There are a number of professed atheists in this forum. I was curious as to what sort of moral imperative atheists are beholden to when presumably no one is looking. Speaking as a theist, I am constantly cognizant that there is a God who considers what I do and is aware of what I do, even though that awareness on my part may not always result in the moral behavior which I aspire to. But let’s take a fairly mundane example — say theft. We’re talking about blatant theft in a context where one could plausibly or even likely get away with it. I affirm to you that as a Christian, or more relevantly possibly, as a theist, I would never do that. Possibly it has just as much to do with my consideration for the feelings and rights of some other individual, who has “legal” possession of said items, as it has to do with my awareness of an omniscient creator who is aware of what I’m doing and who would presumably not bless me if I violated his laws. I mean, I care about the rights of other people. And, considering other moral tableaus, those of a sexual nature for example — I would personally never consider going to a prostitute for example, in that I feel empathy for that person, and how they are degrading themselves in the sight of God, and how I would not want to contribute to their degradation, so that my own human lust would never result in me victimizing another human being in that way. So in summary, there are all sorts of constraints on my personal behavior that stem directly from my belief in God, and I am honestly curious about the inner life of professed atheists in such matters. In other words, do atheists for example, in such junctures of moral decision, only consider whether they can get away with it, i.e escape the detection of human authorities? I am just honestly curious about the inner life of atheists in such matters.
692 thoughts on “What is the moral calculus of atheists”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Yes, it’s irrelevant.
Well, that it is self-evidently immoral. That it is objectively immoral is a consequence of at least some reasoning, such as “under what premise can a self-evidently true moral statement exist”?
Yep.
Logic. There are relatively possible conditions (dreams, delusions) where there is no actual monitor in front of me. There is no possible condition I can image where GCT isn’t actually immoral, just as there is no possible condition I can imagine where 1+1 doesn’t = 2, and there is no possible condition I can imagine where X is not equal to X.
I’m quite aware that when I report experiencing the immorality of a thing with my conscience, that in your worldview perspective “wrongness” = “subjective feeling”. I’ve also reiterated several times I’m not attempting to convince anyone of anything. I’m explaining my worldview experience wrt morality.
Through my work at desensitizing empathy and conscience, I explored the difference between the empathetic sense of wrongness, and the conscience sense of wrongness – between subjective-feeling wrongness, and objective-feeling wrongness. There’s a significant difference between an emotional reaction and an experience of conscience. Often, conscience virtually forces you to do something you do not want to do – which may even be emotionally devastating – but you still know you have to do it.
Subjective feelings are relatively easy to change. Some commands of conscience must be obeyed even to one’s own death.
William’s “objective” has descended to the epistemic mush level of Plantiga’s “Properly basic”. BBP.
Need to show your workings.
William J. Murray,
So am I.
Well, one might be able to persuade onself one does not (or does) feel love, anger, hurt, pain, enthusiasm, nostalgia, remorse. Now, on to those non-subjective feelings … !
On numerous occasions you’ve argued that
(1) everyone implicitly believes that morality is objective, regardless of their professed or explicit beliefs;
(2) only natural law theory adequately explains how morality can be objective;
(3) only theism adequately explains the basis of natural law;
(4) hence atheists cannot adequately explain their own moral behavior
In making these claims, were you not trying to convince us that atheism is deeply inconsistent — even irrational?
If you want to turn this into just Worldview Show-and-Tell, that’s fine. Just let us know so we can stop trying to take you seriously.
It seems to me that the posts between WJM and KS are arguments regarding whether WJM is in the same predicament he claims atheists are in. In his posts in this exchange, WJM is trying to show why he believes he is not. I don’t think he cares whether anyone is convinced; he expects the materialist worldview will not find his arguments convincing.
For my interests, I get more value from the exchanges between you and WJM on whether atheists are in the predicament WJM claims they are in.
Richardthughes:
🙂
The problem with appealing to possibility and necessity in this way is that one can always respond with, “so what? that just indicates the limits of your imagination!”
(It might interest some here that Richard Rorty got his start philosophically by making this precise point in some articles he wrote in the 1960s, back when Barry Stroud and Peter Strawson were arguing about transcendental arguments.)
That’s not to say that there aren’t any necessary truths. I think that there are, actually. But I don’t think that it is “self-evident” what they are — the modality (necessity and possibility) has be shown by working through the compatibility and incompatibility statements.
That’s an interesting difference between keiths view and mine. Keiths seems to accept WJM’s picture of the atheist’s predicament, but he either thinks that this predicament is just the human condition that we’re all in, or that WJM has some specific version of it. Whereas I don’t think that anyone, theist or atheist or good red herring, is in the predicament that WJM thinks that atheists are in.
This is because I think that norms, properly understood, are neither subjective nor objective but intersubjective or social. Putting norms on the subjective side is the slippery slope to the private language argument, though keiths is right to call me out on my misunderstanding as to whether the argument really applies here. Putting norms on the objective side is the slippery slope to meta-norms, where it is the very face of the cosmos that commands, “thou shalt not!” So asking whether norms are subjective or objective is the wrong question, because it misses out on the character of norms altogether.
I think the best analogy is to language. There is no absolute language, but it’s pretty universal. It’s learned without being explicitely taught.
People speak without reasoning about it, but some people do reason about it and attempt to defing formal rules. Language fluency is a faculty that varies from person to person. There are bits and pieces observable in other species.
Bruce,
When I say that my morality is subjective, I mean that my moral decisions ultimately depend on my conscience, and that my conscience itself is subjective. For example, I strongly feel that gratuitous child torture is wrong, but I can’t justify that intuition as objective. Nor can William.
Others, like the Christians I mentioned earlier, feel that GCT is actually moral in some cases. I can try to dissuade them, but I can’t show them that GCT is objectively wrong.
I take moral relativism to be the view that we should not judge others by our own subjective moral standards; that, for example, we shouldn’t object when the Taliban stone a gay person to death, because doing so is perfectly appropriate and moral within their moral system.
I am anything but a moral relativist.
KN,
I don’t think atheists are in a predicament at all. William is, however.
William’s take on our supposed predicament is that
I’ve argued at length that none of these is correct. Also, William hasn’t identified a single inconsistency in the atheistic, subjective morality that I’ve been defending.
On the other hand, William’s views are full of flaws and inconsistencies, with two of the biggest being
That’s a big predicament for someone who believes in objective morality and wants “an intellectually satisfying sense of being a good person.”
Atheistic subjective morality is consistent, it works, and it doesn’t require a bunch of unwarranted assumptions. William’s moral system is, by contrast, an irrational train wreck.
Thanks for setting me straight on that.
Can you recall if you have ever defended that directly against WJM’s arguments at TSZ? I’d be interested to see you your approach to doing so compares to KN’s. If so, a link or the name of the original post would be great.
petrushka,
Yes, that’s helpful. The features of semantic normativity you’re pointing out here also apply to epistemic normativity and moral normativity. The crucial differences are the relevant success-conditions, or what following the norms aims at: fluent communication, reliable knowledge, or (as I’ve been urging here) promoting human flourishing.
As I see it, the debate at the ethical level — leaving epistemology and metaphysics aside — is whether a non-theistic ethical framework can promote human flourishing, and if so, how well it can do so. The issues about the epistemology of moral reasoning — how do non-theists justify their moral principles? — and about moral psychology — what motivates non-theists to follow moral norms? — strike me as non-issues.
By that I mean that I’m happy to discuss them, but neither issue is something that a non-theist need take seriously. Rather, I think of the theist’s concern with these issues as already a stacking of the rhetorical deck, so to speak, rather than as a neutral space within which equitable dialogue can unfold.
I had taken your point to be this: WJM is not entitled to defend norms against those who do not share the same access to God’s objective moral norms because, in his view, such people must be either moral relativists or irrational. One cannot conduct a rational argument with such people that some norms are better than others because that would involve arguing with someone irrational or with someone who believes that all norms are equal.
For me, the analogy to the private language argument is loose: I took you to be arguing something like this: private language can have no meaning and similarly norms only available to a special kind of private access can have no basis for defense in rational argument with others who do not have that access.
Or looked at differently: if others had access to your personal sensations the way WJM has access to moral truths, then the private language argument would not apply to personal sensations.
You did not say so explicitly, but I understand you to mean that intersubjective must be applied across all moral agents, not just within a specific culture, in comparisons of moral norms across cultures.
KN said:
No. You have apparently forgotten other conversations where I’ve said that it is my opinion that nobody can be convinced of anything – at least not anything so substantive as these existential positions, because it is all up to their free will. If I could intellectually/evidentially/logically coerce you out of an existential position, what would that say about your free will?
Haven’t you already brought up the issue of whether or not I’m trying to be taken seriously and whether or not I care if I’m taken seriously? Haven’t I already responded?
You seem to think that there is a valid dichotomy at work – that I am either trying convince others that something is true, or there is no reason to take me seriously. You are forgetting that I am not of the belief that we all live in the same consensual reality. Why would I try to convince you of something that may not even work in your experience? If you ask me why anyone might take me seriously even though I’m not trying to convince them, well, obviously they might find interest or value in trying out something I’ve talked about to see if it works for them.
Obviously, because of free will, I don’t hold that anyone here can convince me of anything. I don’t think it is possible. That doesn’t mean I don’t find useful and interesting material in online debates and conversations like these.
Ahh…see, I understand moral relativism quite differently. I see it as recognizing that there are no absolute standards on which any moral system or moral perspective can be based, and therefore recognizing – by association – that there will be different moral systems and different moral perspectives across groups and individuals. However, I do not therefore hold that I CANNOT judge another action by my moral system, even though I recognize that no system is inherently superior or authorized above any other. So, while I may intellectually accept that someone else’s system is a legitimate system for them or even in general, that doesn’t mean I have to accept it as valid for me. I’ll still trust in and act on my own subjective system, thankyouverymuch, and I’ll still denounce any system that contradicts any part of my system.
…and if that means I subscribe to might makes right, that works for me…
Yes. Exactly.
I’ve checked the thread everyday. This morning I see KN’s comment and this response. Thank you, both of you, for caring to think clearly and write well.
I suspect my imagination, like every other sense and mental faculty, is limited and fallible. That doesn’t change the equation that renders the immorality of GCT more certain, in my view, than the existence of the monitor.
kn says:
What’s the difference between an intersubjective norm-based morality, or social norm-based morality, and subjective morality?
Obviously, because, like, that makes a whole lot of sense.
Tell me, as far as your sensorium goes, what differentiates “anyone here” from any other type of sense experience you may have?
E.G Someone here writes a book, a book read by someone you admire, you then are convinced by that person but really by that book.
Does your obviously rule still hold then? Once again, your narrow imagination limits you. The things that put brains in buckets saw you coming!
As I understand your position, it is that atheists are either
(a) moral relativists, or
(b) irrational.
Doesn’t that mean you cannot engage in a rational argument with an atheist about what one ought to do in a situation which is morally challenging? For if the atheist is a relativist, then he or she will not be open to such arguments, and if the atheist is not a relativist, then he or she must be irrational and hence not someone to hold a rational argument with.
Now I suspect you are indifferent to any such limitation, especially given the quoted comment.
But for me, that would be a troubling limitation to life in our secular society. I want to find some basis for morality that allows rational argument with anyone about what is right for our society and the world.
William J. Murray,
Blink. Free will renders one impervious to argument and/or evidence? Some would consider that a straitjacket. Not you, obviously; save yourself the trouble of pointing that out.
Never said anything of the sort.
How do you go about having a rational argument about what are presumed to be subjective feelings?
Now, if an atheist happens to subjectively feel that a certain kind of morality is “the best”, and that morality happens to be a kind that can be logically argued from it’s own premises, then you can have that argument and it can be rational.
There just isn’t any rational argument you can have about “why that morality” in the first place. Because, as kieiths keeps pointing out, its a subjective feeling, and both Dr. Liddle and KN claim certain kinds of morality by definitional fiat.
You can’t argue with those that claim that “human flourishing” **is** morality **by definition**, just as you can’t argue with one that claims the bible **is** morality **by definition**. They’ve defined fundamental dissent out of the picture.
Well, not everyone sees colors, but we can have rational discussions about color. Not everyone can hear, but we can have rational discussions about sound.
Petrushka,
Only we’re not talking about “discussions”, we’re talking about rational arguments, where people are trying to hammer out serious differences of views. Colors and sounds are presumed to have objective sources even if our bodies translate and our minds interpret them subjectively, we expect to be able to resolve our differences about sounds and colors rationally because there is a presumed means to objectively arbit such arguments.
Without any presumed objective arbiter, there is no rational means of negotiating fundamental disagreements. There’s always rhetoric and emotional pleading, though. Not every successful argument is rational.
I don’t think that “subjective morality” makes any sense, because I use “subjective” to mean “the point of view of first-person consciousness”. I have privileged access to my own thoughts, feelings, moods, and needs — my awareness of those states is different from anyone else’s awareness of those states — and so that counts as “subjective”. But since all norms are essentially social (on my account of what is for something to be a norm at all), norms cannot be subjective, in the way that my own thoughts and feelings are.
William J. Murray,
So what did you say? Or rather, since everyone can see the words, what did you mean? What is it about free will that interferes with ‘anyone here’s ability to convince? It must be either your choice or theirs.
William,
Your terse and misplaced indignation doesn’t accomplish anything. Allan’s inference was quite reasonable, given your words.
If you have failed to communicate clearly, then try again. Rephrase your thought instead of self-righteously declaring that you “never said anything of the sort”, which doesn’t communicate anything except for your petulance.
William J. Murray,
So to make the argument ‘rational’ you invent an objective standard (on the shaky premise that reason cannot be brought to bear on the matter without it). This is unjustified sleight of hand. “There is only one right answer”. “Brilliant! What is it?”. “I didn’t say I knew what it was.”.
keiths:
Bruce:
Yes, and in this thread, actually. When William argues that subjective morality implies that “all things are permissible”, he is essentially claiming that subjective morality implies moral relativism.
I used a game analogy (starting here) to show why that’s wrong.
This exchange sums it up:
William:
keiths:
KN,
Morality doesn’t have to be based on widely accepted norms. Suppose for the sake of argument that I think it is morally wrong to eat a chicken together with its eggs (a variant of the kid-boiled-in-mother’s-milk prohibition). Further suppose that I am the only person in my community, or even in the entire world, that believes this.
My stance may be unique, but it’s still a moral stance.
William:
I agree entirely with William on this point. (Did I just say that? 🙂 ) You can argue about what best promotes “human flourishing”, and you can argue about what the Bible really means, but if someone’s moral axiom is that “whatever promotes human flourishing is good”, or “whatever the Bible commands is moral”, then there is no objective way of refuting them.
(Well, technically you can disprove the latter by showing that the Bible is morally contradictory, but let’s assume that one’s interpretation of the Bible is morally consistent.)
Robin,
It doesn’t mean that you subscribe to “might makes right”. That’s just another of William’s confusions.
Under subjective morality, something is morally right if I feel it’s morally right. It has nothing to do with power.
The mightiest kid on the block might be able to force me to do something immoral, but that doesn’t thereby make it moral. Might does not make right.
William, to KN:
Your word choice (‘coerce’) betrays your bias. KN used the word ‘convince’, which does not imply that your free will is being trampled.
Most of us think that being persuaded by an excellent argument is a good thing, totally compatible with free will, and that it would actually be a kind of prison not to be persuaded by good arguments.
This is one of the reasons that the concept of libertarian free will is incoherent. If there are no reasons behind your choices, then they are random, not free. Your choices are at their freest (in the sense that we actually want) when they are constrained by your character, your deliberations, and the information (including arguments) at your disposal.
I don’t follow how that particular summary works. What I thought you were saying by being against moral relativism is this: not only are there separate, instances of moral frameworks, but that some frameworks can be rationally argued to be superior to others.
Or, to use a game analogy, I think you’d have to argue that some games are better than others and so we should all be playing one of those games (by its official rules).
If one simply argues that it is fine to select any game as long as one plays by its rules, that seems to be moral relativism to me. That is, it is fine to select any game = culture as long as you play by the game rules = that culture’s morality.
I see WJM seems to have made a similar point in the exchange you linked, but I read your reply as not addressing the point I am making about needing to show some games are better than others if games are analogous to different culture’s moral frameworks (and you are not a relativist).
I don’t like the term “subjective feelings” for describing what norms are since it is too easily confused with an explanation of why people do what they DO. I want norms to refer to what moral agents OUGHT to do.
As I am sure you know, there are many different views in metaethics on what norms are. But I don’t think I need to get into those to make my point.
I think it is possible to have a rational discussion comparing norms assuming the other person is rational.
If the other person has no moral framework, explain how yours works and explain the advantages of using it. Then show how applying it leads to the course you recommend.
If they have a moral framework different from yours, try adopting it and showing how their application of it is not valid. Or explain why your moral framework is superior for deciding this issue.
I expect such arguments would rely on some aspect of any moral framework which a rational agent would adopt, such as not treating some moral agents affected by the decision differently than others. Of course, one of the reasons I study KN and other non-relativists is to seek such principles and to understand how one could justify them to another rational agent.
As long as I can assume the other agent is rational, I can try such approaches. They may not work: rational argument is not the same as deductive proof.
If they don’t work, then I can walk away if the issue is unimportant. If it is very important, then I can follow a due process to try harder to effect a change.
Bruce, to William:
Moral systems do commonly treat moral agents differently.
For example, Hindu morality treats people differently based on their caste, and theistic moralities of all stripes prioritize God’s wishes above our own.
Bruce,
That’s correct, but incomplete. Let me elaborate:
A logically consistent moral framework is superior to one that is inconsistent. For example, I’ve argued that my atheistic, subjective morality is superior to William’s morality because mine is logically consistent while his is not.
Now suppose instead that we’re comparing two logically consistent systems. In this case, one whose assumptions and implications are true is better than one whose assumptions and implications are false or unknown.
(I suppose you could also apply Occam’s Razor in some cases, but let’s neglect that to keep things simple.)
As a third case, suppose we’re comparing two systems that are logically consistent, equally well-supported empirically, equally simple, etc. The only difference is that one aligns well with my conscience, and the other does not. I will judge the first to be superior to the second, and you may do the opposite. Neither of us is being irrational, however.
In the first two cases we judge one system to be rationally superior to the other. In the last case each of us judges one system to be superior, but for purely subjective reasons. We can’t justify it objectively.
Allan Miller said:
No. I don’t invent it. Assuming an objective nature, at least in part, for what one is already experiencing isn’t really the same as “inventing”. It’s more like “re-categorizing” what one is already experiencing. It’s not like I invented the idea of objective morality.
keiths said:
The statement is not that under **a** subjective morality, all things are permissable. Of course no one makes that claim. The statement is that under subjective morality – the classification that encompasses all subjective moral sets – all things are permissable. IOW, in order to qualify as ***a*** valid, subjective morality, there is no behavior that cannot be included in your particular system.
Nobody cares and it is a trivial point to say that under a **particular** subjective morality, not all things are permissable. What a bizarre and trivial point to make.
KN said:
Short version: one person’s views = subjective. Two people that happen to agree on their views = “intersubjective” or “social”.
The term “intersubjective norm” is nothing but rhetoric used to purchase illusionary separation from the uncomfortable, stark problem that subjective morality presents.
Without an arbiter assumed to be objective, subjective morality is – as keiths and robin admit – doing what they feel like doing, and intervening if they feel like it and if they can – IOW, Because I feel like it; Because I can.
William:
Says the man who blows a gasket when he thinks other people are putting words into his mouth. Pot, kettle.
“Because I feel like it; Because I can” is a complete mischaracterization of my morality.
Re “Because I feel like it”:
I consider an action moral if my conscience tells me it’s moral, not because I feel like doing it.
Re “Because I can”:
Did you overlook my refutation of your “might makes right” canard?
William,
That’s a silly objection. As I said before, it’s like saying “Games are bogus! You can make any move you want!”
Sure, if you look at the set of all possible games, then any particular move is permitted in some of them. So what? A person doesn’t simultaneously play the set of all possible games. He or she plays one game at a time out of a tiny subset of all possible games, and the members of that subset are chosen for reasons — they don’t get chosen merely because they’re games.
Likewise, if you look at the set of all possible subjective moralities, then any particular act is permitted in some of them. Again, so what? A person doesn’t simultaneously embrace all possible subjective moralities. He or she embraces one morality at a time, and tends not to change it very often. The moralities acceptable to that person form a tiny subset, and those are chosen for reasons — they don’t get chosen merely because they qualify as subjective moralities.
It’s not a problem that the set of all possible moralities includes some bizarre ones, any more than it is a problem that the set of all possible games does.
People judge morality by using their consciences, and the commonalities in our consciences (due to shared biological and cultural heritages) allow us to converge on a small subset of possible moralities. It’s still larger than we’d like, but it is tiny compared to the entire set.
What about people with stunted or misshapen consciences, you ask? Their moralities are stunted and misshapen, by our standards. But that happens even under your system. A psychopath who believes in objective morality and adopts your system will consult his conscience, stunted though it may be, and will conclude that his depredations are objectively moral. He has no way under your system of determining that his conscience is unreliable.
If a psychopath can employ your moral system exactly the way you do, and conclude that his predatory actions are objectively moral, then you know you have a deeply fucked-up moral system.
Allan Miller,
I think you invest too much significance in that word ‘invent’ (I actually thought you’d go after ‘sleight-of-hand’). I could have said ‘import’ – but then it crosses no borders and you pay no duty. But yeah, ‘assume’. However you characterise it, it seems like cheating, if it is merely performing the function ‘that which makes morality logical’ (even that role it performs poorly). ‘This proof doesn’t work unless I make this term 37.726. So that’s what I do’.
Be all that as it may, if an objective standard means you are attempting to get someone equally convinced to buy into yours, and free will means you cannot be caused by the counter-argument to change your mind, two free-will-infused Objective Moralists seem like the last people one would want negotiating. Send in a couple of pragmatists. The only necessary assumption is that agreement has the potential to be reached.
But more fundamentally, morality is about how the individual ‘ought’ to behave. It’s not about negotiation or control at all at the most basic level. Nor would I subscribe to KN’s ‘human flourishing’. I think it is fundamentally about minimising harm and promoting happiness, and the rationale is selfish – it ‘feels good’. The individuals to whom it doesn’t feel good, or those who feel even better by doing other behaviours of which I would disapprove – they are not me.
I understand that they do. And if I were a moral relativist, I’d shrug my shoulders and move on.
But I am not a moral relativist. And so I think that it is wrong to be a racist or to enslave people due to their caste. And it is just a wrong for someone in the Indian culture as someone raised in our culture.
I’d really like to hear how you reason this out if you assume there is no objective (absolute) standard that determines how morality (how humans should act) is fundamentally framed – IOW, “human flourishing” vs “holy book” vs “survival of the fittest” as moral basis.
Or, do you believe there is such an objective (absolute) moral standard?
Thanks, that’s helpful. I might quibble about whether one needs just logical consistency, but that is too far off topic.
I suspect that WJM’s framework, encompassing both morality and the nature of the world, is so different from yours (and mine) that he can continue to claim consistency within that framework.
I find his framework deeply unattractive. But I doubt I could successfully argue that his ideas were inconsistent within his framework.
I admire your energy in continuing to try, although, as I mentioned to Alan F earlier, I don’t understand the motives in devoting so much energy to this. I would guess you simply find it intellectually enjoyable.
On the other hand, I have little doubt that his assertion that atheists must be relativist or be irrational is wrong. Too many intelligent philosophers with widely different metaethics disagree with moral relativism for me to think that they are all wrong and he is right. There are many disagreements among them, but not on the general conclusion that bare moral relativism is incorrect.