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Morals Without God

AlBell said:
Throw in pillage and slaughter, and your armies will control most of Eurasia.
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The stumbling block to that plan is reciprocity. I expect that everyone else cares first and foremost about themselves, also (and not me)... and why should it be different?

In this way, I become soley morally responsible for my own behaviour towards others. I cannot foist this responsibility off on others, because no one else is as involved in my behaviour or cares as much for my health, happiness and life as me. Yet it stops short of me becoming responsible for the lives of other people, unless I choose to accept it.

Contrariwise, under Heinlein's scheme, I become personally morally responsible for the health, happiness and life of every single human being on the planet- up to and including to the detriment or forfeiture of my own. Not only is that an asinine expectiation to lay on a human being, it's impossible to fulfill- the last guy to even come close is mostly fictional- Jesus.
 
Beth said:
If you read the article, he doesn't assume either of those premises.
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It's directly from the sections you quoted.
I doubt that science and the naturalistic worldview could fill the void and become an inspiration for the good.
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Inspiration to be good IS part of human biology. We don't need external inspiration. It is a false premise that there is a VOID that needs filling.

We need laws and enforcement for some people to be good. Our biology isn't completely gregarious. But then that wasn't the gist of the article either.
 
HansMustermann said:
You know, it gets me kinda thinking. (Which should be your warning it's going to be long and convoluted.)

I was reading recently about gated communities. See, apparently the crime drops right after installing a fence around the neighbourhood, which gets everyone convinced that it's working, but then it slowly gets right right back. People still have to get in and out, including pizza delivery, plumbers, etc, so it's not like it actually creates a perfectly isolated world where just the properly white and upright residends are ever found. So burglars too eventually figure out they can get in.

Worse yet, the ones who do occasionally get to lose time getting in are ambulances and the like. They can't just lift the ambulance or squad car and jump over the fence with it.

So basically you'll still get your **** stolen, and you might die of a heart attack too while the ambulance crew is trying to get someone to open the gate.

But that's just the setup. The interesting part is something else.

Because of the _assumption_ that it works, people basically imagine that the world outside their gates is actually even worse. They actually get anxious when they have to drive outside that fence, because, really, if there's all this crime here where we're all fenced and protected, can you imagine how bad it is outside? They must be mugging and raping each other on every corner.

The illusion of that protection actually makes life scarier. There's actually almost as much crime inside as outside, but because you have to assume that the fence actually does something, you end up assuming that it's so much worse outside it than it really is.

...
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I don't think your conclusions here match the evidence. Where is there evidence property crime is the same within and without gated communities?

Perhaps in a PM as this is off topic.
 
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Piscivore said:
He's got that exactly backwards. I'm the only one of me there ever was or ever will be. As a completely unique individual, my safety, security, and happiness is paramount. My wife and kids come next, because they are also unique and special, but in extremis I can find another mate and make more kids. at the far lowest end, "the species" and life itself are valuable inso much as they serve my needs.
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Just because you can't see how gregarious and altruistic traits evolved, doesn't mean they didn't. Altruism exists and unless you believe the gods instilled it in us, it evolved.
 
brenn said:
Problem is, hwo many children ever learn in school that there are other ways of determining right and wrong besides "what the bible says and what my parents told me?" Even in colege, these days, how many studetns really have to take a basic philosophy course (not to mention that the fundamentalist who taught my Phil 101 course dismissed most non-christian philosophy as "crazy"). Many of them seriously do not know that there are other ways of looking at morality and make decisions.
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Research reveals inherent mortality exists biologically in the brain and kids know moral rules regardless of what they've been taught. Now those moral rules can be messed with, I'm not saying that. But people often have the erroneous idea we only know right and wrong after learning it.
 
Dragoonster said:
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I also disagree that acceptance of evolution would do anything to puncture a theist's belief in divine morals. ....
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I'm with you here. Evolution threatens the Jesus story because without Adam and Eve and the Original Sin, the whole Jesus story is revealed as the nonsensical story it really is. Evangelicals have a particular "relationship with Jesus" when they are "born again". It's this group which has presented the most resistance to evolution theory. Other Christians, including Catholics, not so much.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Just because you can't see how gregarious and altruistic traits evolved, doesn't mean they didn't.
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Um... what? Of course they exist. If I'm kind to others, they are more likely to act reciprocally to me. That benefits me. I said that. It's the Heinlein model that inverts altruism, not mine.

Altruism exists and unless you believe the gods instilled it in us, it evolved.
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Where did I say otherwise?
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Beth said:
If you read the article, he doesn't assume either of those premises.
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It's directly from the sections you quoted.
I doubt that science and the naturalistic worldview could fill the void and become an inspiration for the good.
Click to expand...

Inspiration to be good IS part of human biology. We don't need external inspiration. It is a false premise that there is a VOID that needs filling.

We need laws and enforcement for some people to be good. Our biology isn't completely gregarious. But then that wasn't the gist of the article either.
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That's not his premise. That's his opinion based on what he knows about human nature and religion. And no, I don't agree that "Inspiration to be good IS part of human biology." That's your opinion, not a fact.

My opinion is that inspiration comes from outside of us. Our capability to be inspired is part of our biology. That's not the same thing.
 
Piscivore said:
Um... what? Of course they exist. If I'm kind to others, they are more likely to act reciprocally to me. That benefits me. I said that. It's the Bradbury model that inverts altruism, not mine.


Where did I say otherwise?
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You seem to be saying there has to be a direct survival benefit for a behavior to evolve. In fact, there is evidence that, contrary to what seems logical, a benefit to the group appears to also have some selection pressure even without individual gene selection.
 
Beth said:
That's not his premise. That's his opinion based on what he knows about human nature and religion. And no, I don't agree that "Inspiration to be good IS part of human biology." That's your opinion, not a fact.

My opinion is that inspiration comes from outside of us. Our capability to be inspired is part of our biology. That's not the same thing.
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Beth, the sentence includes the premise. You cannot have "I doubt [...] can fill the void" if there is no void to be filled. You seem to be confusing the direct comments/statements with what those comments/statements imply must also occur. To speak about filling a void, one has to believe there is a void. I don't believe there is evidence such a moral void that needs filling exists.

Why does one need outside inspiration? Perhaps that only appears to be true and in reality, the inspiration is innate and when one expresses it one aligns oneself with the supposed inspiration? For example, someone who is inspired to help others seeks out a group or organization to accomplish the desire. The group is not the inspiration, it is the vehicle.
 
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The True Scotsman said:
Clearly we can't be moral without God. Without him, how would we know that we're supposed to kill gay people, beat our wives, stone adulterers, own slaves, or not eat shellfish? :p
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Exactly, instead we'd get to kill the ones that really deserve it like the unborn and infants we don't want, the sick, the elderly, and the handicapped.
 
Piscivore said:
I don't know what orifice you're pulling that out of, because I didn't say anything at all about behaviours evolving. I said Heinlein's conception of morality was backwards.
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I pulled it out of your orifice (or rather your keyboard fingers).

But I will take you clarification to mean I didn't understand this part of your post:
I'm the only one of me there ever was or ever will be. As a completely unique individual, my safety, security, and happiness is paramount. My wife and kids come next, because they are also unique and special, but in extremis I can find another mate and make more kids. at the far lowest end, "the species" and life itself are valuable inso much as they serve my needs.
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That seemed to me to be about your moral decisions and/or motives based on biological selection pressures.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I pulled it out of your orifice (or rather your keyboard fingers).
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Not mine. You read it into what I wrote.

But I will take you clarification to mean I didn't understand this part of your post:That seemed to me to be about your moral decisions and/or motives based on biological selection pressures.
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"My wife and kids come next, because they are also unique and special, but in extremis I can find another mate and make more kids."
My attachments to my wife and kids are emotional, not genetic. I'm not genetically related to my wife- at least not close enough for it to matter. As far as the kids go, the attachment would be as strong were they adopted.

Really, hanging out here you should have seen that its not unusual for people to have a much greater emotional "kinship" with genetic "strangers" than they do their blood relatives- including parents and kids.

I thought it would be clear that I didn't particularly value genetics when I said ""the species" and life itself are valuable insomuch as they serve my needs."
 
ketten said:
I like HansMustermann's analogy. Since a lot of people think religion fulfills some crucial function in our moral systems, it would be difficult to simply abandon it, without replacing it with something .
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Oh please! When a cancer patient responses to treatment, what do you replace their disease with to fill the void formerly held by malignant, metastasized cells?

NOTHING! YOU'RE CURED FOR CRIPES SAKE!
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I don't think your conclusions here match the evidence. Where is there evidence property crime is the same within and without gated communities?

Perhaps in a PM as this is off topic.
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I think it was more of a metaphor. Besides, it is true that if you go in a gated community you don't know, two things will almost always happen:
1- You will be treated with courtesy but not trust. In a lot of cases you can feel a note of disapprovement towards you.
2- You will se behaviours that seem crazy, criminal or even dangerous to you, but that the inhabitants won't even notice.

I'm talking about experience/common sense. Serves this particular point, it's not a scientific debate.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Research reveals inherent mortality exists biologically in the brain and kids know moral rules regardless of what they've been taught. Now those moral rules can be messed with, I'm not saying that. But people often have the erroneous idea we only know right and wrong after learning it.
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As a first reaction I'm a little skeptical of that research conclusion, I'd be interested in reading more.

Interestingly, this does take me back to another issue - on the "is homsexuality a choice" thread, I tried (unsuccessfully) to get somebody to answer about the other implications of proving that something like the choice of sexual partners is a genetic trait. For example, does that support those who have argued that a propensity for violence, dishonesty, greed, etc., may be more prevalent in racial groups with other shared inherited traits. If morality can be, even in part, genetic, that would seem to support numerous racist ideas even more than the ever-popular evidence relating to IQ/intelligence, wouldn't it?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You seem to be saying there has to be a direct survival benefit for a behavior to evolve. In fact, there is evidence that, contrary to what seems logical, a benefit to the group appears to also have some selection pressure even without individual gene selection.
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If behaviors like that can be passed on genetically, then it makes perfect sense to believe that they would be passed on, doesn't it? It seems to me that a behavior that causes people to associate in groups and do things to benefit the group ultimately insures that more members of the group will pass on their genes than would loners.

If behaviors like that are learned, it still makes sense they would be passed on among groups that are successful. That seems to be, at least, "social evolution."
 
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