On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> Uh, I think we know. Because anything you could give thatw ould count as
> a reason would have to follow those rules, or it wouldn't be a reason at
> all. If, for instance, as some people say in our society, "It's in the
> Bible that [gays are bad, whatever], God said it, and that settles it,"
> that's not a reason. Or nota good one. As you actuallt believe.
Yes, according to our (yours and my) shared web of beliefs and practices, "God said it and that settles it" is a poor argument. But that's necessarily true because we think that logic, evidence, and reason are the hallmarks of good argument. Back up: there's an infinite regress here you can't avoid. How do we know that logic and reason should be the arbiters of proper morals? If you provide logical arguments in favor of your claim, you're just begging the question!
I can imagine a community in which "God said it and that settles it" would be a plausible, powerful argument according to the auspices and practices of those people. In that moral universe, logic and reason are not "useful" or "better" tools, and people in that moral universe would consider us barbaric and heartless. --And, according to their foundational beliefs and practices, that would be a reasonable claim. According to our beliefs and practices, it's not reasonable.
Here's the problem people are ducking in this thread: there is no universally agreed upon metastandard for adjudicating between these moral universes. Each side simply takes its own beliefs as the metastandard by which all beliefs should be judged.
Miles