Atheists: explain where your moral system comes from

[Mise]

But surely you would say that your moral compass is correct, whereas, say, a sociopath's moral beliefs are incorrect? In other words, would you not say that the statement "murder is always morally permissible and everyone should do it" is incorrect, rather than merely being an "alternate viewpoint", or something?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

But surely you would say that your moral compass is correct, whereas, say, a sociopath's moral beliefs are incorrect?

I would say that yeah. Because I can see the advantages my moral compass has over the sociopaths. I could reason why my moral compass would result in a more pleasant world. Which is something I might find important. So it comes back to measuring my compass by the things I value. Of course I'll prefer mine over a sociopath's.

In other words, would you not say that the statement "murder is always morally permissible and everyone should do it" is incorrect, rather than merely being an "alternate viewpoint", or something?

First getting the nitpick out of the way, I hardly ever subscribe to statements with qualifiers such as "always". The reason I find that statement to be incorrect is twofold. A general one: It clearly harms the society we live in, and a personal one: I want to live and not be murdered.

 

[Mise]

So you would evaluate your respective moral compasses against some other criteria? I.e. you would say that yours is better than the sociopath's because... yours causes less harm to society (and/or to yourself) than his?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

So you would evaluate your respective moral compasses against some other criteria? I.e. you would say that yours is better than the sociopath's because... yours causes less harm to society (and/or to yourself) than his?

I think so. Although "causes less harm" doesn't completely cover it, and you repeating what I just said (sentences starting with "So" make the alarmbells go off) makes me cautious for some pitfall you're setting me up for.

Oh well, set me up

Although I'm not sure what you mean when you say "other criteria". What alternative criteria are you talking about? The religious one? In that case I find it rather odd that someone would reason, if my religion didn't tell me not to kill everyone, I'd kill everyone.

 

[Mise]

I'm not setting you up for anything, I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

That's a relief. Thread has made me cautious

 

[HannibalBarka]

The big problem witht the Golden Rule is that there are many cases where people do not agree on "what they don't want to be done on them". Take religious obligations, many muslims think they should be forced to fast in Ramadan, so forcing others to fast look OK for them, while all non muslims and many muslims don't think it's OK, So is it moral to force people to fast in say "Saudi Arabia"? Abortion is another example, many think that it is immoral and don't see any problem imposing this on others since they don't mind imposing it on themselves. The pro abortion people hold the oppsite Golden Rule reasoning "I think people should be allowed to abort because I don't want to be forced to keep a baby I don't wan't" or "because I don't want to impose a body control on others since I don't any one to impose a control on mine". None of the two groups is marginal. In that case the Golden Rule gives us two different outcome concerning the morality of something, how can we choose?

 

[Akka]

I'm pretty sure that the last page is entirely about this...

 

[warpus]

This is why the Golden Rule is a personal yardstick for me.

It is. It is pretty much like Occam's Razor - you use it as a personal guide, not as an objective never-wrong metric.

 

[Atlas14]

The big problem witht the Golden Rule is that there are many cases where people do not agree on "what they don't want to be done on them". Take religious obligations, many muslims think they should be forced to fast in Ramadan, so forcing others to fast look OK for them, while all non muslims and many muslims don't think it's OK, So is it moral to force people to fast in say "Saudi Arabia"?

But the Golden Rule is about treating others how you want to be treated. I don't know many people who want anything forced upon them, whether it is perceived as for their own good or not.

 

[HannibalBarka]

But the Golden Rule is about treating others how you want to be treated. I don't know many people who want anything forced upon them, whether it is perceived as for their own good or not.

many prolife people think they should be forced to keep their phoetus if they get pregnant. I know many muslims who think like wise about fasting in Ramadan. Well at least that's what they say "before" being confronted to the matter

 

[Orange Seeds]

I see potential for very ironic answers.

Well you're being helpful...

Here's my final exposition on the Golden Rule/reciprocity/jibbersih (hereafter GR).

Let's take GR in its most general sense: That I should do something to other people that is as if those people were myself. If you want it to mean something different from this, then you'll have to provide it.

First, lets consider the masochist objection that we're all now familiar with. The masochist wants to feel pain. Thus in treating other people with reciprocity he'll try to cause pain in others.

Your reply is that this is not a fair description of what is happening. The masochist only wants pain because he really wants pleasure. So what is actually happening is that he is should be trying to cause pleasure in other people, in the ways that they want it. Here we have a big problem: n the ways that they want it. Surely our theory doesn't think we should treat people both as they want and how we would want at the same time. So we have to have a hierarchy here. ie. Pleasure is the top-level preference, pain is the lower-level preference(or the means). So now we need a theory of what counts as a top-level preference. We don't have one.

Second, what if my view of what is preferable to me is coercive? The religious person coerces himself and his family to respect the laws of his religion. Does this mean he can force others to do so as well, morally?

But how does he coerce himself you might ask. After-all, he is choosing what he wants. So what should actually be respected is a person's ability to choose what they want. Let's accept that. If we do, then aren't we forced to accept the actions of the person who chose to steal a Ford Explorer? Why not? we are respecting the persons upper-level preference (to choose their actions) and their preferred means in exactly the same way we did so in order to avoid the Masochist example. So our theory says either murdering, stealing etc are good or coercion is.

This is why relevant descriptions are such a difficulty. What is being reciprocated?

There is also the question of the relevant reciprocal agent. If I cheat on my wife. Should I care about my wife's thoughts? The other chicks thoughts? My mother's thoughts? Who is the other?

Also GR does not tell us what I should do. Should i get really drunk every night? Should I never work and live off welfare? Should o kill myself?

Finally, GR doesn't help explain serious ethical questions:
1. Is killing an animal painfully wrong?
2. Should I join the army?
3. Should I pay my taxes?
4. Should I lie to someone to spare them a bad emotion
5. Should I abort this fetus?
6. Should I murder one person to save 6?

 

[Akka]

Let's take GR in its most general sense: That I should do something to other people that is as if those people were myself. If you want it to mean something different from this, then you'll have to provide it.

Okay, let's make a parallel.
Someone wants to talk about the overall concept of cooperation. The rough idea is that, generally, people working together can achieve greater result than if they work alone.

He sums it up with the usual : "1+1 = 3" (the whole being more than the sum of its part, yadda yadda).

Then someone says : "you're wrong, if someone is sabotaging your work, then working together doesn't end up being better than alone !".
And someone else says : "you're wrong, I checked with my calculator, and 1+1=2, not 3".

Conclusion : the two guys completely missed the point, and just looked for nitpick the phrasing, entirely ignoring the intent.

Looks familiar ?

I can also illustrate it with the usual joke :
A guy is driving in a car. He's completely lost and can't find any hint about where he is. He stops to ask his way to a man with a hat :
"Excuse me, I'm lost, can you tell me where am I ?"
And the man with the had answers :
"You're in a car."

I'm pretty sure that, technically, you can consider his answer correct. I'm also pretty sure that everyone understands what the question REALLY meant, and that the answer is completely beside the point.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Only a sadomasochist would want to cause others pain.

 

[Japanrocks12]

Saying "well, somethings I just feel this way, and sometimes I feel that way, and sometimes I ask my friend" is not a moral framework.

Maybe such a system does not have the same rigor that the term "framework" would suggest, but I'm at a loss as to why you think that this is true.

EDIT: Why is there a minimum value for rigor that a moral framework must have in order for it to be a moral framework? Where are you getting your idea of what a moral framework must entail?

 

[GhostWriter16]

But the Golden Rule is about treating others how you want to be treated. I don't know many people who want anything forced upon them, whether it is perceived as for their own good or not.

True, but in the case of abortion, its different because its for the child's good.

 

[Gogf]

Maybe because many of the Golden Rulers have stated it isn't an access to some kind of moral truth?

Paraphrasing: The basis of ethics is causality, everything has consequences, and so do actions. Actions have consequences, and our role is to find those consequences and act accordingly

When we master this, we might have our objective morality.

What you are describing is "consequentialism," not a general understanding of the idea of ethics.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Finally, GR doesn't help explain serious ethical questions:

The GR SORT OF answers some of these questions. Not all, but some.

1. Is killing an animal painfully wrong?

I agree this isn't really explained, but why would you want to kill it painfully? Sadistic pleasure?

If there is no cause to kill it painfully, its wrong.

2. Should I join the army?

Personal decision.

3. Should I pay my taxes?

While I suppose that there are times when taxes THEMSELVES are theft, at least for a simple debate, not paying tax is theft, so you should pay.

4. Should I lie to someone to spare them a bad emotion

Would you want someone to do that to you? (If yes, the Bible still says you shouldn't, but that's a separate issue.)

5. Should I abort this fetus?

That's called murder.

6. Should I murder one person to save 6?

If the one who was being murdered was you, would you want them to do this?

 

[Plotinus]

True, but in the case of abortion, its different because its for the child's good.

The point was that the rule "do to others as you'd like done to yourself" is useless when more than one other person is involved. In the case of abortion, there might be a number of other parties involved - minimally, the foetus and the other parent (this assumes that the foetus is a "person" for the sake of this decision). What if I'm a pregnant woman and the father wants an abortion? The Golden Rule tells me that I should not have the abortion (I would not want to be killed, so I shouldn't kill the foetus). But it also tells me that I should have the abortion (I would want to have my wishes regarding my unborn child respected, so I should respect the wishes of the father). So the rule pulls both ways. In order to make an actual decision, I would need to go beyond the rule and find some further principle to decide which way to go.

(Quite apart from this, the Golden Rule doesn't specify who counts as "people" in the first place. It says that I must do to others what I would want them to do to me, but who counts as "others"? Is a foetus a "person" of whom I should take account in this way? Maybe, maybe not - the Golden Rule doesn't tell us. Again, do animals count? It doesn't tell us that either. If we want the Golden Rule to be helpful for making decisions about animal rights or abortion rights we need to supplement it with further principles explaining its scope.)

This is even clearer in e.g. the case of the thug who asks me where my friend is hiding, because he wants to kill him. What does "do to others as you'd like done to yourself" tell me to do there? If the "others" in question are my friend, then I would reason like this: I want other people to protect me from being killed. So I should act in this way towards my friend, and I should not tell the thug where he is hiding. But if the "others" in question are the thug, then I would reason like this: I want other people to tell me the truth when I ask them things. So I should act in this way towards the thug, and tell him where my friend is hiding. Once again, the "Golden Rule" pulls me in different directions, because it only tells me to do to others what I would want done to myself, and does not give direction regarding what to do when there are more than one other people involved who may have contradictory wishes.

I mean, you say:

If the one who was being murdered was you, would you want them to do this?

Answer: no. But if one of the six being saved was you, would you want them to do it? Answer: yes. Which answer should we use as the guide to action? The Golden Rule doesn't tell us.

Similarly, it may indeed be a "personal decision" whether I should join the army or not, but this is still a moral question - some people think it morally wrong to do so, others think it morally laudable. What does the Golden Rule tell us? Nothing. So here again it's not much good as a guide to action.

Akka's sarcastic retort to Orange Seeds' comment misses this point and the others completely. Orange Seeds' list at the end shows why the Golden Rule and its variants are just inadequate as a guide to action, because they don't help to resolve the issues mentioned. To do so you have to supplement the principle with further principles. It's all very well to say "We all understand the point of the principle, and by finding fault with it you're just pedantically nitpicking," but the whole point of an ethical system is that it be a guide to action. It becomes especially important when you're considering serious moral dilemmas such as abortion, animal rights, and things of that kind where there is serious disagreement over what actually is right and what's wrong. If an ethical theory doesn't help you in these cases, then it is at best an incomplete theory and at worst a totally useless one. This is not nitpicking, it's testing. If I test a new car and find that it falls apart if you drive it more than ten miles, it's not enough to say "Yes, that's just nitpicking; at least it goes. We all know that it's meant to get you somewhere." It has to actually get me somewhere if it's going to be any good, and the purpose of testing it is to see if it does that.

 

[spryllino]

The Golden Rule never gets me anywhere because I know full well that I don't enjoy quite a few of social niceties that many people do. I do them anyway, because that's only polite, but that doesn't mean I like them. Equally, I'm sure most people have other things that they do not because they actually want them to be done to them, but because they expect that the person that they are doing them to will enjoy it.

For example, while I might ask people how their day has been, fully expecting that they will return the question, and sometimes authentically curious to know what they're up to, that doesn't mean I'm actually particularly desperate to tell them about my own life.

Of course, many quandaries can be rearranged to make sense by the Golden Rule, but if you have to rearrange the quandary to apply the rule, what a dreadful rule it must be! Suppose I want my friend, as a general principle, to do things that I find fun. I might, to humour him, play a really violent computer game, despite not really liking the game in itself. By the Golden Rule, should I have done that? It only works if I read the Golden Rule to mean, "I should only socialise with him if I want him to socialise with me," rather than to mean, "I should only play violent computer games with him if I want him to play violent computer games with me."

Thus, in short, the Golden Rule is almost invariably ambiguous, but, more crucially, it requires the assumption that you and the object of your action have precisely the same opinion on that action.