Morality without God?

[Sair]

And I would say nothing could be more wierd than the proclivities of someone who thinks God either does not exist, or is a part of the universe, or of whom the universe is a part. Such a person hasn’t advanced much past Thales of ancient Greece. Linus

There was a time when I would have thought it strange to seriously doubt the existence of any gods also - but actually, throwing off belief in an essentially humanoid deity allows us to focus more effectively upon the genuinely human (and ultimately animal) origins of what we call moral behaviour, when we’re not pressured by beliefs that rest on fantasy rather than evidence.

 

[InJesusItrust]

While we are discussing fantasy, how is it obvious that all humans are equal and should be given equal rights? How do you account for this with a Darwinian metaphysical model?

Some people are born smart, others retarded, some with weakness in some ways, others with strength. How are people equal and why ought all people be given equal rights? People used to say that it is obvious because God is King and we are His children. If inferior traits hold back humanity, how do you convince people not to give into Malthusian ideology?

It is fantasy to say that we can be equal without transcendental authority. Without that authority a man or group of men have to conquer the world and make everyone else equal.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

No one in his right mind believes that all people are equal. That would be a stupendous fiction.

What people do believe is that all people ought to be treated as equal before the law. Thus, we all have natural rights. But where do these rights come from? They can either be conferred by a generous and loving God, or by a collection of people who, if they have no God, have no obligation to be generous and loving. The latter is, I think, the Darwinian model … the survival of the fittest, defined as the strongest, whose strength is perceived to reside in their ability to exploit the weaker. Slavery fits the Darwinian model. It does not fit the Christian model.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Thus, we all have natural rights. But where do these rights come from? They can either be conferred by a generous and loving God, or by a collection of people who, if they have no God, have no obligation to be generous and loving.

Based on both observed behaviour and historical events I don’t think that people that claim to have a deity necessarily find themselves obligated to be loving. Won’t say much about that here though since there’s another thread touching on that in a bit more detail.

The latter is, I think, the Darwinian model … the survival of the fittest, defined as the strongest, whose strength is perceived to reside in their ability to exploit the weaker.

To be more specific, that is “social darwinism.” While it bears his name it’s something that Darwin promoted.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Thinking

Based on both observed behaviour and historical events I don’t think that people that claim to have a deity necessarily find themselves obligated to be loving.

They are so obligated by the Sermon on the Mount.

Whether they conform to the obligation is another matter altogether.

The devil can be in the details.

 

[Eleve]

If God (as defined by classic theism) does not exist, where do qualities such as beauty, goodness or even truth come from? These qualitative aspects are dependent upon some subjective “being” or other to impose them, no? It would seem that the onus is on those, perhaps you, who hold that truly objective grounds for morality can exist without God.

It would seem that such qualitative aspects as beauty or goodness can only be an actual aspect of reality if reality itself derives from an absolute Subject superior to reality that instills those qualities into it. Qualitative aspects would, only then, precede the objective brute facts because the Subjective bringer of these qualities has precedence over lifeless reality.

If, at ground, lifeless, objective, brute fact is the “reality” layer underlying all, then qualitative elements can only be filters by which conditionally existing subjective beings interpret reality for the sake of making their own sense of the underlying reality which, in fact, has none of these qualities.

If, however, the “reality” layer underlying all is a Supreme and Personal Being then qualitive elements are not merely filters which interpret objective reality but are integral to reality itself.

Without God, the underlying reality itself can only be lifeless, brute fact; and morals only conditional on the transitory existence of moral subjects with no absolutely obligatory aspect, except as forcibly or conditionally imposed by some yielding power over others.

I’m fine with saying that morality depends on the existence of subjects. But since I don’t deny that there are subjects, it’s not obvious to me that this is a problem.

I disagree with you on several points:

1. 
   *]You say that beauty and goodness can only be “can only be an actual aspect of reality if reality itself derives from an absolute Subject superior to reality that instills those qualities into it.” But it’s unclear to me what you mean here, and I’m not sure I’d agree with any obvious interpretation. First, what is an “actual aspect” of reality? It can’t mean an intrinsic aspect, because by your own account these aspects of reality depend on God. But then if these are intrinsic properties, what exactly is the problem with their being instilled by humans?
   *]You say that if God underlies reality then goodness is “integral to reality itself.” But how does that follow? First of all, why would it follow from the fact that God values certain things and that God underlies reality that God’s values are integral to those things? I underlie my thought that 2 + 2 = 4, and I value chocolate ice cream, but my opinion of chocolate ice cream is not in any sense integral to my thought that 2 + 2 = 4. Second, even if God’s values are integral to reality, why does that mean that things in reality have to be good as a result? Values are integral to things like plans and awards. But there are such things as bad plans and undeserved awards.
   *]You say that in one breath that without God “morals [can] only [be] conditional on the transitory existence of moral subjects with no absolutely obligatory aspect, except as forcibly or conditionally imposed by some yielding power over others,” but saying that morals depend on the existence of moral subjects is not the same as saying that a particular subject has to accept morals or be in fact motivated by them in order to be obligatory. My view is that things are good because people value them, so in this sense I think that there need to be subjects with values in order for there to be moral goodness. But the fact that some values derive from Bob, and I am not Bob, does not mean that I am not obligated by those values, any more than the fact that on your view values derive from God and the fact that I am not God means that morality is not obligatory.
   *]It’s commonly thought that that it is not merely a coincidence that God wills the best for people, and that it would be a bad thing if God wanted people all to suffer, just for the sake of suffering itself. Sometimes this is raised as an objection to Divine Command Theory: if God just chooses what is right and wrong, the objection goes, what stops him from choosing to make torture right and benevolence wrong? Sophisticated versions of Divine Command Theory can avoid this objection by distinguishing goodness from rightness, and saying that God chooses to make things right and wrong because those choices are conducive to some antecedent good. But this strategy is unworkable for your position, because you are trying to explain the existence of goodness and badness in themselves.

 

[tonyrey]

There was a time when I would have thought it strange to seriously doubt the existence of any gods also - but actually, throwing off belief in an essentially humanoid deity allows us to focus more effectively upon the genuinely human (and ultimately animal) origins of what we call moral behaviour, when we’re not pressured by beliefs that rest on fantasy rather than evidence.

Belief in a rational Deity is far more reasonable, coherent and consistent than the self-refuting fantasy that reason is magically produced by irrational, purposeless forces…

 

[tonyrey]

But this strategy is unworkable for your position, because you are trying to explain the existence of goodness and badness in themselves.

It is a common error to separate goodness (or love) from God as if they are distinct.

 

[tonyrey]

Based on both observed behaviour and historical events I don’t think that people that claim to have a deity necessarily find themselves obligated to be loving.

What people claim has no bearing on the nature of reality…

 

[Sair]

Indeed they are but only under the guidence of the Holy Spirit who guides the Church in all Truth and by whom we form our consciences.

So you agree that so-called ‘spiritual’ guidance is spurious and distracting.

Without that guidance we will be able to live consistent moral lives.

That is exactly what I would say, only I’d be inclined to put scare quotes around ‘guidance’.

Perhaps you should review your comments more thoroughly before posting…

 

[Peter_Plato]

I disagree with you on several points:

1. 
   *]You say that beauty and goodness can only be “can only be an actual aspect of reality if reality itself derives from an absolute Subject superior to reality that instills those qualities into it.” But it’s unclear to me what you mean here, and I’m not sure I’d agree with any obvious interpretation. First, what is an “actual aspect” of reality? It can’t mean an intrinsic aspect, because by your own account these aspects of reality depend on God. But then if these are intrinsic properties, what exactly is the problem with their being instilled by humans?

1. 
   I am going to address your post one point at a time, likely over several days.
   
   Let’s take this point down to an even more basic level, that of utility. Let’s say I create a hammer. The form of that hammer allows me to use it in certain ways (to pound and pull nails) that I find helpful or utile. It would be correct to say that the hammer has utility relative to the one who created it because the utility was actually informed in the design of the hammer by its creator, me. It would also be correct to say that the hammer has “objective” utility because any being, similar to the one who created it could use it in the same way. However, if no beings like the one who created it existed, then the hammer would not have any objective utility, in fact, no utility at all. Its utility completely depends upon a user or users existing that impart onto the hammer, utility. A “fact” that can be objectively determined by any beings with the same or similar requirements as its original creator.
   
   In a sense, the “form” of the hammer makes it utile as an essential property of its shape and other characteristics, but that utility will never be realized except by a suitable user.
   
   This same understanding could be applied to other qualities besides utility, such as beauty, intelligibility and goodness. Something may be good, beautiful or valuable to a subject who creates the object, but those qualities may also be “objectively” recognizable as such to any similar being because of the fact that the beings share similarities of their makeup. Thus, things are intelligible only to intelligent beings, moral only to moral beings and beautiful only to beings capable of recognizing beauty.
   
   In one sense such qualities are found in the object, essentially, but only available to beings capable of “recovering” the quality by features about the beings themselves.
   
   So, as this applies to the case of ethical reality: like utility, if the quality of moral goodness is informed in the essential nature and purpose of the universe itself by its creator, then other moral beings, like humans, would be able to recognize it because of their nature as moral beings.
   
   If God had formed hammers and randomly placed them to be found by humans, the utile quality of hammers would be evident to the humans who discovered the hammers because of the fact that humans share characteristics (intention, purpose, creativity, etc.) with the God that dropped the hammers in the first place.
   
   It would be quite correct to hold that utility is part of the “nature” of the hammers (form follows function), but also relative to the subjective characteristics of the beings that would find them of use. Now transpose that understanding to ethics.
   
   Moral goodness could very well be a feature understandable only to “subjectivity enabled” moral beings, but that does not preclude goodness from being an essential and objective feature of reality, especially if reality itself originates in the eternal Subject, who, then, defines the nature of reality itself with “subjectivity” in mind.
   
   Think of the universe as a gigantic hammer. Its “moral purpose,” like the utility of the hammer is an essential aspect of it, but only discernible as such by moral beings capable of grasping and applying moral ‘handles’ to their actions.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

There was a time when I would have thought it strange to seriously doubt the existence of any gods also - but actually, throwing off belief in an essentially humanoid deity allows us to focus more effectively upon the genuinely human (and ultimately animal) origins of what we call moral behaviour, when we’re not pressured by beliefs that rest on fantasy rather than evidence.

Well that is just nuts! What could be more " fanciful " than to believe the universe exists without a cause or that it is god or that god is part of it or is developing out of it. That is the stuff of science fiction. So you place your faith in something for which there is no scrap of evidence and you bet your eternal salvation on wishful thinking. There can be nothing more fanciful than that kind of bet. Linus

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Sair

**There was a time when I would have thought it strange to seriously doubt the existence of any gods … **

There was a time when I would have thought it strange to seriously imagine the existence of gods. Then I discovered Jesus Christ and only one god left to imagine. How much more reasonable it is to imagine one god than many!

 

[Peter_Plato]

Part 2

[2]You say that if God underlies reality then goodness is “integral to reality itself.” But how does that follow? First of all, why would it follow from the fact that God values certain things and that God underlies reality that God’s values are integral to those things? I underlie my thought that 2 + 2 = 4, and I value chocolate ice cream, but my opinion of chocolate ice cream is not in any sense integral to my thought that 2 + 2 = 4.

You value both the ice cream and the arithmetic equation, but in different ways. You value the equation as meaningful and true, you value the ice cream as an appetite suppressor or taste delight. I am not completely clear what you are arguing here, but it appears that what you are claiming is that God would not or might not create things that are of value to him. Or, perhaps, that some things are, like arithmetic facts, value neutral.

Clearly, any being that is capable of creating would not waste their time or energy on things that were not of value to it. It might create some things, like mathematical truths, that are value neutral but necessary as instrumental to the creation of other things (like ice cream?) that have real value.

I would spend more time on this point, but I am unclear as to what, precisely, your point is. It is difficult to argue against loose associations of ideas.

Second, even if God’s values are integral to reality, why does that mean that things in reality have to be good as a result? Values are integral to things like plans and awards. But there are such things as bad plans and undeserved awards.

Bad plans only come from inadequate planners. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then “bad plans” would not be concocted.

And, yes, I am familiar with dysteleological arguments, but with such a complex plan as the universe itself which has a timeline of billions of years and involving (name removed by moderator)ut from billions of free agents, it would seem a hasty conclusion to make concerning the quality of the plan, given that it is “in process” and its final end is unclear.

[3]You say that in one breath that without God “morals [can] only [be] conditional on the transitory existence of moral subjects with no absolutely obligatory aspect, except as forcibly or conditionally imposed by some yielding power over others,” but saying that morals depend on the existence of moral subjects is not the same as saying that a particular subject has to accept morals or be in fact motivated by them in order to be obligatory. My view is that ** things are good because people value them**, so in this sense I think that there need to be subjects with values in order for there to be moral goodness. But the fact that some values derive from Bob, and I am not Bob, does not mean that I am not obligated by those values, any more than the fact that on your view values derive from God and the fact that I am not God means that morality is not obligatory.

I find it interesting that you have no qualms about conceding that things are, as you say, “good because people value them” and yet in point 4 you argue against divine command theory on the basis that if things are “good because God values them,” that is tantamount to “might makes right.” So what is it about people that gives us a right to determine good, but God has no such right because, on his part, that would be audaciously Machiavellian?

Surely, a determination of good by people, must be inferior to a similar determination by an omniscient omnibenevolent Being independent of the power of either type of being to carry out either determination.

Furthermore, if people are creatures brought into being by God, then the means by which we can determine anything regarding good must be based upon the qualities endowed by God to us, and, therefore, are dependent upon God’s determination, in any case.

To use subordinate qualities such as humans have to make judgements against determinations made by the Superlative Being would seem to be judicially untenable since neither moral goodness, intellectual prowess, fairness of judgement nor general competency would favor human judgements over those of the Creator of all.

I did not argue that we are not obligated to moral values even if they originate in God. My point would be that since we also originate in God, as moral values do, then we are, indeed, obligated by our nature as moral beings. My point was that only beings capable of subjectivity are obligated by moral values, so an awareness of moral values arises from the fact of our “subjectivity,” from what we are, but since that subjectivity is grounded in God, we are obligated by our subjective natures to the moral truths that come from God as Supreme Subject.

Continued…

 

[Peter_Plato]

… From previous

[4]It’s commonly thought that that it is not merely a coincidence that God wills the best for people, and that it would be a bad thing if God wanted people all to suffer, just for the sake of suffering itself. Sometimes this is raised as an objection to Divine Command Theory: if God just chooses what is right and wrong, the objection goes, what stops him from choosing to make torture right and benevolence wrong? Sophisticated versions of Divine Command Theory can avoid this objection by distinguishing goodness from rightness, and saying that God chooses to make things right and wrong because those choices are conducive to some antecedent good. But this strategy is unworkable for your position, because you are trying to explain the existence of goodness and badness in themselves.

I am familiar with the Euthyphro Dilemma. Are things good because God wills them to be or does God will them to be because they are good? The answer is that, like mass and energy, goodness and being are transferable. What is is what is good and what is good is what is. Supreme Being is identical to Supreme Good. Things are good to the extent that they are. This is consistent with the standard Thomistic view of God and is in line with the Biblical portrayal of God.

Goodness comes from Being. It is not an add-on property. Only a strict materialist with a myopic view of existence cannot see or admit this. Things are good to the extent that they are. Evil is the privation of some aspect of being. Physical evil is a deprivation of physical being or physical good. Moral evil is a deprivation of subjective or moral existence. That is why Socrates claimed that no [moral] evil could be done to him (as a subjective moral being) without his assent. As subjective beings we do not become lesser moral beings without our own complicity, which is why we are culpable to the degree we cooperate with evil and become degraded in the process.

This is another reason why God’s plan cannot be fully understood because both forms of evil play a role and since it is impossible to fully tabulate moral evil, based as it is on subjective existence and free will, we cannot fully weigh what God brings about as physical good or allows as physical evil over and against what transpires as moral good and evil. We also do not adequately grasp the inherent difference in the value of subjective existence over physical existence and tend to err on the side of physical because it is more “tangible” to our cruder “instruments of detection.”

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The real question of this thread, despite its title, is not whether you can be moral without God. But rather how moral a completely godless society could be. Such a society has never existed, although in some societies there has been a near eclipse of the influence of religion, especially in the governing of that society.

Voltaire said it best in his essay On Atheism.

“The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who not being able to understand the creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability….That was how things went with the Roman Senate which was almost entirely composed of atheists in theory and in practice, that is to say, who believed in neither a Providence nor a future life; this senate was an assembly of philosophers, of sensualists and ambitious men, all very dangerous men, who ruined the republic."

 

[Bradski]

The latter is, I think, the Darwinian model … the survival of the fittest, defined as the strongest, whose strength is perceived to reside in their ability to exploit the weaker. Slavery fits the Darwinian model. It does not fit the Christian model.

I wish Darwin had used a different phrase (actually first coined by Herbert Spencer). It DOES NOT mean the survival of the strongest or the fastest. It means the survival of those who best fit the environment at the time. So it cannot in any way, shape or form be used in the context of slavery or master races or the subjugation of a people.

I think that you probably knew that anyway, Charles.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I wish Darwin had used a different phrase (actually first coined by Herbert Spencer). It DOES NOT mean the survival of the strongest or the fastest. It means the survival of those who best fit the environment at the time.

In reemphasizing what you’ve already said, Charles was writing descriptively whereas the latter was writing prescriptively.

It’s kind of like person A making the observation “people that rob banks and arn’t identified get away with it” while person B writes A-ism, which states “people should rob banks and hide their identities while they are at it.”

 

[Bradski]

It’s also difficult to get people away from using teleological terms when discussing evolution, such as ‘Leopards can run fast because they need to catch Gazelles’. Well, I guess if someone had designed them that way.

But, hey – who would ever believe that!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Bradski

So it cannot in any way, shape or form be used in the context of slavery or master races or the subjugation of a people.

The concept of “the survival of the fittest” has been used precisely in that way since ancient times. The conquerors always believed the people they conquered were naturally inferior, and therefore could be used as slaves.

Hitler was still doing that to the Jews who were assigned as slave workers in factories during World War II.

From the ancient Egyptians to the modern Germans it has been so.