If a tree falls in a forest, and no-one gives a damn, did it really fall? Of course, you just specified it did.

Artificial questions for artificial answers. Lets start with the very idea of murder. In no instance does the definition of the crime include 'if someone finds out' or 'except unknown crimes'.

Sure. But the question iambiguous asks is not "is it murder?" or "is it a crime?" but rather "is it unethical?"

We can't say that something is unethical simply because it is a crime, since otherwise it would be unethical to harbour Jews in Nazi Germany. Hence these are distinct questions.

The undiscovered killing may well be unethical, but it isn't unethical simply because it's illegal.

Every ethical scenario has an agent capable of making decisions - otherwise it wouldn't be a decision but just stuff happening. So for the guy who kills the other person, just because he doesn't care doesn't mean that he wasn't in an ethical scenario, it just means he doesn't place any importance on ethics.

A more interesting question is, what if they guy in the same scenario thought he was being ethical, and no one even knew about it to give him another opinion?

I guess in all these questions you have to ignore the opinion of the dead guy, because if you weigh in his opinion, and he didn't want to be killed, then you don't need an ultimate view, you just need his.

Definitions are one thing, human reality something else altogether.

And it's not an artificial question for atheists.

In fact, many atheists argue that Gods are invented because Devine Justice precludes this sort of thing. God is omniscient so there is no question of the immoral getting caught. And God is omnipotent so there is no question of the immoral being punished.

But sans God it all comes down to a point of view for mere mortals.

The question comes down to “can we have objective moral truths if there is no God to decree them?”

I don’t see that we can’t. Plenty of philosophers have postulated objective ethical propositions without grounding them in the will of a deity. I can see no proof that they do not exist.

If it can be objectively true that (say) the planet Mars exists without a deity to call it into existence/sustain it in existence, then other things can also exist without a deity. Why should objective existence be confined to material things?

(A materialist might assert that, in truth, only material things can and do objectively exist. But that is a statement of materialist faith; there is no objective proof for the proposition that only material things exist.)

A separate question is “how can we know about objective moral truths if there is no God to reveal them?” An answer might be that we can’t be sure we do know them. We can study and reflect and develop an understanding which (we hope) approaches the objective truth, but we always have to be open to the possibility of a better undersanding. A bit like subatomic physics, really. But our failure to know an objective truth doesn’t change its truth.

I don't see why its any better a question if an atheist is involved. Murder is malum in se, bad in itself, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malum_in_se and whether you are pretending the ten commandments are ruling law or relying on statute law the situation does not change.

Sans God does not all come down to a point of view. Statute law and the common law of the land and the general moral code of the people involved all apply. If one of the participants were a voluntary enslavement fetishist who had asked to be killed and eaten by the other, their viewpoint does not over-rule statute law. People do 'write their own law' under contract law, but a contract is void if it envisages a crime.

Its a valid question to ask as an exercise in practical ethics, but the answer is the same. Thanks for bringing it.

I actually see on this forum a lot people referring to the law as a basis for theoretical ethical discussion. I just want to point out that the law is based upon some sort of ethical standard or another (unless someone made up a bit because they were greedy, etc., but I will ignore this complication). Therefore the law has associated with it all the same ethical questions that the rest of ethics does - it might be the 'here and now', but it's not an objectively defined thing: it was made by people who had certain ideas about ethics. Were they correct?

When I jay-walk, I do so because I think it is safe, but when I get pulled up for it, it's because someone else thinks that it generally isn't. It's not a battle between my subjective opinion and someone else's objective opinion - it's two subjective opinions, one of which has the police and courts on their side.

There are multiple occasions where murder is defined as ethical: perhaps in self-defense, in combat, fighting infidels, etc. And suicide is a whole other can of worms. So I can see that there is a case for subjectivity where there is no "higher defining power".

Mind you, where would God get ethics from - does s/he make it up, or grab it from somewhere else? If it's made up, is it just God's subjectivity?

An atheist recognizes how for the true believer it matters not if a tree makes a sound falling in the forest if none of us are around to hear it. God is. God does.

Same with moral claims. You may insist that killing another is "bad in itself". But if the person who does the killing does not, what you believe is meaningless. He dies, you die, we all die...and what does it ultimately matter?

With God around it always does.

And there is no necessary link between "statute law" and universal morality. Any more than there is between that and a "general moral code".

Oh dear, I think that explains all the bashings and glassings we see these days, the perpetrators see their fellow man only as "logs".
How are we going to persuade those godless little bast---s to stop hurting people without scaring the sh-t out of them. Personally I think it worked better when we could tell them if they sinned they would burn in hell.

If it weren't so serious it would be hilarious to watch those with a greeny philosophy try to figure out if the life of a human being is more important than that of a tree.

What particular life in what particular context from what particular point of view?

That is always the question in a world without God.

And because no mere mortal can answer it definitively we invent Gods.

After all, killing goes on all the time: wars, executions, abortions.

But who gets to say when it is ethical and when it is unethical?

Threatening someone with a punishment – or inducing them by offering a reward – may sometimes work as a technique for behaviour modification, but there is no sense in which it encourages or fosters ethical behaviour. Doing something in order to secure an advantage, or not doing something in order to avoid a disadvantage, is basically selfish. It’s not virtuous. Offering rewards and punishments is appropriate for young children who aren’t capable of a higher level of ethical thinking, but not beyond that.

In fact, it’s counterproductive. In particular, if you offer supernatural punishments or rewards, and if the subject ceases to believe in the reality of these, you leave him with no reason at all to behave in the way you consider desirable. And, once he reaches adolescence, he’ll realise that he doesn’t need to believe in supernatural propositions – it’s of the nature of supernatural propositions that their existence cannot be demonstrated; belief in them is a choice. Unless you have offered someone a foundation for ethical living which goes beyond the threat of hell or the promise of heaven, you can pretty much expect your system to fall apart when the person reaches the age of about fourteen.


Huh? At the core of humanist philosophy is the view that significant ethical value is attached to the human person. And it’s perfectly possible to be an atheist secular humanist; in fact, nowadays, the word humanist almost suggests atheism even where it isn’t specified. And while not all Greens are humanists (or atheists, or seculars) my impression is that green humanism is extremely common.

In fact, I would have thought that your argument would hold more force if directed against Christians. In the book of Genesis humanity is tasked with “tilling and keeping” the Garden of Eden – representing God’s creation - not destroying it. And while humanity is to have “dominion” over other living animals, they are explicitly told that they have been given seeds, fruit and plants to eat. In short, the scriptures suggest care for the environment, not its exploitation and destruction, and they point to the ideal of a vegetarian diet. Or is that reading a bit “greeny” for you?

well thats the whole point of your post?

a sociopath would think it'd be tops to commit mass homicide whereas a homosexual greenie would shudder at the thought of harming a fly.

An opinion is just that – there is no answer to your question.

If one hews to Confucius' belief that reciprocity is the logical basis for all human ethics, then the answer is rather easy. If the person in question has not committed a foul deed and does not wish to be killed, then it is unethical to bother him, much less kill him. Period. But, if you want to pretend that things are much more complicated, and bring in "situtational ethics" which just don't compute, and political correctness-(the ethics du jour of the powers that be, in which the murder of anyone but those powers-that-be is mere collateral damage), then have at it. It would be easy to add circumstances that make it much more complicated in order to show that there is no such things as ethics, only situtations requiring deciphering by a group of Jesuits, rabbis, or ayatollahs in cloistered chambers, not something that the common man could ever grasp.

But there is no period here. There is only the manner in which each of us embrace a particular point of view and then act on it. If the man doing the killing is able to rationalize his behavior as "the right thing to do---for me" then, from his point of view, it's the right thing to do. He becomes the period at the end of that sentence.




The common man grasps any number of contradictory things. And certain powers that be engage in collateral damage in war and the executions of prisoners. Or they legalize abortion which many view as little more than premeditated cold blooded murder.

But is it?

People die and it is rationalized. At best we can draw the line in certain places and agree that once crossed there will be consequences.

If, on the other hand, one doesn’t, then the rest of what you say becomes irrelevant.

And this goes back to the point made by iambiguous in the original post. Is there anything which compels belief in this (or any other) ethical proposition? And, if there is not, is belief a matter of choice? And what makes my choice, or your choice, or the choice of Confucius, more authoritative or more valid or more true than any other choice of any other person?

Peregrinus:
First one must accept the premise that such things as "divine rights" and "royal blood" do not exist, and that no person is born with more rights than any other person. If we accept this premise that no individual person possesses a right to do to another that which the person doesn't want done to them, it also follows logically that if no individual person possesses this kind of right, then a group of individuals acting together still do not possess that right since 1,000 times zero is still zero. This is not merely a proposition set forth by a guy named Confucius, nor is it simply Tom Palven's pet eccentric preference; this is a position grounded on logic which has not been logically refuted. If you want to attempt to refute it, show me the logic, one logical step at a time. Do not expect me to accept the kinds of arguments that Allen Dershowitz and Johnny Cochrane used in the defense of O J Simpson-- Jesuit/Rabbi type points presented to muddy the waters and lead one astray, (commonly referred to as "bullshit") but a simple scientific-type argument where each point logically follows and is relevant to, the previous point.

What if two people want to control the same property?

What if I don't want to be discriminated against (for the colour of my skin, sexuality, whatever) but other people want to - they only want white people in their cafe, or no gay people marrying? Who gets to control the action of the others - whose "don't want" is the most valid?

What if there are starving children on my lawn, but I don't want to give up my huge excesses of food? Can they make me? Is there an ethical imperative?

There might have to be a more specific definition of "don't want to happen to them" for this logic to be fully investigated.

Why starving children? What if a group of Hell's Angels wants to have a big barbeque on your lawn without your permission? Is it ethical for them to go ahead and do it? I would say that it violates the Golden Rule of reciprocity, of not treating others the way they want to be treated. But heck, mc fate, if you are not going to argue the logic of the Golden Rule, why start out with little nuisance questions? Why not go for it all at once like real Defender of the Faith? It might go something like this:

mc fate: Tom, I want to discuss the ethics of the Golden Rule with
you.

Tom: Okay.

mc fate: Do all trees have leaves?

Tom: What does that have to do with ethics?

mc fate: You will find out. Please just answer my question.

Tom: Are needles on pine trees considered leaves?

mc fate: What is your point, Tom? I just want you to tell me if all trees have leaves.

Tom: There are plants like huge cacti without leaves. Are they considered to be trees?

mc fate: Tom, don't you think that you should find these things out if we are going to discuss ethics? Why are you tring to duck my questions? (And on, and on, and on.)

Must? Where is this “must” coming from? What right have you to say that anyone, other than yourself, must accept anything?


Um, Tom, you do realize that that’s a radically different premise to the one you just told me I “must” accept? “Must” I accept this one too? Why?


Nonsense. Sheer nonsense. No individual person possesses the right to marry, but it doesn’t follow that no two people possess the right to marry.

I’ve pointed out before that individuals are relational in nature, and consequently we can do through relationships things that we cannot do individually. Why, then, can we not have a moral status or authority collectively that we lack individually?

You always proceed on the assumption that individuals, and only individuals, have moral status, but you make no attempt to justify this assumption, still less to prove it.


All logical arguments proceeds from axioms or assumptions. If you select axioms and assumptions designed to produce the result you desire, naturally enough you can then deduce the result you desire from those axioms and assumptions.

In this case you assert as the key element of your argument that, what one individual cannot do, two or more individuals cannot do. Why is this true? Not only is it unproven, but it is intrinsically improbable. We know that in most areas of life it is arrant nonsense; we regularly co-operate with others to do things that we cannot do alone. It may well be that in this particular area your assertion is true, but it's not obviously true, and you need to justify it.

Your proof fails because you do not justify this assertion.