Morality without God?

[PRmerger]

And no other person than a Christian can do this? As above, two thirds of the population of the entire world cannot recognise the ‘inherent dignity of the human person’?

Anyone whose morality teaches that the human person has inherent dignity because he is made in the image and likeness of God.

That, of course, includes all of the monotheistic religions.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Bradski

**And no other person than a Christian can do this? As above, two thirds of the population of the entire world cannot recognise the ‘inherent dignity of the human person’? **

They could. But as you know, many do not. And the mandate comes from Christ, a divine mandate as opposed to a merely human one that can be recognized or refuse to be recognized or ignored on one’s own authority…

 

[Linux]

Seems quite a big call…

Why?

 

[PRmerger]

So as I said above, it would apply to all non-Christians. A belief in a god will not give you a basis for morality but a belief in God will.

There are a lot of people who would disagree with that. Everyone who is not Christian in fact. The atheist and the Hindu and the Buddhist etc.

There are no such things as other gods, Bradski.

So if anyone professes to have a belief in God, then to the degree that his beliefs are consonant with the truth is the degree that he is worshiping the One True God.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

but what would be the basis for morality without God. The person who has no religion has to provide a standard by which things are judged right or wrong.

You are asking a fairly broad question with a wide range of answers depending on one’s system of ethics. Though many of those answers are already committed to writing and available for browsing. There will be aspects of some that you find agreeable and aspects of others that you’ve already stated in other threads that you find disagreeable.

He can’t just make one up out of his own head and demand that the world conform to his standard.

Sure he can, though “the world” may not react positively to his demands. There’s been past and present instances of a subset of the world having negative reactions to such demands including ignoring the demand or engaging in civil disobedience should that demand become a law.

But since atheism makes no claims concerning morality

Very true, in much the same way that checkers makes no claims concerning gardening.

the atheist needs to explain where he gets his morality from, and upon what authority if anyone (other than himself).

You’ll find both shared and varied answers for this.

In a cursory browsing of research on human behaviour you’ll find other explanations of moral behaviour that are not derrive from divine command. You’ll also find that these explanations target “humans” as their subjects, not just a subset of humans that don’t hold the belief that there exists any deities. So you may find that some explanations have applicability to Christians, atheist, and non-Christians alike.

But if you want to concentrate specifically on those that don’t hold the belief of any god(s) then might I suggest a slight modification of your question from “the atheist” (singular) to “atheists” (plural) . There’s not going to be a single perspective. You may also want to ask questions on specific aspects of moral behaviour to get more detailed information on his or her thinking. Here are some example questions for which you may get varied answers.

• When is it okay to lie?
• Under what conditions do you think it is okay to disobey the law?
• How do you decide whether or not to help some one in need?

I suspect the answers you get for these would also vary among many that hold the same god-concept to (iow: people within the same religion whether Christian or non-Christian).

 

[ThinkingSapien]

There are no such things as other gods, Bradski.

I get the impression that every one in this thread is in agreement with this first sentence, though for different reasons.

So if anyone professes to have a belief in God, then to the degree that his beliefs are consonant with the truth is the degree that he is worshiping the One True God.

That’s fine. And I think it’s safe to say that among those that hold belief in atleast one god not every one holds compatible god-concepts.

 

[PRmerger]

That’s fine. And I think it’s safe to say that among those that hold belief in atleast one god not every one holds compatible god-concepts.

So extend that to Bradski’s point.

Anyone who holds a belief in God that is consonant with the Truth would fall into that category. That includes non-Christians.

 

[fred_conty]

How can a civilization develop a moral consensus on anything without reference to the commandments of God?

“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” George Washington

Do a thought experiment. Imagine a perfectly non-religious society. From whence would morals be derived, and by what (whose) authority?

I think we could have morality without God both on the individual and community platform.
The principle being that each person is created good and has a sense of good within them.

But be that as it may, the community in which we live dictates values which influence us.
And the fact is, some communities have been corrupted which leads to the corruption of indivuduals. The corrupting factors being the world, flesh and devil. So in theory yes, but in fact sometimes no.

The other reality is that I can’t think of any society that didn’t believe in some sort of god or gods. And this too would have a bearing on their thinking and their morality.

We do have one modern day example of a nation who has no god, that of the atheistic soviet union. However even here we have a background culture which thrived in God before it turned atheistic. How easy would it be to untangle the divine influence in their culture from the atheistic culture? When a person becomes an atheist, can the religious thought and formation be dropped like a snake sheds its skin?

In my opinion, what we have going on in America is the corruption factors bleeding our society of good will and good sense. Not only is it having its effect on our national community but also on our churches who are changing their moral acceptance standards of living. So the backbone of morality, our churches, is subcomming to the sunnamie of immorality in our nation. This may be one of the best examples of what this topic is about.

Just a thought.

 

[tonyrey]

I think we could have morality without God both on the individual and community platform.
The principle being that each person is created good and has a sense of good within them.

We can and do have morality without God. The issue is whether it has a rational foundation… Why is it necessary to believe each person is created good in an accidental universe? Is there such a thing as objective good and if so how did it originate?

 

[wittgenstein]

Response to post 317
Kant thought that the categorical imperative gave ethics a logical foundation. Unfortunately, that foundation is foundationless. I agree with Wittgenstein that ethic’s foundation must exist outside logic. Otherwise an infinite regress occurs. Logic rests on syllogisms and syllogisms rest on the correspondence theory of truth (from now on referred to as CTT) which involves an infinite regress*
I never said that evolution is illogical. (Evolution’s logic is similar to the categorical imperative’s). Actually evolution is dialectical (predator vs. prey). However, like Kant’s categorical imperative its foundation is practical not logical. If nothing was altruistic life would be impossible. Life (the universal) overrules the individual (particular).
PS; One can have a valid argument that is not “necessarily”, (in the philosophical sense, in other words the premises may be false) true. Ethic’s foundation can never be necessarily true. Its foundation must transcend our finite logic. Finding a reason for something results in emphasizing another behavior that requires a reason…ad infinitum.

• The CTT defines truth as a proposition that corresponds to reality. If the CTT is true (by its own definition) it must refer to another CTT…ad infinitum (See Plato’s third man argument)
  Also, the categorical imperative is weak because it results in absurd consequences. Lying (according to the categorical imperative) is always bad because if everyone lied society would be impossible. However, imagine being in Nazi Germany, hiding Jews in your attic and the SS knocks on the door asking if there are any Jews hiding in the house. Of course the ethical thing to do would be to lie. That example is not mine, it came from university. I do not want to take credit that is not mine. Also, the idea that if everyone lied society would be impossible and therefore lying is bad, is the universal example given of the categorical imperative. I really do not see how you can disagree with that interpretation.

 

[tonyrey]

Also, the categorical imperative is weak because it results in absurd consequences. Lying (according to the categorical imperative) is always bad because if everyone lied society would be impossible.

The principle of the lesser evil safeguards the categorical imperative!

 

[wittgenstein]

I do not know what you mean by that. Kant would say that lying is ALWAYS wrong. However, the person hiding Jews in the attic reveals that edict as absurd.
It is not my understanding of the categorical imperative, it is the universal understanding of the categorical imperative. Perhaps the quote at post 294 was a little difficult to understand because it was in old fashioned English. However, in modern English it is saying that what is a good behavior can be determined by asking what would happen if everyone did it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I do not know what you mean by that. Kant would say that lying is ALWAYS wrong. However, the person hiding Jews in the attic reveals that edict as absurd.
It is not my understanding of the categorical imperative, it is the universal understanding of the categorical imperative. Perhaps the quote at post 294 was a little difficult to understand because it was in old fashioned English. However, in modern English it is saying that what is a good behavior can be determined by asking what would happen if everyone did it.

Admittedly, it has been a while since I last read Kant, but this apparent flaw is not in Kant’s principle but in your rendering of it.

At ground what Kant is saying is that a rational being should categorically not act contrary to what sound reason dictates regarding any action precisely because it would be irrational to do so. His foundation is not, as you say, “foundationless” because the foundation is reason itself and our nature as rational beings.

This issue about lying is a weak one precisely because you are using reason to defend a position that lying can reasonably be permissible at times. It would not be reasonable to will a moral world where moral cretins abuse a vulnerable person’s moral sensitivity to the truth to expose another person to harm or death. That kind of world would not be defensible under Kant’s universalizability principle precisely because we could not reasonably will to live under and lend support to a kind of regime that abuses moral principles in order to bolster its own immoral ends.

You may as well propose that Kant also held that killing is always wrong because it is imperative that we never kill or do harm to others. However, there is nothing that precludes killing to protect the innocent in Kant’s moral theory because this type of justification can be universalized and adopted as an aspect of an imperative against unjustifiable killing. If killing can be justified to protect the innocent from death, it would seem certain that a lesser “wrong” such as lying, likewise, must be.

I see nothing wrong, under Kant’s ethical theory, with everyone lying when the lives of others are at stake. That can easily and consistently be universalized and accepted as a reasonable course of action. No?

 

[wittgenstein]

Are you saying that Kant’s quote at post 294 is an inaccurate representation of Kant’s meaning? Or are you saying that he allows exceptions to his rule (the catagorical imperative ) and therefore the catagorical imperative is not a logical principle*.

• A syllogism can be valid or invalid. It cannot be inbetween and still be based on a logical principle.
  It seems to me that those are your only two options.
  PS: I agree with the idea of absolute moral principles. I only think that most academically validated philosophers reject the catagorical imperative, as I do. Moral dilemmas must be resolved in context. However,that does not mean that moral principles are not absolute.

 

[Eleve]

Because we recognize the inherent dignity of the human person, based on being made in the image and likeness of God.

But it seems that there are two ways of taking this. On the first way, God has inherent dignity, and humans also have inherent dignity as a causal consequence of the fact that they were made in the image of God. But in that case, whether humans have this dignity doesn’t depend on whether God exists. Compare with how a portrait is caused by the image of a human being. A portrait of the Queen looks the way it does because the Queen looks the way she does. It was made in her image. But the portrait does not depend on the Queen for its looks. Once the Queen dies, the portrait will look exactly the same.

If, on the other hand, it’s wrong to kill someone because of the relationship that exists between that person and God, it seems that the value of a human being is only extrinsic. But surely it’s something about a human being that makes it wrong to kill her, not just something about the human being and another being [God]. As Aquinas says, the duty not to kill a human comes from “the nature which God has made” - the nature of the human, not the nature of the relationship between God and the human.

 

[wittgenstein]

Response to post 352
I agree that Kant is in favor of sound reasoning. However, as I and the vast majority of academically validated philosophers have demonstrated,there are many flaws in the catagorical imperative and therefore it is not valid.
PS: My post 353 is also a response to post 352

 

[wittgenstein]

Response to post 266
Suppose I told my wife,“love me or I will hit you in the face.” (hell) And I tell her,“love me and I will give you a million dollars.”(heaven). My wife tells me she loves me. Does she? Reward and punishment has nothing to do with love or morality.(Even a gangster will do good for infinite reward. Even a gangster will do good to avoid infinite punishment)
See Matthew 22:37-39 and Matthew 6:33

 

[PRmerger]

But it seems that there are two ways of taking this. On the first way, God has inherent dignity, and humans also have inherent dignity as a causal consequence of the fact that they were made in the image of God. But in that case, whether humans have this dignity doesn’t depend on whether God exists. Compare with how a portrait is caused by the image of a human being. A portrait of the Queen looks the way it does because the Queen looks the way she does. It was made in her image. But the portrait does not depend on the Queen for its looks. Once the Queen dies, the portrait will look exactly the same.

But the portrait needs an Artist, does it not?

 

[Peter_Plato]

And I’m afraid that this is where these conversations always end up. It always runs thus:

1. A Christian says that morality in the form of the Golden Rule and love your neighbour etc are specifically based on Christian teachings.
2. Someone else points out that these were taught long before Jesus and gives numerous examples.
3. The reply is that it doesn’t matter. Jesus (or God) established this morality within said cultures long before Christianity came upon the scene.

So it appears that Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Hinduism etc etc are all based on Christian morals anyway. As are the morals of any unbeliever. In fact, everyone gets their morals from the Christian God. Goddidit.

Which begs the question: What on earth was the point in asking the original question?

Let’s attempt to state this in as objective a manner as possible.

A universe that has been specifically designed by a moral agent with a purpose that is extensible to all the moral or free agents that abide within it provides a consistent basis for the ethical judgements made by those creatures.

On the other hand, a universe that is simply the result of the unguided but determined reactions of its material constructs has no purpose that can function as a basis for the ethical judgements of creatures inhabiting it. (Cannot derive an ought from an is)

In the first kind of cosmos, moral purpose is embedded in the cause and order of the universe itself because it was designed by a moral agent. In the second, ethical beliefs cannot be derived from “the way things are” because ultimately the causal order underlying reality is itself amoral. Therefore, in this case, ethical thinking can only be subjectively derived by the moral agents abiding inside the universe since nothing about the universe itself provides a moral structure.

What is being argued here is that only a monotheistic framework provides a moral structure to the entire cosmos because only this kind of theistic understanding holds morality to be a foundational aspect to the universe itself. The universe is a moral place because the One responsible for it and all there is is ultimately a moral being. An atheistic understanding of the universe as simply “being there” cannot appeal to the universe itself for its understanding of moral “good” since the universe is ambivalent in this regard.

Let’s be clear, a theistic view of the universe provides, in principle, a moral foundation built into the intentional purpose behind the existence of all that is. An atheistic view must concede this and argue that there is no such moral foundation and must rely on a purely subjective, at the human level, ground for ethics.

Hopefully, that much is clear. The implications are that atheistic morality has a “built in” restriction in terms of derivation from a strictly “human” level rather than having the possibility of being grounded within the larger context of ultimate purpose. You can raise a hue and cry over that difficulty and attempt to blame “Christianity” for the ethical handicap built into your belief system, but that is the metaphysical reality you will have to face.

As to other “gods,” it seems very clear that gods incapable of cosmic creation do not, therefore, have the moral authority to dictate to creatures living in the universe what the moral landscape of that universe should be like. So even if these other gods actually did exist, they would, in principle, lack the moral authority of the monotheistic God who is the Source of all being.

What it comes down to, then, is if the monotheistic God of Christianity, Islam and Judaism does exist, there is no question that his moral authority supercedes that of any created thing existing within what is essentially his “world.” His game, his rules.

A corollary to this would be do we really know what his “rules” are? Perhaps they are much more subtle than our current understanding grasps. Much as some of us grapple with and possibly misinterpret Kant’s “rational” portrayal of ethics, it is very likely that we might misunderstand the moral nature of God’s purpose for us and the universe.

This could very well be the reason why different religions have a slightly different take on what God’s moral will actually is. Certainly, if disagreements can be raised about the purely human understanding of ethics as defined by a brainiac like Kant, then it would seem expected that the more complete moral landscape of God would have discrepant views, especially given that we are not all perfect moral agents, but often contentious precisely because of a lack of will to be such.

Even given discordant ethical positions, the question then to be asked is, “Which is the correct view?” Surely that is to be preferred over the optional, “Therefore, no correct view is possible.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

Response to post 352
I agree that Kant is in favor of sound reasoning. However, as I and the vast majority of academically validated philosophers have demonstrated,there are many flaws in the catagorical imperative and therefore it is not valid.
PS: My post 353 is also a response to post 352

Except for the trivial detail that you haven’t demonstrated that at all.