tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post8935083512117073848..comments2024-03-28T17:53:43.541-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Losing Sight of MoralityDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-43417461949857269032007-05-19T19:52:00.000-04:002007-05-19T19:52:00.000-04:00Hi Darwin,I've been reading your blog for a while ...Hi Darwin,<BR/>I've been reading your blog for a while but this is the first time I've felt compelled to comment.<BR/>We have no reason to worry about claims about the natural sources of what we believe to have supernatural significance. Its true that frequently these claims have the hidden motive of denying the eternal significance of man- I'm thinking in particular of Nietzche's Geneology of Morals where he endeavors to exposit a plausible naturalistic genesis of morality and then basically says, “therefore, this is all that morality is.” Notice the unsupported leap from genetic claim to metaphysical claim. Its pure rubbish.<BR/><BR/>Example. I notice that every time someone is happy they smile. Do I then conclude that the physical act of smiling is all there is to happiness? No. I don’t do this because I know what happiness is and I know what a smile is and it is a rather straightforward mental operation to make the judgment that the two stand in a relation of nonidentity. Now suppose I am given more sophisticated tools with which I am to observe happiness. I spend years interviewing countless subjects, then scanning and dissecting their brains. I come to several conclusions all of the form “happiness is associated with physical phenomenon x.” Now, do I conclude that x _is_ happiness?<BR/><BR/>I think the previous commenter was off-track when he supposed that it depends on whether color exists outside of the human mind. Color is something that a subject experiences. It is experienced as a property of an external object—and it is known that color does in fact tell us something about the object; in other words, color is an objectively valid representation of a property that does exist externally. However, the experience of color is strictly subjective. It makes no sense to ask whether the experience of red exists outside of the subject, the answer is clearly no. Experience requires subjectivity.<BR/><BR/>So when scientists say they have found that part of our brain that is required in order to register color, its no different from me telling you which part of the body is required in order to register the experience of being tapped on the shoulder. It's the shoulder.<BR/><BR/>We have always known that man is natural and material. Man has an immaterial soul but it is necessarily a soul of a body. We must try very hard to shake Descartes’ influence from Christian philosophy. The soul is not to the body like a helmsman to a boat.<BR/><BR/>Sorry this is all a bit muddled. I’ll try and put together a proper post later. You might read my posts on “naturalistic accounts” and on “subjective experience and the immaterial”.JP Benjaminhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10700579112258149397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-86270789500335931062007-05-19T08:43:00.000-04:002007-05-19T08:43:00.000-04:00The bit about color--It would depend, wouldn't it,...The bit about color--<BR/><BR/>It would depend, wouldn't it, on whether you think colors exist independently of mind? If you happen to think that what a color <I>just is</I> is an interaction between a certain wavelength of light and a certain part of the visual cortex of the brain, then in fact color wouldn't exist <I>for that injured person</I>. If you don't think that colors are dispositional properties to experience the world in a certain way, then what, exactly, are they? Are we going to say that "red", as <I>we</I> know it, that is, some sort of Platonic "redness itself" exists out there in that apple? I'm not altogether sure what that would mean.<BR/><BR/>I think morality is rather different. You're quite right, I think, that it's a mistake to infer from the fact that our brains do, in fact, enable us to interact with the world in a certain way, to the conclusion that the "source" of morality is itself in the brain, but that doesn't mean that plenty of aspects of morality are not socially constructed. I would defend the view that it is the highest Good that is independent of the brain, and how we move towards that Good is a function of how our brains work.Vitae Scrutatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12808120163472036743noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-67496393795755592312007-05-17T14:06:00.000-04:002007-05-17T14:06:00.000-04:00hmm, maybe michael savage is right,"liberalism is ...hmm, maybe michael savage is right,"liberalism is a mental disorder"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-24742581066310061672007-05-16T12:36:00.000-04:002007-05-16T12:36:00.000-04:00Here's a case in point where science without commo...Here's a case in point where science without common sense or an informed conscience goes bad. I am not a neurologist, nor would I consider my knowledge on the subject to be considerable. I have two family members with different types (and areas) of brain damage and have done some reading on the subject - Rhonda has read even more. But please follow me here...what they are describing is nothing new about the type of injury and its effects. Pick up any book on the subject and this condition will be discussed as a very common occurrence. It is and has always been characterized as impeded judgment - being unable to consider consequences to your actions, being a slave to the now (impatient to an unimaginable extreme), a profound lack of empathy, minimal to no self-motivation, and being unable to judge the character of others. <BR/><BR/>Again...any book about brain injury will tell you about those things. The difference is, the above story is looking at that condition and equating it with morality; making a leap that is not warranted. Injuries like that would surely negate moral culpability in and as far as the person acted in as good of conscience as they could, but having no brain damage and the appropriate faculties does not make one moral. We still have free will and make choices (moral or otherwise).Rick Lugarihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16957595491409017184noreply@blogger.com