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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2012 : 07:26:35 [Permalink]
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I just read someone talking about how for a person to act morally, s/he must engage moral reasoning and make moral judgments. Trying to follow a set of rules (like those typically laid out by religions) is thus not acting morally, but is instead merely obedience. Therefore in this view, OFfC, religions don't have any moral standards, either.
And this will make me rethink at least the language of my goals-and-rules view of morality. I don't know that it will do more than that, since the "rules" part has always been necessarily flexible and subject to the context in which one finds oneself, so they're not so much rules as they are the conclusions of the reasoning one must do between deciding upon a goal and determining the best action(s) to take to get to that goal. Does the word used really matter? |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
 Posted - 09/18/2012 : 08:03:03 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
I just read someone talking about how for a person to act morally, s/he must engage moral reasoning and make moral judgments. Trying to follow a set of rules (like those typically laid out by religions) is thus not acting morally, but is instead merely obedience. Therefore in this view, OFfC, religions don't have any moral standards, either. |
Yeah not really sure what to say about that. Human beings are subject to a lot of rationalization of immoral acts, self deceit and bias. One person acting morally by this definition may be seen by every other person on the planet to be immoral. Can morality be purely subjective.
A thought experiment may be to imagine a world with no religion. How would laws or ethics be determined beyond the personal level? If we follow the reasoning that most people's morality is driven by personal goals, it implies, at least to me, that any consensus would favour people with similar goals, and not favour minorities.
I'm not going anywhere with this. It's just a stream of conciousness.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2012 : 09:28:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
A thought experiment may be to imagine a world with no religion. How would laws or ethics be determined beyond the personal level? If we follow the reasoning that most people's morality is driven by personal goals, it implies, at least to me, that any consensus would favour people with similar goals, and not favour minorities. |
Laws are already created without regard to religion. How is it done? It's done by people talking to each other and trying to decide what is best for their community/town/city/county/state/nation/world. It's not always easy, and they don't always get it right, but lacking the dogma of religion, they are more free to experiment and/or fix mistakes.
If the people making these decisions care about not stomping on the rights of minorities, then the policies and laws they craft will reflect that. The U.S. Constitution, for example, includes a judiciary whose job it is to see that the rights of individuals (the smallest of minorities) are protected from whimsical power abuses by the mob. The creators of the Constitution wrote volumes about the reasoning behind each and every sentence, and religion played no part in it. Even the First Amendment is about individual rights, and not religion per se.
One thing that occurs to people who ground their morality in empathy is that if they adopt draconian policies, they might be the next ones up against the wall. Those Baptists who advocate for, say, state-mandated religious instruction may be mighty disappointed when Catholics get voted into control of the curricula. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2012 : 09:49:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by wantfreethinking
Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Usually examples given by atheists of moral behaviour are ones which everyone can agree are "good", charity for example. But this is cheating, they are taking concepts that religious people are taught are good and moral, then using this baseline as a yard stick against their own behaviour because there is no universal moral code and they have never defined one of their own. Even when they try not to they are taking their moral framework from religion.
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Consider the possibility that moral behavior, in general, is the result of secular understandings of right and wrong. Any resemblance to religious teachings could be due to the fact that religion is the product of man. Few people would suggest God actually wrote the Bible. It was written by men. These men were fully aware of the social constructs that made up society. These social constructs provided for a legal and moral foundation for every member of society to follow.
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mickeyd
New Member
1 Post |
Posted - 09/27/2012 : 14:55:21 [Permalink]
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Hi all,
I haven't read through all this topic, but is everyone agreed that morality objectively exists? -
"...the systematic disregard of all “moral” arguments would only be possible to one who frankly takes the line that there are no moral facts, that is, that right and wrong are pure illusions; there are no such differences in de rerum natura. But even those who in theory profess to hold this view always reveal to a little inspection that, being human, they do not really mean what they say. The denial that our accepted moral distinctions have any “objective validity” is alleged as a reason why we ought to be tolerant of violation of the current moral code. I am told that I ought to make no complaint of a wife’s infidelity because it is a baseless “superstition” to fancy that adultery – or anything else – is wrong; so because nothing whatever is wrong, therefore something – my moral disapproval of adultery, or untruthfulness, or ingratitude – is wrong. On the face of it this is self-contradictory – the man who says it really believes all the time in the existence of the distinction between right and wrong. Where he differs from the rest of us is only in holding that we put many things which are right in the class of wrong things, and put the thing he regards as particularly wrong – moral disapproval of conduct which he himself thinks is right – in the class of right things. On his own showing there is at least one genuine moral fact, the fact that “intolerance” is wrong...it would be no real reply to say that...the immoralist who calls intolerance wrong might conceivably only mean that it is a thing which he personally dislikes...if he means no more than this, it is ridiculous in him to call on the rest of us to agree with him that it is wrong, that is, that we also dislike it. It will always be a complete answer to him to say “but I like intolerance quite well, and de gustibus non est disputandum [tastes are not disputable].” Taylor, A.E., Does God Exist? (issued in Fontana Books, 1961; originally MacMillan, 1945) pp97-8 |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2012 : 16:05:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by mickeyd
Hi all,
I haven't read through all this topic, but is everyone agreed that morality objectively exists? - |
No... |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2012 : 19:10:45 [Permalink]
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Originally quoted by mickeyd
I am told that I ought to make no complaint of a wife’s infidelity because it is a baseless “superstition” to fancy that adultery – or anything else – is wrong... |
Sounds like Taylor was arguing against Aleister Crowley, who was indeed self-contradictory in his remarks about ethics.
But, morality "objectively exists" the same way that other abstract concepts do, like love and honor. People experience these things and recognize them (or the lack thereof) in others. But saying that they exist in this way does nothing to demonstrate that there are any universal moral truths (like, "____ is wrong under all possible conditions"). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2012 : 05:57:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally quoted by mickeyd
I am told that I ought to make no complaint of a wife’s infidelity because it is a baseless “superstition” to fancy that adultery – or anything else – is wrong... |
Sounds like Taylor was arguing against Aleister Crowley, who was indeed self-contradictory in his remarks about ethics.
But, morality "objectively exists" the same way that other abstract concepts do, like love and honor. People experience these things and recognize them (or the lack thereof) in others. But saying that they exist in this way does nothing to demonstrate that there are any universal moral truths (like, "____ is wrong under all possible conditions").
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Crowley did get himself thrown out of the burgeoning Wiccan religion. He misinterpreted the Wiccan (then OTO) Rede to fit his mysogny. Hence why the movement expelled him.
I have always considered slightly different definitions for morals and ethics.
Morals - a set of behaviors that one expects others to adhere to but not necessarily oneself.
Ethics - a set of behaviors that one expects oneself to adhere to but not necessarily others.
The concept of morality exists, but what behaviors constitute morality vary from person to person and from society to society. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
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What would you say to this argument about atheists
