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Irish Times on the New Face of Atheism
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I've disagreed with this view before, but can't remember with who...Morality is instinct filtered by intellect, and arose evolutionarily because we cannot benefit from a cooperative society without it. [...] Morality in the unverifiable objective religious sense is not a thing, we just like to pretend it is.
For myself, morals operate within a top-down, authoritarian hierarchy, and tend towards unquestionable edicts delivered to unquestioning people, tending to favour public purity and trading of respect at the expense of honesty, clarity and decency.
What are referred to as ethics, on the other hand, operate within a bottom-up, member-driven community, tending to derive and produce a common code of behaviour which elevates honesty, clarity and decency. In ethical systems, purity, tradition and respect-from-position-in-hierarchy tend to mean little, where they're not openly discarded.0 -
But the point is that morality means two different things in that sentence. Look, robindch gets it (sort of).Mark Hamill wrote: »Michael was contradicting that notion, that morality originates purely in religion, and puts forward that morality is based on empathy, compassion, reciprocity and reason originating the brain.
Stripping out the "my ethics are way better than your morals" spin, I think that's pretty much it..... morals operate within a top-down, authoritarian hierarchy, and tend towards unquestionable edicts delivered to unquestioning people.... ethics ...derive and produce a common code of behaviour ...
You're over-egging it. For the sake of argument, an attraction some find in Buddhism is that you're following some principles that have a venerable tradition. And asserting "decency" is essentially just mood music.
But, absolutely, there's a complete contrast between a conception of actions being guided by morality, which implies some externally existing "right", and ethics, which are just guides to successful living. It's the difference between an exhortation to "do the right thing" on the one hand, and "whatever you say, say nothing" on the other.0 -
Not really, because the effect is the same, only the supposed origin is different. Religious morality derives from a god. Atheist morality derives from ethics, which in turn are a way of maximising the self interest of the group.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »When Michael says "We do not need religion for morality. Morality is a natural process of our brains", it's a fudge because "morality" means two different things in those two sentences.
Consider cannibalism, a common societal taboo. A taboo is a form of morality, whether or not it has any religious input. A tribesman can claim the gods have forbidden it, or he can say his ethics prevent him from doing it, or he can just say he finds it disgusting. The effect is the same.0 -
Ah, now, there's still two concepts in play. You can say the object is similar - let's say that's to achieve social order, or whatever effect it is you feel is in common.Not really, because the effect is the same, only the supposed origin is different. Religious morality derives from a god. Atheist morality derives from ethics, which in turn are a way of maximising the self interest of the group.
The question still arises; do you need an external authority to achieve social order, or can you achieve it purely through a system of ethics ultimately grounded in self-interest.
Because, bear mind, your phrase "maximising the self interest of the group" arrives from nowhere. What group am I maximising the self-interest of, and why do I suddenly feel that its self interest should be pursued at the expense of my own? [And "but your own self interest depends on the self interest of the group" doesn't answer that point. You have to establish what group I'm depending on.]
Grand, but this just brings us back to that image that Zillah proposed of the urge to stop someone beating child. The unanswered point that I posed in that context is we need to consider that someone, in that scenario, has an urge to beat the child.Consider cannibalism, a common societal taboo. A taboo is a form of morality, whether or not it has any religious input. A tribesman can claim the gods have forbidden it, or he can say his ethics prevent him from doing it, or he can just say he finds it disgusting. The effect is the same.
Cannibalism is a common taboo. It isn't a universal taboo. What experience suggests is that pretty much any kind of behaviour can be accepted by people as normal in the right circumstances. What I have in mind is the kind of thing studied in that book "The Lucifer Effect". There's no automatic reason why people would do "good" in the commonsense understanding of the term.
I feel there's few people of ability getting involved in the whole god business anymore. There's just too many alternative careers now attracting talent. But the present Pope is certainly someone with the intellectual capacity to understand exactly what we're talking about. I'd suspect, if you got him good and drunk and then got him onto the topic of the "new atheism", he'd laugh and say "I can't wait to see the look on your faces when you realise that my crowd is as good as it gets. Try applying your ethics outside places like South County Dublin. Actually, let's out and find a couple of crack whores, because I find the best way of getting a grip on the human condition is to have unprotected sex with an especially unhygenic hooker."0 -
It gets back to "the selfish gene". The "group" is all of life, especially human life, and more especially those closest to you.
And yes, being a cannibal, rapist or psychopath, can be a useful evolutionary strategy, so long as you are in a tiny minority. Much like being a predator. But from the point of view of the majority who co-operate with the prevailing morality, it will be beneficial to discourage or eradicate these "aberrant" individuals.
Perhaps our society would break down if we didn't have religion to control those who don't usually think for themselves about ethical matters . Or perhaps, in the absence of religious morality, they would embrace secular ethics, rather than face a moral abyss. Who knows.0 -
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Just a thought. Consider those scifi films, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that depict the process from the point of view of the "aberrant" individuals.But from the point of view of the majority who co-operate with the prevailing morality, it will be beneficial to discourage or eradicate these "aberrant" individuals.
Indeed, and I've a feeling we're going to find out. I don't think it's inevitable; I just think people are being far, far too optimistic about the value and strength of "reason" in uncovering a workable and robust set of ethics. If we're going to get something out of deliberation on these things, I think we have to be totally forensic in identifying and defining the issue.Perhaps our society would break down if we didn't have religion to control those who don't usually think for themselves about ethical matters . Or perhaps, in the absence of religious morality, they would embrace secular ethics, rather than face a moral abyss. Who knows.0 -
GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »But the point is that morality means two different things in that sentence. Look, robindch gets it (sort of).
robindch is putting forward that the intellectualist arguments underpinning theistic morals and secular morals are fundamentally different. And they are. But they are both still formulated rulesets for what people are supposed to do, just justified in two massively different ways. Like I already explained, its a case of religion appropriating a non religious word and twisting it to try to make it appear exclusive and originating in religion. A relabelling of secular morals as ethics is one way of dealing with religious propaganda on the subject, pointing out that propaganda is wrong is another.
When Michael talks about morals in the part you first quoted, he is only talking about morals in the most general sense. Morals as a ruleset of what we should do. All he is saying is that we don't need religion to have such a ruleset, we develop them naturally through empathy, compassion, reciprocity and reason.0 -
GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »I just think people are being far, far too optimistic about the value and strength of "reason" in uncovering a workable and robust set of ethics.
Reason is all we have to find workable and robust ethics. Even your disagreements on this board are you based on your attempts at reason.
What is likely to be a problem is the poor ability of people to keep to reason and repel the temptations of easy emotive answers.0 -
Grand. They are two utterly different approaches (I'll work with what I can get); can you therefore see that we cannot assume that they'll work the same way, or that either will work at all?Mark Hamill wrote: »robindch is putting forward that the intellectualist arguments underpinning theistic morals and secular morals are fundamentally different. And they are. But they are both still formulated rulesets for what people are supposed to do, just justified in two massively different ways.
The quick leap, not just in Michael's article but in similar stuff, from saying "we've morals, too" is a fudge and too quick. We need to dig into what's different, critically. If we claim (and I don't) that reason is a superior way of settling such issues, let's display it in action by not fudging it.0 -
GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »Grand. They are two utterly different approaches (I'll work with what I can get); can you therefore see that we cannot assume that they'll work the same way, or that either will work at all?
Sure, two different approaches to anything are unlikely to work in exactly the same way and there may be some third way that is actually better.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »The quick leap, not just in Michael's article but in similar stuff, from saying "we've morals, too" is a fudge and too quick. We need to dig into what's different, critically. If we claim (and I don't) that reason is a superior way of settling such issues, let's display it in action by not fudging it.
How is he fudging anything though? I'll repeat the second paragraph in the post you quoted, because you don't seem to have read it:
"When Michael talks about morals in the part you first quoted, he is only talking about morals in the most general sense. Morals as a ruleset of what we should do. All he is saying is that we don't need religion to have such a ruleset, we develop them naturally through empathy, compassion, reciprocity and reason. "
This has nothing to do with your original dispute though, do you still reject a natural origin for morals?0 -
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He's fudging it because the ruleset is (presumably) the fundamental good thing that we'd see both religious morality and atheist ethics as achieving. Saying you can create the same good thing from two radically different approaches needs elaboration; using the term morality to cover both is a three card trick.Mark Hamill wrote: »How is he fudging anything though? I'll repeat the second paragraph in the post you quoted, because you don't seem to have read it:
"When Michael talks about morals in the part you first quoted, he is only talking about morals in the most general sense. Morals as a ruleset of what we should do. All he is saying is that we don't need religion to have such a ruleset, we develop them naturally through empathy, compassion, reciprocity and reason. "
Yup. Morality is just something we invent and impose on the world, along with the rest of human understanding. Cannibalism isn't intrinsically bad, we've just agreed by culture and tradition to treat it as bad. In the right context, like a plane crash in the Andes, we might agree it to be good.Mark Hamill wrote: »This has nothing to do with your original dispute though, do you still reject a natural origin for morals?
Which, incidently, is different to a religious concept of morality as being placed in nature by God. If God says you can't eat pork, you can't eat it. You might recant of your sin and seek forgiveness if your plane crashes into a remote mountain with a cargo of sausage rolls and you're not rescued for a few months, but it would never be right to eat it.0 -
GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »He's fudging it because the ruleset is (presumably) the fundamental good thing that we'd see both religious morality and atheist ethics as achieving. Saying you can create the same good thing from two radically different approaches needs elaboration; using the term morality to cover both is a three card trick.
Its not because morality is a general term, not a specific term. He never said that atheistic morals would create the exact same situation as theistic morals, just that they would create a situation that achieves the basic aim of morality as well, if not better than, religion.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »Morality is just something we invent and impose on the world, along with the rest of human understanding.
How does that stop it from having a natural origin in the brain?0 -
But he does it by equivocation, by a fudge, not by actually addressing the issue. Like I said, it's a three card trick.Mark Hamill wrote: »Its not because morality is a general term, not a specific term. He never said that atheistic morals would create the exact same situation as theistic morals, just that they would create a situation that achieves the basic aim of morality as well, if not better than, religion.
Oh, in a sense it does. But in the same sense as unicorns having a natural origin in the brain.Mark Hamill wrote: »How does that stop it from having a natural origin in the brain?
In fact, if I was being cynical (and sometimes I am), I'd say the issue is around how best to confuse people enough so that they co-operate without noticing opportunities for personal gain at everyone else's expense.0 -
GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »But he does it by equivocation, by a fudge, not by actually addressing the issue. Like I said, it's a three card trick.
The common religious propaganda is that atheists have no moral system at all (because, they claim, you can only get morals from god), not that their moral is system is invalid or flawed. Michael has debunked this by explaining that morality originates naturally in the brain. The article is only supposed to a general discussion on the topic, not a thesis.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »I'd say the issue is around how best to confuse people enough so that they co-operate without noticing opportunities for personal gain at everyone else's expense.
Issue for who? Many, myself included, see the desire to confuse people into morality as only short-termed and highly effort intensive. You pretty much need to confuse people all the time, there is almost always some stupid, selfish, short termed gain to be made at every single opportunity. If you can get people to think for themselves, get them to want to achieve the most moral act simply through their own reasoning, then people can pretty much left to their own devices.0 -
Its only the same thing in name. All moralities, whether Christian, Buddhist, Islamic or secular are basically rulesets, and there is some overlap in the rules. But following different rules leads to a different game. Every card game comes with a set of rules. If you follow a regional variation in the rules, you get a slightly different game.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »He's fudging it because the ruleset is (presumably) the fundamental good thing that we'd see both religious morality and atheist ethics as achieving. Saying you can create the same good thing from two radically different approaches needs elaboration; using the term morality to cover both is a three card trick.
The main difference between religious and secular morality is that the former will try to fool people into thinking there is only the one set of rules possible; theirs.
Secular ethics IMO allows for the possibility of adapting the rules over time, as we discover what works best.0 -
Atheists don't have a moral system, as theists understand the term. That's the point I'm trying to make, exhaustively. There's no point is just labelling any old thing a moral system, and saying "there, we do have one". Atheists have no shared moral system, and nothing that equates to the moral system found in a religion.Mark Hamill wrote: »The common religious propaganda is that atheists have no moral system at all (because, they claim, you can only get morals from god), not that their moral is system is invalid or flawed. Michael has debunked this by explaining that morality originates naturally in the brain. The article is only supposed to a general discussion on the topic, not a thesis.
Plus, I really can't figure why you are repeating the contention that morality originates naturally in the brain, as if that statement had some meaning. I thought we'd got to the point of establishing that morality originates in the brain in the same way as unicorns. Now here we seem to be back at square one.Mark Hamill wrote: »If you can get people to think for themselves, get them to want to achieve the most moral act simply through their own reasoning, then people can pretty much left to their own devices.
Who's "we", and why would we individually give a toss about achieving the most moral act?Secular ethics IMO allows for the possibility of adapting the rules over time, as we discover what works best.
As Senor Ferrari put it "As the leader of all illegal activities in Casablanca, I am an influential and respected man."0 -
A point which is much easier to make and understand if you use the term "moral" to refer, only, to authoritarian, single-decision-maker value-labeling systems which derive from "tradition" rather than discussion:GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »Atheists don't have a moral system, as theists understand the term.For myself, morals operate within a top-down, authoritarian hierarchy, and tend towards unquestionable edicts delivered to unquestioning people, tending to favour public purity and trading of respect at the expense of honesty, clarity and decency.
What are referred to as ethics, on the other hand, operate within a bottom-up, member-driven community, tending to derive and produce a common code of behaviour which elevates honesty, clarity and decency. In ethical systems, purity, tradition and respect-from-position-in-hierarchy tend to mean little, where they're not openly discarded.0 -
Absolutely; the issue is entirely around people using the term "moral" to refer to two different things as if they were the same.A point which is much easier to make and understand if you use the term "moral" to refer, only, to authoritarian, single-decision-maker value-labeling systems which derive from "tradition" rather than discussion:0 -
GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »Atheists don't have a moral system, as theists understand the term. That's the point I'm trying to make, exhaustively. There's no point is just labelling any old thing a moral system, and saying "there, we do have one". Atheists have no shared moral system, and nothing that equates to the moral system found in a religion.
Plus, I really can't figure why you are repeating the contention that morality originates naturally in the brain, as if that statement had some meaning. I thought we'd got to the point of establishing that morality originates in the brain in the same way as unicorns. Now here we seem to be back at square one.
Its almost as if you read each post in complete isolation and ignorance from every other post in the thread :rolleyes:. Let me explain again it in points, maybe you will get it then:
1) Morality is a general term meaning (in its most simple form) a system of rules that people should adhere to in their daily lives.
2) Religious propaganda claims that religious morality is not just the only valid morality, but the only morality full stop.
3) The point of the article was to debunk the general theistic claim that morals can only come from god, by pointing out that in general, moral systems develop naturally. Its just saying there is no supernatural source for morals, we come up with them ourselves.
What do you mean by "atheists have no shared moral system"?.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »Who's "we", and why would we individually give a toss about achieving the most moral act?
We is "we". We should care about being as moral as possible because this will ensure the greatest level of cooperation in the group, and therefore the greatest chance for survival and comfort.0 -
Yeah, and they are probably right. They are the only people with a set of rules that contain a reason why people should adhere to them in their daily lives. That reason is that these rules are part of our nature, put there by a divine creator who created humans for the purpose of following those rules.Mark Hamill wrote: »1) Morality is a general term meaning (in its most simple form) a system of rules that people should adhere to in their daily lives.
2) Religious propaganda claims that religious morality is not just the only valid morality, but the only morality full stop.
Clearly, we don't accept that reason is valid. But it is a reason - if you accept the reason, the rest follows.
Yes, and this is where the article fails completely. It debunks nothing. It merely skips from one meaning of the word "moral" to another, and perpetuates a common misunderstanding that causes much unnecessary confusion and debate. Such as this one.Mark Hamill wrote: »3) The point of the article was to debunk the general theistic claim that morals can only come from god, by pointing out that in general, moral systems develop naturally. Its just saying there is no supernatural source for morals, we come up with them ourselves.
I don't see the scope for misunderstanding in that statement. I mean exactly what it says. You can come up with a moral system that suits you. But there is absolutely no reason for any other atheist to share it at all.Mark Hamill wrote: »What do you mean by "atheists have no shared moral system"?.
What, like "I and I"?Mark Hamill wrote: »We is "we".
But surely I can get that benefit of survival and comfort if everyone else co-operates and I take a free ride. Hasn't that been the cornerstone of Irish Defence policy since the dawn of the State?Mark Hamill wrote: »We should care about being as moral as possible because this will ensure the greatest level of cooperation in the group, and therefore the greatest chance for survival and comfort.0 -
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GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »Yeah, and they are probably right. They are the only people with a set of rules that contain a reason why people should adhere to them in their daily lives. That reason is that these rules are part of our nature, put there by a divine creator who created humans for the purpose of following those rules.
Clearly, we don't accept that reason is valid. But it is a reason - if you accept the reason, the rest follows.
Now I'm beginning to think you are reading each sentence in complete isolation and ignorance from every other sentence in a post :rolleyes:. Here's what I said again:
1) Morality is a general term meaning (in its most simple form) a system of rules that people should adhere to in their daily lives.
2) Religious propaganda claims that religious morality is not just the only valid morality, but the only morality full stop.
Religion is clearly wrong, not least because there is no single religious morality, not least because atheists have morality despite lack of god, but because moral systems arise naturally in humans.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »Yes, and this is where the article fails completely. It debunks nothing. It merely skips from one meaning of the word "moral" to another, and perpetuates a common misunderstanding that causes much unnecessary confusion and debate. Such as this one.
The article doesn't skip from one meaning to another, it uses a single accurate meaning for the general word morality. The problem is that you accept the religious propaganda, you see religious morality as the only morality (despite this being pointed out to you as wrong, many times), so you get confused. Why you insist on projecting your confusion on to everyone else, I don't understand.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »I don't see the scope for misunderstanding in that statement. I mean exactly what it says. You can come up with a moral system that suits you. But there is absolutely no reason for any other atheist to share it at all.
Besides the reason that makes this moral system suit you, you mean? You seem to be forgetting that one of the purposes of a moral system is to ensure harmony between groups. Therefore moral systems only work if they are, to a large extent, shared. Given that the atheistic populations in all the countries in the world generally follow the laws of the land they are in, would mean that atheists do share general moral systems.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »But surely I can get that benefit of survival and comfort if everyone else co-operates and I take a free ride.
Only from an ignorant short termed point of view. A group of X amount of people will better support a group of X amount of people, than a group of X+1 amount of people. Your level of comfort is reliant on the efficiency of the group, which will only increase if you help.0 -
And in that one sentence you use morality to mean three things. The morality that religions disagree over is (to the extent we can throw them in together) the same beast; they are all conceiving of morality as something put into nature when it was created. Atheists don't have that; as robindch terms it, we have ethics, not morals. And what arises naturally in humans are not moral systems, but emotions like empathy and hate. As already noted, they drive people to both moral and immoral acts, using the commonsense meaning of the word.Mark Hamill wrote: »Religion is clearly wrong, not least because there is no single religious morality, not least because atheists have morality despite lack of god, but because moral systems arise naturally in humans.
And, in passing, religions seem implausible to me. But they are not clearly wrong.
Well, I'm clearly not forgetting that a key point of morality is to secure social order, as my whole point is that people don't just comply automatically with whatever moral code seems to make sense. And I just don't have the time or energy to attempt to explain to you why you've made a massive error in conflating law and morality. Now that's four different meanings that you are hiding with the one word.Mark Hamill wrote: »You seem to be forgetting that one of the purposes of a moral system is to ensure harmony between groups. Therefore moral systems only work if they are, to a large extent, shared. Given that the atheistic populations in all the countries in the world generally follow the laws of the land they are in, would mean that atheists do share general moral systems.
That's all very well in theory, but you're just in denial about the reality. For instance, people actually vote for a Healy-Rae precisely because they feel combining as part of a sectional interest is better than combining as part of a general, common, interest. There's plenty of other examples of that.Mark Hamill wrote: »A group of X amount of people will better support a group of X amount of people, than a group of X+1 amount of people. Your level of comfort is reliant on the efficiency of the group, which will only increase if you help.
You can't just assume away the issue of how to get people to co-operate in pursuit of common goals. There's whole disciplines, like management theory and political science, given over to the problem.0 -
I suppose you could say that secular morality, or ethics if you prefer that terminology, is the morality that looks after the wider interest.GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »For instance, people actually vote for a Healy-Rae precisely because they feel combining as part of a sectional interest is better than combining as part of a general, common, interest. There's plenty of other examples of that.
Religious morality is directed towards the narrow sectional interest.
Think of the crusades, where each side was morally outraged by the other.0 -
I don't agree. Secular ethics would simply be guidance on successful living. One section of that guidance might be "how to appear plausible to others".I suppose you could say that secular morality, or ethics if you prefer that terminology, is the morality that looks after the wider interest.0 -
No, pure self-interest would be the narrowest of all sectional interests. Ethics looks to the wider interest.0
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Again, I'd see this as a terminology thing, rather than an issue with the underlying point. Grand, you can say "let us define ethics as something that looks to the wider interest". But my point is, if you're an atheist, there's no obvious reason to give two hoots about the wider interest, unless it either aligns with your self-interest or you have some kind of empathy for it. I'd suggest we could even telescope empathy into self-interest.No, pure self-interest would be the narrowest of all sectional interests. Ethics looks to the wider interest.
The proof of the pudding is the eating. There are no ethics or morals or whatnots that follow inevitably from atheism.0 -
Correct.GCU wrote:There are no ethics or morals or whatnots that follow inevitably from atheism.
However, a tendency towards ethics seems to arise from the human condition itself.
Although, as with most traits, it may be manifest more in some individuals than in others.0 -
Indeed, and the content generated from that "tendancy towards ethics" will vary greatly too.Correct.
However, a tendency towards ethics seems to arise from the human condition itself.
Although, as with most traits, it may be manifest more in some individuals than in others.
And, clearly, another issue out there will be the contrast between the ethics people profess and the ethics they actually live by.0 -
There is no evidence that morality arises naturally in the brain. There is much debate regarding how morality develops, give that neuroscience so far has been unable to attribute morality to any part of the brain and psychological studies suggest morality is entirely based on development. There is an interesting recent paper on the subject by Young and Dungan called "Where in the brain is morality?, Everywhere and maybe Nowhere".0
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GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »That's the point I'm trying to make, exhaustively.
I have honestly never come across a poster who uses as many words to say as little as you do. "Exhaustive" is a well chosen adjective.0
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