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On why people think actions are morally right or morally wrong

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  • On why people think actions are morally right or morally wrong

    Some theists appeal to what most people believe on moral matters, in order to claim that most people believe things are wrong regardless of what a culture might sanction. For instance:

    Originally posted by seer View Post
    I'm not dealing with specific moral questions but the fact that most men really do believe that some things are always wrong, despite cultural differences. That there is such a category.
    Originally posted by seer View Post
    And don't we all agree that there really are things that are wrong? Wrong no matter what a culture may sanction? And even if we don't always agree what these specific moral wrongs are, we can agree, I think, that such a category exists.
    Well, if that's the game those theists want to play... then it's fair game for one to point out that there are people who think actions are morally right, morally wrong, etc. in virtue of the harm those actions cause or prevent, regardless of what God sanctions, punishes people for, etc. For instance:

    Nucci, Larry, and Elliott Turiel. "God's Word, Religious Rules, and Their Relation to Christian and Jewish Children's Concepts of Morality." Child Development 64.5 (1993): 1475-91.
    "It was expected that subjects from each denomination would judge nonmoral religious rules, but not moral rules, as contingent on the authority of God. Two types of questions were posed to assess this dimension. The first posed a variant of the rule contingency criterion employed in studies regarding secular moral and conventional issues. Subjects were asked whether the right or wrong of a given action was contingent on the presence or absence of a specific command from God regulating the behavior. The second type of question was derived from the dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro, which turned on what is known as the "open question." Put simply, the open question asks the following: "God commands X, but is X right?" [emphasis added] According to the philosopher Nielsen (1973), answering the question may require criteria for the good that are independent of God's word. We asked children whether God's commands could make right something (stealing) that most children treated as morally wrong. It was hypothesized that children would reject the notion that God's commands would make stealing morally right and would reject the notion that God would command people to steal as a normative behavior. We anticipated that children's answers would reflect their efforts to coordinate conceptions of moral issues in terms of the effects on persons of such actions with their conceptions of God as omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect (1476-7) […]

    The results from Study 1 provide evidence that Amish-Mennonite children's conceptions of morality are not reducible to their knowledge of or adherence to religious rules. Consonant with prior research with Catholic subjects (Nucci, 1982), the Amish-Mennonite and Dutch Reform Calvinist children evaluated moral issues in terms of justice and welfare considerations, rather than precepts of the Bible or positions taken by religious authorities [emphasis added]. As did the Catholics, the Amish-Mennonite children generalized moral issues, and viewed moral rules as unalterable by religious authorities. They also viewed the status of moral transgressions as noncontingent on God's word. Furthermore, most of the Dutch Reform Calvinist children responded that God's command would not make stealing right. These findings indicate that children from these groups maintain a distinct moral position based on justice and welfare criteria from which they apprehend the moral aspects of the Christian God [emphasis added].

    In contrast with their view of moral issues, the Amish-Mennonite subjects viewed the nonmoral precepts of their religion to be relative to their religion and contingent on God's word as evidenced in the Bible (1483) […]

    Findings from Study 2 demonstrated that the conceptual differentiation between morality and religious prescription is made by Jewish children, as well as the Amish-Mennonites and the Dutch Reform Calvinists. Issues of morality were conceptualized by Conservative and Orthodox children and adolescents in terms of the impact actions had on the welfare of others, and not as a function of religious prescriptions or commands from God [emphasis added]. As with the subjects in Study 1, this differentiation between morality and religious prescription was maintained in responses to the "open question." The great majority of both groups of Jewish subjects held that a commandment from God could not make an unjust or harmful act morally right [emphasis added] (1489)."


    Royzman, Edward B., Robert F. Leeman, and Jonathan Baron. "Unsentimental Ethics: Towards a Content-Specific Account of the Moral–Conventional Distinction." Cognition 112.1 (2009): 159-74.
    “Some authors have censured the social domain theory as being too parochial a construct to adequately capture all aspects of human moral relations [...] For example, Shweder and colleague’s research (1987) among the Brahmins of Orissa (India) revealed that the violations pertaining to diet (a son eating chicken shortly after his father’s death) or manner of dress tended to be judged as socially transcendent as those pertaining to acts of interpersonal harm. These findings have been used to argue that morality is hypocognized in the West. While Shweder et al.’s interpretation of their findings is intriguing, it has been pointed out that it largely fails to take into account substantial differences in the factual (cosmological) assumptions made by his Indian and American subjects. Taking these differences into account (e.g., a belief that a man who eats chicken following his father’s death prevents his father’s soul from reaching salvation) makes it reasonably likely that these purported non-harm-based acts were indeed moralized by Shweder et al.’s subjects precisely as a result of being viewed as having intrinsic negative consequences for others […] Indeed, this thesis has been supported by the field work of Madden (1992), who employed Indian subjects similar to those tapped by Shweder and colleagues (Hindu priests). Among other things, he asked his interviewees to ponder a set of counterfactual beliefs opposite to those they currently held (e.g., the idea that deeds of the living do not in fact affect the souls of the deceased). Though, interestingly, some of the priests refused to entertain the counterfactual, those willing to do so tended to judge the target behaviors as no longer morally inappropriate (160) [emphasis added].”


    Now, this leaves some theists with a dilemma:

    1 : Admit that actions can be morally right or morally wrong in virtue of factors such as harm, even if a punishing God does not exist.
    Originally posted by seer View Post
    Originally posted by robertb View Post
    Surely, the NT does not contain specifics regarding every possible moral question that may arise. In the case of a moral question that is not dealt with in the NT, how do you determine right and wrong?
    Right, in that case I would look at immediate harm, actually physical harm. The problem is we we can not know the long term consequences of our acts - even our good acts.
    or

    2 : Continue in their implausible moral subjectivism where they say actions can be morally right or morally wrong because a punishing God says so.
    Originally posted by seer View Post
    Originally posted by Jichard View Post
    Are there actions that are morally wrong, regardless of what God says and regardless of whether God exists?
    Of course not... Not objectively.

    But if theists go with option 2, then they should not claim that they agree with other people about actions being morally right or morally wrong regardless of what anyone (including God) sanctions. After all, theists who go with option 2 are theists who don't think that there are any actions that objectively right or objectively wrong, since saying that actions are morally right or morally wrong in virtue of God's commands is a form of moral subjectivism, not moral objectivism. So I'll leave those theists to their subjectivism.

    Originally posted by seer View Post
    There is no good reason to think that objective moral facts actually exist, or that if they did that they would have any authority, or in any sense be preferable to theistic moral law.
    "Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they [denialists] employ and identifying them publicly for what they are."

  • #2
    Quite a surprising lack of depth in this analysis. Certainly one should consider whether God Himself instills in each (or various) individual(s) a conscience that tells most of us that it is necessarily the case that some things (whatever that individual things they may be) are intrinsically wrong. Indeed this would seem to be the standard sophisticated Theist belief when once absolutism like Natural Law is abandoned.

    One might infer from these studies that God regards Fideism as morally wrong, as He instills within us a conviction that some things one believes cannot be over-ridden even by God Himself. Seems Kant was right after all.
    Near the Peoples' Republic of Davis, south of the State of Jefferson (Suspended between Left and Right)

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Adam View Post
      Quite a surprising lack of depth in this analysis. Certainly one should consider whether God Himself instills in each (or various) individual(s) a conscience that tells most of us that it is necessarily the case that some things (whatever that individual things they may be) are intrinsically wrong. Indeed this would seem to be the standard sophisticated Theist belief when once absolutism like Natural Law is abandoned.
      First, there's no reason to think that God instilled people with a conscience, anymore than there's a reason to think that God instilled people with chromosomes. There's no evidence (I know of) that God played any role in the characteristics human'have have. In fact, an explanation that include God would be a worse explain, since, for example, the explanation would be less ontologically parsimonious.

      Second, even if God instilled people with a conscience, it would still be the case that God's commands are not what make actions morally right, morally wrong, etc. To say otherwise would be to confse epistemology with metaphysics, by confusing how one figures out what actions morally right, wrong, etc. (ex: conscience) with in virtue of what are actions morally right, wrong,etc.

      One might infer from these studies that God regards Fideism as morally wrong, as He instills within us a conviction that some things one believes cannot be over-ridden even by God Himself. Seems Kant was right after all.
      Not sure how the studies would have implications for what God thinks.
      "Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they [denialists] employ and identifying them publicly for what they are."

      Comment


      • #4
        Granted that your thread title does allow for the defense you give, your actual OP simply attacks Theism and any case for God in human morality. I attacked your argument so well apparently that you now have to resort to attacking me for failing to address what you never said (other than the false hint in your title).
        Near the Peoples' Republic of Davis, south of the State of Jefferson (Suspended between Left and Right)

        Comment

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