First comment on the evolutionary ethics thread:
1) I explicitly addressed that the mechanism of our origins have little to do with the existence of good and doing good for the sake of good. "Poof" doesn't confer good, nor does descent with modification. It's funny that you probably wouldn't argue this with a Catholic who sees the fine tuning of the universe as a sufficient mechanism of creation (that evolution was contingent upon only primary causation in the Big Bang).
2) Beautiful non sequitur. First, sex is NOT a need, Paul. That's right, it's not. Not for the individual. It is a drive and a desire, but humans can and do survive their entire lives without it...unlike food, water, and shelter.
It is only a "need" for the species, for the society. And as we move from the individual to the society, we have to define why the society exists, and who has conferred rights. IN our country, "we the people" do, and all are equal. We start there. You have the right to be free from harm from others, until you violate that same right. It's a beautiful concept of fairness, justice, and symmetry that the Enlightenment gave us because your God didn't choose to. Your God chose to give the Hebrews "special status" and to slaughter the Egyptian children, then the Canaanite children, etc., not because it was unavoidable, or symmetric, but just because.
We said we base ethics on human needs, not the immediate fulfillment of those needs at the expense of the freedoms and rights of other persons. As much as you wish you could tear down secular humanistic ethics, you first have to oppose the values thereof. The values are rather simple -- justice: you cannot infringe upon the rights of others in order to fulfill your own -- no asymmetry is allowed. And see, that's the problem from the start with your system, because it allowed one group of persons to slaughter another, and their children, because they were "god's chosen" (same theme rings on today in the Middle East).
Basic human needs are no more "subjective" than your choice of "Scripture", your interpretation of Scripture, your choice of the canonized ones, or your faith that they came from your God.
Unfortunately for you, each of those things is quite subjective.
3) Circularity doesn't bring home the bacon. Is good/morality/logic/existence contingent upon God's creation of them and direction of them, or are these things which are necessary for God? IE child rape isn't intrinsically evil, only because God commands it so. If God has no frame of reference to be illogical, or define evil, then God is no more logical or moral than a rock. This is the epitome of arbitrary -- if God had commanded murder, then murder would be good, (as you say it is in such passages as Num 31:17 and 1 Sam 15:3)... if God had commanded X, then X is good, regardless of X. Arbitrary to the core, as the simple value of authority makes something right. Hitler's authority to order things, and ability to see them carried out, made nothing "good", no more than your God's does throughout the OT.
Relativity is the heart of your dilemma -- After all, murder is wrong (10 Commandments), then murder is okay (scriptures listed above). Your God makes everything and sees it is "good" (Gen 1,2), but has a serpent crawling around ready to send everything to "bad" (relative to time), and then gets "grieved" (Gen 6-8) and basically kills everything that "grieves" It.
This also presupposes quite a few things, especially that God's will is somehow revealed to select persons, that those persons are inspired, that their writings are also, and that the revelations to them were universal for all mankind...etc., which is absurd by demonstration: It is clear that if we apply each of the commands to the Hebrews to all persons at the same time, then the national identity of all humans would have prevented them from ever coalescing outside those original divisions (ie there were clear commandments not to intermarry). In that sense, your own morals are neither universal nor objective, but relative to each culture...only to a select group of people, and only at a given point in time, eg temple sacrifices and feasts and burnt offering and the commands to stone offenders of the law. Sure, sure, Jesus didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law...right, right, and that's why you are still stoning people for picking up sticks on Sunday (Num 15), and why the pericope adulterae represents that same principle, right?
Oh, but wait, God had changed Its mind and decided to dispense grace during that time, right? Boy, God sure keeps moving the goalposts, eh?
Talk about arbitrary.
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First response:
i) Survival is a necessary value for ethics. The question is NOT whether it is a part of our ethics, but whether survival will be promoted or opposed by every moral decision/action, as it is an unavoidable aspect of our universe. If we do not frame ethics in such a way as to promote survival, then do we frame them in such a way as to oppose it?
I am quite unclear as to how "survival is good, ethics must value human life" violates the naturalistic fallacy. I did not say "survival is good because evolution promotes survival" or some other naturalistic perspective. I am not justifying the statement by using some scientific observation. It is a premise, foundational, and self-evident.
If we do not value survival, then do we value ethics, or even attempt to make them? If we do not care if our actions bring about our own demise, or that of others, then why do we care if our actions are "good/bad" in any other sense at all?
In point of fact, you Christians value your own skin as well. Aaron Kinney (and others) have argued that Christians are just as egoistic as any other group. That self-interest (survival) is an innate part of all moral systems.
Why do you obey God? Why do you avoid hell? It is certainly out of a sense of self-preservation, fear, and hope for your destiny.
ii)-a) The wording of our Declaration of Independence is helpful here: "we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" ("life, liberty, property," according to Locke, but Jefferson replaced the last with "pursuit of happiness")
The basis of utilitarian ethics start with an equal value assigned to all persons, or else it is not possible to calculate the beneficence of any given action or decision. If we "tilt the scale" at the beginning, then the idea of the "common good" is a non sequitur and we go back to "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". This is clearly the view of your God with respect to the Hebrews, and even with respect to Noah, etc., throughout the Bible, as some persons were "favored" over others. Your God does not hold all persons in equal esteem. That is why our values are diametrically opposed.
We do not start with "what value does this person have?" and use arbitrary tests, but instead "all persons are valued equally" and use the objective measure of how any given action/decision affects every persons' needs and rights (to life and liberty).
ii)-b) Your assertion about homosexuals being a burden should be supported by some sort of study other than the completely discredited work of one quack (Cameron)
I don't believe in "homosexual rights" any more than I believe in "Christian rights" or "atheist rights". I subscribe to equal human rights. It's pretty simple.
Are you asking me if we should endow governments with the authority (somehow) to prevent consenting adults from engaging in whatever sexual behaviors they choose? That of course would violate the sovereignty over ones own body, which all humans must have in a system which honors liberty, so long as persons do not use their bodies to infringe upon the rights of others. As Jefferson said, "it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg..." How does it pick your pocket, or break your leg, Steve, for gays (or anyone) to engage in anal sex if they choose to?
ii)-c) Ditto. Women and men must be afforded equal opportunities, which does not imply that they must somehow be "rendered completely equal". We open the door of freedom so that women enjoy the same rights as men, we are not obligated to ensure that they use their freedoms and rights to pursue any particular path towards personal happiness.
And, your assertion about the gender disparities is scientifically shown to be a function of education and not intrinsic abilities. Unfortunately, women are not encouraged and educated with equal enthusiasm to go into some fields as men are. This is the only explanation for why boy and girl children start out with equal cognitive capabilities, but over time we see an unequal distribution of adult men and women in certain occupations and career fields.
You are trying to examine persons to see if they "qualify" for equality, whereas secular humanism defines humans as equal (in the eyes of the law and human rights), and goes from there. A simple defense of this is in discussing how we arbitrate law if otherwise than "lady justice is blind to race, sexual preference, sex, religion, etc." What we find is we obviously discriminate and infringe upon a person's rights and liberty if we define some arbitrary measurement of how they need to "qualify" to get equal access, treatment, and protections under the law.
ii) (second ii) Frame and Bahnsen have argued that morality is both necessary and dependent upon God, and Martin has engaged their arguments. The especially relevant debates center around Martin's TANG. It seems that a false dilemma would not have garnered so much time and effort from an otherwise-bright theists, now would it? I have yet to hear you specifically commit to say that morality is contingent upon God, or that morality is necessary for God. Perhaps you can stake out your position and then we can go from there.
Does God have the ability to choose freely among many actions and decisions? If so, when God makes that choice, and acts, or decides something, is it moral just because God chose it (moral contingency), or is it moral only if God chooses a particular set of actions/decisions, which are themselves able to be evaluated as moral/immoral (morality is necessary)?
If God commanded child rape in the Bible, would it be good? If God commanded that we eat each other? Or, do we agree that God cannot make certain acts/decisions moral simply by acting/deciding them?
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Second response:
Some things would always be evil, such as ingratitude towards one’s Maker.
Careful Steve, or you'll be starting down the slippy slope towards establishing a moral realism that your divine command theory prohibits.
By contrast, the laws of logic obtain in every possible world.
Subject-object relationships are required for logic to exist. The only intelligible definitions of logic thus require a subject (observer) and objects (A) to make remarks such as, "A is A" and "A cannot be A and B". They don't require a subject/object to be God, unfortunately for you.
Obviously, one possible world is the world of the naturalist, a world in which matter and energy have no need of "creation" and undergo transformations without a divine mind willing them.
Is the only difference between a rock and a moral or rational agent the presence of a frame of reference? What about little things like consciousness?
No I didn't say the "only" difference, but obviously, I made it clear that a creature which cannot access decisions or actions which are wrong/evil/immoral is completely amoral, just as a rock is. If a creature cannot choose wrongly, it cannot choose rightly in the moral sense -- this presupposes consciousness, as all morality does.
An objective standard doesn’t need another standard external to the objective standard to be objective. Otherwise we’re lost in a vicious regress.
This was an odd sentiment to read in coming from someone whose blog hosts presuppositional apologists who insist that we "account for" logic/morality/X, and insist that Christianity supplies the only coherent "account of" X.
On the one hand, you demand rigorous transcendental defenses of the existence of logic and morality, and on the other hand, your God is allowed to sneak under the radar. When God does/is/has it, it just IS, but if I say, "logic exists", Manata et al ask, "WHY?" Your axioms are unassailable, but I am not allowed axioms at all (undefended foundational premises).
Classical foundationalism denies that you can use your God's existence as an axiom*, but you presuppose it nonetheless, and subsume all subsequent questions into these meaningless propositions: God is good, God is logical, etc.
* Classical foundationalism demands that axioms be self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses. Of course, theists presuppose that Rom 1 is true, and insist that God's existence is self-evident, although bereft of argument. In Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology, he counters objections to this tactic (of trying to include God's existence in classical foundationalist definitions) with "Quinn's defeater", "The Great Pumpkin", and "The Grounding Objection", which all have atheistic responses, of course. This could go off topic, but I just wanted to point this out as a side note.
For if the source ever came to an end, why—then the question itself loses all meaning, and things just are as they are, without possible reference to "objective" cows or turtles.
I understand quite well the need to stake out certain premises in our worldview without support, but your presuppositional apologetics seem to deny us this. I am willing to subject my premises to scrutiny and reductio ad absurdum, of course, but the circularity of your premises (God exists, we know this and God's character by Scripture, we know by Scripture that you know this as well, thus God's existence is self-evident) prevents a symmetric approach from theists. I hold to epistemic positions tentatively and skeptically, willing to open my mind to the possibility of being corrected and/or being wrong. Perhaps property dualism is a more rigorous and defensible explanation of consciousness than materialism... perhaps there is no oscillating universe, and no multiverses either, and thus the Anthropic principle has some merit.
It seems that theists such as yourself attempt to hide behind the sort of vacuous certainty you are afforded by saying that somehow, some way, i) things are evil because God commands them, ii) things are evil because of man's nature, iii) and things are evil because they just are (see first comment above) -- the latter of which is of course my position.
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