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I don't know. From my point of view, it seems that empathy-oriented morality tends to divide people into an in-group (worthy of empathy) and an out-group(not wo

I don't know. From my point of view, it seems that empathy-oriented morality tends to divide people into an in-group (worthy of empathy) and an out-group(not worthy). In a situation where there is a perceived conflict of interest between the worthy and the not worthy, this can become quite murderous. Within in-groups, though, empathy is very useful if not overdone. You can have too much, though. My wife is pretty much unable to rinse the wounds when the children hurt themself, because of the short term pain an antiseptic causes when applied. A rule based ethics can, at least in some cases, be more resilient to these issues. Of course, rule based ethics can be of the type "sodomites shall be stoned". And below all that: What values do we use when evaluating what ethical systems are better, and where do THOSE values come from?

the_af 8y ago
You have a point about rule based ethics. But none of this helps religion-based values in particular. Atheists can and do reason out of rules too; and both atheists and religious people make decisions out of empathy too. What you describe about in-groups and out-groups happens all the time with religious communities. Even people sharing the same religion suddenly become "unworthy". > And below all that: What values do we use when evaluating what ethical systems are better, and where do THOSE values come from? Precisely. If you don't believe in any gods, where do you suppose religious value systems come from? :)
- mercer 8y ago
  I think the 'atheist society' experiment is too young to jump to conclusions quite yet.
  - the_af 8y ago
    But religious society isn't young, and we can already observe how it failed to prevent theft and murder. More importantly, if you don't believe in any god, religious and secular value systems must at the very least have a common root (which isn't a god). How atheists behave can also be observed now, regardless of how young the "society": some commit crimes, some don't. Some follow strict value systems, some don't. Some are empathic, some aren't. Some are monsters, some are heroes. Some are flawed, common people. Just like religious people ;)
    - trashtester 8y ago
      People are never satisfied. Murder in particular has declined dramatically over the last centuries. There are some exceptions, though, such as Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany and Mao's China. They each killed many, many millions. All three thought they could create a utopia by turning traditional morality upside down. It is unlikely that the murder rate will ever reach absoulte 0 (unless we have an extremely totalitarian state, such as a chip operated into every individual to monitor their actions), but it is much better to have murder rates of below 10 per 100k than to have them in the 100s or 1000s per 100k, like we had through much of history.
      - the_af 8y ago
        Can you explain how your post relates to mine? I honestly cannot tell whether you agree, disagree, or merely said something about the same topic :)
        trashtester 8y ago
        It was a response to the first sentence. I happen to think that in many ways, the western world has actually moved in the right direction under christianity. You present the existence of theft and murder as a boolean yes/no situation. I think such argument are misleading. For these statistics, it only makes sense to present the RATES of theft and murder for each system. As an athetist myself, I'm very aware of the urge to try to construct an utopia from first principles by revolutionary means. But I happen to think that this is very, very dangerous. It can easily take murder rates to less than 10 per 100k to killing a significant percentage of the population, as seen many times during last century. It is not that I think that religion is very different from other cultural sources of value. I happen to consider relgion to actually BE part of culture. But just because the epistemology of religion is likely wrong, from a scientific point of view, I think the cultures that we live in, including much of a christian baggage has proved that it can sustain a fairly good society. As an analogy, linux is not perfect, but if random people start modifying code in the kernel more at less at random and without deep understanding, the stability is likely to suffer. Society is like the social operating system, and if it breaks down, everything breaks down. EDIT: If you didn't notice, the argument above is pretty much the argument for atheistic liberal-conservativism.
- trashtester 8y ago
  As an atheist, I'm not saying that religious values are somehow the ideal. Also, I'm not saying that religious values come from God or are somehow immutable. However, if we look at different societies, some work better than others. I think most people on HN live in societies that actually work quite well. To think that you can somehow reason your way to anything better, from first principles (which have to be values, not rules), is very optimistic, in my opinion. First of all, you have to be very certain that you have the correct first principles. (I think this is a much harder problem in itself than most people realize), but even if you do, creating a full ethical system that maximizes those values, is computationally impossible. To my knowledge, most attempts to introduce radical changes in this manner, has lead to societies that function worse, not better. I think this problem is very closely related to defining a utility function to a superhuman AI, that you can trust to lead to good outcomes.

the_af 8y ago

You have a point about rule based ethics. But none of this helps religion-based values in particular. Atheists can and do reason out of rules too; and both atheists and religious people make decisions out of empathy too. What you describe about in-groups and out-groups happens all the time with religious communities. Even people sharing the same religion suddenly become "unworthy". > And below all that: What values do we use when evaluating what ethical systems are better, and where do THOSE values come from? Precisely. If you don't believe in any gods, where do you suppose religious value systems come from? :)

mercer 8y ago
I think the 'atheist society' experiment is too young to jump to conclusions quite yet.
- the_af 8y ago
  But religious society isn't young, and we can already observe how it failed to prevent theft and murder. More importantly, if you don't believe in any god, religious and secular value systems must at the very least have a common root (which isn't a god). How atheists behave can also be observed now, regardless of how young the "society": some commit crimes, some don't. Some follow strict value systems, some don't. Some are empathic, some aren't. Some are monsters, some are heroes. Some are flawed, common people. Just like religious people ;)
  - trashtester 8y ago
    People are never satisfied. Murder in particular has declined dramatically over the last centuries. There are some exceptions, though, such as Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany and Mao's China. They each killed many, many millions. All three thought they could create a utopia by turning traditional morality upside down. It is unlikely that the murder rate will ever reach absoulte 0 (unless we have an extremely totalitarian state, such as a chip operated into every individual to monitor their actions), but it is much better to have murder rates of below 10 per 100k than to have them in the 100s or 1000s per 100k, like we had through much of history.
    - the_af 8y ago
      Can you explain how your post relates to mine? I honestly cannot tell whether you agree, disagree, or merely said something about the same topic :)
      - trashtester 8y ago
        It was a response to the first sentence. I happen to think that in many ways, the western world has actually moved in the right direction under christianity. You present the existence of theft and murder as a boolean yes/no situation. I think such argument are misleading. For these statistics, it only makes sense to present the RATES of theft and murder for each system. As an athetist myself, I'm very aware of the urge to try to construct an utopia from first principles by revolutionary means. But I happen to think that this is very, very dangerous. It can easily take murder rates to less than 10 per 100k to killing a significant percentage of the population, as seen many times during last century. It is not that I think that religion is very different from other cultural sources of value. I happen to consider relgion to actually BE part of culture. But just because the epistemology of religion is likely wrong, from a scientific point of view, I think the cultures that we live in, including much of a christian baggage has proved that it can sustain a fairly good society. As an analogy, linux is not perfect, but if random people start modifying code in the kernel more at less at random and without deep understanding, the stability is likely to suffer. Society is like the social operating system, and if it breaks down, everything breaks down. EDIT: If you didn't notice, the argument above is pretty much the argument for atheistic liberal-conservativism.
trashtester 8y ago
As an atheist, I'm not saying that religious values are somehow the ideal. Also, I'm not saying that religious values come from God or are somehow immutable. However, if we look at different societies, some work better than others. I think most people on HN live in societies that actually work quite well. To think that you can somehow reason your way to anything better, from first principles (which have to be values, not rules), is very optimistic, in my opinion. First of all, you have to be very certain that you have the correct first principles. (I think this is a much harder problem in itself than most people realize), but even if you do, creating a full ethical system that maximizes those values, is computationally impossible. To my knowledge, most attempts to introduce radical changes in this manner, has lead to societies that function worse, not better. I think this problem is very closely related to defining a utility function to a superhuman AI, that you can trust to lead to good outcomes.