Pastor AIO:

Please lay the contradicting position side by side for me to see.

Pastor AIO:

What do you mean Suddenly adopt that stance? I'm terribly sorry if I said anything previously that contradicted that stance. Please show me where I did so so that I can make amends.

Deep Sight:

I would, if i believed it would make any difference. You would simply revert saying that you have not said that your name is X; and as such, I cannot waste my time with such work with you; sorry, no offence intended at all.

Pastor AIO:

Other acts of war are not necessarily a systematic destruction of a people in whole or in part. You can wage war against their army with the intention of subjugating them but not wiping them out. You can put people under siege, another act of war, with the intention of subjugating them but not wiping them out. The Israelite invasion of Canaan according to the bible was done with the intention of wiping them out.

Mr anony:
I have not said that you contradicted yourself at all. I am only wondering why you would bother going through a long argument on morality if in the end you'll say that we don't and cannot know anything.

If we don't and cannot know anything, how do you know that it is true that we don't and cannot know anything? Shouldn't you rather be saying that you believe strongly that we cannot know anything? To which anyone can simply reply with "I know that you do in fact know some things" . . .and you can't really respond because you cannot know that he knows that you some things. You can only believe strongly that he doesn't.

You see the problem is that [size=16pt]you have led yourself into an absurd position just so that you can escape bearing the burden of the question of whether objective morality really exists or not[/size]

Deep Sight:

[size=20pt]! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

EUREKA! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ![/size]

Mr anony:
Lol, why my you dey shout? What have you found?

homosapiens: Deepsight is disappointing by his position on this thread.

That's the thing. Without knowledge of all the factors that will play upon a situation it is impossible to make a moral judgement on anything.

https://www.nairaland.com/335826/pastor-aio-come-teach-us#4723301

Pastor AIO:

Oh! Maybe you're making a distinction between our sense of Morality, Morality per se (in se, or even sen se millia).

Okay if we grant that there is a Morality which is objective, how can we be aware of it? is it not with our Sense of morality? How can we be sure that the sense of morality is accurate? We can't? It is the whole epistemology/ontology question. How can you Know that something exists? The Truth is that all that is available to us is not knowledge but beliefs, Beliefs with varying measures of certainty.

Bottom line is that Sense of morality is subject to change. We are limited to what we can sense and the only thing that we can meaningfully talk about its our sense of morality. I Sense morality therefore I am Moral. lol




So to answer the above I say that I am not equipped to make any pronouncement on Mala in Se but I can make pronouncements on my sense of Mala.

You can only discuss 'Mala in Se' with people from the same wider cultural milieu as yourself.

People say that genocide is wrong is wrong is wrong. Tell that to the Israelites that invaded Canaan. It wasn't just during the invasion. But for centuries afterwards is was an issue of pride. Reading the bible there is nowhere at any point that you get any sense of remorse and the bible spans centuries. So for centuries we have an act of genocide that not only were the perpetrators not ashamed of, but furthermore it was actually a matter of pride for them.

Go and tell them about Mala in Se.

Deep Sight:
Now, Pastor, Anony -

I take this quote from one of Pastor's comments in that thread 4 years ago -



Let me make my self perfectly clear: that post (you can read it in the link above) was utterly masterful and brilliant. It was in many ways so so true. However, take a look at the sentence I have extracted above. With that sentence alone, Pastor renders it impossible for anybody to make a moral judgment on anything or any situation whatsoever.

Absolutely and permanently impossible.

He also renders it permanently and absolutely impossible to know anything whatsoever (Descartes) even and including knowing anything about your own life, and the people and situations you interact with. For this reason, it is purposeless debating anything with Pastor because the eternal escapist response is that nobody can know anything. All discussions are thus futile with him, and such discussions may even be useless as we do not know that we are even having a discussion: it may well just be our imagination playing with itself.

There you go: Its out rightly nihilistic.

Kay 17:

One word: Perception. Percerption varies hence morality itself must vary.

mazaje: What is objective morality anony?. . .

Mr anony:
I have answered this question so many times it is now tiring.

Objective morality means that the rightness or wrongness of actions are grounded in reality independent from individual or societal bias.

mazaje:

Can you give us an example of an objective moral?. . .

Kay 17: ^^
Lying to save the life of a person

Killing to save a country:

Lying and killing are frowned at and seen as immoral, however in the context they are in, everything changes. They seem right at the moment.

Uyi Iredia: I find that the problem with materialism is that concepts such as morality, empathy and logic are not strictly reducible to the material processes responsible for them.

Uyi Iredia:
We know the basis of all mentations is the human brain but why should the materials in the brain evoke these mentations.

Uyi Iredia:
There is no reason for a purposeless, amoral material to start considering purpose, yet this is what we see in the brain and in all biological systems. Going by the known fact that purpose & morals can only be defined in context of that which has intelligence I can extrapolate that morality (particularly in humans) ultimately comes from an intelligent being (God).

Uyi Iredia:
Materialists must realize that matter alone can't think or feel. These attributes require a specific assemblage of materials which CANNOT self-assemble the only reasonable option is to infer from human ability to create intelligent machines that intelligence is required to create intelligence and this necessitates a God. After all is said and done I think the basis of morality is intelligence.

Deep Sight:
Reduced deductive arguments

First Argument

Premise 1. It is not wrong or evil when animals kill other animals or seize their food.

Premise 2. Humans are animals.

Conclusion: It is not wrong or evil when humans kill other humans or seize their food.

Beat that, please.

Deep Sight:

WHY? IF MAN BE NOTHING BUT A SMARTER APE, WHAT MAKES TERRITORY GRABBING AMONG SMART APES IMMORAL? THE LOWER APES DO SO BY PRIMITIVE FIGHTING: SINCE WE ARE SMARTER, WE DO SO BY SOPHISTICATED FIGHTING: WEAPONS, GUNS, BOMBS, JETS, ARMIES. HOW IS THIS IMMORAL FOR HEAVENS SAKE?

thehomer:

Humans don't derive their moral precepts from other animals so comparing what animals do with respect to trying to discover moral ideas is a waste of time.

Mr anony:
Beautifully put

I'll go a step further for those who believe human morals are a result of evolution.

If we only think that some things are good and others evil because we evolved a mind capable of telling good from evil how do we know that such things are truly good or truly evil since evolution is not concerned with truth but with survival? How do we know for sure that they are truly good and evil and not just merely how we happened to survive?

Mr anony:
Edit: I'll go even further from morality to the question of rationality. How do we know that our basic rational intuitions are true and not just merely how we happened to evolve. For instance how do we know that we ought to test truth claims with logic? How do we know that it isn't merely how we happened to evolve?

Mr anony:
Interesting. From where if I may ask do humans derive their moral precepts?

striktlymi:

Wow!!! A politician couldn't have done a better job...

Mr anony:
Lol, I wasn't even heading towards God per se. I just wanted to show that Moral principles are truly objective much like logical and mathematical principles.

Mr anony:
But then context is not the same thing as perception. Objective moral principles did not change.

Let me give you an illustration.
If you cut an orange in half, you have half an orange but if you cut a person in half you don't have half a person you still have one person. Does this mean that mathematics is no longer objective? No it doesn't, it has only been applied in two different contexts.

I spoke a bit more about something like this here: https://www.nairaland.com/1294489/basis-human-morality/7#15884362

Read it and tell me what you think

Deep Sight:

A strict materialist would hold that nothing exists but matter - physical things - and that we are the product of the mindless interactions of such matter. Such a worldview would would subscribe to the ToE as the basis for our existence, and thus regard man as nothing but an animal - only a more intelligent one. Within this worldview it is difficult to see why it should be wrong for men TO DO AS ANIMALS DO, but merely do the same things with smarter methods.

Deep Sight:
If anyone then says that the smartest method for staying alive would be to have collective codes, that is fine: but it should be recognized that that is a system for self-protection, and nothing more. It does not then render any proscribed acts intrinsically evil: this is the key distinction you fail to make.

Deep Sight:
There is a difference between law and morals. This is a huge subject all by itself within the subject of Jurisprudence as taught in Law. It is a distinction that I see many within this thread, notably Plaetton, have failed to absorb. Legality is not morality and vice versa, although of course there are converging areas. It may be illegal to park your car in a certain space, but not necessarily immoral. Likewise it may be immoral to be unfaithful within marriage but not necessarily illegal. Some things that are illegal are criminal and others are not. There are civil wrongs called torts, which may arise from negligence and may not necessarily be immoral. These are the distinctions.

Now, within the philosophy of law, there are wrongs that are called mala in se (which means an intrinsically evil or wicked deed) and mala prohibita (which means a deed that is not intrinsically evil or wicked, but is illegal by the prohibition of the law.

Now what you guys are doing amounts to a failure to distinguish between mala in se and mala prohibita. By your position, there would be no such thing as mala in se until and unless it is so declared by law - which is mala prohibita.

As such, you should ask yourself whether such a thing as mala in se exists at all. Whether such a thing existed in antiquity. Or whether such a thing only began to exist when societies made formal declarations in that regard. That is the key question.

It is altogether illogical for the strict materialist to regard man as a smarter animal only, and complain when smarter animals do what animals do in nature, but only does it more smartly.

This is the centre of the matter.

thehomer:

You're ignoring the fact that good and evil actions aren't just about the mind, but also about the body. Is any action truly good or truly evil? Is it truly good to give away all your wealth? Is it truly evil to kill a man?

This to me just misunderstands rationality. Could we have evolved to actually think that 200 apples were less than 2 apples?

thehomer:
They're derived by multiple sources like the effects of certain actions on other humans and some other animals, empathy, reasoning.

Where do you think humans derive their moral precepts?

Mr anony:
Yes some actions are truly good or truly evil e.g.
1. It is truly evil to rape women for fun.
2. It is truly evil to torture babies for fun.