Atheism and morality

[simplexity]

But the evolutionary explanation is an explanation of the development of our moral sense and moral beliefs. And morality is not a sensation or a belief. It is the thing sensed, the thing believed.

If that is your definition of morality than the thing you sense is the electrical/chemical pattern of nerve firings in your brain/the pattern of nerve connections, or loosely the concept. The reasonable assumption that we all want mostly the same things. This is a thing.

Are we done yet?

[Inigo]

Morality exists the same way a theory exists.
Even if it exists as a natural thing, it doesn't require a God. Just another agent, whether this agent is intelligent or not. Where are you getting this from?
Most here still don't know how you are arriving at such a premise.

I assume you don't think a god exists. Well, there are theories about gods. But it would be grossly misleading and not a little stupid to say that 'gods exist in the same way a theory exists'. If all that exists are theories about gods, but no actual gods, then one should say 'gods do not exist'.

MOral theories exist. Moral sensations exist. Moral beliefs exist. But morality itself does not, unless a god exists. Or so I have argued. Those arguments may be faulty -but one would need to challenge one of the premises.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh lookie lookie, another one. Imma end up quoting my own posts more this week than I have in two years.

What have I communicated thusfar?
-That your argument for god works as well for peanuts or waffles...anything at all, in fact.
-That one needn't deny or argue with the notion that morality is or requires an "agent" to remind you that "agent" =/= "god"
-That whether or not our various moralities turned out to be illusory, hallucinatory, or flat out wrong - this wouldn't weigh in on the existence of a god.
-That a moral object is not required for moral beliefs..or beliefs about morality to exist.

Would you care to take issue with any of that?

[max-greece]

Naturally. it just wouldn't do to discuss evidence based theories.

How am I ignoring the evolutionary explanation? I am not denying the evolutionary explanation!! But the evolutionary explanation is an explanation of the development of our moral sense and moral beliefs. And morality is not a sensation or a belief. It is the thing sensed, the thing believed. How many times?

An evolutionary explanation of religious sensations and beliefs can be provided as well. Does such an explanation show those religions to be true? No, it debunks them.

Similarly, an evolutionary explanation of our moral sense and beliefs DEBUNKS those beliefs.

Morality - as the thing sensed, is created by the sensing. Morality would not exist without the human brain (uniquely as far as we know) recognising it.

No higher power required, beyond the brain that is.

[Faith No More]

I have addressed your point about pains etc. When we experience pain we are prompted to direct ourselves away from the source of the pain. But we are agents. So the kind of directing and favouring that you are locating and talking about is directing and favouring carried out by an agent. Ourselves. It underlines my point, it doesn't challenge it.
Morality instructs and favours. The only thing I'm aware of that can instruct and favour is an agent. So, unless you can provide some good reason to think otherwise, morality must be an agent.

Rhythm already responded to this, but I will too since you seem to have ignored his response. You have, in one foul swoop, cut the head off of your own argument. You replied that the agent involved when we respond to pain is ourselves, which shows that your desire to ascribe an external agent as the cause of morality is entirely unnecessary. We are the agent.

[Inigo]

If that is your definition of morality than the thing you sense is the electrical/chemical pattern of nerve firings in your brain/the pattern of nerve connections, or loosely the concept. The reasonable assumption that we all want mostly the same things. This is a thing.

Are we done yet?

You are confusing the cause of a sensation with what the sensation is 'of'. When I have the visual sensation that there is a chair in front of me I am not seeing an electrical pattern of nerve firings. Those things may cause or even constitute my sensation. But they are not what the sensation is 'of'.

My visual sensation of a chair is a hallucination if there is no chair there. The sensation will have a cause. one can talk about nerve firings and so on. But it would be fallacious to infer that because nerve firings cause the sensation, the sensation is 'of' nerve firings. By that confused logic all sensations are 'of' nerve firings.

[max-greece]

If morality needs a higher power - doesn't philosophy? Most people accept philosophy is entirely man-made - a product of our brains, how is morality different?

[simplexity]

I assume you don't think a god exists. Well, there are theories about gods. But it would be grossly misleading and not a little stupid to say that 'gods exist in the same way a theory exists'.

Never said gods exist in the same way a theory exists. That was you who made that false equivalency. Now if you are saying god exists as a concept. Fine. A little pointless though. Morality is a concept by definition. Concepts do exist in the minds of the person who came up with them. Existence is a strange thing indeed.

Morals are just certain subjective tendencies/beliefs/concepts based on observations/sensations. Morality is the culmination of all these morals. So in that way you can equate it with theory as a way of making sense of the observations(except morals are subjectively based, originally).

[Inigo]

Rhythm already responded to this, but I will too since you seem to have ignored his response. You have, in one foul swoop, cut the head off of your own argument. You replied that the agent involved when we respond to pain is ourselves, which shows that your desire to ascribe an external agent as the cause of morality is entirely unnecessary. We are the agent.

This is getting tedious. Morality has more than one feature. One feature is that it instructs. Only an agent can instruct, so morality is an agent then. That does not yet establish that morality is a god, for it leaves open the possibility that morality could be us or our community or some such. Okay??

Another feature of morality is that its instructions are ones that confer reasons for compliance whatever one's interests. So if morality instructs you to X then it is a conceptual truth that Xing is something you have reason to do, and reason to do in virtue of morality instructing you to do it.

Your instructions, my instructins, and the instructions of communities do not have this feature. Therefore moral instructions are not the instructions of ourselves or our communities.

It is to satisfy THAT feature that morality has to be identified with the instructions of a god.

[The Grand Nudger]

Another feature of morality is that its instructions are ones that confer reasons for compliance whatever one's interests. So if morality instructs you to X then it is a conceptual truth that Xing is something you have reason to do, and reason to do in virtue of morality instructing you to do it.

Your instructions, my instructins, and the instructions of communities do not have this feature. Therefore moral instructions are not the instructions of ourselves or our communities.

Morality tells me not to rape my neighbors daughter. My neighbors could all give me plenty of reasons not to rape my neighbors daughter....and so could my waffle or my peanuts...if my neighbors advice were insufficient (and I'd lost my shit). -Anything- you defer to has this "feature" even if your deference is a gross error.

Yet still, even if I didn't care to argue, "not ourselves or our communities" leaves a very - very long list of things to cross out before we get to "god" doesn't it? Or, more simply, as before "not ourselves or our communities" =/= "god"