Why be good?

[Thumpalumpacus]

How do you get people not to treat each other like shit.   The question posed, how to answer the question "why be good?"  And they're still working on it, as far as I can tell looking around the globe.

I'd be willing to bet that morality is an emergent property of in-group/out-group dynamics, arising as it did because it help cement in-group cohesion so that a given group could compete successfully for resources. I don't know that to be the fact, but that would be my guess.

[henryp]

Wallym: the fact that we can live in relative peace, in some parts of the world at least, I think shows we are generally "good". If we weren't mostly evolved to be discouraged from harming others, society would not work like it does. To be honest, I am amazed sometimes at how well society does work. However, humans can be quite easily led, and being shown that not hitting people means you don't get hit is enough for people to accept it's a good idea.

The threat of retribution keeps most people in line.  Toss in a heaping of brainwashing to be good, and people in the comfortable middle will mostly behave.  We'll still illegally stream television, and do a lot of other little douchey things as we go along.  But we're fairly manageable as we want the things we have enough that we will respond to the threat of having them taken away.

Same principle for religion.  The perk being that the thing you are threatening to take away doesn't exist, so you can pretend everyone has it.  Unlike money, which only people with money have.

---

How do you get people not to treat each other like shit.   The question posed, how to answer the question "why be good?"  And they're still working on it, as far as I can tell looking around the globe.

I'd be willing to bet that morality is an emergent property of in-group/out-group dynamics, arising as it did because it help cement in-group cohesion so that a given group could compete successfully for resources. I don't know that to be the fact, but that would be my guess.

Again, so it's not really morality.  It's practical behavior we've misidentified.  The problem being when the practical behavior is no longer practical for someone, they no longer have a reason to participate in the behavior.

[SteelCurtain]

Simon Moon

The objective basis for moral behavior is reality.

Morality is all about the well being of other humans (or sentient beings). Moral behavior increases the well being of other humans, and minimizes the harm to other humans.

I'm sure we can all agree on the following points:

1. We all live in the same reality, subject to the same physical laws.
2. We all have very similar physical bodies.
3. Because of this, we can extrapolate that what is harmful to my well being, is almost assuredly harmful to the vast majority of other humans' well being.

We just don't care.  We don't care about the well being of the vast majority of other humans.  That's just reality, and it's been made evident time after time after time after time.  Even now, we like our dogs more than most other human beings.  We like our TV's more than most other human beings.  We like taking a nap more than we like most other human beings.


We have no real preference to the life or death of some kid in china.  It just doesn't matter to us.  And why should it?  Because they have opposable thumbs too?  

For example: life is preferable to death, health is preferable to disease, freedom is preferable to slavery, comfort is preferable to discomfort, etc.

From there, all it takes is a modicum of empathy and rationality to understand that harming others well being is not advisable, since there is always someone in society with more power than you that has the ability to harm yours. 

As I said earlier, you've switched from right and wrong, to an issue of practicality.  Now the question is am I willing to risk X to get Y.  That's an entirely different idea than morality.

I think that's binary thinking. There is grey area. Maybe we aren't as concerned with the wellbeing of those we don't know as we are with our own or our family's. I do care about the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. I can't feasibly do anything about it without jeopardizing my own wellbeing or my ability to support myself. So there is a subconscious choice there that I make. I do care about shitty working conditions in Chinese sweatshops. So I don't purchase the iPhone that was built there, because that's all I can do. I choose my own selfish desires over those less fortunate than me every time I buy a steak instead of Ramen or beer instead of drinking tap water. The money could have gone somewhere else and my hunger would have been eased and my thirst quenched just the same.

This speaks to another level of the absence of objectivity in morality. It is clearly better for more if I were to forgo the steak and give that extra $15 that I spent on it and the accompanying potato and asparagus, and give that money to an African charity instead so I could affect someone else's life positively. But I get pleasure from that steak and potato. I get pleasure from the beer. And that's okay. Another example is the amount of time I spend here. I could be volunteering for Habitat for Humanity or spending extra time at the shelter helping to match people up with dogs. But this place brings me happiness. Which is good for me.

[henryp]

I think that's binary thinking. There is grey area. Maybe we aren't as concerned with the wellbeing of those we don't know as we are with our own or our family's. I do care about the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. I can't feasibly do anything about it without jeopardizing my own wellbeing or my ability to support myself. So there is a subconscious choice there that I make. I do care about shitty working conditions in Chinese sweatshops. So I don't purchase the iPhone that was built there, because that's all I can do. I choose my own selfish desires over those less fortunate than me every time I buy a steak instead of Ramen or beer instead of drinking tap water. The money could have gone somewhere else and my hunger would have been eased and my thirst quenched just the same.

This speaks to another level of the absence of objectivity in morality. It is clearly better for more if I were to forgo the steak and give that extra $15 that I spent on it and the accompanying potato and asparagus, and give that money to an African charity instead so I could affect someone else's life positively. But I get pleasure from that steak and potato. I get pleasure from the beer. And that's okay. Another example is the amount of time I spend here. I could be volunteering for Habitat for Humanity or spending extra time at the shelter helping to match people up with dogs. But this place brings me happiness. Which is good for me.

This is fair. The key point I'm making is that Me > Not me for a vast majority of not me's.

[rexbeccarox]

What does participating in gossip have to do with what I asked you?

Because a gossip is ranked above a murderer.

If your only example of someone on this site being honest is them admitting to murder, is it your contention that I'm being dishonest when I say I have no desire to murder anyone?

If you did it would be premeditated. I would say the majority of murders aren't premeditated....

What in gawd's name does this have to do with what I asked you?  Stop evading, and answer the question: do you think I'm being dishonest when I say I have no desire to murder anyone?  You said that another member was an honest atheist because she admitted she was murderous; I am following up on specifically that.

[Faith No More]

I can't be arsed to go through nine pages, but I have to say this. Every time someone asks, "Why be good without God?" I hear the person saying, "I only do good for a reward."

[Brian37]

If there is no God, then there is no hell; and if there is no hell, then there are no ultimate, eternal repercussions, good or bad, for how we live out our mortal lives. Of course, atheists insist that people should be "good without God."

But why? If God does not exist, why be good?

Why does my cat preen my dog's fur? Why do army ants work together to build nests? Because life evolved to cooperate. Now while evolution in reality does not care if cruelty or compassion, cooperation or force win, our species like other mammals also evolved with empathy. 

Why do I behave? Because I have empathy and everyone is capable of that and you don't need an antiquated book or an invisible sky hero to know what empathy is. 

If you cannot figure out on your own without a cosmic security guard threatening you to behave I feel sorry for you. You also don't need to believe in Santa as an adult to be good.

The problem with religious morality is that the empathy gets limited to the tribe and is not universal and only designed to get attention for the head figure. Better morality is doing the right thing even without being told what to do. 

[Jenny A]

Jenny A

Really?  You think that most people don't commit murder because of the death penalty?  I'm sure that's true in some cases, but most people don't commit murder because they've never wanted to.  And more because they know it's wrong.  If law were the only reason people didn't murder, there would be many more unsolved murders.






Do you equate murder and lying on the moral scale, because I, and I think most people do not.  Not all moral infractions are equal.  Not to mention the fact that adultery still happens where it is illegal.

Lying is illegal under a variety of circumstances:  testifying under oath, fraud, false advertising, etc.  They all happen anyway.  And creationists lie like no group I've ever seen.  Is lying for god okay?

My point is, if you consider lying for instance, to be immoral, then there is not one person who is moral, whether christian or atheist. The difference is, one realizes this...

Yes, Huggy, there are no people who've never committed at least slight moral infractions even gauged by their own subjective standards.  So?  What is this great difference? 

If you mean we are all doomed to hell fire for such infractions, I'd say your sense of proportion is absurdly, even immorally out of balance.  Civilized people recognize the difference between gossip and murder.

[Huggy Bear]

Because a gossip is ranked above a murderer.

If you did it would be premeditated. I would say the majority of murders aren't premeditated....

What in gawd's name does this have to do with what I asked you?  Stop evading, and answer the question: do you think I'm being dishonest when I say I have no desire to murder anyone?  You said that another member was an honest atheist because she admitted she was murderous; I am following up on specifically that.

How am I evading? I don't know you, so how can I judge if you're being honest or not? I suppose if one were to ask Phil Hartman's wife (for example) if she had a desire to commit murder, she'd say no also...

Yes, Huggy, there are no people who've never committed at least slight moral infractions even gauged by their own subjective standards.  So?  What is this great difference?  

If you mean we are all doomed to hell fire for such infractions, I'd say your sense of proportion is absurdly, even immorally out of balance.  Civilized people recognize the difference between gossip and murder.

You do realize that there are deaths caused simply by gossip? In fact there is a TV series being made about this subject.

Premiering this fall, “Death by Gossip With Wendy Williams” investigates how “idle chitchat turns dark and dangerous as ID uncovers crimes fueled by rumors and sordid half-truths that lead to the ultimate betrayal … murder,”

If one was to start a rumor that resulted in someones death, aren't they just as culpable?

God judges the heart. There are seven things which are an abomination to God, and all seven are in the heart of a Gossip.

Proverbs 6
16 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

Proverbs 26
23 Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross.
24 He that hateth dissembleth with his lips, and layeth up deceit within him;
25 When he speaketh fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart.

[rexbeccarox]

Well, Huggy, you judged one atheist on the site, whom you also don't know, for being honest; how do you know she's being honest if you don't know her?