Morality or Obedience?

[Starlight]

That being said, what we seem to be doing is taking the things we value, identifying actions that nurture/support those things and actions that denigrate or subvert those things, and expanding them to others. In other words, we are answering the question "what actions, if performed by everyone, would most ensure the things I value are safe and nurtured?

If that were the case then wouldn't 'morality' just become an issue of you wanting other people to do things that helped you most (and likewise for everyone else)?

It doesn't seem very helpful to demand, for example, that a potential employer give you a job, rather than someone else, because you value providing for your family and that therefore it would be 'immoral' of them not to give you the job.

Does society, then, in your conception, muddle its way toward a kind of social contract of morality where we all sort of collectively agree on general moral statements that overall keep the things we all individual value pretty much safe and nurtured?

[seer]

Having argued with Seer for many 60-page threads on this subject, it has become abundantly clear to me that he himself has no reasonable or valid answers on the subject. I would describe his view as "Something, something, God" and it not even come remotely close to being a reasonable moral view. All he does is pretends his own moral view is objective while asking constant questions about everyone else's, and refusing to acknowledge even basic facts about their views.

That is just nonsense Star. Of course as a Christian I do have an answer, God's law - universal and authoritative. And of course it is a reasonable and valid. But not for the atheist, yet why would that matter? And your moral view includes infanticide and abortion - how is that reasonable?

[Tassman]

That is just nonsense Star. Of course as a Christian I do have an answer, God's law - universal and authoritative. And of course it is a reasonable and valid.

It's not either "reasonable" OR "valid". There is no substantiated evidence for such a ridiculous claim. Why would anyone believe you?

But not for the atheist, yet why would that matter? And your moral view includes infanticide and abortion - how is that reasonable?

Emotional clap-trap.

[Starlight]

That is just nonsense Star. Of course as a Christian I do have an answer

Well you have a way of analyzing actions [how well they confirm to your interpretation of the teachings of whatever you believe to be scripture] that you are personally motivated to pay attention to [out of a desire to please God and/or receive more rewards and less punishment from him].

However, when we look at the world, we see that in practice, lots of different people can analyze an action in a myriad of ways:
- How legal is it in the society in which it is being performed, or in other societies around the world (is it legal, semi-legal, illegal?)?
- To what extent does it conform to or conflict with the various religious teachings around the world (is it pious, blasphemous, religious, irreligious?)?
- What recognized virtues / vices does it exhibit (does it demonstrate mercy, kindness, or gluttony, or lust?)?
- What were the intentions of the person undertaking the action, and how might they be assessed (were they trying to help, or trying to demonstrate empathy, or trying to be obedient to their God's commands, or trying to cause harm?)?
- To what extent does it conform to or conflict with various cultural norms throughout the world (was it impolite, or polite, or insulting, or does it bring honor to the tribe or to the family?)?
- What are the effects of the action on the world and people in it (does it harm the environment, does it break someone's limb, does it kill a dozen people, does it start a war, does it save a life, does it feed the hungry?)?

I suggest that whenever we observe an action we tend to all subconsciously analyze it through many of those criteria at once. But what we differ in is how motivated we are to rate any particular one of those analyses as being really important to us, and thus in which one we are personally motivated to stick the label of 'morality' on.

You want to stick the label of morality on a conformity to a particular set of religious teachings. But, as you note yourself, atheists have little interest in analyzing human action in general with regard to conformity to any particular scriptures teachings, so they've got no motivation to stick the label 'morality' on the same method of analyzing an action as you do.

Carpedm has said he's motivated to analyze actions based on how they effect the things he values and cherishes, which seems fair enough.

JimL seems to like to analyze actions based on whether they are maximally beneficial to all, which seems to be standard Utilitarianism and which is a pretty common and well-known viewpoint.

I, personally, find I am typically motivated to try to discern intentions behind a person's actions. Whenever anyone does something I like to know why they are doing it, and thus have the ability to predict what they might do next. I suppose this reflects to some extent an innate evolutionary drive to determine if someone is friend or foe. Given they are taking a certain action, what is their intent and motivation in taking that action, and therefore should they be understood as an 'ally' or a 'threat'? So whenever I come to analyze an action the question at the forefront of my mind is: To what extent was the person intentionally trying to do what they viewed as harm to others and to what extent were they intentionally trying to do what they viewed as helping others?

[carpedm9587]

If that were the case then wouldn't 'morality' just become an issue of you wanting other people to do things that helped you most (and likewise for everyone else)?

No - not exactly. When we value X - we see as moral anything action (intent) that fosters/protects X and anything as immoral that denigrates/destroys X. We see that as true for ourselves, but we also recognize that, living in society, our moral code has to extend to those around us. Another words, if I expect those around me to act in a way that protects/nourishes my "X," I should choose to act in a way that does the same for them (the "golden rule," if you will).

It doesn't seem very helpful to demand, for example, that a potential employer give you a job, rather than someone else, because you value providing for your family and that therefore it would be 'immoral' of them not to give you the job.

Correct.

Does society, then, in your conception, muddle its way toward a kind of social contract of morality where we all sort of collectively agree on general moral statements that overall keep the things we all individual value pretty much safe and nurtured?

Muddle is a good description. The social moral contract usually takes the form of the moral codes we hold in common. We all tend to value life. We all tend to value liberty. So societies tend to agree on moral concepts that protect life - and protect liberty. We value happiness and health - so we tend to agree on concepts that protect happiness and health. Of course, the devil is in the details of working out that social contract in every-day terms. Then there is the wide array of things we do NOT value in common. Some value wealth and economics above ecology and environment - some value economy and environment above wealth and economics. On the things we do not align on - we resort to convincing, separating/isolating, or contending.

[Starlight]

Muddle is a good description. The social moral contract usually takes the form of the moral codes we hold in common. We all tend to value life. We all tend to value liberty. So societies tend to agree on moral concepts that protect life - and protect liberty. We value happiness and health - so we tend to agree on concepts that protect happiness and health. Of course, the devil is in the details of working out that social contract in every-day terms. Then there is the wide array of things we do NOT value in common. Some value wealth and economics above ecology and environment - some value economy and environment above wealth and economics. On the things we do not align on - we resort to convincing, separating/isolating, or contending.

It seems to me this is a good description of the way our societies tend to arrive at laws in a democratic society.

It doesn't strike me as nearly as good a description of how we arrive at moral views.

I think most people would agree that laws and morality are different things, and that though there might be a strong overlap between the two, that they are not the same and that something can be immoral but not illegal or vice versa (e.g. telling a lie, adultery etc). As a society, we muddle towards creating laws that protect the things that we all value, and our moral values often do feed into our views as to what we want the laws to be (e.g. same-sex marriage being a recent example).

But we can muddle toward agreement with laws because there is so much flexibility with laws and so much ability to invent compromises (e.g. civil unions, for same sex marriages. Or multiple types of taxation etc). Whereas, any moral system is likely to a self-consistent comprehensive view of how to analyze actions, it's not really possible to combine two of them and reach a compromise. e.g. Take Seer's view of what God says goes versus JimL's Utilitarian principle of maximizing benefit and minimizing harm. You can obviously try to convince people to side with one or the other, but you can't really merge the two views and get a middle view. Each is a different logical principle of how to analyze an action.

While we've seen throughout history societies making gradual progress of muddling toward laws that are more optimal, we haven't really seen any truly new moral ideas - the same old ones simply recur over and again (Golden Rule, Maximize Happiness, Altruism, Do What God Says etc). While we can observe that belief in God, and consequently interest in Doing What God Says, is gradually disappearing from the Western world and so the Maximize Happiness & Golden Rule & Altruism type moralities are gaining ascendancy, I'm not sure that society can be said to be muddling toward any particular level of agreement over which of those very similar and overlapping secular moralities (which are ultimately slightly different in the underlying logic constructing them) is the 'correct' or 'preferable' one. And society as a whole (outside of academic philosophers and geeks) isn't very motivated to have that discussion because in terms of implying what the laws should be, the various secular moral views are similar enough to each other to get by, so there's no need to have the argument.

[JimL]

Jim you again are not making sense. What makes a moral opinion right or wrong? Again, if a culture allows wife rape, what makes that wrong? Because you don't particularly like it?

I gave you my answer to this seer, probably gave it many times over. What makes a moral behavior right or wrong is how it ultimately effects the community for the good or the bad, regardless of the opinions of any one individual. You could be of the opinion that "wife rape" being allowed is in the communities and in your best interests, not realizing that it actually isn't. In other words, our opinions could be right, but they could also be wrong. The truth is not dependent upon our opinions. Ultimately, the moral codes that are in our best interests as members of a community just are, and they are not dependent upon whether you think they are or not.

[seer]

What makes a moral behavior right or wrong is how it ultimately effects the community for the good or the bad, regardless of the opinions of any one individual.

But Jim, that too is merely an opinion. It is your opinion that what effects the community as a whole is the standard.

[seer]

Well you have a way of analyzing actions [how well they confirm to your interpretation of the teachings of whatever you believe to be scripture] that you are personally motivated to pay attention to [out of a desire to please God and/or receive more rewards and less punishment from him].

However, when we look at the world, we see that in practice, lots of different people can analyze an action in a myriad of ways:
- How legal is it in the society in which it is being performed, or in other societies around the world (is it legal, semi-legal, illegal?)?
- To what extent does it conform to or conflict with the various religious teachings around the world (is it pious, blasphemous, religious, irreligious?)?
- What recognized virtues / vices does it exhibit (does it demonstrate mercy, kindness, or gluttony, or lust?)?
- What were the intentions of the person undertaking the action, and how might they be assessed (were they trying to help, or trying to demonstrate empathy, or trying to be obedient to their God's commands, or trying to cause harm?)?
- To what extent does it conform to or conflict with various cultural norms throughout the world (was it impolite, or polite, or insulting, or does it bring honor to the tribe or to the family?)?
- What are the effects of the action on the world and people in it (does it harm the environment, does it break someone's limb, does it kill a dozen people, does it start a war, does it save a life, does it feed the hungry?)?

I suggest that whenever we observe an action we tend to all subconsciously analyze it through many of those criteria at once. But what we differ in is how motivated we are to rate any particular one of those analyses as being really important to us, and thus in which one we are personally motivated to stick the label of 'morality' on.

You want to stick the label of morality on a conformity to a particular set of religious teachings. But, as you note yourself, atheists have little interest in analyzing human action in general with regard to conformity to any particular scriptures teachings, so they've got no motivation to stick the label 'morality' on the same method of analyzing an action as you do.

Carpedm has said he's motivated to analyze actions based on how they effect the things he values and cherishes, which seems fair enough.

JimL seems to like to analyze actions based on whether they are maximally beneficial to all, which seems to be standard Utilitarianism and which is a pretty common and well-known viewpoint.

I, personally, find I am typically motivated to try to discern intentions behind a person's actions. Whenever anyone does something I like to know why they are doing it, and thus have the ability to predict what they might do next. I suppose this reflects to some extent an innate evolutionary drive to determine if someone is friend or foe. Given they are taking a certain action, what is their intent and motivation in taking that action, and therefore should they be understood as an 'ally' or a 'threat'? So whenever I come to analyze an action the question at the forefront of my mind is: To what extent was the person intentionally trying to do what they viewed as harm to others and to what extent were they intentionally trying to do what they viewed as helping others?

And you are still lost in complete subjectivism. In your world there is never an objectively right moral answer, nor can there be. That is why you can support infanticide and abortion without a second thought.

[Starlight]

And you are still lost in complete subjectivism. In your world there is never an objectively right moral answer, nor can there be.

I think you're utterly wrong.

In the post you're replying to, I noted that even though different atheists might choose to tag a variety of different ways of analyzing actions with the label 'morality', there is such a large agreement (99.99%) between and among atheists over what actions and behaviors are moral versus what aren't, that from a pragmatic perspective it makes zero difference if JimL, Tass, Carpedm, and I all prefer slightly different formulations of an answer to the question of what precisely morality is, because at the end of the day we can agree amongst ourselves as to what types of actions are morally acceptable and what aren't.

There seems to be, ironically, vastly more agreement between different atheists on the topic of morality, than there has historically been between different groups of Christians - who supposedly were trying to all follow the same teachings revealed in the same holy book from the same God. Of course, in practice there have been a variety of disputes between Christians ranging from the tiny to the rather significant over how to interpret the Bible on a variety of moral issues. It's a pity the supposedly omniscient deity didn't spot that coming and didn't make an effort to be clearer. It is amusing to see you critiquing a bunch of us who basically agree on the issues and who quibble largely only over the philosophical wording of how we define terms, as being 'subjective', while yourself pretending that a system that has led to vast differences of opinion among people who have followed it, is 'objective'.

That is why you can support infanticide and abortion without a second thought.

I've given the issues a good deal of thought actually.

[Starlight]

But Jim, that too is merely an opinion. It is your opinion that what effects the community as a whole is the standard.

And it is your opinion that what God says is the standard. I think you may be confusing the different types of moral relativism.

From wiki:

Descriptive moral relativism holds only that some people do in fact disagree about what is moral; meta-ethical moral relativism holds that in such disagreements, nobody is objectively right or wrong

I suggest you read that several times until it sinks in.

Jim suggests a standard for morality (community benefit). You suggest a different standard (God's decrees). So descriptive moral relativism is obviously true - you each have a difference of opinion and belief in a different moral standard. But neither of you is a meta-ethical moral relativist. You and Jim both believe you yourself are right and the other person is wrong. You both hold to Moral Universalism, which, as wiki describes:

moral universalism, which argues that, even though well-intentioned persons disagree, and some may even remain unpersuadable (e.g. someone who is closed-minded), there is still a meaningful sense in which an action could be more "moral" (morally preferable) than another; that is, they believe there are objective standards of evaluation that seem worth calling "moral facts"—regardless of whether they are universally accepted.

The fact that Jim's opinion of what is moral is different to your opinion of what is moral, and the fact he can't persuade you of it because you are closed-minded, in no way means that in Jim's view morality is subjective. On the contrary, he and you are both pushing definitions of morality that purport to be universal in application - they could be applied in all times and in all places to evaluate any action regardless of culture or nationality or class etc.

Again from wiki:

Moral universalism (also called universal morality) is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for "all similarly situated individuals", regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing feature. Moral universalism is opposed to moral nihilism and moral relativism.

As the wiki article goes on to explain, examples of moral universalist views include both the utilitarian view that JimL is pushing and your own divine command view. Although I personally view your divine command view as running into difficulties in any society that lacks a copy of your holy book. People in that society can still use Jim's view of judging a behavior based on how it affects their community, but they can't use your view to know what's moral because they have no clue what the commands of God are. Of course, from your vantage point, you could still judge their behavior for conformity to God's decrees if you wished, but their own behavior would be done in ignorance.

I think what leads you into arguing for 60 pages of threads about morality is that you simply don't understand the difference between descriptive moral relativism (the self-evident truth that people have different moral views) and meta-ethical moral relativism (where people are actually moral relativists and themselves say that nobody is right or wrong). So you confuse yourself when Jim says he believes in a universally-applicable moral standard and tells it to you, because you reply that not everyone agrees with the standard he's just told you. That doesn't make Jim a (meta-ethical) moral relativist. Not everyone agrees with the standard you are suggesting either, and that doesn't make you a (meta-ethical) moral relativist.

[carpedm9587]

It seems to me this is a good description of the way our societies tend to arrive at laws in a democratic society.

It doesn't strike me as nearly as good a description of how we arrive at moral views.

I think most people would agree that laws and morality are different things, and that though there might be a strong overlap between the two, that they are not the same and that something can be immoral but not illegal or vice versa (e.g. telling a lie, adultery etc). As a society, we muddle towards creating laws that protect the things that we all value, and our moral values often do feed into our views as to what we want the laws to be (e.g. same-sex marriage being a recent example).

So let's take the same-sex union issue as an example. Historically, the vast majority of our population saw homosexuality and homosexual behavior as "morally wrong." Because of that, our laws likewise showed that bias.You are correct that we're not going to "combine moral views" and arrive at a compromise. What typically happens is exactly what is happening with this issue. Those who saw homosexuality as "morally neutral," much as heterosexuality is morally neutral - began to make their case. The case was essentially - we all value life, we all value liberty, and we all value happiness. No one should be denied these things without due cause. The moral case against homosexuality does exactly that: it denies some people happiness available to others solely on the basis of what is or is not between their legs. It measures love as more or less good based on genitalia. As anti-homosexual people began looking at this message, and examining their moral position, more and more people shifted their moral position. Today, the majority of people in this country see homosexuality as "normal" and "morally neutral." Some of that happened because people shifted their moral stance. Some of that happened because new members joined the community (immigration, young people growing up) for whom the "anti-homosexuality" moral stance simply never made sense. As the communal moral sensibility shifted more in favor of "homosexuality is morally neutral," activity began to change the laws accordingly.

Today, we still have a large block of people who see homosexuality (or at least homosexual action) as a "moral evil," for various reasons. But we have an even larger block of people who always saw homosexuality as morally neutral, have changed their moral view, or have recently entered the community as a new moral agents.

But we can muddle toward agreement with laws because there is so much flexibility with laws and so much ability to invent compromises (e.g. civil unions, for same sex marriages. Or multiple types of taxation etc). Whereas, any moral system is likely to a self-consistent comprehensive view of how to analyze actions, it's not really possible to combine two of them and reach a compromise. e.g. Take Seer's view of what God says goes versus JimL's Utilitarian principle of maximizing benefit and minimizing harm. You can obviously try to convince people to side with one or the other, but you can't really merge the two views and get a middle view. Each is a different logical principle of how to analyze an action.

As I noted, moral views are not usually "combined." Either something happens to cause someone to shift their moral stance (which is comparatively rare - but it does happen), or there is a process of separation/isolation, or there is, in some cases, contention.

While we've seen throughout history societies making gradual progress of muddling toward laws that are more optimal, we haven't really seen any truly new moral ideas - the same old ones simply recur over and again (Golden Rule, Maximize Happiness, Altruism, Do What God Says etc). While we can observe that belief in God, and consequently interest in Doing What God Says, is gradually disappearing from the Western world and so the Maximize Happiness & Golden Rule & Altruism type moralities are gaining ascendancy, I'm not sure that society can be said to be muddling toward any particular level of agreement over which of those very similar and overlapping secular moralities (which are ultimately slightly different in the underlying logic constructing them) is the 'correct' or 'preferable' one. And society as a whole (outside of academic philosophers and geeks) isn't very motivated to have that discussion because in terms of implying what the laws should be, the various secular moral views are similar enough to each other to get by, so there's no need to have the argument.

When I look at what I evaluate as "moral" or "immoral," it is rooted in what I have come to value: life, liberty, happiness, health, etc. In general I beleive we all evaluate as moral actions/intents that optimize these things for ourselves, and as immoral things that threaten these things for ourselves. Because we live in community, we recognize that it is not just our own actions that optimize/threaten these things, it is also the actions of others. So we intrinsically see the importance of acting so as to optimize these things for others (i.e., the golden rule) in the belief that this will enhance the probability that others will also act so as to optimize these things for us. That is the core social contract. In short, I don't thinkk the "Golden Rule" is a moral norm at all. Rather, it is a social contract that transforms our individual moral codes into a collective moral code. It says, "I am most likely to optimize the things I value if I engage with a society that shares the same moral codes and agrees to do so collectively."

[carpedm9587]

And you are still lost in complete subjectivism. In your world there is never an objectively right moral answer, nor can there be. That is why you can support infanticide and abortion without a second thought.

...which translates to "your subjective moral code is not objective, ergo it is bad." The first half is true by definition. The second half is an assumption unsupported by the first half.

[JimL]

But Jim, that too is merely an opinion. It is your opinion that what effects the community as a whole is the standard.

Well seer, if the best interests of human existence isn't the purpose of moral codes, then you tell me, what is their purpose? When we say "do unto others as you would have done unto you" do you think that there is no human purpose underlying the moral? Do you think that there is no human purpose for the moral codes against murder, rape, theft, etc etc.?

[seer]

I've given the issues a good deal of thought actually.

Right, so your moral theory leads to the killing of the unborn and just born. And that is where all your navel gazing has lead you. Bravo!