Moral agency and passing judgment
During a discussion about Pascal's wager elsewhere:
I guess the antecedents of 1 and 2 are supposed to be (more or less) mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. So, (at least) one of the consequents would hold. 3 does hold some intuitive appeal. Trying to think of (realistic) counter-examples. Maybe someone could be an autonomous moral agent, yet, for some reason, incapable of passing moral judgment on the Quran? Anyway, I wasn't really interested in tedious semantics, more the argument, possible counter-examples, ...
By the way, the wager isn't that good an argument. Some version of the argument above could perhaps work in some other capacity, don't know. Maybe divine command theory or theological voluntarism ... What say you?
Feel free to replace the Quran with whatever else applicable:
1. if you're incapable of passing moral judgment on the Quran, then you're not an autonomous moral agent
2. if you can pass moral judgment on the Quran, then the Quran cannot be the definition of morals
3. therefore, you're not an autonomous moral agent, or the Quran cannot be the definition of morals
I guess the antecedents of 1 and 2 are supposed to be (more or less) mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. So, (at least) one of the consequents would hold. 3 does hold some intuitive appeal. Trying to think of (realistic) counter-examples. Maybe someone could be an autonomous moral agent, yet, for some reason, incapable of passing moral judgment on the Quran? Anyway, I wasn't really interested in tedious semantics, more the argument, possible counter-examples, ...
By the way, the wager isn't that good an argument. Some version of the argument above could perhaps work in some other capacity, don't know. Maybe divine command theory or theological voluntarism ... What say you?
Comments (15)
What does it mean to pass moral judgement on the Koran? That kind of judgment is for human actions, not books, right?
Hence (2) does not seem to hold.
Would it mean to identify stories/examples/lessons and commandments in the book which seem morally questionable?
It's junk. I'll rephrase a bit to show how I understand it:
The Thing = some specific external source of a particular sort of judgment
No problem. Seems straightforward.
Seriously, (2) isn't saying anything at all.
Well, yeah. This is actually an exclusive or, but it's all so weak, I think we can cheat a little and recast it as a conditional:
Where have we seen that before? Oh yeah, it's just the contrapositive of (1).
It's junk. It takes something true pretty much by definition and tendentiously rephrases it a couple times and then presents it again so it looks like a startling conclusion. It's junk.
An "autonomous moral agent" is someone who takes responsibility for their own actions. Passing moral judgement on anyone or anything is not the action of an autonomous moral agent. In a sense, it's the opposite. It's an attempt to control the actions of others.
Given that, the rest of your argument is falls apart.
Proposition 2 is not necessarily true. What if your (autonomous moral agent) moral judgments are exactly congruent (letter for letter, word for word) with the Quran? I believe this - two people arriving at the same conclusion - happens quite often, not as often as we'd like but it does happen.
Nevertheless, there's something, how shall I put it?, unfree, restrictive, coercive, forced about convergence of all kinds, including, in our case, the concordance of moral truths. It's as if we don't have a choice. Remember that freedom can be viewed as an ability to diverge given a decision node consisting of multiple choices.
Most people can evaluate those.
I suppose, in a way, the Adam + Eve + Serpent + Fruit and Abraham + Isaac + Sacrifice stories could suggest abandonment of autonomous moral agency (to adherents), though it depends on how they're read — ambiguities, another can of worms.
(y)
By the way, there's more to say about (programmable) rule-following, eisegesis, and such, which seems relevant to divine command theory and theological voluntarism.
, well, yes, contradictions are explosive, if that's what you mean.
All bets are off, a whole other can of worms. :meh:
, you mean it's all redundant confuzzlement, that could just be put into one statement and be done with? :)
But, hey, arguments are so en vogue these days.
, I suppose there are semantics involved here.
We might say that, in principle, autonomous moral agency is a prerequisite for (would-be) autonomous actors.
In analogy, we don't allow hazards to roam free in kindergartens either.
Maybe autonomous moral agency can be thought of as a kind of know-how?
Except, under normal circumstances, we tend to assume other people can figure out the right thing to do by default, absent whatever concerns of course.
(By the way, it's not so much my argument, as it just seems intuitive to me.)
, right, yes, coincidental congruence, ...
A bit technical, though. :)
But 2 could fail on that.
It comes down to this - Judging the morality of other people or beliefs is not an autonomous moral action. Morals have to do with how you live your life, not how other people live theirs.
"you must severely spank your kids every day, or they'll turn into immoral losers, and, besides, they probably did something wrong anyway"
then I'm thinking most would say that's not the right thing to do, i.e. passing judgment, a bad starting point.
I don't think you'll find that in the Quran (or the Bible, Vedas, Avesta), it's just an example.
I believe we should protect vulnerable people. Child abuse hurts children. I have a moral obligation to try to stop child abuse if I can. If I gather together with like-minded people, we can pass laws that protect children. That is not a negative judgement on immoral behavior, it is positive acceptance of a moral obligation.
My issue with this is that people with religious morality often seek to change laws and behaviour of others - presumably to please God. We don't just have to consider the Taliban or the Wahhabi Saudis in this enterprise, there are Western Christians working to turn the clock back on science education, gay rights, women's rights, capital punishment, euthanasia - what have you.
I think you and I are talking about different things. I'm talking about what moral agency means to me. It has to do with my obligation to behave in moral way. By "moral" I mean consistent with my values. There is no room for moral judgement of others in this.
You're talking how some people judge and try to control other's behavior based on their moral understanding, either religious or not.
Coincidence?! :chin:
That messes things up doesn't it? No good reason why we all arrived at the same conclusion in re moral codes - it was just a fluke!
Just a fluke? :point: Synchronicity
In Eastern philosophy causality incorporates chance.
[quote=Master Oogway]There are no accidents.[/quote]