Morality without god

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And I think it's a huge error to ascribe an 'ought' to a biological function. People 'ought' not to get angry, but they do because it's a human function. People feel empathetic to others because it's a biological function - they can't help it or stop it. The best we can do is control our feelings.

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Then there is no such thing as morality, and your opinion that we ought to 'control our feelings' has no meaning or justification. Morality merely describes how we will tend treat each other and has nothing to do with how we ought to treat each other. It really is no different than mob rule.

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But there's more to us that emotions, our intellect has allowed us to overcome many of our baser emotions and the development of our societies has allowed us to create social rules of behaviour that benefit all of us. If you want to call this morality you can, because it's an extension of our individual sense of what's right and wrong into a collective one that's enforced by society - it governs individual behaviours and hopefully prevents the 'great evils' that we are capable of.

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How can you call a thing a great evil if it is conceivable that that same thing can be called a moral duty by someone else? "Whatever goes" is a pretty barbaric moral precept.Edited by TrueCreation, : No reason given.

Well i think there is and it seems that you do too. In fact we all appear to agree that morality exists, so maybe we can put that aside. I didn't actually say that we 'ought' to control our feelings - I said that controling them is the best we can do. But I'll accept it.It's self-evident that we should control our feelings where to do otherwise would harm us or others. And it's self-evident that if we use our intellect to create institutions that formalise this into rules of behaviour then this helps us all get along better which is good for us all.It's self justifying. You seem to require some external, academic or philosophical justification for this fact of life. I don't. I accept that it's the way we are. Our sense of morality is a biological function that tells us how to treat each other; if you wish to be pedantic, it therefore consequently tells us how we ought to treat each other inorder to get along better. You're making a distinction without a difference.

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It's self-evident that we should control our feelings where to do otherwise would harm us or others.

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Why is harming others a moral imperative if it is conceivable that harming others is a moral duty?

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And it's self-evident that if we use our intellect to create institutions that formalise this into rules of behaviour then this helps us all get along better which is good for us all.

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Then your morality is merely utilitarian and is incapable of solving intra-group grievances.

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It's self justifying. You seem to require some external, academic or philosophical justification for this fact of life. I don't. I accept that it's the way we are.

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Well yes I obviously do require some philosophical justification. Right conduct should not be confined to the space of mere opinion. I prefer to think that the mob is sometimes wrong while accepting that the mob will sometimes win.

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Our sense of morality is a biological function that tells us how to treat each other; if you wish to be pedantic, it therefore consequently tells us how we ought to treat each other inorder to get along better. You're making a distinction without a difference.

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Then there are no actual goods or evils, oughts are variable and tentative opinions, the mob chooses what is right, and right conduct has no basis in rational discussion.While I think that you are terribly wrong, I think that your opinions obviously dominate the history of human thought, and that this reasoning is probably why God was invented. They lacked the mental capacity to do better.Edited by TrueCreation, : No reason given.Edited by TrueCreation, : No reason given.

That's just plain silly. We both know that there are things that we call good and things that we call evils and we know the difference and can agree on them. Those that don't know the difference we call either criminal or mentally ill or both. As a society we have agreed this and all societies that there have ever been agree this.Searching for intellectual absolutes is pure intellectual masturbation. For some reason you feel it necessary to use the emotive and pejorative term 'mob' instead of using a more positive and constructive term like society. Why do you think that is?I see the development of our civilisation and society as the defining achievement of human beings. The establishment of secular institutions and legal instruments like the European Human Rights Act, the UK's Magna Carta and the US Bill of Rights and Constitution - amongst others are - are all founded in our sense of morality and are all defences against what you call mob rule.We're obviously not ruled by a mob, we're ruled by our institutions and society which is s development from our individual and collective biological sense of morality. To hope for more is daft.

So, in your opinion, when Muhammad took a 6 yr old for a wife way back in the year 600 he was behaving in a way that was as morally valid as the way we get married today? Today's arranged marriages in Pakistan are equal in their moral validity as a marriage of 2 consenting adults in the UK?The fact that people have failed to employ the standard says nothing about the existence of the standard. Beliefs that are shown to be erroneous are erroneous. Just like old medical practices or beliefs concerning the shape of the earth.Arranged marriages can be deemed immoral without reference to the society that they are taking place in. The are deemed immoral by imagining yourself being forced to marry someone.Moral behaviour seeks to eliminate harm and it is our ability and willingness to identify that harm that is changing. The fact that moral behaviour seeks the least harm is the absolute part.

All other things being equal, yes, of course. If that was what was regarded as correct and moral behaviour then, then what else is there to do? There was no absolute, so the behaviour they knew was their morality. If such a thing as an absolute morality actually existed, Mohammad and his society would have applied it. And again, all other things being equal, yes of course. Neither you nor I can have a different opinion because neither you nor I know the 'correct' form of marriage. (I do know that over 50% of marriages in the UK end in divorce causing a lot of harm to children - I doubt that it is as high as that in Pakistan.)
The fact that you or I might personally dislike the idea of arranged marriage has nothing to do with the relative moralities involved. What standard? There is no standard that all human action can be judged against. All you've come up with is the Golden Rule which is something every society ever would claim it upholds at the time. That's just wrong. You're applying your own personal beliefs and feelings to another person in a different culture. It simply is not the case that arranged marriage is universally immoral and to think that way is normally regarded as a form of racism and cultural snobbery. Our ability to identify harm and willingness to do something about it is changing for sure - apart from the odd set back like global war, famine and school shootings - but if you believe that an absolute morality exists, then what was the point in your god hiding it from us (by limiting our ability to see it.)If an absolute morality exsited we'd be using it.

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That's just plain silly. We both know that there are things that we call good and things that we call evils and we know the difference and can agree on them. Those that don't know the difference we call either criminal or mentally ill or both. As a society we have agreed this and all societies that there have ever been agree this.

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Just because you call it good and evil doesn't mean it is. You are making this mistake because you have to. You don't think that morality is instructive or informative. It merely arises, and in the way that it arises is true regardless of it's content. One groups evil is another groups good. This succeeds in describing moral opinions, but cannot make transcendent moral judgements.

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Searching for intellectual absolutes is pure intellectual masturbation.

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It has already succeeded in science.

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For some reason you feel it necessary to use the emotive and pejorative term 'mob' instead of using a more positive and constructive term like society. Why do you think that is?

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Because mob is more correct when talking about enforcement of moral opinion.

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I see the development of our civilisation and society as the defining achievement of human beings. The establishment of secular institutions and legal instruments like the European Human Rights Act, the UK's Magna Carta and the US Bill of Rights and Constitution - amongst others are - are all founded in our sense of morality and are all defences against what you call mob rule.

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There are many who think that these institutions are evil and you have nothing to say to them. If you were correct institutions like religion could would not exist. You are right that they are founded on our sense of morality, but you continue to fail to explain why differences in moral senses or incapacities are actually superior. The reality, I think, is that it is merely because of the nature of empathy. You want to say it is mere emotion, but it is not. It is a rational examination. It is the capacity to put yourself in another persons shoes. The classical golden rule shows that we know that this is the case, but I showed that the further step not only requires you to put yourself in another persons shoes, but to experience the world as they do. You need to become that person. Such a moral foundation explains everything about how we are able to critique the actions of people and animals with any spectrum of mental capacity, and doesn't give a safe haven to barbarism simply because they've decided, as a society, to label what is evil a moral good (e.g. genital mutilation of children, treatment of women as second-class citizens).

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Dogmafood writes:

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So, in your opinion, when Muhammad took a 6 yr old for a wife way back in the year 600 he was behaving in a way that was as morally valid as the way we get married today?

All other things being equal, yes, of course. If that was what was regarded as correct and moral behaviour then, then what else is there to do? There was no absolute, so the behaviour they knew was their morality.

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Well, I consider this case closed.

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If such a thing as an absolute morality actually existed, Mohammad and his society would have applied it.

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This is pretty low brow. Do you think that human knowledge is acquired at birth? Why didn't we have calculus until Newton and Leibniz? Why do creationists still think the Earth is 6000 years old? Was Aristotles physics just as correct as ours?

While that is irrelevant when talking about morality, I would say that "Yes, at the time Aristotles physics was just as correct as ours since ours did not exist at the time."

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While that is irrelevant when talking about morality, I would say that "Yes, at the time Aristotles physics was just as correct as ours since ours did not exist at the time."

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Well it's not irrelevant because morality has to do with knowledge--it is merely knowledge of a different kind. The fact is Aristotles physics was wrong then, and it is wrong now. This doesn't mean it wasn't the best he could do, but that is irrelevant.

No, morality does not have to do with knowledge, rather it has to do with opinions.Morality is simply a human construct. Science is completely different, it is a description of something that can be independently observed, tested.Unlike science where there can be right answers or wrong answers, more right and less right answers, in morality it is always simply a matter of opinion.A consensus opinion may be and often is possible, but it is still simply a consensus of a particular culture, society, era or association.We may think "our morality" is better than "their morality" but that is pretty meaningless. We can impose "our morality" on others by force (and is that moral? ) or try to convince others that "our morality" is better than "their morality", to persuade them to join our consensus.In science there actually are facts, things fall, light bends, bombs explode and sometimes upgrades work. That's not true when it comes to morality.

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No, morality does not have to do with knowledge, rather it has to do with opinions.

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Exactly. Knowledge of opinions. Knowledge of the state of mind of other people.

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Morality is simply a human construct. Science is completely different, it is a description of something that can be independently observed, tested.

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This is a mistake. They are different but they are not fundamentally different. Science deals with constructs of right and justifiable action just as morality does; except it is in regards to the evaluation of the truth value of hypotheses whereas morality deals with evaluating the experience of people. How people feel is something that can be independently tested. Incidentally, both in science and morality, however, you cannot independently observe the truth. If you could, there would be no need either for scientific or moral analysis.

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Unlike science where there can be right answers or wrong answers, more right and less right answers, in morality it is always simply a matter of opinion.

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Opinions are facts.

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We may think "our morality" is better than "their morality" but that is pretty meaningless. We can impose "our morality" on others by force (and is that moral? ) or try to convince others that "our morality" is better than "their morality", to persuade them to join our consensus.

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Exactly. One cultures sexual savagery is another's moral duty. There is no such thing as a moral superiority in regards to any activity. Any group can decide, whether by conquest or indoctrination, or threat, that they will behave whatever way they wish. Whatever 'morality' that wins cannot be condemned.

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In science there actually are facts, things fall, light bends, bombs explode and sometimes upgrades work. That's not true when it comes to morality.

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It is absolutely true when it comes to morality. You do not decide what someone else's opinion is. They are facts.

Okay, so there is no absolute morality?

You really didn't just say this, did you?You know what "facts" are, yes?You know what it means when we label something as a "fact"?The difference between fact and opinion is that one is apt to change in differing situations. The other will hold in all situations.I'll leave it to you to sort out the details.

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Okay, so there is no absolute morality?

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That depends on what you mean by a "morality". There should be absolute moral principles, what I might call an absolute moral heuristic, but they do not necessarily have absolute behavioral content. Everyone can be treated differently while being informed by exactly the same moral heuristic.