Atheism and morality

[simplexity]

If you think he has reason not to disembowel a prostitute but do not believe there is any god or afterlife kindly explain.

As I have already stated time and time again, it is instinctively built into you as we are a social species. The reason is a form of neural blackmail. If you think of said outcome, MIND MORALITY CENTER ACTIVATE, and you get a feeling of emotional pain. Not everyone will comply with this kind of tough love instruction, but they usually will. Too much. Maybe. I thought you were finally starting to understand what morality was. Oh, was i wrong, because this is not morality but merely one of the starting points to generate the ideas behind right and wrong(morality). And then it gets more complicated with the rationalizing part of the brain, that can justify this reasoning based on himself living in a society of people.

Obviously Jack is lacking a necessary system of the mind, and should be locked up, as he is lacking is the social systems and cannot be trusted to act in a social environment.

[Inigo]

If you think he has reason not to disembowel a prostitute but do not believe there is any god or afterlife kindly explain.

As I have already stated time and time again, it is instinctively built into you as we are a social species. The reason is a form of neural blackmail. If you think of said outcome, MIND MORALITY CENTER ACTIVATE, and you get a feeling of emotional pain. Not everyone will comply with this kind of tough love instruction, but they usually will. Too much. Maybe. I thought you were finally starting to understand what morality was. Oh, was i wrong, because this is not morality but merely one of the starting points to generate the ideas behind right and wrong(morality). And then it gets more complicated with the rationalizing part of the brain, that can justify this reasoning based on himself living in a society of people.

Obviously Jack is lacking a necessary system of the mind, and should be locked up, as he is lacking is the social systems and cannot be trusted to act in a social environment.

Talk about instincts all you want. Jack doesn't care. He wants to disembowel a prostitute and he has nothing to lose. What reason does HE have to not disembowel a prostitute if there is no god and an afterlife?

[Rahul]

Talk about instincts all you want. Jack doesn't care. He wants to disembowel a prostitute and he has nothing to lose. What reason does HE have to not disembowel a prostitute if there is no god and an afterlife?

Personal abhorrence?

Unfortunately there are people that are born with no conscience. We lock up those people when they harm others.

[Silver]

What reason does HE have to not disembowel a prostitute if there is no god and an afterlife?

That is weak. Very weak. People believe in god and kill all the time. A belief, or lack thereof, does not prevent one from murdering. God or an afterlife does not enter into the equation, because murder is about pleasuring the Id.

[simplexity]

Oh, just shut up. I'll give Jack plenty of reason not too by locking him up. He doesn't have a reason otherwise, and yes, that's just how it is.

[Inigo]

Talk about instincts all you want. Jack doesn't care. He wants to disembowel a prostitute and he has nothing to lose. What reason does HE have to not disembowel a prostitute if there is no god and an afterlife?

Personal abhorrence?

Unfortunately there are people that are born with no conscience. We lock up those people when they harm others.

He doesn't have any "personal abhorrence". And he's about to die, so locking him up hardly disadvantages him. What reason does HE have not to disembowel a prostitute?

---

Oh, just shut up. I'll give Jack plenty of reason not too by locking him up. He doesn't have a reason otherwise, and yes, that's just how it is.

He's about to die, thicky! Can't you read? He's about to die and the one thing he really wants to do before he dies is disembowel a prostitute. Does he have any reason not to? Would he be irrational to refrain?

[Angrboda]

Why do you think I give rat's arse what the Stanford said? Some other twit decided to quote its definition of morality and I merely noted that it accorded with mine and then showed that twit why such a thing would require a god.

You can define morality how you want. Define it as a pad of butter if you want. You won't be addressing me. For I have defined it as that which instructs with inescapable rational authority. It seems to be something of this nature that moral philosophers are concerning themselves with. Would you like some big names? YOu seem to crave the need for an authority figure. How about Kant? That do you?

You need to slow down a bit and actually read what is being said. I was actually in agreement with you and arguing the irrelevance of the SEP entry. But apparently your brain is only capable of seeing in black and white, and since I've opposed you before, that must mean that anything I say to you now is in opposition to you.

But you say that this reason would be 'instrumental' and not 'moral'. That's question begging in this context. One cannot simply stipulate that moral reasons are not instrumental reasons: they may be. Granted, they do not appear to be.

I was unclear. Let me restate. Things that I have a compelling moral reason to comply with are subjectively different from those that appeal to me because of their instrumental utility in combination with our compelling self interests, the former being what you refer to as "moral phenomena." Now, I presume that, apart from your argument and its conclusions, you are not claiming to have direct knowledge of moral reality (what others refer to as objective morality), and if not, please state otherwise. So the only actual direct access we have is to moral sensations, or the phenomenal aspect of morality. Why do these reasons from a god, which have clear instrumental utility if known, appear as moral phenomena and not simply as compelling reasons of personal self-interest possessed of no palpable moral character?

(Waiting in the wings is the question of why these reasons are compelling if we don't actually believe in the existence of an afterlife, but I'll wait. Note however that your second syllogism doesn't seem to offer, in itself, any reason to prefer the formulation "a vengeful god who has control over your afterlife" to "an unforgiving and inflexible karmic law which will condemn you to an eternity of incarnations filled with suffering if you do not behave morally, as communicated by the uncreated and eternally existing Vedas." In particular, it's possible the Vedas issue from an agent and we are simply ignorant of their true source, so arguing that they require an agent is ineffective. The moral instruction contained in the traditional Indian metaphysics appears to offer an equivalent and equally rationally compelling reason for complying; why prefer one to the other?)

[Inigo]

Why do you think I give rat's arse what the Stanford said? Some other twit decided to quote its definition of morality and I merely noted that it accorded with mine and then showed that twit why such a thing would require a god.

You can define morality how you want. Define it as a pad of butter if you want. You won't be addressing me. For I have defined it as that which instructs with inescapable rational authority. It seems to be something of this nature that moral philosophers are concerning themselves with. Would you like some big names? YOu seem to crave the need for an authority figure. How about Kant? That do you?

You need to slow down a bit and actually read what is being said. I was actually in agreement with you and arguing the irrelevance of the SEP entry. But apparently your brain is only capable of seeing in black and white, and since I've opposed you before, that must mean that anything I say to you now is in opposition to you.

But you say that this reason would be 'instrumental' and not 'moral'. That's question begging in this context. One cannot simply stipulate that moral reasons are not instrumental reasons: they may be. Granted, they do not appear to be.

I was unclear. Let me restate. Things that I have a compelling moral reason to comply with are subjectively different from those that appeal to me because of their instrumental utility in combination with our compelling self interests, what you refer to as "moral phenomena." Now, I presume that, apart from your argument and its conclusions, you are not claiming to have direct knowledge of moral reality (what others refer to as objective morality), and if not, please state otherwise. So the only actual direct access we have is to moral sensations, or the phenomenal aspect of morality. Why do these reasons from a god, which have clear instrumental utility if known, appear as moral phenomena and not simply as compelling reasons of personal self-interest possessed of no palpable moral character?

(Waiting in the wings is the question of why these reasons are compelling if we don't actually believe in the existence of an afterlife, but I'll wait. Note however that your second syllogism doesn't seem to offer, in itself, any reason to prefer the formulation "a vengeful god who has control over your afterlife" to "an unforgiving and inflexible karmic law which will condemn you to an eternity of incarnations filled with suffering if you do not behave morally, as communicated by the uncreated and eternally existing Vedas.")

I have already addressed the point about a Karmic universe. But I'll do so again because I'm bloody nice and tolerant.
A karmic law of supernature is not an instruction. It is just a description of what is going to happen. Second, such a view would not be able to account for moral desert.

When it comes to what it is like to sense that one has a moral reason not to do a thing it seems to me that I have a reason not to do this thing even if I want to.
Normally when I sense that I have a reason to do something my having it seems conditional upon it serving some of my ends.
The difference between a moral reason and a non-moral one therefore seems to be that the former are inescapable - they seem unconditional - whereas the latter are conditional.

This, I take it, is the key piece of evidence that moral reasons are not instrumental reasons.

I have described a scenario in which we would have inescapable instrumental reasons to not behave in certain ways. And, as such, I take it that I have undercut that evidence and shown that moral reasons can be instrumental reasons.

YOu have the moral sense, I assume, that there is something wrong with disembowelling prostitutes for fun. So you sense, according to me anyway, that disembowelling prostitutes for fun is something that we - you, me, everyone - is instructed not to do (other things being equal - so putting aside strange scenarios in which disembowelling a prostitute for fun is the only way to save a billion lives or something) and that we thereby have reason not to do, even if we really want to. So you have the sense, I assume (or at least believe) that Jack has inescapable reason not to disembowel a prostitute (even if he doesn't realise this).

NOw imagine that the god I have posited really exists. Believe it for a mo. There is nothing hallucinatory about your moral impressions under such circumstances. She, this god, really is instructing us not to do such things, and we really do thereby come to have reason not to do such things even if we want to.

[Rahul]

He doesn't have any "personal abhorrence". And he's about to die, so locking him up hardly disadvantages him. What reason does HE have not to disembowel a prostitute?

If a person doesn't have an internal monitor, IE your conscience, it really doesn't matter if you believe in god or not. You're just going to hurt people.

If I was a Christian I could disembowel a thousand prostitutes, then ask Jesus for forgiveness and accept him as my person savior.

Then I would be dancing with you in Heaven.

Did you know the notorious Son of Sam serial killer is an evangelical Christian now with his own website?

I don't want to hurt people. When I die I believe I'm just gone. Poof! But I don't want to cause pain and anguish while I exist. The proximity of my death wouldn't change that in me.

[Inigo]

He doesn't have any "personal abhorrence". And he's about to die, so locking him up hardly disadvantages him. What reason does HE have not to disembowel a prostitute?

If a person doesn't have an internal monitor, IE your conscience, it really doesn't matter if you believe in god or not. You're just going to hurt people.

If I was a Christian I could disembowel a thousand prostitutes, then ask Jesus for forgiveness and accept him as my person savior.

Then I would be dancing with you in Heaven.

Did you know the notorious Son of Sam serial killer is an evangelical Christian now with his own website?

You're probably one of those people who thinks vegetarianism is immoral because Hitler was one.

Answer the question: does he have any reason not to disembowel the prostitute?

Then answer this question: is it wrong for him to disembowel the prostitute?

Then answer this question: if it is wrong to do something do you have reason not to do it?