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"The evil-god challenge" is a 2010 paper by the Oxford philosopher Dr. Stephen Law. In it, Dr. Law challenges the believer in a loving God by suggesting that any arguments they use to defend their God against the existence of evil can be reversed to defend, with equal plausibility, the existence of an evil God despite the existence of good in the world.
The extinction of human ancestors is surely bad for us, since it prevents us from existing for the first place. Human extinction would be bad for human descendants, or more generally, successors.
Immorality is closely related to evil. Let's play devil's advocate.
All my ancestors are dead. 99.999% of them died before I was born. Children of any ape species rarely predecease their parents. Time marches on! If ancestors didn't die, there would be no room for the next generation.If (more likely, when) humans die out, various other species will flourish. It is quite likely that we will have infected Mars with some of our bacteria by then, so DNA chemistry will persist and may even evolve into something as stupid and cosmically insignificant as humans. So what?
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 12/01/2021 10:42:27Immorality is closely related to evil. Let's play devil's advocate.You have just introduced two concrete nouns for which there is no evidence of existence. Stephen Law introduced two more. This is science, not philosophy. Let's stick to what is observable and testable.
What matters is survival or destruction of overall systems.
What nouns did he introduced?
The overall system is the ecosystem of this planet. It is a dynamic system. Many species have come and gone to get us to where we are, and homo sapiens has disrupted the system far more than any other species by eliminating parasites, competitors, several prey species, and anything that some quack tells you is an aphrodisiac. The extinction of homo sapiens is the only hope for increased biodiversity that might lead to the evolution of an intelligent species.
As far as we know there is no other ecosystem based on organic chemistry. The survival of this one depends on the restriction or extinction of the one species that is capable of destroying it.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 13/01/2021 04:26:27What nouns did he introduced?You introduced evil and devil, he added god and good. We can classify actions as good or evil, but the moment you turn these adjectives into nouns you are diminishing human responsibility and invoking external agencies for which there is no evidence. This is the start of the slippery slope to religion and philosophy. Before you know it, you start inventing anthropic agents like gods and devils to excuse actions and complicate a perfectly simple discussion.
Devil's advocate definition, a person who advocates an opposing or unpopular cause for the sake of argument or to expose it to a thorough examination.
someone who pretends, in an argument or discussion, to be against an idea or plan that a lot of people support, in order to make people discuss and consider it in more detail:I don't really believe all that - I was just playing devil's advocate.
Why limit it to the planet? Doesn't it interact with extraterrestrial things?Do you think that extinction of homo sapiens is a good thing? Should we work to make it happen?
A human individual is capable of destroying other human individuals. The moral rules are some ways to restrict them. Destroying all other human individuals is not feasible since they are needed to one's own survival. Even their own reproductions need a partner.
On the other hand, the good is inherent in the definition of morality itself,
Yes, the planet clearly interacts with the sun and moon, and to a lesser extent with the rest of the universe, but AFAIK these can be regarded as predictable cyclic energy exchanges and our ecosystem has negligible impact on the rest of the universe.
Extinction of homo sapiens would undoubtedly be good for nearly all other species. Feral dogs and cats survive fairly well, apart from those freaks we have intentionally bred to be wholly dependent on us slaughtering sheep and chickens to feed them. Some specific parasites might die with us but biodiversity would at least stop decreasing and the evolution of other species would probably speed up. It would certainly make sense to reduce the human population to about one tenth of its current level, if only for the benefit of our human sucessors who would then be far more resilient to climate change.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 14/01/2021 04:16:32On the other hand, the good is inherent in the definition of morality itself,I disagree. Good is an adjective and distinct from morality. By my analysis, killing another human (other than genuine mercy killing) is always immoral (it fails both tests) and sometimes good (self defence, defence of loved ones, defence of civilisation....). Only a philosopher would seek to make life more complicated than that.
You haven't considered all the possibilities. Humans have a good chance to expand their presence into extraterrestial space, and eliminate their dependence to particular heavenly bodies, hence increasing the chance for continual existence of conscious systems.
I'm fine if you want to redefine morality, as long as it has some merit. But your moral standard seems to have no clear target nor objective to be pursuit by other conscious agents. They were arbitrarily chosen without obvious reasons. Moreover, they have no decisive value, even in principle. They can't help you choose the objectively best option in difficult moral situations such as the trolley problems.
Humans aren't the only conscious species on the planet, just the one most likely to destroy the others.We have no idea whether there are any other conscious beings in the universe but it seems more likely than not.The adaptations required to survive independent of particular lumps of rock and gas are such that the survivors will not be recognisably human.So what? The only contribution of conscious systems to the universe is to do a bit of complicated chemistry, then die and revert to simple chemistry.