A less selfish Pascal's wager

[notself]

This is a follow up to my previous post and goes into the moral code of Buddhism which is also found in various forms in the other great atheistic moral philosophies.
The five precepts are as follows:
I will undertake to refrain from killing any sentient being.
I will undertake to refrain from taking what is not freely given.
I will undertake to refrain from wrong speech.
I will undertake to refrain from sexual misconduct.
I will undertake to refrain from intoxicants which lead to heedlessness.

In addition there are teachings on virtue and the reasons for virtue.  Here is a link to a sutta that is quite short but too long to post here.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Here is a link to the Dhammapada one of the most beloved books in the canon and some snips from it.
5. Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.
25. By effort and heedfulness, discipline and self-mastery, let the wise one make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.
50. Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one's own acts, done and undone.
55. Of all the fragrances â€" sandal, tagara, blue lotus and jasmine â€" the fragrance of virtue is the sweetest.
80. Irrigators regulate the rivers; fletchers straighten the arrow shaft; carpenters shape the wood; the wise control themselves.
110. Better it is to live one day virtuous and meditative than to live a hundred years immoral and uncontrolled.

There is much more but I think you get the idea.  One is virtuous because it leads to peace and contentment.

[Jac3510]

notself,

If you want to start another thread on Buddhism and morality, I'll be more than happy to pursue the discussion with you there. To do that in this thread would take it further off topic than it has already been taken. Nothing you said, though, has anything to do with objective moral foundations.

[notself]

notself,

If you want to start another thread on Buddhism and morality, I'll be more than happy to pursue the discussion with you there. To do that in this thread would take it further off topic than it has already been taken. Nothing you said, though, has anything to do with objective moral foundations.

I was responding to your statement that atheism does not have a moral foundation from which to act.  I am not interested in discussing Buddhism per se.  However, if you are interested, here is an index by subject matter.  http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index-subject.html

Please give an example of an objective moral foundation.  It is my understanding that Christians look to a god for moral guidance.  Since the concept of god is not provable but rather based on faith, the moral ground for Christianity does not meet the definition of objective:
1. Of or having to do with a material object.
2. Having actual existence or reality.
3.
a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic. See Synonyms at fair1.
b. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

[Jac3510]

Mods - if you think this needs to be split off into its own thread, please feel free to do so.

notself,

If you want to start another thread on Buddhism and morality, I'll be more than happy to pursue the discussion with you there. To do that in this thread would take it further off topic than it has already been taken. Nothing you said, though, has anything to do with objective moral foundations.

I was responding to your statement that atheism does not have a moral foundation from which to act.  I am not interested in discussing Buddhism per se.  However, if you are interested, here is an index by subject matter.  http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index-subject.html

Please give an example of an objective moral foundation.  It is my understanding that Christians look to a god for moral guidance.  Since the concept of god is not provable but rather based on faith, the moral ground for Christianity does not meet the definition of objective:
1. Of or having to do with a material object.
2. Having actual existence or reality.
3.
a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic. See Synonyms at fair1.
b. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

Christians don't look to God for moral guidance anymore than they look to God for the answer to math questions--not, anyway, if morality is objective. I'll leave aside for now the question of whether or not God is provable as it has nothing to do with our discussion.

The word "objective" in the philosophical sense stands opposed to "subjective." Something is subjective if it is rooted in personal experience, views, ideas, etc. Thus, all opinion, by definition, is purely subjective. My weight is not subjective. It is an objective fact, being rooted in something other than my own ideas, experiences, beliefs, etc.

Let's say a Christian and atheist both say "Raping children is wrong." The question is, "What do you mean by wrong?" If it is an objective statement, you are saying, "'Wrongness' is a concept that is inherent in the essence of the act of raping children and thus is true regardless of whether or not anyone recognizes it." If it is subjective, however, you are saying, "'Wrongness' is a concept that is predicated to the act of raping children in the sense that it violates my values." In other words, if when you say that raping children is wrong, you are only speaking of that which violates your own value system, the statement is inherently subjective, not objective. Even if you extend your basis to society's value system, the statement is still subjective, because 'wrongness' is not predicated directly to the essence of the thing itself.

Put still differently, from an analytical perspective, "wrongness" can be analyzed from the very concept/essence of rape only if the term is objective; if it is subjective, the wrongness is predicated to it via a moral agent and is thus not inherent in the thing itself.

Now, suppose that you say that X is wrong and I say that it is right or perhaps just neutral. The only way for one of us to be incorrect about the statement is if morality is objective. If it is subjective, then neither of us are right or wrong. We are simply expressing our opinions. Now, this is the important point: just because we agree on a moral statement does not make that statement objective. You and I may both agree that vanilla ice cream is the best flavor, but that does not mean that "best flavor" is inherent in the concept of vanilla. It just means that you and I have the same opinion!

When a Christian says that morality is objective, he is saying that certain things really are right and wrong whether or not anyone--including himself--agrees or disagrees. What can we root this statement in, though? It cannot be rooted in our opinion of it, because that would just make it subjective. The same is true for societal opinion. We can't root it in our values, because our values are subjective. If we say, for instance, that rape is wrong because it harms the species, we are assuming the value of the good of the species. Again, you and I may agree on that value, but agreeing on a value doesn't make something objective.

Throughout history, there have been three roots proposed for objective morality: God's Command, Morality itself, and God's nature. The first two are the illustrated by Socrates' Euthyphro Dilemma. If something is right or wrong because God commands it, then rightness or wrongness, though objective, would be arbitrary in God's mind. We would seem to be able to challenge God's view of morality, which would make for all the difficult discussions about God and morality that we have on boards like this. On the other hand, if something is right or wrong and God simply recognizes it, and thus commands or forbids it, that seems to explain how it is that we feel we can hold God accountable to moral standards, but the problem then is that God Himself is subject to moral laws, and the question of the root of this objectivity is still in question. The best answer is that morality is rooted not in God's command nor anything outside of Him that He recognizes, but rather, it is rooted in His very nature. God forbids murder because it is inconsistent with His nature, etc.

What this means is that morality is rooted in something outside of human nature. It is something that we recognize and live with as much as we recognize and live with any other part of reality. Morality is objective in this view.

IN CONCLUSION

I'm not arguing in this thread that God exists and that morality actually is objective. What I am arguing is that, from a strictly logical perspective, if you remove God from the equation, there is no possible grounding for morality outside of the human experience, which makes morality strictly subjective and a matter of mere opinion, be that personal or societal. This is not a controversial statement among philosophers, Christian or not. On the contrary, this has been the entire mission of ethics sense the Enlightenment -- to build a moral system out of the subjective human experience, and for this reason, consequentialism is almost always the starting point (though the virtues have started making a come back in recent years).

I've been entirely too long in this post, but I hope you see what philosophers mean when they talk about objective morality. Things like the Golden Rule, which most people agree on, is not objective in and of itself. It is only objective if it is true even though people do disagree with it. The only way for that to be the case is if we invoke a God in whose nature (or command) we can root morality. Again, I cannot emphasize enough to you how non-controversial this is. It is almost tautological. If morality is rooted in the human experience, it is subjective. There's just no way to have a morality not rooted in human experience (that is, an objective morality) without invoking God, for no other reason that the very being in which morality is rooted becomes the very definition of what we call God, in one sense or another.

[notself]

Thank you for your explanation.  

You say that morality must be rooted in a god to be objective.  However, to those of us who think god is a human idea, objective morality does not exist.

[Jac3510]

Thank you for your explanation.  

You say that morality must be rooted in a god to be objective.  However, to those of us who think god is a human idea, objective morality does not exist.

Not to be nitpicky, but your belief or not in God has no bearing on whether or not objective morality exists. If objective morality exists, then it is a logical consequence that God must exist, regardless of your opinion.

What you probably mean here is that for those of you who don't believe in God, you simply don't believe in objective morality. And, of course, I would agree. You are forced to define morality in strictly subjective terms (anti-realism; as opposed to moral realism). But that's been my entire point in this entire thread. The Christian argument is NOT that atheists cannot be moral. Since we believe that morality really is objective, we think that you CAN be moral. When you recognize that slavery is wrong, you are recognizing not just your own preference, but the way reality actually is. You are recognizing that it really is wrong to enslave people! Our point is that you have no objective basis for claiming that slavery is wrong. You have plenty of subjective basis. You have plenty of personal and societal values that you can recognize that slavery conflicts with. But you have no objective foundations for the claim.

THAT is the argument that theists ought to be using. The question then can move on to whether or not morality really is objective or not. That's an honest question that is open for discussion. It is the root of the moral argument for God's existence as proposed by Lewis, Frame, Craig, Moreland, Aquinas, Plantinga, and a host of others. Christians ought NOT be saying that atheists cannot be moral. That's just stupid and plain unbiblical.

[Davin]

I find the concept of objective morality coming from a god very difficult to accept for a few reasons.

If god is a sentient being and says what is good and what is bad, that's subjective morality.

God doesn't tell people what is good and bad, people say what god says is good and bad, so it's still subjective.

[Jac3510]

I find the concept of objective morality coming from a god very difficult to accept for a few reasons.

If god is a sentient being and says what is good and what is bad, that's subjective morality.

God doesn't tell people what is good and bad, people say what god says is good and bad, so it's still subjective.

In your view, morality would be subjective from God's point of view, but not from ours. Theoretically, He could have made the world a million different ways. A foot could have been another length. I could have weighed something else (or nothing at all). That God chose to make the world this way rather than that was His subjective choice. That doesn't change the fact that this reality,for us, is still objective.

But more to the point, most (not all, but definitely most) Christian theologians and philosophers root morality NOT in God's command, but in His nature. He commands and forbids according to what He already is. Thus, morality is just as objective as His own existence. In fact, if you want to press this further and get into the issues of the nature of being and how it relates to morality and ultimately to divine simplicity, we can show that God's existence and His morality are exactly the same thing (I know that sounds odd - feel free to do some quick Googling on divine simplicity. Full disclosure: simplicity is the basis of classical theism as most fully articulated by Thomas Aquinas; it is deeply unpopular among theologians today for reasons I won't get into here, unless asked).

Anyway, you are right that God does not tell people what is right or wrong. It is a part of the very fabric of reality. We discover it, just like we discover things like height, width, and weight. There is a sense in which morality is subjective. When I say, "I think abortion is wrong," I am saying something about what I personally believe. That is a subjective statement. I am also, however, saying that I believe something is true about something else, which refers to an objective reality.

Of course, if there's no God, then I only think I'm referring to an objective reality. In real reality, the objective morality I am referring to does not exist, so I am referring to nothing. I only think I am making an objective statement when, in fact, my statement is purely subjective. So that is the nature of the debate. Is morality objective or not? If yes, God exists. If not . . . well . . . at least the Christian God doesn't exist.

[notself]

Yes, Pascal's wager does not specify whether the belief in god should be in the Christian god.  So one could believe in another god, Durga for example, and be covered by the wager.

[Thumpalumpacus]

notself,

If you want to start another thread on Buddhism and morality, I'll be more than happy to pursue the discussion with you there. To do that in this thread would take it further off topic than it has already been taken. Nothing you said, though, has anything to do with objective moral foundations.

That's because morality is inherently subjective, given the unevidenced assertion of an after-life punishment.  Even with that, it is still subjective: Hell is populated, in your theology, with people judged by your god.

[Tank]

And philosoraptor, the standard argument is not that atheists cannot be moral.

Actually, yes it is.  Myself (and I'm sure others here) get it from a lot of so-called Christians (and sometimes people of other faiths).  But then again, it's not as if that many Christians are all that familiar with the Bible to know what it says about morality-they just assume those without a belief in God couldn't possibly have a system of morals.  I think you'd be surprised how many atheists have more knowledge of the Bible than your average Christian.  Either way, it's still a very common assumption that atheists can't be moral because they don't believe in God.

No, it isn't. It may be the popular argument you keep getting, but just because a lot of people repeat it doesn't make it the standard. The standard is that which as been established by the philosophical community. Given its popularity in the literature, both professional and popular, there is no excuse for anyone not to be familiar with it who has claimed to study the issue at all.

Further, I think you shouldn't assume what I would or would not be surprised by. It seems to me that rather than focusing on what uneducated (well intentioned or not) Christians argue, you should focus on the strongest form of the position as it is properly advocated. In other words, the standard argument, at minimum.

Jac

What you say above is probably right based on the fact that a lot of other stuff you have written has also bee reasoned and well thought out and accurate. However I think that there can be both an academically correct answer and a popularist wrong answer. And this is what we see on theist and atheist forums alike. The popularist majority view expressed by the majority of theists that post on forums (note the audience caveat as my majority experience of theists is on forums) is that atheists can not be moral. Unfortunately they who shout loudest and longest are often those that get listened to. So in a very pragmatic sense in a day-to-day environment it would appear to me that the view of most theists is that atheists can not be truly moral.

Chris

[Davin]

I find the concept of objective morality coming from a god very difficult to accept for a few reasons.

If god is a sentient being and says what is good and what is bad, that's subjective morality.

God doesn't tell people what is good and bad, people say what god says is good and bad, so it's still subjective.

In your view, morality would be subjective from God's point of view, but not from ours. Theoretically, He could have made the world a million different ways. A foot could have been another length. I could have weighed something else (or nothing at all). That God chose to make the world this way rather than that was His subjective choice. That doesn't change the fact that this reality,for us, is still objective.

A foot or a meter or any measurement was created by man. What we decide to use to measure something has no objective purpose, it's merely used to describe things to other people using a standard that the other person agrees on. It doesn't take a god creating things differently, just the people that created and use the measurement to change how they measure it. The thing being measured is objective, the measurement is subjective.

But more to the point, most (not all, but definitely most) Christian theologians and philosophers root morality NOT in God's command, but in His nature. He commands and forbids according to what He already is. Thus, morality is just as objective as His own existence. In fact, if you want to press this further and get into the issues of the nature of being and how it relates to morality and ultimately to divine simplicity, we can show that God's existence and His morality are exactly the same thing (I know that sounds odd - feel free to do some quick Googling on divine simplicity. Full disclosure: simplicity is the basis of classical theism as most fully articulated by Thomas Aquinas; it is deeply unpopular among theologians today for reasons I won't get into here, unless asked).

I'm not sure what you're saying here. It looks as if you're saying that this god has no sentience over morality which makes attributing it to the god meaningless because it's beyond the gods control, or that god is in control over it which would make it subjective.

Anyway, you are right that God does not tell people what is right or wrong. It is a part of the very fabric of reality. We discover it, just like we discover things like height, width, and weight. There is a sense in which morality is subjective. When I say, "I think abortion is wrong," I am saying something about what I personally believe. That is a subjective statement. I am also, however, saying that I believe something is true about something else, which refers to an objective reality.

What evidence is there for objective morality that we can discover? So far morality, even those morals derived from people of the same religion, are far from consistent which shows that the evidence is against objective morality.

Of course, if there's no God, then I only think I'm referring to an objective reality. In real reality, the objective morality I am referring to does not exist, so I am referring to nothing. I only think I am making an objective statement when, in fact, my statement is purely subjective. So that is the nature of the debate. Is morality objective or not? If yes, God exists. If not . . . well . . . at least the Christian God doesn't exist.

I think that objective morality would be independent of a god existing, because if it was truly objective, then no sentient being (god included) would have a say over it. So if objective morality exists, then no god is dependent on it (or it dependent on a god), for it to be true.

[Davin]

No, it isn't. It may be the popular argument you keep getting, but just because a lot of people repeat it doesn't make it the standard. The standard is that which as been established by the philosophical community. Given its popularity in the literature, both professional and popular, there is no excuse for anyone not to be familiar with it who has claimed to study the issue at all.

Further, I think you shouldn't assume what I would or would not be surprised by. It seems to me that rather than focusing on what uneducated (well intentioned or not) Christians argue, you should focus on the strongest form of the position as it is properly advocated. In other words, the standard argument, at minimum.

As a programmer, I understand the difference between what is popular and what is the standard. There are many programming standards, however so few people actually follow them. I'm not just talking about the way the code is structured but what the code does. There is no browser that is fully standards compliant while there are several browsers. Websites would certainly get created faster, work better, load faster and be easier to fix if all browsers followed the standards. However because of the popularity of the browsers, arguing that there is a standard is meaningless because I still have to deal with the popularity. And don't even get me started on desktop programming for Windows, Microsoft doesn't even follow their own standards.

[Kylyssa]

I noticed you never answered my question from before. Have you not ever corrected a religious person on what their own book teaches? Why would you do that if it isn't your job at all?

Survival.  I'd like to live unmolested by Christians without having to hide who I am.  

I have been beaten and abused by Christians who believed this stupid concept.  Anyone willing to kick me in the face for being an atheist isn't going to listen to my statements about theologians they've never heard of.  Anyone scratching "Die Atheist Cunt!" into my car or firing people for being Pagans (a couple of friends) or agnostics (a dear friend) isn't going to hear anything I say about the Bible.  They aren't going to hear anything I say about respected theologians either.  


This is all so fucking cerebral for you.  It isn't for some of us who live in areas full of Christians of the sort that would find out you were atheist and then call protective services because you don't take your kid to church or they might vandalize your car or home or get you fired from your job.  In one gory case, Christians killed and mutilated a child's pet goat when his mother was outed as atheist.  You honestly think those villagers with pitchforks are going to care what comes out of our mouths?  They wouldn't even listen to you and, as a Christian, they consider you to be human.

When I slipped once and said something at work about a science news piece about 50,000 year old dog DNA found in South America people were still of the impression that I was a Christian (hey, atheists have to eat, too, and we don't like being abused or vandalized, either) but I was permanently snubbed for talking about "evolution years" at work.  When I tried to talk my way out of it by explaining that the Bible doesn't say the earth is 6,000 years old they just got more upset with me.  I suggested they ask their husbands, both studying theology at Calvin College.  Who would they trust more than their husbands?

I've only given a very, very few examples of how our encounters with Christians aware of us not being Christians have gone down badly.

I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, home of no fewer than 11 Bible Colleges and half the people I talk to still don't even know who CS Lewis is or even bloody freaking heard of Zondervan and Zondervan publishing is right here in Grand Rapids and it's huge.  Half the contemporary Christian theologians I've heard of work or have worked at or with Zondervan because it's in our bloody newspaper.  Christian book stores are more common than secular book stores here.  They outnumber them at least three to one, not counting college bookstores for the Bible colleges in the area.  I'm three blocks from the nearest Christian bookstore and six blocks from that one is another and up the street about half a mile is another.  I've been in many of them and behind the latest pop Christian publication and the loads of trinkets are a few shelves of Christian theology books.  If anyone ought to know about Christian theology, it ought to be the people who live here.  But, for the most part, they don't.

I write on several webpages.  I write about what I believe as an atheist and I answer common questions about being an atheist.  I get approximately one Christian death threat per month.  They are usually pretty generic but sometimes they are creepy enough that I report them to the FBI.  I get between three and seven threats of violence (not including the death threat) or weird threats regarding those pages per month.  I get between ten and thirty messages each month telling me I'm a bad person and that I'm going to hell.  The most vicious Christian threats come in regard to the pages which mention Christianity as a cause of teen homelessness in America.  

I'm rambling and yes, I'm very irritated.  I'm irritated because you are suggesting we play games of semantics rather than providing education.  Meanwhile, people are still getting hurt.  "Look, I'm human, too" is more valuable than "look at what I'm saying these experts you don't know say about your religion."

[Jac3510]

Jac

What you say above is probably right based on the fact that a lot of other stuff you have written has also bee reasoned and well thought out and accurate. However I think that there can be both an academically correct answer and a popularist wrong answer. And this is what we see on theist and atheist forums alike. The popularist majority view expressed by the majority of theists that post on forums (note the audience caveat as my majority experience of theists is on forums) is that atheists can not be moral. Unfortunately they who shout loudest and longest are often those that get listened to. So in a very pragmatic sense in a day-to-day environment it would appear to me that the view of most theists is that atheists can not be truly moral.

Chris

This is all very true. I think I started off on the wrong foot by making too strong of a distinction between academic standards and popular rhetoric. Davin is correct in his programming analogy, in that nothing is ever purely standard.

The only point I am trying to make is exceedingly practical. You will encounter the popular argument more often than the standard. The only reason I brought up the latter was to suggest a better method in handling it. When you encounter a Christian who thinks the Bible says that atheists cannot be moral, you cannot try to convince them that you can be moral. Do you see that to make that argument is to try to get them to admit that you are right and the Bible is wrong? Can you see the emotional effect that has on the misinformed Christian? You are fighting a losing battle that way. Far superior is to politely show them that the people who they do trust, which obviously isn't you, don't agree with them. That's all I am saying. I promise you, that works. Perfectly? Of course not. No method of argument is perfect, because argument presumes you are discussing things with human beings, and human beings are not strictly rational creatures in which you supply certain input and are guaranteed a corresponding output. If only it were that easy! But some methods are more effective in general than others, and I believe I've explained why the method I'm suggesting here is more beneficial to everyone involved.

I don't know what else to really say on the matter. I feel like I'm beginning to repeat myself, and that's never very productive. I think I've made my case as clearly as I can, and each person is more than capable of coming to their own conclusions regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the approach I advocate as compared with trying to convince such people that the Bible is wrong. I'm content to leave things as they are.

Kylyssa, this is obviously a deeply emotional issue for you. I am sorry for your experiences and I can understand how they would color your take on things. For what it is worth, I do understand your position, and I promise you that this is no more purely intellectual with me than it is purely emotional with you. Let's just leave it here and trust that both of us want, at least on some level, the same thing as far as this issue goes.

edit:

Davin, I do later want to offer some specific replies to your questions on objective morality. Let me open a new thread on it in the near future. Your questions are very appropriate, important, and need to be given more than a glossing over.