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Morality comes from the society in which an individual lives. What you or I find moral will differ great from what a tribesmen from Papua New Guinea would deem moral.
Man invented God therefor morality comes from man.
Presumable if morality comes from society, and society comes from the summation of the individual with it, then morality originally comes from individuals not society?
"I think, in general, that morality based on biological facts is far better than a morality arbitrarily based on the writings of ancient people. "
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I'm not attempting to hierarchy moral beliefs, or indeed to argue with you about why we have moral belief.
However, what I might suggest is this:
If morality is a useful biological function, or a rational concept, doesn't to cease to be morality as it is commonly understood, and morph into something else? By common usage I mean that if you asked a parent why you shouldn't sleep with their 12 year old child, I think that they would tell you it was because it was wrong, not because it was socially use-full not to.
I suppose it rather comes back to the question, why should I not steal, if I am probable to get away with it? If morality biologically pre-conditioned, as a rational creature, should I not think beyond that and steal if I can?
The Format of your reply makes it difficult to reply; perhaps if you stated your case/point it would help? But from what I can see might I try and answer:
“You started off with unsupported assumptions.”
Assumptions make up important part of arguments, allowing a focus on a certain point and circumventing other. Your point about an ‘unsupported assumption’ really makes no sense, as assumptions in logic aren’t supported. Like, assuming all cats are blue, and you find a four legged creature that is black, is it a cat. If cats are blue or not doesn’t affect the logic, see?
In my argument, instead of assuming cats are blue, I am saying, what if we assume God exists? Then it is easy to see how a moral code exists. What if then we change our assumption, and assume God does not exist, where then is our morality derived from?
“It is an idea. Therefore it is in the same place as other ideas. In the idea box. “
Perhaps the argument has also got convoluted alone the way. If morality exists as a code of things that are right or wrong (this is an assumption in this argument, for more on assumptions see blue cats!) then that code must exist outside of people’s heads, which is indeed where ideas are kept (unless you claim another location?). If morality is not ‘held’ somewhere, but is just individual, and thus potentially different to each individual, then something can only be wrong or right to me, or to you, and that can vary. So you couldn’t say stealing was wrong, just that you thought it was wrong. Thus stealing would not be wrong to me, for example.
Back then, to the first point, what is morality, if not a transcendental code, and what does that mean for society? You suggest that there are things that are generally considered ‘good’ or ‘bad’, where do these ideas of good or bad come from, and why should they be accepted. Fundamentally, if they are about rationality, self interest, or group interest, doesn’t that cease to be morality as generally understood?
Please don’t just copy paste, make your case if you have one.
"What you don't seem to realize is that transcendent morality is in essance, moral relativism."
Perhaps I might separate theory and practice here. If there is a God, and that God defines what is right and wrong, and that God is all powerful and all knowing, then there is a right and there is a wrong. That is not relativism, that is a set of moral laws, that these laws might not be known or followed, is not the thrust of what is a theoretical argument.
"For example, nazism, islam and christianity are all based on a transcendent moral code."
Nazism was based on 'science', I don't think that it was science that we'd recognize though...
"If morality needs to come from an external source then how can you say nazism is wrong when it is also based on a transcendent moral."
The point was more that if there are a code of morals that existed then you could say that the Nazis were wrong, it could be known. Otherwise you are just left with points of view.
"By your reasoning, you should endorse this sort of behavior since it comes from your scripture."
You mis-understand my point, I'm not arguing for religion at all, let alone a specific one.
"Humans are social animals which is why we form societies and live in social groups. Social groups are dependent on cooperation. Going around raping, murdering and indulging in whatever self serving desire someone has can only destroy social groups. On the otherhand, cooperation, which generally comes from empathy and compassion for others ensures the stability of a social group. "
I'm not saying that your point is wrong, but if thats true doesn't morality just melt into utility? So if something is morally wrong or right can be judged simply by if it benefits society?
Or, presumably individuals should judge if the gain of their actions compensates them sufficiently to deal with the cost the diminish of the group? So, an individual should steal, if for example, no one finds out?
The problem is in defining what is good' Now days many thing that is what turns them on or benefits them.That is why we have so much politcal infight on what shoudm be spent on really.
The majority of Christians are relativist, whether they admit it or not. By that I mean Christians believe that morality is dependent upon who is doing the action, and when they are doing it, rather than whether the action itself is a sin.
For example, King David could keep slaves and have several wives. We may not. Joshua may kill man, woman, and child he if they don't become Christians and pay him tribute, that's not a sin. If we do it, it is a sin. God can be a jealous, and it's not a sin. If we are jealous, it is a sin. God can torture people who refuse to worship him, and it's not a sin. If we torture people who refuse to worship us, it is a sin.
Mutilating the genitals of a baby boy for Christian religious reasons is not a sin. Mutilating the genitals of a baby girls for a different religions reasons is a sin.
First off, I'll note you continue to avoid defining what you mean by morality. You keep telling everyone they don't understand morality and at the same time you can't tell us what the correct definition is. I stand by my point that you're doing this in order to jump from morality to "absolute morality passed down from god" as a rhetorical slight of hand.
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Originally Posted by Mattos_12
To my understanding of theistic morality sees right and wrong defined by an all powerful God, who is, by definition good, and can thus define good and bad.
So if you define god as good, then god is good. Seems pretty circular to me.
Plus you run into the problem of who gets to define what this god is. Since she's not doing much writing herself these days it ends up being in the hands of people. Interestingly enough, the "absolute" word of god tends to change along with the views of the societies those people live in. Strange coincidence.
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If we move into a time whereas this belief in God, and God's moral code diminishes, then my interest is to where this leaves morality. When I talk of morality in this context I talk about things that are considered to be 'just right' or 'just wrong'. If morality is a set of tactic agreements in a society, then surly the rules just become temporary agreements of convenience?
Kind of like the Old Testament rules that no one follows any more? I don't know why you are pretending that non-religious moral codes are the only ones which change over time as the opinions of society evolve.
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So is morality then the idea that rape, for example, is currently considered inexpedient by the majority, thus will be frowned upon temporarily? Is it simply about utility, or the summation of the opinion of the ethical views of a given society?
Why can't it be both?
But by saying rape as it is currently defined, you're admitting that you know that society's view of this changes over time. Very few Christians follow the Old Testament's "absolute" morality about rape, even though it came from a transcendent god. It looks like your complaint isn't that non-religious moral codes change, it's that moral codes change over time period.
So are you in support of killing everyone who works on a weekend? If not, you're admitting that morality which supposedly comes from God is just as much of a "temporary agreement of convenience" as any other set of morals. Since that's what morality is, it doesn't surprise anyone - except people who haven't moved past the idea that "god said it, it's right, case closed" is a workable code of ethics.
So long as there is a 'Christian' type God then there aren't different types of morality. Its rather the point of the question. Without God, does morality just become a matter of view-point, like, if we like apples or not.
Is the death penalty wrong?
Is it OK to ordain women.
Should the church marry gay couples?
Is using and/or teaching about birth control immoral?
Should communion be denied to church members who go against the political views of their church leaders?
Is it ethical to kill doctors who perform abortions?
Should we support stem cell research?
Good thing the "Christian" type churches have these moral issues sorted out. There's no difference of opinion on any of these topics since if you believe in god morality is absolute.
Either this god-given absolute morality only handles the easy stuff that every other culture has figured out ("bad types of killing are bad", "rape is bad as long as you ignore the rape that god orders", etc) or it's just as much a matter of opinion as any other source of morality.
If morality is a useful biological function, or a rational concept, doesn't to cease to be morality as it is commonly understood, and morph into something else? By common usage I mean that if you asked a parent why you shouldn't sleep with their 12 year old child, I think that they would tell you it was because it was wrong, not because it was socially use-full not to.
I suppose it rather comes back to the question, why should I not steal, if I am probable to get away with it? If morality biologically pre-conditioned, as a rational creature, should I not think beyond that and steal if I can?
I tried to address this in a later post (see post #73) when I said:
"To the extent that we "feel" these patterns (as opposed to merely devising more academic system of categorization), we feel them as our "moral sense" or intuitions. In this way, the patterns are internalized, and there is a sense in which they have "top-down" influence. In other words, the patterns emerge from the bottom up, but then take on a "life of their own," so to speak, as they begin to influence the individual elements from which they originally emerged."
In other words, if we've internalized a moral percept, then we will refrain from stealing as a matter of embodied/felt/lived principle. Stealing would feel wrong. (BTW, I also addressed the notion of felt/lived morality in Sex and the Golden Rule.)
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 11-30-2010 at 09:09 AM..
I'm not saying that your point is wrong, but if thats true doesn't morality just melt into utility? So if something is morally wrong or right can be judged simply by if it benefits society?
Most humans(with the exception of sociopaths) have the capacity for empathy which is why most people feel bad when they do something like steal. Mind you, there are also situations where stealing could be considered the best course of action, though they are generally rare. For example, if your family is starving, then it would be more moral to steal a loaf of bread than to let them starve to death.
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Or, presumably individuals should judge if the gain of their actions compensates them sufficiently to deal with the cost the diminish of the group? So, an individual should steal, if for example, no one finds out?
I think this line of reasoning works more for species who survive on their own rather than whose survival depends on being in a social group. For social animals, such as humans, any action that would diminish the social group would also negatively affect them.
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