[finally17]

blackshoe, on Feb 23 2008, 07:52 PM, said:

Trinidad, on Feb 23 2008, 11:10 AM, said:

Seriously, good and evil are religious terms.

No, they're not.

If all of human behavior is explainable with science, as Winston very clearly tried to argue, then yeah, they pretty much are. They require something "extra-scientific," at the very least the belief that humanity or the soul are some sort of emergent property.

These are pretty religious in nature.

[mikeh]

finally17, on Feb 23 2008, 08:12 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Feb 23 2008, 07:52 PM, said:

Trinidad, on Feb 23 2008, 11:10 AM, said:

Seriously, good and evil are religious terms.

No, they're not.

If all of human behavior is explainable with science, as Winston very clearly tried to argue, then yeah, they pretty much are. They require something "extra-scientific," at the very least the belief that humanity or the soul are some sort of emergent property.

These are pretty religious in nature.

an emergent property is not an independent entity: it is a characteristic of the underlying physical process, and disappears when the physical process is nullified or disturbed to a degree that interrupts the expression of the emergent property. That is why it is nonsense to argue that consciousness, which may well be and probably is (on what little I know) an emergent property, is the equivalent of or must give rise to a 'soul'

[mike777]

jdonn, on Feb 23 2008, 07:09 PM, said:

mike777, on Feb 23 2008, 05:52 PM, said:

I think your argument is covered in point 3 though. "Justice" If you believe there are facts or evidence to justify point 3 then I think your concerns are covered, in fact must be covered, otherwise no Justice or a miscarriage of justice occurs.

That's a reasonable sounding argument but I disagree. To me what you just said is equivalant to claiming that "person X does not deserve to be alive" is the same as "we have the right to kill person X", when really they are not at all the same thing.

No I was quite explicit in what I said and it was nothing what you invent.
I said if you..you believe that capital punishment is demanded by Justice and that Justice is served than you may be for capital punishment.

If you think there is no Justice in Capital punishment then no problem.

You keep talking about rights....well If you believe the central government has that moral right you believe it. Where these rights come from you can tell us. Where the judgement for punishment or the right to punish comes, you can tell us.

If no such moral right or moral judgement exists then no problem...you disagree with point 3. No Justice.

[Winstonm]

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ok, i misspoke... i don't judge bundy at all... i judge (by that i mean that i try to understand rightly) myself so that i can see my need for salvation... if i don't so judge myself, God will do it for me

i'm not clear on this... absolutism in what sense? and as i said, i misspoke re: bundy or anyone else (except myself)

From my perspective, I believe it impossible to not judge others if you judge yourself against an absolute, universal right and wrong.

But how can right and wrong be universal if it is not universally known and understood? I use Ted Bundy as an example simply because I have read a lot about him - and I am convinced that he was intelligent enough to understand an abstract right and wrong, but only in the sense that wrong actions were punished and right actions were not - right and wrong were human-created penalties.

There was no remorse felt because to his self there was no moral wrong done - the only wrong was in capture and punishment. His actions were neither right nor wrong morally because within him those concepts did not exist.

Is that evil? Is that a violation of universal, absolute right and wrong? Or is it better understood as simply a tragic human flaw?

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if there is no evil there is no good... if there is no good there is no God

IMO, this is flawed logically

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on Feb 23 2008, 07:55 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Feb 23 2008, 12:56 PM, said:

Surely banishment is punishment enough and serves the goal of society.

Certainly. But... to where will you banish them?

I was thinking prison could be a form of banishment - Guantenemo comes to mind.

[mike777]

I happen to believe good and evil has a religious basis but I think you can argue as I tried in my previous post that if you believe in an absolute Moral fact that can be accepted through objectivitity than that behavior is good and going against it is defines evil.



Again if you believe there are no absolute moral facts that can be proved by our exposure to the evidence alone and everything is relative than that is another discussion.

As I said Richard Rorty or Allan Gibbard and alot of very smart people would agree with you. Perhaps even Wittgenstein would also.

Not to put words into any posters post but I think some posters have never seen evidence of any absolute Moral fact that they believe in regardess of society or their culture, just based soley on the evidence.
I am not trying to convert unbelievers.

If nothing is objectively justified, but only justified relative to this or that epistemic system, you got a discussion.

[mike777]

"But how can right and wrong be universal if it is not universally known and understood?"

You make an excellent point. To rephrase your point, all such judgements are doomed to falsehood because there are no absolute facts about justification.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on Feb 23 2008, 11:36 PM, said:

"But how can right and wrong be universal if it is not universally known and understood?"

You make an excellent point. To rephrase your point, all such judgements are doomed to falsehood because there are no absolute facts about justification.

That would be a good translation.

Absolute facts do not allow relative justifications. I would think that a God would have the wisdom to individualize justifications rather than be a slave to an absolute fact - absolutes would require a sociopath and non-sociopath to be judged against the same standard.

[onoway]

This series of posts frankly bewilders me. I used to be against capital punishment for the very reason that mistakes ARE made. Also, one (to me, thoroughly evil man who had kidnapped, tortured and murdered a number of children) was given not only a life sentence but a lot of money by the government which allowed them to put him away for the rest of his life, when otherwise they did not have sufficient evidence to convict..he apparently wanted to provide for his family and it also allowed frantic parents to have closure as to what had happened to their children. If there had been capital punishment I think it would have made no difference as the police did not have enough evidence to convict even without it.

However...when semen from a father is found in the torn vagina of a 6 month old baby girl...or almost any of the examples given above..to me that person has given up the right to be called human. I know of animals which eat their young, but none which brutalize other members of their own species for personal enjoyment and gratification. There is no question as to guilt, and that is crucial to me to the discussion as to whether or not capital punishment should be considered.

The person who suggested that anyone who thinks capital punishment must also be in favor of torture etc. is insulting . I cannot imagine anything more repugnant as then indeed you are lowering yourself to the very lowest level of humanity, if indeed you can still claim to the term, imo. However, examp;es such as have been given should not be allowed the right to be a societal burden ...we have others in society who are needy and who are not being looked after. When the hungry, the old, the crippled, the children, the mentally, physically and emotionally infirm who do NOT commit horrific crimes are all being taken care of, then put the resources left over into trying to rehabilitate these people. Until then, I think when there is NO question re their guilt, to put them in jail for the rest of their lives is stealing resources from people who are suffering and imo much more deserving of society's help than people who DELIBERATELY act in such extremely antisocial ways.

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Feb 24 2008, 12:15 AM, said:

mike777, on Feb 23 2008, 11:36 PM, said:

"But how can right and wrong be universal if it is not universally known and understood?"

You make an excellent point. To rephrase your point, all such judgements are doomed to falsehood because there are no absolute facts about justification.

That would be a good translation.

Absolute facts do not allow relative justifications. I would think that a God would have the wisdom to individualize justifications rather than be a slave to an absolute fact - absolutes would require a sociopath and non-sociopath to be judged against the same standard.

Of course in many books you can find the "traditional refutation" of your argument as complete nonsense.

You can look up the more complete refutation but in simple form it says it must be nonsense for it would itself have to be either objectively justified or only justified relative to this or that particular epistemic system. But it cannot be objectively justified, since in that case it would be false if true. And it can't be justified only relative to the relativist's epistemic system, since in that case it is just a report of what he finds is agreeable to say.

On the other hand I do think there are other, stronger logical arguments that favor your theory that continue the discussion so...

I only bring up all this stuff since some posters seem to argue against capital punishment based on a social construction of knowledge.

I am trying to see both sides of the discussion, not just one.

If you just want to say one group of genes killing another group is bad, ok.

[mike777]

"Until then, I think when there is NO question re their guilt, to put them in jail for the rest of their lives is stealing resources from people who are suffering and imo much more deserving of society's help than people who DELIBERATELY act in such extremely antisocial way"

This just seems to be a repeat of my point 3. You believe if there is enough evidence of Justice then you believe Justice makes capital punishment acceptable. Justice for the dead, Justice for the family, Justice for society and Justice for the poor and suffering and of course Justice for the accused.

Of course in the USA there is no such legal test such as "no question of guilt" In fact I think there is always "some question". We only need a much lesser legal test kill people.


In any case to argue kill her because we can use the money we save for the poor, suffering people worldwide touches a nerve in some and none in others.

[mike777]

sceptic, on Feb 24 2008, 02:18 AM, said:

Quote

here's a lot of other stuff to wade through and I'll get to it eventually, but what's your standard for "work" if "life imprisonment with no possibility of parole" doesn't work? We put a guy in jail for the rest of his life, no one else is killed, how is this not successful?

Mini ProfilePMEmail Poster
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But that is not the case, some of them kill guards and inmates so it is not succesful, you can argue it is nearly succesful nearly succesful is not good enough to sway me from thinking that death would be 100% succesful in preventing that person from killing anyone else

Agree, I think it is very common for murderers worldwide not just in the USA to harm/kill/rape,/ stab/attack/threaten others even after conviction.

Of course I think all of the above also happens to convicted murderers worldwide not just in the USA. Not sure how all of that may not be some form of torture but we seem to care little if at all about prisoners, raped or tortured NOT IN GITMO, but maybe that is another discussion.

I am from South Chicago and lived very close to where the killings happened and I remember Richard Speck and the sex tapes he made in prison. In prison he had all the drugs, party sex and taxpayer paid sex hormones he wanted.
As for all the student nurses he killed, well.......If you believe retribution has been banished from society ask people from Chicago about Speck.....

http://en.wikipedia....i/Richard_Speck

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on Feb 23 2008, 11:06 PM, said:

Quote

ok, i misspoke... i don't judge bundy at all... i judge (by that i mean that i try to understand rightly) myself so that i can see my need for salvation... if i don't so judge myself, God will do it for me

i'm not clear on this... absolutism in what sense? and as i said, i misspoke re: bundy or anyone else (except myself)

From my perspective, I believe it impossible to not judge others if you judge yourself against an absolute, universal right and wrong.

that's fine, we just disagree

Quote

But how can right and wrong be universal if it is not universally known and understood?

if you use 'universal' in the sense that they are 'objective', then i would argue that they can't be fully known or fully understood - but only because we as humans are limited in our knowledge of God...

me said:

if there is no evil there is no good... if there is no good there is no God

Quote

IMO, this is flawed logically

make your case

[TimG]

sceptic, on Feb 24 2008, 02:24 AM, said:

Quote

- That same someone has the right to make that decision.
- Someone has the right to carry out the act.

If the death penalty was voted in, someone would have the right to make the decision and someone would have the right to carry out the act

Legal right, sure. But, moral right?

[kenberg]

One result of being a mathematician is that you not only develop an appreciation of the power of logic, you also develop an appreciation of the limits of logic. Fundamentally capital punishment all comes down to what we see as the proper role for society when dealing with severe criminal activity, given all of our limitations in accurately assessing the truth of what happened, our view of ourselves, our trust in the legal system, and similar matters.

It is unlikely to the point of impossibility that anyone will change his mind based on a philosophical debate over whether evil is or is not a religious term. I wasn't using it as such, but it was taken as such and so I can change my wording. I have changed my mind about capital punishment back and forth a couple of times over the years but it has been on the basis of items such as I mention above, similar to things mikeh and others have mentioned. My current view, going back I guess decades now, is that I favor abolition of the death penalty. I don't think it is a slam dunk, if that expression can still be used, but I think it is probably best. Sometimes I have put it as: I am opposed to the death penalty but in some cases I am willing to make an exception. Really that means I am opposed, because I won't be asked when the exception should be made and I am not ready to put such power into anyone else's hands.

[Winstonm]

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if there is no evil there is no good... if there is no good there is no God




QUOTE 
IMO, this is flawed logically


make your case

"if there is no evil there is no good": first off, this asserts a causitive relationship when no such relationship is proven. Next, these are generalized terms that discount specifics - who or what defines evil and good? Because this is a generalized, non-proven assumption, what follows is based on accepting this flawed assumption, making the conclusion also flawed.

"... if there is no good there is no God": again, this conclusion is based on a faulty, non-proven causitive claim that good cannot exist without evil. This conclusion also prohibits other valid reasons for a God to be, i.e., there is a God who does not interfere; there is a God who doesn't care; there is a God who supports evil; there is a God who is neutral, while good and evil are man-made explanations; there is a God who allows without judgement the natural law of actions and consequences to operate.

I don't mean this as personal criticism as we all do this, but the construct of the argument appears to me as if a conclusion is believed (God and Satan exist) and an argument was created to support that conclusion. In my thinking, the better method is to start with a proven, verifiable premise and then see where that premise leads by logic.

Understand that this is simply IMO and not based on education in logic or argument theory - so my opinion and 5 bucks will get you a latte' at Starbucks.

It would be interesting to me to hear from someone well-schooled in logic and argument theory to chime in - any takers?

[kenberg]

A: If there is no evil there is no good

This has more the nature of an axiom than an argument. Axioms often contain undefined terms, so let's work with it. It would follow that we should all agree that never, under any circumstances, would we ever do anything good. The axiom, in the logically equivalent contrapositive form (If there is good then there is evil) , asserts that the existence of good forces the existence of evil. This is something of a paradox. If I do something good, it will cause the existence of evil. But then what I do isn't really good, is it.

B: If there is no good then there is no God.

This seems more logical, assuming that somewhere else we have the axiom that God is good. Again take the contrapositive: If there is a God then somewhere there is some good. Of course. If there is a God, and God is good, then there is something good, namely God.

You could vary this: Satan is evil, and if there is no evil then there is no Satan. Sure, since the existence of Satan, combined with the description of Satan as evil, shows that there is evil. Satan exists implies evil exists is logically equivalent to evil doesn't exist implies Satan doesn't exist.


It's possibly of interest (well, anything is possible) to note that the arguments here are a rebuttal (I don't say effective rebuttal) to the age old problem of reconciling evil and the existence of God. The usual argument goes: There is evil in the world. If God were all knowing, all good, and all powerful then He would know about this and, being all good, he would correct the situation. Therefore the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. In this counter-argument, God would ensure His own destruction by ridding the world of evil. As soon as evil disappeared, so would good (by axiom A) and the disappearance of good would then, by axiom B, force the disappearance of God. The bottom line here is that we must all suffer evil in order to preserve the existence of God.

My preferred summary on this argument from evil comes from Woody Allen in Love and Death: IF God exists we certainly have to call him an underachiever. But really my view is that it is all just word games. Ideologues of various stripes seem to be very fond of word games and it may be satisfying to catch them out in them, but it is ultimately pointless.

[Winstonm]

Thanks, Ken.

[helene_t]

kenberg, on Feb 24 2008, 07:53 PM, said:

There is evil in the world. If God were all knowing, all good, and all powerful then He would know about this and, being all good, he would correct the situation. Therefore the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. In this counter-argument, God would ensure His own destruction by ridding the world of evil.

Is this a joke? The premise was that good requires evil, presumably because good is defined by it's contrast to evil.

Sliced bread would still exist without the Gerber convention. Maybe we would perceive sliced bread differently because it would no longer be contrasted with Gerber. Maybe a benevolent god created Gerber for us to appreciate the relative goodness of sliced bread. But a god that created holocaust for the same reason would hardly be benevolent.

[Winstonm]

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Is this a joke? The premise was that good requires evil, presumably because good is defined by it's contrast to evil.

I have trouble with this premise because I can't determine if it is a causitive relationship - evil creates good - or a correlative relationship - good and evil exist and move in relationship to each other.

If the determination of good and evil is relative contrast, it seems more likely to be a correlative expression, meaning an assumption that the terms are valid, but their values change in relationship to each other - which would seem to argue against absolutism.

However, by saying 'without evil there can be no good" suggests to me a causitive relationship - one is required in order for the other to occur.

The end result - again, to my untrained mind - is a statement of causation (good requires evil) argued as a correlation (because of the relative contrast).