My very good friend Zac Nagel, posted a comment on my previous post that merits a response. I am still trying to determine the best way to maintain this blog as a discussion, but I am going to try replying in the form of a new post and see if it works. I prefer this over replying to the comment in this case because I dont want what I have to say lost in a comment thread. Before I get into all that though, this was Zac's comment to my previous post on the Source of Morals.
the presence of a moral compass within most people (e.g. the don't murder, don't steal) is more easily reasoned to be the remnant of divine programming of an absolute moral code as opposed to being developed by mankind in a vacuum.
If mankind developed this moral compass...then how does it seem logical that many people groups and civilizations (some without contact with another civilization) across all time have converged on a common set of morals (again, think no murder, stealing is bad, marriage should occur).
Conversely, why haven't we seen civilizations arise where stealing murder, etc. are prized as good things.
Doesn't it seem more likely that there is a common source that provides a template of moral direction which nearly all people (theists, deists, atheists, pantheists, etc.) hold in common?
If mankind developed this moral compass...then how does it seem logical that many people groups and civilizations (some without contact with another civilization) across all time have converged on a common set of morals (again, think no murder, stealing is bad, marriage should occur).
Conversely, why haven't we seen civilizations arise where stealing murder, etc. are prized as good things.
Doesn't it seem more likely that there is a common source that provides a template of moral direction which nearly all people (theists, deists, atheists, pantheists, etc.) hold in common?
First, let me clarify the main objection that I have and was trying to convey in my post. It was that we do not necessarily need a God to provide us with morals. Or at the very least, we do not need a divine messenger to tell us what is right or wrong. It would appear that Zac may be in agreement with me there. For if our morals are part of some "divine programming", then God has already put that into every human and so what need is there for Him to send his son as Jesus, or speak to Mohammed, or come down Himself as Krishna. An all-powerful God should have put in the right code in the original release and not required later version upgrades. So again, my original point was that the diversity of religions and faiths proves that man is capable of devising morals, or at the very least a divine messenger is not needed for that.
However, I will admit that I also alluded to the idea that not only is a messenger not needed, but God himself (or herself) is not needed for us to derive our morals. And here of course is where here Zac disagrees with me. The argument is that the fact that virtually all groups and civilizations today have essentially the same set of morals is proof that some central divine programming is involved. First, I would disagree that all groups have the same set of morals, even though in general the overarching principles are there. Take for example one of the most common elements, murder. It is universally accepted by all groups across the world that murder of another human being is wrong. Different religions though introduce different shades of grey to it. Christianity teaches that all murder is sin (but a murderer may still make it to Heaven); Islam teaches that murder in some instances may be okay (especially if the victim is a non-believer); and Hinduism teaches that murder is wrong unless it is your duty (dharma) to kill another (e.g. a soldier in battle). So while all three in general agree that murder is wrong, three of the largest groups in the world have different takes on it. Surely God would have programmed in a little more detail. But I digress.
My main argument is that God has not programmed in the morals, but rather that humans "have converged on a common set" through thousands of years of civilization. They have all converged on the basic morals because these are what make a society fair and productive. Over different times as groups began living together and becoming interdependent, they must have realized that it is in everyone's interest to frown upon things like murder and theft. This was not an invention like paper or gunpowder that got invented in one place and then spread around the world. It is more likely that different groups came up with the basic principles at different times much like different groups must have figured out things like fire and shelter independently. It is on these basic ideas that groups then added the flavors we see today.
The underlying concepts though are so obvious for a healthy society that it is not surprising at all that completely disconnected groups would have all "discovered" them. As soon as groups started living together, it is easy to see a leadership structure emerge which would have devised a set of laws. These man-made laws then became the morals of that group. Blur your eyes, and all these different morals look pretty much the same, because even though we may be brown, black, or white, blur your eyes and we are all humans.
9 comments:
Let's focus on the first argument (...but God himself (or herself) is not needed for us to derive our morals) before moving on to other arguments. But for the record, I disagree with you, it is necessary for God to send a messenger to us...but we'll get to that another time.
Since I haven't convinced you with the argument from the data of human experience, I'll appeal to the principle of causality. This states that one thing (cause) gives rise to another thing (effect). In this case I define the existence of a moral compass within humans as the effect. (I think we can agree on that...it had to come from somewhere, it cannot have been ex nihilo).
I understand your position as such: you define the cause as the human mind. I argue that the cause is a divine (supernatural) being. I'll take the further step to assume (please correct me here) that you assume mankind to have arisen due to evolution (since you do not want to attribute morality to divinity). Causality states that the effect cannot be greater than the cause (which should be understandable to our engineering minds). Thus if humans evolved ultimately from amoral cosmic gases, how did morality arise from a fundamentally amoral cause?
I suggest that a divine being established an absolute code of morality. And as the creation of this divine being, this moral code is built into our being.
I am not sure I completely understand your appeal to causality, but I suspect you are referring to the Second Law. So let's go with that. I am arguing that the effect is the formation of a set of morals and the cause is the human mind. The human mind is greater than this effect as we know it is capable of formulating a lot more than morals. It can engineer solutions, create art, perform the opposite of said morals, and figure out the Second Law. So, no, the human mind coming up with morals does not violate morality.
No I do not understand your objection with moral humans emerging from amoral cosmic gases. Why does morality have to emerge from a moral cause, or "moral cosmic gases"? Grey matter capable of putting coherent thoughts together has to emerge from these cosmic gases, and the fundamentals of this process are without doubt today. This grey matter then can come up with anything it wants, including morals. And we have proof of that - many different groups have many different morals.
You had to open the can of worms, didn't you SKD? This may require a seedy couch and a lot of coffee. And a few bottles of Jack.
I appeal to evolution to explain humans' near-universal set of morals. Let's imagine a world long long ago when humans (or their predecessors) lived in small bands or tribes. Let's imagine that tribes generally disagreed with each other and fought with each other to compete for land or food. In general, the larger tribe - or the one with better technology - would win, thus causing the other to perish. The winning tribe therefore had to find a way to either grow larger without a critical mass of in-fighting, or work very closely together to build better technology, or both.
After fast forwarding many generations of having the larger, more organize, more technological tribes win, the world is left with a relatively small number of tribes comprised of people who have been able to find away to survive in a large group with relatively common objectives. And guess what? The people who couldn't do this - i.e. the ones who tend to murder, steal, make bad coffee, etc., have all perished because their tribes could not compete with the larger, more organized, more agreeable tribes.
And there you have it. My first ever blog post comment. Welcome to the interwebs, andy.
I suggest read the books of j krishnamurti you may get lot of stuff in continuation of this subject
@Andy, actually this entire blog probably requires a couch and Jack. Or I picture my idols as I write this, the UofM Mech. Eng. machinists who sit on their stools outside sipping coffee and complaining about the world.
But on a serious note, well pointed out Andy. We often forget that our society did not just emerge the way it is today. Humans and human societies have changed and seen success and failure for about 10000 years. To use the anthropic principle, we ask why our society is the way it is because we are here to ask why?
S-Diddy, if your statement that our brain is greater than the effect of morals is true, then what is greater than the brain? The brain is not self-existing, so it requires an origin.
Secondly, to the Lap-Dog, if evolution and by extension technology have given rise to morals, then why is it generally accepted to abstain from Euthanasia? Or cannibalism. I see a recent news article about starving farmers in North Korea resorting to eating their children...then the North Korean gov. executed the offender. Why does an atheist government punish cannibalism? Since atheism appeals to evolution, cannibalism should fit right in...survival of the fittest.
Why do we not accept cannibalism, nor euthanize old people once they're done working. Evolution and the rise of technology says both of these things are acceptable as long as the benefits outweigh the costs.
So in a nutshell, the data in the world around us is contrary to the theory that evolution and the rise of technology have created a moral code.
Zac, I must say that I do not completely understand your argument. Morals are thoughts, ideas, laws, etc. that humans conjure up to govern themselves and the societies they live in. The brain is a collection of chemicals and electrical impulses. These impulses have the ability to think, speak, and cause muscle movement that manifests itself as action.
Morals can be both good and bad. Think for example the law in Saudi Arabia that treats a rape victim as an adulterer. Surely most people can agree that it is the opposite of some "higher good". Yet these ideas emerge from the same brain as the moral that teaches to not kill.
Allow me to answer your question directed at Andy. I think the general abhorrence for cannibalism and euthanasia is great evidence of evolution. Unfortunately evolution has often been simplified as "survival of the fittest" which people take to imply some sort of jungle-law where we can all go around clubbing each other to death. Some sort of "Hunger Games" if you will. This is a gross over-simplification. Evolution is like game theory in that the species codifies and naturalizes those behaviors and traits that are the most beneficial for long term survival. Very few species exhibit cannibalism, even in times of dire hunger. This suggests that the fact that cannibalism is bad for a species was learnt very early on in the evolution of life. I am guessing an argument for why a species eating each other is bad for survival is not needed.
Euthanasia (or rather caring for the old) is perhaps more uniquely human, but this too is not certain. Again, it can be seen how a culture of caring for the elderly would benefit society. First the elders have wisdom and experience to pass down even if they may not be able to "farm and hunt". Second, individuals are more likely to contribute if they know that they will taken care of when they are older. In both of these cases, the benefits do not outweigh the costs.
It really is a shame that evolution has come to be seen by some as a tool yielded by atheists to discredit God. That is not its intent. Evolution is sound science that has withstood criticism and been shown to neatly explain life again and again. It is a clean logical argument that does not resort to leaps of faith or fairies or fantastical stories. I would very much like to understand what the objection to evolution is - for I do not get it.
So I think the language "Morals can be both good and bad", as you say, is very interesting. What is "good" and what is "bad?" Your language (and indeed the way that all humans think and talk) implies an absolute reference of good and bad. How can morals that are merely a human construct obtain an absolute, transcendent, character of "good" or "bad?" If mankind can dream up morals, why should any person's set of morality get called into question?
Further, if the response is, "this is the way that things work best", does that not imply some underlying laws which govern morality? In the same way that physical laws underpin the physical world, why does the moral world fail to have a fundamental underpinning of its own?
The reason that evolution has been hijacked by Atheists goes back an earlier post that I wrote. All worldviews require answers to three questions: what is your name, what is your quest, ...ooops. Sorry.
1. Where did we come from?
2. Why is the world a mess?
3. What is the solution?
Atheists need an answer to #1. Since they do not appeal to a higher power, they had no means by which to explain the origin of life and mankind. With evolution (and the big bang), naturalism becomes a fully formed worldview. I don't know if evolution is
correct or incorrect...but a sober evaluation reveals that it is still a theory with holes and unexplained aspects (e.g. gaps in the fossil record and "Punctuated equilibrium").
I think this complete discussion has got no end becsuse we are talking on the subject which does not exist in physical form and what i understand that scince demands to be seen and to be proved by evidence
The subject of discussion is a mixture of fact and believe here you can not say that believe is always wrong and fact is also remain fact we have example where proven facts change to non fact after time passes we should must agree on the birth of this universe which is according to hindu theory is a result of evolution it is not created as being the believe of other religions if we believe hindu philosophy we also know that for anything happening reason is required and to that karta means who does is required this is called karta karan and karma theory this theory is quite complex to understand but it is scintefic hindu philosophy also gives in detail the theory of birth death and evolution of this whole cosmic universe which is almost self rotating theory the existence of God is considered to maintain certain disceplene in human society otherwise again according to hindu philosophy their is power ie. Shakti who is in centre to monitor the whole process and to control this shakti other power is required otherwise uncontrolled power will create havoc in this world for that reason purush or the male power came in existence again if you observe this male and female power existence is the base of birth which is must for creation and again scintefic too now coming to moral i agree were not planned or programmed by any creator or god these are self developed along with human became civilised and these code of conducts or moral came in human practice long before these so called religion or prophets came to this world basic codes or social rules are self evolved by time process and became the basic principal of human irrespective of any religion these conducts are called dhamma means basic nature or ee can say dhamma of human likr dhamma of fire is to burn and dhamma of air to give oxygen these basic codes of nature are not created by any prophet or the god they created it is universal and same for all the humanity
We can talk further on this endless subject
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