Monday, June 4, 2012

The Built-in Ad Hominem of the Morality Debate

An ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it.

When it comes to the debate of moral truth, can the ad hominem be avoided? It always comes to a theist questioning an atheist's morality and an atheist questioning a theist's morality. Since one's morality is the scale we measure the "goodness" of the person, we are basically saying that the individual we are debating against is a bad person. I don't like this, but since the only way to debate the validity of subjective morality is to call into question the moral beliefs of your opponent, I see no way around it.
If I'm debating someone who gets their morality from the Bible, I will mention Deuteronomy 22 or some other verse of the "Good Book" that conflicts with my morality and the morality of my modern society. I usually go with Deuteronomy 22 because it has everything from rules against mixed fabric to the stoning of women who had sex out of wedlock. Yesterday's morals make today's bible purist a bad person.

Inversely, a theist will call into question my belief that homosexuality is not a sin. Or that I am immoral because I have had sex outside of marriage. Or that I'm immoral by default simply because I haven't accepted Jesus to wipe away original sin. You can hate the sin and not the sinner, but that doesn't change the fact that an immoral person is a bad person.

I understand that most of these debates deal with the hypothetical and not the practical, but I'm tired of talking about hypothetical bestiality. It's humiliating and insulting. It detracts from the point of the argument. Is there a god and did he give us our morality? Those that think that there is and he did, also think that said god gave us life, the universe and everything. So let's talk about that, because I'd like to think that we're all good people.

14 comments:

  1. I hear and share your frustration.
    I too would like to think we're all good people, but I simply cannot, because we are not all good people.

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    1. There will always be bad people, but I know that everyone on one side of an argument can't share that shitty title.

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  2. That's interesting. I never actually looked at the argument like that, but you have a great point.

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    1. Thanks. I don't think we often explicitly say the person on the other side of the morality argument is a bad person, but it is always implied.

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  3. I think you make a good point about most of us being good people. That is why, when I have the morality debate, I try to stick with the moral principles of the bible. I find that most of the theists that I talk with have no clue about thinks like Deut 22.

    Those that are bible literalists also seem to shy away from things like that, but that is what I want them to do. Now they are cherry-picking only the moral teachings they want from the bible. What good is a source of morality if you get to pick which rules you are going to follow?

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    1. I think it's one thing to cherry pick stuff from a culture or philosophy but another thing all together to say that the source was "divinely inspired." One quick example off the top of my head is the Romans. I think aqueducts and a sewage system is a really great thing to take away from them, but putting lead in our food to improve the flavor is a terrible thing. We can do this because we don't believe that these things were divinely inspired. But, when Christians cherry pick in the bible, particularly when J-man said himself "not one iota of the law.." that's a different thing all together.

      I like your point about Deut 22. If you phrased the ideas to a Christian, he might think they were absurd. The laws are so arbitrary and I don't really think any of them are followed anymore. Mixed fabrics? Really!? If I own any piece of clothing that's not mixed, its a lucky coincidence. Surely, I'm going to hell, yet somehow it doesn't really phase me.

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    2. RB: Agree. If you can cherry pick the morals of the Bible, you surely already had morality before you started reading. The Bible itself seems unnecessary.

      JK: Good points. Ever think about writing your own blog?

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    3. Hausdorff said the same thing.. I'd rather just troll you guys =P

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  4. It really just comes down to what a person happens to believe, at the end of the day. On issues of morality we really get to the fundamentals of the whole religion debate; what people really, really believe, as it were. Thus it’s kind of inevitable that ad hominem attacks occur. Kind of sad, I guess, but that’s just how it works when you reach this stage of the debate. I personally think it’s a shame that people feel the need to pass off all the good work they do (and good work does get done by those of faith, don’t get me wrong) to a higher power that’s sat on it’s ass and not done much. It really feels like they’re doing themselves a disservice.

    When it comes to this particular debate, though, I have a couple favourites to roll out.

    People often mention the whole “Jesus died for you” thing. But I didn’t ask him to die for me, and I don’t feel that I should be held accountable for something that I had no choice in. Why should I be held accountable for something my ancestors supposedly did? That’s like punishing the child for the sins of the father. In any other case we’d find it abhorrent, but in this one instance it’s apparently okay. Because it's cool, guys; god did it.

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    1. If I'm not going to feel guilty for the trail of tears and slavery, I'm definitely not going to feel guilty for what Adam and Eve did...even if they were real.

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    2. And, let's be honest, they weren't. Asking me to feel guilt for their sin is like asking me to feel responsible for Gandalf's self-sacrifice in 'The Fellowship of the Ring'.

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  5. @Grundy: I agree with you a hundred percent.. While we need to learn about these things and be aware of them. unless there are vampires out there, no one is still alive that was responsible for slavery happened or the trail of tears. There is no reason we should feel guilty.

    @OckhamsRazorboy: How DARE you sir!! It was Gandalf's selflessness act that eventually enabled the ring to be gained. Please respect the beliefs of others here. Thank you.

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  6. The difference between theistic morality and atheistic morality is essentially authoritarian thinking versus democratic thinking. The authoritarian requires a higher, ultimate authority to define morality for us, whereas the democrat believes that society can define morality for itself. That's all the law really is: society defining its official morality.

    So either one believes that a government must be divinely mandated (divine rights of kings), or one believes that it requires a mandate from the people.

    It really is an either/or proposition. Either someone believes in democracy or they believe in God. If they really believe that Biblical law is the law of God, then they ought to believe that it should be the law of the land, as well.

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  7. I try to avoid the ad hominem nonsense too. That's why I stick to "safe" topics when I can, like what you mention with Deut 22, and like slavery. It's often entertaining to see people wriggle out of the slavery point.

    Anyway, in a sense I think that the Christians are every bit as subjective in their morality as any non-Christian, as you alluded to in your previous post. The difference is that Christians feel like they have God's will supporting their subjectivity.

    But I, too, would like to think that we are all just good people trying to do good, or good enough, in the world. Usually, in the face of such subjectivity, it's too easy to forget that.

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