Objective Morality

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
41

Nature doesn’t care that 7+billion people live on this earth. It wouldn’t care if that dropped to 1 billion. Or, even zero. It doesn’t care that these people recognize the basic freedoms and legal system we take for granted, and that those people believe in strong central rule. The latter system brutalizing those who step out of line for what we’d see as trivial. It doesn’t care if murder and theft are successful for an individual or group. It doesn’t care if rape is the same.

Take fight or flight, as mentioned above. Yes, our bodies can produce strong drives. Especially if they’ve been conditioned to do so in the presence of a particular stimulus. Guy driving home goes to change the radio station, hitting a homeless man crossing the road. Nobody seems to have witnessed. He’s not sure if he’s legally responsible because of his negligence. He just got out of college, got that dream job! He can’t go to jail! Flight just kicked in, his foot stabbing at the gas pedal. But some moral teaching comes clawing up from the memories of his childhood. “No, I have to stop and render aid. He could still be alive. I’ll have to accept responsibility for this.”

Multimillionaire, no drug habits, no gambling…has lived comfortably within his means. He realizes he hasn’t even begun to spend his wealth. A plane? Buy a yacht? Well, a bigger yacht. Memories of growing up in a household where charity was described as a moral obligation win out, and he starts a foundation paying for cancer treatments. A greater thing than buying bigger and shinier toys.

A father (and still of reproductive age) is walking home when he notices flames and smoke in the windows of an elderly (not a reproductive female) neighbor. No fire department sirens in the distance. Then he hears her cry for help from the house. He freezes in dread for a second, but then recalls notions such as ‘courage,’ ‘chivalry,’ ‘laying down a life for a friend,’ ‘protecting and helping the stranger in need.’ He runs towards the home…

42

Your flowery prose notwithstanding sloth, you offer no viable explanation.

Let me give an example of one evolutionary trait in humans regarding babies:

Why are babies cute?

I think this issue is best solved by applying Occam’s Razor.

43

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your flowery prose notwithstanding sloth, you offer no viable explanation.
[/quote]

On the contrary, I did. Nurture. Instruction which inculcated the idea that, no matter what, some things are right to do and some things are wrong to do.

44

And, flowery prose?! Now there’s something I’ve never been accused of before!

45

[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Well it seems like the creationism thread is close to an end(please start a new thread if you wish to keep discussing that topic) and I haven’t seen this topic discussed in a while. Anyways I am going to post an excerpt from Micheal Ruse to see if it stirs up discussion.

The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate when someone says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless, such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory. (Michael Ruse, “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,” in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 262-269).[/quote]

Altruism was invented as a weapon to be used by the weak against the strong. It is rooted in religion, with their god being invented to be the ‘hidden big brother’ who’ll fight off the strong.

That kind of morality is based in ideas as Ruse is espousing.

Egoism is rooted in a rational perspective, that voluntarily working together without initiating violence is better for everyone in a society. So in that sense, he is correct; but he ignores the role of the mind, so his ideas seem pretty stupid, from that perspective.

46

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your flowery prose notwithstanding sloth, you offer no viable explanation.
[/quote]

On the contrary, I did. Nurture. Instruction which inculcated the idea that, no matter what, some things are right to do and some things are wrong to do.
[/quote]

Wait, what? Don’t you mean nature? If you mean nurture then morality is instilled and not intrinsic.

So what you mean sloth?

47

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your flowery prose notwithstanding sloth, you offer no viable explanation.
[/quote]

On the contrary, I did. Nurture. Instruction which inculcated the idea that, no matter what, some things are right to do and some things are wrong to do.
[/quote]

Wait, what? Don’t you mean nature? If you mean nurture then morality is instilled and not intrinsic.

So what you mean sloth?[/quote]

Nurture. Nature only gives a body with which we have the capacity to inflict horror, or to protect. We instill recognition of moral truths. Your argument is that nature provides everything. For you a man rapes a woman because of nature. He ignores her cries as she is raped by another, because of nature. Or, he comes to her defense, because of nature. Like slaves to their genetic code. That’s all they’d ever be/do. You might as well say the red ants are evil for killing the black ants. You don’t. You’d simply say they killed the black ants. Same with humans. One human killed another.

That’s not my worldview. My worldview has belief in moral truths. My worldview teaches those truths, and insists on PRACTICING those truths (you get better at what you practice). My worldview says the last option in the above scenario is the only good one. Always. The first being directly evil. Always. The second, evil in cowardice or ambivalence. Always.

Biology will never say what is moral or immoral. Biological traits and expressions aren’t evil or good. You only find morality, immorality, good, evil, within the realm of faith. You’ll never measure ‘the evil’ of making your fortune from duping investors. Or from never spending one cent to help someone in need, while you jettison around to vacations homes.

So we believe in the reality of something we can’t falsify, practice it to be better at it, instill it through repetition to our children, and hope to hell our children never see themselves as meat bags with not a one moral obligation.

48

The man is walking to his car at night, where it’s parked towards the back with only one other vehicle near it. From this other car he begins to hear a woman crying ‘no,’ and a man’s voice telling her to ‘shut her mouth.’ He’s absolutely terrified the man might notice him, exit the vehicle, and do him harm. So he quietly enters his car, and is about to crank it and drive off nice and fast, when those old instilled beliefs begin to pester him. The work of his father, mother, his grandparents, his pastor, and many others.

He believes not in the breaking of some social contract if he were to drive off, leaving the woman to be raped and murdered. The social contract is for the other ‘suckers’ to adhere to. That, in some inexplicable way, strangers will be aware off his cowardice if his wife is ever threatened, and to pay him back refuse to go to her aid. “Hey, I recognize this woman. Her husband broke the social contract! Forget her…” No, he gets back out of his car and approaches the other because he has a belief–a faith–that some things are inherently right and wrong. That he will have done evil by that woman by simply driving off.

49

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your flowery prose notwithstanding sloth, you offer no viable explanation.
[/quote]

On the contrary, I did. Nurture. Instruction which inculcated the idea that, no matter what, some things are right to do and some things are wrong to do.
[/quote]

Wait, what? Don’t you mean nature? If you mean nurture then morality is instilled and not intrinsic.

So what you mean sloth?[/quote]

Nurture. Nature only gives a body with which we have the capacity to inflict horror, or to protect. We instill recognition of moral truths. Your argument is that nature provides everything. For you a man rapes a woman because of nature. He ignores her cries as she is raped by another, because of nature. Or, he comes to her defense, because of nature. Like slaves to their genetic code. That’s all they’d ever be/do. You might as well say the red ants are evil for killing the black ants. You don’t. You’d simply say they killed the black ants. Same with humans. One human killed another.

That’s not my worldview. My worldview has belief in moral truths. My worldview teaches those truths, and insists on PRACTICING those truths (you get better at what you practice). My worldview says the last option in the above scenario is the only good one. Always. The first being directly evil. Always. The second, evil in cowardice or ambivalence. Always.

Biology will never say what is moral or immoral. Biological traits and expressions aren’t evil or good. You only find morality, immorality, good, evil, within the realm of faith. You’ll never measure ‘the evil’ of making your fortune from duping investors. Or from never spending one cent to help someone in need, while you jettison around to vacations homes.

So we believe in the reality of something we can’t falsify, practice it to be better at it, instill it through repetition to our children, and hope to hell our children never see themselves as meat bags with not a one moral obligation.[/quote]

Then, if you don’t know what is wrong or right because it’s not intrinsic, who decides what is wrong or right?

Again, I have no problem with labeling an action wrong because it’s morally abhorrent but I use criteria you’re not willing to accept.

Besides, if you really believe morality is something you must nurture, at some point you must have made a decision about whether something is wrong or right on your own terms.

?

50

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your flowery prose notwithstanding sloth, you offer no viable explanation.
[/quote]

On the contrary, I did. Nurture. Instruction which inculcated the idea that, no matter what, some things are right to do and some things are wrong to do.
[/quote]

Wait, what? Don’t you mean nature? If you mean nurture then morality is instilled and not intrinsic.

So what you mean sloth?[/quote]

Nurture. Nature only gives a body with which we have the capacity to inflict horror, or to protect. We instill recognition of moral truths. Your argument is that nature provides everything. For you a man rapes a woman because of nature. He ignores her cries as she is raped by another, because of nature. Or, he comes to her defense, because of nature. Like slaves to their genetic code. That’s all they’d ever be/do. You might as well say the red ants are evil for killing the black ants. You don’t. You’d simply say they killed the black ants. Same with humans. One human killed another.

That’s not my worldview. My worldview has belief in moral truths. My worldview teaches those truths, and insists on PRACTICING those truths (you get better at what you practice). My worldview says the last option in the above scenario is the only good one. Always. The first being directly evil. Always. The second, evil in cowardice or ambivalence. Always.

Biology will never say what is moral or immoral. Biological traits and expressions aren’t evil or good. You only find morality, immorality, good, evil, within the realm of faith. You’ll never measure ‘the evil’ of making your fortune from duping investors. Or from never spending one cent to help someone in need, while you jettison around to vacations homes.

So we believe in the reality of something we can’t falsify, practice it to be better at it, instill it through repetition to our children, and hope to hell our children never see themselves as meat bags with not a one moral obligation.[/quote]

Then, if you don’t know what is wrong or right because it’s not intrinsic, who decides what is wrong or right?

Again, I have no problem with labeling an action wrong because it’s morally abhorrent but I use criteria you’re not willing to accept.

Besides, if you really believe morality is something you must nurture, at some point you must have made a decision about whether something is wrong or right on your own terms.

?
[/quote]

Faith. There is no good or evil without it. You don’t build and maintain an orderly and flourishing society having driven faith (you can’t) out of human thought. You don’t replace it with…

“You’ll do whatever, so long as you accept the risk.”

“He/that isn’t good or evil, he/that just is.”

“There’s this social contract–which isn’t evil to ignore when it benefits you, because such a thing as evil doesn’t exist–that we operate on.”

“Science can give us morality.” Later…“Behavior is an expression of traits. Behaviors just are (like a rival male lion killing the cubs of the ousted male), they aren’t actually good and evil. Take comfort in whatever you do, because that’s what you’re supposed to be/do.”

An intelligent faithless man is only restrained by how cowardly he is. How much risk he is willing to assume. How much stock he puts into being able to get away with whatever. The intelligent faithless man is sure of the non-existence of good and evil. He will not allow himself to calculate and operate by remnants of a good/evil superstition that has infected him by having lived in a society full of the superstitious. He ignores the nagging voice in his head, in his memories. And hey, with time and practice, it doesn’t take much at all. He only judges risk, his talents, and if the object of his desire is of enough value.

Now the man of the future may have never been ‘infected’ by those superstitions. So much more…calculating…will his life be.

51

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Then, if you don’t know what is wrong or right because it’s not intrinsic, who decides what is wrong or right?

Again, I have no problem with labeling an action wrong because it’s morally abhorrent but I use criteria you’re not willing to accept.

Besides, if you really believe morality is something you must nurture, at some point you must have made a decision about whether something is wrong or right on your own terms.

?
[/quote]

Faith. There is no good or evil without it. You don’t build and maintain an orderly and flourishing society having driven faith (you can’t) out of human thought. You don’t replace it with…

“You’ll do whatever, so long as you accept the risk.”

“He/that isn’t good or evil, he/that just is.”

“There’s this social contract–which isn’t evil to ignore when it benefits you, because such a thing as evil doesn’t exist–that we operate on.”

“Science can give us morality.” Later…“Behavior is an expression of traits. Behaviors just are (like a rival male lion killing the cubs of the ousted male), they aren’t actually good and evil. Take comfort in whatever you do, because that’s what you’re supposed to be/do.”

An intelligent faithless man is only restrained by how cowardly he is. How much risk he is willing to assume. How much stock he puts into being able to get away with whatever. The intelligent faithless man is sure of the non-existence of good and evil. He will not allow himself to calculate and operate by remnants of a good/evil superstition that has infected him by having lived in a society full of the superstitious. He ignores the nagging voice in his head, in his memories. And hey, with time and practice, it doesn’t take much at all. He only judges risk, his talents, and if the object of his desire is of enough value.

Now the man of the future may have never been ‘infected’ by those superstitions. So much more…calculating…will his life be.
[/quote]

Faith in what? That your own judgment is the correct one? So we both decide for ourselves what is moral but only your choice is valid because you have faith that what you think is moral is right?

52

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Nature doesn’t care that 7+billion people live on this earth. It wouldn’t care if that dropped to 1 billion. Or, even zero. It doesn’t care that these people recognize the basic freedoms and legal system we take for granted, and that those people believe in strong central rule. The latter system brutalizing those who step out of line for what we’d see as trivial. It doesn’t care if murder and theft are successful for an individual or group. It doesn’t care if rape is the same.

Take fight or flight, as mentioned above. Yes, our bodies can produce strong drives. Especially if they’ve been conditioned to do so in the presence of a particular stimulus. Guy driving home goes to change the radio station, hitting a homeless man crossing the road. Nobody seems to have witnessed. He’s not sure if he’s legally responsible because of his negligence. He just got out of college, got that dream job! He can’t go to jail! Flight just kicked in, his foot stabbing at the gas pedal. But some moral teaching comes clawing up from the memories of his childhood. “No, I have to stop and render aid. He could still be alive. I’ll have to accept responsibility for this.”

Multimillionaire, no drug habits, no gambling…has lived comfortably within his means. He realizes he hasn’t even begun to spend his wealth. A plane? Buy a yacht? Well, a bigger yacht. Memories of growing up in a household where charity was described as a moral obligation win out, and he starts a foundation paying for cancer treatments. A greater thing than buying bigger and shinier toys.

A father (and still of reproductive age) is walking home when he notices flames and smoke in the windows of an elderly (not a reproductive female) neighbor. No fire department sirens in the distance. Then he hears her cry for help from the house. He freezes in dread for a second, but then recalls notions such as ‘courage,’ ‘chivalry,’ ‘laying down a life for a friend,’ ‘protecting and helping the stranger in need.’ He runs towards the home…[/quote]

College kid: I don’t care if he renders aid. Not saying he shouldn’t, I just don’t care.
Millionaire: Moron.
Father: Thumbs up.

You can probably get a glimpse of my morals from this response.

53

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Faith in what? That your own judgment is the correct one? So we both decide for ourselves what is moral but only your choice is valid because you have faith that what you think is moral is right?
[/quote]

Yep. Think about how you just phrased that, by the way. What does it imply about your moral system? That you don’t actually believe in it. See, now I ask myself, what if we fully embraced such a notion. What if we passed on morals we don’t even believe, and that the next generation knows we don’t believe in, because we’ve taught them there’s nothing to believe in. What kind of society do we expect?

And why would I care that your moral system doesn’t agree with mine? You don’t think it’s actually immoral for me to believe you’re subject to the same good and evil as I am. Not really.

Couple of things.

  1. I wouldn’t choose what is moral for me if I didn’t have faith in it. Why would I tell myself these behaviors are this or that, if I don’t actually believe it?

  2. Why would I call something a moral system if it only applies to my thoughts and actions? The other guy sees hitting me in the head with a hammer to be ok, since, I allegedly cut him off in traffic. Well, then it must be a good, since my moral system doesn’t apply to him. Or, at least we simply cancel each other out. Then it’s just an event, like gravity on a falling body.

54

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Faith in what? That your own judgment is the correct one? So we both decide for ourselves what is moral but only your choice is valid because you have faith that what you think is moral is right?
[/quote]

Yep. Think about how you just phrased that, by the way. What does it imply about your moral system? That you don’t actually believe in it. See, now I ask myself, what if we fully embraced such a notion. What if we passed on morals we don’t even believe, and that the next generation knows we don’t believe in, because we’ve taught them there’s nothing to believe in. What kind of society do we expect?

And why would I care that your moral system doesn’t agree with mine? You don’t think it’s actually immoral for me to believe you’re subject to the same good and evil as I am. Not really.[/quote]

Utter bullshit. Your choices aren’t validated by faith. Faith merely justifies them to you.

And I do right because I believe it’s the right thing to do, not just for the sake of doing right [which is important to me]. Doing right feels right, and that’s enough justification.

Faith is not required.

55

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Faith in what? That your own judgment is the correct one? So we both decide for ourselves what is moral but only your choice is valid because you have faith that what you think is moral is right?
[/quote]

Yep. Think about how you just phrased that, by the way. What does it imply about your moral system? That you don’t actually believe in it. See, now I ask myself, what if we fully embraced such a notion. What if we passed on morals we don’t even believe, and that the next generation knows we don’t believe in, because we’ve taught them there’s nothing to believe in. What kind of society do we expect?

And why would I care that your moral system doesn’t agree with mine? You don’t think it’s actually immoral for me to believe you’re subject to the same good and evil as I am. Not really.

Couple of things.

  1. I wouldn’t choose what is moral for me if I didn’t have faith in it. Why would I tell myself these behaviors are this or that, if I don’t believe it?

  2. Why would I call something a moral system if it only applies to my thoughts and actions? The other guy sees hitting me in the head with a hammer to be ok, since, I allegedly cut him off in traffic. Well, then it must be a good, since my moral system doesn’t apply to him. Or, at least we simply cancel each other out. Then it’s just an event, like gravity on a falling body.[/quote]

  3. You can for other reasons than faith. Because you believe your life, family and society benefits from doing the right thing.

  4. Oversimplification and not applicable.

56

[quote]ephrem wrote:

And I do right because I believe it’s the right thing to do…[/quote]

And so does the dictator. So does the conqueror. So does the guy shooting the other guy who disrespected him. And you can’t even say they’re wrong.

57

[quote]ephrem wrote:

  1. You can for other reasons than faith. Because you believe your life, family and society benefits from doing the right thing.[/quote]

Several value judgements assumed prior to even making this statement.

58

[quote]ephrem wrote:

  1. Oversimplification and not applicable.
    [/quote]

And…eh?

59

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your flowery prose notwithstanding sloth, you offer no viable explanation.
[/quote]

On the contrary, I did. Nurture. Instruction which inculcated the idea that, no matter what, some things are right to do and some things are wrong to do.
[/quote]

Wait, what? Don’t you mean nature? If you mean nurture then morality is instilled and not intrinsic.

So what you mean sloth?[/quote]

Nurture. Nature only gives a body with which we have the capacity to inflict horror, or to protect. We instill recognition of moral truths. Your argument is that nature provides everything. For you a man rapes a woman because of nature. He ignores her cries as she is raped by another, because of nature. Or, he comes to her defense, because of nature. Like slaves to their genetic code. That’s all they’d ever be/do. You might as well say the red ants are evil for killing the black ants. You don’t. You’d simply say they killed the black ants. Same with humans. One human killed another.

That’s not my worldview. My worldview has belief in moral truths. My worldview teaches those truths, and insists on PRACTICING those truths (you get better at what you practice). My worldview says the last option in the above scenario is the only good one. Always. The first being directly evil. Always. The second, evil in cowardice or ambivalence. Always.

Biology will never say what is moral or immoral. Biological traits and expressions aren’t evil or good. You only find morality, immorality, good, evil, within the realm of faith. You’ll never measure ‘the evil’ of making your fortune from duping investors. Or from never spending one cent to help someone in need, while you jettison around to vacations homes.

So we believe in the reality of something we can’t falsify, practice it to be better at it, instill it through repetition to our children, and hope to hell our children never see themselves as meat bags with not a one moral obligation.[/quote]

Then, if you don’t know what is wrong or right because it’s not intrinsic, who decides what is wrong or right?

Again, I have no problem with labeling an action wrong because it’s morally abhorrent but I use criteria you’re not willing to accept.

Besides, if you really believe morality is something you must nurture, at some point you must have made a decision about whether something is wrong or right on your own terms.

?
[/quote]

Faith. There is no good or evil without it. You don’t build and maintain an orderly and flourishing society having driven faith (you can’t) out of human thought. You don’t replace it with…

“You’ll do whatever, so long as you accept the risk.”

“He/that isn’t good or evil, he/that just is.”

“There’s this social contract–which isn’t evil to ignore when it benefits you, because such a thing as evil doesn’t exist–that we operate on.”

“Science can give us morality.” Later…“Behavior is an expression of traits. Behaviors just are (like a rival male lion killing the cubs of the ousted male), they aren’t actually good and evil. Take comfort in whatever you do, because that’s what you’re supposed to be/do.”

An intelligent faithless man is only restrained by how cowardly he is. How much risk he is willing to assume. How much stock he puts into being able to get away with whatever. The intelligent faithless man is sure of the non-existence of good and evil. He will not allow himself to calculate and operate by remnants of a good/evil superstition that has infected him by having lived in a society full of the superstitious. He ignores the nagging voice in his head, in his memories. And hey, with time and practice, it doesn’t take much at all. He only judges risk, his talents, and if the object of his desire is of enough value.

Now the man of the future may have never been ‘infected’ by those superstitions. So much more…calculating…will his life be.
[/quote]

Now this is some flowery prose I can get behind.

Stupendous post, Sloth.

60

[quote]Sloth wrote:<<< Faith. There is no good or evil without it. >>>[/quote]A man cannot fire so much as a single synapse’s worth of intelligible thought without faith. He can neither organize the idea nor utter the phrase, “there is no God”, without loudly declaring the requirement that there is in and by that very denial. God designed it that way.