Morality without God

[Angrboda]

More fucking lies.  I gave you some friendly advice, suggesting that, "If you find yourself unable to behave respectfully in any discussion, perhaps the best thing for you to do is withdraw."   It seemed good advice following upon your declaring that you become twitchy if certain subjects are discussed in a certain way.  What part of "If you find yourself unable," translates in your mind as me saying that you were not being respectful?  It was simple advice that anyone should follow.  That you took that as me "deciding" that you weren't being respectful is fucking reaching.  And the latter part is also true.  Threatening people that you will become twitchy if they behave a certain way and that they are being watched are both veiled threats that have no place in a good-faith discussion.

The only reason you don't want to discuss this is because you can't defend your behavior.

I suggested that if you were finding the discussion too intense for you, self-moderation might be advised.  The reply I got back was that I was saying rape victims were guilty of something, telling me I'm being watched, and accusing me of limiting thread participation.  That was not at all warranted.  Own your behavior.

How is the view from your high horse?

If you're asking if I made mistakes, too, yes, I did. I shouldn't have called you a liar. I don't know whether this is who I am or if this is the result of a year of isolation, but my mind is just not as sharp as it once was. I'm sorry for getting on my high horse and I'm sorry for any misunderstanding. I wasn't trying to tell you not to participate.

[Angrboda]

So is capital punishment.  That doesn't make it wrong.

Yes it does.

Boru

So by that logic, if someone is shooting at me with a high-powered rifle, and I fire back, killing them, what I have done is fundamentally wrong?

[The Grand Nudger]

There's no shortage of moral systems in which the killing of another person for any reason is at it's very base a Bad Thing™. The least desired outcome. The worst and final consequence.

In those cases, people sometimes think that circumstances dictate whether a person deserves more or less moral condemnation for having done it, but it's generally not suggested or implied that killing another person can ever be a good thing.

What do you think? Do you think that our intuitions in this regard might have something meaningful and informative to say about the nature of killing another person in the context of ethics or moral imperatives? Additionally, when you point out examples like this, is this supposed to be a problem for a moral system (any example, any system) or for people consistently following one, or.....? If some moral system held that, yes - you killing the guy who was trying to kill you was a bad thing, what would the issue be?

[zwanzig]

Well, what would the alternative be? Killing someone who is trying to kill you... If you don't, then you die instead. Is that a moral system worth championing? Like, essentially sacrificing yourself for the bad that others do.

[The Grand Nudger]

Opinions probably vary on that - but I think that you could absolutely find people who would champion a system in which killing another person was always bad, yes.

There are all sorts of things that can strain our moral agency - and existential fear is certainly one of them - but here again..no shortage of people who would prefer to die than break some moral principle they hold. There are different ideas about excusable evils, and necessary evils....and in such a system - being excusable or necessary doesn't make it -not- evil. Hence the terms. What do you think? Is taking another persons life the kind of thing that you would always check for moral import?

[Angrboda]

That may be, but if I remember correctly, the topic of this thread is how the average atheist should respond. We're not interested in what Jains do.

[Fake Messiah]

Maybe a response could also be: Despite centuries of name-calling, prejudice, and persecution, no one has ever been able to demonstrate that nonbelievers are less moral or more prone to criminal behavior than believers.

[The Grand Nudger]

That may be, but if I remember correctly, the topic of this thread is how the average atheist should respond.  We're not interested in what Jains do.

Well, the many disagreements in this thread betray the notion that the average atheist™ should or does have any particular moral opinion or justification in the first place.  That's part of what makes this line of nonsense so silly.  It's not as if the faithful aren't aware that atheists can justify their moral statements without referencing a god, and in many different ways.  They do it all day every day too.

I don't know if the average atheist would hold to the type of moral system described, but a great many westerners do whether they're atheists or not.  Killing, even in self defense, is suspect.  Should have stayed out of the situation.  Should have diffused the situation.  Should have run.  Should have hid.  Should have called for help.  At the end of all of it, nothing about your actions prevented the bad thing from happening, and you were definitely involved in making it happen.  A person was still killed, we just shuffled the actors around.

Thoughts like that (and that thought, exactly) form the basis of some ideas about civility and the necessity (moral imperative, even) of creating a society that massively privileges every outcome other than one person killing another.  That deeply scrutinizes every killing.  There are plenty of ways to construct a moral system so that one instance of doing x is bad and another instance of x is good, and that's fine....but there's no real need to do so, and that's fine too.

[Fake Messiah]

Actually, atheism is more moral than religion as Kiera Knightly explains it

[Rahn127]

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.