My Morality Rumination
Posted by evanescent on 28 August, 2007
When I de-converted from being a lifelong believer in god, the idea of being alone with my thoughts troubled me. I’d spent all my life believing that god could hear all my thoughts, and I could talk to him about anything. Losing my faith was like losing a friend, albeit a friend who never existed.
I thought a lot about morality. If no one could hear my thoughts or know my intentions, what did that mean? If there was no punishment for my actions save what the Law would execute on me, what was my guide to right or wrong?
Since then, I’ve discussed morality with other atheists, been questioned by agnostics, and been challenged by theists. But not long after I de-converted I realised something: people over-think the source of morality far too much! Even I was over-analysing it!
I’m not saying there are no ambiguous issues, and in fact, trying to paint every moral decision in terms of black and white is often impossible, and counter-productive. However, “wrong” is a word, and as a word it has a definition. “Immoral” is also a word, and as Richard Dawkins points out, words are our slaves not masters. Humans decide what words mean, so when we talk about ‘right’, ‘wrong’, and ‘morality’, we are using words that mean something. These definitions are independent of our personal beliefs and biases, just as the word “wet” means what it means and doesn’t mean “dry” if I want it to.
It is therefore illogical when (some) religious people ask atheists what their source of morality is; a loaded question if ever there was one, that tacitly assumes that they already have a credible source: their religion.
This is silly for a few reasons, and although I don’t expect any theist to give up their beliefs, I’m sure they will come to agree with me on this:
For the purposes of morality, I’ll loosely define “wrong” as that which causes unnecessary harm or suffering to another being, including violating the rights of that being, or exploiting it. Whether that definition is too verbose or too simple, it will suffice for this discussion.
If that is what “wrong” means, then we can easily analyse any action on this basis and decide whether it is right or wrong. What things might fall under this “wrong” category? I would suggest for starters: rape, murder, theft, racism, unwarranted torture, and mistreatment of animals. Therefore, anyone committing those actions is in the wrong. I doubt anyone so far would disagree with me.
I believe that these things are wrong anywhere, at any time. As a thought experiment, imagine you’re on another planet with different laws and values. Is rape wrong here? Yes! An alien race might not have a word for “wrong” or even bother with morality, but that doesn’t make it subjective! No more than if the aliens didn’t have a word for “earth” or “sun” that would stop those things being something very real and objective. Morality is objective, and right and wrong are objective expressions, because they have real meanings in the world.
To say that wrong actions are right under certain conditions is to redefine the word, in which case you’re not talking about the word “wrong” anymore, you have invented another one. This means that, even in theory, there is a word to describe the kind of actions that the original word “wrong” was meant to imply. So, even if there wasn’t a word to describe actions, they would still be right or wrong. Again, morality is a real thing, and humans have full capacity to judge actions and decide what is ethical or not. Our guide must be what does and doesn’t cause unnecessary harm.
It is clear therefore that, to borrow from Ebonmuse: anything that increases net human happiness is good, and anything that decreases net human happiness is bad.
Now, whether god exists or not is irrelevant. This isn’t an argument for or against religion. But it is self-evident that personal faith or belief in god is not a source for morality. Rather, if god exists and is moral, god himself is bound by these objective principles. If god is not bound by them, then morality is subjective and is based on god’s whim, which means rape and murder would be “good” if god said so. The common theistic reply to this is that god would never allow rape and murder because he is necessarily good himself. But this is the same problem repackaged and moved back a level: it presupposes that god must be a certain way, or that his nature must be a certain way; but if his nature must be objectively good, then objective good exists all the same. And if god cannot go against his nature which means he cannot go against “good”, then we might just as well say that god cannot go against good, which means it exists objectively anyway.
Therefore, god and religion, whether true or not, cannot be a basis for morality. In fact, one might argue that being in the position of following the orders of another being without question could, even in theory, compromise your morality.
A final thought experiment for theists will establish the issue:
If god didn’t exist, and your religion was false, would you hurt people? Would you steal and lie and cheat? Would you rape, pillage, and kill? If not, why? And if not, then you admit that your morality isn’t really linked to your god or religion after all! In which case you’re in no better or worse position than any atheist.
Deep down, we all get our morality from the same place: our own sense of right and wrong. But because objective morality exists, most of the time everyone’s senses of right and wrong coincide. There are grey areas, but morality being a real thing itself regardless of belief, should be reassuring for all. It means that we have responsibility for our actions, and we are accountable to other beings. It also means that because we’re living feeling creatures and are surrounded by other such entities, we should feel encouraged to be nice to people and increase net happiness for all. I’m sure you agree that this is a good thing to do, whether you believe in god or not.
29 August, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I tried to make a similar point on my latest post, too. Morality is innate within us, or we would not be able to recognise the morality (or otherwise) recorded in the bible and elsewhere.
29 August, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I would really recommend this book called “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch. Pantheism offers one of the most convincing ideals of morality.
Even if you were to debunk this guy’s claim that he had a conversation with god, (something that I did when I myself was a passionate Christian), just look at the logic he gives. It is just phenomenal.
Here is a link that explains Pantheistic ethics and moralities.
Please don’t mind this comment. I am not trying to propagate a religion. Just giving you one perspective. In fact, pantheism is not a “religion”. It goes against all religions. It’s a philosophy that is explained very well in the book I quoted above…
29 August, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Morality does seem to be “innate” within most of us. There are those — sociopaths, some people with advanced narcissistic personality disorder — who seem to have little or no conscience, and no concern for the rights or suffering of others.
This leads one to believe that compassion and similar characteristics of what I like to call the “human spirit” (as opposed to all those other spirits) may in fact be hard-wired into most of us.
That being said, however, there seems also to be hard-wired a predisposition to look for ultimate answers that will probably mean that a majority of humans will always be sitting ducks for the easy way out of the hard questions. For those people religion provides the comfort that they need. It also provides community and structure in the lives of billions. As to morality, it provides guidelines as well — however contradictory.
Regardless of our personal beliefs, we must allow others the right to seek comfort as they may. It would be cruelty of the highest order to remove their hopes without having something with which to replace it, and the sophisticated thought necessary to reach internal rejection of ideas inculcated since birth is not available to most.
My point: all religion is not all bad. As an agnostic, I find the community and guidance mentioned above in Buddhism, to which I was attracted by its lack of proselytizing and its logical approach to things spiritual — not things spirit-ridden.
Having said that, I must say that I love your blog and the way your mind works.
Regards,
Bill
29 August, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I meant to remark, as well, that I believe “morality” tends in most people’s minds to refer to how their behavior relates to a set of rules — as opposed to “ethics,” which (in my mind, at least) relates to how my behavior relates to other human beings.
29 August, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Morality is at least in part a social construct, because as you say we are accountable for our actions to other beings for the simple reason that we live with them. Different cultures and societies have therefore created different moralities. They usually agree on the “big points” — murder, theft, rape, dishonesty are wrong — but often get hung up on other matters which we can eventually see are “merely” cultural practices. One good example of this is head-covering for women in Islam, attitudes towards nudity in the U.S. and much of the West, the abstinence from meat on Fridays for Catholics (at least during the Middle Ages), restrictions on premarital sex and homosexuality in many cultures, the practice of ritual cannibalism in the South Pacific, and so on. The distinction Bill makes between ethics and morality is part of that hang-up. When a theist questions whether atheists can have any source of morality, the theist merely asserts that the atheist doesn’t share the theist’s morality. We forget there are moralities — plural — not just one. But ethics, to use Bill’s distinction again, seem to be universal and objective. Most religions, like the cultures they are part of, present more universal ethics and culturally-derived moralities as if they are the same thing, when they’re obviously not.
29 August, 2007 at 4:32 pm
@ Bill:
Many thanks for your comments. A lot of what you said is very well thought out and I agree with most of it.
I agree that we must allow others to seek comfort however they choose. However, we must be cautious not to let our liberance and tolerance become so excessive that any source of comfort is deemed acceptable. Religion CAN be a dangerous guide when it comes to morality at times.
Also, I would echo the words of Richard Dawkins, that although it’s all well and good you and I sitting here talking about how evolved our morality is, there is something condescending about saying that some people need religion because they will never know any better. Isn’t the most important thing:
1. whether it is actually true or not.
2. is religion necessary for morality.
As you say, if people REALLY need religion to tell them not to abuse other people, there is something wrong with them anyway!
Again, thanks for commenting and the kind words.
@ Dana:
Grey areas in morality might involve issues like abortion, or homosexuality, to use two examples.
However, they only become moral issues when they clash with people’s personal or spiritual beliefs.
Homosexuality is NOT, and cannot be, a matter of morality: two people enjoying each other without anyone getting hurt cannot possibly be immoral. I agree many people have a problem with it, but their objections are not truly based on morality, but on personal belief, and as the article argues: morality is not founded on personal belief, but should rather, transcend it.
Abortion after two weeks for instance isn’t murder, but killing an unborn child at 7 months is. The difference is whether a human life is actually taken or not.
If we use as our general guide “that which unnecessarily harms other beings or not”, it is clear that morality should be virtually universally agreeable.
Unfortunately, sometimes people’s beliefs can affect their interpretations of morality, which again is why religion is not a basis for morality: .e.g: homosexuality would be “wrong”, when it isn’t.
This isn’t an attack on religion, but illustrates why, as you both quite rightly observe, morality is indepedent of it.
29 August, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Refreshing and uncluttered ideas - nice to stumble upon. Keep it up. Go straight to my del.icio.us…
29 August, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Jesus said that He would never lose, not one sheep that the Father has given Him. Maybe you were never one of His sheep to begin with?
29 August, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Hi PFC, I appreciate the time you gave to leave a comment, but I don’t believe in the bible or the divinity of Jesus, so your sentiment is lost on me I’m afraid. Besides, it doesn’t really address anything in the article.
29 August, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Great post!
Religious morality is immature - a child’s plea for a set of rules. Adults think things through for themselves. It’s about time the human race came of age.
1 September, 2007 at 3:34 am
You have a poor standing on morality, eva. This can be simply contradicted with some logic.
If God does not exist, what is morality? Well, it is just a bunch of chemical responses in our brain, of course, and what does that mean? It means this: morality cannot exist because there is nothing there to create it. You recognize morality as a material thing; as something that isn’t just a reaction of our brain. You say that even on another planet something can be wrong or right, but are you sure that morality can be trusted? It is entirely possible for God to have created morality, but because that is out of our hands, we should not bring that into the issue. Rape isn’t right or wrong if there is no God. Do you know why? Because morality is not a material thing if God does not exist. Morality does not come from an explosion. For all we know, a negative affect could be a positive one. There is no way of knowing without God. Our thoughts themselves cannot be trusted, even, so what makes you think that our sense of morality can? No prudent atheist can believe that morality exists in itself. That atheist can believe that humans make up their own morality, but he/she cannot believe that morality is, in itself, an actual thing. If that didn’t get through your head, explain to me why morality can exist in itself without God.
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By the way (and this is totally off subject), why do you people compliment eva’s posts all the time? They aren’t really that good, in my opinion (no offense). This is how it goes: A new post appears. The first response goes like this: “Wow! What a well written post. No one can argue with that…” etc, and the comment goes on to summarize the post in a few sentences. This makes no sense to me. After all, are you even prudent with the post? You see nothing wrong with it? There is a flaw in every post made by anyone, yet here, instead of helping eva out by giving him/her advice and/or pointing out a flaw he/she made, you simply compliment eva as if eva is a super-genius who just figured out a cure for cancer. I mean no disrespect, but this has been tearing at me since I first visited this site.
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Have a wonderful day, my friends.
God bless.
1 September, 2007 at 10:19 am
D said:
Apparently, not wanting to cause harm gives me a poor standing on morality, according to D.
That’s like saying, “if the sky isn’t blue, what’s on TV tonight?”
You’ve just contradicted yourself. If morality is “just a bunch of chemical responses in our brain”, then there is something to create it.
By the way, if you think there is something to human consciousness besides the brain, I recommend some elementary neuroscience.
Morality arises because words have meaning; words that describe how people interact with each other. This is where morality comes from.
I’m more than happy to leave “god” out of the issue.
This makes no sense, and is diabolical morality.
Do you actually listen to yourself when you speak?
Who says our thoughts cannot be trusted? I’m an adult D, which means I can reasonably trust my own morality. Most human beings can. It’s the minority who ruin it for the rest of us. These are the kind of people who don’t care about hurting others, or worse still, think hurting people is ok if “god” doesn’t exist.
Then you don’t know many prudent atheists. Reading Christian propaganda on the internet doesn’t count.
I did: read the article.
Just for any onlookers, let’s recap:
D said:
So, if D didn’t believe in his “god”, he wouldn’t think anything about raping women. Now, D, don’t even try to deny this, because if you do, I win by default. Because if you realise that your “god” doesn’t exist, tell me if you’d think twice about raping if you could get away with it. If you wouldn’t, then you concede that something in you stops you, because you know it’s WRONG, whether “god” exists or not.
And of course, if you maintain that rape isn’t right or wrong, then you’ve just proven perfectly that not only is religion irrelevant to morality, it can be detrimental to it. Thank you for showing us your true ‘morality’.
The article above clearly explains my definition of morality and where an objective morality comes from. You haven’t even come close to addressing it.
One more thing D: keep on believing in god. Please. There are rules in society to protect the rest of us from people like you, who need to be told what right and wrong is. So, if believing in god is the only way to stop you hurting people and raping them, keep on believing!
D said:
It’s good to get things off your chest, D. But what does the bible say about jealousy?
1 September, 2007 at 4:25 pm
No it isn’t, because God’s existence actually has a lot to do with morality’s existence.
I don’t contradict myself. You refer to morality as a material thing, not as a reaction within our body that probably can’t be trusted, as would be logical to believe if you are an atheist.
According to you, there is no such thing as morality. According to you, morality cannot exist in itself, rather, it is just a human reaction to certain actions.
That is the very question I have been asking you.
I say your thoughts can’t be trusted without God. If the earth just spins around and crumbles away, what is the meaning of living? If our thoughts are just a bunch of chemical reactions within our body that came from an explosion that came from singularity that was just there without anything to create even though it isn’t eternal, how, then, can we trust our thoughts? If we are just an accident, why then do we trust our thoughts? They may seem to be trustworthy, but without God, they are not trustworthy. Why, then, should we trust both our thoughts and our sense of morality?
Does reading posts from many different atheists count?
I would believe it wrong, even though my thoughts tell me not to care. I’m not saying that I would commit murder or anything if God didn’t exist. I’m saying that we SHOULDN’T care. If God didn’t exist, I would simply make actions that were to my benefit. I don’t “know” if something is right or wrong given the hypothetical scenario that God doesn’t exist, I would KNOW not to trust my thoughts, but I would still have my “sense” of morality holding me back, but when does a “sense” govern reality?
Atheism is very detrimental, and the assertion you made about Christians is just that. An assertion. I explained why atheism is detrimental, regardless of your thoughts, because your thoughts are just chemical reactions, and aren’t worth trusting.
I have firm, solid, and well-backed up beliefs concerning God, origins, and morality. No one can convince me otherwise, especially you, eva, for it would take someone intelligent to change my mind if it is even possible for someone to disprove my beliefs, and I don’t believe it is.
That is one of the many comments you have made that makes it extremely difficult to believe you ARE an adult. I’m simply annoyed that people would compliment a post without even taking the time to give advice and/or point out flaws, which is, by the way, helpful.
4 September, 2007 at 9:11 pm
D said:
No it doesn’t, which was the whole point of the article.
That’s a non-sequitor. No atheist believes that anyway.
That’s not what I said at all. You obviously didn’t read the article properly, and if you did, you didn’t understand it.
That’s a very sad view of the world, D. That’s not how I see life. There are millions of things to live for! Friends, family, love, knowledge, research, discovery, science, joy, happiness, pleasure.
If you really need a god to make your life worth living, maybe there is something lacking in your life.
This doesn’t make sense. I do not see the connection between no god and not being able to trust our thoughts. There is no logical progression from one to the other, which means this isn’t an argument, but just an assertion.
Well, if you would believe it to be wrong, then you DON’T need god to tell you right or wrong!
Which is EXACTLY why you cannot be a moral person. You see, atheists make actions that benefit other people all the time, and they don’t believe in god!
Sense doesn’t govern reality, it interprets it. What you’re proposing is dire scepticism, but I fail to see what the existence of god has to do with the possibility of knowledge.
That’s not an explanation or an argument, it’s your assertion. You’ve proved nothing that demonstrates that not believing in your particular version of god is detrimental to anyone or anything. In fact, you’ve admitted that if you didn’t believe in god you wouldn’t care about anyone but yourself, so perhaps YOU need to believe in god, but those of us who care about other people don’t need to.
It’s a shame that I’m not intelligent enough to disprove your beliefs, D. Unfortunately, you’ve just admitted here that you firmly believe you’re right no matter what. This is what we call irrational. No rational person ever believes they are 100% right and cannot be wrong. Rational people follow the evidence, not matter how much it is uncomforting.
I agree, I welcome criticism or compliments. But if someone criticises me, they better know what they’re talking about because I will call them on it. I’ve received my share of unflattering remarks on my blog, and far more complimentary comments. Your criticism is because you don’t like what I have to say, yet, when you have to explain where my fallacies and errors are, you just repeat your own beliefs without addressing my arguments. Why is that I wonder?
11 September, 2007 at 3:01 pm
ev,
Thought I’d do you the courtesy of posting a comment on your blog, in addition to my own:
D said:
Though I’m fairly certain from the tone D is being facetious his point here is better than he would probably prefer to admit. Maybe morality, like behavior in groups and conscious thought is emergent. More than the sum of its parts. Made up of… what… dictums wisdom common kindness to create a framework for right action. Not universalizable in a way easily understood but perhaps shaped by natural laws the way bird flight is. If there is objective morality I don’t think we’ve found it here.
11 September, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Hi elicivilunrest,
I’ve had a chance to think this over and research since yesterday. Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog and comment.
I don’t subscribe to morality just being based on natural laws or solely a product of our evolution. I reject moral subjectivism. D’s comment has no merit to it. (Whether there is or isn’t an objective morality is irrelevant to how the brain works!)
Although I believe we can use principles like the Golden Rule as a rule of thumb in most cases (for ease), I would subscribe to the universal utilitarianism that Ebonmuse offers, and this is unquestionably objective (although as you rightly point out this can clash with the golden rule on occasion):
http://ebonmusings.org/atheism/carrot&stick.html
I believe Ebon makes conclusive arguments to demonstrate that objective morality does exist, and how a moral system can be based on it.
However, I won’t pretend that my article above is entirely sound. It is limited and does not measure up the strengths of universal utilitarianism. What it still does do however is demonstrate that if the atheist cannot be moral, neither can the theist, but if the theist can, so can the atheist (which was of course the point.)
12 September, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Most of the atheists I’ve met have been more moral than most of the theists I’ve met. That is my strictly unscientific qualitative study, but I think knowing that this life is the only one that matters makes us (atheists) more focused on doing right and living well in the material world. The only world we’ll ever have.
17 September, 2007 at 8:24 am
(Apologies if I am accidentally double-posting)
Mm. Definitely some errors in your reasoning, there. The whole ‘we have a word, therefore there is some objective thing that that word refers to’ is seriously suspect. Like, I don’t even want to know what happens if you tell that to, say, a professor of linguistics.
On the other hand, you could argue that the fact that we have a word ‘wrong’ means that the idea of ‘wrong’ exists in our heads. However, the ideas we have of what wrongness consists of do vary between people, and so surely cannot be said to be objective.
17 September, 2007 at 11:48 am
Hi Lynet,
allow me to clarify: I don’t for a second imply that having a word for something constitutes the existence of that something. We have a word for god but that doesn’t mean god exists.
On the other hand, my argument is that if the word “wrong” means something, let’s say it means “to cause unnecessary harm”, for the sake of argument. Therefore, causing unnecessary harm is wrong. Whether we find any actual examples of this or not is irrelevant to the definition, just as the word “god” means something whether it exists or not. (There are of course examples of “wrong” to be found, but that is irrelevant).
Causing unnecessary harm is something that does/can objectively exist, just as a circle or a square exists. It doesn’t matter what label you use for a square or circle, they still exist. (But, it wouldn’t matter if squares existed or not; even if there was not one to be found in nature, the definition of a square would still be real and objective, and if we ever came across one we would have a name for it.)
You might call a square a circle, but we will know we’re talking about the same thing when see something with four sides with each angle 90 degrees. You might disagree with me that the object is actually a rectangle not a square, but we disagree on our interpretations of the object, not on the definition of squares!
Similarly, if we see unnecessary wanton harm, there is a label we can attach to that. It is a literal objective thing. We call it “wrong”, aliens might call it something else or not even acknowledge unnecessary harm, but that doesn’t stop unnecessary harm existing and the word we use for that is “wrong”.
As to what you said about wrongness varying between people, this is of course true. You might think abortion is wrong, I might think it’s not. But that’s because we would probably disagree on whether abortion is “that which causes unnecessary harm or suffering”. Neither of us disagrees over what ‘wrong’ means! Our disagreement is over what meets that criterion. This means that the definition of wrong, just like that of circles or squares, is an objective thing, and it is our interpretations of actions, not the definition itself, that is in dispute.
(That doesn’t mean that MY definition of wrong given above is necessarily true, it’s a lose description that could be improved, but you get the point.)
17 September, 2007 at 2:06 pm
What I feel you are misunderstanding is that you think there is some moral absolute governing necessity. But necessity is necessarily subjective. I challenge you again to list one absolutely necessary (or unnecessary) harm. I doubt you’ll ever find any action we couldn’t argue over.
17 September, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Ah but that isn’t the point though eli. All that demonstrates is that we might disagree on whether anything is ‘wrong’ based on the definition I’ve given, but that doesn’t make the definition or the premise wrong.
In other words, you either disagree with me using the word “wrong” to refer to a certain type of action, in which case what word would you use??
Or you think that no action can be described in this way, in other words you don’t think anything is ‘wrong’.
Thought experiment to prove this exactly: you see somebody deliberately exploiting another person for selfish gain. What word would you use to describe this? Whether you think such an event *would ever happen* or not is irrelevant. The point is, in theory, it could (as it happens of course it does), so what word do you use? I use the word “wrong”.
Maybe you disagree with my definition of “wrong”, which is fair enough. But then you’re not denying that a certain type of action exists that can be classified in this way, you’re just disputing what qualifies.
Now, the fact that people disagree on some issues doesn’t invalidate the nature of objective morality; people can just be wrong!
For example, a man rapes a woman. There was no higher purpose; there was no greater good involved. The man violates another person unnecessarily. This meets my definition of “wrong”. So, assuming you agree with the definition (if you don’t, come up with your own), you agree that this is wrong. There is no getting around it! That the rapist may or may not agree is irrelevant! (This is an example of absolute unnecessary harm that you asked for.)
To reject this reasoning is to be a strict moral subjectivist, a position that is untenable and ultimately self-refuting.
21 September, 2007 at 10:59 am
I guess, then, the central question is what it means for something to be normative. What does it take for the designation ‘wrong’ to be binding on our behaviour? What, precisely, do we mean by the word ’should’ (or the phrase ’should not’)?
To state that “You should not do X” simply means “It is wrong to do X” strikes me as missing the point. There is real meaning in the word ’should’. It does not simply refer to a category of actions defined by some arbitrary rule, but rather to an idea of its very own that I think your development misses.
21 September, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Hi Lynet
What we “should” do wasn’t the focus of the article.
That people can choose to act morally or not is a fact no matter what system of morality you subscribe to, so it’s not a problem for the system itself.
For the sake of argument when discussing a moral system, we assume that people should act morally or not, and then decide how to define moral.
There are of course very good arguments and explanations for “should”, but here I was just elucidating a secular moral position.
25 September, 2007 at 4:20 pm
I found you!
Well, at least I think I did if you’re the same evanescent that posts on Nita’s blog. I felt like you were a kindred spirit and I was disappointed I couldn’t find a link to your blog.
Anyway, I look forward to reading.
(And if this isn’t the same evanescent, apologies)
25 September, 2007 at 5:21 pm
@ Ordinary girl
Kindred spirit?! I think you’ve got the wrong Evanescent
25 September, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Hi ordinary girl,
Yes I did comment on nita’s blog here: http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2007/09/15/why-people-are-religious/
So if your comment was meant for me, many thanks!
29 September, 2007 at 2:36 pm
This is truly an incredible post. I will likely post links to it when morals and religion come up for discussion. I have not heard this worded so eloquently before.
You may also be interested in knowing that we live in a time when we are learning some incredible things about the human brain. Apparently, there are two centers in the brain that deal specifically with moral issues.
The first makes a quick yes/no decision on morality of simple issues. The second performs more in depth processing for more complicated grayer issues.
Of course, there are people with deficiencies in these areas, just as there are people with other mental deficiencies. Depending on how severe the deficiency is, one with such a deficiency in these areas might be called a sociopath.
If anyone is interested in a really good book about the start of this new brain information revolution, so to speak, I would highly recommend The Naked Brain.
http://www.bestwebbuys.com/9781400098095
Searching for “brain moral trolley” (without the quotes) will likely turn up shorter articles on this subject alone. The book talks about many other areas of the brain as well. The word trolley is important because the study involves a number of questions about what to do with a trolley about to roll over people. Use scholar.google.com if you want the raw research in scholarly journals.
Interestingly, they have even rephrased the question with crocodiles and diversion by canoe for hunter gatherer societies that have no idea what a trolley is, and found that people the world over, regardless of culture, produce very similar results for basic and mildly complex moral questions.
30 September, 2007 at 11:19 am
Hi Scott, thanks for the comments and the link. Much appreciated!
2 October, 2007 at 10:30 am
Well…
If the pleasure/pain centers of the aliens’ brains were wired backwards compared to ours, such that they actually enjoyed being exploited/robbed/etc., then it wouldn’t be wrong to do those things to them.
Sorry if I’m misinterpreting what you said, but…
This seems obviously false. There are some actions which are clearly wrong under some circumstances and acceptable under others. (Such as killing— in cold blood, it’s one of the worst crimes; in self-defense, it’s acceptable.)
Again, sorry if I’m misinterpreting you.
One more thing to quibble with:
Why human happiness? Would rape on the alien planet be acceptable on the grounds that it doesn’t decrease human happiness if the victim isn’t human? Plenty of other species on this planet can feel pleasure/happiness and pain/unhappiness (or at least one of those two) and you did say that abuse of non-human animals is wrong…
2 October, 2007 at 10:32 am
Oops. Didn’t properly close an <em> tag. Sorry.
2 October, 2007 at 4:11 pm
That isn’t just a hypothetical scenario; it’s safe to say such creatures would never successfully evolve, so we can discount this.
Yes, but that’s just saying “some actions are right under certain circumstances”. Whereas what I’m saying, although some might consider it a tautology, is to say that “some actions under certain circumstances are always wrong.”
For instance, killing someone in self-defence doesn’t violate anyone’s rights and you have no alternate. This is different to murdering someone because they didn’t hand over their car keys.
Of course hurting animals or harming any sentient lifeform without need is wrong. But the ethic quoted is a principle for moral agents to use to act. Animals are not moral agents, so ethics are irrelevant to their actions.
We don’t know of any aliens but if there are any sapient ones out there, this principle of universal utilitarianism would apply to them too.
4 October, 2007 at 2:51 am
Why wouldn’t they successfully evolve? Are you trying to say that if humans enjoyed being lied to, etc, that they wouldn’t successfully have evolved? Why wouldn’t they? It makes sense to me that it is possible for there to be a certain life form that enjoys being lied to and being robbed. Don’t discount the possible.
Actually, killing someone in self-defense (purposely), isn’t acceptable, just accepted. There is a difference. It is still wrong to kill someone even if they try to kill you, but this type of killing is often condoned by humans. Now don’t get me wrong, if someone attacks you, it is just natural to just go ahead and attack back, but if you purposely kill that person, you have done wrong, because there is always an alternative. The alternative is knocking them out or something or other.
In the world of an atheist, morality doesn’t really exist, it is just a matter of your brain’s opinion. In the world of a Christian, morality is the law governing us all in the same way that the laws of science or the law of 2+2=4 does. I may be wrong about morality concerning Christianity (I know I am right on the atheist view), but it sure appears that way.
What do you believe atheism is? A lack of belief in God/a god, or the belief that God/gods doesn’t/don’t exist? I don’t think that there is any significant difference, but for some reason, atheists seem to be arguing that they don’t believe that God doesn’t exist, it is just that they don’t believe in God. I, of course, think that atheism is both a belief and a lack of belief concerning the same God.
By the way, I like the header, very nice. Sorry about not being here for a while, if I stayed any longer, I would have gone insane, I’m sure. As long as you don’t make me repeat myself (and I will make sure that you don’t), I will remain here, but if I have to repeat my argument constantly, I will leave and wait for you to read my argument in its entirety.
Anyway, I hope you’ve had a nice break from me, I must be so aggravating to deal with :).
4 October, 2007 at 9:20 am
That’s exactly what I’m saying!
But lying and stealing would not form an evolutionary stable system (ESS, as per Richard Dawkins). One person might enjoy stealing and lying, but even he cannot wish that society was that way, because then he would be lied to and stole from. A society of fairly honest fairly scrupulous people would be more successful and cooperative and therefore reproductive than a society of liars.
This is precisely why evolution has selected for social traits in many animals. There are hundreds of examples of group altruism and cooperation from “lower” species, right “up” to humans.
That’s all well and good D, but what if there isn’t an alternative? What if the person is drawing a gun to shoot you and you have a gun aimed on him first. What do you do?
Go for the leg or the arm? You’ve been watching too many movies! In real life, gun users are trained to shoot for the body core. It is nearly always necessary to shoot to kill in that circumstance. If you shoot for a body limb, you might down the person, but all they have to do is point their arm towards you and pull their finger. This takes, how long…a fraction of a second? If you hesitate you are dead.
Atheist morality has been explained to you time and again, so I’m just going to ignore this. So you are not right. But that won’t stop you repeating this every time.
Well thanks for your opinion, but you’re wrong. Which god? There are in theory, countless “gods”, because there is not one bit of evidence for any of them. Perhaps atheism is a positive position, perhaps a negative one.
There are different types of atheism.
The problem for you, D, is that you refuse to accept defeat. I’ve said this before and you know I mean no offence: your knowledge of the topics is simply not good enough for you to be able to debate at this level. And it’s not like we haven’t tried to help you out.
You prove this perfectly when you say above that in the atheists’ world there is no morality, when, I’ve already written many articles about this (LIKE THIS ONE HERE!!), and it’s been explained to you time and again.
4 October, 2007 at 10:59 pm
That nice and all, eva, but we weren’t talking about species that enjoyed lying and robbing. We were talking about aliens that enjoyed being lied to and robbed.
So if a trained gun user had a gun pointed at your heart or your head, you are dead. That much is obvious, but then again, what are the chances of you getting attacked by a trained marksman? Aside from that, since there would be no chance of doing anything whatsoever, killing or injuring the man is obviously out of the question.
Haha! I watch too many movies? I propose that if you could do anything at all, try to injure the man, and you think that you can just kill the man, and then you tell me that I watch too many movies because you don’t think there is any chance of injuring him? And you think you could kill him? Now tell me, who’s watching too many movies? In real life, killing isn’t as easy as it appears to be on movies, and usually, injuring and/or immobilizing is easier.
There is always an option other than killing. If you had a knife in hand, and the man wasn’t paying attention to you at the moment, you could stab him in the shoulder or some other place that could immobilize him, which is why killing him would be wrong. Although it would be accepted, it wouldn’t necessarily be acceptable. There is no possible situation that can likely occur that would force you to kill someone purposely without it being wrong. It’s just impossible.
Name me one case in which it would be possible, then I’ll take that back, but what are the chances of a situation like that occurring? That would be one unlikely vicissitude.
If you had a gun aimed at him already, shoot his hand while it is coming up, if you have that kind of skill. Or, to make things easier, the shoulder. Someplace that would injure him badly enough to immobilize him. It isn’t complicated. If you accidentally kill him, that’s fine, but if there is a choice involved (killing or not), you should simply injure him.
No there isn’t. Name two that actually differ in regards to basic atheist beliefs.
My knowledge doesn’t matter much. This is debate. It is logic that I use, and logic seems to work. If you give me a scenario, I can debate upon it. I don’t need much knowledge. I just need to be able to reason, and that’s what I do. You’ve helped, yes, you’ve set the scenarios for me, and I thank you for that, but I’m using logic and that should be enough for you. Of course, I have had to look up some things, but that’s why I am merely debating within my knowledge, which, as I said before, doesn’t need to be that great.
I apologize, but I am simply unsatisfied with your explanation of morality. It just doesn’t make sense to me, your explanation. I’ve told you time and time again that morality is just a figment of our imagination unless
1. God exists
2. It is an actual thing, like time.
If morality is an actual thing, where then, did it come from? The big bang? No, because morality can’t be made up of chemical explosions and whatnot. Neither can time, but atheists refuse to believe that for some, mysterious reason that makes no sense at all, it’s just a bunch of gibberish.
Also, if morality exists, how would we know? What if the sense is false? Aren’t there ethical differences in opinion in regards to morality? I can explain why there are, but I’m asking you.
Yes, I believe that morality can exist. No, it doesn’t make sense for an atheist to believe in morality.
4 October, 2007 at 11:30 pm
D said:
It’s the same principle. I can’t see how you failed to miss that, but perhaps you felt you had to post some, any, kind of reply! If I were you, I wouldn’t have bothered!
I didn’t say for a second that it was. But if a man is going to shoot you, you have about 1 second at most to decide what to do. Even if you shoot him in the arm of leg, unless he actually drops the gun, he still can shoot you in a fraction of a second.
A law enforcement officer wouldn’t take that chance. If somebody aims a gun at you and you have the chance to shoot first, you shoot to kill.
Of course it’s not easy, but if you don’t then you die. Simple as.
Lol, but what if he WAS paying attention to you?? Unless you can move faster than the speed of sound D, I hope you never get mugged at gunpoint. What will you do, distract him with a bible and whip out a penknife and incapacitate him? Let’s hope the sonic boom of your speedy movement doesn’t deafen either of you.
It doesn’t matter how unlikely you think it is. It only has to be possible in theory to give you a problem.
Well if you want to take that risk with your own life D, fine, but I wouldn’t. If I had to defend myself or my family for example I’d use terminal force. I’m not saying I’d gun him down Jack Bauer style (although the creators of 24 did model the character of Jack Bauer on me), but if I shoot him in the shoulder and he DOESN’T drop his weapon like in the movies, I’m a dead man.
Ok:
1. I believe that God cannot exist.
2. I believe that god might exist, but I see no reason to believe in him.
There you go.
In a way, you’re right. Logic is important, and you should be able to defeat an argument with it, but there’s no substitute for having knowledge of the subject, and unfortunately you don’t. Now, I wouldn’t have a problem with this and nor would anyone else, if it wasn’t for you CLAIMING to know things that you simply don’t have a clue about: evolution, morality, atheism etc. You don’t have a clue, so don’t pretend that you do just because your personal beliefs tell you that these things MUST be wrong.
You can say it as many times as you want, but it’s simply not true. That’s why I wrote this article.
You’re attacking a strawman D. Read THIS ARTICLE. It explains why we have morality, and how morality is independent of belief.
If it doesn’t make sense to you that’s not my problem, but it makes sense for every atheist on the planet.
I would answer your questions, but I don’t need to, because I wrote this very article to answer these issues!
Personally, I find it very hard to believe you’re actually disputing atheistic morality. What you’re in effect saying is that you’d be immoral if you didn’t BELIEVE in god. Forget for a second whether god exists or not, you need BELIEF in him to be moral. How does that work?
Anyway, read the article and your questions will be answered.