puzzled by morality
There seem to be endless discussions around a notion of morality, which Wikipedia tells me is:
the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are “good” (or right) and those that are “bad” (or wrong).
It’s not complicated, it’s not weird, and it’s not in the slightest bit indicative of a higher power. I’m puzzled that people are having so many repetitive and circular conversations, and invite readers to enlighten me on any key points I’m missing.
1. how to we evaluate ‘good’ and ‘bad’?
We can take one of two approaches to this (or a combination of the two):
- go with our instinctive response. This is developed mainly as a result of cultural indoctrination from society around us. We are social creatures and tend to go with the flow, follow the crowd and agree with those around us, in order to fit in and feel accepted. The attitudes that surround us from birth feel ‘natural’ and ‘correct’ in most instances and this informs the main part of our instinctive response. That’s obviously how something can be ‘good’ in one culture, and ‘bad’ in another.
- use our brains and gather evidence to evaluate the potential positive and negative outcomes of any decision or action. Weigh up the outcomes and make a decision based on what action causes least harm to ourselves and others.
- the combination option consists of following our instinctive response then inventing reasons to pretend logic has led us to the result with more positive outcomes.
2. how can humans broadly agree on what positive and negative outcomes are, without reference to a higher power?
How does any animal make decisions about positive and negative outcomes? Given that all successfully evolved entities have a finite lifespan and an obvious urge to regenerate through procreation, our desire for optimum survival conditions is our over-riding concern. For humans, our offspring thrive in peaceful, organised societies. The ability to understand how others feel has enabled us to settle in protective social groups – empathy is a strong feature of the breeding success of the human species. Hence the emergence of the popular Golden Rule throughout history – variations on ‘treat other people as you want to be treated’. This makes for more pleasant living conditions for everyone. Do I want to suffer? No. So why should I want anyone else to suffer?
3. can anything be absolutely ‘right’ or ‘wrong’?
A ridiculous proposition. Christians frequently argue that this is the case, yet they all agree slavery is wrong (supported in the Bible), stoning adulterers is wrong (supported in the Bible), forcing raped women to marry their rapist is wrong (supported in the Bible), genocide is wrong (supported in the Bible), vandalism is wrong (supported in the Bible) and cursing trees is wrong (supported in the Bible). These actions are wrong because the negative outcomes outweigh the positive outcomes: they fly in the face of our natural empathy for our fellow human beings and trees. And over time, in spite of the occasionally clearly worded passage in their holy book, Christians have modified core beliefs to fit in with society’s concerns for less harmful treatment of everything in the world around us.
4. what about all the great minds that have written at length on this subject?
As I’ve stated before, people (and mainly men at that) writing in the information vacuums of past times need not be taken seriously. We do not need to constantly refer to speculative wisdom from the past when evidence today is staring us in the face. Shake off your dusty preconceptions and consider notions of morality from a simpler, natural point of view that is backed up with evidence, not ignorant and often superstitious speculation.
5. what can we do about this silly situation?
Next time someone says something like “All people have the capability of being moral because we are created in the image of God.” tell them they’re wrong and tell them why – we combine our indoctrinated sense of right and wrong with carefully weighed decision-making, using our naturally evolved empathy. Encourage them to avoid making blanket judgements on broad situations, just because their instinct, via indoctrination, tells them this makes sense. Above all, point out that science and logic clearly show how we have developed as animals. Believing you’re a special monkey who looks like a god and receives supernatural morality vibes is not only rather embarrassing, it can lead to poor decision-making with harmful consequences for others.
It’s all about critical thinking.
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How so?
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Maybe I should have used the phrase common sense. But it amounts to the same thing.
Only the religiously minded tend to attach absolutes to such things. Them and the inland revenue.
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Why theists complicate it i have no idea. Thank you for saying it really is very simple…. because it is.
“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.” (Einstein)
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Nice quote! This post was inspired by those awful conversations at Prayson’s blog you directed me to. I haven’t read so much morality rubbish in quite a while. I fear I may be suffering from the Ark spam bin problem as my comment hasn’t made it past moderation. Or perhaps my comment was so cutting he’s afraid to approve it?
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He’s pretty good with approving all comments. It’ll be there in time. He’s never banned me. Did you see the conclusion to my little dance?
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I’ll go have a wee look. Do you think “Thank you for your input. You made quite a number of fair points.” really means “You’re right and I’ve been wrong about abortion, and indeed Christianity, my whole life.”?
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You wish. He’ll never admit that, though. I can’t even get him to admit there is no such thing as an objective truth.
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Oh my, did you see the novel Theologics has written for you at the top of the other post??
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Nope! I didn’t get an alert. Should i pop over?
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Of course! If you have five hours to spare you might even get to read it all!
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Ha… got a link, i’ve seem to have misplaced him.
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Nah, don’t bother, i just glanced at it… utter drivel.
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Yes, yes and yes. Did I miss one? I think that the moral edifices that “puzzle” you are so big that even the smarter adepts are willing to sacrifice the natural morality for the outdated ones. If the pope did a 180 on all of the immoralities that his church preaches, it would completely fall apart. It would leave 1.2 billion people without a moral framework at all. Before they would figure out what’s right and wrong, we’ll be a whole lotta mess further. The best we can do, in my view, is doing what you do: keep reminding your environment of the natural state of being and the silliness of many rooted beliefs. In time the pope might move a couple of degrees but sadly he’ll (she?) will always be behind the curve.
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It guess it’s easy to manipulate an artificial morality if you convince people that any instincts that go against what you’re teaching are due to an invisible, malevolent force. It’s a genius control mechanism!
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Our crops are failing, so the witch-smeller tells us there is a witch. He finds the woman, we have a trial (she has a wart) and we burn her to death. The whole locality comes to celebrate the defeat of satan, and we all feel a great deal better- and, the next year we have a bumper harvest! Lots of positive outcomes there, even if you don’t include the bumper harvest- and that may have something to do with motivated peasants working harder because the witch is dead.
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Haha, nice story! Did you make it up or is in standard usage in morality discussions? If we allow authorities to burn people based on random witch ‘evidence’, there is the distinct possibility that we, or someone we care about, will be next in line. Miscarriages of justice are to be avoided at all costs – our personal liberties depend on it. The outcomes under consideration aren’t related only to short-term or direct effects, but obviously need to encompass longer-term and more general considerations about how they can affect society as a whole. Superstitious witch-burning doesn’t make the world a more pleasant place to live in for our offspring. (Or did I miss your point??)
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I made up the precise example, but had come across a similar idea as a critique of Utilitarianism- consequentialist morality suffers because the consequences are not always comparable or easily weighed against each other. There is a serious injustice, and within consequentialism I could argue that that has bad consequences, that injustice means that no-one is safe- the criticism is that if injustice always is said to outweigh the good consequences, that comes from a different moral theory.
Also, the people in the story have not realised that there is no such thing as the witch they imagine, so how would they evaluate consequences?
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But is that not the whole thing (from my point of view anyway) that there are no absolute rights and wrongs? It’s much more sensible to weight up the known outcomes (there’s so much evidence for any topic these days in terms of personal experience testimonies and research) than to assume that a black and white judgement, or inferred judgement, from a 2000 year old cobbled together book from a different culture, could in any way hold the answers.
Our sense of ‘morality’ comes from our culture combined with our natural empathy. To live in a pleasant society, we need to be sure the instinct makes sense in terms of evidence available for potential outcomes of any action.
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All humans can act morally good on their own. It looks no different than if they acted morally good according to some objective standard. If there is no difference, there is no reason to posit a god be involved. There are few reasonable theists who will argue that you can’t be morally good without god. End of discussion….
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Well, nothing much to add to this. I agree with all of it. One question, though: we now agree slavery is wrong, but 200 years ago we didn’t. Since humans are the same, can it really be that empathy’s won over? Didn’t these people have empathy too? Didn’t the Greeks have empathy? Maybe the reason that today slavery is wrong is that it’s stopped being economically advantageous.
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I think empathy’s always been there, but most people empathise primarily with their own kind of people. I expect that because of the broader distribution of people around the world and the ease of travel, humans have begun to realise that they can’t categorise only people ‘like them’ as worthy of equal rights. Of course, we have to bear in mind that there are still millions of people who living the lives of slaves, and that there are still many people willing to accept that the lives of the people they enslave are worth less than their own. But I guess we’re talking about openly accepted international standards.
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