Atheist Ethics

[realunoriginal]

Morals:

• Objective
• Relative
• Nonexistent

’

[north]

I am an objectivist

[Lollipop_King]

There is no basic, unquestionable rule for all occasions and valid under all conditions.

Our reactions to situations are relative to the circumstances.

Every decision is based on a quick cost/benefit analysis not only of the immediate but more importantly of the long-term consequences.

[Xunzian]

I’ll see if I can cobble together a response from previous threads where I’ve tried to think this one through. In chronological order:

Oldest thread

Given that humans are a social organism, offending one’s host would disrupt the harmonious flow of social activity. In extreme cases, people would actually be killed for the offense.

Many morals are simply survival mechanisms where the desire of the individual is placed secondary to that of others. In doing so, a more harmonious and productive society results.

The human is the sort of creature that seeks comfort and stability (for all Imp’s violent talk, he has not enlisted and remains comfortable – others function by the same logic). So, etiquette is established to create a more fluid society and place the good of the whole over the good of the one. Over time, rules of etiquette become laws of morality.

Since many of these laws are fairly self-evident (killing people disrupts society, children not respecting their parents disrupts society, ect) they start to take on an aura of objective truth because many different sources are able to come to the same (or similar) conclusions.

However, merely because they are arbitrary does not mean they are irrelevant. While a minute as a measure of time is arbitrary, that doesn’t mean that time doesn’t exist. Time passed, irrespective of our means of measuring it. Similarly with morals, while my morals may be arbitrary (from my socio-cultural upbringing) that doesn’t mean I can’t place judgement on others for failing to meet them. My socio-cultural upbringing dictates that genocide is an abomination, because of this I view Hitler as an abomination. I pass judgment without any problems what-so-ever.

Some might argue without objective morality, we may as well throw out the whole lot of morals, since they are subjective to the individual. I would argue that they are subjective to the individual, they are universally applicable. If someone thinks that pre-marital sex is wrong and another person doesn’t, while they have different subjective morals, the person who thinks that pre-marital sex is wrong will judge the other person and the other person will have to deal with the concequences of that judgment. Now when you apply that same idea to the normative ethics of an entire society, these subjective values become quite concrete.

Next thread

We can have objective morals that are selectively shaped. After all, groups that manifest superior morality and get along better will outperform groups that remain divided. So the morals themselves are necessarily ‘objective’, but at the same time there are clearly morals that remain superior to others and more effective than others. In this context, survival constitutes not an end, but a medium for our measurement. Different morals are effective for different situations, to be sure, but ultimately those moral systems that are better at helping society function continue while those that are detrimental to society fade. Sometimes it is a long death, because the effects are minimal, but the progress of history moves on. Of course, the idea of morality without a moral agent (like humans) doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, so you can’t have morality be independent of humanity.

There are others, but that is pretty much my starting point. They are subjective in that they are contingent upon a subjective being employing them but over the course of history trends can be observed that seems to suggest that there is an underlying pattern to those actions.

[fuse]

say we came up with an objective code of ethics, and assume that with such a code we could “calculate” the right thing to do in every possible situation.

wouldn’t living by this code be equivalent to following rules?

it would be a kind of flawless code of conduct. If this is correct, then it would be no great task to come to make ethical decisions. It would be just like following the “law.” we would know what the appropriate action was for each situation.

what need would there be for thinking? could we just program ourselves to obey the objective code of ethics?

[north]

@Tortoise

Would you be so kind, first of all, in telling us how you came to the conclusion that there are objective morals?

ability for most species to survival

And then, would you mind telling us about your methodology for determining what they are?

sharing

[Xunzian]

I’ll check him out, thanks.

[Oni_Omega]

@fuse

say we came up with an objective code of ethics, and assume that with such a code we could “calculate” the right thing to do in every possible situation.

Pretty much, yes.

wouldn’t living by this code be equivalent to following rules?

Whether you do or don’t you have to follow natures rules,
the difference is whether or not you take action understanding what benefits you and what doesn’t.

it would be a kind of flawless code of conduct. If this is correct, then it would be no great task to come to make ethical decisions. It would be just like following the “law.” we would know what the appropriate action was for each situation.

Yes law made for your own benefit, do you have a problem with this?

what need would there be for thinking? could we just program ourselves to obey the objective code of ethics?

You said it yourself, just like we already do, we are to calculate the right thing to do in every situation it is deemed needed, but much more efficiently.

Sentient beings have preset desires, goals and ideals that give rise to a moral outlook via pleasure (good) and pain (bad),

The main goal of sentient beings is to gain the most amount of pleasure ( least amount of pain) they can.

[thestranger]

I think it would be a big stretch for the athiest to believe in objective morality…

[fuse]

@-Oni Omega-

@fuse

say we came up with an objective code of ethics, and assume that with such a code we could “calculate” the right thing to do in every possible situation.

Pretty much, yes.

Oni, I wasn’t asking a question here. I was proposing a hypothetical situation.

@-Oni Omega-

@fuse

wouldn’t living by this code be equivalent to following rules?

Whether you do or don’t you have to follow natures rules,
the difference is whether or not you take action understanding what benefits you and what doesn’t.

“Whether you do or don’t” what? follow the rules?

“the difference is whether or not you take action understanding what benefits you and what doesn’t” - I’m talking about a hypothetical objective code of ethics and it seems like you’re talking about a relative code of ethics.

@-Oni Omega-

@fuse

it would be a kind of flawless code of conduct. If this is correct, then it would be no great task to come to make ethical decisions. It would be just like following the “law.” we would know what the appropriate action was for each situation.

Yes law made for your own benefit, do you have a problem with this?

I don’t understand your comment. Are you proposing an objective code of ethics based on individual benefit? As in, I ought to do what most benefits me? If so, it isn’t clear how objective such a code would be because I know no objective definition for ‘benefit.’

@-Oni Omega-

@fuse

what need would there be for thinking? could we just program ourselves to obey the objective code of ethics?

You said it yourself, just like we already do, we are to calculate the right thing to do in every situation it is deemed needed, but much more efficiently.

Sentient beings have preset desires, goals and ideals that give rise to a moral outlook via pleasure (good) and pain (bad),

The main goal of sentient beings is to gain the most amount of pleasure ( least amount of pain) they can.

Maximize pleasure, minimize pain? Got it. You’re talking about Hedonistic Utilitarianism. But pleasure and pain are relative. Thus, the kind of code of ethics you’re talking about is relative. This is NOT what I am talking about. Maybe the word ‘calculate’ confused you.

[Rejected_Theory]

A belief and adherence to moral standards is a collective delusion- i.e., it is nothing more than the sum of the neural patterns and mechanisms that characterize individual belief in morality. Thus, morality as it is defined is non-existent.

Even inter-subjective ethics are ultimately no more than the sum of the neural patterns of each individual that believes in these moral standards.

[Twilight_of_the_Idol (Twilight of the Idols)]

@Satyr

Every decision is based on a quick cost/benefit analysis not only of the immediate but more importantly of the long-term consequences.

If you’re a utilitarian, maybe. But this isn’t “necessarily” the case at all.

Say you’re on your way to save 5,000 people. You have to get there in the next three minutes or all of them will die. Along the way, you see a little girl, trapped under a rock, who will surely die; you cannot save her life. She calls out to you and asks you to stay with her. She doesn’t want anything, just company in her fading moment, but if you stay the 5,000 people will die. If you do nothing she will die a terribly painful and lonely death.

You can do a few things here.

1. You can bash her head in with a rock and move along, ending her suffering and yet still making it in time to save the 5,000.
2. You can leave her to suffer and move along.
3. You can stay with her.

If it were a simple matter of cost/benefit analysis, this would not be a moral dilemma at all - yet it is. Moreover, the argument could be made that the third option is in fact the morally correct action, could it not? In fact, moral choice, at least as far as I’m concerned, is tied much closer to emotion than logic. For my money, indeed, the beautiful, moral act is to stay with the little girl.

[Bane]

@Satyr

There is no basic, unquestionable rule for all occasions and valid under all conditions.

I would post a similar statement as to why things are clearly relative.
Values, ethics, morals are in their very nature, in their very definition, relative.
An ‘objective value’ is more than an oxymoron.
It isn’t ‘seemingly self-contradictory’… it is completely contradictory.

ox·y·mo·ron [ok-si-mawr-on, -mohr-]
–noun
a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly.”