Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Dec 18, 2023 12:32 pm
Objectively speaking, I don't think we have a duty towards other human beings in general,
Right. Well, that's certainly the logical conclusion of Evolutionism: one cannot have a duty to such creatures as we are told we are.
it's just that Christians do seem to think they have a duty,
Yes, we do.
But that also makes sense, given our worldview. For Christians, man is a creation of God, dignified by having been given by Him life, volitional liberty and stewardship of the world, and accountable to God for his use of all that. So we have duties to God, but also duties toward each other, since each is seen to be not some accidental byproduct of a universe run on nothing but time, chance and accidental happenings, but deliberate creations of a God who is their benefactor, and to whom they are answerable.
In other words, people are not property of their societies or of themselves, or answerable to either; if they have an "owner," so to speak, or anybody to whom they are responsible, it's God.
and my point was that that duty would be more admirable if directed towards the rest of humanity, rather than to God.
The problem with that, of course, is that if one believes the Evolutionary narrative, one has no duty at all to do so. And so any "admirability" is an illusion, because there really isn't anything objectively good about doing so.
...admiring them on subjective grounds.
Which you can do, of course: at the risk of having no actual grounds for doing so, since the deep truth Evolution teaches is that that is all nonsense. It's not just "subjective," but also "
merely subjective," being a misunderstanding of how things actually, objectively are.
We all want to be treated well by others, but we can't expect it if we don't treat them well in return, even if we don't care about them.
That's partly true, of course. But only partly.
The other side is that it's very often to our own advantage not to treat others well. So we become only selectively "moral," in that we do what is socially convenient when it's personally convenient. But when we find it inconvenient, we become treacherous. That's very much how human nature, when ungoverned by objective morality, tends to behave. We do right only until we really don't want to.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:Evolution has furnished us with the emotional function we call morality,
...which Evolutionism tells us is just another accident, with no reason for us to pay attention to it at all.
The accidental/random aspect of evolution is an essential part of the process, but it isn't what determines the final outcome, and you probably understand how natural selection works better than I do. I suppose that when we first evolved legs, we could have refused to walk on them, but along with the legs we were also provided with the impulse and instinct to use them, and so it seems to be with our sense of morality.
It's not at all obvious that morality is a survival advantage. Very often, being moral merely gets one silenced, cancelled, excluded, abused or even martyred.
What's more to the point is that it's probably an advantage to me, as a selectively-moral Atheist, that
you should behave morally, while I do not. It makes you predictable and useable to me. As Nietzsche said, that you are "enslaved" to a particular conception of morality renders you vulnerable to MY machinations as a moral "superman" who does not need to follow the same rules. If that's so, the true "survival advantage" lies not in total immorality, nor in total morality, but in my power to use and discard morality whenever I like.
But whatever the case, since the deep truth is supposed to be that morality is just an accidental "burp" from an indifferent universe, I, as the Nietzschean superman, have zero obligation to care it's there at all.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:...that other little gift evolution has given us the potential to experience; guilt.
Lots of people think that's just a bad "gift," and we should get over it.
Yes, lots of people might think we should just get over it, but evolution has seen to it that that is easier said than done.
You're now speaking of Evolution as if it has a "plan." It's "seen to it," you say: and the implication seems to be that if Evolution has "seen to it" that something is so, then we are supposed to bow what it has "seen to". But I don't see why that would be -- unless we are regarding Evolution as some sort of demi-god that is able to plan, intend, direct, "see" and issue moral necessities to us.
But is not that sort of "magical thinking" exactly what Evolutionism is supposed to free us from?
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:That should demonstrate to you that no concept of God is needed in order to be able to value ethics and morals,
Well, because we were created by God, as moral beings, we DO have such a sense...even when we deny we ought to have it at all. That's one of the follies manifest in Atheism: that many Atheists insist on conforming themselves to ghostly "moral" qualities to which they deny the possibility of any legitimacy or objective existence.
So we do agree that, as human beings, we have an inherent sense of morality, albeit that you believe God gave us it, whereas I attribute it to nature?
Quite so.
I do agree that which of those two things we believe probably makes a difference to how we exercise that moral sense, but to what extent, and in exactly what way, I couldn't say. If it is the case that morality works best when coupled with some sort of spiritual belief, that is no doubt why evolution installed in us a tendency to believe in gods and religion.
You could make that case, since religion is a hallmark of all societies, at least at the start. Atheism is a recent innovation. So you could argue that Evolution "meant" for us to be relgious, at least for a time, and it "installed" in us this impulse.
But there are two problems, still. One is, of course, that we're talking again as if "Evolution" is a god, a conscious entity capable of wanting or intending things for us, and to which we owe some duty to go along quietly. But the second is even if the great god Evolution had "installed" such thing in us, why should we not think that, like the putative "vestigial tail" of the evolving amphibians, we should just "get over it," because that is the direction in which our "evolution" is "progressing"? Why would we not think that the sooner we stop being religious or moral, the better we are, at least so far as evolving and surviving are the objects?
I think the thread title highlights the problem of the muddle and misunderstanding most conversations about morality seem to suffer from, which is one of over simplification. It reduces the question down to one thing or the other. When I say that morality is subjective, I don't mean that morality itself does not have an objective existence, because it clearly does, albeit in an abstract sense, and confined within the bounds of human psychology, rather than having an intrinsic presence in nature or the universe. It is the nature and content of our own, individual, morality that is subjective. Our moral values are the subjective part of morality.
THAT something called "morality"
exists is obviously an objective fact. But whether that thing we call "morality" is LEGITIMATE is the problem.
The vestigial tail
existed. But that did not mean it would be legitimate for us to reverse the evolutionary process and graft ourselves tails, would it?
IC wrote:Morality is part of human nature,
It is. But Atheistically speaking, it ought not to be. Atheism denies there are any objective duties to be "moral." In fact, it can't even say what "moral" actually is, except by trusting its God-given intuitions about that, or "conscience," if you prefer. But its own worldview has to convince a thinking Atheist (like Nietzsche, Rand, and Huxley, to say nothing of Hitler, Stalin and Mao), that morality is really nothing but an inconvenient fiction: and when Atheists have acted like their worldview is true, millions have died.
I don't accept your distinction between what an atheist's morality necessarily has to be, and that of, say, a Christian, but it isn't really the point, it says nothing about whether the Christian's attitudes are based on something that really is objective, or only what he believes to be objective.
That is true. That is a thing which one has to decide, for sure.
But one thing is obvious: that if Atheism is true, then an Atheist doesn't have any real obligation to be moral. He can be, or he can not be. It's up to him. And another Atheist, looking on at him, is unable to find firm and objective grounds to say whether that makes the first Atheist "good" or "bad," or nothing in particular at all...at least in reference to his moral condition.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:I don't think my absence of belief in God makes morality pointless, so it wouldn't be a rational reason to stop behaving morally.
Why would you behave morally, when being moral is so often inconvenient and even dangerous? The Evolutionistic story gives you no reason to stand on the side of good morals when your own interests are at stake.
Why do some people climb mountains, which can be extremely dangerous, and also very inconvenient, unless you happen to live at the foot of Mount Everest? Reason and rationality play a surprisingly small role in human behaviour.
Well, that just adds an additional level of problem to the case. For now, not only have we said that people have no duty to behave morally when it becomes inconvenient, but that they are not even rational enough to choose to do so for themselves.
I don't see that that will help the case.
maybe one day we'll be down at "the local" in Leeds or Bradford, and accidentally have a pint together.
But you touch on the right analogy: being political opponents doesn't mean you have to hate the opposition (sorry, Marxists). You can disagree agreeably; and just so, one can disagree in philosophy without resorting to any spite or ill-will. I think we both prefer that.
Neither Leeds nor Bradford are exactly on my doorstep, but if you let me know when you are next in any of them I will happily make the journey to have a drink with you. You do know that taking religion or politics into a pub is illegal in Yorkshire, don't you?
That's a shame. I thought that being half "in the bag" would be a great boon to eloquence and volubility...and hence to the progress of philosophy.
It all reminds me of a dity from Monty Python, celebrating the conspiracy of alcohol and philosophy, to which I link here, for your amusement, if you have not heard it:
https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/monty- ... phers-song
You're a cheerful soul! Well, I wouldn't wish that upon you. We might not agree, but I certainly bear you no animosity, and I strangely enjoy your cybercompany.
