(continued) And that would be true for any moral issue, including torture, rape and murder. I expect you will say that a world without torture, rape and murder, and with personal autonomy, is a morally better one than the opposite.

Of course you are able to express that preference, but it doesn’t make you “right”. It is not as if a universe that has just happened into existence is supposed to be one where murder and torture do not exist.

An unintentional universe without murder and torture is no “better” than an unintentional universe with torture and murder, and vice versa. There would be no objective standard against which they could be measured. All that can be said is that they are just different.

Now I am not saying that I don’t think that almost everyone would prefer to live in a world where there is no torture and murder, I’m sure they would, as would I, but you have already said that you don’t think that morality can be determined by popular vote.

What then are you left with to make your case for personal autonomy or any other moral value? In a materialist universe, anyone who disagrees with you can simply say, ‘I have a different preference to you. Your preference is no more “right” than mine. Indeed, neither of our preferences are “right”, they are just different”.

In a materialist universe no one has any responsibility to improve anyone’s well-being or to make the world a “better” place. If you think there are such responsibilities, please explain why that is so. (That is, beyond you preferring it that way.)

From what you have written I believe you are a caring person and I am not suggesting you are not. All I am trying to do is show that if materialism is true then all weight or authority is removed from any moral claims. You can hold whatever moral values you want but so can anyone else and neither of you can establish who is “right” because absolute moral truth does not exist in such a universe.

JP

You have raised too many fallacious red herrings (divorced from VAD), strawman issues and issues I’ve already addressed or rebutted.
You have been using a nonsense Gish gallop strategy, regurgitating multiple nonsense arguments.
You’re again avoiding the questions I’ve asked you from the beginning.

I’ve written repeatedly that ethical claims, e.g. on VAD or slavery are assessed by argument (I relate moral claims to widely shared community norms, ethical claims to individuals).
Sound arguments are not subjective as you suggest.
We should be intellectually flexible and honest and accept arguments if they are sound and reject them if they are not. You have not done so.

Ethical arguments are how we (rational people) know VAD is ethically right and slavery is ethically wrong.
Indeed, we can argue successfully that slavery has always been ethically wrong, despite the Bible sanctioning slavery and detailing its rules in Exodus 21 (verses 20 and 21 particularly abhorrent), which was morally acceptable 2000 years ago.

You have not been engaging with VAD issues I’ve raised.
You have not developed sound arguments for your beliefs.
You have not acknowledged that your belief in the god called God (that underpins you opposition to VAD) cannot be demonstrated.
You have not developed an argument against individual autonomy, which I’ve repeatedly requested since my first post.
You have continued to mispresent my position.

Unfortunately, I must classify you as a disingenuous interlocutor.
As you are unwilling or unable to acknowledge problems with your arguments or change your beliefs based on argument, there is no point discussing issues with you.

I’d be pleased if you could demonstrate that your god called God exists or acknowledge that your belief in the god called God is unfounded and be prepared to change your beliefs.
I’m surmising you can’t and won’t.

David

I expect that I have nothing to say that would prove to you that God exists. That obviously is a huge problem for you.

However I regard your materialist/atheist position as being equally fatally flawed when it comes to talking about morality.

Since you are called an “ethicist” I presume you have studied philosophy. If so, you would be familiar with the most intractable issue in moral philosophy/ethics: how can an “ought” be derived from an “is”?

If you believe that you have successfully answered that question, have you had it published in a peer-reviewed journal? If you have not had it published I would encourage you to do so, because if you have successfully answered that question, fame awaits you.

Every attempt so far that I have seen invariably smuggles in an unjustified moral value, thus begging the question. In terms of the present discussion, you seem to be saying:

- A person who has appropriate decision-making capacity and who is suffering more than they want, wants the suffering to stop

- We/society therefore ought to do whatever is needed, including providing them with lethal poison if necessary, to make their suffering stop

It can then be legitimately be asked, why ought we stop suffering?

Because suffering is wrong.

Why is suffering wrong?

Because it is bad for people and can make their lives miserable.

It is probably true that everyone, except masochists, do not want to suffer more than they want but how does that show that society has a responsibility, an “ought”, to stop the suffering?

All people have a right to be relieved of any suffering that is more than they want to experience.

What is a “right”? Where does it come from? What gives a “right” the authority to compel others to do certain things?

This can go on, but my point is that in a materialist universe, ultimately there is no justification for a moral “ought”. Of course, you personally can believe you ought to do certain things, but there is no way to generalise that “ought” to everyone. Moral talk is meaningless.