NotConvinced

You say it's a front yet you say they do it for reinforcement. If they get this reinforcement, how is it a front if they ARE Being Reinforced? Looks like it's working to some extent. Your examples of people involved in religion making bad/questionable decisions simply say what? That people can act immorally regardless of their faith....but this is obvious, we knew that already.

If A = Christian's morality without religion.
B = What Christians gain from religion.
and C = Your morality without religion.

If the (average) Christian and you both have the roughly the same morality in the end, what should it matter. A + B = C.

If there is no God, but someone is able to better themselves on their own by believing in God anyway, they are still putting forth the effort to become more moral. How does this make them weak? I believe it simply makes them unenlightened, which in the end doesn't amount to all that much. If 2 people take a test, and one just has to study 10 more hours for it then the other guy does, and both make a 94, their output is equal, therefore they themselves are equal with respect to the test.

googaddict

I will give you an example of what I mean when I say front.
Have you ever seen a business card with a cross on it? I have seen many of them down here in the south. Is this supposed to mean that I should trust you more and use your services because you are a Christian?
I do not agree with the presumption that people of faith have higher moral standards. I do not need to use a religion as a front to showcase myself as a good or better person.
Actions speak louder than words.

Skepticologist

Agreed. As I said, I haven't yet thought it through completely. Maybe such deliberations as this will help me to do so.

I come back to my original idea about morality being equated with what's in the best interest of the human species. If my wife asks me whether she looks good before we go out to dinner, it probably has no impact on the good of the species if I answer "yes", even though I've seen her look better. It may in fact be helpful in perpetuating our successful and fulfilling relationship.

If, on the other hand, I tell a lie in the sole interest of protecting or aggrandizing myself, and doing so causes harm to someone else, it's likely not in the best interest of the species unless protecting and perpetuating my image allows me to bring about positive results for the species in the future. In reality, however, it's unlikely that someone whose lies cause harm to another human being has the best interests of the species as a whole at heart in the first place.

That seems to be a matter of degree. We can all probably agree that a 3-year-old shouldn't be "legal" in terms of anything he or she wants to do being considered OK by society. On the other hand, I believe it's blatantly inconsistent to have a law that a person has to be 21 years of age before they're "legal" in terms of deciding to have an alcoholic drink, but they only have to be 18 in order to serve in a combat zone without parental consent.

Again, I'd need to think through the idea much more thoroughly in order to provide a substantive answer. But I'd like to consider it further because I haven't yet seen a definition of morality that completely makes sense to me. And I've got to believe that a moral code based on perpetuation of the species would be much more relevant than some of the antiquated codes embraced by various religions.

As an example, the dietary laws in the old testament made sense when they were developed because, without modern refrigeration and preservatives, eating the wrong food led to sickness and death. But today, the negative consequences to the species they sought to avoid are irrelevant.

A moral code based on the perpetuation of the species would take into account technological and other advances in knowledge and apply them so that they're relevant today.

I think that's what I just argued above. In order to be relevant, any moral code would necessarily have to be based on conditions as they exist in the present, which would also necessarily be different from conditions as they existed a couple of thousand years ago.

__________________
"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

NotConvinced

True but in the end what you're saying then is "some Christians do this." But it gets us nowhere cuz you can always say "some of that group does this." Regardless of how illogical or irrational it may be the statement really doesn't point to a conclusion. Maybe the cross on the business card is just a way to inadvertantly bring the topic of God into business related conversation. Maybe I could put a miniature football on my business cards, so when they ask me "hey what's up with the football?" I could be like, "yeah, I really like football."

NotConvinced

So you're saying lying could be deemed morally good, morally bad, or morally neutral, based on the circumstance at hand. And you're saying we each have a basic drive within us hinting to us what is moral and immoral based on species perpetuation?

Well, since you're not really suggesting that we use this model self-consciously to formulate our moral actions around, I think it's simply a toss up as to whether the idea correlates with reality. If it were a scientific theory, how would you go about disproving it? With specific examples? Or could you just say that everyone has a different level of PSSD (Perpetuating Species Survial Drive) in them, and that some people don't have it at all, thus that specific example doesn't disprove the theory?

I'd just about argue that it's beyond a species argument. I could devise a circumstance where a human might have to wipe out his own race in favor of a more intelligent, peaceful, better in every way race of Martians. Deep down the human would most likely consider the action as more moral.

I'd consider such a theory as one of many factors in the overall relative morality of man.

shaun

1 is always 1. 3 is always 3. The existence of something does not change based upon our perception of it. ie, 1 is always 1, no matter even if I say "1 is 1 for you, but for me 1 is 2". I'm just flat wrong, and 1 is 1.

But, you CANNOT be right about saying that "baby killing is wrong" when your philosophy necessarily entails that ALL actions are morally indifferent, and no society's "perfect island" is better or worse than anyone else's. You are stating that moral relativity is basically personal opinion ("relative to individual views"), and therefore cannot intellectually say that killing babies is always wrong. NO action is morally wrong, everything is indifferent; everyone and every society has their chair, and all the chairs are of the same quality.

And herein you STILL are acting upon an OBJECTIVE standard by claiming that the majority view is somehow "better" than the minority view - an argumentum ad populum fallacy, as well as the fact that to even SAY that the majority view is any better, you're making a basic assumption that when 10 people hold a view, it is _necessarily_ better than when one person does - otherwise the majority would have no basis by which to judge the minority.

Just in this last quoted paragraph, you've made a few assumptions:
1) That adhering to the social standard of morality is "better" than not adhering (which is an objective moral judgment, not a relative one)
2) That a majority viewpoint is better (in the sense of should-be-followed rather than tastes) than a minority viewpoint
3) That each is entitled to their own personal morality, which contradicts assumptions 1 & 2

The same time - although it doesn't matter; if you argue the older one is invalid, you're making a logical argumentum ad antiquitatem fallacy, by stating that just because something is older necessarily means it is invalid.

And you CANNOT compare society #1 to society #2 WITHOUT some higher objective moral standard - which requires objective morality, NOT relativism! This is the point I have been trying to make; moral relativism fails because there is no objective standard by which to logically compare two moral viewpoints to. If you say, well I use "my" moral standard, who is to say that your moral standard is better than anyone else's?


Argumentum ad popularum fallacy again - just because it is accepted by the majority does not make it RIGHT. And, this doesn't really defend relativism at all; rather just oppression.

If the US acted on relativistic viewpoints, it would have to state that my family's moral viewpoint is EQUAL to its own, and therefore respect it. For example, take the Mormon view of having multiple wives. The US - acting on its moral viewpoint that polygamy was wrong - viewed that THEIR moral judgement of polygamy was BETTER than Mormons, and forced them to end that practice. You can say that the US did so for political or whatever reasons, but the core issue is that if relativism is true, then the US had NO RIGHT to force a society to change their practice.

The US could do so ONLY because they held a firm belief that polygamy was ALWAYS WRONG. (Substitute baby killing for polygamy if you don't have objections to polygamy, and you'll get what I mean). Otherwise, what happened was simply oppression without a moral basis - the US forced another society to live in its own standards - which is against the VERY CORE of what relativism espouses: that all moralities are equal. Well, NO ONE or no society acts like that!


It's not going to _stop_ it, but what I'm trying to say is that the VERY IDEA of injustice necessarily ASSUMES that something is _always wrong_ no matter the context. I believe that starving people for no reason is ALWAYS wrong in EVERY CONTEXT - a view I simply CANNOT hold with relativism.

I'm not trying to prove absolute morality to you - I can't "100% prove" anything - but I am trying to show you that relativism is not worth following because that's simply NOT how we live our lives. You _cannot_ accept something mentally and not live it out: that's called hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty.

I've explained this above, but I'll summarize.

1. If morality is relative, than all moral points of view are equal, and no action is ultimately morally wrong. (this is logically necessary – if some moral points of view are really SUPERIOR to others, they can only be superior measured against some OBJECTIVE standard)
2. There ARE behaviors which are morally wrong. (like baby-killing)
3. Therefore, morality is not relative, but objective.


But perception does not necessarily lead to morality. To say so is a logical fallacy. You have not shown that because someone percieves something as good that it necessarily is always good - to simply say that it does is a petitio principii fallacy, because you are using the assumption to determine your answer which is the assumption.

But you're STILL making objective judgements! And there are flaws to this argument:
1) Just because a society has a moral standard I necessarily have an obligation to follow it (not true)
2) What if what I believe morally is contradictory to the society's moral views? Who's morals are better? If you say neither, then you CANNOT say I have a moral obligation to follow the society's views, because again that rests on an OBJECTIVE STANDARD that the society's views are better than mine to act upon!

Is that always good?

shaun

Assumptions not proven in this statement:
1) Religion is always used for personal, external, worldly benefit (non sequitur fallacy)
2) That religion is a front for something
3) That people are not sincere about religious activity (argumentum ad hominem)

About as many as people not of faith.

Actually, the Hebrew is "shall not murder", which means to kill without just reason.

Argumentum ad verecundiam. Just because some people who say they represent a belief system do not necessarily represent that system.

I agree.

You are making a lot of unfounded assumptions that are quite judgmental. Do "strong" people judge and condemn others a lot?

You do? How are you defining what is "wrong" and what is "right"?

Vinterland

Moral relativism is true unless objective morals can be proved to exist. There may be absolute morals, but we will never know what they are because we are looking at it through our subjective lenses.

__________________
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.”

googaddict

Shaun, I happen to accept most of the laws that we abide by in the society in which I live, here in the United States. I agree with what defines a good citizen and I use this to define "right" from "wrong".

Requiem

There cannot be "absolute" morals, if your definition of "absolute" is meant to mean that the said "absolute" morals are stand-alone principles unaffected by current society, because, take this example for instance. Thousands of years ago, people sacrificed animals and even people to "gods". Even 300 years ago in our own country, the Salem Witch Trials were sweeping through Massachusetts, when it was considered morally acceptable to burn people at the stake, or to drown them, or to crush them under stone, under the suspicion that they might be witches.

The point is that morals are relative, not absolute, no matter what "lens" you look at them through, subjective or not. Not to mention is there another way to look at morals but subjectively? How could you, I suspect the other way being to look at them objectively? Morals are not physical things but ideas and concepts invented by rational sentient life, human beings, though the argument of what sentient life is is vast, but there is another thread for that.

__________________
"He who has a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
- Sir Winston Churchill