Atheism and morality

[Inigo]

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

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.

Morality is not a 'system of ideas'. This is just so horribly confused it hurts. Morality is something we have an idea 'of'.

A normative moral theory is a theory about what morality instructs us to do. So, it is a theory about what all right acts have in common apart from their rightness, or what all wrong acts have in common apart from their wrongness. Utilitarianism is one such theory (not a very good one, but still). Deontological views constitute another family of such views. Virtue ethical views constitute another camp. Pluralist views another. And so on. THese are all views that attempt to articulate a pattern in what it is that morality instructs. But they do not constitute metaethical views. They are not telling us what morality 'is', only what it instructs us to do and be.

What morality 'is' is something that instructs and favours and whose instructions have inescapable rational authority (it has other features as well but these are the least disputable, in my view).

This is inconvenient. For it means it doesn't really exist if atheism is true. Some people - nearly all of you lot - seem to think that you're somehow entitled to it being compatible with atheism. This is just a case of wishful thinking though. You want it to be compatible with it, so you decide it is. But unfortunately whether it is compatible with atheism or not is a function of what it actually presupposes, rather than what you wish to be the case. Frankly, what you want is neither here nor there. Morality instructs and its instructions have inescapable rational authority. There will only be real instructions if there is an agent issuing them. And there will only be instructions with inescapable rational authority if the agent who is issuing them has control over our interests in an afterlife. So that's what morality requires whether you like it or not.

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I am going to keep on saying this until someone gives me reason to think otherwise.

You do realize what the definition of insanity is, right?

You realise that's NOT the definition of insanity, right?