mistake is in the assumptions.

Why assume god is good? How do we know there is a god, let alone a good one? Even if there was *for sure* a good god, how can one be assured that they are receiving communication from that good god?

Humans are not failsafe at receiving communication. I give as proof this forum! HAHAHA! Message sent is very often not message received. PLUS, humans have a pesky habit of having their brains malfunction.

[_honorentheos]

Brade -

You may be very interested in this series by Susan Neiman on the subject. Section 2 is more specificly about the story of Abraham but the entire piece is worth watching. I think you will enjoy it.

Beyond Belief 2006 - Susan Neiman Part 1 - start at about min. 6 to skip past the preliminary banter.

Beyond Belief 2006 - Susan Neiman Part 2

The remaining parts can be found via youtube.

[_brade]

Brade -

You may be very interested in this series by Susan Neiman on the subject. Section 2 is more specificly about the story of Abraham but the entire piece is worth watching. I think you will enjoy it.

Beyond Belief 2006 - Susan Neiman Part 1 - start at about min. 6 to skip past the preliminary banter.

Beyond Belief 2006 - Susan Neiman Part 2

The remaining parts can be found via youtube.

Thanks.

Edit: Oh, and don't forget to listen to this as you participate in this thread.

[_Gadianton]

I think you and I are not so far in our thinking, but maybe I misread Brade's point that in all four instances we are to assume that God is real as well as Good.

We are reading it the same, in all four instances, God is real and he is good.

If my understanding is correct, which may not be the case, then I think Kant provides the framework on which we can build our fail-safe structure. In this case, if God being Good is a given, then the degree that a potential command from God contradicts our understanding of what is Good should call into equal question that the command is of God.

sure, you can do that, but you have to throw out the thought experiment as invalid. I am trying to play by what I think are Brade's rules, or the spirit of his rules.

(1) If God commands you to kill your own child, then you should do it.

...If you're not a believer, assume for the sake of answering the questions that God exists and that he's good.

Per your Kant argument, we don't believe God is capable of giving this command, so we can't answer (1) true or false since it states a contradiction. It's like saying, if God asks you to build a tower so tall that he can't climb it, would you do it?

To me this makes the exercise far less interesting than in the case where we are a) forced to assume God exists and good, b) forced, by Brades fiat, to accept that in (1) God really did give this command. From here, it trivially follows that God's command to kill is good.

a)God is good
b)God commands you to kill
---
c)Killing, when God commands it, is good.

It also follows that we cannot dismiss (3) by Kant. We can, however, question whether or not in a particular instance, God really did make the request. We have to come up with the believer's epistemology. Is having a "strong feeling" justification? Many Christians might say no, because they don't agree that feelings tell us truth, only the Bible tells us truth. Could some insane Christian reconstructionist find Biblical justification? absolutely. A Mormon can be constrained by the spirit through feelings to act as did Nephi, but like I said, in the modern church, feelings might not be enough if the request is outside the bounds of one's stewardship.

[_honorentheos]

Gad,

I am still unsure why we must conflate 1 with 3. On 1, we are in agreement I think.

Where you and I are apparently thinking differently is in whether or not we can separate 1 from 3. I don't think we have to assume this is the case.

Because of this, I think it is a mischaracterization to say we are dismissing 3 by Kant. Instead, we are using 3 to examine why we must build a framework to protect ourselves from misunderstanding the will of God. Not only do I find this interesting, I find it much more useful as it reflects the world as we encounter it. At least, as I've encountered it. Because, again, it leaves the will of God in the dark. It's the question unanswered, not whether or not one has the faith to carry out the will of God when it appears to contradict one's moral judgement.

[_Gadianton]

h,

Simple question:

In 3, is it possible that God would ask you to kill someone?