Religion is a poor source of morality

[Neo-Scholastic]

Just to clarify what the theists in this thread are suggesting: morality cannot be objective unless we imagine a God who, for some nations at some epochs, endorses the beating of slaves and stoning of fornicators…

Please be careful with the generalizations. I do not agree with that sentiment and it also presupposes a specific hermeneutic for biblical interpretation that I do not endorse.

Objective morality doesn't require God as a source. It requires inquiring minds who experience different states of being in their struggle to attain what every person desires: happiness.

I agree that what all people desire is happiness. Your reading of the NE is probably more recent than mine so I have to ask if you also see Aristotle defending a concept to of virtue that exalts conformity to and expression of the essential nature of Man, i.e. a rational animal. As such, objective morality seems to depend on some type of philosophical realism. If I am not mistaken you have previously expressed dismay at the prevalence of neo-Platonic notions in the academy.

[Esquilax]

But again that is all speculation on your part. I could also say that empathy is a reproductive disadvantage leaving compassionate people vulnerable to hostile groups.

Yep. What, did you think evolution was this perfect, flawless series of utterly advantageous mutations? It's more than a binary good/bad decision: some mutations are absolutely brilliant for certain things while giving their organism crippling flaws in other areas. For example, our upright gait opened the door to a lot of advancements that led to us becoming the dominant species on the planet, but at the same time the specific configuration of nerves and structure in our upright backs leaves us vulnerable to a quite astonishing array of back pains, injuries and deformities because much of the architecture back there is still set up for forward sloping quadrupedal motion. All that a given mutation needs is to confer a net advantage to be retained within a gene pool, it doesn't need to be advantageous in every possible situation.

It is premature to say with any confidence that any particular evolved trait is primary for moral behavior and I believe there is good reason not to consider natural instinct a reliable moral guide. Virtuous action is often contrary to our natural instinct, like showing courage in the face of danger. You seemed to dismiss revulsion of deviate behavior as socially constructed problems. Could we not also say that social constructs like a sense of duty and honor contribute positively. Again socialization is neutral without reference to a higher standard of value that instinct or cultural norms.

I would say that our natural inclination to empathy informs our morality, rather than being solely responsible for it. There are also other factors that go into it, and I wouldn't even say that empathy is the largest contributor among them. Rationality, from where I'm standing, is far more important; our ability to assess and investigate scenarios allows us to determine their moral dimensions, in which empathy is but one of several lenses we can use to view the scene. We're far better off, morally speaking, when we recognize the importance of understanding consequences, motivations, and the objective facts surrounding any given ethical question.

The thing to remember is that evolution can often have little in the way of nuance, such that the reactions and instincts it instills in us can often be applied inappropriately. With regards to revulsion, that has a benefit in situations where the thing that disgusts us is harmful to us (snakes and spiders can hurt us, and they are commonly associated with revulsion and fear) but that same reaction also causes us to react negatively to things that are not harmful but are enough of an Other to set it off anyway. The thing to do is to recognize that what we're evolved to do does not have to dictate what we ought to do, and to rationally assess what actual harm or benefit the thing that we revile does, so that we have a more objective justification than just subjective animal instinct.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I know what you think you mean, when you say "higher standard of value", but I think it's clear that even those holy books are based on the cultures that spawned them, as a way of legitimizing a particular set of values.

I was not thinking of holy books or any other form of special revelation. As a professing Christian I understand why you would make that assumption, so I forgive you. The higher standard of value of which I was thinking has something to do with recognizing the degree to which a thing conforms to its essential nature. This approach at least has the promise of achieving a measure of objectivity.

You have my apologies. Thank you for understanding that, almost without fail, when I'm speaking with a Christian about "higher" anything, they typically are referring to the Bible's claims about "what God says", which I hear as, "what priests said a long time ago, claiming to speak for God". But you're right, I should have asked, not assumed.

Previously, I have heard you refer a few times to the concept of something's "essential nature", and I'm not really sure what that means except to say that it seems to imply a rigidity to individuals within a species that is simply not there. For instance, I could say that "a cat has an essential nature as a hunter", but I had two cats, growing up, one of whom was a supreme hunter and one of whom never did or wanted to, as far as I could tell. In fact, she turned her nose up visibly at the activity of her sister, when they were playing and the latter spotted prey to chase. Same genes, same species, same environment/upbringing, yet one was a total housecat and the other one was a miniature panther at heart. What is the "essential nature" of a cat, then? I think the same applies to human behaviors; we are not so easily classified, nor do we have a universal "nature" to which we can align (or from which we can deviate), despite societal norms which stem from our tribalism instinct. We can only talk in terms of generalities, like "people tend to _____".

Given that, I cannot see how we could achieve objectivity about things that are an "essential nature" of a person or society. Too many competing factors seem to be involved.

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I appreciate your goodwill. I like you. You raise good points and seem pretty thoughtful overall. If I misunderstood then the fault is all mine for not reading carefully enough. You’ve made a couple statements about me here and elsewhere that I truly believe were unwarranted. For quite some time, I’ve been very careful to qualify all my statements about atheism and atheists numerically with “a few” or “some” or many. I have also been very careful for well over a year to not equate atheism per se with ontological naturalism, physical monism, materialism, etc. And despite all this you seem to think I am making wide sweeping generalizations from “the hate in my heart.” As for this thread, I guess I could go point by point, but in this case I don’t believe it would be necessary or productive.

Thank you. I do try not to make unwarranted attacks, but like everyone, my emotions sometimes get the best of me. You are certainly improving in every possible way, just since I've been here; it's possible I "came in at a low point", so to speak!

I used the phrase "the hate in your heart" because of a comment that struck me as astoundingly bitter and prejudiced toward us, which to me indicated a deep-seated anger toward and/or hate for atheists. In other words, I thought that your emotions had gotten carried away by the campus shooting which targeted Christians, and you were loosing your venom toward us. That, to me, indicated a place in your heart that carried hatred, so I expressed my concern. I will do my best in the future to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Put simply, your naturalistic position makes a circular argument. You cannot evaluate the efficacy with which moral reasoning makes correct value judgments without first assuming the efficacy of moral reasoning. That’s what I mean when I say that naturalist theories of morality unjustifiably ‘privilege’ some instincts (empathy, disgust, altruism, group cohesion, etc.) over others.

Respectfully, I think it's the other way around. Naturalist models tend to look at all behaviors in an attempt to understand the system, without giving credence to any one as "better" than the other. This is often the source of snide anti-naturalism comments I have had to reply to in the past, which implied that to us, there is nothing wrong with sociopathic/psychopathic behaviors because we have no basis upon which to "judge" such persons. We try to look at people as they are, not as we wish they should be or as we have been traditionally informed they are when the data show that they clearly are not. One example of this is the recent conversation about monogamy.

The research you cite insightfully identifies external influences (culture and experience) and innate processes that contribute to the process of moral reasoning. I do not dispute any of their conclusions.  But, and it is a critical ‘but’, empirical data alone cannot show that the results of moral reasoning are in fact moral. For example, scientific research can show that sociopaths reason differently from regular folks. Scientific research apart from a pre-determined measurable moral standard cannot show that the value judgments of a sociopath are morally inferior, equal, or superior to those of regular folks. From a naturalistic perspective, the best anyone can do is say that the behavior of a sociopath deviates from the cultural norm.

I certainly agree with almost all of this, except to comment that I don't know how we'd sufficiently define "moral" such that we could ever make the statement, "the result of this moral reasoning is moral". The reason I speak so much about the concept of empathy-based moral reasoning is because we observe that sociopaths seem to have failed to develop a system that guides our behavior based on empathy for others. That's what a sociopath is: they are as blind to empathic feelings (and thus, reasoning) as a sightless person is blind to light. And in both cases, it appears to be a malfunction of an evolved system, which is why we tend to look at it in terms of conferred evolutionary advantages in a social species like ours. To put it another way, we wonder why we're not all sociopaths: "what evolutionary advantage was it to those who developed a sense of empathy?" We look to our own behavior as an individual within groups of varying kinds, and we look to our cousin species, which also seem to exhibit empathy-based moral reasoning in many cases. I have to admit that the more I look at the social behavior of chimps, the more I see the basics of what we humans would call a "soul", and also see in their violence (and ours) the echoes of the way our long-distant ancestors probably behaved. We are a vast improvement over that origin, but I think the roots of it are clearly there in our present behaviors (in religion, "sin" is used to explain why you sometimes find a married pastor with a pair of hookers; I see it as older instincts winning out over socialized behavioral expectations).

Secondly, it is premature to say that specific social systems are more fit than others. As for now, scientific research is too incomplete to say if the moral framework of one culture is superior to another in terms of ‘fitness’. It’s all speculation. Human societies have been organized under tribal elders and warlords, dynasties, dictators, empires, communes, and nation states. Western constitutional republics and liberal democracies have only been around for a tiny sliver of human history. There is insufficient data to suppose that Western-style approaches to governance are any more likely to insure the long-term survival of humanity than Islamic Caliphates or stone-age tribalism.

You probably noted that the researchers themselves said that we need to do a great deal more studying on the subject, but I would again point to their three-tiered system of moral behavior, and their conclusion that what we call moral reasoning started out as a simple system of kin-selection-based empathy (if I am good to my immediate group, even at my own expense, it helps improve my genetic fitness because it helps my kin, and vice-versa) and has since been forced to expand since the invention of ever-larger groups, post-Agricultural Revolution. Civilization has forced upon us (before we were completely ready) the need to make much larger moral decisions than our instinctive empathy can provide for, and our cultural ideals tend to be ones that try to cope with that fact, to varying degrees of success... I absolutely agree that we have insufficient data to suppose any of what you listed. But I do hope!

[robvalue]

Hi, I'm not back properly yet as I'm still too obsessed and need a break So I'll read all the replies in a few days.

I just wanted to make something clear, that I worry some people may possibly take the wrong way.

I talked about ISIS. I think they are horrific and evil, and I stand against everything they do. In all the ways I consider important for morality, western civilisation is as good as it gets for now. I hope everyone is clear that these are my views. I hate ISIS and everything they are trying to do. I don't want people to behave that way, ever.

However, from the point of view of discussing morality as a whole from a purely philosophical standpoint, I own the fact that the above is ultimately just my opinion. I choose goals for my morality, which mostly meet up with our civilisation. ISIS do not achieve those goals, in fact they fail utterly and go in the wrong direction. But objectively, I'm not going to define morality as meaning "what I think is right" because that's simply a circular argument that ISIS can just as easily use. Even defining it as "what the west thinks is roughly right" is just as circular. Once specific goals of morality have been established, such as life is precious, being healthy is good, pain is bad, etc. etc. then it makes sense to compare different societies, under that microscope. But the reason I find people sometimes missing my point is that these are all assumed to be what morality is about, when actually "right" and "wrong" are essentially arbitrary. Other societies, even if they hold the above in the same regard may also hold other factors in as much or even higher regard. Simply telling them "you're wrong" isn't helpful. You have to explain why your set of goals matter to you, and why theirs seem irrational or bad.

Not only from an intellectual point of view but also a practical one, declaring one society "objectively better" than another before any parameters have even been established is possibly harmful. It achieves nothing to beat our chests and walk around all superior, and look down on them as barbarians. Of course, almost every one of us feels that way. But feelings are not an argument. If the world is ever to be brought together, we need to understand things from other societies' point of view. By what they consider to be important, they may be trying to do the "right thing". It's just so totally alien to us as to make them seem to be all evil. I think the more useful term would be misguided. People tend to go with the flow. Especially when they have been brainwashed.

Coming to any sort of moral agreement with ISIS in the short term may well be impossible, but for them and any other society the only way to ever come together is to stop thinking of ourselves as objectively better. It doesn't help. Instead, we need to try and convince through reason other societies to accept the goals of our morality. Not force them. Show why the things we value are important, and the practices we see as cruel are not actually important. Just walking in and saying, "You're part of civilisation now" is not much different to them invading us and declaring sharia law. Objectively speaking.

Thanks for listening I don't expect everyone/anyone to agree with me, this is just my take on the fundamental nature of morality, without presuppositions. This may simply mean that other people don't mean the same thing by the term "morality" as I do, which is fine. And I'm talking here about the discussion and comparison of individual moral systems (without simply setting up a "correct" way to measure morality), which is a totally different subject to simply observing how "morality" through tribal empathy has evolved in the first place. A lot of misunderstandings come about by treating these two things as the same. They really aren't. One is philosophy, one is science, for one thing. If you can tell which is which you can have a lolly

[Mudhammam]

Please be careful with the generalizations. I do not agree with that sentiment and it also presupposes a specific hermeneutic for biblical interpretation that I do not endorse.

I was just summarizing the comments I had seen throughout the first couple of pages. What plausible - or even possible - biblical interpretation is there that negates God's destructive and childlike peevishness which fills the bulk of the Old Testament, and substantial portions of the New?

I agree that what all people desire is happiness. Your reading of the NE is probably more recent than mine so I have to ask if you also see Aristotle defending a concept to of virtue that exalts conformity to and expression of the essential nature of Man, i.e. a rational animal. As such, objective morality seems to depend on some type of philosophical realism. If I am not mistaken you have previously expressed dismay at the prevalence of neo-Platonic notions in the academy.

Yeah, I'd say that's correct about Aristotle. Offhand I'm not sure what you're specifically referencing with regards to neo-Platonism.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Offhand I'm not sure what you're specifically referencing with regards to neo-Platonism.

A while ago, you started a thread based on a recent survey of professional philosophers. Many seemed agreeable to some kind of Platonism. I go the sense that you we surprised by that level of acceptance in academia. That's all.

[Mudhammam]

A while ago, you started a thread based on a recent survey of professional philosophers. Many seemed agreeable to some kind of Platonism. I go the sense that you we surprised by that level of acceptance in academia. That's all.

Oh okay. Yeah, for sure, I did find that surprising - but I wouldn't say I felt dismay - I'm open to the idea that mathematics represents some sort of Platonic aspect of reality, though I don't know what the majority of (physicalist) philosophers take that to mean. I don't think the Good need be in that category for morality to be objective, Aristotle being one example, though I don't see any logical problems that would prevent that from being the case. That still doesn't make room for theism, and the Judeo-Christian concept of God in particular, however, as far as I can tell.

[robvalue]

I'd like to point out that I'm still waiting for even a single non-trivial real world concrete example of "objective morality" in action. Some actual demonstration of a hypothetical scenario, involving at least a small amount of conflict between different outcomes. In contrast, I would be happy to sit here all day churning out examples of how morality is subjective. If there aren't any examples to show me, then how can I take seriously that it's a real thing? Does it apply to the real world that we live in, or not?

I didn't mean to imply that empathy is the only factor in morality. I just used it as part of the scientific explanation. I suppose empathy is a way for nature to get people to look out for their own tribe. (Metaphorically speaking!) If we see a tribe member being hurt, it feels like we are getting hurt. So it spurs us into action to help them. And if we hurt a tribe member, it feels like hurting ourselves, so we don't do it. Scientifically, I suppose you could say empathy is a side effect of morality forming, or perhaps simply the basic form that it usually takes. So it's self selecting: those that work well in a group are more likely to care about the group, and any random changes which give some feeling of empathy are more likely to make that happen. So changes which support empathy will become prevalent.

As Esq says, when we get to the point of thinking past survival situations, empathy helps us make moral decisions. It allows us to think about things in ways removed from being self centred. At this point, all sorts of other factors will affect our moral judgements. I was talking about the very basic forming of morality, the idea that a person actually gives a fig about another person in their tribe. Why don't I punch people in the face? Because I don't want to, essentially. Because I have empathy, it would feel like hurting myself.

By the way, I figured this "empathy through evolution" explanation out myself, without reading it from a science book. I used reason and evidence, and found that this was the inescapable conclusion. I'm not trying to brag, but simply to demonstrate that I'm not regurgitating scientific theory. If my analysis is off, I'm happy for anyone to point this out to me. When stuff is true and makes sense, then people working independently will generally reach the same conclusion. When stuff is made up nonsense, people working independently will come up with vastly different "answers".

[Neo-Scholastic]

Seems to me that people do not always agree on basic material facts of history, crime scenes, and even scientific findings. But few people would say that obectivity is impossible in those areas. To say that for morality to be objective the facts must be incontrovertible strains the definition of objectivity. Why should anyone assume that moral knowledge cannot be objective just because people lack full understanding of the area of inquiry?

[Angrboda]

Seems to me that people do not always agree on basic material facts of history, crime scenes, and even scientific findings. But few people would say that obectivity is impossible in those areas. To say that for morality to be objective the facts must be incontrovertible strains the definition of objectivity. Why should anyone assume that moral knowledge cannot be objective just because people lack full understanding of the area of inquiry?

True, but people who claim something exists without being able to demonstrate that it exists are usually full of shit.