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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by Spacemonkey
With respect to these points...
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That conscience consists of a standard of rightness and wrongness which in and of itself is:
1) Innate.
2) Universal.
3) God-given.
4) Perfectly infallible when not corrupted.
5) Defeasible only by practices of blame and punishment which facilitate blame-shifting (and some other unspecified factors) which are not an integral aspect of the development and proper functioning of conscience.
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...do you agree or disagree that:
(i) These things have to be true for the conclusions of his book to be true? |
The terms you use are questionable. Conscience is innate, yes. God-given? What do you mean by that? Infallible? What do you mean by that? And I'm not sure what you mean by point 5? |
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Originally Posted by Spacemonkey
No. These terms are not questionable. 'God-given' means given by God.
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But that could be a trick question because you might say how do we know an infallible conscience is God-given (once all blame and punishment is removed) when we don't even know God exists? After all, most of you are atheists.
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Originally Posted by Spacemonkey
'Infallible' means not fallible. Look them up if you have to. I've been asking you about these presuppositions all week and now you're going to tell me you don't even undertstand them? The correct answer is that these things do have to be true for his arguments to work. If you wish to disagree, then the onus is on you to show otherwise.
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This could also be a trick question because conscience works but only if the person knows that what he is about to do is a concrete hurt to another once these principles are in effect. Maybe he doesn't know, so he could make a mistake and hurt someone unintentionally. Then you would tell me that Lessans was wrong because conscience is still fallible. Do you see what I'm getting at?
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Originally Posted by Spacemonkey
(ii) He did not argue for or support these things anywhere within his book?
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I believe he argued for and supported these terms, if they mean what I'm assuming they mean.
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Originally Posted by Spacemonkey
Then you believe wrongly. At no point does he argue for or support any of the above points anywhere in his book. Go ahead and look. You won't find him offering a single scrap of evidence or argument in support of any of these points. If you think otherwise then quote me a paragraph (only!) where you think he does so.
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There you go again with your better than thou attitude. Instead of asking me to provide you with evidence (which I've been trying to do since you came on the scene), you tell me that I believe wrongly when I haven't even gone over Chapter Two. Maybe you still won't see the validity of his insights based on his observations, but that still wouldn't make him wrong. You're way too big for your britches Spacemonkey, and it's hard to enjoy talking to you when you come off like a Mr. Know It All.