Do Athiests have morals?

[gnostic]

Tell me, pro4life. Just how moral is God in the David and Bathsheba episode?

David and Bathsheba committed adultery and she fall pregnant. David had arrange his Hittite friend and commander to be killed in the front line, so that he could marry Bathsheba. God, then have the baby killed, as punishment to David's sins.

If God chose to punish David for his sins, that his call, but the dead cuckold Hittite wasn't the only blameless one who die.

So why kill the infant, who was an innocent? Why punish the innocent?

Where's the logic in that?

Anyone who is believer or non-believer should see that killing of the baby to be not moral.

It only demonstrate that the God is a tyrant to think is okay for to take innocent lives. This god to be immoral and draconian, and the biblical moral is archaic.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yes, you do try.
Your tap dancing in a mine field here. To say it does not contain a moral component is deduced from the fact that nature cannot ever tell us what we should do. 2 + 2 does not equal though shall not murder.

Nature doesn’t tell us what we should do, rather it provides us with the parameters within which we have to operate when making moral decisions.

Yet in the next line you say it produces creatures who care about it. So now you have smuggled in a transcendent morality that we care about but that nature cannot produce.

It’s kind of like what you’re saying, but not really. Nature doesn’t dictate morality to us in the same way that you say your god makes moral pronouncement to us that we must follow. Rather, nature provides the physical framework within which we have to evaluate the consequences of actions and make moral determinations.

Do you disagree that nature has produced us, and that we are creatures who care about morality?

Do you not agree that we are physical beings who exist in a physical world made up of physical laws which we cannot alter?

You have in fact made an argument for my point. If you look at nature of our own history then evolution has created every form of behavior imaginable and validates them al because it allows for no objective standard to judge which are right.
It has produced examples of creatures caring for each other, and examples of creatures torturing, killing, oppressing, enslaving, and eating each other. It is both justification for benevolence and the worst malevolence possible.
It also does not contain nor does it produce any way of determining which is which.

Nature has rules and laws. We have no way to get around those rules and laws. What we can do is evaluate our decisions and actions based on what kind of consequences those actions will produce within the existing rules of nature. Just like in a game of chess. There are certain rules that we cannot get around when playing the game. Every move we make has to be made within the bounds of those rules. The goal of the game is to win, so to make a move that violates that goal is objectively bad (for instance, to purposely expose your king so that the other player may win), given the rules and the goal of the game. It’s not subjectively a wrong or bad move; it is objectively a wrong or bad move.

We are beings that care about morality. We have evolved in such a way that those people who didn’t care about well-being died off and left those of us who do care about it. We have evolved to be empathic creatures who care about social cohesion and the well-being of other creatures like ourselves. Morality is the system by which we evaluate the consequences of actions to determine whether or not they should be considered bad or good, wrong or right. Trying to determine how to maximize actions in respect to doing the best for everyone involved can be an objective question (it’s not contingent on a single mind) and there can be some truths to be found there. But there are still subjective elements to it, as I pointed out when discussing health. I don’t say that morality is completely objective because I don’t think it is. Situational ethics definitely come into play. But there should be some objective truths to be found.

I’m not saying we should look at natural behaviors in the animal kingdom and emulate then because evolution has produced them and so they must be moral to humans. I’m not sure that anyone is. I’m saying nature provides us with the parameters within which we must operate when making moral evaluations. We have no choice on that. When I drink battery acid, I’ll most likely die. So drinking battery acid is objectively a bad decision when the goal is to stay alive. If the goal is to die then drinking battery acid is an objectively good decision. If I punch someone in the face, I will most likely harm them, or they will most likely punch me back in my own face. Using that information, I can evaluate the consequences of my actions and determine whether they are good or bad ones.

Even most of it's benevolent behaviors includes components that come at the expense of other creatures which have just as much inherent value as we do. So again choosing to base morality on parental care instead of over predation is simply a matter of arbitrary preference. It is not moral to for instance think that human well being is the prime directive because it comes at the expense of the rest of nature. Human well being leaves chickens, cows, sheep, and pigs to be the subject of our whims and eventually killed for our gain. What you call morality is actually unjustifiable speciesm which is less justifiable than even racism and far more immoral. Thanks God humanity has never thought evolution was a good enough basis for morality to actually use it.

Human well-being is the prime directive for humans. Why wouldn’t it be? Cat well-being is the prime directive for cats. Bear well-being is the prime directive for bears. But even within the animal kingdom we see animals caring for other animals that are not their own offspring and sometimes not even their own kind.

We do actually care about the well-being of other animals. We don’t vivisect dogs anymore, for example, because we realized it causes them great pain and/or death. We care for many animals as loving pets. We are aware that our actions can cause the extinction of other animals on the planet and some of us take actions to stop that from happening. Lots of people are concerned about the treatment of animals we keep for consumption. I think this probably stems from the fact that we’ve realized that animals are much more like ourselves than we used to think.

Again, I’m not using evolution to determine morality in the way you’re talking about. I’m not sure anyone on this thread is doing that.

That is not what we do. We arbitrarily decide without any justification that maximizing humanity justifies virtually minimizing the rest of nature. It is a might makes right justification or it has no justification. It is most certainly not objectively true that we should even maximize our own existence. We do not even attempt to do this. When we treat al life equally then you can point to that as an example of acting constant with your world view. We never have, we do not currently even try, and I imagine we never will.

It is objectively true that we care about maximizing our own existence, given that we care about morality. If you’re not talking about maximizing actions in respect to do what’s best for everyone involved, and if you’re not talking about well-being, then I don’t think you’re talking about morality at all. You’re talking about something else. The fact that we’re discussing morality at all means we care about well-being.

This isn’t an arbitrary process. It’s a reasoned analysis of the available facts.

We wouldn’t be having these great big debates about climate change if we didn’t care about nature. Though it probably has to do with the fact that we know we need nature in order to survive. This is the only planet we have to live on, and if nature is gone, we’re gone.

Might makes right is what you have. God is mighty and “he” is right. No matter what he decides.

You might have missed by definitions so let me supply them. There are two forms of morality. One which is purely preference and one which is actually true.
The best you can do without God is: Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: "wrong [as or because] prohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute,[1] as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself, or malum in se.[2
This one is pure opinion and preference. It is what we contrive without their even being a truth to the matter to connect it to. This however would be the only choice without God.
But with God we can do infinitely better: Malum in se (plural mala in se) is a Latin phrase meaning wrong or evil in itself. The phrase is used to refer to conduct assessed as sinful or inherently wrong by nature, independent of regulations governing the conduct. It is distinguished from malum prohibitum, which is wrong only because it is prohibited.
If I am to pump cows full of steroids, risk my families life to stop a Hitler, make laws that condemn a man to death, or believe that humanity has any claim to supremacy which comes at the expense of the rest of nature then I would hope the second form is the true form. The first is actually better identified as ethics. I think to use the same term for what is so inherently different to be unnecessarily confusing.

I’ve read these before and responded to them before, so I don’t feel much like doing it again. I don’t really see how it addresses my point anyway.

In chess humanity has created the rules and admits they are not moral and only suffice for a game. Evolution would be better compared to gravity. It simply says what is. You can invent rules concerning gravity (like don't jump off a cliff) but they are merely preferences and non-moral. Evolution is the exact same as the rest of nature. It only can tell us what is (providing we can accurately conclude what it is doing) and can never tell us what should be.

Nature itself is not moral. I am not saying it is. It says what is. And we have no choice but to use “what is” to make moral determinations about the consequences of our actions. Those are the physical rules within which we have to operate. We can objectively say that under the rules that govern nature, actions have consequences that affect other people. And if we care about morality, then we do in fact, care about how those actions affect other people.

I’m not saying the rules of chess are moral. I am saying they exist, and they must be followed in order to achieve the goal of winning the game. The evaluation of any move with respect to the rules of the game is the objective component involved here. Whatever move you make will be objectively “good” or “bad” depending upon what move you make. If you’re not playing chess, then the rules don’t apply. Similarly, if you’re not concerned about the goal of well-being for human beings, then you’re not playing the morality game.

I would not use Harris, he was forced to admit that he has no basis for objective morality but instead assumed it into existence, and he did so in public and on tape. I will make a request below that will allow you to put what you said here into practice.

I’m not using Harris, I’m using one of his examples, which I think is appropriate to illustrate my point. You completely ignored its relevance to the discussion and decided instead just to put him down.

Ok, our own. In 5000 years we have had 300 free from major warfare.

I’m not sure if that’s even true or what exactly it is supposed to mean. You do repeat it a lot.

So war is an inherent good or right if our own evolutionary past is the foundation for morality. So is slavery, so is oppression, so is genocide, so is rape, etc.......... You have but two choices. Grant them all
whether you like them or not, or contradict your own criteria and instead use opinion and preference to select which actions you like.

You’re still operating under the assumption that anyone is saying that nature itself is moral or that we should look to evolution to determine moral actions.

I do not remember who did it but it was used in just that way by several others.

Maybe, I don’t know. It wasn’t me.

You have used empathy, maximizing life (this one no one uses and which if we did would be contradictory), maximizing human life (this one we do use but only a theist has justification for), or cherry picking behaviors found in evolutionary history as a grounds for morality. Can you show it is not pure preference in choosing any one of them? After all there is no objective foundation for what should be used for morality without God.

What I have said is that evolution produced beings who care about the well-being of themselves and others. It produced people who care about evaluating the consequences of actions and trying to determine what is good and what is bad. If it didn’t and if we didn’t care about maximizing human life then not only would be most likely not be here, but we wouldn’t care about morality at all. The objective foundation is the collection of laws of the physical world we find ourselves in.

If the goal of life is to survive and flourish, then maximizing well-being for the greatest amount of people is part of that. It is in everyone’s best interest to care about such things. Killing another human being on a whim removes any chance for that person to survive and flourish. If he has a family with young children, then you’ve decreased their ability to survive and flourish as they have lost a productive family member. Plus it puts you in a position where that person’s family members may want to end your life, or your family’s life so that now puts you in a position where it’s going to be difficult to survive and flourish. All of these things would be included in an evaluation of the morality of taking such an action. And if you decided to do it anyway because you don’t care about morality, the rest of us that do care about morality will arrest and imprison you for your actions.

We collectively consider such things every time we talk about starting a war somewhere in the world. Or every time we carry one out. We are concerned about killing innocent civilians, for example and we go to great lengths to minimize the chances of that happening. We make rules concerning the actions taken during war times, the treatment of prisoners, the use of poison gases, and on and on and on.

If morality comes from god’s nature, as I think you claim, how is it that you’ve determined what god’s nature actually is? You’re in the same boat as the rest of us, if you ask me.

 

[Sapiens]

What are you talking about? It is the simplest deduction that in 10,000 posts anyone who is coherent would have given reasons for many of his claims which defeats your claims, but this is not an appeal to authority in any way. It was an appeal to proof. My posts contain the proof that you are completely wrong in your statement mine was in response to. Even just in this thread most of my posts contain more explanation for their claims that those they responded to. I don't know what your doing, I don't know what kind of bizarre motivation makes you show up with the first post full of personal, uncivil, arrogant, commentaries which are untrue. What I do not is I don't want to get tangled up with it. Think what you want, I have no interest. It is too bad to because minus this garbage. you could probably hold up half of a interesting discussion.

No, that's an unsupported claim, you are perfectly capable producing 10,000 completely incoherent posts that prove nothing except that you have faith in your god. If you consider my view to be full of personal, uncivil, arrogant, commentaries which are untrue, that's your right. But when you put your views up on a debate forum it is my right to shove your face in your expressed stupidity.

On a separate and more pleasant topic might I recommend to all and sundry: Morality and Evolutionary Biology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Rick O'Shez]

32 pages and I still don't know if I have "official" morals.

 

[LuisDantas]

Yes, you have, Spiny. Here, have this stamped certificate.

 

[1robin]

No, that's an unsupported claim, you are perfectly capable producing 10,000 completely incoherent posts that prove nothing except that you have faith in your god. If you consider my view to be full of personal, uncivil, arrogant, commentaries which are untrue, that's your right. But when you put your views up on a debate forum it is my right to shove your face in your expressed stupidity.

No, it is extremely unlikely anyone would have done so, but what might or might not be is irrelevant. Those posts exist, can be found by anyone, and disprove what you say. Despite having a massive library of posts that prove you wrong I would rather just drop the off ramp into personal commentary. If you have an argument anywhere then post it. If not then I would prefer to end this conversation.

On a separate and more pleasant topic might I recommend to all and sundry: Morality and Evolutionary Biology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I have read these types of papers for so long I think I get their general themes. So before I can justify reading another I ask you to select a point you think the paper made that contends with something I have said. Then I have a context by which to evaluate it's claims.

BTW since it does not appear you aware of them I use a much older and far more articulate definition of morality.

All societies have had very similar ideas about morality but the Romans articulated them in a way which does not have a weak point:

1. Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: "wrong [as or because] prohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute,[1] as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself, or malum in se.[2]

This is the kind of morality that can be produced by evolution. It is unnecessarily redundant and confusing to have two definitions for morality and I would have labeled this one as ethics instead of morality. Ethics is all evolution can produce, it does not, and cannot create what we should do, only what has been done.

As Michael Ruse (the philosopher of science) said: ...In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding... Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place."
Michael Ruse

Or as Dostoevsky said: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."

Regardless I do concede we can invent opinion and preference based ethics without God. However those opinions have no relationship to any objective moral fact of the matter because without God there is no objective moral fact of the matter to compare it to.

2. Malum in se (plural mala in se) is a Latin phrase meaning wrong or evil in itself. The phrase is used to refer to conduct assessed as sinful or inherently wrong by nature, independent of regulations governing the conduct. It is distinguished from malum prohibitum, which is wrong only because it is prohibited.

Now this is the far more relevant definition for morality. It is generally what has been thought of when the term morality is mentioned. It is only true if God exists, and so only if God exists is there a fact of the matter by which to compare all out epistemological opinions about morality to. This is the one that evolution cannot produce. It does not even exist for evolution to attempt to agree with without God. You can write a library full of moral theory and you will never ever get this type of morality from evolution without God.



My primary claim is not which moral definition describes what exists but what is necessary to have each type of morality. Now what is in the link you gave that overturns any of that? This will be my last attempt to have a civil discussion with you. I will not reply to predominantly personal commentaries any longer.

 

[1robin]

32 pages and I still don't know if I have "official" morals.

I think the more important term is "true" morals not "official". I am not concerned with whether my morality agrees with whatever Babylonian, Arcadian, Macedonian, Nazi, Communist, or even democratic power that happens to exist at the time. I am concerned with whether my moral reflect to truth of the objective fact of the matter. Since without God there is no ultimate objective moral truth to the matter possible then there is no truthful moral code you can be in harmony with. If God does exist then there exists a source for objective morality which has complete sovereignty over creation, is timeless, is everywhere, and which holds all of creation responsible to the moral fact of the matter. His nature determines what is wrong or right and at the very least there is a right standard which you can attempt to "officially" agree with.

 

[1robin]

How many people did your god supposedly kill in the flood?

The estimates usually run in the few hundred thousand range. However if you going to show that he murdered them instead of just killing them then you must demonstrate how you can know he lacked moral justification for killing them all. I think our going to make several mistakes in a row here so let me try and save you some time.

1. Killing can be justifiable, murder is taken to inherently lack justification.
2. The bible says that every thought of every person (this is apocalyptic language meant to indicate the extent of something not describe it is hyper literal terms) was continuously evil. That is a pretty good start into a justification but I can tack on many others.
3. I cannot determine if that story was an allegory or literal.
4. God being perfect can without fault annihilate all imperfect life forms at any time. The fact you do not like this does not make it unjust. In fact I really don't know how to go about Judging any God. As divine command theory demonstrates whatever an Omni-God would do would necessarily be right. I do not like that view because it means I can hate Allah but I cannot show he was unjust. It is just so inescapable I had to accept it. The closest you can get is if God promised to do X then does not do it or violates it somehow. What you prefer just is not applicable in judging God.
5. God has perfect and all sufficient knowledge of the past, present, and future outcomes for all his decisions. We do not. He may have perfectly justifiable reasons to kill us al but we having extremely finite knowledge simply cannot see it.
6. God has sovereignty over all of creation and there for has the right to do as he choses.
7. I have no reason to even hint that God's moral demands of us bind him in anyway. He is infinitely more capable than us in every way. I can easily imagine that just as our moral demands for each other vary by circumstance but perhaps not in principle, that God is capable of morally correct determinations that we are not qualified to make what so ever, and would allow him to obey the same principle but allow for far more actions that we can morally justify.

I have seen the argument so many times and know of it's many faults that I have tried to anticipate them. It never works but I gave it a try. So taking those into consideration, proceed.

 

[ArtieE]

"Or as Dostoevsky said: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."

We have a survival instinct. God or no God, if the idiot Dostoevsky lived today and tried to harm or kill us we would certainly teach him a lesson as to what is or isn't permitted.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

"If God does not exist, everything is permitted."

It seems like everything is permitted even with God - genocide, war, crime etc.

And it seems God positively encouraged some of it, like the Crusade, the Inquisition and so on.

 

[1robin]

Nature doesn’t tell us what we should do, rather it provides us with the parameters within which we have to operate when making moral decisions.

I am not sure why but it has only recently struck me as hyperbolically absurd to do what you and others have suggested. In what way is a cold genetic process which does not care about anything, has no intent, and does not even think binding on anything. Unusually so mankind seems to have done what it needs to in this case. Ignore evolution (which is an amoral process) and use or try anything and everything as they couldn't be much worse. Exactly why you would use a natural law as cold and uncaring as gravity or natural selection to dictate moral parameters I will leave up to you, but exactly what are those parameters. What commonly done but virtually universally condemned action could I take that I could not fit in the bounds of natural history? I can point to rapes, murders, over predation, tortures, etc..... in nature which would fall within the parameters of evolution. How is that good for anyone? BTW you said evolution could not tell us what we "should do" in the same paragraph where you say we "should" use evolution.

It’s kind of like what you’re saying, but not really. Nature doesn’t dictate morality to us in the same way that you say your god makes moral pronouncement to us that we must follow. Rather, nature provides the physical framework within which we have to evaluate the consequences of actions and make moral determinations.

So you think of nature as merely a beta test for moral theory? Fine but whatever standards you use to arbitrarily decide which actions to mimic and which to dismiss has no connection to an objective fact of the matter. It is a preference based on an opinion about what to use.

Do you disagree that nature has produced us, and that we are creatures who care about morality?

This is close to another subject. I can agree that evolution has had a role in what or who we are but is not a top to bottom explanation in it's self but gravity is involved as well and we do not use it for a moral guide. I can go no further.

Do you not agree that we are physical beings who exist in a physical world made up of physical laws which we cannot alter?

Yes, but we can alter what natural laws do. We cannot change gravity as a law but we can harness and use it.

Nature has rules and laws. We have no way to get around those rules and laws. What we can do is evaluate our decisions and actions based on what kind of consequences those actions will produce within the existing rules of nature. Just like in a game of chess. There are certain rules that we cannot get around when playing the game. Every move we make has to be made within the bounds of those rules. The goal of the game is to win, so to make a move that violates that goal is objectively bad (for instance, to purposely expose your king so that the other player may win), given the rules and the goal of the game. It’s not subjectively a wrong or bad move; it is objectively a wrong or bad move.

Of course we can get around these rules. In fact every society in history has done so. No matter how secure the role of determinism is in our lives we also have freewill which is independent from natural law. We can deny every single lesson in nature and behave the exact opposite if we wish. If you think nature justifies survival at any cost, I can commit suicide. If you think it justifies self interest I can use altruism if I wish. I thought I already went through the chess analogy. We invented the rules for chess and do not use them for a basis for morality. In the same way we can invent (by choosing) a law by contriving goals for morality and selecting which rules to adopt. They are both man made in the end and neither should be used for morality.

We are beings that care about morality. We have evolved in such a way that those people who didn’t care about well-being died off and left those of us who do care about it. We have evolved to be empathic creatures who care about social cohesion and the well-being of other creatures like ourselves. Morality is the system by which we evaluate the consequences of actions to determine whether or not they should be considered bad or good, wrong or right. Trying to determine how to maximize actions in respect to doing the best for everyone involved can be an objective question (it’s not contingent on a single mind) and there can be some truths to be found there. But there are still subjective elements to it, as I pointed out when discussing health. I don’t say that morality is completely objective because I don’t think it is. Situational ethics definitely come into play. But there should be some objective truths to be found.

If we look at nature it does not argue for what you said. It contains so much violence and self interest at the expense of others that is described as "red in tooth and claw" and those who are psychopaths are said to be less than human (IOW humanity is supposed to capable of better that what cold nature justifies). It does contains benevolent events but that is not it's general nature. It is a brutal and self interested dichotomy and is not this arbitrarily sanitized and white washed thing you have invented.

I’m not saying we should look at natural behaviors in the animal kingdom and emulate then because evolution has produced them and so they must be moral to humans. I’m not sure that anyone is. I’m saying nature provides us with the parameters within which we must operate when making moral evaluations. We have no choice on that. When I drink battery acid, I’ll most likely die. So drinking battery acid is objectively a bad decision when the goal is to stay alive. If the goal is to die then drinking battery acid is an objectively good decision. If I punch someone in the face, I will most likely harm them, or they will most likely punch me back in my own face. Using that information, I can evaluate the consequences of my actions and determine whether they are good or bad ones.

Well I am glad to hear at least one of you guys does not want to copy nature. However if your going to sit around and select from nature what you are to do then first your going to have to invent a goal and it will be based in preference, then your going to have to form opinions about what actions best meet it, then your going to have to somehow form a basis upon which your justified in subjecting others to obedience to what you have created which will in the end be might makes right. Your going to have to do all this despite the fact there is no actually objective standard by which any of these necessities can be compared. Hitler did exactly what you claim (including believing his actions were the best for mankind as a whole). You may say he was wrong but that is merely your opinion because there is no fact of the matter by which to decide whether you or Hitler were right.

Human well-being is the prime directive for humans. Why wouldn’t it be? Cat well-being is the prime directive for cats. Bear well-being is the prime directive for bears. But even within the animal kingdom we see animals caring for other animals that are not their own offspring and sometimes not even their own kind.

However human well being comes at the expense of the well being of every other life form on earth. So in the end it is not what you said:

1. It is not based on empathy in general. It is based on speciesm and preference.
2. Using human empathy is not something that evolution justifies. It is what self interest justifies.
3. Add in the fact that we have never used general human empathy as a foundation for morality. Like I said Hitler was the closest anyone has ever gotten and in this context he was even closer than I anyone has gotten who supports your views. You can indict him for being objectively immoral, you can say he chose different evolutionary aspects than you would have, you cannot say his actions were inconsistent with human empathy at least theoretically in the long run.

My computer is getting bogged down. I will break this in two and continue below:

 

[Sapiens]

No, it is extremely unlikely anyone would have done so, but what might or might not be is irrelevant. Those posts exist, can be found by anyone, and disprove what you say. Despite having a massive library of posts that prove you wrong I would rather just drop the off ramp into personal commentary. If you have an argument anywhere then post it. If not then I would prefer to end this conversation.

What makes you think it unlikely that your 10,000 posts are not all the same sort of horse pucky that your last five posts were? I'd day that, in fact, that is rather likely. All you can do is invoke the infinite monkeys and typewriters argument that perhaps you got something right through random processes. You see, when the well has been poisoned at the start, as yours has been, it is "extremely unlikely" that it will ever flow clean again. Your belief in a god is just such a poison, and despite your claim that somewhere in all your posts is a hidden gem that "can be found by anyone, and disprove what you say," I'd posit that if you can not find and present it, no one can. So you can take your "massive library of posts that prove you wrong" but that you are unwilling to winnow. I suspect that is out of the fear you have that in fact nothing but chaff would be left. So, do so, please, I do so love seeing your kind hopping down the road with their tail between there legs trying to convince the world that "it's only a flesh wound."

I have read these types of papers for so long I think I get their general themes. So before I can justify reading another I ask you to select a point you think the paper made that contends with something I have said. Then I have a context by which to evaluate it's claims.

BTW since it does not appear you aware of them I use a much older and far more articulate definition of morality.

All societies have had very similar ideas about morality but the Romans articulated them in a way which does not have a weak point:

1. Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: "wrong [as or because] prohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute,[1] as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself, or malum in se.[2]

This is the kind of morality that can be produced by evolution. It is unnecessarily redundant and confusing to have two definitions for morality and I would have labeled this one as ethics instead of morality. Ethics is all evolution can produce, it does not, and cannot create what we should do, only what has been done.

As Michael Ruse (the philosopher of science) said: ...In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding... Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place."
Michael Ruse

Or as Dostoevsky said: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."

Regardless I do concede we can invent opinion and preference based ethics without God. However those opinions have no relationship to any objective moral fact of the matter because without God there is no objective moral fact of the matter to compare it to.

2. Malum in se (plural mala in se) is a Latin phrase meaning wrong or evil in itself. The phrase is used to refer to conduct assessed as sinful or inherently wrong by nature, independent of regulations governing the conduct. It is distinguished from malum prohibitum, which is wrong only because it is prohibited.

But it appears that your morality does not extend to obeying the rules of this site nor even the conventions of most of learned society. You cut and pasted most of that from wiki and did not acknowledge your source, where is your vaunted morality now?

Now this is the far more relevant definition for morality. It is generally what has been thought of when the term morality is mentioned. It is only true if God exists, and so only if God exists is there a fact of the matter by which to compare all out epistemological opinions about morality to. This is the one that evolution cannot produce. It does not even exist for evolution to attempt to agree with without God. You can write a library full of moral theory and you will never ever get this type of morality from evolution without God.

While I disagree, and the existence of morality in the absence of a belief in god is proof perfect of my hypothesis, let's make your assumption. Now, until you prove the existence of a god, the status of everything else you claim is problematical, so ... good luck.

My primary claim is not which moral definition describes what exists but what is necessary to have each type of morality. Now what is in the link you gave that overturns any of that? This will be my last attempt to have a civil discussion with you. I will not reply to predominantly personal commentaries any longer.

Your primary claim hinges on there being a god. I maintain that god(s) are very unlikely. You have no evidence of any sort that supports your claim of a god(s). That's the end of it ... until you do better with supporting your extraordinary claim of supernatural a being(s).

 

[Cephus]

It seems like everything is permitted even with God - genocide, war, crime etc.

And it seems God positively encouraged some of it, like the Crusade, the Inquisition and so on.

Anyone can claim God encouraged anything. Hitler was convinced that he was doing the Lord's work by slaughtering Jews. All it takes is a willingness to twist the Bible, that Big Book of Multiple Choice, and you can justify any conceivable action and claim God wanted it.

 

[1robin]

We do actually care about the well-being of other animals. We don’t vivisect dogs anymore, for example, because we realized it causes them great pain and/or death. We care for many animals as loving pets. We are aware that our actions can cause the extinction of other animals on the planet and some of us take actions to stop that from happening. Lots of people are concerned about the treatment of animals we keep for consumption. I think this probably stems from the fact that we’ve realized that animals are much more like ourselves than we used to think.

I didn't say we do not care. I said we do not consider their lot in life equal with ours. We pump them full of steroids, we hunt them for sport, we put them in cages, we put them on display, we burn their habitats, we feed them with tubes, etc.......... Whatever we are doing is not based on universal empathy. We assume we matter more because we are us (or because God has made it that way in fact) and look at all others as less than ourselves. The evolutionist has no justification for that, the theist does.

Again, I’m not using evolution to determine morality in the way you’re talking about. I’m not sure anyone on this thread is doing that.
It is objectively true that we care about maximizing our own existence, given that we care about morality. If you’re not talking about maximizing actions in respect to do what’s best for everyone involved, and if you’re not talking about well-being, then I don’t think you’re talking about morality at all. You’re talking about something else. The fact that we’re discussing morality at all means we care about well-being.

Well you only have two choices. Either obey all of nature or cherry pick from it based on contrived goals which are a matter of preference and opinion. Like I said Hitler actually believed he was acting with empathy for mankind in the long run. If you disagree then you both have equally valid opinions but lack any objective way to decide who is right.

This isn’t an arbitrary process. It’s a reasoned analysis of the available facts.

It is since the goals by which you select habits are contrived out of thin air. Evolution does not endow humanity with greater value than other species yet your and others rules assume that value. It is arbitrary as it relates to the fact of the mater which does not exist without God. Why is maximizing cow happiness not the right thing to do?

We wouldn’t be having these great big debates about climate change if we didn’t care about nature. Though it probably has to do with the fact that we know we need nature in order to survive. This is the only planet we have to live on, and if nature is gone, we’re gone.

We have them because we care about ourselves and in many cases because they generate large sums of money.

Might makes right is what you have. God is mighty and “he” is right. No matter what he decides.

But God's ability to hold us accountable has not been cited as the source of morality. I am talking about what makes a moral objectively true. It is God's nature. Without it all you have left is might makes right.

I’ve read these before and responded to them before, so I don’t feel much like doing it again. I don’t really see how it addresses my point anyway.

You don't have to respond, I just wanted to make sure we are on the same page.

Nature itself is not moral. I am not saying it is. It says what is. And we have no choice but to use “what is” to make moral determinations about the consequences of our actions. Those are the physical rules within which we have to operate. We can objectively say that under the rules that govern nature, actions have consequences that affect other people. And if we care about morality, then we do in fact, care about how those actions affect other people.
I’m not saying the rules of chess are moral. I am saying they exist, and they must be followed in order to achieve the goal of winning the game. The evaluation of any move with respect to the rules of the game is the objective component involved here. Whatever move you make will be objectively “good” or “bad” depending upon what move you make. If you’re not playing chess, then the rules don’t apply. Similarly, if you’re not concerned about the goal of well-being for human beings, then you’re not playing the morality game.

But not simply using what is to make moral decisions. First your assuming a theory is true, then your for some reason using an preference to use evolution as your moral guide, then your not even using all of it, your using preference to select what goals it is your cherry picked evolutionary events are to provide, and your using opinions about which events meet your prefer goals the best. It is opinion and preference from A - Z. Yes of course we can agree actions have consequences. Your not saying to use chess but the reasons your saying that are subjective opinions, what is a whole lot bigger than evolution, why not use gravity or physics or any other process?, who's version of evolution do we use (scholar A or B)?, who's goals are you going to use to select what events to obey and which to dismiss, who's opinion on which events best meet those goals are we going to use? It is merely an opinion piled on an opinion.

I’m not using Harris, I’m using one of his examples, which I think is appropriate to illustrate my point. You completely ignored its relevance to the discussion and decided instead just to put him down.

Harris himself admitted he had no actual source for objective morality, using him will not get one that he could not provide himself.

I’m not sure if that’s even true or what exactly it is supposed to mean. You do repeat it a lot.

It is not even important whether it is literally true in every facet. The fact that mankind has an unbroken chain of inhumanity towards it's own brothers is a given.

You’re still operating under the assumption that anyone is saying that nature itself is moral or that we should look to evolution to determine moral actions.
Maybe, I don’t know. It wasn’t me.

I can't always keep everyone in their own box.

What I have said is that evolution produced beings who care about the well-being of themselves and others.

This is the one point you have made that I grant as objectively true even without God, but it is not relevant to the main point.

It produced people who care about evaluating the consequences of actions and trying to determine what is good and what is bad. If it didn’t and if we didn’t care about maximizing human life then not only would be most likely not be here, but we wouldn’t care about morality at all. The objective foundation is the collection of laws of the physical world we find ourselves in. If the goal of life is to survive and flourish, then maximizing well-being for the greatest amount of people is part of that. It is in everyone’s best interest to care about such things. Killing another human being on a whim removes any chance for that person to survive and flourish. If he has a family with young children, then you’ve decreased their ability to survive and flourish as they have lost a productive family member. Plus it puts you in a position where that person’s family members may want to end your life, or your family’s life so that now puts you in a position where it’s going to be difficult to survive and flourish. All of these things would be included in an evaluation of the morality of taking such an action. And if you decided to do it anyway because you don’t care about morality, the rest of us that do care about morality will arrest and imprison you for your actions. We collectively consider such things every time we talk about starting a war somewhere in the world. Or every time we carry one out. We are concerned about killing innocent civilians, for example and we go to great lengths to minimize the chances of that happening. We make rules concerning the actions taken during war times, the treatment of prisoners, the use of poison gases, and on and on and on.
If morality comes from god’s nature, as I think you claim, how is it that you’ve determined what god’s nature actually is? You’re in the same boat as the rest of us, if you ask me.

I never said anything about whether we care about morality or not. Assuming the goal of life is to survive is not only to prescribe intent to a non-intentional agent, to use opinion to claim a goal, but to assume something nature does not allow. Nature does not make survival of it's self a goal. It makes survival of a group or individual possible or selected for. Usually that survival comes at the expense of the non-survival of another group or individual.


As for our laws. They are mostly formulated to ensure justice. It is either an appeal to a concept of justice which does not reflect nature and depends on moral truths which are not true without God, or it can be based on objective concepts of justice and moral truths that do exist without God. So you can invent a falsehood which meets a preference and make laws about which nature contradicts without God, or you can make laws that bear correlation to an objective truth about justice and moral duties that do exist if God does. I have given dozens of people all the time they wanted to show that morality based on nature is free from our preferences and opinions. So far to no avail. So my two points stand as solidly as when posted by me or when the first philosopher appeared in history who considered moral justification. Some make more elegant attempts than others but inevitably they still fail. With God moral duties and values objectively exist, without God only moral opinions and preferences exist without any fact of the matter to distinguish between them.

 

[Harikrish]

It seems like everything is permitted even with God - genocide, war, crime etc.

And it seems God positively encouraged some of it, like the Crusade, the Inquisition and so on.

You are modest with your title. It should say enlightened Buddhist.

 

[1robin]

What makes you think it unlikely that your 10,000 posts are not all the same sort of horse pucky that your last five posts were? I'd day that, in fact, that is rather likely. All you can do is invoke the infinite monkeys and typewriters argument that perhaps you got something right through random processes. You see, when the well has been poisoned at the start, as yours has been, it is "extremely unlikely" that it will ever flow clean again. Your belief in a god is just such a poison, and despite your claim that somewhere in all your posts is a hidden gem that "can be found by anyone, and disprove what you say," I'd posit that if you can not find and present it, no one can. So you can take your "massive library of posts that prove you wrong" but that you are unwilling to winnow. I suspect that is out of the fear you have that in fact nothing but chaff would be left. So, do so, please, I do so love seeing your kind hopping down the road with their tail between there legs trying to convince the world that "it's only a flesh wound."

This post started off as bad as the last few. I think it unlikely because I flipping wrote the posts in question. I alone have sufficient knowledge to know what is in them. If this post only contains what the first paragraph does that is the end of this.

But it appears that your morality does not extend to obeying the rules of this site nor even the conventions of most of learned society. You cut and pasted most of that from wiki and did not acknowledge your source, where is your vaunted morality now?

Holy cow a paragraph that at least speaks to the issue under discussion. Never mind false alarm, you instantly went personal and trivial. Since this has gone way beyond what I can justify, I am out. Not only in ten thousand posts do I know the majority contain explanations for their claims because I typed them and you did not even read them. They have never been responded to so consistently this feebly, sarcastically, and so trivially. I am leaving you with it for the time being.

 

[Nakosis]

32 pages and I still don't know if I have "official" morals.

I think you have to have a purpose or goal to have a basis for morals.

Religion provides a common purpose.

I'm sure there are other ways to derive a common purpose among folks. We just have to agree to support it, like inalienable rights or natural law. Or Buddhism right thinking/right action.

God is not necessary, but belief in God helps in having a common goal. Otherwise you might have to rely on your good looks and charm.

 

[Sapiens]

This post started off as bad as the last few. I think it unlikely because I flipping wrote the posts in question. I alone have sufficient knowledge to know what is in them. If this post only contains what the first paragraph does that is the end of this.

Holy cow a paragraph that at least speaks to the issue under discussion. Never mind false alarm, you instantly went personal and trivial. Since this has gone way beyond what I can justify, I am out. Not only in ten thousand posts do I know the majority contain explanations for their claims because I typed them and you did not even read them. They have never been responded to so consistently this feebly, sarcastically, and so trivially. I am leaving you with it for the time being.

Plagiarists, regardless of how many posts they've made, will not be missed. It's not enough to have nothing to offer, but when you have to steal stuff from others in order to have nothing to offer ... well ... you're right, time to go.

 

[ArtieE]

I think you have to have a purpose or goal to have a basis for morals.

Our objective basis is the survival instinct. The purpose or goal of our actions is to enhance our chances of survival and well being.

Religion provides a common purpose.

Religion plays on our survival instinct and tells us that we'll survive happily forever if we behave morally, that is in a way that enhances our chances of survival.

I'm sure there are other ways to derive a common purpose among folks.

Our common purpose is to survive.

We just have to agree to support it, like inalienable rights or natural law.

No need to agree to support having a survival instinct. We have it regardless.

God is not necessary, but belief in God helps in having a common goal.

If you believe in God you might follow his commandments and follow Jesus when he says you should live by the Golden Rule. This increases chances of survival for all which is our common goal.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Yet culture is also merely opinion based without God. It is our opinions about how best our tribe can go about it's business and behave. There is no ultimate objective cultural fact of the matter. No way to say one is right and another wrong. Just an opinion about which is thing is preferred or not. Culture is just a label for a collection of opinions held my most of a group.

But this is now no longer the opinion of a single or even majority of individuals. Nearly every human on the planet are able to follow some basic guidelines and they show up in all cultures. To say it is 'merely opinion" is understanding it. But I agree it is not objective moral truth.

Yes empathy is part of reality but it also is an opinion. First of al empathy is not an objective right or wrong without God. It is our opinion that it is right, but that just causes more problems. There is no single way to act empathic. The only potential way of making empathy even consistent is to know what would produce the maximum amount of it universally over the entirety of the earth. We can't do that so we merely have opinions about what is most empathic.

Good. Now abandon the idea that I am arguing for Objective morality. I have in the past and in some philosophical circles I do. But for right now under your definition of Objective morality it is my position it does not exist. God or no god.

But my point is that "empathy" is not merely opinion. It is a phenomenon where in we are able to understand the suffering of others as our own suffering. This prompts us to try to avoid this suffering as much as we would our own. Its like saying that "somethings hot is just an opinion so its really your opinion I shouldn't touch the hot stove". Yes hot/cold are opinions but there are functional definitions for both in our society that govern our actions.

That is a good observation. So why would we look at anything in nature if the things in nature would only apply to their individual creatures. Why should I adopt the morality exhibited by any non-human? Bat behavior, fish behavior, slug behavior, bird behavior, etc.... has no human relevance or inherent application to humanity. At best we should only look at human behavior but human behavior is merely a set of opinions codified and acted upon. So we are left to base our opinions on other opinions. Not that most of human history is worthy of being copied to begin with. Why don't we just cut to the chase and forget nature as containing any reliable or applicable objective moral truth?

I don't recall ever saying we should follow animistic behaviors. But we do have our own instinctive behaviors that are ingrained in us at the genetic level that are not "opinion". And using our "reason" we are able to derive what is "better" and "worse" based upon the axioms of what we ant for ourselves in a reasonable manner and understanding we are but one of many. Such conclusions will be based upon different things and are subjective to a degree. Or rather than "subjective" perhaps I should say isolated rather than universal.

Rationing water for example may be a moral thing in the middle east. Based upon our reason and knowing that water is a precious resource that all need for life and we can "feel" the pain of thirst just as we can feel and fear it for ourselves in others so we may be prompted to make sure that others are able to obtain water. This leads us to conclude that wasting water is bad for ourselves and our community.

But in the rainforest where water is plentiful this probably would not be the case.

Are you saying that if lions do it then we should as well? If you are then we cannot condemn anyone for eating their children. If you are not then you have abandoned what has no reasonable basis for grounding morality and we agree. So you must either allow others to eat kids or agree with me. I am not sure which you may find more distasteful.

I think you need to re-read my statement. That is literally the opposite of what I have said. I said that a lion's evolutionary behavior has no bearing on human behavior.

That reminds me of something. I have never seen any evolutionary model based on evidence that would explain how we in a geological instant surpassed every other creature in history by light years. I mean we are not better, not more advanced, we are exponentially more advanced that even our closest competitor than any other link in the entire evolutionary past. I would think the interpretation that God had endowed a primate species with a soul and the capacity to reason to a level that we could comprehend his interaction with us to account for what evolution does not.

Actually its pretty interesting if you ever want to go into human evolution. In terms of evolution it has been my favorite field of study that I have had the pleasure to research. But in essence "slightly higher intelligence" has not really favored survival in the wild. It doesn't matter if a deer is slightly smarter than other deer. They have the evolutionary track of just running and not much else to get away from predators. So how did it become an advantage for humans?

We evolved to have highly dexterous hands to allow us easy movement through trees. Then as the climate changed in Africa we were forced onto the grassy fields where standing on our hind legs gave us tremendous advantages. So we became bipedal with incredibly dexterous hands. Now a slightly more intelligent animal with this set of potential could rise above the rest. Tool usage for survival perhaps most importantly.

Ok, and that is the entire problem. Evolution would justify either action. No objective standard exists to decide which one is factually good. Each one is entirely a mater of arbitrary opinion. In fact it is a mistake to even attempt to label anything without God as being actually good or wrong. Those entire categories of truth no longer exist without him. We can call a thing good in connection to a goal but neither the action nor the goal is actually right or wrong but it is merely an opinion called by another label.

The standard we use to determine right and wrong is not and never has been "evolution" but "reason". There is a key difference here. You keep trying to force evolution somehow into our moral theorem but it doesn't work. Evolution may "shape" our morality to a degree over time of what has been successful but we do not pattern our morality after the processes of evolution." If a potter's hand makes a vase then why isn't the vase shaped like a hand?"

I am so used to evolution/morality people selecting only those things in nature which humanity generally claims are good as our pattern. In fact I have never had a single one of them grant that any study of nature used to ground morality will reflect those evils as well as any goods. I did not assume the same in your case. My post was an effort to see what you thought. I take you grant what I said? All behavior is equal evolutions responsibility without God. If so it includes so much harm we should invent another standard even if it is false. Even better we should use God, as he very likely does exists and does objectively ground moral behavior which is in every way superior to evolution.

Any kind of moral authority based on "god" would still have been created within the human mind and reason. So why not skip god and base it on human reason and philosophy?

That would only be true depending on whether God exists or not. If he does as I personally know, and I attempt to show on occasion then my conscience comes from a divine source and defying it comes from rebellion.

Well that's great for you but it doesn't actually weigh in here. If you can objectively prove god exists rather than he is "likely" (which I still don't buy but I have long since given up pointing out why) then we can base on god. However we still can't agree on which god now can we?

Again those axioms are the product of opinion or preference. If I say morality is derived from empathy it is merely my opinion that is should be. If I say from individual rights the that plus any rights I invent are also merely preference.

This is true. We get to choose what our morality is based off of when we are based in reason. We can conclude what is "right" and wrong" based on the information given us. Not everyone will come to the same conclusion. But we have certain themes that can be reasoned to be true within a group.

For example I could debate with you right now why murder and theft is wrong. I wouldn't have to objectively prove it but make a case for the universally subjective.

Again this assumes that God does not exist which is again merely an opinion and one which contradicts a mountain of evidence.

More of a molehill that I haven't seen. But again you haven't proven god's existence so I am free to assume he isn't real.

Why in the world would I invent an entire system of rules which are in fact inconvenient, condemn me without hope, and which defy natural law as a result of natural selection. Survival is best guaranteed by truth not entire world views based on lies that in fact have guaranteed a lack of survival for millions. There is a saying in the military "to defend everything is to defend nothing" there should be one like this for evolution and global warming that says "to explain everything is to explain nothing". It seems global warming is proven by anything that occurs even if contradictory, and evolution explains any genetic related event no matter how contradictory.

I didn't say you invented it. In fact it is unlikely that a single person invented it which is why most religions have some kind of contradiction of morality in them. But at some point in time all religions developed and continue to develop today based on the subjective opinions of morality. Either through their own opinions or through the lens of what they "think" god wants.
And I'm not going to hash it out with you here but no...there are not mountains of evidence against either global warming or evolution.

In Christianity's case that control has a criteria that defies and contradicts nature. It does not seek survival at all costs, it claims an equality nature cannot produce, and most of it does not even apply to our natural lives. To say evolution created this IMO is intellectual bankruptcy.

Not it actually isn't. As I said the pot is not shaped like the hand of the potter. The desire for what Christianity offers is a logical and reasonable desire. Thus is the base of a moral system.

Social Darwinism is the effort to do in fact what you have said, use nature to establish behavior. Now you might claim Huxley got it wrong but again that is the problem. It is your opinion against his and there exists no transcendent standard to determine who is right.

No. I am saying that morality based upon human reason is not social Darwinism. If social darwanism is someone's warped opinion then so be it but it doesn't mean that the rest of the secular moral world will allow it or accept it. You simply cannot force evolution, social darwanism and morality together in this cocktail that you try to package them with.

No, it is the same thing. You merely redefined it based on your preference and opinion to be only homo sapiens behavior we should follow. However that is to dig the grave even deeper, because our past is more full of the evils we should avoid than nature in general is. It is to select the worst example in the worst group to copy.

No. The concept of Social Darwanism is based about the idea of trying to create a more perfect race of individuals. However Secular humanism is a moral system based upon secular values and an axiom of human rights.

Not according to the books and authors who created them and record them. Jefferson for example said God is the source of human rights. Half of them have no relevance to nature, and most are not consistent with it.

This is getting tedious. Jefferson did not say god. He said "creator" which is up for debate on its meaning.

Your proving my point. Your governing axiom here is not even true without God in any objective way, is merely a preference, and is based on opinion.

It doesn't matter if it is objectively true so long as we treat it as so.

Of course not and that is what I have been saying. Basing moral duties and values on nature is horrific and I don't want it.

Great thing is here...I Have never once said we should base morality off nature. Not once. Quote me when I said it.