Morality without god

I'm sure we do. That is because we both live in modern Western democracies with a common cultural inheritance.But, even given that background, we could very easily disagree on some profound ethical/moral issues which separate even our societies - abortion, capital punishment, homosexual marriage, religious education, vegetarianism, animal husbandry, hunting and so on. That's simply a restatement of 'do no harm' (Which again misses the 'do some good' part). But assuming that you mean the Golden Rule, then fine.So, for example, if we could definitively show all the future consequences of, say allowing homosexuals to marry, we could actually empirically show what had the better outcome for both individuals and society. But we can't - it's not possible ever to actually know this absolute good - which, I agree, theorectically exists but in reality doesn't.So we either do what our religious book tells us - which is often horribly immoral- or make our best shot within our existing cultural development.

The problem then becomes one of defining "people" (AKA personhood). There are those today who would extend morality to other species. There are those who would consider some humans to lack equal personhood status and would thus deny some people certain rights on that basis.Is there an objective method of defining who or what constitutes an entity worthy of equal moral consideration? If so what is it? Harm to who? I think you are being incredibly simplistic to the point of just wrong again. On the basis of your statement above we should all be able to objectively agree on whether the following activities are moral or immoral shouldn't we?1) Is farming chimpanzees for meat moral or immoral?
2) Is executing a mass murderer moral or immoral?
3) Is chemically castrating a rapist moral or immoral?
4) Is ritually sacrificing a willing and devout participant to appease the gods moral or immoral?
5) Is having sex with a pig moral or immoral?
6) Is sex before marriage moral or immoral?
7) Is using the pages of a bible to wipe your arse in the absence of any toilet paper moral or immoral?
8) Is aborting a 24 week foetus moral or immoral?Can you show how we would apply your criteria to such activities in order to assess their morality? Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I'm not sure it even theoretically exists.One man's utopia might be another man's hell.A society where homosexuality is accepted and as un-comment-worthy as heterosexuality might be considered ideal by those of us with a progressive bent but an absolute atrocity by those who consider the whole idea of homosexuality innately wrong.For a moral ideal to even be theoretically possible we would need to all agree on what the "better outcome" is! Never mind have perfect knowledge of what steps will or won't achieve that "better outcome". And that is why the whole issue will always be non-absolute.

To make this scenario work, you have to postulate a perfect moral ideal, where it is possible to agree what is best. The theory is that both Hitler and Ghandy would actually agree on what was objectively right, it's just that Hitler would go off and do what he wanted anyway.From memory this is a version of moral contractualism (or something similar). This is why I have very little time for philosophy - it's just a mental construct.

But all the evidence suggests that it's practically impossible to get such agreement.How can a devout Muslim who believes in Shariah law as the righteous and absolute moral word of God and an ardent humanist who believes in reasoning his way through complex moral problems on the basis of least harm to all sentient beings ever agree about what sort of society is "best".....? The idea that Hitler and Ghandi would agree on what was best for both society and the individual but just disagree about the means to bring about this ideal is obvious nonsense.

Oh, I agree it's bollocks.But just for completeness, that's not how it works. The idea is that if both Hitler and Ghandi were both rational and sane they would agree that murdering Jews is a moral wrong. The fact that Hitler goes on to do it anyway does not mean that he does not know it to be wrong - he does it because of personal gain, meglamania etc etc.It's supposed to show that there is an objective morailty that we can agree on - in a perfect world - and that we contract into it. It's just another philosopher's mind game.

Seems like a no brainer to me. Two consenting adults want to get married. Adults have the right to choose who they wish to marry. End of story. The action impacts the two individuals to a degree so much greater than it could ever impact society that society hardly comes into the equation at all. No matter what some immoral religious zealot thinks about it.1 — All people have the same rights and value to begin with.
2 — The morality of any action is inversely proportionate to the harm that it causes.We don't have to calculate every miniscule potential harm to know that all of the major real and present harms have been taken into account. No amount of residual wispy theoretical harm caused by gay marriage will ever surpass the real and actual harm caused by not allowing two people to get married. Well that is what we do. Every once in a while someone like Rosa Parks says 'fuck you' to the bus driver and the world becomes a slightly better place.Would you say that the world is more or less moral than it used to be?

I don't have a problem with extending morality to include any creature that can experience pain. I have a general reverence for all life. But we need to define what morality means to humanity before we can extend it to other species I would think. Nein! It is verboten!1 — All people have the same rights and value to begin with. Anybody. It doesn't matter who the harm belongs to.2 — The morality of any action is inversely proportionate to the harm that it causes.When determining the morality of an action you need to have all of the pertinent details.
It is certainly possible to not have enough information to make a decision. It is less moral than farming cows and more moral than farming humans. That is simply too vague to answer. What other options are available? Are they sane? Generally speaking, anyone who murders for pleasure should not be considered sane. Did they murder someone who the state should have executed? Are we on an island with no capacity to imprison them? Will there continued imprisonment be a hardship on those who must pay for it? Were they taking the lithium that their doctor ordered and having delusions? Was their family being held captive and they were forced into it?Give me a real case with context. As opposed to doing what to them? Morality is a spectrum. While it is certainly wrong headed I would not say that it is immoral. Everybody thinks that they are getting what they want. The fact that they are wrong is a separate issue. I don't know. Was she willing? Marriage has nothing to do with it. As long as there is no exploitation and all the parties are willing they should have at it. The age of consent is a separate issue. Well it wouldn't bother me. In fact it would bother me a lot more if you didn't.I can certainly imagine that it might offend some people and it is a good example of clashing beliefs. Is perceived harm the same as real harm. In order to run the formula you have to input the harm value. Are you wiping your arse in the middle of a forest or in the middle of a Sunday morning church service? Are all 24 week abortions the same?You have to identify all of the harm that you can. Armed with that information you can make a decision. Your decision will be as accurate as your information is complete.

Well that's roughly my position too, so it must be right mustn't it?
Except that a lot of otherwise sane people think differently. They belive that it will destroy the institution of marriage which will destroy our society and we'll all go to hell in a handcart. (Which is a greater harm than the good that the individual freedoms grant.)So where is the absolute good? So, when a nuclear bomb was dropped on Japan, killing thousands of innocent people, what consideration to their rights as individuals was given? How much harm was done compared to how much benefit? And who gets to calculate it, the bomber or the bombed? I would say that in some ways, some of it is more moral - although I'd use the word civilised - and some parts and in some way less so.The democratic West has made a lot of progress on individual rights but has also made some very, very big backward steps with issues that can have global consequences such as nuclear armaments, global warming, unregulated capitalism, third world poverty, social inequality etc.But other parts of the world have made less progress on human rights or gone backwards - North Korea, the parts of Africa that are constantly at civil war, religious bigotry and war between societies and nations, corruption in China, Russia, the Middle East and Africa.I don't know how you add that all up do you? And I still can't see any absolute anywhere.

Well no that doesn't follow. It is right because it is the logical conclusion based on all available information. Not just because it is our opinion. They may believe that but they are mistaken. I have never even heard a reasonable argument to support that position let alone seen any evidence that supports it. The evidence that does exist to date shows that they are mistaken. Has Canadian society gone to pieces since gay marriage was legalized? Apart from Sodom and Gonnamorra, has any society ever gone to pieces because of rampant homosexuality?Were these bigots to honestly examine their position and address the real question they would change their minds (assuming that they are rational people). The right question is, should every adult enjoy the same rights of marriage and the answer must be yes if every person enjoys the same rights and value to begin with. So the death of each individual causes x amount of harm. The spared lives of each individual who was not killed because a ground invasion was bypassed avoids y amount of harm. If y — x is a positive number then the action was more moral than if it is a negative number. If every person has equal rights and value to begin with then it does not matter who calculates it. It seems appropriate to quote the immoral son of bitch Donald Rumsfeld.

quote:

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there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones..'

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I would say that as with any other science we grow ever closer to the absolute truth of the matter. You are basically saying that there is no way to quantify harm and I disagree. We may not yet be able to perfectly identify all of the harm related to some action but would you deny that we are getting better at it? It may be another case of always only going half of the distance to the goal but the goal still remains and the method to approach it is unchanging.

This just demonstrates the problem. You and I believe this, but neither you nor I nor they can prove it one way or the other.A pregnant woman will die if her child is not aborted. Which life do we choose? Does it make a difference if she's having twins, quads? What if she already has a large family that depend on here?
What if we knew that the baby would grow up to be the woman who saved the world from the 3rd world war?A healthy patient in the doctor's waiting room can save 5 lives with his organs - why is it immoral to kill him to get them?Do you torture an individual to get the location of the ticking bomb?How can we make these calculations?

So having responded to a series of moral questions in a manner that is entirely consistent (predictably so) with a modern-day, Western liberal viewpoint - Do you still maintain that the moral views you have expressed are those which represent timeless absolute moral standards, and which are thus objectively morally correct, rather than culturally influenced?If so — How do you account for the remarkable adherence of your own modern-day, Western liberal thinking on these matters to these timeless and absolute moral standards?Furthermore - How do you account for the fact that the easily discernible morally correct answers you have put forward have eluded so many in the past, including some of the most renowned thinkers throughout history, and continue to elude so many in the present?Could it be that your claims about absolute moral standards and how to evaluate the morality of a given activity are somewhat simplistic?

I would have preferred "subjective" over "simplistic".

You are right. But that is the next intended step in Dogma's Straggler-imposed self analysis.......

Sorry to jump your gun.Carry on.