Your political views are shaped by your morality, but where is morality derived from?
are moral truths objective?
>true or false regardless of whether or not anyone can know or articulate them
>discovered or revealed
or subjective?
>merely descriptions of our own mental states, such as approval or disapproval
>constructed
could an atheist make a compelling case for moral realism?
or in a world without God, are all things permissible?
There's objective morality that's not discovered or revealed, but rather ingrained. Morality is just as much a biological response as it is a construction of civilization. It has developed in a darwinian fashion becoming intrinsically part of ethnicity. It's one of the reason there's large deviation in behaviors and social norms across ethnic groups. The more distant genetically, the more abstract morality becomes.
>There's objective morality that's not discovered or revealed, but rather ingrained. Morality is just as much a biological response as it is a construction of civilization.
this is subjective, not objective. whether or not it is evil to kick a puppy would be dependent on the minds of the people, it wouldn't be pointing to some truth that is independent of them
and even among my fellow hwhites, there are radically different views on morality
>abortion is murder vs abortion is a human right
>homosexuality is normal vs homosexuality is an abomination
>this is subjective, not objective. whether or not it is evil to kick a puppy would be dependent on the minds of the people, it wouldn't be pointing to some truth that is independent of them
Wrong. If I smash a kitten's head with a hammer in front of a white child, they will undoubtedly have a severe negative reaction. Most shitskin children torture animals for sport, no altruistic attributes to stop them from doing "wrong".
Abortion is not a naturally occurring phenomenon, this is where morality becomes subjective. Complex moral questions aren't ingrained because it takes intellect and consciousness to make the judgment.
Morality is derived from tradition.
>If I smash a kitten's head with a hammer in front of a white child, they will undoubtedly have a severe negative reaction.
okay.
so what?
what does that have to do with whether or not the reason you believe you shouldn't do it is a construction of minds (subjective) or drawing from an external source (objective?)
it's obviously the former in your scenario.
>it is wrong to cause severe negative reactions
why?
are your traditions right?
if someone of your worldview says "x is evil" and someone from a different worldview says "x is good"
are you both equally correct from a third party's perspective?
or do your traditions draw upon a truth that is independent of them?
Morality is derived from human consciousness. Our emotions and logic come together to determine how we should act.
Christians can't handle this. They invent a mythical concept called "objective morality" and say that we can only have objective morality is God exists.
Even if God exists, his preferences would not be "objective".
There is no such thing as morals. That shit was made up by humans to control humans.
>Our emotions and logic come together to determine how we should act.
so if you were to say "stealing is evil," this is just saying "stealing hurts my feewings?"
why should anyone else care about your feelings?
>if God exists, his preferences would not be "objective".
His moral precepts would be objectively true or false to humans
true morality is derived from biological will to survive and reproduce.
artificial morality proclaims fiction and unnatural ideals, which sometimes may support true morality without realizing it, but mostly goes against it.
prime example is third world aid. you effectively make it harder to survive, prosper and raise children by depriving resources and allocating them to others without getting anything in return. This is madness and a crime against the moral instincts. But this altruism is seen as the pinnacle of morality and humanity through the spectacles of religion, empathy, ideology, law,... whatever someone subscribes to.
the same goes for pacifism, raising someone else's child, opening the borders of your territory to outsiders, not making a distinction between your own in-group and the out-group,...
the Jewish religious law of prohibiting racemixing is an example of artificial morality that supports the natural morality, though it rationalises this with religious nonsense.
S P O O K
>true morality is derived from biological will to survive and reproduce.
so, what's good or evil can be defined as that which helps one flourish?
choices that enable you to better your darwinian fitness are morally good?
in this view, would killing someone and taking their wealth, thereby putting you in a position in order to better provide for your offspring be morally good?
(provided it's a practically a sure thing that you will get away with it)
Morality is one of those concepts hard to defend and therefore impose on others.
Much like the concept of 'God' it holds no empirical ground because it exists beyond our physical world. It is derived from our psyche and is per definition a part of what the universe would see as "true".
It becomes a metaphysical device, seemingly "ingrained" in us, despite the fact as to "why" it exists in the first place.
Scientific evidence brought forth to defend a certain set of morals can an will be dismissed as mere opinon unless the notion of God is present.
Which is why I am Christian and the rest of the world should be.
yes. But not just anyone.
Like chimpansees or wolves, humans are not solitary animals. we have a family, a tribe, consisting of people who share enough genes.
The sharing of the same values, religions,... is in my eyes not enough to establish an in-group (nature does not recognize those things, but humans may artificially create in groups that are not grounded in genetic reality.)
So within this in-group it is not good to kill, steal, or sow discord, because we have grown through natural selection to live in groups that rely on each other for survival. In this group solidarity, common defense and peaceful mating are good things.
toward the out group however, all things go. There is no such thing as compassion or altruism in nature. Even within the in-group these are seen as a Mutual benefit, not as an ethical ideal
It would be entirely moral to kill those outsiders when they harm or threaten to harm you, to reciprocate when they attacked you, to defend your territory, to expand your territory should the need arise, to steal their food, to subjugate them,... whatever is necessary for survival.
all life is struggle. demographics is destiny.
The real question is can a theist make a compelling case for moral absolutism.
not trying to be edgy, but this is the harsh truth. humans have deluded themselves that they are above the laws of nature, but just as we cannot break the laws of gravity, so we cannot break the laws of natural selection, genetic struggle, survival of the fittest, without being punished for it.
just as a person falling of a building dies by committing a crime against gravity, so will a cuckold's genes perish in the war for procreation.
a difference is however that these biological laws are not universal as are physical laws. gravity counts as much for humans as for rabbits, but each species has different survival techniques, requirements, tactics, societies,... depending on where the path of natural selection and evolution has taken them
I don't really care if morality is subjective or not, it's vital to a functioning society so I value it in the same way I value culture and tradition.
your view is consistent.
i would disagree with this portion though:
>The sharing of the same values, religions,... is [...] not enough to establish an in-group
your reasoning:
>nature does not recognize those things
i think there are examples of this happening in nature. animals of different species coming together in pursuit of a shared purpose:
animals.howstuffworks.com
>>His moral precepts would be objectively true or false to humans
Why? True or false is undefined in this situation, how can a moral precept, which isn't a descriptive proposition, be true or false?
for His precept to be true for us, it would just have to exist.
the truth would be "thus sayeth the lord" therefore, one ought to obey
I say stop bowing down to and obeying your foreign jewish overlord, and bowing down to his kike implmented set of ideals.
Morality exsited long before that of the coming of christ and it was within the simple human concience, which was that of right and wrong.
Brought about by millenia of human evoloution, exsistance and law and order.
Dont fall for the jewish control tricks and instead embrace your people and lands true spirituality, that of the pre christian way of life.
>>for His precept to be true for us, it would just have to exist.
Have you gone off the deep end or are you interested in explaining that? Why should you obey?
for the same reason a child ought to obey their father, or their father ought to obey their king, or their king ought to obey God.
God is the ultimate authority.
obeying God is good, to disobey God is evil.
Do to take pleasure in question begging lad? Why should one accept God as the ultimate authority? What if I unified the world and became a dictator, would it be morally good to obey my command, no matter how cruel?
>Why should one accept God as the ultimate authority?
by the nature of His existence, who would be above Him hierarchically?
>What if I unified the world and became a dictator, would it be morally good to obey my command, no matter how cruel?
only if what you were commanding did not contradict the moral precepts given to man by God, His authority would supersede yours
And where, pray tell, did these morals come from?
reminder peter hitchens is a pedophile
>>by the nature of His existence, who would be above Him hierarchically?
Not answering the question. Why should one accept God as the ultimate authority? If you prefer a different question, why should one accept a king as the authority figure? There is no difference between God or a king or a father, the only difference is the scale. Just as a father can be evil and a king can be evil, a deity can be evil.
>only if what you were commanding did not contradict the moral precepts given to man by God
This is avoiding the question, do you have an obligation to obey the king regardless of reason? To my understanding, the king still has plenty of ways to abuse his power without violating God's prescriptions.
ah. admittedly a weaker point in my argumentation, perhaps as a result of my racial bias.
but I think I can find a rebuttal to that.
these coyotes and badgers joining together to find food, would be the same as tribe A and tribe B working together in an agreement to help each other during the winter. More modern, country A and country B signing a non-aggression pact.
When these tribes would share the same territory outside of their common goal, would intermarry, would accept a tribal leader of one tribe as legitimate,... then we could speak of an in group.
As your example deals with two different species who cannot possibly be the same ingroup, the following example woud be closer:
livescience.com
(dolphins and humans working together to catch fish).
so I would see it more as a cooperation, to each benefit, but not without the vanishing of the in group out group distinction. Just as the coyote and the badger kill and eat other species, so they work together in this prairie ecosystem.
As I said,between different species exist different sexual strategies, familial structures, instincts,...
as long as reproduction and survival are safe, there exists a ground for cooperation. this symbiotic relationship between tribe A and tribe B, between dolphin and fishermen, between badger and coyote is as such in line with natural morality.
what I meant with an unnatural value-based, and fake in-group, would be modern europe.
they promote third world aid (allocate resources without getting anthing in return), open the borders (abandon their territorial claim), are positive towards racemixing (genetic dilution),...
so a false in group is created, by blurring the distinction between native genetic germans and negroes, arabs,... and masking this biological failure with artificial ideas of civil nationalism, humanism, diversity,....
God is be definition the creator of all and thus cannot be refuted, even by so called logic, because he created the means through which such logic could rise.
The beginning and the end, tell me how can the end of a story be wrong?
...
I'm not sure what you mean by that. You still need to make up your own mind to decide that you want to obey God, and unless obeying God would seem reasonable, to you, you wouldn't do it. Therefore obeying God still has to make some sort of sense or else why would you do it?
to define terms:
>authority: the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.
>ultimate: final
if God exists, then he would be the highest/final being on the totem pole with the ability to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.
>why should one accept a king as the authority figure?
that's what a king is, an authority figure.
you have the ability to rebel, just as you do in relationship to your father or God.
>a deity can be evil.
if moral truth values exist apart from God this would be the case, but from my theological perspective, goodness is part of His nature.
it's true that objective moral truths for humanity are contingent upon God, but that doesn't make them ultimately subjective, because one of the attributes of God is that he exists necessarily
In order for authority to exist, it must be recognized. Authority is not a property, rather it's a subjective value judgment made by people. I might consider you to be an authority regardless. Your argument seems to be that because God is the strongest, we have an obligation to listen to him. Why is that?
>you have the ability to rebel, just as you do in relationship to your father or God.
So now you're saying there's no obligation to obey God, and it's just a matter of preference? This would make following God's prescriptions equivalent to what you call subjective morality, you act because you feel like it.
>goodness is part of His nature.
This is not defining goodness. If goodness is defined, then it must necessarily exist outside of God. If goodness is undefined, then it necessarily doesn't exist. Without providing an explanation of what goodness is first, for you to say that God is maximally good would be an undefined statement.
My morality comes from my instinct. And weird enough, i never commited any crime in my life
>Authority is not a property, rather it's a subjective value judgment made by people
i disagree, whether or not you recognize an authority is subjective to your own will, sure.
but someone objectively is your father, and if God exists, he objectively IS your God.
you can be obliged to obey to out of love and respect for their status, for creating you, acknowledging that they know what's best for you, or out of fear of punishment, it makes no difference.
>now you're saying there's no obligation to obey God
no, i'm saying it's possible to shirk your obligation
>This is not defining goodness
sure it is, goodliness is godliness, hell, to be autistic, i think that's even part of its etymology
>for you to say that God is maximally good would be an undefined statement.
i didn't say that though, i said it's part of His nature. from my perspective saying God is maximally Good is saying God is God
disagreement is meaningless
>Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you.
It's very simple, really.
it means that it's not a universally held belief among people of an ethnicity, which means that
>There's objective morality that's not discovered or revealed, but rather ingrained.
>It has developed in a darwinian fashion becoming intrinsically part of ethnicity.
is wrong
so it's not objective in the ontological sense i defined in the OP, or a universal sense
sure, but why?
what if you can benefit from doing unto others that which you would not want done unto you?
what you were saying would work out great for a society, but you do not exist as a society, you are an individual.
sometimes what's good for the gander is not good for the goose
They are objective. Moral relativism has led to the death of western civilization... If you can't determine the difference between good and evil... Evil will eventually overtake good until there is nothing left.. Happens every time
>what if you can benefit from doing unto others that which you would not want done unto you?
Then that would be immoral.
>what you were saying would work out great for a society, but you do not exist as a society, you are an individual.
An individual living in a society and shaping it along with everyone else. Being responsible and being aware of that does not mean you lose your individuality.
>sometimes what's good for the gander is not good for the goose
I think the topic is about morality. Stabbing someone and taking their money would benefit me (given that I don't get caught). That doesn't make it moral.
It seems you're mistaking morality with something else.
>you can be obliged to obey to out of love and respect for their status, for creating you, acknowledging that they know what's best for you, or out of fear of punishment, it makes no difference.
In this case obligation is no longer an objective truth but a subjective judgment. Given the circumstances of my childhood and the grace of my parents, I might feel obliged to respect and assist them, or given that I love my creator for giving me life, I might feel a sense of obligation or gratitude towards him, I feel an emotional compulsion to act a certain way which is the driving force behind my obedience, but I haven't made some kind of a priori inference to discover an obligation-truth.
In this case it can only be said that my father has objectively fed and raised me, or that I'm objectively being ungrateful for not paying back homage, but the sense of obligation is a sort of subjectivity that you cultivate within yourself. It could not be said that my father objectively has authority over me, and in the first place, if I'm being rebellious, what kind of authority does he even have? If authority is synonymous with power, and my father has no real power over me because I'm not playing ball, then he has no real authority.
>sure it is, goodliness is godliness
Well I consider this problematic for a lack of a better word. If goodness that which is aligned with God's will, then you've redefined the word from the original meaning that goes something like "benevolent, desirable, kind, approvable, wholesome". We're now no longer talking about what's good in the true sense of the word the way an everyman means it, we're just talking about what God wills. If you want to make the case that God's will is the same as "benevolent, desirable, kind, approvable, wholesome" then you have to argue for it, because it doesn't go without saying. You can't define something into being desirable by redefining the word "desirable" to equate that thing which is to be desired.
The fact our bodies were designed to run long distances does not mean we are equally able to run them.
by morality i mean: what is right and what is wrong
"choices that would benefit society" vs "choices that would not benefit society" is what you're talking about.
i can think of plenty of immoral things that would benefit society.
>I haven't made some kind of a priori inference to discover an obligation-truth.
maybe you should
>It could not be said that my father objectively has authority over me
he literally authored you into existence
>if I'm being rebellious, what kind of authority does he even have?
one that is not being recognized, which has no bearing on whether or not it's objectively there
>If authority is synonymous with power
i gave you my definition, "the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience."
he has the right to give you orders, make decisions for you, and enforce obedience until you come of age.
>If goodness that which is aligned with God's will, then you've redefined the word from the original meaning that goes something like "benevolent, desirable, kind, approvable, wholesome"
not if the will of God is "benevolent, desirable, kind, approvable, and wholesome."
>by morality i mean: what is right and what is wrong
You were talking about what benefits you personally. That's got nothing to do with right and wrong.
>"choices that would benefit society" vs "choices that would not benefit society" is what you're talking about.
What? You brought up society, I simply responded to that.
>i can think of plenty of immoral things that would benefit society.
Yes, absolutely. They'd still be immoral though (which is all I'm saying). You're conflating different topics/issues. My original post was just a response to "where is morality derived from?". Something being immoral doesn't mean that there can't be some form of benefit involved, that's not what morality is about.
For morals to be objective, you would need an absolute moral reference point. For most people, this would be a god.
If you're atheist though, this moral reference point doesn't exist. This can lead to moral and cultural relativism which is a cancer on society. For example, 'it's not evil to behead a woman in the name of honour, it's just their culture!'
Based on natural traditional human behaviour you can discover those morals: family, society and work. You don't need religion.
>maybe you should
I tried and failed lad.
>he literally authored you into existence
What of it? Why does it follow from being the creator that he has the right to give orders? I've asked you multiple times but you haven't given me any rule or principle by which I can determine who has authority over whom and why.
>i gave you my definition, "the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience."
If you don't obey God, he doesn't have the power to give orders. He has no real authority according to your given definition, which supports my view that authority is a social relation between beings rather than a property of being.
>not if the will of God is "benevolent, desirable, kind, approvable, and wholesome."
Even if God's will aligns with goodness, the two are still completely separate things, and goodness can still be defined without referring to God. On the flip side, if God using his free will wills that I sacrifice my own son then I can judge God's will to be not-good, using the original a-theistic definition of good.
>If you don't obey God, he doesn't have the power to give orders.
what do you mean by this?
the orders would be given regardless of whether or not they're obeyed.
>the two are still completely separate things
agreed, God would be the entirety of His being, whereas goodness is merely one attribute.
>goodness can still be defined without referring to God
not if He doesn't exist, who would have the authority to say being "benevolent, desirable, kind, approvable, and wholesome" are good (something you ought to do) rather than evil (something you ought not do) things?
>if God using his free will wills that I sacrifice my own son then I can judge God's will to be not-good
i guess, your mind is fallible though and wouldn't be able to see all the consequences of this action, maybe there would be justification in such a scenario that you yourself couldn't see.
the scenario you've described is not how the story of isaac and abraham goes though.
>the orders would be given regardless of whether or not they're obeyed
Well a homeless person can give orders to trump but that doesn't mean he has the power to give orders, that's not how I interpreted "power to order" anyway, de facto power to have your orders respected, rather than de jure "certification" to give orders that may or may not be respected in actuality.
>not if He doesn't exist, who would have the authority to say being "benevolent, desirable, kind, approvable, and wholesome" are good (something you ought to do) rather than evil (something you ought not do) things?
Saying you ought to be good is different from defining goodness. There's no problem with defining goodness using the above definition in a godless world. Goodness would still exist. As for reasons for why we ought to be good (benevolent to each other and so on), I'm not sure there's any way to prove that someone ought to do something with or without God, so the loss of God wouldn't have made any difference.
The point I was trying to eventually get at is that given that theists have to choose to obey God's will, and given that this decision is emotional and prone to bias, to say that theists follow an absolute code of morality is misleading, because even if the code is defined absolutely, it's not the same as being followed absolutely in actuality. A theist is just as liable to fall into temptation and kill me for my money as an a-theist is, and so given that theists aren't flawlessly moral(evident from the existence of theists who aren't holy saints), how can the moral absolutist claim a moral high ground over the relativist? It's a problem of the chain being only as strong as the weakest link.
If I believe the universe is inherently moralistic, how can some who believes the universe is without meaning be as moral as me?
inb4 biology
>Goodness would still exist
yeah, but not as an objective descriptor of something real. what you'd classify as good would be based on your own subjective whims, rather than pointing to something that exists necessarily and essentially.
>theists have to choose to obey God's will, and given that this decision is emotional and prone to bias,
no. i come to this decision based on reason.
>to say that theists follow an absolute code of morality is misleading, because even if the code is defined absolutely, it's not the same as being followed absolutely in actuality.
right yeah, no one's perfect, we just have an objective basis to draw from, it still has to be filtered through our fallible minds.
there are plenty of atheists who behave more morally than the worst self proclaimed christian, despite it being irrational to do so in a godless universe.
>>yeah, but not as an objective descriptor of something real. what you'd classify as good would be based on your own subjective whims, rather than pointing to something that exists necessarily and essentially.
It may be hard to measure what's good, but the definition of goodness is consistent. For instance you may not be able to tell who has benevolent intentions or who is malicious, but you can tell about yourself when your intentions are bad. It may be hard to tell what's wholesome (conducive to well being), but you can try to define what well being is by consulting your own intuitions on how we wish to be, and from that understand how to treat others. I agree that I only call things such as kindness "good" because I developed adversion towards these things for more or less irrational reasons.
>no. i come to this decision based on reason.
You may have made a commitment to follow God's will, but that's not the same as obeying in the real world. Reasoning may lead me to say something like "I hereby resolve to never kill" or "I undertake to never tell lies or use foul language", but when the time comes and someone provokes me and I get angry, whether or not I fall into temptation is a matter of emotional resilience and self control.
Racialist thinking is correct thinking. There is a level of subjectivity within biological parameters.