Note: This is not intended to be the same as the copious amounts of ‘can atheists have morality’ threads
One of the essays coming up on an exam for an ethics paper I’m taking is ‘Why be moral?’, it’s not ‘without god where’s the obligation to act morally?’, and not in the same vein as other normal questions like ‘why shouldn’t I steal?’.
At first I thought this was quite unanswerable, almost like asking someone why blue is their favourite colour. It just is (?), or why do you have faith? I think the question is a little off though, and that it could be translated into ‘why act morally, once you know what is moral’. I can sort of see why that question is raised, because with my own set of morals I have known something was wrong in the past, but then gone ahead and done it anyway. I’ve been immoral. But the question seems to be, if your desire to be immoral seems to be stronger than your obligation to keep to your morals, which path should you choose?
Some people reject the question entirely because its sort of like asking ‘why be rational’ because in answering the question and then finding answers you are being quite rational. So ‘why be moral?’ is similar to this in that once you have figured out what is morally obligatory, you no longer have any questions to really ask. Is it redundant to ask: why should I morally do the action that I have figured out is moral to do?
It all seems to be on the brink of lunacy anyway so I’m obviously not planning on answering this question for fear my brain may implode mid-sentence in the middle of the examination, but still I come to you dopers for insight, any thoughts/answers/online resources for this issue?
There is a mutual benefit from people acting morally. If your neighbor doesn’t steal your TV and you don’t steal his lawn mower, you both enjoy your property and can wave across the fence.
Certain places in the world to not have this level of trust between neighbors. They are unpleasant places to live.
This is different from being afraid of getting caught and beat up by your sumo-wrestling neighbor. It is also different from being afraid of a judgement day diety. Unfortunately, it’s a somewhat subtle contract that’s easily broken.
Even if there is a god that demands behavior that it calls “moral,” it would still be legitimate to ask the question of why one should be moral (since “because otherwise, god has bad stuff in store” is at best only a pragmatic answer).
The real problem is that “why be moral” is a question that seems to demand a moral answer. Most people take it to mean: “why SHOULD I be moral?” (otherwise the question is just going to have, again, a pragmatic answer, which is pretty unsatisfying) And that puts us right back into looking for a moral framework that justifies, well, using a moral framework.
The other approach is not to worry about pragmatic answers like “mutual benefit” but rather to start from some basic account of value: humans have values, and these values form the basis of our feelings that certain things should and should not be. If we have common values, then, the arguement goes, we can commonly agree on what principles best represent these values.
Hopefully this is the beggining of a lot of good discussion: it’s certainly been the grist for an incredible amount of fascinating discussion throughout human history.
Subjective moral systems usually result in horrible, twisted, individuals.
Jerry Falwell’s a moralist. The freaking Talibs are moralists. Different moralities, both cockeyed as hell and used to justify shockingly unethical behaviour.
Phooey. My amorality prevents me from lapsing into blind evil.
I choose a moral and ethical life first because I wish to be well thought of and to have positive relationships with my fellow human beings, and second because it makes me feel good about myself.
I’d just like to hijack this thread long enough to say that overall, the most truly moral, ethical, and fundamentally good and trustworthy people I have personally known in my life were all either atheists or agnostic.
The most immoral, criminal, evil and unethical people I have known (and known of) were all people who claimed to believe in God and to worship same.
In every life there are successes and failures. Aside from the altruistic motivation in wanting to do good with respect to others, when I succeed and when I fail, I want to wallow in my own self-esteem.
I would say the question “Why be moral?” contains an error from this relativist’s standpoint. “How I should be” is my definition of morality, so whatever I find myself inclined to do is my de facto definition of morality.
I think that there is a certain degree of compassion that we are all born with. It bothers us to see someone hurt or cheated. Granted, people all have differing degrees of compassion, but I think that’s where it begins. It develops depending on environment, but I can’t help but think that it is a basic part of being human.
To elaborate on what EchoKitty said, I believe that all people (and many other species) are born with a basic tendency towards protecting and helping other people. It helps along the survival of the species, as people are social creatures, and fare best when they work together.
This, combined with an upbringing that preaches goodwill and compassion (which, at least in some way, stems from the Christian moral base western society has been raised with for the past several centuries), leads to a general desire to be nice, and a bad feeling when you’re not. Of course, the level of “niceness” varies wildly from person to person, but I think this holds in general.
Jeff
In my humble opinion. Sociality, what is allowed and what is not allowed, for the good of the sociality set moral. Sociality also sets what it believes to be good and what it considers to be evil. Some sociality say and believe that other member of another sociality are evil. But no one thinks that their own believes and way are evil it is always the others that are evil or bad or immoral.
My reason’s pretty much the same as Homebrew’s. I think that it’s self-evident that being a “good” person and being a “moral” person are the same thing.
I suppose this will be an unsatisfactory answer, but in my mind I tend to associate “morals” with certain restrictions on behavior that grow out of dogmatic religious beliefs, while I associate “ethics” with unselfish behavior that grows from logic.
