RE: Atheism and morality
July 10, 2013 at 11:44 am
(This post was last modified: July 10, 2013 at 11:46 am by genkaus.)
(July 10, 2013 at 9:49 am)paulpablo Wrote: My point was that morality isn't an actual thing you can touch or see, according to you they are made out instructions everyone has reason to comply with whatever their interests. the only person who could make these instructions would have to be powerful.
Quote: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.
so to arrive at this conclusion I can only think that you either....
1 you researched the different definitions of morality, read about normative morality and how everyone has a reason to comply with them.
2 You feel you and others are receiving these instructions.
I can't think of a 3rd way
The first one makes no sense because this still doesn't prove that any instructions exist that are rationally inescapable, you don't know for sure of any that exist as you have said yourself
Quote:And the truthful answer is that I do not know exactly what morality instructs us to do.
So you don't know which instructions are inescapable, how do you know any of them are?
The second one is no reason to believe god exists either, you feel and sense things are right or wrong, most people do, except you seem to just have this feeling that your sense of right and wrong are instructions from god.
The third way would be this:
Ignore all definitions of morality, declare that moral instructions mean, by definition, that they externally instructed and are rationally inescapable, then claim- untruthfully - that this is what all moral philosophers of the past are talking about when they talk about morality and then say that there is no point in discussing it with anyone who does not use this particular definition of morality.
(July 10, 2013 at 10:05 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Right. So the second part of your statement is incorrect then
"this would still be wrong. It would just re-classify all philosophies - including atheistic ones - as being religions."
Nope. By 'this' I mean the statement "there is no atheism". I'm saying that even if you re-classify all philosophies as religions, atheism would still be around.