Whence the idea that morality can be conceived of without reference to religion?
There's the idea that one doesn't need religion in order to be moral.
That might well be so, as far as verbal and bodily actions go. But is it possible to conceive of morality without reference to religion to begin with?
The (usually) atheists and humanists who claim to be able to be moral even though they are not religious nevertheless have many of the same moral values as the religious.
Indeed, one might very well "know that it is wrong to steal", for example, even though one is not religious and one "doesn't need religion to tell one that it is wrong to steal".
But this is not the issue. All that those atheists and humanists above are doing is copying some of the moral principles from religion and leaving out the references to God or karma. This is not the same as conceiving of morality without reference to religion. Their idea of moral behavior (as far as verbal and bodily actions go) is still the one as first modeled by religion. Also, their idea of moral behavior is a superficial, external one, ie. that morality is about verbal and bodily actions. Some atheists and humanist retrospectively try to motivate those verbal and bodily actions with non-religious motives (such as invoking empathy).
Whence the idea that morality can be conceived of without reference to religion?
I'm not asking whether morality can be justified without religion. I'm asking whence the idea that it can or should be. Is this just rebellion against religion, or is there something else to it?
That might well be so, as far as verbal and bodily actions go. But is it possible to conceive of morality without reference to religion to begin with?
The (usually) atheists and humanists who claim to be able to be moral even though they are not religious nevertheless have many of the same moral values as the religious.
Indeed, one might very well "know that it is wrong to steal", for example, even though one is not religious and one "doesn't need religion to tell one that it is wrong to steal".
But this is not the issue. All that those atheists and humanists above are doing is copying some of the moral principles from religion and leaving out the references to God or karma. This is not the same as conceiving of morality without reference to religion. Their idea of moral behavior (as far as verbal and bodily actions go) is still the one as first modeled by religion. Also, their idea of moral behavior is a superficial, external one, ie. that morality is about verbal and bodily actions. Some atheists and humanist retrospectively try to motivate those verbal and bodily actions with non-religious motives (such as invoking empathy).
Whence the idea that morality can be conceived of without reference to religion?
I'm not asking whether morality can be justified without religion. I'm asking whence the idea that it can or should be. Is this just rebellion against religion, or is there something else to it?
Comments (119)
There is quite a bit of overlap, but atheists - by definition - deny the objectivity of revelation. This is because they do not believe in god who, if nonexistent, cannot use his omnipotence to make moral commands obligatory.
So while some basic ideas are common to both humanists and the religious, the humanist has a human-centered, rational justification for their moral beliefs, whereas the religious depend upon arbitrary commands taken on faith. But the atheist, by the very nature of being atheist, is a skeptic with respect to the moral facts given by god.
Quoting baker
Whence would be the desire to survive as a species, the desire to rationally justify what almost everyone knows - we must sacrifice for the greater good. The values that promote the greater good are codified in ethics, especially humanistic ethics. You might argue that religion serves the greater good, or did, but such a tendency is far more explicit in humanism - there are no ritual sacrifices, no flagellation for sins committed long ago, no vicarious redemption. Humanism has cast off all distractions, thus secular ethics.
Maybe. When we first managed to articulate our thoughts many things, if not all things were caused by different kinds of gods. It provides some kind of explanation as to why the world act as it does, including ourselves as well. But calling this religion might be misleading, in that today religion is associated with specific traditions and are rarely used to justify events and behavior in the world.
We could also call it "folk science" or "protoscience" or "folk psychology".
Quoting baker
Sure. Nowadays it's less rare for many people not to refer to a God or Gods for moral acts. So the idea can be articulated somewhat, without religion. Not that religion makes morality more clear. Just because a deity announces a moral principle to be valid does not make the moral principle itself more important or better stated.
Most people seem to believe that moral acts are obligatory merely because god commands them. If god exists and does command us to do things, then those things can indeed be morally obligatory just because he says so. The idea also applies to principles, as they guide actions. Thus, morality is clear as day in the context of religion - even if the principles imparted by god are arbitrary.
Sure. But it doesn't offer an explanation which isn't tautological as to why you should or should not do X, Y or Z.
Quoting ToothyMaw
It may appear clear. Doesn't mean it is. Even in a secular standpoint I does not seem to me that morality is clear in the sense of giving justifications for not doing or doing certain things.
Or that's how it looks like to me.
It isn't a tautology: moral acts are obligatory because god commands them. However, that doesn't mean that god commands moral acts because they are moral. Those are two very different things.
Quoting Manuel
How is it not crystal clear? God commands it, it is right, we should do it. I'm not saying divine command theory is infallible, but it makes ethics very simple.
But I'm assuming that people believe that the commands given by God are moral, because they are given by God. He wouldn't command me to do something immoral, surely? I suppose it depends on which religion you have in mind.
There's the whole Abraham and Isaac story I know.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Let me put aside religion just for this paragraph, then I'll put it back in. Why do something moral? Do we know? I often can't give better reasons than asking "how would you feel if X is done to you"? Where X stands in for theft, murder of a friend, etc. But this doesn't seem to me to go deep into morality.
Now back to religion. God commands something, it is right because He says it is right. Why is it right? Because God says so. This seems to me to be equivalent of asking but what's wrong with I did and a police officer replying "it's the law". Yeah, fine. I don't think that's a good reason, much less an argument.
I don't think in either case morality is clear, as in us understanding why we should be moral.
But I may be interpreting this completely wrong, so, I'm not chained to this interpretation.
Whatever moral commands god gives us would be morally obligatory since "moral" in this context boils down to "what one ought to do". Thus, any command given by god could be moral, regardless of anyone's personal notion of right and wrong. He could command us to murder, and it would be right, merely because he commands us to do it, which equates to telling us what we ought to do.
And yes, most people who believe in this believe that god only commands us to do moral things. But whatever god commands us to do - morally - is obligatory, even if people think it is immoral.
Quoting Manuel
But it is a good argument in the case of god: he has omnipotence, omniscience, etc., whereas a policeman is enforcing laws that are themselves decided by legislators who are elected by fallible people. In the context of divine command theory god is the ultimate arbiter of what is right and wrong; the laws cannot possibly be unjust if god says they are not.
Yes, of course; the Euthyphro suggests why, in effect, it is necessary to do so. More prosaically, though, if people had lived in larger-than-a-few-families social groupings generations before adopting-forming a 'cultus' (and, of course, archealogy, shows that they did), then they must've had some customs (i.e. mores) of reciprocal violence avoidance, mutual aid, free-rider disincentives (like blame-stigma or expulsion), etc to which they adhered sufficiently for the social group to survive. Like, for example, the church preceded the canonic bible, the Hebrew tribes wandering for decades preceded them adopting Mosaic Law; morality, which is presupposed by eusocial group survival, precedes building institutions / monuments like religions or states (Aristotle?) The reverse order just doesn't make sense empirically or logically.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html
Worth the read.
Christians, for instance, vary greatly when it comes to morality. Some believe women should just be housewives; some think they can be scientists and lawyers and the family breadwinner. Some hate gay people, others are gay friendly. Some believe in capital punishment, others fight against it. Some think being wealthy is God's reward, others think Jesus demands personal poverty and sacrifice. Some are against abortion, others are pro-choice. Christian morality includes the KKK (a Christian organisation) and the ministry of Martin Luther King.
In other words, Christian morality is derived from the personal preferences of a believer or what their pastor tells them it is. Religion does not provide any moral certainty, only the illusion of certainty.
Quoting baker
Some people would prefer to ignore religion. That's fine. What is not fine is thinking that ONCE RELIGION BECAME A MAJOR SOCIAL FORCE, moral and ethical systems could be built that had no relationship to religion. Only if they were cooked up in an impossible social vacuum could they not reference preceding or coexisting moral system. Religions are in the same boat. The oldest religions being practiced now had to reference their social context (of several thousand years ago).
Take stealing. Over our long history, material goods have generally been hard for the average person to come by. A bit of homemade fabric required a personal investment. One's small store of food was hard won. Discouraging people from stealing hard-to-replace goods has likely always been a good idea, secularly and religiously. We 21st century-its may have the odd first-world problem of being buried in material goods. You might be doing me a big favor by stealing some of my excess, unwanted material possessions [just don't count on me looking favorably upon your stealing my stuff, even if all this crap is suffocating me].
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/519871
This is par for the course with religion, claiming all that which is good, is them. Any who who act immorally are just deemed to be wayward or lost, or misinterpreting religion or, worse yet, not them. It's not unlike a certain political bent claiming a flag, or a high ground, or a patriotism that is either not theirs, or not theirs alone. They deem the lack of any push-back as proof of the righteousness of their beliefs. The religious, in their failure to persuade, will adopt, and adapt, and forfeit in order to appeal, until the religion itself has morphed into something other than what it was. It will then claim eternity.
The idea that something is moral or immoral was indigenous to man, like the idea of feeding and taking care of the young, the sick, the wounded, the elderly. Religion, even if it arose simultaneously, was not the source of, nor did it precede morality. It just claimed it, as it always does.
Very well put sir.
If you only do the right thing because you are commanded to you are not acting morally, you are acting the slave.
Basically it said that like all other characteristics of humans and living creatures, the characteristics developed randomly due to mutations, and those characteristics that favoured survival more than other characteristics became dominant in the species.
I further stipulated that there are two branches of morals: one which you can't go against, and which are pervasive among all mankind, and which cause grief and great sorrow and GUILT if not fulfilled. These moral actions include saving offspring from certain death, etc.
The morals that you can't go against are a product of mutations.
The other branch of morals are also a product of mutations, but they are not hard-wired, so to speak; they can be programmed, successfully or unsuccessfully by the social environment. No features of this other morality is innate, other than the feature that they can be learned, or internalized. These include such morals that society dictates for people: thou shalt not steal, fornicate, covet thy neighbour's ass, cheat, lie, murder, maim, hurt, and do everything to others what you want them to do to you.
Any one or more or none of these can be internalized by humans.
Religion plays a role in morals inasmuch as it is an announcer for social values. Religion is a vehicle very much in service for the ruling class, and the ruling class decided on some rules that are conducive for social stability and prosperity, because these served their purpose. So the ruling class, who was above the priests' class in power, directed the formation of religious morals to comply with the service to the ruling class's wishes and needs.
Hence the morals that can be used also by secular and atheistic societies, because both the hard-wired and soft-wired morals are internal to humans, with or without the vehicle of religion to deliver morals to humans.
Contrast phylogenesis vs. ontogenesis.
Phylogenetically, what you're saying above would be applicable for the human species as a whole.
But as far as the development of a particular individual is concerned?? It would apply only if morality is somehow genetically encoded and generally not a product of socialization/acculturation.
(And we can't conduct a study on this.)
Indeed, and some religions criticize believers who obey religious laws out of fear of punishment or out of hope for a reward.
Within the context of a particular monotheistic religion, this is a valid, non-fallacious argument from authority.
So what's your solution to "Which God is the right one?" ?
Sure. Do you have some idea on how to both acknowledge the relativity and derivativity of moral systems, and yet have a sense of certainty about moral issues?
Most people seem to have only one or the other. They acknowledge the relativity and derivativity of moral systems, and feel a measure of uncertainty in deciding about issues of morality. Or they have that certainty in moral issues, but also take a simplistic view of the origin of morality (usually, they are monotheists or proponents of scientism).
How do you know that?
- - -
Quoting Tom Storm
Still, the monotheists characteristically operate with the idea that they are "right about God", that they know the truth about God and everything related to God.
The religious, generally, have the conviction, the confidence that they are right about morality, and they refer to some external source for this. They quite distinctly have no sense that their beliefs about morality are somehow to any extent of their own making.
This is enviable, don't you think?
Proponents of scientism are modeling their certainties by this as well, when they claim that morality is a product of evolution etc.
Explain why.
The two are two different perspectives on the matter.
The religious group can ostracize a particular member, but it cannot ostracize itself. Thus the individual person is subject to experiences and forces that the species as a whole is not.
Not inevitable. I have watched several Christian apologists struggle to deal with this point. But what they think isn't important. My point is to provide a response on religious morality.
Why explain again? Reread my previous post.
I said enviable. You don't envy them their certainty?
*sigh*
John, our ontogenesis example, is born and raised into a religious society. His notions of morality are entirely defined by said religion. He believes that religion was handed down to humans by God. He has no notion of the evolutionary development of religion as you sketched out earlier.
Are you saying that John can neverthless have a notion of morality that is completely independent of the religion of the society he lives in?
Mere projection. Foolery likes company. :roll:
That's curious. I think I am looking for new experiences in the form of ideas.
Krishnamurti said something about the quest for certainty being the start of servitude or bondage.
The Hare Krishnas would call this an example of the predicament inherent in demigod worship (a demigod is not omnimax, hence a number of problems emerge from worshipping a demigod).
Don't play coy. Certainty rocks!
On the contrary, I'm a fallibilist and expect any purportedly true statement to be, in fact, untrue – provided there's evidence to show that is the case.
Quick digression - if I were to pursue either Dewey or Peirce (or James) who would you recommend? This is for usefulness, not historical interest. Susan Haack interests me too.
What? They are pretending to the morals of humanists? Really? Humanists and the religious disagree on so many things, so vehemently. While it appears that morality precedes religion according to some anthropologists, and people are likely to discard religious commands that go against their moral intuitions, the religious have very different values than most humanists.
Quoting James Riley
I agree with this; religion, by the very nature of the - apparently - undesirable certainty it breeds, must be the only game in town.
Quoting James Riley
Quoting James Riley
It is important to remember that many people actually believe that moral actions are obligatory merely because god commands us to do them. According to these people, god really is the source of morality, and they will often times not tolerate any challenges to his authority, or even accept one of the two horns of this dilemma. If god exists and commands us to do moral acts, then humanists are actually incorrect. But then again, there is no reason to believe god exists.
It seems to me that religion is mostly a means of regulating behavior, of codifying mostly intuitive moral principles, whereas humanism is about moral reasoning given a few axioms, such as unnecessary suffering being wrong. In fact, that is a good difference between many humanists and the religious: many of the religious believe it is okay for us to suffer - god just works in mysterious ways. But I have never seen, for instance, a humanist make a claim that torture for no reason is okay (or really that torture is okay at all). Like I said earlier, there are fundamental differences between the humanist and religious worldviews.
As long as you consider yourself the arbiter of this evidence, your game is certainty.
Unless God's command conflicts with the rights of other people. Then it's not so clear this argument from authority is valid.
Because morality is nothing more than consideration of what animals have. Animals know good/bad. We just happen to consider it. It didn't take religion to reduce good/bad to consideration. The idea that contemporary non-religious people came to their morality on the coat tails of religion is just religion trying to appropriate a good thing: consideration. A thing deemed good by most. Anything good will fall victim to this.
Another distinction should be drawn in this thread, and that's the one between religion and spirituality. Most folks think of religion as an organized institution among people, or socialized spirituality. The first rock art in a cave somewhere will get the religious pointing and saying "Yeah, that's good, that's us, that's god moving through us." The artist is like "WTF are you talking about?"
There is something in me that defaults to an assumption that someone is disagreeing with me when they respond to my posts. But search as I might, I don't think you are disagreeing with me. My post was really just saying religion did not come first and it does not have a monopoly on good.
Disagreement on what is good and what is bad does not prevent religion from claiming as it's own that which it, subjectively, deems to be good. There are interreligious disagreements that are greater than the disagreements between the humanist and the religious.
What the humanist, or the atheist should always do is refuse to allow religion to abscond with the consideration of what is good. Just as Americans should never let some Americans make them feel un-American, or like the flag is not theirs, or like they "don't support the troops" if they question the morality of a war, or a thousand other stupid Republican wedges.
Religion can be bad even if it thinks it is good.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Indeed there are. "Next to the atrocity of the demagogues, the stupidity of the moralist, or their total absence, is the chief cause of the division that today afflicts the human community. There is greater confusion than ever with regard to the norms which ought to govern the relations between men, to say nothing of those which could orient and regulate our treatment of the other realities present in our environment: the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal." J.O. yGasset
. First of all ... I think ... you need to understand ... that ...What does it mean to Be Moral? What is Morality?
. By morality they mean that you have to be truthful, you have to be honest, you have to be charitable, you have to be compassionate, you have to be nonviolent. In one word, all these great values have first to be present in you, only then you can move towards being religious.
. This whole concept is upside down. According to me, unless you are religious you cannot be moral.
. Religion comes first, morality is only a by-product. If you make the by-product into the goal of human character, you will create such a troubled, miserable humanity – and for such a good cause. You are bringing the cart before the bullocks – neither the bullocks can move, nor the cart can move; both are stuck.
. How can a man be truthful if he does not know what truth is? How can a man be honest if he does not know even who he is? How can a man be compassionate if he does not know the source of love within himself? From where will he get the compassion? All that he can do in the name of morality is to become a hypocrite, a pretender. And there is nothing more ugly than to be a hypocrite. He can pretend, he can try hard, but everything will remain superficial and skin-deep. Just scratch him a little bit, and you will find all the animal instincts fully alive, ready to take revenge whenever they can get the opportunity.
. Putting morality before religion is one of the greatest crimes that religions have committed against humanity.
. The very idea brings a repressed human being. And a repressed human being is sick, psychologically split, constantly in a fight with himself, trying to do things which he does not want to do.
. Morality should be very relaxed and easy – just like your shadow; you don’t have to drag it with you, it simply comes on its own. But this has not happened; what has happened is a psychologically sick humanity. Everybody is tense, because whatever you are doing there is a conflict about whether it is right or wrong. Your nature goes in one direction; your conditioning goes just in the opposite direction, and a house divided cannot stand for long. So everybody is somehow pulling himself together; otherwise the danger is always there, just by your side, of having a nervous breakdown.
. Morality should not be taught at all. Morality should come on its own accord. I teach you directly the experience of your own being. As you become more and more silent, serene, calm and quiet, as you start understanding you own consciousness, as your inner being becomes more and more centered, your actions will reflect morality. It will not be something that you decide to do; it will be something as natural as roses on a rose bush. It is not that the rose bush is doing great austerities, and fasting, and praying to God, and disciplining itself according to the Ten Commandments; the rose bush is doing nothing. The rose bush has just to be healthy, nourished, and the flowers will come in their own time, with great beauty, effortlessly.
. A morality that comes with effort is immoral. A morality that comes without effort is the only morality there is.
. That’s why one cannot talk about morality at all, because it is morality that has created so many problems for humanity – about everything. They have given you ready-made ideas about what is right, what is wrong. In life, ready-made ideas don’t work, because life goes on changing, just like a river – taking new turns, moving into new territories… from the mountains to the valleys, from the valleys to the plains, from the plains to the ocean.
. Heraclitus is right when he says, “You cannot step in the same river twice,” because it is always flowing. The second time you step in, it is different water. I agree with Heraclitus so much that I say unto you, you cannot step in the same river even once – because when your feet are touching its surface, the water underneath is flowing; as your feet are going deeper, the water on the surface is flowing; and by the time you have touched the bottom, so much water has gone… it is not the same water, that your step can not be said to be entering into the same river.
. Life is just like the river – a flux. And you are all carrying fixed dogmas. You always find yourself unfit, because if you follow your dogmas, you have to go against life; if you follow life, you have to go against your dogmas.
. Morality must be spontaneous. You should be conscious and alert, and respond to every situation with absolute consciousness. Then whatever you do is right. It is not a question of actions being right or wrong, it is a question of consciousness – whether you are doing it consciously or unconsciously like a robot.
. My whole philosophy is based on growing your consciousness higher, deeper, to the point when there is no unconsciousness inside you; you have become a pillar of light. In this light, in this clarity, to do anything wrong becomes impossible. It is not that you have to avoid doing it; even if you want to do it, you cannot. And in this consciousness, whatsoever you do becomes a blessing.
. Your action out of consciousness is moral, out of unconsciousness is immoral ... it may be the same action.
No, I definitely am disagreeing with you, but not over anything particularly important - just that religion doesn't really borrow from secular ethics all that much. Unless you would say that secular ethics would also be our first primitive attempt at morality? Apparently the origins of morality is more complicated than one might think, so I don't know if our first, primitive, moral beliefs were totally separate from religion.
Quoting James Riley
I mean, yeah, I guess, but whether or not it developed alongside religion is ambiguous. At the very least it seems to me religion was an attempt to codify our moral intuitions, so I wouldn't say that religion copies morality, but rather that religion depends on morality on a fundamental level - but not the other way around.
Yes.
Quoting ToothyMaw
I would.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Yes.
Quoting ToothyMaw
I agree.
I'm only speaking of "religion" as I understand the term. If philosophers are using it as some term-of-art that I'm not privy too, then maybe we are talking past each other. For me, it is beyond comprehension that religion came first. It's just an organized, cultish way of trying to explain mystery. But, like science, it followed curiosity and appreciation of the mystery; it didn't give rise to it. We had the moral intuitions first, and only became curious about the mystery of them later.
It seems simple enough. Religious claims are epistemologically invalid to the atheist. If moral claims only originated in religion, they would be similarly invalid. If they are considered worth keeping (most atheists do), then the atheist must find another foundation for these claims.
I actually think religion was probably the very first way of explaining reality and its mysteriousness; cavemen didn't have science or philosophy.
Quoting James Riley
Well, religion, as we agree, depends upon morality, while morality can exist as a separate entity. But if religion developed alongside morality, then they would be codependent upon each other in a way that would be difficult to disentangle - even if, as stated earlier, morality can exist on its own.
And it seems entirely possible to me that religion and morality developed together - or at least affected each other. Can you give an argument as to why that isn't the case?
You can certainly conceive of different moral systems, and you can follow systems like utilitarianism which will likely be in tune with common moral intuitions some 90% of the time. The interest comes when these two schools differ, and the older I get the more I've come to believe that there are such things as absolute moral prohibitions that one must follow even if it leads to greater destruction than otherwise or one's own certain death. For instance, a community cannot surrender their old or their children to appease an evil enemy even if the enemy threatens more retribution otherwise. If evil is going to occur, "let them kill you, but do not cross the line" (this is an old rabbinic saying.)
Part of what grounds our dignity as human beings is moral duty/moral responsibility. When your encourage others to be docile to protect the greater whole we strip people of that moral responsibility, which in turn dehumanizes us. People are not numbers to be calculated.
I believe animals have a sense of what is good and what is bad. Since we are animals, we too have that sense. If there is anything that separates us from other animals, it is that we consider what is good and what is bad. Consideration of what is good and what is bad is, or leads to, morality. I believe this occurred and occurs independent of, and not contemporaneous with, or after religion. Consideration itself is not a creation of religion. If consideration is a hallmark of philosophy, then cave men did indeed engage in it.
The problem we run into, as I have said before, is that religion has an insidious habit of claiming a moral high ground to which it is not entitled. Religion lays claim to that which it deems good and eschews that which it deems bad. So naturally it will say it came first, or at least contemporaneous with morality. It will say we can't live without religion. Of course it says that. It is a liar that must perpetuate itself.
Hell, the space we occupy, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the clothing we wear, taking care of the young, the wounded, the ill and the old, all these are good so they must be gifts of god. But all those things existed before and in spite of religion, as did the contemplation thereof.
It is only later, when someone asked "Why?" and another, who did not know the answer, but who felt knowing the answer was more important than the truth, decided to pull some shit out of his ass and said "Because god said so" that we have religion. The guy who said "I don't know, let us contemplate on it" was the first philosopher. I think he was a cave man. Anyone who contemplates without lying to themselves is a philosopher. But the morality, the contemplation of good/bad, was not a child of religion.
A red herring I think. These religions that make such criticisms simply fail to recognize that fear of punishment and hope of reward are the basis for their beliefs as well.
I think the material universe is seen to be structured and to function in an ordered way. Even animals and plants exist and/or act according to certain rules or laws. When humans organize themselves as a community or society they generally follow a similar ordered structure that may be said to reflect the laws of the universe. As most people believe in a higher power behind the universe, it isn't unreasonable to say that law and order in human society is a manifestation or extension of the Law of God on earth. Taking the code of moral conduct prescribed by most religions to be the command of God has a psychological and moral function in that it inculcates in us the fact that those laws have a higher source that is above us as individuals and therefore are not to be transgressed.
We find that most religions have this concept of divine righteousness or justice: Ancient Egyptian (maat), Greek (dike), Roman (justitia), Jewish (tsedaqah), Hindu (dharma), etc.
Moral systems are installed in childhood as part of the civilizing project of raising children. (At least, one hopes moral systems are installed). Relativity and derivativity [nice word to say over and over] are adult problems which can safely be neglected--provided one maintains a civilized moral system.
Somewhere in adulthood one may take out one's tools and make (usually minor) adjustments in the installed moral system. In my case, it meant re-defining gay sex as good -- something that required some moral re-engineering. Later on came the matter of God himself and his alleged role in the universe. There was also shifting capitalism and free-enterprise into the "morally defective" column, out of the "inherently good" column. And so on and so forth.
Certainty? Despite tinkering, shifts, and re-engineering, the moral center holds. Why does it hold? Because it is natural (and encouraged) for humans to make rules and stick with them. What keeps us attached to rules? Guilt, for one. Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving. Then there are laws, courts, fines, and prisons if we get way out of line. Laws, courts, fines, and prisons are the expression of mass commitment to moral systems.
There is, of course, room for hypocrisy in all of this--quite a lot of room, quite a lot of hypocrisy. False representation is something that we are also good at, and will tolerate as long as it isn't too extreme, too brazen. Brazen hypocrisy might get one expelled from the country club, or publicly snubbed.
:100: Agreed.
In addition to guilt and punitive action, I would add reason. Sometimes the moral center makes sense to us, sui sponte, as reason enough on it's own two feet; and then there is the reasoning of others; an explanation of why it makes sense; a convincing that needs no god, no magic, no mystery.
Not unless God is playing favorites. Pretty much every major monotheistic religion has a tenet to that effect: namely, that while God created everyone, he clearly prefers some people over others; he has his "chosen ones".
But for many people, this is exactly what happens: For a person born and raised into a religion, religion comes first.
Unless you can somehow show that morality is genetic?
Quoting James Riley
But does this hold for a person who was born and raised into a religion?
Quoting baker
Oh my goodness, I hope no one thinks that I think I'm going to convince a religious person of how wrong they are. I would never make so bold. You are absolutely correct, for them, the precedence of religion is exactly what happens, and the truth will never hold for them.
But just because they are wrong about something does not make them right about it.
I, myself, am a universal pantheist and, while my god is most likely different than their god, and while I agree god is the creator of our perception of good and bad and morality, there is no greater spread in the world than that which lies between god and religion. Religion is external to the heart of man, a manufacture of his brain, his cunning. God is in his heart and eschews religion.
"I had learned many English words and could recite part of the Ten Commandments. I knew how to sleep on a bed, pray to Jesus, comb my hair, eat with a knife and fork, and use a toilet. . . . I had also learned that a person thinks with his head instead of his heart." Sun Chief
Yeah, sure.
But then what happens when one chosen person is instructed by God to say, kill another chosen person and yet this latter one is instructed by God to save a child?
Unless we multiply God per person, then the same God would be telling X to kill Y, and God is also commanding Y to save a child. Yet the child can't be saved if Y is killed.
We face the typical dilema of God giving two orders simultaneously which are contradictory. Unless God's notion of morality differs radically from ours, such a situation is hard to reconcile with our innate ethical faculties.
Monotheists resolve their differences by declaring the supremacy of one monotheism over others; or that only one monotheism is the right one. So that in the above scenario, they would say that only one person was instructed by God, while the other is merely imagining it, or lying about it.
No actual monotheism proposes such a situation. It is characteristic for monotheists to claim that only their religion is the right one, that only they have the right idea of God.
Google definition of Hawthorne effect (noun): The alteration of behaviour by the subjects of a study due to their awareness of being observed.
Bentham's panopticon!
Vide observer effect.
Aristotle's' Ethics. Surprised that on a philosophy forum you did not mention this.
Besides the Nicomachean Ethics, these (more or less contemporaneous) works come to mind as proponents of secular morality: Confucius' Analects, Plato's Euthyphro, Epicurus' Letter to Menoeceus, Epictetus' Discourses ...
You got it backward. It is the humanist and atheists above that have a grip on what morality is, and the religious pulled in God or Karma to make it palatable to themselves.
Nobody owns morality. It is a human trait, that can't be given and can't be taken away. You think that it's God-given; I think it is a product of evolution.
You think everything is god-given; I think nothing is god-given.
There is no argument. Neither by you, nor by me. I can't prove everything is not god-given; you can't prove anything is god-given. It is a matter of faith, belief, weltanschauung. To argue that you have the truth and for me to argue that I have the truth is futile. This is purely a matter of faith or belief, and therefore nobody has the upper hand on the other.
The upper hand only can be applied if the two notions can be unified, the two notions being "God created the world and everything in it" and "no god created anything", which two notions will never be unified, so the upper hand will never be applied rightfully.
Given that we are on a philosophy website, this is fair. But you have to speak to your audience. Nobody in his right mind on this website read the above works, other than possibly you and for sure philoso4. (I forgot how s/he spells his/her moniker exactly). Maybe three or four others. But to the present correspondents (including to me) your post is a fallacy of appeal to authority. You are not making an argument; you are referring the argument, and it is correct in a group where people are familiar with those works, but here it's inappropriate.
How are these not religious??
Each of these works out of a very specific metaphysics system respectively that are alien to the average Westerner. Perhaps this makes it so easy to overlook them, but they're there, and they're essential for the respective moral system to be intelligible and experienced as actionable.
And the OP question was:
Quoting baker
Read them in their cultural-historical contexts. The moral systems they present are in contrast to the superstitions / religious practices prevailing when they were written. None of these thinkers "justify" these works with religious beliefs / practices. Don't conflate metaphysics with religion – while religion is necessarily metaphysical, metaphysics is not necesaarily religious.
Which question? If you wanted to obscure your answer to confuse me, you succeeded.
Quoting baker
Quoting baker
Okay, I must have missed something. I looked for some examples you gave, but again, all I saw was Greek authors and the title of their works in Greek. I am sorry, I must have missed the examples.
Or were there any provided?
If you seriously expect me to read several ancient texts to see you point, and in this I think I am not alone on this site, then you are in for a big surprise.
Again: speak to your audience. Speaking above their heads is not communicating.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718532
Right. I gotta quit that stuff. Apologies. The rest of my criticism stands, though.
But you're right. I was careless. Sorry.
No one thinks that. That's a straw man position invented by atheists so that they can avoid addressing the fact that morality itself requires God.
:fire:
:roll:
Like theocracy, ... only religious morality "requires" g/G. :point:
Who says?
By who's standard?
How do we know anything anyway?
What about eastern ideas?
Unless you are begging the question, you're claiming those activities were once morally right, yes?
If they were never morally right, then he never commanded them.
If they were, then he did - but then they wouldn't be a counterexample, would they?
So what are you saying?
Englishy speech, pleez. Learn how and when to use "who's" and "whose".
Your ideas are even more screwed up than the language you pretend to write in.
I am not that person that you ask, but I think what he's saying is that you are wrong.
Of course that concept is totally strange and foreign to you, to the extent that you can't even begin to conceive it.
We, the atheists, are not avoiding to address that position. We are, in fact, addressing it by vehemently denying its truth.
You are incapable of constructing a straightforward thought that has any semblance to reality. In fact, reality is just a fantasy for you, if you ask me.
You incorrectly invoked the idea of Strawman. This is not a Strawman, even if your claim were true.
Man, (or woman), you made one claim and I found four things wrong with it. Fatally wrong. Why do you do this to yourself?
That man was, but Analects sounds more Greek to me than Chinese. For my own information I looked it up, and it is used as an English word. However, it does smack of Greek.
I'm saying you are very circular :)
Now, once more, what were you trying to say?
Do try and engage in some kind of argument, god are being theist
Hmm, I think your quote misfunctioned?
Do you think genocides used to be right, or were they always wrong? Clarify that first
What about the famous Euthyphro's dilemma? Is it good because God commands it or does God command because it's good?
The first horn of the dilemma, if you do give it the stamp of approval, there's no need for consistency (whatever God fancies is :snicker: good, from rape to genocide). Refer to the Old Testament to find out what that entails.
Secondly, the latter option implies simply that God isn't an authority on morality; in other words there's another source for morality which God consults and mulls over perhaps before he gives orders. Can we reason our way to thid source? Is it deducible?
No, I was just pointing out that genocides are fine for God in some circumstances, as are rapes and ethnic cleansings. So, that kind of God based morality is rather contingent, depending on God's current will - now for example, many people argue, abortions are wrong, but at the time it was completely fine to slaughter pregnant Canaanites and Jerichoans, sort of instant abortions of not only tribes and nations but of unborn babies. So, this sort of God based morality seems to be pretty pragmatic and relative as regards concrete actions by humans in this world. Surely you don't disagree?
Clarify that first. Then we'll clarify what criticism you are trying to make of divine command theory. (Bet you won't answer)
So, let's say you think genocides have always been wrong. Okay. Then this argument is sound:
1. Morality is made of God's attitudes
2. Genocide has always been immoral
3. Therefore, God has always disapproved of genocides
Let's say instead that you think genocides have sometimes been wrong, sometimes right. Okay. Now this argument is sound:
1. Morality is made of God's attitudes
2. Genocide has sometimes been wrong, sometimes right
3. Therefore God has sometimes disapproved of genocides and sometimes approved of them.
Do you see? Regardless of how you think the morality of genocides has varied ir remained the same, you do not raise a problem for divine command theory. This is because divine command theory is a theory about what morality is, not a theory about how it behaves.
A more sophisticated challenge involves arguing that if divine command theory is true then the morality of an act would be contingent, whereas in fact the morality of an act is necessary and thus fixed.
But that doesn't work for the same reason. If moral truths are necessary truths (and they're not), all this shows is that the God's attitudes are necessary. That's hard to make sense of,but necessary truths are hard to make sense of in any context, so there's no need to single this one out. And if they are not necessary truths - and most people think they're not and that right and wrong varies a little over time - then the fact divine command theory predicts precisely this is a mark in its favour, not against it.
Why woud that matter - isn't this thread about God's morality? Obviously I think that genocides are never justifiable, even if the Canaanites or Ukrainians or Jews are really sketchy (and they are not anyway). But for God, sometimes, genocides are fine. And maybe sometimes then not? Who could tell. It will be up to him - or rather up to those people who make up these wild, inconsistent stories about him.
I'm one of those people (along with Augustine, Aquinas) who thinks the Euthyphro dilemma is a false one. Some atheists (like Alexander Rosenberg) seem to think it poses a problem for objective morality as a whole, even without theism (See The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions).
If God exists and is a utilitarian (or at least in part a utilitarian), then to me it seems fine for him to order killing a group of people. After all, he can see the consequences of this and perhaps it brings a greater good to the world. In fact, this same line of reasoning is used by non-omniscient utilitarians all the time:
-Sam Harris
I find it odd that people often use this argument against theism, and then adopt an ethical position that seems to condones killing or genocide more than the theistic-based morality they abandoned.
Personally, I think Harris's argument is sound under pure utilitarianism (although I don't like it). Maybe that's why I'm not a utilitarian.
So, you think they are never right. Okay, so this argument is the sound one then:
1. Morality is made of God's attitudes
2. Genocides have never been right
3. Therefore God has always had the same attitude towards genocides.
See?
"Yeah, but some people think God wants genocides. So there!"
And what does that show? Nothing.
For instance, many stupidly believe that morality is individually subjective. Clearly we can change our own attitudes towards an act, and so the morality of an act would be contingent on that view. The same applies into those who stupidly think morality is collectively subjective, for group attitudes are no less contingent.
The same applies if one thinks that moral properties are natural properties, for then linguistic convention will determine what has rightness and linguistic convention is contingent.
And if one thinks that moral norms somehow emanate from a platonic form of the good or some such, then once more there is nothing in that account that would explain why such emanations would be necessary rather than contingent.
So those who think dicine command theory is refuted by the problem should, if they are impartial inquires, conclude that all the alternatives are false too.
"God" is a fiction, so such reasoning / deduction is necessarily unsound.
Whaddaya mean? Can we not figure out (reason to) a system of morality à la Bentham-Mill, Aristotle, Kant?
No, not deduced from God!
Have you heard of Punctum Archimedis aka God's-Eye-View? God, on this reading, is the perfect rational being (free from all biases, known and unknown).
Yeah, but that's what happens when you use God as your ventriloquist puppet - it adds nothing to the argument but makes any system of morality unstable. And I was speaking about the God of Christianity as the guy is the best known fiction of the kind for me. God based moralities are especially shifty and relative. They are flighty buggers.
A perfect rational being (unbiased) aka God is going to be an authority on everything, including ethics, oui? Divine Command Theory? I'm referring to the intuition implicit in the Punctum Archimedis (God's-Eye-View).
Yeah, circular. And anyway, God could start approving genocides any moment - he can do what he pleases, change systems of morality like underwear etc. Or are you saying he is constrained by nature, by some natural morality? What does God add to any moral argument, apart from often a lack of argument, of rational explanation?
This was the argument I just made:
1. Morality is made of God's attitudes
2. Genocides have never been right
3. Therefore genocides have never been approved of by God
That's not circular, for the conclusion 'extracts' the implications of the premises.
What you mean is that you disagree with premise 1. Yes?
Well, ok. What's your case against premise 1? It can't be 2, for 2 does not contradict 1.
1. Morality may be made of God's never communicated attitudes
2. We liberal humanists see that genocides are wrong
3. Maybe God agrees, who knows - he remains stubbornly mute, stubbornly non-existent, not here, nor there
I don't really see that you have an argument there, just a non-proven premise.
What I presented was an argument. It was valid, you just think it is unsound because you think premise 1 is false. You said it was circular. It isn't circular. You were just expressing your disagreement with premise 1.
What I've asked you to do is present an argument against premise 1. You haven't. You just keep saying things about genocides that don't bear on the credibility of premise 1.
So you seem very confused to me. On what basis do you reject premise 1 of the argument I gave?
I can give you an argument for it - I can prove it is true. But you think it is false - so what's your case against it?
You know, it's actually a pretty well known position, has been for quite a while actually... And it will remain essentially meaningless, empty of any power of logic or empirism. It's profoundly uninteresting and doesn't add anything of real value to any debate about morality and ethics. You can shout (and you really do shout, one has to add) and plenty of religious people do shout, but all the noise and emotion in the world will simply not change any of this.
The fault is entirely mine. I'm not known for my penmanship!
Quoting 180 Proof
Yep!
I had a similar thoughts about morals being tied to religion/spirituality.
I made these concept to explain their relation:
Dogmatic intuition: The extension of an intuition that becomes a reference principle.
Reference principle (value): Intuitive categories that serve as guideline for an individual.
So basically, morals, faith and believes are all dogmatic intuitions: they are intuitions that emerged in our life and that we somehow decided to "strongly believe in", that became part of us and that are hard to change. And in my opinion, spirituality and religions build stories around it and reinforce them.
If you strongly feel that something is bad, it's easy to be attracted to spiritual or religious thoughts that reinforce that you're "right" to feel this way, and that people who don't agree will go to hell or whatever.
So I'd say religions and spirituality are a way to maintain strong morals, but that it's not the only way. Some people just don't need to think about why they want to be loyal for example, they just are, because that's what they've been told they should do. I know some people who have strong morals but aren't spiritual or religious at all.
However, if you don't have strong dogmatic intuitions, I don't think you'll be likely to be religious or spiritual. It's my case, I don't have strong moral principles and I've never been attracted to spirituality or religion.
What do you think?
My working assumption here is that morality is a complex system that a single person cannot invent and enforce on their own, and it's a complex system that requires a metaphysical, transcendental component, hence the need to tie morality to religion/spirituality.
This seems self-explanatory.