Well, as I see it, that’s basically what I’m saying-that morality is not separate from humanity, any more than having ears and eyes are, because it’s a part of us. The difference is that having eyes and ears are more or less out of our control whereas morality can be overridden-our wills can be involved. Another interesting question might be, ‘why are people ever immoral’?
Exactly. I tried to ask that several posts back.
Magic is an illusion and not reality. Theists like myself do not believe in a magical being but a real being.
I would appreciate a littel respect since I have not shown any disrespect towards your beleifs or lackthereof.No disrespect meant. Look at what I wrote–I said I was putting it into my language so that you could judge whether I was interpreting your comment correctly. It wasn’t a statement about your god, but about what the meaning of your argument is to a non-theist. We don’t believe in a god. Please be more generous in how you interpret my words. I see where you can take offense at that, but none was meant.Magic is an illusion and not reality. Theists like myself do not believe in a magical being but a real being.
This assumes there is an objective moral law, as if it’s written outside of people. It’s not. This assumes that there’s some precise listing of laws that is common to all people. There isn’t. “Moral law” doesn’t exist. Morality exist in the same way the love and anger and sadness and frustration and embarrassment and digestion and perspiration, and so on ad infinitum, exist. It’s just what being human involves. When we confront the world, we are faced with a dilemma of how to be, and that is a moral dilemma. We develop codes (moral “laws”) to help direct us so we don’t have to constantly make those moral decisions–instead, we can just follow the laws–but those laws (like marriage between one man and one woman) are not objective moral standards. If they were, then polygamy and gay marriage would obviously be immoral to everyone, and–though you may argue with this–they aren’t obviously immoral to everyone.
Again, this assumes non-theists are following an objective moral law, particularly one that is outside the self or that comes from outside the self (i.e., from God).
Terms such as morality and immorality imply some sort of standard-a “right”: way to be. Every time I experience moral outrage or righteous indignation *I’m *implying that that such a thing as righteousness actually exists-that such a thing as justice exists-and that justice has somehow been denied or abrogated. And that gets to my question. Why would anyone ever be immoral? For what possible reason should moral evils, large or small, exist, if by this we mean they’re in some way contrary to justice-really meaning they’re unnatural for man.
We differ here a bit. Yes, morality and immorality, when immediately juxtaposed, and when “moral” equals a reference to “moral law” imply some sort of standard–“right” way. But I think morality is much more foundational. There isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s always a dilemma. We only come to see things as obvious and clear-cut because we construct “moral laws” which tell use to Do A in situation B. I think moral outrage and righteous indignation have much less to do with morality (real morality) and more to do with the constructed moral laws that we typically rely on to make our daily lives easier to deal with.
I’m not convinced that “free will” is a meaningful concept, but we needn’t bite that off right now. I agree that evil and immorality is an anomaly–though again that doesn’t mean man ever lived in a state of perfect morality by today’s typical standards. I actually think most morally evil acts are the result of indifference rather than selfishness. Many others are the consequences of people being so cut off from one another that they are unwell (e.g., sociopaths), and that people now separate social from economic and political behavior (e.g., the salesman who rips you off is “just doing his job”).
I replace “god” with “community” and get at the same thing here. It’s not that community gives one morality, but that human moral capacity only functions effectively in small-scale contexts. (As an aside: Interestingly, if you read Nietzsche, his “death of god” notion is really about the death of community accorgin to Julian Young’s book Nietzsche’s Philosopy of Religion.)
Except that what may be false is simply your notion (and the Church’s notion) of “real morality.” It doesn’t lead to relativity, but a type of subjectivity or intersubjectivity where morality exists in the relationships between people who are not overwhelmed by culture and socialization.
Or, if there’s no small-scale social life, then mankind’s moral nature is made irrelevant, just as turning out the lights makes eyes irrelevant. The problem is, we don’t have much of a choice because we have so much trouble recognizing the consequences of our actions, recognizing the human being(s) at the other end of every decision we make, because those consequences and those people are so far removed from us in modern life (e.g., Most of us don’t feel bad when we buy shoes made by child-slave labor in SE Asia, though we would refuse to support child-slave labor in our local neighborhoods).
I think the existence of immorality is, directly, an argument for the problem that is modernity.
But the tendency to isolate could also be a result of this selfishness/lack of love. IOW loss of community could just be one aspect or consequence of a fall of man, if he reaches a point economically where he achieves the “luxury” of opting for isolation.
I believe it is a dilemma because the non-theistic theories I’ve seen do not account for what appear to be actions that do not benefit the person making the gift and that may even be to his detriment.
As opposed to the theory of Darwin and its progeny of survival of the fittest. As opposed to the Hobbesian theory of the natural state of man. As opposed to the various social evolutionary views of kin selection. As opposed to theories of “altruistic genes.”
I don’t know. I don’t claim to hold to a non-theistic worldview, and since there are many to choose from I won’t speculate as to what specific results they would yield. What I can say is that those proposed above don’t explain personally non-beneficial self-detrimental human actions.
My presuppositions are these: that the laws of logic and thought hold universally; that my senses can reliably give me information about the outside world; and that nature is uniform. It may be that you are asking what my conclusions are on certain issues, but those are not presuppositions. I don’t need to presuppose, for example, that human beings can and do act morally. I have reasons for those conclusions.
It is all of these. Gates has no direct relationship to most of this population, not even to the ideas they hold. I suspect he used a Catholic institution because he knew it would be the most efficient means to deliver aid.
The ones that were offered in this thread that I summarized above, except for Spock’s, who I will try to find time to answer.
It isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good thing, which is what I’ve been trying to explain all along.
No, I’m not an expert on all competing non-theistic claims, but I’m not required to be to ask the question. Experts on the subject are welcome. So far I haven’t seen a good explanation.
Actually, I am agreeing with you even though it is obvious you think I am not. I think atheists can be and many times are charitable, despite the fact they don’t believe in God. Bill Gates was (at the time) the best specific example I could find of that. The real question is whether non-theistic theories of charitable action allow for this possibility.
I could have used a hypothetical person who essentially did exactly what Gates did and then set forth specific motives. This method has drawbacks though, not the least of which is whether such a person exists. I used Gates because I believed we could reasonably infer motives with which everyone would agree. For instance, it doesn’t seem reasonable that Gates would be motivated by greed since he is one of the wealthiest men in the world, and he could use his resources in other areas to more effectively generate wealth. I think most who have posted (theists and non-theists) assumed this, although not all.
I agree, and I think it is a reasonable assumption that Gates did not act on that basis.
True, but it does preclude the possibility of being Catholic. So it does show that he is giving to a population that has a different belief system from his own.
That is exactly what I am getting it. Theistic systems generally have a metaphysical view of reality that accounts for moral actions, particularly charitable actions. Evolutionary naturalists have their own worldview of the nature of reality, but does it allow for the type of actions we see Bill Gates take? If not, then it appears they are borrowing from some other worldview, even if unknowingly.
I agree with most of what you’re saying here. Yes, it *could *be a consequence of the Fall. But, man doesn’t actually choose isolation–no one really would. It’s just a consequence of the way modern life is lived. You can make a concerted effort to be socially active and to maintain close social bonds, but that does not replace the condition of community, where you are more deeply bound to people.
Abdication could be considered a sin of omission, perhaps moderating ones culpability, but in any case we can’t just treat immorality as if there’s always a justification for it-removing all moral responsibility. I think that none of us are comfortable with sin (our guilt, again, implying at the very least an unconscious recognition of sin) and so we need to rationalize, justify, “make right” our actions in our own eyes (“everybody does it, our enemies are evil/inhuman, my victim’s a worse person than I, the livelihood of the person I need to eliminate in order to get a better job is less important than my livelihood, if I kill someone I’ll improve my status in my gang, slaves/women aren’t really human”, etc). Evil’s generally committed by someone aspiring to some other, lesser, good, rather than done strictly for the sake of committing evil. So I don’t think we can make ourselves into amoral beings-I think we just redefine- or tweak- our morality.
Evolution accounts for this. I think what will help you understand how this is so is by understanding that it is not the person who carries on, but the genetics and the populations which carry those genetics. Furthermore, you have to understand that human evolution took place over millions of years during which people lived in small groups, the members of which all shared the same genetic code.
I agree concerning Hobbes and social evolution. I’m not sure what a “altruistic” gene would be. Most things are determined by many many genes as I understand it. Neo-Darwinian evolution can explain is completely, though. And, not that you said otherwise, but “survival of the fittest” is not a description of evolution, unless you loosen up the “fittest” to mean “most likely to pass on genes.”
Still, if you demand an explanation for one behavior, it makes sense that you’d need an explanation for any behavior. If you could answer this question, it would have helped me understand your presuppositions.
These aren’t your presuppositions, though. I want to know what you were saying evolution was, for example. You have a misunderstanding of evolution that is at the heart of the debating I’ve seen earlier in this thread.
Gates doesn’t need to have a direct relationship with the people. Because humans evolved in small groups, they never needed to develop the capacity to distinguish between us and them. The “them” was always obvious because it was an outsider and threatening in many ways. Today, we’re not so threatened. Our genes can’t tell the difference between group members and outsiders because they never had to, and our drive to self-sacrifice and empathy and to share still functions. Only now, we do it for strangers–people we have no direct relationships with. The real question is why we aren’t *more *empathetic, more self-sacrificing, etc.
We don’t make ourselves that way. We don’t redefine. Society does it. When I said “abdication,” I didn’t mean that people were consciously giving up their moral decision making capacity. It’s how we become socialized. In large societies–beyond the local community–this socialization leads to a system where we don’t really see the consequences of any of our behaviors. So, we learn that our enemies are bad people (watch the media on arabs and iranians and, back in the day, soviets) even though most of us will never see those people–they’re not the bandits who raid town sometimes; and we’re told that it’s “development” and “progress” and we’re providing jobs for the less fortunate in developing countries when it’s really slave-like labor that destroys the economies and social lives of people in other parts of the world; and we’re raised to think that capitalism is good and that competition for jobs is good so that we’re doing good when we take someone else’s job; and we’re told that it’s inexpensive food when it costs tax subsidies and eventually medical bills and destroys the environment; and we’re told that we should follow orders and respect authority; etc. Today, evil is generally committed by people who have know realization that they’re doing it. Again, how badly do we feel about eating fast food? about buying a pair of Nikes made in a SE Asian sweat shop? about eating a cheeseburger at McD’s, etc. We’re just going about our daily lives acting out behaviors (like eating, gathering up clothing to wear, driving to the store, etc.) that have no apparent moral aspect to them. I agree it’s a sin of ommission (to use your language), but people don’t think of their behavior as actually being sinful–they don’t see the connection between their actions and the consequences.
And yet we try to conform ourselves to a standard or law of morals. Dont you find it weird how we have this funamental drive (becuase morality is in our nature) to conform to a moral law even when a moral law does not exist.
Yes love, anger, sadness, frustration, and etc exist because they serve a purpose. Morality exists because it too serves a purpose but what is the point of its purpose? You cant explain that without a God because morality pertains to things like good and evil which are spiritual things because we cant apply them to nature. When was the last time you said a lion was evil because it ate its young? Morality has nothing do with our physical nature and yet its part of our nature? I wonder if this is because part of our nature isnt physcial but spiritual?
Yes but you cant explain why we are confronted with this dilemma of how we need to be if there is no need for us to do so! Thats what the OP has beeing trying to stress the necessity of a God because without one there is no purpose in caring about being good or evil since there isn’t a need for you to care about those spiritual things because they dont exist!
Your bypasseing the question since this doenst explain why we are moral. All you have done is provide a possible reason for why people would make a code or law which is not what we are discussing.
But why are they not immoral? The only way you could defend them as not being immoral is if morality does not exists and yet you cant say this because its part of our human nature. You cant claim them to not be immoral just because you dont like the idea that they are immoral since you have clearly shown us that humans will not recognize other humans as having the authority to tell them whats moral and whats not. The the only way someone could make a claim that these things are not immoral is if they said a God told them so but you cant do that either since a nontheist doesnt believe in a God.
Your right we cant easily justify our actions which is why we have guilt but you cant explain why we feel this inability to jusitfy our own actions to ourselves if there is no higher authority we have to answer to but ourself. Why do you feel guilty if nothing is good or evil since good or evil do not exist?
I know the conscience is part of human nature but how does it apply to our physical nature? Where does morality fit in? Your big toe helps you balance and keep your equilibrium which serves a purpose to your physical nature, however when it comes to your conscience what explaination do you have for why our human nature posseses one?
I understand this; however, it is difficult to see how Gates’ genetics or those of his group will be perpetuated by his actions in connection with Haiti.
I understand this too. The problem here is that Bill Gates is not sacrificing to a small group of which he is a part. He is very unlike and unconnected to the group he sacrificed for. Neither is it likely that his genetic traits will be perpetuated by his actions. In fact, they may be diminished.
Again, it is difficult to see how Gates giving aid to an overpopulated nation will give him or his progeny or his genetic group a survival advantage. It seems more likely that the converse is true.
If it means “most likely to pass on any genes” then you have a point, although one I don’t believe can be defended within evolutionary theories. If you mean “most likely to pass on my genes” then Gates’ actions in giving to the population of Haiti do not make sense from an evolutionary standpoint.
You want to know my understanding of evolutionary theory. You don’t know what it is, but you are certain it is incorrect. The fact is that I have an understanding of many different evolutionary theories. There isn’t just one, as your disagreement with Hobbes and early Darwinism makes evident. My explication of all different theories of which I’m aware is not something that I am required to do here or that will even be helpful. Neither are you required to explain your understanding of all theistic explanations for human behavior. We can explain our own theories and decide whether they are coherent.
I think this is where the discussion will center. What you propose is what I call “the mistake theory” of evolution. While it is true that Gates is not being directly threatened by the Haitian population, his gift will not assist to perpetuate his genes or those of any group he is connected with. This begs the question: why wouldn’t Gates spend his resources on in ways that obviously would perpetuate his genes and those of his group? The answer seems to be because he is mistaken about his genetic group. This seems highly unlikely.
It is relevant. Gates does not share ideals with this group, which is something important to social evolutionists. In fact, the only thing it appears Gates does share with this group is that they are human beings.
No, because non-human animals do not exhibit altruistic behavior.
I agree. Animals do not exhibit altruistic behavior, so there isn’t much to talk about.
Exactly, Gates donation probably did more help than the thousand prayers would.
But, in the small-group situation in which humans evolved, passing on the genes of the group and passing on one’s own genes are 99.999+ percent identical outcomes.
Your misunderstandings are evident by your arguments in this thread.
I’m only talking about biological evolution. It’s all that’s real and that matters.
Okay, let’s go with your “mistake theory” language.
The carefully thought out choice is not part of evolution (at least not the part we’re talking about). But, the desire to help is. Humans have always worked together because they care for one another, and they have used their intellectual skills in their efforts to work together.
Social evolution is irrelevant. Social evolution doesn’t trump biological evolution. Gates’ desire to help others will win out so long as he doesn’t see the people he’s helping as strangers to be feared.