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The most common and annoying error I see when people talk about objective morality versus subjective morality is the bald assumption of “objective” in front of the word. Presumably the very topic at hand is to resolve or at least illuminate the differences between these two,distinct ideas of morality. By assuming “objective” in front of “morality”, a classic logical fallacy has been committed.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: morality, Thought of the day | Leave a comment »
There exists this popular argument about morality that I just detest. It goes like this: If morality is to exist at all, it must be objective. The reason this is complete junk is that it assumes morality is objective in the first place. In fact, just add “objective” in front of “morality” and absolutely nothing changes about the point – the tautological flaw just becomes more obvious.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: morality, Thought of the day | 1 Comment »
This is the third installment of the 2010 review of FTSOS. See the first two here and here.
July:
Some of the smaller posts I’ve made that I think deserve a little more attention are the ones where I emphasize that biology is all about shape. The article I wrote about the fight against HIV is one of those posts. Research earlier this year found at least one location on HIV molecules that remains a consistent shape between individual viruses. This is important because HIV’s ability to be differently shaped in different parts of a single body makes it difficult to combat.
I also wrote about the difference between atheists, new atheists, and anti-theists. One of the public relation problems for atheism is that it is viewed as a dirty word. People assume it means absolute certainty, and that is seen as arrogant. It’s ironic because belief in God usually comes with certainty and that isn’t seen as being so arrogant, but I digress. Atheism is not certainty. Furthermore, where it is involved in new atheism and anti-theism, atheism acts as a descriptive base; new atheism and anti-theism are normative positions.
One of my all-time favorite posts is the one about photolyase and cancer. Photolyase is a protein that captures light and uses two of its constituents (a single proton and single electron) to force contorted nucleotides back into place. It is not present in humans, but is common in plants and other animals, helping to keep their genes functioning properly. This may be one reason we’re more susceptible to cancer than many of our fellow organisms.
August:
This was a skimpy month for FTSOS. I was away on a couple vacations for the bulk of the month, so the majority of the posts were either from my “Thought of the day” series or they were pictures/YouTube videos. But for what was there, I couldn’t resist pointing out and expanding on a fantastic quote from the judge who said Prop 8 in California is unconstitutional. In his quote he said a ban on gays getting married fails to advance any rational cause. I compared that sentiment to the idea that the majority cannot be allowed to discriminate simply because it is the majority.
I also made a post about a website devoted to philosophical thought experiments. The thought experiment I chose to highlight was Judith Jarvis Thompson’s Trolley Problem. My big motivator was a recent discussion with another blogger who laughably claimed that the trolley experiment was merely a logistical exercise, not an exercise about morality. To date he is still the only person in the world to believe that.
I also went through a few theistic arguments that are obviously failures. The most notable in my mind is the argument that says everything has a cause, therefore the Universe had a cause. There are two major problems with this. First, then why not just say a sort of ‘exo-nature’ caused the Universe? There is no need for consciousness – in fact, that only makes the theistic argument less probable. Second, the whole basis for this argument rests in the idea that forces result in reactions. For instance, if I push a chair, that chair moves; I applied a force. This is basic physics. But the whole shebang of forces and equal and opposite reactions? We’re talking about the science of what we know that happens within the Universe. And all we know necessarily breaks down prior to the Big Bang. The First Cause argument cannot be used because it rests about an unwarranted extension of science. Religion abusing science? Crazy, I know.
September:
The beginning of September was just as skimpy as the end of August because I was still on vacation. But while I never gave a huge post on the subject, the defining moment of the month (and year and decade and…) for me was my hike of Kilimanjaro. I have started writing about it at this point – just not for FTSOS. But in lieu of that you can read the account of the journey from my fellow group member and current Facebook buddy Jim Hodgson.
I also gave a very lengthy post on why prostitution ought to be legal. No one seemed to care, but I put a lot of effort into, so I thought I would mention it here. Basically, we make the practice illegal because of our own discomfort with sex as a society. We also draw false correlations between it and other illegal activities: of course one illegal thing will bring with it other illegal things if it’s something people want. Finally, for the safety and health of all involved, it would be better to legalize and regulate prostitution than keep the old system we have now.
One of the most popular posts on FTSOS that people found via search engines was the one where I lamented low science and math scores in the United States. A lack of funding relative to other areas, hostility towards science, and a general anti-intellectual trend in the U.S. all contribute to the decline of America on the world stage in education.
Another lament was my post about the anti-vax crowd causing deaths. The fact is, people who advocate against vaccines or for made-up alternatives to vaccines are making the world a more dangerous place, making people sick and even causing deaths. Get vaccinated – and, if you have them, especially get your children vaccinated.
Once again I really want to highlight a fourth post here. In this case, it is the one I made about the Problem of Evil. This has forever been an issue that no Christian (or other relevant believer) has been able to resolve. If God is good and evil exists, then we need to answer why. Appealing to free will fails because while God is necessarily good, free will does not need to necessarily exist. In other words, God is required to be good; he is not required to create free will.
Expect October to December tomorrow.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: 48th, Anti-theism, Anti-theists, Anti-vaccine, atheism, atheists, Big Bang, cancer, Electron, First cause argument, Forces, FTSOS in review, gay marriage, HIV, Jack Hudson, Judge Walker, Judith Jarvis Thompson, Light, Logistics, morality, New Atheism, New Atheists, Photolyase, Photon, Problem of Evil, Prop 8, Prostitution, Shape, The Trolley Problem, Thought Experiment, U.S. math and science education | Leave a comment »
This is an extension of a previous post. Both that post and this post are influenced by common arguments I’ve heard from theists who just have no clue about how to stay on topic or, perhaps, just don’t want to stay on topic. It’s easier to engage this same point (which I will post in a moment) over and over – and then ignore the given answers – than to engage more difficult points. William Dembski is guilty of that recently, providing me the final impetus for this post. So here it is:
A = Atheist
T = Theist
Atheist: So yeah, I guess to summarize, I disagree with your position on how we should approach North Korea over the next year.
Theist: Yeah, well, why does your opinion matter?
A: Huh? Well, I suppose I’ve become fairly informed on the issues and I think…
T: No, no. You’re an atheist. You have no basis for morality. So why is your opinion good?
A: That’s really a red herring. We’re discussing North Korea (our allies according to Sarah Palin).
T: Stop dodging my question.
A: So you want to change the subject?
T: You aren’t answering me!
A: Okay, I’ll just pretend like you acknowledged that you want to change the topic rather than continue to discuss North Korea. So why is my opinion good? It depends on how we want to define “good” and then it depends on how my opinion comports with that definition.
T: So how do we define good?
A: We are a social animal that has evolved a general concern for ourselves and for other members of our population, “population” initially being defined as the small group in which we lived. As with every other social animal, we developed rules for interactions. This served and serves to better the health of the group. It’s important to note that this group betterment is ultimately being done for the sake of the individual gene, but I digress.
T: So then we should all individually just do whatever it takes to survive? Then why shouldn’t I just kill you if you’re standing in my way to a better job or position in life?
A: …uh, no. No. What I’ve given you is a description of reality based upon scientific observation. Do you know the difference between a descriptive position and a normative one?
T: No.
A: Right, then. You ought to know that since you aren’t 14, but briefly: A descriptive position describes something and is not a claim of value. A normative position is a value position that says how something should or should not be.
T: I still don’t get it.
A: You should. But let’s move on.
T: Okay, so why shouldn’t I kill you if you’re in the way of that sweet new job?
A: That we evolved to best survive in a particular environment does not dictate how we ought to act now. Besides that, even if our past evolution did say how we should presently act, it would not follow that we should kill each other. We’re a social animal. Killing each other probably wouldn’t help us out individually (or as a group) in the long run.
T: So if we shouldn’t act based upon our previous evolution, then what should our basis for what is good and bad be?
A: I probably can’t give you a satisfactory answer. In fact, most of your fellow Christians will disagree with you on some points concerning what is good and what is bad, but I digress. My basis is rationality. I cannot rationally justify hurting someone in any way unless I say they can do the same to me under the same circumstances. Often I don’t want to face pain – nor do I want that for the ones I care about and love.
T: So what stops you from acting irrationally?
A: Love, empathy, self-interest, sympathy, culture, social pressures, norms, dominant values that surround me, my upbringing, assumptions, passion for science, etc. Irrationality conflicts with my personal identity. Fortunately, it also conflicts with the personal identity of many of my fellow humans.
T: Then there is no ultimate right or wrong.
A: You’re right. We have to define these terms with practical and operational considerations. If we want to say anything and everything is right (or wrong), then we’re likely to undermine our own interests (interests which may directly be our own or which may be reflections of the interests of those we care about and love).
T: So my opinion on North Korea has a basis for ultimately being right and yours does not.
A: In theory, yes. Unfortunately for you, the important question here is, ‘Is it true?’ Is it true that we have accurate information from your basis? Is it true that your basis isn’t arbitrary and capricious? Is it true that your basis even exists? In reality, you have a claim to an ultimate basis, but credible evidence has yet to be given for that ultimate basis. All you’ve done is based your opinions off the same sort of things I previously listed as my own basis, perhaps minus the rationality. Furthermore, without any valid, self-correcting method for determining what is true in religion, you only have personal, often anecdotal, and usually subjective interpretations of any given evidence. This makes your conclusions just as ultimately subjective as anyone else’s but with the key difference that many other conclusions – namely scientific ones – have a superior empirical basis. We can say those conclusions are objective within a given framework of reality, a framework most everyone except the most pedantic amateur philosopher accepts. We cannot say the same of yours.
Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: morality, Objective morality, Red herring theist, Subjective morality, William Dembski | Leave a comment »
One of the most common theist tricks to avoiding actual discussion on whether something is right or wrong – sometimes even when the topic isn’t even religious in nature – is just to appeal to the notion that they have an objective basis for morality whereas an atheist does not. There are a couple of problems with this. First, it’s a red herring. Learn some basic fucking logic. Second, just because the theist claims to have an objective basis does not mean he does have one. In fact, he’s just assuming his position is correct. If we’re going to let the theist get away with arguing fallacies, then we may as well point out that he has never shown his view to be right. What he needs is evidence, not only for a deity, but for his specific, cultural choice of a deity. No one has provided that to date. Third, the important issue in this red herring isn’t whether or not someone believes in an objective basis for morality, but rather, Is it true? Is it true that there is an objective basis to be had? The answer, of course, is no. The basis we always use is operational; we are a social animal (and it’s important to remember that we are not somehow magically separate from other animals) and we have a basis for acting which is being applied in a modern world but that was evolved for the African jungles and plains, places with animals far more toothier than we were or are.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: morality, Thought of the day | Leave a comment »
At least that’s what Jack Hudson has finally admitted.
All morality starts with a set of facts about the world one believes to be true.
Surely, being a creationist, Jack is attempting to make a false equivalence between his faith and the objective determination of what is known to be true via science, but let’s ignore that old rhetoric. He has actually acknowledged (even though he probably still doesn’t get it) that morality is derived from internal perceptions of the world, predicated on the notion that internal consistency is worthwhile. That’s one reason religion remains so strong: it often is not internally consistent, but it is consistent over large spans of time (until secular morality takes over, such as when slavery was rebuked throughout various times and places in history). This consistency is a viable substitute for reasoned consistency, something to which secular ethical theories lay primary claim.
Filed under: Creationism, Religions | Tagged: Jack Hudson, morality | 1 Comment »
A bit of a firestorm has broken out on FTSOS’ fan page (or is it a “Like Page”? Silly Facebook). A number of claims have been made which deserve a response (if only because I initiated the discussion), but since the comment system on Facebook is inadequate, an entire blog post is necessary. Besides, a number of logical mistakes have been made in the discussion which are all too common among theists.
To give some context, this is the line which started it all (minus an apparent typo).
This is worth repeating, too: atheism has never been responsible for an act of evil. Ever.
The first substantial criticism was one that amounted to little more than semantics.
Of course those are not examples of atheism being responsible for acts of evil. No more than Christianity is responsible for the crusades or Islam is responsible for suicide bombings. People are responsible for these things.
This person was likely trying to excuse ideas as having any sort of responsibility, and strictly speaking, I suppose that’s true. An idea is powerless without a conscious act or consciousness behind it. But I think it’s also obvious that ideas influence, inspire, and drive people. No one ignores Islam as a major component in 9/11 or the abuse of women in places like Saudi Arabia.
It’s inappropriate – and plainly wrong – to try and separate people from ideas. If we aren’t a composition of ideas and memes, what are we? The vast majority of the people – especially the religious – don’t want to say humans are merely their genes, but that’s the alternative to excusing all manner of ideas in order to create this inane wall where no ideology or systematic pattern of thought bears any responsibility. Just ask: if people are responsible for all actions, not ideas, then what causes people to act?
Of course, some people do get it.
The difference is that atheism is NOT an ideology. Atheism has no moral grounds, no rules, no dogma, no tenets. Nothing can be caused by atheism because there is nothing within atheism TO cause anything. Atheists come from all walks of life, there is not one type of atheist, which (sic) one set of beliefs.
This is precisely correct. Atheism is a descriptive, not a normative claim. The same goes for agnosticism and pure deism. There are no values which come with the claims themselves. People can and do build values around particular claims, but the claims themselves remain merely descriptive.
The next one goes a little off-topic, but still deserves a response.
This is worth repeating. Ideologies are not responsible for acts of evil. Only people are.
And also, for one to call something evil, one must have an objective moral standard.
An atheist has no objective standard with which to back up his rants against “evil” because for the atheist objective evil does not exist. He is full of contradictions.
Again, if ideologies are not responsible (and again, in the semantic sense of being a primary inspiration or drive), then how are people responsible? Are we genetically driven towards action? If so, we aren’t really all that responsible. Do all humans have an equal set of facts on which they act? Or, to bend over backwards, do humans only act on facts, whether real or perceived? If that was true, then ideological actions would become less consistent: the Republicans wouldn’t compose a solid block of doing nothing because plenty of facts fall far outside their current ideology (and the same goes for Democrats or any political party).
As for calling something evil, no objective standard is necessary. This whole line of argument obviously assumes that morality is an objective endeavor. The whole thing just pigeon holes all moral cases to needing a god. Ironically, even those who claim to have an objective source for morality often call things evil even when their source is silent.
Looking back through all the ethical philosophers, it becomes obvious that very few who weren’t also theologians (and really, are theologians even philosophers?) bothered with claims of needing an objective source. Those espousing utilitarianism, libertarianism, and even natural law theory often ignored the use of any gods in their systems. They came up with a basis – the good is pleasure/reduction of pain, the good is liberty, the good is what is natural, etc – and developed systems of thought from there. These systems of thoughts, in turn, influenced their actions as well as the actions of those who agreed/agree with them. That’s what ideologies, ideas, and systems do. The modern day teabaggers, while extremely inconsistent with their ideology, are generally moved to action by libertarian ideas. Of course, since they’re inconsistent (and they don’t really know it), they strictly apply their ideology in a way that will garner them more personal wealth. But regardless of this inability to recognize their own internal philosophical flaws, they are loosely driven by libertarianism because ideas are what bring people to action.
This next one is a response to the claim that atheism is not a philosophy or world view.
Let’s put your grammatical error aside for one moment and look at this statement with the help of my old friend Althusser. Althusser is a great guy when it comes to Ideologies. He states that we are interpellated into an ideology by our reject of other ideologies. For example: I do not believe in God, I am NOT a theist/deist. Therefore I am an Atheism (sic). Please note, this is not referring to me. I am certainly not an Atheist, but a trainee Priest instead. And, my dears, Atheism is as much a world view as anything else. It influence the way you VIEW the WORLD. Therefore, world view.
(Link added by me.)
The fact that volcanoes and Earthquakes happen also influence the way I view the world. Poverty and wealth hold influence, too. Oh, and the existence of such varied landscapes as the deserts of Utah and the mountains of Maine influence my world view. That doesn’t mean any of those constitute world views per se. They are not ideologies or even ideas. It takes more than something to merely be a fact (or perceived fact) in order for it to be a world view.
And finally, this old canard had to be trotted out.
PS. You call De/Theists ‘predictable’ for using Stalin/Mao/Hitler/etc as examples of ‘Atheist Evil’, yet spew out The Inquisition/Crusades/Salem Witch Trials as your examples for the counter-argument. Are you familiar with the notion of the pot calling the kettle black?
First, whether or not Hitler was an atheist is dubious at best. As late as 1941 he was saying he would always be a Catholic. Second, Stalin and Mao never acted out of some sort of atheistic inspiration. They couldn’t have. The idea is as absurd as saying someone acted out of deistic inspiration. How? How can descriptive claims also be normative claims? What would that look like:
“The fact that there is some sort of creator has told me to do X, Y, and Z. Just ignore for a moment the fact that my belief inherently tells me nothing about the characteristics or traits of this creator, thereby giving me no normative information.”
Or agnosticism.
“The fact that I don’t know has told me to do X, Y, and Z. Just ignore for a moment the fact that a lack of clarity doesn’t tell me how to act.”
Or atheism.
“The fact that there is no god has told me to do X, Y, and Z. Just ignore for a moment the fact that my belief is not an ethical system, makes no normative claims, and doesn’t inform me of any sort of morality.
The fact is that religion was what inspired the Inquisition, Crusades, and witch trials. It is the inspiration for the great tragedies, like the anti-science movement that has existed for so many thousands of years, to the more benign such as the Blue Laws many states still hold. Religion is a divisive ideology which drives people to act and behave in particular ways.
Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Misc | Tagged: atheism, morality, Objective evil, religion | 6 Comments »
Is it possible for a believer in objective evil to determine what actually is evil without either invoking his god (or claimed objective standard) or undermining his entire position?
For the sake of expediency, “God”, here, can refer to any deity of a belief structure which is viewed as creating some ultimate standard for evil. This includes polytheistic belief structures in many cases. “Evil” can usually be read to include both good and evil.
Here’s the common stance: In order to determine what is ultimately right or wrong, one must make an appeal to a source which has final standing. Without such an appeal, right or wrong has no universal meaning, only local meaning, and that is ultimately meaningless. (On an aside, that only addresses the value of local meaning on a universal scale – something obviously addressed simply in terminology. It says nothing of the local value of local meaning.)
With this stance comes some questions. If that ultimate source is necessary for ultimate right or wrong (and exists), how can one know what he/she/it has to say on any given human moral affair? Is it possible for one to have access to all this source has to say? Are humans limited in access?
The common answer to the first question comes in the form of holy texts. The Torah, Bible, and Koran are “the big three”. They give specific decrees on things that are right and wrong while claiming to be from God. In them murder is universally wrong. Theft, sex before marriage, dishonoring one’s parents. All, and many more, are described throughout these books. They and other holy texts act as the most direct source to knowing what is right or wrong as declared by an ultimate source.
The second question is where moral claims by believers run into trouble. Is it possible to have access to all an ultimate source has to say by virtue of holy texts? Obviously not. It isn’t possible for all moral situations and conundrums to be addressed via individual books. More directly, not all such instances are actually addressed.
So does this limit human access to this ultimate information? If holy texts account for the only manner by which one can attain such knowledge, then yes. If there are alternative routes, then those must by explored. Meditation, inference, and prayer offer the most promising paths. But first it is necessary to tie everything together.
The accuracy of any declaration on right or wrong is called into question in any holy text since they are all written by fallible human beings. This must be acknowledged for the sake of truth-seeking. However, for the sake of argumentation, it will be necessary to side-step the issue. Instead, the focus must go on to the second question. The possibility of having access to everything God has to say is nil if holy texts are the only source. What this importantly means is that if a moral issue arises which is not addressed within any holy text, then it is not possible for a believer to make an objective stance. One topical issue can be grabbed from the headlines to make the point.
Abortion is not addressed in any of the big three holy texts. Vague passages can be interpreted as such (much like Dr. Seuss’ “Horton Hears a Who” has been abused), but nothing is ever really said. This means that if a believer is to make a claim that abortion is objectively evil (remember, or good) here, he has no ground on which to stand. At least he has no ground by his own position that objective evil must come from an objective source. By chance he may be right that his objective source believes abortion is evil (he has a 50/50 shot, afterall), but his determination is based upon some other source. What that source may be or is bears no importance here. It is enough to say that it is emphatically not God.
For the further sake of expediency, it should be readily pointed out that even should abortion prove to be the wrong example for this exercise (though it isn’t), then others abound. Is capitalism evil? Communism? Social security? Even wearing mismatched socks? No holy text says anything of these issues or a number of others.
Back to the third question, human access may not be limited to just holy texts if meditation, inference, and prayer are options. These all fail, however. Should meditation and prayer reveal any information on a moral question, they are not valid beyond the targeted person. While it is possible that God revealed that something is objectively evil to a particular person, that largely argues for a local meaning. That is, Susie may know that it is objectively evil to spin in circles after sunset because God told her, but that information is entirely reliant upon Susie – the standard can only be determined to be subjective (even if it really is objective). As for inference, that can only be done using holy texts or prayer in the first place. So let us not forget the very first question: is it possible to determine what is objectively evil without invoking God. Susie may have an alternative source, but it is still God. She may be able to infer from what God has revealed, but she still must invoke his existence.
So what if a believer says “X is objectively evil” but has no holy text or revelation to back up such a claim? That is, there is no source which says “This is what God says about this issue” and there is no source which could directly indicate what God says. How can the believer then say something is objectively evil? This necessarily undermines his entire premise. If something can be determined to be objectively evil without first invoking God, then there is some other method by which the believer is making his statement. He obviously cannot logically maintain saying he knows objective standards exist because God exists and God exists because objective standards exist.
In short, no, a believer cannot “determine what actually is evil without either invoking his god (or claimed objective standard) or undermining his entire position”. He must invoke his god or undermine his whole argument. As has been demonstrated, he must cite his god (or objective standard). He often cannot do that. In those situations if he then says he has determined that something is objectively evil anyway, he is either wrong or he has admitted that his objective standard is not actually necessary for purposes here.
On a final note (one for clarification), this argument can be applied to any declaration on evil by a believer in objective standards. If it is necessary for objectiveness to exist in order for evil to exist, then the position is still undermined whenever a believer declares something evil without any sort of source beyond himself. The argument is precisely the same, but the terms are clarified: “evil” always means “objective evil” in the given context.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: morality, Objective morality | 38 Comments »
The idea that morality from God is morality at all is rather absurd. Should one devote a moment of thought to the matter, it quickly becomes obvious that behaving a certain way because some entity said to do so is entirely devoid of any concern for humanity. That concern may be there as a supplement, but it is not the cause for any action. (In reality it is, but the Moral Majority likes to pretend they’re doing it all for God, not out of some more substantial source of morality.)
Before going on, however, there is one idea that needs to be done away with here. It’s this notion that morality must be objective in order to be morality. This entirely false. There is nothing which inherently demands that morality be ultimately objective in order to exist (well, except for that pesky Moral Majority – but their demands are subjective opinions, so scoff).
Morality derived from religion is merely morality as dictated by men (and only men) of the past. That’s it. But let’s suppose it actually means something. Let’s suppose that an all-powerful god really has told humanity what is right and wrong. What stops God from suddenly changing the rules? If God decrees that rape and murder are totally awesome things, then so it is. The characteristic of being all-powerful demands it. But how many people would readily accept such things? Far from being meaningful, this pernicious idea of ‘objective’ morality has no viscosity; it is allowed to flow and move. More importantly, it allows for no input from any human.
A subjective morality – the only tenable morality – is in the hands of humanity. The closest thing it can have to an objective basis is that of reality. Our morality may move and change with the facts and evidence, but we can go beyond such temporal constrictions and base it on universal principles. Most of mankind once believed that it was okay to enslave certain people because they demonstrated some characteristic or (more often) trait which made them inherently lesser. With the advance of science (and to the chagrin of religion), it has been empirically determined that there is no such inherent lessening property. People of different races are not fundamentally different. In fact, the Human Genome Project taught us that people of the same race can be more genetically diverse than people of different races. (Of course, there was good evidence long before that to help us determine the sameness between and among races and groups.)
The universal principle by which we live in regards to slavery is that it is wrong to make humans do work against their will without just compensation. (A child being forced to eat his peas, for instance, would be given just compensation in the form of health.) We derive this principle partially out of empathy. What if it was me who was enslaved?. Importantly, this is far from simply being a selfish desire. Instead, it is that if we allow some humans to be enslaved, we allow ourselves to be enslaved, and this undermines the goal of doing anything productive, something for which we all strive on some level.
This, of course, raises the issue of why it is good to be productive. (The term does not refer to a particular level of productivity, but rather taking in more energy than is released overall, i.e., living.) Again, the question regresses to yet another question because the answer is that most humans want to live. Why is it good to live?
The answer here is that it isn’t good or bad to live. Living is something which simply is. Our desire to do it (which, incidentally, we could call objective in at least one sense) is powerful. We want life, whether good or bad. That is universal to us as a species. This is ultimately our source of morality, and in several senses. First, our desire to live is borne of the very fact that we are alive: we are here because we are descended from a long line of ancestors who shared the exact same desires. Second, it is agreed upon by humanists, atheists, secularists, Buddhists, theists, and philosophers that in order to call something moral, it must have some sort of basis. “It is wrong to enslave” has its basis in the principle described above. “It is good to live” has its basis in our inherited desires. Every other normative claim can have its basis ultimately boiled down to that phrase (which itself, again, has a basis).
The most glaring flaw in the above paragraph (had I not a response to it) would be that we have desires to do a lot of things, but that doesn’t make anything right or wrong. Agreed. However, those desires are not universal to us as a species. The ones which are universal all come down to living (such as eating). Furthermore, it is necessarily true that the only ultimate desire we can ever maintain is the desire to live. By virtue of being alive we inherit this desire.
What, though, of the minority who doesn’t wish to be alive? What of the Alan Turing’s, Budd Dwyer’s, and Kurt Cobain’s of the world? These cases can always be boiled down to environmental factors, not inherent desires. Turing faced chemical castration and a heap of undue scorn for who he was; Dwyer had been criminally indicted and faced serious jail time and ruination of his career; Cobain was heavily depressed and a drug addict.
But rather than all this, perhaps a more salient point on this matter would be that humans inherently have moral systems. With what we fill those systems may be subjective, but this still goes to an earlier point: morality need not be objective to exist. It is with our familial and personal desires, universal principles and philosophies, experiences and empathy that we create our morality. Ultimately, the vast majority of humans come to a consensus on at least one basis: it is good to live. We need not go further to continue to find middle ground. If we agree on an underlying principle, and if all which follows in our discussions is based upon that agreement, then it is meaningless to then say that we disagree on some other principle.
Finally I turn my attention to an oft-ignored idea. What is the point of morality? It certainly isn’t to demonstrate that one can act according to some objective idea. This goes to the first point that acting without concern toward humanity is not morality at all. Indeed, instead of morality being inherently defined as something objective (which is a notion taken for granted by so many), it is rather defined as something which is a human concern. Go beyond humanity and you’ve gone beyond morality. This, fundamentally, is what morality is all about. Our systems of morality are inherent in all of us and the reason is their utter usefulness. We need and want them in better utilizing our role as individual members of humanity.
Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: morality | 5 Comments »
I see no reasoning given as to why good and evil ultimately being subjective also automatically makes them meaningless. The only argument ever put forth is that subjective morality = meaningless. That’s a bad equation.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: morality, Thought of the day | 4 Comments »
For the Sake of Science 