RDFRS US:
The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.
The Magic of Reality
for the iPad
Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
RH, I have read your post, and agree that objective statements can be made about moral conditions and decisions, but the morals themselves always link back to subjective decisions. We can, likewise, make objective statements about the perceived outcomes of holding a particular moral position, and even objective statements about how desires arise in our brains. But it still does not get as far as objectively correct reasoning about what morals we should have.
Would I then be immoral if I chose to use a hammer instead of the knife? We can't tell without the context. The statement might be information about what works best, or it might be a requirement in a religious ritual such that a moral line would be crossed if I failed to use the knife.
Try to answer this question: How can you come up with the correct objective moral position (what should and should not be) from what is, when we only have at any time a provisional knowledge of what is? Wouldn't we have to know all the scientific knowledge of all the future to show that we have the correct objective answer?
Permalink Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:28:21 UTC | #865744