This is the thread devoted to the debate that Thought Criminal and Michael Flowers have undertaken in this R&P thread (and agreed upon in this thread). In this thread Thought Criminal will provide his case for atheistic morality while Michael Flowers will provide his case for Christian morality - at the same time the two will provide some arguments against the other's case in their respective statements.

This isn't a standard debate - as it's basically the tail end of an already existing debate. The following rules are standard and although the two participants have suggested that there will pretty much only be two posts in this thread, I'm leaving the limit open in case they want to address issues pertaining to this debate in the future.

The rules for the debate are as follows:


1. This is a civil debate - there will be no insult hurling.
2. Unfamiliar terms will be defined upon request.
3. All sources will be cited properly.

thoughtcriminalWrote:
A Real Account

Introduction

I'd like to begin this with a few opening remarks.

First off, very humble apologies in advance as this is likely to get very long. I hope I can write well enough to keep you engaged if you happen to be paying attention to this and ask that yo uhang on through the potential dull bits because it gets good, I promise.

Second of all I think it is very important to restate what is going on here so we know exactly what we have to do.

Michael's claim is that no one else can account for morality and that his account is inherently superior to any other. I want to bring attention to a key term of reference here:

Account.

Dictionary.com provides us with the following which I think is appropriate:

account
n.
1. A narrative or record of events.

2.
1. A reason given for a particular action or event: What is the account for this loss?
2. A report relating to one's conduct: gave a satisfactory account of herself.

3. A basis or ground: no reason to worry on that account.


I think all three are appropriate in the context of the discussion Michael and I are having. I also think this is important to keep in mind. We must ACCOUNT, or provide a basis, a reason a record of events that led to this development we call morality.

I want to establish this as the primary term of reference right off the bat and we will see why further below. Suffice to say understanding this is the key to understanding this argument.

Now with that out of the way, I think we can begin.


Evolution, Selection and Human Cultures

I've said in previous posts that we can look to evolution to show us a lot about morality and how we arrived at it and how we are constantly updating it.

Michael, of course has latched on to this to try and show any number of flaws in my argument. Oddly enough, Michael does this without actually understanding what Evolution actually is and how it contributed to this issue.

To be reductionist about it, EVERYTHING we have is the product of evolution. Period. We would not be here talking about morals on a forum that spans the globe through a massive computer network connecting millions of complex biological neural networks if it were not for the tiny steps that us and our ancestors took eons ago.

But what is it about evolution itself that contributed to this paticular development? Was it the evolution of larger and more complex brains and neural networks? Was it the evolution to bipedal gait? Was it the evolution of speech?

I don't think we can point to any ONE thing and find our smoking gun. All of these things and more played a role in how we developed socially.

What played the BIGGEST role was selection, but to illustrate this we need to go waaaaaaay back to a time where we gathered in small, "unsophisticated" hunter-gatherer tribes or bands.

We see earliest man, struggling against the elements, predation, in some cases disease and each other. We see earliest man with no real "morals" to guide them, except for a few fundamental instincts.

1. Survival. Man wants to live. Existence strikes us as better than non-existence. If you want to test this in yourself, see how easy it is to kill yourself if you are not already mentaly unbalanced and in an extremely agitated emotional state.

2. The recongnisance that other "men" had the same instinct, that other "men" existed as independent actors, posessed of similar will.

3. Procreation. The deisre to spread the genes and sire offsrping.

Lacking in any real leadership, or other unifying principles there already exists some obvious reasons for people to band together. Procreation requires two people at least and it's not hard to figure out there is safety and greater division of labour among more people.

So we have a simple band of humans, together out of common needs for procreation and survival. They all work and gather what is needed to provision the tribe, they lack a real leader or any other political type unifying element.

What they do have as unifying elements are notions of kinship. Many in the band will be related by blood and it can be expected that when disputes arise, kin can help calm things donw or sort things out and hopefully cooler heads can prevail.

But let's say they don't, because they often did not. When disputes arose, how can one resolve them? Without a leader to guide them and resolve disputes and lacking in law or any sort of formal moral concepts, how can we settle disputes if our kin can't help us calm things down or we can't find some kind of compromise?

We fight. And unlike a lot of animals fighting within a same species band or pack, we will more often fight to the death.

Anybody who tells you hippie stories about beuatiful peaceful tribesmen are full of it. Murder is a leading cause of death in tribal societies, espeically ones which lack any kind of dispute management system, be it a leader or some kind of ethic, or strong kinship bonds.

So let's get back to our hypothetical band and say they have grown to a fair size and kinship ties are not so close together. Perhaps some smaller bands have been conquered and assimilated, or they simply joined up.

Let us further say they have never bothered with finding better means of solving a problem than bashing Og's skull in with a hunk of wood or bone. What starts to happen?

Now we get into killing AS dispute resolution method, never mind revenge killings and grudges and all that.

What do you think happens to this band's effectiveness if everybody just goes and does what they want and kills anyone who offends them or does not do as they wish, or makes lovey-eyes at a mate chosen by another?

Michael wants to tell us these people can succeed and that this is how it was until God gave us the blessing of moral values.

I'm here to tell you something very different.

I'm here to tell you our hypthetical band is now increasing it's susceptability to predation by reducing it's numbers and strength through infighting. The same is true with disease, fewer tribe members, the fewer the disease needs to kill to render the tribe ineffective or slaugher them outright.

But there is another fact that is crucial to understanding why this is so important.

Let's now say we are another hypothetical tribe living just on the other side of a valley from this other tribe.

Let's further say we suffered infighting early on, and our tribe was nearly wiped out and we learned that we needed to have a way to resolve problems among us. How did we handle that?

Well, many tribal or band societies chose or were simply led by the charisma or might of a leader. Early on the leader or chief was a worker like the rest but had the further duty of helping resolve tribal disputes peacefully if possible and was also in many cases the "healer" of the tribe and focal point of any religious practices. The shaman.

Now that our band has found a way out of this senseless cycle of violence (it still happens of course, but now it is far less frequently), population grows if all else goes well.

As the population grows, we may find a need to expand out of our current hunting-gathering grounds and seek an area that may give us higher yields, which leads us across the valley and back to our original tribe and a cultural clash is about to happen.

Upon encountering the other tribe, the most likely outcome would be a struggle of some sort. With superior numbers and the advantage of greater unity of purpose under a leader and lacking the divisive grudges that keep our other tribe disorganized and incoherent, it is not hard to see who will win the day.

So our violent, "do what you want" tribe is annihilated, or more likely it's best warriors are killed and the rest flee or are assimilated into the new tribe and adopt the values of the victor.

Can we follow what has happened here?

We have just seen a case of selection for cultural values.

Or rather we have shown that there is large benefits to cultures that can organize themselves and get along as a cohesive whole, namely that they stand a far greater chance of surviving and prospering.

We have also shown pretty clearly here that not only to "immoral" societies not perform as well, they actually get rooted out entirely and the reason we don't see people behaving that way so much anymore is not that anyone was really "taught better" or received some divine instruction, but rather those people simply did not survive, period. Their cultures did not ultimately succeed and what we find is a bunch of cultures much like our second tribe.

Did this all happen at once? Nope. It happened at several distinct times all over the earth, the most recently being Aboriginal Australians, many of whom to this day live in stone age societies.

But to futher illustrate this, we need to follow our hypothetical tribe a bit further down the timeline and peek in every now and again and see where they are at.
At some point our tribe grows quite large. The minimal infighting and focus on daily tasks decreses mortality across the board. We can also assume some further conquest as our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors travel across the region in search of productive land and game.

With a larger tribe comes far more potential for conflict. Kinship ties become farther between and the number of potential interactions increases. At this point our "chief" may now stop being a worker-chief and devote his efforts full time to mediating the conflicts of the group and ensuring cohesion and productivity.

Instead of going out with the rest of the tribe each day to forage and hunt, he spends his time doing the work of the chief and receiving tribute from the rest of the tribe for performing this role.

This is perhaps the first form of class specialization and the biggest step towards more complex politics since the notion of a "chief" in the first place. This is also the beginning of the concept of taxation, but in many tribal societies it was more like kleptocracy with the tribute never really being redistributed but rather being kept by the chief for his needs.

It can be said that the job of everyone in the tribe is survival. Up until now, that job has mainly been about getting enough food to meet ones nutritional requirements in a day. Now there is a new job, one of maintaining the cohesion and order within the tribe and the chief has many means at his disposal to do so.

One of the most effective forms of doing so was superstition and early religious notions. By becoming the channel between the tribe and the gods, the chief asserted supreme authority over the rest of the tribe and justified his judgements and the continued tribute being paid by appealing to the will of the gods and other such things.

So we find ourselves with a society getting more and more complex in some ways but in many others being so far behind what we think of as a functional society. Why did these people not begin to develop more sophistcated technologies (and I include things like religion and philosophy in the category of technologies for the sake of convenience more than anything)?

This is a good time to spell out what I mean by "unsophisticated" as applied to these tribal cultures. I'm sure some of you might hav objected already to my use of the term here.

Are these people not intelligent? Are they dumb?

Certainly not. The knowledge these people posess about local flora and fauna would probably put modern botanists and biologists to shame, at least in terms of identifying useful ones and avoidning dangerous ones. Their knowledge of the land and how to survive on it is a spectacular achievement of the human mind, one we can barely replicate today with the most sophisticated techniques offered by science. They were certainly not stupid.

What I intend to say when I say "unsophistocated" is to say relative to later developments, relative to modern technologies and levels of social, religious, technological and moral complexity.

So what kept them from writing laws and philosophizing about more complex moral theories and inventing all sorts of useful things?

Well, you tell me how much time you have to think about such things when you spend your entire day trying to find enough food to feed yourself and perhaps your family PLUS a tribute to the chief. Tell me how keen your mind might be to idly wonder about moral theories and inventing better weapons when at times you are marginally meeting your nutrition budget as it is, and sometimes not meeting it at all.

So how did we make this great leap forward out of these societies and into more "sophisticated" ones?

There was a revolution coming. And it would change EVERYTHING and shape the destiny of mankind for thousands of years.


The Agrarian Revolution

Let's visit our tribe again a bit further along.

At some point, they found out that seeds turn into plants. Probably because they ate the seeds and then would find plants of the same type they got the seeds from growing in areas where they defecated.

In fact, many plants seem to have adapted to this kind of strategy to spread their seeds, being held in human or other animal stomachs only to be shat out and germinate in the nutrients of the feces.

It seems very likely this could have been how we first found out that seeds became plants and the fist experiements with simple agriculture began.

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time going over the minute details here folks, I don't think a full account for the history of agriculture is necessary here. So allow me to skip ahead a bit and bring us to the first farming operations.

Now, instead of foraging for food and lliving a nomadic lifestyle, following herds or changing seasons to get the best yields from an area, we can grow a large ammount of food in one spot.

In fact, a single person can now grow more than he or she can eat as an individual. A family more than the needs of the family.

We also figured out something else really amazing and funcntional. We figured out how to domesticate some species of animals. Now we have animals to serve either as labourers or as a crop themselves, giving similar results with the intensification of agriculture.

Now, few people can produce large volumes of food.

Equally important to our discussion is that also, people are now becoming tied to geography. They aren't wandering around so much, but instead tending to land they can farm and use to produce bountiful goods. In essence, this is the birth of property.

So what's the big deal about these things?

The easier question might be what isn't.

Probably the single most important thing to arise out of these is the abandonment of nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles and the adoption of senetary living in communities built around the centers of food production.

Close second would be the production of food surpluses that allow members of the society to pursue trades other than hunting and gathering.

Such as:
Soldiering
Craftsmanship
Merchant
Tool making
Construction
Clergy
Lawmaking
Philosophy

The list can go on, but it is important to note that with the advent of sedentary living and food surpluses, people can now have idle time to consider larger issues. They now have time to wonder about God, or wonder about man. They now have time to figure out laws. They now have time to train and maintain a professional army.

Now we come to some absoloutely critical points if we want to understand my argument and how it distinguishes itself.

We know from archaeological evidence that this scenario did not happen at the same time all over the world. Nor did it happen to everyone. In fact, the evidence tells us it only happened about 9 times independently throughout history.

Let's pay attention to the very first time we can confirm it happened and assume our hypothetical tribe is from that area.

That area happens to be a geogaphic region in the Middle East known as the Fertile Crescent. We also know this development of food production and sendentary living happened in this region looooooong before it happened anywhere else. If I recall correctly it's about 8000 years before the next independent discovery of food production.

So by taking a look at some of the other things to happen in the region at the time we may be able to support this idea that food production was a major contributor to more complex societies and thus more complex concepts of morality, law and social good or order.

Well, interestingly enough all of the first known formal legal codes that exist in written form come from this region! Not surprisingly a lot of these laws deal with property and trade, something that we should expect given that our agrarian revolution has just pretty much created the concept of property and trade and mercantilism.

We find written accounts of legal codes going back as far as 2050 BC with the Ur-Nammu, or the laws governing the ancient city of Ur (situated in modern Iraq), culminating in the famous Babylonian Code of Hammurabi circa 1780 BC which covers issues as diverse as theft, agriculture (or shepherding), property damage, women's rights, marriage rights, children's rights, slave rights, murder, death, and injury.

Shall we take it as conincidence that the first societies on earth to develop sophisticated legal systems, politcal systems and the like (which includes inventions like writing) ALSO happened to be the first to develop sedentary living through food production? And that they also just happened to develop food production because they wre able to survive as a group by developing strategies to resolve disputes amongst each other?

Shall we take it as FURHTER coincidence that no one who did not develop food production independently developed more sophistacted societies with complex laws and moral theories and reamined stuck in tribal cultures, albeit some very large tirbal cultures?

Or do we need to go a bit further down the historical line to make the point more clear?

Perhaps we need to look at what is widely regarded to this day as some of the finest works of human philosphy every recorded, the work of the ancient Greek philosophers.

Shall we take it as conincidence that Greece's proximity to the Fertile Crescent made it a great candidate for early reception of the concepts of food production? Shall we take it as conincidence that no other culture that did not have these developments ever produced philosophical works on this scale, ever?

Shall we take it as coincidence that the Greek climate made the import of many Fertile Crescent crops easier? Shall we take it as further coincidence that there are many crops indigineous to Greece that serve as good food production staples?

OR

Do we draw some interesting conclusions here about how complex moral philosophies arose alongside more complex human social organizations? And how selection has favoured societies which adopt means of conflict resolution and codes of conduct?

I think you know what I would suggest. What will be interesting is to see exactly how Michael reconciles all this with his worldview.


The Spread of the Revolution

Once food production arises in a society, it tends to spread fairly quickly to neighboring regions for a number of reasons:

1. The obvious benefits of producing food surpluses to feed your people.
2. The less obvious benefits of social progress and progression to stratified societies with specialized classes of workers, craftsmen, artists, clergy, politicians, soldiers, lawmakers, philosophers etc...
3. Acquiring the benefits of technological advancements from these different trades and the idle time for individuals or groups to invent and innovate.
4. The benefits of increased social stability through development of more sophisticated laws and codes of conduct.
5. The benefits of being more organized, in better health and in posession of a professional class of soldiers to fight in conquests or the the role of clergy, philosophers and teachers to convert other societies to adopt your way of life.

Those who did not develop these technologies were either assimilated or destroyed by the cultures that did, in pretty much every single instance in history. They simple could not stand up to professional armies or could not resist the benefits of what these advanced cultures offered.

Along the way, philosophy flourished and we saw the invention of democracy coming out of this corner of the world, as well as many other forms of government, complex religious mythologies flourished as well, as did philosophy and moral philosophy.

Notions like the value of the individual, Aristotolean Ethics, and serious investigations into what it meant to BE, to exist and what the rights and responsibilities of this existence were cropped up throughout the lands fortunate enough to benefit.

Systems of logic, of mathematics, of advanced reasoning, forms of writing, and many others advancements arose out of this revolution. Each providing the cultures they were developed in with incredible real world benefits to the prosperity of their societies.

Another majorly important development which I may have missed was the point where the tribute paid to chiefs began to get redistributed to the people in the form of supporting labourers to construct public works, like early aqueducts, canals, major irrigation systems, monuments, temples, etc....

One of the hurdles for any culture was dealing with growth. Rapid growth increased tensions and intensification of "urban" populations, which increased potential conflicts. Maintaining order and cohesion was crucial, and since the old standbys of running to the chief or having your kin intervene were pretty much unlikely, new systems had to be adopted to get people together and unified under a banner and a set of values.

Religion always worked astonishingly well in this capactiy and so it's no surprise we see religious power and complexity growing in tandem with state power and complexity, the two were very closely linked. Religion served a great purpose in that it justified the kleptocracy of the state and unified people under sets of values.

Not only that, but it helped the spread of cultural values and technologies by conversion rather than conquest. People saw not only the technological benefits, but the benefits of the values a culture wanted to impart.

Many people will try to tell you the early spread of Christianity was bloody and horrible and all that. History tells us something a little bit different. We see converstions happening less by force and more by force of persuasion. People saw the benefits of the societies that embraced Christianity (or other reigious values) and adopted them to acquire the same benefits.

Now the expansion of Christian cultures into Mesoamerica? That was bloody.

It was also a chilling example of how much more effective European technology and culture was. Inca and Mayan clubs and stone daggers were no match for mounted Spanish cavalry with steel weapons and things like longbows and mail armour.

Indians were slaughtered by insanely small numbers of Spanish conquerors. "Superior" culture triumphing over near stone age culture. Lacking cohesion, modern weapons, and other advantages enjoyed for millenia by the European ended in distaster for the empires of Mesoamerica.

Same story in North America proper.

Now I'm sure some of you are going to go on about how immoral these slaughters were. And I will agree, they were terrible things. Hopefully the notion of progression to more peaceful means of dispute resolution between nation states will help show how we are still, even now, refining and bettering our cultures moral and political outlooks.

Such actions would NEVER be tolerated today.

However, these actions illustrate once again that these cultures who developed the technologies had serious survival advantages over others who did not, making the spread of these technologies inevitable.


The Modern Era

I want to jump really far ahead now and bring us up to the present and then work back a ways to show what I feel are best lessons we take from this.

Let's say we come and visit out little tribe and we find we can trace them to modern Norway.

Why Norway? You'll see in a moment.

Earlier I talked about selection favouring certain traits in a culture? That certain values improved survival overall?

So looking at the modern world, we can use the UN Human Development Index to see measurements of the well-being of the nations on this planet and see who the top ones are, based on 2005 figures:

Norway (=)
Iceland (? 5)
Australia (=)
Luxembourg (? 11)
Canada (? 1)
Sweden (? 4)
Switzerland (? 4)
Ireland (? 2)
Belgium (? 3)
United States (? 2)

What can we learn from this list as it applies to our accounting for morality?

A lot.

For example, is it any coincidence that the countries with the lowest rates of infant mortality, highest rates of education and literacy, lowest crime, highest living standards, longest lived citizens, and overall most prosperous all around nations ALSO happen to be ones that are the following:

1. Democracies.
2. Employ either full or some level of socialized health care.
2. Employ either full or some level of socialized post-secondary education.
3. All signitories of documents like the UN Charter of Human Rights.
4. Invest heavily in social programs like employment insurance.
5. Belong to alliances of nations with similar values (UN, NATO, European Union)

By contrast, the poorer and poorest performers on the list tend to share the following traits:

1. Dictatorships/run by warlords or other depots. Theocracies.
2. Public health care consists of foreign aid workers at best.
3. Low levels of education in the general population.
4. Tend to have issues with human rights that most others, including the most prosperous hold as essential and unnegotiable.
5. Invest heavily in industry/military expenditures. Almost no social spending.
6. Belong to rough alliances of other "rogue" states or have none at all.


So what can we take from this? Well, lining it up with everything we have gone over in the past we see a direct line of progress and a direct line where societies that hold certain values seem to be far more successful than ones that don't.

Is this conincidental?

If we could trace the tribe we began this with all the way up to modern Norway, what does that teach us about the objective value of values? What does that tell us that nature seems to favour?

I think it might be important at this point to talk about what I mean by nature favouring something. Michael will no doubt be salivating over this bit, but really it is not nearly so tantalizing a morsel for him as he is probably thinking.

Simply put, something is favoured because it survives. Not besauce nature says "I like you". There is no thought process going on here that judges. What determines who is "favoured" is who survives, who can adapt and create the conditions for prosperity.

Those who aren't favoured? They don't earn any sort of big sad frowny face from mother nature or any nonsense like that. They just die out. Their cultures stagnate, they die or are assimilated into more successful cultures.

Now I can also predict old Michael here getting ready to rant about "might makes right" and a bunch of other crap, or cry about all the horrible abusive cultures that did horrible things to survive.

My response is to ask him where those cultures are now. What happened to them? Better yet what is happening to cultures like them? The Theocracies of Islam are crumbling away, Communist China will probably not make the quarter century a Communist nation, they are well on their way to collapse and making way for capitalist democracy.

Africa? The warlords of Africa will fall to more stable influences like South Africa. It will be a long time coming, but that area will come together.

You could argue that Red China could come and swallow up a Norway, but Norway isn't alone. She enjoys allies all over the world, including the most powerful military force on the planet. I doubt China will do much but either make further moves towards democratic ideals, or will fall into isolation.

We could go on but I think I need to back up and recap a bit.


What Have We Leanred?

What I hope I have shown is that morals arose out of the social needs of our species.

More complex moral notions were needed as our socialization intensified due to food production and sedentary lifestyles. Idle time allowed us to contemplate our role in society and the world, the invention of property concepts made way for early laws and mercantile codes.

Societies that developed these technologies dominated those that did not, without exception. The ones who failed to develop thse technologies on their own, either readily adopted them as they became available, were conquered by cultures who already had them, or died out entirely.

Correlating this with modern indexes of prosperity and the values of the most prosperous cultures show direct links between survival, prosperity and cultural values and attitudes towards human life, rights, dignity, education, freedom, equality, justice and order.

This establishes a very objective benchmark for gauging the correctness of our values.

Furthermore, we can show that these were arrived at first by simple considerations of individual and group survival and expand to become functions of human reason. Once we accept certain notions about human nature, like the rights of the individual and limiting our freedoms to acts that do not infringe upon those rights it is fairly easy to decide correct course of action and guide ourselves and our cultures accordingly.

Will all individuals and all cultures recognize or respect these things? No. But history has shown us that those who don't, fail. They stagnate, suffer internal revolt and lose incredible opportunities for advancement by remaining in cultural backwaters.

So what is ultimately "good"?

1. That which promotes survival and prosperity for ALL.
2. That which recognizes both individual rights and the fact that individual freedoms or state sanctions should not interfere with these rights.
3. That which acts without thought of "reward" or personal gain, but the betterment of all.
4. That which moves us towards greater integration as a society, locally and globally.
5. That which respects indivuduals, but recognizes we share so may of the same basic needs, dignities and wants.
6. That which rewards accomplishment and innovation.
7. That which encourages the sharing of some resources to develop a minimum standard for all in areas like wages, health care and education.

Hell, I could probably go on for a while about the things this system shows us quite objectively are "good".

What is important is that regardless of the moral theories that arise from all this, I believe I have accomplished the task we set out in the very beginning. To provide an account, a basis, a reasoning for why we have these things called morals and means by which we can judge them.

Is it perfect?

No. But neither are we, and we need to see it as it is, a process not a finite event.

Is it universal?

Yep. I don't really see anybody escaping the basic realities of the situation here.

Is it rational?

It's based on actual research in numerous fields of study, it makes testable predictions and it has roots in verfiable events and processes.




Is it coherent?

If it isn't, it's my failings as a writer and my horrible lack of sleep and not the inchoherence of the idea. It's based in objective fact, I think that makes it coherent.

Is it objective?

When it boils down, sure as hell it is. It doesn't get more objective than "These behaviors will kill you, these will make you prosper."

I'm sure Michael will come up with a whole host of objections. I bet he will fill pages of blogs on the matter, in fact.

But let's get to the really interesting part and do a bit of poking around in Michael' side of the fence, shall we?



Does Michael Account For Morality

The simple answer?
No. Not one bit actually.
Let's explore this in detail here.

Our argument here is about who can and cannot account for morality, right? So we are trying to explain, to provide a reason for, a basis for, a record of events leading to it. We can all go back to the top of the post and see the definition, right?

So what is the first and utterly fatal problem with Michael's argument?

He assumes the prior existence of the very thing we are trying to ACCOUNT for.

Go back and read that again, carefully.

Instead of going and giving an actual account for the origins of simple or complex moral philosophy and provide a record for or reason for, he cuts right off the racetrack and jumps right into assuming it already existed before.

Do you see the problem with that, if we are trying to provide an ACCOUNT?

It's really so deceptively simple that you can see how he gets away with it so easily most of the time. It's subtle, but once you see it it is fatal.

So allow me to illustrate by engaging in a bit of metaphor.

Let's say we are trying to account for the existence of houses. We want to provide reasons for and explain the existence of a house.

If we ask Michael where it came from, he will point to a prefabricated house kit and a set of instructions in a nice little booklet and say all that just dropped out of the sky one day.

Why?
Because God wanted it to.

Where did God learn to build houses?

It's in his nature to construct tasteful and affordable housing is what Michael might say, then quote the instruction book he says fell to earth with the prefab house kit to show you it is so.

What happens when you ask me?

I tell you how we invented the tools to dig the foundation, how we developed the wordworking and metallurgy techniques to build the frame and interior/exterior. I show how we invented electiricity and plumbing and how we applied that to houses, I shoed how we got the math to do the design to build the house so it is proportionate and al that.

IN short, I give you a brief history of how we built houses and how we got the things that permit us to build houses.

Do you see the difference?


What is that difference? In short, it's explanatory power.

Michaels "argument" actually provides us with next to ZERO explanatory power. It simply shifts the questions into the realm of metaphysics and then special pleads for why this should be the case and why his "arguments" need not be supported by any actual evidence.

He begs the questions, then special pleads them away with appeals to the "nature" of god.

How much explanatory power does MY argument have? I think that's evident in my post thus far. But briefly using the house metaphor I can tell you how individual systems in the house function, how we invented them, or at the very least I can make very educated hypothesis based on objective evidence.

Put another way, my argument doesn't even need to be completely right. It still stands up better than Michaels because it actually does the job it was asked to do, it makes an account and it does so with objective evidence and testable hypotheses. Michael has to come up with something that is superior in explanatory power to effectively get the advantage here.

Now if he wants to critique my argument, and I know he will, I wish him good luck. He will have to gut out evolutionary theory, the history of moral philosophy, almost all of archaeology, botany, agricultural sciences, political sciences and a whole host of other things which all have considerable evidence supporting them.

Judging by his performance on the Christ vs. Darwin thread, I suspect Michael is not up to any of those tasks, seemingly posessed of little understanding of even basic evolutionary biology as he is.

Michael accused us of killing philosophy. Well I wish him all the best in demonstrating that while he kills all of science to defend his worldview that never actually manages to explain a damned thing.

Or he could chose to accept what I have provided and claim god was the REAL source, which really only shows that the role of God in this case was superfluous. Since I can account without God, why should I add him? How does that aid my argument? Better yet, how does it aid his?

It doesn't. He still has the same problems as before.

I won't bother with pointing out much more than this. I really don't need to, this is enough to demonstrate your failure. One is only left to wonder how you can devote so many words to explaining nothing? It's an incredible talent, really Michael.

The rest of your "arguments" have been sufficiently dealt with by others boht now and in the past. Frankly it's time you got a new schtick.

Again, my apologies to all for the obscene length of this post. Also my apologies for not doing my thoughts the best justice I might have, but I am very tired and I just want to post this damned thing and go to bed.

So best of luck to you Michael. No doubt I can expect a flurry of handwaving followed by a huge series of posts where you restate your tired old assertions over again.



EDIT: My apologies for the formatting, but frankly I can't be bothered. I'd also like to add that as per my original commitment I will refrain from any sort of rebuttal to anything Michael has to say in response.

Sorry, we're not supposed to post, but it had to be done. I changed absolutely nothing, just got rid of the abundance of breaks, and highlighted the beginning of the different segments for easy-reading purposes.

Okay, sorry it took me so long to get this posted. I really wanted to do a lot of reading up on stuff before I responded.

Anyway, this will be my first installment coming up.

THOUGHTCRIMINAL MISCONSTRUES MY ARGUMENT AND FAILS TO CONFRONT THE TRANSCENDENTAL CHALLENGE (FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME)

Before I get started, I would like to point out that while Thoughtcriminal's recent "account" of morality was given as a justification for his atheism and refutation of my Christian beliefs, a very large part of it was actually compatible with Christianity. For example, when he talked about certain immoral behaviors becoming socially obsolete or stigmatized because they inhibit human survival. There's nothing about these claims that conflict with or disprove Christianity.

Other parts of his post were speculative. Still others were too vague and unspecific to be of any real value in establishing a meaningful and practically (or personally) applicable moral theory.

Sadly, the bulk of what Thoughtcriminal wrote was purely descriptive and I've gone over the problem of descriptive morality many-a-time. In case the point hasn't been made though I'll go over it again later. Where Thoughtcriminal's morality wasn't descriptive it smacked of arbitrariness, articiality and all the other things I complained about in my earlier posts.

What was especially disappointing about Thoughtcriminal's post was that nothing he said actually addressed my main presuppositionally-based arguments. Thoughtcriminal either has not understood or taken seriously the transcendental challenge that I've presented. I've tried very hard to explain it to him, but he still doesn't grasp it, or at least he pretends he doesn't. It's very frustrating.

Thoughtcriminal latched hold of a certain word I've been using--"account"--and tried to give what he called, "a record of events"--that is, a historical reconstruction, detailing how morality might have come into existence within the course of developing human societies. In so doing, he has badly equivocated on this word. I haven't been using "account" to mean "a record of events" and if Thoughtcriminal had the instinct and courtesy to have studied up a bit on Christian presuppositionalism he would have understood that.

I mean, good grief, is Thoughtcriminal going to maintain that the social development theory of morality which he's presented--and by which he "accounts" for morality--is something we need to embrace presuppositionally in order to arrive at the preconditions for the intelligibility of our experiences? People formulate scientific theories by reasoning inductively, not transcendentally. They don't reason from the standpoint of their most basic, most inescapable beliefs, but from that of secondary considerations--gathering data and then constructing their theories on the basis of how they interpret that data. They don't presume their theory in order for the fundamental rational concepts and procedures they'll be using as they gather and interpret data to make sense. That would be rather "unscientific" if they did that.

----------------

Thoughtcriminal acts like I've presented him with something like the traditional "values argument":

1. If there are objective moral values then God exists.
2. There are objective moral values.
3. Therefore, God exists.

True, some versions of this argument sound very reminiscent of transcendental argumentation, but the "values argument" is not what I've been using in this debate.

Transcendental reasoning asks what sorts of presuppositions we would have to maintain about the world and our experience before we could ever start to make rational sense of it. It should also ask whether those beliefs/presuppositions comport with one another. (I say "should" here because in secular thought I notice this isn't much of a concern.)

That's about as simple as I can put the matter. Transcendental reasoning deals with the philosophical preconditions for intelligibility. You might think of this form of reasoning as dealing with the starting points and the inescapable reference points of philosophy.

On the topic of morality I've tried to frame my transcendental reasoning around several key questions:

Positively, I've asked what sorts of beliefs/presuppositions we would have to maintain in order for the concepts, beliefs and practices that we take for granted and that are already inherent in moral discourse to make any sense rationally (e.g. the concepts and beliefs we all have about morality being objective, universal and normative, or about the reality of intrinsic goodness/evil, human dignity and freedom, etc.). Does Thoughtcriminal's worldview (which explains everything naturalistically in terms of evolution) leave room for those beliefs/presuppositions? Do they comport with his other beliefs/presuppositions?

Negatively, I've asked what sorts of beliefs/presuppositions we would have to maintain in order to prevent our morality from being irrational, mutable, artificial, arbitrary, relativistic, deterministic, etc. Does Thoughtcriminal's worldview (which explains everything naturalistically in terms of evolution) leave room for those sorts of beliefs/presuppositions?

-------------------------

As I said, Thoughtcriminal's latest "account" doesn't address these issues--at least not at the presuppositional level. He's basically handwaved everything I wrote in my previous posts, both in defense of my own position and in critique of his.

He's offered evolution as an alternative explanation for why morality exists in societies. But as I'll explain later, this whole spiel of his seems rather pointless. A naturalistic explanation of phenomena does not necessarily tell us all we need to know about them. To reason that way would be viciously circular because it would already assume a naturalistic worldview (which Thoughtcriminal is supposed to be offering a rational argument for).

Even Christine Korsgaard, whom is certainly not sympathetic toward Christianity, writes:

"When we seek a philosophical foundation for morality we are not looking merely for an explanation of moral practices. We are asking what justifies the claims morality makes on us." (Korsgaard, pp. 9-10)

We are asking for a little more than this even. But certainly a mere naturalistic or sociological explanation of how moral practices emerged will not establish for Thoughtcriminal the philosophical foundation he needs for talking about "morality."

If Thoughtcriminal would ever honestly try to handle my own argument he would realize it is a lot more than an explanation of phenomena that he ought to be concerned with. My contention is that by not presupposing the Christian God Thoughtcriminal has given up the rational foundation for even making any explanations--naturalistic or otherwise.

As a Christian, I do not, of course, believe human beings evolved from lower life forms. Thoughtcriminal has tried (since that's obviously his most deeply cherished belief) to make this a debate about evolution, but biological evolution this doesn't even seem essential or relevant in his outline. I too would "account" (I'm using his definition of the word here) for much of our morals by considering how behaviors might have evolved socially during the course of human history. Thoughtcriminal really should have anticipated that I would respond this way though. I don't need to become a full-blown evolutionist (much less a naturalist) in order to believe in social evolution. And yet, social evolution is really the only kind of evolution he's appealed to in his latest unstimulating lecture on cultural and political anthropology.

He did mention, in a separate post, something about chimps behaving morally, which seems to give his theory more of Darwinian slant. But this anecdote on animal behavior is by no means irreconcilable with Christianity either. Scripture tells us that God communicates moral instruction through the natural order and that even irrational creatures can and do adhere to it (e.g. Pr 6:6-11; 30:24-27; Jer 8:7; Rom 1:26-27). Thus, the instances we find in nature of chimps, dogs, dolphins, etc. acting with apparent moral sensibilities is, from the Christian perspective, not counted as evidence that morality emerged in some way that was independent of divine providence or intention. Rather, it is counted as a validation of the biblical teaching on providence and natural revelation.

Let me try to break things down again so that Thoughtcriminal will possibly understand my argument. When I asked whether he could provide us with an "account" of morality I was asking: "Does your worldview provide you with the philosophical presuppositions for making intelligible the ideas and practices that you yourself take for granted when reasoning about morality?" I was also asking: "What preconceptions about the world would you need to maintain in order to avoid moral arbitrariness and relativism?" These kinds of questions don't seem to matter much to Thoughtcriminal. But I say that if he can't answer them then his theory of morality will have failed.

I will be demonstrating the failure of his moral theory in my up-coming posts.

EXAMINING THOUGHTCRIMINAL'S CLAIMS ABOUT OBJECTIVITY, UNIVERSALITY, RATIONALITY AND COHERENCE

To be sure, while THOUGHTCRIMINAL never reflected on things from a transcendental standpoint, he did try to address a few (four) of the criticisms I raised about the objectivity, universality, rationality and coherence of his moral theory. Let's take a look at what he said


objectivity

Thoughtcriminal argued that his theory of morality is clearly an objective one because those who don't follow it die or become less "prosperous" as a consequence:

Is it objective? When it boils down, sure as hell it is. It doesn't get any more objective than, "These behaviors will kill you, these will make you prosper."

First of all, this line of reasoning assumes a plethora of historical and economic connections (with and interpretations of) behavior which I doubt Thoughtcriminal could ever actually justify or use as a justification for his moral theory. Secondly, the way he spells out this assertion about people dying or not "prospering" (whatever that means) for not adhering to his version of morality is extremely case-selective and generalized. I'd like to see how his theory holds up in other cases, especially in those where he and I maintain opposing views. How is it, for example, that if I don't agree with him about homosexuality being morally acceptable that I will die or become less prosperous as a result? Is that objectively demonstrable? Or, will I die/become less prosperous if I hold that divorce, stem cell research and pornography are immoral?

What about my whole God-centered meta-ethic? How does that fit in here? Maybe he'll point to other deity-based versions of morality that have gone extinct (such as those in ancient Babylon, Egypt or Greece) and suggest, by analogy, that Christian morality too will one day go extinct as well. But again, how's he going to demonstrate that? I don't think he's offering us an objectively verifiable thesis at all. It sounds more like armchair speculation.

Whatever his rationale, he does seem to think that eventually (perhaps after I die) the morality I represent and defend will become less and less popular in society and will one day vanish off the face of the earth. He actually implied this in an exchange he and I had several weeks ago:

PS: the fact that you mock appealing to reason is all anyone ever needs to know about your kind, really Michael. I'm so pleased your people will likely never gain much of a foothold in this world and all your bluster is the last gasps of a dying animal.

I didn't actually "mock appealing to reason", as Thoughtcriminal accuses me here, but only the smug and philosophically naive way in which he was appealing to reason in our debate. Anyway, Christian morality is certainly not gasping for its final breaths. News flash, Thoughtcriminal: the Church of Christ was here long before you and will be here long after you're gone (cf. Dan 2:44; Mt 16:18). Many kingdoms have risen and fallen during the life-span of Christianity and Judaism, but the Church has survived (and prospered).

I'm turning Thoughtcriminal's argument on its head here. Think of how many religions arisen and passed away during the last few thousand years--e.g. the Mystery religions, Gnosticism, Norse religions, numerous other pagan religions in Europe, Taoism, Mayan, Incan and Aztec religions, Middle Eastern religions (e.g. Hittite, Canaanite, Mesopotamian, Egyptian), African tribal religions, etc. Think also of how many philosophies have risen to prominence, only to fade away (or become radically modified/syncretized so as to fit in with Christian thought)--e.g. neo-Platonism, Stoicism, deism, phenomenology, Marxism, existentialism, analytic philosophy, etc.

I would "account" for all of these historical developments by appealing to social evolution. I would maintain that the deities in these now-extinct religions and the philosophical movements that have now been left in the dust were false and have been rejected in favor of Christianity for compelling social and rational reasons. It would be difficult to believe (as some will probably argue here) that Christianity would have survived for long if it had no such reasons but had only been maintained by political force. Christianity has survived for almost 2, 000 years and into the modern era. It has been undisputably successful as a religion therefore and this, I think, gives it at least some prima facie moral credibility, by Thoughtcriminal's own line of reasoning. It has survived through some pretty tough persecutions, and continues to be enthusiastically embraced today, even despite its openness to criticism and the never-ending barrage of attacks being mounted against it in universities and in the media around the world. If nothing else, Thoughtcriminal will have to admit that Christianity has been an extremely impressive cultural phenomenon.

There is much more to be said of course. It will probably pain Thoughtcriminal to admit it, but there is actually no empirical evidence to suggest that Christian morality is in its "last gasps" of life. The Christian religion itself is certainly not close to disappearing. Quite the contrary: it seems to be spreading like never before, especially in places like Africa, South America, and large parts of Asia. Most likely, it will spread steadily into the Islamic world over the next several decades as well, transforming that region into a more humane and peaceful place as it did in the Western world.

Christianity may have lost its foothold in Western Europe as a religion. But its moral influences have already been felt. I don't think Europeans have an easy time thinking about moral issues without being profoundly affected by their Christian heritage. Sure, anyone can suppress God's truth (Rom 1:18) and many Europeans are doing just that. But on that score one could perhaps ask, "Where is Europe today?" I predict Europe's present influence on the world will continue to wane as it has for several decades now. Its new economy is already in serious financial turmoil, and its contribution to philosophy over the last few hundred years (e.g. with its embarrassing philosophies of empiricism/skepticism, voluntarism, absolute idealism, phenomenology, intuitionism, Marxism, Nihilism, existentialism, etc.) has left a lot of people unsatisfied with Europe (and secularist anti-religious philosophy in general--which emerged from Europe). Many have found their philosophical answers in the East, or in Africa, in the Islamic world, and now especially in America.

Other cultures will therefore very likely replace (and are already replacing) them in their global influence. Unfortunately for TC, many of these countries have already drunk from the poisonous font of Christianity. America--the world's only 'superpower' and one of the leading influences on world culture--remains largely Christian as well.

The continued success of Christianity in America is, I reckon, largely attributable to the disasterous effects that many Americans feel secularism and liberalism have had on their country; for example,

-with the social approval of illicit sex,

-with the break-up of families due to divorce or women bearing children outside of wedlock,

-with the banning of much religious expression in society,

-with the spreading of STD's due to sexual promiscuity,

-with the legalization of abortion on demand and now gay marriage,

-with the horrifying train wreck that is the American public school system,

-with the anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian attitudes which have led to so much delinquency and crime over the last several decades,

-with the rise of the welfare state among African, Hispanic and Native Americans due to naïve "feel-good" gestures of mostly liberal politicians, etc.

I find this is all pretty ironic. People have a pretty good sense as to where they think Thoughtcriminal's liberal, secular philosophy has led the country and in response many have reverted back to or clung to their Christian faith. It's obvious that at least here in America the failure of secularist and liberal philosophies have gone a long way in promoting Christianity.

------------

So much, then, for Thoughtcriminal's claim about his morality being objective.

In fact, objectivity doesn't even seem possible on his worldview. Can he even think intelligibly about something like objectivity from a purely naturalistic standpoint? Is there any principle to which Thoughtcriminal can appeal that would help him get outside of his own mind and subjective experience, so that he could know he's interacting with and interpreting the world as it really is? This was one of the transcendental arguments I made against his worldview, which he completely ignored.

universality

Thoughtcriminal also claims his moral theory applies universally. He writes,

"Is it universal? Yep. I don't really see anybody escaping the basic realities of the situation here."

Once again, I think he's shielded himself from criticism to a large extent by limiting his discussion to a few select cases. It's rather obvious that murder, theft and in-house fighting within a culture will inhibit its survival. It's also obvious that people will be more happy and prosperous living in democracies rather than oppressive regimes where people are always being harassed or threatened for thinking freely, or in places where competition and the impetus for economic progress are being stifled. But what if we applied Thoughtcriminal's theory to some of the more controversial issues of our day like abortion, capital punishment, embryonic stem cell research, pornography, sexual promiscuity, divorce, the corporal punishment and disciplining of children, homosexuality, religious rights and expressions in society, prostitution and other such things? My guess is that if we applied his theory to these sorts of issues it would not seem very universal at all. In fact, it would probably seem subjective and open to all sorts of unprovable claims.

Suppose, for example, he tries to argue that homosexuality, divorce, abortion and pornography are morally acceptable because the tolerance and approval of these behaviors will help our culture survive better or become more prosperous. He should know I'm not going to be convinced by that argument. I've already argued in an earlier blog that many of these behaviors are actually harmful to individuals and society: they don't help people survive better, become more prosperous, or bring about some other significantly positive social consequences that would outweigh the negative ones. He may disagree with me about these things, but if that's so I'd like to know what criteria he'll be using to justify his argument and whether people will find these criteria universally valid or compelling. I personally doubt such criteria exist.

Thoughtcriminal may respond here by saying that Christianity can't offer us any universally agreed upon criteria for resolving these sorts of issues either. But this is irrelevant. Christianity doesn't require (through force or death) that everyone agree on its moral propositions in order for them to be universally binding. It's true that at some point God will universally enforce His law and then everyone will acknowledge and submit to it, either willingly or unwillingly. But for now that doesn't even matter. According to Christianity, morality is universal because it is given and enforced by Someone with universal moral relevance and authority (Ps 103:19; 22:28; 1Tim 6:15). It's not universal because those who reject it die or become less happy/successful in life, as Thoughtcriminal has tried to argue. Someone might die or live, might be successful in life or unsuccessful. The temporal consequences someone experiences as a result of accepting or rejecting God's law do not demonstrate or refute the universality of Christian morality.

Once again, Thoughtcriminal has avoided thinking about this issue from a transcendental perspective. But he faces one serious problem here that I really think he needs to address. If he's going to talk about morality being universal he needs to have universal knowledge about those laws he's prescribing, or at least some access to that knowledge. The discrepancy in Thoughtcriminal's reasoning at this point is very blatant. He asks,

"Is it universal? Yep. I don't see anybody escaping the basic realities of the situation here."

Thoughtcriminal (or any naturalist for that matter) can't actually say whether something is universal or not because his experience is too limited and he is not omniscient. This raises, among other things, the well-known "problem of induction", which is a serious philosophical problem for folks like Thoughtcriminal who hold autonomously (as I assume he does) to an empirically-based theory of knowledge. I've offered this as another transcendental argument, which Thoughtcriminal of course can't be bothered with. In his worldview things are only a problem if he feels like dealing with them.

rationality

The irrationality of Thoughtcriminal's position is easy to see if we do any kind of serious analysis of what's he's been saying. Take, for example, the way he argued for objective morality earlier on in this debate:

And now that you seem to grasp that the process of evolution is blind and concerned only with the propogation of itself, I think I have found something interesting here. Namely, that what we have is a basis for objectivity, inquiry made with the closest possible correction for cognitive and physiological bias can be said to be appealing to objective reality. Furthermore, what could be more objective than a blind process that only "desires" to propogate itself?

This statement of Thoughtcriminal' confirmed what I mentioned in one of my first responses to him--namely, that his morality ultimately reduces to:

behavior that helps us propagate our genes and survive as a species.

I find it odd that Thoughtcriminal would preface his comment here by saying, "Now that you seem to grasp that the process of evolution is blind ..." Evolution is indeed "blind", or "goal-less." But it really doesn't help Thoughtcriminal to keep drawing attention to this fact. I suppose he was trying to explain how his morality is impartial or neutral. Unfortunately, he also showed it to be irrational.

Just look: in order for Thoughtcriminal to maintain the notion of objective morality he has to appeal ultimately to a "blind" and purposeless, and unintelligent process. He even referred to evolution at one point as the "basis" of his theory. Doesn't that make his morality irrational? It most certainly does.

I tried to bring this problem out on another occasion in this debate when Thoughtcriminal was arguing that his theory of morality was not arbitrary:

THOUGHTCRIMINAL WROTE: "The morality I am suggesting is hardly arbitrary, Michael. It is arrived at through processes of both genetic adaptation and human reason. There is nothing at all arbitrary about it, one can reason quite conclusively for or against the morality of an act with universal result, as Kant has demonstrated time and time again."

I WROTE IN RESPONSE: "So if we're debating something like abortion, how will you argue with me about that? Will you say that abortion is moral because it's a genetically derived practice? For one thing I doubt that's something you (or anyone else) could ever demonstrate. For another, I don't see why something should be called "moral" simply because it turns out to be genetically derived or advantageous for survival. That's just not morality. It's natural selection--an extension of physical laws which are themselves amoral. Things just happen in nature; there's no purpose or rationale behind any of it ... at least from your naturalistic perspective. Physical processes have no specific "goal", be it moral or otherwise.

"Oh, but Michael you're forgetting that there's also a social component to my theory." No, I'm not forgetting that. [A]ll social institutions are ultimately the result of evolution too, right? They exist, you yourself have declared, because they help us "get by." Behaviors that help us survive better and pass on genetic material to our children eventually give rise to social institutions, right? Therefore in your scheme everything still reduces ultimately to the goal-less, mindless phenomenon of physical evolution. At base therefore your morality is irrational."

Thoughtcriminal's reasoning throughout this debate has been very problematic. If evolution operates "blindly" it may indeed eliminate all human biases, but it doesn't establish anything about morality. No goal-less, purposeless phenomenon can provide us with a rational foundation for saying "what should be" in life and "what we ought to do"? David Hume pointed out long ago that it is fallacious to derive moral imperatives simply from the way things are or occur in nature. G.E. Moore offered a similar critique against what he called the "naturalistic fallacy." The way things happen in nature is clearly not always the way things should be. I've offered a few illustrations about this, but those weren't really even necessary. Everyone should be able to think of things that occur in life that aren't necessarily moral.The basic problem here is this: If evolution is a "basis" for morality, as Thoughtcriminal has maintained, he needs to explain how we move from a description of purposeless processes to a prescription with rational purpose.

coherence

Thoughtcriminal claims that his theory is coherent because it's based on objective facts. I'm not sure how he's defining "coherent" here, but basing a theory on objective facts (as he claims to have done) wouldn't necessarily make his theory coherent if there are other areas where it is inconsistent or irrational. Besides, much of his theory is not based on facts at all but on conjectures and interpretations about the past, on extremely iffy economic projections about the future, and many other claims are subjective and highly theoretical, not factual.

I honestly don't see how Thoughtcriminal can talk about his theory being coherent. Does he even have a functional worldview within which ideas can cohere with one another? What's cohering with what exactly? I doubt he's even reflected much on his theory of knowledge, much less worked out some of its notorious philosophical quandaries that seem to force him to a position of epistemological skepticism, moral relativism, irrationality, etc. He also seems incapable of talking about metaphysics. So what's left for his moral theory cohere with?

The little he has actually articulated isn't even coherent, as I'll demonstrate in a moment. But what about the stuff he's omitted? My guess is that his worldview amounts to nothing but a bunch of loose ideas about evolution and natural science that he's strung together into some disorganized system of thought which not even he knows how to articulate. But if that's all he's got to work with, then he has no rational grounds on which he can even debate people about philosophical issues, especially not about a topic like coherence. It's like he's trying to fight a war here with a gun full of nothing but blanks.

Before he starts bragging about coherence, Thoughtcriminal really needs integrate all those disjointed ideas of his into some comprehensive, functional system of thought or worldview? I would suggest he look into Christianity. It offers such a worldview.

As I said, Thoughtcriminal's moral theory is very far from being coherent. Note a few of the antinomies:

-On the one hand he appeals to a blind, purposeless process (i.e. evolution) as his "basis" for morality. On the other hand, he wants to say that morality itself has some specific purpose and meaning to it--i.e. in some inexplicable way, it is the very foundation of rationality and morality.

-While his own mind is seriously limited and finite, he claims to know that his moral theory is universally applicable and binding.

-Behaviors that at the present time help us survive better or become more successful he deems "moral", but other behaviors (e.g. oppression, polygamy, cleptocracy) he deems "immoral" even though they too have helped people in other cultures and at other times survive better or become more successful (often for thousands of years).

-He maintains a purely naturalistic view of the world. Ultimately, therefore, he must understand human behavior in terms of impersonal conditioners--i.e. physico-chemical reactions and external stimuli. This means human behavior can and must be explained deterministically. He still wants to talk about morality though, as if it were a meaningful idea--as if human beings were in fact still personally and morally responsible for their behavior. The fact is, a person cannot be mechanistically (biologically, environmentally, etc.) determined to behave in a certain way and still be held morally responsible for his behavior.

-In our previous debates Thoughtcriminal appealed, on the one hand, to the deontological (duty-based) moral theory of Immanuel Kant. On the other hand, he appealed to consequentialist theories of morality like those of John Stewart Mill or John Dewey. But how can Thoughtcriminal evaluate morality on the basis of both duty for duty's sake and consequences? Deontological and consequencialist theories of morality are viewed as polar-opposites in philosophy.

There are other convictions and propositions Thoughtcriminal assumes or holds to in his philosophy which are not compatible with one another. To avoid repetition, however, I'll point those out as I proceed with my rebuttal. The dialectical tensions and contradictions I've mentioned here should be enough to demonstrate that his theory is not coherent.

Conclusion on Thoughtcriminal's claims regarding objectivity, universality, rationality and coherence
What can we say already about Thoughtcriminal's moral theory now that we've examined his claims about it being objective, universal, rational and coherent? We can say that it is actually none of these things. What is more, since he didn't consider these issues from a transcendental vantage point like I challenged him to do we can also say that he didn't even address my most basic criticisms.

HOW I ACCOUNT FOR MORALITY ON THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW
Whenever people engage in meaningful moral discourse they assume or presuppose a number of things. For example, they assume that morality is objective and universal; they assume certain behaviors are intrinsically good or bad; they assume moral behavior has a telos or ultimate purpose; they assume the metaphysical realities of personhood, free will, human diginity, etc.

In order to maintain a rationally defensible and coherent moral theory, however, one cannot simply assume these things; for they may not comport with the worldview within which they are being assumed. Certain propositions within that worldview that require these presuppositions may preclude or conflict with other beliefs the person is trying to maintain. Also, any moral theory that is worth its salt will certainly steer us clear of certain philosophical problems--e.g. artificiality, arbitrariness, mutability, irresolvability, incommensurability, etc.

I've raised objections to Thoughtcriminal's moral theory on all these counts. Most of them he has handwaved. The rest he has failed to give an adequate answer to, not only because he refused to reflect on them transcendentally but also because his reasoning regarding them was flawed, as I showed in the last part of this rebuttal.

The Christian worldview can account for all the concepts required in formulating and maintaining a rational, meaningful, coherent theory of morality. I submit that if any of the following concepts are absent or precluded from ones moral scheme, the morality endorsed by that scheme will become irrational, meaningless, incoherent and unjustifiable:

1.) Telos:
Perhaps the most crucial question we need to ask when reflecting on the topic of morality is, "What sort of persons are we to become?" Without a telos or end morality seems pointless. And if it is pointless there is no rational justification or motivation for anyone adhering to it.[1]

According to Christianity man was created for a certain end--namely, to glorify God (Rom 11:36; 1Cor 10:31). Man is presently in a fallen state, however, having been seduced and corrupted by sin (Gen 3:6ff; Ecc 7:20; 9:3; Jer 17:9; Rom 3:10-12, 23; 5:16-19). Morality is offered as a means of restoring man to his original moral rectitude or what-he-was-supposed-to-be (Ps 119:1, 105; Ezek 33:14-16, 19; 1Th 4:1-3; 1John 1:7). [2]

-----------------


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sami Pihlstrom actually tries to defend the "pointlessness" of morality (pp. 17-20). He is, of course, not consistent in maintaining this thesis. If morality were truly "pointless" there wouldn't have been a whole lot for him to write about. Furthermore, a belief that morality is "pointless" means we cannot have a rationally justifiable motive for being moral. Confronted by skeptical and relativistic theories of morality, Pihlstrom writes: "... the pragmatist ... cannot really argue her or his case... There is no room for argument in terms that both parties to the debate would accept." (pp. 56-57) The most he can do is contend that when a person is skeptical about morality he is already acting immorally and is showing himself to be an "abnormal" human being.
On Pihlstrom's theory, it would therefore seem that everything and anything would be justified because nothing could ever really be rationally approbated or condemned. It is all "pointless"--i.e. epistemologically and metaphysically unjustifiable. And so Pihlstrom admits that "there is no guarantee, philosophical or otherwise, that morality, ... being pointless and self-contained, will forever remain important to us." (p. 61) He talks about how for various reasons--generally experiential rather than intellectual--persons do sometimes become ethical anarchists and cynics (pp. 55-66). All he can say against this kind of abandonment is that it is a sad state for the person to be in. By saying even that, however, he is providing us with an extra-ethical justification for morality.
To argue that morality is "pointless" is, I suspect, just a way of evading many of the nagging questions that cannot be answered from within Pihlstrom's conception of morality. Pragmatism itself (which he advocates) is of course little more than a flight to moral skepticism and, despite his arguments against "Humean" and "Cartesian" skeptics, Pihlstrom takes his own skeptical flight in chapter 4 and at the end of his book (ch. 6) where he is found appealing to childlike "wonder" and "awe"--i.e. feelings that defy all rational explanation--as foundational ideas for his ethical theory.

[2] I'm not trying to open a can of worms here about whether or not man is justified by works. Certainly within Protestantism Christ is understood to have achieved man's justification (i.e. what-he-was-supposed-to-be) by fulfilling the moral law (Rom 5:19; 2Cor 5:21; etc.); furthermore, the moral law is still used to sanctify the believer and thus move him in some way closer to what-he-was-supposed-to-be, as the above texts show.

2.) Universality: To deny that morality is universal is to affirm that it is subjective or relativistic. I'll explain the problems with moral subjectivism and relativism shortly under their own headings.

Christianity maintains that since God is the Lord of the universe (2 Kings 19:15; Isa 44:24; 45:5-6, 18) His law has universal validity and authority (cf. Jonah 1:1-2; Rom 2:12; Micah 4:2; Deut 4:5-8; Rom 1:18-20). Moreover, God communicates this law to everyone (Rom 2:18ff; Titus 2:11-12). Therefore, its universality can not only be asserted but also known by finite creatures, despite their limitations in knowledge.

Christianity also maintains that we are all presently being assessed as to our moral conduct and that God's law, which we are either obeying or disobeying--shall be universally enforced at the final judgment (Mt 12:36; Rom 2:5-16; 2Cor 5:10; Rev 20:12ff.; 21:8).

Personhood/identity [1] : If an individual is defined (monistically) in terms of nothing but physical matter, his or her personhood and identity would seem to be in a state of constant flux and decay; for that is the state of physical matter. A person need only look at his or her own baby pictures in order to see how radically a person's physical structure changes over time. In fact, none of the cells in our adult bodies were even alive when we were infants. Every cell has been replaced.

Again, if an individual is defined (monistically) in terms of nothing but physical matter, he or she would be essentially (i.e. ontologically) indistinguishable from all the other physical objects in the universe. If all we have to work with is matter-in-motion then it is not clear how we could ever differentiate between a person and other physical objects in the universe like rocks, glaciers, birds, weeds, comets, stars, etc. All there would really be are different kinds of material particles coming together in different arrangements and concentrations. But none of these physical characteristics would help us arrive at a meaningful (and certainly not a practical conception either since no one could empirically analyze the world on this level) conception of personhood and identity. Such a view would undermine the subject-object distinction that is essential for any moral theory. Murder, for example, can only be wrong if there is a personal subject doing the murdering and a personal object being murdered. If no such distinction can be drawn ones entire moral system would become nonsensical.

According to Christianity, human personality and identity derive from human beings' having been individually and uniquely created by God (Gen 1:26-27; Ps 22:9-10; 139:13-16).

Also, the individual is defined not simply in terms of physical matter, but also in terms of his spiritual essence--i.e. his soul. This "dualistic" view of man (or "trichotomistic" view which some Christians maintain) provides Christians with a rationale for believing that human personality is continuous through life and that each of us has a unique identity that is distinguishable from that of other human beings and from other material objects.

-------------

FOOTNOTES:

Christine Korsgaard (lecture 3) is correct when she argues that identity is a "transcendental" in moral reflection. The problem, however, is that her naturalistic worldview makes a belief in identity impossible and irrational. She is therefore reduced to talking only about "practical identity" which seems little different from a belief in Santa Clause. A practical identity is, of course, different than an actual identity. Korsgaard is using the concept of identity in basically the same way Kant used the concept of God: in order to be ethical one must believe as if God existed because this will serve as a necessary motivation. We could say the same about a belief in Santa Clause though. Believing in Ol' Saint Nick may indeed have some practical value for children. It might, for example, motivate them to behave well (at least in the days leading up to Christmas). But it ceases to have any practical value as soon as children "grow up" and learn that their beliefs were ill-founded. Children's eventual rejection of fairy tales and other spurious ways of looking at the world is exactly what we would expect from rational people. For what's the point in believing as if something were true when you know it isn't true and could never possibly be true? Is it rational to continue believing in Santa Clause even after a person knows for a fact that he doesn't exist and that the things he is said to do are absurd and impossible? Would any self-reflective person really find that a useful belief, let alone a rational one?

Human dignity: According to Christianity, man did not blindly and naturalistically evolve from lower life forms, but was created specially by an intelligent and purposeful God. This God also endowed man with certain essential properties, rational faculties and moral capabilities that elevated him above the other creatures and physical objects in the universe. Moreover, God assigned man a place in creation that is just "a little lower than the angels" and gave him "dominion" over all creation (Ps 8:5ff.; also Gen 1:26-30).

Bearing the "image of God" human beings are considered intrinsically valuable, not simply as means to an end, but as ends in themselves. They should be treated with respect and granted certain rights by virtue of their being human. Moreover, it is not arbitrary to treat humans and animals differently. Eating fish and cows, for example, or raising and domesticating animals for the sake of plowing, slaughtering, etc., are all justifiable practices, even though we would never allow these things to be done to other human beings. Likewise, cutting down trees for the sake of fire, shelter, or even just to make way for a new road or building, are all morally justifiable practices.[1]

--------------

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Of course Im not advocating here a reckless, ecologically disastrous view of nature. Human beings are called to be stewards of the earth. So while they may make use of it they ought to do so in ways that do not damage or destroy it.

4.) Human dignity: According to Christianity, man did not blindly and naturalistically evolve from lower life forms, but was created specially by an intelligent and purposeful God. This God also endowed man with certain essential properties, rational faculties and moral capabilities that elevated him above the other creatures and physical objects in the universe. Moreover, God assigned man a place in creation that is just "a little lower than the angels" and gave him "dominion" over all creation (Ps 8:5ff.; also Gen 1:26-30).

Bearing the "image of God" human beings are considered intrinsically valuable, not simply as means to an end, but as ends in themselves. They should be treated with respect and granted certain rights by virtue of their being human. Moreover, it is not arbitrary to treat humans and animals differently. Eating fish and cows, for example, or raising and domesticating animals for the sake of plowing, slaughtering, etc., are all justifiable practices, even though we would never allow these things to be done to other human beings. Likewise, cutting down trees for the sake of fire, shelter, or even just to make way for a new road or building, are all morally justifiable practices.[1]

--------------

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Of course I'm not advocating here a reckless, ecologically disastrous view of nature. Human beings are called to be stewards of the earth. So while they may make use of it they ought to do so in ways that do not damage or destroy it.

5.) Human freedom: The notion that human beings are personally responsible for their actions presupposes the notion of human freedom. If a person is physically coerced through external forces to behave in a certain way the ultimate blame for his behavior cannot lie with the person himself but with something outside of him--i.e. whatever it was that caused him to behave that way.

This is why, for example, we do not send someone to jail for committing a crime if it can be shown that he was even temporarily insane. We do not assign guilt to a person for behaving in a certain way if it can be shown that he acted involuntarily, that is, under the influences of biological and social pressures that were beyond his personal control.

We also distinguish between crimes and accidents for these same reasons. Suppose I were to run over a nail on the highway and it caused my tire to blow. Suppose then the blowout were to make my car swerve into an on-coming vehicle. If the collision with that vehicle were to result in a person's death would I be guilty of murder? Surely not if the wreck was out of my control.

Christianity does not maintain--as do materialists, physicalists and other naturalists--that the physical universe constitutes the whole of reality. Man does not need to be defined strictly in terms of the external and causal connections between his own physical body and other impersonal forces at work in the physical universe. While there are obviously environmental and physico-chemical conditioners that play into man's behavior, these factors are not absolute in the Christian understanding. Man possesses a certain freedom and capacity by which he is able to transcend these conditioners and define himself personally (cf. Gen 3:11-12, 16-19; 1Cor 10:13; James 1:13; Deut 30:19). Thus, he is genuinely regarded as personally responsible for his behavior and not merely a product of external and/or impersonal forces.