Why 'should' atheists be moral?

[Exian]

Because I don't live in isolation.

I assume what you're trying to say is that people who are immoral are going to be disliked, therefore have no friends and live in isolation. I think that is true to some extent and was definitely true in the past which is how I think we got our morals through evolution. You know there are things in your life though that you can 'get away with' but you choose not to do them anyway. Why is that?

And why do some people choose to do those things? Is the feeling of guilt not the answer you're looking for?

[GrandizerII]

For the same reason anyone should be moral. Because it will lead to a better life within the community. We're a social species, and those of us that get along with the group tend to do better in life.

I touched upon this in my first post and don't think it is a valid answer. Yes if everyone was immoral it would make for a much worse community, but the way it is now, if you know everyone else in the community will be moral, why not benefit yourself by being one of the few immoral people in it. For example, why not not give money to charity yourself but then happily take money from charity for when you need it later in life?

Genetic Predisposition + Environmental/Social Conditioning. Both powerful enough to define who you are and what you're conditioned to think and do.

Simple answer to a silly theistic objection.

[vincent150]

And why do some people choose to do those things? Is the feeling of guilt not the answer you're looking for?

Yes the feeling of guilt may be the reason. What I wanted though is an answer to be able to give theists who ask this question. I'm not sure that this is a convincing answer for possibly why a theist would believe that they should still be moral without god.

[GrandizerII]

And why do some people choose to do those things? Is the feeling of guilt not the answer you're looking for?

Yes the feeling of guilt may be the reason. What I wanted though is an answer to be able to give theists who ask this question. I'm not sure that this is a convincing answer for possibly why a theist would believe that they should still be moral without god.

You're giving them way too much credit. The objection itself is a silly one and, therefore, need not be taken that seriously.

[Ben Davis]

I assume what you're trying to say is that people who are immoral are going to be disliked, therefore have no friends and live in isolation.

Not quite although that's part of it. The main point I was making is that I recognise that I'm part of an interdependent society and as such, my actions have repercussions on others as theirs do on me. I 'should' be moral in order to maximise the effects of reciprocal altruism. In addition, my sense of empathy, informing me of the way harm feels to others, leads me to want to minimise harmful impacts of my actions, in a purely human, emotional, personal sense rather than a broader, social sense. I 'should' be moral because I don't like it when I suffer immorality and I understand that others will feel the same.

For the moment, I'm ignoring the impacts of socio/psychopathy so that my main point is clear.

You know there are things in your life though that you can 'get away with' but you choose not to do them anyway. Why is that?

Sometimes I have, sometimes I haven't

Seriously though, there are very few actions which are completely isolated from others so we're back to my point about empathy again. I don't require a threat of punishment to drive my morality. It's also about personal conditioning. The more immoral actions I take, the easier it is to perform immoral actions. My sense of self-preservation combined with my self-image drives me to 'police' my own actions. I 'should' be moral because I won't like myself if I'm not.

[Mequa]

I take a neo-Epicurean solution to this dilemma of "Why 'should' atheists be moral?".

I consider when acting "morally" instrumentally aligns with my own individual well-being. There are certainly long-term personal benefits to being a good friend, for example, and developing the requisite character traits, strengths and skills required in order to maintain healthy and positive interpersonal relationships.

In that sense, "virtue" is something which may be instrumentally useful with utility towards one's own individual long-term survival, health, sanity and happiness. If you take a contractarian view along the lines of refusing both to inflict harm and to allow others to inflict harm on you, this can be a useful pragmatic rule of thumb for an atheist, where one can gain personal benefits from forming alliances and friendships with others.

Personal integrity thus becomes a useful tool by which to benefit from positive relationships with others and thus satisfy basic human needs for relationship and community, which provides the optimum benefits to one's own individual well-being.

It can be very useful not to be a backstabbing asshole and thus not only benefit from a positive reputation, but also have acquired the skills to maintain positive and non-abusive interpersonal relationships.

In such relationships, both people's personal boundaries are respected by both parties in interpersonal interactions, and both parties are mutually committed to both avoid harming or hurting the other person.

So in addition to respecting the other person's personal boundaries, one also firmly asserts their own personal boundaries, always refusing to tolerate being harmed or abused by the other, and skillfully standing up for oneself if the other person ever gets out of line.

This seems to fit very closely with the classical Epicurean model of friendships being modelled on a voluntary social contract, with different guidelines established according to the time, place, circumstances and individuals involved, as a voluntary mutual commitment with a friend to avoid neither inflicting harm nor allowing oneself to be harmed by them.

In find that is a useful and pragmatic neo-Epicurean social ethic. For some though it doesn't go far enough in terms of concern for society at large and self-sacrifice to it. I would disagree though personally, and think this is quite empowering to adopt, given that refusing to tolerate mistreatment is a fundamental ethical principle, and the personal benefits of treating others well in interpersonal relations are also emphasised.

[robvalue]

Very interesting discussion all round.

I think the problem lies with what exactly is meant by "should". It's very vague and contextual, so maybe the first thing to do is ask the theist to define what they mean in more detail. Often this is a good tactic against any theist argument, as they won't have given much thought to the terms they use, but are just parroting nonsense arguments they have been fed.

I think it's representative of the fact that indoctrination makes it really hard for the theist to grasp what atheism is. They can't get their head around the idea of "no religion" because they can't imagine life without it. Its kind of like a football enthusiastic not being able to grasp someone not having a favourite team.

Theists oftentimes view it as making a binary choice, say Christianity or the religion of nothing/science/evolution. They don't realize they are making a ridiculous and indeed false dichotomy as they are atheist against all other religions just like we are without beating themselves up about that.

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Also it's very easy to prove that a christian for example is more moral than their God, or has no morals at all.

Ask them if they think slavery is OK. And stoning people to death for collecting sticks on Sunday. Or forcing women to marry their rapist. Or being punished for what your ancestors have done.

If they say these are not OK, they have made their own moral judgement, and that makes them superior to the God who supports these things. If they say they are OK, they have abandoned morality completely and just do what they are told.

This makes the huge flawed assumption that the instructions they are receiving really are "good" things to do. How can they distinguish between a good god who tells the truth, and an evil God who lies? Hint: the comeback to any objection to this is, "Well isn't that exactly what a lying God would want you to think? You think God is all powerful but is not capable of tricking you, a mere mortal?"

Or, "You claim God can't lie? He did a pretty good job of that regarding the apple debacle. Here he got outwitted by a talking snake, who actually told the truth but got painted as the bad guy."

[mralstoner]

I am an atheist and am also a moral person. I am not trying to argue that we should not be moral but am looking for someone to give me a good reason on how to answer this question to religious people because I can't think of one myself at the moment.

It's very simple. When you take away blind adherence to tradition/religion, the only arbiter of good and bad is human desire i.e. the pursuit of happiness, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. So, as atheists, happiness/pleasure are the end goals of our behaviour.

Morality is about rules of behaviour. When we look at morality anew, through the prism of the pursuit of happiness, we can see that some rules promote happiness, whereas others are best left behind.

So, to argue for or against moral rules, you have to argue that they promote happiness. Who's happiness? Well, obviously your own first. But to convince others of the usefulness of moral rules, obviously you need to demonstrate it will promote happiness for them too. (This gets a bit hard with folks who don't recognise the pursuit of happiness).

So does that mean we should rush to remake morality anew, according to the new arbiters of pleasure/pain? Not necessarily. Rushing might not be a good idea at the moment. Our world is already in great flux at the moment, massive demographic and cultural changes are taking place within the West, and power is shifting from America to China etc. The world is increasingly an unstable place, and trashing moral traditions might destroy social cohesion at a time when we really need it.

[robvalue]

Also, get the theist to define what moral means. See if they can come up with a definition that doesn't include God in some way. If they can't, then they are asking you an ill-formed question:

"If God doesnt exist, how can you do what God wants you to do?"

If you point out that this is what they are essentially asking, hopefully they will see they are using definitions which don't make sense for the question to be valid.

Often it's not about "winning" an argument, its just about getting a theist to think for themselves. I realised this question kind of parallels this one, "Now you are an adult and don't have your parents telling you what's right and wrong, how do you decide what is right and wrong?" In many ways, atheism is like "growing up". Sadly some people can't, or won't.

[Mudhammam]

Well, in short, "should" implies that such and such an action entails good or desirable outcomes, depending on what it is you value. In other words, it's a question of "what does it mean to be good?" to which an answer is found in one's sense and education.