THE "DOUG" ARGUMENT

Bobby, wipe off those crocodile tears.

Happy Thanksgiving and Holidays, everybody!

Test

Tradition states and common sense dictates our premise that we know what an apple is.

From the premise that “we know what an apple is,” I move to a second principle that is only an explication of the meaning of the first: that we really know what an apple really is. If this is denied, our first principle is refuted. It becomes, “We know, but not really, what an apple is, but not really.” Step 2 says only, “Let us not ‘nuance’ Step 1 out of existence!”

From Step 2, I deduce the third principle, also as an immediate logical corollary, that we really know what some things (other things than apples) really are. This follows if we only add the minor premise that an apple is another thing.

Doug says: I’m good with it so far.
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This third principle, of course, is the repudiation of skepticism. The secret has been out since Socrates that skepticism is logically self-contradictory. To say “I do not know” is to say “I know I do not know.” Socrates’s wisdom was not skepticism. He was not the only man in the world who knew that he did not know. He had knowledge; he did not claim to have wisdom. He knew he was not wise. That is a wholly different affair and is not self-contradictory. All forms of skepticism are logically self-contradictory, nuance as we will.

I’m not sure if this really matters. There are physical facts we do not know. Do we know everything? No. So, for some things, to say “I do not know” is not any contradiction. And yes, we know that we don’t know about them, as individuals, as groups, as a race, etc.
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All talk about rights, about right and wrong, about justice, presupposes this principle that we really know what some things really are. We cannot argue about anything at all—anything real, as distinct from arguing about arguing, and about words, and attitudes—unless we accept this principle. We can talk about feelings without it, but we cannot talk about justice. We can have a reign of feelings—or a reign of terror—without it, but we cannot have a reign of law.

There are some errors here. One is assuming that feelings and justice are not the same. What is “just” is a feeling, however. This is not saying that we cannot know what some things really are. There are matters external to us, matters of physical reality, matters of logic, etc., things which are not dependent on our knowledge or consideration of them. We can and do know about some of them, and for others we don’t know. And then there are concepts which are internal to the mind, rather than being external to it.
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The principle that morality depends on metaphysics means that rights depend on reality, or what is “right” depends on what “is.” Even if you say you are skeptical of metaphysics, we all do use the principle in moral or legal arguments. For instance, in the current debate about “animal rights,”some of us think that animals do have rights and some of us think they don’t, but we all agree that if they do have rights, they have animal rights, not human rights or plant rights, because they are animals, not humans or plants. For instance, a dog doesn’t have the right to vote, as humans do,  because dogs are not rational, as humans are. But a dog probably does have a right not to be tortured. Why? Because of what a dog is, and because we really know a little bit about what a dog really is: We really know that a dog feels pain and a tree doesn’t. Dogs have feelings, unlike trees, and dogs don’t have reason, like humans; that’s why it’s wrong to break a limb off a dog but it’s not wrong to break a limb off a tree, and that’s also why dogs don’t have the right to vote but humans do.

This is overly generalized. Rights depend on a reality, yes - the reality of what those who deem rights to be present or not, those who have the say as to the “shoulds” and “should nots,” feel.

Do we want animals or plants or humans to be treated the same in the first place? No. Neither dogs nor plants understand our (human) issues as we do, so no, we’re not going to be having them vote, for example, yet we can empathize with the suffering of dogs, again for example.

Dogs are indeed different than humans, and we don’t let dogs vote, and neither do we let kids vote, also because of the differences between them and those who are allowed to vote. We give them different status.

Agreed that dogs have feelings, unlike trees, and for many people it is the comparison of the pregnant woman, who most certainly has feelings, with the unborn - where at the very least it cannot be proven that feelings are present to a time in gestation - that leads them to be Pro-Choice.

It is also not merely what a thing is, either. There are some animals where we don’t think the capacity to suffer is as great as that of dogs, or even present at all, and it makes a difference to us. In the end it’s how we feel about them.
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The most likely response to this will be the charge of dogmatism. How dare I pontificate with infallible certainty, and call all who disagree either mentally or morally challenged! All right, here is an argument even for the metaphysical skeptic, who would not even agree with my very first and simplest premise, that we really do
know what some things really are, such as what an apple is. (It’s only after you are pinned against the wall and have to justify something like abortion that you become a skeptic and deny such a self-evident principle.)

This misses the point. We can know what an apple is. And we can know what the human fetus or an “unborn baby” is. We can be aware of the physical reality. That is one thing. The status we give, that which we deem to be present or not present, all the “shoulds” and “should nots” with regard how they are treated, etc., - that is a different matter.
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Roe used such skepticism to justify a pro-choice position. Since we don’t know when human life begins, the argument went, we cannot impose restrictions. (Why it is more restrictive to give life than to take it, I cannot figure out.)

That’s really not what Roe said. Roe said that after viability, the states could restrict abortion if they wanted to. At that point, the state’s interest (if so present) isn’t necessarily in conflict with the woman’s interest, (since the pregnancy can be ended by inducing delivery, i.e. “everybody’s happy.”)
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So here is my refutation of Roe on its own premises, its skeptical premises: Suppose that not a single principle of this essay is true, beginning with the first one. Suppose that we do not even know what an apple is. Even then abortion is unjustifiable.

Let’s assume not a dogmatic skepticism (which is self-contradictory) but a skeptical skepticism. Let us also assume that we do not know whether a fetus is a person or not. In objective fact, of course, either it is or it isn’t (unless the Court has revoked the Law of Noncontradiction while we were on vacation), but in our subjective minds, we may not know what the fetus is in objective fact. We do know, however, that either it is or isn’t by formal logic alone.

Right, if personhood would be there, then abortion would be wrong. If not, then abortion could be legal.
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A second thing we know by formal logic alone is that either we do or do not know what a fetus is. Either there is “out there,” in objective fact, independent of our minds, a human life, or there is not; and either there is knowledge in our minds of this objective fact, or there is not.
So, there are four possibilities: The fetus is a person, and we know that; The fetus is a person, but we don’t know that; The fetus isn’t a person, but we don’t know that;The fetus isn’t a person, and we know that. What is abortion in each of these four cases?

In Case 1, where the fetus is a person and you know that, abortion is murder. First-degree murder, in fact. You deliberately kill an innocent human being.

Right, if personhood would be there, then abortion would be wrong.
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In Case 2, where the fetus is a person and you don’t know that, abortion is manslaughter. It’s like driving over a man-shaped overcoat in the street at night or shooting toxic chemicals into a building that you’re not sure is fully evacuated. You’re not sure there is a person there, but you’re not sure there isn’t either, and it just so happens that there is a person there, and you kill him. You cannot plead ignorance. True, you didn’t know there was a person there, but you didn’t know there wasn’t either, so your act was literally the height of irresponsibility. This is the act Roe allowed.

No - we do know that personhood hasn’t been attributed.
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In Case 3, the fetus isn’t a person, but you don’t know that. So abortion is just as irresponsible as it  is in the previous case. You ran over the overcoat or fumigated the building without knowing that there were no persons there. You were lucky; there weren’t. But you didn’t care; you didn’t take care; you were just as irresponsible. You cannot legally be charged with manslaughter, since no man was slaughtered, but you can and should be charged with criminal negligence.

No - same as above.
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Only in Case 4 is abortion a reasonable, permissible, and responsible choice. But note: What makes Case 4 permissible is not merely the fact that the fetus is not a person but also your knowledge that it is not, your overcoming of skepticism. So skepticism counts not for abortion but against it. Only if you are not a skeptic, only if you are a dogmatist, only if you are certain that there is no person in the fetus, no man in the coat, or no person in the building, may you abort, drive, or fumigate. This undercuts even our weakest, least honest escape: to pretend that we don’t even know what an apple is, just so we have an excuse for pleading that we don’t know what an abortion is.

Well, we do know. There are only two cases. One is that if personhood would be attributed, then abortion would be wrong. The other is that if not, then abortion could be legal, and that’s how it is now.
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I hope a reader can show me where I’ve gone astray in the sequence of 13 steps that constitute this argument. I honestly wish a pro-choicer would someday show me one argument that proved that fetuses are not persons. It would save me and other pro-lifers enormous grief, time, effort, worry, prayers, and money. But until that time, I will keep arguing, because it’s what I do as a philosopher. It is my weak and wimpy version of a mother’s shouting that something terrible is happening: Babies are being slaughtered. I will do this because, as Edmund Burke declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

The whole thing began with a faulty premise. It’s the fact that we don’t attribute personhood to the unborn that has Pro-Lifers dissatisfied in the first place. What Pro-Lifers want is public policy change, they want different status granted to the unborn.

Doug,

Woohoo! Welcome! I hope this discussion goes on forever!

It’s a Catholic site, so I’m pretty sure that Christmas is not only okay, but mandatory….;)

Okay, maybe I need to put in a little more of the premise argument. I wasn’t sure you’d come so I didn’t want to post the whole thing…
Maybe this will help…
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1. We Know What an Apple Is

Our first principle should be as undeniable as possible, for arguments usually go back to their first principles. If we find our first premise to be a stone wall that cannot be knocked down when we back up against it, our argument will be strong. Tradition states and common sense dictates our premise that we know what an apple is. Almost no one doubted this, until quite recently. Even now, only philosophers, scholars, “experts,” media mavens, professors, journalists, and mind-molders dare to claim that we do not know what an apple is.
2. We Really Know What an Apple Really Is
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From the premise that “we know what an apple is,” I move to a second principle that is only an explication of the meaning of the first: that we really know what an apple really is. If this is denied, our first principle is refuted. It becomes, “We know, but not really, what an apple is, but not really.” Step 2 says only, “Let us not ‘nuance’ Step 1 out of existence!”

4. We Know What Human Beings Are

Our fourth principle is that we know what we are. If we know what an apple is, surely we know what a human being is. For we aren’t apples; we don’t live as apples, we don’t feel what apples feel (if anything). We don’t experience the existence or growth or life of apples, yet we know what apples are. A fortiori, we know what we are, for we have “inside information,” privileged information, more and better information.

We obviously do not have total, or even adequate, knowledge of ourselves, or of apples, or (if we listen to Aquinas) of even a flea. There is obviously more mystery in a human than in an apple, but there is also more knowledge. I repeat this point because I know it is often not understood: To claim that “we know what we are” is not to claim that we know all that we are, or even that we know adequately or completely or with full understanding anything at all of what we are. We are a living mystery, but we also know much of this mystery. Knowledge and mystery are no more incompatible than eating and hungering for more.

5. We Have Human Rights Because We Are Human

The fifth principle is the indispensable, common-sensical basis for human rights: We have human rights because we are human beings.

We have not yet said what human beings are (e.g., do we have souls?), or what human rights are (e.g., do we have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?), only the simple point that we have whatever human rights we have because we are whatever it is that makes us human.

This certainly sounds innocent enough, but it implies a general principle. Let’s call that our sixth principle.

8. Might Making Right

All these examples so far are controversial. How to apply moral principles to these issues is controversial. What is not controversial, I hope, is the principle itself that human rights are possessed by human beings because of what they are, because of their being—and not because some other human beings have the power to enforce their will. That would be, literally, “might makes right.” Instead of putting might into the hands of right, that would be pinning the label of “right” on the face of might: justifying force instead of fortifying justice. But that is the only alternative, no matter what the political power structure, no matter who or how many hold the power, whether a single tyrant, or an aristocracy, or a majority of the freely voting public, or the vague sentiment of what Rousseau called “the general will.” The political form does not change the principle. A constitutional monarchy, in which the king and the people are subject to the same law, is a rule of law, not of power; a lawless democracy, in which the will of the majority is unchecked, is a rule of power, not of law.

9. Either All Have Rights or Only Some Have Rights

The reason all human beings have human rights is that all human beings are human. Only two philosophies of human rights are logically possible. Either all human beings have rights, or only some human beings have rights. There is no third possibility. But the reason for believing either one of these two possibilities is even more important than which one you believe.

Suppose you believe that all human beings have rights. Do you believe that all human beings have rights because they are human beings? Do you dare to do metaphysics? Are human rights “inalienable” because they are inherent in human nature, in the human essence, in the human being, in what humans, in fact, are? Or do you believe that all human beings have rights because some human beings say so—because some human wills have declared that all human beings have rights? If it’s the first reason, you are secure against tyranny and usurpation of rights. If it’s the second reason, you are not. For human nature doesn’t change, but human wills do. The same human wills that say today that all humans have rights may well say tomorrow that only some have rights.

9. Either All Have Rights or Only Some Have Rights

The reason all human beings have human rights is that all human beings are human. Only two philosophies of human rights are logically possible. Either all human beings have rights, or only some human beings have rights. There is no third possibility. But the reason for believing either one of these two possibilities is even more important than which one you believe.

Suppose you believe that all human beings have rights. Do you believe that all human beings have rights because they are human beings? Do you dare to do metaphysics? Are human rights “inalienable” because they are inherent in human nature, in the human essence, in the human being, in what humans, in fact, are? Or do you believe that all human beings have rights because some human beings say so—because some human wills have declared that all human beings have rights? If it’s the first reason, you are secure against tyranny and usurpation of rights. If it’s the second reason, you are not. For human nature doesn’t change, but human wills do. The same human wills that say today that all humans have rights may well say tomorrow that only some have rights.
10. Why Abortion Is Wrong

Some people want to be killed. I won’t address the morality of voluntary euthanasia here. But clearly, involuntary euthanasia is wrong; clearly, there is a difference between imposing power on another and freely making a contract with another. The contract may still be a bad one, a contract to do a wrong thing, and the mere fact that the parties to the contract entered it freely does not automatically justify doing the thing they contract to do. But harming or killing another against his will, not by free contract, is clearly wrong; if that isn’t wrong, what is?

But that’s what abortion is. Mother Teresa argued, simply, “If abortion is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” The fetus doesn’t want to be killed; it seeks to escape. Did you dare to watch The Silent Scream? Did the media dare to allow it to be shown? No, they will censor nothing except the most common operation in America.
11. The Argument From the Nonexistence of Nonpersons

Are persons a subclass of humans, or are humans a subclass of persons? The issue of distinguishing humans and persons comes up only for two reasons: the possibility that there are nonhuman persons, like extraterrestrials, elves, angels, gods, God, or the Persons of the Trinity, or the possibility that there are some nonpersonal humans, unpersons, humans without rights.

Traditional common sense and morality say all humans are persons and have rights. Modern moral relativism says that only some humans are persons, for only those who are given rights by others (i.e., those in power) have rights. Thus, if we have power, we can “depersonalize” any group we want: blacks, slaves, Jews, political enemies, liberals, fundamentalists—or unborn babies.

A common way to state this philosophy is the claim that membership in a biological species confers no rights. I have heard it argued that we do not treat any other species in the traditional way—that is, we do not assign equal rights to all mice. Some we kill (those that get into our houses and prove to be pests); others we take good care of and preserve (those that we find useful in laboratory experiments or those we adopt as pets); still others we simply ignore (mice in the wild). The argument concludes that therefore, it is only sentiment or tradition (the two are often confused, as if nothing rational could be passed down by tradition) that assigns rights to all members of our own species.
12. Three Pro-Life Premises and Three Pro-Choice Alternatives

We have been assuming three premises, and they are the three fundamental assumptions of the pro-life argument. Any one of them can be denied. To be pro-choice, you must deny at least one of them, because taken together they logically entail the pro-life conclusion. But there are three different kinds of pro-choice positions, depending on which of the three pro-life premises is denied.

The first premise is scientific, the second is moral, and the third is legal. The scientific premise is that the life of the individual member of every animal species begins at conception. (This truism was taught by all biology textbooks before Roe and by none after Roe; yet Roe did not discover or appeal to any new scientific discoveries.) In other words, all humans are human, whether embryonic, fetal, infantile, young, mature, old, or dying.

The moral premise is that all humans have the right to life because all humans are human. It is a deduction from the most obvious of all moral rules, the Golden Rule, or justice, or equality. If you would not be killed, do not kill. It’s just not just, not fair. All humans have the human essence and, therefore, are essentially equal.

The legal premise is that the law must protect the most basic human rights. If all humans are human, and if all humans have a right to life, and if the law must protect human rights, then the law must protect the right to life of all humans.

If all three premises are true, the pro-life conclusion follows. From the pro-life point of view, there are only three reasons for being pro-choice: scientific ignorance—appalling ignorance of a scientific fact so basic that nearly everyone in the world knows it; moral ignorance—appalling ignorance of the most basic of all moral rules; or legal ignorance—appalling ignorance of one of the most basic of all the functions of law. But there are significant differences among these different kinds of ignorance.

Scientific ignorance, if it is not ignoring, or deliberate denial or dishonesty, is perhaps pitiable but not morally blame-worthy. You don’t have to be wicked to be stupid. If you believe an unborn baby is only “potential life” or a “group of cells,” then you do not believe you are killing a human being when you abort and might have no qualms of conscience about it. (But why, then, do most mothers who abort feel such terrible pangs of conscience, often for a lifetime?)

Most pro-choice arguments, during the first two decades after Roe, disputed the scientific premise of the pro-life argument. It might be that this was almost always dishonest rather than honest ignorance, but perhaps not, and at least it didn’t directly deny the essential second premise, the moral principle. But pro-choice arguments today increasingly do.

Perhaps pro-choicers perceive that they have no choice but to do this, for they have no other recourse if they are to argue at all. Scientific facts are just too clear to deny, and it makes no legal sense to deny the legal principle, for if the law is not supposed to defend the right to life, what is it supposed to do? So they have to deny the moral principle that leads to the pro-life conclusion. This, I suspect, is a vast and major sea change. The camel has gotten not just his nose, but his torso under the tent. I think most people refuse to think or argue about abortion because they see that the only way to remain pro-choice is to abort their reason first. Or, since many pro-choicers insist that abortion is about sex, not about babies, the only way to justify their scorn of virginity is a scorn of intellectual virginity. The only way to justify their loss of moral innocence is to lose their intellectual innocence.

If the above paragraph offends you, I challenge you to calmly and honestly ask your own conscience and reason whether, where, and why it is false.
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Does that explain the premise a bit better?

Now here is Kreeft’s argument against your moral relativism view…I swear, you two must have met or argued on line!

2. Argument for Relativism: Cultural Influence

A second argument for relativism is the argument from cultural relativism. This argument seems impregnable. The claim is that anthropologists and sociologists have discovered moral relativism to be not a theory but an empirical fact. Different cultures and societies, like different individuals, simply do, in fact, have very different moral values. In Eskimo culture, and in Holland, killing old people is right. In America, east of Oregon, it’s wrong. In contemporary culture, fornication is right; in Christian cultures, it’s wrong, and so forth.

Descartes noted in A Discourse On Method that “there is no idea so strange that some philosopher has not seriously taught it.” Similarly, there is no practice so strange that some society has not legitimized it; for instance, genocide, or cannibalism. Or, so innocent that some group has not forbidden it; for instance, entering a temple with a hat on, or without one. So anyone who thinks values are not relative to cultures is simply ignorant of the facts, so goes the argument.

It is not always right to obey the culture

To see the logical fallacy in this apparently impregnable argument, we need to look at its unspoken assumption—which is that moral rightness is a matter of obedience to cultural values. That it is right to obey your culture’s values. Always. Only if we combine that hidden premise with the stated premise—that values differ with cultures—can we get to the conclusion that moral rightness differs with cultures. That what is wrong in one culture is right in another. But surely, this hidden premise begs the question. It presupposes the very moral relativism it is supposed to prove. The absolutist denies that it is always right to obey your culture’s values. He has a trans-cultural standard by which he can criticize a whole culture’s values. That is why he could be a progressive and a radical, while the relativist can only be a status-quo conservative, having no higher standard than his culture. My country, right or wrong. Only massive, media, big-lie propaganda could so confuse people’s minds that they spontaneously think the opposite. But in fact it is only the believer in the old-fashioned natural moral law who could be a social radical and a progressive. He alone can say to a Hitler, or a Saddam Hussein, “You and your whole social order are wrong and wicked and deserve to be destroyed.” The relativist could only say, “Different strokes for different folks, and I happen to hate your strokes and prefer mine, that’s all.”

We must distinguish subjective value opinions
from objective values

The second logical weakness of the argument about cultural relativism is its equivocation on the term “values.” The moral absolutist distinguishes subjective opinions about values from objectively true values. Just as he distinguishes objective truth from subjective opinions about God, or about life after death, or about happiness, or about numbers, or about beauty, just to take 5 other non-empirical things. It may be difficult, or even impossible, to prove these things, or to attain certainty about them, or even to know them at all. But that does not mean they are unreal. Even if these things could not be known, it does not follow that they are unreal. And even if they could not be known with certainty, it does not follow that they could not be known at all by right opinion. And even if they could not be proved, it does not follow that they could not be known with certainty. And even if they could not be proved by the scientific method, it does not follow that they cannot be proved at all. They could be real, even if unknown; known, even if not certainly known; certainly known, even if not proved; and proved, even if not scientifically proved.

The basic equivocation in the cultural relativist’s argument is between values and value opinions. Different cultures may have different opinions about what is morally valuable, just as they may have different opinions about what happens after death. But this does not entail the conclusion that what is really right in one culture is really wrong in another, any more than different opinions about life after death entails the conclusion that different things really happen after death, depending on cultural beliefs. Just because I may believe there is no Hell does not prove that there is none and that I will not go there. If it did, a simple and infallible way of salvation would be simply to stop believing in Hell. Similarly, just because a good Nazi thinks genocide is right does not prove it is, unless there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. But that is the relativist’s conclusion. It cannot also be his premise without begging the question.

Cultures do not differ totally

There is still another error in the cultural relativist’s argument. It seems that just about everything that can possibly go wrong with an argument goes wrong with this one. The argument from facts doesn’t even have its facts right. Cultures do not, in fact, differ totally about values, even if the term values is taken to mean merely value opinions. No culture has ever existed which believed and taught what Nietzsche called for: a transvaluation of all values. There have been differences in emphasis, for instance, our ancestors valued courage more than we do, while we value compassion more than they did. But there has never been anything like the relativism of opinions about values that the relativist teaches as factual history.

Just imagine what that would be like. Try to imagine a society where justice, honesty, courage, wisdom, hope, and self-control were deemed morally evil. And unrestricted selfishness, cowardice, lying, betrayal, addiction, and despair were deemed morally good. Such a society is never found on Earth. If it exists anywhere, it is only in Hell and its colonies. Only Satan and his worshippers say “evil be thou my good.” There are indeed important disagreements about values between cultures. But beneath about all disagreements about lesser values, there always lies an agreement about more basic ones. Beneath all disagreements about applying values to situations—for instance, should we have capital punishment or not—always lies agreement about values—for instance, murder is evil since human life is good. Moral disagreements between cultures as well as between individuals would be impossible unless there were some deeper moral agreements, some common moral premises. Moral values are to a culture’s laws something like what concepts are to words. When you visit a foreign country, you experience initial shock. The language sounds totally different. But then beneath the different words you find common concepts. And this is what makes translation from one language to another possible. Analogously, beneath different social laws, we find common human moral laws. We find similar morals, beneath different mores. The moral agreement among Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Socrates, Solomon, Jesus, Cicero, Mohammad, Zoraster, and Hammurabbi is far greater than their moral differences.

Doug!!

Welcome!

I’m glad you found us.

Val and MK, thanks for the welcome. I’m getting on a plane soon, so more later.

MK, the main thing as I see it is that Kreeft goes with this thing like it’s a matter of what the baby is, and that’s just not true.

What the baby is isn’t the debate. It’s how we treat it, what our laws are concerning it, what public policy is about it, etc.

After a point in gestation, for example, you and I don’t disagree at all about the physical reality of the baby, and I doubt that Kreeft and I disagree there, either.

Patricia,

I honestly think that this is what is taught in school from day one. No one knows critical thinking. They only know how to draw certain conclusions.

Chesterton says (and I’m paraphrasing here) that people believe that schoolboys are taught to tell the truth. But they aren’t. You can swindle someone, rape someone, or kill them, all without lying.

The real problem is that schoolboys are not taught to SEEK the truth. They are only taught how to come up with points that will help them play the game…rhetoric. It doesn’t matter what the “thought” is, as long as your thought trumps the others.

Doug, I mean no disrespect, we’ve gone here before. I’ve asked you why you don’t want to penetrate the mysteries, know the unknown and you just don’t really seem to care. You’re content with not knowing whether there is objective truth or not. You happy just doin’ what feels good to you.

Did you read the post on relativity? Cuz I think we should go there first, before we move on to whether or not a baby is a human.

The thing is, no matter how many times you tell me that a 6 week old fetus is NOT a human being, you have yet to tell me what it \IS.

MK, I won’t let this one go by the wayside.

lol Doug. YOU believe Peter Kreeft is incorrect. Good luck buddy. I am absolutely sure, if God himself came down and told it to your face, you would still have the gall to tell HIM he is wrong.

Patricia, Kreeft makes some logical errors and engages in some pretenses which are not part of the real argument.

As for God, what if he came down and told you that he was okay with abortion, and that’s why no prohibitions for it appeared in the Bible?

D,
This presupposes that there is some “truth” out there in realms which not everybody needs.

Yes, but you presuppose that there isn’t any “truth” out there (and don’t mess with my head. From here on out when we say truth we mean all truth, but when we say Truth, with a capital T we will be referring to Objective Moral Truth…okay?

So you presuppose that there is NOT any Truth, and all of your arguments are based on that. We presuppose that there IS Truth and all of our arguments are based on that.

Set aside the notion that we are trying to “win” (as Chesterton claims) and act for a minute (or a month, however long it takes) that we are really trying to communicate. Don’t tell me it’s up to me to prove that it does exist. This isn’t about winning. It’s about discovering Truth. If it’s there to discover.

I will give you reasons I believe it to be so, and you can do the same (why you think it isn’t so) but obviously neither of us can PROVE anything, and just because I’m claiming a negative or however that stupid argument goes, the burden of “proof” doesn’t fall on me, because I’m not “proving” anything. We’re just talking. Let down the barriers. Delve. Question. Believe in the “Possibility”…

MK, on what Kreeft says about relativism:

To see the logical fallacy in this apparently impregnable argument, we need to look at its unspoken assumption—which is that moral rightness is a matter of obedience to cultural values. That it is right to obey your culture’s values. Always.

This is saying it’s only “one way” - that cultural values will be “right” - that’s what he’s saying the other side is banking on, and that’s not true. In no way is it merely a matter of obedience to cultural values - there will always be people who object to some things in their culture. He’s saying that “relativism” is wrong because…”they go with an incorrect objective premise…” Makes no sense. Yes, “right” does vary in some cultures versus other cultures, but that is on the cultural level. That is not saying it’s “right” beyond that, nor in any absolute sense.
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Only if we combine that hidden premise with the stated premise—that values differ with cultures—can we get to the conclusion that moral rightness differs with cultures. That what is wrong in one culture is right in another. But surely, this hidden premise begs the question. It presupposes the very moral relativism it is supposed to prove. The absolutist denies that it is always right to obey your culture’s values. He has a trans-cultural standard by which he can criticize a whole culture’s values. That is why he could be a progressive and a radical, while the relativist can only be a status-quo conservative, having no higher standard than his culture. My country, right or wrong. Only massive, media, big-lie propaganda could so confuse people’s minds that they spontaneously think the opposite. But in fact it is only the believer in the old-fashioned natural moral law who could be a social radical and a progressive. He alone can say to a Hitler, or a Saddam Hussein, “You and your whole social order are wrong and wicked and deserve to be destroyed.” The relativist could only say, “Different strokes for different folks, and I happen to hate your strokes and prefer mine, that’s all.”

He’s still banking on the incorrect premise - that there somehow just has to be absolute morality. Now, if so, that would give creedence to him saying that the presupposition of moral relativism is incorrect. However, he’d first have to prove it, and he cannot. How would this “trans-cultural standard” be any more valid than a cultural standard, or even asvalid, necessarily?

Meanwhile, he knows darn well that people will have different values, as individuals, as groups, as nations, as cultures.

He has the idea of moral absolutism. Meanwhile, it is fact that different people hold different values - doesn’t have to be proven. But what proof for absolute morals does he have?
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We must distinguish subjective value opinions from objective values

The second logical weakness of the argument about cultural relativism is its equivocation on the term “values.” The moral absolutist distinguishes subjective opinions about values from objectively true values. Just as he distinguishes objective truth from subjective opinions about God, or about life after death, or about happiness, or about numbers, or about beauty, just to take 5 other non-empirical things. It may be difficult, or even impossible, to prove these things, or to attain certainty about them, or even to know them at all. But that does not mean they are unreal. Even if these things could not be known, it does not follow that they are unreal. And even if they could not be known with certainty, it does not follow that they could not be known at all by right opinion.

Okay, speculation on his part…. And yes, the absence of the proof of a negative is not proof of non-existence.
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And even if they could not be proved, it does not follow that they could not be known with certainty.

What “certainly” could possibly then be there?
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And even if they could not be proved by the scientific method, it does not follow that they cannot be proved at all. They could be real, even if unknown; known, even if not certainly known; certainly known, even if not proved; and proved, even if not scientifically proved.

More speculation…. Meanwhile, the fact that different people and groups hold different values remains.
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The basic equivocation in the cultural relativist’s argument is between values and value opinions. Different cultures may have different opinions about what is morally valuable, just as they may have different opinions about what happens after death. But this does not entail the conclusion that what is really right in one culture is really wrong in another, any more than different opinions about life after death entails the conclusion that different things really happen after death, depending on cultural beliefs. Just because I may believe there is no Hell does not prove that there is none and that I will not go there. If it did, a simple and infallible way of salvation would be simply to stop believing in Hell. Similarly, just because a good Nazi thinks genocide is right does not prove it is, unless there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. But that is the relativist’s conclusion. It cannot also be his premise without begging the question.

This is still going on the unproven theory of “absolute morals.” Morals are ideas. They are concepts of thought, They exist in the mind, not outside of it. It fits the definition of “subjective” and does not fit the definition of “objective.” What does he offer to counter those?

The relativist need do nothing more than note the differing values among people, groups, etc. That by itself is no sure proof that there is no God nor that no God, gods, or other “higher” beings than us earthly humans have their valuations, but it is going with what is provable. Meanwhile, the absolutist has no such thing.
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Cultures do not differ totally

There is still another error in the cultural relativist’s argument. It seems that just about everything that can possibly go wrong with an argument goes wrong with this one. The argument from facts doesn’t even have its facts right. Cultures do not, in fact, differ totally about values, even if the term values is taken to mean merely value opinions. No culture has ever existed which believed and taught what Nietzsche called for: a transvaluation of all values. There have been differences in emphasis, for instance, our ancestors valued courage more than we do, while we value compassion more than they did. But there has never been anything like the relativism of opinions about values that the relativist teaches as factual history.

So what? Who is saying that “cultures differ totally”? There is great commonality among the world’s people. To say that the relativism argument rests on cultures having to differ totally is just a straw man.
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Just imagine what that would be like. Try to imagine a society where justice, honesty, courage, wisdom, hope, and self-control were deemed morally evil. And unrestricted selfishness, cowardice, lying, betrayal, addiction, and despair were deemed morally good. Such a society is never found on Earth.

Yeah, and nobody is saying that.
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If it exists anywhere, it is only in Hell and its colonies. Only Satan and his worshippers say “evil be thou my good.” There are indeed important disagreements about values between cultures. But beneath about all disagreements about lesser values, there always lies an agreement about more basic ones.

And in no way does this require any moral absolutism, but rather only the commonality of desire and valuation that we note.
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Beneath all disagreements about applying values to situations—for instance, should we have capital punishment or not—always lies agreement about values—for instance, murder is evil since human life is good.

He’s not far off here, but he oversimplifies - it’s not just that the feeling is that “human life is good” - there’s a good bit more to it than that. Human life, per se, isn’t always valued positively, and there are plenty of situations where it’s not going to be seen as good enough to make killing it wrong.
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Moral disagreements between cultures as well as between individuals would be impossible unless there were some deeper moral agreements, some common moral premises. Moral values are to a culture’s laws something like what concepts are to words. When you visit a foreign country, you experience initial shock. The language sounds totally different. But then beneath the different words you find common concepts. And this is what makes translation from one language to another possible. Analogously, beneath different social laws, we find common human moral laws. We find similar morals, beneath different mores. The moral agreement among Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Socrates, Solomon, Jesus, Cicero, Mohammad, Zoraster, and Hammurabbi is far greater than their moral differences.

Yeah, and again - the commonality of desire and valuation among the world’s people explains this, no “absolute morality” needed.

Okay, Doug, It’s been awhile. Recap. You agree it is a human, not just human?

MK, certainly “human” as an adjective, but “a human” is open to interpretation. I agree that it’s a living being, but there can also be humane characteristics, etc., inputed to the term, so “a human” can be more complex. Anyway - the unborn baby is certainly “a human being” physically. Not trying to make it difficult, just trying to be clear. This isn’t saying anything about the status we give it, but the living organism is there, for sure.
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But you disagree that it is a person, because to you, (not to me and not to Kreeft) person is strictly a legal term? You do not give person any other meaning than the legal one?

No, to me personhood is having some personality, some awareness, emotion, etc. This is my own feeling as opposed to what is at stake in the abortion debate. I see the born, full-term baby as a person in this respect just as I do the fetus or unborn baby late enough in gestation.
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“This presupposes that there is some “truth” out there in realms which not everybody needs.”

Yes, but you presuppose that there isn’t any “truth” out there (and don’t mess with my head. From here on out when we say truth we mean all truth, but when we say Truth, with a capital T we will be referring to Objective Moral Truth…okay?

So you presuppose that there is NOT any Truth, and all of your arguments are based on that. We presuppose that there IS Truth and all of our arguments are based on that.

Okay, MK, I’ll try to remember the T and the t. No, I don’t presuppose there’s no T. My point is that there isn’t proof of it. (Of course there can’t be proof of the non-existence of it.) Saying there’s no proof of it isn’t the same thing as saying it does not exist or presupposing it doesn’t.
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Set aside the notion that we are trying to “win” (as Chesterton claims) and act for a minute (or a month, however long it takes) that we are really trying to communicate. Don’t tell me it’s up to me to prove that it does exist. This isn’t about winning. It’s about discovering Truth. If it’s there to discover.

I will give you reasons I believe it to be so, and you can do the same (why you think it isn’t so) but obviously neither of us can PROVE anything, and just because I’m claiming a negative or however that stupid argument goes, the burden of “proof” doesn’t fall on me, because I’m not “proving” anything. We’re just talking. Let down the barriers. Delve. Question. Believe in the “Possibility”…

There too I will try, but some things don’t need to be proven here, MK, and that people, groups, cultures, etc., have differing valuations and desires is one of them. That’s one fact that we both begin with.

I see many people’s belief in “Truth,” too, but so often it’s what they grew up with, took on from their family, teachers, environment, peers, etc., or that for which I see them having an emotional need. In all those cases I understand the belief being there, but the same factors aren’t present for me so I don’t see it as having any necessary validity.

There is also personal experience, and I give that more weight, though of course there can be conflicting testimony there.

As an aside - I think it’d be really interesting to see what beliefs people would come up with were they not exposed to anybody else’s beliefs - if they grew up totally isolated as individuals or groups.

Doug,

Even without that, what would God then say to babies that are miscarried or aborted?

Welcome home?

The reason abortion, as well as murder, is offensive is because these bodies were created BY God and given to us as gifts FROM God. To destroy one of these bodies, is an offense to God, to Love and to Life.

Just because the body doesn’t contain the soul, doesn’t mean that the body isn’t important. It’s extremely important. But it is temporal. Meaning, if you kill it, you haven’t killed the person. But it is still a grave offense.

As to miscarriages, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away…We are all going to die. And sans human interference, we will all die in God’s time.

Whether he calls us at 6 weeks gestation, or 90 years after birth, doesn’t matter. He calls when He calls, and He doesn’t need to explain. We however, are not God. We didn’t give the gift, and have no right to kill the gift. At the very least it would be rude.

I see many people’s belief in “Truth,” too, but so often it’s what they grew up with, took on from their family, teachers, environment, peers, etc., or that for which I see them having an emotional need.

Yes, but they have more in common, than in disagreement.

Go to any culture at any time in history and you will find that basically, they are following the same laws.

Buddhists might say that “we should not do to anyone what we wouldn’t want done to us” and Christians say “Do unto to others what you would have them do to you”, while pagans say “Do what ye will, harm ye none”…all different ways of saying basically the same thing.

Even in Islam, the sentiments are the same. It is only in radical Islam (Truth being perverted) that you run into trouble. Same with the Catholic Church, when she went political 1500 years ago.

I have just finished reading “The Abolition of Man”, by Chesterton. I highly recommend it. I always make notes in my books as I read them, and I kid you not, I have labeled the last chapter “Doug’s Chapter”.

There are only 3 chapters in the book.

The first chapter talks about the first group of people. They believe in Absolute Moral Truth. He calls it the Tao.

The second chapter talks about the second group of people. They have created their own Tao. They don’t realize it, but all of their “common desires” are drawn from the first Tao. While they might describe it differently, they basically come to the same conclusions.

The third chapter, or Dougs Chapter, talks about the third group of people. This group denies that there IS a Tao. They claim they every man is subject to his desires. Of course, in claiming that there is NO Tao, they have actually declared that this is their Tao. That there is no Tao, is a Tao.

He goes on to ask where their desires come from? What is the motive for their behavior? If you say it is instinct, then you are saying that you have no free will, because instinct is nature, and if you are following your instincts, you are following nature. If you are following nature, then you are like the animals. If you are like the animals, then nature controls you, you don’t control it.

In seeking to overcome all religious restrictions (live without a Tao) then you become enslaved to Nature and “natural tendencies”, rendering you simply part of nature. You are no longer free.

If you say that you have urges, but because you are human and have free will, you can overcome these urges, then you must tell us where this desire to overcome the urges comes from. If you say that these desires are just part of who we are, then you are once again saying that we just have urges, it’s part of nature and you are again becoming subject to nature.

Do you see? You can’t follow natural urges and be free. The only way to be free is to be able to overcome these urges. To be master of these urges. But then you would have to give me a motive for overcoming them, and the motive cannot be nature.

“Even without that, what would God then say to babies that are miscarried or aborted?”

Welcome home?

MK, I wouldn’t doubt it - going with the idea of an all-powerful God, I think that’s likely, or at least I see the occurrence of miscarriages and abortions as not bad, there, i.e. God knew it was coming all along.
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The reason abortion, as well as murder, is offensive is because these bodies were created BY God and given to us as gifts FROM God. To destroy one of these bodies, is an offense to God, to Love and to Life.

To put that reasoning first in line, so to speak, requires a different belief set than I have.

We’ve been through it before, and I don’t know if it’s worth it to rehash, but I see any all-knowing God as foreseeing it all, and any all-powerful God not preventing it.

Go to any culture at any time in history and you will find that basically, they are following the same laws.

MK, indeed, and deeming personhood at birth is the same.
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Buddhists might say that “we should not do to anyone what we wouldn’t want done to us” and Christians say “Do unto to others what you would have them do to you”, while pagans say “Do what ye will, harm ye none”…all different ways of saying basically the same thing. Even in Islam, the sentiments are the same. It is only in radical Islam (Truth being perverted) that you run into trouble. Same with the Catholic Church, when she went political 1500 years ago.

No argument there.
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I have just finished reading “The Abolition of Man”, by Chesterton. I highly recommend it. I always make notes in my books as I read them, and I kid you not, I have labeled the last chapter “Doug’s Chapter”. There are only 3 chapters in the book. The first chapter talks about the first group of people. They believe in Absolute Moral Truth. He calls it the Tao. The second chapter talks about the second group of people. They have created their own Tao. They don’t realize it, but all of their “common desires” are drawn from the first Tao. While they might describe it differently, they basically come to the same conclusions. The third chapter, or Dougs Chapter, talks about the third group of people. This group denies that there IS a Tao. They claim they every man is subject to his desires. Of course, in claiming that there is NO Tao, they have actually declared that this is their Tao. That there is no Tao, is a Tao.

I think the error there is the same as with Kreeft. There is a difference between seeing no proof of a thing, and “denying it exists.” That’s why atheism never has made sense to me, because there’s no way they can really know they’re right.
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He goes on to ask where their desires come from? What is the motive for their behavior? If you say it is instinct, then you are saying that you have no free will, because instinct is nature, and if you are following your instincts, you are following nature. If you are following nature, then you are like the animals. If you are like the animals, then nature controls you, you don’t control it.

Interesting stuff. I don’t say it’s instinct - I certainly see consciousness and decisions of volition. Our motives for our behavior is our desire, and that includes going to church, etc. “Where does the desire come from?” is a good question, as we’ve been talking about. And we certainly just plain do have desires, even to believe in unprovable things at times.
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In seeking to overcome all religious restrictions (live without a Tao) then you become enslaved to Nature and “natural tendencies”, rendering you simply part of nature. You are no longer free.

MK, I think that is based on the “denying” thing, whereas I don’t do that - I just see some other people’s ideas and no proof for them. I don’t say that it cannot be.
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If you say that you have urges, but because you are human and have free will, you can overcome these urges, then you must tell us where this desire to overcome the urges comes from. If you say that these desires are just part of who we are, then you are once again saying that we just have urges, it’s part of nature and you are again becoming subject to nature. Do you see? You can’t follow natural urges and be free. The only way to be free is to be able to overcome these urges. To be master of these urges. But then you would have to give me a motive for overcoming them, and the motive cannot be nature.

We do have biological urges, but we also can indulge them or deny them per our free will. If it is a matter of “overcoming urges” then it’s at least two competing desires at hand. The greater desire will win out, be it to satisfy the urge, or forgo it in orger to get or avoid something else.

People like to eat, but for most of us eventually the desire to not get fat or fatter, to not harm our health, etc., will win out over the desire for more food, as an example. We are “part of nature” but we still have free will, a lot of it, IMO, setting us apart from most other species on earth.

On not following nature and thus “being free” - I think it’s all the same. Even the most spiritual person in the world is “following their nature.”

People like to eat, but for most of us eventually the desire to not get fat or fatter, to not harm our health, etc., will win out over the desire for more food, as an example. We are “part of nature” but we still have free will, a lot of it, IMO, setting us apart from most other species on earth.
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On not following nature and thus “being free” - I think it’s all the same. Even the most spiritual person in the world is “following their nature.”

Okay, so we are set apart from other creatures. We have free will. Why? Why don’t animals have free will? They have consciousness. They can think (the higher forms can, anyway). Why are we the only ones with free will?

What IS free will?

And you say that we simply choose the thing we desire most, even if we desire two opposing things. What is our motive for choosing either one? You say to appease our desires, but why do we want to appease our desires?

Animals want to appease their desires. If a dog wants a piece of meat, but another, bigger, badder dog is already eating it, he will forgo his “desire” for the meat, in favor his “desire” not to be dinner. But is this free will? Or is he a prisoner to his desires? The desire to avoid harm being greater than the desire to eat?

Are we the same? If so, then where is this free will you speak of. Sounds to me like you are still at the mercy of your desires.

The most spiritual person in the world is not necessarily following their desire. They are following, at least in the Christian world, the desires of God. They renounce their desires. To the best of their ability, anyway.

I know you think that this is just another desire, the desire to please God. Well, okay, then. We desire to please God. Now what? You desire to please yourself. I desire to please God. I desire to recognize and follow the Natural Moral Law. You do not. You desire to follow your own feelings and inclinations.

You say you do not believe that there is NO God any more than you believe that there IS a God, because neither can offer you proof.

Has it occurred to you that you are looking for empirical proof, when what you should be looking for is mystical proof? Perhaps you’re looking in the wrong places. You want to prove some thing mystical with something physical. Why not try getting to know the mystical, through mystical means. By seeing with something other than your eyes? Hearing with something other than your ears?

“People like to eat, but for most of us eventually the desire to not get fat or fatter, to not harm our health, etc., will win out over the desire for more food, as an example. We are “part of nature” but we still have free will, a lot of it, IMO, setting us apart from most other species on earth.

On not following nature and thus “being free” - I think it’s all the same. Even the most spiritual person in the world is “following their nature.”

MK: Okay, so we are set apart from other creatures. We have free will. Why? Why don’t animals have free will? They have consciousness. They can think (the higher forms can, anyway). Why are we the only ones with free will?

Holy Crow - some animals do have free will. Whales, elephants, dolphins, the higher primates, etc. Even dogs and cats - do you really think there is no free will, there?

Brains of a certain complexity appear to develop those characteristics. This is an empirical observation, not saying that it’s known in “advance,” i.e. that we can necessarily predict when a brain of so many synapses becomes self-aware, but that is at least as valid a thesis as that it comes from “outside.”
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What IS free will?

I’d say it’s the desire of the individual having some control over “his” decisions and actions.
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And you say that we simply choose the thing we desire most, even if we desire two opposing things. What is our motive for choosing either one? You say to appease our desires, but why do we want to appease our desires?

As from our long-ago discussions, there simply is consciousness. We have to start with that as a premise, before we get to anything else. It is that which makes possible our self-awareness and your and my discussion, MK. Empirical observations and religious beliefs (not to mention a whole host of other things) can only exist once consciousness is there

Desires, by definition, “want” to be appeased. And this would be true for God, gods, or other “higher” beings than us earthly humans. Our motive for choosing is that which we want the most, or that for which we have the least distaste for, and that’s regardless of whether we ascribe our motivation to God, gods, anything….
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Animals want to appease their desires. If a dog wants a piece of meat, but another, bigger, badder dog is already eating it, he will forgo his “desire” for the meat, in favor his “desire” not to be dinner. But is this free will? Or is he a prisoner to his desires? The desire to avoid harm being greater than the desire to eat?

That’s a good example, because there there is some doubt. Could be a mixture of conscious desire and instinct on that one.

Yet there are many examples where things would be clearly instinct, or clearly conscious volition.
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Are we the same? If so, then where is this free will you speak of. Sounds to me like you are still at the mercy of your desires.

I can say the same about you, even if your desires are in line with your religious beliefs, what you accord to God, etc. Your motivation is still coming from the self, from yourself.
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The most spiritual person in the world is not necessarily following their desire. They are following, at least in the Christian world, the desires of God. They renounce their desires. To the best of their ability, anyway.

No, they’re desiring what they see as the desire of God first - and again, anybody can ascribe it to anything, but it’s still the individual choosing.
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I know you think that this is just another desire, the desire to please God. Well, okay, then. We desire to please God. Now what? You desire to please yourself. I desire to please God. I desire to recognize and follow the Natural Moral Law. You do not. You desire to follow your own feelings and inclinations.

It’s your “own feeling and inclination” to hypothesize the existence of “Natural Moral Law.” No difference. You are coming from a place where there is first of all the wish to maintain that there is “natural law.”
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You say you do not believe that there is NO God any more than you believe that there IS a God, because neither can offer you proof.

It would depend on how we define “God,” but pretty much - yes - of course I cannot prove the non-existence of gods but also I acknowledge the possibility of “higher” beings than us earthly humans (again).

Doug,

The “Should” is there because if there is a God, and it is the God of Abraham, then He has made it clear