Does morality work without a deity?

[thecrazyscot]

FredLC, thank you for a fascinating and thoughtful response. I'm not ignoring it, but I have to end my forum activities for the night. Cheers!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Without a higher standard of morality other than logic, though, you could just as easily say something like "I find killing fun, therefore it's right".

Even secular countries do not base their laws entirely on logic and data. Laws regarding basic morality seem to be simply assumed.

What I'm trying to get at is why are they assumed? What basis does anyone have for condemning, judging, or shaming anyone?

Laws are not based on morality. Laws are based on the community perceived need for security. There isn't a single law that says "no killing people because it is inherently bad", the law is an agreement that the community can't function if members are getting killed by other members on some random basis.

 

[Berzerker]

a quote from Steven Weinberg: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Nobody wants to lose, therefore losing is immoral.

Nobody wants to die, therefore dying is immoral.

Nobody wants to have their feelings hurt, therefore having your feelings hurt is immoral.

Nobody wants to wait in line, therefore waiting in line is immoral.

Dying, winning and losing and waiting in line are neither moral or immoral. Trying to hurt people's feelings is immoral.

Basing morality on "universal desires" can justify anything. And what happens when two desires conflict?

Is murder justified if no one wants to be murdered? Generally I'd say the desire that is more universal trumps the less desired, murder for example. Nobody wants to be murdered, not many people want to commit murder and even fewer would argue murder is moral.

That's just the thing. God has everything to do with it. If God created the moral standard, then whatever he says goes!

I didn't say God has nothing to do with it, I said your god has nothing to do with it. Your god is "he", how do you know god is a he? Because he's your god. Your god has nothing to do with whether or not your actions are justified. All you've done is replace your god with yourself while asking everyone to explain how they can define morality without your god.

Why? Who says?

Everybody says, even the murderer doesn't want to be murdered.

Hypocrisy is only "wrong" if there is a moral standard that says so.

Thats right, and the standard is the universal desire to live, to not be murdered. Murderers are hypocrites, among other things.

You do realize this was an example for the sake of discussion, right? As a Christian, I find ISIS reprehensible.

I never said you liked them

If morality isn't established beyond human authority, this question is meaningless, because whatever anyone does is simply an action with no moral consequences.

Morality is established by universal human desires. If you want to attribute these to "god" thats fine, I dont know who or what is responsible for existence but they didn't write a book to tell us to murder and enslave each other over a plot of land.

but thats just my 2 cents, I cant see a better way to define morality than the things we all have in common

 

[classical_hero]

As Richard Dawkins says, all there is pitiless indifference. There is no order or reason to what we do, so we are just a product of our instinct. This is of course morality without a God, because ultimately man is the decider of morality. We have seen that when man decides what is right and what is wrong, normally people are killed as a result of this philosophy.

 

[JollyRoger]

We have seen that when man decides what is right and what is wrong, normally people are killed as a result of this philosophy.

God has a pretty solid track record of killing and inspiring his followers to do so as well.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

When people decide what is right and wrong for themselves very few of them arrive at "killing people is right". When they allow their morality to be determined by an outside authority they have routinely followed "divine instruction" that killing is fine and dandy.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's not obvious why goodness needs a God for it to exist. What does a god do that is essential to morality's nature?

 

[madviking]

It's not obvious why goodness needs a God for it to exist. What does a god do that is essential to morality's nature?

Provide a convenient solution to the is-ought problem.

 

[Narz]

Does morality work without a deity?

Yes. Usually better. Denmark isn't falling apart & yet very few there are believers.

Without religion crazy people have to come out with at least semi-coherent reasons to do insane things. With religion you have your excuses all set out for you.

People don't seem to have the same problem with good deeds. I feed my kid & take care of my cats because I love them, not because of God. God's a good Guy to hide behind if you want to appear humble ("I'm not a good person, just a God fearing one") but it cheapens the natural goodness of human beings (some human beings anyway).

 

[Narz]

For effect, let me end with a quote from Steven Weinberg: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Regards .

I was trying to remember that quote when I saw this thread also. I ended up using my own version.

Your post was much more in depth & eloquent than mine, well put.

 

[Agent327]

Where does the concept of "right and wrong" come from?

I am a Christian, I believe that morality comes from God - I believe it has to come from a higher power, or it is essentially meaningless.

Simple answer: morality generally has worked without a deity - and still does today. The fact that people wish to invoke a deity to support their claim of morality does not deny the fact that morality derives from certian moral obligations or concepts that were in existence long before the worship of deities became general. (E.g. humans were moral 500,000 years ago.)

There also seems to be a misconception that humans are the only species capable of moral acts. This, however, is not the case. Just as immoral acts are not limited to the human species.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that actual morality only works without a deity (or without being tied to a deity). Otherwise it is appeasing that god.
Cause if you are 'moral' out of expecting some reward in a next realm, or trying to avoid punishment there, you aren't really moral for morality itself.

Eg if you sweep floors so as to be paid a wage, you are doing the sweeping not because it feels awesome, but due to needing money. If your old testament employer asks you if you like the sweeping, though, you are advised to say you love it.

 

[El_Machinae]

So, first off, I'm not disparaging the idea that morality could have come from the Creator, and been intentionally designed. Likewise, God could have pre-written 'a pint of motor oil less healthy than a pint of strawberries'. But I just don't see how that helps us, or why it's necessarily required that such decisions have intent. Morality, like nutrition, falls out of naturalistic laws just fine.

Believing that morality comes from God doesn't really help us either. We can try our best to discern the laws of morality, but unless the Revelation is both obvious and true, it doesn't help at all. Revelation isn't reliable enough, by any stretch.

Believing that an outside source intentionally created the moral laws also leads into a weird sense of It creating victims (for no reason). As it currently stands, I can use a spare $10 to either provide temporary housing for a stray dog or I can prevent a kid from getting malaria for about a year.

Without Intent, this is just a sad and frustrating truth. With a God? Well, then It decided that one of those recipients must suffer and that it was 'better' for X to suffer so that Y does not. Despite the pain suffered, some outside agent has deemed it 'acceptable'? No, that doesn't work. The pain is not mitigated, the suffering is not compensated. It just happened, basically on whim. It creates victims of its own system, and nonsensically deems a subset of preventable suffering 'acceptable', when it's by no means 'acceptable' to any of the puppets being forced to dance in this play.

 

[Kyriakos]

So, first off, I'm not disparaging the idea that morality could have come from the Creator, and been intentionally designed. Likewise, God could have pre-written 'a pint of motor oil less healthy than a pint of strawberries'. But I just don't see how that helps us, or why it's necessarily required that such decisions have intent. Morality, like nutrition, falls out of naturalistic laws just fine.

Believing that morality comes from God doesn't really help us either. We can try our best to discern the laws of morality, but unless the Revelation is both obvious and true, it doesn't help at all. Revelation isn't reliable enough, by any stretch.

Believing that an outside source intentionally created the moral laws also leads into a weird sense of It creating victims (for no reason). As it currently stands, I can use a spare $10 to either provide temporary housing for a stray dog or I can prevent a kid from getting malaria for about a year.

Without Intent, this is just a sad and frustrating truth. With a God? Well, then It decided that one of those recipients must suffer and that it was 'better' for X to suffer so that Y does not. Despite the pain suffered, some outside agent has deemed it 'acceptable'? No, that doesn't work. The pain is not mitigated, the suffering is not compensated. It just happened, basically on whim. It creates victims of its own system, and nonsensically deems a subset of preventable suffering 'acceptable', when it's by no means 'acceptable' to any of the puppets being forced to dance in this play.

Then again if the sense of a 'god' is not tied that much to humans, it could be 'possible' that for such a god there is no pain at all, or pain is not what is sensed by humans. Naturally this is entirely against jewish religion, but the latter is really violent and sort of jerkish (although in a different way than antagonists along the lines of Aztec religion).

But for a god which is not tied to humans in an significant way (whatever 'significant' would be in this setting), it may be that if you hit one as hard with a hammer that both his scull and the hammer breaks, murder was committed on the hammer as well, which from other points of view is around as much alive.

On the other hand in the (in my view *probably* less likely) case that a god is tied to humans then that god would have to factor human suffering as something sensed very negatively by the humans, but still is needed 'in the grand scheme of things'.

*

I mean when in early elementary school i *tried* to teach ants to act differently, but placing artificial obstacles in their route. It didn't work. Some ant bit me for my trouble. I decapitated it. Then felt sorry. Later on i thought i should send a yellow ant to the red ant's nest, hoping they would be interested in it and react in some notable manner. They bit on it from twenty different directions in a split second, and started to carry it to their nest. So i just killed them all :\

Heh, i am not traumatised though.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I had to mull over this post in my sleep as I found this to be the most compelling argument that I've heard yet for the existence of morality without a deity. Thank you for challenging me. I do not pretend to think that I have perfect answers for the points you have brought up, but at the very least I hope they're coherent.

If you are talking about something different than assessing suffering, I don't know what you are talking about when you speak of morality. Why we find abhorrent to smash a child's skull, but not a rock? Because one action can lead to suffering, and the other cannot.

Therein enters utilitarism. Knowing what constitutes suffering is not arbitrary, but the result of millennia of experience; of interactions between humans showing what happenstances people aspired to see being repeated in their lives, and what circumstances they aspire being avoided. We are yet to know of societies that consider rape, theft, slavery or murder normal events, but all societies value initiative, compassion, freedom and nurturing.

Why? because experience showed that values such as the previous disrupts society and maximize unhappiness; the latter, OTOH, optimizes societies and increases happiness. So, we pragmatically elect the later as values to be encourage and upheld, and the previous to be avoided and discouraged.

Experience may tell us what suffering is and what it looks like, but experience alone does not make suffering wrong. Societies may elect to encourage values which help the self-perpetuation of the society and the happiness of its individuals, but that does not make actions which contravene those values any more or less wrong.

I find many behaviors morally repugnant - repulsive and disgusting, even, and which I believe would be wrong under any circumstances, in any society. But if the self-preservation of society and the happiness of its members is the only goal, morality can (and has) be situational, especially as it is society who determines who can be a member.

Let's take Nazi Germany, for example. The society determined that the disabled (among others) were not productive members, and therefore were challenging the self-preservation of the society by taking more than they were contributing, therefore, their expulsion and destruction was morally justified.

In essence, then, utilitarianism and pragmatism simply comes down to whichever group can shout the loudest and get the rest to follow them.

Do notice that I included "slavery" as an example of bad behavior. This was deliberated, I know someone will object that there were societies that did endorse slavery, ours included. So, is this proof that we can't know right from wrong without divine assistance?

The most obvious reply is that if one believes in divine command morality, that person has to deal with the fact that their supposed divine authority was present when these events happened, and it did not prevent them.

But the interesting reply here is that this is an example of the ever-advancing zeitgeist of society. As I said, morality is a work in progress, and the idea of slavery is a behavior that is being rescinded little by little in the world; originally, you could enslave your neighbors; later, just enemies or criminals; than just people from other nations; than just people "without souls", as the catholic church referred to African natives during the ages of colonization. Now, nobody can be legally enslaved.

Ah, but the proponent of divine command morality would also reply that the human interpretation of a deity's law is also a work in progress

The question of a divine authority allowing evil to happen opens up all sorts of other doors regarding free will, etc etc.

Do noticed that even societies that endorsed slavery never considered it something desireable; they always knew it was a blight, but considered it something that was possible to impose on those who fell out of society's grace; but enslaving a Son of Judea? or a Roman noble? or a white man? Unimaginable!

That's actually not true.

In ancient times slavery was a simple fact of life, and not considered a negative (although the exact details could vary from society to society). And the color of your skin or the status you were born with did not preclude the possibility you would be enslaved.

Slavery based on skin color/race is a much more recent invention.

But we learn, and we adapt to that learning. We review our concepts and increase our means of promoting and generalizing happiness. So, where does morality come from if not from god? It comes from our ever continuing and ever improving collective effort to minimize pain and maximize pleasure to an increasing number of subjects.

The idea of morality adapting and evolving is not unique to a humanitarian POV.

The problem I cannot get past, and that I cannot understand, is that without a God, why is someone else's pain wrong? Yeah, I don't like pain. I know they don't like pain, and society works better when we don't inflict in on each other, but why is that wrong?

Without God, why is it wrong for a man to marry a 12 or 13 year old girl? You can't quantify that sexual pain or childbearing pain will be greater than if you wait 6 years. And from a practical point of view, the more members you have in your society the more productive and wealthy it can be, so it would be of great utility to start having children as early as possible. (note that I bring this up acknowledging that this can happen WITH a God as well, depending upon his divine law, but I do not see any reason without God to believe it to be wrong).

I acknowledge that not every religion has the same morality, but in my specific case, I would argue that every human being has intrinsic value because God created us. Therefore, the idea of basic rights makes sense if every human being has the same value, regardless of the utility they can provide to society.

Human beings do not have intrinsic value otherwise, their only value comes from their utility, or is manufactured by society, which means that society can change a person's value at any time.

And that is why people are able to throw airplanes into buildings, and try to forbid gay marriage, all based in interpretations of their divine texts. Because for them it's not the people that matter, but the Deity, in a misguided, if well meaning, conception that taking away lives, and freedoms, is a convoluted path for a greater happiness.

Let's not pretend that religious texts have a monopoly on horrific acts of violence or discrimination, or even a majority People have been killing each other for every reason under the sun since we can remember, and even before.

And I would argue that people matter because of the deity, but then again, the gets down to more questions regarding specific belief systems.

For effect, let me end with a quote from Steven Weinberg: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Melodramatic, to say the least. It doesn't make sense to split people into "good" and "bad", as every human has the potential for both good and bad within them. Humans are far more complex than a simple dichotomy. In fact, splitting people into "good" and "bad" is one of the most basic ways to justify discrimination.

And I would argue that any society or group of people, given enough momentum in a certain direction (regardless of the source of the momentum), can do evil things.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Dying, winning and losing and waiting in line are neither moral or immoral. Trying to hurt people's feelings is immoral.

Why? If morals come purely from desires, then any desire becomes a moral issue.

Is murder justified if no one wants to be murdered? Generally I'd say the desire that is more universal trumps the less desired, murder for example. Nobody wants to be murdered, not many people want to commit murder and even fewer would argue murder is moral.

Again, I don't understand why, without a deity.

I didn't say God has nothing to do with it, I said your god has nothing to do with it. Your god is "he", how do you know god is a he? Because he's your god. Your god has nothing to do with whether or not your actions are justified. All you've done is replace your god with yourself while asking everyone to explain how they can define morality without your god.

No, I'm trying to understand how morality can be defined without a deity - any deity. I refer to God as that is my background and where I am coming from.

God has a pretty solid track record of killing and inspiring his followers to do so as well.

Humanity has a pretty good track record of killing itself without the need for divine inspiration.

When people decide what is right and wrong for themselves very few of them arrive at "killing people is right". When they allow their morality to be determined by an outside authority they have routinely followed "divine instruction" that killing is fine and dandy.

I would say plenty of people would believe that there are plenty of situations where killing would be right. Or stealing. Or whatever.

It's not obvious why goodness needs a God for it to exist. What does a god do that is essential to morality's nature?

I don't understand how morality makes sense as a concept without a God, thus my asking the question in this thread.

Yes. Usually better. Denmark isn't falling apart & yet very few there are believers.

Without religion crazy people have to come out with at least semi-coherent reasons to do insane things. With religion you have your excuses all set out for you.

People don't seem to have the same problem with good deeds. I feed my kid & take care of my cats because I love them, not because of God. God's a good Guy to hide behind if you want to appear humble ("I'm not a good person, just a God fearing one") but it cheapens the natural goodness of human beings (some human beings anyway).

Denmark not currently having a religious population doesn't really impact the question of where morality comes from, especially since most nations' laws are deeply rooted in a very religious past. If morality does originate outside of humanity, then to me it would make sense that humanity as a whole instinctively agrees on basic moral questions.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I would say plenty of people would believe that there are plenty of situations where killing would be right. Or stealing. Or whatever.

Situationally? Sure. But very few people develop an individual morality that says "kill at will". The vast vast majority of killing is done by people who use some sort of communal morality to overcome their individual morality. People who refuse to kill under any circumstances are almost invariably guided by individual morality.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't understand how morality makes sense as a concept without a God, thus my asking the question in this thread.

Then I'll need to ask what you mean by 'morality'? What does God do that makes 'morality' 'morality' vs. what we do to discover it?

 

[Lay_Lay]

Morality is dynamic across time, space, and species.
Morality comes from your parents, upbringing, and society the animal lives in.

A chimpanzee who lives amongst 20 other chimps, needs to follow a far stricter moral code than the chimp living alone on an island. The local chimp society will form the moral code. How they do so is unique to the time and place.
Surely, they have heard stories of entire chimp families being wiped out by a single raging chimp. So perhaps a moral code is formed - 'largest male in the tribe is expected (morally obligated) to guard the area at night.'

No magic required. Just Nature.

Morality existed before hominids.

 

[Narz]

Well put Lay_Lay, morality is not as unique/special as we think it is. Its been shown moral digust activates the same areas of the brain as physical disgust. It's just an adaption that is effective at helping social animals thrive.