How are intelligent, critical thinkers still religious?

raah!

Wicknight wrote: »

Fair enough, back to morality.

Do you accept that what I was saying about morality was not as simple as "this feels good I'll do it" and "this feels bad I won't do it"

More a case of this feels wrong, I shouldn't do it

That is where we had left off back on page 8

I think that it is essentially reducable to this, if we are talking about a biologically derived morality. I don't believe that we can talk evolutionarily about any other kind of morality. Unless you want to make a case for the transmission of innate ideas through reproduction.

We've pointed out about societies forming morality already, but they do this through ideas. "You shouldn't steal this or that". And different societies have different ideas of what is good or bad, see ghenghis khan.

We would also do well to analyse these things like empathy, guilt... and the third one.

Guilt can be reduced to the same "I've hurt someone, I feel bad" that empathy can be as well. If you would like to make an argument to suggest that guilt or empathy operate through some means other than chemicals, then we will have to question their positions as emotions. Yes they are emotional responses to rational understanding of things, but emotions nonetheless. We could reduce guilt to empathy essentially, and we can say that empathy, because it is an emotion, operates using the same system of chemical releases and rewards.

If guilt and empathy are not emotions, you'll have to give an evolutionary account for them.

With regard to the last sentence there as well. Take note of hume's gap, which states that it's a logical impossiblity to travel from an is to an ought. (I've been quoting this an awful lot lately).

So, there is no rational basis for morality which can be derived from evolution. Nor would a moral system based on those neurochemical impulses provided to us by our bodies be anything like the type of moral systems sensible people tend to espouse. I use rational here to contrast with emotional. Doing what feels the best Is what I was referencing when I said "automatic"

So, without something like a religious doctrine pronouncing moral axioms which we are to follow, a humanistic moral system must of necessity be arbitrary. One rationally based on evolution must be selfish, and would endorse many criminal behaviours.

philologos

raah! - I've always wondered myself why people would wish to construct what is essentially a moral philosophy out of biology. It seems like taking something out of its correct context, and applying it elsewhere.

Turtwig

Jakkass wrote: »

raah! - I've always wondered myself why people would wish to construct what is essentially a moral philosophy out of biology. It seems like taking something out of its correct context, and applying it elsewhere.

Me too. Morality is something that should from humanities and studies of cultural evolution. Not looking at nature itself. We're an evolved species with an elaborate social structure, so looking for examples in nature and physicals laws on how to construct moral philosophy is a bad idea. Almost akin to a naturalistic fallacy.

raah!

Jakkass wrote: »

raah! - I've always wondered myself why people would wish to construct what is essentially a moral philosophy out of biology. It seems like taking something out of its correct context, and applying it elsewhere.

Yes, I believe there is a philosophical term for this called a category error... or something. I'm sure you'll come across this in it's proper context whilst studying philosophy :P

Malty_T

Malty_T wrote: »

Me too. Morality is something that should from humanities and studies of cultural evolution. Not looking at nature itself. We're an evolved species with an elaborate social structure, so looking for examples in nature and physicals laws on how to construct moral philosophy is a bad idea. Almost akin to a naturalistic fallacy.

Well I sorta disagree. We shouldn't look to animals for morality.
But the examples I gave where to illustrate the probable origins of our morals.
And since our theist friends are making the claim that God must be the source, I think the evolutionary origins are pretty relevant here.

Turtwig

King Mob wrote: »

Well I sorta disagree. We shouldn't look to animals for morality.
But the examples I gave where to illustrate the probable origins of our morals.
And since our theist friends are making the claim that God must be the source, I think the evolutionary origins are pretty relevant here.

Oh yeah I see the looking to God for morals just as bad as looking to nature and biology.:D

philologos

King Mob wrote: »

Well I sorta disagree. We shouldn't look to animals for morality.
But the examples I gave where to illustrate the probable origins of our morals.
And since our theist friends are making the claim that God must be the source, I think the evolutionary origins are pretty relevant here.

Could you explain why this must of necessity be the case? Just curious?

By evolution, I'm assuming biological evolution. Please correct me if this is incorrect.

Zombrex

raah! wrote: »

I think that it is essentially reducable to this, if we are talking about a biologically derived morality. I don't believe that we can talk evolutionarily about any other kind of morality. Unless you want to make a case for the transmission of innate ideas through reproduction.

But you are separating I guess what you could call "intellectual morality" from the basis in "emotional morality". This seems silly.

For example can you think of any moral concept that doesn't ultimately come back to emotional morality?

raah! wrote: »

We've pointed out about societies forming morality already, but they do this through ideas. "You shouldn't steal this or that". And different societies have different ideas of what is good or bad, see ghenghis khan.

But these ideas don't exist in a vacuum. You should steal this comes back to emotional/evolutionary morality. Don't steal because I don't want you to steal from me and I feel empathy if someone steals from you, both emotional morality.

It seems impossible to divorce morality from its biological origins.

raah! wrote: »

Guilt can be reduced to the same "I've hurt someone, I feel bad" that empathy can be as well.

It is not simply "I feel bad". It is I feel guilty. It is a particular type of feeling bad, with awareness that you have done something "wrong", even if you don't understand what that is.

Children form moral codes based on these systems. Ask a child who feels guilty about something what they are feeling and it isn't simply a general I feel bad but I don't know why. They know they did something wrong, they don't have to have the connection between the feeling and the immoral action taught to them.

raah! wrote: »

If you would like to make an argument to suggest that guilt or empathy operate through some means other than chemicals, then we will have to question their positions as emotions. Yes they are emotional responses to rational understanding of things, but emotions nonetheless. We could reduce guilt to empathy essentially, and we can say that empathy, because it is an emotion, operates using the same system of chemical releases and rewards.

Correct. I'm not making any claim that these are anything more than chemical reactions in the brain caused by evolved instincts. But ultimately that is what morality is.

This is my point. There is no supernatural "magic" in morality, like theists claim. Morality is just an evolutionary construct.

raah! wrote: »

So, there is no rational basis for morality which can be derived from evolution. Nor would a moral system based on those neurochemical impulses provided to us by our bodies be anything like the type of moral systems sensible people tend to espouse.

But these are the moral systems sensible people espouse. Can you name one moral decision or law that doesn't come back to emotional morality?

raah! wrote: »

I use rational here to contrast with emotional. Doing what feels the best Is what I was referencing when I said "automatic"

If by "best" you mean "what feels moral" then that is exactly what everyone does.

When was the last time you did something that felt immoral while rationally proclaiming it to be moral so it was ok?

raah! wrote: »

So, without something like a religious doctrine pronouncing moral axioms which we are to follow, a humanistic moral system must of necessity be arbitrary.

Religious doctrine is arbitary. Will I be a Muslim or a Christian? Which feels right? Will I follow this rule from the Bible or this rule from the Bible? Which feels right?

raah! wrote: »

One rationally based on evolution must be selfish, and would endorse many criminal behaviours.

No it wouldn't endorse any criminal behavior since practically all criminal laws are based on emotional morality.

Zombrex

Malty_T wrote: »

Me too. Morality is something that should from humanities and studies of cultural evolution. Not looking at nature itself. We're an evolved species with an elaborate social structure, so looking for examples in nature and physicals laws on how to construct moral philosophy is a bad idea. Almost akin to a naturalistic fallacy.

We don't need to look anywhere, we already have these instincts.

Perhaps people aren't following what I'm saying

Can anyone think of any moral law or decision that doesn't come back to emotional morality? I'm pretty certain you can say anything and I can give you the evolutionary instinct that it relates to.

Jakkass

Jakkass wrote: »

Could you explain why this must of necessity be the case? Just curious?

Because debating against an opposing theory without at least an idea of a viable alternative is kinda disingenuous.

And regardless the question: "well how do you explain it" would eventually come up anyway.

Jakkass wrote: »

By evolution, I'm assuming biological evolution. Please correct me if this is incorrect.

The examples I gave where of the biological origins, but as Malty said there are also cultural evolution origins.

Turtwig

Wicknight wrote: »

We don't need to look anywhere, we already have these instincts.

Perhaps people aren't following what I'm saying

Can anyone think of any moral law or decision that doesn't come back to emotional morality? I'm pretty certain you can say anything and I can give you the evolutionary instinct that it relates to.

Sorry I'm not convinced. Ok, let's try this one the Psychologist John Watson and Rosalie Rayner used to experiment on a baby called "Little Albert" now known as Douglas Merritte . They would expose the baby to a rat and at first the child wasn't disturbed by it. From then on, each time the baby was exposed to the rat they would bang a metal bar behind his head creating a noise that frightened the infant. Eventually they were able to ensure that the child was terrified of rats, dogs, teddy bears, cotton wool and many other things. Eventually Watson was sacked by his university but not for his research, he was sacked because he was a married man having an affair with his assistant Rosalie. How can you use evolutionary instincts to explain how something which is considered abhorrent today (the experiment) was accepted less than a century ago and something which was abhorrent back then (divorce) is now generally accepted today. Also couple that with the fact that some cultures find it morally disgusting to drop snots on the ground. Yet others, think it's repugnant to put snots on a hanky and into your pocket.
How exactly can you argue that it was evolutionary instincts that determined these values?

philologos

King Mob wrote: »

Because debating against an opposing theory without at least an idea of a viable alternative is kinda disingenuous.

I've clearly outlined what my current position on the subject is. Of course I would view it a viable alternative to assuming that morality has been constructed. I just believe there are too many flaws in holding a relativistic moral system.

People don't argue for what is right because it is right for them, they argue about what is right because they believe that it is objectively so. I could take a number of philosophical positions from Kantianism, to the traditional Christian view to explain this.

I've explained already what my issues with utilitarianism are.

I've studied a whole lot of differing systems of moral thought in going through my philosophy course.

King Mob wrote: »

And regardless the question: "well how do you explain it" would eventually come up anyway.

I'm sure it would, but I'm still straining to see the relevance of biological evolution to moral philosophy. Each is a discipline that has it's uses, but some disciplines are just better than others at dealing with certain concepts such as morality for example.

To me it just seems like using a sieve to carry water. A sieve is of course well used in certain tasks, but one might want to use a bucket for carrying water as it's just more pragmatic to do so.

I can understand that since biological evolution accounts for how the brain is constructed that it might be useful in assessing how our thought works also. However it doesn't specifically work out questions such as what is moral, what is immoral.

Another analogy. If I am looking at hardware and software on a computer system, of course I need to look at the hardware to assess what software can run on it. In this case consider the hardware as being your brain, and the software as being the moral code you wish to run on it. Assessing the hardware can only tell me so much, but I have to examine the moral code to see how it actually works in human beings.

King Mob wrote: »

The examples I gave where of the biological origins, but as Malty said there are also cultural evolution origins.

Which would imply that the humanities are best capable to assess morality?

Zombrex

Malty_T wrote: »

Sorry I'm not convinced.

Of what exactly?

Malty_T wrote: »

Ok, let's try this one the Psychologist John Watson and Rosalie Rayner used to experiment on a baby called "Little Albert" now known as Douglas Merritte . They would expose the baby to a rat and at first the child wasn't disturbed by it. From then on, each time the baby was exposed to the rat they would bang a metal bar behind his head creating a noise that frightened the infant. Eventually they were able to ensure that the child was terrified of rats, dogs, teddy bears, cotton wool and many other things. Eventually Watson was sacked by his university but not for his research, he was sacked because he was a married man having an affair with his assistant Rosalie. How can you use evolutionary instincts to explain how something which is considered abhorrent today (the experiment) was accepted less than a century ago and something which was abhorrent back (divorce) then is now generally accepted today.

I'm not familiar with the case but based on what you said pretty easily.

I would imagine the reason the experiment was not considered abhorrent in its day is our understand of damage in childhood has shifted some what.

We are now much more conscious of damage to childhood development based on environmental factors, which traumatizing a child with a loud banging noise would certain be.

If the child had died or had been physically hurt I would imagine, even in 1920, Watson would have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Malty_T wrote: »

Also couple that with the fact that some cultures find it morally disgusting to drop snots on the ground. Yet others, think its repugnant to put snots on a hanky and into your pocket.
How exactly can you argue that it was evolutionary instincts that determined this values?

Again pretty easily, snot contains bacteria and we have a strong instinct to see it as disgusting, particular if it is from another person. It is perfectly within ideas of evolutionary morality that we would consider it immoral to do things with snot that could potentially risk exposure to us.

Same reason we consider it immoral to sneeze on someone. Goes back to instincts of protection and harm.

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

I can understand that since biological evolution accounts for how the brain is constructed that it might be useful in assessing how our thought works also. However it doesn't specifically work out questions such as what is moral, what is immoral.

It works out why humans find some things moral and others not.

For example, why is it not immoral to burn a rock.

I'm deadly serious, can you actually answer that question without appealing to our emotional instincts?

Jakkass

Jakkass wrote: »

I've clearly outlined what my current position on the subject is. Of course I would view it a viable alternative to assuming that morality has been constructed. I just believe there are too many flaws in holding a relativistic moral system.

People don't argue for what is right because it is right for them, they argue about what is right because they believe that it is objectively so. I could take a number of philosophical positions from Kantianism, to the traditional Christian view to explain this.

I've explained already what my issues with utilitarianism are.

I've studied a whole lot of differing systems of moral thought in going through my philosophy course.

I'm sure it would, but I'm still straining to see the relevance of biological evolution to moral philosophy. Each is a discipline that has it's uses, but some disciplines are just better than others at dealing with certain concepts such as morality for example.

To me it just seems like using a sieve to carry water. A sieve is of course well used in certain tasks, but one might want to use a bucket for carrying water as it's just more pragmatic to do so.

I can understand that since biological evolution accounts for how the brain is constructed that it might be useful in assessing how our thought works also. However it doesn't specifically work out questions such as what is moral, what is immoral.

Another analogy. If I am looking at hardware and software on a computer system, of course I need to look at the hardware to assess what software can run on it. In this case consider the hardware as being your brain, and the software as being the moral code you wish to run on it. Assessing the hardware can only tell me so much, but I have to examine the moral code to see how it actually works in human beings.

Which would imply that the humanities are best capable to assess morality?

I'm not saying that biological evolution can totally describe morality.
I'm saying (and this is my core point) that it can describe morality's origins.
Contrary to what some people no doubt believe we weren't just popped into existence complete with modern morality.
And we didn't evolve to a point where suddenly a switch was flipped and we then got the whole idea.
So morals must have developed gradually.

What we call moral acts can be seen in basic forms all over nature, so we can see that some (if not most) of these are built in and can develop biologically.
However cultural evolution, again as Malty pointed out also plays a large role.

The reason I think it's relevant to the debate is you are making the claim that morals originate from God. I am suggesting how they can exist and arise without magic.

Wicknight

Wicknight wrote: »

For example, why is it not immoral to burn a rock.

It depends on whose rock it is. :P

Zombrex

King Mob wrote: »

I'm not saying that biological evolution can totally describe morality.
I'm saying (and this is my core point) that it can describe morality's origins.
Contrary to what some people no doubt believe we weren't just popped into existence complete with modern morality.
And we didn't evolve to a point where suddenly a switch was flipped and we then got the whole idea.
So morals must have developed gradually.

Nail on the head.

Moral is a product of biology, a product of our evolved brain and instincts.

The specific details of morality (why in one country one finger is an insult and in other it is two) can of course be cultural, but that isn't the issue here. The issue is where does our moral systems come from, God or nature.

It certainly ain't God, or at least if it is it is a lot more confusing than if it is evolution. Claims that our morality only makes sense in light of religion are not only wrong they are in fact the total opposite of reality.

Turtwig

Wicknight wrote: »

Again pretty easily, snot contains bacteria and we have a strong instinct to see it as disgusting, particular if it is from another person. It is perfectly within ideas of evolutionary morality that we would consider it immoral to do things with snot that could potentially risk exposure to us.

But which culture is immoral, Japan or Europe? As I was actually referring to the present day.

Wicknight

Wicknight wrote: »

Nail on the head.

Moral is a product of biology, a product of our evolved brain and instincts.

The specific details of morality (why in one country one finger is an insult and in other it is two) can of course be cultural, but that isn't the issue here. The issue is where does our moral systems come from, God or nature.

Actually I'm more in the middle between you and Malty, leaning more to him.
I think cultural evolution plays a bigger part than what you are making it out to be.

Wicknight wrote: »

It certainly ain't God, or at least if it is it is a lot more confusing than if it is evolution. Claims that our morality only makes sense in light of religion are not only wrong they are in fact the total opposite of reality.

Well I think everyone on this thread can all agree on that.

Zombrex

Malty_T wrote: »

But which culture is immoral, Japan or Europe?

Immoral according to who?

What is or isn't moral will depend on the person making the decision. If in Japan they view it as immoral for a person to put his snot in his pocket then if someone does that in front of a Japanise man they will find it immoral because it disgusts them. That is an evolved emotional response. It isn't because God tells them they should be disgusted :P

philologos

King Mob wrote: »

The reason I think it's relevant to the debate is you are making the claim that morals originate from God. I am suggesting how they can exist and arise without magic.

Taking into account what you've said already.

We need to assume that the process of evolution, and other prerequisites could have occurred without God for us to take your position that morality could have also arisen without God seriously. If I can't logically do this, we hit a problem.

Personally, how I would see it is that we have the capability of having a conscience formed by biological evolution (under God's power) we also have the choice to allow our morality to be informed by God on a further level, or to reject it entirely.

This isn't an evolution or God question really to me, unless that is I regarded evolution and God to be a diachotomy as both Young Earth Creationists and secular evolutionists do.

"Magic" is a bit disingenuous. If one is a theist, one believes that God is central to reality, not foreign to it. His presence is expected rather than unexpected.

Zombrex

King Mob wrote: »

Actually I'm more in the middle between you and Malty, leaning more to him.
I think cultural evolution plays a bigger part than what you are making it out to be.

I think people are making a bigger deal as to my views of cultural norms than I actually hold

I'm a big subscriber in cultural norms and social evolution of cultural norms.

But the issue was not cultural norms vs emotional instinct. It was God vs nature as to the source of our morality, why we view things moral or immoral at all.

Taking the example of the snot. Why is spreading snot considered immoral? You can't explain that without evolved instinct to be disgusted by sources of bacteria.

The details of what exactly is or isn't considered moral isn't really the point, at least not the point of what I was discussing with raah and Jakkass, both of who are putting forward the idea that something like God is the source of our morality and that you can't explain morality in naturalistic terms.

Turtwig

Wicknight wrote: »

Taking the example of the snot. Why is spreading snot considered immoral? You can't explain that without evolved instinct to be disgusted by stuff

Fixed.

Zombrex

Malty_T wrote: »

Fixed.

"stuff"? That doesn't really fix anything.

Ever smelt poo? Nice isn't it, you just want to lap it up with your cornflakes. :pac:

Ever painted a room vomit colour and thought that is a really nice colour, it doesn't make we want to barf at all. :pac:

We have evolved instincts to be disgusted by things that are sources of bacteria, or simply things that remind us of things that are sources of bacteria. We of course have evolved instincts to be disgusted by other things for other reasons (two men kissing for example) but with snot it is related directly to the bacteria content in the snot.

robindch

Just one short observation:

Morality is a word which describes a top-down, authoritarian social construct which ascribes values to actions and social conditions or states of being and it's usually defined as unchangeable, or is held to be unchangeable, and is typically implemented by religions, or pseudo-religions.

Ethics is the bottom-up, crowd-sourced way of looking at the kind of value-related problems that "moral" questions deal with, but unlike the "moral" view, an "ethical" approach holds that discussion, agreement and mutability are important intrinsic properties.

In general terms, moral rules are built upon ethical rules which many of them superficially resemble, but with sufficient leeway built in (and generally, with the addition of a few random rules which have no basis in discussion, agreement or mutability) that the segment of society which puts forward the "moral" rules benefits by doing so.

At the moment, people are arguing ethical view points with the vocabulary of morality which is going to lead to confusion or a car crash sooner or later.

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

We need to assume that the process of evolution, and other prerequisites could have occurred without God for us to take your position that morality could have also arisen without God seriously. If I can't logically do this, we hit a problem.

I think we all agree that is a problem, but it is your problem rather than ours.

You can stop the conversation at any point by simply declaring you don't accept something. Given we have discussed this topic so many times I imagine most people would be at a loss to find some new way to explain evolution to you.

Turtwig

Wicknight wrote: »

"stuff"? That doesn't really fix anything.

Ever smelt poo? Nice isn't it, you just want to lap it up with your cornflakes. :pac:

Ever painted a room vomit colour and thought that is a really nice colour, it doesn't make we want to barf at all. :pac:

We have evolved instincts to be disgusted by things that are sources of bacteria, or simply things that remind us of things that are sources of bacteria.

Oh no, we get disgusted by many other things that are not bacteria related. Hydrogen Sulphide, cadaverine and methane are examples of stuff that automatically make the majority of humans disgusted. But that's not the full picture. The easiest example is spitting on your own food and eating it. Now that is considered by many to be disgusting, yet when eat our food it get's covered in our spit any ways! Also Eating with you mouth open is again considered disgusting. A lot of things considered disgusting are purely down to culture.

philologos

It's not just "declaring that I don't accept something". It's declaring that something is actually pretty unreasonable. There's a difference.

By the by, as you well know by now I subscribe to theistic evolution. What I don't subscribe to is the notion that this could all have occurred without God's existence.

Evolution vs God is an inaccurate version of what is actually the case within science. Only YEC's and the new atheist movement seem to employ this diachotomy.

Jakkass

Jakkass wrote: »

Taking into account what you've said already.

We need to assume that the process of evolution, and other prerequisites could have occurred without God for us to take your position that morality could have also arisen without God seriously. If I can't logically do this, we hit a problem.

Do we have to assume that it can happen without Vishnu too? And without Thor, Mighty Norse god of thunder? How about without faeries?

You see in science we don't have to make sure it's not magic, it's up to the person making the claim that God/Thor/Tinkerbell was involved.

So how do you know that God must have been involved?
What gap is he hiding in today?

Jakkass wrote: »

Personally, how I would see it is that we have the capability of having a conscience formed by biological evolution (under God's power) we also have the choice to allow our morality to be informed by God on a further level, or to reject it entirely.

So actually seeing moral behaviour and actions in animals not enough for you?
Cause last time you mentioned that you said it must be because God also gives morals to animals. Which would make your position rather unfalsifable.

Jakkass wrote: »

This isn't an evolution or God question really to me, unless that is I regarded evolution and God to be a diachotomy as both Young Earth Creationists and secular evolutionists do.

So do you believe it's possible for our moral to arise without the involvement of God or any other entity we can dream up?
If not, why?

Jakkass wrote: »

"Magic" is a bit disingenuous. If one is a theist, one believes that God is central to reality, not foreign to it. His presence is expected rather than unexpected.

Not really. Unless you've a solid idea of the exact mechanism by which God willed morality into his creation, it's pretty much the same as saying "magic!".

Wicknight

Wicknight wrote: »

I think people are making a bigger deal as to my views of cultural norms than I actually hold

I'm a big subscriber in cultural norms and social evolution of cultural norms.

But the issue was not cultural norms vs emotional instinct. It was God vs nature as to the source of our morality, why we view things moral or immoral at all.

Taking the example of the snot. Why is spreading snot considered immoral? You can't explain that without evolved instinct to be disgusted by sources of bacteria.

Well picture it this way:
Some of the crazier Muslims force their women to wear veils.
Now most of us here would not consider this moral.

But it does have a simple and reasonable underpinning (sort of).
In very simplistic terms to these people the threat of the woman being raped or assaulted is a viable one if she is left to display her body. So to them they are acting on the natural impulse "Protect the family unit".

Now you'll agree that "Protect the family unit" is a clearly moral idea with equally clear evolutionary advantages. But because of the culture in which this basic idea is implemented it becomes something not moral.

Wicknight wrote: »

The details of what exactly is or isn't considered moral isn't really the point, at least not the point of what I was discussing with raah and Jakkass, both of who are putting forward the idea that something like God is the source of our morality and that you can't explain morality in naturalistic terms.

Well we're in agreement there.
But how often do you get to argue with someone you agree with? :pac: