Morality, ethics and atheism

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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by Hermit » Wed May 11, 2022 3:19 am

Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:24 am
...we need to have a bit of a chat about free will...
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by pErvinalia » Wed May 11, 2022 3:38 am

Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:16 am
Hermit wrote:
Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 12:04 am
It's even worse than that - metaphysics leaning into ontology!
Ontology in turn is the handmaiden of theology.
Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 12:04 am
This why I think natural explanations for morality have little force when challenging the claim that we can't have a good without a god. All we really have to do is to point to a good that isn't dependent on religious affiliation or belief. The true believer is still probably going to claim that the good atheist is unwittingly conforming to divine inspiration or instruction, or is a beneficiary of a Judeo-Christian Culture or sets of ethics etc anyway.
We, and I include atheists and materialists, are nowhere near as rational as we imagine.
You're probably right, but at least we don't outsource our moral thinking to infallible holy books and those inspired individuals who insist on what they mean on behalf of a magically interested superbeing who lives beyond bounds of reality.
I know you guys aren't rational. I am, however. :coffee:
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by pErvinalia » Wed May 11, 2022 3:43 am

JimC wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 3:10 am
Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:24 am

I'm not challenging your views directly Jim. I accept you're not focusing on providing an explanation of morality, but you are seeking to justify a secular moral outlook by invoking naturalistic causes. There's a lot of cross-fertilisation there.

Personally I think we need to have a bit of a chat about free will and how it might tie in with all this.
I suppose I am giving one type of justification for a secular morality (knowing there are others), but I don't think I'm really invoking a naturalistic cause. Depending on how we define cause, I could not assert that aspects of our evolved nature cause morality to develop, only that they provide an emotional basis for how humans can relate to each other in a positive way. Culturally determined morality systems can (but don't have to) make use of this emotional starting point.

Really, I was trying to demolish a particular religious argument, one often coming from religious moderates (the assertions of fundamentalists are dismissed with much greater ease). I have both read such theological arguments, and heard them directly in my relatively affable discussions with moderate religious people.

Basically, their argument goes like this - if there is no god, and/or if we were not both created by god and imbued with a soul in the process, we would be soulless automatons, able to think but with zero chance of developing values which involve compassion to others, since that can only come from the divine part of our nature, whether we choose to use it or not. They would then probably say that systems of morality are developed by human beings, perhaps not caused by the divine spark, but only those systems of morality which recognise and lean on this divine heritage are worthwhile.

I am simply countering that by asserting that compassion and empathy can and are present (if only in potential) in humans via material causes, available to us as we develop moral systems in any given culture.
I find this wholly uncontroversial. Not really sure why the others are finding fault with this.

(I should note that earlier I invoked Sam Harris, but that was before I properly imbibed what Jim was saying. The medication I'm on really fucks with my concentration. I have to challenge myself to comprehend longer forms of writing. Fucking drugs. Make me happier, but a bit stoopid).
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by JimC » Wed May 11, 2022 4:00 am

Imbibing "what Jim was saying" is fairly close to imbibing neat Gin... :drunk:

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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by Brian Peacock » Wed May 11, 2022 7:15 am

Hermit wrote:
Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:16 am
Hermit wrote:
Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 12:04 am
It's even worse than that - metaphysics leaning into ontology!
Ontology in turn is the handmaiden of theology.
Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 12:04 am
This why I think natural explanations for morality have little force when challenging the claim that we can't have a good without a god. All we really have to do is to point to a good that isn't dependent on religious affiliation or belief. The true believer is still probably going to claim that the good atheist is unwittingly conforming to divine inspiration or instruction, or is a beneficiary of a Judeo-Christian Culture or sets of ethics etc anyway.
We, and I include atheists and materialists, are nowhere near as rational as we imagine.
You're probably right, but at least we don't outsource our moral thinking to infallible holy books and those inspired individuals who insist on what they mean on behalf of a magically interested superbeing who lives beyond bounds of reality.
That's one opportunity for getting shit wrong we manage to avoid. I looks like an important one, but what percentage of the time you spend discussing problems are about the god thingy or any other supernatural entity? In my case it is tiny.

There are thousands of other issues which trap me into confirmation bias, compartmentalisation, evasion, denial and any other mental failures. The number of times I catch myself out is alarming. Worse, I don't know how many logical fallacies and sundry mistakes I commit without noticing. My guess is quite lot, judging by how frequently I notice them in others and I am certain that they are unaware of them themselves.
I don't disagree. We talk about these things when we're challenged over them I guess.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by JimC » Wed May 11, 2022 7:35 am

I find that when I post some stuff that I think is correct, without being absolutely sure, and others find fault in some aspect of it (in a non-combative way), it sometimes causes me to think a little wider. It might not change my mind completely, but it often forces me to explicate my argument better, or to agree that it is only correct in some situations...
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri May 13, 2022 6:38 am

I agree with you about a lot of things here Jim. Our capacities for compassion, empathy, forward-planning, theory of mind, etc are as evolved as our ability to walk upright or sing the blues, as are our inclinations towards community and in/out group thinking. Environmental factors can impact our ideas too--such as subjects given a warm drink to hold on the way to a testing suite will give more positive, fair, inclusive responses to questions of moral judgement whereas those exposed to the faint smell of rotting fruit will tend to give less generous responses*--and as evolutionary psychologists often say: Behaviour is a response to environment; emotion is preparation for behaviour. I don't dispute that our emotional lives inform our moral outlooks, as expressed individually and communally, and are to a great extent evolved, naturalistic, material, etc.

What I'm saying is that I just don't think that invoking naturalistic causes carries much weight with believers, however moderate, who insist that immaterial causes account for the good (that a supernatural being somehow poured the good into us in the form of an immortal soul etc) and that, by contrast, the bad is simply that which denies or opposes a god as the source of all goodness - which they'd probably call sin or evil. They have already feathered their nests in this regard, and in a way which always allows them to trump the material with the immaterial. It risks dragging us into a discussion by which we, as secular moral agents, are forced to justify our moral outlooks to their satisfaction - "We can be good without god because...".

This is why I think a more effective way to challenge the claim that there cannot be a good without a god is by asking, "Which goods are we talking about?" By this we have a chance to discuss things like values and their content, how values might be expressed, or not, and what the consequences and impacts of those values might be for them and others in society when they're put into action, or not.


* Crackingly good read on Behaviour: Behave, Robert Sopolsky, 2018 (amazon)
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by rasetsu » Fri May 13, 2022 3:57 pm

Evolution is a compelling explanation for morals, it's just that once it's done explaining them, they're no longer morals. Contrary to L'Emmerdeur's belief that his theory is not about oughts, it very much is as it says what those oughts are not.

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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by JimC » Sat May 14, 2022 4:18 am

Brian Peacock wrote:
Fri May 13, 2022 6:38 am


What I'm saying is that I just don't think that invoking naturalistic causes carries much weight with believers, however moderate, who insist that immaterial causes account for the good (that a supernatural being somehow poured the good into us in the form of an immortal soul etc) and that, by contrast, the bad is simply that which denies or opposes a god as the source of all goodness - which they'd probably call sin or evil. They have already feathered their nests in this regard, and in a way which always allows them to trump the material with the immaterial. It risks dragging us into a discussion by which we, as secular moral agents, are forced to justify our moral outlooks to their satisfaction - "We can be good without god because...".

This is why I think a more effective way to challenge the claim that there cannot be a good without a god is by asking, "Which goods are we talking about?" By this we have a chance to discuss things like values and their content, how values might be expressed, or not, and what the consequences and impacts of those values might be for them and others in society when they're put into action, or not.
I think I'm going for a somewhat different audience than your "true believers", moderate or not. There are many, I think, who are vaguely religious, from habit or upbringing, who might hang on to a shred of belief in religion because of arguments from religious people about the source of our sense of "goodness". As I've already said, that argument will say that only some form of divine inspiration can produce the empathy and compassion that can form the basis of a moral system; that otherwise, a materialist universe would simply be devoid of all such impulses. If people otherwise tempted by that argument can be shown that evolutionary science can provide an alternate source of such emotions within our evolved nature, then such an audience may no longer need supernatural props...

And I absolutely agree that there are other important arguments about values and moral systems which have a clear political dimension, in the sense that they cannot be divorced from the social reality of inequality and oppression. Funnily enough, the radical left-leaning wing of christianity with an emphasis on social justice probably has some moral overlap with such arguments, even if their origin is somewhat different... ;)
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by Hermit » Sat May 14, 2022 5:20 am

L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:34 am
Hermit wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 11:18 pm
L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Sat May 07, 2022 7:30 am
...I would suggest the 'proto-morality' exhibited by chimpanzees is an indication that human morality (in all its variety) is a manifestation of our evolved nature--it goes deeper than culture.
We can observe behaviours in other animals and recognise the same in us, but moral precepts and ethics are exclusive to homo sapiens. The love, care, and protection animals extend to their offspring as well as the solidarity and cooperation among pack animals are not even manifestations of proto-morality. We are injecting that meaning into our observations of them. It's instinct. Morality does not go deeper than culture.

Don't expect me to defend what I have just written. I have not the foggiest idea how my proposition can be tested. It's fucking metaphysics. I hate metaphysics.
So if morality does not go deeper than culture, are chimpanzees manifesting instinct or culture?
Instinct.
L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:34 am
When do you suppose this cultural element first arose in our species?
When we became became capable of abstraction and value creation.

One of the pets of a friend of mine was a chimpanzee. A reasonably well trained chimpanzee. It did not bite anyone, pull their hair or pinch their skin. It did tricks on command. It had no concept of good or bad whatsoever. All it knew was that some of its behaviour was followed by unpleasant things, like being yelled at or hit with a rolled up newspaper, and some of its behaviour was followed by pleasant things, like being treated to tasty titbits.

Here it is being jealous. My friend was not allowed to kiss his partner in the chimp's presence. It used to bite, pull hair and pinch skin when it was jealous, but after a few unpleasant consequences it stopped doing that and discovered that blocking my friend's mouth was an acceptable way to prevent the kissing. No moral precepts entered into any of this. We just like to anthropomorphise.

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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by Brian Peacock » Sat May 14, 2022 5:27 am

Anyone remember Daktari?
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by pErvinalia » Sat May 14, 2022 5:55 am

Hermit wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 5:20 am
titbits
Bits of tits? :o
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by Hermit » Sat May 14, 2022 6:34 am

pErvinalia wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 5:55 am
Hermit wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 5:20 am
titbits
Bits of tits? :o
Yes. Blue ones.
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by JimC » Sat May 14, 2022 7:24 am

Hermit wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 5:20 am
Instinct.
L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:34 am
When do you suppose this cultural element first arose in our species?
When we became became capable of abstraction and value creation.

One of the pets of a friend of mine was a chimpanzee. A reasonably well trained chimpanzee. It did not bite anyone, pull their hair or pinch their skin. It did tricks on command. It had no concept of good or bad whatsoever. All it knew was that some of its behaviour was followed by unpleasant things, like being yelled at or hit with a rolled up newspaper, and some of its behaviour was followed by pleasant things, like being treated to tasty titbits
No one would say that chimps currently, or probably Australopithecus in the past had any sort of "moral system". However, chimps have at least a form of proto-culture, in the sense that skills and traditions are passed down the generations in a troop, so behavioural features we can observe are by no means purely instinctual. In addition, they have been observed grieving for dead members of the troop, and co-operate to achieve shared tasks.

Certainly, "abstraction and value creation" are later developments, within our own species (but quite possibly in earlier hominids), but both culture, and emotional connections within social groups, had earlier roots. Nothing springs into being without gradual precursors in any form of evolution...
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Re: Morality, ethics and atheism

Post by Hermit » Sat May 14, 2022 8:02 am

JimC wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 7:24 am
No one would say that chimps currently, or probably Australopithecus in the past had any sort of "moral system". However, chimps have at least a form of proto-culture, in the sense that skills and traditions are passed down the generations in a troop, so behavioural features we can observe are by no means purely instinctual. In addition, they have been observed grieving for dead members of the troop, and co-operate to achieve shared tasks.

Certainly, "abstraction and value creation" are later developments, within our own species (but quite possibly in earlier hominids), but both culture, and emotional connections within social groups, had earlier roots.
So you keep saying. I don't see how mentioning evolution adds anything to the argument that moral precepts are of human origin.
JimC wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 7:24 am
Nothing springs into being without gradual precursors in any form of evolution...
Careful. You are one step away from invoking the cosmological argument
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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