Morality without God (suicide, Islamic, beliefs, married)
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The question is, if morality is like taste. Perhaps then, I don't like British chocolate, you do, I think murder is fine, you think its wrong , neither of us is any more or less correct, its just a matter of taste. Or is it about something else? So, murder is just wrong, because there is a code that says so.
No, murder is wrong because it's defined as "the various types of killing which we consider wrong".
But ignoring the problems with your wording, societies which allow the wrong types of killings tend not to be very successful - that's why you see a lot of commonality between the rules for various cultures. The ones that didn't figure this out aren't around to tell us about it.
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If God were to exist, then there could be an easy answer to that question. God is all powerful, God is all knowing, God is all good, therefore God's rules are the correct rules, rules that transcend human being.
Yes, if an all powerful absolutely good god existed than what she told us to do would be good. But as I've mentioned before that's making a whole lot of assumptions which don't seem to agree with reality.
Kind of like if a King were to exist, and we defined him as all powerful and good, then he could give us rules which are automatically correct and transcended mere humans - no need for god at all. It sounds unconvincing to you, but that's how convincing this whole "pretend there's a perfectly good god out there giving us rules" circular logic sounds to everyone else.
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It seems to me that this is the way in which people in general see morality (perhaps I'm in error, but I think if you went out into the streets and asked people why certain things were wrong, they'd probably tell you they are immoral, or just wrong).
I've personally heard lots of "it's wrong because it's against the law". There you go - another absolute moral code for these people without the need for god anywhere in the process.
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If God then doesn't exist, where does this leave morality?
Same place it does with god - us humans trying to figure out how to behave based on the current society they live in.
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Surly one should steal if one could get away with it, for example?
Only if the reward outweighed the penalty if they did get caught. There's no absolutes in life - and most people aren't desperate to gamble like that.
....but you didn't answer Dewdrop's question. If tomorrow, we discovered undeniable, indisputable evidence that disproved 'God', would you immediately start raping, stealing and murdering?
Murder is a man made (state-defined) legal term. I don't think (if there was a god) god would define his code in terms of man's legal definitions.
Killing is clearly not ALWAYS wrong. The legality of killing depends on the situation...
In fact, I bet most Christians would agree that if the government dresses you up in a costume, it's ok to kill people who are wearing a different costume. This is war... so it's ok to murder someone if your govt tells you to. How noble is that? LOL
The question is, if morality is like taste. Perhaps then, I don't like British chocolate, you do, I think murder is fine, you think its wrong , neither of us is any more or less correct, its just a matter of taste. Or is it about something else? So, murder is just wrong, because there is a code that says so.
If God were to exist, then there could be an easy answer to that question. God is all powerful, God is all knowing, God is all good, therefore God's rules are the correct rules, rules that transcend human being. It seems to me that this is the way in which people in general see morality (perhaps I'm in error, but I think if you went out into the streets and asked people why certain things were wrong, they'd probably tell you they are immoral, or just wrong).
If God then doesn't exist, where does this leave morality? If it just leaves it as a matter of tastes, I wonder where that leaves the rational person. Surly one should steal if one could get away with it, for example?
Yes. We can and do have various tastes about chocolate and we might have various tastes about murder (some do ) except that the overwhelming concensus is that we don't want it done to us (Golden Rule). Chocolate can be left to individual taste; not murder.
One basis for a code, agreed? Because the overwhelming concensus wants enforcement of a 'don't murder me' rule (which would apply to everyone else) against those who would rather like to do it.
The survival instinct is easily regarded as an evolved instinct and any God -input is simply man - made response to an evolved impulse.
Are we all clear so far? We have one important moral principle encoded without the need for any god at all. Is the point made or do we need to go on?
Mattos - let me ask you - if you didn't believe in God - would you steal, rape and murder? Is your belief in God the only thing keeping you from doing such things?
As numerous people have said, this is an excellent point. About a month ago I started a thread about the "Scientific basis for objective morality." I think we should keep in mind a distinction between "objectively existing" and "absolute." Morality can be an objectively real phenomenon - something that could potentially be studied scientifically - even if it is not "absolute." Furthermore, morality could have some objective universal aspects, even if there are numerous grey areas over which people disagree.
Consider the nature of pain qualia. Pain qualia is subjective - we never experience "3rd-person pain qualia" - whatever that might mean. (We can see behavioral manifestations in a 3rd-person way, but never pain qualia, as such.) Does this mean that pain qualia does not exist? (A few "eliminative materialists" try to say so, but I don't believe them.) No, I would say it is an "objective fact" that some properties can only be known to us via subjective experience. It's a matter of epistemology - not ontology. Pain is "objectively real" even if we can only experience it subjectively.
Pain is objectively real, and has significant causal consequences in the physical world. Physical creatures engage in physical behaviors because of pain, or because of their desire to avoid pain. Thus pain, even though it can only be known subjectively, has physical causal consequences in the physical world. Is pain "absolute"? I don't even know what such a statement would mean, but I can say this: Two people with similar damage to their bodies can have radically different experience. Think of getting a tooth pulled with or without, novocain.
Even our reaction to pain qualia can be very different. A masochist enjoys certain kinds of pain. Does this mean that pain does not really exist? Does this mean that pain cannot, in principle, be studied scientifically?
What I'm suggesting is that morality is objectively real, even though we don't all agree on exactly what is or is not moral in every given situation. I've previously given links to articles discussing some of the possible neurological/socio-biological foundations for morality. I've also suggested a whole new approach - thinking of morality as emergent higher-level patterns of experience which then impact the elements (i.e., individuals) who created these patterns in the first place. This "feedback loop" could be responsible for the nature of what we experience as our modern "internalized moral sensibilities."
The bottom line is this: There could be objectively true "right/wrong" answers to certain moral questions - even if it is also true that not everyone shares exactly the same moral sense (as Sam Harris suggests, some people might have "better moral vision" that others). And, of course, the key thing to notice for the purposes of this thread: none of this talk about objective morality requires the existence of an Intelligent Designer as the "absolute standard." It is possible that the structure of morality has evolved, and continues to evolve as a real causal force in the physical world.
There have been a lot of great answers by everyone here! Awesome!
Just a couple things...
In some ways, morality is like taste. I think some people have shown that here. For instance, some people think it is immoral to have sex before marriage or to live with someone before marriage. Not only do I think that these actions are not immoral - I actually think they are extremely beneficial! To go further with this - I don't think it's right to have sex with tons of different people and to not use protection. There are people that have no problem with this whatsoever. There are also people who don't even believe in hand holding before marriage. Look at all these different viewpoints on the morality of sex - and this is just within the culture of the US.
Also - how long do you think a culture could survive if we all went around killing each other willy nilly. Can you imagine the fear you would live with on a daily basis if people could just kill you at any moment with absolutely no reason? Killing one another is not in our natural instincts. I actually can't think of any culture or any species for that matter where killling one of our own for no reason is intrinsic. Why would it be? If our natural insticts are for survival - what benefit could we possibly derive from killing each other.
You keep mentioning stealing. I put this in another thread but I think I'll say it here as well. In my opinion, this is something that has evolved because of our choice to live in a group. If we all lived solitary existences with no contact with other humans (well, we'd die out from lack of procreation but I digress) there would be no such thing as stealing because we wouldn't have anyone to steal from. However, we chose to live with other humans. Now - say you were a caveman and you went out and killed and cooked a pig. Your friend came over. He was hungry. He took your pig. I mean, hey, he was hungry and there in front of him was a cooked pig! Why not take it? However, you got all mad at him because - it was your cooked pig that you killed yourself with your own hard work. So - you get mad at him and tell him to give it back - it's yours! Perhaps it occurs to your friend that he can't take anything he wants to just because it would help him - that there are consequences for his actions. And hey, maybe he thinks, if I went out and killed and cooked a pig - I wouldn't want anyone else to take it away from me. So, stealing becomes wrong.
That being said - I do believe that there are or were some tribes somewhere that didn't believe in personal posessions. Everything was shared amongst everyone. Therefore - there would be no such thing as stealing.
There are certain things that go against our natures because of our insticts and then there are certain things that have evolved because of our societies. And yes, there are different "tastes" in morality. Perhaps some aspects of morality have come from God if God exists. After all, if he did in fact make us this way - then he probably had a hand in our natural instincts. However, I see no reason that this has to be the case. And in the case that God does not exist - I don't see how this would have any affect on our morality. I mean - do unto others as you'd have them do unto you should be true no matter what. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you because God will get really ticked off if you don't just doesn't have the same feeling to it.
Good post, dewdrop. Yes, just over the last decade of debate a natural basis to our instinctive feelings (community, family, leadership, sexual taboos, fear of death, reverence for the breeding pair) has been mooted and a scientific interest in it is being seen. Evolution may well be a very good explanation though we do need some verification.
It doesn't rule out a god behind it but it would make it not neccer-sarry and may well cast even more doubt on the idea of a divine moral code or implanted 'moral compass'.
Religious moral codes are more open to question than man - made ones and evolved instincts are of course only aimed at survival of species through competition.
We can and must do better. The moral compass is a mix of instincts and the local moral code, too often doused with a bit of religion. I distrust it and appeals to the 'Moral compass' are a bit too easy and I distrust them even if not trotted out by politicians on a PR excercise.
Abut sex - that is a terribly emotive issue and I never saw an issue that got more clouded with emotion when it was discussed even amongst rational people.
Bottom line, don't do what the people don't want done to them, but also don't stop them doing what they do want. As I said to that muslim who was so against prostitution (though I gather they import foreign women rather than allow their own to do it) to stop them doing so is not freedom.
There are social and medical and even legal problems. Of course there are, as there are in any walk of life. They should be approached logically and senibly, not with a lot of moral baggage.
Also - how long do you think a culture could survive if we all went around killing each other willy nilly. Can you imagine the fear you would live with on a daily basis if people could just kill you at any moment with absolutely no reason? Killing one another is not in our natural instincts. I actually can't think of any culture or any species for that matter where killling one of our own for no reason is intrinsic. Why would it be? If our natural insticts are for survival - what benefit could we possibly derive from killing each other.
You keep mentioning stealing. I put this in another thread but I think I'll say it here as well. In my opinion, this is something that has evolved because of our choice to live in a group. If we all lived solitary existences with no contact with other humans (well, we'd die out from lack of procreation but I digress) there would be no such thing as stealing because we wouldn't have anyone to steal from. However, we chose to live with other humans. Now - say you were a caveman and you went out and killed and cooked a pig. Your friend came over. He was hungry. He took your pig. I mean, hey, he was hungry and there in front of him was a cooked pig! Why not take it? However, you got all mad at him because - it was your cooked pig that you killed yourself with your own hard work. So - you get mad at him and tell him to give it back - it's yours! Perhaps it occurs to your friend that he can't take anything he wants to just because it would help him - that there are consequences for his actions. And hey, maybe he thinks, if I went out and killed and cooked a pig - I wouldn't want anyone else to take it away from me. So, stealing becomes wrong.
That being said - I do believe that there are or were some tribes somewhere that didn't believe in personal posessions. Everything was shared amongst everyone. Therefore - there would be no such thing as stealing.
IYO, is it wrong to murder and steal?
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Originally Posted by Dewdrop93
There are certain things that go against our natures because of our instincts and then there are certain things that have evolved because of our societies. And yes, there are different "tastes" in morality. Perhaps some aspects of morality have come from God if God exists. After all, if he did in fact make us this way - then he probably had a hand in our natural instincts. However, I see no reason that this has to be the case. And in the case that God does not exist - I don't see how this would have any affect on our morality. I mean - do unto others as you'd have them do unto you should be true no matter what. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you because God will get really ticked off if you don't just doesn't have the same feeling to it.
Stoning in the bible isn't murder? Taking ones freedom isn't stealing (the bible does advocate slavery you know)?
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Do you fully understand what a Moral Absolute is?
Do you fully understand that there is no such thing as a "Moral Absolute"?
Travel in different cultures and a study of history would prove this to you if you really want to learn.
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) except that the overwhelming concensus is that we don't want it done to us (Golden Rule). Chocolate can be left to individual taste; not murder.
