Gary Welsh

I agree with DRFseven:

We all have the same basis for our morality.

I would add that there is an objective element which is the foundation for our systems of morality, whether we are theists, atheists or whatever. This objective element is the brute fact that we are social beings, and that is a truth which is imposed upon all of us from birth. It is necessary for there to be codes of behavior, as long as we're going to be 'social.' And there are enormous pressures for us to be social. We survive much better when we work together. We profit greatly from specialization of trade and the sharing of tasks and responsibilities. This is not merely a subjective opinion, but an overwhelmingly demonstrable truth about humanity. For groups to work effectively, they need standards of behavior. For individuals to deal effectively with each other and with groups, they need to appeal to these standards of behavior. This is the objective element of morality. It is true, regardless of what any of us think of it. You can close your eyes and hold your hands over your ears, but this truth isn't going to go away. Human beings exist, and they have a certain kind of nature.

Although there is an objective foundation to morality, it can quickly become subjective when one gets into the particular details. Still, there is an underlying element to it that has to do with the dymanic between individuals and groups. How this dynamic is defined, explained, or formalized can be very subjective. So, although I would agree that the particular rules of morality are not transcendental absolutes, that exist "written on the walls of the universe," as it were, I disagree that in the naturalist view they are necessarily merely of a subjective character. They certainly have an objective root. They are not merely arbitrary, or merely a matter of 'personal preference,' as they are often trivialized to be -- as if 'good behavior' were as trivial and arbitrary as 'liking vanilla.'

On the other hand, the so-called 'theistic basis' is exactly what is a very subjective way of looking at morality. It's an opinion a god exists, and created us, and created the laws of morality. It's a subjective belief, which is not verifiable. It's not even falsifiable; if a certain god-concept is shown to entail a contradiction, it is simply redefined or declared beyond human reason. The people who assert these gods are never able to produce a single shred of proof that supernatural beings or ghostly deities actually exist, or that they utter moral absolutes to prophets on mountain-tops... other than in anecdotal folklore and old scriptures.

But it's not just a subjective belief that humans exist, or that we are social beings. We don't have to take it on faith that we exist, and that it makes sense that we have to have rules of behavior for us to get along with each other.

the_cave

But this is completely unsatisfactory. Would it satisfy an atheist if a theist used this argument to support their beliefs? This is exactly the kind of reasoning, it seems to me, that atheism is trying to argue against!

Now maybe you're saying "Human beings just feel moral principles." Well, alright, maybe so, that could be valid...but surely there are conflicting morals. How do we decide among them? How do I decide what moral values to value more than others? I suppose it could be that I need to decide which ones I myself actually value more than others...but how do I go about doing that? That's the problem, as I see it.

bd-from-kg

keyser_soze:

Your argument here doesn’t seem to hold water.

It appears that the “logical basis” you’re trying to “base” morality on here is pure self-interest. But that just doesn’t work, as has been demonstrated again and again. In the first place, even ordinary people under ordinary conditions can often “get away” with “doing the wrong thing”. Even murder is often a good bet: the odds of getting caught may be very low, the punishment (at worst) in some states is about 20 years in jail, and the payoff may be very high. Petty theft is common and obviously pays in most cases: people who do it often aren’t even punished seriously if they happen to get caught, and usually they aren’t caught. Lying can often be a good sales tactic, and is practically never punished; on the contrary, a smooth-talking used-car salesman may be rewarded handsomely for dishonesty if it boosts his sales (which it generally will). Indeed we recently had the spectacle of a spectacularly dishonest man being elected and re-elected to the presidency of the United States in spite of the fact that most people in the country were aware of his mendacity.

Worse yet, there are lots of less ordinary situations where acting immorally is quite obviously in one’s self-interest. For example for many centuries the Vikings made a living looting and pillaging coastal towns, killing most of the men, raping the women, and even taking the prettiest maidens as mistresses. How would it have been in their self-interest to stop this practice? Or, what about rulers with bizarre tastes, like Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein? If you have enough power and enjoy torturing and killing people in creative, colorful ways, what logical, self-interested reason would you have not to do it?

In short, self-interest is simply not a basis for morality as such. It is often in one’s self-interest to follow moral precepts like “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not steal”, but it’s sometime in one’s self-interest to violate them. And morality doesn’t come into play in the cases where morality and self-interest happen to coincide, but in the exceptional cases where they don’t. You don’t really need moral guidance to tell the truth when telling the truth is in your interest, or not to steal when stealing is ill-advised. Even the most hardened criminals don’t steal and kill indiscriminately; they do so only when a good opportunity presents itself.

We’re not necessarily talking about “running amok”; we’re talking about having no moral scruples. And if your only argument is that it’s often in one’s self-interest to follow accepted societal rules, we’re not even talking about scruples: scruples are by definition things that prevent you from “doing the wrong thing” when it would be in you self-interest to do so. How can the fact that it’s often in one’s self-interest be considered a “basis for morality”? “Look out for number one” is not a moral principle; it’s a total rejection of moral principles.

Why? If your guiding principle is self-interest, the rational policy is to lie, cheat, steal, swindle, or murder whenever it’s in your interest (or derivatively, in the interest of those you care about). If what you mean by a “logical basis” is pure self-interest, you’re being illogical when you refuse to lie, steal or kill whenever it‘s in your self-interest, regardless of whether you’ve “exhausted every other recourse first”.

Good for you. But what about those who do have such desires? And judging from the actual behavior of most victorious armies, the desire to rape defenseless women, at least under some circumstances, does seem to be in the nature of a great many men. Why shouldn’t they go ahead and do it whenever it looks like the cost/benefit ratio is favorable?

More generally, if no one had antisocial desires there would be no need for morality. The whole point is that everyone has some antisocial desires, and some people have a great many. Most moral precepts tell us not to act on them even in circumstances where it seems clear that one could get away with it. What logical reason can you give to follow such precepts?

Basically what xian is saying is that pure (amoral) self-interest often dictates acting in ways that most people (including atheists) do not in fact act, and that they can give no logical reason for not doing so. Unless you’re prepared to seriously argue that that there is never any real conflict between self-interest and society’s interest, your argument doesn’t even touch his point. What logical reason is there to put society’s interests over self-interest when they conflict?

bd-from-kg

Gary Welsh:

As I pointed out to DRFseven, this is using the term “basis” in an entirely different sense that the one VM was using.

So far so good. But it’s important to understand that the fact of our being social being doesn’t just mean (as keyser_soze seems to be saying, and as you seem to imply in your very next sentence) that it’s in each person’s self-interest to cooperate or to follow social norms. It means that we are naturally inclined to do so independently of whether it’s in our self-interest. In other words, we desire the good of others for its own sake, and regardless of whether it happens to further our own interests in any given case. Of course our desire for the good of any other given person is normally much weaker than our desire for our own good, but in the aggregate such desires are quite significant.

Sure, but as I pointed out in my reply to keyser_soze, it doesn’t follow that it’s in each individual’s interests to make it a rule always to “do the right thing”. What follows is that it’s in each individual’s interest for everyone else to act that way, and for them to “do the right thing” most of the time but to break the rules on occasions when a good opportunity arises to profit from it.

Hear, hear. Human beings do have a certain nature, and any sensible account of morality must be based on this real human nature. My only caveat is that it’s a mistake to think that human nature is fundamentally self-interested.

First, the question of whether there are “absolute” moral rules is completely different from the question of whether morality is objective. Moral systems that involve moral rules that are claimed to be absolutely valid (i.e., rules that apply to every actual and possible situation) are called absolute moralities. They can be either objective or subjective. A moral system is generally called “objective” if it is claimed to be based on an “objective moral reality” that is independent of what anyone thinks or feels. A moral system is generally called subjective if the “rightness” of an action depends on the feelings or attitude of some person or group of persons toward it.

One type of subjective system says that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on whether it conforms to or violates some moral principles that are universally (or almost universally) subscribed to. This type of moral system is not generally called “objective” by moral philosophers even though this kind of general agreement can obviously only arise from some universal aspects of human nature, which of course are “objective” in the sense that they exist regardless of whether anyone believes that they do. (This type of moral system is sometimes called “intersubjective” nowadays.) Regardless of what names one applies to it, I agree that this is the only reasonable kind of moral theory. Other types are either based on the supposed existence on nonexistent entities (God or a transcendent moral reality) or are radically incompatible with what I call the “logic of moral discourse”. For example, most subjective moral systems entail that it is often really true that one and the same action is both right and wrong (not just that people have different opinions about it), or that whether it’s right or wrong depends on the agent’s own attitude or feelings about it.

None of these things makes theistic moralities subjective in the sense in which this term is used by moral philosophers. However, they are good reasons to reject theistic moralities. Every theistic morality that I’ve seen looks an awful lot like some human’s moral notions projected onto a supposed all-powerful being. There’s no evidence whatever that any such being even exists, much less that it has bothered to provide us with moral guidance. And there are other, perhaps even stronger, reasons to think that theistic moral systems are basically untenable. But at this point I suspect that I’m preaching to the choir.

Wiploc

Are you suggesting that religious morality is more logical than non-religious morality? I challenge that!
crc

Violent Messiah

Sorry for the late reply, busy these past few days.

Anyway, can anybody point me to where this thread was moved. Thanks.

Jinto

First, I know that this has been asked time and time again. Just like the existence of God itself. Since Aristotle, this has been an immortal argument.

Subi dura........

Following my dad's orders / requests may not be necessarily fear - but respect and/or love.

Eudaimonist

Yes, relative to non-buddhists. No, relative to Buddhists. Your question is exactly my point - they have a standard of morality. Im just asking yours - if there's any?

K

I may say no or yes, but the reality is - I and most of the people were exposed to this reality.

Maybe not directly as some 'holier than thou' preacher says it to you. But the T.C.'s commandments are visible everywhere. Media, schools and others - so it tunes your brain of the bad things in life.

No, that's wy I'm asking.

Vorkosigan

Irrelevant but amusing nonetheless.

K

Instincts?

Subi dura again.....

Yes I may or I may not reconcile it - but I did not post to defend the Bible. I asked a question of the standard of morality of atheists.

Jinto

No. I appreciated your answer. It's the only post in this board that truly answerd what I'm asking. It is without any taint of condescencion.

So, basically you are answering common interest? Right? How do you define then common interest? It is still a relative issue.

I also argue again your view of theist acting moral only out of fear. As i said earlier - we may be acting out of love, gratitude or respect.

Asha'man

No, that's why i'm asking. And if you noticed you didn't answer my question, you just managed to question my motives for asking the question - with a spiteful tone.

Gary Welsh

I think not. Some atheist will argue that.

emotional

JDSLADJDH just is. LDJLAJDJ just is. KLSJFOIRF just is. <JVBDKVDGV just is. LJASHDFDHOU just is. Don't attempt to rationalize it.

See my point?

xian

And this is illogical. I am a lsidjoshg, but I don't ave any basis for it.

I'm not even going to debate your conclusion of atheists being moral - coz some of them may not be. Why? Coz you don't even say the definiton of morality.

Ganymede

Yes. but why?

bd-from-kg

I'm interested in what you posted. Un4tunately, I'm out of time. I'll read it thoroughly and I'll post my response to it and to other's statements as well maybe some other time.

NOTE: Please do not mislead the question. There are a bunch of illogical and inconsistent arguments that make this thread long. I really just want to know the answer to my qeustion. I don't need to know debate why God exists, there are a dozen of threads discussing that.

Ad infinitum!

AdamWho

Following rules just because they are rules (such as the TC) is not morality.

A "moral commandment" is a contridiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed.

-Ayn

Violent Messiah

Just for the record..........my question is just a question. It's not an insinuation that atheists are immoral (It would be illogical for me to say so because my question involves the definition of morality itself), i'm not saying that everyone should follow the Ten Commandments, heck, it's not even an argument for the existence of GOD.

For those who fail to understand it because of their excitement to post what they think is a witty yet really is just an irrelevant and vexing remark, again I state:

What is the standard of morality for atheists?Catholics have the Ten Commandments. Someone said the eight-fold path for the Buddhists. Confucianism for Confucianists.

So far, I'ver heard secular humanism, existentialism,human instincts, common interest and others.

Those are intelligent answers....not some sarcastic - "Atheists are bad, yes we just drive around and drink booze", nor the irrelevant "Ten Commandments are false", nor the "So the only thing preventing you from murdering someone are the Ten Commandments?".

bd-from-kg, whilst we are of contrasting beliefs, your posts make a lot of sense. And you understand what I am asking.

Disregarding whether you are a believer in theism or not, God's word is the basis for their morals. It is absolute.

Now, supporting bd-from-kg, I believe that atheists don't have any standard. Tis' obvious because there are different answers posted in this thread.

Correct me if i'm wrong. Is there?

Adam who

You have an assertion that can easily be disproven negating its validity to refute the TC.

You say that morality is the chosen and understood.

I choose to kill. Am I moral? I understand that by raping someone, I am gratifying my erotic desires, so I rape. Am I moral?

You say that morality is not the obeyed.

I obey my parents coz I love and respect them not because I fear them. Am I immoral?

Secular Pinoy

A quick comment or so:This is highly questionable even on the assumption of theism. Theism could be true, yet god could've chosen not to reveal his word, and that revealed religions are baseless. God could have revealed his moral teachings, but to a religion which no longer exists. God could have chosen no objective moral values (OMV), that is, that god is not the source of morality. Theists disagree with one another concerning morals, so given one of your beliefs (see below) it follows that theistic morality is not absolute. Your assertion fails, as it is beset with problems even on the assumption of theism.This is questionable. Objective moral values could, in principle, exist yet people would still disagree if there is no clear way to know which acts are OMV (that is, there is the problem of epistemological distance between OMV and people).

alek0

Well, this doesn't contradict 10 commandments, does it?

And if you rape a virgin in the countryside, and marry her afterwards and never divorce her, according to bible no problem...
You tell me whether this is moral or not.