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>"Morals can be created and defined to help humans [X]" No one is foolish enough to deny that human societies can employ ethical codes and that doing so can he
by keane 10y ago
>"Morals can be created and defined to help humans [X]"
No one is foolish enough to deny that human societies can employ ethical codes and that doing so can help a society survive or thrive. But what is debated is if there exists Objective standards (or not) and from that, what that means for us. Drawing from an earlier comment addressing this, while both humans and animals may practice empathy, cooperation, or other behaviors that help them as individuals or groups to survive or thrive, this falls short of 'morality'.
Morality is positions about what one should do: eg "one should not murder humans for sport". Hume's observation of the Is-Ought problem shows us that we cannot reason "humans practice X therefore humans should practice X" as we similarly cannot reason "humans believe X therefore X is objectively the case".
Saying that animals or humans practice empathy is merely observing something they do, the "Is". We can't say "humans sometimes practice empathy therefore humans should practice empathy" like we can't say "humans sometimes practice violence therefore humans should practice violence".
You could add a condition, such as "If humans do not want to be put in jail by society, then they should not murder (or at least get caught having murdered)". But this is known as Hypothetical Morality, and with dependence on the conditions it becomes merely advice about cause and effect and is to be ignored by those who don't find the conditions compelling.
- 0134340 10y agoYou seem to reason that only theism holds a monopoly on morality in that it links to a higher order but atheism just as well can be linked to a moral higher order. I get what you're saying, I've been there also but I also realized the error of my ways. I'll give my own link as well that vaguely covers this. I will admit I'm not very well versed in theology, but not for lack of interest but I've never come across any argument that could successfully refute atheism's moral or philosophical validity. 0134340.blogspot.com/2016/05/machiavellian-musings.html
- keane 10y agoMaybe, but if an Atheist is to propose/claim an Objective "moral higher order" they do so with an acceptance of a standard just as outside of Empiricism as the Theist's.
- Artistry121 10y agoOr they could create a testable hypothesis like "acting in this way increases the sickness of those in this world" and test if an action moves in that direction. It would be objective based on the available data. And yes - the main difference being a thiest position posits the existence of something else (that could be moral (Allah/David's God) or immoral (David's God) or amoral (Vishnu/Z eus)) as part of its model outside of empiricism beyond morality.
- icebraining 10y agoHow was "the sickness of those in this world" chosen as something to avoid, though? You are talking about the means, but the problem are the goals.
- redial 10y agoEmpirically.
- icebraining 10y agoHow can you find a goal (not a subgoal, as in "to achieve X we must do Y", but a top goal) empirically?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- redial 10y agoWhat is a top goal? Every goal is followed by things to do to achieve it.
- icebraining 10y agoA goal which isn't chosen to achieve some higher-level goal. Taking a sports analogy, you can have the goal of winning a game, so that you get nearer the goal of winning the championship. "Winning the game" is a subgoal. A top goal would be something that doesn't have an ulterior goal justifying it, you want to achieve it for itself.
- joslin01 10y agoYou might be interested in A Course in Miracles.