Philosophy.

Indi · Last edited by Indi on Sat Jan 05, 2008 8:47 am; edited 5 times in total

Disclaimer
(Anna and i have noticed that many people don't seem to know what philosophy is about and how it's done - or at the very least aren't being good philosophers. We thought that it might be a good idea to discuss what philosophy is and how it should be done properly.)

(We are aware that there is already a thread called What is Philosophy to you?, however that kind of thread is a good example of what is not philosophy. The "to you" part on the end of title pretty much voids it of any philosophical content and turns it into nothing more than an opinion poll. In this introduction to philosophy, you will find out just what's wrong with that.)

(A final request before we start. In this introduction, we will have to use numerous examples, some deliberately contentious, some deliberately wrong. Don't start up debates about those topics here. Start another thread if it really matters that much. In this thread, reserve comments to comments on the nature and practice of philosophy. Here talk about the methods used in philosophy, not whether or not any specific example is valid.)

Philosophy

Indi and I wanted to make a thread that was a resource to all philosophers on FriHost - something that you can refer back to in order to improve your skills. We're going to include essays on what philosophy is, how its done, tips for how you can do it better and even very brief overviews of some of the people and questions discussed.

Anyone that wants to add anything is welcome. Just post, and if everyone agrees that it's good enough, it gets added to the list below. What we're looking for is essays on philosophy in general: what it is and how it's done. Brief essays on particular philosophers or philosophical questions are welcome, too. But try and make your essays as neutral as possible, because we don't want debate in this thread (except for debate on whether a given essay is good enough to be added to the list below). If you're going to discuss a philosophical problem, present both sides and don't make judgements - and don't say anything for or against either side that you can't back up.

It doesn't even matter if you duplicate something someone has already done. The more perspectives, the better. If you think you can offer advice to FriHost philosophers, post away.

Contents

General philosophy topics

A Brief Introduction to Philosophy - Indi
Some Ideas On How To Debate Like A Philosopher - Indi

Philosophical questions

Aesthetics - Bikerman
The Doctrine of Double Effect - Bru, stuffce
Free will and moral responsibility - Indi
Methods for determining morality - Indi
The Question Of A God's Existence - Indi

More to come!

Indi

A Brief Introduction to Philosophy

Table of contents

What is philosophy?
What is not philosophy?
What are the major fields of study for philosophy?
How is philosophy done?
What is an argument?
What is a bad argument?
What does philosophy look like?

What is philosophy?
You would think that this would be an easy question to answer. However, philosophy being what it is, even what it is does not go unchallenged.

i will give you a definition that is very high-level and abstract, and almost universally acceptable. Philosophy is the study of the nature of humankind and existence, and the relationship between them.

"The study of the nature of existence"? That kinda makes it sound like anything goes in philosophy, doesn't it? Pretty much anything does. More specific fields of study may be better tailored to more specific questions - for example, physics is better suited to study the physical nature of the universe and psychology is better suited to study the functioning of the mind. But for the bigger, grander and more fundamental questions, philosophy is usually the field to check.

But do not doubt for a second that philosophy is indeed a science. The only thing that separates it from what we normally call sciences is that philosophy is not limited to concerns of nature. Just as there is a scientific method, there is a philosophical method, although unlike science, the method is more loosely defined. Just as with science and pseudoscience, if you don't adhere to the method, you're doing "pseudophilosophy".

What is not philosophy?
From the definition above, it would seem like anything can be philosophy. Generally yes, although if a question is better suited for a more specific field, then it is probably better left to that field. It makes no sense to discuss chemical reactions in a philosophy discussion, although it technically does fit. (However, while philosophy may not be interested in studying the nature of chemical reactions... it is interested in studying the nature of chemistry. Even though science is generally not considered philosophy (anymore), the philosophy of science - that is, what counts as science and what does not, and why - is a large field, with lots of literature.)

However, there is a key word in the definition that creates the boundaries of what is philosophy and what is not. The word is "study".

When someone asks "what do you think about dualism" or "what is ethics to you", they're not doing philosophy, they're doing an opinion poll. Even if the smartest philosophers in the world answer those questions, they will still not be doing philosophy. This is because the questions have nothing to do with either dualism or knowlege, they are asking about opinions about dualism or knowlege. Opinions are meaningless in philosophy. Opinions are meaningless in every field of study, unless you're studying people's opinions.

Random opinions, feelings, and personal "philosophies" and not really philosophy. In order for something to be philosophy, it must be supported by reason. You can't just say "i believe god exists" and expect to be taken seriously. You have to say "god exists because... the universe would be uncaused without god" (for example). You provide your argument (in this case: "the universe needs a cause in order to exist - and god is a plausible cause), and your conclusion which follows from your argument (therefore god exists). If you just throw out your conclusions with no argument, you're not doing philosophy, you're doing soapboxing.

What are the major fields of study for philosophy?
The boundaries in every complex field of study can be a little hazy, and especially so in philosophy. However the following fields pretty much cover the entire of philosophy (once you include their respective meta-fields as well, of course).

Aesthetics - The philosophy of art and beauty
Concerned with how and why we make value judgements of taste, and the nature of art and the sensations accompanied with art. Questions considered would include:
☯ What is art?
☯ Why is something judged beautiful and something else not?
☯ What do we mean when we say "beautiful" or "ugly"?
Epistemology - The philosophy of knowledge
Concerned with the nature of knowlege, what can be known and what it means to know. Asks things like:
☯ What does it mean to know?
☯ How is knowledge acquired?
☯ Is knowlege even possible?
Ethics - The philosophy of what is right and wrong
Concerned with morality, the difference between goodness and evil, and what counts as either. Topics covered include:
☯ What determines what is right?
☯ Why should we act morally?
☯ Do absolute moral standards even exist?
Logic - The philosophy of rationality
Concerned with logic, including what makes fallacies and how to formalize relationships between facts into conclusions. Involves:
☯ How can we move from premises/evidence to conclusions?
☯ What are the components of a proof?
☯ Is it possible to reduce reasoning to a basic symbology?
Metaphysics - The philosophy of reality
Concerned with the nature of reality, the possibility of (non)existence and things like souls and gods. Arguably the broadest of all branches of philosophy, and the superset of all the other sciences. :
☯ What is real?
☯ Does God exist?
☯ Is there a non-physical component to humans?

How is philosophy done?
Philosophy begins with an idea, but not just any old random idea. It must be an idea founded on a line of reasoning, and it must be a line of reasoning you can back up.

For example, you could come up with the idea that the best thing to do is always what is best for the majority (or to quote Mr. Spock, "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one" - this is pretty much the philosophy known as utilitarianism). But you can't just say that and stop there. You must present a cohesive argument that shows that that's a good philosophy. You must define what "good" means. You must show your logic and reasoning, and you must consider any possible objections.

Another way to jump into philosophy is to come up with a problem. This is usually done in order to refute an idea that has already been accepted. For example, the vast majority of the world believes in a powerful, wise, benevolent creator god. You could come up with the problem of the existence of evil and suffering to show that that idea cannot be true. But again, you must show your logic and reasoning, and you must consider possible objections.

Yet another way is to give a refutation or objection, where you take an existing idea or problem as presented by someone, and show that what they did was wrong. i'll explain how to do this in the section on refuting arguments, but again, as with anything else, you must show your logic and reasoning, and you must consider possible objections.

The core of the philosophical method is the argument (analogous to the experiment in science). An argument supports or refutes an idea, problem or objection (much in the same way that an experiment supports or refutes a hypothesis). Good arguments mean good philosophy, poor arguments mean poor philosophy (but it is possible to make a good argument that is completely random and meaningless, and does nothing for the greater goal, just as it is possible to do experiments that don't do anything towards supporting or refuting a scientific theory).

What is an argument?
An argument consists of a series of premises and possibly subconclusions, leading to a conclusion - one that presumably supports your idea, problem or objection. Arguments are easiest to see clearly when they're in point form, but they rarely appear that way in philosophical writings, so a certain amount of reading comprehension skill is usually required.

Here is an example of a simple argument:

P1:

P2:

C:

This is a pretty trivial example, but it's an argument.

The idea is that the premises are all things that are either obvious, proven, or at least agreed upon. In this case, assume for the moment that it is true that all dogs bark, and that Spot is a dog. If anyone objects to either premise, we can easily prove them true - in the first case we could direct them to textbooks on dogs that say that all dogs bark without exception, and in the second we could use those same books to show that Spot is indeed a dog.

The conclusion is something that wasn't known before, but that follows from the premises logically. You had no idea that Spot barked because you've never heard him bark. But knowing the premises are true, and knowing that the conclusion follows from the premises, you come to the conclusion that he must bark.

Here's a more complex example. There's an old "riddle" that's used to test your preconceptions. Without reading the argument afterwards, see if you can figure out what's going on: A man and his son were in a car accident together, and both were rushed to separate hospitals in serious condition. At the hospital where the son arrives, the receiving surgeon says, "i cannot operate on this person, because he is my son."

i have observed people spending hours puzzling over this problem, wondering how the man could both have been in the accident and have been the receiving surgeon at the same time. They ask about extended families, whether son-in-law was really what was meant, time paradoxes and so on.

Now consider the argument:

P1:

SC1:

P2:

C:

An argument can only be guaranteed true if and only if the premises are all true and the conclusion follows from the premises. If both of those conditions are true, then the conclusion must be true, and you must accept it, or you're being irrational. It is possible for a conclusion to be true even if the premises or wrong or the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, but it is not guaranteed.

What is a bad argument?
There are only two ways that an argument can be bad. Either the premises are false, or the conclusion does not follow from the premises.

Let's go back to this example:

P1:

P2:

C:

Now, the truth is that all dogs don't bark. Some have lost their voice, some just never barked to begin with. Since the first premise is wrong, you cannot be sure that the conclusion is true. Spot may indeed bark. You cannot say for sure that Spot doesn't bark just because the argument is bad.

Now consider this example:

P1:

P2:

C:

Whoa! Hang on there. Something's fishy there. All the premises are undeniably true. But the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. It commits a logical fallacy (i think the fallacy of the undistributed middle, but i am not formally trained in logic). Skippy is, in fact, a horse.

Those are the only two ways that an argument can be bad. Either the premises are wrong, or it commits a logical fallacy and the conclusion does not follow from the premises. If neither of those is true, then you must accept the argument (unless you want to be irrational). However, even if either of these are true, that doesn't make the conclusion false.

What does philosophy look like?
Usually, philosophical arguments are presented in essay form (or book form for really long essays), where the idea or problem is introduced and then discussed in detail, or a series of refutations introduced. These tend to be the most clear and powerful ways of getting the point across, but they can be dull to read. The can also be dangerous (see the next paragraph).

A time-honoured philosophical tradition is the use of a dialogue, which is rather like reading a story or play. In it, two or more characters, each representing a different viewpoint, discusses a topic or topics. Commonly, one character represents the position of the philosopher, and the others represent opposing views. The characters challenge each others' positions, which allows the philosopher to argue his case and consider opposing arguments all in one shot. Plato is most famous for using this method, although others, such as Hume, have also used it. One of the strengths of dialogues is that they read less like the philosopher is proselytizing (although they are), which, because philosophers usually advocate positions that challenge social concepts and the established authority, can be wise. Hume would probably have been burnt at the stake for declaring that he was an atheist, but the atheistic Philo character in his dialogues could say whatever he wanted with impunity.

Another tradition, although one taken far less seriously, is to use fiction. Sometimes the most powerful arguments for or against an idea are best told in story form. Good examples are "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin - a powerful counter-example to utilitarianism - and "Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky - a very graphic story with elements questioning the existence of God, free will, and the problem of evil. Many works of fiction are considered to have philosophical value, although there is some question of whether they can actually be called philosophy. Ayn Rand, for example, wrote almost all of her philosophy in story form, and for this reason (among others) she is often not taken seriously as a philosopher (except by her fans). On the other hand, novels written by people considered to be philosophers for other reasons are usually counted amongst philosophical works, such as "Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None" by Friedrich Nietzsche.

But philosophy can be found anywhere ideas are discussed rationally. There are no rules in philosophy except that there are no rules in philosophy (think on that one ^_-).

Indi

Some ideas on how to debate like a philosopher

Now I'm no philosopher, ya, and neither is Indi, but we have read enough and done enough debating of our own to have picked up a trick or two that we can pass on. Philosophy is a skill that has to be practiced, and no one gets it right at first try. But with a few extra tricks to use, and some practice, you might maybe master it in no time.

Comprehension
This is the number one cause of poor philosophy on FriHost - poor comprehension skills - and some of the worst offenders are some of the most prolific posters, and those who think they're the smartest. I could link to dozens and dozens of examples of very simple statements being completely misinterpreted. In fact, there are many cases of people making so little effort to understand the other person's position that they're pretty much making up their own opposition and debating themselves.

It's a very widespread problem. Check out any extended debate, and read carefully - and I mean carefully. When each person responds, are they in fact responding to what the other person wrote... or what they think they wrote. A pretty accurate telltale is when the other person comes back with "that's not what I said", but there are other reasons that that could happen.

Language is the way philosophy is transmitted, compared and applied, just like how symbolics are the way mathematics is transmitted, compared and applied. If two chemists didn't agree on the meaning of the word atom (which actually has several meanings, although only one in chemistry), how could they get any chemistry done? And can you imagine the chaos that would result if one mathemetician were to say to the other that "x ≥ 3" and the other one assumed the first was insisting that "x = 3" and nothing else? Or if one insists that "y = 5" and the other one says "no, y is one of the following: { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 }, and that's all we know now" and the first says "so you're saying that y can't be 5!"? But those things are exactly the kinds of things that happen on a daily basis here.

If you want to be a good philosopher, you have to be good with language. That means you have to learn to read carefully and comprehend what you're reading, and also be clear when you're the one doing the writing. Learn proper grammar. Increase your vocabulary. Master English.

Here are some more in-depth tips that should help.

Make sure you read precisely what was written
Question: If the other person says "there is no reason to believe X is true", which of the following can you assume are true (pick as many as you want):

X is true.
X is false.
X is probably true.
X is probably false.
The other person thinks X is true.
The other person thinks X is false.
The other person thinks X is probably true.
The other person thinks X is probably false.

If you chose any of the above, you are wrong.

Most people blink and go "wha?" when they read that, but look again. What exactly was said? It was: "there is no reason to believe X is true". Is there anything in that statement about whether or no X is true or probably true? No. Is there anything in there about what the person believes, other than that there is no reason to believe X is true? No. The person may believe X is true, even though there is no reason to believe that - it happens often.

There is only one thing you can get from that statement, and that is that the other person believes there is no reason to believe X is true. Nothing more, nothing less.

You can't even get that it's actually true that there is no reason to believe X is true... not unless that person provides evidence for that claim (of course, there is no way to provide evidence for this particular claim - rather, someone who disagreed would be obligated to provide a reason - but that's another topic).

What if someone says "Joe proved X is Y", and person B replies: "Joe proved that X can be Y, not that it has to be Y, and by the way, Joe's a jerk". Which of the following is true about what person B is saying:

X cannot be Y.
X might not be Y.
Joe did not prove that X is Y.
Joe did not prove that X can be Y.
X cannot be Y because Joe is a jerk.
Joe is wrong.
Joe may not be wrong, but he still doesn't know what he's talkin about.

This one is tougher. b and c are true - those ones are easy. f is trickier. Most people would probably have chosen f, too, and depending on the situation they might be right. If Joe did claim he had proven X is definitely Y, then person B is saying Joe is wrong. But it might be that Joe did not make that claim - person A only misunderstood Joe's claims - in which case person B is not saying Joe is wrong, they are saying that person A is misunderstanding Joe's conclusion. The thing is, we can't determine anything about what Joe's claims actually were from the exchange given, and making assumptions about the other person's position is never a good idea.

By the way, "Joe" doesn't need to be a person. You can replace "Joe" with "science" or "the bible" and the general pattern still holds. Watch out for that in your readings.

If the other person is not perfectly clear, repeat their position back in your own words
Nobody's perfect, and even when they are, they not necessarily gonna be perfectly understood. When the other person says something that doesn't sound right to you, the smart thing to do is to assume that there's some kind of communication breakdown goin on. The best solution for that is to just repeat back the other person's arguments, using your own words.

The obvious reason this is a good idea is because if you didn't get the right idea, the other person will correct you (don't get discouraged if they call you stupid or something when they do - which happens often).

The less obvious reason is sometimes people say things that sound good to them, but once they hear them put a different way, all of a sudden it doesn't sound quite right to them. A good example is cultural relativism, where people say things like "every culture's morality is different, and it is arrogant to say any culture is morally superior to any other culture". Sounds pretty good doesn't it? But if you put that a different way: "so then if a culture were to decide that it was ok to rape, and anyone with dark skin should be killed outright, that's perfectly ok? and saying no would be arrogance?" all of a sudden people are a bit squeamish. But the two statements are pretty much identical, just worded differently.

Make sure everyone is using the same definitions for the same words and phrases
Another common problem is that people often use words incorrectly. Take "ignorant" for example. What does that mean? Let's take two people, Joe and Bob, talking about radio repair:

Bob:

Joe:

Bob:

Joe:

Bob:

Joe:

Now, who is ignorant? Joe or Bob?

If you said Bob, good for you. Ignorant means lacking knowledge. Nothing more, nothing less. Joe is an ******, but he has the knowledge. Bob lacks the knowledge. Thus, regardless of what kind of person Bob is, he is ignorant. Of course, most people use the word ignorant for exactly the kind of behaviour Joe is exhibiting. They are wrong.

Now that's a black and white case, and it's usually the case that words have a specific meaning even if it is not the same as what the average person uses. But sometimes words really do have vague meanings that can be interpreted differently. What if I said "faith is a bad thing"? Sounds pretty clear doesn't it? Only... what do I mean by "faith"? Here are the definitions my dictionary gives:

Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
often Faith Christianity The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
A set of principles or beliefs.

So what do I mean? Do I mean that confindent belief in someone or something is bad? Do I mean belief without evidence is bad? Do I mean loyalty is bad? Do I mean religious faith is bad? Until you get me to clarify what I mean, you can't know.

It's not just single words that can be misinterpreted, phrases or even entire ideas can be misinterpreted. Consider the phrase and idea "God is good". What does the phrase mean? Does it mean that "God" is well-behaved or moral, or does it mean that "God" is the actual living embodiment of the concept of "good" (like the difference between "Springsteen is a rock and roll star" versus "Springsteen is rock and roll incarnate")? What is the idea behind the phrase? Does it mean that there is some external definition of what is "good" that "God" matches, or does it mean that "good" is defined by what "God" is? Those are big ideas, and very, very different from one another.

Analysing an argument
When someone presents an argument, the first thing you have to do is pick it out of their post and make sure you understand it, because it's often buried in other text. Then you have to identify the premises - which can be tricky because they're usually not explicitly stated - and the form of the argument.

Once you manage all of that, your first step is to check the premises. Usually this is where arguments fall down - false premises.

If the premises are all ok with you, check the form of the argument to make sure that the conclusion follows from the premises, and that the argument doesn't make any logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are extremely rare in professional philosophy, so if someone is simply presenting an argument made by a professional philosopher, chance of finding a fallacy is small. But arguments made by regular people, including non-philosopher writers and the media, those are usually laced with fallacies.

Now, we're not really professional philosophers, so sometimes we can sort of feel that there's something wrong with an argument, even if we can't express it in terms of a single bad premise or a fallacy. Not to worry, even pros sometimes have the same problem. The Ontological Argument For The Existence Of God was first proposed in the 11th century, and philosophers rejected it almost immediately. But they couldn't say precisely what was wrong with it until the middle of the 19th century. There are other ways to object that don't necessarily prove an argument wrong, but do suggest there are serious problems.

Restating the argument
Sometimes, restating the argument using different words can completely change the way an argument looks. Some words are emotionally loaded, and replacing them with neutral words that mean essentially the same thing can really make an argument look different. Sometimes it's even a good idea to replace neutral words with emotionally loaded ones. In the example of cultural relativism above, by replacing the abstract term "morals" with actual moral clauses, like rape and racism, all of a sudden the implications of cultural relativism become glaringly apparent.

You gotta be careful though. Don't let the emotionalism be the only aspect of your counter-argument. And when you restate an argument to make the consequences of that argument apparent, make sure the consequences are relevant. In the cultural relativism case, it's ok to point out how cultural relativism leads to questionable moral situations... because cultural relativism is supposed to be more moral than the alternatives. However, if we were discussing the existence of God, a claim that believing in the existence of God leads to better morals would be irrelevant - one should determine God's existence based on whether or not he actually exists, not on how people behave when they believe he does or doesn't.

Follow the logic
Virtually every argument's conclusion can be used as the premise for another argument. Sometimes when you can't figure out what's wrong with an argument, what you can do is assume it's true and see where it leads.

Suppose someone argues that the seat of morality is in the soul, not the brain, and you know their argument is wrong, but you can't figure why. What you can do is respond with: "suppose that you're right... but if our moral decisions are made in the soul, and alcohol only affects the brain, then alcohol should not affect our moral judgements... and neither should being tired or in pain. But they do, so...."

Replace key words
Earlier I mentioned the Ontological Argument For The Existence Of God, and how it took philosophers over 800 years to lick it. While that's true, philosophers knew the argument was wrong almost immediately. They did this by replacing "God" with any number of wacky things (the first example was an island), and showing the argument to be absurd.

Many times there is no reason for an argument to be an argument for X alone, but when you replace X with Y, all of a sudden the argument looks weird. That's a good sign that there's something about X that's clouding the issue. In the case of the Ontological Argument For The Existence Of God above, "God" is vaguely and mystically defined, and people have a strong emotional attachment to the word, but when "God" is replaced by "island"... things start looking a little weird. Another good place to do this would be to replace "soul" with "non-physical aspect of the mind" in the argument about morality being the domain of the soul above.

Research
Reality check: no one on FriHost is gonna come up with an idea that hasn't been had before. The chance of that is just astronomically low. Most philosophical questions has been around for millenia. Plato wrote around 400 BCE!!! That's almost two and a half millenia! And his writings are still relevant. Pretty much nothing is gonna be said here that hasn't already been said somewhere else.

If you're having trouble following or refuting an argument, GIYF (Google is your friend). Wikipedia has extensive philosophy articles, and there are entire dictionaries of philosophy online. Not to mention places like Project Guttenberg, which archives many of the classic philosophical texts. Use these resources to learn more.

Indi

The Question Of A God's Existence

Table of contents

✰ Introduction

✰ Arguments for the existence of a god

❖ The teleological argument

❁ The argument

❁ Criticism

❖ The cosmological argument

❁ The argument

❁ Criticism

❖ The ontological argument

❁ The argument

❁ Criticism

❖ Other arguments

✰ Arguments against the existence of a god

❖ The parsimony argument

❁ The argument

❁ Criticism

❖ The problem of evil

❁ The argument

❁ Criticism

❖ The poor design argument

❁ The argument

❁ Criticism

❖ Other arguments

✰ Conclusion

Introduction
Theology is a subfield of the philosophical subfield of metaphysics that is specifically concerned with questions about the existence and nature of a god or gods. Contrary to popular belief, theology has very little to do with religion per se; to say that someone must be religious to study theology is equivalent to saying one must be a playwright to study Shakespeare. Theology is a study, done by means of reason, of concepts that are generally, but not exclusively, religious.

One of the most popular and enduring questions in the field of theology is whether or not a divine being (or beings) exists. It's not entirely apparent why at first glance, but that question is not really one of the most interesting to philosophers. The reason is that it is not a starting question, it is a question that one asks only after one has already answered several other questions. For example, one can't start to seriously talk about whether a god exists or not until one has properly defined what the nature and properties of such a god might be; although one could start by assuming properties then seeing if those properties can be reconciled with existence, the question of which properties to assume remains. Furthermore, there is no point to debating existence until one decides whether it is even possible to determine the existence of a god (strong agnostics say no), or whether it even matters (strong ignostics pretty much say no).

Nevertheless, the question has been debated for millenia, and the following is a brief synopsis of the highlights. I am going to try to make no presuppositions about the nature of the god inquestion (is it omnipotent? omniscient? good? singluar?), but many of the arguments make implicit assumptions. For example, virtually all assume that the god (or gods) is conscious, intelligent and rational.

Nobody wants to be irrational. (Well, almost nobody.) Both the theist and the atheist can avoid all problems by simply saying "it is beyond our ken",and then continue to believe whatever they want unchallenged. But that would mean that you admit that you have no rational reason for believing what you believe... and thus you are irrational. So in both cases, theist and atheist, the idea is to avoid appealing to the irrational, and to try to convince a neutral (imaginary or no) of their position using these arguments. These are the kinds of arguments you will see.

Arguments for the existence of a god
Every argument for the existence of a god or gods must necessarily make some assumptions about the nature of that god. You can't prove that "god" exists until you define "god". Most of the arguments presented here have numerous forms, all varying slightly dependent on which "god" you're talking about. The Muslim ontological argument is not the same as the Jewish ontological argument for example. I will try to pick a form that works for as many religions as possible in each case.

The teleological argument
Also known as "the argument from design", this is currently the biggest gun in the theist arsenal, and they know it. It's also my (Anna's) specialty. This is actually the underlying source of the long-running conflicts between religion and science. The theist using this argument requires that there be no natural explanations for any perceived order or implicit purpose in natural phenomena, whereas the scientist's job is to find natural explanations. Every time a scientific theory is developed that explains the nature of the universe or some aspect of it, the teleological argument gets weaker.

By far the biggest blow - some even think of it as the finishing blow, although in my opinion, they underestimate the flexibility of the argument and the tenacity of its believers - was the theory of evolution by natural selection. Before Darwin, there was no natural way to explain the kind of complex order and apparent purpose inherent in living organisms, except by appealing to the existence of a designer. Evolution eliminated that problem, which is why it's so hotly contested even today, 150 years later. Those who desire to use the teleological argument are loathe to surrender the best evidence they had.

The argument
The teleological argument goes rather like this:

P1:

P2:

P3:

C:

The "evidence of design" referred to in the first premise comes in two forms. The first is functional complexity. The hexagonal structure of a honeycomb is far too regular to have just fallen together in that matter. Hang around this forum long enough and you will inevitably hear a theist saying something like "I can't see how free floating chemicals could have fallen together randomly to form amino acids (or cells)", implying that because it is unlikely it is impossible without a guiding intelligence; that is an example of an appeal to functional complexity. Less commonly used by laypersons, but more common among philosophers is interfunctionality, which refers to the fact that parts of a natural system are rather like cogs in giant machines, and without the grand plan of the giant machine there is no reason for the cogs to exist. For example, an often heard argument is that no part of the human eye serves any purpose on its own, but only as a component of the eye, so either the eye evolved as is spontaneously (which is vanishingly unlikely), or it was designed.

The modern version of the argument is the so-called "fine tuning" argument, refering to the alledged "fine tuning" of the values of the physical constants that define the nature and properties of our universe. Because it turns out that if any of the physical constants were different by a very small fraction the universe would be unable to support life as we know it, and there currently appears to be no reason why those constants must be as they are, the conclusion is that some intelligence must have "fine tuned" the values of the constants in order to create a life-supporting universe. Other than the fact that philosophers like Paley used biological evidence to support their argument as opposed to physics, the "fine tuning" argument is no different from the classic teleological argument.

Criticism
Most people attack premise 2. They point out that apparent evidence of design does not necessarily imply design. A randomly generated system may appear designed, and in fact it has been amply demonstrated that humans tend to perceive patterns even in random data. Further, even if the structure is not random, but very regularly patterned, that does not imply intelligence - there may simply be an unknown, non-sentient force encouraging that regularity; water forms very regular spherical droplets due to the non-sentient electroweak force.

Asserting that any "evidence of design" in the universe that cannot be explained by science must be evidence of a god is such a common fallacy that it has a name - the "god of the gaps". The god of the gaps is the god that is found by pointing out the gaps in science and saying "there! there be god". Take the "fine tuning" argument for example. Science cannot (currently) explain why the physical constants are they way that they are, and so (the "fine tuner" argues) the only rational explanation is that they must have been set by god. Nonsense, and fallacious.

However, the real problem is with premise 1. Think about what the statement "Nature (or the universe) exhibits evidence of design" is really saying. It is saying "I have determined the set of properties possessed by designed systems and not by non-designed systems, and nature (or the universe) has those properties". You can picture this with a Venn diagram like this one:

"A" is the set of properties that designed systems have and "B" is the set of properties non-designed systems have, and you're claiming that you can put nature (or the universe) in the blue region. The question is, how could you do this if you didn't know about "B"? How can you say that nature has evidence of design if you have never seen anything non-designed? If this argument is true, then everything in the universe is designed. Therefore there is nothing non-designed. Therefore there is nothing non-desgined you can compare nature to and say "it's not like that". The argument is thus self-defeating. Either nature (or the universe) is not designed and we can use that to contrast with human design to say what is and what is not designed, or the universe is designed and the first premise of this argument is meaningless.

The problems with the argument become even more clear when you turn it around and actually apply it to a particular god:

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Pop quiz: Assuming the premises are true (BIG assumption, but go with it for now), what is wrong with this argument? Highlight to see the answer: It commits the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.

The cosmological argument
Less popular but still widely used is the cosmological argument, or "argument from first cause". The idea of this argument is that the universe may be described as a long sequence of causes and effects, and if you trace the causes right back to the beginning, there must have been a first cause. Or, to put it another way, nothing causes nothing - if you started with a big empty void of nothingness, something must have caused the first bit of non-nothingness to exist.

This argument is very popular among deists - in fact, deism may even have arisen out of this argument. Among theists, this argument has appeal in that it (supposedly) proves that a god must have at least existed, but it does little for them beyond that.

The argument
The cosmological argument goes like this:

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The basis for premise 1 is the principle of sufficient reason, which goes back to Plato but is more often associated with Schopenhauer.

Criticism
It is rare to challenge premise 1 - the principle of sufficient reason - but it is done occasionally. The problem with premise 1 is that it assumes a hard-deterministic universe. That contradicts current science, and it is incompatible most religions. Premise 2 is occasionally challenged, because there are other options besides those two (oscillations, for example). Premise 3 is just plain wrong, and arises from a misunderstanding of "infintely long". From all of that, it is apparent that the sub-conclusion is not guaranteed true.

But even assuming the subconclusion true, the argument is still weak, because premise 4 is completely ridiculous. Replace "god" with "the big bang"... and now you have the cosmological argument for the existence of the big bang. If the argument works for a god, then it must necessarily work for the big bang, too, unless there is something about a god that makes the argument work in that case but not otherwise. You might say "what caused the big bang?" as an objection, but if that objection doesn't work for a god why does it work for the big bang? You can have an uncaused deity but not an uncaused big bang? Why? There's no answer.

Finally, even if it is true, the argument doesn't really do much for the case of any god. It may prove that a god caused the universe, but it doesn't prove that god is intelligent, or even sentient, it doesn't imply that creation was a deliberate act, and it doesn't imply any rhyme or reason to the universe.

The ontological argument
This one is a little wacky, and I admit that I don't really get it myself, but Indi is an expert on it, so I'm gonna turn the reins over to him:

The ontological argument is an a priori argument - an argument that attempts to prove or disprove something without any evidence, but only based on the characteristics of that thing. The question is whether or not the very characteristics that describe God are enough to prove that he necessarily exists or does not exist.

This argument was rejected by Thomas Aquinas - who was arguably the father of Christian theology, and, by extension, all of western theology - so it is not traditionally part of western theological thought. Thus you probably haven't heard it before, although it has been put forward by several famous philosophers like René Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz. It is also quite difficult to grasp - most people reflexively reject it when they first hear it, but actually disproving it is quite difficult.

The argument
To do the argument justice, i have to present two different forms of it. The first is the original; Anselm's:

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How about that? Simple, yet oh so complex. Two premises and a conclusion. You can't get much more elegant than that.

Next is Descartes' which is more abstract, but really clever because of that:

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The problem with Anselm's formulation is that anyone who conceives of a different god (or no god at all) can dismiss premiss 1 by simply saying "says who?". Descartes' version sidesteps that problem in a most ingenious way. Descartes doesn't assert anything about God, he simply says that it is possible to conceive of God as perfect. You don't have to believe anything, you just have to agree that it's possible to think that thought. (Incidently, that existence is a perfection is hardly refutable - how can a non-existent X be more perfect that the exact same X that exists? In my left hand is a hundred dollar bill that exists. In my right hand is a hundred dollar bill that doesn't exist. Which would you take?)

As Descartes puts it: "Even if there are not and never were any triangles outside my thought, still, when I imagine a triangle I am constrained in how I do this, because there is a determinate nature or essence or form of triangle that is eternal, unchanging, and independent of my mind. Consider the things that I can prove about the triangle - that its three angles equal two right angles, that its longest side is opposite its greatest angle, and so on. I am forced to agree that the triangle has these properties, even if I didn’t give them a thought when the triangle first came into my mind. So they can’t have been invented by me." In plain English, imagine you knew nothing about triangles, and i told you to conceive of a three-sided geometric shape. So you picture one in your head. Then i ask you if the sum of the angles is 180°. You check and answer yes. Now, i did not ask you to conceive of a three-sided object that has angles adding up to 180°. However, the fact that the angles add up to 180° is an intrinsic truth of three-sided geometric objects. You can't conceive of a three-sided object that does not have that property. What that means is that just by conceiving of things it is possible to discover intrinsic truths about them, without you actually having to insert the truths proactively in your conception. Simply conceiving of a three-sided object lets you discover truths about three-sided objects that existed even before you conceived the idea.

That's how the argument works. The idea is that if you conceive of a triangle, you will discover intrinsic truths about it - such as that the angles add up to 180°, the area is half-base-times-height and so on. And by the same process, conceiving of a perfect (or "supremely great" in Anselm's version, which takes care of conceptions of gods that don't require perfection) god leads you to an intrinsic truth about that god... the god must exist.

Criticism
Bertrand Russell wrote this about the ontological argument: "it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than to find out precisely where the fallacy lies", and he's right. Most people look at that argument and know there's something wrong, but can't say exactly where.

The first thing most people try is to replace "god" with anything else:

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Only it doesn't, now does it? Clearly something is wrong. But where?

The answer, as determined by Kant, is that existence is not a predicate (or property), it only looks like one. Suppose i told you that i had in my pocket a lighter. Then i said "it is a pink lighter" - i have added more information about the lighter, you now also know that it is pink. Then i said "it is empty" - i have added still more info, you now also know that it's empty. Then i said "it exists" - but i haven't added any new information, all i have done is taken the lighter, with all of the predicates i have already given you (pink and empty), and brought them out of the hypothetical into the real.

Or to put it another way, how can the lighter be pink if it doesn't exist? It can't. Turn it around now: can it exist if it's not pink? Sure. So before it can be pink, or empty, or anything, it has to exist first.

In the case of the ontological argument, premiss 1 says "God is _____" (fill in "supremely great" for Anselm or "perfect" for Descartes). But how can God "be" anything if he doesn't exist? Therefore, in order for premiss 1 to be true, you have to assume the conclusion. It's a circular argument.

Back to Anna!

Back to me ^_^ I just want to add two things. First, many epistemological philosophers believe that it is impossible to know anything a priori, so a priori arguments are meaningless (even if they're not fallacious).

Second, Indi totally didn't mention my favourite parody of it. ^_^ If you assume that existence can be a predicate in order to make the ontological argument work, then you can also make this argument:

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Heh. Is it absurd? Yes. ^_^ But that's what makes it so funny. If the ontological argument is valid, this one (and others like it) would be too.

Other arguments
Those aren't the only arguments for any gods' existence, but they are really kinda the only ones worth mentioning. There are other arguments, such as the argument from the existence of morality, which claims that given that morality is a bunch of commands on how to behave, there must be a commander. A recent development is the transcendental argument, but that's so new the paint hasn't dried yet - it looks like it might be full of holes, but it's too early to say for sure. There are lots of other minor ones, arguments from testimony ("that person felt the presence of God, so God must exist"), arguments from need ("we need a superior being to guide us or we can't be moral"), Pascal's wager and so on. But they're mostly philosophically uninteresting.

Arguments against the existence of a god
Some arguments against the existence of god attempt to disprove the existence of a specific god, but many are rather general. Almost all, with the exception of the parsimony argument, are reactive arguments. There is a simple reason for that. Consider this: why are there no proactive arguments against the existence of a flooga? Simple; no one knew they would need any until I introduced the idea. And you can't argue against the existence of a flooga until I tell you what a flooga is. Thus all arguments against the existence of a flooga will be reactionary.

Until "god" is defined, no one can give any coherent argument against the existence of one. Some claim that no one has actually managed to give a meaningful definition of "god", and they may be right. Whatever the case, most arguments against the existence of gods are refutations of claims made about them.

The parsimony argument
This argument is the only proactive argument against the existence of a god, and for most atheists the only one that matters. Technically it is not specifically an argument against a god, but it does a number on arguments for. The argument is essentially a broad application of Occam's razor.

The argument
The parsimony argument goes rather like this:

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As you can see, it's not so much an argument as it is a principle. The only rational epistemological position to take is to assume there is no god until you have evidence that there is. This principle is restated over and over in atheist literature, in various ways. It is the foundation for Russell's teapot, for example.

The part that is debatable is whether or not the condition of evidence has been satisfied, and the argument is that it has not. Furthermore, this principle puts the burden of proof on the theist, and to prove the existence of a god would require an ungodly amount of proof, pardon the pun.

Criticism
This argument is not a proof against the existence of a god, it is a tactic to switch the responsibility of defence from the atheist to the theist. Does it actually belong there? Technically, yes. There is not much to be said against the principle of it because it is a foundational principle in epistemology. The only real way to object is to claim that there is plenty of evidence for the existence of a god - so much so, in fact, that the burden of proof now falls back on the atheist to explain how so much evidence can be wrong. Unfortunately this is not a very good objection.

The existence of this argument is the reason why a theist has to make any arguments at all for the existence of gods. If it weren't for this argument, the theist could simply say "it's obvious that a god exists" and there would be no real challenge - it would be one unjustified opinion against another.

The problem of evil
By far the most famous atheist argument, and the oldest. An entire field has sprung up to refute this argument, the field of writing theodicies. Parsimony is what gives atheist philosophies their epistemological justification, but it's the problem of evil that gives them their teeth.

This argument is so popular and so widely applied that it is customized and recustomized for just about every occasion. Christian god concepts, Jewish god concepts, Hindi god concepts; you name it there's a POE for it. As a general rule, the argument is directed either at creator gods (gods that created the universe/world but do not necessarily control it - deist gods, for example) controller gods (gods that (can) control the universe/world but did not necessarily create it - for example, Zeus), or both. It also always assumes the god to be reasonably benevolent. The other details, such as assuming omnipotence and omniscience, vary according to the specific god concept being discussed.

The argument
The most common and general formulation of the problem of evil that I can put together is directed specifically at creator gods, but it's trivial to change the wording slightly to cover controller gods:

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The more power you attribute to the god, the more powerful this argument becomes - those gods that are claimed to be omnipotent, omniscent and omnibenevolent are completely tanked by it.

Most people understand the argument because it's such a popular one - usually stated as simply as "if God exists why is there suffering?". I love Epicurus' formulation, stated here - he was talking about the Greek gods, but it's rather timeless.

Criticism
One of the easiest ways to dismiss the argument is to surrender one or more of the characteristics of the god in premise 1. If you say the god is not particularly powerful, or not particularly aware of what is going on, then you might be able to get out of the quagmire - the problem is that would it still be worth calling a god once you do that? You could also say the god is not particularly good, but that's rarely done. Who wants to worship an ****** (and be unable to deny it)?

Sometimes premise 2 is attacked, but that's rare and not particularly effective - especially if you're not willing to give up the claim that the god is reasonably benevolent.

But the most interesting challenge I know of is to challenge premise 3 and say "this is the best possible world". Most people scratch their heads when they first hear someone say that, and think they're joking or naive; Hume mentions it in passing, chuckling about how silly it is. But that's the way that most religions solve the problem.

How can they justify the claim that this is be the best possible world? By means of the free will defence, claiming that this is the best possible world that could exist with free will existing in it, and that no world without free will can be superior to a world with it. Indi is an expert on the free will defence, so I asked him to say a few words, but he said it's an elaborate and complex problem that cannot be handled in just a few words, so he might do a separate essay on just the problem of evil and free will defence later.

The poor design argument
Because it is sometimes used as a parody (often called "unintelligent design", har har), the poor design argument is normally not considered a good argument against god. Atheist philosophers will usually turn to one of the paradoxes of godly attributes, such as the paradox of omnipotence, before turning to this one. However, do not underestimate its efficacy. It's a very effective argument - especially when coupled with the parsimony "argument".

I chose to pick this one as the third atheist argument for three reasons. First, as I've already mentioned, a priori arguments are iffy at best, and the paradoxes are all a priori arguments. Second, the paradoxes are too specific - for example, the paradox of omnipotence only applies to omnipotent gods. Third, this argument is closely tied to science, and I felt a scientific argument against should be included to balance a scientific argument for (the teleological argument).

One of the most effective uses of this argument is against the claim of some religious people that humanity is the reason the universe was created - that we are somehow special or unique to our creator, and all of nature exists for the purpose of us existing. It is also very powerful against creationism.

The argument
The poor design argument goes rather like this:

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The evidence of poor design usually comes from observing life - the famous example is Stephen Jay Gould's "panda's 'thumb'". But in the human anatomy there are hundreds of examples. Our nasal cavity is prone to infection and inflamation because it was originally evolved for a species that walks on all fours with our heads down, not up. Most back problems exist for the same reason, our spine was not originally intended for an upright species. Why do we have a blind spot in our eyes - it is obviously not necessary because not all creatures have them? Wisdom teeth? Appendix? It makes no sense for a creator to have given us these things if we would not always need them, and even if it was necessary in the past, why make them so they're not only useless now... but downright dangerous?

There are other ways to look at the problem, depending on the perspective of god. For those who believe that humanity is priviledged and that all creation exists for us, one can question why so much of nature is hidden from us or out of our reach. Why make deep sea creatures if we can't see them? Why make us able to drown on a planet that's 70% water?

This is actually the argument that first turned Darwin away from Christianity (although it was the problem of evil that convinced him years later). He set out on his voyage to prove the teleological argument... and wound up denying it.

Criticism
Commonly, premise 1 is attacked, with the argument that just because something seems random or purposeless, it does not necessarily follow that it is. The purpose, and the design, may simply be well beyond our capacity to see. (This is the traditional Christian solution to this problem, which also seemingly allows for the teleological argument as an additional bonus (although it really doesn't).)

Premise 2 is generally dismissed by deist conceptions of god, which argue that the creator simply made the laws of the universe then set it in motion. The apparent lack of order is an unavoidable consequence of natural evolution. One might question whether or not a creator could have designed the laws in order to make things a little better for humanity, but if one does not assume humanity has a special place in the universe, that objection is easily dismissed. This argument is probably the reason why such a disproportionately large number of scientists and thinkers over the ages have opted for deism, which is not affected by this argument. ("Modern" Christianity is attempting to co-opt this view into their belief system, downplaying the uniqueness of humanity's place in the universe and dismissing half the bible as allegorical. They do this in order to free themselves from the trap of this argument. You can see now, I hope, why I thought this argument was important enough to mention.)

But even without assuming that the universe must be the way it is, one could simply dismiss premise 2 by asking why not. There is no reason to assert that a creator would not add components that have no functional purpose, just for the hell of it. Painting flames on your car can be considered poor design, because the irregular pattern disrupts the visual form of the car (much like how camouflage works) and makes it harder to see, and thus more likely to hit. But damn, it looks cool. In fact, the person with flames on their car is probably the person who spent more time selecting and improving their car than one who did not. What appears to be poor design is, in fact, evidence of good design.

Yet another possible objection, albeit a disingenious one, is to say that the apparent shortcomings are deceptions deliberately put there to "test" us. I'm not going to comment further on this objection, because it's philosophically vapid.

Other arguments
There are, of course, dozens of other atheist arguments. Many of them paradoxes used to show that specific conceptions of gods are illogical, such as the paradox of omnipotence ("can god create a rock he can't lift?"), the paradox of sovereignty ("can god make a law he can't overrule?") and more. In fact, most atheist arguments are such paradoxes, but not all. There are also arguments of morality, and injustice, against god. Some are interesting, some are not, but most are rare.

Conclusion
Does a god exist? I dunno.

What, you thought I would give a final answer? Hardly.

All too often in philosophy there are questions that have been unanswered for millenia, and not for lack of trying. There are few such questions in other fields, save for the really, really big and vague ones.

There is no final answer to this question, although the general consensus is that the atheist position is better justified at this point. However, the opposite was true up until the middle of the 19th century of so - Paley's teleological argument (the one Darwin believed and set out to enforce) was unshakeable, a guy named Samuel Clarke had the cosmological argument pwn3d and no one had yet figured out quite what was wrong with the ontological argument. But then along came Darwin to put Paley's argument to rest, the cosmological argument was always iffy and was shaken by Haley but really put down by quantum mechanics, and Kant finally solved the riddle of the ontological argument. Science at this point is so powerful that it has very few gaps for gods to live in - in another few decades, it may be that any remaining gaps will be beyond the ken of the layperson. Or maybe not, who's to say?

It is important to note that because of the widely varied (and shifting!) definitions of "god", it is impossible to ever completely disprove the existence of a god. A determined believer could simply switch to another conception of "god" (and does, often in the course of a single discussion). Or they can simply say that their god is beyond evidence, beyond reason, beyond whatever it needs to be beyond in order to be believed.

Nevertheless, I believe it is important for anyone who takes reason seriously to seriously reason about the question. Especially theists, for an atheist has the freedom to point out that the question is irrelevant to them until proven otherwise. Every theist should be intimately familiar with the arguments for and against their god... unless they do not care whether or not they hold their belief by reason. Mind you, that is not the only question that must be considered. Even if you manage to prove that a god exists, you must still answer the question of why anyone should care (other than as an intellectual fact), why the god should be worshipped/loved instead of despised, and more.

But even if you don't care, an overview of the discussion like this can be a valuable learning tool for those who want to be good philosophers. Which, in the end, is why I wrote this essay. ^_-

abhiz

Philosophy
everything what you say is correct

divinitywolf

wow. everyone read that if you're interested with philosophy. it has all you need to know

Bikerman

Very nice summary and an excellent reference. Can I ask that this be classified as a 'sticky' by the moderators please.

mike1reynolds

I haven’t read the whole thing, but I want to focus on the Problem Of Evil that Indi poses.

The atheistic point of view is actually quite optimistic regarding God, as opposed to the conclusion reached by many who are actually aware of the noisy ruckus highschool lunch room that is the Great Spirit. It is a totally different form of atheism, and one which I have pondered over much myself as I have dwelt on the tattered world of the spirit. While the world is nuts, the spirit world is dramatically more nuts if you can hear more than just one local spot. There was a thread on vampirism not too long ago, I wanted to say more but no one seemed to know much, however, I think that they are more like the kind of atheists I’m talking about here. Not materialists at all, but quite aware of the spiritual universe, and just as totally convinced as Indi that there is no god. I can’t entirely disagree with their point of view, but I offer certain mitigating arguments now, of a most unusual and unique variety that purely my own.

Ah, but I have to go…. Perhaps this evening I shall discuss the nature of spiritual Big Bangs and localized pockets of insanity in the multidimensional parameter space of timestreams.

It really sucks that frihost doesn't have multiple fonts. Poetry and spell casting really benefit from fancy fonts. My favorite on ChristianForums.com is Bookman Antique, italicized….

Indi

Just an update:

The progress has been slowed down considerably because the moderators have asked Anna to stop posting, so it's just me, Indi, now.

She had one on moral relativism half-done, and i tried to pick it up, but it's just not working, so i might start over on that one. i have one on moral responsibility and free will started, and that might actually get done first.

After that, Anna was going to do a few on philosophers. i think she had Plato, Hume and one other in mind (i forget who, and she's not here right now). i don't know if i'll pick those up. we'll see.

After the one on moral responsibility, i was planning one on the meaning of life.

If anyone has any idea about aesthetics, i'd appreciate an intro to that. i don't know anything about it.

Bikerman

I'll have a bash at it (though I am certainly no expert and probably no wiser than you on the matter). It will force me to do a bit of reading on the matter which is never a bad thing Smile

Gagnar The Unruly

I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys manage to put together.

mike1reynolds

Indi, what business is it of the moderators who you wish to post for? I have a serious problem with moderator action on such an issue, unless they can explain themselves in a coherent fashion. Perhaps Anna is your girlfriend who wishes to remain semi-anonymous, or perhaps it is just an alternate personality. Either way, I don’t see how it is anyone’s business but yours, and I will back you up with my usually outspoken bombastic nature, if this continues to be an issue.

Indi

Frihost is not a democracy, and anyone labouring under that assumption is mistaken. We have no rights here other than what the moderators choose to give us. We have no grounds to complain when their rulings go against us. If the moderators decide to allocate Fri$ on the basis of penis size, two things will be true. First, it will be so, and no amount of complaining or lobbying will change it unless the moderators decide to let popular opinion sway them. Second, i would win.

They said they did not want two people using one account. They offered to let Anna have her own account. Anna decided that it wasn't worth the bother because she has no interest in hosting, and wasn't particularly engaged by whoever she was debating (and it's kind of silly to have two different accounts run from a single computer, although i suppose one of us could use the desktop). That's about it. It doesn't even concern me but for the fact that she left me with this thread to handle on my own - all her other conversations i have no interest in following up on.

mike1reynolds

Viki and Teresa agree, that is a bunch of hooey, and since they don’t give a hoot about posting here, but never the less have an opinion about everything that I am interested in, I will now proceed to post their comments here regularly.

I’ve found this forum to be one of the most hands-off moderatorships I’ve ever come across in a forum on religion, so I must say that I am quite shocked at such heavy handedness on their part. Is Steve Bondings a party to this decision? True, it is not a democracy, but it is also not really a moderatorship either, Bondings has total control from what I can tell, but sometimes the word doesn’t get all the way up to him.

Gagnar The Unruly

Indi

mike1reynolds

“I am not A bitch, I am THE bitch” – a bumper sticker on some woman’s car.

Women actually like to be called bitch, it means they have power. Call them a c*** or something purely sexually, and they are enraged, but too call them a bitch, they actually like it!

Ok, I accused you of being of Anna, in private email, but I still maintain that this is not a moderator issue, unless you try to abuse the privilege.

Viki and Teresa hardily agree.

Bikerman

Indi

Bikerman

tingkagol

this is why i love this forum.

i'm too busy reading that my frihost points are dwindling. nice.

by the way, a question to indi: why do you post like there's two of you working on the posts? are you some kind of schizo, if i may ask? just wondering.

make_life_better

Indi

Bikerman

Related to which.....
I should have the promised work on Aesthetics finished in a day or two. Indi - I'll post it to you since I think this, being your/Anna's baby, should remain under your editorial control and you might want to change/delete/add stuff before posting it up to the forum...

Indi

Nope, absolutely not. All i ask of anyone contributing an essay here is that the essay be as neutral as possible, and that it meet a certain standard of quality. Not a particularly stringent standard of quality, either. Once it has a valid, coherent point, and every claim is backed up to a minimally reasonable degree, that will do.

As long as it's not unintelligible, irrelevant, demonstrably wrong or so vague as to be pointless, it's welcome, and i won't exert any kind of editorial control or censorship over it. i'd like this to be a community resource, not a personal project for the sake of my ego (it's unfortunate that only i can edit the first post... it would have been nice if it could be a little more wiki-like).

Bikerman

OK.....I'll stick it up when done....I think the idea of a layout similar to wikki is good and I'll apply something similar to this posting.
Could we not request the moderators to allow the first article to be altered in this manner (assuming it is possible)? It would seem to me to be a perfectly reasonable request and one which is clearly to the general good, and with no negatives that I can see in terms of general protocols and etiquette.

Indi

Indi

Methods for determining morality

Fundamental to any discussion of what is right or wrong, or whether X is right or wrong, is the question of where right and wrong come from, or what it is that determines right and wrong. There are, of course, many different theories, but they can be lumped into two categories: relativist theories and universalist theories. Relativist theories claim that there are no universal standards for determining what is right and wrong, and that all morality is relative to some "thing", which could be a culture, a god's will, or even the individual. Universalist theories claim that there are ways to determine morality objectively, and that those standards can apply universally.

Traditionally, philosophers have almost universally rejected relativism, with the exception of nihilists and existentialists (both of whom are, in effect, types of subjectivists, which will be explained shortly). But at the same time the general public has almost universally embraced it. Dr. Laurence BonJour of the University of Washington once commented: "It is a striking fact about the current state of moral discussion that despite the popularity of relativist views among nonphilosophers, very few philosophers find them plausible."

Chances are that you are a moral relativist. In fact, you are most likely a cultural relativist - you believe that right or wrong is determined by the culture. If that's the case, you were probably shocked by the paragraph above (you may even have decided that everything i am writing here is simply my own opinion, despite the quote, and have decided to ignore it out of hand). But bear with me, and i will try to give a whirlwind summary of the entire philosophical field of morality. Hopefully at the end of it, if i do the topic justice, you will see why philosophers prefer universalist theories.

An introduction to moral relativist theories

All moral relativist theories have one thing in common. They claim that there is no universal standard by which morality can be determined, and that all morality is relative to non-universal standards. i'll introduce three such non-universal standards: the first is a personal standard (relative to the individual), the second is a cultural standard (relative to the local culture) and the third is a theological standard (relative to the word and/or teachings of a religion or god).

Subjectivism

Subjectivism is a category of moral relativist theories that holds that morality is relative to the individual, and has no meaning beyond each person's own opinions. This is roughly equivalent to saying that morality does not exist at all (although not quite... it does have the same effect in the end, though).

The most basic form of subjectivism - simple subjectivism - is... well, pretty poor, from a philosophical standpoint. Because of that, a more evolved version - emotivism - was developed. For the sake of fairness i will present an emotivist argument along with the simple subjectivist argument, because the latter is just too ridiculously easy to take apart.

Simple subjectivism

Simple subjectivism holds that moral judgements are nothing more than opinions. When i say "X is good" or "X is right" or "X is morally correct", what i am really saying is "i like X" or "i am ok with X" or "X is ok by me". Similarly, when i say "X is wrong" or "X is evil" or "X is immoral", what i am really saying is "i don't like X" or "i disapprove of X". But in actual fact, there is no "right" or "wrong", "good" or "evil", "moral" or "immoral". It is all just a matter of opinion.

Emotivism

For reasons that will become clear shortly, simple subjectivism hasn't found much favour in philosophical circles (even considering the paltry support for relativist theories in general, simple subjectivism is lacking). Because of that, emotivism was developed. For the moment, it won't be clear why emotivism was necessary, or why it took this form. Bear with me. When i get into the criticisms of simple subjectivism, you will see why emotivism is the way it is.

There are three types of non-question sentences: statements, commands and interjections. Statements are declarations of fact, and as long as they are not ambiguous, must be true or false. Commands are pretty obvious; they are instructions that you give to someone else. Interjections are neither statements nor commands, they are like outbursts. Here are some examples of each:
Statements
❅ Einstein was a scientist.
❅ Cheese is a vegetable. (Note that statements do not necessarily need to be true.)
❅ i like cheese.
Commands
❅ Help me! (Although this may seem like an interjection, it is in fact a command... or at least a request.)
❅ Get lost.
❅ Please pass the cheese. (Commands can be polite, too.)
Interjections
❅ Cool!
❅ Oh, crap.
❅ Yay for cheese!

In simple subjectivism, moral statements are statements of fact, rather like the "i like cheese" example above. That (as will be shown later) causes all kinds of problems, so emotivism changed the rules of the game a little.

In emotivism, moral statements are more like interjections. When i say: "X is morally correct", it's not like stating a fact, but it is like saying: "Yay for X!" Similarly, when i say: "X is immoral", it is rather like saying: "Blah, X". There is an element of command in there, too, because when i tell you that X is morally correct, i am obliquely hinting to you that i want you to do X (and when i say X is immoral, i am telling you i don't want you to do X). However, it is a weak command - a command by implication only. When i shout: "Yay, Leafs!" there i