[Serious] Good vs Evil

[tackattack]

What really disturbs me is Religion's constant claims for morality. Not only that moral behaviour existed before modern man but also to me morality is something humans earned at a very high price. Saying that God handed down moral principles is an insult against the memory of all those who fought, suffered and lost their lives so our society could become a better place.

Most people can intuit an absolute objective evil. Humans haven't earned morality, they've used it (justly and unjustly) for position and poorly structure the chaos around us into some form of stable society.
Let me ask you this, if dominance hierarchies existed long before there were trees in other species then dominance hierarchies in societies aren't man made. They could be an evolved trait, an emergent trait, inherited trait, evolutionary trait.. and many more reasons. What makes you think morality didn't exist before the creation of trees as well? What if these things we think, are human constructs are just our collective overall simplification for something long before we existed. As morality is an agent on consciousness, as we see it, and if morality existed axiomatically (as certain hierarchical structures and universal constants) why wouldn't there be an objective morality, at least to humanity, as a whole?

[Smaug]

What really disturbs me is Religion's constant claims for morality. Not only that moral behaviour existed before modern man but also to me morality is something humans earned at a very high price. Saying that God handed down moral principles is an insult against the memory of all those who fought, suffered and lost their lives so our society could become a better place.

Most people can intuit an absolute objective evil. Humans haven't earned morality, they've used it (justly and unjustly) for position and poorly structure the chaos around us into some form of stable society.  
Let me ask you this, if dominance hierarchies existed long before there were trees in other species then dominance hierarchies in societies aren't man made. They could be an evolved trait, an emergent trait, inherited trait, evolutionary trait.. and many more reasons. What makes you think morality didn't exist before the creation of trees as well?  What if these things we think, are human constructs are just our collective overall simplification for something long before we existed. As morality is an agent on consciousness, as we see it, and if morality existed axiomatically (as certain hierarchical structures and universal constants) why wouldn't there be an objective morality, at least to humanity, as a whole?

Humans certainly did earn morality. I doubt that you'd argue that humans have quite the same moral behaviour as, say, lions or alligators. It wasn't from scratch of course - if you understood it that way then you got it wrong. Read my long post above. I don't feel like re-typing things over and over again.

Speaking of people able to intuit 'absolute objective evil', this adds nothing to your arguement. Claims for objectivity have to be supported by logic and facts and not by appeal to masses. For many people blapshemy is an 'absolute objective evil' but it's neither objective nor even universal as clearly seen by this forums. And although there are deeds that are objectively harmful to the society and its members and are thus more or less universally regarded as evil this has nothing to do with Religion's claims for morality.

Regarding your second arguement, you have to specify what you mean under 'dominance hierarchies'. It is commonly understood as something that appears in collectives of social animals. In this respect it's meaningless to talk about 'dominance hierarchies' between the bodies of Solar system or in a Petri dish. Same goes for moral behaviour. For example, a stone does not have any behaviour at all, let alone moral one. Stating otherwise will be misuse of terms. Molecular interactions are not 'moral behaviour' although the latter is one of the results of the former.

Anyway, all this in no ways supports Religion's claims for morality.

[The Grand Nudger]

The existence of dominance hierarchies does not lend support or credence to the proposition of moral realism.  Those are subjectivists facts, facts about -us-.  Our hereditary baggage may encourage us to see some thing x a particular way, but this is an argument against realism, not for it.

It can explain the origin of the apparatus used to apprehend (purportedly) objective values, but cannot be the source of those values.  That said, the question remains valid.  Why wouldn't there be an realist morality?  I think you'll find the qualifier "at least to humanity" can be problematic.  It shouldn't be, but it will be, lol.

*There's the outlier - here, though. It at least could be the case that our hereditary baggage got some moral x right by accident (at least with respect to realist context). It's a tough lift, but I think that all four broad categories of meta-ethical positions have some valid thing to add, as does the error theory.

[paulpablo]

I think you don’t understand the difference between good and innocent. Also, I think you’re so silly as to believe that someone doing a bad thing automatically makes them a bad person.

All children are innocent. Likely all children are naturally good (if you believe in a person being able to be “good”), but they obviously can be manipulated by adults.

I disagree with the last bit from experiences I've had with children.  Since before my daughter could speak at all she laughs at things in pain, being hit and so on.  Like Tom and Jerry, Masha and the bear, all those cartoons. They will try and lie and manipulate adults pretty early on. 

 Or another example is they tend to run after cats or other fragile animals and hit them or at least be rough with them.  It's only through learning or copying off adults they stroke cats, pet them and treat them nice.  

I suppose they don't understand the consonances of their actions in terms of killing or hitting things so that could be an argument against them being evil at all.  But I think even when children are slightly older and do understand consequences they're just as capable of evil.  At least based on a vague definition of evil covering things like causing unneccesary harm to things for fun.

There was a book called Lord Of The Flies and I think it related to this quite a lot.  No spoilers for people who haven't read it but some kids got stuck on an island together and they didn't all treat each other very nicely.

[The Grand Nudger]

Two people, two adult people, can commit to the same action and, for one, it might be called evil..while, for the other, it's an action with bad consequences that would be evil if not for the lack of some critical component of moral desert.

Understanding this, it's not so remarkable that children can do evil (or natural evil, if you prefer)..without being evil..specifically contextualized as moral evil.  They also lack that critical component of moral desert (or so we imagine).

[Angrboda]

Drich has become the Brian37 of morality. He uses a stray word or phrase as a pretext for launching off into a rant about his obsessions instead of actually having a discussion.

[WinterHold]

How do you define good and evil?

God will be the center of my post since he created everything.
So he created acts and made some be "good" and some be "evil".
In other words, if he wanted, he can make a third set of acts; or forth; depending on his will.

Do you think anything is objectively good or evil? If so what?

They are not subject to our feelings; rather absolute.

What do you think drives people to aim for what they believe is good and away from what they believe is evil?

We are created and rigged to understand what evil is, and what good is.

The simplest example is poop. It smells bad, we hate it "naturally". Evil shit.
But flowers smell good, we love it naturally. Good stuff.

Other creatures have it differently, They love what we naturally hate

[Smaug]

For an allergic person the smell of flowers may be worse than that of feces, I guess.

[The Grand Nudger]

God will be the center of my post since he created everything.
So he created acts and made some be "good" and some be "evil".
In other words, if he wanted, he can make a third set of acts; or forth; depending on his will.

Are you sure that this accurately describes what you believe about the state of the moral field? 

They are not subject to our feelings; rather absolute.

They would be subject to"gods" feelings, which might make them divine, but wouldn't make them any less subjective or arbitrary. 

We are created and rigged to understand what evil is, and what good is.

The simplest example is poop. It smells bad, we hate it "naturally". Evil shit.
But flowers smell good, we love it naturally. Good stuff.

Other creatures have it differently, They love what we naturally hate

In a sense, I suppose, the idea that we're "created and rigged to understand" is available to pretty much anyone in one form or another - and it may be true...but what exactly are we created and rigged to understand?  

Your example above describes a natural realist foundation.  There's something about poop and flowers.  The smell.  If what we're "created and rigged to understand" is not something like the smell of an object, rather, what you asserted at the outset....the way some god wants us to smell it, or feel about that smell, or respond to that smell, then I don't think you're describing the thing you hope to communicate.  That, or your beliefs demand that you accept the theological antithesis of some moral position you privately hold.

Mind you, I don't want to bicker about whether or not that's the true state of the moral field.  Let's just assume that it is for convenience.  We're asserting that the true nature of morality is subjective, and referent to facts about the divine.   That those facts refer,themselves, to the arbitrarity of a divine will.

[onlinebiker]

Good and evil depend upon the observer.


Having your throat torn out seems bad.

To a wolf - It's just getting dinner ready for the family.