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Of the what now? Where did that thing come from? All you have right now are some subjective perceptions.
EDIT: Historically, many New Atheist adherents leaned hard naive moral relativist, with nearly exactly the same positions as you. Adding on the papering over of how we go all the way from nothing to magic utility in one shot just sealed the deal for how close you are to where that community was, whether intentional or not. Of course, their naive moral relativism was the biggest thing that they were constantly taking Ls over in Internet Arguments, so a segment of them (including the aforementioned Sam Harris) pivoted hard toward trying to science away the is-ought gap and construct their own scientific moral realism. But yeah, I was more placing you pretty much exactly in that community, but prior to the pivot. Back in the day when I was most engaged in it. As I was getting a better phil education was when this turn started happening. I could pretty immediately see the central flaws in a couple different attempts, so I kinda stopped paying attention to it as I drifted away from caring much about them more generally.
We start with subjective perceptions but I am not universally against any kind of realism. Science is an effective way to handle the material world as we perceive it. It works as far as we can tell. That's enough for science because that is the grounds on which we judge science. We want science to work, if it does, then it has fulfilled its stated purpose.
The requirements for justifying moral stances are higher because the stated purpose of morality is not "just work". That is why it raises the question of relativism. If all we wanted was for morality to work, then we could compare the moral positions of different groups and the associated outcomes and using that data we could pick the best moral positions. But that is not the grounds on which we judge moral positions, so we have to grapple with the questions of relativity.
Well, I am only passingly familiar and certainly not steeped in that context. I don't have your knowledge of their internet argument history. I really don't think my philosophy in general aligns with new atheism, which again, I presume is in favor of atheism. I am in favor of religion.
I feel like you have not been charitable in the course of this discussion. By which I mean you tend to focus on very specific things I have said while avoiding dealing with the central cruxes of the arguments I am presenting - despite the fact that as far as I can tell, you know very well what the points I am trying to make are. And even knowing that, you don't make much attempt to argue with them head on. Instead you focus your responses away from the central arguments. If you were being charitable, the first target of your responses would be the core issue and you would directly explain what the problem with it is.
Wow, what a statement. If my position is so obviously retarded then show me by engaging it head on. I ask you multiple questions in most of my posts, you ignore them in general. You are continually dismissive in your responses, despite my best attempts to engage in good faith. Where's the charity?
Sorry, the what now? Where did that come from? I feel like I'm missing some axioms or something.
Let me clarify what I meant. I could see the flaws in a couple different attempts to science their way across the is-ought gap to a scientific moral realism. This is not what you're doing, so it's not your position.
I argue it in the following sentences. I specifically said the material world as we perceive it. Should I post the exact same thing again? If you think that my stance on moral relativity is incompatible with my stance on the material world, I think you need to make that argument more clearly, instead of just continuing to say "Wah? What?".
maybe you are missing some of my relevant axioms, I'm happy to fill them in if you're actually curious. It doesn't feel like you are.
Ok. Well thanks for that. I agree you can't science your way across the is-ought gap, and have no interest in trying. The fact that at least current New Atheists appear to try to do that is part of why I have low interest in their position.
I'm not that enamored of science.
No reply to my accusation of a lack of charity? That doesn't concern you?
No, you really don't. You just say "the material world as we perceive it" and then go on to talk about something "working". I don't even know what you're talking about when you say "the material world as we perceive it". Are you just talking about subjective perceptions? If so, what is this "material world" that we are supposedly perceiving? Sounds like we actually just have subjective perceptions.
Not really. Such accusations are cheap to throw around and are usually bullshit.
You know what it means colloquially, but here is a more extensive explanation of how I would describe the material world:
It is the seemingly mostly consistent thing that we infer via our subjective perceptions. We peer through an unreliable lens. There is something on the other side that can’t be perfectly known. Whatever the stuff is on the other side that generally responds consistently to experiment, that is what we call the material world.
It appears to be a system or substrate that follows mostly consistent rules that we, whatever we are, exist within or on.
Science is the practice of measuring and manipulating that mostly consistent stuff on the other side of the lens. Therefore, science does not raise the problem of relativism, because the only justification it needs is that it effectively gives a person tools to manipulate the material world. As long as it is helpful for doing that, it is justified as legit science. That doesn't justify it morally or anything, to be clear. It just justifies it as science.
But morals are not justified by being useful for getting some kind of result. They have to be justified by being good or right or noble. And those do not have the same simple test as science, so they raise the problem of justifying moral axioms.
Alright
You're confusing "there is a material world" with "science has something to do with 'usefulness' (however ill-defined)". Your first section was a bit about the so-called "material world":
Stop here. Someone could probably write something very similar about the moral world. Nothing about hazily-defined "useful" or "result" needed.
Then, after a huuuuuge conceptual leap, you jump to science as a practice. Ok. Perhaps there are practices out there which help us get to some consistency with what is on the other side of the moral lens. We'd need to do some pretty significant philosophical lifting to describe when there are or aren't possible practices to help us get some consistency with what is on the other side of various lenses.
Would you please, 30 comments down, tell him what you believe?
Lol thanks man. I appreciate it. I'm starting to feel embarrassed for continuing this convo for as long as I have.
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