Atheism and Ethics

[Silver]

We tend to focus on the wrong phrasing of a question. We shouldn't concern ourselves with "why should we care", when rather "why shouldn't we care" allows more for the moral awakening within the mind.

[Lucian]

We tend to focus on the wrong phrasing of a question. We shouldn't concern ourselves with "why should we care", when rather "why shouldn't we care" allows more for the moral awakening within the mind.

For me the answer to why shouldn’t I care when addressed to claimed moral properties is that I don’t believe they exist. It would be like saying “why shouldn’t I care about a god’s commands”, well I don’t believe the god exists for there to be commands. Similarly I don’t believe moral properties exists to have some sort of motivating or binding effect

I do care on a personal level about not harming people; about having a stable society; about fostering good interpersonal relationships, but I don’t do that because I think there has to be some objective standard telling me to. There is an awful lot in life that we do without having an objective standard to guide it (I think), and I think “moral actions” can do without moral properties perfectly well. Usual caveat, I am new to thinking through all this and have been known to be an idiot and laughably wrong about things in the past.

[brewer]

Surely it is societal standards and the resultant peer pressure that makes moral properties both motivating and binding. To belong to any societal group would surely affect one's behavior, due to its effect on one's ability to succeed within the group, would it not?

Welcome new entity. Can I interest you in making and 'Introduction' thread so that we can get to know you better?

[The Grand Nudger]

Both should and shouldn't are normative claims Lucian. Pseudo-nihilism runs into the same wall. Whereby, in the course of denying normative claims, we might make yet more normative claims.

[The Grand Nudger]

Caring about the accuracy of a statement, though . . . is that not a moral question?

I think that it at least could be.  I doubt that there's any moral content to my knowing exactly how many jelly beans are in a jar - but If I'm told that someone's life depends on my getting it right I'm not going to phone it in.  I'll be counting every bean multiple ways multiple times, lol.

Brings me back to something Lucian mentioned..that our beliefs about morality have often lead to poor outcomes.  Is it because we believe in morality, or because we had some pertinent fact about morality wrong?  The role of women being the example - was it because we believed there is the possibility of true and false answers to this question that misery ensued, or is it because we went with a false one?

[Lucian]

Caring about the accuracy of a statement, though . . . is that not a moral question?

Brings me back to something Lucian mentioned..that our beliefs about morality have often lead to poor outcomes.  Is it because we believe in morality, or because we had some pertinent fact about morality wrong?  The role of women being the example - was it because we believed there is the possibility of true and false answers to this question that misery ensued, or is it because we went with a false one?

The abolitionists I think would argue that belief in objective morals hinders conflict resolution where both parties think they are objectively right and the other violating something external and binding. 
 I am not swayed that way too much but do have some sympathy for it in some cases. perhaps it could be the case that people should not assign objective values for all the things they believe but it could be the case that there is some for the core. Similarly, perhaps we just need people to be more aware of the epistemological issues rather than jettisoning moral talk and thought. 
More reading to do, but so far not an abolitionist - just firmly confused instead

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK if that's specific to moral objectivity. The two parties may be subjectivist or relativist and still in conflict, both believing they are right when neither of them are...or.....they may be realists and they may both have a case. Hell, we don't even need two parties. A person may be in internal conflict between what is true and what is in their best interests, between what is true and what society expects, or between two hard and antithetical truths. The latter in either case is called an exclusively sub-optimal decision field and represents the majority of our tough calls by any moral metrics.

Amusingly enough, the hypothetical abolitionist in this has made an implicit normative claim. That a thing is "bad" because it doesn't help or hinders conflict resolution. That we shouldn't be objectivists because of this. Some abolitionist.

[Silver]

I'm always right, just saying.

[The Grand Nudger]

Problem solved!

[The Grand Nudger]

 When I ask “why care” though, it is about what makes moral facts differ from other facts, it is more of a hypothetical.

I wanted to highlight this one specifically.  In the context of objectivism..moral facts do not differ from other facts.  They're non-novel.  It is in the relativist and subjectivist cases that moral facts differ from other facts. When they're not about the thing they purport to report, and so that things fact-status is not a fruitful way of determining their truth or why people believe in it.

-for example..if people believe in transactional gods because they have some transactional desire..then the existence of gods does not and is not required to explain their belief. It originates from that desire they have..and whether or not they have said desire determines whether they believe or are compelled to believe in said god. A person like that confronted with the notion that there are no such gods could hardly help but say to themselves "well...thereshould be". You won't have to argue them into compulsion, they're already there. Dispositional, subjective. I think the same is true for moral objctivism. It's one thing to know the difference between right and wrong (if there is one) - it's another to act, and act correctly and consistently, on that information. IDK, if I wanted to talk someone into conforming to any system because I believed they may be persuadable I'd make all the usual appeals.

Do good for goodness sake. No?
Do good for your community's sake. No?
Do good for your own sake. No?
Do good or I'll hit you over the head with a brick.