Replacing Religious Morality

[Walking Void]

Close, You might be thinking of my Mike Tyson Ball.

[mralstoner]

Charles Darwin: "A man who has no ... belief in the existence of a personal God ... can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones. A dog acts in this manner, but he does so blindly. A man, on the other hand, looks forwards and backwards, and compares his various feelings, desires and recollections. He then finds, in accordance with the verdict of all the wisest men that the highest satisfaction is derived from following certain impulses, namely the social instincts."

So yeah atheists (like other animals) only have our desires/feelings to tell us good from bad, right from wrong. Ethics is thus a matter of competing emotional desires (within yourself and with others). How we resolve those competing desires is what humans have been arguing about since the dawn of time. All your questions are valid but after a while you'll probably forget about them and just get on with "being nice". It works most of the time.

Paul Kurtz is not a bad place to start for humanist/atheist philosophy, he's written books like Exuberant Skepticism i.e. he puts the passion back into humanism (without abandoning rational skepticism).

[henryp]

But why does your recent lack of faith suddenly make you uncaring about 'people in Africa'? I'm no saint, but I do have that word I think you mentioned in the OP... 'empathy'. Taking care of needs and wants doesn't preclude you from a caring disposition.

I'm not following you, wally.

The people of Africa's worth was based on God saying all people have intrinsic value.

I figured out God isn't plausible.

I need a new reason to apply worth to the people of Africa, and I haven't figured one out yet.
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As for empathy, I think we mistakenly believe empathy is baser and purer than it is. I personally believe it is a conditioned response. I believe that based on it's arbitrary and erratic nature. It's just another religion. Society says care about other people, or you're bad. But what real authority does society have?

[Raven]

But what real authority does society have?

It's the milieu in which we find ourselves to be living. Family, neighbors, teachers when we are young, friends, etc. All the people around us have an impact for good or ill on who we become, and how we think, feel and act. I get the impression that you think that without someone hanging around to "smite" you, a person is bound to behave totally selfishly, with no regard for others just because. I disagree. We're better than that.

Further, society IS authority in that there are authority figures and institutions to enforce what the social scientists like to call "legitimate authority". Which just means that most members of a given society agree that X is in authority. So, yeah, society can "smite" you as well.

[Simon Moon]

I need a new reason to apply worth to the people of Africa, and I haven't figured one out yet.

Morality is really about the well being of sentient beings.

Even with out empathy, it is easy to use evidence, and rational and logical thought in order to discern that, in general: life is preferable to death, health is preferable to disease, comfort is preferable to pain, etc.

Even without a sense of empathy, morality can be rationally ascertained.

As for empathy, I think we mistakenly believe empathy is baser and purer than it is. I personally believe it is a conditioned response. I believe that based on it's arbitrary and erratic nature. It's just another religion. Society says care about other people, or you're bad. But what real authority does society have?

It would seem that empathy is an evolved trait of higher social animals. Not everyone has it, but they would seem to be the vast minority of humans. They sometimes get labeled as sociopaths.

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else situation, and to feel their feelings. Not sure how that can be classified as a religion in any sense of the word.

Who's society says to care about other people? African tribes that are performing ritual female circumcisions? Societies performing Honor killings?

I get the list of rules I follow from society, but that doesn't mean I get my ability to care about other people from society. I get it from my own innate sense.

As an example, Western society has said that cannabis is illegal in all circumstances for decades. I know that it helps some ill people. My innate sense tells me that cannabis use for some people is the caring thing to do.

[Zazzy]

Hi Wally- Welcome!

I was raised by atheists, so I never went through this experience. But if it helps, I'll tell you generally how morality exists in our family:

P1: It's very likely that this life is the only chance we have to do or experience anything, so we should live it fully.
P2: It therefore follows that it's very likely that everyone else also has only this one chance, so we should try really hard not to interfere with anyone else's one chance, and (corollary: we should in fact, when we can, try to maximize that chance for others.

P1 and P2 sometimes conflict. In that case, think hard. If you pick yourself (as we will often do), keep a tally of that, and be mindful of how badly you are interfering with other people's one chance at life. At some point, because you are a member of a species equipped with a sense of altruism (as are all other primates), you will probably feel an urge to assist others. Will it be starving Africans? Maybe or maybe not. Our culture has progressed toward a more global sense of kinship, but if you don't feel that- OK. The needs of your immediate community are probably evident.

Or you can live a life dedicated to P1 while only obeying the spirit of P2 (not raping and murdering others), and you will be in the company of many people, theistic and atheistic alike.

P1 and P2 are evident to me. If you agree, how you choose to interpret those is really no different than how you choose to interpret ANY moral framework. You really DO get to decide what's right inside of the boundaries of your culture's laws.

[henryp]

Morality is really about the well being of sentient beings.

Even with out empathy, it is easy to use evidence, and rational and logical thought in order to discern that, in general: life is preferable to death, health is preferable to disease, comfort is preferable to pain, etc.

Even without a sense of empathy, morality can be rationally ascertained.

I think that's the intuitive answer. But I don't think reality reflects that. When you start saying preferable, that implies some metric is being used to measure things. The kid doesn't want to die in Africa because he values living, lets say. The problem is that his living being valuable is not an absolute. It's a subjective value some people hold, and some people don't.

The example I'm growing fond of is "If the world exploded on Tuesday, who would care on Wednesday?" The answer is nobody. Our entire existence would no longer matter in any way, because there is no absolute meaning.

So individually, we tend to prefer health/living, but that's mostly for us and those who we have attached value to. Your dog gets hit by a car, you shed tears. 1000's of phillipinos die in a typhoon, you watch a video on CNN and think "that'd suck" and move on with your day.

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When I referred to empathy as a religion, I just meant it was a tool to control the masses. To give us motivation to act in an irrational manner. Religion, nationalism, political idealogy, and whatever else that can be used to control us.

[Ryantology]

I dispute the notion that arbitrary behavioral precepts qualify as 'morality'. This is why I dispute the notion that religion is the source of any morals. The morals in any religion which actually do address the demonstrably positive and negative impacts of behavior on other people or society in general (such as rules regarding stealing or killing) tend to be fairly common across cultures and beliefs. All we get from religion is extraneous nonsense about eating certain foods on certain days or believing in the "correct" god, so on.

[henryp]

P2: It therefore follows that it's very likely that everyone else also has only this one chance, so we should try really hard not to interfere with anyone else's one chance, and (corollary: we should in fact, when we can, try to maximize that chance for others.

I agree with P1, sort of. Whatever metric you want to be happy, go for it. Although, in the end, it doesn't matter. I've always been fascinated with Atheists trying to break down theists arguments. I get wanting to avoid the oppressiveness of theologians, but otherwise, we know it doesn't really matter. There is no scorecard. If you are lucky enough to believe in a God that is looking out for you, more power to you. I'll be here in the corner terrified of ceasing to exist.

P2 doesn't follow. It, again, is based on universal truths rather than the fact only individual truths exist. The idea is that all men are created equal, and should be treated as such. The reality, I think, is that men have no value to even compare. There is no metric. We apply whatever subjective values to whatever we want. I give myself very high importance in my own personal system, and most other people rate very close to 0. But they are all make believe numbers that only exist because I think them.

It's another fun conundrum I'm trying to wrap my head around. If I die young, it'd devastate my daughter. So the notion is scary. But if I died, that fear would be gone because I'll no longer care about her, because I won't exist. The idea of finite subjective values, even of your own values, is definitely something new for me.

---

I dispute the notion that arbitrary behavioral precepts qualify as 'morality'. This is why I dispute the notion that religion is the source of any morals. The morals in any religion which actually do address the demonstrably positive and negative impacts of behavior on other people or society in general (such as rules regarding stealing or killing) tend to be fairly common across cultures and beliefs. All we get from religion is extraneous nonsense about eating certain foods on certain days or believing in the "correct" god, so on.

We know these rules make sense for people invested in society. What religion (and things like it) does is make these rules make sense for people who aren't invested in society.

When a person decides to kill themselves, they no longer are invested in society, for example. So if they feel like killing a bunch of other people first, there's no reason for them not to. God saying no killing is an absolute. The social contract only exists for people who want to remain in the social contract.

Morals are an evolutionary development. But poor people and powerful people tend to be able to dodge them, because they aren't as invested in the contract.

[KichigaiNeko]

wallym