{"id":2703,"date":"2012-04-12T10:46:37","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T14:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2703"},"modified":"2012-12-30T01:18:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T06:18:06","slug":"we-go-together-like-essence-and-telos-doo-bop-a-doo-bee-doo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/we-go-together-like-essence-and-telos-doo-bop-a-doo-bee-doo.html","title":{"rendered":"We Go Together \/ Like Essence and Telos \/ Doo-bop a doo-bee doo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Adam of Daylight Atheism\u2019s reply to the questions I asked him yesterday about the difference between moral and mathematical laws<\/a>, and whether either is human-independent. \u00a0(He also pointed out that we\u2019ve sparred on this point before, and you may want to refer back to the map-territory post<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I believe that mathematics and logic are discovered, rather than invented, although those terms are apt to get us bogged down in deep semantic waters.<\/p>\n

I think it sheds more light on my position to answer in this way: As jack put it, mathematics and logic depend on objective properties of the universe that are independent of humans. Morality also depends on objective facts, but these facts aren\u2019t independent of humans. They\u2019re objective facts about humans: facts about what harms us and what causes us to flourish, facts which are therefore dependent on the kind of creatures we are. If our evolution had taken another path, if we were a very different kind of creature than we are, the rules of morality that apply to us would be different; and if we never existed at all, there would be no true facts about us and therefore morality would not exist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Technically mathematical facts aren\u2019t independent of the objects they describe, either. \u00a0It\u2019s not a property of math-writ-large that the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees, it\u2019s just a property of triangles. \u00a0(Or, more precisely, a property of triangles in\u00a0Euclidean\u00a0geometry). \u00a0It would be true of Euclidean triangles whether or not any existed in the physical world or there were any people anywhere to think of them.<\/p>\n

Once you name something a triangle or mention some of it\u2019s qualities, you\u2019ve pulled in many other properties, including some you might not yet have discerned (the sum of any two sides of a triangle exceeds the length of the remaining side, etc). \u00a0Technically you\u2019ve\u00a0encapsulated\u00a0them all once you said \u201cthree-sided polygon\u201d but it takes work and discovery to understand what\u00a0logically\u00a0follows and why.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still inclined to believe we should talk about morality in the same way. \u00a0Once you define human, the moral obligations we have follow swiftly on the heels of the definition of our nature. If we define humans as the rational animal (or, to make it more unwieldy but more precise, the living thing that recognizes its own mind and those of others and can percieve that there\u2019s a division) why shouldn\u2019t there be rules that apply to this construct whether or not it\u2019s instantiated?<\/p>\n

Describing what a thing is<\/em> (its essence) constrains its telos<\/em> (the ends it\u2019s directed toward). \u00a0There can be true facts about non-existent things \u2014 for example: unicorns have four legs, whether or not they exist. \u00a0It\u2019s our ability to\u00a0describe\u00a0and predict the properties of things that may not exist that lets us come up with ways to test whether they\u2019re real or categorize them at all. \u00a0If we weren\u2019t humans, or if humans ceased to be, then their would still be facts about\u00a0hypothetical\u00a0rational animals, even if there was no one to hypothesize about them.<\/p>\n

So, yes, moral law is dependent on humans insofar as the obligations of humans are different from those of dogs, but I think this kind of hairsplitting distracts from the bigger question about cultural relativism and changing norms. \u00a0I don\u2019t want to get too far into the weeds on the very abstract \u201cwhat if humans were different and so the moral way to treat them was different\u201d question, because I think the moral law is actually fairly stable over a number of\u00a0conceivable\u00a0variations in human culture and human biology. \u00a0I\u2019ll explain why in a second post, which will also be a chance to start making good on my promise to explain where I think C.S. Lewis gets it right<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(And, lo! that post is now up<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s Adam of Daylight Atheism\u2019s reply to the questions I asked him yesterday about the difference between moral and mathematical laws, and whether either is human-independent. \u00a0(He also pointed out that we\u2019ve sparred on this point before, and you may want to refer back to the map-territory post). I believe that mathematics and logic are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,48],"tags":[149,121,147],"class_list":["post-2703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epistemologyphilosophy","category-morality-in-practice","tag-map-and-territory","tag-objective-morality","tag-whence-moral-law"],"yoast_head":"\nWe Go Together \/ Like Essence and Telos \/ Doo-bop a doo-bee doo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's Adam of Daylight Atheism's reply to the questions I asked him yesterday about the difference between moral and mathematical laws, and whether\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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