Quote from: SigmundBecause apparently it's in my nature to want to help those I perceive to be missing something. Because I know what they are missing when they don't.

You do realize that's exactly what motivates many Christians to try to convert atheists, right?

Quote from: SigmundBy my own life experience. What do you use to measure the quality of experiences? Perhaps you can tell me specifically what you think they gain by their lack of guilt remorse, and capacity for emotional attachment that improves the quality of their lives to the point that lacking meaningful relationships with other people would be worth it.

What they gain is the ability to take advantage of others for personal gains without feeling remorse.  They never have to worry about feeling obliged to compromise with others and can always apply their full effort to achieving what they want.  And since they don't feel remorse for moral infractions against others, there is a tremendous amount of grief they don't have to deal with in their lives.  In fact, narcissism and high-self esteem are quite common is psychopaths.  Yes, they leave a trail of destruction in their wake but they don't feel bad about it.

Now, I think they are pretty awful, if not evil, and I suspect you do, too.  But from their perspective, looking only what it does for them, it seems to be a pretty good deal so long as they can learn to fake it well enough to fit in.  So if you try to base an argument that psychopaths are bad on the basis of what it does to the quality of their lives, that probably won't get you anywhere.

Quote from: SigmundI guess my lack of formal education is causing me to miss something here. Lets say, for arguement's sake, that assessment can't be supported simply on rational grounds. What does that have to do with the value of life, either one's own or the lives of others? Why do you value life, if indeed you do?

Well, I believe in God, don't argue that there is a strong line between reason and faith, and don't have a problem with the emotional component of morality (in fact, I think it's a more important component than the rational part, which is why I think Greene is wrong) so that provides me with a somewhat different perspective.  I've taken a leap of faith and I know it.

There are non-religious versions of the leap of faith.  For example, you can assume that evolution gave you those non-rational emotions for a good reason.  You can also always do what I suspect most people do, which is just not think about it too much and go with what feels right.  If you aren't a psychopath, you'll have to fight those feelings, anyway, to do otherwise.  Or maybe you could study philosophy and come up with some moral structure that seems correct to you  But, ultimately, you have to tell me what it means for you.  I'm not trying to convince you to be a psychopath.  

Quote from: SigmundLots of people want lots of things that can't have and often don't even understand. So what? I wouldn't mind being charming and likeable myself, but I wouldn't ever want to give up my capacity for empathy and emotional attachment to get those traits.

That's because you value those things.  The psychopath can't miss what they've never had and can't understand.

Quote from: SigmundBesides, psychopaths aren't really likeable and charming,  what they are is manipulative and dishonest. They only seem to be charming and likeable.

No, I think they really are charming.  In fact, one article I've read says that people, for example, of find the cold emotionless stare of the psychopath "cool" and attractive, perhaps because it makes them appear confident or, perhaps, complex.  Being manipulative and dishonest do not preclude a person being likable and charming.  Do I really need to give you examples from sports, entertainment, and politics?  Think about why so many manipulative and selfish narcissists become famous and adored by millions.

Quote from: SigmundI think I've already agreed with you that "morality" isn't rational. I don't agree that it's irrational, but I do agree it isn't rational. I also don't believe in the "supernatural", so I don't agree there. Are you trying to say that someone lacking in a belief in the supernatural isn't capable of developing morality?

No.  I believe you can be moral without being religious.  I think that explaining why you are moral without being religious is the interesting part, if you care.  If you don't care and just accept that your morality needs no explanation, then you probably don't have a problem.  But you may have a problem explaining it to anyone else unless you understand it.

Quote from: SigmundWell, obviously the bible doesn't "auto-convert", I've read it and I certainly wasn't converted. I just don't understand what that has to do with the bible's validity.

I was under the impression that you were expecting an overwhelming proof of the Bible's validity? That's not what you get. Jesus' parables, the bible and so forth are all designed to be understood exclusively by his target audience.

QuoteThe reason the bible was compiled was because Emperor Constantine wanted a unified state religion and felt an "official" religious text would be instrumental in that.

He sent out the invitations, but the attendees had their own motives. In any case, just because an Emperor wants something doesn't mean history unfolds that way -- Arianism for example.

QuoteThat's part of my point. How do we know with reasonable certainty whether they excluded rightly? What made what was excluded less valid and why should I trust that they were qualified to judge that when a few centuries had past since Jesus lived?

Off the top of my head, you could look at the source of the documents (Are excluded texts are younger and/or mis-attributed?), the orthodoxy of the documents (Would monotheists really believe in 'a second God') the reputation of the church fathers (if they're not up to the task, who is?), archeology and so forth. In some cases you can read the excluded gospels for yourself and decide on your own if they're Bible congruent.

Quote from: Akrasia*sigh*  
The simple fact is that many Christian philosophers and theologians have taken the POE argument very seriously throughout the ages and even today.  I seem to understand what they're saying, their attempts to respond to the argument, etc.  Their understanding of 'God' appears to be challenged by the argument.

(emphasis mine)
That's exactly my point. It's not a challenge to their belief in God's existence it's a challenge to their understanding of God. :teacher:

QuoteI've had 'real life' discussions with Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish philosophers on this topic.  Based on this accumulated experience, I simply do not buy your attempt to 'wave away' the argument because you think that the POE argument doesn't address your conception of God.

You don't buy anybody's attempt -- it's your blind spot. After all, I'm not the first one point out the discrepancy to you in this thread.

Quote:confused:
How could it be a 'choice' if I don't have any sense of 'revelation'? Where is it located?  How do I 'exercise' it?  How do I distinguish it from 'wishful thinking'?

It is a choice because you have the option to seek God. It is objectively located in the teachings of the Church and subjectively as an intrinsic part of your personhood. It is exercised through prayer and distinguished from 'wishful thinking' by achieving actual positive results. (i.e. 'by bearing fruits' as we like to say.)

QuoteHey man, go ahead and believe in pixies, Santa Claus, unicorns, astrology, or God.  Whatever.  I'm not trying take away your right to believe false things.

Actually I said  'beauty of math,  God and  love for my wife and kids.' but thanks for not depriving me of the right to believe in those 'false' things.

QuoteIt has an 'emotional' component, of course.  But if by 'spiritual' you mean something supernatural in nature, well then I know that I've never experienced that.

So we agree that faith and rational justification are both based on emotion and our personal supernatural experiences or lack thereof? That suits me just fine.

Quote from: SigmundThe reason the bible was compiled was because Emperor Constantine wanted a unified state religion and felt an "official" religious text would be instrumental in that.

True, but misleading.  The Council of Nicene picked the wrong version of Christianity from Constantine's point of view and, by the standards of his time, Constantine didn't become a Christian until his deathbed and it's even possible he was baptised against his will

Quote from: AkrasiaBut it did and does challenge (at least many of) those serious Christian thinkers who are aware of it (including some of the most important philosophers and theologians in the Cathlolic tradition).

What do you mean by "challenge"?

Certainly it continues to make me think about my notions about good and evil, freedom, God and all that jazz

But shake my faith? The idea that you can argue someone into or out of faith is ridiculous.  This isn't what this argument is for.  Look at who came up with it!

Quote from: AkrasiaRight, theologians 'beg the question' in favour of the existence of God when it comes to analysing the POE argument(s), whereas philosophers don't.  Fair enough.

Well yeah.  Theology means "words about God" after all

Quote from: John MorrowBut to evaluate the value and justification of using emotions to deliberate "What to do?" (the "practical reason"), doesn't one have to engage in "theoretical reason"?

Sure, when deliberating about 'what to do' one obviously has to draw on one's beliefs!  But that obvious fact does not undermine the basic distinction at all.

Quote from: John MorrowAnd the problem with that argument, is that such arguments are often not accessible to the theoretical reason of psychopaths, not because their is any deficiency in their reasoning but because of an emotional deficiency.  They can understand the logic and reasoning of your moral arguments just fine, yet they will not find the argument convincing, compelling, or even particularly sensible because they lack the emotions that are necessary to understand the assumptions and premises of the argument.

If they can 'understand the logic and reasoning of your moral arguments just fine' then I don't see why the psychopath is in any way a challenge to the very general position that I'm defending.

They understand (via theoretical reason) the relevant concepts and arguments, but lack the motivation to act in accordance with them (deficient practical reason), or to view them as binding on them.

 

Quote from: John MorrowAnd that's fine, but it also doesn't explain why this particular theory is better than any other moral theory or even no theory at all.

Well it's better than 'no theory at all' because it tries to provide an explanation of moral discourse (which manifestly exists, whether it refers to fictional entities, rationally-justifiable rules, natural properties, or whatever).  

As for its merits relative to other theories, that is a huge separate debate!  (I personally don't think it's the strongest view going at all; as I already explained, I only mentioned it because it's relatively straightforward.)

Quote from: John MorrowIt's relevant to the question of whether certain concepts of morality work as advertised.

Most contemporary moral theories don't hold that there is any necessary connection between being moral and being happy.

Quote from: John MorrowCorrect, but even those who believe in "cunning knaves" often don't believe that the cunning knave has no conscience at all.

No, that's not true of many of the classic discussions in the history of moral philosophy.

Quote from: John MorrowIn other words, you are assuming that there is some intrinsic value to (A) being like everyone else and (B) ever member of a species being held to the same standard.  Neither of those is necessarily true.

I'm not assuming anything of the sort (and apologise if I created that impression).

My point was merely that there is a good reason why most people have strong emotions concerning fairness, etc., and why, collectively, we try to impose such norms on the people with whom we live (including – and perhaps especially – people like psychopaths).  We want to impose moral principles on ourselves for the sake of our collective well being, even on people who fail to be motivated by those principles (indeed, particularly against such individuals).

Quote from: John MorrowWhat if your practical reason tells you that killing your neighbor is wrong but your theoretical reason tells you that there is nothing inherently bad about doing so?

In the case of prima facie conflicts like that, one would need to take a step back and reconsider the available reasons, evidence, etc. in order to achieve an overall balance or 'reflective equilibrium'.  There's obviously more to be said about this, but one important thing to keep in mind is that individual failures to reason well (which might lead to such conflicts) hardly impugn the overall distinction.

Quote from: John MorrowThe second response to the first aspect, "rather than positing that moral facts are necessarily motivating in their nature, they only tend to be so," is directly refuted by psychopaths.

Not at all!  The whole point is that (according to the view under consideration) moral facts only tend to be motivating (for properly situated human agents, etc.).  

The fact that psychopaths fail to be so motivated is thus not in any way a problem for the view!

 

Quote from: John Morrow... In other words, intuition may reflect mathematics but the mathematics don't cease to exist if we eliminate the intuition.  The psychopath suggests that if we eliminate the intuition for moral reasoning, then then morality itself disappears....

Why?  This makes sense only if you're an internalist about morality, that is, only if you assume that morality necessarily must motivated people.

But that's the very thing that externalists like moral realists deny!  (Thus the analogy to mathematics, on their view, is entirely apt with respect to psychopaths – just as mathematical propositions can be true even if certain people are incapable of apprehending them, so too moral propositions can be true even if certain people are incapable of being moved by them.)

Quote from: John MorrowThis suggests a much more direct and dependent relationship between intuition and moral thought than between intuition and mathematics.

No, you're assuming this – you're imposing a kind of internalism on a view (moral realism) that is externalist in nature.

Quote from: John MorrowIn short, plug the psychopath into almost every one of those responses and they seem to contradict the claims being made.

Look, based on your replies, it is clear that you're not engaging the view 'moral realism' at all (especially since you keep presupposing some form of internalism in your replies).

Quote from: John MorrowThe paper specifically addresses moral rationalism.

Wow.  No wonder there's some misunderstanding going on here.  

'Moral rationalism' is not the same thing as 'moral realism'!  The link I gave you was to some possible 'moral realist' replies to Mackie's moral scepticism.  NOT 'moral rationalist' replies.

More generally, I see now that one thing that is undermining your entire argument is that you're presupposing that it is a necessary condition for something to count as a moral theory that it be committed to a very rationalistic version of internalism.  This is a mistake.

Quote from: malleus arianorumThat's exactly my point. It's not a challenge to their belief in God's existence it's a challenge to their understanding of God.

Well, you'll have to excuse me if I take Aquinas's and other leading Christian philosophers' accounts of God somewhat more seriously than yours, especially since it remains unclear what exactly your conception consists in (all you've done throughout this thread is whine about people's proposed definitions of 'omnipotence', etc.).  In other words, if the conception of God presupposed by most versions of the POE argument is not the same one as the Christian God, then what is the 'Christian God'?  If the Christian God just ends up being a really powerful (not all-power), morally decent (not all-good), somewhat knowledgeable (not all-knowing) deity, then how exactly does he differ from someone like Zeus (aside from being lonely)?  How would such an imperfect God cohere with the claims made about God in the Bible (and especially the New Testament)?

In any case, the POE argument is only one of the many reasons that I have for thinking that the Christian God is only marginally more believable than Odin or Zeus.  Ironically, I mentioned it near the beginning of this thread as merely one example, and not the sole argument available, but it quickly became the focus of the thread.

Quote from: malleus arianorumYou don't buy anybody's attempt -- it's your blind spot. After all, I'm not the first one point out the discrepancy to you in this thread.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here (well, aside from the fact that you're trying to insult me somehow).

Quote from: malleus arianorumIt is a choice because you have the option to seek God. It is objectively located in the teachings of the Church and subjectively as an intrinsic part of your personhood. It is exercised through prayer and distinguished from 'wishful thinking' by achieving actual positive results. (i.e. 'by bearing fruits' as we like to say.)

How can something be an 'intrinsic part of my personhood' if I cannot detect it?   This is like saying 'psionic powers' are an intrinsic part of my personhood.  Please show me where I can find this 'intrinsic part' of myself.  I'd like to see it.

Also, what 'positive results' are you referring to in order to distinguish one's subjective experiences of 'revelation' from 'wishful thinking'?  It's well known that people who engage in 'wishful thinking' are often quite happy – their false beliefs (formed by such wishful thinking) give them comfort, etc.  

If you have some objective way to distinguish between 'revelation' and 'wishful thinking' I'd love to see it.

Quote from: malleus arianorumActually I said  'beauty of math,  God and  love for my wife and kids.' but thanks for not depriving me of the right to believe in those 'false' things.

Your feelings of 'love' obviously exist.  In the case of your 'love' for God, though, it's something you feel towards a fictional entity.  But carry on, if you like.  I'm not trying to take away your right to feel such things for fictional entities.

Quote from: malleus arianorumSo we agree that faith and rational justification are both based on emotion and our personal supernatural experiences or lack thereof? That suits me just fine.

No, I don't understand where you're getting this at all.  Where did I say that 'rational justification' is based on 'supernatural experiences'?  Please.  

Moreover, while I concede that -- when engaging in deliberation about 'what to do' in particular circumstances -- one's emotions can play an important role (given the kind of biological creatures that we are), I most definitely do not think that when forming beliefs about the nature of the universe we should rely on anything other than evidence and rational justification.

In short, there's no agreement at all here.  You believe in supernatural experiences, I don't.  You believe in forming beliefs about the nature of the universe on the basis of such experiences and one's emotions.  I don't.

Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon... But shake my faith? The idea that you can argue someone into or out of faith is ridiculous.  This isn't what this argument is for.  Look at who came up with it!...

Epicurus originally came up with the argument (since he was a materialist, his own view was that the gods exist, but are powerful material entities who could not care less about human beings).  His aim was to get people to stop worshipping the gods.

Anyhow, I don't know why you think that the 'the idea that you can argue someone into or out of faith' is 'ridiculous'.

I used to be a devout Christian, and it was through consideration of various arguments (not merely the POE -- indeed, I did not become aware of it fully until after I had abandoned Christianity) that I eventually become an atheist.  I know a number of other people who have had similar experiences.   So obviously there are people who have been 'argued out of faith'.

However, you might be right that arguments alone cannot convince one to become faithful.

Quote from: AkrasiaEpicurus originally came up with the argument (since he was a materialist, his own view was that the gods exist, but are powerful material entities who could not care less about human beings).  His aim was to get people to stop worshipping the gods.

Whoops, I thought it was St. Augustine.  Dunno why

Quote from: AkrasiaAnyhow, I don't know why you think that the 'the idea that you can argue someone into or out of faith' is 'ridiculous'.

Because the existence of God is not a falsifiable proposition:  "The Way that can be spoken of is not the true Way."

(or if you'd prefer a Christian formulation: "Those who know don't have the words to tell/And the ones with the words don't know so well.")

Intellectual argument can make the gap larger or smaller but ultimately it's a leap of faith

Quote from: AkrasiaI used to be a devout Christian, and it was through consideration of various arguments (not merely the POE -- indeed, I did not become aware of it fully until after I had abandoned Christianity) that I eventually become an atheist.

May I take a guess at what age this occured? Teens? Early twenties at the latest? Were your parents (or possibly significant friends during your teenage years) also Christians?

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonBecause the existence of God is not a falsifiable proposition:  "The Way that can be spoken of is not the true Way."

The existence/nonexistence of specific god concepts tied to deeds or certain qualities is.

Quote from: AkrasiaWell, you'll have to excuse me if I take Aquinas's and other leading Christian philosophers' accounts of God somewhat more seriously than yours, especially since it remains unclear what exactly your conception consists in (all you've done throughout this thread is whine about people's proposed definitions of 'omnipotence', etc.). In other words, if the conception of God presupposed by most versions of the POE argument is not the same one as the Christian God, then what is the 'Christian God'?

Why?  Leading Christian philosophers can't even agree on which translation of the Bible to use or the interpretation of what's said in the Bible they are using.  A Catholic and a Jehovah's Witness have very different views of what the Bible actually teaches.  A Jehovah's Witness believes that the more suffering that is happening the closer we are getting to Jehovah establishing a perfect kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.  So they believe Jehovah allows for suffering in order for a greater good in Jehovah's time frame.

So then the PoE comes back to challenging the individual's interpretation of the Bible and hence God.

Quote from: AkrasiaMy point was merely that there is a good reason why most people have strong emotions concerning fairness, etc., and why, collectively, we try to impose such norms on the people with whom we live (including – and perhaps especially – people like psychopaths).  We want to impose moral principles on ourselves for the sake of our collective well being, even on people who fail to be motivated by those principles (indeed, particularly against such individuals).

And I think the research on moral decisions shows that we really don't impose moral principles on ourselves for our collective well being.  In fact, as Greene points out, those strong emotions often tell us to do the wrong thing from a "collective well being" standpoint.  We want to impose moral principles on ourselves and others because those emotions compel us to.  And once you remove those emotions, the desire to impose those moral principles on ourselves and others also disappears.  If the reasons for imposing those moral principles on ourselves and others were really "good", as you seem to be claiming, they could motivate a psychopath.  It is not simply that those moral principles fail to motivate the psychopath on rational grounds but they can't motivate the psychopath because they are not truly rational.

Quote from: AkrasiaIn the case of prima facie conflicts like that, one would need to take a step back and reconsider the available reasons, evidence, etc. in order to achieve an overall balance or 'reflective equilibrium'.  There's obviously more to be said about this, but one important thing to keep in mind is that individual failures to reason well (which might lead to such conflicts) hardly impugn the overall distinction.

Why does the conflict have to be the result of the failure to reason well?  Why can't the conflict be caused by the emotional response being irrational or simply groundless (arational)?  If you read the Discover Magazine article on moral decisions, it suggests that many tough moral decisions where people will give different answers are the result of a conflict between the rational and emotional.  That suggests that the conflict between practical and theoretical frequently plays out in people's minds and the resolution is not achieved by reconsidering the reasons and evidence nor is an "overall balance" the objective.  The conflict is normally resolved by which response carries the most force in a person's brain such that you can get a person to give you different answers for a moral problem that is the same from a dispassionate perspective simply by adjusting a person's emotional distance from the problem.

Quote from: AkrasiaNot at all!  The whole point is that (according to the view under consideration) moral facts only tend to be motivating (for properly situated human agents, etc.).

The fact that psychopaths fail to be so motivated is thus not in any way a problem for the view!

The point that the psychopath demonstrates is that they are not motivating for rational reasons or because of the strength of the evidence but because of an emotional response.  Thus your moral facts will only tend to motivate a person who shares the same emotional response to the moral facts, making them entirely subjective because they are all, at their core, attempts to explain rationally what is an arational emotional response.  

It's like trying to convince someone that they love someone.  If they already do love the person, it's possible to make them realize it but if they just don't and won't love the person, no amount of rational argument that they should love the person is going to change that.  The best you can do is explain why a person loves another person but trying to argue that they should or shouldn't love someone is a fool's errand.

Quote from: AkrasiaWhy?  This makes sense only if you're an internalist about morality, that is, only if you assume that morality necessarily must motivated people.

I think that your focus on "motivation" is obscuring a different distinction that I'm trying to make. According to the research discussed on that article, moral decisions are made based on a consideration of the rational issues involved and an emotional evaluation of the issues involved.  It is possible to have the emotional response yet not be motivated by it.  For example, one might feel sympathy for the innocent victims of war yet still feel that a war is justified.  In that case, the moral sense is present but does not sufficiently motivate the person to be a pacifist.

What I'm talking about (and what I think the psychopath illustrates) is something different.  If you eliminate the emotional component entirely (or change it significantly), what is or isn't a moral issue changes such that your moral fact might not be a moral issue at all.  That's why the title of that paper is, "Is It Irrational to Be Amoral?"  And if it is rational to be amoral, that raises the question of what makes morality rational.

As that paper discusses:

"In order to explain the nature of the psychopath's deficit in moral judgment, we will need to review some recent work in moral psychology.  In the empirical literature, the capacity for moral judgment has perhaps been most directly approached by exploring the basic capacity to distinguish moral violations (e.g., hitting another person) from conventional violations (e.g., playing with your food). [...]  What is striking about this literature is that, from a young age, children distinguish the cases of moral violations from the conventional violations on a number of dimensions. For instance, children tend to think that moral transgressions are generally less permissible and more serious than conventional transgressions.  And the explanations for why moral transgressions are wrong are given in terms of fairness and harm to victims, whereas the explanation for why conventional transgressions are wrong is given in terms of social acceptability. Further, conventional rules, unlike moral rules, are viewed as dependent on authority.  For instance, if the teacher at another school has no rule against chewing gum, children will judge that it's not wrong for a person to chew gum at that school; but even if the teacher at another school has no rule against hitting, children claim that it's still wrong for a person to hit at that school.  Indeed, a fascinating study on Amish teenagers indicates that moral wrongs are not even regarded as dependent on God's authority. Nucci (1986) found that 100% of a group of Amish teenagers said that if God had made no rule against working on Sunday, it would not be wrong to work on Sunday.  However, more than 80% of these subjects said that even if God had made no rule about hitting, it would still be wrong to hit."

For the psychopath, all transgressions are viewed as conventional violations.  There are no moral violations.  What this suggests as if you eliminate the emotional component of moral decisions, there are no moral violations, thus morality, itself, is an artifact or byproduct of that emotional response and does not, and can not, exist independently of it.  Thus no matter how sophisticated or logical your philosophical theory of morality is, and regardless of whether it actually motivates or not, it's meaningless to a person who does not have the prerequisite emotional responses that it's built to justify.  And this is why Greene, coming at the same problem from a different angle but also based on moral psychology and brain physiology, talks about such arguments as "Why do I say it's wrong? Because it's clearly just wrong. Isn't that plain to see? It's as if you're putting a lemon in front of me and asking me why I say it's yellow. What more is there to say?"  

In other words, it often seems more likely that a person is going to latch on to a moral philosophy that seems to explain what they feel than it is that they'll be convinced by moral philosophy to change their morality because the philosophy is limited in how much in can change how a person feels about moral issues.  The best it can hope to do is help the rational mind scream more loudly by persuading a person to become more emotionally detached from moral problems, but the evidence suggests that's not only unreliable but emotionally detaching a person from moral problems is exactly what makes the psychopath so evil in the context of prevailing morality, which assumes a common set of emotional responses.

It all comes down to how you feel, not what you think.  And while you may try to frame your arguments as what's best for "the sake of our collective well being", the reason why you even care about "our collective well being" is emotional, not rational, no matter how much logical verbiage you wrap it in.  

Quote from: AkrasiaBut that's the very thing that externalists like moral realists deny!  (Thus the analogy to mathematics, on their view, is entirely apt with respect to psychopaths – just as mathematical propositions can be true even if certain people are incapable of apprehending them, so too moral propositions can be true even if certain people are incapable of being moved by them.)

It is not simply that the psychopath isn't moved by them.  It is that when the psychopath, who has the rational capacity to understand the argument, looks at the moral argument, it is illogical to them.  In other words, all of those philosophical arguments are built on an emotional foundation.  Kick out the foundation, which has no rational basis, and the whole argument collapses.  The whole argument begs the question.  If you don't already feel the conclusion sounds reasonable, the argument isn't going to persuade you that it is.  It's not the logical that make a person think it's reasonable but the emotional agreement with it.

Quote from: AkrasiaNo, you're assuming this – you're imposing a kind of internalism on a view (moral realism) that is externalist in nature.

Think of it as questioning whether the evidence supports the claim that morality can be "externalist in nature".

Quote from: AkrasiaMore generally, I see now that one thing that is undermining your entire argument is that you're presupposing that it is a necessary condition for something to count as a moral theory that it be committed to a very rationalistic version of internalism.  This is a mistake.

I don't think it's a mistake, nor do I think it undermines my argument if you don't presuppose that the externalism theories that you favor are true and internalism theories that you don't are false.  In other words, if you are wrong and morality does require some form of internalism, then I'm not the one making the mistake.

Both Greene and Nichols are looking at moral psychology and physiology -- what the experimentally gathered evidence shows about how people make moral decisions.  Greene might talk about the "anterior insula" and "prefrontal cortex" and Nichols might talk about "moral violations" and "conventional violations" but they are both essentially describing the same thing -- roughly an emotional response and a reasoned response.  What this suggests that what makes an issue a moral issue in the first place is the emotional response.  If you have no emotional response, morality is incomprehensible, not simply insufficiently motivating, because it's not logical or rational in the first place.  It's emotional and arational.  

The psychopath doesn't fail to be motivated by moral arguments (which is how you keep framing it).  The psychopath finds moral arguments illogical or even irrational on a purely rational level free of emotional interference (or at least the conventional emotional interference).  And it looks like the problem is not that they have any rational defect that would prevent them from understanding the logical or rationality of a moral argument (they seem quote able to do that) but that the problem lies in the argument no making logical sense without the emotional component being present.

What seems so self-evidently valuable to you for things like "the sake of our collective well being" is only valuable because you feel it's valuable.  Any attempt to justify your feelings rationally will only persuade those already predisposed toward feeling the same way about them as you do.  And this is why the philosophies that you keep trying to claim as slam dunks that should persuade people that you are right roll off of people in this thread (and even people much more qualified to debate philosophy with you) as if you were telling them that logic is a pretty flower that smells bad.  If they don't share the same feelings about the argument that you do, the argument not only doesn't motivate emotionally but doesn't persuade rationally.

Quote from: AkrasiaI used to be a devout Christian, and it was through consideration of various arguments (not merely the POE -- indeed, I did not become aware of it fully until after I had abandoned Christianity) that I eventually become an atheist.  I know a number of other people who have had similar experiences.   So obviously there are people who have been 'argued out of faith'.

Out of curiosity, what kind of "devout Christian" were you?  I ask because you keep insisting on very specific interpretations of Christianity.  In my experience, it is the people with the most rigid and inflexible views of Christianity (e.g., the importance of Biblical inerrancy to Bart Ehrman's faith) that most easily have their faith crushed because their faith isn't faith, per se, but a belief built upon certain external evidence.  

For example, if one believes that the Bible is the word of God and contains no errors and then is confronted with evidence of Biblical errors, as Bart Ehrman was, they can abandon their belief in God if their belief in God required the Bible be error free (as Bart Ehrman apparently did) or they could accept that maybe their belief that the Bible contains no errors is wrong and not throw the baby out with the bath water.  Plenty of people do the latter.  And despite your using various Christian philosophers as ultimate authorities on authentic Christianity, as Balbinus mentioned in the thread on Muslim characters:

Quote from: BalbinusAlso, a lot of religious people I encounter are kind of soft religious as it were, they have a degree of faith but worry little about whether they are in line with orthodox dogma of that faith.  I've met plenty of Christians who figured god would reward anyone basically good and gave it little thought in terms of what their church said on the topic (my grandmother, a devout Catholic, takes basically this view) and tons of Muslims who thought Allah wouldn't mind the occasional drink as long as you didn't overdo it.

These folk considered themselves Christians, Muslims, whatever, but again it didn't vastly change their behaviour.  They just figured god or allah was a bit easier going than their churches said.

So I'm curious whether your faith hinged on a particular theological point or was based upon your personal experience of God/Jesus/The Trinity, etc. and what caused your belief to fail.

Quote from: GRIMThe existence/nonexistence of specific god concepts tied to deeds or certain qualities is.

I'm a mystic of the Via Negativa.  You'll have a hard time convincing me that any concept of God can properly map onto God or that we can fully understand any of His qualities

In other words, if it's a concept of God, it ain't God

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonIn other words, if it's a concept of God, it ain't God

How handy

In which case it ain't anything. Problem solved!