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By a sort of evolution to deal with the problem of an increasingly complex society. The basis, such as it is, is in what enables us to survive, and co-operation is a good way (though in the short term one tribe can survive by exterminating another tribe. But then a stronger tribe that yours comes along...) Right and Wrong don't exist apart from that, but are a human convention to decide what's the best thing to do without arguing it back to the basics, which are pretty much forgotten and we are only recently beginning to re - discover.
"What benefits the human species" if the reality and Right and Wrong are the convenience labels for the better choice.
That is not to say that right and wrong don't exist, but they only exist as a human preference, not as some intrinsically natural existing phenomenon, much less something imposed by a god.
That is not to say that right and wrong don't exist, but they only exist as a human preference, not as some intrinsically natural existing phenomenon, much less something imposed by a god.
That human preference is what I'm trying to discuss and it does appear to be an intrinsic phenomenon. Everyone seems to have one and a lot of them are very similar.
Again, I'm not arguing, proposing or in any way suggesting that morals are objective. I don't think that's a conversation that needs to be had. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you are continuing to argue against objective morals.
Perhaps my first post wasn't clear? I'm not endorsing William Lane Craig's Moral Argument. I don't think morals are objective.
I think we can agree that nearly everyone seems to have morals and there is large amounts in common with individuals morals.
Where did these come from? How did they originally arise?
Originally Posted by Continuum
5. One of the Absolute Moral Maxims from 3 is;
"Thou Shall Not Kill"
This Absolute Moral Maxims is absolutely unconditional in ALL circumstances and time.
The argument why the above is absolute is, if it is not absolute then ALL humans can kill in any circumstances which in theory will make the human specie extinct. This will contra the observed fact and grounded on 1.
Therefore "Thou Shall Not Kill" must be an objective absolute Moral Maxim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skyl3r
I'm not sure I understand. I don't think any of this addresses moral ontology. This sounds more like semantics. It sounds like a way to create a morality. But what will this morality be based off of? Our morals.
"I don't want to get killed, so I must abide by the Absolute Moral Maxim and not kill anyone else."
The above is not related to moral ontology.
It is impossible for any ontological things, moral or otherwise to exist as real.
So my points are not related to ontology.
What I have presented is there can still be absolute moral laws based on empirical evidences.
That is how I grounded my 'absolute moral principles' and absolute moral maxims.
Quote:
"[i]I don't want to get killed, so I must abide by the Absolute Moral Maxim and not kill anyone else.
Not that sort of thinking. Rather,
1. Empirically all living things and human beings strive to survive to preserve the species.
2. Empirically, no species striving for extinction.
3. To make 'Killing of humans is permitted' as a universal permission would theoretically lead to the extinction of the human species which will contradict 1 and 2.
4. Therefore 'Killing of humans is not permitted' Period! is the universal Absolute Law.
"I don't want to get killed, so I must abide by the Absolute Moral Maxim and not kill anyone else."
Btw, one do not abide by the Absolute Moral Maxim.
The absolute Moral Maxim is never enforceable on the individual nor any person.
The Absolute Moral Maxim is merely a guide, like a lighthouse guiding the ship in a storm.
What is done in practice is,
based on the absolute Moral Maxim one should use it as a guide to set one's own personal ethical rules.
Thus one must set one's own moral standards in alignment with one's circumstances.
The other obligation is the individual must always improve by closing the moral gap, i.e. the gap between the ideal absolute moral maxim and what is happening in reality.
Note this improvement process is naturally and spontaneously practiced by many individuals because such progressively algorithm has emerged within humanity and is obvious at present.
An authority can also rely on the absolute Moral Maxims to establish its judiciary rules but that is no more defined as morality but it is politics, legislation, judiciary and constitutional laws.
An authority also has the obligation to improve and close the moral gap between the ideal moral maxim and its judiciary standards and conditions.
Now the question is;
someone will say what if s/he is not bothered with the above and many are ignorant of the improvement process.
As I had mentioned the algorithm that drive improvements in human beings is already inherent within humans at present in various degrees of dormancy and activeness.
One good example is not long ago it seem impossible for humanity to deal with slavery and racism collectively. However humanity has progressed tremendously in this two areas of life within the last 30 years and there is a lot to look forward to in the future based on such a trend of improvement. The critical point is humanity has improved on the moral landscape on this two subjects without any help nor command from a God [who had condoned slavery instead].
That human preference is what I'm trying to discuss and it does appear to be an intrinsic phenomenon. Everyone seems to have one and a lot of them are very similar.
Again, I'm not arguing, proposing or in any way suggesting that morals are objective. I don't think that's a conversation that needs to be had. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you are continuing to argue against objective morals.
Perhaps my first post wasn't clear? I'm not endorsing William Lane Craig's Moral Argument. I don't think morals are objective.
I think we can agree that nearly everyone seems to have morals and there is large amounts in common with individuals morals.
Where did these come from? How did they originally arise?
Yes. At one time I was aware of similarities and differences. I may say that I fretted about the old Chinese multiple wives system. It seems to be based on an instinct and be accepted in some cultures but not others, and the morality of it is very relative. And the practicality of it open to question. I rather think that women should better have multiple husbands!
Understanding the evolutionary basis of instinct overlaid with social conventions has helped to understand it, though it doesn't always help with the rights and wrongs And I rather suspect that applying a Right and Wrong system rather than a 'Who's it hurting?' system is the problem. Which is why Humanism (to which atheism is affiliated) has to put their heads together with evolutionary science, and instinct and ethics have to be understood to be joined at the hip.
So, I'm sure most of you here are familiar with the argument from objective morality, but I'll lay it out anyhow so we're on the same page.
Objective morality is a moral law outside of your own subjective morals so that you could say that something is in fact morally good or bad and not just good or bad in your opinion.
So the moral argument is: 1. God could not exist without objective morals 2. Objective morals do exist Therefore God exists.
Let's ignore the logical fallacy "Affirming the consequent" and just look at morality for a second.
I think this is actually pretty interesting.
Why is helping disabled veterans good, and murdering children bad?
Even if we say something along the lines of what Sam Harris says, "good is maximizing everyone's wellbeing," that doesn't explain any sort of emotional response to doing so.
So I thought about this for a while and this is the conclusion I have come to:
Explaining Morality Without God
A successful species has to be able to reproduce well. The natural way of things is for the female to choose the best suitor to reproduce with and for the male to attempt to appear to be the best suited.
Therefore it is evolutionary advantageous to do things that make you appear to be a good candidate for reproduction.
Things such as murdering children are not enabling you to reproduce and may actively inhibit your ability to find a mate who will reproduce with you. (Who wants to have kids with a child murderer? - This is NOT evolutionary advantageous)
So we fast forward a few millions of years. Is it surprising that we might evolve chemical responses to situations that would affect our ability to reproduce and our ability to maximize our evolutionary potential?
Over the course of long periods of time, these traits would be likely to change to stay competitive. The traits would evolve along with us and with the cultures that form.
Answering questions from the perspective of this theory:
1. Why is lying wrong?
I proposed this theory to my Christian brother and his first question was "Okay, then why is lying wrong?"
9 times out of 10, the purpose of lying is to portray yourself as better than you actually are.
You might represent yourself as better than you actually are to get a job, after which the business owner realizes you lied and this puts him at a financial loss.
A financial loss is bad because it makes you a worse candidate for reproduction.
You might lie to make yourself a better candidate for reproduction. Once it has been discovered that you lied, the individual will have been tricked into not gaining the evolutionary advantage that they had previously expected.
So in short: maximizing your ability to reproduce is GOOD Hurting your ability to reproduce is BAD.
Opinions?
I agree with you, basically...I think. My only view that borders on disagreement has to do more with semantics than anything else.
I see it as misleading to say maximizing your ability to reproduce is good and hurting your ability to reproduce is bad. What's good about it or bad about it? It doesn't necessarily assist anything or anyone to reproduce more often. Even the survival of our own species doesn't necessarily assist you are I. Even my continued survival does not necessarily assist me...so what does assist me? Well...not going hungry assists me. Getting enough sleep assists me. Procreation does not assist me, necessarily. I may like children and if so having children would assist me...but I would not call the spreading of my genes good or bad necessarily because it doesn't necessarily assist anyone or anything.
The moral argument for god is garbage, BTW. It fails for the exact same reason claiming procreation to be good fails. There is no reason why procreation is necessarily good. Similarly, there is no reason why god claiming something is good is good just because of that claim.
By a sort of evolution to deal with the problem of an increasingly complex society. The basis, such as it is, is in what enables us to survive, and co-operation is a good way (though in the short term one tribe can survive by exterminating another tribe. But then a stronger tribe that yours comes along...) Right and Wrong don't exist apart from that, but are a human convention to decide what's the best thing to do without arguing it back to the basics, which are pretty much forgotten and we are only recently beginning to re - discover.
"What benefits the human species" if the reality and Right and Wrong are the convenience labels for the better choice.
That is not to say that right and wrong don't exist, but they only exist as a human preference, not as some intrinsically natural existing phenomenon, much less something imposed by a god.
I agree with this...but once again, I think I have an argument that has to do with semantics more than anything else. I see right and wrong as a naturally existing phenomenon, because human beings are part of nature. It comes from our minds, sure. Without minds we wouldn't find it, but then it's something we discover too. We can't just make it up, because if just make it up we'll have no arguments to support why X is right or wrong. I would therefore say it exists in nature, waiting for feeling life to discover...or it would be equally accurate to say right and wrong only exist when feeling life exist.
It's not morality or ethics and does nothing to explain moral ontology.
Hitting or not hitting someone is not a decision of right or wrong. It's a decision of what's best for your survival.
I'm not saying the Maxim rules are bad or useless or anything along those lines, only that it's unrelated to the question topic.
It's essentially defining laws based on morals. The topic is how did morals come about.
another layer of complexity.
We stopped and thought, hey, wait a minute, you just can't take my stuff. Toss in empathy. With that thought came, 'boy he's a big fellow tho isn't he? I (then we) have to make a plan. After that the population grew and the law maker had to be held to some rules too or people will revolt. The higher law came into being. "how do you know?", god said so. Now, in america, we remove "god said so" and insert mommy's of criminals getting to tell us who's a good boy or not.
I like your points on empathy, though I am still trying to figure out the situation where it is helpful to be empathetic. Is empathy generated due to morals or are morals generated due to empathy?
It's easy to imagine that empathy would be useful to make morality a more beneficial tool. It's also easy to imagine how morality could spawn from empathy.
To address what I quoted though, I maintain that survival and reproduction must be at the root.
Before I get into this, I'll readily admit that my lying example was poorly chosen.
What I am concerned with is how morality could have started. Once it is started, it is easy to conceive of ways it could evolve. I would say that if we can give a practical and logical explanation for moral ontology, then there's no reason or need for objective morals. Aside from that it's actually pretty interesting to think about.
I had a whole response typed out a day or so ago and it was ruined by my momentary blip in wifi. And I only now bothered to try again so hopefully it's not too stale.
I don't suspect that empathy is the origin of morality, but an indicator if you will. Such as, it requires a certain level of cognition to possess empathy, and that is the same (or roughly) level of cognition required for morality. So I guess I'm hypothesizing that morality may predate language. Not communication, but language itself.
I think one can make such an argument based upon other animals. As I pointed out previously, we see morality (relative of course) in dogs, as well as other apes, dolphins, and other animals that grieve in some way.
So I guess I'm saying....and admittedly it is unhelpful....how could morality predate empathy? After all, why would I care to participate in moral society without empathy for others?
Last edited by MartinEden99; 07-24-2016 at 04:07 PM..
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And I rather suspect that applying a Right and Wrong system rather than a 'Who's it hurting?' system is the problem. Which is why Humanism (to which atheism is affiliated) has to put their heads together with evolutionary science, and instinct and ethics have to be understood to be joined at the hip.
