RE: Morals - Objective and Subjective
June 29, 2014 at 12:27 am
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2014 at 12:39 am by mralstoner.)
Yes and no. Without a god, morality is a question of what people desire in order to live a happy life. Science can, and increasingly does, study what things people desire i.e. what conditions make them happy. But science will only ever be able to study averages, it can't tell you what will make you happy personally. And human nature is so malleable, it won't be easy to make universal/objective statements about happiness (for an average human). Not anytime soon, anyway.
Professor Jonathan Haidt is a good reference on non-religious morality. Haidt says: morality is like the matrix (yes, the movie) i.e. morality binds and blinds. Morality is a binding force to keeps the tribe together (which is a good thing in a hostile world) but at the same time it blinds us to the truth (which is a bad thing because we perceive our morality to be right simply because its ours). Haidt has a couple of books: The Righteous Mind, and The Happiness Hypothesis, and lots of youtube videos.
Professor Jonathan Haidt is a good reference on non-religious morality. Haidt says: morality is like the matrix (yes, the movie) i.e. morality binds and blinds. Morality is a binding force to keeps the tribe together (which is a good thing in a hostile world) but at the same time it blinds us to the truth (which is a bad thing because we perceive our morality to be right simply because its ours). Haidt has a couple of books: The Righteous Mind, and The Happiness Hypothesis, and lots of youtube videos.
