Morality without god

Nice try, undercover police officer. I think you're underestimating the impact that their beliefs have on themselves. Some of these people are quite crazy.

No. I'm not going to visit my dying grandma tonight for any reason that benefits me at all. I'm doing it for her.

Better. I don't like seeing her like this and I wouldn't feel bad for not seeing her.

Well if she was unconscious then I wouldn't be going. I go because she is awake and alert and recognises me and smiles. I'd rather just go home and play video games, but she deserves to be happy. I suppose I can't really say that an internally consistent concept that you have defined into existence is "wrong", but I see no good reason to view the world this way.The selfish act would be going home a playing video games.
Going and visiting her is not selfish.To say that they're both selfish is retarded.

From Message 35: Great... now its subconscious?I disagree that all action is selfish, with an example if a selfless action, and your saying that really there must at least be a subconsous selfishness in there. Well, you could have a willingness sans desire. Right, cause you know my subconscious motivation must be desired. I'm not buyin' it. I just think its stupid to eliminate the 'selfless' description from the act on the opposite side of a dichotomy against something that is plainly selfish. The colloquial sense is better employed and there's no benefit to reimagining it under a lense of everything being selfish. When you're simply willing to do something that you don't desire to and if you had unmotivated actions.From Message 47: Apes. And there's lots of tribes that I am not a part of, even though you can zoom out far enough to lump us all into one. I don't find that particularly realistic, but I guess its good to have ideals. Heh, riiight. All hail the true way. I've heard that one before.You may wish to think that all my actions are selfish, but I maintain that I can act from selflessness. I'll grant you your internal consistancy, but I'm not convinced there's a benefit to adopting your description. Don't give me that true and full appreciation crap, I'd rather get into the underlying biology or psychology behind it.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

No, I get what you're saying. I'm just disappointed that when you were unable to point to the selfishness of my action, you resorted to: "Oh, well it must be in there somewhere (subconsciously)" I know. You've claimed that motivation requires desire but the definition you posted allows for motivation to be a willingness without desire. They taught me that being kind can make you feel better in kindergarten. I'm disputing that I am unable to act without selfishness. You could say that about everything you're trying to convince me of. A conscious calculation? Not necessarily. An unconscious one? Who knows?But I can decide the most preferred action and then do something else. I know when I'm acting selfishly. And I know when I'm not. I still don't see any reason to consider the times when I'm not as being selfish too. No, like flinching, or blinking. Or, when you go to take your car to the store, but your distracted by something you're thinking about, and then you realize that you're half-way to work instead of the store. What motivated those actions? I'm not buying it. People already know this and it doesn't stop them. This "we're all one big tribe" stuff doesn't really work. I don't assign a general driver to acts of kindness. I think people do them for different reasons. Some of them being selfish and some of them not.

Yes, I can. Except when it isn't. Wait. Are you now admitting that its possible? Just that there'd be something wrong with me? That's just not true.

I don't get why not. But why? Spinning wheels or not, a relative morality can still be moral.We just have to employ our empathy and determine for ourselves what we would be comfortable doing or not. Its not an absolute morality, but its still a morality and its still moral.

Sure, but that doesn't eliminate morality. How would it? But you haven't explained *WHY* this is the case. You've just repeated it.You shouldn't try to do those things to me because they're wrong, regardless of whether or not God exist. Why not? No, a lot of people care. People don't like having those things done to them so you shouldn't. Why not? I shall call it: morality. Not trying... doing. I am defining morality from a human perspective. You say I can't but I don't understand why not. And there might be a case for the immoraily of eating chicken. But it'll be there even if god doesn't exist. That's why I don't see why not having a god means we can't have that. What do you mean?

Hey T12C,Don't be afraid of that Enter key!Check it out:

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In the thread about Sam Harris' views on the moral landscape we actually discussed the thought that it is only with God that humans can have an objective morality.

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However, the problem is which God!! In the multitude of years that individuals have believed in a higher power, there has been zero worldwide consensus on what/who God is.

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So, how can the morality that comes from this being be an absolute standard, we cannot even agree on what it says!? So, in this sense we have religious people running around each with his or her own absolute standard of what his or her God would want them to do morally, for some it is kill infidels, for some it is forcefully baptize posthumously, and for some it is love everybody...it seems that within this absolute morality there is some very large wiggle room.

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However, unlike the religious, those of us who do not believe in a higher power seem to understand that morality must be flexible. Sure there are some things that are always immoral (Harris describes it as that which causes every person involved to suffer), but there must be plasticity within many other moral guidelines.

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Is it wrong to murder someone to protect the life of a child? Well, according to God's absolute morality it is not okay. It is stated right in the Ten Commandments. And yet, we have Christians doing just that in order to stop abortion, so it seems the absolute guidelines do not even apply to them...Whereas, without God involved in this decision, we can judge the morality of the action based upon how many for whom it will alleviate suffering.

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The absolute morality in the atheistic sense is simply immorality is that which creates suffering for everyone and the moral landscape flowers off, depending upon how many people one can alleviate suffering for through moral actions.

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This seems far better than the idea of, "Well, God said it, so I must follow simply this as I have interpreted it."

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Better, no?

Your welcome. I don't think it matters to them. They're content on just demonizing the godless.Further, if you're granting a god, then that god could enact an aboslute morality by fiat and it wouldn't matter if you or I could identify what that standard is. It would still be there.There's other arguments I've seen on this topc that go: even if you don't believe in God, he's still necessary for morality to exist. So even the fact that atheist can behave rightly doesn't matter. Just because they're not objective to us doesn't mean that they're not objective at all. If God demands that blue hats are immoral, then it is what it is whether we know it or not. This religious argument is that that's not really a true morality (because its not absolute). It goes that just because you can deem something immoral doesn't make it so and nothing short of God can make that happen. As per the above, it doesn't really matter which god it is. The argument doesn't really work if you don't believe in God. That's just some hippy bullshit. There's been a few people I've wanted to kill. But it wasn't god that stopped me, it was the prospect of prison. Put you in a different time and culture, and I'm sure you'd fold right into the mould like everyone else. The cowboy in the wild west wasn't a worse human than the (luckily capable) passifist lefty of today. Gawsh they're so smug I kid, I kid.

I am a human, though. Everything is from my perspective and I can't change that. Why? Why can't I derive morality from a relative one? I don't think I could, but I would still have my morality. But, how would you convince them? By saying that "God said so". You think that'd work or you think you'd be eating spear? We talk about it and form a consensus. Why not? But you're doing the same thing. You're just adding a "God says that" in there. I say that some thing is moral. You say that God says that some thing is moral. But you simply saying that doesn't make it right or wrong by your own standard so how is your's any better?Too, you're not establishing that what you say that god says is abosulte morality acutally is. You're just assuming that it is by assuming that it comes from God. Your's is no more absolute than mine by establishment. I don't care if you think its silly, its a morality nonetheless. And I still don't have an answer for you for why it cannot be one. But that's what morality is, and you cannot demonstrate that it isn't. For you to simply declare that it isn't doesn't make it not one. Having a morality doesn't require that. The prisoner might not agree that he should be in jail, but there he sits. I've already answered why its wrong. We don't want to be murdered. We have empathy. We make murder immoral. Its that simple. Why is that not a morality? Why not?A relative morality is still a morality even though you don't like it because it isn't absolute. And you deciding to call it not-a-morality, doesn't make it not one.So why isn't it one?

I think I get what you're saying, but lets be clear. It is "murder" because that is a legal term with a well defined definition; the unlawful killing of a person. I think what you're getting at has to do with it being "wrong", not murder. Now, I could imagine a scenerio where a guy would want human flesh "for consumption and survival" and it wouldn't necessarily be "murder", so I can still exemplify the relativity of morality in either situation. For proactivity, I present the situation outlined in the movie Alive <--clicky

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Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the snow swept Andes are forced to use desperate measures to survive after a plane crash.

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By "desperate measures" they mean "consuming human flesh". Its not absolute. We all get that. What I don't get is why we can't have it as a morality.And this is the point that I'm still wating for you to support. You keep making arguments about how a relative morality isn't absolute, but you never have justified your position that a morality that isn't absolute cannot be counted as a morality.If you have, then I've missed it, and you'll provide me with a link. But I contend that you havn't. Irrelevant. That may be true, but its still remains as a morallity. I have no reason from you why I shouldn't consider it one. Minor disagreement here: If a dog, or lion, attacks a child then we will put it down. An animal harming a child is, in fact, a kind of 'immorality' from a human perspective. I've been with you from the first post: this morality I'm describing is not absolute and it is relative.But this is that part you haven't addressed yet: IT IS STILL A MORALITY.You keep asserting that it isn't, but your only argument for that is its lack of being absolute. I don't understand why you cannot accept that a relative morality, as opposed to an absolute one, is still a morality. Your only reason has been entirely circular: because it isn't absolute.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

Thanks for the reply, Dawn. Well hold on... I'm not really establishing anything. You've claimed that morality cannot exist without god and I'm questioning if and how that's true. My position on the above is that I do not have to establish that it is right in the first place in order to establish an actual morality.A morality could be arbitrary, and many have been in the past and even are today. They don't stop existing because you've asserted that they can't exist without establishing what's right in the first place. That's right, and our morality literally is 'what we have decided is how we should operate'. Some people just like to say that God told them to decide it. That's fine. And here we are still having our morality, as per the above, all relative and arbitrary. If you don't want to support your assertions then you're allowed to do that. I don't have a problem with that. We can still develop a relative morality without absolutely determining what is right and wrong. No, not that it isn't possible, but that it isn't absolute. All it has to be is relative and that point doesn't matter.Too, even with your position that God is required because it does have to be absolute, we still have disagreement and different thinking patterns on the same topic, so if that wipes out my morality then it wipes out yours as well. You showed that? Where? I see you've asserted it, but you don't really support it.But even so, you're still wrong: Murder is the unlawful killing of a human by a human. So there you go, that is a standard of murder that we can have that applies to our species and no other. I don't have a problem accepting that one because a relative morality doesn't depend on actualizing right and wrong. All we have to do is come up with a consensus on what we want to decide is called right and what is called wrong, and then we impliment that as our morality. People are free to disagree with it and it still sits there as our morality. No, I haven't seen where you've demonstrated that.And its plainly wrong. Morality is a human construct. It requires humans to exist. It can only be established from a persons perspective. Even with your position of it having to stem from God, it still takes a man to write it down and say that it came from god and that's going to be coming from his perspective. Why? That simply is not what a morality is. Trees don't have conscious intent. If I accidentally fall on someone and kill them like a tree then that wouldn't be immoral. But if I consciously decide to fall on them and kill them then it would be immoral. No, but as anyone can plainly see: godless people still have moralities. Your assertion falls flat on its face.And even if we allow it further: Some people say God says its immoral to eat shellfish, some people say God says its immoral to eat pork, some people say God says its immoral to eat beef. Even if we grant that God exists and is required for morality, in practice MORALITY IS STILL RELATIVE.

I just ran across this Scientific American article: Scientists Probe Human Natureand Discover We are Good, after All

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Recent studies find our first impulses are selfless

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I'll post some relevant material from the news article.First off:

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This focus on first instincts stems from the dual process framework of decision-making, which explains decisions (and behavior) in terms of two mechanisms: intuition and reflection. Intuition is often automatic and effortless, leading to actions that occur without insight into the reasons behind them. Reflection, on the other hand, is all about conscious thoughtidentifying possible behaviors, weighing the costs and benefits of likely outcomes, and rationally deciding on a course of action.

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They don't seem to agree with your stance on all action being motivated and thus stemming from desire. I like that dual mechanism.

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With this dual process framework in mind, we can boil the complexities of basic human nature down to a simple question: which behaviorselfishness or cooperationis intuitive, and which is the product of rational reflection?

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They also contrast selfishness with cooperation rather than just deeming all behavior as selfish.

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The results were striking: in every single study, fasterthat is, more intuitivedecisions were associated with higher levels of cooperation, whereas slowerthat is, more reflectivedecisions were associated with higher levels of selfishness. These results suggest that our first impulse is to cooperate

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Both studies showed the same patternwhether people were forced to use intuition (by acting under time constraints) or simply encouraged to do so (through priming), they gave significantly more money to the common good than did participants who relied on reflection to make their choices. This again suggests that our intuitive impulse is to cooperate with others.

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Now, here's where your stuff comes in:

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they found that the relationship between processing speed (that is, intuition) and cooperation only existed for those who reported having primarily cooperative interactions in daily life. This suggests that cooperation is the intuitive response only for those who routinely engage in interactions where this behavior is rewardedthat human goodness may result from the acquisition of a regularly rewarded trait.

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So you could define all actions as selfish if you wanted to, but its unecessary and unhelpful, imho.

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this research suggests that our intuitive responses, or first instincts, tend to lead to cooperation rather than selfishness.

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But if human nature is simply the way we tend to act based on our intuitive and automatic impulses, then it seems that we are an overwhelmingly cooperative species, willing to give for the good of the group even when it comes at our own personal expense.

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So yeah, we don't have to consider all action as selfish.Here is the abstract from the Nature article

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Spontaneous giving and calculated greed

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Cooperation is central to human social behaviour. However, choosing to cooperate requires individuals to incur a personal cost to benefit others. Here we explore the cognitive basis of cooperative decision-making in humans using a dual-process framework. We ask whether people are predisposed towards selfishness, behaving cooperatively only through active self-control; or whether they are intuitively cooperative, with reflection and prospective reasoning favouring ‘rational’ self-interest. To investigate this issue, we perform ten studies using economic games. We find that across a range of experimental designs, subjects who reach their decisions more quickly are more cooperative. Furthermore, forcing subjects to decide quickly increases contributions, whereas instructing them to reflect and forcing them to decide slowly decreases contributions. Finally, an induction that primes subjects to trust their intuitions increases contributions compared with an induction that promotes greater reflection. To explain these results, we propose that cooperation is intuitive because cooperative heuristics are developed in daily life where cooperation is typically advantageous. We then validate predictions generated by this proposed mechanism. Our results provide convergent evidence that intuition supports cooperation in social dilemmas, and that reflection can undermine these cooperative impulses.

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So, I don't think your idea that considering all action as selfish is some path to truth. Evolutionary Psycology studies don't seem to view it that way either.