Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Richard Carrier: An Example of Atheism's Moral Problem?

Here.  But it could be a problem with Carrier's personality.

6 comments:

Aron said...

I'd like to know the frequency of sexual harassment complaints leveled against public religious figures compared to the frequency of sexual harassment claims leveled against public atheist figures. I'd also like to know the frequency of sexual harassment complaints leveled against public atheist figures compared to the frequency of sexual harassment complaints leveled against people in general. has Victor offered any reason to think that the frequency is higher for atheists? Of course not. He's just raising the issue for the sake of raising the issue. But he also seems to be rather obviously poisoning the well.

Imagine if after hearing Trump's "locker room" comments, I said, "Is Trump an example of white people's moral problem? Or people over the age of 70's moral problem? Or people over 6ft's moral problem? Or people named Donald's moral problem?" Unless I have even the slightest reason to think there is a correlation between these things, I'm just poisoning the well. It's not enough to say "hey don't look at me! I'm just posing the question."

StardustyPsyche said...

" It’s just that you only adhere to the moral code when it suits you. Why? Because ultimately, there is no reason to adhere to the moral code. Unless it suits you."

That is true of you as well. We all do what we want, in the aggregate, it is the only thing we can do.

John B. Moore said...

I wonder how many people have actually had anti sexual harassment training at their workplace or school. When I did, it was enlightening. I learned some things I never knew before, and these things can potentially clear up a lot of questions people have in online forums and the media.

For example, according to my company's official guidelines, nothing is sexual harassment unless the victim complains and the harasser refuses to desist. The complaint doesn't need to be direct from victim to harasser, but it could go through a supervisor or the human resources office. There are all sorts of guidelines to ensure people are not punished for making a complaint.

This kind of official policy can help clear up issues, because the first question to ask someone accusing another of harassment is: "Who did you complain to?" If this was just something between the victim and the harasser, then why didn't the victim ask others for help? Or on the other hand, if the victim did ask another person for help, that other person needs to step forward now and make a statement. If the victim didn't complain until a whole year later, then it wasn't harassment - case closed.

I think this is a great policy for a company to have. Of course it can't work unless the staff all get training and understand the policy and the mechanisms in place to protect people who make a complaint. So again, I wonder how prevalent it is in the United States for companies or schools to provide anti sexual harassment training.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

I would rather talk about what's wrong with Carrer's ideas

StardustyPsyche said...

Victor reference,
" It’s just that you only adhere to the moral code when it suits you. Why? Because ultimately, there is no reason to adhere to the moral code. Unless it suits you."

Carrier presents a well written summary of account for 9 aspects of reason on naturalism. The naturalistic account refutes the necessity of god to account for reason.
https://infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/reppert.html#rcn1

Reppert's response includes a claim to a supposed "is/ought" problem:
" I can show we are dealing with a conceptual chasm that cannot simply be overcome by straightforward problem-solving. An example would be the attempt to get an “ought” from an “is”."
http://maverickphilosopher.blogspot.com/2004/10/argument-from-reason-reppert-replies.html#main3

Victor is wrong in thinking there is an is/ought problem. Our morality comes from our sense of ought, which is what Carrier calls a confidence level output by a brain virtual model, or what I call a correlation score output by a brain correlation matching processing network.

In computing our sense of ought we do not follow a formal logical argument. It doesn't matter to our emotions that stating an "ought" does not follow in formal logical notation from an "is".

Our sense of ought is an evolved mechanism to drive our behavior. We feel we ought to get a sandwich, or we ought to go to work, or we ought to help that child. This sense of ought is simply an animal behavior mechanism.

Theists operate by this same sense of ought that we atheists do, always doing what they want in the aggregate because it is the only thing each of us can do.

In short, Reppert is wrong on morality and reason.

Victor Reppert said...


What I said was that it could be a problem with Carrier's personality. That is the problem with object lessons based on particular figures. Carrier accepted a moral code that proscribes the activity he engaged in. Happens to Christians all the time, in fact, Christianity predicts that this is exactly what will happen.

So, welcome to the world of hypocrisy. No one is immune, not even atheists.