Secular Morality?

[whag]

No Starlight, this is nonsense. Secular morality does not say any such thing. North Korea practices secular morality, so did the former Soviet Union, China and Cuba of today. So by definition secular morality never tells us what is actually right or wrong - only that it is not based in religion.

North Korea is forced to believe its leader is divine born. In what universe is that considered "secular"?

It may be whacky to you, but it certainly ain't "atheist" in any sense of the word. Atheism respects the individual's cognitive processes. Atheism rejects theocracy and all its forms.

[Enjolras]

Unless of course God actually exists, then it is a completely different ball game. In scope, seriousness and consequence.

Even if God existsentirely subjective on your part; there is nothing 'correct' about it. Now, it may be prudential in that you avoid punishment, but that is no different in kind than North Koreans obeying Kim Jong-un.

[NormATive]

No Starlight, this is nonsense. Secular morality does not say any such thing. North Korea practices secular morality, so did the former Soviet Union, China and Cuba of today. So by definition secular morality never tells us what is actually right or wrong - only that it is not based in religion.

Why do you always pull out the same old examples of secular countries - always ones with dictators? Here is a comprehensive list of secular states in the world:

SECULAR COUNTRIES:

Canada, Angola, Cuba, Benin, Honduras, Botswana, Mexico, Burkina Faso, United States of America, Burundi, Cameroon, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Chad, Colombia, Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Peru, Gabon, Uruguay, The Gambia, Venezuela, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Austria, Liberia, Albania, Mali, Belarus, Namibia, Belgium, Senegal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Bulgaria, South Africa, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Azerbaijan, Hungary, China, Ireland, East Timor, Italy, Georgia, Latvia, India, Macedonia, Japan, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Laos, Romania, Lebanon, Russia, Nepal, Serbia, North Korea, Slovakia, Philippines, Slovenia, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, Taiwan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Turkey, Australia, Turkmenistan, Federated States of Micronesia, Vietnam, New Zealand

There is a good argument that the United Kingdom should be in this list, but they still "officially" have ties to the Anglican Church.

Now, get busy, Seer, finding all the "failures" from each and every one of these examples of secular states. Please explain how those countries who established independence from oppressive religious regimes are worse off now.

NORM

[Starlight]

I was thinking today that another way of thinking about morality is there are 3 kinds of 'good' you can pay attention to:
1) What is good for oneself
2) What is good for others
3) What is good for God

Believing in God affects all three categories respectively:
1) God punishes/rewards people based on behavior and thus people are motivated out of self-interest under threat of hell etc to do what God demands
2) Religious people assume that the laws God has given in their holy books are optimal, and that anything the bible says must be in the best interests of society to follow. So they assume that God's laws are best for others.
3) A lot of religious people want to "please God" and make him "happy" simply out of a desire to serve him faithfully, and not necessarily out of any direct expectation of reward. They therefore want to do what's best for God in the sense of doing whatever God wants in order to please him.

Rejecting the existence of God greatly simplifies morality by wiping out all these considerations leaving us only to consider what is good for ourselves vs what is good for others, which is exactly what secular morality is about.


I've also realized I was a bit hasty to dismiss the communist nations out of hand, because the original motivation for communism was a desire to see everyone prosper. The first communists really thought they were creating a utopian society which would be best for everyone. The fact that they were wrong about the eventual effects of their political and social engineering, doesn't change the fundamentally noble and moral nature of their goals. So I don't think it's true to say that the communist countries had a different morality: They had the same morality of doing good to others, which they thought they were achieving via communism. The shared the basic goal of secular morality: wanting a better life for everyone.

[Truthseeker]

It is good to greatly simplify morality. Or to reduce it to something that even little tykes can like very much.

[Tassman]

It is good to greatly simplify morality. Or to reduce it to something that even little tykes can like very much.

It's not so much a question of liking it, as accepting that rules of right and wrong behaviour, i.e. morality, are essential for a social species such as us in order to maintain the social cohesion required for our survival.

[Tassman]

Right, but why is it wrong to harm someone for your benefit? That may be a personal or cultural preference, but those preferences are no more correct or valid than their opposites.

More than “personal or cultural preference”, it’s instinctive. You don’t need divine proscriptions to tell you it’s wrong to BBQ your baby for dinner; the very notion of anyone doing that is instinctively repellent. We are an evolved social species with the innate understanding that the benefits of being part of an altruistic group outweigh the benefits of individualism.

Addressed to seer:

Why do you always pull out the same old examples of secular countries - always ones with dictators? Here is a comprehensive list of secular states in the world:

SECULAR COUNTRIES:

Canada, Angola, Cuba, Benin, Honduras, Botswana, Mexico, Burkina Faso, United States of America, Burundi, Cameroon, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Chad, Colombia, Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Peru, Gabon, Uruguay, The Gambia, Venezuela, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Austria, Liberia, Albania, Mali, Belarus, Namibia, Belgium, Senegal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Bulgaria, South Africa, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Azerbaijan, Hungary, China, Ireland, East Timor, Italy, Georgia, Latvia, India, Macedonia, Japan, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Laos, Romania, Lebanon, Russia, Nepal, Serbia, North Korea, Slovakia, Philippines, Slovenia, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, Taiwan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Turkey, Australia, Turkmenistan, Federated States of Micronesia, Vietnam, New Zealand

There is a good argument that the United Kingdom should be in this list, but they still "officially" have ties to the Anglican Church.

Now, get busy, Seer, finding all the "failures" from each and every one of these examples of secular states. Please explain how those countries who established independence from oppressive religious regimes are worse off now.

NORM

You forgot some such as Norway, Finland and Denmark - to mention a few - which are effectively secular states with high levels of atheism despite historical ties to religion. Furthermore, many of the secular states have far less violence and rank higher on the Human Development Index than the overtly religious states. So how are these secular states worse off?

[seer]

More than “personal or cultural preference”, it’s instinctive. You don’t need divine proscriptions to tell you it’s wrong to BBQ your baby for dinner; the very notion of anyone doing that is instinctively repellent. We are an evolved social species with the innate understanding that the benefits of being part of an altruistic group outweigh the benefits of individualism.

Sure, and killing our fellow man, selfishness, greed, etc...are just as instinctive. Just as our religious tendencies are instinctive.

[seer]

Now, get busy, Seer, finding all the "failures" from each and every one of these examples of secular states. Please explain how those countries who established independence from oppressive religious regimes are worse off now.

NORM

Not the point Homer. Try actually understanding the OP. Which is, pointing to "secular morality" as a prescription against religiously based morality is meaningless. Secular morality tells us absolutely nothing about what is right or wrong.

[seer]

What would make you trust anything they said about morality given you couldn't trust anything much they said on any other topic? Even if you could convince me that they know what morality is, why would anyone think they actually practice it? Looking to crazy countries to define secular morality for you, and taking it for granted their behaviour is moral, is like looking to ISIS to define religious morality for you. You'd be much better to try asking people from the increasingly secularized West. Oh wait, you did, and they unanimously agreed on the answer.

Of course they know what morality is:

Oxford: A particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society.

So the values and principles of conduct that are practiced in North Korea are moral. You may not like their moral system, but your opinion is meaningless. And no more correct or valid than theirs.

[Enjolras]

Of course they know what morality is:

Oxford: A particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society.

So the values and principles of conduct that are practiced in North Korea are moral. You may not like their moral system, but your opinion is meaningless. And no more correct or valid than theirs.

It all comes down to what you think morals are all about. If you think right and wrong is a matter of whether or not your behavior helps or harms other humans, then you can assess any system on that basis. If you think morals are all about pleasing a god or gods, then any other way of looking at the subject will seem absurd to you, by definition.

[seer]

It all comes down to what you think morals are all about. If you think right and wrong is a matter of whether or not your behavior helps or harms other humans, then you can assess any system on that basis. If you think morals are all about pleasing a god or gods, then any other way of looking at the subject will seem absurd to you, by definition.

Yes, just as other secularists may think that helping others as a ground for morality is absurd.

[seer]

Rejecting the existence of God greatly simplifies morality by wiping out all these considerations leaving us only to consider what is good for ourselves vs what is good for others, which is exactly what secular morality is about.

No it isn't. You keep repeating this falsehood. Secular morality tells us nothing, zip, nada, about what is actually right or wrong. Only that it is an ethical system that does not depend on religion.

Secular morality is the aspect of philosophy that deals with morality outside of religious traditions. Modern examples include humanism, freethinking, and most versions of consequentialism. Additional philosophies with ancient roots include those such as skepticism and virtue ethics. Greg M. Epstein also states that, "much of ancient Far Eastern thought is deeply concerned with human goodness without placing much if any stock in the importance of gods or spirits."Other philosophers have proposed various ideas about how to determine right and wrong actions. An example is Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_morality

[Starlight]

So the values and principles of conduct that are practiced in North Korea are moral. You may not like their moral system, but your opinion is meaningless. And no more correct or valid than theirs.

Is that like how my understanding of math or science isn't any more correct than theirs?

Societies can define words however they like. As Orwell famously pointed out, this means they can define "freedom" to mean "oppression" if they like. So the theocracy of North Korea is perfectly capable of defining the words "right" and "wrong" in ways I consider absurd.

Secular morality tells us nothing, zip, nada, about what is actually right or wrong.

Well that's a strange statement, because asserting the idea of actual right and wrong existing is a typically religious assertion. I reject the existence of any objective existence of normative morality.

Instead I simply use a descriptive morality - if I see an action I describe it as 'loving', 'kind', 'malevolent' etc. Such descriptions are obviously true and don't require any moral theories or moral framework: I'm not required to buy in to any sophisticated philosophical theory about morality in order to be able to assess whether any given action I observe was benevolent or malevolent. And the widespread realization among secular people has been that this trivially-true descriptive system is quite sufficient for the purposes of morality. So I, like most other secular people these days, simply use the words "good" and "right" to refer to benevolent actions and the words "wrong" and "evil" to refer to malevolent actions, but I grant you that the use of these words is optional and a whim on my part / society's part.

Have some atheists over the years concocted sophisticated theories involving normative morality? Of course. Have the vast majority of secular people found those ideas at all convincing? No. There's pretty much a universal consensus now that descriptive morality is the way to go. It has the advantage of being self-evidently true. It doesn't rely on building up any complex philosophical framework of objectively existing normative morality whose truth is just as unlikely as God existing.

So I'll grant you that (1) it wasn't instantly obvious to secular people as to how they might want to think about morality, (2) they tried lots of different things and came up with different ideas, nearly all of which were pretty unconvincing. However, (3) over time secular people have reached a consensus in how they think of morality, and there is now a single view of morality that is dominant and widespread throughout the secular world, which is why all the secular posters here are telling you the same things rather than arguing with each other over who's view of morality is the right one. Basically the secular understanding of morality has developed like science: People came up with various ideas and tried them out, and then threw away ones that didn't work, until they reached a point where they had one that did work.

[seer]

Is that like how my understanding of math or science isn't any more correct than theirs?

Societies can define words however they like. As Orwell famously pointed out, this means they can define "freedom" to mean "oppression" if they like. So the theocracy of North Korea is perfectly capable of defining the words "right" and "wrong" in ways I consider absurd.

Nonsense, you can define morality any way you wish. But your "opinion" is no more valid that its opposite. There is no objective moral standard to decide between the two opinions. It is completely subjective.

Well that's a strange statement, because asserting the idea of actual right and wrong existing is a typically religious assertion. I reject the existence of any objective existence of normative morality.

So you agree that moral consideration are completely subjective in your world.

Instead I simply use a descriptive morality - if I see an action I describe it as 'loving', 'kind', 'malevolent' etc. Such descriptions are obviously true and don't require any moral theories or moral framework: I'm not required to buy in to any sophisticated philosophical theory about morality in order to be able to assess whether any given action I observe was benevolent or malevolent. And the widespread realization among secular people has been that this trivially-true descriptive system is quite sufficient for the purposes of morality. So I, like most other secular people these days, simply use the words "good" and "right" to refer to benevolent actions and the words "wrong" and "evil" to refer to malevolent actions, but I grant you that the use of these words is optional and a whim on my part / society's part.

Have some atheists over the years concocted sophisticated theories involving normative morality? Of course. Have the vast majority of secular people found those ideas at all convincing? No. There's pretty much a universal consensus now that descriptive morality is the way to go. It has the advantage of being self-evidently true. It doesn't rely on building up any complex philosophical framework of objectively existing normative morality whose truth is just as unlikely as God existing.

So I'll grant you that (1) it wasn't instantly obvious to secular people as to how they might want to think about morality, (2) they tried lots of different things and came up with different ideas, nearly all of which were pretty unconvincing. However, (3) over time secular people have reached a consensus in how they think of morality, and there is now a single view of morality that is dominant and widespread throughout the secular world, which is why all the secular posters here are telling you the same things rather than arguing with each other over who's view of morality is the right one. Basically the secular understanding of morality has developed like science: People came up with various ideas and tried them out, and then threw away ones that didn't work, until they reached a point where they had one that did work.

Again, some secularists come to one opinion and others to another. Even if the majority of secularists share the same view that does not make that view right or more valid than its opposite. And again, "secular morality" tells us nothing about what is actually right or wrong, only that it is not based in religious principles.