Morality?

What does God have to do with morality. I think starting from that weird assumoption is a problem. If anything morality stems from empathy which is felt as strongly by atheists as by monotheists.

RazorofOccam:

The above posts address the perenial question of moral values in humanity..

Occam suggests many of these questions can be answered by the introduction of a variable that just about all agree. exists...
But none have any information on.

Other races..

I am not sure that adding other races is relevant. Why? Because if there are absolute morals, then the other races would be bound by them. If not, well, then they would be in the same boat we would be. I could just as easily say that instead of an alien race, we find a group of people that have never been influenced or contacted by any other portion of humanity. If you disqualify that scenario because they are humans, then you are begging the question (by assuming that morality is based on culture or race).

Also, you ended your illustration with the statement "Thus it is morally correct to kill ALL humans." My response is: Is that wrong? Is that morally untenable? You ended your illustration, but did not draw a conclusion based on it.

Again, I do not see how the addition of other races impacts the question at all. All it would do is illustrate that other races might have different moral codes.

It is a word that CANNOT be an absolute.
It is a function of a 'group of beings who opperate by a moral code'
It is an agreed interpretation/opinion.

Why can it not be absolute? And how is it agreed upon interpretation/opinon? Agreed upon by how many people? 100 million, 50 thousand, 200, 10, 5? How many people does it take to agree upon a moral code? And what about issues that are in dispute? Is homosexuality immoral? Abortion? Excision? Capital punishment? There is not a lot of agreement on these issues. Does that make them non-moral until the debate is settled? How does this work?

Veinglory:

What does God have to do with morality. I think starting from that weird assumoption is a problem. If anything morality stems from empathy which is felt as strongly by atheists as by monotheists.

Well, if you go with conceptions of God that are found in Islam, Judaeism, Christianity, God is the author of moral law. Right and goodness are aspects of God's character and as God's character is eternal and non-mutable those same moral standards are also eternal an non-mutable which makes them absolute. If you go with other dieties like some of the Pantheons then the Gods still partially determined what was right and wrong but what was right could be rather arbitrary.

Why do you think that morality stems from empathy? In my experience, only people who are moral are empathetic. So the question for you is, do morals stem from empathy or does empathy stem from morality (i.e. it is right and good for us to care about other beings)? How do you justify your statement?

>>>Well, if you go with conceptions of God that are found in Islam, Judaeism, Christianity, God is the author of moral law.

Yes, but as this is an atheists forum the question is akin to asking a lesbian how they have sex without a man, or a fish how it breathes without air -- it just doesn't make much sense. How is there morality without God? Why would there not be? Obviously people were moral before monotheism, in the absence of monotheism etc. the first thing the question begs is 'why assume atheist would be any less moral than monotheists?' To which the only answer I can find is that the question implies a prejudice against atheists. (c.f. As an atheist what do you identify as the source of your morality/moral code?)

>>>Why do you think that morality stems from empathy? In my experience, only people who are moral are empathetic.

The rules of morality function to stop us from hurting each other and make our communities a success (i.e. acting for the common good). To my mind empathy and morality are the same thing, one is the emotional aspect and the other cognitive. One does not cause the other any more than one side of a coin causes the other.

Originally Posted by Alsharad

RazorofOccam:

1*
I am not sure that adding other races is relevant. Why? Because if there are absolute morals, then the other races would be bound by them. If not, well, then they would be in the same boat we would be. I could just as easily say that instead of an alien race, we find a group of people that have never been influenced or contacted by any other portion of humanity. If you disqualify that scenario because they are humans, then you are begging the question (by assuming that morality is based on culture or race).

Also, you ended your illustration with the statement "Thus it is morally correct to kill ALL humans." My response is: Is that wrong? Is that morally untenable? You ended your illustration, but did not draw a conclusion based on it.

Again, I do not see how the addition of other races impacts the question at all. All it would do is illustrate that other races might have different moral codes.

2*
Why can it not be absolute? And how is it agreed upon interpretation/opinon? Agreed upon by how many people? 100 million, 50 thousand, 200, 10, 5? How many people does it take to agree upon a moral code? And what about issues that are in dispute? Is homosexuality immoral? Abortion? Excision? Capital punishment? There is not a lot of agreement on these issues. Does that make them non-moral until the debate is settled? How does this work?

Alsharad

The 'other races' is introduced specifically to show that there can be no absolute moral code.
It answers your comments in 2* above.
It cannot be an absolute because they are applicable to all reality.
And 'supposedly enforced throughout.'
Occam sees no enforcement of moral codes in reality except by humans.
Not by any objective law.
And this is before we even start to talk about other 'racial' standards of moral behavior.
Occam sees only one standard in reality that might be called absolute moral
code...
'Survival of the fittest'
In many ways it is applicable to our world.
But compassion and love 'screw the pooch' on this one.

Our higher qualities. Render the survival of the fittest code moot.
it is the ultimate pragmatic code...
But hardly one 99% of humanity would wish to live under.

It still applies. But now we use social structures to replace most of its functions.
=====

"How many people does it take to agree upon a moral code?"

2

=====
"Is homosexuality immoral? Abortion? Excision? Capital punishment? There is not a lot of agreement on these issues. Does that make them non-moral until the debate is settled? How does this work?"

In order from your post
No
No [before higher brain functions activate...16 weeks?]
What is excision?
No

Immoral acts can only be judged from within the culture the individual is part of.
If occam kills a child .. He is a murderer and is put away, or shot..Rightly so.
If a newborn girl is dumped to die in the gutter in cultures that say this is
a norm. As in india and other places...It is morally acceptable[to that culture] but occam thinks it now is causing many problems as these countries integrate with the west. Western morality is setting the standards. Because our world is becomming a western world.
Why.
Technological power.
Nations want it... To get it they must be , at least to the media.
Morally acceptable within limmits.
Islam condones mutilation and death for crimes we consider trivial.
This, is what moral arguement is all about.
We westerners call some things 'islamic/mideastern' immoral
They call some things western.. immoral.
Who is right?
Both.
Is human life sacred? Only to 'some' humans.

If you wish to say it is... Then you must subscribe to occams morality.
Which says that each human life has potential that cannot replaced or emulated if it is destroyed. The potential of each human is VAST.
[once it actually can think ..thus the 16 weeks question. A babe is not a human untill it has a funtioning human brain]
And the right of a thinking being, to live...Is inherent.

And that having more than 2 children [to replace the parents]
IS A MORAL CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

If we dont start THINKING as a race.
We will die as one.

Occam

The 'other races' is introduced specifically to show that there can be no absolute moral code.

How does it show that there is no absolute moral code? Because the races' moral codes are different? It seems your argument is this:

1. Different cultures have different moral codes.
2. Therefore, there is no objective "truth" in morality. Right and wrong are simply matters of opinion and opinions vary from culture to culture.

The problem is that the argument is unsound. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. It could be that there *is* objective truth in morality and that one of the cultures is simply mistaken. The problem is with the argument is that the premise deals with what people believe while the second deals with the way things actually are. There are numerous counter examples I could give, but I will give you two:

The ancient Greeks and Callatians had different views on funerary practices. The Greeks believed eating the dead was wrong; the Callatians believed it was right. Now, does it follow merely from the fact that they disagreed that there was no objective truth in the matter? No, it doesn't.

Some cultures believed that the earth was flat. Others did not. Does it follow that because they disagreed that there was/is no objective truth in geography? We would think it absud if someone actually proposed this argument.

Now, I am not saying (yet) that the conclusion is false. All I am pointing out is that this argument is not sound. If you think morality is based upon cultural views, you are going to have to use more than the fact that cultures disagree to prove it.

It cannot be an absolute because they are applicable to all reality.
And 'supposedly enforced throughout.'
Occam sees no enforcement of moral codes in reality except by humans.
Not by any objective law.
And this is before we even start to talk about other 'racial' standards of moral behavior.
Occam sees only one standard in reality that might be called absolute moral
code...
'Survival of the fittest'
In many ways it is applicable to our world.
But compassion and love 'screw the pooch' on this one.

So because you do not see moral codes enforced throughout the universe, then you conclude that they do not exist? Why should animals and non-humans be bound by moral law? Most of the moral philosophers agree that humans are set apart by the ability to reason abstractly. Such moral laws would be only applicable to those creatures capable of understanding them. To the best of our knowledge, that pretty much limits it to humans. If there was another race capable of abstract reasoning, then they to would be bound by this moral code. Note that I am not saying that "ignorance is an excuse." I am talking about the lack of cognitive ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

"How many people does it take to agree upon a moral code?"

2

So if my friend and I agree that theft is okay and we rob one hundred people who think theft is wrong, we still haven't done anything wrong (illegal maybe, but not immoral)? How did you draw the conclusion that it takes two? Is that the minimum number of people that it takes to agree on anything? Can I not be in agreement with myself (which would lower the number to one)?

What is excision?

A pretty gruesome practice. In short, a woman's labia are cut off. This removes all pleasure from sex and can cause serious health issues. It is still practiced in some African tribes. It is a part of their respective tribal cultures.

Immoral acts can only be judged from within the culture the individual is part of.

Please see the above for the problems with ascribing to the idead that because cultures have different beliefs, there is no objective moral truth.

If you wish to say it is... Then you must subscribe to occams morality.

No I don't. I can believe that human life is sacred for any number of reasons including that we are made in God's image. Right or wrong, I do not have to ascribe to "occams morality" in order to substantiate my beliefs.

And that having more than 2 children [to replace the parents]
IS A MORAL CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

How does that follow?

If we dont start THINKING as a race.
We will die as one.

That is a nice sentiment, but ultimately unfounded I think. Can you give your reasoning for believing this?

I also wanted to re-post this, Occam, and get your resonses to it. There are some difficulties when you say that culture or society determines moral codes.

1. We cannot judge other societies' practices. Seems okay at first (i.e. hey, Eskimoes can have whatever funerary practices they want... who are we to judge?) But suppose a society decided to wage war on a neighbor for the purposes of taking slaves. Or suppose a society was violently anti-Semetic and its leaders decided to wipe out the Jews. If morality is determined by society, then we cannot even say that a tolerant society is better than a racist one because this would imply some sort of transcultural standard. However, failing to condemn practices like slavery and racism (and genocide) seems unenlightened. In fact, those practices seem wrong whenever they occur. But if morality is determined by the society, then we are really in no place to judge them at all.

2. We would be able to determine the rightness or wrongness of our actions just by consulting our own society's standard. Suppose a resident of South Africa in 1975 wanted to know if apatheid was morally correct. All he would have to do is ask if the policy met with the society's moral code. In short, if society determines our moral code, then we cannot criticize our own moral code. Our society's moral code could therefore not be reformed (since there would be no way to criticize our own society's code).

3. How can a cuture progress morally? Take women's rights. Most of us believe that we have a better society because women have far more rights than they used to in the 1800s and 1900s. However, if the society decides what is moral, then all we have now is a different society then we did in the past. It is neither better nor worse than any other society in the past because we cannot say that a society which opresses women is any worse than one that doesn't. If our society used to opress women but now it doesn't, we cannot say we have progressed. All we have done is changed. We have not discarded a practice for a better one, just a different one.

What are your responses to those difficulties?

Originally Posted by Alsharad

Given that there is no God, how does one go about justifying morality? Does morality exist at all? What determines right and wrong? Is there anything that should or should not be done? Are there any immoral actions? If there are, how do we know that they are immoral?

I have heard a few different answers, but I am curious as to what this forum will say.

Hi Alsharad,

Well... in my opinion, if you take away God from morality, then morals are nothing but codes for us to survive in this world. We are a species that adapt to the changing environment. So, our "morals" change ensuring our survival.

If you look at it, our whole society shows "animalism". Sexual exploitation of women still continues- nowadays its in fashion. In the past, it was in confinement of women to the household and making women virtually servants to men. We still show animalism in many ways- through media - violent movies, fighting movies and what not.

So, morals are there for your survival. Your own personal morals appear according to the survival skills that you learned from your community and they change because we change.

One simple example of morals changing would be like the moral "I will not kill" . However, if you go to the wilderness and are being attacked by a bear - and if you then some how fight and kill the bear , then your morality will have another base- "thou shalt not kill- but its okay to defend yourself when you have to and that includes killing" . You pass that on to your offspring to ensure their survival.

I dont live with morals and "right" and "wrong"

Although I plead guilty to not having read every post here, I would like to add my two-bits anyhow.

1) Simply because society's view of morals has changed over time or between societies does not mean that an objective sort of ethical code does not exist. Consider how society's view of the law of gravity has changed in its level of understanding over time - yet of course no one would make the absurd claim that gravity is relative to the individual. And simply because I might deny gravity does not mean it does not objectively exist.

2) I would define morality as the "study of action". How we should and should not act.

Now, notice how every human being pursues what they perceive as their best interest. Everyone has their own self-interest at heart, what they believe is best for them (although it might not always be what is best for them, such as the woman who stays with her abusive husband).

Also, as human beings, it is recognized that we all have a certain heirarchy of values in common, which have been given the term "Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs", and is accepted in the field of psychology. These are:

Material needs such as needs for health and food: these values contribute directly to survival.

"Spiritual" needs such as needs for conceptual knowledge, self-esteem, education and art: these values are "spiritual" in the sense that they primarily pertain to consciousness, and contribute to survival by helping Reason to function properly.

Social needs such as needs for trade, communication, friendship and love: these values are social in that they occur only through interaction with others. Logically, their status as values is due to the fact that they contribute to the fulfillment of "spiritual" and "material" needs.

Political needs such as needs for freedom and objective law, which are needs concerning the organization of society. These provide the context for fulfilling our material, "spiritual" and social needs.

Because we all naturally wish to prosper and survive by our very instincts, and because these needs are necessary for that - I submit that it is in our best interest that we act in such a way that would bring us into the fulfillment of these values. Therefore, not only is it necessary that we follow these ourselves, but also that we respect others in a way that they too can pursue these needs - because not doing so would affect our pursual of these needs ourselves.

Murdering someone, for instance, is both bad for the person I would murder and for myself in two ways: 1) It puts those necessary values that I hold into danger because of the unnecessary chaos I would cause in murdering someone; and 2) Such chaos would directly endanger my very life, as the family members of the person I would have killed could decide to come after me.

This is the basic foundation of an objective morality.

Self-interest ---> heirarchy of values ---> necessary limitation of action for the gauranteed fulfillment of these needs.

This has been a rather crude presentation of the objectivist's theory of ethics, but I feel I get my point across well enough.

Keep in mind - self-interest does not deny nor undermine the existence of empathy or love. The existence of these put other people and things at a high value for us individually, and without them our lives would be miserable - hence why we would readily sacrifice ourselves for our children, wives, husbands, or parents, etc.

Also keep in mind that the employment of reason and logical process is vital in this moral system, as well as contextualism. Without it we'd lead ourselves into all sorts of trouble.

Thats about it.

- J Lazarus

Morality is down to human choice & human responsibility. Religious dogma & our society can both offer guidelines, interpretations, opinions regarding appropriate moral behaviour, but an individual is free to accept or disregard them as he chooses.
He may need to find a way to exist within those guidelines, especially regarding social morality, but not to let them define him or his personal ethical code. A particular society sets moral standards as a reflection of what's important to & what's necessary for it to function effectively at a particular time. Those standards aren't necessarily immovable truths - they're subjective, open to challenge & able to be changed. A person may choose to conform entirely to the established moral code if it's acceptable to him; he can also disagree with it, speak out against it, openly disregard it if he wants to - so long as he's prepared to take responsibility for & accept any consequences of whatever choice he makes. And often those consequences are more negative, dangerous or adverse than we're willing to risk. A good or a bad thing? Depends on the circumstances.
Having said that, I guess when trying to determine what's moral/immoral, right/wrong we have to choose what's important to us, the values by which we want to live; when it's acceptable to conform to existing morality, when it's necessary to challenge it, to what degree we can allow our personal values to be compromised in favour of the majority's. We make those decision on our own.
As Occam said in an earlier post, nothing is black & white, & there's no truer statement than when we're dealing with morality & moral choices. So often we think we - or our society - have made a good choice, a moral choice - the 'right' choice - & then comes the 'yeah, but....' ,is it really fair, is it really the best choice, are those consequences really deserved. And you're faced with another moral dilemma.
Maybe we can't ever know for certain is a choice is moral or right, but we can make the most informed decision, the most acceptable under the circumstances we're faced with. We all have a conscience, we have intelligence, reasoning, the capacity to empathise, the ability to foresee the effects & consequences of our actions - it's up to us how & when we put them to use.

lol - guess from the look of Indriel's post its clear my statements have been largely ignored thus far, as I've already addressed many of her statements.

- JL