Can morality be subjective in a world without God?

Yes. The basic human instinct is to do good. Freed from fear and self-loathing, the result will be good. The path to the good is always a bitch however.

So, the basic instinct is to do good. Too bad there is no instinct that helps us decide what "good" is.

I don't disagree, but why is it the basic instinct to do good? Has it got something to do with god?

Or to put it so that the sceptics can relate to it: In deciding what is good and bad, are we entirely subjective, or does the world guide our hand?

God or no god, we're on a track toward the good because the good ensures our safety and survival.

What we hate we actually fear and despise because we're taught it threatens our safety and survival: "hatred" of abortion, "hatred" of gay people, "hatred" of other races or ethnicities. Murder is the confused notion that I'm better off without the other person around. That's a big mistake, of course.

No?

I prefer to phrase it, not as being "on a track toward The Good" but as attempts to do what we consider to be right. That is, of course, a complex issue. The Good has to do with morality; the right has to do with (situation) ethics.

Re: Can morality be subjective in a world without God?


I prefer to say it is relative. Subjective gives the idea that it changes from individual to individual, and I don't agree with that.
Moral is social and historical.

Why do you assume morality is subjective in the first place?
If it is subjective then surely it make no difference if god exits or not?

peteJ



I think the idea of the topic is this:
If there is a God - a moral God, like in Christian or Muslim religions - moral must be objective, because it doesn't depend on human beings. In fact, the same idea applies to Plato "Pure Forms".

But if we think moral as relative, or even subjective, the existence of that moral God is impossible. Moral becomes an human construct.

Welcome, peteJ.

I'd prefer to say morality is random but with design (whether or not god exists). In the long haul, it moves us in the direction of survival. We're in the middle of the morass so we can't see the design. The design has one purpose--to move us forward.

Evil acts move us forward, as do death and the other horrors. There is purpose there too.

Val

Yes i agree as far as i can see morality depends on a rule giver it is therefore important to anyone who believes they are moral to also believe morality to objective. Could there be a contradiction in in believing in morality and believing it to be subjective or "worse" relative. Part of the problem lies in how we decide what is subjective and what is objective! Of course we could replace god with a categorical imperative and maybe "though i am not sure !" one can have an objective morality independent of a belief in God?

AllThisBeauty

Thanks for the welcome

When you say morality is random do you mean that it evolves ?
If that is the case i may agree that ethics evolve but not so much morality as it is deontological its roots however "Organized religion as an example" most certainly evolve and change.

Morality is objective only in the sense that it is socially, culturally, historically constructed by "others" and, as such, it constrains me. I take its prohibitions into account when fashioning my actions in order not to suffer the social consequences of being caught transgressing its rules. But to the extent that it generates guilt and constitutes the emotional basis for ethical decisions, it is subjective. So, morals can have both objective and subjective characteristics.
Morals are historically situated social constructs.
But I assume that morality is fundamentally (but not absolutely or exclusively) subjective. If one considers my assuption of subjectivity to be wrong because it ignores the existence of a God, it is the responsiblity of that critic to demonstrate the existence of his god. I see neither gods nor morals "out there" in the world. I see "them" only in the thoughts and actions of people individually and collectively.

Morals ARE relative, and this relativity derives from the fact that they are subjective, and subjective states vary across individuals, cultures, and historical periods.

...who constructed it based on their experience, wich in itself was the fruits of the experiences of other creatures before them.

Sorry for hijacking your sentences JL, but don't you think that gravity, for instance, plays a part in defining our morality? Do trees? The wind? We're inclined to say no to this today, but we'd all agree that our grandparents did play a part in defining our morality.

So where did they aquire the neccesary experience? From their forefathers, is the obvious answer, and if we travel along this line of thought we arrive at last to the days when man worshiped the sun and the moon, and gave sacrifice to the raingods for good crops.

Was the morality of these people not in part defined by nature?

I am not entirely sure where I'm going with this. Perhaps my point is that morality is not a human invention. It is something learned, same as to stand erect, capture fish or tame fire. A skill perhaps?

I think that morality is defined by the society in which we reside. It's socially unacceptable, for example, to steal, kidnap, kill, or walk around in the nude. As such, these are also considered moral faux pas. These societal no-no's were, to a certain extent, inherited by our ancestors, as pointed out by Cyracuz.

However, I do believe we have a sort of 'moral compass' within us. Just look at sociopaths, who obviously do not have any real concept of morality. They lie and manipulate not just easily but almost instinctively, as though they have no moral guidelines that they feel they need to abide by. If they lack moral guidelines, then the rest of us must have something of the sort, no?

Morality can exist and be subjective, as in slightly varying from person to person based on experience and opinions, regardless of whether God exists or not.

In my view the moral compass has nothing to do with right/wrong/insight/no insight/god/no god. It has to do with advancing our (the big "our") genetic history. Some belief systems and ways of being move us in that direction better than others. Over time they prevail.

For example, subjugation doesn't prevail over the long run because we make more babies when we cooperate with eachother. This is why we place high value on "love." When we try to describe why we "love" we often get tongue-tied and begin babbling about some God who commands us to do this and that.

There is randomness in what we "believe" to be right and wrong depending on who has been selected in a given moment to test the waters. The belief that it's ok for me to murder is my DNA testing to see if I'm better off without the other. Over countless eons we've come to the conclusion that murder is bad, but only because we are better off with the other. Not because Mr. God tells us so.

Morality exists in two aspects: Objectivity and Subjectivity. What is subjectively moral is what is dictated by society. It is the actualization of what is in a larger sense an objective morality. Morality is more than merely subjective, although it reveals itself in subjectivity. It is not enough to say that killing is immoral to me but not to someone else because they have a different subjective view. Murder (disregarding issues of capital punishment, etc.) is inherently wrong. As an objectively moral truth, it still must be actualized in particular people, not just as an incoporeal truth. Thus objective morality comes forward through subjective individuals. Because of this, cultural and personal differences arise, but this does not mean that what is moral is only subjective. Subjectivity must realize its own place within Objectivity and the relation thereof.

Cyracuz, you seem to be trying to integrate two sets of realities, (1) you realize that as cultural animals our moral systems (external and internal) have objective historical foundations--we are the end of a long line of social inventions, and (2) as aspects of the Cosmos everything about us is ULTIMATELY integrated with everything else, including gravity, trees and the wind. This latter point can only be understood by means of mystical intuitions.

Yet, as Francisco notes we seem to have a kind of "moral compass" which may be inherent to our nature. This does not mean that we instinctive adhere to the morality of Moses' decalogue; it may be the morality of any of the many cultures on our planet. But we all seem to have a sense of ethical pressures to do what is "right" as we feel it. I see this occuring where people do what is "right" even in opposition to their society's moral code. Mark Twain tried to illustrate this principle where Huckleberry Finn (or was it Tom Sawyer?) believed that he was doing "wrong" in not turning the run-a-way slave, Jim, over to his pursuers. He felt that it would be wrong on one level to turn him in (his ethical sense) yet wrong not to (his social moral conditioning). I agree with Aldous Huxley's statement that given half-a-chance people are innately good, as romantic as this may seem.
The sociopath (psychopath) does not have an instinctive urge to lie and transgress moral rules; he just has no internal (conditioned) drive to follow them, no psycho-socially constituted capacity for guilt and shame.
I reject AllThisBeauty's sociobiology, a pernicious doctrine extrapolated from the "scientific" study of insects and totally ignoring the weight of human culture and mankind's higher, more subtle impulses. Its definition of mankind is extremely limited and, as I said, pernicious.

I challenge JLNobody to cite one example of man's "higher, more subtle impulses" that does not support the "pernicious" doctrine.

All my sociobiological friends demonstrate an unlimited capacity to rationalize all counter-evidence as supporting evidence. Even Shakespeare's sonnets will be explained as a way for Shakespeare to attain enough rank or wealth to attract women or support his offspring, thereby assuring the reproduction and suvival of as many of his genes as possible. This reductionism is part of what I mean by sociobiology's pernicious definition of mankind. Now watch to see if AllThisBeauty lives up to my genealization. I hope he does not.

The Social contract is an idea posed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that points out that a set of rules(ie morality) is brought about when people interact with one another. Within a society, irrespective of the individals cultures/beliefs etc, people will lay down a set of rules that governs the way in which they live their lives. If an individual does not follow these set of rules, that individual is exluded from the society.
John Rawls, poses an even better argument of how morality is derived without religion. He uses the idea of the veil of ignorance which says that one should consider yourself behind a veil. You do not know your sex, age, race, disability or any other characteristic of yourself. Logically if you were to set out rules in order to govern your society, you would chose that situation in which everyone will receive equal rights(if you were to discriminate against one group, you might end up within that specific group). In this manner, you will be able to logically set out rules within your society which you arewilling to adhere to, WITHOUT considering religion.