(March 11, 2015 at 1:58 pm)Esquilax Wrote: We have a real world that we share, full of predictable effects to causes, in which we share a uniform biological nature, within a set of well explained parameters. This is an objective fact: we live in a reality. We can use that reality to figure out what's good and bad for humans, and more broadly, for other thinking beings: dying is bad for us, as is injury. Pleasure is good for us, etc etc. It's trivial, but it's a thing we can do.
That right there is a sufficient framework upon which to hang morality: that which is good for thinking beings is morally good, and that which is bad is morally bad. These things can be ranked according to the severity of the effect, mitigating circumstances, and other things, and when they come into conflict with each other we can use reason- blind reason- to come to equitable judgments about this. In order for this to work fairly, we can apply the outsider test to it.
Why should morality be about what's good for thinking beings? Try to have a moral system without them, it's impossible. Inanimate objects perform no actions, therefore there is nothing to judge moral or immoral. Only thinking beings can be moral or immoral, and therefore morality requires them; they are the center of what makes a moral system... extant. That's more than enough reason to privilege their existence within the context of morality.
I just don't get what is so hard to understand about this?
And without a doubt, most theists act according to this for almost every decision they make as a moral agent. Even the driving force behind their moral decisions are the same as ours.
They just overlay their god over their natural empathy, ethics and reciprocity, and give him the credit.
The instances they come up against the moral edicts in their holy books that disagree with their innate good morality, they have to engage in the most tortuous mental gymnastics in order to justify obviously immoral actions by their god (genocide, slavery, slaughter of the human race by flood, blood sacrifice, etc).
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
