I’ve been an atheist for a few years now and have thought that there is a universal ethical code that crosses all cultures, i.e. that murder is Wrong with a capital W (except for extreme thought-experiment type circumstances perhaps). I don’t think we know exactly what Right and Wrong are, but it’s similar to nutrition, we know for sure that some things are good and nutritious for our bodies, but other things are debatable and will in time probably be resolved.
Basically I see two competing views:
All of ethics is arbitrary and a result of post-hoc rationalisation of our behaviour, or are self-serving. Or conflict with the is-ought dilemma.
There are ethics that are objective and absolute universals
I realise this problem is not unique to Atheists and many Theists have to face the same problem with the Euthyphro dilemma.
At the moment, logically I think I should accept position 1, but I don’t. This is mainly because I’m so intuitively against the consequences of having my right as being just as valid as anyone else’s right.
So presently I accept “Right” and “Wrong” without real evidence, but this goes against my position as an atheist where I try as much as possible to reject things based only on intuition or faith.
My question to the atheists out there is where do you get your ethics from, personally? And may it be Objectivism, Utilitarianism, some brand of Virtue Theory, the Golden Rule, whatever, do you think that your ethics are objective, and if so why?
-I know this type of subject as been covered before, but this is more of a direct question to other atheists to see howthey get their ethics. Plus if I get a good answer I’ll probably get more shut eye not thinking about ethical nihilism/relativism:D
I sometimes find myself taking a position and feel that my argument amounts to “just because” and I find that deeply disturbing and weak.
For example - I am opposed to the death penalty . Why ? Because I feel it is wrong to kill. Why ? Just because.
I am reluctant to admit to objective and absolute universals and search for a post-hoc rationalization : I don’t trust the state with the power to kill… Killing demeans the killer… Every man’s death diminishes me because I am part of mankind…but deep down, I just feel it is wrong.
The death penalty is an interesting case because it seems much more prevalent in predominately religious nations than secular nations and I would guess that atheists are more likely to be opposed on ethical grounds than religious types.
In my day-to-day life, ethics doesn’t come up very often. I treat people nicely because I like to do that. I refuse to kill people because my emotional response to doing so would very likely devastate me. I’d wager that almost everyone’s like that - nobody says “Well, I won’t lie to you because I can’t will that lying be a universal law, and it wouldn’t be consistent with treating others as ends in themselves.” If they feel bad about lying, they won’t do it.
My justification, however, is egoistic. Why is it wrong to kill someone, to lie, to cheat, to steal? Because overall such acts do not contribute to my flourishing and happiness. A system in which rights are respected is the only kind of system in which we can, with a minimum of obstacles, strive to achieve these things.
I can’t deny that my ethics are largely, but not exclusively, defined by what is acceptable in my society, which is overwhelmingly Christian. However, I am still at odds with a significant amount of my society’s Christian morality. Therefore, the Golden Rule works for me.
Cheese Monster, yeah admittedly if I had to make daily decisions to apply a categorical imperative type ethics to my actions it’d kill me.
But for broad strokes actions (lying, stealing, killing, breaking promises) the decision needs only be made once, after that it’s a question of following through on the choice. The harder questions come up less often, but at least then I have a framework to deal with them.
I’m with jjimm, most of my ideas of morality are inherited from christianity, as it has been state religion for several hundreds of years, our law is heavily based on it and the society in general is highly influenced by it.
What is the Golden Rule btw, can’t recall hearing about it earlier?
Although the Golden Rule is found in Christian Scriptures, it is also found in its many variations throughout pretty much every other major religion.
Check it out. The Golden Rule is a many-splendored thing.
As an atheist, I tend to use the Golden Rule as a moral guide. It seems many others in this thread do as well. Are the ties between the Golden Rule and religion merely a result of the importance of ethics in a religious system, or do many atheists in fact rely on a religious idea as a base for their ethical systems?
In short, do you think the Golden Rule is a religious rule, or just common sense?
Are they really from Christianity? I’ve spent a lot of time in Japan and China recently and they have the same basic moral code as the West. Murder and stealing are bad, being nice to you parents is good, etc. Take out the graven image and sabbath stuff and the principles in the 10 commandments are pretty universal.
I knew that it was wrong to hurt people & take things that don’t belong to me long before I started hearing the stories about the hundreds (thousands?) of deities that people think are out there.
I don’t remember anybody “teaching” this to me. I just knew that you shouldn’t bring pain and suffering upon your fellow human beings. I see it as an evolutionary axiom that the members of a species who can coexist with the least amount of internal friction, thrives.
I don’t see why this always a question aimed at, specifically, atheists. Regardless of where you get your code of ethics, you are responsible for what you think and what you do. Even if you’re a good little boy or girl, and believe everything your parents’ church tells you to believe, you still **choose **to believe it. Even if you never spend two seconds thinking about right or wrong, you still **choose **a code of ethics, if only by default. This is why I hold every person responsible for all his beliefs, regardless of the origin of those beliefs.
I wish more **theists **were asked to substantiate their ethical choices. “Because the Bible says so” and “because my church says so” and “because that’s the way I was brought up” are not answers; they don’t explain why **you **believe something.
Maybe, but having watched 2 year olds play together I suggest you were taught by others not to thump a playmate on the head for sitting down, rather than exhibiting your own natural ethical centre.
The best formulation is Kant’s which is a sort of negative golden rule: Don’tdo to others what you wouldn’t have them do to you. This works better than the standard formula as the following examples might show.
If I’m homeless and broke I’d certainly want someone to give me 10 bucks. Does that mean I’m obligated to give 10 bucks to every broke homeless person I see? I’d soon be broke myself with that policy. However I want people not to hit me over the head with a bat and I can easily follow a policy of not hitting other people over the head with bats. Thus a policy that proscribes bad actions is more clear than one that mandates good ones.
Kant also phrased his formula as “Will that any action you take be a universal law” or something like that. In other words If I’m going to hit people with Bats then I have to believe that a society where anyone can hit anyone else with a bat is a good society.
Of course there are two branches to ethics: one which says what you should do and another that says why. The golden rule covers the what. As for the why I’ve always felt its largely a matter of personal motivation.
First you might act morally because you feel it is in your self interest. You might value the close relationships that can only be based on trust and honesty over the short term gains you get from treachery and deciet. Or you might just not want to get caught. (I view some–not all–religious based morality as an example of the “not getting caught” mentality. If you don’t do bad things just because God proscribes them then you are acting good out of fear, not out of genuine moral sentiment.)
Also, and more importantly, you may act morally because you genuinly want to. You posess the qualities of sympathy empathy and benevolence and you act on them. I’ve always wondered why some religious people say that without God morality would fall apart. Are they really so cruel and greedy that if it wasn’t for an omnipotent invisible policeman they would rob and murder without a qualm. If so, I’m watching my back around those people. Really though I think most people will act more or less ethically most of the time.
Of course there are jerks and evil people out there. Sadly, that is why we will always need a police force and a military. But there are as many evil religious people as there are evil atheists. Ive met a few myself. In fact in some ways religion–improperly applied-- can increase evil, rather than mitigate it. Look at Al queda.
In short: you know what to do, whether you do it or not is up to you.
