(March 1, 2018 at 6:50 pm)polymath257 Wrote: I find ethics to be fairly easy to justify. It is clear what human well being is in terms of physical and mental health, including satisfying interactions with others. Ethics is the promotion of human well being.
A good person is one that attempts to increase human well being through their own actions. This requires knowledge of the consequences of ones actions as well as caring enough for others to modify actions based on their effects. Now, it is quite possible (and even true) that actions that are beneficial in one situation are detrimental in another. So, the good person is one that is aware of their situation and those of others. While I believe in situational ethics to some extent, it is also clear that murdering someone does NOT promote human well being. The vast majority of real, day to day, ethics is pretty straightforward. The dilemmas philosophers like to discuss rarely come up in practice. The one place that is less true is in medicine, where resource limitations and other issues make for pressing ethical questions. But even there, the standard of human well being is and should be central.
Two things are important. Thinking without caring or caring without thinking both cause innumerable problems. BOTH are required to be good. Having a good heart and acting foolishly does help anyone.
On the other hand, I have never understood why having a deity helps in resolving moral issues. First, it is far from clear that simply being the creator of a universe makes one a moral authority. Second even if someone *is* a moral authority, if their goals are not those of human well being, they should be dismissed as bad. And yes, this is as true of deities as it is for people. Third, the whole idea of moral submission is, to me, a dereliction of our duty to think for ourselves. So even if there is a deity that is good, I would see the viewpoint of such a deity as a *recommendation* and not a requirement for moral behavior. In a sense, I consider religious faith to be a moral bad.
"A good person is one that attempts to increase human well being through their own actions."
What about "increasing human well-being" makes it "good"? This is a real question because if there is no real, objective moral standard, then that's an entirely unfounded presupposition on which a great deal of your view of ethics rests.
"it is also clear that murdering someone does NOT promote human well being."
There are a million possible hypothetical scenarios in which murder could indeed promote human well being, especially when you consider well-being both qualitatively and quantitatively. While you are correct that such cases can be very rare, the fundamental issue remains. For instance, if you could somehow save a whole room full of dying patients with the organs of one innocent, healthy patient, should you? If not, why? It seems that your ethical philosophy is ultimately subjective because the very concept of "well being" is subjective. There is no real underlying reason to say that anything is right or wrong except the ones we invent for ourselves.
First, it is far from clear that simply being the creator of a universe makes one a moral authority. Second even if someone *is* a moral authority, if their goals are not those of human well being, they should be dismissed as bad."
This is a good question. It is related to the question of whether or not morality is ultimately objective or subjective. If it is truly objective, then any god(s) in existence must abide by it to be considered "good." However, if morality is ultimately subjective (as many atheists tend to claim), then it seems logical that God decides what is moral and what is not, since He is the sovereign Creator of reality. I personally believe that morality is objective in and of itself, and God simply recognizes this standard perfectly and reveals it to the hearts of people. Other Christians will disagree and argue that God Himself invents morality as a sovereign act of His will, but I find that logically inconsistent. Either way, since God is perfect He is the chief moral authority of creation.
