Morals without God or Darwin, just Empathy

It doesn't. The commandments and rules of the Bible are of no use when applied without reasoning.Btw, it is 'Toward Men of Good Will', not 'Good Will Towards All'.

Good. Reducing the number of people can just as easily increase our survival chances. You may have forgotten, but often doing evil to someone helps you yourself. If this is purely about survival, who wins? You, or someone else? Do you think it is ok to do bad things when no one else is involved at all? Or even to think about evil? For example, to lust after your best friend's wife?

You see struggling even when this very subject has been explained to you pretty simply on another thread?Your belief in a god based morality is what blinds you to the avilable information.Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

I do, sir. I see only partial pictures, no coherance. You may give me a detailed explanation of brain functions which tell us to feel selfish or emphatic. Sounds good, but you forgot one thing; we don't do what our brain tells us.For example, when we feel like being selfish, we don't have to. That is what makes the difference between a 'natural' person, and a hero. If it is natural to act selfish, we would see no wrong in it. We say 'it is human nature to act selfishly some of the time' but we hold up as great examples those who do not. We say humans will never evolve beyond war, but we know we hate war. We are looking to something more than natural without even knowing it.

Some people DO see no wrong in it. People who do see wrong, do so because of socialization (with a few exceptions).What we think about our actions is a science close to my heart (cognitive behavioural psychology) and I see this as being a paramount importance when we look at perception of right and wrong.
Don't forget what people believe is just another style of thinking....If you have any specific questions I wuld be happy to field them for you.

Yes. You are right. I did not intend for "actually affecting" me to refer to "affecting me in any way possible" but more as another way to say "directly physically affecting me" as I wrote in a few other places in that post.I should have wrote:
"Because my decision that killing is wrong doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it's actually physically affecting me."I understand that I am affected mentally. And that not all people/things may have this capability, or even in the same way as I have mine.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to reduce myself to saying that morality is only empathy just yet. I certainly think it's a large part of morality. I agree with what you say here: I think this is the extra part I'm thinking of. Natural empathy alone can be just fine for certain... extreme situations. Like obvious murder, or rape. However, I do agree that we need an intellectual element when things make their way into those fuzzy grey areas.Is stealing to feed your family wrong? I can empathize with the theif, I would not want my family to go hungry. I can also empathize with the shop-keeper, why must it be his problem? what if his family is hungry as well?I think this is where the element of intellect comes in. We need more information to answer this question. Must the theif steal for the food? Have all other avenues been exhausted? How badly will it affect the shop-keeper? Could the two maybe just come to some sort of agreement? I think it is easier to talk about and "show" empathy. I attempted a post on the "Why do Good?" thread and found it much more difficult.

I admit that I do not understand, then, your God-based moral system. My understanding was that the moral system is based on what God says: God says it is good, so it is good. God says it is bad, so it is bad. Could you please explain the system to me if this is incorrect, or perhaps even just incomplete? Are you sure? What if I baked really awesome cakes? And people all over the world loved them? Then there'd be a lot of sad people when I stopped baking.But, to answer your question: I think people who do not choose morals are not good people. Or, in the very least, that they need to learn/be taught how to be good. This is why we have laws, and jails and rehabilitation facilities, or even loving parents/guardians/caretakers/teachers...

Personally, I'd push the button.

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You may give me a detailed explanation of brain functions which tell us to feel selfish or emphatic. Sounds good, but you forgot one thing; we don't do what our brain tells us.

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Sure we do.We do what our brain tells us all the time.Just because the incredibly complex interaction of the biological, social, and individual basis for human behavior cannot be easily reduced to the pat sound-bites you seem to require doesn't mean you are right and science is wrong."God gave us morals" is certainly easier to deal with, but it explains nothing.It is an intellectual dead end.

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Personally, I'd push the button. Personally, I'd push the button.

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You know what happens to the people who push the button?They get to be the next person hooked up to the killing machine for somebody else to kill.

Yes. It can. But, that's not my point. Anything regarding "survival-chances" does not affect my morality decisions. I do not think Murder is wrong because of anything related to survival-chances. I think Murder is wrong because, basically, I would not want to be Murdered. That's my point, though. Not only is it not "purely about survival"... it has nothing to do with survival. No, I do not think it is okay to do bad things when no one else is involved at all. And yes, I think it is bad (or evil, if you prefer) to lust after your best friend's wife. I would not want my friends lusting over my girlfriend, even. I definitely would not want them lusting over my wife (that is, when my girlfriend eventually becomes my wife).

sometimes i wonder if some people realize this though, some people don't show any reason, its all black and white don't you have to define 'good' first?

A lot of christians don't realize this but it is incomplete, theres a lot of stuff that wasn't written down that people followed and stuff that was written down came from the stuff that wasn't, just reading the laws in the OT do not reflect the full meaning behind the morality in the OT, its not all there. does it have to be cake though? how about pie? i like pie that kind of comes off as circluar reasoning: they don't have morals so they are bad, they are bad because they have no morals, just pointing this out, since thats a common argument from the otherside for why you must have moralsthe reason people should have morals is because they are useally about peoples lives, safty and property. those without morals tend to eather be dangerous to themselves or to others, or both. also those without morals tend to not fit into society and are distrusted by others, thus living a short unhappy life. morals allow a frame work to base a society on, which if we didn't have some form of morals or ethics would lead to socal self destruction.