back to the beginning: morality

8 Sources Of Morality
Nick Byrd

Religion is a whole other ballgame in regard to morality. And that is because with religion the dots are necessarily connected between what we choose to do on this side of the grave and the fate of our very soul itself on the other side of it. And, come on, what are the mere decades we spend from the cradle to the grave compared to the millions and billions and trillions of years that our souls will luxuriate in should we pass muster on Judgment Day.

Though, sure, it’s not easy for us to imagine what a “soul” actually entails over eternity. In fact, I suspect that many of the religious among us anticipate “somehow” getting our bodies back again and interacting with all of our loved ones doing righteous things in the presence of God Himself.

Whereas for the No God folks, morality revolves mainly around being rewarded rather than punished for the behaviors we choose. Though, clearly, historically, sometimes morality is intertwined in one or another ideology – from Rand to Marx – and we can feel comforted in the fact that even though oblivion awaits us there and then, at least here and now on this side of the grave we can take comfort in knowing that we are “at one” with the Good Guys.

More – far more – to the point, these moral norms are anchored to both sides of the grave. You can embrace one or another secular, political, ideological “ism” and be comforted and consoled all the way to the grave. But then what? With religion you are never not comforted and consoled.

Religious norms, moral norms. What’s the difference on Judgment Day?

8 Sources Of Morality
Nick Byrd

That’s true. But once you leave God out of it, what on earth are we to make of spiritual or magical morality? And here I always come back eventually to why I imagine that many will in fact embrace a No God morality. In short: it can mean practically anything. So, therefore, practically anything you believe about it is sufficient to make it true. After all, few experience a magical or a spiritual sense of reality/morality such that they invent an actual Scripture for others to follow in connecting the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then. Each individual is able to claim their own spiritual or magical sense of reality. And, thus, since you are not them, what can you possibly really know about it?

What?! Assessments of this sort just go completely over my head. In and around one or another New Age nostrum from my frame of mind. Does anyone here have specific examples of this? Things in your life that “you might think are true” but are “inaccessible by ordinary experience”? What on earth does that even mean?

2 + 2 = 4…beyond the realm of experience?!

Okay, if this is not God, what is it? Is it in the general vicinity of pantheism? That somehow we can be at one with the universe spiritually and “just know” that stealing is wrong transcendentally or supernaturally?

Admittedly, I have never been able to grasp what that might mean. God, sure. An actual entity that created existence itself. The Creator. Someone “out there” or “up there” able to judge us when we do steal something. Say, bread to feed our starving family?

Bur something other than God?

Enlighten me.

8 Sources Of Morality
Nick Byrd

In other words, common sense.

Choose God, choose philosophy, choose science, choose experience, choose reason, choose tradition, choose culture, choose race, choose ethnicity, choose gender, choose Fox News or MSNBC.

Or – gasp! – choose two or more of them.

Yeah, that works for me.

Only I’ll still need a context.

Why Moral Nihilism is Problematic
From The Retrospective

Back to that again. When, as we all know, lots and lots and lots of things matter to each and every one of us. Only suppose we assume that there is No God. And suppose we assume further that in a No God world, we die and tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion. An eternity of “nothingness at all” for each of us one by one. That is the part, some argue, where our individual lives become essentially meaningless. And that is the reason so many go to religion…to God…to make that part go away. At least in their heads.

Yeah, that works for me. No God, no transcending font/foundation that brings/links us all together teleologically. We make up our own meaning existentially. And our purpose for living can be practically anything…sex, love, careers, sports, fashion, entertainment, the arts, politics.

On the other hand, if it can in fact be almost anything then, in a No God world, what is to be done when, in the pursuit of our own particular goals, we come into conflict with others pursing their own particular goals? In other words, the stuff that those big bold newspaper headlines are often created from.

True. But, come on, the meaning and purpose of life for the atheist, in not revolving around Commandments, can only be derived historically and culturally from an enormously complex intertwining of genes and memes. Out in a particular world understood by mere mortals in particular ways. And while some invent philosophical and ideological fonts, or narratives pertaining to assumptions about Nature, it’s never quite the same as God, is it? And, besides, it only covers this side of the grave.

Over and again, I come back to this. If from day to day you basically abandon the rigors and the restrictions of “what would Jesus – or His equivalent – do?”, then you can pursue so many more possibilities. You can focus more on, say, “can I get away with it?”

On the other hand, isn’t that what the sociopaths ask themselves?

[Sorry… playing catch-up on a few posts…]

__
…because I am brown and should address that from a place of incensed rage? Expectation not met, isn’t meant to be met -I am not Sartre nor have I ever had to face issues like he had or to have to deal with them… the difference between Satyr and I, is that we both distinguish race, gender, characteristics etc., but he is judgemental on those traits, and I am not.

Just because others here take umbrage with him, doesn’t mean that I have to… da f people think I am.

Neither…

Hope that clears things up for you?

Why Moral Nihilism is Problematic
From The Retrospective

Anyone here believe that there are not good reasons to believe this? Those sophisticated enough to accept that intelligent reasons can be given, but that they have found reasons of their own to reject it?

Let’s hear your reasons please. In particular, those who don’t fall back on either God or religion as a foundation to sanctify their moral narrative.

Yes, I agree. Existential meaning is everywhere. And it can revolve around many things: relationships, education, employment, political commitments, social interaction, sports, the arts.

“Total nihilism”? What on earth is that? Is it the belief that meaning is entirely absent from our lives if we don’t have a God or an ideology or some other essential font to anchor an intrinsic Self – soul – to?

And, yes, moral nihilism can provoke a pernicious – ghastly, deadly – frame of mind. Think of all the terrible pain and suffering brought about as a result of those who become narcissists or sociopaths. Some in embracing nihilism philosophically, others through the accumulated circumstances in their lives.

On the other hand, moral nihilism can persuade others to embrace “moderation, negotiation and compromise” as the best of all possible worlds…in the absence of objective morality.

And it’s not just a coincidence that, given the First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War and the accumulation of nuclear bombs able literally to destroy the world, it has been all the more a frame of mind that cannot simply be dismissed as inherently unreasonable.

Though, sure, the reality of a world that, more and more is able to be explained through science rather than through God and religion, is going to be an important factor.

On the other hand, what can science provide us in the way of objective morality, immortality and salvation? So, don’t expect God and religion to go away anytime soon.

Why Moral Nihilism is Problematic
From The Retrospective

Accepted by who?

After all, is science able to provide us with a font from which to derive moral Commandments? Is science able to provide us with the crucial source of comfort that when we die immortality and salvation awaits us?

Now that always gets tricky. To speak of the universe as being in possession of a “self”. Isn’t that basically what the pantheists embrace? As though the universe itself were Divine. As though it really does have a plan for us. As though nature “up there”, “out there”, “in our head” encompassed a teleological component. It’s all about something and we are “as one with it”…“somehow”.

But then the part where, as with God, if morality – the human condition – is attributed to the universe then the universe also has some explaining to do about this:

…an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events…making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages…

Any pantheists among us care to take a crack at it?

Of course it’s important. When have human beings ever interacted without “conflicting goods”? Either in terms of how to secure our needs [capitalism or socialism] or in how to sustain our wants [mine or yours].

I am “fractured and fragmented” here myself. For better or for worse. And all I can do is to come to places like this and hear out those who assure me that not only is there no need to be drawn and quartered when confronting the moral conflagrations of our day and age, but there already exists the One True Path to objective morality without God.

Their own!

Why Moral Nihilism is Problematic
From The Retrospective

Not this moral nihilist. And, more to the point, it’s not the “concept” of moral nihilism that is of interest to me. It is taking whatever one concludes the concept to be down here among us mere mortals in what is presumed to be a No God world. Moral nihilism pertaining to social, political and economic interactions. The part “where the rubber meets the road”. The part where dasein comes into play.

Again, some moral nihilists. Certain sociopaths, for example. Those who reject both morality and social conventions. And those who recognize that what we call morality is just the “for all practical purposes” need for any community to establish “rules of behavior” given that conflicting goods – conflicting wants and needs – are always going to be a part of the “human all too human condition”.

Here though the problematic element revolves around just how tricky a belief can be. Yes, some are particularly cynical and manipulate people into believing in morality [God or No God] merely in order to sustain their own selfish interests. “Morality is the opiate of the people” might be their motto. In other words, when morality as a concept becomes the actual law of the land. When moral nihilists gain actual political power and run the government.

But other moral nihilists…those not “fractured and fragmented” as I am…are able to convince themselves that through “democracy and the rule of law”/“moderation, negotiation and compromise” we can sustain something that is at least in the vicinity of “the best of all possible worlds”. No objective moral absolutes perhaps but laws thought to be clearly more ethical than others.

Anyone here believe this? Okay, let’s agree on a context and explore it it further.

self=other

seems like a cold, hard, mathematized fact until you break yourself to live it and the joy breaks you a new heart

Nietzsche & Values
Alexander V. Razin

Again, this as though there is only one APA approved official definition of nihilism. The one true account of what it means for all rational men and women. As though one could take nihilism out of their pocket like a wallet and say, “look, everyone, nihilism”.

Instead, the closest Nietzsche came to being a “great moralist”, in my opinion, is the extent to which he embraced the Uberman mentality as something that transcends historical and cultural contexts altogether and truly does reflect the most reasonable and virtuous manner in which to live as a “master” rather than a “slave”.

But even here, how far did he himself go in living his own life so as to embody the Uberman much beyond an intellectual contraption in his books? In his head. And for others who sought to do so, you have interpretations that ranged from Rand’s Objectivists to Hitler’s Nazis.

The bottom line [mine] is that you can re-evaluate values until you are blue in the face “in theory”, but in the absence of God, once you bring your theoretical conclusions down out of the philosophical clouds, you are immediately confronted with the “real world”. And that has been chewing up and spitting out our “my way or the highway” dogmatic authoritarians now for centuries.

Thus…

A “philosophy of life” predicated on a “critical analysis” of…of what exactly? That’s the part where I introduce dasein and suggest we take the masters and the slaves down out of the conjectural clouds and plug them into actual “situations”. In other words, what does it mean to be a master and a slave such that the proper distinction is made between “might makes right” and “right makes might”? You’re on top given a particular set of circumstances not because you possess the raw power to be, but because you actually deserve to be.

We’ll need a context of course.

Why Moral Nihilism is Problematic
From The Retrospective

This comes closest to upending my own “fractured and fragmented” frame of mind. People tap me on the shoulder and ask “can you seriously believe that the Holocaust or abusing children or cold-blooded murder is not inherently, necessarily immoral?”

And, sure, the part of me that would never, could never imagine my own participation in things of this sort has a hard time accepting that, yes, in a No God world they are still behaviors able to be rationalized by others as either moral or, for the sociopaths, justified given their belief that everything revolves around their own “me, myself and I” self-gratification.

And what is the No God philosophical – scientific? – argument that establishes certain behaviors as in fact objectively right or objectively wrong? Isn’t it true that philosophers down through the ages who did embrace one or another rendition of deontology always included one or another rendition of the transcending font – God – to back it all up?

For all I know, had my own life been different…for any number of reasons…I would myself be here defending the Holocaust. Or engaging in what most construe to be morally depraved behaviors.

After all, do not the pro-life folks insist that abortion itself is no less a Holocaust inflicted on the unborn? And do not the pro-choice folks rationalize this behavior with their own subjective sets of assumptions.

Far enough? Well, for some that means bringing morality around to God. For others around what they construe to be “nature’s way”. The Know Thyself mentality of those like Satyr. For still others it is one or another “ism” in the Humanist catalogue. Or one or another political ideology.

Though, okay, if someone here is convinced they have in fact discovered the optimal reason why we should behave one way and not any other, let’s explore that in a No God world.

What would be argued when confronting the Adolph Hitlers and the Ted Bundys and the 9/11 religious fanatics and the sociopaths among us. Arguments such that they would be convinced that the behaviors they choose are indeed inherently, necessarily immoral.

How would you reason with them?

That thing you feed your hunger… how’s that working out for you? Are you satisfied? You can quit anytime, right? Do you think there could be a bigger Yes that satisfies your hunger and also sets you free, even though it means deprioritizing everything else that never fully satisfies? Why do you think we have this hunger that is never satisfied by the temporary?

Those are the questions.

Uh, anyone else?

I know you and I love/miss you, Mr. Roboto.

Of course: The Corner!!!

Thank God [one of them] for the PN forum!! [-o<

domo arigato

We’re born biased. Such is the nature of living beings.
Our instincts scream at us that certain behaviors are to be avoided.
Any preference we hold, are products of the biases instilled upon by natural selection and personal experience.
But this can be said to literally every motive we have.
Why do anything?
Because we’re influenced so.

Objectively, setting aside our personal biases, the existence and ‘welfare’ of life is neither here nor there.
It neither ought or ought not be. It simply is.
It’s us and our biases that make these judgements, all rooted in our own shit - subjective shit.

What’s morality?
Shit we made up to interact with each other.
We think it’s useful, and it’s an effective tool for the purpose at hand.
But purpose is all bullshit too. Yet, we’re attached to bullshit. Our lives are the summation of shit.

I’ll get to the point below.

Hey, life’s a circle. Every atrocity you commit, you will endure. For the pleasure you receive in this one puny life at the expense of many others, you will pick up that bill and by enduring each torment you perpetuated on others. Hey, you killed millions of people? You’ve got million lives of being killed by some fuckhead called Hitler - was it worth it?

The suffering is real to us. Cost-benefit analysis.
We’re only hurting ourselves, because we’re dumbfucks.
Born into ignorance, and flailing around desperately and recklessly.

Morality doesn’t need to be objective to be useful to us.

[I’m being rude, but it’s not directed at you. It’s me not dedicating energy to filtering my language.]

Yeah.
Out bias is not a thing to pretend to avoid. Bias is the basis of all our opinions, and we can have none without it.
Objectivity is a myth.
Whilst it is very important to remind ourselves that others have opinion and bias too, and that some might coincide with our own ; that is not an excuse to pretend that we enjoy some sort of perfect objectively derived opinion about the world.
There are those that peddle ideas as if they were objective morality; they are wrong.
They are not only fooling themselves but trying to fool others.
Each moral rule, suggestion, prescription needs to be argued in its own terms of usefulness and consequences. And should always allow mitigation of action, otherwise we just become slaves of tradition and out-of-date values of the past.

Morals are not furniture, planets or elements. Morals are abstracted values about how it might be best to live our lives and to live in a community of other humans. Objectivity here is a myth a- a dangerous myth and we should all suspect the motives of anyone trying to impose a set of objective moral rules upon us or try to claim they know what they are.

I see.

It’s mostly carbs that feed my hunger, and that is why I avoid them.

DOES POSTMODERNISM MEAN MORAL RELATIVISM?
Guest Contributor Gary Aylesworth at Philosophy Talk.

The “current hysteria” over moral relativism? Well, this was written in 2009. So, sure, maybe back then hysteria reigned when some [postmodernists or otherwise] sanctioned the “anything goes” approach to human interactions. On the other hand, think of the “current hysterias” that cropped up any number of times historically when dealing with the consequences of “moral objectivism”…God or No God. Those who sanctioned the “nothing goes unless we say so” approach to human interactions. From the Nazis to the Ayatollahs.

To wit…

Exactly. My own frame of mind…in being a moral relativist…is aimed in the general direction of moderation, negotiation and compromise as the “best of all possible worlds” political agenda.

So, which is worse: “anything goes”, "my way or the highway "or a “give and take” somewhere in the middle?

In other words, instead of assuming that the “others” are necessarily evil because we are necessarily good, it’s important to explore our assumptions about each other in order to see if something “in the middle” short of “anything goes” and “us vs. them” is possible. Perhaps it’s not in some cases. For example, what might the compromise be in dealing with those who embrace “female genital cutting” as part of their own cultural or religious rituals? Okay sometimes, but not others?

We all have our own “no way” moral and political agendas given particular issues. But better “democracy and the rule of law” here than might makes right and right makes might.