Morality Without Religion-- is it Possible?

If you base morality on empathy, what you're really basing it on, in the case of (the vast majority of) animals, is a more-or-less mindless biological instinct that has evolved because it was beneficial for the survival of the species.

The only difference for humans would be that it's a little less mindless.

There is no account for why morality could not be might is right, if we had but evolved differently (alligators, for example, are known to have nasty natures.)

There is also no account for why those who do not feel empathy and murder (ie) are doing something wrong. Note, I'm not asking you whether or not they should be stopped. I am asking you whether or not these people should be treated like they did something wrong.

Mr. Anonymous said:

If you base morality on empathy, what you're really basing it on, in the case of (the vast majority of) animals, is a more-or-less mindless biological instinct that has evolved because it was beneficial for the survival of the species.

The only difference for humans would be that it's a little less mindless.

There is no account for why morality could not be might is right, if we had but evolved differently (alligators, for example, are known to have nasty natures.)

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I'm not sure we need such an account. It only seems to be needed if you want to construct moral absolutes, and at that point you are begging the question.

There is also no account for why those who do not feel empathy and murder (ie) are doing something wrong. Note, I'm not asking you whether or not they should be stopped. I am asking you whether or not these people should be treated like they did something wrong.

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Well, legally, one of the questions you would ask of such a person is, do they know the difference between right and wrong? If not, they're not criminally responsible and it's not at all clear that they are morally responsible. People with severe mental problems tend to get treated in hospitals rather than punished in prisons, and that seems to me to be right and proper.

Psychopaths, on the other hand, I think recognise the difference between right and wrong even though they don't feel it, because they live in a society full of people who do. They know that they are violating their society's mores when they kill someone. Therefore you put them in jail and treat them as morally responsible for the crime.

It almost sounds like people are confusing "morality" with "socially acceptable behavior" (SAB). To me, "SAB" would be an evolved construct of morality as defined by society but not necessarily by some visible/invisible moral authority. While SAB can vary from culture to culture and from community to community, I don't think a valid "Absolute Morality" can.

This question is almost hard to wrap your head around if you're an atheist. Atheists believe man invented religion. So he invented morality. Religion was just an easy way to teach morals and the rules of society.

Maybe this was clarified already and I missed it: Do you mean "Can there be morality without GOD?"

Again, the atheist would say yes, but at least the question makes more sense.

rwam said:

It almost sounds like people are confusing "morality" with "socially acceptable behavior" (SAB). To me, "SAB" would be an evolved construct of morality as defined by society but not necessarily by some visible/invisible moral authority. While SAB can vary from culture to culture and from community to community, I don't think a valid "Absolute Morality" can.

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Is it an absolute that a valid absolute morality cannot vary at all ever in any way whatsoever at any time nor in any relation to anything at all?

Mr. Anonymous said:

I'm not asking you whether or not they should be stopped. I am asking you whether or not these people should be treated like they did something wrong.

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The only important thing is to stop them from harming more people. As an atheist i do not care if they are evil or responsible, so long as they are stopped. Therein lies the difference. I am not even that worried about them being punished, they just need to be rendered harmless--preferably by treatment to make them want to be harmless, but if necessary by detention so they have no access to potential victims.

Maxx said:

Is it an absolute that a valid absolute morality cannot vary at all ever in any way whatsoever at any time nor in any relation to anything at all?

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Well, Maxx....i think this is where we venture down the rabbit hole. See, even if there is a visible or invisible absolute moral authority, it's only as good as each person's (theist or atheist) individual perception and interpretation of said absolute moral authority...

That's the thing: Let's pretend every single person DID adhere to a strict literal interpretation of the moral code spelled out in the Bible, each person's literal interpretation of that code will differ since every word means something slightly different to every person.

Well, that's my theory, at least.

rwam said:

Interesting thought about instincts. It reminds me of a Bible verse that basically says God's Law is written on the hearts of man (I paraphrase). t seems to me, though, that if left to our own devices (oro instincts), each of us would come up with our individual moral code.

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People do that anyway, regardless of religion. They interpret and weight religious texts differently according to their own preferences and the societal conditions. People are deeply divided on issues of morality - gay marriage, abortion, war - often within identical religious sects.

Sarah Madara said:

People do that anyway, regardless of religion. They interpret and weight religious texts differently according to their own preferences and the societal conditions. People are deeply divided on issues of morality - gay marriage, abortion, war - often within identical religious sects.

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Correct!

rwam said:

Well, Maxx....i think this is where we venture down the rabbit hole. See, even if there is a visible or invisible absolute moral authority, it's only as good as each person's (theist or atheist) individual perception and interpretation of said absolute moral authority...

That's the thing: Let's pretend every single person DID adhere to a strict literal interpretation of the moral code spelled out in the Bible, each person's literal interpretation of that code will differ since every word means something slightly different to every person.

Well, that's my theory, at least.

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So what is the difference between an absolute morality that varies and a set of socially acceptable behaviors that are enforced? It seems to me there is no difference.

Maxx said:

So what is the difference between an absolute morality that varies and a set of socially acceptable behaviors that are enforced? It seems to me there is no difference.

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Hmmm....I think if there really IS an absolute moral authority, that AMA cannot vary - just our perception of it.

Socially Acceptable Behaviors, however, vary from culture to culture. And even within those cultures, I would think each person's perception of what is SAB probably differs from one degree to another.

rwam said:

Hmmm....I think if there really IS an absolute moral authority, that AMA cannot vary - just our perception of it.

Socially Acceptable Behaviors, however, vary from culture to culture. And even within those cultures, I would think each person's perception of what is SAB probably differs from one degree to another.

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An AMA with varying perceptions and a SAB with varying perceptions would not seem to me to be different.

yes, this seems to be a meaningless semantic distinction.

Unless we are back to Platonism, with the AMA floating perfect in the sky, obscured from our distorted perceptions.

Maxx said:

An AMA with varying perceptions and a SAB with varying perceptions would not seem to me to be different.

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In terms of their effect upon humanity, Maxx, I would agree.

Sarpedon said:

yes, this seems to be a meaningless semantic distinction.

Unless we are back to Platonism, with the AMA floating perfect in the sky, obscured from our distorted perceptions.

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And just to clarify, when I refer to an AMA, I'm referring an actual entity, either visible or invisible, maybe it's God, maybe it's the Force, maybe it's Platons, etc....but something that exists that can define what is right and what is wrong in this universe. And even if that AMA can articulate it into words, I'm saying each one of us will view that articulation through lenses of discernment that are not only flawed, but also influenced by our own personal predicaments. An AMA is not the Pope, Billy Graham, Ghandi, etc.

A culture's SAB is nothing like the above in terms of nature. It's merely an agreed-upon set of morals/ethics that a society has decided 'seems right'.

Standard Disclaimer: I'm obviously no expert on the subject, just a dude who likes thinking and writing stories about people that don't even exist. I do appreciate the mental exercise here, though.

rwam said:

And just to clarify, when I refer to an AMA, I'm referring an actual entity, either visible or invisible, maybe it's God, maybe it's the Force, maybe it's Platons, etc....but something that exists that can define what is right and what is wrong in this universe. And even if that AMA can articulate it into words, I'm saying each one of us will view that articulation through lenses of discernment that are not only flawed, but also influenced by our own personal predicaments.

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1. There are absolute standards of morality (set by the AMA)
2. A moral agent's adherence to these standards is the sole and absolute standard by which that agent - let's say that person - should be judged in moral terms
3. There is some point to this judgement - presumably people who succeed morally will be rewarded, and those who fail will be punished.
4. People are so constituted as to appreciate these standards only imperfectly, and exhibit all kinds of weird and wonderful errors
5. Therefore their success at adhering to those standards is determined entirely by features of their unique constitution, which determine people's apprehension of what is right and wrong - and not by any desire to be morally good or evil
6. Therefore any judgement that compares behaviour to absolute morals of the kind you envisage is not a test of moral agency

Torgo said:

1. There are absolute standards of morality (set by the AMA)
2. A moral agent's adherence to these standards is the sole and absolute standard by which that agent - let's say that person - should be judged in moral terms
3. There is some point to this judgement - presumably people who succeed morally will be rewarded, and those who fail will be punished.
4. People are so constituted as to appreciate these standards only imperfectly, and exhibit all kinds of weird and wonderful errors
5. Therefore their success at adhering to those standards is determined entirely by features of their unique constitution, which determine people's apprehension of what is right and wrong - and not by any desire to be morally good or evil
6. Therefore any judgement that compares behaviour to absolute morals of the kind you envisage is not a test of moral agency

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Can't argue with any of that, Torgo. Note, I've never said atheists can't exhibit high morality, even as defined by the Bible (for instance). My angle on this whole topic is more along the origins of a moral code. If you believe in some invisible being of perfection, the origin of that moral code comes from him/it. If you don't believe in such a being, then it still seems to me that any moral code you adhere to is really an evolution, more or less, of socially acceptable behavior.

rwam said:

Can't argue with any of that, Torgo. Note, I've never said atheists can't exhibit high morality, even as defined by the Bible (for instance). My angle on this whole topic is more along the origins of a moral code. If you believe in some invisible being of perfection, the origin of that moral code comes from him/it. If you don't believe in such a being, then it still seems to me that any moral code you adhere to is really an evolution, more or less, of socially acceptable behavior.

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Yep, agreed. But unless you throw out (4), above, and make the AMA morally comprehensible to people, then the whole moral exercise he/she/it is indulging in seems futile.

Never thought you were arguing against atheists being moral, BTW, it's more that in the case where there is a God, then there's no point God even setting standards that He is also going to make people incapable of living up to. That doesn't seem to test anything that isn't under God's direct control; morality becomes meaningless.

The two escape valves are a) you say that God's word is clearly understandable; then it becomes a matter of free will whether you choose to obey or not; or b) you say that God is more interested in your intentions (to obey whatever you imperfectly believe to be moral) than in your actions (how they measure up to the 'real' absolute standards. )

But to me the former seems to lead to an untenable Biblical literalism, and the latter to Charles Manson going to Heaven so long as he honestly believes he's done right.

I would be more inclined to believe that we have a core of rather primal morality hardwired into us by evolution - by the social, speaking creatures that we are. The small print is determined socially, but it's all run off that old wiring: empathy, reciprocity.

Torgo said:

Yep, agreed. But unless you throw out (4), above, and make the AMA morally comprehensible to people, then the whole moral exercise he/she/it is indulging in seems futile.

Never thought you were arguing against atheists being moral, BTW, it's more that in the case where there is a God, then there's no point God even setting standards that He is also going to make people incapable of living up to. That doesn't seem to test anything that isn't under God's direct control; morality becomes meaningless.

The two escape valves are a) you say that God's word is clearly understandable; then it becomes a matter of free will whether you choose to obey or not; or b) you say that God is more interested in your intentions (to obey whatever you imperfectly believe to be moral) than in your actions (how they measure up to the 'real' absolute standards. )

But to me the former seems to lead to an untenable Biblical literalism, and the latter to Charles Manson going to Heaven so long as he honestly believes he's done right.

I would be more inclined to believe that we have a core of rather primal morality hardwired into us by evolution - by the social, speaking creatures that we are. The small print is determined socially, but it's all run off that old wiring: empathy, reciprocity.

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100% "B" all the way, Torgo....before you made the ridiculous Manson comment, of course.

Why is it ridiculous?

EDIT: I mean, my point is that b) seems to privilege piety over absolute morals - if you're an Aztec priest doing human sacrifice or a Catholic presiding over an auto-da-fe, you're doing the best you can to be moral according to your own imperfect conception of God's will. Is that something God respects, or does He just see murder and torture?

Torgo said:

Why is it ridiculous?

EDIT: I mean, my point is that b) seems to privilege piety over absolute morals - if you're an Aztec priest doing human sacrifice or a Catholic presiding over an auto-da-fe, you're doing the best you can to be moral according to your own imperfect conception of God's will. Is that something God respects, or does He just see murder and torture?

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Well, you have a valid point, even if it takes things to the extreme. What I meant by ridiculous is, I've never heard Manson make any comment about him killing those people out of religious duty to God, the Holy Spirit, Allah, etc.

I've often wondered, though, about Militant Islam. Deep down, I suppose their Allah is probably the same God worshipped by Judeo-Christians - he just presents himself to a different culture with a different name and different face. So, to beg your question....if someone totally devoted to Allah has been brainwashed into thinking it's his religious duty to strap on a backpack and blow up a bus full of kids - and he does so thinking he's doing it to please his god....what is his god to do? I suppose that's between him and his god, and a whole nuther topic for a whole nuther thread.

rwam said:

Well, you have a valid point, even if it takes things to the extreme. What I meant by ridiculous is, I've never heard Manson make any comment about him killing those people out of religious duty to God, the Holy Spirit, Allah, etc.

I've often wondered, though, about Militant Islam. Deep down, I suppose their Allah is probably the same God worshipped by Judeo-Christians - he just presents himself to a different culture with a different name and different face. So, to beg your question....if someone totally devoted to Allah has been brainwashed into thinking it's his religious duty to strap on a backpack and blow up a bus full of kids - and he does so thinking he's doing it to please his god....what is his god to do? I suppose that's between him and his god, and a whole nuther topic for a whole nuther thread.

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Yeah, Manson was kind of a red herring then; I was just using him as a placeholder for 'obviously evil guy' - who under the right circumstances might be convinced he was acting morally. As in, your suicide bomber example, which is much more on point.

It certainly provides Allah with a serious problem, doesn't it!

Mr. Anonymous said:

very briefly,

I believe you need religion for morality, but my definition of religion is different from yours. I view religion as having faith in something that is beyond your ability to know for certain.

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None of the Atheists I know need religion for morality yet they have morality.

Moreover, I would argue that we, as human beings, must have faith in this absolute morality. Otherwise I don't think we would have the heart to go on living and interacting with people. I don't think we would be able to maintain relationships, if on some level, we didn't believe in this absolute ethics.

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Even if we recognize morality as a socio-evolutionary construct, we can still practice morality. The fact that Jupiter won't suddenly freak out and crash into the Sun because someone harms a kid doesn't lessen the harm to the kid. The universe might not care in absolute terms but moral humans do.

Where does God come into the picture? Well, one could argue that you need some kind of penultimate authority to dictate absolute morality, and that if one has faith in absolute morality, one must also have faith in a penultimate authority. There really is a very fine line between having faith in absolute morality and having faith in God.

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But a penultimate authority cannot dictate anything absolute.

Only an ultimate authority can do that.

By definition of the word "penultimate", a penultimate authority (i.e. - an authority which is second last, not last in the chain of authority) is subject to the ultimate authority.

God could recognize absolute morality as a thing in itself (in other words, good is not good because of God, but for it's own sake) while at the same time either being a part of it or comprising it.

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Plato argues against this point, I certainly do not.

I would argue that morality not only predates the modern concept of 'god' as creater of goodness and evil, but that the greek philosophies of morality and perfection gave rise to the idea of 'god' as creater of good and evil.

Ancient people were content with very human like deities, who performed a variety of functions. The idea of an all powerful god who created everything came about during the period of intense religious competition that existed in the Persian, Greek and Roman empires, when formerly isolated religious communities were united under a single government, which in turn caused people to develop new myths to make sense of their changing world. The process began with various attempts to combine the deities of one pantheon with similar deities of other pantheons, for example, you had Athena identified with Minerva, Baal with Jupiter, Ra with Appollo, and so forth. This trend gradually escalated, with new composite gods, ever more powerful, being introduced at the twilight of the Roman Republic; Sol Invictis, Serapis, and the new version of the god of Abraham are examples of this.

The old version of the God of Abraham was not seen as creater of (the concept of) good and evil. After all, in the Garden of Eden, the humans eat of the tree of 'knowledge of good and evil' and god remarks that they have become 'like us.' It is obvious that the authors of this tale considered the definitions of good and evil to be separate from god. Every other religious system of the same time and region conforms to this. Gods may be good, but they do not define good.

The idea of an all powerful god who is arbiter of right and wrong is quite recent; it came AFTER the major greek philosophers. These philosophies, spread throughout the Greek empire, which included Israel, gave rise to concepts of Universal divine order.

Sarpedon said:

After all, in the Garden of Eden, the humans eat of the tree of 'knowledge of good and evil' and god remarks that they have become 'like us.' It is obvious that the authors of this tale considered the definitions of good and evil to be separate from god. Every other religious system of the same time and region conforms to this. Gods may be good, but they do not define good.

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Maybe the authors of the tale of good and evil transcribed Herr Gott's remarks more exactly than they knew since perhaps by "like us" He meant "they can make this stuff up as they go along." God indeed nowhere seems more at a loss than in the 10 commandments. First, why 10? And why write them on a golden ass? And by the 5th or 6th He's obviously just making things up as in "And hey, don't covet thy neighbor's ass or anything else."

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.