Special Pleading and the PoE (Part 3)

[Rise]

Laughter? The joke's on you, SZ.
LOL! So many false assumptions! It's amazing how poorly you fail using the same tired old shtick.

Tell me, do you keep this little speech close by so that you can have it to hand to trot out when you feel threatened?

That is the second time in two threads he has tried to pull that line when he got cornered by logic into not having a response.

He is looking for a way to bow out of the thread without having to admit he's wrong. So he's trying to invent an excuse to leave without making it look like he can't give a valid counter argument by gaslighting to claim the other person must not want to have a "real discussion and proper debate".

 

[Rise]

Still full of fail and not knowing when and how to apply logical fallacies.

Logical fallacies, argument by repetition and failure of the burden of rejoinder.

You have only repeated your previously fallacious assertions. Repeating your fallacies of assertion doesn't make them stop being fallacious just because you repeat them.

Given that you have failed to meet your required burden of rejoinder by failing to give a valid counter argument, your claims stand refuted and you have lost the debate by definition.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That is the second time in two threads he has tried to pull that line when he got cornered by logic into not having a response.

He is looking for a way to bow out of the thread without having to admit he's wrong. So he's trying to invent an excuse to leave without making it look like he can't give a valid counter argument by gaslighting to claim the other person must not want to have a "real discussion and proper debate".

Oh my! Such projection!! I am not the one that runs away from a logical discussion.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacies, argument by repetition and failure of the burden of rejoinder.

You have only repeated your previously fallacious assertions. Repeating your fallacies of assertion doesn't make them stop being fallacious just because you repeat them.

Given that you have failed to meet your required burden of rejoinder by failing to give a valid counter argument, your claims stand refuted and you have lost the debate by definition.

Yes, that is all that you have.

Can you enter into a proper discussion?

 

[Rise]

Oh my! Such projection!!

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot provide any evidence or valid logical reasons to justify your claim that anything I have done would supposedly qualify as the act of projection.

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.

I am not the one that runs away from a logical discussion.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot quote anything I have said or done and give any valid logical reasons why it would supposedly qualify as running away from a logical discussion.

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.



What's puzzling about your response is that you seem to actually think you can say that without everyone here obviously seeing right through your gaslighting and projection.

I have identified a legion of instances in this thread alone, in prior posts, where you have either failed to meet your burden of proof, failed to meet your burden of rejoinder, and committed unrepentant logical fallacies which you neither try to defend nor cease committing.

By every measure by which a logical discussion is measured, you have not only failed to engage in a logical discussion but have showed you are unwilling to reform yourself to be capable of engaging in a logical discussion.

When pressed on the fallacious logic of your arguments you run away claiming the other person doesn't want to have a "real discussion or proper debate".

You are the most blatant case of gaslighting and projection I have ever run across on a forum.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot provide any evidence or valid logical reasons to justify your claim that anything I have done would supposedly qualify as the act of projection.

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.



Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot quote anything I have said or done and give any valid logical reasons why it would supposedly qualify as running away from a logical discussion.

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.



What's puzzling about your response is that you seem to actually think you can say that without everyone here obviously seeing right through your gaslighting and projection.

I have identified a legion of instances in this thread alone, in prior posts, where you have either failed to meet your burden of proof, failed to meet your burden of rejoinder, and committed unrepentant logical fallacies which you neither try to defend nor cease committing.

By every measure by which a logical discussion is measured, you have not only failed to engage in a logical discussion but have showed you are unwilling to reform yourself to be capable of engaging in a logical discussion.

When pressed on the fallacious logic of your arguments you run away claiming the other person doesn't want to have a "real discussion or proper debate".

You are the most blatant case of gaslighting and projection I have ever run across on a forum.

Wrong. I simply do not wish to play your silly games. I can repeatedly note how you fail to enter into a proper discussion.

 

[Rise]

Yes, that is all that you have.

Can you enter into a proper discussion?

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot provide any evidence or valid logical reasons to justify your claim that anything I have done would not qualify as proper discussion

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.


Considering that I have already identified how you have failed to meet the requirements of a proper logical debate by failing to meet your burdens of proof, rejoinder, and cease using fallacies, you are guilty of gaslighting and projection by trying to accuse someone else of not engaging in "proper discussion" without proof that they have actually done anything wrong.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot provide any evidence or valid logical reasons to justify your claim that anything I have done would not qualify as proper discussion

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.


Considering that I have already identified how you have failed to meet the requirements of a proper logical debate by failing to meet your burdens of proof, rejoinder, and cease using fallacies, you are guilty of gaslighting and projection by trying to accuse someone else of not engaging in "proper discussion" without proof that they have actually done anything wrong.

You have already provided my burden of proof. Your posts support my claims.

 

[Rise]

Wrong. I simply do not wish to play your silly games.

Logical fallacy, failure to meet your required burden of rejoinder.
Your unwillingness to provide valid counter arguments to my arguments means you have admitted conceding the debate.

You are further guilty of the logical fallacy of appeal to ridicule and argument by assertion.

Calling the burden of rejoinder a "silly game" doesn't absolve you of the logical requirement to meet your burdens.

I can repeatedly note how you fail to enter into a proper discussion.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot provide any evidence or valid logical reasons to justify your claim that anything I have done would not qualify as proper discussion

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.


Considering that I have already identified how you have failed to meet the requirements of a proper logical debate by failing to meet your burdens of proof, rejoinder, and cease using fallacies, you are guilty of gaslighting and projection by trying to accuse someone else of not engaging in "proper discussion" without proof that they have actually done anything wrong.

You have already provided my burden of proof. Your posts support my claims.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot give any specific reasons why anything in my posts would supposedly qualify as either not proper debate or discussion.

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacy, failure to meet your required burden of rejoinder.
Your unwillingness to provide valid counter arguments to my arguments means you have admitted conceding the debate.

You are further guilty of the logical fallacy of appeal to ridicule and argument by assertion.

Calling the burden of rejoinder a "silly game" doesn't absolve you of the logical requirement to meet your burdens.




Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot provide any evidence or valid logical reasons to justify your claim that anything I have done would not qualify as proper discussion

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.


Considering that I have already identified how you have failed to meet the requirements of a proper logical debate by failing to meet your burdens of proof, rejoinder, and cease using fallacies, you are guilty of gaslighting and projection by trying to accuse someone else of not engaging in "proper discussion" without proof that they have actually done anything wrong.



Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof.

You cannot give any specific reasons why anything in my posts would supposedly qualify as either not proper debate or discussion.

Your claim is not proven true just because you assert it is so.
As such, your claim can be dismissed as invalid.

You are still failing at applying logical fallacies properly.

 

[Rise]

You are still failing at applying logical fallacies properly.

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition and males fides.

Your claim has already been refuted as a fallacy of argument by assertion.
Repeating your refuted fallacious claim doesn't make it stop being refuted or stop being fallacious.

You are further guilty of the fallacy of malas fides because you have been informed of your need to meet your burden of rejoinder and amend your fallacies but have refused to either defend your fallacies or repent of them and amend them. Which means you can only be guilty of males fides - arguing in bad faith.

You have conceded the debate not only on the grounds of failing to meet your burden of rejoinder, but also on the grounds of males fides because you are not attempting to engage in legitimate debate.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition and males fides.

Your claim has already been refuted as a fallacy of argument by assertion.
Repeating your refuted fallacious claim doesn't make it stop being refuted or stop being fallacious.

You are further guilty of the fallacy of malas fides because you have been informed of your need to meet your burden of rejoinder and amend your fallacies but have refused to either defend your fallacies or repent of them and amend them. Which means you can only be guilty of males fides - arguing in bad faith.

You have conceded the debate not only on the grounds of failing to meet your burden of rejoinder, but also on the grounds of males fides because you are not attempting to engage in legitimate debate.

Nope, only in your mind.
Any time that you want to enter into a real discussion I am more than willing and ready.

 

[Rise]

Nope, only in your mind.
Any time that you want to enter into a real discussion I am more than willing and ready.

Logical fallacies, argument by repetition and males fides.

Your claim has already been refuted as a fallacy of argument by assertion.
Repeating your refuted fallacious claim doesn't make it stop being refuted or stop being fallacious.

You are further guilty of the fallacy of malas fides because you have been informed of your need to meet your burden of rejoinder and amend your fallacies but have refused to either defend your fallacies or repent of them and amend them. Which means you can only be guilty of males fides - arguing in bad faith.

You have conceded the debate not only on the grounds of failing to meet your burden of rejoinder, but also on the grounds of males fides because you are not attempting to engage in legitimate debate.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacies, argument by repetition and males fides.

Your claim has already been refuted as a fallacy of argument by assertion.
Repeating your refuted fallacious claim doesn't make it stop being refuted or stop being fallacious.

You are further guilty of the fallacy of malas fides because you have been informed of your need to meet your burden of rejoinder and amend your fallacies but have refused to either defend your fallacies or repent of them and amend them. Which means you can only be guilty of males fides - arguing in bad faith.

You have conceded the debate not only on the grounds of failing to meet your burden of rejoinder, but also on the grounds of males fides because you are not attempting to engage in legitimate debate.

Nope. You never disproved anything. You only misused logical fallacies and demonstrated that you do not understand the burden of proof. If you claim a logical fallacy and it is challenged since it was your claim you would need to justify it. It is not a magical automatic win. That is why you are so humorous. You keep treating terms as magic words. They do not work that way.

 

[samtonga43]

That is the second time in two threads he has tried to pull that line when he got cornered by logic into not having a response.

Of course. I also cornered him with logic on another thread, a while ago now. His recent posts to you contain his silly comments to me, then... verbatim.
He just cannot accept that all he is good (?) at is gaslighting. Until, of course, it becomes apparent that he's not even very good at that. He would not know what to do with a "real discussion and proper debate".

He is looking for a way to bow out of the thread without having to admit he's wrong.

He cannot admit he is wrong; he doesn't have the necessary confidence which would allow him to do this.

 

[Koldo]

You failed to understand the nature of the evidence presented and what defines evidence.

An eyewitness account is an example of evidence.

The book is written by someone offering personal testimony of the lion they owned an it's behavior.

Therefore, it is false to claim no evidence is offered.

You may not like the evidence. You might not want to accept the evidence. You might not personally be convinced by the evidence - but none of that means that no evidence has been presented.



The other poster committed the genetic fallacy by trying to argue against the evidence by attacking it's source as being Christian.

He did not offer valid arguments against the evidence's sufficiency, validity, or accuracy.

Doing that would require actually looking at the book and trying to find reason to believe their story is a fabrication before you could claim the source is not reliable.

If you aren't able or willing to do that then you don't get to logically claim the source is not reliable because you have no evidence that would lead us to believe it is not reliable.

Now, he did not simply express a personal lack of being convinced on the basis of not having read the book yet to judge it for himself. If that was all he did there wouldn't be an issue here.

Instead he tried to make a positive claim, a factual claim, that the book was not reliable. A claim he made without evidence or valid logical basis.

It was a fallacy claim based on the genetic fallacy.



As I just pointed out, his only basis for calling the eyewitness testimony (the book) evidence unreliable was to call its source "extreme Christian".
A genetic fallacy.




Your statement is not relevant because you are operating from the false belief that no evidence was presented.
As I pointed out above, eyewitness testimony in the form of a published book constitutes evidence by definition.

It doesn't have to meet your personal standard of being "good enough" evidence to convince you in order to qualify as being evidence in the logical sense.



Your statement about how logical debate works is true but also irrelevant because it doesn't refute anything I argued. You have a misunderstanding of what happened, as I pointed out above.

The eyewitness testimony in the book meets the burden of proof for the claim in the sense that it provides reasons and evidences to justify the claim.

The burden of rejoinder is then on the person who wants to dispute the validity or truth of that evidence to offer valid counter arguments against it

@Subduction Zone did not offer a valid counter argument against the evidence.

He claimed it was unreliable without offering any valid reasons or evidence for why it should not be regarded as reliable.

He only offered the genetic fallacy of calling the source "extreme christian".




You demonstrate you don't know what the defining features of an ad hominem fallacy are.

If you logically demonstrate why someone's argument is false, and don't even offer any comments of ridicule with that, that that obvious isn't an appeal to ridicule - and I don't see why you would be so confused as to think it is.

But the mere presence of ridicule is not the defining feature of a fallacy of ridicule.

If you call someone's argument ridiculous and then go on to give valid logical reasons and evidence for why you think it qualifies as ridiculous, then you aren't committing the fallacy of appeal to ridicule by definition.

The appeal to ridicule fallacy is when you ignore the argument someone made and just offer ridicule as your only response.

If you offer valid rebuttals to someone's argument and refute it, and then go on to also call them names, you wouldn't technically be guilty of an ad hominem because you aren't using name calling to avoid dealing with the arguments in question.

If, however, you don't even attempt to meet your burden of rejoinder to offer valid counter arguments to someone's arguments, but then simply respond by calling them names, then you are guilty of a textbook ad hominem fallacy.

Given that subduction zone did not in most cases attempt at all to offer any type of counter arguments to my arguments, and the few he did were shown to be fallacious and went uncorrected by him, for him to them go on to refer to my arguments as "babbling" represents a textbook fallacy of a type of ad hominem. He is trying to call the argument names in order to dismiss it without either offering a valid counter argument or even substantiating with reason or evidence why his namecalling should even be regarded as accurate.

For him to not be committing a type of ad hominem fallacy here he would need to provide valid logical reasons and evidence to not only establish his claim is true that anything I have posted supposedly qualified as "babbling", but he would also need to furnish valid counter arguments to all the arguments I made against his claims so that he is not guilty of using his personal attack as a type of red herring or avoiding the issue fallacy.

Because even a personal attack, if proven to be a true attack, would still be a fallacy of red herring because it's not relevant to refuting the arguments you are responding to.

I am a witness to the fact the story about the lion was made up, and I will not provide any further evidence other my personal testimony since no other evidence has been presented.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Of course. I also cornered him with logic on another thread, a while ago now. His recent posts to you contain his silly comments to me, then... verbatim.
He just cannot accept that all he is good (?) at is gaslighting. Until, of course, it becomes apparent that he's not even very good at that. He would not know what to do with a "real discussion and proper debate".

He cannot admit he is wrong; he doesn't have the necessary confidence which would allow him to do this.

You are quite wrong. And you too chose the trolling route. If I remember correctly you made poor assumptions. But any time either of you want to get serious I would more than gladly give you a shot.

By the way accusations such as gaslighting and mala fides are technically against the rules here since it implies dishonesty.

It is simply amazing that both of you claim to be so sure of yourself but both are appear to be afraid to debate.

 

[Rise]

My view is actually consistent.

1) Humans have value hierarchies
2) A hard form of doxastic voluntarism is false

That's it, that's all it takes to answer all of your objections and questions. For instance:
-You hold yourself to standards of behavior as though it were an objective value and duty: We all hold ourselves to standards of behavior because we value the behavior (1) and we can't help but to value the behavior (2). That doesn't make the standards of behavior agent-neutral or objective (as Nagel would say), they are agent-relative and subjective. There are objective facts as to why many values happen to be shared, but the fact that they are shared doesn't make them objective. No objective morality is required for this to be self-consistent.

-You admitted earlier you believe in trying to convince other people to follow what you think is right, which is treating it as though it were objectively right: Yes, if I value things like altruism and empathy and furthermore value other people being empathetic and altruistic, it follows logically (from what having a value even means) that I will exhibit behavior that seeks to further that preference. Despite a hard form of doxastic voluntarism being false, it is possible for peoples' values to change by exposure to new information, new ways of thinking, and so on: so it follows that I would behave in a way that tries to increase the amount of altruism and empathy in the world. No objective morality is required for this to be self-consistent.

You recognize that your beliefs are not consistent with your behavior. Ie. You feel and act like morality exists but you don't believe it actually does.

Normally this would make someone a hypocrit when they acted as though morality exists while intellectually claiming it doesn't.

But you seem to try to evade that charge by claiming the only reason you act inconsistent with what you affirm is true is because you have no choice - you are forced to by biology. Ie. You claim you have no choice over what you value and claim you have no choice over acting on what you value.

All you've done then is strip yourself of free will to become a an automaton responding uncontrollably to internal programming and external stimuli.

But this is not consistent again with what you say you believe.

You talk as though you believe you are making a genuine free choice to sacrifice money from buying pursues to give to others.

If you are in any way in free will control over whether or not you act on what you value then your entire worldview collapses as inconsistent with itself because now you no longer have an excuse for living in a way that is inconsistent with what you say is true.

The moment you have any choice over what you do you have to justify your choice either morally or logically (and the former is ruled out for your worldview).

Logically, according to your worldview, you cannot justify your decision to murder hitler as logically any different from his decision to murder others.
You are both merely acting upon what you value.

This brings us to why your worldview doesn't work in practice and why no one would want to live consistent with it:
How do you justify punishing people for doing certain things instead of others?
You can't justify it because words like justify implies morality and you don't think morality exists. Even the word punish implies morality, as punishment is morally different from assault.

You can't logically justify harming another person through the use of the criminal justice system if morality doesn't exist.

Because all you''re doing at that point is taking action based on the fallacy that either "might makes right" an/or appeal to popularity.

Your worldview cannot ever logically justify any decision made by the courts against lawbreakers as being any different from the decisions made by the lawbreakers themselves.

The state is using force/violence to inflict harm on another person because it is consistent with their values to do so. And the state does this believes it doesn't have to fear retribution from anyone for using force to do what they value.

Why is it doing that?
Because the criminal was using force/violence to inflict harm on another person because it is consistent with their values to do so.
And the criminal does this because he believed (wrongly) that he didn't have to fear retribution from anyone for using force to do what he valued.

You see the problem here. This isn't just a moral problem but a logical problem. Without morality in the equation you can't use logic to make a differentiation between what actions should be punished and which shouldn't.

Without morality you, as the judge/jury/police, would be no different than the rapist you are trying to punish with jail or execution. Ie: You are violating someone else with force they don't consent to for no other reason than because you have the power to do so and you think you won't get punished for doing it.

That is the only logical conclusion someone can come to if they are intellectually honest with themselves - which is precisely why almost no atheist is willing to intellectually go where atheism requires them to.

They not only understand how that would be a disaster for society but they intuitively know it is false to say some things aren't really wrong in the same way they intuitively know it is false for someone to tell them they don't exist in a physical reality.
So that's another reason they just can't go there. It would be too much cognitive dissonance to deal with.

 

[Rise]

-You are willing to execute other people who violate your standard of right and wrong (nazis committing genocide) which again is treating your standard as though it were an objective standard. Otherwise where do you get the right to judge others as so wrong you get to execute them: Your question belies your bias ("where do you get the right to..." implies already that there is an objective morality about the matter, which is precisely what is doubted). Because I value empathy and altruism, I am willing to do things like see Nazis committing genocide executed because this is behavior in accordance with my values: it's as simple as that. To ask "what gives the right" is a loaded question that already assumes the validity of objective morality, which I reject. I don't need a right (the very concept of which I reject in this exact context), there is only my values and my behavior which is informed by my values.

Your problem does not go away when you take out words like "morally justify or "having the right to". In fact, your problem only gets exponentially worse.

You don't resolve the fundamental problem here which is that you cannot logically justify killing people you disagree with for no other reason than because their actions disagree with your personal preferences.

And the reason you cannot justify that is because it's logically hypocritical.
You think it's ok to do what is consistent with your values because you think your values are all good.
But you don't think it's ok for someone else to do what is consistent with their values if it disagrees with your values.

So you're willing to kill them because their values disagree with yours - with no morality in the equation to justify your decision.

What do we call it when someone thinks they can kill people on the basis of their personal preferences without any regard for moral justification?

That describes the mindset of a sociopathic serial killer.

You're actually logically worse as a person for acting upon your personal preferences to kill someone, knowing that you have no moral justification for doing so, than the person who might be doing an evil action but at least believes they are morally justified in doing it

The later might be wrong, but at least they think they are right.
In contrast: you admit you can't be right because morality doesn't exist; but you are going to do it anyway just because you want to.
That's a stone cold serial killer mentality right there.

Even if you were living consistent with what you think is right and wrong in your head: you aren't logically justified in living according to what is in your head while not allowing others to live according to what is in their head. That makes you a hypocrit.

Your worldview is hypocritical if you have the power to choose to act on what you feel or not; because you might feel you want to kill someone doing something that does not fit with your preferences but then you are logically denying someone else the ability to act according to what they feel their preferences are.

Since you clearly believe that you should be able to act according to what your personal preferences are you cannot logically justify denying someone else from doing the same thing without being a hypocrit.

Unless you openly state that part of your preferences involve openly affirming that you feel other people aren't entitled to act on their preferences unless it lines up with your preferences.
But that's just arbitrary. You can't say your preferences are right and someone else'e are wrong. Who made you god and emperor to decide that your preferences must be abided by but hiter's can't be?

You just find yourself in a fallacy of might makes right situation. No one's preferences can said to be right, so whoever has the most guns gets to decide what is right.

Now, you worried about a slippery slope whereby a person might go from "stopping Nazis from committing genocide by any means possible might lead to a person assuming anyone they don't like is a Nazi and killing them." Some points about this objection:

It's not a slippery slope issue.
It's a logic issue.

Logically there is no difference, in your worldview, between killing nazis in the act of genocide because you prefer to do so and killing randomly children because you prefer to do so.

You can't logically justify one act over another without appealing to morality.

That's why it's so dangerous when atheist marxists start talking about believing they have the right to use violence to silence their political opposition - because without any belief in morality to temper the circumstances under which they believe they ca do that, this mentality cannot help but inevitably lead from beating up people who disagree with them in the streets to eventually just executing them in concentration camps.

1) This objection isn't unique to the worldview I've presented. In any moral worldview, people are capable of making irrational judgments and behaving in ways that are dangerous to the society around them (e.g., a person that believes in moral objectivity may have participated in the Salem Witch Trials, and believed they were genuinely doing good by accusing an innocent woman of being a witch and causing them harm). This is less an objection to noncognitivism and more of an objection to how humans can be irrational and judgmental at times.

Your argument is not relevant to the point I was making, and shows you did not understand why believing morality doesn't exist leads to a unique set of circumstances.


As I just outlined above: The fundamental problem with why your worldview uniquely leads down the path of political genocide is has nothing to do with people failing to apply logic and morality - but the genocide is a natural consequence of logically following your worldview to it's ultimate conclusion. Which is why it is so uniquely dangerous.

Because under your worldview nothing has to be justified at all - let alone justified in degrees.

So the moment you decide under your worldview that doing harm to your political opponents is acceptable in small ways, there is absolutely nothing preventing you from pushing that to it's ultimate extreme if you want to.

Other ideologies historically have had to justify genocide by inventing reasons why other people groups weren't deserving of the same rights that they were as fellow mankind.

Nonmoral atheism has no such burden. You don't need an excuse. You just do it because you want to and you have the power to.

There is no logical or moral appeals or restraints that can be used against nonmoral atheism on the warpath.

At least in the case of other moral ideologies being fed lies there is a chance that logic and appeals to morality can persuade them away from their path.

No such hope exists with a nonmoral atheism who actually lives consistent with what he believes.

The only way you could dissuade such a person from their path would be by convincing them that morality actually does exist.

 

[Rise]

2) The worldview I've been describing isn't prescriptive, it's descriptive: objecting to it on the basis that some people do irrational things and that outcome is bad is just an argument from adverse consequences. However, (1) is the stronger counterpoint because it takes a special kind of person to make the leap to "anyone I disagree with is a Nazi." Yes, I'm sure there are people that you think do this (I have no doubt some actually do, but also suspect you may overinflate how common this is on the left, your presumed target with these comments; I am politically left for instance).

You cannot name any worldview that does not have consequences for shaping how someone can or should act if they truly believe that worldview is true.
Your claim that worldview ideas don't have consequences is completely false on that basis.

To say nothing of all the examples I have given just in this response which explicitly outline reasons why your worldview would, if truly believed, would have far reaching consequences for how society is structured and how people behave towards one another.

It's only easy for you to pretend your worldview doesn't have consequences because almost nobody actually lives as though it were true so you haven't gotten to see what a hellscape that would have to be.

There is a reason almost no atheists are willing to affirm, as you do,that morality doesn't actually exist.

But we have caught glimpses of it where regimes foster the idea that certain groups of people aren't entitled to the same rights they are.

Atheism just makes that situation a lot easier to execute by not requiring you to morally justify what you're doing. Which is no doubt why communism holds the record for mass murder within it's own territories in the 20th century.

People are capable of using their reasoning to note that committing genocide is a little bit different (as judged by most of our values) from just advocating white supremacy for instance. We have a general sense of how most people reason these things out. It's safe to say that most people judge per their values that one is worse than the other.

You can't use logic/reason to make a distinction between two things that are, based on your worldview, both logically nothing more than equally valid personal preferences in a world where right and wrong don't exist.

You can talk about how the features of them are different as preferences but you can't place a value judgement on whether one preference is better than another under your worldview.

Logic cannot make value judgements.

Your personal preference for not stepping on a bug cannot be logically distinct in terms or good or bad from your personal preference to not murder another person without the ability to talk about moral right and wrong.

They are logically different in function but not logically right or wrong under your worldview.
Nor can either of them be said to be logically better or worse. Because that implies a standard to judge them against. No such standard exists in your worldview. You are only capable of judging them according to whether or not they line up with the standard in your mind of what you want.

But if someone else wants to regard you in their mind as no better than a bug to be stepped on then you have no logical recourse under your worldview to tell them they are wrong or that such an action would be bad.

Perhaps there are some people that really do think making pro-white supremacy comments is equally as bad as genocide in all respects; but this is why we build societies with laws.

Now you're in the same trouble I outlined at the start of this response: Upon what basis can you logically justify making and enforcing laws in your worldview?

You want to use force to cage someone against their will or murder them because they do things that go against what you value.

You are then logically no different than the criminal you are imprisoning/executing.

You are both violating the will/desires of other people with you actions and you are doing it for no other reason than because it fits your personal preferences to do so.

And what makes it worse is that you do so fully knowing that morality doesn't exist according to your worldview, knowing that you cannot logically justify the hypocrisy of your actions. Which woul be even more dangerously sociopathic than someone who does wrong while trying to justify why it's supposedly right.

3) You assume that if, say, objective morality were false or noncognitive that if people "found out" about this, they'd turn into hedonistic murderers overnight. This is false precisely because of (1) and (2): if they valued not murdering before, they would still value not murdering now.

There are several problems with your claim:

1. They don't have to turn into murderers overnight for it to still be a problem. Slowly eroding moral barriers over time are just as dangerous long term.


2. You are operating out the false assumption that everyone does what they do because they value doing it for it's own sake and not because they value being socially accepted and honored for their behavior. A lot of those people wouldn't keep doing something if they thought was good if it meant being ostracized or persecuted by society for it. That is the true test of what they really value.

Conversely, a lot of people would embrace doing something bad if it became socially acceptable or even honored to do so. they might even start to beleive they value it where previously they did not when it wasn't socially acceptable.

Some might have valued wanting to do wrong before, but just couldn't get away with it.

But they dont even have to value it on the basis of the act itself. They could value simply being socially accepted and honored so they will do whatever gets them that and convince themselves they are doing the right thing for x, Y, and Z reasons.


3.Your claim is historically false.
Germany went from valuing treating their jewish citizens equals to valuing seeing them exterminated from the earth in the span of less than a generation.

Russia went from valuing not murdering entire people groups to steal their food to valuing widescale genocide and theft in an even shorter timespan.

Obviously what people value can change. Even with regards to things like murder and theft.

Some valued the murder, rape, torture, and theft when they thought there were no consequences for their actions.
Others valued being honored, fitting in, or just not getting in trouble more than they valued not doing bad things to people.
Others struck a middle ground for themselves by convincing themselves they wouldn't do this to "normal" people, but these people were different, subhuman, or somehow not deserving of normal treatment. So they could still feel morally right while doing moral wrong.

How did it change? Propaganda that involved convincing you that another group was no longer entitled to the same rights that you believe you are entitled to. Because they are either different or not deserving of it.

How much easier that is to do when you deny that morality even exists. Now you don't even have to justify why someone else isn't entitled to the same rights you are because entitlements and justifications don't exist in that worldview. All that matters is what you want and what you think you can get away with doing.