do morals need a god?

[justify]

and yet you do not see how making god an exception invalidates your whole argument?

The apparent logical contradiction that results from having an uncaused cause is solved by understanding the definition of God. There we go.

 

[McBell]

The apparent logical contradiction that results from having an uncaused cause is solved by understanding the definition of God. There we go.

nice cop out.

But it does not in any way help your argument.
It merely shows how willing you are to grasp at your straws.

 

[justify]

Now I will futher add something else: some things in this world are in motion, all things that are in motion have been put into motion by another thing and so forth and so on nothing can cause its own motion. and by logic we cannot have an infinite regression of movers there must be a first mover, this first mover all men know as GOD.

Ok I think we can get back on topic with the morals caused by God.:angel2:

 

[McBell]

Now I will futher add something else: some things in this world are in motion, all things that are in motion have been put into motion by another thing and so forth and so on nothing can cause its own motion. and by logic we cannot have an infinite regression of movers there must be a first mover, this first mover all men know as GOD.

So god is stationary, right?
Never moves, right?
Cause if he did....

Ok I think we can get back on topic with the morals caused by God.:angel2:

I have seen absolutely nothing to even hint that morals are caused by god.
Yours or anyone else's.

 

[Humanistheart]

I have seen absolutely nothing to even hint that morals are caused by god.
Yours or anyone else's.

Nor have I. When we look at the evidence it seems quite the opposite.

 

[Falvlun]

The apparent logical contradiction that results from having an uncaused cause is solved by understanding the definition of God. There we go.

My understanding of the universe is that it is its own cause. There you go.

 

[gnomon]

all true morals came from religion.

Then true morals are often contradictions.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

Hello Dunemeister,
good post. I rearranged the topics a bit (most important first)


You made some definitions. It is seldom that someone takes the time to define the words he uses so well. And i want to explicitly thank you for that!
It spares us from wasting much time debating something for which we two have a different understanding.


For the record: If one were to accept this definition then of course we would have to say that there can't be morals without a god.

Allow me to clarify. A statement is moral if and only if it is normative and objective. By "normative" I mean it imposes a standard of behavior. That standard is more than prudential. It doesn't merely say what is advisable to do in this or that situation given what your goals are (if you really want to have a good retirement, you ought to save as much as possible during your working life). Rather, the standard is deontological, carring the force of "must", "have to", "must not", "don't have to", and "may." So "You must not murder" is such a statement, for example.

By "objective" I mean that the authority of the standard is independent of culture or individual opinion. I really musn't murder even if in my society murder is considered okay under certain circumstances. Even if I'm not inclined to conform to the standard, the standard applies. And even if I have my doubts about whether the standard applies to me (I'm above this whole "good" and "evil" thing), it applies to me.

What I claim is that a statement that is not both normative and objective is not a moral statement. If you think that no statements properly have these qualities, you believe (in effect) that there are no moral statements. If so, you're probably left with emotivism (which retains normativity without objectivity) or utilitarianism (which retains objectivity but loses normativity).

As said: If one were to accept this definition then of course we would have to say that there can't be morals without a god.
But you didn't actually reason this with a chain of arguments. You come to that „conclusion“ through a definition. Your definition of morals actually demands a god because you demand laws that are independent of us humans or our opinions and at the same time you demand an entity with the authority to impose these commands on us.
So basically you are saying „Morals must be from God because my definition of morals demands God.“


I do not think however that your definition of morals is the one that most people have in mind.
I also think that you will run into many problems with that definition.
One of those is that in my view according to your statement you can't ever effectively have morals.
But for the record: IF that were the definition (polished a bit of course) then of course no morals really could exist without a god.


Essentially what this means is that we need to debate the claim that you made, namely that a statement that is not both normative and objective in your sense can't be a moral statement.
Let me try to propose an alternative definition and try to show you were I would have problems with yours.


For me (absolute) morals are normative, semi-objective and valuebased.
With normative i mean it imposes a standard of evaluation, not of behavior. A defined method according to which you should judge.
So a moral “law” does not tell you what to do, it actually tells you how you can evaluate a situation and come to a conclusion about your act.
Perhaps an example to illustrate where we might differ.
We have one person with a gun wanting to shoot 5 others. You have a gun in your hand. You can only keep him from killing the others if you shoot him (let us consider that there are NO alternatives for the purpose of the argument).
You have a rule „though shalt not kill“. It is binding because it is normative in your sense. And of course in the deontological sense it is good to follow the rule regardless of the outcome.
My morals would dictate to evaluate the values of the mans life versus the life of the others that get killed if I do not act. The conclusion (in this example) should be that it is not evil to kill that man. I wouldn't even call it the lesser of two evils. Now i hope that you wouldn't in that situation also kill the man. If so however then you would be inconsistent with deontology as well as with the norms you want to adhere to. My claim simply is that no norm for behavior can be defined enough to account for all situations or that such norms (if they intentionally are so simply formulated) are not moral because they lack essential qualities to account for „values“.




Now what do i mean with „semiobjective“?
I think that objectivity (in the normal meaning as „true independent of mind“) in moral aspects is neither „knowable“ if it existed nor is it applicable at all. Objective truths are truths that normally are discovered and do not come through a judgement.
Now we do have some objective parts in the sense that our genetic programming preconditions us for certain things that we like, dislike, see as good or bad. And our mind is “independend” from those because our mind itself is the product of this programming. So there is in my view an underlying objective truth in each and every humans body.
It is not absolute because we all differ from one another but we do share common grounds.
On the other hand morals are (or should be) in my view guidelines for thinking, so any final “judgment” that result in a moral act are derived through reasoning and not independent of mind.
Again now the difference between you and me:
In your view morals would have to have some higher, human independend quality. However you can't possibly know if your values are not exactly that: human based. Actually it is rather probable that you, being an emotional and subjective being with values do exactly have human morals and not some divine ones. To use your example... You proposed a society where killing might be allowed and you think then that objectivity means it is not despite what that society says.
Well frankly I think this is a senseless debate. If you lived in a society where killing would be considered fine (lets leave out the problem that such a society wouldn't survive) then you would consider it fine too. And the idea that it still might be immoral according to some strange extra-super-natural law wouldn't even occur to you. Just as currently you sit there and think that your idea of morals (the christian ones in this case) are objective. The whole problem is that you can't simply step outside of yourself and make some strange judgment. You judge according to your mind and there is no conclusive way to prove that any moral statement is beyond or independent of the mind of the one who states it.


Which brings me to the third point: valuebased.
I hold it rather with ideas similar to ethical subjectivism. I can't go into details now but I think it is sufficient to state that the core values that we have are based also on biological reactions to some things. Hence it is perfectly natural to state that morally good things can be said to be those things that produce positive reactions while morally negative things are those that produce negative reactions. Please do not pick on this as I know myself that I should make a more detailed definition here. For lack of time I don't.


Again perhaps a difference between us:
We have two homosexual people that live in harmony together. For me these two people do not commit any immorality for as long as BOTH are consenting, nobody is harming the other and no other harm is done to anybody else.
For you they are immoral when having sex because God supposedly said so.


Now if you follow me through then in my view there are two stages of moral systems:
a) A core system where all three points are valid for all humans. We find that with for example the golden rule or other “basic” things like our resentment to killing or torture. This system is relatively stable throughout time as it is based mostly on our social-genetic heritage.
b) A supplementary system that is culture specific and adds more details or special things that we do not share across the globe. And here I would simply say that any rule of b that does not contradict a is equal to the corresponding rule of another culture.


So I would also say “bye-bye” to the idea of an “absolute” moral system valid for all times and independent of us.
Morality is essentially a value system that we have made BY ourselves and actually also often FOR ourselves. If it were independent of us or our minds then it would be universally valid. Yet obviously even according to your religion animal behavior is neither immoral nor do they have the same morals (and I did notice that you avoided my point about animals being moral beings as well).
Another nice difference:
For a normal theist supposedly life is sacred and killing is morally evil.
Some people (many nontheists) think that animal life is also of a high value and also should not be taken lightly. So they do not eat meat for example. For those you are immoral and not consequent because you do kill. For me it is a valid supplementary moral addition.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

Deontology:

First of all let me differ a bit concerning the terms you used. ( i am not American so perhaps the definitions are a bit different)
Deontological for me means indeed rule based. You judge by the rule and not by intentions or consequences. Deontology is different from consequentialism
Kant once argued that lying is always bad because it is a rule. He argued with the case where a murderer wanted to know the whereabouts of his next victim. So i do not think it is a fair statement to say that deontology can include consequences.

Actually per se it never can because the rules are always general. If you look at the bible it says for example „though shalt not steal“. This is a rule and if you were to follow deontology then you would have to say that the rule must always be followed in order to have a morally good behavior.
I would disagree, a deontologist must however think that the rule is the moral good and no exception can be made. I know that you might say this is black and white thinking. That's a reason why i thought you might rather mean such things as „objectivity“ and „absoluteness“ when speaking about morals and not simply the idea that moral good is acting according to some fixed rules regardless of anything else.
Indeed you suddenly start to try for a connection of deontology and consequentionalism.

An action is judged based on its conformity to the rule. This does not preclude judging it based on its consequences as well. ....

Here you already deviate from your original statement. Now you look for a connection between consequences and deontology. As i tried to say before already, there is none. Deontology s act/rulebased consequentionalism is based on the consequences and not on the act itself or the rule.
I am „worried“ about the statement „think about what the rules might in fact be“. This already hints at the kind of „interpretationism“ that i dislike so much in religion. One claims to have clear and concise rules and then suddenly it dawns on mankind that one has to interpret what the rules actually say
Strangely enough this is what happened throughout history and I would simply say that it is the best indication for why there are no absolute rules but only interpretations while of course you might claim that the christian teaching always had been clear but sadly misinterpreted by all except the current generation
You do not seem to see that point. You argue:

Well, if morals were not deontological, most of our moral discourse for most of human history would be incoherent. ......

Does it make sense to say that there are no objective moral standards? Were the Nazis right at Nuremburg when they claimed that the Allies had no right to impose non-German (non-Nazi) standards?

Now I must sit here and shake my head. When you wrote that text didn't you see how incoherent much of our moral discourse throughout our history actually was? You make exactly my point.
Throughout the last 2000 years for example people did have the bible, throughout the last 1400 years they did have the quran. And the supposedly clear moral laws of God were all in there.
And yet even WITH these supposed divine guidelines we do see a clear progression, a change, an evolution in our moral systems.


As I stated already before it is reasonable to assume that you yourself with your morals are a product of your environment more than the actual “implementation” of “actual” moral teachings in for example the bible. Because it is the same bible that Calvin had at his disposal who burned Servetus because he denied the trinity. Its the same bible that Augustinus had who was an antisemit. And it is also the same bible that morally good christians have.


You fail short to demonstrate where exactly your morality is independent of your own mind


Another statement where you seem to trip:

By "count" I mean "qualify as". I determine this by my conscience and that of most of humanity for most of its history.

So things really qualify as moral when you “determine” this to be so (by whatever subjective means you want to use). How then does this relate to the objectivity claim?


In relation to the history let me also bring forth the following. I spoke about murder, rape and other things and you said:

What? You're insane!

Any Christianity you'd care to mention. I know of no Christian sect -- certainly nothing mainstream -- that gives permission to the sort of activities you speak of. ...

Well this is a difficult topic. Difficult because I do NOT want to start some bible bashing here and i fear that any discussion could lead to my text being interpreted in such a way. Let me just state that in the bible acts of violence bloodshed, murder and rape are found. Partially they were ordered by prophets, partially by God himself.
Of course the easiest „solution“ would be to declare that they are all moral since Gods commands are what constitutes morality. I would disagree of course.
God did order Moses to kill, he did order him to kill also the boys and women that were not virgin. He did order to take 32000 virgins captured. He made explicit rules for captive women. He didn't ever forbid slavery....
And on it goes.
And if you look at history then you will see that this kind of morality is effectively in place throughout time.
And again what is the explanation? Should we always be forced to rely on the statement that those people were mislead or interpreted things wrongly? Is that not a bit to simple?
Should we simply state that these were moral acts because God commanded so, regardless of what we now think of them?



Now lets get back to science.
First of all I do not believe in Adam and Eve, so any reference to that would demand evidence that those two actually existed and did as you say they did.

Although I can agree with b) -- with qualifications -- I don't see why a) follows. Part of the Christian story involves our fall from grace.

As I already said animals also have morals. So it couldn't have been morals that Adam and Eve sought on the tree (if they had existed at all). Neither could morals be the part of the “image” of god that we got.
Also it must be noted that animal morals DO differ from ours, from each other and from the bible and this renders the idea of us not doing what we were designed to do (namely follow some absolute divine moral which is independent of us) rather difficult to argue for.
Why we would be the steward to bring Gods loving rule to all of his creation that happens to love him automatically since they do not have a choice of rejection is beyond my comprehension.


However most important is that you missed my point.
You missed the point here a bit. I said that if like you said:

Christianity holds that humankind has a conscience and hence, a moral view of the world and access to moral truths.

then all over the world people would have access to the same truth. Thus it would follow that all over the world we would find people with the same realization of such truth.
What however we find are people that actually all differ according to culture and society and only agree on some (precoded bioethical ?) standards.

In short .. if we we all had access to the supposed absolute moral truths then wouldn't you find it quite strange that we all differ and there is not a bunch of people around that share the absolute morals that you think Christianity has without being christians?
It would be expected that the moral truths of God (and not just some small core portion of it) could be found amongst humans all over the world. However we do find cultural morality. We do not find for example people in Swaziland that live a “christian moral” life.
Science would expect nothing other than what we see.
You however should expect true (christian) morals to appear all over the plave every now and then.

Christianity agrees, although we don't accept that this is all there is to it.

Well, if science has an explanation that needs no more, then there is no reason to invoke some external entity.


Now you start to deviate a bit from the topic in the following part

Well, the moral psychology implied by Christianity is a bit more complex than you characterize it. ....

I think this was a lengthy explanation that ended in exactly what I stated before. In the end the unbeliever is either misinformed, deluded or plainly evil/revolting. By definition he can't ever be reasonable and equally justified in his ideas.

That's the situation for all humankind. Making matters more complicated is that Christianity holds that the believer is fallen, just like unbelievers. We affirm only that God, by his grace and for reasons that elude us, effects a repair to his image in some people, and in so doing calls them to communion with him and community with each other. The repair is not total (nor is the communion or community) but it is sufficient for us to be able to know and follow God and to live harmoniously. Our fallenness hampers our efforts but the Holy Spirit has been provided for our comfort (when we fail) and empowerment (so we need not fail).

But look at what you say.
You have a God who judges you for your belief, your being moral and your acts. In short: for following his rules. At the same time you argue that you can't really follow his rules except by his light and that he selectively “partially” repairs his image if he so chooses. For some he does that and for others he doesnt.
What “just” judgment could result from that? As long as you do not define and declare his judgment to be just per se there can't really be one.

Science doesn't tell me this; my own experience does.

Well science in that case says the same. A truly independent moral system however shouldn't or what do you think?

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

I will trow this in:
According to Aristotle ....
And this all men know as God:yes:

Just some points:
-"According to aristotle" is the beginning of an argument of authority.

-What you do now is a variation of the cosmological argument instead of the ontological one.
I could reply in the same way I also replied to your last argument. It has been refuted centuries ago already and it doesn't actually deserve the time to write down a rebuttal. You can find such in less than 5 minutes in the net.

-Trying to solve the standard paradox by defining God as exception doesnt really make it so.

-Lastly, as with the ontological argument we do face the problem that EVEN if your arguments were conclusive the "entity" that you have "proven" doesn't relate at all to the "God" that for example christians believe in. the only thing you would have prooven would be some uncaused cause. No more and no less. And that entity you give a name that already means something else. In short: dishonest use of words.

 

[MSizer]

all true morals came from religion.

I can prove that you are wrong about this. If I say "the colourless dream runs attentively while relaxing", you know that it is nonsense, but that it is gramatically correct. Right? OK, now, can you tell me the grammar rules that make it correct? Probably not. If you can, you have to think about it, right? But you knew it was grammatically correct, even though you don't know why. That's because we have a language faculty of the brain that works unconciously.

Now, morality is exactly the same. If I ask you "is it your obligation to save a person from dying if you are able to?" You probably say "yes" right away, and before you even know why. Just like grammar, you just know it, regardless to whether religion has a teaching about it. So, if I then follow up by saying "each time you ignore a unicef commercial, you are letting people die", do you suddenly feel as strongly about your obligation to save lives? No, and you probably can't explain why. That's because religion has nothing to do with morality. Morality is a human instinct and is therefore unconcious.

 

[MSizer]

Now I will futher add something else: some things in this world are in motion, all things that are in motion have been put into motion by another thing and so forth and so on nothing can cause its own motion. and by logic we cannot have an infinite regression of movers there must be a first mover, this first mover all men know as GOD.

Ok I think we can get back on topic with the morals caused by God.:angel2:

I don't want to derail, so i won't challenge you on this ridiculous claim here, but by all means, open a new thread so I may shred it with glee please.

 

[Adam-a]

I suppose any figure can potentially be a moral symbol. For some this is God and for others it is not. In my own life I try to get more of a collective sense of morality while using my own judgement.

 

[Dunemeister]

i can prove that you are wrong about this. If i say "the colourless dream runs attentively while relaxing", you know that it is nonsense, but that it is gramatically correct. Right? Ok, now, can you tell me the grammar rules that make it correct? Probably not. If you can, you have to think about it, right? But you knew it was grammatically correct, even though you don't know why. That's because we have a language faculty of the brain that works unconciously.

Now, morality is exactly the same. If i ask you "is it your obligation to save a person from dying if you are able to?" you probably say "yes" right away, and before you even know why. Just like grammar, you just know it, regardless to whether religion has a teaching about it. So, if i then follow up by saying "each time you ignore a unicef commercial, you are letting people die", do you suddenly feel as strongly about your obligation to save lives? No, and you probably can't explain why. That's because religion has nothing to do with morality. Morality is a human instinct and is therefore unconcious.

froooooooballllllllllls!

 

[Dunemeister]

It sounds like our conscience is more than something to get us "in touch" with morality. The way you put it, it seems like our conscience is the source of morality.

Why? Is my faculty of sight the "source" of physical objects?

 

[Kenect2]

Why? Is my faculty of sight the "source" of physical objects?

When you view something with your vision, it forms a percept in your mind. A percept, an object of perception, is a mental representation of something in the physical world. Morality is not something that actually exists, as it were, in the physical world. It is a concept. It is a mental construct.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

@Dunemeister:
just a reminder that i still await a reply of yours

 

[Dunemeister]

Hello Dunemeister,
good post. I rearranged the topics a bit (most important first)

Thanks. And I'm sorry I took so long to respond to this. Somehow this thread fell off my radar. In this post, I'll try to clarify a bit about what I said. In my next post, I'll critique your own positive definition. You may be surprised to find that we agree much more than we disagree.

As said: If one were to accept this definition then of course we would have to say that there can't be morals without a god.

Plenty of atheistic philosophers attempt to ground a deontologically normative and objective morality (really the only morality there is) in something other than the existence of a god. I'm underwhelmed by their results, but they are giving it the old college try. Perhaps you are likewise skeptical of the prospects.

But you didn't actually reason this with a chain of arguments.

You are right that in my previous post I didn't provide any reasoning. I merely stated the view without arguing for it.

So why do I say that morals come from God? First off, I notice that (a) moral statements are deontologically normative in form and content, and (b) moral statements are true or false regardless of any person's or culture's views on the matter. Together (a) and (b) generate that particular sense of authority that moral statements are supposed to convey. That morality is rooted somehow in a god sits very comfortably with (a) and (b). In other words, morality "makes sense" within Christian theism. Rooting morality in something else sits less comfortably; that is, morality becomes something of a puzzle.

I also think that you will run into many problems with that definition.
One of those is that in my view according to your statement you can't ever effectively have morals.

I look forward to hearing how that's the case. I'm interested particularly because I've never heard that charge before.

But for the record: IF that were the definition (polished a bit of course) then of course no morals really could exist without a god.

That's perhaps too strong. What actually follows from the definition is that morality is something of a puzzle on atheistic grounds. Morality as a whole makes perfect sense within a Christian view of things. In this respect, Christianity is a more satisfactory worldview than is naturalism or physicalism (I'm aware they're not the same).

Essentially what this means is that we need to debate the claim that you made, namely that a statement that is not both normative and objective in your sense can't be a moral statement.

Yep, that's the crux of it. So let me offer a couple of positive reasons to believe (a) moral statements are deontologically normative in form and content, and (b) moral statements are true or false regardless of any person's or culture's views on the matter.

With respect to (a), this just seems obvious to me. Imagine an excellent swimmer, perhaps a lifeguard. She's off-duty and enjoying a relaxing day at the beach, which has no lifeguard present. She hears a scream from the water and sees a person obviously fatigued and distressed thrashing about in the water. Clearly this person will drown unless someone intervenes. Our lifeguard looks around and notices that there are several dozen other people on the beach, all of whom could perhaps swim out and assist, and she thinks to herself "Let someone else handle it." As time ticks on, it becomes obvious that the other people cannot or will not intervene to help the belaboured swimmer. Still, the lifeguard says to herself, "Let someone else handle it." The person drowns, and the lifeguard says to herself, "It's not my fault. Any one of a number of people could have responded and didn't."

How might we evaluate the lifeguard's behavior? Clearly we're appalled. It seems obvious that she has a duty to intervene, particularly because she has been specifically trained in water rescue, CPR, the gamut. She has flouted her duty and excused herself lamely by suggesting someone else could have intervened. We may be hard pressed to specify the duty flouted, but certainly we are sure that she had a duty to intervene and simply failed to live up to her duty.

To say she had a duty is to say that she had an obligation. But does she in fact have an obligation? This is a separate question from whether a typical human would want to intervene (emotive normativity). The question is whether she really does have this obligation (deontological normativity). We are tempted to say that if you have the training and opportunity to save a life, you ought to. But that really just begs the question. Does the lifeguard have an obligation? Ought she to have intervened? We all want to say yes. But why? Why are we so tempted to evaluate her action as immoral? Perhaps there simply are no moral standards by which to evaluate a person's behavior and all this talk of morality and immorality is just a word game best left to philosophers and theologians who have nothing better to do.

By virtue of what exactly does she have an obligation to intervene? We notice that she had the training to save this person, so perhaps that exacerbates the duty but it does not establish it. Presumably the other beach-goers who saw what was going on and didn't intervene also flouted a duty (as the lifeguard is eager to point out, she is in good company). So what is it that confers this duty on her? Wherein lies the authority of the statement "You ought to intervene (have intervened) in this situation"? That's extremely hard to say by naturalist lights. It's one thing to note that most people in the lifeguard's situation would have felt the pressure of this obligation and acted in conformity with it. But all that shows is that the statement is normative. It doesn't show that it applies to the lifeguard independent of her opinion. She didn't feel like saving the person. So what if most other people would have intervened in her place. What exactly is wrong with what she did (didn't do)? What is her defect?

So by naturalist lights, it's hard to affirm the existence of honest-to-goodness normative evaluative standards of behavior or attitudes. This is a specific case of a general problem naturalism has with deontology of any sort. What sense can we make as naturalists of "ought" statements? Certainly we're not talking about mere statistical normativity when evaluating the inaction of the lifeguard. We're not complaining that most people would have intervened. We're saying that she ought to have intervened, but we haven't got any closer to what that might mean.

In discussing (b), let's assume for the sake of argument that there are evaluative standards we can apply to behavior. What makes the application of these standards appropriate? I can make up just any old arbitrary standard and complain that you don't live up to it. You may agree that you have not lived up to my standard yet be unimpressed with that charge.

For instance, imagine Fred and Wilma are having sex outside of wedlock. Barney says to Fred, "You are acting immorally by sleeping with your girlfriend outside of wedlock." Fred acknowledges that Barney adheres to a moral standard according to which sex outside of marriage is immoral. But Fred says to Barney, "I don't accept the authority of that standard. So I freely admit that I'm living immorally as far as your particular standard is concerned, but so what? It's not as if your parochial standard applies to me." In this example, Fred is saying that Barney's evaluative standard is not objective. It's arbitrary or parochial. In any case, Fred does not accept Barney's authority to apply an evaluative standard to Fred's behavior. That is, Barney doesn't have the authority to evaluate Fred's behavior. That is, because Barney's evaluative standard lacks objectivity or legitimate authority, it is not truly normative in the way we expect moral statements to be.

Thus we see in this example that normativity and objectivity are bound up together to generate moral authority, that particular kind of imperative force that moral statements are intended to convey. If a statement is normative but not objective, its authority is undermined. The same happens when a statement is objective but not normative. And when a statement does not carry that kind of authority, it does not express a real moral standard.

Fred and Barney could, at this point, enter into a discussion about (a) whether there is an obligation to remain chaste outside of marriage, and/or (b) whether that obligation is truly authoritative and therefore applies in Fred's case. They can think it through together. When they do, they are both assuming that there is a truth to the matter about both (a) and (b). And the truth of (a) and (b) is assumed to be independent of mere opinion. If it is not so assumed, why have a debate about it? Why not just note the differences and say "Well, isn't that interesting"? The urgency of the debate betrays an implicit belief that truth is at stake.

I hope now it's clear what I was getting at. I freely admit that this is an altogether inadequate explanation, but the limits of the medium forbid longer discussions (I'd love to discuss this face to face with you!). To sum up, our moral discourse betrays the widespread belief that morality involves normative evaluative standards of behavior and attitudes and that these standards are universally applicable (i.e., their authority does not rest on mere human opinion or even of consensus).

 

[Dunemeister]

When you view something with your vision, it forms a percept in your mind. A percept, an object of perception, is a mental representation of something in the physical world. Morality is not something that actually exists, as it were, in the physical world. It is a concept. It is a mental construct.

Or not.

 

[Dunemeister]

I apologize here for the fact that I've had to excise some of your comments for the sake of staying within the 10000 word limit for a post.

For me (absolute) morals are normative, semi-objective and valuebased.

Here we're equivocating on what "morality" is. I was saying that evaluative statements are moral if and only if they are legitimately normative and objective, which is another way of saying that they have moral(istic) authority.

I think what you are saying is that the way we reason about what to do in a situation is properly called moral reasoning and has a place in "morality" writ large. I agree. It's not always obvious what is right to do in a situation, and we have to think about it.

What if there is a case, per impossible, where there is no choice but to violate a moral standard? What follows? Precisely nothing. It doesn't follow that you haven't done an immoral thing. And certainly it doesn't follow that the moral standard doesn't account for "values." Indeed, the moral standard itself embodies a value.

Now what do i mean with „semiobjective“?

I happen to think that such truths are knowable and universally applicable, and your arguments have not demonstrated otherwise. I think at bottom what we have here is a fundamental difference of opinion about what sort of critter humans are. I think we are created in the image of God with a capacity for knowing and following these truths, which in turn are related to the personality of God and his purposes for his creation. If you don't hold to this anthropology, then like I said at the outset, morality is quite the puzzle.

Now we do have some objective parts in the sense that our genetic programming preconditions us for certain things that we like, dislike, see as good or bad.

Yes, this is the anthropological assumption underlying your account of what morality is. For you, morality is paradoxical and thus requires lengthy analysis, and you call for a major revisioning of what's going on. Its authority is more apparent than real. On my account, I can simply let the world be what it is. I don't have to "revise" anything about the way humans typically think, reason, and act from a moral perspective. Our use of moral language makes perfect sense as is.

In your view morals would have to have some higher, human independend quality. However you can't possibly know if your values are not exactly that: human based.

Not so fast. For at least some of my moral beliefs, I think I can possibly know. In fact, I say that I do know. Your skepticism about the point is neither here nor there.

Actually it is rather probable that you, being an emotional and subjective being with values do exactly have human morals and not some divine ones.

Probable based on what? How many universes are you using as a basis of comparison, anyway?

To use your example... You proposed a society where killing might be allowed and you think then that objectivity means it is not despite what that society says.

Here I think you are conflating the metaphysical issue (what is the nature of morality) with the epistemological issue (how do you know any of this, anyway?). These are not unrelated, but it's important to keep the issues separate. In particular, my inability to prove to you that my (Christian) moral standards are objective is indeed a problem, especially if I want to convince you, a non-Christian (presumably), to adhere to my standard. If I want to convince you to adhere to my standards, I can't wax eloquent about my god. Rather, I have to find reasons that might find purchase with you. That doesn't mean that my standards aren't objective, only that I can't use their objectivity or rootedness in divine authority as a premise in an argument to convince you to adhere to them. (You'll be happy to know that I don't take it as my mission to make you live like a Christian.)

Which brings me to the third point: valuebased.
I hold it rather with ideas similar to ethical subjectivism. I can't go into details now but I think it is sufficient to state that the core values that we have are based also on biological reactions to some things.

Yep. Once you've kicked god out, you have to root ethics in biology or something else. But a biological reaction doesn't have "authority." Imagine that I learn that my aversion to pedophelia is based entirely (or even mainly) on biology. Once I'm apprised of that connection, what follows? Is it permissable, like Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, to try to live above that base aversion? If not, why not? What is it about human biology that it should have such authority over me? What if a whole society learns to live above that aversion and freely allows all its members to engage in pedophelia? Is there any way to criticize them? We tell them, "Look, there is a biological, natural aversion to pedophelia." They reply "We know, but we have developed techniques to overcome that, and besides, it's better to rise above our carnal nature, don't you think? Why be slaves of anything, particularly biology?" Answers are hard to come by to this sort of response.

Hence it is perfectly natural to state that morally good things can be said to be those things that produce positive reactions while morally negative things are those that produce negative reactions. Please do not pick on this as I know myself that I should make a more detailed definition here. For lack of time I don't.

Well, I won't pick on it too much except the obvious rejoinder. This is a statement of what happens on a biological level. Actions ABC generate positive reactions, and XYZ produce negative reactions. It's not obvious to me that anything follows about what we ought to do. Sometimes doing what's right involves pain and self sacrifice, and at times that sacrifice goes unrewarded. One thinks of people who rot in jails around the world for the sake of conscience. Most of these people will never live to see their countries reformed. Most of the countries will not be reformed despite the sacrifice of these conscientious objectors. On a utilitarian reading, the right thing is to compromise your principles. I'm not quite so sure.

We have two homosexual people that live in harmony together. For me these two people do not commit any immorality for as long as BOTH are consenting, nobody is harming the other and no other harm is done to anybody else.
For you they are immoral when having sex because God supposedly said so.

Well yes, and there's the issue of why God proscribes this behavior. Does he have any reason, even possibly, to say so? (I say yes.) And does the authority of the proscription depend on God telling us his reasons (I say no) or on our agreement on his reasons (I say HELL NO)?

a) A core system where all three points are valid for all humans. We find that with for example the golden rule or other “basic” things like our resentment to killing or torture. This system is relatively stable throughout time as it is based mostly on our social-genetic heritage.

Or perhaps it's based mostly on our divine heritage as created in the image of God. That heritage puts us in touch with God Himself, and thence to his personality and purposes. We vaguely and incoherently "remember" these things partly through our contact with moral imperatives of this type.

b) A supplementary system that is culture specific and adds more details or special things that we do not share across the globe. And here I would simply say that any rule of b that does not contradict a is equal to the corresponding rule of another culture.

I think we agree on this point more or less. I'd still add that our basic human calling to "fill the earth and subdue it" provides a cultural mandate. We are to cultivate loving communities, and there is more than one way to do that.

So I would also say “bye-bye” to the idea of an “absolute” moral system valid for all times and independent of us.
Morality is essentially a value system that we have made BY ourselves and actually also often FOR ourselves. If it were independent of us or our minds then it would be universally valid. Yet obviously even according to your religion animal behavior is neither immoral nor do they have the same morals (and I did notice that you avoided my point about animals being moral beings as well).

This is partly right. There are moral truths, but we have a difficult time getting clarity about some of them. Where things are less clear, we have to accommodate each other.

Animals, although they are affected by morality (in particular human immorality and other effects of the fall of humankind into sin), they do not respond as humans do to moral imperatives. Your analysis reduces our moral behavior to a kind of animal instinct, and that compels you to think that they do.

Another nice difference:
For a normal theist supposedly life is sacred and killing is morally evil.
Some people (many nontheists) think that animal life is also of a high value and also should not be taken lightly. So they do not eat meat for example. For those you are immoral and not consequent because you do kill. For me it is a valid supplementary moral addition.

All this really shows is that it's possible for people of goodwill to disagree. I'll leave alone the issue whether you've correctly understood how Christian ethics applies to diet.