Morality without God

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Morality, sans God’s order, is not simply made up, it is the result of the process of communication. In order to communicate with someone you have to see them as an intentional agent (so that you don’t think you’re talking to a rock), you have to believe that he or she is like you, a conscious being with the ability to freely learn, listen, take orders, and talk back to you. The key point here is that talking back, that they can disagree with you without being forced to do so. If they disagree, they can also agree without being forced to do so. If they can do that then, just as much as you think he or she might be wrong, the idea that you yourself might be wrong follows inevitably (It’s important to keep the distinction between talking to someone and talking with someone). It follows quite naturally from this process that if either of you can be wrong or right about something, that neither may be right or wrong, or that both might be right. From this realization, the potential for an objective ethical system is born.

This objective ethical system holds the same persuasive force as an Absolute system from God for it wasn’t made up my one person, neither was it made up by two people or by society democratically, but is inherent in the process of communication itself for with communication comes the ability to project yourself imaginitively into someone else’s place, to see that what you do to another is not in fact what you would want done to you.

It’s more complicated than that of course, but the gist of any ethical system comes from this simple, everyday event. It is not something made up, it is not something agreed upon, it is something that happens.

It’s not better than an Absolute system (historically and non-dualistically speaking, it turns out to be the same thing) for there is no compelling reason to do this, you aren’t forced to be a moral person, it is simply a possibility.

But what is the advantage of God’s system? Eternal punishment if you actions aren’t moral? One should be moral for fear of Divine Wrath? That doesn’t sound very Kantian to me.

And, to be honest, as described above, it is more of a legal system than an ethical system.

2

I find a person that only acts morally because he or she believes that God will punish otherwise a hypocrite. Intentions behind the actions are as important as the actions themselves. I would trust a non-religious moral person more than i would trust a religious one.

3

Morality is a system to help make choices and decide which actions a being should take.

When in the context of society, morality does include the actions towards other people. However, this is not to say that it is dependent on multiple moral beings. A single human being living on an island somewhere still needs morality. He/she needs to know what is good and what is evil, for his well-being. What actions should this lone person take to further their life? That is something only morality can answer.

4

perhaps the more fundamental question concerns morality itself-- 1)what is morality? or, similarly, 2) what is the purpose of morality? 3) do we need morality, and if so, why?

as for (1) i see morality as essentially a basis for determining the rightness or wrongness of an action. since this is a functional definition (i am defining morality by “what it does”), this can also be applied to (2) (the purpose of morality is to allow for this determination) and (3) ( we need morality if we are to determine the rightness and wrongness of actions).

an interesting implication of this understanding is that it does not inherently require that morality is essentially itself a good thing. morality is used to judge. Of course, if we assume our morality to be “the” morality, then it is good insofar as we make the correct judgements. However, this raises the question of if such a system can plausibly be constructed, and i, for one, am skeptical about this prospect.

in order to judge the rightness or wrongness of an action, a standard is needed against which the action can be judged. However, in lack of divine intervention (something is good b/c god says it is good, and god is necessarily good), i doubt this can be done.

the initial post bases morality on the prospect of communication in which we truly recognize each other to be sentient beings. morality, then, becomes an agreed-upon set of values within a community. I think it is implied that if we truly recognize each other as “like us”, the correct morality will not be something that we make up, but something that “just happens” and is somehow self-evident.

although this might be the case, i am not sure how such a way of thinking would deal with people who disagree. when we say that something “just happens”, we face the difficult prospect of explaining this to people who just don’t see it as self-evident or obvious that our “morals” (what we think is right and wrong) are the “correct” morals.

personally, on a pyschological level, it simply seems false to say that people act according to such rules and principles; in fact, it is rare for someone to take an action “on principle” (though of course we all do this with something or other). We, more often than not, act before any sort of contemplation. To me, morality, properly speaking, requires this sort of contemplation prior to the action to be committed. Otherwise we are talking about habits, not morality, though of course someone might happen to have habits that are in congruence with a given moral system.

personally, i do not claim to have any moral system, nor do i believe that one can plausibly be constructed that is not subject to various flaws and presuppositions. And yet i am generous, affectionate, and try to inflict as little cruelty on the world as possible. Am i just “lucky” that i happen to behave in such a way? Or is morality really not all that essential?

5

You guys might be interested in the following tread! The first covers a lot of ground. While the second is still a work in progress.

Is morality just something trivial…?

Or

Is Justice possible without Morality?

Pax Vitae

6

It’s not implied, it was stated. The point I want to make is that there is a basis for an “agreed-upon set of values within a community” without God and that it is not simply made up – poof, someone somewhere magically decides we need a moral system. The possibility is already inherent in the act of communication between conscious agents. It is however not something that you have to do or have to follow.

Disagreement and what we do as individuals is precisely what I think it covers and it explains why someone can be a generous or nice person without any conscious attempt to follow a moral system. I find it difficult to see animals in the same light however. We have a moral responsibility to animals perhaps but the reverse is generally not considered.

Somone alone on an island need not be moral unless we consider instinct and animal behaviour as moral (Again, I don’t think we do that. It’s a very strange idea if you think about it.). If one individual grew up with no social contact, morality wouldn’t be an issue. What I should have made clearer is that I see morality as a counter to following the 4 f’s of instinctive behaviour: feed, flee, fight, and reproduce. A solitary individual need never see beyond these. Of course, if you move to an island after social contact (after one learns a language), you can still act morally.

Finally, if this is anywhere near right (and what I’m doing is attempting to extend Donald Davison’s theory of triangulation to moral sensibilities), than the distinction between religious people and non-religious people is moot. The ability to be moral is already inherent in all of us.

My intended audience are those who believe that without God there is no morality but since there is morality there must be a God and those who believe that because there is no God, there is no morality.

Both groups are wrong if this is right. :laughing:

7

[quote=“Brad”]

there is no compelling reason to do this, you aren’t forced to be a moral person, it is simply a possibility.

[quote]

How is morality that is just a “possibility” morality at all? How is that objective?

8

–I believe communication and language is important to morality. The way we think is so intertwined with language, and the linguists still have some untangling to do.
----- I agree with Clementine in that i would trust a non-religious moral person over a religious one. People who believe in God are already half out of this World. Religion originally spoke to peoples fear, and the offer of everlasting bliss and punishment detracts from the here and now.
– As for morality being an agreed set of principles within a community i believe this is very close to ethical relativism, but i’m sure that whoever said this mean’t more than that.

9

i would say that it is based rater on the current socio-cutural, economic and political state of ones time. morality is based on convention and social norms. it changes with each shift in paradigm.

take for instance the practice of stoning. in the culture where that is practiced, they regard it as only right and moral that one is stoned to death for one’s crime. but to us, we see it as inhumane, and inethical.

brad calling it a legal system is right in many sense… that we, lacking the ‘arete’ to live by our own ‘moral’ codes, need laws to ensure that our wellbeing is protected… such is the sad stage of mankind, that people are either pharisees or state fearing…
just my half a cent

10

It’s a good question. I make a distinction between objective and Absolute morality. Absolute morality is the prescriptive. It tells you what to do and the consequences if you don’t in any and all cases. Objective morality is based on a situation that no one just made up. Neither an individual nor a group of individuals came together one day and decided to become moral for morality isn’t based on memes (to use Dawkin’s term), nor is it based on genes (At least not in any direct sense. If you want to argue that communication, at bottom, is genetically based, that’s fine with me.). The process of communication, to put it a slightly different way, allows for memes to counter genes by the very transference itself, not by the substance of any individual meme. This is a little tricky as most people want to discuss individual moral memes, about what exactly is right or wrong. However, they can’t do that without making certain assumptions about the person they’re talking to, that he is a conscious agent who can understand a language, who is like me. We treat these people quite differently from, say, animals. Even animal rights activists treat people differently from animals (You can’t get around it).

It’s not compelling because we are still genetic, instinctual creatures who can choose between a moral decision and an instinctive reaction (even a properly rationalized one), but my point is that neither instinct nor morality is more primordial in human beings. They are, roughly speaking, on the same playing field.

11

Brad:

I was just wondering if by potential you meant that it might be possible, OR that it is possible once the potential is ‘tapped’ into?

Just wondering,
Adam.

(It sounds like you would hold that an objective/universal moral standard/law does exist; a standard inherently held within us all. I’m I wrong here?)

12

I think human kind accepting morality without God is finally making us realize and come to terms with the fact that morality is based on what is right according to us. Which means that there is no objective, out there in space truth lingering around that we tap into due to God’s signature in our brains (Descartes reference).

This realization in turn will make us feel a little uncomfortable, a little conceided, and our conscience will finally look to doing what is right according to us without hurting animals or the envirnoment. Since we will now be able to drop the whole idea of all life being here for us, as a gift from God. Referring to both the Bible and the Qur’an.

I also think Morality without God still has a long way to go, but there are signs (atleast in my area) of delination from God and religion all together and a more focused perspective on reality.

What’s your take?