Ushering In An Age of Reason....Or Not.....?

Most cultures have independently derived the Golden Rule, which is really just a rewording of 'empathy' - an innate behavioural trait we have. We do follow the law of survival of the fittest, its a natural law and we cannot subvert it or choose to ignore it any more than we can the laws of motion. Fittest does not just mean 'strongest and smartest'. Fitness can mean many things. In a social species, it might be more 'fit' and conducive to survival to cooperate with one another. Then, slaughtering the weakest of group might harm the group as a whole, thus harming the slaughterer making being a slaughterer less fit.I should also point out that the evidence suggests this might the case. Simply examine the life expectancy in hunter gathererer societies where the closest thing you are imagining goes on. Where the thing most likely to kill you is another man. I'd suggest that cooperation is a better strategy than this, evolutionarily and as far as enjoyment of life is concerned.We must look to the way we interact with one another and try to structure those interactions so as to bring about the consequences we desire. This is the rational way of structuring morality, and even the religious do it. The differences usually spring up over differing desired consequences (and differences in estimating how to obtain certain consequences).I suggest in an Age of Reason we look principally at what we want, not what we believe some God wants on the word of some ancient priests. We should surely want for ourselves a world where there was maximum opportunity for human flourishment. Where we all feel safe and can strive for happiness etc. If a moral question arises, we should try to answer it so as to maximise those consequences, and we should try to encourage others to do likewise.I doubt many people would reason themselves into murdering the weak, but some may. In any natural population there will almost always be mixed strategies in play. In an age of reason we hopefully will recognize this and tailor our justice system appropriately.

As I explained, sometimes - as in our case - survival of the fittest doesn't mean surival of the selfish. That will need more explanation than a single sentence. And that's the situation we actually have, isn't it? Success at what? And what relevance does this have regarding an Age of Reason. Are you suggesting we have a way of knowing what this actual god's established morality is? But different moral systems will have different social consequences. We can rationally tailor our moral systems to be in line with our desired social consequences. We do it all the time.And no, we don't expect that everyone will come to the same conclusions. And they don't. Society collectively sets the standards. Social consequences (ostracisation, prison etc) are how we deal with those that don't play by the rules.

So, what's new? Are they strictly better off conquering their neighbour? I don't see why that must be the case. In any case, this is not relevant to individual morality, which is what we were talking about. Indeed. And yet the consequences of an atheistic world where we screw each other over and go to war with our neighbours is actually real. So I'm struggling to see what rational benefit (for our age of reason) supposing that there is an actual god with some actual absolute moral laws as you describe here: If he is your actual neighbour, you could decide to settle the matter in court. Or you could fight it out. If you are a nation, then the answer is diplomacy or war.If you both believed in God or some prime moral mover, but believed that God wanted different things (for instance your neighbour claims that God has bestowed your VW on him) - how do you propose we settle that dispute? No, what makes you say that? That would only be the case if in the Age of Reason it was a crime to have faith, which I don't think anyone is proposing.

In the fabled age of reason we all more or less reason that cooperation is on the whole better. I'm not suggesting this is likely...it would require equitable distribution of resources and other levels of discipline the human race has not demonstrated it possesses. But morality of politics is a different kettle of fish than the morality of individuals.If you like - I can account for the morality of individuals in an age of reason and we'll let national morality take care of itself. It is a better world, not a perfect one. For instance, in a global age of reason there'd be no reason to mutilate girls genitals. This seems like a better world already.In our fabled Age of Reason, the participants would choose diplomacy over war for as long as reasonable. How is it worse that we try to settle things diplomatically while rationally accepting the possibility that war might break out given our species track record, and thus doing everything possible to prevent that from occurring? We are becoming more cooperative and less violent over time. The evidence is becoming clear that cooperation creates more happiness and wealth than constant war. We are also becoming more secular over time. Perhaps there is some correlation... We deal with it rationally, with words. In the age of reason I see no reason why there should not be freedom to believe what you want. It is your actions that will be judged by the community, and if your beliefs lead to criminal acts, then you get punished.But I see no reason to criminalise a theistic movement.In your scenario, we have not yet reached the Age of Reason which is defined as a time when such theistic movements have been entirely sidelined. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Or a cooperative moral code that is empirically superior at providing us with wanted consequences. Why can't that suffice? As it does now. And it probably won't. That's the problem with nations. But while there are still plenty of things to disagree and politic about in an Age of Reason - there are certain things that would be a thing of the past. No need to argue about whether this land was given to a certain group by God. No need to argue about the soul-imbued rights of a blastocyst. No denying contraception on the basis of interpretation of ancient texts.Laws based on what we know, rather than on what some people claim to believe, seems like a better system to me. If you can explain the rational reason to mutilate the genitals I'd be interested in hearing it. It isn't rare because of the impact of religion, it is shockingly common because of the influence of religion. Yes, which is how I was using the word 'legendary' too. I'm on Straggler's side with this one - I don't think humanity is likely to succeed in bringing about this age of reason in the near future. I don't think the perception of an absolute morality is what keeps us at peace. After all, we went to war when the nations adamantly and publically held there was an absolute morality (because there was disagreement over what that absolute morality was, which is the problem with basing your views of absolute morality on the unknowable desires of an intangible prime moral mover). Compare makind in 2000 to mankind in 1900, then compare that with 1800 and then to 1700. Are you sure we're not more secular?And since when was a strong belief in looking after those that cannot help themselves incompatible with secularism? I wouldn't regard the criminilastion of belief to be consistent with an Age of Reason. Freedom of expression, belief and thought I would have thought would be cornerstones of any rational system.

This might occasionally be the case. But it happens now, with most people believing in absolute morality - so it's just a fact we are stuck with regardless of whether we are in an age of reason or not.I contend we would be in a much better position to deal with these problematic facts if we study society and morals as evolved and imperfect traits rather than postulating some magic prime moral mover. The loss of religious faith will mean that kids don't die because parents pray for them thinking it is effective instead of taking them to a doctor. It means we can address abortion based on reason and evidence, not on the interpreted word of a bronze age tribal collective.These are the areas where the age of reason will have an impact. There's plenty that won't change in the age of reason. We'll still be humans, after all. Right, so if religion is sidelined, genital mutilation for control cannot be justified anymore. Then let me know how we might go about knowing the 'general desires of the prime moral mover'. What I've seen is just people claiming to know what the moral mover wants. That's what secular means, isn't it? The great moral advances our world has seen seem to have occurred alongside increasing secularisation. That's my point too. The problem with introducing religion into the discussion is that religion shelters bad moral ideas with equal fervour and lack of evidence as the good moral ideas.We don't need religion to have a moral society. We don't need a prime moral mover to explain how intrinsic moral instincts can exist. Denying a moral prime mover doesn't disqualify us from learning about and acting on our intrinsic moral instincts, and accepting that there is a moral prime mover doesn't help us learning about which of our moral instincts are 'instilled' and thus endorsed by a prime moral mover. Nor does postulating a prime moral mover help us deciding whether or not we should follow its preferred morality.A prime moral mover is largely an irrelevant distraction that can lead to bad ideas being defended against all reason. Not a world where it was illegal to hold those beliefs. We live in a world where belief in Zeus doesn't for the most part, exist. It is not criminal to believe in Zeus, its just that the Greek pantheon has been largely sidelined. Imagine that for all religion. That's the world we are being asked to consider.People still might believe some religious things, but they are limited to the moral sidelines, not centre stage.
There might be a prime moral mover. But we don't need to consult it in order to moral decisions, and indeed we generally don't. For the most part, with religion sidelined, we'll still have the same moral instincts, its just that the bad moral ideas that religion defends (sometimes with lethal zeal) will no longer be justifiable and will likewise get sidelinedEdited by Modulous, : No reason given.

No, there might be a prime moral mover, but we have no way of objectively knowing its morality. The best we can do is pretend convincingly that we know something about its morality. We'd do better to study the things we know exist: human morality, society and so on, and try to shape them into what we think is best based on known facts not facts that we cannot know. Some people might do something they don't feel is justified - but most people don't. And without having to give deference to a religious creed, we can rightly treat those that engage in the act as child abusing criminals. I have. They are anonymous accounts of some people who claim knowledge of the prime mover, not a method of finding out the general desires of the prime moral mover. Unless you claim to know that the Gospels contain the desires of the prime moral mover, in which I ask you to explain how you have come to know this fact. Because we are social animals, so we cooperate for our mutual beneft. We are also evolved to dislike outgroups, which explains our lack of cooperation for groups that are not part of our in group. All I suggest is we use our built in moral sense and add reason into the mix. We have no way of knowing what the fabled prime moral mover might want of us. We can guess that our moral instincts are in line with what it wants - but we can't know that. We can know facts, deduce consequences of our actions and try to shape our acts towards good ends and encourage others to do likewise.God is a tool used to encourage others to act in a certain way, but it is a tool with negative consequences and I submit it is is one we can do away with now. Why would a moral prime mover allow thousands of years of immorality? Why would this moral prime mover start acting to improve human morality at exactly the same time that enlightenment principles took root in Europe?Do you explain the Dark Ages by means of this moral prime mover too? Slavery? Racism? These are the themes that have dominated human history. And these are the themes that are often coupled with fervent belief in divine moral authority! Most people throughout history would hold repugnant (to us) moral opinions. Clearly they didn't have a way of knowing about the moral prime mover because they interpreted it as something very different that the enlightened theists of today. Actually my point was the even if the prime mover actually exists, it is an irrelevant distraction. It tells us nothing about how we should live our lives, only that something else thinks we should live our lives in a certain unknown way.And even if a moral prime mover exists, belief in this can still lead to bad ideas being defended (to lethal levels) against all reason. I agree, they are getting less and less specific. More and more vague. Should the trend continue, they will be free of content and completely sidelined. And I contend the less things there are to divide us the better, and religion creates BIG and UNRESOLVABLE divisions. Which is precisely what I have not been doing. I have said time and again it would not be a perfect world. There would still be crime and war. We'd just have one less divisive force in the world, a divisive force that drives good people to do socially harmful things (such as the AIDS example mentioned above, abortion issues, homosexual rights, stem cell research, religiously based territorial disputes, etc)The real enemy is dogma. I would say any view dogmatically held is anathema to the Age of Reason which surely embraces the Principle of Fallibilism, and religion glorifies dogma.

So it seems pointless to propose a source of objective source of morality since we can never access it! We use our brains to make decisions about the collection of salient facts. For instance, we might try and establish when sufficient brain function exists so as to make decisions about abortion. So it sounds exactly as if you were behaving as if there was no objective moral source, and instead it boils down to subjective tastes. Why is proposing this objective prime moral mover useful in any way? Which is the system I'm proposing (along with trying to make it more objective by appealing to empirically established facts rather than trying to make it more objective by claiming it is the work of a prime moral mover) I didn't say it did mean that. I'm saying God is tool whose use has expired, regardless of whether it exists. That wasn't my point. My point was that when we relied almost entirely on a prime moral mover, an objective moral authority, our morality basically stagnated. I fail to see what pragmatic use doing so serves. As we started trying to develop moralities that didn't rely on prime moral authority, we call that period the enlightenment.But yes, it is a problem that you credit the moral prime mover for the good things but have issues when it comes to the bad things. My position accounts for both the good and the bad without any such problems - perhaps something to think about. So now you are saying that our moral instincts differ from the moral guidelines imposed by the prime mover? It seems there is no way to know what the moral prime mover wants since we cannot even consult our moral instincts according to you. What a mess! Well obviously there are points of agreement between the Abrahamic religions. They are Abrahamic! There are points of agreement with the various Ancient Egyptian religions too. How does this consillience help us determine how we should live our lives, exactly?

Well can we or not? If we can, how? Maybe, but that's just speculation. It is not known. You said: when it comes to morality there really is nothing we can know objectively. So what's the point of supposing an objective moral source if we can not access it (that is to say, we cannot know it objectively). If we can do the job without employing appeals to God (for instance by appealing to our 'little voice in our head' or some other method), if I can employ non-God methods for persuading others to act in the way I feel is right, then I know that God is a tool whose use has expired.If you can think of some role for which God is necessary in moral discourse, you have but to say what that role is. As a human being though, I do not to speculate as to God's motivations to make moral decisions. I can consult secular moral guidelines, and my own personal 'little voice' and try to navigate through to make my decision. OK, no God needed here. If religion was sidelined, you could still play this scenario in the exact same way. The root cause of that small voice is not important. It will still be there even if we didn't ascribe divine origins for it.And yes, it could potentially become louder by aligning to a prime moral mover, but since there is no way to know if you allegiance is accurately placed you may end up with a loud voice telling you to practice socially harmful morality. For instance, I'm sure the little voices in the heads of the 9/11 hijackers was very loud telling them they should strike against the Great Satan or whatever and become martyrs. But that point of agreement is more or less in line with secular moralities too. So no prime mover is required, and if religion was sidelined we'd still have the Golden Rule.

This of course has its own set of problems: If you end up making a harmful moral decision, you could carry it out with with a zeal that is disproportionate to how confident you should be. This can lead to good people doing bad things, with a sense of clarity that can be delusional.I say that with this lack of discernment, clarity or confidence, comes moral humility which in turn leads us to be more open to new moral arguments.In the age of reason, morality will still work. We'll still have our moral instincts, we'll still have little voices in our heads. But we won't interfere with the lives of others based on a confidence borne out of appeals to prime moral movers who we can never be sure we have correctly understood (since it largely amounts to listening to the voices in your head and picking out the ones that we already feel are the 'good' ones).I originally came to answer questions like this: And the answer I think is clear. Because we want to, because we are empathic and social creatures, because that is how we are raised and it is a fundamental part of our psychological make up (genetics and environment combining). You implied that with no moral prime mover we'd just as well devolve into a might makes right society, and I reply that even believing in a prime moral mover does not avoid the might makes right state of affairs when resources come under dispute between groups.I think I have successfully argued against that position, since now you agree that we have moral instincts, little voices in our heads, the capacity to meditate and contemplate etc, and they would still be there even if religion was sidelined.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Wrong? Not necessarily. Potentially hazardous given the false sense of confidence that divine theory gives? Yes. I think you are doing yourself a disservice if you think that you require a Christian moral framework to be a more moral person. There are plenty of people that have committed monstrous acts, because of their Christian beliefs. I'm not suggesting you are one of them. However, the reason you are not one of those people is not because of your Christian beliefs it is because you are actually a moral person. You therefore cherry pick the good, or at least acceptable moral guidelines from the Bible and you call that 'Christianity'.The danger comes when a person misidentifies the moral teachings of the Bible and, with great confidence, commits horrific acts. We shouldn't suffer a witch to live? That justifies some murder right there, for example.

Well no, in the Age of Reason religious notions of morality have been sidelined, by definition. There is no need to police it. Right, everyone has their methodology of interpreting the bible. That methodology amounts to cherry picking. You use a methodology of interpretation that you feel makes the bible a sufficient guide to moral behaviour. But you are judging the goodness of this moral system using your own moral sense. You reject other methods of interpretations based on your own judgement of the problems they raise. Of course, deciding that God is real may provide suitable motivation to start following the dictums of your moral sense where you had previously been more selfish. In the Age of Reason we'd try to foster an environment so that people will be motivated follow their in built capacity for moral behaviour without needing to use the sidelined carrot and stick of religion - even if you want to argue its a particularly good carrot and stick. I'm saying it is possible to do it in other ways that don't require using that particular tool, and in the Age of Reason we would of course have to use those other methods.

But that doesn't mean that it's the only way it can happen. Maybe persuasion by appeal to self-interest, maybe an appeal to group interests, maybe people will just be persuaded rationally. Yes, yes, everyone says something along those lines to justify why their interpretation is the better one. Nobody is suggesting we boycott morale ideas just because one religion or another had them too. Obviously we'd have done away with the God parts. But the love each other bit? Sure, why remove that line of thought just because some people who believed in God also believed in said line of thought? That just wouldn't be reasonable. No.Matthew 6 (NIV) Your father rewards you for your righteousness, UNLESS you parade it in front of others. You do charity in secret and thus receive a reward from your Father.That's the carrot. I think the stick is well known, enough.

If you were following along with Straggler and I, you'd realize we were both skeptical that such a thing is going to happen any time soon. Humans are still too attached to their superstitions. As someone that rejects absolute morality, I reject this characterisation that I'm uncomfortable without absolute knowledge. My point was that everybody interprets the Bible to be inline with their own personal in built (and learned) moral system. My point was not that we should therefore reject the whole thing.My point is that we don't need the Bible to make moral judgements since we can morally judge the Bible. Morality is about what we do. And what we do is about who we are. It's not a question of trying to sideline religion, the point is that religion would be sidelined in an Age of Reason. In an age where we are trying to promote theism based on these principles, we'd call it the age of...now.