What does morality mean in the context of atheism?
I have started this topic because I haven’t heard any good arguments for what underpins the concept of morality in the absence of religion. This said, I have never posted the question as a thread and I am more of a scientist than a philosopher.
People who are religious will normally, at least to some extent under-gird their moral structure with their religion. They will say you shouldn’t do x because x is a sin and it’s a sin because god doesn’t like it. This is problematic as a logic loop because there is no evidence that the god they refer to exists.
It seems quite clear to me that morality is simply a concept that is encoded into our neurons and influences the way we process information. The reason that the idea of morality is ubiquitous also seems obvious, it strengthens the societies that espouse it meaning those societies that didn’t have the concept either adopt it or disappear due to competition. You may quibble about why it is helpful for people to believe a certain behavior is immoral, but I don’t think many people would argue that society would function better without the concept at all.
This likely origin and function of the idea of morality strongly suggests it to be self-serving and relativistic. It is relativistic in the sense that morality is not tied to anything deeper that what is likely in the interest of a strong society at that moment. This off-course changes, and indeed what we believe to be moral also changes over time and between societies, emphasizing its relativistic nature.
Relativistic morality is an oxymoron, it creates morality devoid of any true moral imperative, a kind of morality in name only. With relativistic morality, when you call something like incest immoral all you are really saying is that it’s a behavior which on average is likely to have negative implications for you and/or society on average, in most circumstances in the long term. I don’t think relativistic morality is anything like the same thing as absolute morality definitionally.
For me the idea of absolute morality that extends beyond what is self-serving is as unlikely as there being a white bearded god out there. I think that atheists carry on believing in absolute morality because the idea of morality is so emotionally and practically important to us. For these reasons we overlook the fact it doesn’t make intellectual sense.
Let me know what you think?
Comments (66)
It seems quite obvious what purpose the concept of morality serves and why it is ubiquitous. It it also clear that what is considered moral changes over time and between socialites, probably as a result of different circumstances.
If morality is simply a helpful but changeable concept that fosters more functional communities then this is relativistic morality as a beneficial concept. I would argue that this is antagonistic to the populate conception of morality which is generally isn't seen as a just a concept and generally is seen as relay quite absolute.
For me the burning question is, dose morality as popularly conserved of exist?
That depends of course on just what you consider the popular notion of morality to be. Two observations I'd make in that regard are:
a) morality usually deals with social obligations, and while there are many examples of a connection to divine law or will, moral duties are rarely exactly fixed.
b) certain moral duties are consistent across different societies and times.
There are almost no societies, for example, which don't have basic moral guidelines for conflict resolution or responsibility for the sick and elderly.
So in that sense, I think it's justified to say that morality exists as something specific, distinct of individual preferences. But of course the individual justifications for the rules will often be contradictory or unconvincing.
In one of my older threads I cited several sources that suggest that moral drives and capacities have some biological basis. You are right to an extent: the historic differences between moralities between societies speaks to the social basis of morality. However, there are still commonalities, and that might speak to the apparent genetic bases for morality: empathy and an instinct for altruism.
Quoting Restitutor
In light of the above, it is important to distinguish what is good for the self and what is good for the genome. A society of altruists historically had a survival benefit. The individual actions taken may be selfless, while the net benefit of belonging to such a society is to the individual.
We and our society have privileged morality, there is but one true morality and it is ours. Unfortunately, others who disagree in the details also claim to be privileged.
The only way to resolve this conflicts is to appeal to one absolute authority to grant us all absolute morality. If we can agree on one unique absolute authority. An absolute authority would need to have absolute foundations. Can logic, philosophy, science, or faith be that foundation? In ancient Greek enlightenment many thought that there is only one absolute and it's ideal logic, therefore the one God must be the god of logic.
I don't see why this is the only way to resolve the conflict. One might simply accept that there is no "absolute" authority on moral question, because morality only arises in a community of conscious beings, and can only be as "absolute" as their shared reality.
It's a bit like asking God for absolute verification of our observations.
You could solve the problem by killing anybody that disagrees with you. I am not suggesting that it would be my approach but it isn't like people haven't done it.
in Ancient Greece women were not used for sexual pleasure, only procreation. Therefore the only way to enlightenment must be illegal relations with younger citizens. I would've (and wanted to) phrase this one logical comparison more bluntly or vulgarly but decided not to.
Quoting Restitutor
You could. But that would never happen. Even dogs (I know I remember reading this though I struggle to remember exactly what the source was, nor do I really wish to know) together in a cage after seeing each killed in front of them will have a sense of time/consciousness (past, present, future) and become aware of what will likely happen to them next. Ergo, if I see that. I'll listen to you. I'll agree with you. I'll participate. I'll even try to gain rank or position. Just don't turn your back. They always do though. Eventually. :grin:
The 'white-bearded god' is caricature in place of an argument, which speaks volumes.
It's important to frame the issue. Here is a description of the religious outlook taken from Josiah Royce, an American philosopher of the late 19th century:
So if the debate is framed in terms of the atheist's presumption, then naturally there is nothing at stake but a falsehood which he or she has shaken off; but that begs the question, it assumes what it is setting out to prove. For the believer, there's a lot at stake; it's literally a question as momentous as life and death. Not simply a mythical bearded sky-father, or quaint little nativity scene in a shopfront window.
I suppose shared reality would need to come from common human inheritance and traits or from close to uniform environmental possibilities and limitations everywhere. Should men and women have identical ethics or should differences be recognized and accounted for? Should we gradually phase in ethical norms by age?
The classical problem is an intolerant insistence on universal ethics to offer a cure against evidence that most people are not generally moral even by their own standards. Few of us are saints. Cultural differences are fading with globalization of social standards but they are still out there. Some countries are more caring than others.
Quoting Restitutor Totalitarian governments are doing that already. What if there was only one nation in the future, would it be permissive of moral plurality?
Quoting Outlander
Ancient Greeks were crude and unjust as measured by either their traditional religious ethics or by our modern standards. But it isn't fair to judge them in retrospect. American Vietnam veterans have been both heroes and monsters in different places in changing times. Anyway, ethics is not about what people actually are but what norms of belief and behavior they should hold up as ideals.
We can usually see 2 general principles at play in most organized systems:
1. The prevention of unnecessary harm and suffering as well as the promotion or enhancement of well-being."
2. Might makes right.
Successful cultures, societies, governments are those that adhere to the first principle the best. Systems that follow the second principle are often more dangerous, chaotic and overall inefficient.
The specific details are always changing because the environment is never static. The planet itself undergoes cycles and so cultures are typically going from one state to the other. Usually, younger or declining systems move towards Might makes right and the more mature or progressive systems favor the first principle.
For me at least, the question can be posed in parallel to “what is truth in the context of atheism”.
For those who uphold an omnipotent creationist deity, this deity must logically be the creator of truth, and, hence, all instantiations of it. Otherwise, this specified deity isn’t omnipotent and is itself subservient to, a subject of, truth—which in this case is not of the deity’s creation.
The same issue can then be posed in relation to the good—without which all morality is meaningless: An omnipotent creationist deity is either the creator of the good, or the good is an uncreated aspect of the reality which all beings, including all deities (were they to occur), are embedded in.
I’ve addresses the parallel between truth and the good because they both seem to me to carry the same philosophical weight. If truth is a creation, whose creation is it such that the given creator(s) are not themselves subject to any truth in so creating truth (be it of physical realities, of logical principles, or anything other)? Likewise, if good is a creation, whose creation is it such that the given creator(s) are not themselves subject to doing what is good (for themselves or any other) in the creation of good?
As to morality being relative, I’d say that it is to a certain extent, varying from culture to culture, but that it is dependent upon the existential reality of the good which—though it may take many forms to many diverse beings—always remains unchanged in its property of being good. Just as truth remains unchanged despite its instantiations taking many different forms for many different beings.
While there are many different ways of addressing these two parallel issues of truth and the good, one such approach is then to uphold that both truth and the good simply are, this in the presence of beings—but are in no way the creation of any being. This presents, here loosely articulated, the uncreated and unchanging existential reality of both truth (thereby that which demarcates all instantiation of truth: all truths) and the good (thereby that upon which morals are dependent) within at least one possible atheistic framework—wherein no omniscient creator deity occurs.
I think you have explained what many atheist’s thing about truth, good and indeed morality. People believe that they represent fundamental reality that is both internal and external to themselves and that they “simply are”.
The problem with this is it that it has no intellectual underpinnings, if truth is just something that exists what is it made out of or how is it encoded, how does its existence fit into any reasonably well excepted, analytically grounded model of anything.
Somebody who is religious may say of god that “god simply is”. I don’t see this as being intellectually any more or less rigorous than an atheist saying, “both truth and good simply are”. For this reason, I personally find it maddening when a certain type of atheists berates somebody who is religious for a lack of intellectual rigor.
Although no models explain truth and good as something that exist, there are neurophycological models that explain why we have concepts such as good and truth and why we believe these concepts to represent objective reality even though they very are very rarely used to represent anything that is fundamentally true. These models fit rather well with other models such as evolution and are at least consistent with all other generally excepted scientific models.
An idea of truth and good that is consistent with Thomas Metzinger Ego Tunnel model is where it is at for me. My burning question is, where does that leave us?
It seems we have different metaphysical perspectives. That aside, do you find any way of avoiding some given that “just is”? To give example, historically three main candidates have been “matter/the-physical just is” (which leads to physicalism), “a creator deity of everything just is” (which leads to monotheistic creationism), and “being, when interpreted as the generalized notion of awareness—replete with correlates such those of truth and the good—just is” (which can lead, for example, to Neo-platonic notions of the “the One”).
I’m not asking for a metaphysical discussion of why one of these positions is more viable than the rest—although, in fairness, I believe I did present a somewhat mild logical argument against the viability of a creator deity.
What I’m asking is if you know of some way of avoiding the conundrum of there being some given that just is—and, therefore, some way of avoiding a given for which the principle of sufficient reason (by which givens gain their intellectual underpinnings) cannot apply?
You mentioned, quite clearly, that morality is, and I quote, "...likely in the interest of a strong society" which bespeaks that you see, a rationale to it, good reasons for the existence of morality; in short, it makes sense to have it if only to ensure society runs smoothly with minimum disruptions. What this means is you're already well on your way towards the atheistic point of view viz. that religion isn't necessary in order to be good for it can be reasoned to as you must've when you said what you said.
Consider also, for those religions that have a god as the source of morality, the small matter of the Euthyphro dilemma. Is it that whatever god commands is good? If yes, then anything (murder, rape, torture, etc.) would be good if god so commands. That simply won't do. Ergo, no, it's not true that whatever god commands is good. That means good isn't defined by god or, in other words, god can't be the source of morality. So much for religion and its claimed prerogative over our sense of good and bad.
Then there's the problem of religion providing a judgement mechanism (god or karma is the judge of our actions and reward/punishment will be pro rata). This is a problem because, if one takes the noble route toward morality, reward/punishment for one's deeds should be the least of our concerns - good for the sake of good come hell or highwater sentiment. The very essence of morality - that to be truly good, no consideration must be given to benefit/loss - is eroded by the very idea of judgement, reward, and punishment.
Let's do a recap. Religion isn't/can't be the source of morality and the idea of judgement, merit, and sin, another function of religion turns morality into a selfish game of scoring points with god or manipulating karma which sadly reveals, to my reckoning, a complete failure of understanding the nature of goodness.
As for the third function of religion I mentioned - sustaining morality - it's well-known that many people are thoroughly dependent on religion for their sense of right and wrong - all their knowledge on morality comes from religion and let's not forget the white-bearded sky-daddy watching our every move, promising heaven and threatening hell.
Just to make things more interesting I'd like to mKe a mention of those who land up beheading people, going on suicide missions, participating in crusades and jihads, are doing so only because of the belief that their actions are god's command or, if not, they've convinced themselves that's what god would've wanted them to do.
I’m probably gonna kick myself in the morning for asking this, still, why so harsh on the philosophical notion of karma?
I’m saying “philosophical notion” so as to differentiate the notion of karma from what, let’s say, ignorantly self-righteous folk seek to do with it: anything, any concept, can be corrupted by certain people, regardless of what the concept is, imo.
May @Wayfarer correct me to the extent that this is incorrect or incomplete: Karma at its root is the, what we westerners would call, natural law/principle of “action and consequence”. That’s all. No one is judging. Its just upheld that the action is the cause for the consequence as effect.
Since it applies to a non-materialist metaphysics, it can get complicated - especially since intentions are in themselves considered to be actions, hence causes, to consequences that result. Still, tmk, karma is basically the principle that for every act there is a consequent. Hence, to say that karma judges you is akin to saying that causation judges you, which to me is nonsense.
Just curious.
:ok:
The problem is, it easily morphs into a form of fatalism and/or blame-placing. 'It's their/my karma that I [got sick] [dog died] [lost money] [whatever]'. That is even, or especially, prevalent in Eastern cultures where acceptance of karma is part of the environment, where it easily becomes fatalism or indifference. But the way it's presented in (for instance) the early Buddhist texts is not like that at all - it's simply, as you say, a natural law and principle. If you regard it as a regulative principle for action, rather than as a means of blaming or rationalising misfortune, I can't think of a more obvious moral principle than 'as you sow, so will you reap'.
Yea, I acknowledge that. To my mind though, the same roundabout mind-games can occur with just about all other perspectives. Being or not being favored by God, as one example. Being or not being favored by natural selection as another. It doesn't seem to much matter what perspective is held, some will always find a way to use the given worldview for the purposes of fatalism and/or blame-placing; again, imo.
Quoting Wayfarer
:up:
I have read each of your posts found then enjoyable and informative. I now realize that I really tried to go too far too quickly and didn’t adequately lay out my premise. To address your posts I will lay out the bases for my assertions.
I particularly liked the access to truth comment made by Wayfarer. For me the only way we have access to truth is by understanding patterns and relationships “written” into the fabric of the universe. The only way we can do this is by building models/representations of the universe and seeing if these models are A) consistent with other accepted models and B) make accurate predictions. Hiroshima and Nagasaki suggested Einstein’s E=MC2 based model of energy and matter represented a fundamental reality of the universe. Models that make accurate predictions represent at least some truth.. Once you start having lots of seemingly good models that are consistent with each other and make predictions you can see if those models are mutely suppurative or not. This is an interactive process that I enjoy likening to Sudoku. If you are good at it you can gain some access to the universe's underlying reality. It is still all probability based meaning you can’t say anything with absolute certainty but you work with what you have.
We have a lot of reasonably accurate seaming models of the universe that seem to check out, from the big bang to neuronal potentiation being the basis for memory formation. These models collectively are the most intellectually coherent representation of the underlying realities of the world around us. Ideas of what we are, what morality is and what good and the truth is should probably be born out of these models but at the bare minimum they should be consistent with them. Our idea of morality and truth should fit with particle physics, and the big bang theory and evolutionary psychology and neuroscience. For an idea to be intellectually grounded it should have an internal logic that is consistent and it should be consistent with other well accepted models and it should ideally look like it could connect onto other models somehow. Nobody likes a free floating puzzle piece.
An extremely brief attempt to do this would be. Big bang happens, gravity coalesces matter into planetary bodies, heavier elements form in the stars which eventually go supernova spreading out heavier elements. Stable chemicals that are prone to forming strands form strands that become subject to prebiotic evolution which after a membrane is acquired becomes plain old evolution. Life becomes more organized and more complex which allows for new abilities, all of which is driven by evolution. Eventually evolution gives rise to a lump of carbon, water and nitrogen that contains 10 trillion synapses organized in a complex fashion. What we get for all this organization and complexity is the ability to generate a representational model of the world around us that we have conchouse access too, this model comes complete with a center of gravity that we call the self (Thomas Metzinger’s model of the self as an ego tunnel is reasonable). Part of our model involves generating arbitrary but evolutionary useful notions of good and evil, moral and immoral. We believe these notions represent an objective truth because, if we didn’t they would lose their motivational power, this would intern result in a loss of their evolutionary usefulness. We use the representational model of the world our brains generate to help us model the future, make predictions and work together cooperatively. Because the model our brain generates makes us evolutionarily fit we are able to replicate the template that encodes us meaning we will persist for a time. We modify the representational model in our brain to suit circumstance by a type of competitive crowd saucing sometime called the marketplace of ideas. Whether it is in a day, a week or a million years, at some point in the future we will become extinct, there will be no brains to generate our evolutionary driven notions of right and wrong, so these notions will evaporate from the universe. The universe will go on without us. Planets will be born and planets will die and stars will collide just as they always have.
You can argue how much evidence there is to support the models my statements are based on and obviously I am missing alot out but hopefully it will serve as an example of an integrated intellectual framework that includes us. As mentioned, trying to build such frameworks is like playing sudoku. If we do this well enough, we can generate new models that allow some access to the fundamental realities of the universe.
Suggesting that truth and the good and morality “just are” is just a statement, there is no internal or external logic, it doesn’t fit in anywhere with well proven models of the universe, it doesn’t provide any hint of information about what truth and the good and morality are. It is the Sudoku equivalent of just putting your favorite number in one of the boxes and not caring that it doesn’t fit with any of the numbers already filled in. It may feel good to have a box filled in, it may give the illusion of progress but it doesn’t mean anything and it is actually counterproductive assuming you care about finishing the puzzle. It's similar to the whole god thing which isn’t even an attempt to follow the patterns that seem to be at play in the universe, it is the equivalent of drawing pictures on a sudoku puzzle and claiming you have completed it.
My point is, if you want intellectual access to the patterns and relationships in the universe that are fundamental to understanding what we are and what the universe is we should probably all start playing sudoku. I am not as knowledgeable as a lot of you about historic patterns of philosophical thought, this is simply me applying the scientific process as I see it to answering philosophical questions. Science has a proven track record of gaining intellectual access to the fundamental realities that govern the nature of the universe as we perceive it + it’s also cool. Are my views outside the mainstream? Is there a logic to what I am saying?.
Models are collections of predictive hypotheses and mathematical formulae. At the outset of modern science, with Galileo and Newton, the decision was made to concentrate on those attributes of nature which were able to be measured and quantified mathematically. This has lead to enormous breakthroughs in the technical understanding of the physical universe, but morality and capital-T Truth were never part of that. They were put to one side, or consigned to the domain of individual conscience or religion (which in any case was identified as the losing party in the argument.)
But the inconvenient truth of particle physics, was that just when science thought that it was going to drill down to the ‘ultimate particle’, the deepest and most fundamental constituent of nature - it found, to its embarrassment, that it had to account for ‘the role of the observer’ after all. ‘What are YOU doing here!?!’, they asked, but the answer was not immediately apparent in the math.
Meanwhile, the whole idea of the ‘big bang’ was vigorously opposed by many scientists when it was first floated, BECAUSE it sounded too much like ‘creation from nothing’. Consider what it is saying - that the entire vast universe, 13 billion odd light years in expanse, appeared from a single point, in a single instant. Even the Pope wanted to claim this as ‘evidence’ for divine creation - something which made the scientist who first floated the idea, George LeMaitre, very uncomfortable. He was actually a Catholic priest, but he believed that you ought never to mix up the two domains of understanding.
Meanwhile, our earnest advocates of evolutionary enlightenment assure us that ‘ We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.’ Try weaving morality into that story.
Go back to Socrates, and study the kind of character he was, the sort of questions he asked, and how he conducted himself. That is the beginning of philosophy.
Morality, while subjective, can be somewhat quantified.
What is good for the pack and good for you is good morally.
This however is somewhat flawed as different packs have different needs and would see morality differently.
Morality comes down to perspective.
if you do not harm others then it is usually moral.
First, thanks for writing such a fun responce
Models are collections of predictive hypotheses and mathematical formulae.
[b]When a lot of very predictive hypotheses are in agreement the the probability that they are all fundamentally wrong becomes very low. Everything that has been achieved by science, all the technology we are swimming in we have because of our predictive hypotheses.
The most predictive of the predictive hypotheses are probably as close to certain as we are ever going to get. I don’t know under what authority somebody could claim to be more likely to be representing fundamental reality than with one of these predictive hypotheses. Take the second law of thermodynamics as an example.[/b]
What is your claim to knowledge based on if not predictive hypothesis?
At the outset of modern science, with Galileo and Newton, the decision was made to concentrate on those attributes of nature which were able to be measured and quantified mathematically. This has lead to enormous breakthroughs in the technical understanding of the physical universe, but morality and capital-T Truth were never part of that. They were put to one side, or consigned to the domain of individual conscience or religion (which in any case was identified as the losing party in the argument.
[b]You say “the decision was made”, you make it sound like Galileo, Nuton and the pope had a meeting and issued a memo that I apparently, in the year 2020 am somehow meant to respect or care about or something. The portrayal of history is not so subtly off and why do you think I care what Nuton thought about the nature of the self is beyond me.
I also don’t understand why you think your anecdote speaks against my point, it speaks against yours. So a few hundred years ago it became quite evident to everybody but the dogmatic, that predictive hypothesis could answer a whole range of questions better than the mystics and philosophers so it got broken off from philosophy to form the sciences. Nurtured by the light provided by predictive hypothesis science has bloomed, bearing us the fruits of human knowledge (picture an apple Iphone hanging off a tree).
We have a broadly analogous situation today. This time we have simply gotten better at science, developed new and powerful ways of asking questions and testing hypotheses which has opened up new arrears to investigation that crazy old Newton thought was only explainable by religious dogma. Even though you don’t seem to be particularly aware of it, scientists and scientifically minded philosophers are asking questions that scientifically disinclined philosophers not long ago considered their domain. If you would read the literature you would see they are doing really quite well. Their tree of knowledge has sprouted, we will have to wait and see if the fruits it bairs are poisonous. Science is again encroaching onto philosophy's patch, it's a repeat, all we are missing are the dogmatics, o wait! ummm…. Seriously though, the war between science and all other claims to knowledge never stopped, there has never even been a ceasefire, it's just that now scances is making advances into new arias.
BTW, studying the illusion of the self is studying nature, studying consciousness is studying nature, studying the concept of morality is studying nature, to studying the concept of truth is to study nature. The idea of something not being part of nature is pure make believe, there is no evidence for it and it runs against all current predictive models. I hope you have never made somebody who is religious feel bad about believing in something there is no evidence for..[/b]
But the inconvenient truth of particle physics, was that just when science thought that it was going to drill down to the ‘ultimate particle’, the deepest and most fundamental constituent of nature - it found, to its embarrassment, that it had to account for ‘the role of the observer’ after all. ‘What are YOU doing here!?!’, they asked, but the answer was not immediately apparent in the math.
[b]Your right, I know, particle physicist, what a bunch of idiots. Let's go and ask the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima if they have ever shown any evidence that their fancy models even work.
Is this is your anecdote that disproves science or something. You are simply making fun of people for proving their hypothesis wrong, this is a good thing, proving something is wrong is a type of knowledge, especially if it means getting rid of a model that didn’t work. This is an example of science working correctly, not incorrectly. When philosophy comes up with a bad idea like dualizem it just keeps on going with it regardless of anything. Again, with this example you are making my point for me..
Most scientists worth their salt know that they are just building models and making predictions, they also know there is every chance better models will supersede theres and not all of their predictive hypotheses will prove well founded or predict what we would like them to predict. This doesn't mean that individual scientists aren't smug bastards (take me for example) or refuse to acknowledge it when they are on a losing argument, we are only human after all. Science it not about individual people, individual experiments or even individual models, science is all about the scientific method which over time has tended to make better and better models of the universe that are applicable to more and more arrears of human interest. In the process it will represent more and more of the universes underlying realities. Ye scientist isn’t perfect, it can only ever talk in probabilities and all models are wrong because that is baked into the fundamental nature of being a model but where is the better alternative.[/b]
Meanwhile, the whole idea of the ‘big bang’ was vigorously opposed by many scientists when it was first floated, BECAUSE it sounded too much like ‘creation from nothing’. Consider what it is saying - that the entire vast universe, 13 billion odd light years in expanse, appeared from a single point, in a single instant. Even the Pope wanted to claim this as ‘evidence’ for divine creation - something which made the scientist who first floated the idea, George LeMaitre, very uncomfortable. He was actually a Catholic priest, but he believed that you ought never to mix up the two domains of understanding.
What has this got to do with anything, a big bang theory that begins in a true singularity really is still generally acknowledged to be up in the air. We simply have very little information to know how the very early expansion went or what was in existence before the big bang. Nobody really understands the exotic physics that was probably in operation pre-big band. Most people would however agree that the universe is expanding and it used to be incredibly hot and dense. These are very very hard problems physicists are trying to solve. How much less would we know about the universe if it was the philosopher's job to understand it using the method of talking while drinking coffee.
Meanwhile, our earnest advocates of evolutionary enlightenment assure us that ‘ We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.’ Try weaving morality into that story.
That is rhetorically quite neat, “survival machines”, i will have to use that, thanks. Seriously though “selfish molecules”, “robot vehicles blindly programmed”, it's true, just really melodramatically put. You know, just because you say something in the most melodramatic way possible, it doesn't make it any less likely to be accurate. Also saying something in a melodramatic way isn’t the same making an argument against it. Also, don’t you believe in evolution or something because if you don’t that would explain a lot? Also the concept of morality fits sooo perfectly with evolution, if you want i could explain why if you want?.
Go back to Socrates, and study the kind of character he was, the sort of questions he asked, and how he conducted himself. That is the beginning of philosophy.
[b]Dude, if you are going to randomly bring somebody up you should make them a little more obscure than Socratese. Just joking, but I am a little offended for the pre-socratics.
Are we really all that confident that Socrates isn’t essentially just a wonderful character that appears in Plato's books. I love Plato's writing style but i can’t say i really like his philosophy apart from the allegory of the cave which is obviously brilliant, although maybe little dated (joke). Plato through the character of Socratese asked questions that were appropriate for his time, if he lived at a different time he would have asked different questions. Also, I think lots of people asked great questions after Socrates. I wonder if all the stars are just suns but far away, that was a good question.
Two of my favorite philosophers are Democritus and Epicurus, I rather presumptuously consider them spiritual brothers. Democrats coined the term Atom, and Epicurus tried to extrapolate out the notion of an atom into a model of the world and he didn’t even do too bad considering.
I hope I haven't been too rude or offended you too much, I genuinely enjoyed reading your response.[/b]
I am Platonist, I learned just recently that Plato earnestly implored that all Democritus’ books be burned. Good call! ;-)
Socrates is the recognisable ‘father of philosophy’; which is why those who came before him are called ‘pre-Socratic’.
Everything you say about morality i would agree with.
Do you have an answer the question of what morality is made out of or encoded into or how it came to exist.
If these questions are some how wrongheaded, why are they wrongheaded?
If you don't have an answer that's fine.
As are many things. Nice chatting, and good luck.
I have a dyslexia diagnosis and have struggled with the disability all my life, it is a consent struggle to try and mitigate it. I have never let it hold me back even though it can be mildly embarrassing at times. There are however plenty of people with this disability who are less confident and more easily embarrassed then me and highlighting there spelling in the way you did could affect then negatively. Just something to keep in mind.
I think bragging about your boy Plato burning books is a little odd, the practices has become a little taboo ever since the whole Hitler thing. Just saying!
You can say Socrates is the recognizable the farther of philosophy but wasn't what the pre-Socratic doing definitionally philosophy? correct me if I'm wrong. It seems arbitrary and pointless to me, like calling somebody the recognizable farther of kicking a ball.
I did honestly enjoyed the back and forth even though it seems like we were taking past each other mostly. Sorry, i have been in a bit of a jokey mood and good luck to you to
PS - You do know that Newton was a religious bigot who spent most of his life conducting alchemy in pursuit of the philosopher's stone. I don't think even his biggest fans would suggest he had any special knowledge about the self. Fun fact, one of my son's middle name is Issac, the Principia was a work of genius.
Morality has its basis not in biology but in survival, as a species our only way to survive was cooperation. The same way a lion that doesnt contribute is outed, humans would be removed from groups and die so we had to learn to work together.
OK let's try and unpack some of the back and forth. First, regarding 'models' - I was responding in particular to this statement:
Quoting Restitutor
What I'm saying is that particle physics begins with putting aside any ideas about such questions as 'morality and truth'. They are not directly relevant to the discipline. I made that point, polemically, with respect to Newton and Galileo, who are very much the forefathers of modern physics. But at the outset, at the very beginning of modern science, all such issues were put to one side, or left out of the reckoning. Why, then, should 'our idea of morality and truth' fit in with a model which really has nothing to do with them?
Scientific models are fallibalist, subject to constant revision. Why, then, should they be regarded as authoritative with respect to "morality and truth"?
Quoting Restitutor
Hence the point about Socrates. Many of the fundamental questions that the character of Socrates wrestled with - about the nature of truth, beauty, justice, self-knowledge, death - remain central questions of philosophy, regardless of the "astonishing advances of science".
Quoting Restitutor
It doesn't, though. Even the ultra-darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins, recognise that evolutionary theory is a crap basis for morality, although they don't come to terms with what such a basis might be. The only 'morality' that comes out of evolutionary theory is survival of the fittest - which is already redundant, as all it says is, those who are best adapted are those who survive and procreate. The fact that evolution is commonly assumed to provide a complete account of human nature or a basis for morality is a popular myth.
Ok then, here's an attempt. What underpins the concept of morality, what makes it objectively valid, is self interest.
Persistent interest in moral issues for thousands of years is not fundamentally about society, which is too large of a phenomena for most of us to grasp. And even if we can wrap our minds around something as large as society, we don't really care about society. One significant piece of evidence for this is a widespread lack of interest in nuclear weapons, a well oiled machine standing ready to erase society in just a few minutes. So while morality is certainly helpful to a society, and this is the context in which morality is often discussed, we might keep looking for what "underpins the concept of morality".
What makes morality objectively valid (without reference to any authority or higher power) is that it addresses fundamental problems of the personal human condition which have not changed in many thousands of years. Yep, regular readers, here it comes again... :-)
We are made of thought. Thought operates by a process of conceptual division. This process of division creates an experience of reality as being divided between "me" and "everything else", with "me" perceived to be very small and "everything else" perceived to be very big. This division driven perception gives rise to fear, which in turn is the source of most human problems.
Moral acts address this fundamental human problem by easing the perceived division between "me" and "everything else". Or, to put it more plainly, love feels good.
Religion is not necessary to discover the objective validity of morality because anyone of any belief can test morality for themselves, and in fact all but the psychopaths among us do so regularly. As example, what pulls me back from continuing to yell at my fellow forum members is not guilt, obligation, social pressure, the church, fear of the mods or any other higher power. What pulls me back from over indulging my worse instincts is that being an asshole doesn't feel good, that is, self interest.
So while the objective value of morality is not dependent upon religion or higher powers etc, in the spirit of self interest and feeling good we should try to be intellectually honest and acknowledge that, in Western culture at least, religion has been the leading spokesperson for morality for thousands of years. Religion continues to persist and prosper even in the age of science because a core part of it's message works in serving the individual's self interest.
Everything you say about Morality seems very correct to me and is very well put.
From my metaphysical perspective however i don’t think we are quite getting to what i would consider the heart of the matter.
Let me give you an analogy.
Somebody may ask what North is and the person may answer by point in the direction of north and name all the features that are due north, the answer is correct. The questioner may ask again what is north and the answer may say why it is useful and how it fits into their lives functionally and again the person answering would be perfectly correct.
Although the answerer hasn’t said anything incorrect and has answered the question in multiple ways in a sense he still hasn’t said what north actually is. To understand the north really is you need to build a conceptual model of the earth as a sphere that spins along an axis.
With this model the answer can now answer what North is in a whole new way, it is the direction that points towards the north pole which is simply the name for one side of the rotational axis that the spherical earth is moving around. We could get into models that involve magnetism but you get the idea. I would describe this as knowing what north is from a metaphysical perspective.
Good people like yourself say a lot of very reasonable things about what morality is and this is impressive. I do however believe that the answers are not getting at the heart of the question which I see as what morality is metaphysically.
I would argue that scientific theories of mind and the self and consciousness for the first time allow us to approach the question of what morality is from this perspective, just as the model of the earth as a global helps us understand what north is in a different way.
I understand that people from a different metaphysical perspective may not see this as a valid question although if this is the case they should in my opinion have a good reason why.
“What I'm saying is that particle physics begins with putting aside any ideas about such questions as 'morality and truth'. They are not directly relevant to the discipline. I made that point, polemically, with respect to Newton and Galileo, who are very much the forefathers of modern physics. But at the outset, at the very beginning of modern science, all such issues were put to one side, or left out of the reckoning. “Why, then, should 'our idea of morality and truth' fit in with a model which really has nothing to do with them?”
[b]Newton would undoubtedly have been on your side in this conversation but i am not having this conversation with Neuton, why do you think truth and morality has nothing to do with science?
You seem to be subtle suggesting that if we feel the need to make modern theories consistent with Newtonian physics we should honor Newtons belief in where the boundaries of science should liy. I would anwer, Newton theory of mechanics is a well founded predictive hypothesis that actually predicts stuff and his presumed views on where the boundary of science should liy are unjustified expressions of opinions. I will act in accordance with the former but not the later.
My wider point was, you shouldn't come up with a model of morality that is inconsistent with science. If a duelist could explain how dualism is in any way consistent with particle physics then i might consider becoming a duelist. They can’t and this suggests eather dualism is a bad model or particle physics is a bad model. Being rational, my money is on the predictive hypothesis that doesn't predict anything being wrong.[/b]
“Scientific models are fallibalist, subject to constant revision. Why, then, should they be regarded as authoritative with respect to "morality and truth"?”
[b]Ok, my argument goes a little deeper than we have gone so far. I would argue that everything we perceive about the world we preserve through representational models. Science says, whether we know it or not we do not directly experience anything and to directly experience anything is impossible. Our mutual friend Socrates was sooo right with his whole allegory of the cave thing, geneouse.
In a world where we can only gain access to fundamental realities of things through representation, capital T truth and certainly become less useful concepts as they are things that we can’t functionally gain access to. This obviously doesn't mean we are completely lost in the world, we just need to think in terms of representation and probability. It is kind of sukky but you play the hand you're dealt.
This construction dissolves the distinction between representational scientific models and the representational models of everyday experience. With this construction not just going along with models would turn you into a full blown Sceptic . This probabilistic model actually fits very well with the Sceptics views in fact.
I will give you an example of everyday representational models. You pick an apple in your hand and look at it, your brain is creating a representational model of the apple you have in your hand. As we eat the apple we combine what it looks like, the weight of it in our hands, the taste on our tong and signals from our olfactory bulb together to build our probability based, representational apple model.
The model in our heads is made out of neurons, the apple in our head and mouth is made out of molecules of apple. The apple doesn't have the property of green; it simply reflects photons that have an average wavelength in the range of 550nM for example. People who have a full complement of cone receptors will represent the apple as green in their brain model, people who have genetic mutations that lead to color blindness will often represent the apple differently. A butterfly that can see ultraviolet wavelengths and has different machinery in its brain and will represent the apple differently with its tiny butterfly neurons.
Our model of what we think is an apple is also subject to revision just as scientific models are, we may pick up something that looks like an apple bite it and then revise our model of what we are holding, deciding that it is in fact an imitation apple made out of wax.
Despite the model of the world in our brain being fallibalist it is however really quite useful in many instances, when it generates a model of a lion you probably best run. Also just because the model isn’t certain it is still worth paying attention to the probabilities. It may not be certain the car will hit you but you should still get out the road.
You can have multiple different models of the same thing that are each useful in different ways, highlighting subtly different aspects of the same underlying reality. There are multiple different representations of the London Underground and depending on if you are a passenger or a city planner adding a sewer line, you may want different maps. Both maps simply represent a different underlying reality of the same entity. Decimals and fractions are also different ways of representing the same underlying reality.
You have every right to question the representational models generated by scance, just as Pyrrho questioned the representational model generated by our eyes. I will however say to you what i would have said to him, you are essentially right, but practically speaking we probably should just make use out of what is useful.
I would also argue that if everything is a representative model then even the idea that Morality and truth exist is fallibalist. If you are saying not everything is a representative model then you are A) saying we do have direct access to the underlying nature of reality and you are B) saying your boy Plato's allegory of the cave is wrong.[/b]
Most people would however agree that the universe is expanding and it used to be incredibly hot and dense. These are very very hard problems physicists are trying to solve. — Restitutor
“Hence the point about Socrates. Many of the fundamental questions that the character of Socrates wrestled with - about the nature of truth, beauty, justice, self-knowledge, death - remain central questions of philosophy, regardless of the "astonishing advances of science".
I would agree that questions about nature, truth, beauty and justice, self-knowledge and death remain central questions, I just don’t necessarily agree that they can’t on principle be placed into useful representational models.
Also the concept of morality fits sooo perfectly with evolution, if you want i could explain why if you want?. — Restitutor
It doesn't, though. Even the ultra-darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins, recognise that evolutionary theory is a crap basis for morality, although they don't come to terms with what such a basis might be. The only 'morality' that comes out of evolutionary theory is survival of the fittest - which is already redundant, as all it says is, those who are best adapted are those who survive and procreate. The fact that evolution is commonly assumed to provide a complete account of human nature or a basis for morality is a popular myth.
I wasn’t necessarily being particularly strict with the turn evolution, I meant it both in its more specific and wider sense.
[b]This is all a little complex so hold on.
A problem with the idea of evolution is that it generates the misconception that the forces that apply in evolution operate for the good of the host animal and this is not always the case. The forces of evolution are better thought of as operating on the gene level rather than the organism level. Bees are good examples.
Bees exhibit very simple behaviour which is quite directly controlled by their genes. Bee’s exhibit selfless behaviour, they will fight and die for the hive. Why would a bee sacrifice itself for the hive, does it have morels? No. The reason for this is that the mother bee saddles its offspring with genes that benefit her and her ability to reproduce. The reason this works evolutionary is because sequence of nucleotides in in genes that control workers selfless behavior is also present in the mother, if the worker bee give its life to save the hive it in reducing the chance that it passes on the selfless genes from very low to zero, but it increases the chance that its mother will pass on the sequence that represents the selfless genes. On balance the worker bees' selfless behavior increases the chance that the selfless gene is passed on even if it is passed on by his mother rather than him. The gene really doesn't care who passes it on from an evolutionary perspective as long as it gets passed on.
A mother of most animals will exhibit behaviour that protects it young even risking its own life. Again the selfless genes that are controlling the behaviour are all about the chance that somebody passes on the gene, it doesn't care who. If the chance the mother dies is increased by 10% but the chance that it's 5 babies survive increases by 20% then that is a win for this behaviour controlling selfless genes evolutionary fitness.
The same narrative applies to siblings, nieces and nephew, cousens and aunties, as these are all likely to have the same selfless gene and if the selfless gene instructs you to risk your life to save your own family there are more copies of the selfless gene in the world and the gene as a unit proves itself to be evolutionarily fit.
Evidently it’s nowhere near as simple as this in humans, for a start genes don’t directly control behaviour in humans. I would say genes support and encourage certain type of behaviour to greater and lesser extents depending on the behaviour. Genes have a massive part to play in our fear and nurture responses, the fact we generally like certain types of food and get horny, genes don’t affect what color sock we wear though.
Many behaviors are simply learnt and then reinforced through social conditioning. Importantly this is underpinned by gene driven behaviours such as desiring the approval of others and companionship and physical intimacy. Concepts and ideas that drive useful behaviour tend to spread through the marketplace of ideas and tend to get passed on through teaching our young and telling stories and maybe just threatening people to toe the line or else. This process is in many ways analogous to evolution. Just like genes, ideas that don’t benefit the host directly or indirectly disappear. There are however lots of ideas that don’t benefit the hosts' survival directly but benefit them indirectly by benefiting society as a whole. The fact that an idea is good for the community quite obviously is likely to increase the chance of the idea surviving and being passed on.
It is in my interest for me to do what I can to perpetuate the use of concepts that encourage behaviours that are beneficial for society as therefor benefit me. We have a lot of concepts that do this, we can call somebody a coward, or lazy or unfair or immoral, we can conversely call them heroes, hard working, fair and moral. Based on which of these useful concepts we label them with their ability to fulfill their evolutionary drive for companionship, for physical intimacy, for a mate and even for food can all be enhanced or diminished. They could be promoted to chief or thrown out the tribe, listened to or ignored, may have lots of opportunity to reproduce or very little. People judged in such a fashion will serve as a warning for others. This reality isn’t a bad system of social control and it is easy to think why tribes that had it kicked the shit out of tribes that didn’t (perpetuating the ideas and the genes that underpin them).
This system of self control isn’t perfect and there is inherent tension between doing what is good for you and what is good for the tribe. The ideas of each man for himself and I don’t give a shit about you have their own “evolutionary” fitness.
Even though morality itself is probably only minimally controlled by our genes directly, morality is very much reliant on underlying predispositions that are controlled by our genes.
How right and wrong i am about this i will let future research decide but i don’t think you could call this potential explanation incoherent.[/b]
This pretty well describes the consensus of atheist ethicists. I am not an academic or a trained philosopher. Therefore please take this call by me with a grain of salt. But I noticed this is the basic attitude of explaining any and all human behaviour-- the basis is always evolutionary, that is, whatever traits the species has in pervasive distribution, must have been a survival tool at one point that gave special advantage to our species.
I can't quite tell if you agree or disagree, i am thinking you agree maybe?
If you look at all the different mechanism that seeds use to distributor themselves, sometimes they are surrounded by fruit. other times times the have little helicopter wings or fluff. Would anybody deny that these packages that hold the plants DNA are evolved, that there dimensions are controlled by the genes.
We are a a very similar proposition, we are just the packaging for our DNA, the host that allows for there replication. It makes sence that genes wouldn't just control what our bodies look like bout would control behavior, or at least create a the framework within which we can indoctrinate each other with useful ideas. The wood peckers beak wouldn't be worth much it it didn't like to peck.
It seems to be a relay coherent explanation backed up by lots of evidence.
I evidently am sold on the idea but i would admit i find the implications a bit of a mind fuck. I was wondering what other people thought about the implications.
good times
Indeed, my post was non-committal, but personally, I agree with you.
speaks volumes, especially in the context of the question posed in the OP.
Is there any reason that the individual should be content with being a slave to the evolutionary process?
And what rational analysis pertaining to this process can be expected from individuals which, as you say, are indoctrinated in a framework to enforce it?
It is not a master-save relationship. I would brush up on learning the evolutionary process if I were you and wished to understand natural processes of evolution.
Human-created and human-delivered rational analysis is the process one can expect from individuals that have been indocctrianted in a framework that enforces the process.
A slave without a master is a slave nonetheless.
Quoting god must be atheist
Cute. Not a polite way to start a conversation.
Keep your condescending diatribe to yourself.
I think the basic reality is that this whole subject quite generates strong feelings, I know it does with me. We are asking questions about truth and morality, things that we are driven to care about.
In the case of me I am in a way suggesting that truth and morality should be contextualize in the light of scientific evidence in a way that undermines what people generally thing of them as being. It is not irrational to find that it generates emotions, I find it upsetting if I am being honest.
I would encourage people to minimize emotive language although I am not necessary the best example of this myself (I can’t help being provocative at times and I apologies for it). I think we generate more us full representations the universes underlying nature when we adopt a more abstract perspective and drain the emotion out of it.
A hero of mind is Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) who despite living in what is now moderate Italy in the 1500's he was able to break free of the god and human centric view of the universe and suggest all the stars to simply be similar to our sun except further away. Same could be said of Copernicus. Both men were prepared to take them selves out of the center of the picture in order to better represent reality.
I wouldn't see it as "Is there any reason that the individual should be content with being a slave to the evolutionary process?". We want to satisfy our hunger, we want to have sex, we want to acquire things and do things that help with survival and pass on our genes. To overcome this "slavery" would involve being able to ignore the imperatives evolution sets up. It would involve not desiring food when hungry, not desiring sex when horny, it would involve not reacting to fear when scared, not reacting with angree words when offended. Monks through meditation have been able to do this to different extents so in a seance monks are overcoming there "slave to the evolutionary process"
I would suggest reading "Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment" which looks at Buddhist beliefs in the context of evolutionary psychology. You can also probably find Robert Wright talking about it on youtube but i would recommend the book.
If evolution isn't driving our behaviors then what is? Do you not see any role for evolution at all in any human behavior? I would go for something like evolution + idiosyncrasies driving by lots of randomness.
what are your thoughts?
The likes of divine command theory and theological voluntarism aren't, they're just rule-following.
Gods aren't around to answer things either; useless.
Even given some such rule, in any given situation, you'd still have to decide if following it is the right thing to do.
Autonomous moral agency is where it's at; morals are better exemplified, than predefined rules.
So we better cultivate moral awareness (like embrace our humanity socially); it's down to us, always was.
No. There is no slave without a master. How in the world did you come up with that? A slave is only a slave because he or she is owned. Once not owned, he or she is a free man or woman.
I am getting really stupid answers these days on this forum.
And then they tell me not to be condescending and not to get angry.
??? A slave is a slave even when not owned. Who told you that?
I guess I set the terms of the debate around atheism because I wanted to avoid theological debates. I wanted to avoid theological debates because I am not religious and therefore don’t consider the basic premise valid. Its not a mystery the basic construction that religious people use to undergured their belief in morality.
I also don’t personally don’t think that there is any logical framework in which supporters the idea of morality as an objective reality. In my view of the world believing in morality as an objective reality requires at least a little non-scientific thinking.
When i wrote the question i was hoping to find out if A) it was general accepted amongst atheists that morality wasn’t an objective reality and B) weather or people believe in morality as an objective reality despite being an atheist.
Very few people despite posting have nailed there colors to the mast
It’s absolutely like that. We don’t need to appeal to God to compare our experiences and come to an unbiased consensus on what is real, nor do we need to appeal to him to compare our experiences and come to an unbiased consensus on what is moral.
Quoting Restitutor
No and yes, more or less. (Morality isn’t “a reality” in any sense, but it is every bit as objective as reality).
I think the problem with that approach is this: that there is no biological difference between criminals and saints.
[quote=Richard Polt]Consider the fact that human action ranges to the extremes. People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children. So whatever tendencies we may have inherited leave ample room for variation; our choices will determine which end of the spectrum we approach. This is where ethical discourse comes in — not in explaining how we’re “built,” but in deliberating on our own future acts. Should I cheat on this test? Should I give this stranger a ride? Knowing how my selfish and altruistic feelings evolved doesn’t help me decide at all. Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense.[/quote]
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/anything-but-human/
I think you're looking to evolutionary theory for things it was never intended to provide. It is an account of the evolution of species - it's not an ethical theory, per se. As I've said, even a lot of ardent Darwinists, like Richard Dawkins, recognise that Darwinism, and social Darwinism, are terrible bases for ethical philosophy.
Quoting Restitutor
Quite a good book, from what I read about it, with the caveat that Buddhism doesn't need endorsement by evolutionary psychology. As you say, individuals can work to overcome the selfish tendencies which appear to be the consequences of evolutionary drives; but by what star do they set their compass when they do that?
The point about the evolutionary paradigm, generally, is that it has a sole aim, which is successful proliferation. Actually there's a saying in evolutionary biology that all creatures are driven by the Four F's - feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproduction. So the question is, do these circumsribe the horizons for h. sapiens? Or can we see further than that? And, if so, to what?
Quoting Restitutor
Even though they say it is. :-)
If subjective means ad hoc fiat, discretionary opinion, random, then morals don't seem subjective.
On the other hand, with
• subjective: existentially mind-dependent
• objective: existentially independent
consider some analogies:
1. some are loved, some are hated, many have known love, many have known hate
2. after an extinction, love and hate could be rediscovered
3. so, love and hate are existentially independent of any one person
Further:
4. love and hate are phenomenological experiences, qualia or whatever
5. phenomenological experiences are existentially mind-dependent
6. so, love and hate themselves are subjective
The likes of love and hate can be parts of us, but not of rocks.
They're ontological constituents of us when occurring, and can also be wholly absent (e.g. pre-life, extinct) and come about again (e.g. rediscovered recurrence), without themselves existing independently.
Asserting otherwise might be charged with externalizing hypostatization or the like.
Seems (to me at least) that the objective versus subjective dichotomy is misleading here.
There are many two-legged individuals, they all have that in common, fairly simple information, two legs.
Yet, we don't therefore conclude that "two-legged-ness" itself somehow exists independently.
Commonality does not entail independence.
Likewise for morals and autonomous moral agency.
Quoting Restitutor
This is the key question, I believe.
I would take it one step back. The driving force behind our behavior is a desire to be happy. The evolutionary process has provided us with goals that promise happiness, which function as a carrot on a stick.
Some individuals may come to the conclusion that this situation does not provide them with the happiness they seek.
What then is the function of all the imperatives that evolution has produced for them?
It seems to me whether evolution has a purpose for the individual is therefore a subjective matter, and not particularly suited as a basis for truth or morality.
Quoting Restitutor
It depends on the individual. I imagine it can be useful for explaining human behavior in general, but I'm not sure what the purpose of such generalizations are in the context of philosophy.
I like how you put this, very simply put and very correct. I think the simplicity of the statement belies how radical a statement it is and how it goes against what most people think of as morality. Even atheists i have spoken to seem to like to think of morals as absolute especially once you start naming specific things that are considered immoral, I mean, you could in principle get relay edgy. If you walk up to somebody in the street and tell them that that (insert edgy immoral act here) isn't innately immoral and the only thing that makes it “immoral” is that most people agree that it is immoral, 95% of the people will disagree with you and a fair few of them will start backing slowly away. If you get edgy enough it could go really badly.
Also, the statement, although in my opinion both elegant and true is a little bit free floating. You are relying on the fact the statement seems intuitively correct. Putting the statement in the context of evolution, evolutionary psychology and neuroscience etc is going to help some people agree and may allow for a further insight and deeper understanding of both Morality and its correlates.
Quoting Pfhorrest
People generally agree that green objects are really green and you will be fine if this is what you believe this. If you want to get down to it though, the reality is that no object has ever been or will ever be green, science tell us the notion of a green object is absurd. Objects we perceive as green simply reflected photons in the eye with an average wavelength of 550nm. We transduce the information from a photon into electrical energy and the presence or absence of neurotransmitters, building this into a model in our brain which has a subjective property we label as green.
Just as green is a subjective representation of the fundamental nature of the world so is a lot of what we have in our heads. In addition to the representations we have in our heads we have concepts that aren’t
even reflections of nature, not the same way color is anyway, these concepts are far more artificial. One of my favorites is meaning, meaning comes total from within, we label the representation of the world we have in our heads with this internally generated meaning stuff and go about the day believing meaning to be an objective reality wail it doesn’t represent anything objective about reality at all.
Most people won’t come to an unbiased opinion because evolution biased us massively to reach evolutionary helpful conclusions about what we consider true. It is evolutionary helpful to believe meaning exists, and to believe morality is objective. What we consider to it, what we conserve of as basic reality is a construct created buy our mind, and “reality constructs" that have the propensity to replicate predominate for fairly obvious reasons.
What appears to be true is often massively contradicted by science and in such cases I would go with what science.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I love this statement, from my metaphysical perspective this is quite a beautifully worded tautology that highlights the intellectual continuity of a purely materialistic point of view, very cleaver.
Since you liked that short quip so much, I thought you might enjoy some more fleshed out versions too:
----
When it comes to tackling questions about reality, pursuing knowledge, we should not take some census or survey of people's beliefs or perceptions, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, believes or perceives is true.
Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct sensations or observations, free from any interpretation into perceptions or beliefs yet, and compare and contrast the empirical experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for a belief to be true.
Then we should devise models, or theories, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be true.
This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian academic structure.
----
When it comes to tackling questions about morality, pursuing justice, we should not take some census or survey of people's intentions or desires, and either try to figure out how all those could all be held at once without conflict, or else (because that likely will not be possible) just declare that whatever the majority, or some privileged authority, intends or desires is good.
Instead, we should appeal to everyone's direct appetites, free from any interpretation into desires or intentions yet, and compare and contrast the hedonic experiences of different people in different circumstances to come to a common ground on what experiences there are that need satisfying in order for an intention to be good.
Then we should devise models, or strategies, that purport to satisfy all those experiences, and test them against further experiences, rejecting those that fail to satisfy any of them, and selecting the simplest, most efficient of those that remain as what we tentatively hold to be good.
This entire process should be carried out in an organized, collaborative, but intrinsically non-authoritarian political structure.
----
With regards to opinions about reality, my philosophy boils down to forming initial opinions on the basis that something, loosely speaking, looks true (and not false), and then rejecting that and finding some other opinion to replace it with if someone should come across some circumstance wherein it looks false in some way.
And, if two contrary things both look true or false in different ways or to different people or under different circumstances, my philosophy requires taking into account all the different ways that things look to different people in different circumstances, and coming up with something new that looks true (and not false) to everyone in every way in every circumstance, at least those that we've considered so far.
In the limit, if we could consider absolutely every way that absolutely everything looked to absolutely everyone in absolutely every circumstance, whatever still looked true across all of that would be the universal truth.
In short, the universal truth is the limit of what still seems true upon further and further investigation. We can't ever reach that limit, but that is the direction in which to improve our opinions about reality, towards more and more correct ones. Figuring out what can still be said to look true when more and more of that is accounted for may be increasingly difficult, but that is the task at hand if we care at all about the truth.
(It is trivially simple to satisfy everyone's different sensations with a theory that we’re all in different virtual worlds being fed different experiences, but theories that involve us all being in the same world together get trickier).
----
With regards to opinions about morality, my philosophy boils down to forming initial opinions on the basis that something, loosely speaking, feels good (and not bad), and then rejecting that and finding some other opinion to replace it with if someone should come across some circumstance wherein it feels bad in some way.
And, if two contrary things both feel good or bad in different ways or to different people or under different circumstances, my philosophy requires taking into account all the different ways that things feel to different people in different circumstances, and coming up with something new that feels good (and not bad) to everyone in every way in every circumstance, at least those that we've considered so far.
In the limit, if we could consider absolutely every way that absolutely everything felt to absolutely everyone in absolutely every circumstance, whatever still felt good across all of that would be the universal good.
In short, the universal good is the limit of what still seems good upon further and further investigation. We can't ever reach that limit, but that is the direction in which to improve our opinions about morality, toward more and more correct ones. Figuring out what what can still be said to feel good when more and more of that is accounted for may be increasingly difficult, but that is the task at hand if we care at all about the good.
(It is trivially simple to satisfy everyone's different appetites with a strategy to put us all in different virtual worlds and feed us different experiences, but strategies that involve us all being in the same world together get trickier).
I can’t help but think we are operating from different metaphysical perspectives. I am a rather extreme materialist who thinks everything is just atoms bouncing around. 80% of what we think is really is just our brains making shit up and for the other 20% it’s a legitimate representation of reality. The flickering uncertain light of predictive hypothesis our only access to knowledge both in the everyday and in when trying to gain access to less obvious realties.
I would never characterize what you think but I am confident what I wrote above isn’t it. It would be good to know your metaphysical perspective is and what your justification for it is. I am totally interested.
Quoting Wayfarer
Very much not meaning to be rude but this statement is not scientific. People have a life time of memories and experiences all encoded in their brain through short term and long-term potentiation. Science says that memories are encoded into the brain on cellular and molecule level, same with opinions, beliefs how they understand the world. There connectome will be so different. There are conservatively 10 trillion synapses joined up in an utterly unique way, the number of possible arrangements for 10 trillion synapse has to be more than the number of atoms in the universe. In a sense, no two similarly objects could be more different, not when you look at the mount of variations on the theme possible.
The eyes of somebody who is color blind looks the same as the eyes of somebody who is not at every scale except the molecular, but would you deny their lack of color sight results from a difference in their eyes?
Quoting Wayfarer
I apologies for being lose with my word chose early on as it has created confusion. To say our belief in morality is purely a result of evolution is not true, I am not at odds with Dawkins
I think the brain as an organ evolved the capacity to have thoughts and beliefs by the process of evolution and for evolutionary reasons. I believe we have evolved certain drives which are based on carat and stick of pleasurable and unpleasurable feelings and emotional states. I would describe this as evolutionary underpinnings of Morality.
I don’t think there is a gene for morality or a gene for any particular moral or immoral act. Daniel Denneett in his book “From bacteria to Bach and back again” laid out in painful detail the process by which thoughts/ideas which he called memes get passed from one person to another in a process which in some ways that fits with the wider and none non-literal usage of the word evolution. His thesis is analogous to the conception of a market place of ideas and is difficult to disagree with. I think this on top of our brain’s machinery and in accordance with our basic drive’s accounts for the concept of morality.
Great question and nicely put. I would say there is likely to be a massive amount of randomness, biology can’t control everting. It also shouldn’t be over looked that nature can at times like to encourage verity, verity can sometimes be a good things. I guess you aren’t an immunologist (I am) but your body has HLA proteins that binds bits of viruses and shows them to your immune system. HLA proteins can hold onto bits of some viruses but not bits of other viruses. If our HLA proteins can’t display the virus bits we are quite likely to die or get very sick. There is more variation within a person and a population in their HLA protein than in any other protein known in humans. This verity helpful because it means people and whole societies are less likely to all die from the same virus. This is an example of heterogeneity or verity being a good way to ensure at least one of your descendants survives which ever virus future circumstance throws at them. It may be the same with people’s behavior, verity may well be a good thing. If there is verity in the way you descendants behave in response to a crisis there is more chance one of them will survive the crisis and pass on your genes.
I think that under certain circumstances the altruistic will be the ones that survive and in others circumstances the selfish will survive. Both at times can be the better survival stratagem so both ideas exist. Sheep and wolves have different behaviors, but they are both evolutionary successful, why can’t the similar dynamic apply within the same species.
Quoting Wayfarer
When I am engaging in philosophy I try not to worry about moral judgment or what people shouldn’t and shouldn’t do I try and look for patters. It may be use full to conceptualize altruism and selfishness as behavioral niches analogues to evolutionary niches. A single individual will gravitate towards different behavioral niches at different times according to different circumstances, different individuals due to genetic makeup, circumstance, what they are good at and what memes they adopt will have different propensities towards different behavioral niches. What happens in practice is that ideas such a morality try’s to push people into the more cooperative, rule following, behavioral niche, and this is certainly were I spend most my time, I set my star to what most people sets there star to, trying to get ahead but trying to get ahead wail following most of societies rules most the time.
Quoting Wayfarer
I would quibble with your initial sentence. There is no “aim” and if it there was it would be better put as continued existence rather than replication, replication is simply one of the methods by which the sequence baked into DNA continues existing. I would put it in much starker terms. Sequences that give rise to properties that result in the continued existence of the sequence continue existing. Sequences that give rise to properties that do not result the continued existence of the sequence stop existing. This means the only sequences in existence had and frequency have the ability to give rise to properties that are capable of maintain their existence. I think this construction is closer to what is fundamentally true.
With respect to the for F’s, the similarity between people in a nightclub who are “on the pull” and some brightly plumbed bird bouncing around trying to impress a mate is blindingly obvious. I guess we are subject to the four F’s. The only things is that humans, in our incredibly complex society can attack these goals obliquely, pursuit of knowledge and understanding can be related back to the 4’F’s. Essentially the answers to your last two questions in the quote is no and nothing and I do struggle with that. On a good day I am an Epicurean and on a bad day I am a nihilist.
I see materialism as an affliction, a persuasive delusion. I am not ‘conventionally religious’, I grew up in the 1960’s, and was very much influenced by 60’s ideas of higher consciousness, which arose partially from experiences with lysergic acid, and also from the influence of some of the counter-cultural figures who became prominent in that age.
I am now of the view that the mainstream of Western philosophy is not materialist, but that materialism is a kind of parasite that has overtaken its host. But the consequent belief system is science and engineering, it is not philosophical wisdom per se (an in fact that possibility is almost foreclosed by it). That is why movies are full of sci-fi fantasies and voyages to other worlds - it represents the sublimated longing for union with the divine which is no longer a real possibility for h. Faber. But, regrettably, actual interstellar travel is not a possibility for the foreseeable future - we have our spaceship, it’s overcrowded, overheating and resource depleted. And on it, we will live our earthly lives.
Quoting Restitutor
Of course, this is perfectly true, but that has nothing to do with biological evolution.
Quoting Restitutor
I would never mistake that for ‘a philosophy’.
Hey, one source that I would recommend perusal of, is the New Left’s criticism of the dialectics of the Enlightenment. The reason why is that they’re not in the least religious (‘they’ being Adorno and Horkheimer). There’s quite a generous encyclopaedia entry on them here https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/critical-theory/ Critique of Instrumental Reason in particular.
But, I don’t know if you see how cynical your philosophy is. Nor am I sure that I want to argue the case. In any case, Nietzsche was spot on about the Western world tumbling into nihilism, you see it every day. As far as I’m concerned, the whole task of philosophy is to escape from that predicament.
I am by nature, training and profession a Scientist, an immunologist working on treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. I prize logic because, in science this is what gets results.
I am of the opinion that the world is quietly screaming at us that nothing really matters, and we use religion and frequently philosophy to convince ourselves not to believe what is relatively obvious. The last sentence you wrote seems to be well aligned with this viewpoint.
My world view is undoubtedly cynical, it is also fundamentally nihilistic, it is also likely to be very counterproductive from an evolutionary stand point. I know I probably sound smug, but the truth is I would very much like to be persuaded I am wrong.
I will read through the link you sent me.
I wish you all the best and thank you again for the back and forth.
'The world', eh? If it were me, I'd want to be sure exactly what the source of that voice is.
metaphorical screaming. I have a romantic sole.
Ozymandias
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Morality comes from religion is quite a statement. What do you mean by this statement? For this to be true religion must be older than morality which doesn't seem very likely. I can see the argument that religion co-evolved with morality but not there was no morality and then religion happened and then suddenly morality.
Quoting Rafaella Leon
This seems fanciful. Are you saying that if you walked up to antitheses and asked them what truth was they wouldn't have an understanding of what the concept was. Have you ever met an atheist or are you just having a laugh? Do you not think atheists don't own dictionaries or are we just to stupid to be able to process basic concepts?
To believe that human morality, even the highest and most substantial, is in no way dependent on religion, or necessarily linked to it, is a fallacy.
All civilizations were born from original religious outbreaks. There has never been a “secular civilization”. A long time since the foundation of civilizations, nothing prevents some values and symbols from being separated abstractly from their origins and, in practice, becoming relatively independent educational forces.
I say “relatively” because, whatever the case may be, its prestige and ultimately its meaning will remain indebted to the religious tradition and will not survive long when it disappears from the surrounding society. Thus, all “secular morals” are just an excerpt from previous religious moral codes.
The atheists morality is only good because their conduct schematically — and externally — coincides with what the principles of religion demand, that is, that the very possibility of good lay conduct was created and sedimented by a long religious tradition whose moral rules, once absorbed in the body of society, began to function more or less automatically.
Quoting Rafaella Leon
What about something like preference utilitarianism? It is based on a secular principle: the maximization of fulfilment of preferences. I don't see how it is related to religion at all, even if there is an overlap between the actions prescribed by said principle and a form of religious morality. I think you are being fallacious; a similar conclusion can be reached independently from more than one starting point.
Quoting Rafaella Leon
The United State's constitution is entirely secular (despite the best efforts of evangelists and such).
Quoting Rafaella Leon
So only religious morality, or derivations of it, are good? Religious morality is entirely arbitrary if one subscribes to the view that moral actions are obligatory merely because god commands them; this cannot be avoided unless one admits that moral facts independent of god exist. If this were true an atheist could be good for following a code of conduct entirely separate from god or religion. This would be a truly secular and objective morality. Are religious people willing to concede that their morality is as arbitrary as something more subjective that an atheist might subscribe to? I doubt it. Anything can be good with traditional religious morality; at least humanists draw lines and use reason to reach their conclusions.
The first statement you made was
Quoting Rafaella Leon
I ask a question
Quoting Restitutor
you then make the statement
Quoting Rafaella Leon
This is a rather cheap rhetorical trick often called a straw man argument. Instead of answering the question you were asked, you simply made your own statement (purposefully absurd) and then you said the statement you made was a "fallacy". Do you actual have any actual justification for the statement that morality comes from religion?
Quoting Rafaella Leon
You are a fan of making big statements that are not justifiable. Where is there any prof of this, where did you get from. Even if all civilizations were religious it doesn't mean civilization was born from original religious outbreaks. it just doesn't follow logical. It seems quite possible that people could have been religious long long long before they become a civilization. you are just saying stuff.
Quoting Rafaella Leon
depends how you define it, there are plenty of modern countries were the majority of people aren't actuary religious. But who cares?
Quoting Rafaella Leon
Linguistically how the heck placement of the word relative does not significance change the first half of the sentence. Would you actually care to justify this sentence?
Quoting Rafaella Leon
Justify this statement, were you there? are there any written records? is there any anthropological evidence or do you just think that if you say it confident enough people will believe you? I personalty suspect "moral" and "immoral" actions came first and then at some point these acts started to be seen as positive or negative by our fellows and we let each other know what we thought of each others actions first with proto language, and eventual started to attach words that signified our approval and disapproval of other peoples actions, these words would be the ancestors of the modern words moral and immoral. Probably sometimes after we started developing these words we probably started up with proto religion but who the hell knows. This is based on what we observe in chimps now and in theories of language development. The idea of god is just a more complicated and abstract concept than, (in cave man speak) that bad, you bad for doing that bad thing.
Quoting Rafaella Leon
You say the strangest stuff. Its like you have only heard about atheists in some antiquated written by somebody who had never actually met an atheist and had an anti-atheist agenda.
The actual deal is, people are religious have an intellectually unjustifiable belief in god which they use to justify their intellectually unjustifiable belief in moral absolutes. The all the vast majority of atheists are doing is skipping the belief in religion wail maintaining their intellectually unjustifiable belief in moral absolutes. Only very few atheists (like me) neither believe in truth or moral absolutes. I have taking the trouble to inquiry, and this thread is just one strand of my enquiry.
Religion has undoubtedly helped shape and codify morality but there isn’t a shred of evidence that morality is dependent on religion. There are plenty of atheists that have a strong sense of morality and many people who profess religion that are deeply immoral. Sweden the second least religiose countries in the world and yet it takes care of its poor and needy better than almost any other country in the world. On the other hand, the Republican party that constantly professes religion is suing to allow insurance companies to discriminate against people based on pre-existing conditions. If I was one of people that the bible professes we should love and treat charitably I would chose living in Sweden over living in whatever dystopia the religiose republicans would create.
The idea that over the longer term there will be a problem is kind of possible I suppose but there is no evidence for it. It seems much more likely that atheists will just keep on with their intellectually unjustifiable belief in moral absolutes and we will just keep on keeping on.
Quoting Rafaella Leon
this post self-destructs in its first sentence. Best not to engage - this poster is either deeply confused or trolling.
Quoting Restitutor
Many religious people use Divine Command Theory to "under-gird" their normative moral beliefs reflected in revelation. Divine Command Theory dictates that moral actions are obligatory merely because god commands them. This makes morality totally arbitrary (if objective). In a way, god is the easiest solution to the issue of objectivity; many people just want morality to be objective so bad that they will bend over backwards trying to justify unjustifiable beliefs. Apologetics is an industry.
Atheists often times have a more provisional morality, and humanists in particular are often rigorous in their justifications for moral actions; they don't start with a conclusion based upon faith and work backwards. They mostly want to improve the human condition, and, if one make this their goal, there are real, objective steps that can be taken, such as limiting emissions to fight climate change, or reducing factory farming. And so, while there may not be an objective morality, there are more or less reasonable beliefs, and, thus, actions, given certain assumptions.
Quoting Restitutor
If someone defines morality in a suitably robust sense one can justify any number of principles or actions. If one defines morality in terms of non-arbitrariness one can select only for moral actions that one's opinions, identity, or inclination have no bearing upon. Whether or not one should value non-arbitrariness is uncertain perhaps, but once one decides upon it, certain moral actions make more or less sense and some become absolute.
IN essence, I agree with you. But I also would say that religious morality was created for the needs of society; religious morality was just one more coercing force to keep the peeps behaving as they should. Come secular sociaties, the law took on an enormously big role in keeping peace and order. In fact, religion and morality and sin were fully exchanged to justice, law and crime. Secular societies need not have an operational ethical code, with complete buy-in, as the law takes care of that.
This is not to say that we have no operational ethical code in secular societies. Yes, we do, and they are precisely what you said: remnants of the old school moralistic religious teachings.
As the structure and centralization and authoritarianism of larger civilizations developed, those wisdom traditions developed alongside that trend into religions proper as we now understand them. As they ossified their wisdom, both about reality and about morality, into an inflexible dogmatic form, continuing development of views about both reality and about reality became something contrary to that religious dogmatism, both the natural sciences as we now know them, and the less-developed normative equivalent thereof, secular theories of morality.
TL;DR: prescriptive thought predates religion just as much as descriptive thought does.