As I already explained, the rules of football are a given, just as the laws of nature are a given.
You are not going to change them the next time you play football. They were set by humans, but they count now as fixed rules.
How do you convince people to behave morally if they do not want to increase the well-being of humanity in general and individuals in particular?
How do you convince people to behave morally if they think their individual well-being will be increased by being punished by your alleged god?
It is exactly the same problem.
Does Matt think going to Heaven will improve the well-being of humanity?
Why should we care about going to Heaven, if we don't care about well-being?
Matt's morality suffers from the problem Matt outlines , that there is no need to be moral, if you don't care about the rewards that moral behaviour brings.
Matt's comment is like somebody who queries economics by claiming that economists cannot say what 'goods' are and that only God can say what good is.
Economists would just ignore such comments. Goods are what society defines as goods and economics is the study of how they can be made optimal.
Well-being is a human construct, and morality is the science of seeing how well-being can be made optimal.
There is no more need for the supernatural in morality than there is a need for a god to tell economists what 'goods' are.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-12-03 05:55 pm (UTC)You are not going to change them the next time you play football. They were set by humans, but they count now as fixed rules.
How do you convince people to behave morally if they do not want to increase the well-being of humanity in general and individuals in particular?
How do you convince people to behave morally if they think their individual well-being will be increased by being punished by your alleged god?
It is exactly the same problem.
Does Matt think going to Heaven will improve the well-being of humanity?
Why should we care about going to Heaven, if we don't care about well-being?
Matt's morality suffers from the problem Matt outlines , that there is no need to be moral, if you don't care about the rewards that moral behaviour brings.
Matt's comment is like somebody who queries economics by claiming that economists cannot say what 'goods' are and that only God can say what good is.
Economists would just ignore such comments. Goods are what society defines as goods and economics is the study of how they can be made optimal.
Well-being is a human construct, and morality is the science of seeing how well-being can be made optimal.
There is no more need for the supernatural in morality than there is a need for a god to tell economists what 'goods' are.