Atheism and morality

[simplexity]

I have already told you what morality is in itself.

It is the set of of thought patterns generated from the mind which differentiate 'right' from 'wrong'(having to do with self suffering - and it follows from this self suffering that is has to do with others suffering.)

Not to distract you from Inigo's riveting arguments, but this is a very commonly held view that I often argue against.

The most commonly held definition of morality is a system of ideas to differentiate between good/right and bad/wrong. When asked about right and wrong, the common answer is what causes pleasure and what causes suffering. And since commonly accepted morality often runs contrary to one's own pleasure or pain, the suffering under consideration always becomes that of others or of the society. And thus arises the most commonly held view that the meaning of morality is "a system of ideas, applicable in a social context, regarding how one should act so as to maximize happiness and minimize suffering". And that, I think, is an extremely parochial view of morality.

The issue here is the definition we start with. Morality is a system of ideas - that much is correct. But primarily, it is a system of ideas about how one should act - not right and wrong. The words right and wrong or good and bad are - by their very nature - judgments made according to some standards. For example we have right and wrong answers in mathematics and science or good and bad answers in literature and there they have nothing to do with moral judgement. Thus, morality is the standard - the set of guidelines to make a judgment by - and right/good and wrong/bad are judgments given on its basis. Thus, while saying that morality is a system of ideas to differentiate between right and wrong is correct, it shouldn't be regarded as a primary definition, since they are the consequence and not the cause of the system.

The justification for morality comes from our capacity to reason and reflect.

Thank you for providing me the respite of having to argue against such unreasonable assertions. I have to say I mostly agree with what you are saying here. There are a few things I might disagree on. Yes the justification for morality does come from our apparent ability to reason and reflect back on past outcomes, but this justification is itself outside what morality actually is. We have a system of ideas, and we can justify them later. We probably agree.

Edit:
Yes, guidelines would be a better term, since what is right in one situation is not always right in another. Another disagreement I may have is I see the way you 'should' act as what is right. They are basically the stating the same thing. What is wrong is the same as how you should not act. Differentiating them doesn't really make sense.

Maybe what you are trying to say here is that morality is actually the system of ideas about the method of getting to the right answer. There is a pattern behind this and we call this morality.

We are not automatons - acting reflexively and without any awareness of our actions.

The nature of awareness has yet to be discovered, so it itself could be a necessary illusion. In my last response, I admit that I was only describing a very small version of what morality actually is. That is, only our subjective version of the set of ideas about what should be done, and I tried to reason it out through the aspect of suffering, which I think is the main awareness related cause behind the generation of these moral ideas. I agree I did not talk about the societal version of morality, that is the conglomeration of ideas of right and wrong throughout an entire society.

We are capable of reflecting upon our actions, thoughts and motivations and thus we need some standard or code to direct them. This would be necessary even if we did not live in a society with other similarly capable entities.

Yes, I agree and a set of ideas relating to what is right or wrong is built into us and can ever change depending on what we experience.

However, the ultimate goal or goals of morality need not be rational or justified. We can choose "maximizing happiness and minimizing pain" as the purpose or "self-actualization" or "getting into heaven" or "release from reincarnation" or "achieving popularity and leaving a legacy" and so on. All of these would give rise distinct set of ideas about "how one should act" and all would have instructions regarding what is good and what is bad. Each of them is a morality in its own right, since each fits the definition.

Yes, I agree. Since Inigo seemed to be looking for more than just a set of ideas for what morality is, at the time I tried to give a simple method of instruction behind it, that being suffering. Of course this is much to simplified for the actual method, but it is a start, and there is evidence for it.