The Argument from Morality

[Dre89]

I think the AfM for God is one of the worst arguments for God there is.

The AfM for God is basically that if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist, and so things like murder and **** would be ok.

Apart from the fact that this is a massive appeal to consequence fallacy, I actually think this makes the religious person look more immoral than the atheist.

The atheist can explain our emotional disposition to vile acts as an evolutionary adaption, and that it is beneficial for uphold moral notions for evolutionary purposes.

Now the theist will maintain that by this logic **** is still not objectively wrong. But what is actually the difference between religious objective morality and moral notions explained through evolution?

The only difference is that in the religious framework, moral behaviour is rewarded or punished by a deity. So essentially, what constitutes objective morality is that there is an objective punishment or reward for it.

This means that the religious person only values moral notions if there is some reward to be attained for doing so. Whilst not making them technically immoral, it removes the virtue from the practice of morality, as their motive is merely an end of utility, and we do not consider acts virtuous if they are done for some form of gain.

 

[rvkevin]

Let's take a look at the actual argument.
Premise: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Premise: Objective values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

So how does this fare under a divine command theory? After all, this is the typical position of theologians offering these types of arguments. If objective moral duties are the consequence of God's commands, then you have to presume the existence of the deity you are trying to prove in the second premise. So, if you are offering divine command theory as the support of premise two, then the argument is circular. There are some secular moral theories that might qualify for premise two, but since they are secular, they would make the first premise false. Not to mention that there is rarely any evidence presented for the second premise; I think I know why. I agree, terrible argument.

 

[GOTM]

I think the AfM for God is one of the worst arguments for God there is.

The AfM for God is basically that if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist, and so things like murder and **** would be ok.

Apart from the fact that this is a massive appeal to consequence fallacy, I actually think this makes the religious person look more immoral than the atheist.

The atheist can explain our emotional disposition to vile acts as an evolutionary adaption, and that it is beneficial for uphold moral notions for evolutionary purposes.

Now the theist will maintain that by this logic **** is still not objectively wrong. But what is actually the difference between religious objective morality and moral notions explained through evolution?

The only difference is that in the religious framework, moral behaviour is rewarded or punished by a deity. So essentially, what constitutes objective morality is that there is an objective punishment or reward for it.

This means that the religious person only values moral notions if there is some reward to be attained for doing so. Whilst not making them technically immoral, it removes the virtue from the practice of morality, as their motive is merely an end of utility, and we do not consider acts virtuous if they are done for some form of gain.

Can't debate with something I agree with, just wanted to say, well done mate.

*Waits for responses*

 

[Theftz22]

My take.

http://atheologic.blogspot.com/2011/08/moral-argument.html

 

[Dre89]

Let's take a look at the actual argument.
Premise: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Premise: Objective values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

So how does this fare under a divine command theory? After all, this is the typical position of theologians offering these types of arguments. If objective moral duties are the consequence of God's commands, then you have to presume the existence of the deity you are trying to prove in the second premise. So, if you are offering divine command theory as the support of premise two, then the argument is circular. There are some secular moral theories that might qualify for premise two, but since they are secular, they would make the first premise false. Not to mention that there is rarely any evidence presented for the second premise; I think I know why. I agree, terrible argument.

The argument isn't circular though. What they're saying is that it is evident objective morality does exist, therefore God exists because morality can only be true or objective if there is a God.


You turned it the other way, and made it sound like they're using God to justify objective morality.

Not all faiths are technically divine command theorists though.

 

[rvkevin]

What they're saying is that it is evident objective morality does exist, therefore God exists because morality can only be true or objective if there is a God.

The only evident morality I am aware of is secular. This means that if one is to propose evident morality, the first premise would be false. There needs to be some justification for this second premise that doesn't involve secular morality. Also, this second premise must then exclude all other secular moral theories for the same reason. The moral theory would have to be dependent on God and also be substantiated to the exclusion of all others. I haven't even seen this attempted to be argued for. What is the justification for this? If other faiths don't have this characteristic, then it only means that they can't use the moral argument in support of them.

 

[DerfMidWest]

I find that conclusion to be ridiculous.

One would think that after awhile civilizations would come to the conclusion, on their own, that it is better when they don't kill one another or steal things from one another.
So we, as a species, couldn't come to this conclusion on our own?

One must also note that moral values are not a constant. Customs and moral beliefs change from community to community. In some civilizations, killing one another is accepted under specific circumstances.
Look at the old Norse civilizations. While battle and war were encouraged, killing within one's tribe was not. However killing was accepted, provided the killer payed a blood price to the victim's family (which I consider to be a punishment).
But when we look at, say, Buddhism, fighting and battle in never encouraged (the norse believed that dying in battle was the only way to get to Valhalla, dying in bed was looked down upon by society), buddhism preaches pacifism and claims that one can only reach the next level of being (ultimately, nirvana) through peace and nonviolence.

Overall point: basic moral values are not a constant and change based on community.

 

[Jim Morrison]

I find that conclusion to be ridiculous.

One would think that after awhile civilizations would come to the conclusion, on their own, that it is better when they don't kill one another or steal things from one another.
So we, as a species, couldn't come to this conclusion on our own?

One must also note that moral values are not a constant. Customs and moral beliefs change from community to community. In some civilizations, killing one another is accepted under specific circumstances.
Look at the old Norse civilizations. While battle and war were encouraged, killing within one's tribe was not. However killing was accepted, provided the killer payed a blood price to the victim's family (which I consider to be a punishment).
But when we look at, say, Buddhism, fighting and battle in never encouraged (the norse believed that dying in battle was the only way to get to Valhalla, dying in bed was looked down upon by society), buddhism preaches pacifism and claims that one can only reach the next level of being (ultimately, nirvana) through peace and nonviolence.

Overall point: basic moral values are not a constant and change based on community.

Well, all of those communities with other values, be it norse or hindu, could just say their morals and values are the right ones and the others are wrong, so their morals and values would mean that their God exist.
They would be able to still argue for their own God with their own values. It just depends on what you believe in.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

I think there's a general problem with this kind of arguments for God. They look at the issue in the wrong way. They look at the universe and conclude that some part of it, or all of it couldn't have come about through naturalistic means and then propose a being to solve that problem. Then various properties are bestowed upon said being until he/she amounts to God. These properties may include omniscience, timelessness, not needing a cause etc.

It is very similar to aether theory. Here's how the logic went:

• All known waves need a medium to travel through. Therefore, light being a wave needs a medium.
• One can see the planets and the sun. Therefore the medium must be transparent.
• Planets move through the aether without slowing down or stopping, therefore the aether must be a fluid with no viscosity.
• Light travels extremely fast, so the aether must be incompressible.
• Let this transparent, incompressible fluid with no viscosity be called the aether.

Aether was later proven to be rubbish and non-existent. The correct theory of light was that light didn't need a medium.

I think the lessons of aether theory could probably apply to most God debates. Maybe instead of proposing a new being to solve the problem raised by the argument, perhaps we should consider the possibility that we simply don't know or that the premises of our argument may not apply to things such as the beginning of the universe, or might just be plain wrong in the case of argument from morality.

And furthermore, all these properties that are bestowed upon our God or Gods, they have not even been observed to exist in nature. Given their fantastical nature, perhaps we shouldn't throw them around so lightly.

Anyway, that's just my rant on the subject.

 

[Dre89]

I think there's a general problem with this kind of arguments for God. They look at the issue in the wrong way. They look at the universe and conclude that some part of it, or all of it couldn't have come about through naturalistic means and then propose a being to solve that problem. Then various properties are bestowed upon said being until he/she amounts to God. These properties may include omniscience, timelessness, not needing a cause etc.

It is very similar to aether theory. Here's how the logic went:

• All known waves need a medium to travel through. Therefore, light being a wave needs a medium.
• One can see the planets and the sun. Therefore the medium must be transparent.
• Planets move through the aether without slowing down or stopping, therefore the aether must be a fluid with no viscosity.
• Light travels extremely fast, so the aether must be incompressible.
• Let this transparent, incompressible fluid with no viscosity be called the aether.

Aether was later proven to be rubbish and non-existent. The correct theory of light was that light didn't need a medium.

I think the lessons of aether theory could probably apply to most God debates. Maybe instead of proposing a new being to solve the problem raised by the argument, perhaps we should consider the possibility that we simply don't know or that the premises of our argument may not apply to things such as the beginning of the universe, or might just be plain wrong in the case of argument from morality.

And furthermore, all these properties that are bestowed upon our God or Gods, they have not even been observed to exist in nature. Given their fantastical nature, perhaps we shouldn't throw them around so lightly.

Anyway, that's just my rant on the subject.

Good God theories show why things like timelessness are necessary to be the first cause. Saying that they just add on properties such as not needing a cause is missing the entire point. The reason why God is posited is because they believe that the first cause must not have had a cause, and the other properties mentioned etc. Saying that these properties are add-ons completely ignores the reasons why God is posted in the first place.

That's like saying that atheists just add on the idea that their belief is the result of a lack of evidence. It's not an add on, it's the initial reason for their atheism.

And asking for empirical evidence of a non-empirical being is pointless. Also, many arguments are metaphysical, they're not just filling in gaps in understanding of the physical universe.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Good God theories show why things like timelessness are necessary to be the first cause. Saying that they just add on properties such as not needing a cause is missing the entire point. The reason why God is posited is because they believe that the first cause must not have had a cause, and the other properties mentioned etc. Saying that these properties are add-ons completely ignores the reasons why God is posted in the first place.

The point I'm trying to make is that, these properties have never been found. How do we know that they can exist? To assume that they can exist because God must have created the universe, because the universe had a beginning or because there is objective morality seems to me a leap of logic.

That's like saying that atheists just add on the idea that their belief is the result of a lack of evidence. It's not an add on, it's the initial reason for their atheism.

I never said that they were add-ons. I said that the properties such as timelessness, omnipotence etc. are given to the being that is posited up until the point where he/she amounts to God.

And asking for empirical evidence of a non-empirical being is pointless. Also, many arguments are metaphysical, they're not just filling in gaps in understanding of the physical universe.

I'm asking for evidence that God is possible. I want somebody to prove that it's possible for a being to be uncaused, timeless etc. Because to bestow these properties upon a being without even knowing whether they're possible seems well, the wrong way to do it.

 

[Dre89]

They're not bestowed upon God, God is bestowed upon the title of first cause.

The point is that those properties are necessary, and they constitute what we call God.

For example, proof of a first cause comes from demonstrating that infinite regress is impossible.

The will comes from the fact that the creation needs to be contingent, not a necessary mechanic of the fc. Those are just examples.

This is metaphysics, not physics, which is why you probably haven't seen much of these arguments.

 

[Cassio]

This thread is silly. Morality being objective is a premise in the argument. If you think morality is subjective/a trait of evolution/etc etc. then theres no point having this debate in the first place. However, have fun trying to prove that ****, murder, *other bad things* cant be justified.

Let's take a look at the actual argument.
Premise: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Premise: Objective values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

So how does this fare under a divine command theory? After all, this is the typical position of theologians offering these types of arguments. If objective moral duties are the consequence of God's commands, then you have to presume the existence of the deity you are trying to prove in the second premise. So, if you are offering divine command theory as the support of premise two, then the argument is circular. There are some secular moral theories that might qualify for premise two, but since they are secular, they would make the first premise false. Not to mention that there is rarely any evidence presented for the second premise; I think I know why. I agree, terrible argument.

This came the closest to addressing the argument. The problem is premise 2 doesnt assume moral duties are a consequence of God's commands. The idea is that the only conclusion you can come to from the existence of objective values is God's existence.

 

[Theftz22]

@Cassio:

The conjunction of premise and 2 together does entail that you are committed to a divine command theory, because anything other than divine command theory grants objective moral facts independent of god, thus falsifying premise 1. So if you hold to both 1 and 2 you are thereby committed to divine command theory.

 

[Cassio]

Yeah I actually read your website, it was a better version of what kevin said. The problem is even if we consider that morality isnt tied directly to God's whims, you'd still need God for morality to be objective. Let me quote the part where theres an issue:

On the other hand the atheist often wants to define "good" as "that which contributes to the well-being of sentient creatures" and "evil" as "that which detracts from the well-being of sentient creatures". On this definition A1 is clearly false, for even if god does not exist there are still things that objectively contribute to or detract from the well-being of sentient creatures.

Its true that things objectively affect the well-being of sentient creatures (sort of), but that was never the issue. The issue is what ties this definition of good and evil (aka how it affects the well-being of sentient creatures) to something objective in the first place? i.e. what prevents anyone from defining good and evil in any other way? The point of the argument is that, assuming such morality is objective, theres only one capable answer to this question.

 

[Theftz22]

The idea of "objective definition" is simply incoherent. I can mean by words whatever I want them to mean. Some definitions are more useful than others in that they more accurately express what most people understand the term being defined to mean. But given that words merely express concepts, I can slap whatever label I want onto a given idea and there's no objectivity about that. This is why descriptive ethics as a whole is such a useless branch of ethics. I can mean whatever I want by "good" and "evil", so what's the big fuss about those particular labels?

If the theist means something else by "good" and "evil", he's welcome to define his terms, but as I advise, the definitions will either make it such that god is needed for OMVs to exist, or it will not. So the argument from moral values at least doesn't even strike me as a serious argument worth considering.

Prescriptive ethics is a different story however.

 

[Cassio]

I think you misunderstood what I meant by tying the definition to something objective (its not "objective definitions"). This has nothing to do with descriptive ethics (which is useful outside philosophy) or prescriptive ethics (which is useless in and outside philosophy). Its a question of meta-ethics. The question being (and essentially the tl;dr of my last post): assuming objective morality exists, what makes good good? A theist posits that there can only be one answer to this question (technically with a few other conditions as well that arent relevant here).

 

[Theftz22]

What makes good good is not the real question, that's just got a facile answer, namely, the law of identity. What I think you're trying to express is "what makes [insert definition of good here] good?" And what I say is, the definition of "good" does. And if you say anything different, I'm not even sure what mean because if you haven't defined good then I don't even know what you're talking about, but if you have, then my answer to the question is correct.

Maybe what you're raising is the whole "I'm talking about moral ontology, not moral semantics!" objection. But I don't even know what ontology could be if you don't define a definite subject for your study. How could I say whether a thing exists if I don't know what you mean by that thing. As I say, "it makes no sense to debate whether or not something has an actual metaphysical status unless you first know what you actually mean by that something that you are debating about."

Perhaps you'll say that people have a concept of what they mean by these terms which gives the process meaning, but then I'd just ask them to state what that concept is, thus defining the word. This is the point of language, to externalize and formulate the concepts you have to others. And if people are oddly unable to do that in this specific case, I'd say that lends support to some form of non-cognitivism, which would falsify premise 2.

 

[Cassio]

Non-cognitivism also wouldnt be objective morality. But thats a different tangent.

I definitely dont mean metaphysics (something else I find to be rather pointless), nor is it about semantics. Good is a completely meaningless term unless it can be applied in a way that relates to the world (aka not tautoligies, theres a term for this that slips my mind). Thats the entire idea behind meta-ethics. Semantics aside there are very different points of view on how to define good (once again, assuming objective morality exists). I may need to be more explicit though, so Ill try this.

"What authority makes one definition of good more correct than another definition of good?" Keep in mind this is not an issue of semantics and we're assuming objective morality exists, so a correct definition for good also exists. We also assume good is not just a tautology and relates to the world in a meaningful way.

 

[Theftz22]

I definitely dont mean metaphysics (something else I find to be rather pointless), nor is it about semantics. Good is a completely meaningless term unless it can be applied in a way that relates to the world (aka not tautoligies, theres a term for this that slips my mind). Thats the entire idea behind meta-ethics. Semantics aside there are very different points of view on how to define good (once again, assuming objective morality exists). I may need to be more explicit though, so Ill try this.

Meta-ethics is short for the metaphysics of ethics you know right? Not to mention that the whole topic of the existence of god is a matter of ontology which is a branch of metaphysics.

"What authority makes one definition of good more correct than another definition of good?" Keep in mind this is not an issue of semantics and we're assuming objective morality exists, so a correct definition for good also exists. We also assume good is not just a tautology and relates to the world in a meaningful way.

There's no such thing as a "correct definition". There can be more useful definitions, but not more correct ones. And even if we were to identify the utility of a definition in capturing what most people mean by a given term with its "correctness", the answer to your question would be that we do. The aggregate sum of all people using a language would determine the correctness of a definition on that view. But at this point I'm struggling to see what this has to do with the moral argument de re.

 

[Cassio]

Meta-ethics is short for the metaphysics of ethics you know right? Not to mention that the whole topic of the existence of god is a matter of ontology which is a branch of metaphysics.

This is incorrect. Meta-ethics is precisely what the name implies, an abstraction of ethics. Metaphysics of ethics likely exists, but thats not whats being discussed here (and like the rest of metaphysics, Id find rather unimportant at least as its own isolated subject).

And the existence of God is a branch of metaphysics only as it pertains to philosophy, but dont let my thoughts on the matter hold you back from from future discussions on the matter.

There's no such thing as a "correct definition". There can be more useful definitions, but not more correct ones. And even if we were to identify the utility of a definition in capturing what most people mean by a given term with its "correctness", the answer to your question would be that we do. The aggregate sum of all people using a language would determine the correctness of a definition on that view. But at this point I'm struggling to see what this has to do with the moral argument de re.

Well as I stated this isnt an issue of semantics, so we assume an ideal definition that is correctly interpreted and understood by everyone.

Then the issue becomes what is meant by objective. In this argument, objective means objective truth. So when we use the term objective morals, its meant that actions have a quality of being moral or immoral independent of personal thought. i.e. roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and ****/murder/stealing is bad. Again (assuming no conflicts in semantics) if morality is objective than these are qualities that are objectively true and necessitates a correct definition. You wouldnt set up a committee to determine which color of the rainbow roses are, they are red. Same concept holds if morality is objective, ****/murder/stealing is bad.

Your statement that a correct definition doesnt exist is fine, but thats not objective morality. Your statement that we as a society determine the correctness of a definition is fine, but once again this is not objective morality. Its like asking what the best candy is, we dont say that M&Ms are the best candy as if its an objective truth even if 99.9% of people agreed. Its subjective, just like morality defined by society. However the caveat and crux of the original argument is that ****/murder/stealing etc. are capable of being justified in a world with subjective morality.

 

[Dre89]

No all meta ethics is the metaphysics of ethics.

ME is the fundamental nature of ethics. It addresses the most primary issues such as whether morality is objective or not. It also addresses the nature of morality.

So for example if someone believed that what was natural= good, then their meta ethics would explain why it is that natural= good. That's why ME looks much more like metaphysics than moral philosophy.

Also, you say that the only thing that makes god objective is God. But when we break it down, the only distinction between God sanctioning morality or not is that God punishes or rewards us based on our morality. So what you're essentially saying is that what makes morality objective is a reward-punishment scheme.

 

[Cassio]

No all meta ethics is the metaphysics of ethics.

ME is the fundamental nature of ethics. It addresses the most primary issues such as whether morality is objective or not. It also addresses the nature of morality.

So for example if someone believed that what was natural= good, then their meta ethics would explain why it is that natural= good. That's why ME looks much more like metaphysics than moral philosophy.

Agreed

Also, you say that the only thing that makes good objective is God. But when we break it down, the only distinction between God sanctioning morality or not is that God punishes or rewards us based on our morality. So what you're essentially saying is that what makes morality objective is a reward-punishment scheme.

Actually, Id say this argument doesnt lend itself to any particular religious belief. At its (llikely) minimum, it creates an entity which is capable of ascribing moral attributes to stuff. There doesnt necessarily need to be a reward or punishment (though most Christians would argue it exists, thats not something you can draw from this argument), the true distinction is simply a feel good mentality that common acts we consider bad (****, murder, theft, etc.) are universally bad, and not simply a product of men.

e.g. it would allows us to say that what the Nazis did is wrong, as opposed to saying "well 99% of the world disagrees with the Nazis, therefore theyve been deemed incorrect". Although there are more (and imo better) options than the latter when you consider subjective morality, but thats probably the most simple.

 

[Orboknown]

question.
Cassio how can you agree with a paragraph that states the exact same thing you said was wrong in your previous post?

 

[Cassio]

I assume by "No" he meant "Not" as opposed to "No,", lol. I guess we'll have to wait till he clarifies.

 

[Orboknown]

I guess we will.

 

[Dre89]

But even without God you don't have to say that 99% of the world agree that the Nazis commited evil. You can say that it is objectively wrong because they did things we aren't structured to do, or are evolutionarily harmful.

 

[Cassio]

Remember were looking at objective in a way that it applies a universal characteristic. What youre saying is similar to what that website said, youre applying by applying a definition for good and then saying we have objective ways for finding it. Thats true, once we apply a definition for good generally there are simple objective ways to determine whether actions fit within that definition. If I define good to be how happy it makes my dog we could probably find objective ways to measure this.

The issue is we have no way to objectively define good in the first place. Note, Im using objective in a different way here. Your objective of good is whether or not its evolutionarily harmful. Others use utilitarianism, or consequentialism. Maybe we can say one is better than the other, but we cant say its a trait independent of the human mind.

 

[Dre89]

But the atheist doesn't have to believe in a true objective morality, that's the point.

Saying God must exist because it is the only explanation for objective morality is an appeal to consequence fallacy, because it assumes OM exists.

The reason why we believe in OM is because there are things universally considered to be wrong, and because we have consciences and emotional dispositions to certain things. These however can all be explained by evolution.

So whether the theist considers the evolution explanation to be true OM doesn't matter. If they don't consider it true OM, then true OM doesn't necessarily have to exist (which means they love the moral argument for God) for what they think is true OM can be explained by evolution.

It only becomes true OM if God exists and implicates a reward-punishment scheme, but that is no longer necessary.

 

[Orboknown]

The reason why we believe in OM is because there are things universally considered to be wrong, and because we have consciences and emotional dispositions to certain things. These however can all be explained by evolution.

Evolution does not give us predisposition to a certain mindset. Social interaction and what we learn while growing up does. That may come from some things that came about as a byproduct of evolution but not from evolution itself.

 

[Dre89]

Universal morals have been explained as evolutionary adaptions.

We see more primitive versions in primate societies.

If they were purely culture based they wouldn't have any universal similarities.

 

[Orboknown]

...forgot the universal aspect of what you were saying.#_#
Yea you just blew me outta that argument.

 

[Cassio]

Well yeah, objective morality needing to exist is a given. Literally. Its a premise in the argument, if you dont believe in objective morality then this argument doesnt work. Also OM doesnt imply a reward-punishment scheme.

I think if you were to concede on the existence of objective morality, a theist might argue at that point there is no way to determine when one moral judgement is greater than another. Your argument on evolution explains why societies create moral code independent of their objective existence, but doesn't explain how judgements on morality are actually made. I believe you have stated that what is moral is what is beneficial to evolution, but remember morals are not objective so anyone can simply disagree and be just as correct.

 

[Dre89]

But if you deny om the theist resorts to an appeal to consequence by claiming that then there's nothing wrong with ****** little girls.

That's their argument for om. However atheists can explain our sentiments towards these things as evolutionary adaptions.

Whether that's considered om is irrelevant. Because if it isn't, it doesn't matter because om doesn't need to exist, because what appears to be om is explained by evolutionary adaptions.

And if the theist doesn't consider it om, then they consider morality to exist only when it's punishable, because that's the only difference that God makes to this equation. Practicing morality for a non moral end is itself immoral.

 

[Cassio]

I said before reward-punishment isnt a result of OM, the only result of OM is that morality is objective. Youll have to elaborate more if you find that to be a direct result.

So now that we've agreed that OM is irrelevant to an atheist lets discuss evolutionary adaption. An appeal to consquence is not a fallacy only if its agreed that ****** little girls is absolute in its quality of being immoral. Although anyone can simply disagree with that lets see how evolutionary adaption holds up.

What happens if, through evolutionary adaption, we've suddenly become a species where murder is ok if it improves your status in society. Does murder then become moral in such circumstances? What if theres a split in the species and suddenly a small portion of individuals finds sex with minors ok. How are they less correct than the rest of society? Is it simply a matter of numbers?

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I'm not so sure evolution can be used to create this objective morality, as if it is on the same level of implications of having a God. Doesn't it just seem morality derived from evolution is small compared to the implications of morality derived from God? And I mean this in the sense of that with God it is derived from the top of the ladder, and evolution being a fluxing byproduct of something in the middle of that ladder. It isn't a matter of what are hormones tell us, what social interaction gives us, or a matter of numbers, that to me does not equal objective morality, it simply seems as such relative to us, but for objective morality to be truly objective, it needs to be so relative to all things, the top of the ladder.

I don't entirely know if everything I am saying is making 100% sense, but I'll keep going on this line. For atheists, the top of the ladder, the thing that which remains objective relative to everything are words almost as ambiguous as the word God, such things as existence or the universe. Unless we somehow draw a morality from this, we are doomed to something subjective, even if it is something contingent and encompassing all of our race, but it doesn't cover any other race, and plant-life, planets, consciousness objects (not saying they have a morality, but they are in our life and as a result involved in our treatment of things around us) or races of extraterrestrials. What if aliens were to come to Earth, of a different evolutionary process, with both of us educated in terms of our evolutionary ethics. What is to be done? You cannot simply note, "We will treat them as their evolutionary construction permits, and they will do as such unto us," for that'd still be breaking your code, you'd be reaching up higher into the air for something even more objective than evolution, something greater on the ladder. These incidents may even be applied to things more local, like animal rights, where we reach these discrepancies of how we are to treat them, with their "more primitive ethical evolutionary status". Aliens could be treating their pets or local animals much worse than what we decide, yet their evolutionary morality gives it the okay, so we can make no objections, yet at the same time by following our own code, we'd be obligated to object.

 

[ElvenKing]

I'm not so sure evolution can be used to create this objective morality, as if it is on the same level of implications of having a God. Doesn't it just seem morality derived from evolution is small compared to the implications of morality derived from God? And I mean this in the sense of that with God it is derived from the top of the ladder, and evolution being a fluxing byproduct of something in the middle of that ladder. It isn't a matter of what are hormones tell us, what social interaction gives us, or a matter of numbers, that to me does not equal objective morality, it simply seems as such relative to us, but for objective morality to be truly objective, it needs to be so relative to all things, the top of the ladder.

I don't entirely know if everything I am saying is making 100% sense, but I'll keep going on this line. For atheists, the top of the ladder, the thing that which remains objective relative to everything are words almost as ambiguous as the word God, such things as existence or the universe. Unless we somehow draw a morality from this, we are doomed to something subjective, even if it is something contingent and encompassing all of our race, but it doesn't cover any other race, and plant-life, planets, consciousness objects (not saying they have a morality, but they are in our life and as a result involved in our treatment of things around us) or races of extraterrestrials. What if aliens were to come to Earth, of a different evolutionary process, with both of us educated in terms of our evolutionary ethics. What is to be done? You cannot simply note, "We will treat them as their evolutionary construction permits, and they will do as such unto us," for that'd still be breaking your code, you'd be reaching up higher into the air for something even more objective than evolution, something greater on the ladder. These incidents may even be applied to things more local, like animal rights, where we reach these discrepancies of how we are to treat them, with their "more primitive ethical evolutionary status". Aliens could be treating their pets or local animals much worse than what we decide, yet their evolutionary morality gives it the okay, so we can make no objections, yet at the same time by following our own code, we'd be obligated to object.

You are actually touching on the fundamental nature of any moral claim: it is necessarily an objective truth and cannot be logically coherent otherwise. The point of a moral claim is to define that there is a certain action or situation that is appropriate(or inappropriate) and that it can be no other way. A justified obligation to act in one particular way above all others. If this is not actually true(i.e. if this is not to apply to everyone whether they like it or not, whether they agree with it or not), then there can be no moral claim presence.

"The top of the ladder" is by definition true of any moral claim. In any instance of a moral claim, it is proposing that the given way is the correct one with alternatives being incorrect, meaning by definition it is being presented as what is superior to all else.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Well evolution certainly does not provide anything sufficient in my eyes, nor can anything else. Under this light, it seems that morality is simply something beneficial, or whatever each individual decides to gauge their behavior on. Though, if existence and nature are things that are possible to draw in, like making the premise that in existence/by nature things progress and form, react and sustain, and that because this process that rules all things has this in mind, anything that can be found destructive of these natural processes could be described as not functioning properly and thereby "dysfunctional", (which would sound about right, since our brains control our consciousness, and thus anything wrong with the former results in problems with the latter, but that is just me bringing up points I made in the "Free Will" thread, I digress), though I still find myself confused trying to dub the word "immoral" or "moral" anywhere in that, if you were to simply take that small notion as truth, but I suppose if "correctness" is what you use to gauge for morality, then I suppose one could do so.