Why 'should' atheists be moral?

[bennyboy]

Because that would be stupid, as you've conceded elsewhere when you acknowledged that a society where we don't do that is better than one where we do. Broken individuals may not have sufficiently developed moral sentiments of fairness and reciprocity, senses of guilt and shame, or sufficient empathy to refrain from preying on their fellow humans; but the majority do.

I believe he's asking a higher level question. Where does the moral dimension of moral questions come from in an atheist world? I may choose to eat that extra slice of pie, and I shouldn't because I don't like the consequences of eating it, but consequences alone don't make the should of not eating a piece of pie into a moral 'should'. No matter the consequences of eating that piece of pie, it doesn't become a matter for morals. Now if I choose to steal something, that shouldn't has a moral dimension that eating the pie does not, even though I may suffer just as much from both. The question I think he's asking is where does this 'moral dimension' come from?

I'd say any "should" just implies a goal: avoiding punishment, staying alive, etc. As for the moral "should," I'd say it requires only one philosophical position: that the welfare of others is as important as one's own welfare.

Or to summarize it, you could say the goal of morality is to be exocentric.