Welcome to the moral Nihilist club on this site: population of 2 - you an I. Just be warned - some of the posters on this site react very harshly when you touch their sacred cows...

Snide comments such as this usually come from people who feel they are superior to others. But how can moral nihilists be superior to anyone, since there are no values by which to judge them so? (Perhaps I am mistaken in your meaning or tone here?) But we have no reason not to be harsh, if we so feel, if there are really no values of any sort. If it hurts your feelings, why should we care (if there are no values, it doesn't matter!)?

Comment #61 by: Mathew Wilder | March 6, 2008, 7:12 am

It is not internally inconsistent for moral nihilists to like things (have value on a personal/subjective level). Shocking as some may find it, moral nihilists believe that statements like "throwing babies into wood chippers is wrong" are false statements. It is not wrong to throw babies into wood chippers. It's not right either... but I 'm bot going to go into that. However, a moral nihilist believes that statements such as "I do not desire to throw babies into wood chippers," can be true (In my case, it is true; I do not desire that). Moral nihilists believe that morals exist as concepts inside the minds of sentient creatures only; in the case of people, that they exist as physical structures in the brain. I say "in the case of people" since in an AI, morals would exist as physical structure in something not a biological brain, or in an alien they might exist in something I would not call "a brain." Part of the idea behind morality is that moral rules exist outside of concepts people just have in their heads. Moral nihilists believe that all moral statements are false in large part because moral rules, at least sometimes, are intended to apply universally (many people would believe that throwing babies into wood-chippers is wrong.). Statements containing words such as "I want" or "I desire" or "I like" or "I dislike" etc... can be true though, because they recognize that copies of those concept exist in one, or possibly more than one, person's mind, but nowhere else.

It's perfectly possible for a moral nihilist to feel superior without internal contradiction. They like themselves more than they like another person. "liking" is valid because it claims that something is subjective, and in reality, it is subjective, so the claim matches reality. Morals, oughts, shoulds, goods and bads, etc... are invalid because they claim something subjective is objective. The claim does not match reality.

(Ebonmuse 'talking')"...Haught presumes for himself the right to judge which atheists are or are not sufficiently "serious"

You say, "Why should that be any sort of problem?"

The context is that Haught's students are to be exposed only to his idea of who a serious atheist is, and Ebonmuse is saying, "No."

So what if Ebonmuse says all that believe in demons are ignorant regardless of actual intelligence?

Ebonmuse is ALLOWED to think that believers-in-demons are ignorant AND that Haught's choice of atheist books are giving students an outmoded impression.

The only inconsistency here is that you are comparing apples to oranges.

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You say, "So when I saw the John Adams quote-mine among other things, I was left to wonder if maybe Dawkins was ignorant or biased, and my concerns were justified. So why can't any or all of Haught's concerns be justified?"

Okay, since you brought it up, what is this alleged quote-mine from John Adams?

Why are Haught's concerns justified just because you no-likee Dawkins inconsistency?

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You say, " I would personally much rather read Nietzsche etc."

So what? Where're the inconsistencies? This entire paragraph and the next one is all fluff.

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"No attack on atheism would be complete without the obligatory slander that atheism can provide no basis for morality." says Ebonmuse.

You retort, "That's untrue on two levels.."

Haught goes on to do just that!
Argument from morality is standard operating procedure for Christians of all stripes and it IS suggesting that atheists are not constrained to be moral because of it. Ergo, SLANDER!

All I see is you saying that 'not ALL Christians argue this way'. Well, can we say that most, if not ALL Christians believe that argument then?(First Commandment and all that?)

Plus, where's the inconsistency that is supposed to be 'fraughting' our eyeballs?

(I don't seem to be allowed to post comments on your site. My my.)

For example:

...Haught presumes for himself the right to judge which atheists are or are not sufficiently "serious"

Why should that be any sort of problem? After all, Ebonmuse certainly presumes which theists are sufficiently serious, for example, he says all that believe in demons are ignorant regardless of actual intelligence and should be unilaterally mocked. This makes Occam's razor look more like a guillotine! As my heart goes out to the closet GLBT kid with a sternly homophobic and closed-minded dad, similar for the otherwise rational person who's had experiences reasonably interpretable as psychic ('psychic' as in the Jungian sense of archetypal), spiritual or biblical in their ultimate nature. Such hasty generalization and harsh criticism in this regard can only effect cognitive dissonance, which is of little use in uncovering the truth.

Or perhaps this self-defeating little gem:

...for obvious reasons, a Catholic believer has no authority to decide what atheism "really" implies.

Really? Are we even thinking this stuff through anymore? Because if that's the case, Ebonmuse effectively undermines every shred of his own authority to speak on what theism implies. And as we all know he often does, now he is left with a major epistemological nightmare that calls the reliability of all his interpretations of theism into question.

Anyway, lots more I can and did say, so check it out if you want.

That's because Bertrand Russell was much like the "New Atheists"

Exactly, he's exciting at age 17 and sorrowfully inadequate at age 40 after you've studied Plato, Rousseau, Hume, Pascal, Kant and those three other big names thrown about here.

And lived and thought and experienced enough to realize the severe limitations of reason and science and human nature.

"The heart has its reason which reason does not know"

we need more of that heart, the "shudder of Awe" Goethe spoke of.

Any fellow atheists want to join me in celebrating the expansion of religion in our society!

Can't you do better than this? If the guy were here, he'd probably tear you to shreds...

My apologies if I misunderstand you, but I was inferring that by "fine tuning" and by "easy" you meant some kind of externally-directed behavioural/cognitive modification intended to produce predictable results. I guess I should get you to explain what you mean by "change".

And this statement seems a little vague to me: "could be just one traumatic moment (a good blow to the head, for example) that triggers the emergence of a brand new person; one that bears little (if any) resemblance to the one that existed prior to it."

Certainly a blow to a person's head can cause brain trauma and this trauma can have a significant and long lasting (permanent!) effect on that person's behaviour. But short of physical damage caused by trauma or chemical damage, on what basis do you say that a new person "that bears little(if any) resemblance to the one that existed...".

Seems like more than a "short sharp shock" or "just one traumatic event" would be needed to effect this change.

Perhaps you and I have different concepts of "easy" when it comes to shaping the human mind: to me it means that any sudden change from the status quo can innitiate the change - it could be just one traumatic moment (a good blow to the head, for example) that triggers the emergence of a brand new person; one that bears little (if any) resemblance to the one that existed prior to it.

How are you defining "easy" in regards to this issue?