coelacanth, i hope i am wrong, but based upon history, if GT posts on this thread again it will not be to give you a substantive argument. it will be to take a potshot at my faith, or to nitpick some other point. he will choose to not respond to your very well reasoned argument.
KGP I don't agree that recognition of evolution and its contingent nature must devalue things human. It is also an evolutionary fact that humans value things human. "Atheists" or "Evolutionists" do not differ from normal humans in their general value systems. My concern over climate change has to do primarliy with the health and safety impact on humans in the future --- our legacy to our children, if you will, and, secondarily, to the rest of the bio world. One cannot keep strict accounts in the "rest of the world" books, obviously. Are their other value positions atheists are not allowed to take, in your book? Can I love my wife and kids, root for the Horns, disdain aggy, etc?
NBMisha, I am an "evolutionist," as one would logically deduce from my comments regarding the extinction of most species prior to man's arrival on the scene. I am not saying what positions an atheist may or may not support, as you will also note by reading my earlier posts. What I asked was by what first principle one argues anthropogenic climate change is an objective bad. A collection of values does necessarily reflect an internally consistent set of principles, and my query (an honest one) was seeking the first principle of the code of objective good and bad that means CC is the latter.
KGP You are right to chastize my lack of context, apologies. And I'm glad to know you among the "evolutionists", if not the out and out atheists. I don't buy into the necessity of building an ethical structure from first principles. No real person's value system is consistent and complete, no matter how we logic and math oriented types may want it. (And, what's the first principle leading to an assumption that a consistent and complete etchical system is desired over any other? Sorry for that byway.) In the real world, people and socieities construct their value systems in a much simpler, and not so coheren way. I gather you know this full well, I don't mean to preach. I just mean to say, no one needs first principles to make their choices. Even if they think they do. In my earlier note, I stated my value considerations. Are these first principles? I don't know nor care.
NBMIsha, you may be correct, but if you are our entire discussion on climate change has degenerated into a screaming match about who gets their way. to the person who says "i like living selfishly and don't care about the future, the future will take care of itself" you can only try to say that your value system, arbitrary though it is, somehow trumps theirs. but if you are correct as an atheist, then there is zero credibility or reason in this argument and any notion of conviction based upon first principles flies out the window.
Mop I've purposely stayed out of the primary climate change discussion here, as I've wearied of what comes with it. I beg your pardon in this position. I have picked a couple of these side issues to remark on as I have more interest and energy there. I agree that it tends to come down to the "I dont care about the future" and the "I do care" perspectives, though even within the "I do" crowd there are gradients of "how much", as in how much to spend or sacrifice now. I just don't agree that one "needs" a principles based value system to make this choice. I think that's a rhetorical prop. At any rate, its not part of the science, which is what I'm interested in. And science denial is thus of interest to me, but I'm going no further on that in this thread.
NBMIsha, i was confronting your epistemology not your position per se. if your stance on morality is that nothing is underpinned by solid philosophical reasons, you have defeated your argument before making it. i am afraid you find yourself in that boat. it hardly has any force to tell someone they should agree with you merely because they should. and if you build your argument upon what you perceive to be commonly held positions, you are in great danger of meeting a number of people who just don't share your position. what is to keep someone from telling us "i don't give a rat's hiney about the environment and i like living how i like living, so if you have no compelling reason to stop me from living selfishly, thank you very much..i will continue as is." as someone who believes in certain first principles i would have a response to such a person......from what you have said on this thread, you would not (not a meaningful one i mean).
you took the challenge GT....not too shabby although you are still all over the place philosophically speaking. so why should we take GT's word that something is "good" or "bad?" what is "bad" about draining a wetland? why should we stop that from happening? (hint: i have an answer to all of these questions that would agree with yours on the superficial level, but the "why?" is what i am trying to get to. i believe it is RIGHT that we should take care of God's creation because He gave it to us to steward. therefore, my values are based upon my belief that i am a creation of God and invited to be a child of God through Jesus. As such, i trust that God has given us this world to protect and cherish according to the special revelation of Scriptures. but why should we take care of things because you say so? i do generally agree with your answer to Coelacanth about values, of course, i also believe somethings are valuable that we may not assign value to short of understanding a more cohesive worldview which unites these questions under one umbrella of cogency and reason.
Mop Here's what I'm saying. I'm saying this notion of the sanctity of first principles and logical deduction and their impact on winning and losing arguments is an abstraction of concernt to philosophers, but is not part of the human experience individually or culturally. People will choose, in their people way. You can't change that part. I say I'm a science guy. Science can provide some information in predictive mode. But then people will decide what to do. Science will not tell them to value the future more or less than the present. I do think science can provide more and better information over time, but it informs the choosing process, it does not dictate the choosing process. What I call "truth" means what conforms closely to reality. Physics and biology can find some truths. But I can't find human value truths, as all are equally real. People have to choose the way forward. You can call my argument weak, and say I have no underpinning, and this makes me feel sheepish as some short of no reality post modern. But that's not me. I am more of a naturalist. The natural pheonmena in question is how people and cultures make decisions. And they do not do so with philosophy, however much you or I may dismay that fact. Which is not to say that the choosing isn't important. I claim it is. You do you, by the energy you devote. On this we agree.
Coelacanth, you are one of the clearest thinkers i have had the pleasure of interacting with on any level. thank you....you are a good example to us all. you take muddy waters and clear them for us.
mop: I appreciate the kind words. I'm afraid many will disagree with you, however, that I am a clear thinker -- including the 2nd grader on my bus today. But I do try to think carefully through what is being said -- to think of its implications and complications; perhaps I occasionally succeed.
anyone that tries to argue you are not a clear thinker is an idiot. i doubt seriously any of us on hornfans, even those who strongly disagree with you, would find your thinking muddled at all. you have an amazing gift at cutting through the surface level of words to the logical foundation beneath.
Coelacanth, nature is neither good nor bad, moral nor immoral. Natural processes can result in outcomes we regret, but that's our problem not nature's. Man though, can do things that I judge to be bad. If a human shoots an eagle, a farmer drains a wetland, or an energy company pumps CO2 into an over-burdened atmosphere I can judge that to be bad. You may disagree with my judgement but that doesn't change my right, indeed my responsibility, to decide that a human action is wrong.
GT WT: Can you explain to me more about this “responsibility” that you mention? To whom – or to what – exactly, are you responsible? Or, if someone disagrees with your judgment, are they then necessarily irresponsible in this same way? (And it occurs to me that you may answer, “Well, in my view, or from my perspective, they are irresponsible; but of course others may disagree.” And if this is your response, then I wish to know if you think there can be any real objective basis for our judgments? And if not, then how can you argue that we have a responsibility in the first place?)
Are you really asking GT to explain why he believes that we have a responsibility with respect to how we treat the planet? And if that is what you are asking, does that mean that you do not believe we have any responsibility with respect to how we treat the planet? (Or, if you agree with him, why are you presenting him with a gauntlet of hoops to jump through instead of focusing on where we should all go from here?) The answer, if GT bothers to give it, will likely not satisfy you because it will not be black and white. There aren't cut and dried "rules", but more of a moving range of acceptable actions by man. This may not seem perfect to you, and it is not, but the imperfection should not lead us to scrap the idea in its entirety.
Coelacanth, Finally, thanks to JohnnyM, you're asking some direct questions, rather than trying to spring some obscure verbal trap. Do we have responsibility? Yes! To the earth - it is our home. To fellow species - they are our cousins. To the future of our species - there's an evolutionary imperative there. To ourselves - to avoid blame for the most heinous of environmental crimes. And to reason.
Regarding the decison question: first principles and logic, or somethng else, GT's response points out the form people and institutions usually take. That is, a number of decison criteria and values are used that, while arithmatic and such often come into play, enable the fuzzy logic of the human mind makes the choices.
GT, just a guess here, but I am fairly certain you have not even begun to answer the real questions that Coelacanth is asking you. he is searching for your epistemological underpinnings because you seem to not have any. at least you don't seem to have any that you are aware of in my estimation. instead you give superficial answers that appeal to popularity on an issue rather than well-thought out reasons for believing what you do.
mop - isn't it fairly simple to see what GT believes? he believes we have a responsibility to our plant, our species, and other species of the planet. he believes we are shirking this responsibility. what responsibility you ask? the responsibility to not trash our planet. any suggesting by C that the trashing may turn out to be a positive is foolish and seeks only to muddy the waters and stall any positive movement. is there a CHANCE that trashing the planet could turn out great...sure, there's a CHANCE. a very, very small one. one that is really not even worth discussing simply because most would agree that it's a chance we're not willing to take. why do we have this responsibility? because most people would agree that an inhabitable planet with biodiversity is a good thing. would you agree with that? honestly I believe that you and C are trying to back GT into a corner where you can equate his belief system with your religious beliefs. what I mean is that you want this discussion to get to the point where GT cannot scientifically prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, his beliefs and thus you will say he is merely acting on "faith" and equate that with your "faith". that way you can say that you each have "faith", just in something different, and that each has equal merit.
GT We're saying the same thing. We are driven by our values. Usually we can't "compute" the optimum balancing of these values (every parent knows this one). Yet we make our choices, somehow.
Coelacanth, I agree with JohnnyM concerning your motivation. You seem to be trying to make the point that all value judgements are equal. Our discussion might be clarified if you just came out and said what you believe about climate change and the effort to prevent or mitigate anthropogenic effects. Do you really believe that anthropogenic climate change is neutral from the point of view of your values? Do you think that other effects of pollution are neutral? Is all anthropogenic extinction neutral?
johnny, you are correct. it is very see "what" GT believes. what is not so easy is to see and understand "why" he believes it. i think that coelacanth is interested in why he believes it rather than what it is he believes. granted...."why" is a bit of "what" too, but you get my point. however, and i can't speak for Coelacanth on this, but i am not at all trying to trick him into admitting he has "faith." why? because EVERYONE has faith. now if he (or you or someone else for that matter) was trying to argue that they didn't have faith. i suppose we could play some similar game to prove that this was a falsehood. in this conversation i am far more interested to see if someone who mocks belief in God understands just how utterly absurd it is to assert values as if they were universally right or wrong. in this case, it is an easy matter to delve into since we all, presumably, agree that an inhabitable planet with biodiversity is a good thing. however, i would be quick to point out that we probably have different reasons for believing this proposition to be true. i believe that you and i have eternal value and esteem because we were created by God who gave us this value. as a result i believe that the earth God created also has great value (though not eternal except in the ways in which it hosts eternal beings) and we ought to steward it in a way that honors that value and honors the One who gave us ours.
actually johnny, any time someone says something is "good" or "bad" they are appealing to a universal. just look at the way GT talks about the environment and that is not even up for debate. having said that, we happen to all agree on the statements he is making.
GT: I guess I’m confused about the responsibility part. You say that we have a responsibility to the Earth. But the Earth is a part of nature, and, as you’ve already argued, nature is not a moral agent. It cannot perform moral actions – cannot be blamed for environmental inconveniences or catastrophes. But it seems to me that if nature, or the Earth, cannot perform moral or immoral action, then neither can it suffer moral injustice. The same would be true of our “fellow species”. They are not moral creatures, and so they cannot be wronged in a moral way. So how can we be responsible to the Earth when the Earth has no capacity for behaving in a moral fashion, nor for understanding justice, nor a capacity to determine whether we’ve fulfilled our responsibilities or not? The Earth is not a person. It’s perhaps interesting and romantic to think in these organic terms like the German historians used to do, but we can carry the anthropomorphic metaphor too far. In this case I think you’ve carried it too far. JohnnyM:
