Why There Can be an Objective Morality Even Without a God

[shmogie]

It seems that long before religion was born, morality, existed. Recent research suggests many animals, particularly mammals are moral creatures

Animals Are Moral Creatures, Scientist Argues

Without morality civilization could not have developed and hence no religion. Which in turn could not have said "thats ours and everyone else is inferior because you dont have morality now"

How can an animal be moral ? Instinct is instinct, it is neither good, or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral. it is instinct. If morality is the thesis, them immorality is the antithesis, one cannot exist without the other. How can an animal be immoral ?

 

[osgart]

If life, then morality. I doubt anyone walking the street at night would be against moral objectivity adherents. Too bad morality does not exist in nature though.

I doubt anyone would want their life terminated because their productivity has declined.

Moral objectivity is a must. It has nothing to do with God, and everything to do with desiring to be a peaceful, civil human being. Even not desiring to be peaceful, and civil if one enjoys any freedom or love they have to appreciate the cause and effect truthes of objective morality.
I do not think you can escape MO and still live a worthwhile life. And subjective moralists ,who live according to personal decency only, will eventually see that true is true on MO.

Everyone feels the fear of murder, fear of end and the love of a truly good thing. If not self than other, if not other than self. If not any fear or love, then what? Being almost robotic but alive with a nervous system and no personal feelings whatsoever you will do what is convenient, MO. But hate without just cause ruins and undermines society because it breaks down safety and trust.
And everyone relies on safety and trust to survive. So regardless of personal feelings MO causes survival and quality of life.

When things break down MO establishes order, and things get done.

I do not see God out there keeping things together. I think natural conditions and survival, and quality of life are dependent on MO.

As we all discover more and more, i think MO will only grow more strong as we learn more moral truthes.

 

[PruePhillip]

I often hear some statement along the lines of, "If a god does not exist, then there can be no objective morality".

As it happens, that sort of statement suffers greatly from the misfortune of being false.

It is possible, for example, that Platonic forms or ideals of morality exist even though no god exists.

Note: I am not attempting here to present an argument for the existence of an objective morality.

If there's no God, then you are god.
And with nothing higher than yourself you can do as you damn well like.
Hitler, Stalin and Mao came from Catholic, Orthodox and Buddhist backgrounds.
Some say the world would have been a better place if these tyrants stayed where
their faith once found them.

 

[joe1776]

Nonsense. Throughout history killings have occurred and been considered moral that had nothing to do with self defense

You probably are not reading carefully. My comment is about the judgment of conscience of an unbiased jury.

 

[Sunstone]

That's a pretty big piece of the puzzle of a moral system. Lacking that, I can hardly consider that you've made a compelling argument for platonic forms as the basis for an objective moral system.

Are you saying you are prepared to argue that Platonic forms cannot exist because I can't recall some detail of Platonism after 40 years? Or are you assuming I'm arguing for their existence and not the mere possibility of their existence?

 

[joe1776]

It seems that long before religion was born, morality, existed....

Agreed. Those feelings that we call 'conscience' existed before language was invented. If we hadn't learned from them, we would know absolutely nothing about morality.

Recent research suggests many animals, particularly mammals are moral creatures

Research (Haidt and others) also supports the idea that the judgments of conscience are intuitive and probably innate. They are not judgments of reason as Plato, Kant, Aquinas and others supposed.

 

[ChristineM]

How can an animal be moral ? Instinct is instinct, it is neither good, or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral. it is instinct. If morality is the thesis, them immorality is the antithesis, one cannot exist without the other. How can an animal be immoral ?

That is a very narrow mined view to which science disagrees, you may not understand the moral code of an animal but according to research it certainly exists.

The book, "Can Animals Be Moral?", suggests social mammals such as rats, dogs and chimpanzees can choose to be good or bad.
Research suggests animals have a sense of outrage when social codes are violated and can meter out punishment for violating moral codes.

Humans too are animal, why do you assume other animals do not have similar integrity?

 

[Nous]

It seems to me that the ties between moral facts and imperatives are necessary. If something can coherently be argued to be evil, there must be an imperative against it. If the system cannot provide the imperative to do good and refrain from evil then you haven't got a moral system.

I am unaware of any academic moral realist who has tried to argue that there exist objective imperatives to act in certain ways. If there were such imperatives, I can't imagine how one would account for the fact that people commit murder every day anyway.

I do not perceive that @Sunstone failed in any way to achieve his objective in his OP.

 

[shmogie]

That is a very narrow mined view to which science disagrees, you may not understand the moral code of an animal but according to research it certainly exists.

The book, "Can Animals Be Moral?", suggests social mammals such as rats, dogs and chimpanzees can choose to be good or bad.
Research suggests animals have a sense of outrage when social codes are violated and can meter out punishment for violating moral codes.

Humans too are animal, why do you assume other animals do not have similar integrity?

Animals can determine to be good or bad OK. What determines what is "good" or "bad" ?

 

[shmogie]

You probably are not reading carefully. My comment is about the judgment of conscience of an unbiased jury.

An unbiased jury. OK, do you mean an amoral jury ? Since you have biases like all of us, your proposition itself is based on a biases, and thus cannot determine what an unbiased jury would do.

 

[ChristineM]

Animals can determine to be good or bad OK. What determines what is "good" or "bad" ?

Most people (and animals) know that instinctively without a god sitting on their shoulder to tell them

 

[PuerAzaelis]

The idea of being is neutral from the point of view of the moral life. There is no need to have the experience of the good and the beautiful in order to arrive at it. The experience solely of the mineral realm already suffices to arrive at the morally neutral idea of being. For the mineral is. For this reason the idea of being is objective, i.e. it postulates, in the last analysis, the thing underlying everything, the permanent substance behind all phenomena.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The judgments of conscience make morality objective. No God required.

Case #1. The facts indicate an unjustified killing
Case #2 The facts indicate a killing in a clear case of self defense

If you present these two cases to unbiased juries in any culture in the world, you will get the same judgments. The judgments of conscience are objective.

They seem subjective only because there are tons of biases created by the weak reasoning minds of people for any number of reasons. For example, a Christian who interprets the Sixth Commandment as an absolute rule will find that the killer in Case #2 has sinned. His minority opinion doesn't make morality subjective; it makes him wrong.

Actually, it means that he has a different perspective on the facts.

Say we start with two (hopefully non-controversial, widely accepted) value statements:

- life is preferable to death
- a lack of suffering is preferable to suffering

A difference in perspective on factual matters can cause the same moral principles to lead to different conclusions about what actions are moral or immoral. When it comes to killing, questions like these are important for a moral judgement:

- does killing a person result in their death in a meaningful way, or will they go to some afterlife?
- if they go to an afterlife, is it pleasant or filled with suffering?
- will the killer be rewarded by God or made to suffer?

In the case of a Christian killing in self-defense, what is the Christian trying to protect himself from? An afterlife in paradise? That isn't even a net harm. OTOH, would the would-be murderer dying in a state of sin end up suffering forever? That would be a tremendous net harm.

If we accept some pretty standard Christian views about the state of things, then Christian self-defense seems almost monstrous.

 

[Mister Emu]

Are you saying you are prepared to argue that Platonic forms cannot exist because I can't recall some detail of Platonism after 40 years? Or are you assuming I'm arguing for their existence and not the mere possibility of their existence?

No, to both questions.

I'm saying I haven't seen how Platonic forms, presupposed for argument, provide the basis of an objective morality. That could very well be from me not remembering enough of Platonism myself.

I am unaware of any academic moral realist who has tried to argue that there exist objective imperatives to act in certain ways.

I am unaware of any real moral philosophy which does not offer moral judgement on behavior. What philosopher argues for a real morality that doesn't describe how a moral agent ought and ought not behave?

You offered as an example earlier "it is an objective moral fact that rape is immoral." In what moral philosophy is that statement not necessarily tied to the statement "do not rape"? What moral philosophy or philosopher throughout history would produce the first statement and then have nothing to say about how the moral agent is to conduct themselves? "According to my philosophy rape is objectively immoral, but I have no grounds to say you shouldn't rape"? In every real moral system I have ever studied the second statement would be inherent in the first.

I feel there must have been a misunderstanding between us.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I am unaware of any real moral philosophy which does not offer moral judgement on behavior. What philosopher argues for a real morality that doesn't describe how a moral agent ought and ought not behave?

I've heard morality defined in terms of "the well-being of thinking agents," which doesn't necessarily require that we ought to care about well-being, but lays out principles to live with if I do.

And I can't count the number of times I've heard many different sources say things that implied that "we ought to behave morally" was a meaningful statement... but if we use your definition, it becomes a useless tautology.

 

[joe1776]

Actually, it means that he has a different perspective on the facts.

This was your response to my comment: For example, a Christian who interprets the Sixth Commandment as an absolute rule will find that the killer in Case #2 has sinned. His minority opinion doesn't make morality subjective; it makes him wrong.

If by a "different perspective on the facts, I can assume you meant these facts: Case #2 The facts indicate a killing in a clear case of self defense.

Okay, what was the cause of his different perspective if not his minority opinion on the interpretation of the Sixth Commandment? Had he gone with the majority Christian opinion, that the commandment was meant to stop only wrongful killings, his opinion on the case would have agreed with the judgment of conscience. Why would this Christian's minority opinion on the interpretation of the commandment qualify as having equal merit as the instinctive conscience of most human beings?

Say we start with two (hopefully non-controversial, widely accepted) value statements:

- life is preferable to death
- a lack of suffering is preferable to suffering

A difference in perspective on factual matters can cause the same moral principles to lead to different conclusions about what actions are moral or immoral. When it comes to killing, questions like these are important for a moral judgement:

- does killing a person result in their death in a meaningful way, or will they go to some afterlife?
- if they go to an afterlife, is it pleasant or filled with suffering?
- will the killer be rewarded by God or made to suffer?

Those value statements, like moral rules, laws and commandments are products of reasoning minds which can become biases that conflict with the instinctive judgments of conscience in a specific case. They aren't moral guides. They are potential biases.

In the case of a Christian killing in self-defense, what is the Christian trying to protect himself from? An afterlife in paradise? That isn't even a net harm. OTOH, would the would-be murderer dying in a state of sin end up suffering forever? That would be a tremendous net harm.

If we accept some pretty standard Christian views about the state of things, then Christian self-defense seems almost monstrous.

Our moral instincts (conscience), which are probably crucial to the survival of our species, don't seem to be interested in man-made questions like those. We don't feel a thing, one way or the other when we ask them.

 

[Jumi]

I believe any codified morality would become "objective", if that's what we're looking for. Deducing morality from objective things can be quite a bit harder because it depends on us, and we aren't objective.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

It seems that long before religion was born, morality, existed. Recent research suggests many animals, particularly mammals are moral creatures

Everything is created in God's Image, everything reflects a Virtue of God.

Man has been created with the potential of all the virtues and must rise above the captive self that bound to nature. Man has been given the free will of choice.

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I often hear some statement along the lines of, "If a god does not exist, then there can be no objective morality".

As it happens, that sort of statement suffers greatly from the misfortune of being false.

It is possible, for example, that Platonic forms or ideals of morality exist even though no god exists.

Note: I am not attempting here to present an argument for the existence of an objective morality.

As all is created in Gods Image, all will reflect a virtue from God. Nothing exists with out God sending forth His Manifestations as they are the cause.

Man alone on this planet has been given the capacity of all virtues and given free will to choose, to arise above His animal nature and not be captive to it.

We are not alone in creation, there are others that have also been given this ability.

Regards Tony

 

[joe1776]

Animals can determine to be good or bad OK. What determines what is "good" or "bad" ?

I think the good moral instincts are crucial to the survival of the species.