Atheist Morality

[EvoUK]

NOTE: THIS IS NOT TO BE A CHRISTIAN-BASHING THREAD

Sorry for the little notice- just have no intention of having this thread sent to the locker room because of one or two people.

Now, many of the atheists on here which I have come into contact with appear to be at least as moral as the laws in our societies demands, so I (rather obviously) am not questioning the morality of any of you.

However, I am constantly perplexed by the continual misunderstanding of many theists on here (many of which I'm afraid to say appears to be an intentional misrepresentation on their parts) with regards to an atheist morality, which- rather obviously- isn't based on an objective law-giver.

This thread is for the atheists to give their opinions on morality, and whether it is objective or not, for the purposes of reference to us (I don't know about you, but I do get rather sick of having to repeat the same corrections to the same people in other fora), to theists to take a gander at if they're feeling open-minded.

I'll start with this rather simple definition of an objective morality, which can be added to and tampered with later, if it's found to be too simplistic:

Wrong/right for all people in all times and places regardless of their opinion on the subject.


Now, based on the fact that people who believe in an objective morality yet can't decide amongst themselves what those standards are, or how they are measured, I don't accept that an objective morality, as per the above definition, exists. Along with this, there is the fact that I've literally seen no arguments which attempt to prove an objective morality exists, merely claiming that an objective morality would be better than a subjective one, so it somehow must exist.

We've all seen examples of this- people claiming that without an objective morality and an objective lawgiver- we must accept that Stalin/the holocaust etc were morally right. :ahem:



Like many others on here- I think the only reason morals exist (or the concept of morals) is because we're a highly social animal, and have evolved as such. I think that morals are subjective, and are negotiated socially amongst humans for their mutual benefit (at least within that given society). I think that moral "systems" are agreed upon based on their usefulness, and degree of promoting harmony with our natural desires. For instance, a moral system saying it's ok to kill infants wouldn't be successful, because we don't want our children to be killed by others. There is no harmony between the moral system and our innate desires, so the system isn't successful.


An oversimplification, you'll agree, but I hope to expand upon the concept during this discussion.

[MikeWC]

The whole idea of "objective morality" is a non-sequitar. Morality is an abstract concept, it can't be objective.

It's like asking what the colour red smells like. It just makes no sense.

The concept of morality is only useful in a descriptive sense, not a proscriptive one.

[Nicholas]

EvoUK said: "I think that morals are subjective, and are negotiated socially amongst humans for their mutual benefit (at least within that given society). I think that moral "systems" are agreed upon based on their usefulness, and degree of promoting harmony with our natural desires. For instance, a moral system saying it's ok to kill infants wouldn't be successful, because we don't want our children to be killed by others."

I have to say that I agree with this observation. It is true that the rules of society are more or less based upon what benefits that society. A very good example ironically comes from the bible itself. In the bible the Israelites are ordered to go into neighboring villages and kill all of the men, women, and children, but they are allowed to take the women who have "not known a man". There is a very logical explanation as to why they are allowed to do this but not murdere people in their own tribal system. The basis is that they are allowed o go out and kill people from other villages because they are not neccesary for the survival of their own society, but this then brings up the question as to why they would take the virgins. The simple answer is that they most likely will do this in order to create children, and the next generation is vital to the survival of the society. This also explains why they would kill everyone else in the village, so that those people would not come back for revenge. I realize that some people will now say that "this is why subjective morality doesn't work", but I will answer this before it is even asked. Today we live in an international society, and whatever one nation does effects another nation. For this reason nations can no longer do as they please without other nations doing somthing about it, so in the case of this, subjective morality works. Another interesting observation is that most individuals have some form of empathy, when someone is unhappy or injured, they can understand their pain, and so if someone else is unhappy, they are also unhappy. This can be considered an evolutionary tool for keeping social animals from kiling each other, and is a strong basis for morality without a God.

[EvoUK]

It's interesting, because once when I got into a conversation with a theist regarding objective morality (perhaps absolute morality would be a better term?), and it ended up with the theist agreeing that although she still believed morality was objective, our perceptions of this objective morality are subjective (explaining the large amount of differences in morality between societies, people within a society, and societies in the past).

If morality is indeed objective, but our perceptions, or interpretation is subjective (which, if you think about it, it has to be)- then what use is objective morality and how is it different than subjective morality?

Even if such a thing as objective morality does exist, I have serious doubts that it could be discovered without tainting the result in our own subjecitivity. The closest any tenets come to 'objective' are those whose absence will be inevitably detrimental to any society.

[zorathruster]

Would someone expand please on this "Objective Morality" point that theists keep trying to make.

Using my Websters COLLEGE dictionary
subjective: 2. determined by and emphasizing the ideas thoughts feelings etc of the artist or writer.
objective: 3. determined by and emphasizing the features and characteristics of the object or thing dealt with rather than the thoughts of the writer artist ...)

Basically what I see is objective is based on a written document, or maybe the moral point rather than the writings which express the moral point, or maybe the foundation for the moral point like don't kill because doing so violates natural herd mentality. None of them wish to commit to a definition.

They obviously have padlocked on some definition that requires a super-entity to have an objective morality.

Please expound.

[EvoUK]

Perhaps "absolute morality" would be better. When a theist posits an objective morality, its usually a transcendant morality, passed down from a "morally perfect" lawgiver. Obviously I think this is bull- to put it politely.

If I posit anything close to an objective morality, I'm merely referring to the fact that we're social mammals, and as such, have evolved a basic set of morals worked into our instincts. These aren't morals as such, but are the basics for the feelings of outrage when we see news stories of school girls being kidnapped then found dead in a bush several days later.

I plan to expand on this as time permits, however, one poster you may be interested in looking up is rationalist, who seems to be able to sum it up better than I can.

[Solly]

Excuse me for coming in, but has anyone studied Iris Murdoch's ethics, and can they say anything to it. I have been thinking about reading her books, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, and The Sovereignty of Good. This is a topic I am interested in as one who does not hold to the "all atheists can't be moral" argument.

[EvoUK]

Good to hear from you solly, however, as a law-abiding Twebber, I have to remind you this is the atheists-only forum :wink: . However, I'll let this post slide. There are plenty of morality threads floating about in the general forums, so I'll respond properly there...

:smile:

[C. D. Ward]

Excuse me for coming in, but has anyone studied Iris Murdoch's ethics, and can they say anything to it. I have been thinking about reading her books, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, and The Sovereignty of Good. This is a topic I am interested in as one who does not hold to the "all atheists can't be moral" argument.Solly, I have read TSoG and about half of MaaGtM. TSoG is exceedingly well-written and argued; it begins as an attack on G.E. Moore's emotivism, albeit in Murdoch's characteristic style (if you've read any of her novels, you'll understand what I mean) and ends with an sort of "diagonal" argument for Moore's particular flavor of what I would term "virtue" ethics. I enjoyed it greatly and it's a much better (and much more concise!) statement of Murdoch's general moral philosophy than MaaGtM, which, although again very well-written, is rather dense and liberally illustrated with analogies and examples from all types of metaphysical, literary, and artistic works (Murdoch's knowledge of the worlds of philosophy, art, & literature was obviously quite profound).

If it's her moral philosophy in which you're interested, read TSoG. You may want to move on to the other, but definitely read TSoG first.

Incidentally, if you are interested, Alasdair MacIntyre limns a similar argument (with a much more powerful attack on Moore) in Beyond Virtue. I highly recommend it.

Oh, and I promise that an on-topic post will follow shortly! :teeth:

[C. D. Ward]

I'll start with this rather simple definition of an objective morality, which can be added to and tampered with later, if it's found to be too simplistic:

Wrong/right for all people in all times and places regardless of their opinion on the subject.
I think you were right to say in your last post that perhaps you were talking about absolute morality (or maybe even "universalizable morality") instead of objective morality. I've always understood "objective" to mean "existing indepdendently of mind." Of course, by this definition, "objective morality" is an impossible contradiction.

Now, based on the fact that people who believe in an objective morality yet can't decide amongst themselves what those standards are, or how they are measured, I don't accept that an objective morality, as per the above definition, exists. Along with this, there is the fact that I've literally seen no arguments which attempt to prove an objective morality exists, merely claiming that an objective morality would be better than a subjective one, so it somehow must exist.
Well, given that we've now abandoned "objective" for "absolute", how are we now to interpret "subjective?" Does it equate to "relative?" Surely not...

We've all seen examples of this- people claiming that without an objective morality and an objective lawgiver- we must accept that Stalin/the holocaust etc were morally right. :ahem:
:hehe: Quite right....very tiring...

Like many others on here- I think the only reason morals exist (or the concept of morals) is because we're a highly social animal, and have evolved as such. I think that morals are subjective, and are negotiated socially amongst humans for their mutual benefit (at least within that given society). I think that moral "systems" are agreed upon based on their usefulness, and degree of promoting harmony with our natural desires. For instance, a moral system saying it's ok to kill infants wouldn't be successful, because we don't want our children to be killed by others. There is no harmony between the moral system and our innate desires, so the system isn't successful.
Okay, I think that the ideas that morals are universalizable (absolute in the sense of applying to all people, regardless of society and culture) and that morals came into existence via evolution are completely harmonious. I think that this is so because evolution didn't deliver homo sapiens with vastly different sets of needs and desires. Deep down, we're all the same. Values are universalizable because they stem from our nature as complex social animals, which is the same for all of us. Which means, as I see it, that we don't have values because we have culture (IOW that values are formed by culture), but rather the other way around. We have society and culture because we have values and society and culture are the best way to realize and protect them.

That's a really general summary of a rather complex notion, but it's all I've got time for right now. Perhaps I'll expand later, if anyone's interested.

[reasonabledoubt]

I"m not an atheist either but wanted to chime in that I agree with the atheists who've been posting.
There may be an objective, 'out there" morality, but humanity's ascertaining what that morality is entails subjectivity.
What gets me is when Christians claim there is an objective morality given by God, and that they know what it is (contained in the Bible)- and yet you have Christians on all sides of moral quandaries.
So even among the Christians, they cannot arrive at a universal objective morality that all of them agree upon.

[Superbug]

I'm not sure if blind morality is a good thing. For every rule that was conceived it is possible to think about a situation where choosing the right thing according to that rule doesn't seem to be the better option. Is it wrong to lie to save the life of your children? Is it wrong to kill a criminal to save the lives of innocent people? Is it wrong to steal money from a dishonest company to feed your family? There are too many difficult situations and moral dilemmas and simplistic rules like "do not kill" or "do not steal" doesn't always help.

[Gilgaron]

Objective morality could easily be something like the description of the communal behaviors of humans as social mammals, and what sorts of behaviors are conducive to a successful society. This can also, being objective to you and I, be less than universal, although perhaps it could then be argued that there would be an even more objective moral standard than generated by a cooperative human society, but among a biosphere.

Then the question becomes how to elucidate these sorts of morals, since we know that looking at behavioral evolution is descriptive more than prescriptive. I follow my intuitive code of honor, as it were, but how can I decide if my intuition has become damaged?

It is interesting that while diverse peoples may agree on what is moral, they often disagree as to why. So are we trying to rationalize our intuitions and pretend that our instincts are decisions? Fun issues to wrestle with, certainly.

[zorathruster]

So as best as I can conceptualize a better description for true moral behavior:

Morals are associated with a level of organized social grouping and that level of social grouping is responsible for the enforcement of a specific moral standard. Your family and community might object that swearing is immoral and would be responsible for correcting and sanctioning those who swear. Swearing is not generally a state level infraction or national level infraction therefore, both the lowest and highest level of enforcement resides at the family and community. Stealing is a higher level of moral infraction. Not only does the family object to you stealing but also the state objects and will impose sanctions from the state level, such as jail time for those infractions that they feel important enough to develop sanction capability to enforce. Likewise, National level, federal crimes rate an even higher level of sanction coming from a federal system of justice. Few individuals would rate the highest level of attention, the international level of sanction, which is normally reserved for such "crimes against humanity" as the entire international arena is willing to support sanctions for.

Theoretically, the lowest level of enforcement would be self discipline which would be very much like a conscience. Persons are kept in line with the effect and sanction of guilt that they feel when breaking a personal standard or moral. At each level greater interest from the expanding community and greater levels of sanction come to bear on a moral decision.

Theists should in this type of system leave the sanctions to the Theistic entity who will dole out eons of torture for transgressors, because that is the highest level of interest in their moral decision heirarchy. But just because the sanctions are doled out in the afterlife does not mean they will not be able to judge the particular act immoral at their lower level of social construct just as a non-theist could judge an act immoral when sanctions and enforcement come from the world court level of authority. In fact before the world level of society would be willing to act against a world class moral indiscression, there would need a judgement from most lower levels of social constructs that such an act demands world level condemnation. "Everybody thinks genocide is bad, nations, states, and individuals."

I like it. Any inputs?

[BeHereNow]

This thread is for the atheists to give their opinions on morality, and whether it is objective or not, for the purposes of reference to us (I don't know about you, but I do get rather sick of having to repeat the same corrections to the same people in other fora), to theists to take a gander at if they're feeling open-minded.

I think what C.D. said in his closing paragraph was an interesting and new conceptualization of morality. He said that common values gave rise to society rather than vise versa. However, I'd also say that the existence of society has spawned several moral laws, such as laws against wanton thievery and murder.

You are right, Evo, to supplant "objective morality" with "absolute morality", since "objective" is simply a qualifier added to load the term and make it sound more official than it is. As is obvious to anyone with an understanding of either objectivism or morality, the two terms can not coherently exist side-by-side.

So is there an absolute morality as you defined it in the OP? I think the only way to answer that question is to study as many historical cultures as you can, and identify common laws or social mores. I've heard before that there's never been a society in which theft was legal, for example. It would be interesting to hear Anthrogirl's opinion on this.

But we know that societies evolve. In our current world scenario, it may be possible to identify some absolute moral "laws" (used loosely here). To name a few:

- No murder without just cause
- No theft withot just cause
- No child abuse without just cause (I'm sure the Ugandian LRA thinks they are justified)
- No lying without just caise

Notice that each of these acts could be deemed permissible and even moral in certain circumstances, as noted by Superbug.

By and large, I think the concept of absolute morality is an invention by religious folks, meant to give them an upper hand in moral dialogue and justification for actions where that justification would otherwise not be found. As a rule of thumb, "morality" is a human crutch. Humans have the capacity to transcend morality - just look at a Zen Buddhist monk.

[Lagomorpha]

We've all seen examples of this- people claiming that without an objective morality and an objective lawgiver- we must accept that Stalin/the holocaust etc were morally right. :ahem: Without an objective morality and an objective lawgiver (which,as the argument goes,already decided that X is wrong and Z is right.Objectivity?) we are forced to reason our ways out of such questions.The virtue of the position is that we´re in a position to ask "was the holocaust evil as so many say?"
The answer may be "yes" or it may be "no".The process matters.

[kofh2u]

I am not an atheist.
I am putting my own point of view out in this response. I am an intereted reader of the thread.

The essense of the discussion seems to concern this statement:

What are the rules or dtandards for BEHAVIOR (your own behavior) concerning "Wrong/right for all people in all times and places regardless of their opinion on the subject?"

Am I wrong in trying to discover the atheist answer to rhis?

This is a non-theist only area. You are not allowed to post here.

[plabius]

Im new here. here's a summary of where im at in regards to the morality problem. Hopefully, it hasn't all been said before...



Logically, objectivity can be proven impossible.The practice of epistemological minimalism, the carving of the meat of assumtion off the bone of knowledge, always leads to a truth of a type resembling Descartes COGITO. And from here, we find ourselves in an inescapable subjective prison.The existentialists knew this all too well. However, this said, there seems no reason to dwell upon this fact. It IS a fact, but is also a philosophical dead end in which no further amendmentc can be made, with the exception of a further eradication of the assumptions of 'existence' or 'consciousness'. So therefore the task now is to retrace this path of epistemology back to where it forked into two, at the Rationalism/Empiricism divide, and then to test the full extent of this second road, paved with sense and experience, and where objectivity is in abundance.


We have progressed, at the present time, up to the point at which an entirely

naturalistic view of man is possible and, in all probability, fundamentally neccessary. And If we are to accept the possibility of a wholly naturalistic or, indeed, phisico-chemical explanation of the universe, at what point does morality enter the picture? In all obviousness it must have served some evolutionary purpose, which i see some here have already explored.

THis talk of OBJECTIVE MORALITY is, then, the quest for rules of conduct within the bounds of physicality and our place as evolutionary anomalies within it.

[zorathruster]

According to John Nash (A Beautiful Mind) there is a level of interaction where both parties become mutually benefitted. Most other interactions are described as Zero sum interactions. There is a winner and a loser. What Nash said is that human interactions that drive economics and moral behavior are best described using Non-zero sum theories. There are in effect two or more winners in those types of interactions. When both parties agree on an exchange or a common rule (moral rule) it is because both will benefit.

We have the ability to conceptualize future benefit because of speech induced foresight. Speech doesn't do you much good unless you are using it to coordinate and plan ahead. Our cognitive ability to plan allows us to weigh future possible courses of action against each other. We mentally form value judgements of future possibilities.

Moral rules are in our best interest. We benefit from the rule "Don't steal" because now the multitudes of possible thieves are kept at bay (future benefit). The only downside to supporting that rule is, we can't steal from others. The benefit outweighs the negative aspects. When members of society agree to a rule such as No Stealing, they all get the benefit and are willing to accept the restriction.

Most of this is articulated in a book by Robert Wright, "Non-zero, the logic of human destiny". You may find it interesting.