DominicBunnell
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Ethics and the Afterlife
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@DominicBunnell
Sure! But that all is not really secular :) I am just talking about Maitzens argument.
I could also imagine a world with "non-moral properties" (moral realism) and and afterlife, for example.
Sure! But that all is not really secular :) I am just talking about Maitzens argument.
I could also imagine a world with "non-moral properties" (moral realism) and and afterlife, for example.
DominicBunnell
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@Xissy
Maitzen is a hardcore atheist, and of course he wants to frame all of this in terms of atheism-vs-theism. I'm not interested in doing that, and as I've already told you, I definitely don't agree with everything he says in his article. I do, however, agree with him that our moral intuitions about death and killing presuppose that there is no afterlife. So please stop changing the subject, and try to deal this argument.
Maitzen is a hardcore atheist, and of course he wants to frame all of this in terms of atheism-vs-theism. I'm not interested in doing that, and as I've already told you, I definitely don't agree with everything he says in his article. I do, however, agree with him that our moral intuitions about death and killing presuppose that there is no afterlife. So please stop changing the subject, and try to deal this argument.
@DominicBunnell
Why should I deal with the argument? I don't find it conclusive and I (and others here) have stated why. Moral intuitions are not compatible with some forms of "no afterlife" (naturalism) either. Our INTUITIONS don't presuppose that there is no afterlife - they are just there. And on the other hand they are compatible with some forms of afterlife (moral realism, god and so on) as well. Therefore afterlife is not the crucial thing here.
Why should I deal with the argument? I don't find it conclusive and I (and others here) have stated why. Moral intuitions are not compatible with some forms of "no afterlife" (naturalism) either. Our INTUITIONS don't presuppose that there is no afterlife - they are just there. And on the other hand they are compatible with some forms of afterlife (moral realism, god and so on) as well. Therefore afterlife is not the crucial thing here.
Haruhi
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Look, even the most plausible is that there is a personal afterlife, due to certain facts as the vast majority of people do not contact their deceased loved ones, but they act independently on this topic, we can not change our body as who is changing clothes, etc., our ethics may remain intact and your criticism is unfounded.
DominicBunnell
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@Xissy
I wish you'd stop going on about naturalism. I'm perfectly happy to concede that naturalism can't explain consciousness, free-will, logic and maths, and objective moral facts. That's not the point at issue. The point at issue is whether a worldview that includes us having an afterlife can be made to fit together with our intuitions about death and killing.
I wish you'd stop going on about naturalism. I'm perfectly happy to concede that naturalism can't explain consciousness, free-will, logic and maths, and objective moral facts. That's not the point at issue. The point at issue is whether a worldview that includes us having an afterlife can be made to fit together with our intuitions about death and killing.
@DominicBull
But that is exactly the argument here. I agree with you that an afterlife might pose some moral questions. But I just want to show that the problems you are talking about are not "afterlife-exclusive". Therefore Maitzens argument, that our intuition leads to "non-afterlife"/a secular world, is too narrowly considered.
But that is exactly the argument here. I agree with you that an afterlife might pose some moral questions. But I just want to show that the problems you are talking about are not "afterlife-exclusive". Therefore Maitzens argument, that our intuition leads to "non-afterlife"/a secular world, is too narrowly considered.
DominicBunnell
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@Xissy
I just don't think you guys are appreciating how much of a paradigm shift it would be if the afterlife were a scientifically established fact. Many people probably feel intuitively that the existence of the afterlife would threaten their deepest moral beliefs about death and killing, and indeed this may be one reason why there's so much resistance to the idea.
In any case, let's get back to my example of walking up to someone in the street and killing them. My moral intuitions scream out to me that this is a terrible act. Nonetheless, there are circumstances, even from within a this-worldly ethics, where the act could be right all-things-considered. For example, it could be that someone has told you that he will kill two thousand people unless you perform this act, and I'm sure we could come up with other similarly bizarre hypothetical situations.
So, I've been very careful with my language so far. I've never said that it's always definitely wrong to kill a stranger in the street according to a this-worldly ethics. There are bizarre situations where almost any act could be justified.
But when you put the afterlife into the mix, everything becomes subject to doubt and skepticism. Even when there are no bizarre circumstances in the background, we still don't know whether it's wrong to walk up to someone in the street and kill them. We don't have any straightforward cases that we can all agree about, and so it's hard to see how ethics can even get going. And so there's a very real worry that radical skepticism and moral paralysis will result.
I just don't think you guys are appreciating how much of a paradigm shift it would be if the afterlife were a scientifically established fact. Many people probably feel intuitively that the existence of the afterlife would threaten their deepest moral beliefs about death and killing, and indeed this may be one reason why there's so much resistance to the idea.
In any case, let's get back to my example of walking up to someone in the street and killing them. My moral intuitions scream out to me that this is a terrible act. Nonetheless, there are circumstances, even from within a this-worldly ethics, where the act could be right all-things-considered. For example, it could be that someone has told you that he will kill two thousand people unless you perform this act, and I'm sure we could come up with other similarly bizarre hypothetical situations.
So, I've been very careful with my language so far. I've never said that it's always definitely wrong to kill a stranger in the street according to a this-worldly ethics. There are bizarre situations where almost any act could be justified.
But when you put the afterlife into the mix, everything becomes subject to doubt and skepticism. Even when there are no bizarre circumstances in the background, we still don't know whether it's wrong to walk up to someone in the street and kill them. We don't have any straightforward cases that we can all agree about, and so it's hard to see how ethics can even get going. And so there's a very real worry that radical skepticism and moral paralysis will result.
@DominicBunnell
I am not sure if there was a paradigm shift. Maybe. But I guess that most people just act "as they feel it is right" anyway.
It's all ok you are talking about. All I say is that it is subject to doubt and scepticism anyway, even in the case of a totally secular world (without some higher "moral instance"). Therefore it is not the afterlife alone, which is problematic.
I am not sure if there was a paradigm shift. Maybe. But I guess that most people just act "as they feel it is right" anyway.
It's all ok you are talking about. All I say is that it is subject to doubt and scepticism anyway, even in the case of a totally secular world (without some higher "moral instance"). Therefore it is not the afterlife alone, which is problematic.
Haruhi
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Did not you read my comment? As is the actual evidence, our ethics does not change by accept a form of afterlife.
DominicBunnell
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@Xissy and Haruhi
Yeah, I take your point that we might all have some hard-wired moral sense that tells us that it's wrong to kill a stranger in the street, and no amount of abstract philosophy can change this. But remember that I'm imagining a time when we all just know that there's an afterlife and take it for granted as an ordinary everyday fact of life.
I didn't mean to suggest that there's a perfectly simple and straightforward this-worldly ethics on the one hand and a totally muddled and confused other-worldly ethics on the other. This-worldly ethics has its fair share of confusion and paradox. I just think adding the afterlife would make things a hell of a lot worse.
Yeah, I take your point that we might all have some hard-wired moral sense that tells us that it's wrong to kill a stranger in the street, and no amount of abstract philosophy can change this. But remember that I'm imagining a time when we all just know that there's an afterlife and take it for granted as an ordinary everyday fact of life.
I didn't mean to suggest that there's a perfectly simple and straightforward this-worldly ethics on the one hand and a totally muddled and confused other-worldly ethics on the other. This-worldly ethics has its fair share of confusion and paradox. I just think adding the afterlife would make things a hell of a lot worse.
Haruhi
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Then you can look at various fictions where an afterlife is a fait accompli for the characters, for example, Supernatural series, and the ethics of the characters remains the same as our ethics.
The empirical evidence is what it is, so unless you're a reality-warper, we have to accept it even complicate our ethics (and it do not complicated our ethics in my opinion).
Kai
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Yes I know. I agree with you about that, because ethics and morals, as I said, arise out of group dynamics in social species. All of those dynamics apply to this life...the context in which they have evolved. If there is "another frame of reference" even a frame where it is somehow mysteriously "all right" that people suffer in this life, that does NOT make it "all right" from the human standpoint that such suffering exists, a problem that arises in NDE talk often. I don't think there's the slightest risk of an "afterlife" being proved. The more important question, imo, is what the ethics we discover for ourselves in NDEs says about us. If suicides were really to have to return and live through all their suffering again, I'm not sure I could even stomach the ethics of such a place / source. But I suspect it has more to do with us...our secret sense of being threatened by people who choose not to continue the human condition and thus who seem to undermine our own (fragile?) choice to do so.
I'm not sure I agree though that even the existence of an afterlife would *require* that we alter our ethics. Suffering has a lot to do with the frame of reference of the suffering party. If *I* see myself as suffering under coercion and such coercion in some sense actually exists, then I *AM* suffering under coercion no matter what the alternative view holds about it, and so, if the option to remove such coercion exists but is not acted on, that is oppression, pure and simple.
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Reece
Member
Sorry to attempt to throw another element into the mix, but in response to the statement about (possibly) having something hardwired into us that says killing a stranger is wrong, I tend to want to object strongly . . . Perhaps it's in fact the opposite . . . Because only with the recent arrival of chiefdoms and states have we been in a situation where it is possible to simply walk past strangers without having to think in life and death terms: kill, run, hide type questions. I mean, walking past strangers while day dreaming about other things is a very modern luxury.
Also, on another note, I'm surprised no one has referenced Arjuna, Krishna, and the Gita so far . . .
Max_B
Member
I think that's a bit under threat, now that we've got three behavioral studies that indicate Epigenetic Inheritance effects in rodent offspring from Franklin, Nestler and now Dias & Ressler. I brought this up much earlier in this thread, but nobody seemed to understand it's significance...
Max_B
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Kai
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I don't particularly see anything in these studies to suggest that ethics and morals do not arise out of pressures upon populations and responses to those pressures. Even if a small, or indeed a moderate, component of that were to be vectored through epigenetics, the adaptive or shaping force would still have to be a benefit to the group via behavioral or structural changes that were functionally beneficial as group behavior.
But as of now, I see no evidence that such is really the case.