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True, then He'd only be "good" for agreeing with Himself, but why is that a problem?
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<p>I do not think that was a cogent objection, so you can ignore it.</p>
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If God is omnipotent, then He can't be subject to any external laws, so morality must be defined by Him. I don't see anything wrong with this idea.
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<p>Well, there are a number of reasons. If you want to build morals from God, your system will presuppose the existence of God, which is tendentious. In addition, it removes the unconditionality of morals: if I fulfill an obligation to another because of God, am I fulfilling it because I recognize the obligation in itself, or merely because I am doing it to please God?</p>
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if there is no God or morality is independent of Him, then "good" can't be truly intrinsic to the universe.
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<p>I do not see why you are ascribing 'good' to universe in the first place: there also exists pointless evil in the universe, whether God exists or not. Recognizing its existence will not change that.</p>
<p>Hey, I have a question! I am not an advocate for philosophy by any means, neither am I fully content with philosophical arguments, but out of curiosity, what good is philosophy to mathematics? Isn't mathematics prescribed and additional results are then derived? I mean, hearing a philosophical argument about the rationality of square root of 2 is pretty irritating and I've since been associating philosophy to nonsensical mathematical results, but has philosophy ever done any good to mathematics?</p>
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True, then He'd only be "good" for agreeing with Himself, but why is that a problem?
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Because then His goodness is not a priori but arbitrary. This arbitrariness poses a problem for some people.</p>
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Also, if there is no God or morality is independent of Him, then "good" can't be truly intrinsic to the universe.
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First of all, that doesn't follow. Planck's constant need not be related to God to be "intrinsic to the universe", at least not without further explanation. Why can't "having universal moral laws" be a property of the universe in the same way that primeness is a property of seven, without further recourse to deities? You might be right about your assertion, but you've certainly given nobody any reason to think so.</p>
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[If there is no God, then morality] can only be defined by human minds, which lessens its significance and influence.
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I've never been a fan of the (specious and unsound) "If there were no God, life would be less meaningful than if there were one" argument. So what? If I had a million dollars, my life would be fuller of freedom and some kinds of happiness. Just that I prefer this state of affairs to the state of affairs in which I don't have a million dollars does not soundly justify the assumption that I have a million dollars. My desires don't pertain to the way reality should be. The argument for God or for the study of God via wishful thinking has always struck me as weak.</p>
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what good is philosophy to mathematics?
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<p>Briefly: it's good for studying exactly how many axioms suffice for deriving the mathematics we want, as well as how good we can ever hope mathematics to be (would mathematical theorems still work on another planet? how much of mathematics is an accident of the structure of our minds?) Most earth-shaking philosophy of mathematics is still done by mathematicians (see Godel's incompleteness theorems in Wikipedia). Bertrand Russell's "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy" is a very good book that answers your question more fully.</p>
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Because then His goodness is not a priori but arbitrary. This arbitrariness poses a problem for some people.
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<p>Arbitrariness and a priori are not mutually exclusive.</p>
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If I had a million dollars, my life would be fuller of freedom and some kinds of happiness.
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<p>I know this sounds obvious, but you cannot buy metaphysical freedom.</p>
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Bertrand Russell's "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy" is a very good book that answers your question more fully.
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<p>...or the seminal 'Principia Mathematica' co-authored Bertrand Russell and A.N. Whitehead.</p>
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Most earth-shaking philosophy of mathematics is still done by mathematicians (see Godel's incompleteness theorems in Wikipedia).
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<p>Technically, Gödel ruined the project of attempting to derive mathematical axioms from the principles of logic, which is why is famous proof was published in a text callled "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems." </p>
<p>If one wishes to peruse that text, then a good 'guide book' is "Gödel's Proof," written by Ernest Nagel.</p>
<p>As one of my professors is fond of noting, it is such a pity that Gödel's pamphlet dismantled what was an ambitious attempt to ground mathematics on logic. Given the wrath of Russell, I wonder how he reacted.</p>
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Technically, Gödel ruined the project of attempting to derive mathematical axioms from the principles of logic
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I gather this isn't supposed to be any kind of correction, since that was precisely what was so earth-shattering -- the realization that axiomatization had a fundamental shortcoming.</p>
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Also, if there is no God or morality is independent of Him, then "good" can't be truly intrinsic to the universe.
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<p>First of all, that doesn't follow. Planck's constant need not be related to God to be "intrinsic to the universe", at least not without further explanation. Why can't "having universal moral laws" be a property of the universe in the same way that primeness is a property of seven, without further recourse to deities? You might be right about your assertion, but you've certainly given nobody any reason to think so.
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<p>But if God created and sustains the Universe, isnt Plank's constant, by virtue of being intrinsic to the universe, dependent on God? Likewise the primeness of seven, another construct of God, would be dependent on God.</p>
<p>Yes, but the point is it doesn't have to be so. There are multiple ways for Planck's constant or having moral laws to be intrinsic properties of the universe, and everything being put there by God is only one such way. Nephilim asserted that morality can only be inherent in the universe in one way -- God put it there. I was saying that isn't so.</p>
<p>ok sorry misunderstood. what id say to that is that planck's constant or the primeness of the number seven are physical constants that can be verified externally. without god, however, moral laws can only be validated by individual opinion; without an omniscient creator (not that i necessarily believe in one) morality cannot be intrinsic.</p>
<p>Well, the primeness of the number seven has nothing to do with the physical world, but that's another story.</p>
<p>The main thrust of your post is roughly similar to J. L. Mackie's "argument from queerness" against the existence of moral absolutes. It's hard to imagine what a moral absolute would be if not someone's opinion. But just because it's hard to think of, philosophers do not necessarily admit it doesn't exist. Normativity could be something that just is -- universal laws about morality that permeate the universe, deities or not.</p>
<p>yes moral laws independent of man and god "could" exist, but just as you accuse the opposition of not proving exactly why, you have yet to say why or how they could exist. if all you're saying is that they could exist i wont argue but its still a very weak statement to make (anything "could" exist)</p>
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But just because it's hard to think of, philosophers do not necessarily admit it doesn't exist. Normativity could be something that just is -- universal laws about morality that permeate the universe, deities or not.
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<p>You and JSuresh are touching on an issue known as 'moral realism.' </p>
<p>I wish had my *Sources of Normativity<a href="Christine%20Korsgaard">/i</a> with me, because it contains the most coherent refutation of both realism, and Mackie's argument, while providing a strong neo-Kantian framework for her argument about the sources of normativity.</p>
<p>If I am not mistaken, though, the problem with moral realism is that it is question-begging, and any argument that obligations derive from divine doctrines goes into an infinite regress, so neither are adequate sources of normativity.</p>
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but how is divine morality regressive?
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<p>I believe the argument Korsgaard provided was against all theories that derive ethics from doctrines, which also subsumes divine doctrines. Her reasoning is as follows:</p>
<p>Say we live in a state:
Person 1: Why should I not punch kill person 3?
Person 2: Because it is immoral.
Person 1: Why should I be moral?
Person 2: Because the State commands you to do so.
Person 1: Why should I listen to the state?</p>
<p>The two participants can perpetually engage in this conversation. Now let us draw an analogy to divine doctrines...</p>
<p>Person 1: Why should I not punch kill person 3?
Person 2: Because it is immoral.
Person 1: Why should I be moral?
Person 2: Because the God commands you to do so.
Person 1: Why should I listen to God?</p>
<p>I certainly don't buy moral realism (so I wouldn't defend the ill-defined universe-permeating absolutes JSuresh finds dubious). I am also not a scholar of Mackie's work at a sufficient level to know how much there is in it to refute (many of his arguments are negative). But Korsgaard someimes makes sense, surely.</p>
<p>I myself am a "moral naturalist": my view is that moral rules derive from society's enforcement of certain norms (and yes, this entails moral relativism and a denial that there is such a thing as a categorical imperative). Any other philosophical analysis of morality suffers from the following problem. The philosopher goes through a lengthy (and usually unsound) argument explaining why there is a categorical imperative that binds you to do this and that. You say "so what?" and go on doing what you are doing.</p>
<p>Moral rules that are abstract and unenforced are irrelevant, and those that are enforced (through social punishments, guilty consciences, etc.) can be analyzed at the level of their manifestation, not in some needlessly abstract noumenal realm.</p>
<p>See Ken Binmore's Natural Justice for why Kant and his followers are mostly ridiculous.</p>
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The philosopher goes through a lengthy (and usually unsound) argument explaining why there is a categorical imperative that binds you to do this and that. You say "so what?" and go on doing what you are doing.
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<p>In its first formulation, the categorical imperative is simply an account of autonomy: be a law to yourself. That is what makes Korsgaard's arguments so good: if one is to be autonomous, the reasons for one's actions must be a law for the domain which that reason governs. </p>
<p>I do not have the materials with which to explicate Korsgaard's argument in its entirety, but my publication provides an accurate reconstruction of Korsgaard's argument, though in the context of evolution and the tacit reasons involved in acting.</p>
<p>I can send the article to those who are interested.</p>