Can there be morality without religion?

Great Debates
41

No, because the question at hand is how morality can be derived from mere self-interest. In a religiously baed moral system, it simply isn’t.

Nice questions, Ryan, but that’s not the topic at hand. I would refer you to some of Aristotle’s writings for a more thorough discussion of the matter, but as I said, that’s straying far beyond the scope of this thread.

Let me reiterate yet again: Can morality be derived solely from self-interest? Can moral principles be determined solely by evolutionary processes? For reasons already explained, then cannot – not unless one insists that it’s acceptable to exploit other people for personal gain.

42

How is morality derived from God any different? It explains why people do care (fear of divine retribution), but not why they should care (“because God said so” is just as poor a “should” as “because I had a dream where my big toe told me what to do”).

You’ve got things backward. Evolutionary considerations are sufficient to explain why we do have morality. Evolution is not at all concerned with why we should have morality because, frankly, there is no reason at all why we should have morality. We just do, and it is generally beneficial.

Which morality? Yours? Mine? Not everyone is guided by the same concept of morality. If you mean morality in the general sense, then yes, it’s quite possible. I would actually be fairly comfortable in stating that everything we do is rooted in self-interest.

Yes. Morality seems to be more of a product of social evolution than biological evolution, but it can be explained in evolutionary terms nonetheless.

Societies in which the members adhere to some basic moral “rules” would be much more stable, thus surviving longer and propagating their culture further.

Societies with no morals at all would degenerate into a “take what you want any way that you can” form, resulting in wasted energy and resources, and lessening the culture’s ability to spread.

The thing is, some people believe that it is acceptable to exploit other people for personal gain. Under their system of morality, doing so is a perfectly moral course of action. Morality is not absolute. There is no all-encompassing, global, singular, “correct” morality.

Generally speaking, most cultures find things like theft and murder to be immoral. For such morality to have arisen via social evolution, it need not be the case that all members of a society adhere to the same tenets of morality. Simply having most members of a society adopt similar moral structures would be sufficient.

43

And, for a believer, fear of eternal damnation, or of not being written into the Book of Life for the coming year, or that crops will fail, don’t count as self-interest?

44

DSeid, that only describes the motivation for obeying a moral principle (and that motivation is hardly universal across all religions!). It doesn’t explain WHETHER or WHY an action is immoral.

Indeed, there are a great many religious folks who believe that sin does not, in and of itself, condemn someone to hell. That is why evangelical Protestants speak of being “saved by grace through faith.”

Remember (and I’m getting very sick of repeating this), the question is whether evolution and self-interest alone can account for morality. This is entirely different from asking whether personal interest might motivate a religous person to follow such rules.

45

As I already explained to The Ryan, that’s a valuable question, but one which strays far from the the topic at hand. Asking “How does religion explain morality?” does nothing to defend the claim that evolution alone is sufficient to account for moral principles.

You have yet to demonstrate that.

Of course, not everyone has the same concept of morality. That is irrelevant. There will always be sociopaths who reject all morality, for example. The mere existence of different moral perceptions does not, in any way, demonstrate that there is no absolute morality.

Which is irrelevant. There are people who believe that slavery is morally acceptable, but that does not mean that they’re right.

So you claim, but it would be circular reasoning to use this as an argument for the sufficiency of evolution to explain morality.

46

I think people here are being a bit confusing about what needs to be explained. To say that evolution exaplins moral principles is to say that it explains why human beings have moral principles, why they are so concened about them, why they hold values, and so on on: it’s not necessarily to say that it can explain why something is or is not immoral (I don’t think it makes sense to say it does, especially given that no one’s quite sure the latter explanation is possible or inteligible).

But neither are evolutionary explanations of morality necessarily attempts to show that morality is just self-interested beings watching out for themselves. In evolution, the self-interested things are the genes, not the people, and while these are often in leauge, there is no requirement that they be, and they clearly are not always so. So there is no requirement for people themselves to be inheretly selfish at all. This is pure red herring.

47

Wasn’t there that whole thing way back when about someone who made the assertion that nothing was truly altruistic? I think that relates to this, but I don’t remember exactly who wrote it or what it was about exactly…
Anyhow, I don’t exactly agree with the viewpoint that our morality is based on evolution, but I can see a framework for an argument supporting it.
The basic goal of any organism is to perpetuate the existence of his species and himself. Now…, perpetuating existence and procreation are not always exhibited in reproduction as stated above. Sometimes you want to avoid things that might bring harm upon you, or secure things that might help you live. Sometimes also, you can help the survival of yourself and your species by passing along ideas and concepts that will do that. Also you can pass along your values and ideals to others in an attempt at personal procreation. So…, there is evolutionary value in keeping others alive even though you have nothing to fear if you kill them. By keeping them alive, they might come to accept some of your ideas, values, morals, et cetera, and pass those along to other people.
I think that mostly made sense…, it’s late over here and I’ve not been very coherent today.

48

By the Golden Rule, do you mean “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 7:12, NIV translation)? It’s an interesting nomination for “religion-free morality”. I suppose the principle can be extracted from the context, but it seems like proof-texting (taking a verse out of context to prove a point.)

I suppose it could be read as an exhortation to self-interest. Sorry about the hijack.

49

Seeing as how the thread title explicitly mentions religion, I don’t agree that the validity of deriving morality from religion is not part of the issue at hand. You presented the inability to establish a teleological basis as a fatal flaw. It follows that you must believe that there is a teleological basis for religiously based moralities. If the title of the thread were “Can there be ICE without gasoline?” and you were to claim that diesel engines are no good because they produce exhaust, it would not be at all off the subject for me to point out that gasoline engines produce exhaust as well. Seeing as how this thread is discussing the relative merits of religiously based moralities versus moralities not so based, any claim that moralities not based on religion are flawed due to some lack is an implicit claim that religiously based moralities do not share that lack. If you say that evolutionary morality is flawed because there is no reason to pursue the group’s interests, you are implying that there is some reason to follow religious moralities. And it is quite relevant for me to dispute that implicit claim.

50

Well I think that unhappy people tend to be more “immoral” while happier people tend to actually consider the interests of others. You’ll know if you’ve ever been truly unhappy that the last thing on your mind is helping others. If you’re happy(ish) then you’ve got enough love for yourself, if you’re very happy then you’ve got some to spare for others too.

If someone can be really happy without religion, then yes there can be “morality”, but I would suggest that this would take a lot more effort to acheive than with religion.

51

I can be really happy with intoxicants. Drunk drivers still kill people. I don’t think happiness has any causal link to morality.

52

Actually, this is but a rearrangement of Hillel’s “That which is hateful to you, do not do to another”, which is but a reiteration of Confucious’ teaching “That which you would not want done to you, do not do to another.” Confucious was born in 551 B.C., so I think we can conclude he said it first. He was a moral philosopher, but NOT a religious figure, thus this is indeed religion free philosophy.

53

Erislover:

I would question those three statements:

The first mistake in your dodgy syllogism is inferring from the specific case to the general without justification (that you are happy when intoxicated does not necessarily mean that everyone else is). The next mistake is equating accidental death with immorality - the question of morality relies on the notion of agency. No accidental deaths are immoral.

Then theres also the business of defining happiness, i’m not at all sure we have the same idea in mind.

54

“The first mistake in your dodgy syllogism is inferring from the specific case to the general without justification”
That’s an odd thing to say, seeing as how you did something similar.

“No accidental deaths are immoral.”
That’s not true; gross negligence is immoral.

55

OK, I’ve been away for a few days, so pardon my confusion, but when exactly did the question go from “Is religion a necessary evil, in that it maintains morality in society?” to (as JThunder keeps asserting), “whether evolution and self-interest alone can account for morality?”

The question the OP posited seems to be asking whether morality can exist without religion, not whether morality can be based “solely” on evolution and self-interest. In fact, by focusing solely on evolution and self-interest, I fear JThunder may be offering up a straw man argument to avoid answering the question as posted.

There are plenty of societies that have no religion per se, but which still have strict moral codes. This, by itself, would seem to indicate that religion is NOT necessary for moral codes to be “maintained” in a society.

Look, it’s really quite simple. Moral codes help societies to function. Morality can be derived from the simple principle that if I want people to treat me with respect, I had better treat them with respect as well. Unfortunately, understanding and accepting this principle requires a certain degree of rational thought, something which not all members of a society are equally capable of. Therefore, religions get invented to convince those who are too dumb to figure this principle on their own to follow it anyway (e.g., because doing so will let you reap rewards in “heaven” and not doing so will cause you to be “punished”).

In short, morality may be described and encouraged by religions, but ultimately it derives from basic logical principles that are necessary for societies to survive and operate smoothly. That’s why different societies have different moral codes. And rather than stating that morality derives from religion, it is more accurate to say that all religions derive from morality.

Barry

56

Do probability, game theory, and evolution exist independently of religion?

If yes, then morality can exist independently of religion. If not, then not. Heck, practical morality can be considered a primitive form of game theory – why else do you think people tend to value things that are “time-honored”?

57

Well said TVAA…

Humans that were purely selfish or all helpful were eliminated by natural selection…

58

Indeed. Are you familiar with the infamous “Tit for Tat” mathematical modeling? Discover had a good article about it some years back…

59

I’ve come to the belief that religion was an offshoot of our need to perceive ourselves as moral creatures.

I’ve noticed that people, on the whole, feel an innate need to feel “better than” other creatures, and I came to the conclusion that morality as a whole is more or less just an offshoot of that. By taking what could be considered animal traits (like sex, for instance) and minimizing them, people could give themselves an illusion of moral superiority, reinforcing their belief that humans are superior on a fundamental level.

I believe that religion came in later, as people tried to set an ideal to strive for, a higher level of existance free of the animal urges we have to deal with.

Hence our seeming favoritism towards sexless, giving, always loving god figures. When you look at the christian god for instance, he really is the embodiment of what could be considered the ultimate expression of humanity, stripped away of our animal bits.

He creates minus sex, thinks in a way unclouded by petty human troubles, does not lie, cheat, or steal (which, in some ways, are necessary for survival, and which every person does to some degree)

It seems to me, that the entire existance that we’ve created for ourselves, our societies, our religions, morals, and ideals are just the buildup of hundreds of thousands of years of us trying to prove that we are better than everything else that has lived. We now live in a society where some of the most basic animal functions we have are repressed to the minimums needed to survive as a species.

Example?

Sure, you can have sex, and reproduce. But only with one person. And you are stuck with them forever.

When you think about it, that really is about the minimum you can push sex to, while still being able to perpetuate yourself as a species.

As an atheist, do I have morals? Yes. Morality, while IMO something we essentially “made up” is more or less a required trait to function in the societies we created. The world we live in would collapse minus the low level controls morality creates, and besides, I personally dislike the idea of inflicting harm on another human.

60

The Ryan

[quote]

“No accidental deaths are immoral.”
That’s not true; gross negligence is immoral.

[quote]

You’d have to determine if a death caused by negligence was actually accidental. I’d say it wasn’t by definition - negligence implies an active shirking of moral obligations rather than simply failing to fulfill moral obligations.