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Dave W.
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USA
26021 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2009 :  21:36:43   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by H. Humbert

I'm guessing Carroll would argue that there can't be moral obligations...
I emailed him to ask. If moral obligations are polite fictions, that throws a wrench into my evidencialism.

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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2009 :  21:48:48   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Originally posted by H. Humbert

I'm guessing Carroll would argue that there can't be moral obligations...
I emailed him to ask. If moral obligations are polite fictions, that throws a wrench into my evidencialism.
Ah, I see. Well, let me back up a moment and reword it. I think there can be such things as moral obligations in so far as we are compelled to act a certain way if we wish to remain ethical. I think what Carroll was saying, however, is that one cannot force that obligation onto someone with no desire to be ethical. So the idea that universal "moral obligations" exist is false, since they are only an obligation for people with a commitment to being moral individuals. Immoral people have no such obligations. (Or if even if they have the obligation, it's ultimately irrelevant because they will ignore it.)


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
Edited by - H. Humbert on 06/13/2009 21:51:05
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Dave W.
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26021 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2009 :  22:01:18   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Kil

I once told Dave that I hope there isn't a subject that I have so much passion for that I go off the deep end with it and lose my ability to reason.
We've talked about that not a few times here in the forums. Well, not about you specifically, Kil, but about the fact that for many people who call themselves "skeptics," there seems to be some topic about which they simply aren't skeptical. It's mostly a matter of talking about enough different things that you stumble across whatever it happens to be. And we've seen a few examples in these forums over the years. Enough that I do my best to be vigilant in seeing it in myself.

And it's not the proselytizing which gets me about Shermer, either. It's that he can write books on why otherwise smart people believe nonsense, but seemingly not apply those lessons to his own libertarianism. Heck, between his own ages-ago fundamentalism and his more recent falling for some cold-relief product (I forget which), one would think that he'd be on high alert for his own failings. Apparently not.

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Dave W.
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USA
26021 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2009 :  22:38:03   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by H. Humbert

Ah, I see. Well, let me back up a moment and reword it. I think there can be such things as moral obligations in so far as we are compelled to act a certain way if we wish to remain ethical. I think what Carroll was saying, however, is that one cannot force that obligation onto someone with no desire to be ethical. So the idea that universal "moral obligations" exist is false, since they are only an obligation for people with a commitment to being moral individuals. Immoral people have no such obligations. (Or if even if they have the obligation, it's ultimately irrelevant because they will ignore it.)
Well, that gets us into the semantics of words like "obligation" or "duty," doesn't it? Just because some people dodge their obligation to pay taxes doesn't mean that the obligation doesn't exist (nor does it mean that the obligation ceases to exist at the moment they decide to not pay up).

Or perhaps it's a problem with the word "moral." It was Gorgo, I believe, who first introduced me to the idea that ethics are rules that we set for ourselves, and morals are rules that we try to get other people to live by. I know it doesn't really work as a guideline since people get censured by others for unethical behavior all the time, but if it were true, then ethical obligations abound (things that we feel like crap about if we do them, or don't do them), while moral obligations only exist if the people we target agree to accept our rules into their ethics.

The word "universal" didn't appear in Carroll's review, if I remember correctly. At least, not as a part of his discussion about the lack of moral obligations, and I didn't get that sense of it, either. He was basically saying that while all sorts of things might be good ideas on how to behave, they're hardly obligatory. And so far as there's nothing so heinous that someone who's not psychotic hasn't done it, he's obviously correct.

Which leaves me with the impression that the reasoning behind statements of the form "we have a duty to do _____" can only ever be persuasive, and not factual. All such statements depend upon your audience sharing the same goals as you, which is perhaps why evidentialism doesn't go over too well with accomodationists.

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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2009 :  22:38:28   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Originally posted by Kil

I once told Dave that I hope there isn't a subject that I have so much passion for that I go off the deep end with it and lose my ability to reason.
We've talked about that not a few times here in the forums. Well, not about you specifically, Kil, but about the fact that for many people who call themselves "skeptics," there seems to be some topic about which they simply aren't skeptical. It's mostly a matter of talking about enough different things that you stumble across whatever it happens to be. And we've seen a few examples in these forums over the years. Enough that I do my best to be vigilant in seeing it in myself.

And it's not the proselytizing which gets me about Shermer, either. It's that he can write books on why otherwise smart people believe nonsense, but seemingly not apply those lessons to his own libertarianism. Heck, between his own ages-ago fundamentalism and his more recent falling for some cold-relief product (I forget which), one would think that he'd be on high alert for his own failings. Apparently not.

Yeah, he is off the charts with his promotion of libertarianism and also being the guy who wrote Why Smart People Believe Weird Things. And he is off the charts with his promotion of it to the skeptical community as well. I'm bothered more by the latter. It's a pet peeve of mine, as you know.

Earlier I was discussing his fundamentalist background with Michelle. It occurred to me that maybe Shermer is prone to jumping into whatever view he thinks is correct with such a vengeance that he loses sight of the details. Hmmmmmm. What I mean is for Shermer, skepticism is a belief, and not a set of tools. (Of course, he understands intellectually that skepticism is a set of tools, and he can articulate what skepticism is all about brilliantly.) And his libertarianism is a belief, and not another fuzzy headed Utopian dream. I think you are correct. He doesn't self analyze as you suggest he should. He can't because he is too caught up in his own enthusiasm for whatever it is. I guess what I'm saying is he isn't really a critical thinker at all. He's a zealot.

I'm just speculating, of course. But there is something not right with him.



Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

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@tomic
Administrator

USA
4607 Posts

Posted - 06/13/2009 :  23:06:50   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit @tomic's Homepage Send @tomic a Private Message  Reply with Quote
As I've read this topic, I've also marveled that this is the man that wrote Why Smart People Believe Weird Things. Not that libertarianism is all that weird. It's the way libertarians justify their identification to libertarianism that makes me scratch my head. I'm sure libertarians think the same of liberals.

Good topic BTW. Better than most in this folder!

@

Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law!

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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 06/14/2009 :  02:31:28   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Kil
To me the worst he is doing is his proselytizing. He is absolutely campaigning for his personal political views in an embarrassing attempt to win over the skeptical community, and presenting those views as though they have some kind of scientific merit.

Shermer has gone off the deep end...

To quote one of the comments to the article:

I am going to go back and read your other posts to make sure I didn't miss something that would tie this all together. But all I get out of this post is “CATO institute good, social evolution works in small groups but not big ones, taxes bad, government spending bad, read my book.” I'm sure that's not what you meant.


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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26021 Posts

Posted - 06/14/2009 :  14:34:47   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Wow, Bob Carroll added a whole paragraph to the review of MOM, based on my question:
A moral obligation is a duty; it is something one ought to do or forbear. To say you have a moral duty not to steal is to say that you ought not steal. This duty must be based on some principle. To claim that one ought not steal because there is an innate feeling of shame that comes with stealing is a non sequitur. There may be such a feeling but it does not follow logically from the fact that there is that one ought not steal. You might say that if you don't want to feel shame, don't steal. But that is not the same as saying you have a moral obligation not to steal. You might say that you must obey God's will and God's will is that you not steal. This is called the divine command theory of moral obligation. It is meaningless to those of us who do not believe there is such a being as a god. You might say that you should always do what will bring about the greatest happiness to the greatest number. You might then claim that you have a moral duty not to steal because not stealing leads to the greatest good to the greatest number. But, if you do not accept the greatest happiness principle, then you will not accept that your duty not to steal derives from it. You might believe that you should only do what you could will that anyone in the same situation should do. You then might conclude that you ought not steal because you could never will that others in your situation steal. But if you don't accept the principle that you ought only do what you can will that anyone should do in the same situation, then you will not accept that your duty not steal derives from that principle. But you can never logically derive that you ought not steal from a feeling. If that were the case, then anything you feel like doing is morally justified, which is absurd.

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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 06/14/2009 :  14:48:50   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Dave, did he write back to you?

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 06/14/2009 :  15:26:04   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.
But you can never logically derive that you ought not steal from a feeling. If that were the case, then anything you feel like doing is morally justified, which is absurd.
Why is that "absurd?" I understand that it's not a moral system most of us would ascribe to, but based on Carroll's reasoning, I'm not sure how he decides such a moral system would be absurd.


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
Edited by - H. Humbert on 06/14/2009 15:26:21
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26021 Posts

Posted - 06/14/2009 :  15:26:40   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Kil

Dave, did he write back to you?
Yes, that's how I know that he added that paragraph in response to my question: he told me so.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26021 Posts

Posted - 06/14/2009 :  15:33:58   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by H. Humbert

Why is that "absurd?" I understand that it's not a moral system most of us would ascribe to, but based on Carroll's reasoning, I'm not sure how he decides such a moral system would be absurd.
It reads to me that if you could claim a moral obligation based on feelings, then all you need to do is find two people with opposing feelings about some subject X to claim that both X and not-X are moral obligations.

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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 06/14/2009 :  18:06:36   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Originally posted by H. Humbert

Why is that "absurd?" I understand that it's not a moral system most of us would ascribe to, but based on Carroll's reasoning, I'm not sure how he decides such a moral system would be absurd.
It reads to me that if you could claim a moral obligation based on feelings, then all you need to do is find two people with opposing feelings about some subject X to claim that both X and not-X are moral obligations.
So then we're back to the original question. How can there be such thing as a moral obligation? Is Carroll basically saying there cannot? Or just that he can't think of a way?


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26021 Posts

Posted - 06/14/2009 :  20:14:46   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by H. Humbert

Is Carroll basically saying there cannot?
I asked him if that is the correct logic after what he's said. I'll let you know if/when he replies.

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Maverick
Skeptic Friend

Sweden
385 Posts

Posted - 06/17/2009 :  12:37:10   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Maverick a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by H. Humbert

I see most Libertarians like this ungrateful stranger. They falsely believe themselves to be self-sufficient when in fact they aren't. They're benefiting from a system that, by virtue of their participation within it, they have agreed to help maintain. Taxes aren't theft, they're membership dues.

If you don't like it, leave the fort.

Exactly. No one is self-made of self-sufficient. Without this society or fort, how are things supposed to be run? Can anyone build their own electricity grid, or sewage system, or running water, and compete with each other? Who makes the rules that govern trade, commerce, industry, etc? What currency should we use? I suspect that the largest corprations will make the rules, and perhaps somewhere they will realise that common rules and regulations and standards for everyone is necessary...

"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy." -- Carl Sagan
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