Atheism and morality

[Faith No More]

Sorry dude but putting on a pompous demeanor does not make you look smart.

I can see Inigo as he reads this...

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[The Grand Nudger]

My confidence in the truth of atheism has been shaken by my reflections on the nature of morality. Perhaps my reflections are poor and I am making some very great mistake. But I think that morality may require a god. That doesn't show a god to exist, of course, for perhaps morality is an illusion. But it reduces its credibility to some extent.

Here is why I think morality requires a god. first, however, I want to distinguish between moral phenomena and morality itself. I use the term 'moral phenomena' to refer to moral sensations (so, the deliverances of our moral sense) and moral beliefs. I take it as beyond question that moral phenomena exist. But it does not follow that morality itself exists, for morality is not a sensation or a belief. it is the thing sensed, the thing believed. To believe an act to be wrong is to believe the act has the attribute of wrongness. One has the belief, but whether the act really has that feature - indeed, whether such a feature exists at all - remains an open question.

B-mine.....and if you are wrong right here...at the very beginining, when you put things into tidy boxes? What then? What measure of truth will you be able to assign to morality without referring to "moral phenomena"? What does this term "morality" even mean, if we remove "moral phenomena"? What, precisely, is the "thing sensed" or "believed"? Does it have to be more the sensation or the belief to account for all that follows it? If not, you have a problem, don't you? Now, I cant point to anything concrete and say "here is morality" - but both of us can point to disparate "senses" and "beliefs" and say "here is morality" eh? Think this ones DOA right from the get-go.

Anyway, here was the though that first set me off doubting atheism. Morality is normative: it instructs, favours, commands. It is not enough for it to appear to do these things. A morality that does not instruct or favour or command is no morality at all. Morality actually does these things. This seems to be a conceptual truth about morality. Yet, for the life of me I find it hard to conceive of how anything other than an agent could do such things.


I won't ramble on further - I'll just see if I've made a mistake at this early stage! (for it gets worse!)

Unless normative things positively require a god -not an agent...a god-, and said god is actually in existence...none of this leads to a god. Finish the chain, make it happen (pro-tip..you can't get there from here)

[Inigo]

Well, an instruction does require an instructor. Repeating a point in a sneering tone of voice does not constitute a refutation. If you can think of a counter-example - a clear case of a real instruction of favouring that does not have its ultimate source in an agent of some kind then I'm all ears.

And then there's the second problem - rational authority. Maybe you could sneer at that and then that one would somehow go away as well.

[paulpablo]

I don't know if you missed my question but I asked if you don't know what morality instructs us to do how do you know it's unified among everyone?

[Inigo]

If you don't know exactly what morality instructs us to do how do you know morality is unified among everyone?

? I don't understand your question. Morality is unitary - that is a conceptual claim. It has nothing to do with what morality instructs us to do and be.

Even if (as seems conceptually incoherent) there are lots of moralities, they could each tell everyone to do the same thing. And if there is one morality it could instruct everyone to behave differently. The unity of morality and the content and scope of its instructions are totally different matters.

[paulpablo]

If you don't know exactly what morality instructs us to do how do you know morality is unified among everyone?

? I don't understand your question. Morality is unitary - that is a conceptual claim. It has nothing to do with what morality instructs us to do and be.

Even if (as seems conceptually incoherent) there are lots of moralities, they could each tell everyone to do the same thing. And if there is one morality it could instruct everyone to behave differently. The unity of morality and the content and scope of its instructions are totally different matters.

Try and put it simply why you believe morality comes from god, maybe by showing the differences in your argument and say other arguments that say god must exist because of instincts, or god must exist because some people have a morality, or maybe that last one is your argument, it's still unclear to me.

Your argument does sound a lot like one I saw on here not long ago saying god must exist because cats avoid scorpion tails without being taught how.

[Inigo]

Moral values are shaped through time and have evolved out of 2000 years of human civilisation and learning.
So the agent that gave humanity it`s moral values is humanity itself and it is wrong to thing of moral values and codes of social conduct as something unshakeable and strickt.
They evolve and change and are the result of human learning.

So there is no god needed.

Actualy, arguing that a god gave us our moral values is somewhat insulting because it demands the precondition that mankind is to incompetent to create his own moral set of rules.
Other than that, if you look arround the globe you will see that what is moraly correct is perceived differently in different cultures - which means that there is no such thing as a international code of morals - hence making devine creation of such even more impossible.

Well done for totally ignoring the arguments. I keep doing this, but I'll do it again in the vain hope that someone might be capable of grasping the point.

MOral sensations and beliefs are not morality. They are moral sensations and beliefs. Belief in father Christmas isn't father Christmas. Belief in god isn't god. You can't show father Christmas to exist by showing that beliefs in father Christmas exist, can you?
Similarly, you can't show god to exist by showing beliefs in god to exist. Why? Because father Christmas is not a belief. He's a fat guy who delivers presents on Christmas eve. He doesn't exist. Beliefs in him do. He doesn't. So father Christmas phenomena exists. Father Christmas doesn't. This is painfully simple stuff. Try and grasp it.(you won't, of course, because it doesn't serve your interests to).

Now moral beliefs and sensations definitely exsit and they exist even if there isn't a god. But morality isn't a sensation or a belief. It is the thing sensed, the thing believed. That doesn't mean it exists, but to exist it is not enough that moral sensations and beliefs exist. Indeed morality could exist without those things.

Morality is something that instructs and those instructions are instructions that confer reason for compliance. Those are conceptual claims about morality. Not mine, widely attested to. By all means dispute them if you wish. You can block my argument by doing so. But if it is true that morality has - and must have - those features, then there is only one thing morality can be, and that is the instructions of a god. Or so I am arguing. That doesn't mean such a god exists. It means one would need to if our moral sensations and beleifs are to have something answering to them. Why can't you grasp this painfully simple point?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, an instruction does require an instructor.

Negatron - think of all the people who say that "insert ridiculous shit here" -told them to do "insert ridiculous shit here".

Something interpreted as instruction only requires that the ":recipient" interpret it as such. Nothing external need be invoked (though there is no shortage of external instructors when it comes to morality). No "instruction" needs to occur.

If you can think of a counter-example - a clear case of a real instruction of favouring that does not have its ultimate source in an agent of some kind then I'm all ears.

as above, "agent" =/= "god".

[Rahul]

Sounds crazy to me. "Morality is something that instructs."

Whatevah.

Lay off the shrooms.

[simplexity]

Most people seem to have the same morality because we are all a part of the same species and we are mostly all self aware and have empathetic abilities. All people are all relatively similar, whether it be environmentally, genetically, what have you. We have evolved to be suited to live in a society, because not having a society, we would not be able to survive and/or advance. One person without enough resources cannot survive very well on their own, and especially the next generation would never survive. Our ethics are not based on some instruction from a being, but instead it is a combination of social contract, empathy, and being self aware. There is only an illusion of it being instructed by someone. Morality is subjective. Ethics is objective, because it is based on humanity at large.

You need to define very concisely what you mean by 'instruction', for this discussion to even have a chance of continuing. Many things in reality operate with the illusion of having some instruction behind them and they don't. They operate because of fundamental patterns, which by no means need to be intelligent.