Engaging Mormon Apologetics

[_EAllusion]

Liars can still tell the truth, cheaters can still be honest, and rude people can still be considerate. Just because you can't conceive of a Naturalistic meta-ethic, doesn't mean ethical criticisms from a Naturalist is now invalid.

I don't think DCP can conceive of a plausible metaethical theory he can accept period. He rejects all secular theories and rejects divine command theory. What's left? I don't think he can coherently explain how the proposition "God exists" effectively resolves the problems he believes he is setting up.

That's one of the issues with engaging this kind of argument at the level of providing an explanation for which he claims cannot be explained. I think it does an unnecessary amount of heavy lifting. On top of that, there are as of yet intractable problems in philosophy. The problem of induction remains a problem. I think all metaethical theories have some problems with them, and that's coming from a person who has a definite position on the subject. I think by trying to provide a secular account of moral thought you set yourself up in a position where your interlocutor just provides the secular criticisms of that theory out there in the aether.

Of course, theism doesn't help us develop an account of coherence or moral properties. But that's the heart of the complaint, isn't it? Supposedly, the atheists are in a bad way because they can't explain those issues. This implies that theists aren't similarly disadvantaged which implies that theism helps us explain those matters. I think it is incumbent upon the user of such an argument to go ahead and explain how the theist deals with these matters.

Advocates of the TAG are fond of pointing out that atheists cannot solve the problem of induction and conclude that atheists therefore cannot be rationally consistent and use induction. But when it comes to explaining how theism helps resolve the problem of induction, it ends up in answers like, "God is lawlike, so it follows from God's nature that the world is lawlike," or "God is good, so God would create a world that can be understood by his creations therefore the world is expected to be regular on the hypothesis my God exists." And for a variety of reasons those answers are far more pathetic than what goes on in real philosophy. I think that's where the focus should be.

[_MrStakhanovite]

I don't think DCP can conceive of a plausible metaethical theory he can accept period. He rejects all secular theories and rejects divine command theory. What's left? I don't think he can coherently explain how the proposition "God exists" effectively resolves the problems he believes he is setting up.

You are highlighting one of Dan's more disappointing mistakes, in my opinion. I know Roger Scruton remarked once that," A Philosophy that begins in doubt assails what no one believes." I think Dan is guilty of this for the reasons you lay out.

I think by trying to provide a secular account of moral thought you set yourself up in a position where your interlocutor just provides the secular criticisms of that theory out there in the aether.

You are correct, but it is unavoidable. There is no such thing as an air tight position and it's folly to think so. I welcome criticism to my positions because, well, they deserve to be under scrutiny. I just don't want to perpetuate was Dan is doing here, assailing what no one believes.

And for a variety of reasons those answers are far more pathetic than what goes on in real philosophy. I think that's where the focus should be.

I plan on getting there. I wanted to establish my own ideas, before picking apart Theocentrism/ Divine Command Theory.

Thanks for your comments! When I get some more school work out of the way, I'm gonna do a post about Moral Realism in response to Dan.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Part 3: Building a Morality

First, the critics' basis for criticizing Mormonism on moral grounds is unclear, and its coherence needs to be demonstrated.

Now I want to point out, that the majority of Normative-ethic systems do not rely on theism to function, Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and Virtue ethics are just the first three that leap to mind. Any of those three would be sufficient for any rational agent to criticize the Church.

But on what basis can a materialist, whose universe is exhausted by material particles and the void, claim that something is objectively wrong? Do right and wrong not become matters merely of personal preference and, perhaps, of power?

I think what Dan is trying to do here, is make the argument that objective morality exists and it can not do so apart from God. While he seems dismissive of subjective accounts of morality, I would caution readers not to be so flippant with subjectivist morality, it is not some "superficial" venture and even though I don't agree with it, I'd never underestimate it or write it off.

I'm going to come at Dan's challenge here in a way that I think forces Dan and any other Theist who seems to favor Theo-centric morality into conceding that a Naturalist Meta-ethic is consistent and coherent.

To begin, I'm going to start with Moral Realism and a brief definition given by The Oxford Companion to Philosophy:

The view that moral beliefs and judgements can be true or false, that there exist moral properties to which moral agents are attentive or inattentive, sensitive or insensitive, that moral values are discovered, not willed into existence nor constituted by emotional reactions. Far from being a function of wishes, wants, and reasons that take precedence over any other reasons.

The IEP gives us a short argument that a Moral Realist might make in favor of Moral facts existing:

The moral realist may argue for the view that there are moral facts as follows:

(1) Moral sentences are sometimes true.

(2) A sentence is true only if the truth-making relation holds between it and the thing that makes it true.

(3) Thus, true moral sentences are true only because there holds the truth-making relation between them and the things that make them true.

Therefore,

(4) The things that make some moral sentences true must exist.

It is a short inference from the existence of the things that make some moral sentences true to the existence of moral facts.

Taking the above argument and bringing it together with my Correspondence Theory of Truth, we can get the following:

(P1) Moral facts exist.

(P2) An action is moral if and only if it corresponds to a moral fact.

(P3) A moral descriptive judgement can be made on a moral agent(s) using a combination of actions and moral facts.

(C) Therefore, I can positively or negatively judge the LDS Church and it's founding members on their actions.

P1- So it seems intuitive by language that there are moral facts, but if moral facts exist, what are they? They are abstractions, just like numbers. They exist, but not in a temporal or spatial fashion. Think about the number three and how you use the concept of that number and others to do daily computation. The number three is more then just a mental representation, it's a concept tied intimately with things that we do sense. We have these concepts by our experience with the world, and this concept has become very important to how we understand the world. In my atheistic ontology, moral facts are brute, that means they are logically necessary and not causally connected, but naturally occurring like the physical constants of our universe.

P2- An action can only be judged as (im)moral if it corresponds to a moral fact. Something like...

Darth J ran home.

...can not be considered a moral action, because there is no moral fact that can be plausibly conceived about running home.

Darth J raped a kitten.

the above is a moral action because we can pass a moral judgement on the action of rape.

P3- a descriptive moral judgement is what assigns value to moral actions. Examples are things like

It is wrong for Darth J to rape kittens.

or it can be more general

It is always wrong to rape kittens.

How we assign values like 'good' and 'bad' to a moral action is going to very from system to system. I'm not going to go into a specific axiology, but I will state that the justifications can come from a priori and a posteriori reasons.


Next installation I will further explain and defend this account of Moral Realism. Comments are always appreciated!

[_EAllusion]

I think your account of moral facts needs a lot more to accomplish the task you set out.

I'm a moral realist. I buy into a common version of moral naturalism. I think moral facts are plausibly reducible into statements about people's mental states. I'm a physicalist, so I think mental states supervene on brain states. So, ultimately, I think moral statements are statements about brain states. More specifically, I think terms like "good" and "bad" in a moral context refer to that which tends to promote or thwart aggregate desire fulfillment. So when someone says, "torturing babies for fun is wrong" I think this statement can be true or false because there are objectively true or false facts about how baby torture affects people's fulfillment.

I think obligation simply arises out of our desire for people to be moral. "You ought to do X" in a moral context just means, "If you were moral - that is acting to promote the fulfillment of people - you would do X." A lot goes into that, but it's at least no trouble to understand the ontology of the matter.

When you promote moral properties as brute facts of the universe that exist in a platonic sense, it's hard to get over why you think such a thing exists. It's queerness is striking, but more to the point, I'm left to wonder why not error theory? Even if our moral language aims at such a thing, where's the justification that what our moral statements are about actually exist?

[_EAllusion]

Next installation I will further explain and defend this account of Moral Realism.

Whoops.

[_mfbukowski]

What I hope to accomplish is not getting anything from Dan, but giving a series of "substantive posts" here in Shady Acres. Something beyond, " God doesn't exist" to "The LDS Church and Mormon Theology are unprepared to even answer the biggest questions we humans face."

This is a noble goal, but unfortunately much of what I see over here is dependent on personal attacks on MADB apologists. Even this thread, unfortunately, is about DEBATE about materialism and not materialism itself.

If one would want a substantive discussion, I would imagine one could start one.

And incidentally churches are not "true"; propositions are. Yes, colloquially, that term is heard a lot and the terminology does have meaning, but in a philosophical discourse it of course does not mean much.

Personally, I find any position other than some sort of materialism as incompatible with statements found in the D&C stating that even spirit is matter, and that there is no such thing as 'immaterial matter'.

I suppose someone will come back with "Well then you disagree with DCP!"

I don't know if that is true or not- I don't much care about DCP's position on materialism- I care about mine.

And whether or not someone else has successfully debated against DCP is also irrelevant, in my opinion.

The question for me, is what set of propositions can be seen as setting up a coherent world view- failed attempts at doing so are instructive, but one adjustment on a failed position can quickly become a unassailable position. So for me, the question is not what positions fail, but which positions succeed.

So does anyone think that materialism is incompatible with the D&C?- I mean anyone here who wants to debate the point- not what someone here thinks that someone might have said at some point somewhere else maybe.

Enough of he-said, she-said. If you want more substance you need more "I say...."

Who cares who did what to whom? I have been out of high school many years now.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Hey mfbukowski,

Thanks for stopping by! I won't be able to return to these posts for a few more days. I'm wrapping up a summer term here and the papers I need to turn in are draining my motivation to write or seriously think anymore at night.

Please comment on any posts that catch your eye. I'm just looking to make a dumping ground for ideas and thoughts and not so much getting into tedious tit-for-tat competitions.

The way I understand the D&C is that it seems to imply materialism, but I was wondering if intelligence in Mormon Thought could be reduced to materialism?

[_MrStakhanovite]

When you promote moral properties as brute facts of the universe that exist in a platonic sense, it's hard to get over why you think such a thing exists. It's queerness is striking, but more to the point, I'm left to wonder why not error theory? Even if our moral language aims at such a thing, where's the justification that what our moral statements are about actually exist?

The main strategy I'm trying to employ is that if I can describe brute moral facts in such a way that they have a similiar ontological existence as God in typical Theism, a rejection of these brute facts by a Theist would undercut many of their own arguments for the existence of God.

I would not expect a physicalist to be much impressed with that.

[_mfbukowski]

Hey mfbukowski,

Thanks for stopping by! I won't be able to return to these posts for a few more days. I'm wrapping up a summer term here and the papers I need to turn in are draining my motivation to write or seriously think anymore at night.

No problem! I am super busy too.

The way I understand the D&C is that it seems to imply materialism, but I was wondering if intelligence in Mormon Thought could be reduced to materialism?

Well I agree that that point seems to be the key. I think the short answer is "yes", but clearly it is with some caveats.

D&C seems to postulate a different kind of matter than is presently known to science- one in which consciousness is a property. There are abundant examples of this way of thinking in LDS literature- the idea that the elements "obey" the commands of God.

Such a notion is not unprecedented by any means- Alfred North Whitehead also presents such an idea of matter, and he is one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century.

[_mfbukowski]

The main strategy I'm trying to employ is that if I can describe brute moral facts in such a way that they have a similiar ontological existence as God in typical Theism, a rejection of these brute facts by a Theist would undercut many of their own arguments for the existence of God.

I would not expect a physicalist to be much impressed with that.

Well you are right- and that is the problem you are going to have pushing any kind of "ontology" in the 21st century.

Certainly I think it would not be impressive to Mormons, considering we have no ontology whatsoever.

I don't think a Mormon would have to argue that without God there would be no morality- in fact, as a TBM, I don't think that at all. And I think there is an implicit "summum bonum" of life affirmation which would ideally appeal to both humanists and Mormons alike.

The key for both groups is I think the idea of reaching the highest potential of mankind- actually defined similarly in both thought systems.