We have all heard both the theists and anti-theists talk about objective versus subjective this or that. The theists have their objective morality and the anti-theists have their objective reality. They are both doing the same thing. They are using the linguistic concepts of the subjective and objective parts of speech to try and add some level of credibility to their statements
For anybody that has studied linguistics, the subjective part represents the entity performing the action, the verb part represents the action, and the objective part represent what is being acted on. So the use of the term objective outside of linguistics is just an attempt to make something sound independent of the subjective part of the statement. This is an obvious attempt to make it sound immune to personal biases.
The theists use this to assert that morality is completely independent of how somebody thinks about it. The anti-theists use it to assert that reality is independent of how anybody thinks about it. But when you start to look at it from this perspective and how they justify this increased level of independence, you quickly find that there is no real basis for the assertion. You begin to see that all the adjective is being used for is to make the argument SOUND more convincing than it really is.
The question boils down to what is the difference between subjective and objective outside of linguistics. The simplest way I can come up with to describe it is that subjective refers to cases where a mind is involved and objective is when a mind is not involved. The theists suggest that their morality would exist regardless of the existence of people and the anti-theists suggest the universe would exist without the existence of people.
But doesn't that beg the question: How could you possibly know anything for certain about a place or time that cannot by definition have anybody experiencing it? Without anybody there to verify the assertion, any claim to having evidence to support the position must be a bold faced lie. The theists try to use the excuse of divine inspiration and the anti-theists try to use the claim that processes worked the same in the past as they do today.
But look closely at those excuses. How could anybody ever show that either of those is more valid than an assertion of exactly the opposite? Basically the theists are claiming divine inspiration must have happened because we have their objective morality. And the anti-theists are claiming that processes must be the same in the past because of what they see now. So how is it with absolutely no evidence, either position is anything but a personal guess?
Both are a bit of trickery known as a logical implication. If you have studied logic, you will know that an implication is a two input Boolean function where one input is the premise and the other is what is being tested. The truth table for this function is that when the premise is true, the output follows the value of what is being tested. However, when the premises is false the output is ALWAYS true.
For example, it the premise is that "Guns kill people" it makes sense to ban guns. But if the reality is that actually "People kill people" then the original argument is just a ruse to get you to agree with the logic. If the premise is true the output is meaningful, but if the premise is false the output is meaninglessly always the same.
So if the premise is wrong, the use of a logical argument has absolutely no power to shed any light on the question. What the person making the argument was doing was simply being intellectually dishonest. Either that, or they where just plain stupid, in which case there is even less reason to agree with their argument.
In either case, this amounts to a need for a major red flag to be raised whenever someone uses the word objective in any argument they make. At a bare minimum it is an indication that you need to be looking VERY closely at any assumptions or premises that might be proposed. For if you don't accept the premises they are presenting, their argument is even less valuable than to have not made the argument to begin with.
In addition, if you are planning on using the word objective in your argument, you need to be very careful and get your opponent to stipulate to your assumptions before you make the argument. Otherwise your opponent will simply dismiss your argument on the grounds that you are dishonest or that you are stupid
For anybody that has studied linguistics, the subjective part represents the entity performing the action, the verb part represents the action, and the objective part represent what is being acted on. So the use of the term objective outside of linguistics is just an attempt to make something sound independent of the subjective part of the statement. This is an obvious attempt to make it sound immune to personal biases.
The theists use this to assert that morality is completely independent of how somebody thinks about it. The anti-theists use it to assert that reality is independent of how anybody thinks about it. But when you start to look at it from this perspective and how they justify this increased level of independence, you quickly find that there is no real basis for the assertion. You begin to see that all the adjective is being used for is to make the argument SOUND more convincing than it really is.
The question boils down to what is the difference between subjective and objective outside of linguistics. The simplest way I can come up with to describe it is that subjective refers to cases where a mind is involved and objective is when a mind is not involved. The theists suggest that their morality would exist regardless of the existence of people and the anti-theists suggest the universe would exist without the existence of people.
But doesn't that beg the question: How could you possibly know anything for certain about a place or time that cannot by definition have anybody experiencing it? Without anybody there to verify the assertion, any claim to having evidence to support the position must be a bold faced lie. The theists try to use the excuse of divine inspiration and the anti-theists try to use the claim that processes worked the same in the past as they do today.
But look closely at those excuses. How could anybody ever show that either of those is more valid than an assertion of exactly the opposite? Basically the theists are claiming divine inspiration must have happened because we have their objective morality. And the anti-theists are claiming that processes must be the same in the past because of what they see now. So how is it with absolutely no evidence, either position is anything but a personal guess?
Both are a bit of trickery known as a logical implication. If you have studied logic, you will know that an implication is a two input Boolean function where one input is the premise and the other is what is being tested. The truth table for this function is that when the premise is true, the output follows the value of what is being tested. However, when the premises is false the output is ALWAYS true.
For example, it the premise is that "Guns kill people" it makes sense to ban guns. But if the reality is that actually "People kill people" then the original argument is just a ruse to get you to agree with the logic. If the premise is true the output is meaningful, but if the premise is false the output is meaninglessly always the same.
So if the premise is wrong, the use of a logical argument has absolutely no power to shed any light on the question. What the person making the argument was doing was simply being intellectually dishonest. Either that, or they where just plain stupid, in which case there is even less reason to agree with their argument.
In either case, this amounts to a need for a major red flag to be raised whenever someone uses the word objective in any argument they make. At a bare minimum it is an indication that you need to be looking VERY closely at any assumptions or premises that might be proposed. For if you don't accept the premises they are presenting, their argument is even less valuable than to have not made the argument to begin with.
In addition, if you are planning on using the word objective in your argument, you need to be very careful and get your opponent to stipulate to your assumptions before you make the argument. Otherwise your opponent will simply dismiss your argument on the grounds that you are dishonest or that you are stupid
No comments:
Post a Comment