Moral behavior without god? - Regarding Game Theory.

[Ectezus]

Statement:
Moral standards are nothing more than an ever changing foundation of cultures. They change, because humans and the world around them change. To claim that morals can only come from a god and that 2000 year old standards still fully applies today is absurd.

Do you think moral behavior can form without the need of a god?

As defence for my statement I'll provide a hopefully easy to understand explanation.
It's based on the study of Game Theory where an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others.
Here's the famous "Prisoners Dilemma" concept:

In this game you have two choices: Cooperate or Defect.
The highest gain is when you are selfish (defect) and your opponent is social (cooperate). Resulting in 4 points for the 'cheater' vs 1 point for the 'sucker'.

Now obviously in a one on one game the best choice will *always* be: D. Because the worst you can do is a draw, and occasionally a good profit when the other one foolishly tries to cooperate which automatically results in a win for you.

However, when you consider a whole tournament (/life on earth), those players that mutually cooperate a few times (and thus get 3 points instead of just 2) will eventually get more points than the ones only choosing D all the time (even if they win all their own games).

To further illustrate this: here's a good video by Richard Dawkins explaining the concept with the help of computer simulations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRj8flmxUFc


Experts in Game Theory were asked to submit their program on what they thought would win the tournament.
All different kind of algorithms were created and yet one of the simplest won: Tit for Tat. It repeats the last choice the opponent made AND very importantly, it started out 'nice' (cooperative). Especially the last part was a big surprise to the scientists but in hindsight easily explainable as done in the video.

I hope you understand the concept. If not, just ask for more details. I'll happily answer them.
In my opinion this concept can be applied to practically anything that involves cooperation, therefore eliminating the need for a god or bible to tell us that "killing is wrong".

- Ectezus

 

[andross77]

Thanks for making this thread. I would just point you to William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith website. He addresses the moral argument multiple times and it is much more compelling than this game theory.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Thanks for making this thread. I would just point you to William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith website. He addresses the moral argument multiple times and it is much more compelling than this game theory.

Would you link it please?

 

[andross77]

Here is one.

Another.

This is the best and most full address of the moral argument but also the longest by far.

In the last one, Craig runs circles around a secular philsopher on the topic of morality.

Ectezus, i will HIGHLY recommend you submit your post as a question to Dr. Craig's site (reasonablefaith.org). There is a good chance he will answer it since it is well articulated.

 

[Chesterton]

Here's the misunderstanding. When Christians speak of morality being from God, they're talking about the feeling in our minds that one thing is right, and another thing wrong (in a given situation), regardless of the effect. It's the "ought" or "ought not" feeling in the mind about an action which is morality.

Morality for the Christian is not a social program, and it doesn't seek a temporal end. Morality is a canvas upon which humans are to place colors, and it doesn't even matter what the colors are, and it doesn't matter what the painting is about. And in regard to another current E&M thread, this is the primary difference with humanism. Morality is not concerned with achieving any result, other than morality itself.


And one thing to remember about Prisoner's Dilemma is that, being a game, and not real life, it's results tell based on "on-going-ness". A real human prisoner, with a real finite life, cannot and will not wait for, or find out if he is surrounded by a "critical mass of niceness". And even then, why gamble? He needs to look out for number one at each and every opportunity. The individual Prisoner will not be guided by the overall results, even though a philosopher tells him he should be. I mean if humans don't listen to a good man like Christ when he says "Love your neighbor", why expect we'd listen to Axelrod or Dawkins?

 

[lawtonfogle]

Here is one.

Another.

This is the best and most full address of the moral argument but also the longest by far.

In the last one, Craig runs circles around a secular philsopher on the topic of morality.

Ectezus, i will HIGHLY recommend you submit your post as a question to Dr. Craig's site (reasonablefaith.org). There is a good chance he will answer it since it is well articulated.

In link one we get this.

So the argument looks like this:
1. Necessarily, if moral values exist, then God exists.
2. Necessarily, moral values exist.
3. Therefore, necessarily, God exists.

Independent if I agree, he derives God from morality. Thus, to derive morality from God creates circular logic, and becomes invalid.

Second one he claims the following.

1. Anything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence. (from 1, 3)
5. Therefore, the explanation of the existence of the universe is God. (from 2, 4)

As seen, irregardless of our agreement, this has nothing to do with morality.

The third one pulls up the following.

You are not currently logged on

The page you are trying to access is only available to people who have registered for membership on our site and have logged in. If you are a registered member, please log in using the login box at the top of this page.
If you have not yet registered, please do so HERE! Registration is free and only takes a few seconds to complete. For more information on the benefits of becoming a member of Reasonable Faith's website, please click HERE.

So, the result of your links are this.


The first link works against proving morality from God.
The second does not deal with the issue.
The third is a web page I do not have access to.


So please post more links that deal with this topic. (If you want, we can go though his arguments as well, but doing such for any arguments not on topic is off topic.)

 

[lawtonfogle]

Here's the misunderstanding. When Christians speak of morality being from God, they're talking about the feeling in our minds that one thing is right, and another thing wrong (in a given situation), regardless of the effect. It's the "ought" or "ought not" feeling in the mind about an action which is morality.

Morality for the Christian is not a social program, and it doesn't seek a temporal end. Morality is a canvas upon which humans are to place colors, and it doesn't even matter what the colors are, and it doesn't matter what the painting is about. And in regard to another current E&M thread, this is the primary difference with humanism. Morality is not concerned with achieving any result, other than morality itself.


And one thing to remember about Prisoner's Dilemma is that, being a game, and not real life, it's results tell based on "on-going-ness". A real human prisoner, with a real finite life, cannot and will not wait for, or find out if he is surrounded by a "critical mass of niceness". And even then, why gamble? He needs to look out for number one at each and every opportunity. The individual Prisoner will not be guided by the overall results, even though a philosopher tells him he should be. I mean if humans don't listen to a good man like Christ when he says "Love your neighbor", why expect we'd listen to Axelrod or Dawkins?

Except these simulations are limited as well. Also, most of such simulations we encounter day to day have very small consequences, we just end to only realize those which have a very high cost/gain.

 

[andross77]

In link one we get this.



Independent if I agree, he derives God from morality. Thus, to derive morality from God creates circular logic, and becomes invalid.

Second one he claims the following.





As seen, irregardless of our agreement, this has nothing to do with morality.

The third one pulls up the following.




So, the result of your links are this.


The first link works against proving morality from God.
The second does not deal with the issue.
The third is a web page I do not have access to.


So please post more links that deal with this topic. (If you want, we can go though his arguments as well, but doing such for any arguments not on topic is off topic.)

Hehe, i love how you so quickly brush off a man's logical argument so quickly.

Here is another link to the same debate.

If you have more objections to his reasoning i'd love to hear them. Also, you should write him your objections on his website.

 

[Chesterton]

Except these simulations are limited as well. Also, most of such simulations we encounter day to day have very small consequences, we just end to only realize those which have a very high cost/gain.

I guess that's relative. A ten-dollar bill looks real good to a man who's flat broke.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Hehe, i love how you so quickly brush off a man's logical argument so quickly.

Here is another link to the same debate.

If you have more objections to his reasoning i'd love to hear them. Also, you should write him your objections on his website.

I am not saying he is wrong, only that his arguments did not deal with the topic at hand (haven't looked at the newest one). It is like me writing an essay on how to build a finite state automaton that does mod 5 recognition in binary, and someone using it to show that oxygen is required for combustion reactions.

 

[lawtonfogle]

I guess that's relative. A ten-dollar bill looks real good to a man who's flat broke.

Depends upon what it cost, and how reasonable he is.

 

[lawtonfogle]

Hehe, i love how you so quickly brush off a man's logical argument so quickly.

Here is another link to the same debate.

If you have more objections to his reasoning i'd love to hear them. Also, you should write him your objections on his website.

As to that link, I have class right now, and that looks like it is vastly larger than the last two (not counting the one I couldn't access), so I will have to consider it later.

 

[Ectezus]

A real human prisoner, with a real finite life [...]
The individual Prisoner will not be guided by the overall results, even though a philosopher tells him he should be.

First of all, we're not talking about real prisoners. That’s simply the name given to the concept.
You're grossly oversimplifying it so it's easier to refute. That's basically a strawman's argument.

I don't draw conclusions from one prisoner since obviously morals don't change in a heartbeat either. It takes a long time and moral standards are also passed onto children so there will always be some resonance from old morals overflowing into new generations.

All game theory does is give some logical insight in how 'good' morality *can* prevail in a culture without having to believe in the supernatural.

Morality for the Christian is not a social program, and it doesn't seek a temporal end. [...] Morality is not concerned with achieving any result, other than morality itself.

I'm not sure why you claim this to be the primary difference with humanism. Especially those who try to come up with theories, models and thus explanations know that there is no end goal. It's what evolutionists have to explain to creationists all the time...

While on the other hand you claim it's no social program for Christians. Uhm hello? What about the 10 commandments? Atheists get their morals from their parents, culture, education and society in general. Christians get their morals literally handed to them, nice and printed.
So between the two, I could argue that atheists have to rely more on gut feeling and therefore develop moral standards on their own since they don't rely on a 2000 year old book.

I think you're strongly operating under the assumption that when we can explain how our feelings work it automatically means they manifest in another way. I challenge this assumption.

Just because I know doing good things only makes me happy because my brain stimulates releasing endorphin does NOT make the feeling any less sincere.

- Ectezus

 

[tcampen]

Here is one.

I think Craig shoots himself in the foot when he argues "My point is that the classical theist faces no such problem, since he believes that God is a logically necessary being and so can ground moral values in every logically possible world."

What Craig does here is elevate a dogmatic or religious belief to a logical conclusion. One cannot simply "believe that God is a logically necessary being" to make it so. This is nothing more than a form of begging the question, and is unsupported. I've seen him make this slight of hand argument in other cases as well.

Another.

This is where Craig defends the following argument:

1) If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist.
2) Objective moral values do exist.
3) Therefore God exists.

I have several objections to this argument on foundational grounds. Craig equates authoritative with objective and by redefining objectivety of morality as "something is right or wrong even if nobody agrees with it. (This is a point he often makes in this argument, tho not on this particular post). More slight of hand equivication going on here.

First of all, "nobody" in Craig's definition does not include god. Implicit in the premise is that God hands down morality, and it's true by the nature of god even if nobody agrees with it. But "nobody" would include the person of god, so the statement as Craig intends it is internally nonsensical. And again, that it comes from god only implies authority, not whether it is truly right or wrong.

Second, Craig's notion of what is objective at all is skewed. Things that acually exist, and not merely in the abstract, exist objectively if they do so independent of the mind. For example, does math exist? Yes, but only abstraction of the mind. Take away all minds, and rocks and water and oxygen will still be there, but don't expect to find any math. Morality is on the same page. It does not, and cannot, exist independently from the mind. It is also an abstraction.

Third, Craig would be better to define objective morality as moralty without any exceptions, but he does not - and for goot reason. Because if this were true, then there would be too many biblical accounts that would show God to act immorally.

Finally, there are plenty of sound, non-theist arguements in support of objective morality. Just because Craig may not personally care for them does not imply God is a necessity for objective moral values, only that's his personal preference.

This is the best and most full address of the moral argument but also the longest by far.

In the last one, Craig runs circles around a secular philsopher on the topic of morality.

Craig's Premise #1:

If God exists, then objective right and wrong exist. God’s own holy and perfectly good nature provides the absolute standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. His commands flow necessarily from His own moral nature and constitute for us our moral duties.

He starts off with the same problem I noted above, then goes all Aquinas on God's nature. I never like this argument, as it really don't think it answers anything, but just basically says "it is what it is" in an abstract sense. Furthermore, how one determine's God's nature is so utterly subjective that it renders the premise meaninglessly subjective in its own right. And even if true, God's nature (whatever it may be) does nothing to establish objective morality - but only at best authoritative morality.

Then posits:

Because, according to supernaturalism, man’s life does not end at the grave, all persons are held morally accountable for their actions. Evil and wrong will be banished, righteousness will be vindicated.

First of all, supernaturalism and life-beyond-death do not stablish being held morally accountable in any respect in the afterlife. This is a huge jump between the two and no justification is given for it. Supernaturalism could be true and still be no afterlife. There could be both, but no moral accountability. There is no rational basis to think one way or the other. It is all equally speculative, and any assertion regarding a supernatural realm is a good as the next.

Second, that "evil and wrong will be banished, righteousness will be vindicated" is a purely theological statement, and absent any real philosiphical basis. It really advances nothing more than reconceived religious beliefs.

I read the entire debate, and as I did I realized I've read and heard it before. Dr. Taylor was correct that Dr. Craig was quote mining and then knocking down straw men. The two never truely connected on the issue, as they were arguing different premises without doing a particularly good job of directly addressing the point the other was making. I think the debate question contributed to this heavily. But to say Craig ran circles around Taylor? I don't think so. In fact, I'm not even sure he ran circles around his own staw men.

 

[keith99]

Why do people try to make things complicated when they are not.

If I do something someone says God dislikes my chance of having negative consequences is

(Chance there is a God)times(If there is a God chance whoever's version of God's rules I'm listening to is right). Also any judgement is way down the road.

I see the odds as being small and retribution distant.

But if I do what I think is wrong, the odds that I will judge myself and find me wanting is Unity and the time of retribution is now, or at the latest the next time I look in the mirror.

 

[Chesterton]

First of all, we're not talking about real prisoners. That’s simply the name given to the concept.
You're grossly oversimplifying it so it's easier to refute. That's basically a strawman's argument.

Think of what you're saying; you're saying I'm using reality to oversimplify a game. You have it backwards; it's the game which oversimplifies reality.

All game theory does is give some logical insight in how 'good' morality *can* prevail in a culture without having to believe in the supernatural.

Fine, but no Christian should have a problem agreeing with that. That's why I referred to a "misunderstanding". Obviously, we know humans will do what it takes to "get by". I mean, what is the atheist comparing reality to? Imagine the worst third-world prison, full of the worst people; they continue to live; they work things out and survive; they don't kill each other to extinction even though one could reasonably expect that.

Having said that, I should add as a technicality that, unless you can correct me, the only cultures which have truly based themselves on ruling out the supernatural have been the atheist/communist cultures of the 20th century, and they were a short-lived, corrupt, dysfunctional, moral cesspool. I'd sooner respect the great pre-Christian supernatural cultures of Egypt, Greece and Rome than I would Soviet Russia or China.

I'm not sure why you claim this to be the primary difference with humanism. Especially those who try to come up with theories, models and thus explanations know that there is no end goal. It's what evolutionists have to explain to creationists all the time...

And this is what atheistic evolutionists need explained to them. The ultimate humanist goal would be Utopia. Utopia is a secondary goal for the Christian. I could live in a horrible jungle-like prison system, or a totalitarian state, and as an individual could still seek the ultimate Christian good: obeying God. I might not live long but so what. The humanist wants humanity to play nice (according to the contemporary definition of nice) and live long. The Christian wants humanity to obey God (regardless of whether that equates with "nice" or results in untimely death).

While on the other hand you claim it's no social program for Christians. Uhm hello? What about the 10 commandments? Atheists get their morals from their parents, culture, education and society in general. Christians get their morals literally handed to them, nice and printed.

The Ten Commandments aren't communicated by someone's parents, culture, education and society in general? How did you come to hear of them? Were you stranded on a desert island and they washed up on shore?

So between the two, I could argue that atheists have to rely more on gut feeling and therefore develop moral standards on their own since they don't rely on a 2000 year old book.

I thank God that atheists rely on gut feeling (because God made both of our guts). But as a Christian, I don't rely on the Bible to answer "right/wrong" moral issues. I've seen that idea presented numerous times in this forum, and I can't even argue it because I don't understand it.

I think you're strongly operating under the assumption that when we can explain how our feelings work it automatically means they manifest in another way. I challenge this assumption.

No, I'm not. If I understand you, that's an illogical assumption.

Just because I know doing good things only makes me happy because my brain stimulates releasing endorphin does NOT make the feeling any less sincere.

So it's down to chemistry, huh? And if my brain is wired so that serial killing releases my endorphins and makes me happy, I'm just as sincerely moral as you.

 

[PhilosophicalBluster]

Piranhas don't kill each other. They don't read the Bible.

 

[CCGirl]

Thanks for an excellent post. Very interesting.

 

[Ectezus]

Think of what you're saying; you're saying I'm using reality to oversimplify a game. You
have it backwards; it's the game which oversimplifies reality.

Once again, strawman argument, you keep oversimplifying my statements and say it's just a "game" and therefore you can ignore everything regarding the subject??

First of all, it's not about the game but the way of thinking, the logic behind it. The picture merely demonstrates the concept.

Secondly, there is a whole study about this: Game Theory. Yes people go to school for this. This theory plays an important role in all different kind of fields: Economic models, computer science, philosophy, political science and biology.

Now if you STILL insist that the whole game theory study and everything is predicts is oversimplifying reality despite all it's uses then just say it like it is. Don't construct strawmans to make your point.

(Oh and off the record, I find it ironic that theists use the word "oversimplified" as a defense for their usual "god did it" statement.
And I say off the record because I realise that saying this is ironic for someone arguing against strawman arguments. Therefore I don't want to make it a point for debate, but I thought it would bring a smile on some people's faces. )

Having said that, I should add as a technicality that, unless you can correct me, the only cultures which have truly
based themselves on ruling out the supernatural have been the atheist/communist cultures of the 20th century, and they
were a short-lived, corrupt, dysfunctional, moral cesspool. I'd sooner respect the great pre-Christian supernatural
cultures of Egypt, Greece and Rome than I would Soviet Russia or China.

This is an entirely different subject really and a lot more things are in play than just the difference between atheists or theists.

First of all, communism is in so many ways different than our democracy that surely I hope you don't attribute their failure only to a lack of believing in the supernatural?
Wait, before you answer that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

Secondly, statistics prove your assumption wrong.
Atheism is rising yet they don't have a negative impact on the society they live in:
Europe ~50% atheist and growing. Britain even ~74%.

- Atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison.
populations (0.21%).
(Source: http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm)

- 93% of the national academy of science is atheist.
(Source: http://www.xanga.com/jenessa1889/694128348/some-statistics-on-atheism/?ref=tb)

- Christians have a higher divorce rate than atheists. (ouch)
(Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm)

I could go on all day about education levels, poverty rates and per capita income that also show correlation with atheism.

And this is what atheistic evolutionists need explained to them. The ultimate humanist goal would be Utopia. Utopia is
a secondary goal for the Christian. I could live in a horrible jungle-like prison system, or a totalitarian state, and
as an individual could still seek the ultimate Christian good: obeying God. I might not live long but so what. The
humanist wants humanity to play nice (according to the contemporary definition of nice) and live long. The Christian
wants humanity to obey God (regardless of whether that equates with "nice" or results in untimely death).

Christians want others to obey god. No argument there.

So it's down to chemistry, huh? And if my brain is wired so that serial killing releases my endorphins and makes me
happy, I'm just as sincerely moral as you.

Equally moral? Oh my... Morals are not "good or evil" There is no absolute right or wrong because those words are subject to interpretation. It's an ever changing framework that simply lets us humans cope within our culture.

And yes it does come down to chemistry. We evolved with this endorphin system because it makes us better at living in large groups cooperatively compared to groups that don't feel bad when they murder their neighbors.

Whether you accept evolution or not, this concept does make sense from an logical point of view. I'm not saying it's 100% true of course, only theists claim to know things to be 100% true.
It's just a possible explanation deduced with logic as a counter argument that god is an absolute necessity in order to have moral standards.

- Ectezus

 

[Chesterton]

Secondly, there is a whole study about this: Game Theory. Yes people go to school for this. This theory plays an important role in all different kind of fields: Economic models, computer science, philosophy, political science and biology.

Yes I know, thank you.

Now if you STILL insist that the whole game theory study and everything is predicts is oversimplifying reality despite all it's uses then just say it like it is. Don't construct strawmans to make your point.

Don't put words in my mouth; I didn't say that. I'm not criticizing Game Theory. I pointed out one problem I see with drawing a universal conclusion about human behaviour from this version of Prisoner's Dilemma. (I say this version, because I recall years ago coming across a slightly different version of PD which reached a different conclusion - one where treachery was most often the "right" choice. I don't recall the author/experimenter but I'll try and find it if you like.)

Secondly, statistics prove your assumption wrong.
Atheism is rising yet they don't have a negative impact on the society they live in:

I guess "negative impact" is in the eye of the beholder.

I could go on all day about education levels, poverty rates and per capita income that also show correlation with atheism.

That's okay. 93% of the time I'm not a big fan of statistics.

It's just a possible explanation deduced with logic as a counter argument that god is an absolute necessity in order to have moral standards.

I've never made that claim about God, so if that's your point I'm not arguing it. I just wanted to point out what I pointed out.