Godless morality

[keithwdowd]

I do, very much.  I'm just trying to clarify the base on which we stand.  I was sort of hoping to find out how, through converstations with everyone here, to respond to folks like Nietzsche, who don't seem to feel that social harmony and the survival of the group are things worth valuing.

Remember that Nietzsche's rejection of morals and human morality was, from my reading, a necessary extension of the claim, "The only truth is that there is no truth," which then led him to ultimately conclude that if no absolute truth exists then all established human morals are completely subjective and relative. Further, he argues in "Beyond Good & Evil" that our conception of morality is derived from the manipulation of language  by the powerful to define all "good" things/actions in way that best served their [the powerful's] goals and aims, which, perhaps correctly or incorrectly, led Nietzsche to postulate that there are no absolute morals, just word play. Nietzsche sought the underlying bedrock for truth and morality and upon finding only shifting sands he simply adopted a nihilist perspective and closed up shop on absolutes, morality included. I'm still struggling with his arguments ever since I first encountered them years ago, and, while I wouldn't go so far as to describe my opinions about morality to be as extreme as Nietzsche's, I do, for better or worse, sympathize with his conclusions, and certainly empathize with your journey to uncover the foundations (if any exist) of morality.

[The Black Jester]

I do, very much.  I'm just trying to clarify the base on which we stand.  I was sort of hoping to find out how, through converstations with everyone here, to respond to folks like Nietzsche, who don't seem to feel that social harmony and the survival of the group are things worth valuing.

Remember that Nietzsche's rejection of morals and human morality was, from my reading, a necessary extension of the claim, "The only truth is that there is no truth," which then led him to ultimately conclude that if no absolute truth exists then all established human morals are completely subjective and relative. Further, he argues in "Beyond Good & Evil" that our conception of morality is derived from the manipulation of language  by the powerful to define all "good" things/actions in way that best served their [the powerful's] goals and aims, which, perhaps correctly or incorrectly, led Nietzsche to postulate that there are no absolute morals, just word play. Nietzsche sought the underlying bedrock for truth and morality and upon finding only shifting sands he simply adopted a nihilist perspective and closed up shop on absolutes, morality included. I'm still struggling with his arguments ever since I first encountered them years ago, and, while I wouldn't go so far as to describe my opinions about morality to be as extreme as Nietzsche's, I do, for better or worse, sympathize with his conclusions, and certainly empathize with your journey to uncover the foundations (if any exist) of morality.

I have found a similar disturbing allure in Nietzche's writings.  I would go so far as to say I was haunted by them, to some degree.  Perhaps your experience of him is not quite so extreme, but really, it seems to be similar to mine.  In fact, from the little I've seen of what you've written, it would seem we think in many similar ways.

Did he really close up shop on morals and value altogther?  I thought that his writings in Zarathustra and The Antichrist, for example, were attempts to argue a morality and value-creating system, beyond Nihilism?  Is that just incorrect?  It's the values he posits in reaction to Christianity, and to Nihilism, that trouble me.  I do not like them, but I have difficulty refuting them.

[xSilverPhinx]

This is an excellent topic, Black Jester, and I've been following it with keen interest but embarrassingly not enough knowledge on the subject  to add something truly productive.

Yes, absolute morality doesn't exist. Morality is made up. Morality is subjective. We don't need morality for the human race to survive... though maybe we might need morals to survive given how long babies are weak, how few can be born at a time and how defenseless the mother is during the last few months, but for this argument let's say that morals aren't required for the survival of the human race.

I actually do think morality is necessary for the human race to survive.  I think morality would never have evolved or survived in the meme pool if it didn't serve a vital function.  I don't think it's just a matter of improving our lives - I think our lives actually depend upon it to a great extent.  I think empathy evolved in service of our survival.  And I personally have a great stake in this (the survival of the human race, and of course myself by extension).  I just don't think the universe cares one way or another what I think.  And no, that may not be relevant as a matter of practical consequence.  I'm just wondering, given that we must determine morality for ourselves, how we can figure out exactly what morals to agree on, or how to come to that agreement or how to define exactly what moral means.

I did, however think I'd mention after reading this that I also think that morals are essential for social animals to survive as social animals and that morals are just as complicated as the social/cultural/historical structures they belong too. Would modern societies have gotten this complex if there weren't complex moral systems; subjective, objective and programmed through learning to go with it? I think not.

IMO On the societal level we probably haven't evolved fast enough though. Most of our more subjective morals standards are probably better suited to small tribal communities, where unwritten but agreed upon laws are enough to maintain stability.

I think one of the difficulties in trying to define exactly what moral means is that there really is no absolute in the interpretation of morals. Even something which the overwhelming majority see as moral such as 'don't kill' is open to interpretation. Most would consider it alright to kill in self defence, for instance and they probably wouldn't be blamed for it or considered amoral/immoral. Law courts would acquit them or lessen their sentence compared to a murderer if self defence were adequately proven. In both cases people were killed, but the one killed in self defence is worth less in this context. If something such as 'don't kill' or 'don't torture defenseless children' isn't an "absolute" moral standard, then what is?

I don't buy into the moral nihilists discourse either. I think that the 'rawest' of morals, the ones that evolved with as as social animals that are complemented with things such as empathy and feelings of guilt, are our basic morals and the biological brakes towards amorality.

[i_am_i]

In my opinion humans are social creatures because they need to be, not necessarily because they started out that way. We will all  need some kind of help from someone somewhere along the line, all of us. Have you ever run out of gas and had someone, a complete stranger, stop to help you push your car to the side of the road and drive you to a gas station? Why would someone do that? Why would you do that for someone else?

I'm convinced that it feels good to help others because it reinforces a basic atavistic trust that we can rely on other human beings, even when we know for a fact that that's not always the case. It's that sort of fundamental hope, for lack of a better word, that makes human beings so wonderful to me.

What can feel better than seeing a smile on someone's face because you've helped make their day a little brighter? Now I don't know if that really has anything to do with morality but I'm rather convinced that this is where it all begins.

[xSilverPhinx]

In my opinion humans are social creatures because they need to be, not necessarily because they started out that way. We will all  need some kind of help from someone somewhere along the line, all of us. Have you even run out of gas and had someone, a complete stranger, stop to help you push your car to the side of the road and drive you to a gas station? Why would someone do that? Why would you do that for someone else?

Yeah, early hominids needed numbers so that they could live and evolve big brains since they didn't have speed, claws and jaws, armour or any of those things that evolutionary arms races has produced in most animals. I don't think a lone Australopithecus would've fared very well in the wild African bush.

I'm convinced that it feels good to help others because it reinforces a basic atavistic trust that we can rely on other human beings, even when we know for a fact that that's not always the case. It's that sort of fundamental hope, for lack of a better word, that makes human beings so wonderful to me.

What can feel better than seeing a smile on someone's face because you've helped make their day a little brighter? Now I don't know if that really has anything to do with morality but I'm rather convinced that this is where it all begins.

I think you touched on an interesting point.

I actually do think that's the biological basis for morality and that to a certain extent our brains are hardwired for it. It evolved with us as a species, and evolved in other social species as well.  

I think it's interesting because while the person who helps the other in need feels gratification, the one being helped projects a sort of hero figure on the saver. In Darwinian biological terms, it is a strange thing that one individual would sacrifice energy to help another without energetic gain in return (in the wild such things are precious commodities). To think of an animal that evolved that way is really cool, and what makes us human in our case (and all of this happened before religion   ).

Going slightly off topic from morality on onto heroism: what image is more morally valued than that of a hero? I really can't think of one, especially since the image of a guy who sacrificed his own life for complete strangers is one of the strongest reasons Christians give for why they believe in Christianity, usually amidst strong emotions. Jesus is the ultimate hero.

[Davin]

Yeah, early hominids needed numbers so that they could live and evolve big brains since they didn't have speed, claws and jaws, armour or any of those things that evolutionary arms races has produced in most animals. I don't think a lone Australopithecus would've fared very well in the wild African bush.

I don't disagree with this possibility, however I would like to add the possibility that it worked the other way around. The claws, toughness... etc. may have been less useful to animals that are more social. So for social animals claws, big teeth and such may hurt the survivability of the groups of some of the kinds of animals. For most animals, confrontation is unavoidable even within the same species, so stronger animals that killed fewer of their buddies would help the survivability of the species far more than stronger animals that killed their buddies. Of course I understand that it's far more complicated, just thought that I'd offer "weaker" animals coming from society as a possibility over society coming from "weaker" animals.

[The Black Jester]

Yeah, early hominids needed numbers so that they could live and evolve big brains since they didn't have speed, claws and jaws, armour or any of those things that evolutionary arms races has produced in most animals. I don't think a lone Australopithecus would've fared very well in the wild African bush.

I don't disagree with this possibility, however I would like to add the possibility that it worked the other way around. The claws, toughness... etc. may have been less useful to animals that are more social. So for social animals claws, big teeth and such may hurt the survivability of the groups of some of the kinds of animals. For most animals, confrontation is unavoidable even within the same species, so stronger animals that killed fewer of their buddies would help the survivability of the species far more than stronger animals that killed their buddies. Of course I understand that it's far more complicated, just thought that I'd offer "weaker" animals coming from society as a possibility over society coming from "weaker" animals.

Wouldn't it be likely, however, that stronger animals killing more of their competitors (or frightening them off) would lead to the stronger animals breeding with the females of the unit - denying offspring to the weaker and thereby increasing the number of their own progeny, and the strength of the offspring overall?

In any case, doesn't evolution work more, by the action of natural selection, toward the survival of the genes of the particular individual, rather than blindly towards the increase of the group?  Not the survival of the masses, necessarily, but the continued adaptation of the type?

I just wonder...evolution has a darker side as well, the poorly adapted are culled.  I don't wish to commit the naturalistic fallacy, but subscribing to the idea that one should adopt the code one sees in nature, but isnt' that the very thing for which we are arguing here?  Are we not suggesting that we base our morals on the practical needs of the species?  But perhaps I am oversimplifying.  As xSilverPhinx and i_am_i have pointed out, we are complex social creatures, and so perhaps our needs are different that other animal groups in which we seem to observe a more basic order and more cruelty.  Different groups have different needs.

[wildfire_emissary]

I don't know if I correctly understand Plato's take on the topic but he said that evil is ignorance. That the confluence of love and knowledge brings out the moral person in every man. To love is to know. And to know is to be good.

[i_am_i]

I don't know if I correctly understand Plato's take on the topic but he said that evil is ignorance. That the confluence of love and knowledge brings out the moral person in every man. To love is to know. And to know is to be good.

I don't agree with that at all for the simple reason that it doesn't make a lick of sense.

[xSilverPhinx]

I don't disagree with this possibility, however I would like to add the possibility that it worked the other way around. The claws, toughness... etc. may have been less useful to animals that are more social. So for social animals claws, big teeth and such may hurt the survivability of the groups of some of the kinds of animals. For most animals, confrontation is unavoidable even within the same species, so stronger animals that killed fewer of their buddies would help the survivability of the species far more than stronger animals that killed their buddies.

Well in our case we're weaker only in the physical sense, we didn't evolve speed, claws and jaws and such but we did evolve big brains that allowed us to make tools to compensate for those deficiencies. Living in society could have been what played a major role in opening up the pathway for our brain's evolution. If our hominid ancestors were lone creatures, being the way they physically were, they would have to adapt to much stronger and 'darker' natural selective pressures or die. In the physical sense we’re weak, but numbers gave us our strength to compensate.

Other stronger social animals have different ways of maintaining their group’s survival and stability. For instance, African wildogs live in huge packs (much larger than wolf packs) in groups that are almost unsustainable. They look after their weaker members and those members in turn help with keeping the balance by looking after pups etc. In lion pride however, they're a bit more selfish, their morality leans a bit more toward what’s better for the individual first before what best for the pride (if you’ve got a pet cat then you could easily see what their social structure is like) A wounded or old wildog which is no longer able to hunt has a much lower chance of being abandoned by their group than an old or wounded lion does. Wildogs are also weaker in the physical sense than a lion, but they are much more successful in their hunts.
I think our early ancestors were more like wildogs than lions.

Of course I understand that it's far more complicated, just thought that I'd offer "weaker" animals coming from society as a possibility over society coming from "weaker" animals.

Well I think it depends on the animal. Living things have to deal with the hand that they’re given and the more adaptable have higher chances of surviving to pass on their genes and evolve, but I just don’t see how the human case is not one of society coming from physically weaker animals. I could be wrong, but us evolving from lone pregnant females with in their late pregnancy that live alone and have to fend for themselves, climb trees, ward off predators and do all those physically demanding things that a lone animal would have to do to avoid others that are higher on the food chain, find food, shelter, protect their shelter etc and survive in number seems unlikely to me. Chances increase dramatically if their partner lives with them.  Keeping their family members together again increases the odds dramatically, up to the sustainable limit, of course.

[xSilverPhinx]

Wouldn't it be likely, however, that stronger animals killing more of their competitors (or frightening them off) would lead to the stronger animals breeding with the females of the unit - denying offspring to the weaker and thereby increasing the number of their own progeny, and the strength of the offspring overall?
In any case, doesn't evolution work more, by the action of natural selection, toward the survival of the genes of the particular individual, rather than blindly towards the increase of the group?  Not the survival of the masses, necessarily, but the continued adaptation of the type?

That’s exactly what happens in social animal groups which have an alpha male and female, but even so, they still live in groups which increase not only the survivability of the offspring of the alpha pair but of the group too. Most smaller social groups are also blood relatives, and the non alphas are an earlier generation of the alpha’s offspring. They share the same genes and moral evolution is tuned to preserving that.
If the “goal” of natural selection is to preserve the genes, then small family groups are a rather ingenious way of increasing the chances for survival and propagation of those genes, and it works very well for social species.  

Are we not suggesting that we base our morals on the practical needs of the species? But perhaps I am oversimplifying.  As xSilverPhinx and i_am_i have pointed out, we are complex social creatures, and so perhaps our needs are different that other animal groups in which we seem to observe a more basic order and more cruelty.  Different groups have different needs.

Yes, but is there or ever will be one absolute that’s practical for every group within a social species such as ours? That’s why I think that we’re a bunch of smaller tribes (ideologically, financially, etc) living together and trying to make it work for all of us. Objective morals (such as the law) are extremely important, because otherwise many of us would just fall back into tribal behavior. The best we can do is achieve a rather delicate balance.

[JoElite]

Response to the one making the Thread: Morals arnt absolute, as you know its common morals in Iraq to wrestle down 5 year old girls and cut out their clitoris, which is fcking sick, here in Sweden we would drag those fuckers into jail and then the whole country would stand in line to rape them..
basically morals are what we have been told that they are, BUT if you want to make sure your actions are good, then watch the response of the human your doing it on, if someone feels pleasure in you cutting out their clitoris then DO by all means, if they like it more when you treat them with respect and as a fellow human, then DO by all means!, but if you want to have good morals, dont do anything that makes someone feel bad, and as a human being i think you know what it looks lie when someone feels bad.
So if you wanna be good, then make your ''target'' feel good, if you wanna be bad then make your ''target'' feel bad, BUT its a better feeling to make someone feel good.

[xSilverPhinx]

Response to the one making the Thread: Morals arnt absolute, as you know its common morals in Iraq to wrestle down 5 year old girls and cut out their clitoris, which is fcking sick, here in Sweden we would drag those fuckers into jail and then the whole country would stand in line to rape them..
basically morals are what we have been told that they are, BUT if you want to make sure your actions are good, then watch the response of the human your doing it on, if someone feels pleasure in you cutting out their clitoris then DO by all means, if they like it more when you treat them with respect and as a fellow human, then DO by all means!, but if you want to have good morals, dont do anything that makes someone feel bad, and as a human being i think you know what it looks lie when someone feels bad.
So if you wanna be good, then make your ''target'' feel good, if you wanna be bad then make your ''target'' feel bad, BUT its a better feeling to make someone feel good.

I’ve heard of all sorts of sadistic people who were convinced somehow that what they are doing to a person is what the person wants or deserves and look for whatever hint they want to interpret as the target wanting it to carry out what the sadistic then see as a moral act. It’s that subjective for the twisted some.  
If I said that if someone wanted me to cut off their finger, does that mean that I’ll do it? Even if they begged me to?
I myself have a problem with doing immoral things to people I see as weaker, it doesn’t matter what they seem to want or need, it just doesn’t sit right with me.  If I feel an immoral person can “take it”, however, the retribution is much easier (hey, I’m only human.)

[JoElite]

I’ve heard of all sorts of sadistic people who were convinced somehow that what they are doing to a person is what the person wants or deserves and look for whatever hint they want to interpret as the target wanting it to carry out what the sadistic then see as a moral act. It’s that subjective for the twisted some.  
If I said that if someone wanted me to cut off their finger, does that mean that I’ll do it? Even if they begged me to?
I myself have a problem with doing immoral things to people I see as weaker, it doesn’t matter what they seem to want or need, it just doesn’t sit right with me.  If I feel an immoral person can “take it”, however, the retribution is much easier (hey, I’m only human.)

The thing is, that a sadist likes to see humans suffer, lets say someone came up to me BEGGING me to cut off his finger ( which is VERY unlikely ) Lets say he cries, begs me to cut it off..
Would i be a sadist to cut it of then? No ofc not... If i want humans to feel good then in this case i would cut it off, however this is to unlikely to base your argument upon...
lets say feelings, if someone feels good inside if i am rude to another human, well just do the maths, How can i avoid to make anyone sad to the fullest, i would say-  No i'm do not want to be rude to that person.
Which would hurt less humans .. You see? be your own judge, its worked for me and 80% of Sweden, why wouldnt it work for everyone?[/size]

[The Black Jester]

Objective morals (such as the law) are extremely important, because otherwise many of us would just fall back into tribal behavior. The best we can do is achieve a rather delicate balance.

This is great.  Thanks to everyone who has contributed thus far to the discussion.

xSilverPhinx â€" So, am I mistaken in thinking  that you are arguing that, regardless of the fact that we cannot identify a single objective moral standard as a feature of the universe, we nevertheless should behave as if there were one, because it would result in greater stability or a greater “quality of life” for everyone?  On what basis do we choose among the possible moral systems to come up with a standard that should apply to everyone?  Metaethically speaking, why would this method be more moral than allowing for different systems that could be more responsive to the different needs of various populations?

So if you wanna be good, then make your ''target'' feel good, if you wanna be bad then make your ''target'' feel bad, BUT its a better feeling to make someone feel good.

Why is "feeling good" the object of morality?  Why is it not something like "self-improvement," just as an example (and noting that such a concept, if it were put forward, it would have to be rigorously defined and extrapolated upon)?  Further, if causing your "target" to "feel good" is moral: what if I had a machine that I could connect directly to the pleasure centers of your brain and stimulate that feeling of "goodness"?  Would it be moral for me to hook you up to that, crank up the power, and induce a feeling of pleasure, or contentment, or whatever, greater than that which you have ever known?  Why?

No ofc not... If i want humans to feel good then in this case i would cut it off, however this is to unlikely to base your argument upon...

1) Why would maiming a person for life be moral in this case?  Wouldn't it likely deprive them of other pleasures or satisfactions later on, and wouldn't you, by cutting off the finger, be the agent of that deprivation?

2) The liklihood of this scenario is in some sense irrelevant.  If you are positing a moral system to be universally applied, it must apply in every case, and thought experiments like this are used to test the soundness of ideas.

lets say feelings, if someone feels good inside if i am rude to another human, well just do the maths, How can i avoid to make anyone sad to the fullest, i would say- No i'm do not want to be rude to that person.
Which would hurt less humans .. You see? be your own judge, its worked for me and 80% of Sweden, why wouldnt it work for everyone?

In your hypothetical scenario, how do you propose that we "do the maths"?  By what standard should we measure the level of "sadness" between two people, especially given that we don't have direct, 3rd person access to such states?  Further, two people may very likely have entirely different levels of emotional response to the same scenario based on their differing (even slightly) brain structures and bodily systems.