Atheism and morality

[Inigo]

It appears to me that perhaps more clearly, one could say that morality has the effect of instructing, or morality is "like instruction," but saying that morality "is" instruction, in addition to being a category error, runs afoul of Moore's naturalistic fallacy (morality is "like morality," and likening it to anything but itself, without support, results in an error).

No, morality cannot be identified with something that gives the mere appearance of an instruction. For to sense that an act is wrong (or believe it to be) is to sense that it is actually instructed not to be done. An apparent instruction that never amounts to a real one is, by definition, not a real instruction. And so you would then be saying that morality does not instruct. Yet it does. One cannot capture the instructing nature of morality by identifying morality with something that does not actually instruct. And you can't deny that morality instructs without simply changing the topic.

You accuse me of committing Moore's naturalistic fallacy. This confuses me. Moore's naturalistic fallacy involves equivocation over the word 'is'. Basically, one commits the naturalistic fallacy when one slips from using the 'is' of predication to using the 'is' of identity. So, 'happiness is good' could be read as meaning either that happiness has the property of goodness, or that happiness and goodness are one and the same thing. it is this ambiguity that opens up the possibility of the fallacy being committed. One would conclude from happiness having the property of goodness that happiness 'is' the property of goodness.
I have not done this. I have simply highlighted two features of morality - its instructional nature and its rational authority - and argued that as the only thing that it seems possible could have these features is a god's instructions then morality 'is' a god's instructions.

[The Grand Nudger]

No, morality cannot be identified with something that gives the mere appearance of an instruction. For to sense that an act is wrong (or believe it to be) is to sense that it is actually instructed not to be done. An apparent instruction that never amounts to a real one is, by definition, not a real instruction.

Sigh, the instruction is real regardless of whether or not it's contents are accurate (you should be pretty familiar with this one....). Have you ever been given bad advice.....? Was the advice not real, or were the contents of that advice simply wrong? You're waffling back and forth between these two (entirely disparate issues) but it doesn't matter.. because neither path is going to yield a god plugged into your argument.

[LostLocke]

And so you would then be saying that morality does not instruct. Yet it does.

Just curious...

How does morality instruct?

[Inigo]

Moreover, there appears to be something clearly, intuitively wrong about this forumalation, namely that neither instruction nor favoring capture the essential "moral" nature of morality. If I take something I own and break it, it has a bad result, but the result is not "morally bad" in the sense it would be if I took something from someone else and broke it. The essential "moral" aspect, the goodness or badness of acts, appears to be nowhere in evidence in your conception. What makes a god's instructions moral, qualitatively, and not a society's? (And yes, you've used the dense term rationally compelling, which still doesn't account for the moral dimension; things can be rationally compelling without having a moral value or character. At present, I'm not even sure of your meaning with that term, so I suggest you unpack its meaning. I have a rationally compelling reason not to endanger my life by smoking cigarettes, but not a moral one. And if you intend to lean on Kant's conception of a categorical imperative, please indicate this. Doing so, even implicitly, will, however, vacate the need for a god.)

Er, I have several times 'unpacked' what I mean when I say that moral instructions are rationally authoritative.

If morality instructs one to do a thing then in virtue of this fact - in virtue of the fact morality has instructed you to do it - you come to have reason to do it. So, morality 'confers' reasons. I have said this possibly hundreds of times now. 'Confers'. Morality 'confers' resaons. This word is important. You cannot confer something someone already has.
So, you want to smash a vase. Great. Then you have a reason to smash that vase (given an instrumentalist conception of practical reason, anyway). But you do not have 'moral' reason to smash the vase. A moral reason differs from the reasons generated by your desires. For the reasons generated by your desires are not reasons you'd have irrespective of your desires. They are reasons you have precisely because you have the desires you do. So, you have reason to smash the vast precisely because you desire to. It is your desire that generated the reason.
But moral reasons are different. if morality instructs you to smash the vase then you have reason to smash the vase irrespective of your desires. So, whether you desire to or not, you have reason to smash the vase. That's what is distinctive about moral reasons as opposed to other kinds. All other reasons are conditional upon you having the relevant desire. Moral reasons are not like this. Morality 'confers' reasons. If morality instructs you to do a thing, you thereby come to have reason to do it.

---

[quote='LostLocke' Just curious...

How does morality instruct?
[/quote]

By being an agent. That's the point. I don't know of anything other than an agent that can issue a real instruction. Morality - if it exists - consists, in part anyway, in real instructions. So morality must be an agent, then.

[paulpablo]

Morality is NOT those sensations and beliefs. Morality is the thing sensed, the thing believed.

So you see morality as a physical thing rather than a belief or sensation? Because surely a mental thing would be considered to be a sensation, thought or belief.

---

Some people have a sense of god. THat doesn't mean god exists. When a sensation gives us the impression of something that doesn't really exist we call it a hallucination. Sometimes our visual sensations have nothing answering to them (such as when we are dreaming - we have visual impressions when we are dreaming, but there is nothing answering to them - a dream is a hallucination), and so on. Our senses can let us down.

I don't believe that all sensations of god are hallucinations, I think some are, but others could just be feeling of ecstasy or other types of feelings of intense well being coupled with indoctrination that a god exists. So someone could have a sense of right or wrong based on emotional feelings and they wouldn't be hallucinations.

[Inigo]

[quote='paulpablo']So you see morality as a physical thing rather than a belief or sensation? Because surely a mental thing would be considered to be a sensation, thought or belief.[\quote]

No, I see morality as composed of the instructions and favourings of an agent, a person, a mind. For I think only something like that is in the business of instructing, commanding, favouring and so on. Is a mind a physical thing? I do not think so, but some do - but it is beside the point.

[The Grand Nudger]

For I think only something like that is in the business of instructing, commanding, favouring and so on.

Tell that to the people who follow their toasters financial advice. Or perhaps, if you'd prefer, tell that to all the people who are following "the wrong god".

[paulpablo]

[quote='paulpablo']So you see morality as a physical thing rather than a belief or sensation? Because surely a mental thing would be considered to be a sensation, thought or belief.[\quote]

No, I see morality as composed of the instructions and favourings of an agent, a person, a mind. For I think only something like that is in the business of instructing, commanding, favouring and so on. Is a mind a physical thing? I do not think so, but some do - but it is beside the point.

So you don't know which parts of morality are passed on from humans and which are instructions from god? Or do you know which is which?

[Inigo]

I don't believe that all sensations of god are hallucinations, I think some are, but others could just be feeling of ecstasy or other types of feelings of intense well being coupled with indoctrination that a god exists. So someone could have a sense of right or wrong based on emotional feelings and they wouldn't be hallucinations.

Beliefs and sensations are different. Sensations often give rise to beliefs, but not always. For instance, my visual sense informs me that a pencil bends when placed in a glass of water. But I do not believe it does. So one can sense that something is a certain way without necessarily believing it to be.

If someone has the belief in a god that belief is false if no god exists.

If someone has a sensation that gives them the impression a god exists then that sensation is a hallucination if no god exists. That's just what a hallucination is. A hallucination is a sense report that gives one the impression that something is there, that isn't there.

---

So you don't know which parts of morality are passed on from humans and which are instructions from god? Or do you know which is which?

I do not understand your question. I am arguing that morality is composed of the instructions and favourings of an agent. But not just any old agent. An agent who has sufficient power over our interests to be able to confer reasons for compliance with her instructions whatever our interests. And an agent like that is what we would commonly refer to as a 'god'. So morality - all of it - is composed of the instructions and favourings of a god.

[paulpablo]

I don't believe that all sensations of god are hallucinations, I think some are, but others could just be feeling of ecstasy or other types of feelings of intense well being coupled with indoctrination that a god exists. So someone could have a sense of right or wrong based on emotional feelings and they wouldn't be hallucinations.

Beliefs and sensations are different. Sensations often give rise to beliefs, but not always. For instance, my visual sense informs me that a pencil bends when placed in a glass of water. But I do not believe it does. So one can sense that something is a certain way without necessarily believing it to be.

If someone has the belief in a god that belief is false if no god exists.

If someone has a sensation that gives them the impression a god exists then that sensation is a hallucination if no god exists. That's just what a hallucination is. A hallucination is a sense report that gives one the impression that something is there, that isn't there.

But the sensation might not mean anything on its own.

Its more like

Happy sensation= wow i feel good today
happy sensation+ indoctrination in religion = wow i feel god today, all around me.

The happy sensation isn't causing the hallucination.

Just as if science discovered that pencils actually do bend when they enter water, your scientific knowledge that pencils don't bend when they enter water wouldn't be said to have caused you to have previously been hallucinating, you just had been educated in knowledge that made you believe something was happening that wasn't.

---

I do not understand your question. I am arguing that morality is composed of the instructions and favourings of an agent. But not just any old agent. An agent who has sufficient power over our interests to be able to confer reasons for compliance with her instructions whatever our interests. And an agent like that is what we would commonly refer to as a 'god'. So morality - all of it - is composed of the instructions and favourings of a god.

But then as I have said before, not everyone has the same morality, some people in the past have had explicit instructions from god and felt a moral obligation to sacrifice humans, kill prostitutes and so on, other people's morals instruct them to help the prostitutes and to not kill any human, so surely if you are right then this would make the existence of one god impossible it would have to be the existence of more than one god.