Morality

[Cato]

"Dawkin's observation is true, with no moral implication.".... well he did say: "no evil and no good"
How can this be anything other than nihilism?

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If there is no good and evil.... and what I deem "good" is actually equally "evil"
Then, to hold that my actions really are "good" would just mean I'm deluding myself...

You are deluding yourself, and I'll give you the reason why. Dawkins invoked natural phenomenon to suggest that god doesn't exist. Shit happens, naturally; hurricanes, tornadoes, mudslides, volcanoes, sinkholes, gamma ray bursts, our local star developing into a red giant, meteor the size of Rhode Island, etc.... Would it suck to be at the bad end of these? You bet, but as Dawkins was saying; there's no good or evil about them, they just are.

Your problem is that you conflate natural processes with some divine will.

[crud]

@Max, sorry I did miss your post.
"Why do you care about Africans starving to death less than you care about poor people in your immediate vicinity is probably a better question"
I don't.

"ancient Roman society regarded empathy as a sign of a character flaw."
Yeah, that's what I've been saying, it seems to hinder survival of the individual not help it, I find it strange that we would evolve with negative traits.("negative" in the eyes of "survival of the fittest")


"Now let me re-raise the question I put to you in my last answer. Why do you feel that this is more nihilist that the concept that we are all basically bad and reliant on an external benign dictator to instil in us the few positive qualities we have. To me one of the most horrific qualities of religion is that it debases us in relation to an imaginary being that is supposed to be all-good but actually behaves incredibly badly."
The problem of evil.. difficult question.. free will? room for evolution? purpose?

[Whateverist]

Interesting question. I think this explains religious endeavour... people desire happiness and find reality slightly negative. Coupled with an ethical sense born of special (as in species) development, there is no reason to understand how positivity is beneficial, ultimately. That's how I reason it, and I'm not insisting on any one answer to that. Or that people with belief in deity on the grounds that deity provides reason to support positive outcomes necessarily get to overcome this negativity.
That's how I understand sacrificial practice came about. A recognition of a shortfall and and attempt to offset the loss/ redress the balance.

It's the hard reality you're bound to face. Life is awesome, warts and all, kind of thing. I think Dawkins has that right.

I admire you very much, Frodo. I just considered re-repping you but I wasn't willing to erase the last one so you'll just have to know I was moved by this latest post of yours. You're definitely my kind of theist and every bit as much of a realist as any atheist and possibly more grounded in reality than most.

[crud]

@cato123
I think he was also talking about the actions of humans.
And I don't think natural disasters are part of some divine plan.
And I'm not saying I have all the answers I'm here asking questions.
Why don't you just give me your brief overview of what morality means to you?

[max-greece]

@Max, sorry I did miss your post.
"Why do you care about Africans starving to death less than you care about poor people in your immediate vicinity is probably a better question"
I don't.

"ancient Roman society regarded empathy as a sign of a character flaw."
Yeah, that's what I've been saying, it seems to hinder survival of the individual not help it, I find it strange that we would evolve with negative traits.("negative" in the eyes of "survival of the fittest")


"Now let me re-raise the question I put to you in my last answer. Why do you feel that this is more nihilist that the concept that we are all basically bad and reliant on an external benign dictator to instil in us the few positive qualities we have. To me one of the most horrific qualities of religion is that it debases us in relation to an imaginary being that is supposed to be all-good but actually behaves incredibly badly."
The problem of evil.. difficult question.. free will? room for evolution? purpose?

I didn't mean you personally care less about the starving in Africa than the poor guy down the road - but overall people do. Look at the spread of charitable donations people make (by value) to confirm this.

"Survival of the fittest " is something of a misunderstanding and isn't really applicable. Fittest means most fit for the environment and applies at a species level, not at an individual level. If you take a simple hunter gatherer society the gatherer's are less likely to be injured or killed than the hunters (as their contact with large wild animals should be less). This implies that the gatherer with the club foot is actually more likely to survive than the fittest, strongest member of the group who will probably die young leading the pack.

This might appear anti-evolutionary as it is the club foot gatherer's genes that will continue but again this is not really the case. The strongest hunter is likely to have already bred prior to his (or her) untimely death.

That some societies regarded empathy as a weakness doesn't make it so. Without empathy, at some level, society collapses but with too much empathy no-one could own a slave - which would have crushed Roman society.

What comes out, therefore, is a creature with a moral, loving and empathetic nature that is balanced by fear, greed and egotism (or variations of those 3) that we call Human.

Still nothing nihilist that I can see.

[fr0d0]

Thanks very much whateverist

[Cato]

Why don't you just give me your brief overview of what morality means to you?

Try not to be a cunt!

(a bit of wisdom from Jim Jefferies)

Is that brief enough for you?

[crud]

thanks again max, it's good to have a proper discussion in place.

Regarding the fact the people don't care so much about Africans, could be due to all kinds of different influences from society.. so I won't go into this

By "Survival of the fittest" I didn't actually just mean most physical fit, intelligence would also be included. - I get what you're saying here


"Without empathy, at some level, society collapses"
I'd agree here, I do see how it would have it's place in evolution. But the are many examples of people using the wealth/time and risking their own life, just for the sake of others.. This doesn't really fit the mold.


"Still nothing nihilist that I can see."
Without some sort of objectivity that transcends our cultural/personal relative values... what grounds can we use to deem the actions of others as wrong? or right? - When they are only acting on their cultural/personal relative values?
It just seems like whoever's in power makes the rules.

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While Jim Jefferies is a funny guy.
I think the topic demands a more philosophical argument then that.

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From the naturalist point of view... on what grounds can they stand on to criticize the government/authority/actions of others, when all is simply relative?
We'd all state that the Holocaust was objectively wrong, right?

[max-greece]

"Without empathy, at some level, society collapses"
I'd agree here, I do see how it would have it's place in evolution. But the are many examples of people using the wealth/time and risking their own life, just for the sake of others.. This doesn't really fit the mold.


"Still nothing nihilist that I can see."
Without some sort of objectivity that transcends our cultural/personal relative values... what grounds can we use to deem the actions of others as wrong? or right? - When they are only acting on their cultural/personal relative values?
It just seems like whoever's in power makes the rules.

There are something around 7 billion people on the planet. You have to expect some variation between individuals as to how much empathy, morality and love they are capable of. I assume we both accept that there are sociopaths who appear to have almost zero empathy. It stands to reason that there would be people at the other end of the spectrum.

Do we need transcendent objectivity to evaluate morality? We make judgements all the time with referencing any kind of absolute or transcendent value. In fact everything in your life is a relative decision - the house you live in, the car you drive, the person that you marry, the music you like and so on ad. infinitum.

If we judge another's morality we use guidelines and experience with a sprinkling of whatever knowledge we have gleaned.

Lets take judging the morality of Germany 1933-45. Do we really need a transcendent objectivity to judge it?

We might compare it to the morality of the present day.
We might compare it to the morality of that same country both before and after that period.
We might compare it to the morality of other countries during that time period that surrounded it (Belgium, France, Holland, Denmark etc. etc.)

Taking any of the above (and some other variants doubtless that I haven't thought of right now) we can safely conclude that their morality was sub-par.

Its not all that different really from choosing a new microwave oven. We make a relative comparison.

Does that undermine the value of our comparison? I don't see why except in a purely abstract sense.

Having said all that - yes - there is an element that whose in power makes the rules (just as accepting a God does). You could argue that the real reason we can judge the Nazi's is that they lost. Had they won with would be a very different discussion that I probably wouldn't be involved in as I would never have been borne. You'd probably be discussing the morality of the period when, horror of horrors, Jews walked amongst us like normal people.

Eventually, however, the dominance of that empire would come to a halt and at that point the morality would probably match ours.

[littleendian]

Love, moral values, and meaning is just an self delusion, no different to the delusion of god.

Feelings are never illusions, one could even argue they are the most real, most immediate thing there is. Morality to me is just a feeling of what is right and what is wrong.

Compassion is my most cherished feature of my mental realm, even more important than reason. Each one of us is ultimately thrown into this world quite helpless and everyone is just trying to get by as good as they can. I want to feel compassion for everyone, but particularly for animals, they are so helpless and voiceless in a world controlled by man.

I guess that's just Buddhist indoctrination talking, because I can't come up with a reasonable explanation for why I feel compassion is so important.