Atheism and Ethics

[brewer]

Collective (tribe/societal) evolutionary cooperative learned behavior.

Thanks Brewer. So do you think that morality is somehow mind-independent and emergent from these things? Or do you see it as a human convention without any mind-independent status?

Learned behavior involves the mind. Did it become part of the collective unconsciousness/objective psyche (Jung) after 1000's of generations where the individuals that exhibit this behavior are the ones that survive to reproduce (adaptation)...... I'm not sure but seems possible. Certainly more acceptable than goddidit.

[Lucian]

Thanks Brewer. So do you think that morality is somehow mind-independent and emergent from these things? Or do you see it as a human convention without any mind-independent status?

Learned behavior involves the mind. Did it become part of the collective unconsciousness/objective psyche (Jung) after 1000's of generations where the individuals that exhibit this behavior are the ones that survive to reproduce...... I'm not sure but seems reasonable.

Ah ok. So you are not quite in the camp of moral belief that I am targeting here. Mainly trying to hear from people with views that morality is someone mind-independently real
Just curious though, have you heard of Hume's projectivist view of moral beliefs, where we have an affective reaction to something and then in a sense project our feelings on the cause of them so that that thing itself becomes seen as e.g. bad, awful, horrible. From there we reify the properties that we project so that they become thought of as mind-independent properties of the universe. 
I might be butchering that, but is an interesting concept

[no one]

For me, it's not about being entrenched in a practical position, it is about accepting the cold, harsh, brutal reality a meaningless existence. This frightens a majority of the species, so they paint pretty pictures to disguise the abysmal, daunting darkness and to console their fears, and that's not my problem.

Now, I'm not saying that hoomans are weak for having morals, because there are certain aspects of hooman behavior I find reprehensible, such as, harming children, and I feel anyone who does, should be removed from the gene pool, expeditiously, and with grave prejudice.

Hoomans are social creatures, having specific customs and codes of civility to benefit the advancement of society are absolutely favorable for the growth and, progress of the species.

[Lucian]

For me, it's not about being entrenched in a practical position, it is about accepting the cold, harsh, brutal reality a meaningless existence. This frightens a majority of the species, so they paint pretty pictures to disguise the abysmal, daunting darkness and to console their fears, and that's not my problem.

Now, I'm not saying that hoomans are weak for having morals, because there are certain aspects of hooman behavior I find reprehensible, such as, harming children, and I feel anyone who does, should be removed from the gene pool, expeditiously, and with grave prejudice.

Hoomans are social creatures, having specific customs and codes of civility to benefit the advancement of society are absolutely favorable for the growth and, progress of the species.

Which is fine, but still not what I want to focus on here. happy to discuss on another thread

[brewer]

Learned behavior involves the mind. Did it become part of the collective unconsciousness/objective psyche (Jung) after 1000's of generations where the individuals that exhibit this behavior are the ones that survive to reproduce...... I'm not sure but seems reasonable.

Ah ok. So you are not quite in the camp of moral belief that I am targeting here. Mainly trying to hear from people with views that morality is someone mind-independently real
Just curious though, have you heard of Hume's projectivist view of moral beliefs, where we have an affective reaction to something and then in a sense project our feelings on the cause of them so that that thing itself becomes seen as e.g. bad, awful, horrible. From there we reify the properties that we project so that they become thought of as mind-independent properties of the universe. 
I might be butchering that, but is an interesting concept

I'll have to contemplate this on the tree of woe and get back to you, maybe. I'm not all that keen on philosophy.

[Nanny]

Morality is a social construct and is culturally dependent. It's a fiction we invent to cooperate, just like religions, economies, traffic lights, politics.... Check out Sapiens by Yuvel Noah Harrari

[Lucian]

Morality is a social construct and is culturally dependent. It's a fiction we invent to cooperate, just like religions, economies, traffic lights, politics.... Check out Sapiens by Yuvel Noah Harrari

Thanks Nanny, not disagreeing with you, however as per the original post I am interesting in hearing from folk that do think it is someone objectively real

[Mister Agenda]

Cultures and social systems are subject to evolution in a sense. Not hereditary, but spectacularly bad ideas for ordering a society tend to get winnowed out. Unfortunately, we can always try new bad ideas or old ones we've forgotten the lessons from.

[Lucian]

Cultures and social systems are subject to evolution in a sense. Not hereditary, but spectacularly bad ideas for ordering a society tend to get winnowed out. Unfortunately, we can always try new bad ideas or old ones we've forgotten the lessons from.

So do you see evolution of cultures and social systems as somehow discovering / making true moral progress towards an objective standard by which people ought to live, even if that is just at the societal level and not universally binding?

[The Grand Nudger]

It sure seems like there are objective differences on the moral spectrum between building a bionic limb for a three legged puppy and skullfucking my neighbors.

Here's a pump for you. Perhaps it could only be the case that there were no objective differences between those two acts if there was some super powerful genie majicking the world into a perpetually counterfactual state in every moment everywhere. Such that you couldn't so much as complete any fact-statement about anything before it was somehow™ untrue. I start a breath by thinking my name is john but by the end of the exhale the past has been rewritten and my name is bill.