Are there any good philosophical arguments for secular ethics? That is...

Are there any good philosophical arguments for secular ethics? That is, objective morals without the compulsion of religion, that are true in all circumstances?

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Morality is completely subjective. There are just ideas that basically all civilised people agree with, such as murder and rape being wrong. Generally I think the NAP is a good model for secular ethics.

No. They're all falsified.

Religion has zero influence on your morals unless you are a fundamentalist. How many christians do you know that believe in killing people who work on Sunday?

People get their morals from culture then pick out bits of the religion that fit their morals.

yeah its called a gun
you point it at the guy's face, and you tell him he's wrong

also you take his money

But the culture initially gets its morals from religion. Or at least they evolve together.

All thing seek to impose upon, oppress, or sedate your willpower.
It is your duty to overcome these so that you may transcend all the little bullshit for the bigger picture.
Becuase if you zoom out far enough, everything can look like a spec of dust.

This objective morality appeals to no higher power other than your own.

1. The object of morality is man
2. Man is not the same object in all circumstances
3. Therefore, a particular system of morality cannot be objective in all circumstances

Immanuel Kant said the best maxim he could think of for his morality of the categorical imperitive was to not treat other people as a means to an end.

'Veil of ignorance'
Not truly objective but good way to get things that apply in all circumstances.

Nigger detected

did the golden rule originate in judeao-christian culture or has it been recorded earlier?

Ethics are always just norms, informed by our evolution and cultural history. A "secular" morality will simply be one where a god-figure isn't blackmailing you to act certain ways

the golden rule has origins in the ritual sacrifice and has been expanded upon plenty by modern philosophy, so yeah I'd say "objective morals" are well established outside the boundaries of organized religion

Secular ethic's logical end-point is nihilism. Usually either "I make my own values," otherwise known as relativism. The transvaluation of values.

So genetic, inherited morality. Also, my question addresses not whether axioms like the NAP are good, but how to prove that they're correct.

Not a philosophical argument, why the fuck did you even post?

Literal chimpanzee morality.

Why is it correct to transcend the bullshit? Why is it my duty?

Older, I think it goes as far back as the Akkadians or Confucius. But again, can we prove it is correct? Why should we treat others the way we'd have them treat us? In the Bible, it's simply decreed by Jesus.

>Are there any good philosophical arguments for secular ethics?
Are there any at all?

The Golden Rule is a further development of the Lex Talionis, which is the cornerstone of all morality.

First you don't fuck with others if you don't want them to fuck with you. Then, after everyone understood how retaliation works, you start treating people as you'd like them to treat you, at which point cooperation begins and some form of society arises.

>why is it my duty?
Well if you want to live the best life you can you have to make sure you are able to make the right decisions.
I mean you dont need to transcend the bullshit if you dont want to, but sooner or later the bullshit is always gonna stir up conflict, and crisis.

We are always already valuing and caring about things. It is simply the case that it doesn't make sense to think of any ethics being axiomatically grounded

So exploiting a helpless victim is ok as long as you genocide his family tree because then retaliation wont occur.


>at which point cooperation begins and some form of society arises.

and why would this be good?

Yes, but what is the "best" life and what are the "right" decisions? Why are conflict and crisis preferably avoided?

You seem to be completely missing the point of this thread.

Thats actually how alot of royalty got deposed back in the day

I think the laws of omerta also state it. Competing crime families will often try to wipe out entire bloodlines.

>So exploiting a helpless victim is ok as long as you genocide his family tree because then retaliation wont occur
What makes it okay or not depends entirely on how a society reacts to it. It might be favorable or not depending on the circumstances. I don't doubt for a second that such behavior was "ok" or perhaps even necessary at some point in history.

Deontological ethics will probably tell you that it is always bad, but deontological ethics is mostly oblivious to reality.

>and why would this be good?
Because there are mutual benefits. One evolutionary benefit being the fact that a more cooperative social group or tribe has an advantage against a less cooperative group, and is therefore more likely to succeed.

This is why the onus is put on you.

You decide what the best life is.
And conflict and crisis are to only be avoided if you dont know how to handle them.

I mean just look to psychology if you dont want to look for some sort of symbolism or metaphor.

Without belief in a higher being you cannot have objective morality, truth or beauty you are left only with the self and our own experiences. There is only nihilism and suicide at the end of the subjective postmodern moral rabbit hole.

No. The closest you can get is utilitarianism, but that is subjective.

You cannot coherently argue objective morality without a god

the golden rule has been recorded as a "tale" as far back as 2000BC in egyptian mythos, but the core idea of "you get what you give" and all it entails has even deeper roots in acts of ritual sacrifice (which have been going on probably since the dawn of our species)

>can we prove it is correct?

define correct

we can prove the golden rule is useful for human societies, because what happens when you don't follow the golden rule is the story of cain and abel: envy, murder, revenge, utter destruction

it's no surprise that this idea has evolutionarily spread itself through human populations since the beginning of times, it is a testimony to how invaluable it is to our survival: the golden rule is the basis for much of our morality because it produces successful human societies and that's the gist of it

could it be somehow "more correct" in this sense? I don't think so, not if you believe in the efficiency of evolutionary processes (there are no buts and ifs to the golden rule after all)

Sup OP if you read Nietzsche you will see that ethics and aesthetics are the same thing; What is good is what you find beautiful. (Protip: beauty is strength) [hidden level data: its being white, proud, and not apologizing for shit]

That is not the categorical imperative.
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law"

So only lie if you want everyone to always lie.

John Rawls is a leftist coward. he asumes that all humans would act the same if only we could take away their selfishness.

Slippery slope much.
What about embracing the absuridty of your own failures?

Fuck yeah, 'straya John Rawls is a fucking socialist with a stupid theory that only appeals to other socialists

I suppose you could say a cultural religion could act as a form of moral paternalism.

If it's objective it exists and directs moral phenomena regardless of your belief or lack thereof. It'd be more accurate to say that you need to *disbelieve* in a higher being or higher order of things to act contrary to a presumed objective morality.

Then again, that leads you to the concept of free will. It's only by believing that you're free to make moral choices that morality can be abstractly conceived in the first place. But at the end you're objectively just a meat puppet of either a God or self-sustained ordered nothingness.

being amoral tends to be non utile
people will notice you are an asshole and your life will become harder for it

That Dark Triad though

it's only ok if you have such overwhelming military control over everyone that you have no reason to fear being deposed or arrested or assassinated over your actions

even then there are probably better ways to solve whatever problem you're having that will make people more willing to work with you

I've read a lot of philosophy in search in this the answer to this question and the only philosophy which offers a coherent understanding of secular morality is Objectivism.

Yes, Rand was a jew who literally fucked her husband blah blah blah. We know.

But her non-fiction, specifically virtue of selfishness and Intro to Objectivist Epistemology, are great. Intro changed the way I think and VoS changed the way I live.

>There are just ideas that basically all civilised people agree with, such as murder and rape being wrong.
these thing happens today, so it is false. try to be rational once.

Nice! but i was meaning from the perspective of a philosophical understanding.

Freedom must be the first principle, without freedom there is nothing. It is very easy to beleive in free will and a higher being.

but come on guys ethics are much much more complex than mere reason and utilitarian civil law.

If your child died naturally why/is it immoral to eat him?

nobody likes PUAs

Because it's gross and beauty is all that matters.

>>First you don't fuck with others if you don't want them to fuck with you.
then why do bullies in school exist?

prions
it's not immoral so much as it is unhealthy

because pussies exist
bullies sense their lack of willingness to retaliate and punish them for it

I agree.

More true than religious ones.

You are seriously brain damaged if you think morals come from a higher power.

>>we can prove the golden rule is useful for human societies, because what happens when you don't follow the golden rule is the story of cain and abel: envy, murder, revenge, utter destruction
if the golden rule has been applied before, then why was there ''envy, murder, revenge, utter destruction'' before the application of the rule, during the application of the rule and after the application of the rule?

Why do you think rule makes people behave, when people do not change because you have written a rule on paper?
Why can you not become an empiricist and base your behavior on experience, instead of clinging to a rule which is ineffective?

prions scare the hell out of me.

ok lets change skin them and make clothes out of them, instead of eat?

>>Freedom must be the first principle,
that's an opinion, nothing else

>being this autistic
i encourage you to murder and steal and see how it works out for you budd

>It is very easy to beleive in free will
if free will exists, I must admit it exists, so I do not have free will

too expensive

that's not what free will means you stupid frog
>gravity exists
>I can't fly
>therefore free will doesn't exist
pull yourself together

>If your child died naturally why/is it immoral to eat him?
This guy is right It's hardly morally relevant to society and no one actually gives a shit until they are forced to confront the idea of eating dead children.

They get to slay all the pussy though

Because power dynamics. Retaliation still happens, but within a certain margin that allows stability within groups.

That is, all things considered, the group is still more cooperative and functional than not, and there's probably an optimal ratio of bullies/betas for any given society (see Game Theory and predatory behaviors)

>he thinks "slaying" ugly desperate bints is anything worth aspiring to

To me it is objective, to you all things are merely an opinion?

"if i am free i am forced to believe in freewill so i am not free" cool story.. hows logic working out for you?

>secular
>ethics
Complete meme-tier trash. How could anybody stand around and say "Hey guys, we're all going to die and there will have been absolutely no real point to any of our existences, but you should refrain from doing things that I don't like because then my feelings would be hurt" and expect people to just hop on board? You just aren't willing to accept the consequences of your belief system. You're hoping to leech off of moral frameworks that your own ideology says are ultimately subjective. Nothing other than degeneracy awaits as future generations would find no reason to comply.

also would be seen as desecrating the body which is disrespectful because people have sentimental attachments to the bodies of their loved ones

nice job dude you really crushed that strawman

>Because it's gross and beauty is all that matters.

What if i told you beauty and morality are the same thing?

>Why do you think rule makes people behave
The fear of retaliation is all that matters for most people to behave according to the rules.

Laws are neither for the good nor for the bad, but for the mediocre.

Never claimed that.

Then something ugly is necessarily immoral according to your definition of morality.

no

Act beautifully. Do not Act ugly...

>The fear of retaliation is all that matters for most people to behave according to the rules.
yeah and dracon eradicated crime amirite
plus rules are your power fantasies and have nothing to do with the ''good of the people'', but you daydream to much to acknowledge this

>religion has no impact on culture

something something full retard something something

>>Laws are neither for the good nor for the bad, but for the mediocre.
yeah, nothing better than living in terror because some guy cling to his fantasy of making people behave through his rules and terrorism. You think like a liberal.

Explain how any code of "secular ethics" wouldn't just boil down to "Don't do this because otherwise my feelings would be hurt."

What if I'm really hungry and there's this dead baby lying in front of me? If I eat it I become ugly and consequently immoral, but if I don't I die and become a corpse, which is also ugly and consequently immoral.

Eradicating crime is unrealistic unless you have some eugenics project to do it. But that doesn't change the fact that laws are necessary to keep the populace under (relative) control.

Why are you suddenly equating the rule of law with despotic government?

Have you killed yourself? No, then you choose to continue to exist, which means you believe that you have a reason to exist. The reason must be more important enough for you to choose to exist; if you had no reason important enough then you would not choose to exist anymore. This logical reasoning of self existence is what keeps people from committing suicide: this moral choice to not commit suicide is chosen through logical reasoning.

The golden rule is the core of objective morality, and it's pretty easy to extrapolate if you know the least thing about economics.

>humans need multiple things to survive
>specialization allows multiple humans to be more productive (making survival easier) in concert than acting alone
>specializing necessitates trade
>trade necessitates trust that other parties will honor their end of a deal
>honoring past deals is the best objective evidence that you are trustworthy
>do unto others as you would have others do unto you

Humans are not rational, simple as that.

moral rules exist to make society better for everyone in general from an ethnointersubjective estimation of value. it's like stealing is bad because you don't want your shit stolen.

...

Eating the baby is immoral. weather you are prepared to do something immoral is your own choice and often we must chose between two immoral choices.

That can just be explained by human ego. People don't kill themselves because they think too highly of themselves. They want to bide time and wait things out in the hopes that they can find an escape route.

You're operating on the assumption that human survival is objectively good. Wouldn't environmentalists disagree with that? After all, human proliferation comes at the expense of nature.

Environmentalists are idiots, and anyone who draws a divide between humans and nature is a double-idiot.

Any living thing on earth, given enough leeway would consume and reproduce until it rendered the environment incapable of supporting it. The two main things that control populations are predators and disease/starvation from overcrowding.

What sets humans apart isn't our destructiveness, but that we can actively try to alter the environment to preserve or extend its ability to support us.

So your secular code of ethics starts out by branding all who disagree with it as idiots? That doesn't sound objective to me.

>starts out by branding all who disagree with it as idiots
if you're going to shill this hard for jeebus try a little harder. maybe by addressing the argument against the idiots instead of the fact they were called idiots.

You're calling me a shill for Jesus even though you started out with the golden rule? Yeesh. All I did was point out that your supposedly "objective" and secular code of ethics starts out by saying that all who disagree with it don't count.

objectivity is independent of whether or not anybody agrees with a positon.

>all who disagree with it don't count
and again you're ignoring the part where the entire post was an argument refuting your "environmentalist" straw man, fag.

If it's so objective then why does it completely fail to take hold with large groups of people? Objectivity, by definition, is something that is true without regard for opinion. If your system relies on an opinion, one that many people don't share, then it isn't objective. Your ethics are rooted in the assumption that human proliferation is good, which is entirely your opinion. Not fact.

How about the fact that morality is a natural occurrence which means morality is objective and we've only been conditioned to to think otherwise through countless years of being indoctrinated with religion all around us for so long that we associate natural morality with a religious upbringing.

That's obviously not true. Do you think that primitive tribes had morality? Hell, even now you can just look south to Mexico and see cartels dismembering people while they're still alive. Then you can go online and find whole communities reveling in it and asking for more. Come to think of it: Holy shit. How the hell are you on Sup Forums while still thinking that people are just naturally good? Remember when this place used to host guro?

You dont need religion to be a good person. Religion should be outlawed. If you act like a cunt thats on you, not some mumbo jumbo about a man in the sky.

What kind of fucking special are you to think "proliferation of a species is good for that species" isn't an objective fact? Whether it's sustainable over a given interval and how to increase that interval is the real issue, but if you copped to that you couldn't pretend you were right anymore.

You've made a few subtle mistakes there. For starters, if you have to tack on "for that species" then it becomes subjective, not objective. If it were objective then it would just end with "is good" with no need to clarify who it seems good to. The statement "proliferation of a species is good" is a matter of abject opinion, not fact.

>these thing happens today,
In the US we arrest them, have a trial and then off to prison if guilty.
I Arabic countries for example murdering gays is cool and raping women if fine as long as its the woman's fault and then you get to kill her by throwing large rocks at her in public...

She's hot. Name?

Superstition subverts natural morality. I just said that religion had taken credit for what morality does.

playing at semantics doesn't make it any less of a fact.

But to humor you, my original point about humans being uniquely capable of managing our environments to conserve environmental resources and improve the efficiency at which they are utilized is a clear point in favor of human proliferation being good not just for humans alone, but all life.

But I just gave you some very compelling reasons to believe that natural morality isn't a thing. Are you trying to say that these things are done due to superstition?

Such a statement is completely wrong. Take Chernobyl for example. It is currently a wildlife preserve brimming with nature. Human civilization is more detrimental for nature than a nuclear meltdown.

Yes, an argument by THE philosopher; Ayn Rand. Objectivist ethics blow every other attempt out of the watter.
Read it or listen to John Galt's Speech from Atlus Shrugged. youtube.com/watch?v=8F5nhYo5nx4

Is thaqt Care Blanchet?

All you gave were examples of degeneracy. Whenever morality starts to make a comeback the Satan worshipers double down on superstition and predictive programming. Haven't you ever wondered why self destruction was memed as fun instead of self improvement? It's because self improvement is naturally fun and for good reason. Degeneracy has to be cultivated over and over again to subvert the natural flow of the world towards morality.

Since when was morality anywhere even close to making a comeback? Things started going downhill in the 50s and now we're here.

you cannot refute the fact that humans possess the ability to conserve our environment by listing our failures to do so.

Might as well claim guns are harmless because you once shot at a man and missed.

If humans can only properly conserve their environments by not settling over the wilderness in the first place then how is human proliferation objectively good? Besides, this is all ignoring that some people might genuinely not want humanity to proliferate. Certain circles think that society is best kept to around 100,000 people.

without religion, there is no objective reason for us to not rob and kill you OP