Atheism and morality

[Inigo]

No. I am saying that real moral instructions would have to be the instructions of a powerful supernatural agent of some kind.

Finally, I understand what you are stating. You would be wrong, of course. Morality, as FallentoReason has already stated, arose through evolution as a means of survival. It is anthropologically sound. There needs to be nothing divine behind anything in this world, for anything can be explained naturally. For those things we have yet to explain, however, claiming a higher power is behind it is mere intellectual laziness.

I don't think you have understood me, in my view. An evolutionary account of the development of our moral sense and moral beliefs would not show how morality can exist. All it would show is how and why it appears to us that morality exists.
A similar account can be given of the development of a sense of god and belief in god - such dispositions have (or may well have) conferred some evolutionary advantage on those who have it. But you wouldn't for one moment accept that in this way one can show how evolution gives rise to a god. It shows only how evolutionary processes may give rise to creatures who have the impression there is a god. So too for morality.

It is not enough to provide an account of how we have come to have the impression that morality exists. of course you can do that. That isn't in any serious doubt. But morality itself - the thing our moral sensations give us the impression exists - is different. It is morality itself that I am suggesting would require a god.

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Thank you for your reply. But aren't you explaining the moral phenomena? You're explaining, unless I've misunderstood you, how it may have come to pass that I - and others - have come to have the impression that there are external instructions with which we have reason to comply, whatever our interests. But for such impressions to be veridical there would need to actually be external instructions with which I have reason to comply whatever my interests. If my parents lie behind such impressions then I think you are right that the instructing nature of morality has been captured, we do not capture the rational authority. For I have no special reason to comply with instructions my parents issue to me. Granted, it may often be in my interests to comply with such instructions. But it will not always be, and plus moral instructions are instructions that somehow give rise to me having reason to comply with them. Whereas instructions from my parents (or my society etc) would only be ones I'd have reason to comply with if I happened to have interests that complying with them would serve.
So, if it is an essential feature of moral norms that they are norms that have categorical rational authority, then instructions from my parents or community are not going to qualify. Such things may be causally responsible for my having moral impressions - but they do not vindicate the impressions, they debunk them. Or so it seems to me at present.

Excessively grandiose verbiage and unnecessarily complex sentence structure aren't a propos of a forum. And that's veridical, Ruth.

This is a philosophy forum and I assume people are familiar with certain terms. As for complex sentences, which ones do you not understand?

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No. I am saying that real moral instructions would have to be the instructions of a powerful supernatural agent of some kind because this is what it would take for there to exist instructions with which everyone has reason to comply whatever their interests.

What instructions does everyone have a reason to comply with?

Moral instructions. That's just what a moral instruction is. It is an instruction that automatically confers a reason to comply. In this way moral instructions differ from, say, your instructions or the instructions of a club or the instructions of etiquette.