Where do atheists get their morality from?

[Red Celt]

Haha, maybe you should have a rule that anyone who calls himself an atheist must blaspheme God. Fake atheists might not want to do that.

Absolutely, though a lot of atheists would say why bother blaspheming something that I do not believe exists?

I have no problem saying "fuck you god" though.

Fuck God. Fuck Sauron. Fuck the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Well. That was easy enough.

[Norfolk And Chance]

Absolutely, though a lot of atheists would say why bother blaspheming something that I do not believe exists?

I have no problem saying "fuck you god" though.

Fuck God. Fuck Sauron. Fuck the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Well. That was easy enough.

Piece of cake isn't it?

Vinny?

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

Okay, so I've been looking at the responses so far and they pretty much fall into two camps. Obviously it looks like nobody is ready to accept the problems inherent in moral subjectivism/relativism. They are too committed. Like Christians committed to God who can't believe that their God sends people to hell for not believing.

And like I expected, I see a lot of pop-explanations, and faith-based uses of science to justify it. "It's in our genes." and "Mirror neurons" are the two other explanations.

Where's that little bupkiss with his [citation needed] quote?

For people who think that evolutionary biology/evolutionary neurology accounts for the totality of our moral norms seriously need to look at how stupid, unreliable and ad hoc evo-psych explanations are, even to evo biologists.

Seriously. Do we have any ACTUAL scientists on this forum?

The other type of reply was this bullshit:

This fucker is a theist pretending to be atheist and thinks he's far too clever.

We've never seen anything like that before...

Just because you don't like to face the truth, the consensus among the most pre-eminent ethicists and moral philosophers of our time, you think I'm one of them??

Fancul.

Doesn't like the position of preeminent ethicists and moral philosophers, so he accused me of being one of them?

I hope you never breed, cazzo.

---

Reciprocity is only one factor guiding the formation of ethical norms in a society. Certain moral duties have decidedly non-reciprocal origins and non-reciprocal expressions, such as "It is morally wrong to rape somebody, even if they raped you first and you are reciprocating." Reciprocity in this capacity does nothing to inform the problem of subjective morality that we as atheists need to grapple with: The problem that a relativistic, atheistic moral worldview RATIONALLY NECESSITATES the possibility that the raping of babies could be considered morally good.

It's not appealing, but it's true and we as atheists need to find a solution to this problem. Not by appealing to ad hoc evo-psych, but by finding ways to mitigate the subjectivity of our morality when it comes to behavior that we think ought to be wrong in all circumstances.

Vincenzo, you know about philosophy... but you don't know it well enough. You're also more than a little flimsy wrt logical fallacies. When you (later) claim that Sam Harris shares your view, as does Dawkins... you're making an appeal to authority. Harris & Dawkins are not the boss of me. Atheists do not have to take the views of authoritative atheists as a position of dogma. I also doubt that you're right when it comes to Dawkins' ethical problems with objective morality. Have you read The Selfish Gene?

Reciprocity is a stronger meme than you allow for. Rather than concentrate on babies (punch them, rape them... you don't like babies very much, do you?) who are not moral agents, how about you concentrate on the reciprocal approach of moral agents?

Atheism is the lack of belief or the belief in the lack of god(s). Assigning anything else to it (whether moral or otherwise) is a fool's errand. So why make that your errand?

I'll respond to this separately because you sound like you know what you are talking about.

But you're still not getting it right on reciprocity. Because it's easy to talk about where reciprocal moral norms work, and the people it protects: conscious, self-aware moral agents.

But the problem- the area where reciprocity does not help is precisely where morals ought to work the most- for individuals that cannot fend for themselves. The babies, the children, the developmentally challenged, the women, the unconscious, the sleeping, the unaware. The physically and mentally feeble, the poor, the aged and the powerless. All situations where reciprocity does not explain moral norms. And this is assuming reciprocity IS a source of moral norms, which I don't see any scientific support for.

The bottom line is, reciprocity is only optimally effective when two groups are equal in power and capacity. The moment one side is more powerful than the other, even in some small way, the reciprocal inventive wears off so fast you think you were driving a brand new Maserati off of the parking lot. Reciprocity just doesn't explain morality.

[Cyberman]

For people who think that evolutionary biology/evolutionary neurology accounts for the totality of our moral norms seriously need to look at how stupid, unreliable and ad hoc evo-psych explanations are, even to evo biologists.

Sorry, but the only person I'm aware of making this claim is you. Most everyone else - and I apologise if I've missed anything - have said that there is a combination of, as you put it, "evolutionary biology/evolutionary neurology" plus social interactions, desire for acceptance/fear of rejection, and probably a whole host of other factors I can't even begin to imagine.

You're going to run out of straw at this rate.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

Stimbo, don't let me assume you have short term memory loss. Go through this thread and look at how people have tried to justify the existence of morality. It's been nothing else but evolutionary psychology.

A rose by any other name smells just as sweet, Stimbo.

PS- exhibit A of how atheism informs our scope of available explanations for morality. Not you, Stimbo, but the prevalence of evo-psych.

[Cyberman]

No need to make the assumption that I have short-term memory loss, mate. I actually and quite genuinely do have short-term memory loss. However I choose not to take offense, partly since there was no way for you to have known since I've never considered it relevant to share here but mainly since you got the Romeo & Juliet quote just about right, if slightly mangled.

[Atom]

Based on the discussion here, is it reasonable to conclude that most of the atheists here believe morality is subjective (based on subjective empathy, culture, personal experiences, each person's genes, etc.) rather than objective (based on an absolute external standard)?

[Cyberman]

Before we can answer that, it's necessary to know what, precisely, would constitute "an absolute external standard". If you can supply that, the discussion can proceed.

[liam]

Based on the discussion here, is it reasonable to conclude that most of the atheists here believe morality is subjective (based on subjective empathy, culture, personal experiences, each person's genes, etc.) rather than objective (based on an absolute external standard)?

OBJECTION!

well, I don't personally appeal to an absolute external standard as may be put forward by a Platonic point of view. Yet, I must concede, I am a moral realist.

[DeistPaladin]

Based on the discussion here, is it reasonable to conclude that most of the atheists here believe morality is subjective (based on subjective empathy, culture, personal experiences, each person's genes, etc.) rather than objective (based on an absolute external standard)?

I think before Vinny derailed this discussion thread with his clownish knockabout, we were having an interesting exchange. I believe I have already answered your question here and here.