Morality without God is impossible

Moral agency lies on a spectrum and is not a simple yes or no question. The fact that we can see it developing in other species should give us some insight into what it is and where it comes from.

Moral agency lies on a spectrum and is not a simple yes or no question. ...

btw I kind of dislike the term "agency" as it implies something different in cognition development, while it seems to me that morality is an emergent ability/facet of cognitive development, just as cognitive development is an emergent ability/facet of processing information from sensory inputs.

... The fact that we can see it developing in other species should give us some insight into what it is and where it comes from.

It's evolving.

Enjoy

That is not how you distill a universal standard. You look for common elements and reduce them to their most fundamental qualities.

1. Live
2. Reproduce

Any others?

Enjoy

... concept of agency ...

What is that?

I doubt you'll find many people agreeing with you that choosing between good and bad things to eat is a moral decision.

Don't expect a fully formed highly developed and nuanced moral concept to leap into existence.

It's a choice between what is good to eat and what is bad to eat, consider it the first stage in determining what is good for the individual and what is bad for the individual.

I don't think anyone will be able to point to one behavior/"agent"/etc and say that is where moral behavior starts ... and be able to justify it as anything other than opinion.

Enjoy

Tangle writes: I doubt you'll find many people agreeing with you that choosing between good and bad things to eat is a moral decision.

Is it moral to eat magic mushrooms while driving?

I think I see your confusion - but you're not understanding the issue correctly (and why the fix is valid.)

GDR writes: But IMHO you are comparing physical things that we can evaluate objectively. We can say that a foot is longer than an inch but shorter than a mile.

Physical or non-physical doesn't matter - it's irrelevant.
What matters is having "something to compare against" - like a ruler or a moral rule.

We say that generosity is better than greed and compare them to each other but if we can simply say that generosity is good without having to compare it to greed.

This is not the fix I've proposed.
I agree that what you have here is unusable as there is no moral rule to compare anything with and therefore come up with a "what is good?" or "what is bad?" answer.

What you've stated here is an attempt to compare things without anything to compare them against.
It's like discussing the length of a bridge and the length of a shoe without allowing any discussion of any kind of "ruler."
One can easily see that a bridge is longer than a shoe.
But, specifically, how "long" is a bridge? a shoe?
-without a ruler, this cannot be defined, and remains unknown.

This is the confusion you're attempting to place on morals.

Like bridges-and-shoes-without-rulers, if you have generosity-and-greed-without-a-moral-rule...
-you can compare them against each other
-you cannot identify "how moral" one is or the other is individually and specifically

But:
-add a ruler and you can do this just fine for bridges and shoes
-add a moral rule and you can do this just fine for generosity and greed

So we say something is good it stands on its own, whereas if we say something is long it has to be understood what it is long in comparison to. So, when we say something is good, we know what it means without having to compare it to some other good or evil.

Exactly.
With buildings-and-shoes - rulers can be used.
With generosity-and-greed - moral rules can be used.

Your confusion (I'm guessing here) then goes on to the next level.
How "commonly understood" are rulers vs moral rules?
I would agree with you that "rulers" are much more commonly-understood than moral rules.

However - common understanding is confusion on the level of discussing between individuals for mutual understanding.
Common understanding has nothing at all to do with "being able to compare two things" at all or not.

Like rulers:
Imperial rulers work just fine to compare any and all length.
However - imperial rulers will only work for a society in general if the society agrees to use imperial rulers and it becomes "common understanding" for the society.
Metric rulers work just fine to compare any and all length.
However - metric rulers will only work for a society in general if the society agrees to use metric rulers and it becomes "common understanding" for the society.

You can even mix-and-match Imperial and Metric rulers to compare any and all "length" just fine.
However - mixing-and-matching rulers will only work for a society in general if the society agrees to use the mixed rulers, identify which they are using when, and it becomes "common understanding" for the society.

If people in society do not use imperial or metric rulers.
If people in society do not specify which they using and when.
These these people in society will have a very difficult time comparing "length" with others who do use such standards.

Very similar for morals:
God-given moral rules (10 commandments, say...) work just fine to compare any and all morals. (more on this below...)
However - God-given moral rules will only work for a society in general if the society agrees to use God-given moral rules and it becomes "common understanding" for the society.
Stile's moral rule (good is helping, bad is hurting, say...) works just fine to compare any and all morals. (more on this below...)
However - Stile's moral rule will only work for a society in general if the society agrees to use Stile's moral rule and it becomes "common understanding" for the society.

You can even mix-and-match God-given and Stile's moral rules to compare any and all "morals" just fine.
However - mixing-and-matching moral rules will only work for a society in general if the society agrees to use the mixed moral rules, identify which they are using when, and it becomes "common understanding" for the society.

Now, a note on what I mean by using moral rules "just fine" to compare any and all morals:
Any moral rule can be used to make a comparison (this is what I was would work "just fine.")
You can have rules such as The 10 Commandments or Stile's rule, or even something silly like "anything with apples is good, without apples is bad..."

The rule only exists so that you can make the comparison, any rule can do this.
Obviously, some rules are better than others - just as some rulers (for length) are better than others.
Initial length-rulers were things like "the width of your hand" or "length of your arm" - but some people have different sized arms and hands, providing various results (even though the ruler itself works just fine.)
Eventually, rulers were created/invented that work really well - like the Imperial system or Metric system.
You can still "make arguments" for one over the other - but it doesn't really matter, you just have to identify which system you're using.

It's the same for moral rules - it's just that we're more in the "infancy stage" than getting to the mature "widely used across the planet" stage.
Obviously, some moral rules will be better than others. Stile's rule is better than the "anything with apples..." rule.
Both rules function "just fine" to compare morals and say which is which.
But Stile's rule will align with more people's idea of "how it should be" than the apple's rule.

-this idea of "how it should be" is what's in contention.
(And this was also in contention for length-rulers for quite some time.)
It needs to be noted, though, that as long as the rule "works" - it can identify a comparison well, and others are able to use it if they're made aware for similar results - then it's just as valid as rulers are for length.

It's just a difference of timing/growth.

With length-rulers - all the hard-work was done thousands of years ago.
-people argued over who's "hand" or "arm" should be used to indicate length to the next city
-people created better and better ideas for length-rulers (a specifically sized length of wood...)
-people argued over how hard it would be to "get everyone on board" with the metric or imperial system
-people are still arguing (*cough*'Murika!*cough*) over Imperial vs Metric
-but this "common understanding" has matured and is "good enough" for there to be a world-wide common-understanding

Morality is simply working it's way through this process, and hasn't gotten very far yet:
-people are arguing over who's "rules" should be used to indicate good/bad
-people are creating better and better ideas for good/bad moral comparison rules
-people are arguing over how hard it will be to "get everyone on board" with any particular system
-it hasn't gotten further than this, yet - but it will as there's nothing stopping it.

See what the problem is?
There's no problem of "it must be independent of human thought!" - that's silly.
There's only a problem of creating/imagining a "very useful" moral-rule; just as "very useful" length-rulers were eventually created/imagined.
There's no indication that this creating/imagining must come from an outside source at all (although that isn't ruled out... it's just not necessary, and doesn't really matter what the "source" may be); just as there was no indication where the source for length-rulers had to come from.
-yes, the issues of "agreeing on a very useful moral rule" and "getting this moral rule understood and used around the world" are very large issues
-just as they were for length-rulers (it took thousands of years to work through them)
-but, again, there's no indication that anything other than "human imagination" is required

I hope that (somewhat?) clarifies what I'm trying to explain.

RAZD writes: What is that?(Agency)

In social science, agency is defined as the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.
Agency - Wikipedia(sociology)

Don't expect a fully formed highly developed and nuanced moral concept to leap into existence.

Why would I expect that?

It's a choice between what is good to eat and what is bad to eat, consider it the first stage in determining what is good for the individual and what is bad for the individual.

No. That's simply instinct and training. Morality has nothing to do with it.

I don't think anyone will be able to point to one behavior/"agent"/etc and say that is where moral behavior starts ... and be able to justify it as anything other than opinion.

That doesn't matter; we know what moral behaviour is in humans and that's what we're discussing. There's no debate that morality is an evolved trait like any other and those that say that it's god given and for us only need to watch chimpanzees for a while. But our morality is light years away from the behaviours of the highest apes - if morality is on a spectrum spectrum we're so far to the right that it would need a log scale for H. sapiens to appear on it.

I rambled a bit in my previous response to you - it wasn't all "directed" at you.
(That's my apology for contextual confusions.)

I am not trying to force anything. I see that there are universal conditions and I am trying to identify them not to dictate them. In the context of morality, being able to make choices is a universal condition or requirement. Having not only the capacity to make a choice but also the opportunity to act on that choice. Self awareness and a theory of mind are requirements that any moral agent must possess. There are at least a bunch of rules that apply universally.

On this, I will agree.
However - if you're identifying and not dictating - I think you need to admit that a genius vs. a village idiot are not working with the same machinery or "way of thinking." We can even grant that neither is a psychopath or has a physical deformity. There is still so much variation in "a human" that many come out average, a significant minority (not "outliers") come out very smart and another significant minority (also not "outliers") come out very dumb.

Dogmafood writes: Stile writes: But there is no part of morality that works like that. Morality is extremely situation-specific. It almost always depends on the exact details and the exact subtleties of the situation. Absolutely. Just like the speed of light and the relationship between energy and mass.

I think the subjective nature of morality makes it even worse.

That is, if you have the same light/energy/mass action: light-at-this-speed hitting a mirror-of-that-mass - it will always have the same relationships.

Whereas, if you have the same moral action: opening a door for a blind man - it will not always have the same relationships.
-this can be a good thing (for some blind men.)
-this can be a bad thing (for some blind men.)
-this can be a neutral thing (for some blind men.)
-it can even vary for the same blind man going through the exact same scenario (if his subjective feelings on the matter alter.)

Figuring out why we should do something will help us want to do it. Understanding why you shouldn't follow an instinct or desire is the only means you have to resist the impulse. The very essence of your ability to choose.

Agreed.
And many fields of science agree, too - which is why there's much going on the fields of cognitive behaviour and mental health.

Understanding the current progress of these fields should identify to you that this idea that "all moral motivations is a result of survival instinct" is leading more and more to the "no" camp.
Saying such an idea is valid at this point, taking into account the knowledge of such fields of science, is actually "forcing" your view onto reality instead of identifying it at this point.
As far as I'm aware, it's still "indeterminate" - but indications are leaning heavily into the idea that there are many, many "motivations" at play with almost any decision. And therefore - attempting to nail it down to one 'baseline' would be an extremely against-current-knowledge position to take.

The most you can say is that "it's possible to identify a motivational pathway back to survival instincts" for any action.
-but this doesn't negate any of the other "possible motivational pathways."
-and also doesn't increase or decrease the probability of one over any other.

RAZD writes: Dogmafood writes: That is not how you distill a universal standard. You look for common elements and reduce them to their most fundamental qualities. 1. Live 2. Reproduce Any others?

Although I appreciate the chase for a universal standard of morality - I do not think such things would qualify.

There are too many "deviants and outliers" for such items (in the context of moral situations) that are not necessarily associated with physical/emotional deformities.
-to ignore these would be a disservice to "identifying" a common element.
-I think there's enough of these to warrant a "nice try, but it doesn't meet the requirements so we'll need to look for another universal common element."

These may very well be universal standards of "life."
But to extend them as universal standards of "morality" is going too far (in my opinion.)

Tangle writes: RAZD writes: It's a choice between what is good to eat and what is bad to eat, consider it the first stage in determining what is good for the individual and what is bad for the individual. No. That's simply instinct and training. Morality has nothing to do with it.

Just some rambling from me, could be irrelevant to your point:

To me, this is dangerously close to the same idea that Dogmafood is promoting - that "if something seems like instinct/training - then it is."
I don't think that's true.

For example:
Take something that is definitely instinct/training:
-a boxer trains over and over to deliver a "counter-punch" in the heat of a flurry of back-and-forth punches.
-the idea is to make such a thing "muscle-memory" so as to turn the counter-punch into an instinct.
-when the flurry of punches is ongoing, this muscle-memory can take over without the boxer even thinking about it, and can even result in a perfectly timed knock-out blow
-when this happens (muscle-memory take-over and a counter-punch is thrown without the boxer even thinking about it) - then it is definitely instinct/training

But: Just because it can, does that mean it always is?
-In any high-level boxing match, I'm sure there are many "muscle-memory" counters that are driven as a result of this instinct/training
-However, the boxer isn't "not thinking at all" and is still thinking about the fight and when to do what at any given moment
-Therefore, some of the counter-punches (if the boxer happens to be focused on counter-ing during a certain exchange) certainly can be "intelligent-level decisions from the boxer" and not motivated by "instinct/training."
-and such a difference from instinctual/training counters can be entirely indistinguishable from any 3rd party observer watching the match

So - if it's possible for any particular counter-punch to be from instinct/training or the boxer's intelligent-level decision making; how do we tell the difference?
-as far as I'm aware; current science is very interested and heavily studying this in order to attempt to identify such a thing
-but, I believe current progress is at an early-level "not sure yet - give us some more years of study to investigate further" level

Therefore - any conclusion of "it must be instinct/training!" or even "it must be intelligent-level decisions!" would be equally wrong - we can't possibly know either.
All we can know right now, is that it could be either and that "the boxer himself" is the best possible source of identifying such a thing (and it could even be unknown or mis-identified from the boxer!)

Stile writes: Therefore - any conclusion of "it must be instinct/training!" or even "it must be intelligent-level decisions!" would be equally wrong - we can't possibly know either.

Sure we can. Animals are adapted to their food; stomachs, gut, teeth, even their shape, size and muscular structure. A horse will never attempt to hunt a wilder beast and a lion will never graze for its food. I've watched a mother meerkat train her baby to eat scorpions and crows copy each other with tools and so on.

This is not morality or anything even close to it; it's animals naturally doing what they've been 'designed' to do. If they didn't they'd die.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make - if you're trying to make one?

Tangle writes: This is not morality or anything even close to it; it's animals naturally doing what they've been 'designed' to do. If they didn't they'd die.

This is not true.

You know full well that the way evolution works is "good enough" and not "absolutely perfect."
Therefore, there is room to make some decisions that are not "naturally doing what they've been 'designed' to do" and not die.

Humans are able to make some such decisions on a larger scale.
Animals are able to make some such decisions on a smaller scale - yet they do still exist.

And, it's still a fact that there's no actual scientific way to say a decision is being made one way or another.
So your insistence that you can identify such in animals, and ALL animal decisions are instinctual (naturally doing what they've been 'designed' to do) is false.

All I have to do is to show one decision by one animal that could have gone a few different ways - and the animal wouldn't "die" if it did it slightly differently - and your premise is shown to be false.

Here's a blog on how dogs act in ways that are not driven by "if they didn't naturally do this as they've been 'designed' - then they'd die:"

Do Dogs Think?

She calls it "thinking" where I've been saying things like "intelligent decision making" but the idea is the same.
Dogs (and my claim is other animals, too) have the ability for intelligent decision making beyond instinctual "natural" reactions.
The blog includes examples of dog's forethought and problem solving. Things that involve multiple intellectual decisions.

If you say this doesn't prove dogs do anything beyond "their naturally designed abilities."
Then you'll run into the same problem with humans - which is equivalent to saying there's no such thing as "choice" and all our decisions are nothing but illusions.
(I don't have a specific rebuttal for this position - as I don't think one exists - but to claim it and say it "must be" this way is just as bad.)

Stile writes: All I have to do is to show one decision by one animal that could have gone a few different ways - and the animal wouldn't "die" if it did it slightly differently - and your premise is shown to be false.

Well of course that wasn't my point or anything like it. A horse would die if it 'decided' to eat only lion - or mice. A horse eats only what it's evolved to eat, otherwise it dies because its digestive system works that way.

But I'm afraid I've lost the plot here, what has any of this got to do with human moral choices and god's involvement in them?

Tangle writes: Well of course that wasn't my point or anything like it. A horse would die if it 'decided' to eat only lion - or mice. A horse eats only what it's evolved to eat, otherwise it dies because its digestive system works that way.

"A human would die if it 'decided' to eat only McDonald's. A human eats only what it's evolved to eat, otherwise it dies because its digestive system works that way."

You seem to want to make a distinction only for animals - but it seems equally applicable to humans.

But I'm afraid I've lost the plot here, what has any of this got to do with human moral choices and god's involvement in them?

If humans do not actually make decisions - if we only do what we're naturally 'designed' to do without any intellectual decision making - then all decisions/choices are nothing but the illusion of decision/choice and we're all robots. And robots don't have morality.

This idea you're promoting, that animals are not capable of making intelligent decisions - and how it seems to equally apply to humans, has the consequence of turning humans into robots who do not have morality at all.

If you want to say humans have morality - and then argue if it can exist without God or not - you need to show a clear delineation between animals and humans for this idea of "only naturally doing what they're 'designed' to do" (instincts - why animals cannot avoid them yet human can) or accept that animals don't always act on instincts and are quite capable of making (some/limited..) intelligent decisions.

Stile writes: If humans do not actually make decisions - if we only do what we're naturally 'designed' to do without any intellectual decision making - then all decisions/choices are nothing but the illusion of decision/choice and we're all robots. And robots don't have morality.

Humans make complex, intelligent decisions - deliberate rational choices that don't depend on prior knowledge of a situation. They have knowledge of the future and the effect a decision has beyond the present. Was that worth saying?

This idea you're promoting, that animals are not capable of making intelligent decisions - and how it seems to equally apply to humans, has the consequence of turning humans into robots who do not have morality at all.

Almost all of animal behaviour is autonomous and instinctual - even ours. We are differentiated from all other animals by having evolved a pre-frontal cortex capable of executive functioning. Morality depends on this high-level ability to make reasoned choices. Only humans have that capability.

If you want to say humans have morality

I foolishly thought that that was not in doubt?

and then argue if it can exist without God or not - you need to show a clear delineation between animals and humans

I need do no such thing. We are discussing human morality, we can point to some indications of moral-like behaviour in some higher apes which is a nice bit of evidence that morality is at least partly an evolved trait but that's as useful as it gets.

for this idea of "only naturally doing what they're 'designed' to do" (instincts - why animals cannot avoid them yet human can) or accept that animals don't always act on instincts and are quite capable of making (some/limited..) intelligent decisions.

There's no argument that some animals can show some signs of intelligence, but what that has to do with human morality and god still defeats me. When an ape can comment here on the trolley problem it might get relevant but until then, let's stick to the point.