jlowder

You had asserted that if evolution and atheism are true, there is no reason to be moral if it conflicts with self-interest. The point of my response was to show that, contrary to what many people assume, conflicts between morality and self-interest are much less frequent than people commonly assume. (I am not commenting on the ethical egoist's claim that that there are NEVER any conflicts between morality and self-interest -- that requires a far more detailed discussion than I can offer.)

I'll continue to read philosophy books, thank you very much. Ethics IS a branch of philosophy, after all!

Bully for you. Why should anyone else care until you give an argument for that opinion?

Again, there are two different senses of "morality" and it is not clear which one you're talking about. Are you talking about prescriptive morality? Again, consider the principle, "One ought not to torture newborn babies for fun." That moral principle is clearly "not something that comes about from other than pure naturalistic forces."

(In fact, I'm not even sure what it would mean for a moral principle to come about from "pure naturalistic forces." No one talks about the truth of "2+2=4" coming about from "pure naturalistic forces." Why should morality be any different?)

Again, you're conflating very different issues. For purposes of our discussion, we can frame the first issue as follows: are there any moral truths if God does not exist? (Note, however, that from the nonbeliever's viewpoint, there is no more reason to focus on that question than the question, "Are there any moral truths if gremlins do not exist?")

The second issue is as follows: can morality can conflict with one's self-interest? If such a conflict is possible, what reasons can a person have for choosing morality over self-interest? Concerning the latter question, the existence of God doesn't provide an answer to that question. Indeed, the nonbeliever can simply push the dilemma back onto the theist: "Why should God be moral when it conflicts with God's self-interest?"

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

Sojourner553

But this is "framed" in such a way to presume that if you are an atheist you "can't" want to be moral on your own.

Amos has essentially told me that salvation for him has nothing to do with morals -- it comes from his "correct" belief system in God..

Can I extrapolate from this that no Christians have morals?

You construct a staw man to prove a point that doesn't exist -- &gt; like trying to prove the world is flat by only allowing "in" the evidence supporting flatness.

The flaw in Haran's "fantasy" scenario is his last line: "If you have problems with a conscience, then you had best consider going back to being a non-atheist (theist) again..."

This is an assumption never proven. And I would assert it is false!

Sojourner

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

jlowder

You seem to presuppose that theism has an advantage over atheism when it comes to providing a reason for acting morally even when it conflicts with self-interest. (I emphasize the word "seems" because you haven't made an argument yet.) But before we can compare theistic reasons for moral behavior against atheistic reasons for moral behavior, we need to understand what the theistic reasons are. Why should a *theist* act morally even when it conflicts with the *theist's* self-interest?

Another assertion without argument. Please provide a logical syllogism starting with the premise "God does not exist" and then deriving the conclusion, "There are no valid moral principles." If you can't do that and yet continue to maintain your belief that atheism is incompatible with morality, then your belief will be nothing more than prejudice.

That doesn't follow. In fact, that is a non sequitur. Darwinism can easily explain why people have a moral conscience. And you've provided no argument at all showing that the validity of moral principles is inconsistent with atheism. If moral rules are consistent with atheism and if there is a naturalistic explanation for conscience, then atheists can follow moral principles according to their conscience and remain consistent with their atheism.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

Hobbs

It can be. And so can science. Why not read both philosophy and science? That way, you would have something to think about, and know how to think about it.

Be careful that you don't define 'self-interest' to be so all-encompassing that it becomes vacuous. Philosophy, used well, can help you avoid that sort of sloppy thinking.

To add to this point, there's no reason to think that self-interest cannot conflict with itself. Whenever there are two competing goods, even from a purely selfish perspective (not wanting to risk harm to my enjoyable relationship with my wife versus my desire to enjoy boinking someone else), there is a moral dilemma. Or, when you are forced to choose between two bads (even defining 'bad' purely from a perspective of self-interest). Depending on the conflicting issues and your approach to morality, it may or may not be easy to resolve the dilemma. But taking morality to be nothing but self-interest is insufficient to solve (or dissolve) all moral issues.

Hans

Morality is purely arbitrary. What is considered moral or immoral depends on our values. Our values are the product of our beliefs, needs, and desires. Your individual moral set is therefore predetermined by your beliefs, needs, and desires.

If you believe a god decides what is moral then you will adopt the morals that are taken to be prescribed by that god.

If you value the needs and feelings of others then you will find it immoral to do harm to others.

And so it goes with every decision of what is right or wrong. But ultimately it is important to realize that nothing is right or wrong. There is only our beliefs, needs, and desires.

Hobbs

Can beliefs be true or false, accurate or inaccurate? Are needs real, i.e. are there things that we really do need and that we do not need? Further, can we have mistaken beliefs about what we do or do not need? Are our desires real? Sure, desires are purely subjective, but we really do feel them, don't we? And, can we desire things based on inaccurate beliefs about them? Can we arbitrarily choose our desires? Can we have conflicting desires, and can some things really be more desirable than others? Is it possible that we don't consciously recognize something's real desirability for us? Are there things that really are valuable to us, whether objectively (e.g. nutritious food) or subjectively (e.g. friendship)? Can we mistakenly value things that are not really valuable to us, or fail to value something that is valuable?

You said that morality is purely arbitrary, but then you said that it depends on our values, which are the product of our beliefs, needs, and desires. Now, in an ultimate sense, the latter are arbitrary: god could have created us, or we could have evolved, such that we had different needs and desires and different things would be true about us. But within the context of the sorts of creatures we are, morality, if it depends on values, beliefs, needs, and desires, would not be arbitrary. Morality may indeed be relative to individuals and the situations they are involved in, but, given those individuals and situations, what would count as better or worse decisions would not be arbitrary.

So, sure, in an ultimate sense, morality is purely arbitrary. But that is a very trivial sense, and it is irrelevant to our attempts to make moral decisions. Sure, we could have been different sorts of creatures, nothing says we had to be the way we are, other things could have been valuable for us, we could have had other needs, ... But we in fact are this way and not another. Within the context of what we arbitrarily are, morality is not arbitrary.

Jayhawker Soule

Ya gotta love this honesty!

At the very least, s/he asserts what Haran only clumsily implies: Pato and Aristotle, Confucius and Lao Tzu, Hobbs, Hume and Kant, all are little more than ethically bankrupt false prophets whose followers are variegated fools stigmatized by a morality that is a contemptible sham. Meanwhile, Haran and goody2shoes stand self righteously on firmer ground: the Word of God -- not any god, mind you, but their God, Who, alone, provides them an unimpeachable standard for Right and Wrong.

Unfortunately, when you try to discern the distiction between the normative ethics of Haran and goody2shoes on the one hand and the Inquisition and Al Qaeda on the other, it rapidly becomes clear that there is none.

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

goody2shoes

I'll say again that it would be worthwhile for you and Hobbs and jlowder to just go read Darwin's "Descent of Man". It is available on the web if you search for it. It is the simple historical development of how the "moral sense" evolved. Once you understand this, maybe there is something to talk about. Meanwhile all the fancy justification of morals by philosophy is indeed hogwash and ignores the unpleasant brutality and history of man. Chances are that you are "fat cats" with no worries about self-preservation. A little trouble in life can go a long way towards fixing that.

I have not declared any set of ethics to you that stem from my belief system. That was not the subject of this thread. All that I have done is answer Haran logically and without all the philosophical fluff that says that a person should compromise his own well being for the sake of others. Come-on guys, get real.

Pomp

goody2shoes,

Meanwhile all the fancy justification of morals by philosophy is indeed hogwash and ignores the unpleasant brutality and history of man.

I don't think this is true at all. My own understanding of morality is fully cogniziant of the human capacity for brutality. Roughly, the best way to avoid being the victim of brutality is to live in a cooperative society that does not condone brutality. What do we need in order to have such a society? A mutually agreeable ethical foundation or, in other words, a social contract. Morality flows from there.

I'm not sure how this qualifies as "hogwash."

Chances are that you are "fat cats" with no worries about self-preservation. A little trouble in life can go a long way towards fixing that.

I'm not sure what you mean. If we had more troublesome lives, we'd stop cooperating and being fighting, to our mutual demise?

All that I have done is answer Haran logically and without all the philosophical fluff that says that a person should compromise his own well being for the sake of others. Come-on guys, get real.

Whoever said that a person should compromise his/her own good for the good of others?

Jayhawker Soule

Actually, I prefer "chubby", but only if you insist on getting personal.