RE: General question about the possibility of objective moral truth
September 14, 2015 at 2:45 pm
(September 12, 2015 at 9:52 pm)Michael Wald Wrote: Hello to everyone
I have a general question about moral: The discussion between religious people and atheists often turns around the question if someone needs to be believer in order to follow moral rules.
In my opinion an atheist can be as much a person of high moral standards as a religious person (and some atheists can even have a higher moral standard than some religious people). Just to say that right at the beginning.
Now I would like to ask: Is from an atheistic point of view a moral conviction like "killing of people is morally wrong" an objective fact? Or is it a social convention, which means it is a subjective view?
Thanks for any answers!
I am the odd atheist out on the question of morality here.
I believe there is an objective moral standard. That standard is reality.
To summarize:
Let me start with stating that, IMO, the best functional definition of morality, are actions and behavior that increases the well being of other humans. or does not harm the well being of others.
We all live in the same physical universe, subject to the same physical laws, with more or less the same bodies and brains. This leads to the understanding that: life is preferable to death, health is preferable to disease, freedom is preferable to slavery, comfort is preferable to discomfort, etc.
I can easily extrapolate from the above, that what I require for my well being, is almost assuredly what others also require.
Murder is wrong because it violates the well being of another person.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.