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MadArchitect 
Upper Echelon
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
Posts: 2609
Gender: 
Location: decentralized
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 Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:46 pm Post subject: Re: Ch. 2 - "God and Morality"
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riverc0il: that sounds different than the way it was worded in the book.
Karamazov's thesis runs: "If God does not exist, then all things are permitted."
regardless, the author does a good job of falsifying the thesis as worded above. we have an obligation to our fellow man when we make a promise or agreement or contract.
That shouldn't be confused for an intrinsic obligation, though. Historically, oaths and contracts are protected by the gods -- that's certainly true in Classical Greek religion, and there's probably an equivalent in Judeo-Christian religion as well. Without that background, there's no objective obligation to maintain a promise of agreement -- it's by convention only that we hold to our word. But it seems to me that Wielenberg is arguing for intrinsic and objective obligations, particularly obligations that arise from the character of our relationships.
society itself is proof that obligations exist else the entire country would crash down upon itself in disorder and chaos.
It's proof that obligations are observed, more often than not, but it doesn't vouchsafe their independent existence.
but there is an unwritten and unspoken social contract for everyone that associates with others that does obligate ourselves to certain things.
Ooh, there's a little Rousseau behind that statement. The Social Contract is a myth in the sense of a useful story. It doesn't point to any sort of natural state of things.
JulianTheApostate: My strongest ethical principles are self-evident and intrinsic. At a visceral level, I believe that torturing babies is wrong (to use E.W.'s example). That belief is an emotional response, not a "rationally derived rule of conduct in service of a particular goal".
If it's an emotional response, then it's only intrinsic in the context of your own psychology, correct? There are others for whom torturing babies has not emotional value, so for those people it would not be an intrinsic ethical principle, it seems. Is there a basis for asserting such principles as objective, or must they be purely subjective? It seems to me that Wielenberg is arguing for objective validity.
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