Why do you care if people believe in God?

[Century 25]

The only reason I care is because the world is governed by people who believe.. or profess to believe.. in.. nothing.. all fairy tales.. and are quite willing to die for such dark-age nonsense.. and further.. are also ready to kill those that don't follow their way of thinking..

[iclaudius]

Quote by: Autolykos I don't believe that there is such a thing as "true morality" in an objective, empirical sense. There are no "moral facts" waiting to be discovered. Concepts like justification and legitimacy exist only within the human mind. However, that does not mean that one should be amoral. Are all moral codes legitimate in which actions they justify? From the standpoint of external reality, again, legitimacy does not exist. So from that standpoint, it's nonsensical to ask such a question. On the other hand, from my own, personal point of view, not all moral codes are created equal. I feel that some are superior to others, and the most superior is the one I choose to follow. Finally, your last question seems to assume that "right and wrong" are somehow facts waiting to be discovered, i.e. that there is some "one true morality" out there, independent of human minds. As far as I can see, there is no empirical proof in favor of such a view. From a personal point of view, however, I can say that not all value systems are equal in their ability to judge what I consider to be right and wrong.

Sorry about the late response, but I wanted to make sure I gave this ample time to incubate.

The first thing I'd like to clear up is the concepts of legitimacy and justification. I don't know where you got your definition, but legitimacy is the evaluation of something's worth based on a logic system of some type. Even if there were no true morality, legitimacy would still exist in systems like basic logic. In most cases, "legitimate" is equivalent to "reasonable," "logical," "rational," "logically inferable (see dictionary.com, 4th definition if you're curious)," etc. For example, if 2 + 2 = 4, it is a legitimate conclusion that 4 - 2 = 2. When we evaluate value systems (which, to some extent, includes systems of morality), the concept of legitimacy itself does not change; it is still a measure of the logical consistency of whatever we're talking about. The legitimacy of an action is a subjective thing, but that's only because logical consistency is not constant -- it depends on which moral code you're talkinga bout. Even so, logical consistency itself never changes; only the context does. And besides, even if there weren't a one true code on which to base the legitimacy of an action, the variability of the term itself would not be enough to preclude its (non-)existence. Reality may be different for everyone, but the key thing is that it exists for everyone.

Justification is a very similar concept, and generally works to explain why a concept is legitimate. For example, 2 + 2 = 4 is justified by the fact that if you have 2 and get 2 more, you have 4. 4 - 2 = 2 is justified for a similar reason. As a result of this justification, they are legitimate expressions.

The impact of the above is, when I ask if all moral codes are legitimate, it is a question that is both sensical and legitimate in itself. I'm asking, in short, if you believe that all moral codes can all simultaneously be granted the power of being moral. You may be tempted to talk about how morality is subjective, etc., however, allow me to point out that I'm not asking you to judge whether or not something is morally justifiable, but rather, I'm asking you to ask yourself if your ideas are logically consistent (legitimate). We've already proven that legitimacy and justification both exist, which means that it would be a logical contradiction for you to deny that the question makes any sense. You must answer yes or no: According to your assertion that there is no base morality, do you find that all moral codes are inherently equal in merit?

[fushigi]

Quote by: Century 25 The only reason I care is because the world is governed by people who believe.. or profess to believe.. in.. nothing.. all fairy tales.. and are quite willing to die for such dark-age nonsense.. and further.. are also ready to kill those that don't follow their way of thinking..

But is your problem with having a belief in God, or is it with having a belief in anything?

Certainly, Bolsheviks were willing to kill and die for their belief in Marxism - they even asked to be buried with the "Communist Manifesto." Vietnamese were willing to kill for their belief in anti-colonialism. Nazis were willing to kill for their belief in racial purity. The list goes on and on...

[Autolykos]

Normally I use the concepts of legitimacy and justification in a moral sense. That is, given a value system, certain actions are to be viewed as legitimate, namely those that conform to the value system. In a sense, then, legitimacy does indeed correspond to logical validity.

Justification is a means of proving an action legitimate within the value system. It would thus seem that legitimacy and justification are two sides of the same coin. The process of deterimining legitimacy is justification, whereas the result of justification is legitimacy. Certainly, if the justification fails, legitimacy cannot be established.

However, all of this can only be done from within a value system. Do you know of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems? Put together, they basically state that any logically-consistent set of axioms cannot evaluate itself. Thus, while a value system can evaluate other value systems, it can only do so from its own perspective, and the perspective itself cannot be evaluated from within the system.

Now, in light of our discussion about legitimacy and justification, are all moral codes legitimate (i.e. logically consistent)? Certainly not. Many moral codes hold logical fallacies at their very cores, whether their adherents realize it or not. Then again, we have not accepted, either as a premise or as an inference, that logical consistency is necessary for any value system.

- Rob