Peregrinus wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 4:07 am
Pretty much the entire history of Europe in the seventeenth century suggests otherwise. Indeed, what brought the wars of religion to an end was (a) a recognition that people who agree there is an ultimately objectively correct answer to a question often
don’t and can’t agree on what that answer is, and (b) a weary acceptance of the secular principal that people who believe in different answers must each be allowed to live according to their beliefs.
Every field of investigative endeavor suggests that knowing there is an answer to a question is a 'helpful' factor that encourages investigation. Time will tell if our current trajectory will result in better. The 20th century, when the thinking I am criticising really took hold, did not go too well.
That secular principle has not been accepted anywhere - people are only allowed to live according to their beliefs within a very narrow framework of accepted truths.
You’re overlooking persuasion, appeals to reason, appeals to empathy, appeals to experience, etc. Ethical discourse does take place between people of differing views, and people do sometimes change their views. Attempting to change people’s views by force, however, rarely succeeds.
These are all methods of argument, not a foundation for an argument, certainly if there is not ultimate appeal to objective truth as to the value of these factors. I never said people who deny objective value are incapable of argument. You seem to have misread what I have written, I never said that moral questions and such are unimportant to those who deny objective value, in fact I said the opposite. The issue I raised is that the foundation of their idea and impetus for their actions is not an understanding or claim that it is objectively true, but it is a whim, merely the fact that they like their idea, by definition. The point I was making is that the rejection of objective truth matters because people who reject it don't just take their ball and go home.
You might well say that moral ideas such as empathy, or even reason should be a decisive factor - why? We may apply our reason and endeavor to utilise our intellect to arrive at answers to issues - but there must be something upon which these are based, something solid to work around. Many of us believe that reason, empathy etc. are good starting points, but if there is no objective value in these things, then this need not be the case. I would regard reason as a good thing, the subjugation of issues to rational thought and not making base emotional decisions. I have reasons for thinking this, mainly that the use of the rational mind is a good thing (and indeed an obligation). I also believe that recourse to our conscience and efforts to understand what it is saying in as clear a way as possible is essential. This is based on a belief that ones conscience is how the natural law is apprehended within the mind of the individual (albeit it is infracted by the mind) and it should inform the will. However this is not a necessary belief, and if one is wedded to the ascendant philosophy today, some form of materialist scientism, ones conscience does not actually exist and is rather illusionary, along with free will and all our moral impulses, and sundry other things, are socially constructed. Great evil can be justified by recourse to "reason", it is clear we need more.
Much of what you refer to as to how arguments are made rest upon the framework I mentioned - empathy is good, rationality is good, persuasion is necessary and good etc.
I did not say anything about changing peoples views by force, I said that the justification for the imposition of these ideas on society can only be based on force and/or popularity, it cannot be justified by saying that it is "truth". I can say that the abuse of children is wrong, objectively wrong - i.e. it was, is and always will be wrong even if a majority think otherwise.
If someone thinks otherwise they are wrong and this is the justification for imposing laws and force (democratically) on people who break these laws. An appeal to absolute truth, to natural law. If I can't say that this is objectively wrong, then what I am saying is not that "I think it is wrong", but rather "I think we should treat this action as if it were wrong". The justification for this position is, ultimately, my mere thinking of it and if enough people share it, it carries the day. But this works both ways and here is the danger. If the idea that people should only be subject to "the truth" (even if the understanding is wrong) is replaced with the idea that people should, or can, be subject to an ideology, an idea justified merely by someone holding it, all bets are off.
I suppose you can say that, in a democracy, all these things are ultimately a reliance on popularity - you try to change people’s views about some issue so that a majority will support the policy you favour. But that would still be your aim if you were trying to change people’s views by persuading them that your view was objectively correct. You would still be hoping to persuade enough people of this to make your preferred policy electorally popular.
Do you think that the popularity of an idea and the resultant state force behind it is enough to justify it? This is what I am talking about here - the justification of imposing it upon others, and whether it is "good". If this is reduced to a mere numbers game, and laws and impositions justified not on the basis that it is believed that they are true but on their popularity (ubermensch will too perhaps) you cannot say that a law is unjust, merely that you think it should be regarded as such and that this position is as valid as the opposite.
The opposite is indeed the case. The error you are pointing at here is the assumption that, if people doubt or deny the reality of objective moral truth, they must therefore think that moral questions are unimportant. They clearly do not think that; nor is it the logic of their position that they should think that. Other experiences which we acknowledge to be wholly subjective - love, for example - are of transcendent importance to us, to the point that we will even die for them. “Not objectively true” does not mean or imply “not important”; it never has meant or implied that
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See comments above. I never said that they believe these to be unimportant. I have said the opposite, multiple times. Experiences may be subjective but their existence is not - well not for everyone, see previous comments re conscience and free will.
Well, Judeo-Christian moral thinking is in turn heavily influenced by Greek moral thinking, which was largely secular. And of course you can base a theory of human rights on purely secular, humanist principles; many people do. Conversely you can have a dominant moral theory which is very explicitly Christian but which pays little regard to the notion of human rights; historical examples abound.
Implicit in many of these positions is the idea that human rights are an objective truth.
1. Objective moral truth exists.
2. I cannot know objective moral truths, in the sense of having empirical reasons that compel me to accept them; I can only make faith-based statements about them.
3. I cannot prove objective moral truths; if I fail to persuade others to share my faith then I have no alternative but to accept that they do not.
There is no contradiction between the three statements; it is possible to assent to all three.
You are making the error of scientism here, holding that nothing can be known in the absence of empirical evidence. But that is an aside, my key point here is, again, that when you make a statement in line with the above you are advocating for something on the basis that you understand it to be true. You are not saying that your idea should be accepted and acted upon as if it were true, with a fundamental viewpoint that it cannot be true. It is justified by an appeal to truth, not your mere thinking it.
And, when it comes to discussion in the public square, the last two statement are the significant ones. If I accept statements 2 and 3, then it doesn’t matter whether or not I also accept statement 1. Statements 2 and 3 set parameters within which shared moral discourse has to take place. Thus I not only can but must make shared moral decisions with people, some of whom do not share the same understanding of objective moral truth as I do. It makes little difference whether they have a different understanding of what objective moral truth is, or whether they do not accept the concept at all; the only relevant point is that they do not share my understanding.
Yes, it does matter. Even as you have formulated the statements, 2 and 3 contain reference to objective truth rendering them nonsense if 1 is not accepted. Implicit in 2 and 3 is the understanding that there is an objective truth, that you believe your position to be true. With no objective truth you cannot claim to believe they are true, and I see no reason why people who deny objective truth must participate in moral discourse with a prerequisite that they accept objective truth exists, just that it cannot be "known or proven".
I suggest the discussion in the public square has to proceed on the basis not of what is objectively morally true but, as I have hinted already, on the basis of what is important to us. For functional, effective shared moral decision-making we much explore what we hold together to be important. This is true regardless of our differing beliefs about objective moral truth.
This is again just a reference to our preexisting framework, one that is ultimately based on objective truth and natural law. Abandoning truth in favour of what we deem "important" would seem most unwise, as it is based on the idea that what we deem important today, concepts such as human rights, empathy, life, dignity etc. etc. (all informed by a historic understanding of natural law) will and/or must remain important. But this does not seem necessarily the case, in the medium term at least. You or I might regard the idea that human life is precious and should be protected is an objective truth. Almost all discussions around life issues are framed around this central idea (abortion and such debates often revolve around what is a human life, the weighing of one against another, it is rare that someone just says that human life should not be protected at all) but this need not be the case. Why should human life not be viewed on the same terms of that of an animal?
My closing point is this, that given mans conscience is ultimately informed by the natural law there is hope that it would ultimately reassert itself in time and overcome any ideological infraction - but much damage can be done in the meantime. Turning off the light to scrabble around in the dark is a regressive step for humanity.
Doesn't a "shared history, culture, experience, place" inherently derive from having a set of accepted, collective rules? Sure, some of these would be imposed by a wannabee king in a "my house, my rules" kind of way), but at some point as the kingdom grows there has to be collective acquiescence to the rules, to the experience that that creates and the history that arises therefrom. However big the kingdom/nation might eventually become, the starting point is still going to be one man (or woman) with an unshakeable belief in an objective truth of some sort.
