Silent Acorns

My Atheist ethics/morals:

1) The do no harm rule: Any action which does not harm anyone else is ethical.

2) The compensation rule: If the victem is compensated for the harm (based on the victems' standards), then the original act and the compensation together form an ethical act.

3) Early agreement rule: It is better to agree to a compensation before commiting the act rather than after.

If everybody followed these 3 simple rules, it would be impossible to commit an immoral act.

the_cave

But let's say, for some reason, an agreement could not be reached, and for stepping on someone's foot, they insist I pay them a million dollars in compensation.

I'm not ridiculing your laws; I'm just curious as to how you interpret them.

It seems to me that "do no harm" is a pretty good law, and indeed is one many religions ascribe to. But one big problem comes when harm is done, whether intentionally or not. What happens after that? What happens when recompense harms the offending party? Should we really rely soley on the victim to accurately describe harms and their extent? I'm not saying it's a bogus system, I'm just pointing out it has problems, just like anything else. I myself would not call it perfect, or complete, by any stretch of the imagination.

(For JenniferD: virtue ethics is indeed also a decent way to go, but it runs into similar problems; who is to say what is moderation, and what is excess?)

Ensign Steve

Even Aristotle admited that this was an incomplete moral theory. I think it is a good place to start, and build from, but there is a large degree of relativity to it that makes me uncomfortable. But I don't subscribe to virtue ethics. That was just an example I gave. I don't think a single moral-theory is air-tight. There is a lot of room for exploration and growth, and it is a struggle (learning opportunity?) that we as people face every day.

Autonemesis

Why not consider the fact that good people are good whether they believe in God or not? People invented God, people invented the Golden Rule. That they attribute the Rule to God is a reflection of their times, nothing else.

tronvillain

Well, I take the position that morality is subjective, but not that it is relative. Whether I consider something wrong depends on my perspective, and not necessarily on the perspective of the person performing the act at all.

Silent Acorns

That's covered by number 3: you should have asked before you stepped on their foot. But, I should modify my code a bit:

1) The do no harm rule: Any action which does not harm anyone else is ethical.

2) The compensation rule: If the victim is compensated for the harm (based on the victims' standards), then the original act and the compensation together form an ethical act.

3) Early agreement rule: It is better to agree to a compensation before commiting the act rather than after.

4) Acciddent rule: Accidents have no bearing on the ethical or moral nature of an act.

General catagories of unethical acts:
Wilful disregard of others
Negligence
Knowingly demanding excessive compensation

I think it is important here to point out the difference between ethics and justice. Ethics is concerned with right and wrong while justice is concerned with correcting the results of wrongs (where possible). All I was trying to say was that if two agrieved parties can agree to reasonable compensation, then the combination of original act and compensation is "ethical". What to do when the two parties cannot agree is an issue of justice.

In my opinion, the purpose of a justice sytem is to allow a society to function as harmoniously as possible - to address the problem of what to do when harmful acts occur and when conflicts arise.

philechat

I subscribe to moral subjectivism and virtue ethics (character-based). I think because a great majority of "moral decisions" must harm in certain ways the interests of other people, it ultimately depends on how much "value" I give to the other people's given interests, and act accordingly.

Character-based virtue ethics holds that in accordance to my character, I must deem a given set of qualities as having more importance than another set of qualities. Then by this "value basis" I strive to maximize what I consider important with respect to my own value system.

Jayjay

I've never really formulated my personal morals in a list of rules, but if I did, it would probably look something like this...

1) Eveything that's constructive is good.
2) Everything that's destructive is bad.
3) Knowledge is good: in order to know what is destructive and what is constructive, I need to know how the world works.
4) I can never know everything, but it shouldn't stop me from trying.

Uhm. Looks kind of abstract, now that I think of it. That would be pretty much the framework on top of which to build the actual rules. Items 1 and 2 define what is good and what is bad, though in a way that has a strong subjective component; people would generally agree that killing a person without a reason is destructive and hence bad, but we're still arguing whether death penalty or war are moral. Item 3 is an imperative to always improve one's knowledge, and hence moral perspective. Item 4 basically says that I shouldn't take excessive risks in my moral judgments, because I don't know all the consequences of my actions.

On another note, someone mentioned the rule "do unto others as they do unto you"... this is game theoretically sound strategy, but only when coupled with the golden rule when you're the one initiating an action: you have to first assume that the other guy is your friend, and treat him as such, otherwise the society of people following the rule will end up in random pairings of friends and enemies, instead of everyone being friends.

sourdough

I like to follow "cowboy code of ethics"
goes something like this:
1-the cowboy must never shoot first,hit a smaller man,or take unfair advantage
2-he must never go back on his word or a trust confided in him.
3-he must always tell the truth.
4-he must be gentle with children,the elderly and the animals.
5-he must not advocate or posses racialy intolerant ideas.
6-he must help people in distress.
7-he must be good worker.
8-he must keep himself clean in thought,speech,action and personal habits.
9-he must respect women,parents and his nations laws.
10-the cowboy is a patriot.

replace the word cowboy with atheist and we have our own atheist comandments to live by.
now the theists can't say we atheists have no moral rules to live by,

Silent Acorns

I don't agree with these last three, for the following reasons:

What exactly do you mean by clean? Is clean synonymous with moral? If so, your 8th point is nothing more than "be moral".

I am uncomfortable with women and parents (whose parents?) being special classes of people who must always be respected. Why not just respect everyone?

What do you mean by "patriot"? If you mean "One who disinterestedly or self-sacrificingly exerts himself to promote the wellbeing of his country" (Oxford) then good. If you mean "my country, right or wrong", then not good.