Can morality be objective in a world without God?

Maybe that you attack the problem you see while countless other problems go unnoticed. There is always intention guiding the hand, and the future you envision very often becomes the present that you'll have to endure. Wether you're bridgeing rivers or scientific theories one thing is the same. You build the bridge where you envision it to be.

JL, what you call secular humanism can be said to be the modern theme. It is a secular age. All of our laws and morality frameworks have loopholes and bypass-mechanisms enabeling us to do whatever we want anyway. There is no moral ground, no metaphysical ground, there is just the rules we make up and call morals. Now what if we were to be as uncompromising in this as Gandhi, for instance? That's the only way to make it work, total devotion. It's true of anything and everything.

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Yes, Cyracuz. The way to make a moral system work (and I'm referring to the mores of a societal system, not the ethical sensibilities of independent individuals--the evidence of ethical atheists proves that) is to have them enforced. One needs no Gods for one's ethics, but, according to many anthropologists, societies seem to require, as a functional prerequisite for their persistence, a need for mythologies that legitimize their moral systems by means of some kind of absolute grounding. And they are probably right. Otherwise their enforcing actions might be perceived as the tyrannical actions of humans against humans.

Ray, you say that "The problem with having no metaphysical ground would be that any person can make up their own rules and call it moral." Actually, something like that happens even with absolute moral systems in pluralistic systems like ours where individuals choose their moral systems from a range of options. Christians choose to follow their systems and reject or ignore those of Confusionists, Sufis, Jains, etc..
Humans DO make up their rules, but they do it collectively and trans-generationally. Here, "choosing" does not seem too different from "making up."

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It just seems to me that both theism and foundationalism are unnecessary in our quest for axiological security (i.e., a "solid" or valid basis for our value system). No God is needed to have a valid or functional morality, and no metaphysical ground is needed for same. Collectively and historically we make up our values, and we make up the Gods and metaphysical presuppositions to support them. I'd rather just give credit to humanity for all its creations.

I agree with you. But a "solid" or "valid" basis can only be understood within a specific moral system.
The question, however, was the possibility of an objective moral without God as reference. I mean, a basis to moral rules that are valid in all time and space. If we agree that there are moral rules that are valid since the beginning of mankind, and independent of men - objective - those moral rules must have an origin that is not in us. If we see the question from this point of view, I think an absolute and objective moral must be based in a God (or the Platonic Forms).
But we can deny the existance of that absolute and objective moral, and say that all moral is the product of men, as social beings. This is my opinion, and I believe it is also yours.

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JLNobody wrote:

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One needs no Gods for one's ethics, but, according to many anthropologists, societies seem to require, as a functional prerequisite for their persistence, a need for mythologies that legitimize their moral systems by means of some kind of absolute grounding. And they are probably right. Otherwise their enforcing actions might be perceived as the tyrannical actions of humans against humans.

Isn't this a matter of perspective? The farmer who owns the land where the new highway is built may see it as a tyrannical enforcing of something. I'm not sure we'd get him to agree that it was progress. The business man who gets his daily travel shortened by an hour will not have any problems seeing that the highway is indeed progress. He will not understand the farmers outcry againt it.

Now, the farmer would likely have to suffer the highway in this world of ours, and we cannot really say that it is fair. It's another loophole. If he doesn't want to sell the government can expropriate.

It's impossible to make everyone happy, and it is well that it is so. Personal happiness is a personal responsibility, and removing this duty from the individual is in every way as oppressing as building walls and enforcing ridiculous sanctions, terror and punishments.

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But, what does this have to do with a metaphysic?

Because we too are a part of metaphysics. In the story, the concept of connection is emphasized. Why pull the arrow? Because the arrow is causing pain and potentially death. The pain would still be there even if another person does not feel it. How enlightened is the person who choose to not recognize the pain? A blind person living in a lie.

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Actually, something like that happens even with absolute moral systems in pluralistic systems like ours where individuals choose their moral systems from a range of options. Christians choose to follow their systems and reject or ignore those of Confusionists, Sufis, Jains, etc..

A person might believe in Christianity for certain reasons, and some people might believe confucianism, but these are examples of perception of what is moral.
Thus, we have genocides in the name of this or the name of that, and in many of these cases their justification is in actuality only their feelings and not regarding the effect their action has on others; therefore it can not be considered moral.

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Humans DO make up their rules, but they do it collectively and trans-generationally. Here, "choosing" does not seem too different from "making up."

Yet we follow certain rules given to us. Why? Why do I suppress my anger? Anger feels like a pay-off sometimes, but why do I not want it then? Because I see the effect it has on others. That, is the metaphysical ground.

Jl, I'll work on my argument, and I'll tell you all about it if you want one day.

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Ray, I think we have a different notion of the meaning of metaphysic. That's making it difficult for me to follow you line of thought here.

Cryacuz, yes, it is a matter of perspective, or should we say interests. The ruler's rulings will rarely please everyone equally. Someone's ox is likely to be gored. BUT, if there is an absolute moral system serving to legitimize the ruler's rulings, he is more likely to have his way with his subjects. I think it was wrong of the police officer to give me a ticket for blocking traffick when I "know" there was nothing else I could do. I DO acknowledge the cop's authority to do so, however. His actions are authorized (within official limits, of course) by city statutes which rest upon state laws and ultimately the federal Constitution. And the Constitution, while secular, has a quasi-religious status (which is to say it is sacrosanct) since it was signed by the Founding Fathers. And each of the Fathers are in a way "sacred" because their signatures are on the Constitution. Circular but that's the nature of ideology.

-edited July 12

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Can morality be objective in a world without God?

yeah, but then its called ethics.

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I agree, Kuvasz. Ethics is situational and individual; morality is formal and societal (or at least the property of a group within a plural society).

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JLNobody wrote:

I agree, Kuvasz. Ethics is situational and individual; morality is formal and societal (or at least the property of a group within a plural society).

actually i think it is more likely that morality is between Man and his gods, ethics is between man and man. its just that morality is codified thru society because of the impact of religion on society in setting up the rules to live by. thus man does what his gods dictate. and this is expressed socially.

a moral man obeys the dictates of his gods. it only appears to be socially derived.

an ethical man obeys the social rules that allow him to function with other humans, he need not require or even consider the imprimatur of his gods to do so. its a matter of fulfilment of his physical necessities to act in an ethical fashion.

there is no such thing as "self-ethics," another human is necessary for it to arise. that is not the case with morality, where it is man and god in interplay.

on edit: for situations like the organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) the idea of "ethics" includes non-humans, but in such cases there is a recognition of a commonality associated between the identities involved akin to that commonality which is associated between humans and the fulfillement of the former case is internal and satisfies, as Terry pointed out earlier, a sense of empathy.

where morality differs from ethics in this case, is the satisfaction of acting ethically arises from the self, and is not driven by satisfying claims on oneself by an exterior force; a god.

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No comment.

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I've read somewhere that morality has changed its meanings over the centuries, probably because of religious influences upon western moral system.

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Ray, I think we have a different notion of the meaning of metaphysic. That's making it difficult for me to follow you line of thought here.

Maybe, maybe. I just have a problem with the notion of morality being "made up" rather than discovered via objective reasoning and primary understanding of the senses. A story is made up, but we know that it's not real, whereas a non-fiction is a story, but a story that is true.

The same analogy can be made of beliefs. We can make up something that is completely not true, or we can believe in something that has truth as its foundation.

When I speak of something as moral or not moral, I am dealing with the question of right and wrong, but perhaps that's more to do with ethics. Isn't ethics the study of morality btw?

So, I can tell that when a person harms another person, their action is wrong, because the phenomena of pain or the degradation of being is something that is... to be avoided, and no sane person in their right minds would want to be hurt. To impose pain upon another person would show that the person is choosing to not recognize the pain that the person is feeling, and thus a denial of truth. To impose one's will upon another would disregard the individual rights of the person, thus a denial of truth.
I'm not sure if I'm making sense to you... Rolling Eyes

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Ray wrote:

To impose pain upon another person would show that the person is choosing to not recognize the pain that the person is feeling, and thus a denial of truth. To impose one's will upon another would disregard the individual rights of the person, thus a denial of truth.

I don't see why a person must deny another person is feeling pain when they hurt them, surely they could accept that the person is feeling pain, and just not care, or think that were a good thing (that it is justice, or revenge, or the natural way of things).

Also, how do you know a person has 'individual rights'? Where do these 'rights' come from?

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djbt wrote:

Also, how do you know a person has 'individual rights'?

Because I'm my own person, dammit!

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smog wrote:

Because I'm my own person, dammit!

Why does that mean you have 'rights'? Again, where did they come from? Without God, who/what gave them to you? Or are they just something people tend to have, like toes and collar bones? If so, how would I know whether someone/something had rights or not?

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Ray, you say: I just have a problem with the notion of morality being "made up" rather than discovered via objective reasoning and primary understanding of the senses. A story is made up, but we know that it's not real, whereas a non-fiction is a story, but a story that is true."

I don't understand how the evidence of our senses can support an assertion of the absolute and objective nature of morality. And I definitely do not see rationalism (i.e., logical reasoning) serving as an objective "foundation" for absolutist statements about reality.

BTW, sometimes fiction teaches truths.