Atheist VS Christian morality: Good is evil and vice versa

[Mike Cl]

I think your definition works fine.
As far as whether morals are objective or subjective; this has always been a healthy debate within the philosophical community. Huge amounts of literature exist on this specific debate. However, like I said earlier, there recently has been empirical evidence collected which indicate that there are a very limited set of morals which are indeed universal. Most of this specifically comes from the anthropological fields. Animal behaviorists have also augmented these findings by very similar universals within non-human species. But outside of this very limited list, ethics is very subjective.

So like everything else in the world the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Thanks for the answer.  I look forward to reading some of the authors you suggest.

[Baruch]

Kibitzing.  To me, a reasonable person is someone who is able to see multiple sides to a given issue, though they may have a preference for a particular POV.  For me, ethics is suggested by the positive and negative Golden Rule ... as stated by Confucius, Rabbi Hillel et al.  But underlying the Golden Rule is a metaphysical assumption ... that all people are inter-connected.  In Hinduism, there is the myth that all beings are the result of the dreams of Brahma.  It is an assumption, that personal identity is absolute.  In my personal experience it is quite relative.  In Buddhism, there is the myth that all beings are like jewels in the Net Of Indra.  So what I do for myself that is good, is good for all.  What I do for myself that is bad, is bad for all.  But not exclusively.  What I do that is good for others, is good for myself  What I do that is bad for others, is bad for myself.

Of course that leaves open the question of what is good and what is bad ... but we need Adam and Eve to mythically discover that ;-)

[stromboli]

Kibitzing.  To me, a reasonable person is someone who is able to see multiple sides to a given issue, though they may have a preference for a particular POV.  For me, ethics is suggested by the positive and negative Golden Rule ... as stated by Confucius, Rabbi Hillel et al.  But underlying the Golden Rule is a metaphysical assumption ... that all people are inter-connected.  In Hinduism, there is the myth that all beings are the result of the dreams of Brahma.  It is an assumption, that personal identity is absolute.  In my personal experience it is quite relative.  In Buddhism, there is the myth that all beings are like jewels in the Net Of Indra.  So what I do for myself that is good, is good for all.  What I do for myself that is bad, is bad for all.  But not exclusively.  What I do that is good for others, is good for myself  What I do that is bad for others, is bad for myself.

Of course that leaves open the question of what is good and what is bad ... but we need Adam and Eve to mythically discover that ;-)

The mere fact that you have referenced Hindusim, Buddhism and other viewpoints is indicative of an objective mindset. Religious morality from my perspective works just like creationism. Instead of drawing a conclusion based on observation and testing, the result is stated and the argument works backward to justify it. Any objective study of morality in a wider context inevitably results in the conclusion it is subjective.

[Baruch]

stromboli - the principle work in philosophy, according to Wittgenstein v2.0 is the careful definition of words and meaningful sentences.  I would use objective/subjective a little more narrowly than you do, but I get the version you are using.

My POV is based on my experience, which is both similar to other people, and unique to me.  Teasing this out will take time over many posts, because of relevance and long development.  Similarly I would have to read many posts by another person ... to more fully get them.  I will take my time.

Yes, rationalization is what that is usually called ... to assume the conclusion and work backward to some set of principles and method of derivation.  But that is what the Greek geometers did ... they worked backward ... and forward.  It was a dialectic, and math/science still is.  And this trips up those who do it ... lay people being more casual and less rigorous.  One of the simple proofs of the Pythagorean theory illustrates this.  But when we are using general language, rather than the jargon of math ... reason is much more difficult given the raw material ;-)

To just put a few points out there ... I am an empiricist more than a rationalist.  And I am a humanist more than a reductionist.  And I am a relativist more than an absolutist.  So while I use the name and avatar of Baruch Spinoza ... who did write about ethics ... and I agree with one of his fundamental axioms in metaphysics ... but I don't agree with his extreme rationalism ... so I am ironic in those ways.  I am closer to Socrates, but distant from Plato ... Spinoza being closer to Plato.  While ethics for me has to be contextual ... that doesn't trivialize it for me ... I find serious ethical decisions (and I have to do them every day at work and at home) to be extremely difficult in practice ... to separate two "goods" or worst case to separate two "bad".  I don't have the experience some have, that this is easy, or "black and white".  Even after deciding, one has to re-decide in the light of results and changed context.  So for example, the Biblical injunction "Though shall not kill" I respond to with "It depends".  That leaves me always uneasy that my decisions are sub-optimal ... it seems hubris to even hope that any decision I make would ever be optimal.  I am left with "good enough?" and "not too bad!".

I am a student of comparative religion ... because I am a student of human culture in general.  I lean Jewish, but I am not chauvinistic.  I lean American, but I am not nationalistic.  In my study of comparative religion, I have found Hinduism (the world's leading polytheism) to be very useful as a touchstone for understanding religious practice.  Similarly Mahayana Buddhism has been decisive in my understanding of theology.  Though I am sympathetic to the Abrahamic faiths of course.  I think it was Samuel Johnson who said he could learn something new from any man ... and I agree.

[wbuentello]

Any objective study of morality in a wider context inevitably results in the conclusion it is subjective.

This just is not accurate

[stromboli]

I make that statement because we have debated morality on here many times. There have been discussions with theists and without, and many claims made to the universality of morals. But the simple fact that one religion or another can find it moral to condone rape, murder or genocide in any form speaks against it. the fact that one set of society can condone homosexual  marriage and gay unions and another set condemn it speaks against it.

For any moral code to be universal it must be agreed to and abided by, by all. The Japanese found justification for the rape of Nanking. ISIL finds justification for rape and beheading today, right now. You can go through history and go around the world and find any number of examples of variances in applied moral codes, so don't claim universality by god or anything else. I can go through just different sects of Christianity and come up with different conclusions. Early Calvinists burned witches at the stake, other sects like the Quakers condemned it. There is no such thing as a universal morality and we have concluded that more than once on here.

[wbuentello]

For any moral code to be universal it must be agreed to and abided by, by all... There is no such thing as a universal morality and we have concluded that more than once on here.

I find the premise for your conclusions to be the point where we disagree. Universality of ethics does not require intra group adherence. Only inter group adherence. For instance, group a and b have prescriptions against killing within their respective group but they will kill between the groups under certain circumstances. If these were the only two groups in the world we would be able to say that to kill within the group (i.e. murder)is universally wrong. To kill outside of the group is patently not called murder, but it's usually "making war" or assassination or some such.
Just because it's obvious that most morals are subjective doesn't make it absolutely true. There are indeed some morals that are observed to be universal. Just a handful. Murder is one. Rape is not. It is also important to note the difference between descriptive morality and normative morality. 
Also the fact that you have concluded morality to be purely subjective here many times doesn't make it true.
I don't know why atheists always bring up what religion has to say about morality when discussing morality. Religion in no way has any bearing on how I consider morality and ethics.

I make that statement because we have debated morality on here many times. There have been discussions with theists and without, and many claims made to the universality of morals. But the simple fact that one religion or another can find it moral to condone rape, murder or genocide in any form speaks against it. the fact that one set of society can condone homosexual  marriage and gay unions and another set condemn it speaks against it.

For any moral code to be universal it must be agreed to and abided by, by all. The Japanese found justification for the rape of Nanking. ISIL finds justification for rape and beheading today, right now. You can go through history and go around the world and find any number of examples of variances in applied moral codes, so don't claim universality by god or anything else. I can go through just different sects of Christianity and come up with different conclusions. Early Calvinists burned witches at the stake, other sects like the Quakers condemned it. There is no such thing as a universal morality and we have concluded that more than once on here.

[Mike Cl]

I find the premise for your conclusions to be the point where we disagree. Universality of ethics does not require intra group adherence. Only inter group adherence. For instance, group a and b have prescriptions against killing within their respective group but they will kill between the groups under certain circumstances. If these were the only two groups in the world we would be able to say that to kill within the group (i.e. murder)is universally wrong. To kill outside of the group is patently not called murder, but it's usually "making war" or assassination or some such.
Just because it's obvious that most morals are subjective doesn't make it absolutely true. There are indeed some morals that are observed to be universal. Just a handful. Murder is one. Rape is not. It is also important to note the difference between descriptive morality and normative morality. 
Also the fact that you have concluded morality to be purely subjective here many times doesn't make it true.
I don't know why atheists always bring up what religion has to say about morality when discussing morality. Religion in no way has any bearing on how I consider morality and ethics.

I find your reasoning interesting.  Could you give us a thumbnail of what you mean by descriptive and normative morality?  Is it usual for a group or society to have two sets of morals--one for the group and one for outside the group or society? 

[stromboli]

I find the premise for your conclusions to be the point where we disagree. Universality of ethics does not require intra group adherence. Only inter group adherence. For instance, group a and b have prescriptions against killing within their respective group but they will kill between the groups under certain circumstances. If these were the only two groups in the world we would be able to say that to kill within the group (i.e. murder)is universally wrong. To kill outside of the group is patently not called murder, but it's usually "making war" or assassination or some such.
Just because it's obvious that most morals are subjective doesn't make it absolutely true. There are indeed some morals that are observed to be universal. Just a handful. Murder is one. Rape is not. It is also important to note the difference between descriptive morality and normative morality. 
Also the fact that you have concluded morality to be purely subjective here many times doesn't make it true.
I don't know why atheists always bring up what religion has to say about morality when discussing morality. Religion in no way has any bearing on how I consider morality and ethics.

Application versus idealism. You can split hairs all day on the philosophy of it. Sign me up to the normative side. I'm the guy with the axe, not the harp playing idealist who waxes philosophical about trees.

[wbuentello]

Application versus idealism. You can split hairs all day on the philosophy of it. Sign me up to the normative side. I'm the guy with the axe, not the harp playing idealist who waxes philosophical about trees.

Sounds like you're talking descriptive morality then. And they aren't really two different types of morality just two different ways of discussing it. Descriptive morality, or more properly, ethics is talking about ethics in the context of how they are practiced. Normative ethics is a conversation about "oughts". What one ought to do. And I'm not splitting hairs here. One way of thinking about morality is virtually meaningless, unless your a theist, which I'll assume you aren't, and the other makes more logical sense. I'll also assume that we can agree here, you, mike cl and I that morality doesn't come from above. Which is why the idea of universal morality, as you understand the term, rubs you wrong. So we can also agree that without a omnipotent moral dictator that the same moral perspective can't apply to everyone all the time. Here's where you and i start to deviate. You conclude from this that this must mean that universality has been refuted. I think in order to answer this we have to make sure we understand it in the right context.
So what is the purpose of morals. I mean why do we even have a sense of right and wrong in the first place? They didn't come upon us with the advent of religion. They come to us based on our social nature. If we were solitary creatures we would have no use of right and wrong. More specifically morals are a means of managing an individuals inter group behavior. This conclusion comes from the fact that if morals have their origins in our social nature and a social being is a being that interacts in groups then it only stands to reason that the proper perspective with which to hold any discussion about morals and ethics is one from the perspective of the group. So when asking or answering the question of whether there are are universal morals or not, we must be certain that we are looking at it from a meaningful vantage point. If morality has no meaning outside of the context of our social groupings then we should be careful not to group the whole world into a single social group. And as an added bonus hopefully this also answers mike cl's question

[Baruch]

stromboli et al ... I have to appreciate this division into descriptive and prescriptive/proscriptive.  Prescriptive means what is enjoined on the individual/group.  Proscriptive means what is forbidden to the individual/group.  The Decalogue are primarily proscriptive when it deals with ethics.  They are primarily prescriptive when it deals with morality.  I would split ethics from morality.  Ethics is tactical and deals with human to human relationships.  Morality is strategic and deals with human to G-d relationships.  For me, if one is non-theist or anti-theist ... morality is the wrong term to use, it is meaningless.  But of course the non-theist or anti-theist can be ethical.  But they can't be moral (being amoral would the the exact description).  One has to be a theist to be immoral.  Some theists are ethical and moral, others are ethical and immoral, yet others are unethical and moral, yet more others are unethical and immoral.  In terms of Venn diagram, you have four different divisions of theists vs ethics vs morality.  For the non-religious (non-theist or anti-theist) morality is meaningless.  The non-religious are simpler ... they only are ethical or unethical.  One can slice and dice further, but let's stop there.  So in this kind of discussion, it would help to more clearly identify what people/faction we are talking about.  Six distinct types should be enough for now.

But idealism vs realism in the context of ethics has another problem to deal with.  For idealists, the way things are, may or may not be the way they should be (this implies both prescription and proscription).  If I choose to be a realist instead ... then the notion of the way things should be, is meaningless.  The notion of both prescription and proscription are meaningless.  All one has in realism, is simple description.  So and so did such and such.  The implication being that realism isn't immoral, so much as it is amoral.  You have to be a moralist, to do bad things that are immoral.  My personal experience is that idealism is a parlor trick appropriate for fashionable intelligentsia salons in Paris shortly before the French Revolution.  That was where and when mesmerism aka hypnosis arose.  It was the guillotine that proved its reality.  The French middle and upper classes had created their own Matrix, detached from the reality outside their sensation deprivation tanks ;-)

That isn't to say, that I am happy with the way things are, or that I don't wish that things were changed to more closely align with my fantasies ... but unlike the Elite, I am not in a position to construct an experimental dystopia at the expense of the peasants.

[Baruch]

wbuentello ... your analysis regarding in-group/out-group is the majority condition.  But there is a minority report.  In New Guinea ... there is frequent fighting anytime two hunting bands come into contact at the boundary between their territories, made worse by the usual condition that their languages are mutually unintelligible.  This is not unlike European history.  But they have a unique custom regarding in-tribal killing.  The Killing Game, which seems to be a practice designed to add "spice" to an otherwise tedious existence ... involves becoming close friends with someone in your tribe.  You don't know in advance if the game is afoot or not.  The close friend may be just a close friend, a protagonist.  But they may be an antagonist ... the very person who is planning carefully over time to kill you ... just because it is a game to do so.  The stress on the potential victim rises and falls with their suspicions, but in a well played game, the antagonist becomes the best friend whose loyalty is beyond dispute.  That way, the eventual betrayal, is even more surprising to the victim.  For the antagonist, they are under constant stress of living a dual existence, unable to act they way they really feel, for fear that the killing will not be optimized, or even prevented.  In advanced societies, we call these people schizoid and sociopathic ... and find them in advanced social positions.  Because we too, are not that different from New Guinea forest dwellers.

[wbuentello]

I would split ethics from morality.  Ethics is tactical and deals with human to human relationships.  Morality is strategic and deals with human to G-d relationships.  For me, if one is non-theist or anti-theist ... morality is the wrong term to use, it is meaningless.  But of course the non-theist or anti-theist can be ethical.  But they can't be moral (being amoral would the the exact description).  One has to be a theist to be immoral.

Of all the things in the above quoted post that I find interesting , I take the most issue with this particular part. I will preface by saying that you are correct to differentiate between morals and ethics but after that you fall flat on your face,  so to speak. In short, morality is the individual sense of right and wrong and ethics is the science of morality or less academically, the socially prescribed "oughts". I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you're either a theist or are heavily influenced by non-secular ethicists. If so, i'm curious if you arrived at your definition's of morals and ethics through these non-secular influences.

[Sal1981]

Maybe been said before, but bears repeating; I think there's no such thing as "atheist morality".

[wbuentello]

Maybe been said before, but bears repeating; I think there's no such thing as "atheist morality".

I'm really baffled by this concept. Is because you define morality as coming from a god? I mean the definitions are very clear on this and theism has nothing to do with it. Unless of course there is a contrasting non-secular definition... [emoji53]