Non-theistic foundation of morality?

[Tomdstone]

I understand that it’s only 14 where local laws allow. Where it may be the custom.

In other words, relative to the area. And as it has changed less than 100 years ago, relative to the time As well

It says:
The conference of bishops is free to establish a higher age for the licit celebration of marriage.
vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P3Y.HTM
I suppose it is possible for a marriage to be valid, but not licit.

 

[PRmerger]

In theory, everyone gets a seat at the table. It’s the opinions we accept or reject depending on the reasons given for and against them.

So, you agree with me that, in answer to your question “Is there anyone who’s opinions which you would exclude”…you would exclude someone who asserts that raping someone is a moral choice.

 

[PRmerger]

But you raise a good point. Is it reasonable to accept the opinions of someone on one matter if their opinions on another are abhorrent to you?

That’s a silly question.

The better question is: is it reasonable to accept the opinions of someone on one matter if their opinions are wrong.

And the answer is, of course: No. It is not reasonable. One should always reject the opinions of someone that are wrong.

Would you exclude people who thought that slavery was OK? Some people who wrote your constitution thought it was. Would you exclude people who thought that sex with children was ok? The church allows mariage to girls who have turned 14. Would you agree with someone’s reasons against genital mutilation if the person making them was a racist?

From a discussion about morality, or from a discussion about whether turnips or okra are the best vegetable?

Not sure what the context is here, luv.

A reasonable argument stands alone.

Sure. So very often it does.

 

[o_mlly]

If a group of men in a war situation are trying to kill you and your colleagues and are captured and you have nowhere to hold them, you let them go.

In a just war, the killing of captured soldiers who are docile is always murder. If the prisoners cannot be secured then I think they must be released after being neutralized as much as morally possible from returning to the battlefield as hostiles.

If a man murders another, maybe a crime of passion or a robbery gone wrong, and you have nowhere to hold him, you kill him (oh, unless he repents, in which case he’s good to go).

I believe that a convict who is in adequate custody should not be executed by the state. The adequacy of confinement as sufficient to protect society from further violence is a matter of prudential judgment.

Depending on who you talk to, depending on their interpretation of church teaching, depending on their personal views, you get different answers to different questions. Sometimes wildly different.

Not entirely so. The church teaching is clear and coherent on morality. There is a subjective component to all moral decisions. You may call this subjective component “personal views.”

The church teaches that personal views are one of three sources in determining the morality of an act. Personal views, or as the church states, the intent of the actor based on the ends-in-view – not the actual consequences (they are not knowable with certainty) but the actor’s intended ends, determine the morality of an otherwise morally neutral act, that is an act which is not intrinsically evil.

One should expect different answers to different questions. Perhaps the criticism you’re making is getting different answers to the same question. Consider that the actor’s intent does make the same action morally good or evil. For instance, I throw you out of the boat because you’re Australian intending to end your life – malicious. I throw you out the boat because you’re obese intending to save the children – permitted. I throw myself out the boat not intending my death but to save the life of others – heroic virtue.

I actually agree with some things that you say. But you would disagree with other Catholics. And both you and they would insist that your morality is theistic. That is, a morality based on what God wants you to do. If that is the case, then it is utterly useless unless someone can guarantee that they know exactly what God wants. And can interpret it correctly.

I would and do disagree with other Catholics who understand the church’s moral teaching if we disagree on the actor’s intent or the prudential judgments on the end-in-view of the action contemplated. We would not disagree on the church’s teaching. It’s not easy being Christian, “… work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12) but there is room in the pew (and confessional) for all of us.

What you and all other Catholics are doing is bringing your own personal interpretation to bear on each of the moral questions. At least, where they may be relevent. Or at least, where you can convince yourself that they may be relevant. That’s obvious because of the different attitudes to different aspects of morality.
… The best you can say is that it is a personal morality based on theistic principles.

I believe you are correct. “God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel.” The subjective element in its determination makes morality a personal affair. However, the objective element requires that end-in-view must always be the good, must be bound to God.

It is blindingly apparent to me that all questions of morality must be determined on the particular situation as it stands at that time. On the circumstances pertaining at that moment. Does God give unequivocal answers to all questions? Obviously not, so as far as I am concerned, decisions have to be made by us as individuals.

The morality of an act – good or evil – is not determined by circumstances. The object of the act and the actor’s intention determine the act’s morality. The level of blame, merit or reproach attached to the actor is certainly affected by circumstances.

If you have an answer to any moral problem, then you won’t get far simply by insisting that your answer is based on a theistic morality. You will need reasons for it. If you insist it is God’s will, then you’ll need to tell me His reasons as well. I won’t ignore them. Because they will be what you understand to be God’s will.

If you act on right reasons then your act will be based on theistic morality.

 

[e_c]

If there is an authorative interpretation, it must make sense to you. You have to agree with the reasoning (otherwise can you give me an example of something that you consider to be moral where you disagree with the reasons given?).

If there is no authorative interpretation, then do you rely soley on your interpretation? If you do, then you must consider yourself correct in all things. If you don’t, then we are back to needing further (name removed by moderator)ut from others who have reasonable arguments.

You’re being serious…

When we form a belief, we believe what we believe to be true, which is why we believe it. This is how it works. Yes, it is I who must form my beliefs, it can’t be done for me. I am the arbiter of my consent. Anyone who thinks what he believes is untrue doesn’t actually believe what he claims to believe.

So?

One must seek out authorities - the question is, what constitutes authority? If you are simply wise by human standards and live a “good life” in my eyes, well, you might be useful in some way but are not a true authority. But if you are raising people from the dead, then you have my full attention. That’s why we’re still talking about Jesus… He actually did that kind of stuff. So He’s an authority, as are those chosen by Him in particular ways, both contemporaries and those coming after.

But perhaps you’ll just say, “Well how you interpret Jesus’ teachings is different from others.” Yes, and once again I will say that’s irrelevant. Refer to the first paragraph of my post. The goal is to conform the mind to the reality. Some do it well, some don’t.

 

[Tomdstone]

The morality of an act – good or evil – is not determined by circumstances.

Take the act of killing another person.
The circumstances will determine whether it is good or bad.
If you kill an innocent person, it is bad.
If you kill someone in self-defense as he is trying to kill you and your beloved family, it is not bad, since you have saved your family from misery.

 

[PRmerger]

Take the act of killing another person.
The circumstances will determine whether it is good or bad.
If you kill an innocent person, it is bad.
If you kill someone in self-defense as he is trying to kill you and your beloved family, it is not bad, since you have saved your family from misery.

Yes. You are correct.

This fits in nicely with the Catholic understanding of morality:
-the act itself
-the consequences
-the reasons for the act

 

[Bradski]

That’s a silly question.

From a discussion about morality, or from a discussion about whether turnips or okra are the best vegetable?

It’s pretty straightforward. If someone espouses a particular approach to a matter of morality and you agree with it, do you then discount it if you discover that that person then holds views with which you strongly disagree? My point being that it is the argument that is the important thing, not the person making it.

There is a subjective component to all moral decisions. You may call this subjective component “personal views.”

Exactly. I seem to make this point constantly but keep getting rebuked.

One should expect different answers to different questions…I throw you out the boat because you’re obese intending to save the children – permitted.

Why do you think this is so straightforward to answer, yet we get so many excuses not to answer it? It wasn’t impossible, was it. Despite:

Your hypotheticals are impossible and have no instructive value.

And the instructive value it has is that we now what is allowed and what is not allowed. In your personal view. Because, as you say:

The subjective element in its determination makes morality a personal affair. However, the objective element requires that end-in-view must always be the good, must be bound to God.

Well, you can forget the ‘bound to God’ part. We can make do with ‘must always be good’. There’s no good throwing the guy out of the lifeboat if it does no good.

The morality of an act – good or evil – is not determined by circumstances. The object of the act and the actor’s intention determine the act’s morality. The level of blame, merit or reproach attached to the actor is certainly affected by circumstances.

The circumstances determine the actor’s choices. There may be only one choice (or two, if you include ‘do nothing’). That might determine if it is moral or not. Or permissible or not. Because I believe that throwing someone overboard is permissible, but immoral. Or should I say, less immoral than allowing children to drown.

If you act on right reasons then your act will be based on theistic morality.

You are not saying anything here. Other than a theistic morality means you should act on right reasons. So I can say a secular or humanist morality means you should act on right reasons. In fact, leave out any qualification and simply say that morality means you should act on right reasons. And, as we have agreed, those reasons must result in a greater good. And how we interpret that is….well, it’s a subjective component of all moral decisions. Each to his own, I guess. One should expect different answers to different questions.

So how do we know who is right?

 

[inocente]

You’re not getting it. Try rereading the exchange and forget that you took a position. Then let us know if you still see a difficulty. There’s not a trace of consequentialism in PP.

I happen to be quite familiar with the idea of minimum force, and I am confident that PP is too. Please assume that folks who are willing to engage in discourse at this level are aware of the basics of what they’re talking about. You might be surprised.

Hmmm. And yet:

Ergo, God is wrong to judge anyone and must not only be merciful, but must go the further step of judging all evil to be good as a matter of principle and NOT consequence, since by your principle – consequentialism is bad ethics – consequences shouldn’t matter.

So human mortality is an example of God doing evil – inflicting capital punishment as a consequence of human sin (and thus consequentialism at work) – to say nothing of God’s authority to finally judge human beings at the end of time. The just consequences of human actions should never override the dignity of human life, therefore, God would be wrong to inflict punishment (death or perdition) on human beings no matter what they have done.

Doing evil is thus indistinguishable from doing good because the consequences of doing either shouldn’t matter in the least because… well, consequentialism.

---

Morality depends on order, order depends on will. Non-theistic morality, therefore, can only be grounded in human will (or angelic will, for the nitpickers out there).

Examples of things which depend on order but not on will: the sciences, math, logic. It’s highly debatable whether most secular systems of ethics are based on will rather than logic. But in any event, differences between theist posters have not exactly proven that secular ethics is any less solid.

btw not sure about your definition of legalism.

 

[inocente]

I explained my position in post #324.

Consequentialism isn’t false so much as it isn’t a complete accounting of morality.

I don’t think it makes sense to claim the rightness or wrongness of an act has NOTHING whatsoever to do with what comes about as a result of the act, i.e., its consequences.

What sense is there in saying rape is wrong, but it’s not wrong because of the harm it causes to a woman or child (i.e., the harmful consequences) but for some other reason that has nothing to do with consequences? That doesn’t make sense.

Perhaps you can explain how rightness or wrongness of rape is determined without any reference at all to consequences?

AND keep the explanation very simple because, as you say, “ethics shouldn’t involve long complicated arguments, it should be founded on arguments anyone can understand.”

You’re arguing against a strawman, as that’s not at all what consequentialism means.

Consequentialism doesn’t say consequences don’t matter in morality.

It says that only consequences matter in morality.

That’s why Catholics usually say it’s wrong, because it restricts itself to consequences alone. All acts are permitted. Under consequentialism, the probable consequences of different acts are weighed up and the most moral act is whatever gets the best score. Rape slavery and torture are all morally good acts if they produce a good score, they are only morally bad if they don’t.

From bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/consequentialism_1.shtml:

"Consequentialism is based on two principles:

• Whether an act is right or wrong depends only on the results of that act

• The more good consequences an act produces, the better or more right that act

It gives us this guidance when faced with a moral dilemma:

• A person should choose the action that maximises good consequences

And it gives this general guidance on how to live:

• People should live so as to maximise good consequences

Different forms of consequentialism differ over what the good thing is that should be maximised.

• Utilitarianism states that people should maximise human welfare or well-being (which they used to call ‘utility’ - hence the name).

• **Hedonism** states that people should maximise human pleasure.

• Other forms of consequentialism take a more subtle approach; for example stating that people should maximise the satisfaction of their fully informed and rational preferences.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s pretty straightforward. If someone espouses a particular approach to a matter of morality and you agree with it, do you then discount it if you discover that that person then holds views with which you strongly disagree? My point being that it is the argument that is the important thing, not the person making it.

Yes, you are correct. You seem to be alluding to the Genetic Fallacy, which, curiously, I just referenced in another thread.

So, we look at the arguments, not the person making them.

But that still brings us to the question: if there’s no canon by which we measure someone’s arguments, YOU CANNOT TELL SOMEONE HIS ARGUMENT IS WRONG. For all he will do is shrug and say, “Well, I used the same tools you did to come to my position: my own reason and intellect.”

 

[PRmerger]

You are not saying anything here. Other than a theistic morality means you should act on right reasons.

And I will add: a theistic morality allows you a canon by which you can measure all other moralities, and by which you can tell others whether their morality is right or wrong.

Otherwise, it’s everyone making up their own rules, using the same tools you do.

And you cannot tell someone that his morality is wrong.

So I can say a secular or humanist morality means you should act on right reasons.

Except that you cannot tell someone whose morality disagrees with yours that he is wrong, for there is no canon by which you can measure the degree of rightness or wrongness of someone’s morality, save, “That’s just what I believe”.

 

[o_mlly]

Take the act of killing another person.
The circumstances will determine whether it is good or bad.
If you kill an innocent person, it is bad.
If you kill someone in self-defense as he is trying to kill you and your beloved family, it is not bad, since you have saved your family from misery.

CCC #1754* The circumstances, including the consequences, are secondary elements of a moral act. They contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral goodness or evil of human acts (for example, the amount of a theft). They can also diminish or increase the agent’s responsibility (such as acting out of a fear of death). Circumstances of themselves cannot change the moral quality of acts themselves; they can make neither good nor right an action that is in itself evil.* (Emphasis mine).

 

[o_mlly]

Exactly. I seem to make this point constantly but keep getting rebuked.

Hang in there. Blind squirrels sometimes find nuts.

Why do you think this is so straightforward to answer, yet we get so many excuses not to answer it? It wasn’t impossible, was it. Despite:

What is impossible is to know the consequences with certainty. What is not impossible and necessary although not sufficient for an act to be morally good is that the actor’s end-in-view (intention) is good.

And the instructive value it has is that we now what is allowed and what is not allowed. In your personal view.

I say my end-in-view is the saving of human lives (good) and I accept the probability of the loss of a human life (evil). The act itself, “over-you-go”, is not evil in itself as my end-in-view is not your death but the lightening of the life boat. Of course, as you recall, this act is the hypothetical of a hypothetical – as “over-I-go” was my first choice.

Well, you can forget the ‘bound to God’ part. We can make do with ‘must always be good’. There’s no good throwing the guy out of the lifeboat if it does no good.

God does not require your belief to work in you for your salvation. If you do anything good, He is always the author, you are the instrument.

The circumstances determine the actor’s choices. There may be only one choice (or two, if you include ‘do nothing’). That might determine if it is moral or not. Or permissible or not. Because I believe that throwing someone overboard is permissible, but immoral. Or should I say, less immoral than allowing children to drown.

Do you beat dead horses down under? Throwing someone overboard is a morally neutral act. He gets wet, big deal. The crux in determining the morality of the act then falls to the subject’s intention, not the circumstances. Did you intend his death? Shame on you. Did you intend to lighten the boat to save several lives? Praise the Lord.

You are not saying anything here. Other than a theistic morality means you should act on right reasons. So I can say a secular or humanist morality means you should act on right reasons. In fact, leave out any qualification and simply say that morality means you should act on right reasons. And, as we have agreed, those reasons must result in a greater good. And how we interpret that is….well, it’s a subjective component of all moral decisions. Each to his own, I guess. One should expect different answers to different questions.

We call it the natural law written on the heart of every man – atheist or no.

 

[Tomdstone]

CCC #1754* The circumstances, including the consequences, are secondary elements of a moral act. They contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral goodness or evil of human acts (for example, the amount of a theft). They can also diminish or increase the agent’s responsibility (such as acting out of a fear of death). Circumstances of themselves cannot change the moral quality of acts themselves*; they can make neither good nor right an action that is in itself evil. (Emphasis mine).

How would that apply in the example that I have given?

 

[Tomdstone]

Throwing someone overboard is a morally neutral act. He gets wet, big deal.

That seems like a stretch. You are in the middle of an ocean with no lifejackets. The person thrown overboard will surely drown. The circumstances indicate that throwing someone overboard is equivalent to murdering her.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You’re arguing against a strawman, as that’s not at all what consequentialism means.

I wasn’t arguing against a straw man so much as I was arguing against you

Perhaps your last post will help you catch on to what has been your error all along because, you see, YOU kept insisting I was a consequentialist even though I never argued that ONLY consequences matter. I was arguing that consequences do matter, but they do not amount to the ONLY consideration, which means I can’t be a consequentialist because I have never suggested what is necessary to be a consequentialist by your very definition: “It says that ONLY consequences matter in morality.”

Yet YOU kept making the logical non sequitur that by insisting that CONSEQUENCES do matter, I was making the case that they alone matter - which you now admit is what a true blue consequentialist does hold. So obviously, contrary to your insistence all along, I CAN’T BE A CONSEQUENTIALIST.

Thank you for demonstrating that in such a way that you might even have convinced yourself of your own error.

 

[Peter_Plato]

That seems like a stretch. You are in the middle of an ocean with no lifejackets. The person thrown overboard will surely drown. The circumstances indicate that throwing someone overboard is equivalent to murdering her.

Hawaii is “in the middle” of the Pacific Ocean. A group of exceptional swimmers take a boat out a few hundred metres from the shore. They jokingly throw one of the females in the group “overboard” with no life jacket. She will surely not drown. The circumstances don’t indicate that throwing someone overboard is equivalent to murdering her.

Circumstances make a big difference.

 

[thenobes]

I’ve often heard it said that while you can be good whether you believe in God or not, God offers the only possibility of a foundation for morality. Supposedly, in the absence of God morality is reduced to mere opinion that is not sufficient to justify judging any act as good or evil.

I think there can be a non-theistic ground for objective morality. Morality is rooted in our human need to trust each other and thereby facilitate closer cooperation and greater achievements than we could gain by ourselves. Someone who treated morality as mere opinion (and used that for selfish advantage in every situation) would be too changeable to be trustworthy, and wouldn’t receive cooperation, losing out on the gains from said cooperation.

“Too changeable” to those of a different morality. But would their moral system be objectively the only one or even “best”? Obviously the opposing view would be a moral system as well, just at antithetical purposes the other. Both are objective, but neither is absolute. God is the only foundation for an ultimately “absolute” moral system.

This idea supplies the benefits of positing God as the source of morality (unchanging and negative consequences for failure to act well) without positing a transcendent entity or realm whose mysterious existence is the source of morality.

Thoughts?

Again, the problem is not any moral system, but an absolute one, since a relative one produces only contradiction, in that “should” becomes both “do this” and “don’t do this”.

The reason for God being the source of a noncontradictory absolute moral system is that any moral system that we propose, is proposed only because it is the best moral system. However, we then have chosen it based on a higher set moral values. Where did the higher set come from? An even higher set of moral values. Thus we have an infinite chain of value sets. Since we ourselves are finite, the chain cannot be infinite in order for our minds to apprehend it. And, to break this chain requires one of 2 things, either to accept an external overarching moral set or to create our own overarching moral set. Either, acceptance or creation, would be based on whim or internal feeling.

Since creation of our own moral system would be based upon whim and/or internal feeling, and these are particular to each person, such creation is fundamentally unsure of being absolute. The only sure knowledge of an absolute value system is made possible by recourse to an external source of moral values, one who is not subject to whim or internal feelings. I.e, God.

peace
steve

 

[o_mlly]

How would that apply in the example that I have given?

Implicit in the definition of murder is the evil intention of the killer – the unjust taking of innocent human life with malice. Because of this implicit intent, murder is an intrinsically evil act. The actor’s intent is not one of circumstance but integral to this act itself.

Killing a human being that is not murder lacks malice in all of its definitions, i.e. self-defense, accidental, and protection of the innocent. Malice is not a circumstance but an attitude of the actor.