Do atheists believe in objective morality?

[Maxwell511]

I think that all "ought" statements can be reduced to "is" statements therefore I think all moral statements are either objective statements or erroneous attempts to form objective statements.

 

[Maxwell511]

I see all moral statements as statements of like and dislike. The sentence "Murder is wrong." is actually "I don't like murder.". Any statement of this type is inherently subjective. Therefore, I think all moral statements are subjective.

A statement like "I don't like murder" can be an objectively verfiable statement. We can submit a person to several tests, such as fmri's, to test this. It is an objective statement about the Self, in the same manner that Maxwell's second equation is an objective statement about magnetic fields.

Trying to attach objectivity to moral statements results in an endless series of "why" questions:

Trying to attach objectivity to Newton's laws results in an endless series of "why" questions. What is your point?

 

[SithDoughnut]

My morals are objective. The problem is that they're different to everyone else's objective morals...

 

[razeontherock]

Pretty much everyone can agree that the death camps were an atrocity, right? And yet, the people who ran these camps were *perfectly* convinced that they were doing the right thing

Wow Jane; and you live in Germany? This is off the charts wrong.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Wow Jane; and you live in Germany? This is off the charts wrong.

Nope. It's fanatism that makes atrocities possible, over and over again: the sort of unwavering conviction of one's own righteousness, pitted against the perceived evil of one's chosen enemy. A black-and-white world, that's what it takes to justify the wholesale slaughter of thousands, children included.

What made the crusades possible? Faith in the utter righteousness of the effort, even when sacking Jerusalem and slaughtering the civilian population.

How about the witch hunts? Apart from lesser motives, such as greed or envy, they were driven by the conviction that there were satanic worshippers out there that needed to be wiped out.

The Inquisition? John Calvin executing the unitarian Servetus to "keep the disease from spreading"? The Anabaptists of Münster killing the "heretics" in the city? The Church putting the Anabaptists in cages and displaying their corpses to this day? The French Revolution turning into the Reign of Terror? "Manifest Destiny" and the Indian wars? Colonialism? The rationale behind the murder of the Czar and his family? The Stalinist purges? Pol Pot's killing fields? The USA's installing of the Shah as a pet dictator, supporting a coup that took power out of the hands of the Iranian people to gain access to the resources of the land? The USA's support of Pinochet, deposing of the democratically elected government of Chile and erecting a bona fide dictatorship? The "Cultural Revolution" of China? Saddam Hussein's reign of Terror? US and European support for Saddam Hussein? Israelis butchering Palestinians? Palestinians butchering Israelis? The fanatical zeal of Al Quaeda members bringing down the WTC? The fanatical zeal of Christians who feel that it is their moral duty to murder abortion doctors?

What do all of these events and the people behind them have in common? Zeal. Fanatism. Unwavering conviction that THEY are a force of Good, pitted against Evil.
And aye, most Nazis were UTTERLY convinced that what they did was The Right Thing. Unpleasant, maybe. Even regrettable in some cases - but absolutely necessary.
Do not forget that the "Final Solution" diverted resources from the war effort. Hitler's campaigns might have fared a lot better if the trains had been used to deliver supplies to the front, rather than transporting people to the death camps. They felt that killing Jews, Roma and other "parasites" was more important than winning the war.

 

[Eudaimonist]

When Christians usually talk about objective morals, they tend to mean that, "Lying is always a sin, no if ans or buts, it may be better to lie about the jews in your basement to the Nazi's, but it's still lying and still a sin."

You stole my favorite example. I demand royalties!

Yeah, I reject this sort of objective morality. Moral rules and principles always have some sort of context in which they apply, and determining this requires practical judgment regarding circumstances (what Aristotle called phronesis).

Before anything thinks it, I don't think that contextual moral principles suggests an "anything goes" attitude towards moral action. People need to be honest with themselves. Is lying to the Nazis about the Jews in one's basement a situation in which telling the truth is morally required? The answer really is "no", since the purpose of truth-telling has to do with engendering trust with basically good people in one's community (think "The Boy Who Cried Wolf") and does not require being an accomplice to evil acts.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Cosmicteapot]

Morallity doesn't require scripture or God or any of that BS!

We know by the time we are in kindergarten that we should not lie, steal, or hit or hurt others.
We learn reciprocity, co-operation, and that we should not be selfish. We learn to be thoughtful of others. As we grow up, we learn to forgive, make friends, give gifts or make nice gestures to others.

We did not learn these things by studying the bible when we were 5.
We learnt them by influence from our peers, our parents and by being part of society.

The proof of this is in the bible itself....Here are some of Gods teachings

Thou Shalt not Murder - Pretty straight forward, well known and obvious. Murdering someone is a heinous crime and an horrendous act.
You read this in the bible and it's obvious to you that God is good and this rule is clearly the reason why morallity must come from the bible.

Another one of the bibles teachings...

If a man discovers that his bride is not a virgin on their wedding night, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22: 13-21)

Is this acceptable at all? Would you be ok with stoning brides on her dads doorstep?

If you answered yes then you have some serious problems

If you answered No then you are using your own moral intuitions to judge the supposed source of all morallity...

We already posses morallity, however it is influenced by our choices in life, not from an almighty creator who has already laid the rules out for us in a book.

If that were the case people would be killed for working on a Saturday!!

 

[Eudaimonist]

Wow Jane; and you live in Germany? This is off the charts wrong.

I don't understand your reaction. How should Jane see the Nazis? Should she see them like the moustache-twirling villians in an Indiana Jones movie? ("Fräulein Ravenwood, let me show you what I am used to...")

It is perhaps invariably the case that people are the heroes of their own lives -- to them. And that's even if they are mass murderers.

Evil people don't see themselves as evil. They feel justified in what they have done. What they did was necessary, in their eyes. They couldn't help it! They were trapped in a bad situation. Or... their victims had it coming to them. It's no big deal. It's all for a good cause -- a greater good. Someone had to take action!

Even if it were possible for someone to be self-consciously evil, such individuals would be exceptionally rare, and so this sort of rationalizing psychology is certainly required for a mass movement.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Lachrymose]

Do Atheists believe in objective morality?

No. Nor morality at all.

All we believe in is kicking puppies and eating children...FOR SATAN!

 

[Tielec]

I flip-flop between bastardised deontology and a bastardised utilitarianism.

Ultimately I currently think there ARE objective morals, they just aren't simple, or maybe even fully understandable:

You can always introduce a 'BUT' to an ethical dillemma, however, within each dilemma I think there is an objectively right and wrong response.

To illustrate let's conduct a thought experiment (remember in a thought experiment you cannot change the parameters):

-Is it moral to cause everyone in the universe unending pain and torment for-ever for no reason?-

Obviously it's wrong to do this, unless you change the meaning of the word moral or introduce a BUT... In this situation I think there is an objective 'morally right' answer.

Of course in reality ethical dilemmas are alot messier, requiring us to balance several competing demands, uncertain parameters and outcomes. This doesn't mean there isn't a right and wrong answer, just that they are much harder to identify.

 

[BrianOnEarth]

Morallity doesn't require scripture or God or any of that BS!

Good post. Agree.
As an aside, I wonder whether our brains are too big? Other animals don't seem to have anywhere near our habits of pre-meditated killing. Other animals seem to fight and kill as a means to meet a real-time, immediate need. Like "I and my family need food now and you are it". Even mating ruts don't usually end in death - the fight seems to stop as soon as one side backs off. Homo Sapiens, on the other hand, seem to use their imaginations to motivate killing. I will kill you because I think you are a future threat to me. I will kill you because you look different from me and I imagine that is a future threat. Something bad happened and I imagine you did it so I am going to kill you for revenge/prevention of a repeat. revenge is an interesting one - I am not sure what the psychology of it is but I have never heard of other animals acting out of revenge.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

@BrianOnEarth: Chimps do that, too, at least to a lesser degree.
Primatologists observed how a chimp tribe in the wild split up into two camps claiming different territories, and afterwards not only started to treat each other as mortal enemies, but also staged border patrols, organized raids upon the "enemy" and dealt out harsh punishments to "collaborators" - all that regardless of the fact that some of them had even grown up together, back when the two groups were still united.

"Homo homini lupus" apparently isn't limited to us. Our capacity for demonizing the "Other" and denying his very humanity to the point where atrocities against them can be justified, however, becomes even more dramatic because we develop more sophisticated methods of killing each other all the time.

Revenge is quite simple, psychologically speaking. It's based on the principle of equity - the same principle that makes you feel outrage when you are being treated unfairly.

But the genesis of war is more intriguing: Gerard Genette postulated that with a sufficiently sophisticated sense of personhood, our instinctive hierarchies broke down: before, it was always clear who was the Alpha, and power struggles followed very specific rules that did not endanger the survival of the group. But our increased consciousness changed that: we learned to ignore our instincts, to re-align them, to turn them towards other ends - with some unpleasant side-effects.
Genette believes that this is how the concept of human sacrifice developed. In short, with social tensions building all the time, early human societies eventually unleashed their built-up aggression upon the "odd one out", killing him in the process. Afterwards, they realized that this act had seen them united as one, restoring the sense of group-identity that made them feel like an "us", not an "I versus you". What followed then was a hermeneutical circle: if this restoration of order was triggered by shedding the blood of a person, then the gods must have demanded it. Or maybe the person *was* a god, restoring social peace by presenting himself as a sacrifice to Cosmic Order.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

-Is it moral to cause everyone in the universe unending pain and torment for-ever for no reason?-

Obviously it's wrong to do this, unless you change the meaning of the word moral or introduce a BUT... In this situation I think there is an objective 'morally right' answer.

Why is it wrong?

 

[BrianOnEarth]

@Jane_the_Bane:
That is very interesting, thank you. It has made me think about how superstition fits in - the Jonah of the crew, etc. Superstition being a sort of imagined vehicle for dealing with fear. Does the build up of group tension lead to a build up of fear - expectation of impending danger - so that a superstitious ritual or sacrifice is required to quell it. A sort of preventative action.
But the fear may not be based on objective danger at all. Is this an unnecessary by-product of some other psychological function or is it, perhaps, that regularly practising responding to imagined fear keeps us sharp to respond to actual danger? IOW we have been selected to believe in imaginary threats because this makes us fitter to deal with real ones?

 

[allhart]

Good post. Agree.
As an aside, I wonder whether our brains are too big? Other animals don't seem to have anywhere near our habits of pre-meditated killing. Other animals seem to fight and kill as a means to meet a real-time, immediate need. Like "I and my family need food now and you are it". Even mating ruts don't usually end in death - the fight seems to stop as soon as one side backs off. Homo Sapiens, on the other hand, seem to use their imaginations to motivate killing. I will kill you because I think you are a future threat to me. I will kill you because you look different from me and I imagine that is a future threat. Something bad happened and I imagine you did it so I am going to kill you for revenge/prevention of a repeat. revenge is an interesting one - I am not sure what the psychology of it is but I have never heard of other animals acting out of revenge.

Science is after the fact not before, so where does it all originate from then there is the sustain ability factor? Just in-like playing with a chemist set.....it doesn't miraculously appear and keep variably changing to sustain life that first must show up! There is a creator and sustain-er! Just build a car, fuel it up, get to run.....will it sustain itself?

How do you measure any moral law or stand? For you just didn't come up with it on your own! Just in-like being born. If your mother had you in time square....is that all you needed? I don't think so! You need to be loved,nurtured, educated and housed!

We use relational spectrum's in our guide to life's problems......referencing scales in all of life....tape measures,light and dark even in morality.....we can all say that killing a new born is wrong, but where does that perspective come from? God is the author on morality......in our moral laws..... personally, individually and socially!! Can you you explain the reality of evil? And is their such a thing as good? If you say their is such a thing as good you then are injecting a moral giver! Also if there is such a thing as sin....what do you do with it?

 

[BrianOnEarth]

Science is after the fact not before, so where does it all originate from then there is the sustain ability factor? Just in-like playing with a chemist set.....it doesn't miraculously appear and keep variably changing to sustain life that first must show up! There is a creator and sustain-er! Just build a car, fuel it up, get to run.....will it sustain itself?

Well, I think the idea is that there must be energy and matter to begin with. The energy animates the matter. It is then possible for animated matter to form structures that become self-replicating. It's not so much that matter deliberately forms self-replicating structures - there is no deliberate - it is that matter forms all sorts of structures and the self-replicating ones necessarily become more common. It just needs a long, long time to bake and as soon as one structure can replicate it spreads. But all the time there must be a source of energy. That would be the sun.
A car can't sustain itself because it is not designed to nor has it been selected from a pool of designs for its ability to self-sustain.
You may well ask where did the energy and matter come from in the first place and my scientific reply is: I have no idea.

We use relational spectrum as our guide to life......referencing scales in all of life even morality.....we can all say that killing a new born is wrong, but where does that perspective come from? God is the author on morality......in our moral laws..... personally, individually and socially!! Can you you explain the reality of evil? And is their such a thing as good? If you say their is such a thing as good you then are injecting a moral giver! Also if there is such a thing as sin....what do you do with it?

I think people exhibited moral behaviours before they could read and write or speak. My theory is that our basic moral behaviours are genetically programmed and are managed by our emotional brain. So we feel either motivated or reluctant to do things. A mother normally feels protective to her baby. So the written down morals we use today are the codification of those innate emotional responses with some adjustments for group benefit that we figured out with our cognitive brains.
It is very complicated because our instinctive responses, which exist to protect us from perceived danger, aren't all optimum for modern society living. So we have to moderate ourselves by trying to abide by codes that we interpret rationally. But our emotions are much stronger than our rationalizations so it helps us a lot if we can anchor the counter-instinctive codes to a "safe" emotional concept.

I'm not sure I have described that clearly. I don't fully understand it.

Trivial example. Bungee jump. I've done this! Standing on the edge of that bridge in New Zealand ready to jump. Legs tied to a perfectly safe cord, the length adjusted for my body weight, the rig used many many times everyday of the week without anyone being injured. Rational brain perfectly happy. Emotional brain was convinced I would die! I was shaking, sweating, feeling sick and dizzy. My legs felt heavy as lead. It took me many deep breaths and a sustained conscious struggle to placate my instinctive emotional response enough for my emotional brain to allow my motor controls to move my legs. It was the most intense and invigorating sensation. Thrilling, perplexing and terrifying. After I eventually managed to leap it was one of the most thrilling and satisfying things I have done. I was just laughing uncontrollably as I recoiled a few feet above the river's surface. What a total rush. I recommend it to anyone!

I've only done a bungee jump once. I suppose if I tried it again I would still be terrified. The more you repeat it and survive, the less your instincts hold you back. Instincts learn very slowly and you cannot just tell them what's what. You have to show them, it seems.

 

[allhart]

Well, I think the idea is that there must be energy and matter to begin with. The energy animates the matter. It is then possible for animated matter to form structures that become self-replicating. It's not so much that matter deliberately forms self-replicating structures - there is no deliberate - it is that matter forms all sorts of structures and the self-replicating ones necessarily become more common. It just needs a long, long time to bake and as soon as one structure can replicate it spreads. But all the time there must be a source of energy. That would be the sun.
A car can't sustain itself because it is not designed to nor has it been selected from a pool of designs for its ability to self-sustain.
You may well ask where did the energy and matter come from in the first place and my scientific reply is: I have no idea.


I think people exhibited moral behaviours before they could read and write or speak. My theory is that our basic moral behaviours are genetically programmed and are managed by our emotional brain. So we feel either motivated or reluctant to do things. A mother normally feels protective to her baby. So the written down morals we use today are the codification of those innate emotional responses with some adjustments for group benefit that we figured out with our cognitive brains.
It is very complicated because our instinctive responses, which exist to protect us from perceived danger, aren't all optimum for modern society living. So we have to moderate ourselves by trying to abide by codes that we interpret rationally. But our emotions are much stronger than our rationalizations so it helps us a lot if we can anchor the counter-instinctive codes to a "safe" emotional concept.

I'm not sure I have described that clearly. I don't fully understand it.

Trivial example. Bungee jump. I've done this! Standing on the edge of that bridge in New Zealand ready to jump. Legs tied to a perfectly safe cord, the length adjusted for my body weight, the rig used many many times everyday of the week without anyone being injured. Rational brain perfectly happy. Emotional brain was convinced I would die! I was shaking, sweating, feeling sick and dizzy. My legs felt heavy as lead. It took me many deep breaths and a sustained conscious struggle to placate my instinctive emotional response enough for my emotional brain to allow my motor controls to move my legs. It was the most intense and invigorating sensation. Thrilling, perplexing and terrifying. After I eventually managed to leap it was one of the most thrilling and satisfying things I have done. I was just laughing uncontrollably as I recoiled a few feet above the river's surface. What a total rush. I recommend it to anyone!

I've only done a bungee jump once. I suppose if I tried it again I would still be terrified. The more you repeat it and survive, the less your instincts hold you back. Instincts learn very slowly and you cannot just tell them what's what. You have to show them, it seems.

You assume everything first and deal with after the fact assumptions! Where does space time and matter come from? And for sure the energy in the first place and the energy that is sustained....which sustains us all ? Your morality is held up to what what standard and by who's.......Where is the beginning of it all? You and I use situations in perspective in the very essences of Good, but where does good come from? Designed genetics....programed DNA....hmmmm sounds impossible without a creator. Who makes the rules?

Emotions are irrational without the wisdom behind knowing right from wrong! So You calculate risk over your emotion! Well spiritually there are more ramification in comparison to short lived on earth and eternity! Where does inner strength come from and can you measure it? Can you see love and can you buy love......that's like say can you buy money!

 

[BrianOnEarth]

You assume everything first and deal with after the fact assumptions! Where does space time and matter come from? And for sure the energy in the first place and the energy that is sustained....which sustains us all ?

Well. I am not assuming energy and matter existed 14 billion years ago. This is evidenced.
You are quite right that I have no idea where the energy and matter came from before that. That does not matter to me with respect to the evolution of life on Earth.
Regarding sustained energy, the sun has not always been the way it is now, of course. It is losing matter all the time, turning matter into energy by nuclear fusion. It is fusing hydrogen into helium and it is currently about 3/4 hydrogen. I think the estimate is another 5 billion years before it becomes unstable and turns into a red giant, probably incinerating Earth. So we had better make sure we have moved somewhere else by then!

 

[allhart]

Well. I am not assuming energy and matter existed 14 billion years ago. This is evidenced.
You are quite right that I have no idea where the energy and matter came from before that. That does not matter to me with respect to the evolution of life on Earth.
Regarding sustained energy, the sun has not always been the way it is now, of course. It is losing matter all the time, turning matter into energy by nuclear fusion. It is fusing hydrogen into helium and it is currently about 3/4 hydrogen. I think the estimate is another 5 billion years before it becomes unstable and turns into a red giant, probably incinerating Earth. So we had better make sure we have moved somewhere else by then!

I added more to the previous post so check it out if you like. Decay and after the fact assumptions points to the complexity of a creator! What separated light from darkness? I call these dials of life: 19 to 21% oxygen one degree over or under we wouldn't exist. The distance from the sun, one mile over or under we wouldn't exist. The earth axles is 23.5%, one degree over or under we wouldn't exist. Salt of the ocean 3.5%. Our Blood salt content is also 3.5% and not one builds on the other! On and On!
Who calculated the volume of air of the earth? What made the varying degrees of elements coexist....what put together all of it....one miracle after another. Biologically, chemicals, matter and energy......on and on? The more we come to realize the more we realize we don't know. We don't get smart we get dumber about the complexity of our existence! There is so much knowledge out there we don't know, but we think we know it all! THE WONDER OF GOD! God can only fill your wonder of the mind and heart. We as children used to be easily razzled dazzled in the awe of life and now have become deadened in the heavenly realm of life given! Takes more to surprise you the older you get! God surprises me and gives me that joy the worldly people so desperately need!
For I think there I am! Surprise surprise here I am....I just miraculously showed up...!

The complexity of individual cells that coexist separately but in community of our body is mind boggling in ourselves! Where is your wonder my man? You first have to have a cause before effect of your assumptions!! You can't know the truth of the universe until you know how it all started.....began!

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I added more to the previous post so check it out if you like. Decay and after the fact assumptions points to the complexity of a creator! What separated light from darkness? I call these dials of life: 19 to 21% oxygen one degree over or under we wouldn't exist. The distance from the sun, one mile over or under we wouldn't exist. The earth axles is 23.5%, one degree over or under we wouldn't exist. Salt of the ocean 3.5%. Our Blood salt content is also 3.5% and not one builds on the other! On and On!
Who calculated the volume of air of the earth? What made the varying degrees of elements coexist....what put together all of it....one miracle after another. Biologically, chemicals, matter and energy......on and on? The more we come to realize the more we realize we don't know. We don't get smart we get dumber about the complexity of our existence! There is so much knowledge out there we don't know, but we think we know it all! THE WONDER OF GOD! God can only fill your wonder of the mind and heart. We as children used to be easily razzled dazzled in the awe of life and now have become deadened in the heavenly realm of life given! Takes more to surprise you the older you get! God surprises me and gives me that joy the worldly people so desperately need!
For I think there I am! Surprise surprise here I am....I just miraculously showed up...!

The complexity of individual cells that coexist separately but in community of our body is mind boggling in ourselves! Where is your wonder my man? You first have to have a cause before effect of your assumptions!! You can't know the truth of the universe until you know how it all started.....began!

This is roughly the equivalent of the following scenario:

in a small hole, a sentient puddle forms. It examines the hole it is in, and finds that it fits the hole perfectly. Thus, it concludes that the hole must have been created to fit it by a Divine Puddle, rather than realizing that it just put the horse on the saddle.

"God" as an explanation for phenomena that we haven't yet understood is not an explanation at all. It keeps us from actually examining the natural factors involved by attributing phenomena to the supernatural.

And even though the likelihood that a planet meets all the factors required to produce life may be astronomically small, that's NOT the same as impossible. Likewise, the planet doesn't meet the requirements so that life may form - life formed because the planet meets the requirements.

I agree that the universe is a miraculous place - but attributing it all to an anthropomorphic deity cheapens that wonder, dampens our curiosity to learn more, and provides non-answers to unsolved riddles rather than encouraging us to look deeper.