Morality without God

[downbeatplumb]

So I've never been that good at explaining to a theist how I justify my morality without God because I seem to fall into the trap where everything is just subjective and that kind of frustrates me.

Like if I say rape is immoral and a theist will say but that's just my subjective view. It's the law, sure but there is nothing fundamental grounding why it's wrong, it's just society and consensus agreeing that's it immoral. If, for example, society and consensus agreed that slavery was moral then it would be moral, etc.

I'm not well versed in the morality arguments, but I want to learn more so I can actually defend my moral foundation against theists because its something will inevitably come up in a debate. Your input, advice would be appreciated.

What is considered bad is a contextual thing. In some countries they have a man who goes around basically raping girls so they are ready for marriage. The family pay them to do it. In some countries they murder prisoners in the actual prisons.

Everything people in some cultures are wrong will be accepted in other cultures as the norm.

So morality is subjective.

[Ravenshire]

The religious have no moral foundation.
They assert a foundation, but have no evidence for one.

In reality, I believe we all share a moral foundation built around well being. At least I would like to believe that we do.

Christians claim to have objective morality handed down to them by gawd via the buy-bull. What they actually have is a bunch of rules. Do this, you get a reward. Don't do that, you get a punishment. It's the way most of us train pets. Demonstrating that they can follow gawd's rules says nothing about their morality, but that they've been trained not to piss on the floors.

[Belacqua]

We have a sense of fairness that is held in common with other primates.

Why are we so incredibly bad at putting this sense into practice?

[LadyForCamus]

We have a sense of fairness that is held in common with other primates.

Why are we so incredibly bad at putting this sense into practice?

Religion.

[The Grand Nudger]

So morality is subjective.

Mostly.   Doesn't have to be.  Is.

[Angrboda]

We have a sense of fairness that is held in common with other primates.

Why are we so incredibly bad at putting this sense into practice?

Because game-theoretically speaking, it isn't the only strategy for winning.

[Belacqua]

Why are we so incredibly bad at putting this sense into practice?

Because game-theoretically speaking, it isn't the only strategy for winning.

Yes, I think the desire to win very often overcomes any sense of fairness we may have.

[Angrboda]

Because game-theoretically speaking, it isn't the only strategy for winning.

Yes, I think the desire to win very often overcomes any sense of fairness we may have.

You pose that as if they are at odds, but fairness is also a strategy for winning. Our genes make it feel different from selfishness, but ultimately both are aiming at the same outcome, figuratively speaking, in genetic fitness.

[Mister Agenda]

Humanism may be the right moral philosophy for you.

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Can you explain that for me? Are you a humanist?

Yes and yes.

Essentially humanism is the stance that we can't appeal to divine authority or ideological or religious dogma to resolve moral issues. Fallible humans are the only available moral agents we can consult. If there are any gods, there's no evidence that they supply us with moral instruction; so it's just us and what we can observe in nature, which is not in itself not a moral gude, but it can help us understand the roots of our morality better; and science can help us better understand the consequences of our actions (or inaction).

Humanism espouses democracy, freedom, progress and the equal worth and dignity of everyone and advocates for policies that will help us thrive, including protecting the world we live in. A lot of atheists are basically humanists even if they don't label themselves that way or know what humanism is.

[The Grand Nudger]

We have a sense of fairness that is held in common with other primates.

Why are we so incredibly bad at putting this sense into practice?

Shot in the dark...  Like so much else in the human organism it arose to accomplish some other task.  Our moralizing is a secondary and largely ad hoc use. No matter which meta view or ethical position we hold or find out or determine to be or simply is true - this is concurrently true of human beings.

There are more ways to get a thing wrong than there are to get it right. Assuming that there really were an objective morality - that wouldn't mean that anyone held it, knew what is was, or that we would be any good at it. We'd continue along doing primate stuff and at least some of the time doing primate stuff might be incidentally related to doing moral stuff, but any more is a position on human agency and competence - not any particular moral systems truth or justifications.