Yet There Is Method In It

Continuing my series on the gospels, I read Luke. Probably being the last of the synoptic gospels to be written, the evolution of the stories was very noticeable, as details were inserted and potentially difficult passages removed. I guessed the order the gospels with written was Mark-Matthew-Luke, and this interpretation is in agreement with most historians. There is a fascinating diagram showing the proportions of overlap between the synoptic gospels on wikipedia.

There are several places in Luke where the narrative in Mark has added detail inserted before it returns back to the original Mark based events. For example when he calls Simon (Peter) and Andrew for the first time to be “fishers of men” (Mark 1:16-18, Matthew 4:18-20) they “straightway” follow Jesus. But in Luke, he talks to Simon on his own and Jesus does a quick fishing trip miracle (Luke 5:1-8) which is serves as a parable instead of a literal statement. So this is an example of a simple event narrative being expanded to being a dual purpose story/parable. (Or somehow both versions are literally true, which seems unlikely. Two separate events?) Similar expansions and insertions are used for love thy neighbour and the parable of the good samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), an angel appearing at the mount of olives (Luke 22:44), Jesus talking to the other two being crucified (Luke 22:39-43) and Jesus meeting Herod (Luke 23:7-9) (this seems particularly arbitrary).

I can’t remember if I have ranted on the blog before about Jesus being strongly anti-materialism and extremely anti-wealth. When I mention this to Christians, I usually get some equivocated answer about “cultural changes”. Anyway the strongest statements I have found is Luke 14:33, Luke 12:33, Luke 6:24, (rich man told to sell up) Luke 18:22, Mark 10:21, Matthew 19:21, (widow’s mite) Mark 12:42-44, Luke 21:1-4, (instruction to apostles and disciples) Mark 6:8, Matthew 10:9, Luke 10:4, Luke 22:35, not to mention the camel/eye of needle thing (Mark 10:25, Matthew 19:24, Luke 18:25). This is also backed up by Jesus’s example in life. I don’t think this could be much clearer! (Obviously, I personally feel we need to culturally reinterpret the Bible – to the extreme in fact, but this is a central point in the text and not lightly ignored.) On a related note, Nietzsche point it out it is weird saying one should give away your possessions when this burdens the recipient with just what you cast away!

The point at the end of the parable of Lazarus is strange:

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. Luke 16:31

Which implies Jesus did not expect his resurrection to be persuasive. But it might be possible to justify the whole exercise on other grounds.

Prophesy gets a good watering down in Luke:

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:20-21

I guess they got bored of waiting for the earlier predictions in Mark and Matthew:

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Matthew 16:27-28

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. [9] And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. Mark 8:38-9:1

This also makes the kingdom a perspective rather than an event or place. This allows a great number of metaphysical inventions to escape their Pandora’s box. (I should write more on that some time.)

Finally, Jesus’s last moments. What is going on there? Three different versions are reported in three gospels. The biblical literalists have a particularly poor response on this conflict: they claim that all three are true but each narrative omits details. This is done because each author has a different “perspective”. This is pretty much an admission that the gospels are not literally true. (As if we needed that admission!)

Anyway, I now know why I was taught Mark at school, it has the least spin and “improvements” compared to the other synoptic gospels.

Anti Citizen One

I continued into read the gospel according to Mark. There are a few interesting things at the start of Chapter 6. He seems to have met his “brothers” and “sisters” (6:3) in his home country. This may be an interesting case of translation ambiguity. Brothers and sisters in the local culture could indicate his cousins or not, it is hard to say. There seems to be controversy on this point, at least among Internet commenters. After stating people were generally unfriendly and “offended”, it goes on to say:

And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. Mark 6:5

Which is a bizarre claim for an supposedly omnipotent being (see also 10:40). The implication is possibly that he could not because of the lack of faith. Apologists claim that “he could” might be better translated as “he would”. This might wash, if the problems were not compounded in 6:6, with Jesus being “amazed”, which implies he is not omniscient. A sceptic like me is not surprised that miracles don’t happen in unfriendly audiences, because they are not as credulous (this would also be consistent with psychology and experience). Alternatively, Jesus did seem to follow a pattern of rewarding faith with miracles. On that theme, Jesus claims that no signs from heaven will be given to that generation (Mark 8:12) but I guess he forgot he was due to be resurrected, which is lucky “corrected” in Matthew 12:39 (and Luke 11:29). The gospel according to Mark seems to contradict that this sign was the primary goal of Jesus’s appearance. This also raised my eyebrows:

And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Mark 10:18

Which implies Jesus does not consider himself good. To argue otherwise is torturing language beyond the limit (except for possibly a bad translation, which is torture enough). The prohibition against exercising political authority is very interesting (10:42-43), which might be worth a read for most US and UK politicians (not to mention many others).

The incident of looking for figs on a fig tree, when it was not even the season for figs is an interesting note on the arbitrariness of Christianity (11:13). However there is probably an even deeper message when this incident is raised in 13:28 when it is considered as a parable. This might imply the original story really a parable and not a description of a real past event. Or it could be both a real event and used as a metaphor. The point is parts of the narrative shift between events and parables and we are not necessarily told which is occurring. Imagine if the source material for Mark 13 was lost, many would claim a miracle had occurred in Mark 11. And if Mark 11 was lost, people would claim Mark 13 contained the a parable of the fig tree. Given the murky history of the bible text and the general illiteracy of the time, we can safely assume some relevant sections were omitted (and the irrelevant retained). Since any part of the Bible could have important missing contextual information, the whole descents into a post-modern enigma. This also makes my earlier points somewhat redundant but I am not too concerned. The primary cultural impact of the Bible has been under the assumption it was true based on a rather superficial reading (such as in my limited capability).

Anti Citizen One

It’s been a while since I looked at the Bible. I thought I’d have a read to refresh my memory, after Pullman’s retelling, I’d go back to the original the more popular version. I’d thought I’d jot down a few thoughts on the Gospel According to Matthew. These points are not from a post-modern perspective at all. I am mainly interested in mainstream culture, religion and the implications of Matthew.

Jesus claims he has only come to address the Jewish people (10:5, 15:24), but sometimes he seems more concerned with gentiles (21:41, 22:5). He is a critic of religious institutions of his day (15:9, 23:5-8) and these points probably apply to modern institutions (which is a central theme of Kierkegaard). There are strong statements against having or valuing wealth (6:25, 19:21, 19:23), which might be food for thought in the recent UK elections and those putting economic factors as the most important issue. He taught pacifism and non-judgementalism, to the point of “resist not evil” (5:39, 7:1, 26:52), which is contrary to most political systems (and many moral systems). I was amused by the prohibition on public prayer in 6:5-6, which is contrary to national prayer days mooted in the US and in a narrow interpretation, against church going!

There are many instances of Jesus addressing God is a separate entity (7:21, 10:32) and at least once God addressing Jesus as a separate entity (3:17). They don’t seem to share knowledge or their intentions (26:39). There is not much impression of the unity of these two beings. It is also strange that Jesus predicts the world will end within the lifetime of his disciples (16:28, 24:34). History is full of attempts at predicting the end of the world (it probably appeals to human psychology) but predictions have so far ended with egg on face.

The uniqueness of the resurrection might be contrasted by the other instances of rising from the dead in the gospels. This seems to have been a relatively common occurrence (9:24-25,27:52-53). A significant part of the narrative is given over to Jesus curing illnesses. Perhaps this impresses the intended audience of the Bible, but it is not particularly relevant and quite odd give the relative sparseness of the recordings of Jesus’s teachings.

I also noticed two verses saying truth faith can move mountains (17:20, 21:21) which seems at odds with common experience. On one hand Jesus mainly spoke in parables. On the other, he made the claim twice and in both times it was to explain how miracles are be performed. Obviously, this point can only be a criticism to believers of religious miracles based on faith. I mention it because it was raised by Dostoevsky in the Brothers Karamazov. Since we don’t see mountains move in modern times, we can conclude that true faith no longer exists (or decide not to read the Bible this literally).

The motivation of Judas for betraying Jesus is left unstated. It seems rather bizarre considering the circumstances. Imagine if Dostoevsky had written the Bible, it would have been the central issue of the narrative!

Anti Citizen One

I finished Plato’s Republic. It is the first ancient philosophy book I have read first hand. I obviously knew them second hand via Russell and Nietzsche and so on. It is a very different style and it is rather naive compared to the more modest and more obscurantist modern philosophy. It is very inventive and imaginative, I can’t deny Plato made a contribution to philosophy. I certainly was surprised how easy he was to understand! The book features several famous ideas including the parable of the cave and the myth of Er. My appreciation was perhaps through the optics of Popper’s Open Society and Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols (and Birth of Tragedy), so it perhaps is unsurprising that Plato fails to impress because of 2500 years of hindsight!

Plato loves the dialectical style, reduction to the absurd and argument from analogy. The frequent use of analogies reminded me of C S Lewis’s style. Perhaps Lewis belongs in the ancient world? The problem with argument from analogy is it is a very circumstantial. As Hume said:

Unless the cases [being compared in the analogy] be exactly similar, they repose no perfect confidence in applying their past observation to any particular phenomenon. (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion)

To be sure the analogy is sound, it is necessary to make future tests to verify the properties of one entity is shared with a second. If we have no experience of one of the instances being compared in the analogy, the validity of the analogy is sheer speculation. Plato for instance compares the “true being of things” with the Sun. Since no specific resemblance can be verified, the analogy is no more than an opinion or guess. (This also dispatches the Design Argument.) He also uses false dichotomies several times, which is most annoying. They generally follow the pattern: 1) A or B is true, 2) A is absurd, 3) therefore B. Of course the first step may be invalid…

In another place he seems to accidentally imply his theory of “true being” is simply opinion. He already stated that opinion cannot inform us about the “true being” of things.

[...] in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards,[...] (emphasis mine)

[...] opinion [is] concerned with becoming, and intellect with being [...]

So we might ask, how does Plato know beyond mere “opinion” about his “true” world?

I found other sections amusing, in terms of what propaganda must be fed to the masses, in order to keep them under control. He insists that we must call God absolutely good because it is an effective tool for social control, along with various other ideas. Most of these ideas were directly absorbed into Christianity (by St. Augustine). Consider the well known problem of evil; it is not even an issue if we admit the existence of evil gods? As Popper pointed out, The Republic was intended to be a political manifesto for a Plato headed dictatorship of Athens. Compared to the flak that Machiavelli and Nietzsche get for their ideas having political consequences, the ideas of Plato are far, far, FAR closer to justifying genocide, slavery, racism, propaganda and tyranny. (I know Plato condemns “tyranny” but this only seems to be tyrannies where he is not in control. Be careful of Plato’s words!)

Plato’s attack and planned censorship of the tragic poets (Homer, etc.) was certainly a surprise to me, I did not expect such an open attack on one of the most famous Greek cultural icons. He also attacks democracy. And objectionable types of music. And the equality of humans. For almost everything we associate with the ancient Greeks, Plato wanted to destroy it (to attain a “blank slate” as he calls it) as a starting point for his utopia. This lead to Nietzsche labelling Plato an “anti-Greek” along with the “Socratic equation” (also adopted by Plato), which is allegedly “reason = virtue = happiness”, being called “the weirdest equation ever seen”.

Anyway, fascinating stuff.

Anti Citizen One

PS Plato’s calculation of the unhappiness of tyrants and philosophers is almost a foreshadowed unintentional parody of utilitarianism, IMHO.

I have been recovering from a stomach thing (“the father of all afflictions”). The good news is I’ve read The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. It was awesome, but certainly not light reading. I had maintained notes of approximately 50 recurring characters! For this literary genre, the length is second only to War and Peace. I mention this book on this philosophy blog as it is a dense philosophical and psychological work. Apart from the many moral situations faced by the characters, they are not afraid to discuss social, spiritual and philosophical issues in depth. Also, it is not obvious to me the author is pushing a particular agenda, although others have dismissed Dostoevsky as merely pushing orthodox christian propaganda. He seems to make a strong case for and against christianity and moral relativism.

The character Alexey (Alyosha) is perhaps the closest to the author’s ideal man, in this work. Prince Myshkin from this earlier book, The Idiot, is perhaps a higher ideal. But both love humanity and the world. Both are deeply religious and principled. They rush around trying to fix everything and usually, tragically fail (is this the author’s ideal!?). Indeed, Myshkin is driven to insanity by his high principles. Alexey keeps his head but is more human and more passionate than Myshkin. He is after all, the son of this father: the “sensualist” Fyodor Karamazov.

Ivan: “It’s a feature of the Karamazovs, it’s true, that thirst for life regardless of everything; you have it no doubt too, but why is it base?”

Alexey’s brother Ivan Karamazov is an intellectual, a strident moral relativist and possibly a strong atheist. His view is: given the rejection of God and an afterlife, the are no laws to say “love thy neighbour”, therefore “everything is lawful”. This brief expression, rather like a sound bite, borders on a false dichotomy, but Ivan (and the author) is smart enough to not over simplify. He is referring to the existential questions raised by the apparent absence of objective morality. When Ivan is attributed with “everything is lawful”, he said it plainer as “But in my wishes I reserved myself full latitude in the case”. Full latitude in this context includes murder or indeed any other action.

Rakitin: “And did you hear his [Ivan's] stupid theory just now: if there’s no immortality of the soul, then there’s no virtue, and everything is lawful?”

Ivan also states his parable of “The Grand Inquisitor”, in which Jesus returns to Earth, but is taken from the people by agents of organised religion and told he is now superfluous considering the current aims of the church. The inquisitor recalls the three temptations of Christ in the wilderness and which are metaphorically faced by the church. The church now chooses differently than Jesus’s choices in the biblical story. This amounts to an accusation of the atheism of organised religion. This chapter has been published separately from the rest of the book.

I was interested to read an expression of the eternal return, which just precedes Nietzsche’s statement in The Gay Science (1880 vs 1882). Although they seem to have expressed the same concept, the way the idea is described is strikingly similar. Dostoevsky has Ivan, driven towards insanity by (possibly misplaced) guilt, hallucinating a devil appearing and talking to him. Nietzsche also writes of a demon appearing at night to foretell the eternal return. Nietzsche appears to have discovered Dostoevsky between 1886 and 1888, based on his sudden gushing praise in Twilight of the Idols. Gypsy Scholar thinks they both may have found the idea in Heine.

Devil to Ivan: “Why, you keep thinking of our present earth! But our present earth may have been repeated a billion times. Why, it’s become extinct, been frozen; cracked, broken to bits, disintegrated into its elements, again ‘the water above the firmament,’ then again a comet, again a sun, again from the sun it becomes earth — and the same sequence may have been repeated endlessly and exactly the same to every detail, most unseemly and insufferably tedious…”

I mention this as the idea is given far higher weight in Nietzsche, being a central theme in Thus Spake Zarathustra. In Karamazov, the world view which Dostoevsky calls by short hand “underground” is touched upon, as Dimitri is faced with the possibility of being sent to Siberia for 20 years (singing hymns to God from underground). This was of course discussed in depth in Notes from Underground, which serves as a sort of preface to his longer masterpieces. I am inclined to think that Smerdyakov is the most underground character in the book, in competition with Rakitin and Ivan, on bad days.

Anti Citizen One

PS The Onion reports on a film adaptation of many peoples experience of the book…

Well the UK election campaign is nearly done. Only a little while until the decision. Although I have a healthy skepticism of institutional politics (is there another kind? mmm), I urge people to look at the policies of each party.

The political compass website is excellent. It has a summary of UK parties on their scale of authoritarianism/libertarianism and left/right. I have been supporting a party, the Lib Dems (centerist, with right leanings), that is worryingly distant from my survey result position (very libertarian, quite left). Remember this is all relative (Labour and conservatives are moderate authoritarian, moderate right). Perhaps I should switch to the Green Party? They are more aligned with my views. What we really need is electoral reform, so I can vote for a party without it being lost in noise of “first past the post”.

Anti Citizen One

I finished Pullman’s “The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ” in a few hours reading. It is certainly an original and subtle subversion of institutional religion, even compared to His Dark Materials. I don’t want to spoil the style and plot but I think I can say it is a retelling of the gospel story. It has many slight twists which make it a perfect book for fans of postmodernism. Competition between truth and history is explicitly discussed. Most of the famous stories are included but modified to make them more naturalistic; meaning they occur in a manner that is consistent with everyday experience. There are many references to events and artistic works that have since occurred. I detected hints of the medieval history of the church, Plato, Blake, Kierkegaard (Abraham And Isaac) and perhaps a discrete hint of Monty Python (“Penny for an ex-leper?”).

I was playing with the idea of listing gospel messages that are contrary to mainstream contemporary Christianity. Well, Pullman did it better than I could!

Anti Citizen One

I thought I would write a few random thoughts on The Open Society and Its Enemies by Popper. First off: it is excellent. It is a defence of democracy though an analysis of Plato’s The Republic. At times, it seems rather supportive of Socrates and mentions many occasions in which he was liabled by Plato. I am very suspicious of both because they are both philosophical idealists. Popper connects idealism to totalitarianism when applied to political problems (if I understand his point). He also restates the basis of humanitarianism because it was straw manned by Plato. Plato claims that egalitarianism is itself injustice as it treats naturally unequal things as equal – leading to social problems. I was very happy when Popper avoids this and avoids the is-ought problem and the naturalistic fallacy to say that it is individual demands that give the state legitimacy. Popper defines an open society if the government can be changed without recourse to violence. If the individual is forgotten by the state, it ceases to have a claim to justice. The analysis is very critical of Essentialism, Radicalism, Utopianism and supportive of gradual, piecemeal and empirical social change. The ultimate moral responsibility rests on individuals within the state – which is almost an existential basis for a state (strange but true). This interpretation is subtle – when the state is formed to reduce suffering, it is not because the ultimate judgement we make on the world is it is a suffering place. Nietzsche here would warm us of making judgements of that sort! (Fellow suffering is the “deepest abyss”.) But we can take measures as individuals, with our judgement being the “first motion” of ethics, and the judgement that we should help the suffering is contingent (and may change in time). This effect puts the doctors choice to be doctors as the basis of health care. Since their choice lead them to that vocation, it might be expected they have the self motivation to do a good job. If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well. This is the antithesis of our customer and victim centred culture, of course!

I wonder what part 2 will be like? I love the title, also. I love emphasising the second part “… and its ENEMIES….”.

Anti Citizen One

Just some quick notes that I want to brain dump on the is-ought problem. The conclusion of the problem is that prescriptive statements cannot be derived from purely descriptive statements. One way to avoid this issue is to use prescriptive statements as axioms (e.g. you should be good). But this might allow us to posit a axiom “you should be bad” and we would have no a-priori way to prefer one over the other. We might also remember many cultures have the concept of evil spirits and they probably should not be obeyed. So having a divine nature does not necessarily imply human obedience.

A pragmatic approach might be that prescriptive statements are based on psychology and not on rational argument. This would probably be compatible with neuroscience which seems to suggest we confabulate justifications for almost any action. This would not be acceptable to mainstream theists since we need free will and choice to enable “sinners” to be enable them to be held accountable. I only recently heard that some groups believe in a judging God but without people having free will – I have dropped my expectations of them making any sense, naturally.

Anyway, have fun!

Anti Citizen One

I was discussing the is-ought problem with a friend and to sharpen my thinking I have written this. The writing style is a homage to Hume.

Philo: The so called “is-ought problem” divides propositions into prescriptive and descriptive statements. Prescriptive statements describe justified moral actions and are commonly stated as “what you should do”. Descriptive statements might succinctly be defined as non-prescriptive propositions and they include statements that describe observable reality, as well as non-moral metaphysical propositions. Writers on moral subjects often begin with first principles and descriptive statements that, after much discussion, conclude with the justification of prescriptive statements. In a close analysis of these moral treatise, we may inquire as to which was the first prescriptive statement in their argument and its respective justification. It seems “altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.” All attempts to bridge this gap by reason have so far failed, and as long as the is-ought problem holds, all moral statements cannot have a final logical basis. This puts laws that guide human actions within the sphere of knowledge but beyond the grasp of philosophers who persist in their attempts to find justification from first principles.

Cleanthes: How absurd to object to the justification of objective morality, as proceeds from the divine being! The justification is plain from what we understand by the only tenable moral system: moral realism. We agree that moral statements are propositions and it is clear that these statements can either be true or false. The truth or falsity exists independent of our opinions as they have existed for all time and are immutable and perfect due to their divine origin. How can you claim this does not satisfy your requirement for logical justification?

Philo: I will attempt to educe [to work out from given facts] this point and show the infirmity of such a justification. When asked, all men are able to provide justifications for their just actions. These justifications may be codified into general principles that illustrate what a man should do in any particular circumstance. And as admitted by all men of good sense, this standard of righteousness proceeds from the divine mind. Take a particular moral action, say “feeding the hungry” and you claim this action is justified by objective morality. But what are the grounds that may I use as the basis for this justification? Or in direct language, why should men follow the principles of objective morality?

Cleanthes: Isn’t this basis self evident and obvious? We agree that objective morality is universal, divine, timeless and perfect and are therefore the principles that a good man should use as a basis for actions. It proceeds from the definition and divine nature of objective morality that it describes what action should be taken by a man. To use your example of “feed the hungry”, God has created a system of laws which is objective and independent of opinion. One law, or part, of objective morality is the imperative to “feed the hungry”. This action is therefore universally justified, except when other divine laws are at stake and we may be satisfied by this justification. Your semantic objections to what is widely affirmed to be true would seem to me as utterly futile.

Demea: We are agreed on the infinite, good and perfect nature of God, Cleanthes, but I am wondering how man might have certain knowledge of the justification of objective moral law. Since this matter is considered by many to be obvious, while I believe it is not so, I will attempt to illustrate my view on the matter. Consider the most abstract conception of God and we may see that there are few or no properties that proceed automatically from the definition of such an entity a-priori. Since the divine nature is so far removed from our every day experiences, we may gain knowledge of God’s commandments, that is “descriptive objective law”, though what ever means are available to man but we cannot a-priori say that God’s privilege to dictate men’s actions. Although you may argue your case from your limited experience of the world, it is presumptuous to assert that this provides justification to any “prescriptive objective law”, since that would incorrectly apply concepts of human origin on the adorable mysteriousness of the divine nature. We can still ask what is the justification of man following God’s commandments, and it remains upon you, Cleanthes, to support your assertion that we can know that divine law is prescriptively justified.

Philo: It seems to me, that there is a distinction in our usage of the concept objective morality, Cleanthes. You have claimed men should follow divine law because it proceeds from God. I will attempt to clarify our definitions in the hopes of clarifying our thought. Your usage of the concept of objective morality implies the definition of “a system of right and wrong conduct which should be followed” which simply means “actions men should do”. Under this definition, objective morality is a prescriptive statement. When I asked you earlier what was the justification, you stated it is by definition justified by objective morality and by your definition, it clearly is. But can you see that if I ask “why should we feed the hungry” and you answer simply “it is objective morality”, which merely means “it is what men should do”, should you be surprised when this answer fails to satisfy? Your claim that the prescriptive justification of objective morality proceeds from the very definition of objective morality is simply an admission of your argument’s tautology!

Cleanthes: You both seem to argue the most abstract and absurd objections, when all reason, common sense and evidence points to God as being the creator and therefore sovereign in the world. This fact being well known and acknowledged even by yourselves. And you, Demea, claim on one hand that God is king of the world and on the other that we cannot know* God is the king of the world! As for you, Philo, who would not accept the plain and succinct answer to your question, I say: objective law should be followed as it is commanded by the creator and sovereign of the world. This answer is equivalent to my first justification, which you seem to fail to grasp, that is the origin and nature of objective law justifies our following it.

Philo: Which provides the justification for objective law? Its origin or its nature? I have already argued that the nature of objective law cannot, without tautology, be shown to be its own justification. And as for objective morality’s origin, the king of the world, you have shifted your justification to a new concept: the sovereignty of God. But your remark that this argument is equivalent to that which you stated at first, opens this point to the same objections. Why should we follow the commands of a sovereign? That God created the world and he is its lord is agreed, but from this descriptive statement of God, it does not logically follow that men should obey him. In reality, Cleanthes, you keep on the same treadmill of stating X is the justification of Y, where all we can of X is that it is defined as “the justification of Y” and we never reach satisfactory descriptive axioms. We can always ask for the logical justification of X and you are likely to posit W as the justification, and so on. You have so far justified “men should feed the hungry” by claiming “men should follow objective moral law” which is justified by “men should obey God’s sovereignty”. We again ask what is the justification of the latter? Without resorting to infinite regress, we may admit, as is acknowledged among the more discerning philosophers, the derivation of prescriptive statements has not yet been achieved from purely descriptive statements.

Pamphilus: “I cannot but think, that PHILO’s principles are more probable than DEMEA’s; but that those of CLEANTHES approach still nearer to the truth.”

by Anti Citizen PhilONE

PS “Murder is wrong” (or “Murder is illegal”) is also tautology. Hint: look up the definition of murder.
*Deliberate straw man here.