Atheists who announce "I'm good without god"

[polymath257]

No, morality is the rules we adopt to promote human well being. Right and wrong are words we use to drive the point home, nothing more. Those rules come from our evolutionary past: they are the rule that promote well being *in humans*. Bonobos or chimps or dogs may well have very different rules based on *their* evolutionary past.
I consider most philosophical discussion concerning 'what something is' to be seriously flawed. They tend to assume an outdated concept of ontology. It is much better to determine the epistemology since that has practical aspects.

You don't think that the nature of something determines how you handle it?  And simply pointing out somethings age is not a refutation, it is a fallacy.  So if morality is merely rules, determined by society (or those with power anyway);  could we decide that what best promotes human well being, would be to kill those who are weaker and a drain on society?  The rules can simply be changed, if they are arbitrary, and call that good.  There is no morality in the rules themselves.   Is that what you are saying?

 Again, you seem to be arguing how we know what is moral and not whether or not morality is objective or subjective.   What makes you think morality is subjective?    Do you think that what is moral for one, can be immoral for another?   And I'll ask again, what in the subject is the basis for morality (is it just feelings or personal preference)?

I think asking what things *are* is ultimately unproductive. It is much better to ask what they *do*. Too much philosophy gets lost in pondering the nature of matter or of mind and constructing viewpoints that have little to do with the real world. In the real world, things are defined by how they interact. Electrons, for example, interact with phtoons in certain ways and with certain probabilities, etc. That *defines* an electron.

Morality is the collection of rules that we decide people *should* live by. This morality changes over time as we learn how to be more compassionate and how to be more fair. It is generally agreed that both of these are important aspects of morality and should be promoted. They are *human* rules and so change to abide by the needs of humans as our societies change. Some of the specifics that were 'good and useful' for primarily agricultural societies are no longer 'good and useful' for highly industrial societies (the rules on sexuality are a good example).

I see morality as subjective because it depends on the characteristics of humans and is not an aspect of the larger reality. For example, I would not expect a race of beings from a different star system to have the same moral sensitivities. Morality is not objective in the sense of being independent of observer. A non-human observer would likely have different moral views to ours.

The rules are NOT arbitrary though. The basic rules are determined by human nature and what sorts of rules promote human well being. Just like the question of whether injesting cyanide is bad for your health isn't socially determined, neither are some of the basic moral positions.