What Moral Right Does An Atheist Have?

[John21652]

“Rights” generally speaking may very well be regarded as a relative value superimposed on reality by consensus or exception by groups or individuals on others. As RAH asked in one of his novels, “What right to life has a man drowning in the ocean?” His desire to fight for it, or not, is a condition of his living and his mental state. If there are potential rescuers, they may or may not help. again depending on their own mental and physical states and their relationship to the drowner.

All rights are granted. Even the recognising of the rights of others is a ‘granting’ that such rights exist. That’s why the rescuers would attempt to rescue the drowning man. He has as nuch of a right to life as a man walking on the beach. Anyone who thinks otherwise will let him drown.

There is no literal or inherent “law of morality” operating here in the sense that, say, gravity operates over all cases indiscriminately.

You need to define what you mean by “law”. The “law” in the “law of gravity” is just a human meaning which represents that gravity cannot be escaped from, or ignored. You need to then ask, does such a “law” impel someone to rescue the drowning man? Most people would say “yes, there is.”

There is only consequence, both for the drowner and the witnesses as matters of concern in their internal life according to the state of their awareness.

Actually there is something which comes before “consequence”. It is a decision made from an internalised idea about the rights and obligations of all those involved in this scenario. The drowning man will no doubt tell himself he “ought” to keep swimming. The rescuers will undoubtedly convince themselves of what they “ought” to do.

We have no inherent “rights,” only what we grant each other as concessions according to our maturity in recognizing another as being substantially equal to ourselves.

If we have no “inherent” rights, then what do we have? Only rights granted by whoever is in charge? Don’t we, as human beings, have certain “inherent” characteristics which would come into play in your scenario about the drowning man? If you say “no” then we perhaps need to re-write what it is to be human.

In groups we exercise that to some extent by laws that allegedly protect the innocent from predation, or we legalize predation, as we have done with our financial system in this country.

Why do we protect the innocent from predation? Is there perhaps something which is inherent in us that causes us to even consider protecting the innocent? Something that says we “ought” to protect the innocent?

In the case of moral paradigms associated with religions, those are held as ideals for modeling behavior.

Are you suggesting that morality and religion go together? Without one, we cannot have the other? Are there moral ideals in societies that have no religion? More importantly, are there even societies where religion doesn’t exist?

Those are useful up to the point of cooperation and as is somewhere implied in the Bible can be discarded when the knowledge of the “other” being essentially yourself is internalized.

Internalised, or objectified and then internalised? After all, you mentioned the ideal. We wouldn’t want people to internalise a moral system that was too far from the ideal, would we? So perhaps it’s best if what is internalised as being the objective ideal?

In Fact, that internalization is the only real basis for morality

Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot were able to get their minions to internalise a whole lot of stuff that was far from any moral ideal. I think I’d put less relaiance on the notion of internalising until I was sure people were on the same page.

and is the root of the Golden Rule and of the Great Commandment.

These two are predicated upon something inherent in human nature. If those inherent aspects of human nature are not there to be recognised, then objectified, then no rule, golden or otherwise, is going to be internalised too well.

Those no bearing on one’s philosophical predilections, intellectual level, gender orientation or whatever, only on the consistency of one’s actions with a sense of unity and any value derived from that. Everything else is commentary.

I really have no idea what this last paragraph of yours is on about. It’s vague and seemingly meaningless commentary. However, there is a little there that can be commented on in a meaningful way. The “…consistency of one’s actions…” in a moral sense depends upon teaching and training.It would not be morally cosistent to leave your poor friend drowning even though you recognise he has a right to live. Part of that moral training should include the inculcation of moral courage, so that moral consistency can be obtained. Moral courage does not depend upon gender, or intellectual levels, but is something that should hold across all people in all situations. There was a time, for instance, when the cry of ‘women and children first’ was an expected one when the chips were down. What drove that moral maxim? Something inherently recognised, objectified and internalised, perhaps?