Objective Morality

[grannymh]

Nor is “anything allowed” outside a religious framework. It’s true that atheists don’t consider themselves bound by Catholic moral dogma, but that doesn’t make them immoral.

I agree because an atheist can recognize the universal objective truth that the human person is worthy of profound respect. Morality, which I believe means the way one should treat another person, exists because a human person is worthy of good treatment.

The true difficulty comes when relativism changes the focus of morality to one’s own personal benefit.

 

[inocente]

Unless human acts are made in coercion they are all made in what we “trust” is “right”, or at least when we’re not “blind” with rage or something like that.

Agreed. Our instincts can lead us to do wrong as well as right, but our consciences also bear witness.

That doesn’t mean that every single person will go to Heaven.

Agreed, but God knows when we act against conscience. Our laws have to set standards to allow courts to judge because we can’t read the thoughts of the accused. God doesn’t need any of that.

I am not a relativist…

I was joking that we must all be relativists in the sense that we no longer hold to the traditional belief that women are inferior to men.

I argued for an objective morality!

At this point I’ve used up all my arguments. I’ve enjoyed this discussion even though neither of us managed to convince the other. Unless you want to keep going, see you around dskysmine.

Peace

 

[dskysmine]

Right - so how do we know? Once upon a time the whole thing was taken literally. The rise in the labelling of passages as allegorical seems to correspond directly to their disproof by science! This is only my opinion, and I’m happy to be shown I’m wrong.

The Bible itself contains material that are called by Jesus as allegoric… try the parables… for example.

But in any event - who decides what’s what?

The only non-subjective part of us, reason! Which is the only thing that distinguishes us from animals. It is also through reason that the Church analyses the Bible in Exegesis.

Indeed - I think we’re in violent agreement here. But the fact remains that, as you say, there are no indicators in the bible to determine what’s ‘factual’ and what’s not. It’s written as a historical record, parts of which have been disproved by science.

Claiming, after the fact, that these parts are merely allegorical throws into doubt not only the remainder of the bible, but also the authority of the person cherry-picking which bits are ‘true.’

The problem is that the Bible is a compilation of books and writings over thousands of years. It’s not Cherry picking to consider some parts allegorical and others as historic, etc… It is rational to assume that a religious text written by hundreds of people would differ in speech, literary work, etc… Even the same writer can insert allegoric speech in the midst of a moral teaching… it doesn’t make the moral teaching less valuable. It is something that helps the public listening (or reading).

Supposedly. But in the latter case, the people who actually wrote down the events are not (in most cases) the people who allegedly witnessed the events. I understand it’s generally accepted that these tales were handed down orally in most cases. Human nature all but dictates that inaccuracies and embellishments will creep in with each re-telling.

So in both the OT and the NT, the people who finally wrote the stories down had little or no knowledge of the actual facts.

That is demonstrably false. We know that some of the OT events weren’t even witnessed (like parts of the Genesis) by anyone alive. We can also estimate the oral transmissions for the NT events where things ocurred very rapidly. We know that even the first copies of the Gospels (which probably aren’t the original) were written during the generation after the 12 died, which makes it very very improbable for people to accept false testimonies when they had just lived with the real witnesses and listened to them first-hand.

Doesn’t make it exempt from being demonstrably false. And how do you know it was written as allegory? Other than that it’s been proved wrong through modern science?

When I’m in a airplane and say: “Houses are dots” doesn’t make my assertion false or true. It is an allegory to what houses seem like when watched in an airplane. We know what houses look like and we know (or can imagine) what things can seem like when looked at by a far away distance…

We’re not talking about you, we’re talking about the stories in the bible. One of which is Genesis, which is not an accurate record of events. You agree with me on that, I think.

You said that plenty of Catholics believe in a factual description of the Genesis (YEC for example), that doesn’t make the Genesis as a scientific description of what happened. But don’t forget that plenty of historic traces (archeologic) have been found to support the descriptions of the Bible (although not the miraculous ones)… it is a matter of credibility and understanding of what the writer really wanted to tell us since he’s not alive anymore.

Anecdotal. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. Does it matter? This is something of a rabbit hole. I’m happy to concede that official Catholic doctrine doesn’t reject evolution, if you’re telling me that’s the case.

Actually, I understand that most evolutionary psychologists believe that it stems from our evolved survival instinct of pattern-matching; and belief in the supernatural amounts to nothing more than a series of false positives. Also, as a heavily interactive species we have a tendency to see agency in randomness and nature, because then we innately feel we can interact with such agents.

That doesn’t seem to have support from the real world.
People interact with random events every single day. From other people’s choices, to games, etc… Belief in a supernatural comes from the experience of a non-usual occurrence, which goes against the natural experience. Belief in God comes from the expectancy of natural occurrences. We see predictability as the evidence for agency. I can predict a ball is going to fall because I know something makes it always do that. If it moved arbitrarily (one time to the left, other to the right, etc…) it would make no sense, have no rationale, … would be a sign of “non-design”. Teleological arguments are extremely strong in showing the nature of God and creation.

 

[dskysmine]

Nor I. (Funny how that morality has changed over time!)

It didn’t really change… at least in the moral realm. Unless you argue for subjective morality, it was always wrong to kill people for the sake of science (or anything else for that matter). I can’t argue for a morality now if it is subjective because then it can change and be different in the future, which would just prove that my morality is “arbitrary”.

Many people equate skepticism to a refusal to consider non-natural phenomena. This is not correct, skepticism is just a refusal to consider non-natural phenomena without robust evidence. Granted, science and non-natural phenomena are mutually exclusive, but this just begs the question: Why believe it if you can’t prove it’s true? Skepticism isn’t the prior denial of the supernatural, it’s the resultant denial through lack of evidence.

Not really. Skepticism is the refusal to consider anything true that cannot be proven without an apriori. At least that is my understanding of it. There are degrees of skepticism. Some people can make a priori statements that “what I feel truly feels like this”, or “what I think truly is real and happens (inside my head, in my brain, somewhere else)”, etc… but the standard for atheism is the premise that “only what I feel must be true” if someone states “I see their sadness” when looking at pictures and you only see smiles you will probably think “That guy is mad”.

I know of no reason other than those I gave in my last post not to be evil, or greedy, or malicious, or anything else considered “immoral.” I believe that it’s this cultural evolution that has formed our morality, and our cultural evolution is a dependent product of our biological evolution.

That is false… According to what you said earlier morality has changed a lot in the last 2000 years, but there is no biological evolution in the last 2000 years.

And we’ve already seen (unless you still dispute this), that naturalism doesn’t lead to moral depravity. The evidence is all around you, evident in the millions of naturalists that lead moral lives.

It doesn’t necessarily lead to moral depravity, but it cannot argue against it rationaly.

Why do you say you are evil? Or did I misunderstand you?

Me? I am evil. Many times I waste my time in non-productive ways, I’ve lied, I’ve stolen (inside my house), I’ve had fights with my brothers, etc… I don’t mean to say that I’m always evil. Those are the exceptions and not the rule (I hope), but I mean to say that it is not because of that my argument falls. It is exactly because I know that morality is not subjective that I know that me and almost everyone will do “wrong” things in their lifetime. Even saints sinned. There’s only 2 humans I know that did not sin (but apparently they too were tempted, or at least one of them). (Not counting humans who were killed before they were born, or died briefly after birth)

I’ve already answered this, haven’t I? Morality changes to meet the changing needs of the culture within which it resides. That’s the “why” at least. The “how” can be a number of ways - pressure groups (ie. suffragettes), peer pressure (vegetarianism), and so on.

Your process seems very strange: 1-A certain morality exists, 2-Someone dislikes that moral, 2-forms a pressure group, 3-pressure group makes society change, 4-Moral changes
What do you think starts step 2? If this happens to all moral attempts to change why does 4 only happen with certain moral changes and not all?

Well, you’ve said yourself that it’s not just atheists that perform immoral (according to catholic doctrine) acts. So you still haven’t really answered the question. Do you see evidence of atheists acting consistently less morally than theists, in general terms?

I see evidence of atheists acting consistently less consistently in regards to morality: Nationalism, socialism, communism, capitalism, humanism, secularism, anarchy, etc…
These are mostly political aspects, but most political values translate into moral values. It is true that there are many capitalist catholics and socialist catholics, but according to Catholic morality, we can never overthrow a catholic value (a person) over a political value. Both capitalism and communism can coexist with racism. Humanism and anarchy can coexist with abortion. Catholicism cannot coexist with either.

Are you referring to our innate evolutionary desire to get laid? Do you think that this behaviour is prevalent in atheists rather than theists? I haven’t seen any data either way, it would be an interesting study. But regardless, one would still be judging against a subjective moral tenet.

It isn’t that… It is in what people will do and choose when they have no reason to have reasons to do things other than “want” or “like”.
Do you not think that slavery existed even when people had empathy with blacks or others? They did not see their slaves as human, but as sub-human, just like abortionists see the embryo as a sub-human. People knew that slaves felt pain, etc… but they also knew that what those slaves did helped their life’s “pleasure”. In the same way, abortionists know that if abortion becomes illegal they will have to restrain their impulses to get laid whenever and wherever because they cannot or don’t want to deal with a child.
It is the same principle. Slaves < human. Embryos < human.
There are atheists that are against abortion… but they are few and far in between.

 

[dskysmine]

It’s obvious that morality has changed over time, (…) It’s a hypothesis only, but it fits the facts. Objective, unchanging morality clearly doesn’t because morality hasn’t remained unchanged.

Objective unchanging morality makes other moral tenets seem subjective.
Subjective changing morality makes all moral tenets arbitrary and “whimsical”.
You cannot state something is “wrong”. You can only state “that’s not what we allow”. And you can’t even defend your position to not “allow” something.

There are several books and papers that support it - (…) it makes sense. I know - big deal! but I can’t think of any other process that explains the change in morality.

The problem isn’t that people’s moral values or societal values change. It is what is really valuable and what isn’t. I know people’s values can change. Some people value money, some people value sex, some people value pleasure, some people value productivity…
Greeks valued what was “beautiful”, and Romans valued what was “pragmatic” (just a stereotype but it fits here). Greeks created philosophy, Romans expanded their possessions. Which one was “right”? Was any of them “right”? Was it “right” to abandon infants outside the city? If it was, why isn’t it “right” now? You can only defend your position as a “collective whim” which is an argument ad populum (fallacy).

The answer to both these should be apparent by looking in a dictionary. I’d be surprised if you rejected their existence!

What proof do you have of their existence?

By effect, the same way we measure all outputs of cognitive processing.

Meme is an idea? If so, why call it meme? What is there in an idea that can change it? What is there in an idea that makes it valuable or not? How can ideas appear?

You helped when we asked. I’m not belittling (…) alliances notwithstanding, an attack on foreign soil doesn’t inherently oblige me to respond.

Nor does the murder of an orphan…

No, it wouldn’t if I didn’t. But I do so it does.

Then how can you: “not see that as my problem”?

Hopefully I have.

Right… so same question then: how does this make the moral tenets of the bible special, if they should be taken allegorically? They’re just one person’s (or perhaps one committee’s) allegory.

I never said that the moral contents should be taken allegorically…
I said that we must not confuse what is allegoric from what is not, what is moral teaching from what is not, etc…
They are the transmission of an objective morality. Only with an objective standard can they be understood. Since the only objective standard all humans share is rationality they have to be rational. They are rational. There are reasons for those moral laws. They have consequences and positive ones. They are directed at moralities sole purpose: the human being. Do not kill is not simply a blind rule. It is a rule that is “good” for all humans.

Okay, so we come back to this: (…) Was he resurrected from the dead, or is that allegory? Who decides? The individual? The Church? Whence the authority to judge?

Reason tells us that men don’t walk over water. Reason also tells us that people usually don’t lie without good reason. I cannot assert with scientific proof that Jesus walked on water. I have good evidence that He shouldn’t be able to do it, but I also have the testimonies that tell me that He did. I don’t discard the possibility just because I’ve never seen anyone walk on water, after all, I don’t discard anything without proof.

Oh come on…

I thank God. You thank goodness… who’s the one imagining things?

Oh really? Is that the only moral message in the bible? (…) That’s what I was referring to, as I’m sure you’re aware. Or is that merely allegory…?

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” – Galatians 3:28

It’s a shame you’ve resorted to such misrepresentation, I felt the thread was fairly constructive and civil until now.

It hasn’t stopped being civil…
And how is it a misrepresentation? Did you not say that Christianity was a “sad state of affairs”? Paul explains clearly what the law is. I know what “good” is because I came to “know” Christ. It is through Him that I “know” “good” and it is why I do things that sometimes don’t “feel pleasurable” but which make me “happy”.

That’s a rather superficial analogy, and doesn’t really reflect what I said. (…) words in my mouth, yet I’ve never suggested anything of the sort.

You’ve suggested “consensus makes right”. I showed you an example of a consensus that was against you to show you how it didn’t make sense. “Right” isn’t what the majority thinks is “right” it is what is in fact “good” to humans. The majority of the human species thinks atm that the more children you have the better… and this translates as human growth that the world might not conceive. Is this in fact good?

Which Christian morality?

And do you think (…) for ours?

Any morality will “work” for any culture because even subjective moralities are views of what is “good” to humans. What I am in fact saying is that I can’t allow for subjectivism because it doesn’t just affect those that practice it. It affects all of us because we interact. We are not completely independant. That is why morality exists. And that is why morality is objective…

 

[dskysmine]

Sorry - you’re asking me why not being bound by Catholic dogma doesn’t automatically make people immoral? I don’t know why, any more than I know why not subscribing to vegetarianism doesn’t automatically make people never eat vegetables.

It’s a daft question.

If you don’t know why how can you support it?
The point being that Catholicism has a fundamental principle that every Catholic has to relate to the Church, which is in fact all of the other Catholics. That principle is the principle that means that Catholics have to be moral to be Catholic. Atheists may or may not relate with other people. They may relate in certain ways, or with different purposes but there is no fundamental principle for morality… They may be moral and they may not be. Sure, catholics do immoral stuff too. No one ever said we were perfect. We are free to be moral or not. The value comes from following a certain choice. It has to be free, and it has to be a choice. It’s not a “I must love my brother”, it’s a “I can and want to love my brother”… that is the moral “good”.

No, I’m not speaking for all atheists - that would be as arrogant as one person speaking for the entirety of Catholicism…

The reason I said the atheist worldview doesn’t implicitly consider its source of morality is because morality is not intrinsic to any definition of atheism. There is no need to justify one’s morality as an atheist, any more than there is a need to justify one’s taste in music.

Then you are asserting that morality is whimsical… You have no “right” to assert that “stealing” is “evil”. You in fact are arguing for amorality… the non existence of morality.

I’m defending the misrepresentation of atheism from a straw man attack. There’s a difference.

I don’t know formally, I’m afraid. Some or all of the above and more, I guess. Except the last one, which doesn’t seem to make much sense.

How does it not “make sense”? That is a rational judgment. A logical judgment on what you consider knowledge or not. You know how you acquire knowledge… you just haven’t spent much time explaining it. It is a worthwhile exercise to base your arguments. Epistemology is a very important part of philosophy. It is because of epistemology that science exists.

Nevertheless, people still do it and call themselves Catholics.

Being part of catholicism isn’t the same as “being” a catholic. There are sins that separate us from God. I can still be a catholic, but that doesn’t mean I was following catholic morality when I sinned.

I’m asking you to pretend God doesn’t exist and imagine what would be different about the RCC moral doctrine. I’m asking you how you can possibly know that this morality is the word of God not man. Or is the important thing just that it’s written down?

Well. If God didn’t exist I can’t figure out how or what humans existed… That’s just like me asking you to imagine what happened to electricity when electrons didn’t exist. >_>
I know that it is “written” by God because it makes sense. It is rational. It isn’t whimsical. It isn’t a moral law that changes. It is the moral law that tells us that we are indeed free to do evil and good and that what is good is what makes good, not what I feel like, or someone else feels like. Even when humans stole, pillaged, raped, killed, it still existed but wasn’t followed. It will exist even if everyone votes for abortion. It is because morality exists objectively that we feel guilty. If you assert that morality is subjective anyone can state that what they want is “right”, or “good”. That doesn’t make sense to me. That isn’t rational. We are not small universes. We relate. Even when I speak I can “hurt” someone. Even when I think badly of someone I am “hurting” them in my mind. All my actions will be based in that “evil” premise. Evil isn’t in the “physical” world. A knife is not evil per se. A pistol is not evil per se. They can be dangerous and “help” someone do evil but it is people who make “evil”. That is a fact. And “evil” is “born” within us. In our instincts. In our pride.

 

[dskysmine]

I didn’t say it was. Stop putting words into my mouth. I said that theism can fit different kinds of epistemologies. I didn’t name any specific ones, or ascribe them to specific branches of theism.
wanstronian;7044601:

Then what specifically did you mean? Just earlier you couldn’t tell what epistemology you “follow”, how can you point to different Christians and tell about their epistemology?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection

Precisely my point. Morality changes. It is not objective, in an absolute sense.

If it isn’t absolute how can you condemn people who steal? How can you condemn murder? How can you condemn rape? If it is not objective it is just in your mind! It will have the same physical value as love, altruism, work, etc… When you say morality is subjective you are tyranically saying that everyone must conform to your moral views. When I say morality is objective I am saying that we don’t have to conform to anything, we can see the consequences of our actions, we can see what is good and what is bad. They are real… and not just an idea.

Same reason a theist would. Why do you keep asking the same questions?

No it isn’t… You just stated that morality is subjective! If you consider morality is subjective, stealing is only evil in your mind, and you can easily consider it “good” by changing your mind!

I can’t say for sure, but my guess would be that for some people, the personal gain outweighs the societal obligation; or the local group gain is considered to outweigh the wider group obligation. Like covering up the abuse of children by priests in order to protect the RCC’s reputation.

Then are you arguing for 2 moralities? A personal one and a societal one?
Or are you coming to terms that what is instinctive isn’t moral?

So not from any proper rationale then? Just from an innate desire to be compensated for some perceived injustice?

I don’t know if it is all the same for everyone, but our sense of justice usually tells us that good people are rewarded and bad people are punished. Probably the first humans figured that since they saw bad people getting rewards here on earth they would get punished after death. It’s not so much a “rationale” as it is a “sensation”. Kind of like faith in God.
And of course, some profets and even Jesus spoke about it. Although I can’t explain how they came to know about it. Heck, if doing “bad” things that are “pleasurable” didn’t get you punished people would be doing them anyways (oh wait, they are! Then you ask us why we think people are immoral…).

Like I said, it makes sense, and there’s no better explanation.

Actually it doesn’t… until you can measure an idea…

This is what I mean by continually misrepresenting atheism. You clearly see atheism as selfish hedonism. Until you can accept that your dogmatic view is demonstrably wrong, your questions are wasted because you’re not listening to the answers.

Then atheism morality is “faith” based… which contradicts the assertion that supernatural doesn’t exist.

I’m tired of answering this question.

Asked, and answered.

Really? Where?

 

[dskysmine]

Agreed. Our instincts can lead us to do wrong as well as right, but our consciences also bear witness.

No… My assertion is that instinct only lead us to the wants of our body. We may choose to follow some of those wants but it must be a choice and not a “follow up” to be right. I eat an apple not because I am hungry but because being hungry I know that it will nourish me. If I am hungry in Holy Friday I may choose not to eat even if I am hungry.
If I am hungry but my apple is rotten I may choose to eat it or not.

Agreed, but God knows when we act against conscience. Our laws have to set standards to allow courts to judge because we can’t read the thoughts of the accused. God doesn’t need any of that.

So a psychopat is not evil? He has no conscience. Some even have no empathy.
Do you think that people who want to abort don’t have conscience? Or people who steal don’t have conscience? Or that they acted against their conscience?

I was joking that we must all be relativists in the sense that we no longer hold to the traditional belief that women are inferior to men.

If people treated women badly then they probably didn’t went to Heaven directly.
I don’t know who is in Heaven and who isn’t… I am not God.
The church stand in the position that women are different to men. They both have value. One has masculine value the other feminine value. They are both needed for humankind. That is one of the arguments for the immorality of homosexuality.

At this point I’ve used up all my arguments. I’ve enjoyed this discussion even though neither of us managed to convince the other. Unless you want to keep going, see you around dskysmine.

Peace

I meant only to explain the flaws in your arguments and argue for an objective morality. If you are not convinced you probably should tell us why that is so.
Either way it’s fine by me.
Take care,
Daniel