nom the puppetSun, Sep 6, 2009 i believe they are, because you are a human mind. Just cause we're all made of the same stuff doesn't mean that stuff is structured the same way. A rock isn't structured to have a metabolism or cogent thoughts. The value of life is in its function, not its building blocks.
Being alive as we are, we're biased, but it's a necessary bias to continue living. Living implies a context in which to live. We ascribe value to things according to how conducive they might be for a life to thrive in that context. We value food, water, shelter. We value friendship, love, knowledge, etc. Why? Because they help us to continue living and further enhance the quality of life. Life is a process dedicated to itself (for the most part, e.g. suicide). The values we decide upon are not arbitrary in this sense. The very basics of morality are wired into us—to feel pleasure from stimuli and are further augmented by our capacity to empathize with other creatures (though it is not perfect e.g. sociopaths & masochism).
"Artificial" however is a word that seems to almost break down when you incorporate humanity as part of the universe. We're a statistical anomaly in a remote part of the universe. How do we distinguish the processes that govern us from the processes that govern the rest of the universe? Simply defined as something human-based, yes, our values are artificial. Morality doesn't need to apply to every entity in the universe to still be valid for living entities, so the artificiality of our values isn't a reason to reject them. Math could be argued as an artificial construct of the mind, but according to the logical systems we operate in, as far as we know, the conclusions we reach in the field are valid.
So, no, I don't think secular humanism is a hypocrisy. The last premise doesn't follow from the fact that everything in the universe is composed of the same stuff.
i believe they are, because you are a human mind. Just cause we're all made of the same stuff doesn't mean that stuff is structured the same way. A rock isn't structured to have a metabolism or cogent thoughts. The value of life is in its function, not its building blocks.
Being alive as we are, we're biased, but it's a necessary bias to continue living. Living implies a context in which to live. We ascribe value to things according to how conducive they might be for a life to thrive in that context. We value food, water, shelter. We value friendship, love, knowledge, etc. Why? Because they help us to continue living and further enhance the quality of life. Life is a process dedicated to itself (for the most part, e.g. suicide). The values we decide upon are not arbitrary in this sense. The very basics of morality are wired into us—to feel pleasure from stimuli and are further augmented by our capacity to empathize with other creatures (though it is not perfect e.g. sociopaths & masochism).
"Artificial" however is a word that seems to almost break down when you incorporate humanity as part of the universe. We're a statistical anomaly in a remote part of the universe. How do we distinguish the processes that govern us from the processes that govern the rest of the universe? Simply defined as something human-based, yes, our values are artificial. Morality doesn't need to apply to every entity in the universe to still be valid for living entities, so the artificiality of our values isn't a reason to reject them. Math could be argued as an artificial construct of the mind, but according to the logical systems we operate in, as far as we know, the conclusions we reach in the field are valid.
So, no, I don't think secular humanism is a hypocrisy. The last premise doesn't follow from the fact that everything in the universe is composed of the same stuff.