Why be good?

[Randy Carson]

What I am asking is: what is the BASIS for objective moral behavior? Where does it come from?

Well, that's a different question to the one you originally asked, and there's two important points to keep in mind here, but one really important thing we need to get out of the way before we can even get to that:

There is no objective morality in EITHER of our positions.

From a purely secular point of view, there is no objective morality; there is, however, an objective framework through which we can develop a situational, context-driven system of morality. You may have heard of it: it's called reality. You can use reality to develop a sense of what's good or bad, because in reality we are beings of a specific nature, who react in predictable ways to stimuli, and for whom that stimuli has specific ramifications; we generally feel pain universally, and it denotes a specific thing for us all, namely bodily damage. Therefore, since pain not only feels bad, but has a specific function biologically that is objectively bad for us, we can determine that causing pain is bad, as its effects are uniformly bad for humans, which we are also, and pragmatically we don't want to be hurt, nor do we want to live in a society that permits that. There are exceptions- vaccinations being an obvious one- but this is a situational ethical scenario, and there is an overriding benefit to vaccinations that renders the temporary pain useful. That's all you really need; a series of at times very basic observations about how we live and interact in reality, and an understanding that occasionally the rules we derive from that may conflict with each other, and that this happens in every ethical system. Morality isn't some incredibly complex thing that's a huge puzzle to figure out without god, it's just a lengthy process to fully encompass, full of ifs and buts and conditional statements. That doesn't mean the benefits of having it aren't obvious, if you take a moment to think about it.

Conversely, from a theistic standpoint there's no objective morality either. You've already asserted that god determines your morality, but god is a subject, by literal definition; if his opinions on morality are what determines its nature, then what you have is a subjective morality that you happen to have imbued with a lot of authority. But that doesn't make it objective, and calling it that inverts the meaning of both those terms, so why even bother using them, at that point?

Either way, the one with the thing closest to objective morality is the atheist, not the theist. But objectivity also doesn't matter, given that neither of us can produce a truly objective morality, since morality doesn't exist as some quantity independent of minds to apprehend it; it's just that I'm not willing to pretend that's otherwise, while theists generally are.

Well said and noted. I will consider whether the term "objective" has value in the discussion.

---

Well, that's a different question to the one you originally asked, and there's two important points to keep in mind here, but one really important thing we need to get out of the way before we can even get to that:

There is no objective morality in EITHER of our positions.

From a purely secular point of view, there is no objective morality; there is, however, an objective framework through which we can develop a situational, context-driven system of morality. You may have heard of it: it's called reality. You can use reality to develop a sense of what's good or bad, because in reality we are beings of a specific nature, who react in predictable ways to stimuli, and for whom that stimuli has specific ramifications; we generally feel pain universally, and it denotes a specific thing for us all, namely bodily damage. Therefore, since pain not only feels bad, but has a specific function biologically that is objectively bad for us, we can determine that causing pain is bad, as its effects are uniformly bad for humans, which we are also, and pragmatically we don't want to be hurt, nor do we want to live in a society that permits that. There are exceptions- vaccinations being an obvious one- but this is a situational ethical scenario, and there is an overriding benefit to vaccinations that renders the temporary pain useful. That's all you really need; a series of at times very basic observations about how we live and interact in reality, and an understanding that occasionally the rules we derive from that may conflict with each other, and that this happens in every ethical system. Morality isn't some incredibly complex thing that's a huge puzzle to figure out without god, it's just a lengthy process to fully encompass, full of ifs and buts and conditional statements. That doesn't mean the benefits of having it aren't obvious, if you take a moment to think about it.

The faulty assumption here, is that other humans being harmed is bad.  What we'd do in your line of thinking, which I think starts out right, is determine what we need to do to assure we don't feel pain (if we care about that).  If the best way is to form a global team human with a bunch of rules that say 'no hurting' eachother, then so be it.  But that's fairly impractical, inneffective, and certainly not the only path.

As we've seen through out history, a popular solution is to amass a bunch of power to protect yourselves from others being able to hurt you.  Another is to form small groups that takes care of themselves.  

So what we're talking about here with your reality based system isn't really related to morality.  It's just self-preservation.  Because from the actual framework, being a brutal dictator is just as legit a solution as being a hippy in a commune or being a psychopath mass murderer who doesn't view his own death as a particular problem.

Hmmm. This is where the OP was pointing. As you imply, one "small group" may be more "fit" or stronger than another, and it survives by taking the food, women, etc. of the weaker "small group".

It will be interesting to continue reading the thread to see how the "warm and fuzzies" responded to you.

---

So why are we good? The simplest answer, I think, is evolution. Those who have been good at cooperating and at caring for society as well as themselves have fared better, so it has been promoted by natural selection.

This.

We evolved to be a social species and certain behaviors/values promote our success as a social species.  So part of our evolving social behaviors involved developing a meta-cognitive faculty we call moral judgement.  We intuitively value good behavior, and are repulsed by impulses to engage in bad behavior.  It's a subconsciously driven system of influencing what our consciousness wants so as to promote behavior that benefits a social animal.  In short, evolution built us to desire the good.  (This basic desire is also shaped and reinforced by childhood training, along with an inbuilt desire to belong.)

jorm-

Stalin killed 30 million well-evolved men, women and children who were weaker than he was. Their evolution did not help them. 

And from HIS perspective, why be good when being bad reaped such benefits?