A Secular Basis for Morality?
I've discussed at length my religious views in the past on Ricochet. To sum it up, I'm a secular agnostic and conservative. I have no hostility towards religion, though cannot bring myself to believe in any particular religion or deity.
On one theoretical issue though, I am torn: Does there exist or can there exist a secular basis for objective morality?
In my own life, I operate under the assumption that there is objective morality. Rape, murder, abuse, are absolutely wrong and must be severely punished. But on a philosophical level, what is the objective basis for believing these things are wrong? I concede that I am incapable of producing one. However, as a secularist, I must act as though there is. Does that make sense?
In other words, good religion has a utilitarian and perhaps even evolutionary purpose. Society can exist fine with non-religious individuals, but a non-religious society with no objective basis for morality is doomed to all sorts of evils.
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Mar '12
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
I would hazard the case that there is no such thing as "Moral Objectivity" secular or otherwise. Meaning the sense of any right and wrong by its very nature is deterministically syllogistic and can only be found within the context of the evolutionary trails we continue to collectively walk.
While I do believe in a spiritual essence to our natures, I would like to put forth the thought that we see this intrinsic drift of purpose expressed both in our biology and the social development that extends from it.
That morality is built within our ‘genes’ so to speak as an extension of the collaborative effort required to develop as we have physically, but also by which we have developed the social morphisms that hold our society together.
There is an innate tendency of all people to move through what I call the Dahmer-Ghandi bridge. A tendency to shift from the middle moral ground most of us fall within, pushed one direction or another, from sociopathy to altruism by the vagaries and vicissitudes of life.
Jun '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Fred Cole
With all due respect to those of you who are believers,
My moral code is one that I chose freely. It was a decision I alone made. It was not imposed on my by an invisible magic man in the sky.
Do you really need an invisible magic man in the sky to tell you not to murder other people? · 2 hours ago
I'm Catholic. I don't believe in an "invisible magic man in the sky" nor do I know anyone who does. But putting that aside...
Murder is an easy one, since nearly everyone agrees that murder is wrong. Let's choose something a bit more difficult. Suppose someone reads Marx and "freely chooses" to make "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" the centerpiece of his own moral code.
Since his code and yours were both freely chosen, does that make them both equally valid?
Mar '12
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
The moral question is not about biological heuristics in some Newtonian matrix of diminishing returns, as we tear apart the components of both our nature and our bodies, it is a process reinforced by imprinting and then choice, choices that catalyze our core natures into the directions we express.
It seems obvious to me from this prospective that the Founding Fathers understood this intrinsic nature of man, regardless of how they or we thought it came to be, it is nonetheless part of who we are.
Any sense of moral focus then is an extension of our collective wills, whose moral drift takes the path of least resistance to the center, that being a tendency to define statutes that intuitively develop into the moral views we come to have and that inherently drive the individualistic choices we all come to collectively make.
Sep '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Severely Ltd.
This is a good question and I think J. Gawron's Kant post holds the answer. To have a morality with any meaning, you have to have freedom of choice. If everything is determined, nothing is wrong.
Free Will deserves its own thread, but I deny that there is any conflict between determinism and the existence of real choices.
Secondly, modern science doesn't actually assert that everything is determined. Events are randomly distributed, albeit often within a very tight probability distribution. So Kant's/Gawron's claim that " one is left with morality here and nature there and never the two will meet" doesn't follow for a non-deterministic quantum universe like ours. Some thinkers have proposed that human choices originate in structures in he brain that amplify the non-deterministic quantum randomness of things. I don't buy it myself, but it shows how a non-deterministic theory might work.
Edited on March 19, 2012 at 3:59amMar '12
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
It is the same with any religion, they each are extensions of the crucible of time, violence and the need that drove them to come into existence to begin with. They are all fallible, all of them intuitively searching for the same thing, the same goal, but each one of them finds a center in themselves; a blueprint, that guides them to be the best that they can be.
So the question arises “Does there exist or can there exist a secular basis for objective morality?” I have the tendency to believe that the question is superfluous in that a true secular view of life cannot really exist. The moral question has already been answered in that it is a part of our nature, one that as individuals we lose at times, but by which we seem to destroy and find over and over again in our minds eye of perfection that we can feel, but not quite reach.
Dec '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Mack The Mike
James Gawron
Mack The Mike
James Gawron:
As this is not compatible with immanental ideas of causation one is left with morality here and nature there and never the two will meet.
What's an immanental idea? · 1 minute ago
Immanental Causation is Nature. One event is caused by the next by the next by the next ad infinitum. · 3 minutes ago
Thanks. That's my problem with Kant, then. I'm a Compatiblist on the question of Free Will. · 7 minutes ago
So is Kant. However, only through the super rational divine architect can we assume that Human Happiness will result by the Moral use of Free Will.
Oct '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Mack The Mike
Severely Ltd.
Free Will deserves its own thread, but I deny that there is any conflict between determinism and the existence of real choices.
Secondly, modern science doesn't actually assert that everything is determined. Events are randomly distributed, albeit often within a verytight probability distribution. So Kant's/Gawron's claim that " one is left with morality here and nature there and never the two will meet" doesn't follow for a non-deterministic quantum universe like ours. Some thinkers have proposed that human choices originate in structures in he brain that amplify the non-deterministic quantum randomness of things. I don't buy it myself, but it shows how a non-deterministic theory might work. · 5 minutes ago
Edited 5 minutes ago
A physicist I was recently reading said (my paraphrase) Quantum randomness is merely determinism on a level science cannot yet grapple with. I think this must be the overwhelming view.
If you can reconcile determinism and free will, you're using entirely different definitions than I am. In fact, changing the definition of free will has become the way to sell materialism to the public.
Mar '12
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Mack The Mike
Um, there sort of isa code governing interstellar space and subatomic particles. · 17 minutes ago
We call it a code (or more precisely natural "laws") because Newton and other Enlightenment scientists were coming from a theistic culture, but I think no one (even in that coining generation) would refer to them as moral laws. That's my only point--morality implies a judgement about human (or certainly free-willed) action.
Sep '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
James Gawron
Mack The Mike
Thanks. That's my problem with Kant, then. I'm a Compatiblist on the question of Free Will. · 7 minutes ago
So is Kant. However, only through the super rational divine architect can we assume that Human Happiness will result by the Moral use of Free Will. · 6 minutes ago
Kant is not a Compatablist, at least he isn't if you were correct in stating that Kant thought "this [Freedom] is not compatible with immanental ideas of causation" [emphasis mine]. Also wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism) says " Immanuel Kant called [Compatibilism] a wretched subterfuge and word jugglery." [internal quotation marks omitted].
Mar '12
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Your making the mistake of thinking that we are outside the existence of nature, and that nature either controls us or that we are beyond nature. Most philosophical diatribes, Kant's included make the assumption that it has to be either or, instead of seeing the possibility that we are a process of nature and it of us.
Dec '11
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Severely Ltd.
EThompson
raycon: EJT:
What do churches have to do with God.
Strong social codes are another word for morality. It still comes back to where the source is.
2 ) My "source" is very simply the peace and prosperity engendered by leading a life according to specific social mores. It's far easier to be an ethical person than a criminal! · 24 minutes ago
'Easy' just won't stand up as a reliable foundation for morality. · 1 hour ago
Please don't manipulate my words and the obvious meaning of my post.
My use of the word easy referred to the healthy, productive life that provides the strongest moral authority because it is in the individual's best interest. There is no stronger reign on human behavior than that.
Edited on March 19, 2012 at 4:32amSep '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Robert Mitchell
We call it a code (or more precisely natural "laws") because Newton and other Enlightenment scientists were coming from a theistic culture, but I think no one (even in that coining generation) would refer to them as moral laws. That's my only point--morality implies a judgement about human (or certainly free-willed) action. · 2 minutes ago
'Moral' just means "related to the rightness of decisions". So yeah, it's absurd to apply moral laws where no decisions are made in the same way that it would be absurd to apply laws about electricity somewhere where there's no electric charge. But the absurdity of applying V=IR where there's no V or I doesn't make Ohm's law absurd for your stereo system; and the absurdity of applying moral laws to subatomic particles doesn't make the application of those moral laws to people absurd either. If subatomic particles made decisions, they would be bound by Moral Law.
Jun '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Question: what do folks on this thread make of the statement: "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..."
I presume most of you believe in unalienable rights, but in particular:
May '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Mark Wilson "What do you mean "must"? Real life morality is not like the Ricochet CoC. History has shown that many people do gravely immoral things and suffer no measurable negative consequences, or in many cases benefit greatly from their actions."
I should do that which springs from within me. I must do that which springs from a source external to, and above me. I believe the CoC analogy fits. An objective morality from God has consequences imposed by God in a time and place of His choosing. Your final sentence reflects only temporal consequences, not divine consequences, which are outside our observation, but which I believe have been revealed to us by our Creator. I may curse Obama in this forum and, in the short run, find some agreeing, some objecting on grounds of taste. But those evaluations are not ultimately relevant. What is relevant is the ultimate judgement of the CoC monitors. If the key person is on vacation, and I escape judgement for a week, it does not mean that I will not face consequences
Sep '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Severely Ltd.
A physicist I was recently reading said (my paraphrase) Quantum randomness is merely determinism on a level science cannot yet grapple with. I think this must be the overwhelming view.
Generally speaking, in areas with which "science cannot yet grapple" no overwhelming view exists. Indeed, the process of grappling is just that of coming to an overwhelming view.
In QM the probability distribution of something (say, the location of an electron) propagates deterministically until an observation occurs. Then the distribution collapses to a particular event in a random way within that distribution.
Oct '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
EThompson
Severely Ltd.
EThompson
raycon: EJT:
What do churches have to do with God.
Strong social codes are another word for morality. It still comes back to where the source is.
2 ) My "source" is very simply the peace and prosperity engendered by leading a life according to specific social mores. It's far easier to be an ethical person than a criminal! · 24 minutes ago
'Easy' just won't stand up as a reliable foundation for morality. · 1 hour ago
Please don't manipulate my words and the obvious meaning of my post.
My use of the word easy referred to the healthy, productive life that provides a strong moral authority because it is in one's bestinterest. There is no stronger reign on human behavior than happiness. · 3 minutes ago
I apologize, my wording was a bit of a cheap shot. However, I don't think that if your basis of acting morally is self-interest, that it is much more noble or accurate than easy. If an immoral act were in your long term self-interest, would that justify it? Self-interest doesn't hold up as a 'source', in the sense that Raycon used.
Sep '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Severely Ltd.
If you can reconcile determinism and free will, you're using entirely different definitions than I am. In fact, changing the definition of free will has become the way to sell materialism to the public. · 30 minutes ago
I think you are probably right that we are using different definitions. I generally find the definitions used by Incompatiblists to be contradictory and overly self-referential. This debate has been going on for centuries and it's a bit far afield for this thread, but I don't think Compatablism is primarily motivated by a desire to sell Materialism. Seems to me that most materialists are Incompatablists who deny Free Will.
Oct '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Mack The Mike
Severely Ltd.
A physicist I was recently reading said (my paraphrase) Quantum randomness is merely determinism on a level science cannot yet grapple with. I think this must be the overwhelming view.
Generally speaking, in areas with which "science cannot yet grapple" no overwhelming view exists. Indeed, the process of grappling is just that of coming to an overwhelming view.
In QM the probability distribution of something (say, the location of an electron) propagates deterministically until an observation occurs. Then the distribution collapses to a particular event in a random way within that distribution. · 0 minutes ago
If the randomness in QM is caused by physical laws yet not comprehended, we are still dealing with determinism. If the randomness comes from outside, from the supernatural/transcendent, I don't think we have any argument.
I don't see how describing the nature of Quantum mechanics gets you any closer to reconciling free-will and Determinism. They are, by definition, opposites. The only way to do it, as I mentioned, is to alter the definitions. I'm headed for bed.
Sep '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Severely Ltd.
If the randomness in QM is caused by physical laws yet not comprehended, we are still dealing with determinism.
True, but almost no one believes this.
Sep '10
Re: A Secular Basis for Morality?
Severely Ltd.
I don't see how describing the nature of Quantum mechanics gets you any closer to reconciling free-will and Determinism.
It doesn't. I was making two separate points. 1) Kant is wrong because Freedom and Determinism are compatible, and 2) Kant is wrong because the physical world isn't deterministic in the needed sense anyway. Point 2 was not offered as support for point 1. They each stand separately.