All my atheist morals

Cato

This is a thread for athiests and others to discuss reason based moral philosophies without it sliding into a religion v. atheism debate.

Just to kick things off, but by no means limit the discussion:

Is human life valuable?
How is human defined?
Does this value impose an obligation on us?

ElJeffe

I think an important place to start for a reason-based moral system is to define some axioms. Since you can't really derive something like, "People have value" from the laws of physics, or anything, you more or less have to state such things as self-evident.

I'd say a few good ones are:

- Life has intrinsic value ("life" left purposefully vague here)
- Sentience is more valuable than non-sentience
- Light sabers are bitchin'

Golem

As a person that has recently become an Atheist I've taken a good long look at my morals, hopefully I have good enough answers.

- Life has intrinsic value ("life" left purposefully vague here)
- Sentience is more valuable than non-sentience

would be in there though.

Imo since i feel that we each only get one go at life then it is important for me at least to give others the same chance at life that I have. That doesnt mean I wouldnt kill someone trying to kill me or my family though. It does give me pause on Capital Punishment though, and the prison system in general. But Im still searching for answers in my own way and time.

Yar

Happiness is a good thing.
Sadness is a bad thing.
Go.

Loren Michael

why is life (including human life) intrinsically valuable?

i prefer to base my morality on slightly more substantive, objective things. sentience and cognizance is a nice place to start, so i agree with jeffe there.

if something is capable of experiencing suffering or happiness, i would suggest that we have ethical responsibilities towards it. to something that is "alive" but does not posess these qualities, i don't see why we owe it any more consideration than we would a rock.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

Empathy should be a guideline in moral thinking.

People have the right to individually control and own property.

TheHoradrim

I may not be a dictionary-defined Atheist, but I'm close enough (I think) to contribute.

*this is my very first post on these forums, hope I don't do anything wrong :P*

I have very strong opinions about atheism and religion in general. First of all I'd like to state where I sit as far as my beliefs are concerned.

Religious practice and idealistic beliefs don't really bother me in general, however, the moment that it begins restricting your life I see it as a problem (sex before marriage, gay marriage, etc). I don't necessarily believe in any greater, omnipotent beings... yet, by the same token I don't disregard their existence.

People believe what they want to believe even if it is just because it's easier or helps them sleep at night. If some people find it easier and more welcoming to accept 'god' (as apposed to choosing not to believe) then that is their subconscious, humanistic choice and I definitely respect that. If others decide to forsake the entire idea of 'god', religion, etc. then that too, is their choice and is to be respected.

Someone above me said "you only live once" and it really is the epitome of what I believe. You wanna get drunk, have sex, and party your whole life? If thats what you want you shouldn't have to choose between your own morals and your religion.. I mean, why would someone purposefully put themselves in that situation (I see it happen everywhere, all the time!)!?

I think it's logical.. We know we are alive right now. We do not know what happens after death. It's not that I choose not to believe, it's that I choose not to care.

Human life itself is as valuable as any other life on this planet. I don't think human beings have earned a 'special' right to life more than the next race/species,

Humanity is anything above and beyond one's most primal instincts,

and the only obligation imposed upon us is to use that humanity as a basis for everyday life decisions.

God

Loren Michael wrote:

why is life (including human life) intrinsically valuable?

i prefer to base my morality on slightly more substantive, objective things. sentience and cognizance is a nice place to start, so i agree with jeffe there.

if something is capable of experiencing suffering or happiness, i would suggest that we have ethical responsibilities towards it. to something that is "alive" but does not posess these qualities, i don't see why we owe it any more consideration than we would a rock.

Right, life is too broad a category. I don't think things like bacteria or plants should have intrinsic value beyond what they can do for us and other life that we tag other stuff on, like the ability to suffer (as you said), certain other cognitive traits that I'm sure we could hash out, and how cute the fluffy animal is.

Shinto

TheHoradrim wrote:

snip

Good first post. Welcome to the forum.

Evil Multifarious

Loren Michael wrote:

why is life (including human life) intrinsically valuable?

i prefer to base my morality on slightly more substantive, objective things. sentience and cognizance is a nice place to start, so i agree with jeffe there.

if something is capable of experiencing suffering or happiness, i would suggest that we have ethical responsibilities towards it. to something that is "alive" but does not posess these qualities, i don't see why we owe it any more consideration than we would a rock.

It's pretty hard to define life as it is, so I think sentience is a better starting point. I feel no moral obligation towards fungus, or grass. I do however feel a moral obligation towards cats and cows and birds, and even to some extent insects and arachnids and such.

When it comes to human interaction, an atheistic morality seems like it must have some philosophical basis in the greater good of the species.

Qingu

Hold on a second. I'm an atheist and I have some pretty strong moral views, but I completely fail to see what one has to do with another.

Atheism is not a positive belief or ideology (like religion). Atheism by definition is a lack of a particular kind of belief. We all have our reasons for not believing in gods, just like we have our reasons for not believing in fairies or unicorns.

However, I don't see how not believing in fairies influences my morality one way or another. Similarly, with gods.

At most, atheists can make a negative statement about their morals—they can claim, for example, that they don't need to follow the morals of a particular religion's scriptures (though they are free to do so).

I think what this thread is probably going to be about are "secular humanist" morals. Secular humanism is a positive belief system, like theism or communism, with its own assumptions about reality (such as the intrinsic worth of individuality, freedom, rationality and—usually—sentient life).

redx

Loren Michael wrote:

if something is capable of experiencing suffering or happiness, i would suggest that we have ethical responsibilities towards it. to something that is "alive" but does not posess these qualities, i don't see why we owe it any more consideration than we would a rock.

I don't know... lots of things can suffer.

I like to eat a lot of them.

Evil Multifarious

Qingu, the thread seems to be asking about the source of morality for an atheist, who has no absolute source to depend on for a moral code or even a reason to be moral, and thus what kind of system can be derived from such a source.

Dynagrip

I want to be remembered for the deeds I have done while on this Earth. Whatever the fuck happens to me if anything does at all after I'm dead, is irrelevant in my mind. I'm not sure if that makes me an atheist or uh, whatever. But I have a very rigid morality in place, I just hate to tie up my Sundays or be around creepy "holy" men.

Leitner

Evil Multifarious wrote:

Qingu, the thread seems to be asking about the source of morality for an atheist, who has no absolute source to depend on for a moral code or even a reason to be moral, and thus what kind of system can be derived from such a source.

I wouldn't like others hurting or killing me. You can derive a moral system from that.

Dynagrip

If you live with other people, you have need of a moral code. If you don't have one, they shouldn't let you play with them.

ElJeffe

Evil Multifarious wrote:

It's pretty hard to define life as it is, so I think sentience is a better starting point. I feel no moral obligation towards fungus, or grass. I do however feel a moral obligation towards cats and cows and birds, and even to some extent insects and arachnids and such.

It's no easier to define sentience than it is to define life. They're both nebulous concepts that operate on a sliding scale and have clear positive and negative examples only at the ends. A healthy human adult is sentient, a bacterium is not. A duck is alive, a rock is not.

Using sentience as a base for morality is no less arbitrary than using life. They're both just things that resonate with us, largely as a result of our being both A) sentient, and alive.

Now, there's no reason to ascribe equal value to all things that possess some modicum of one of these traits. Bacteria are alive, but we don't have to ascribe to them the same value as we do to a puppy, because we also have that sentience thing. But using life, however defined, as a criterion allows us to rationally say that killing a puppy is more immoral than deleting a sophisticated program that acts like a puppy.

That said, these are all just axioms, and they're all arbitrary to an extent. I can't really definitively claim that the set I choose to begin with is better than someone else's. I can just claim the self-evidence of my set, which at the end of the day just means, "Well, it makes sense to me."

TheHoradrim

if something is capable of experiencing suffering or happiness, i would suggest that we have ethical responsibilities towards it. to something that is "alive" but does not posess these qualities, i don't see why we owe it any more consideration than we would a rock.

I see what you are saying, but you have to ask yourself if that is reason enough to justify abusing something.

Neither grass nor rock nor tree posses the ability to suffer... but does that mean you are going to go outside and start wrecking nature for fun?

I think it's more a question of humanity as apposed to empathy.

ElJeffe

TheHoradrim wrote:

if something is capable of experiencing suffering or happiness, i would suggest that we have ethical responsibilities towards it. to something that is "alive" but does not posess these qualities, i don't see why we owe it any more consideration than we would a rock.

I see what you are saying, but you have to ask yourself if that is reason enough to justify abusing something.

Neither grass nor rock nor tree posses the ability to suffer... but does that mean you are going to go outside and start wrecking nature for fun?

I think it's more a question of humanity as apposed to empathy.

One could argue that wrecking nature is wrong not because you're killing grass, but because killing that grass can indirectly harm other things that can suffer, like the animals that subsist on it.

That said, I'm perfectly willing to simply create a sliding scale of wrongness that asserts that killing grass just for the sake of killing it is wrong, but it's a pretty inconsequential amount of wrongness.

redx

ElJeffe wrote:

Evil Multifarious wrote:

It's pretty hard to define life as it is, so I think sentience is a better starting point. I feel no moral obligation towards fungus, or grass. I do however feel a moral obligation towards cats and cows and birds, and even to some extent insects and arachnids and such.

It's no easier to define sentience than it is to define life. They're both nebulous concepts that operate on a sliding scale and have clear positive and negative examples only at the ends. A healthy human adult is sentient, a bacterium is not. A duck is alive, a rock is not.

Using sentience as a base for morality is no less arbitrary than using life. They're both just things that resonate with us, largely as a result of our being both A) sentient, and alive.

urr... morality itself is kinda a sliding scale. Like, we can do whatever the fuck we want to a rock or a bacterium, because they arn't sentient.

People are really sentient. They get all sorts of rights.

Ducks, well they are somewhere in the middle. We can kill them. We can eat them. But being mean just for the sake of being mean, or kill them in particularlly bad way.

or... someshit.

ElJeffe

redx wrote:

urr... morality itself is kinda a sliding scale. Like, we can do whatever the fuck we want to a rock or a bacterium, because they arn't sentient.

People are really sentient. They get all sorts of rights.

Ducks, well they are somewhere in the middle. We can kill them. We can eat them. But being mean just for the sake of being mean, or kill them in particularlly bad way.

or... someshit.

Right. Morality is a sliding scale, because the universe around us operates on sliding scales.

Dynagrip

So I guess my moral code revolves around Megalomania...


Damn it!

DeepQantas

Sentience beats life and robot sex trumps all. Scifi has taught me that much.

But supposing scientists don't come up with a way to upload my brain to a computer, I guess my only shot at immortality is being remembered as a great... something. And that's getting harder all the time with a population of 6 billion, too.

templewulf

TheHoradrim wrote:

if something is capable of experiencing suffering or happiness, i would suggest that we have ethical responsibilities towards it. to something that is "alive" but does not posess these qualities, i don't see why we owe it any more consideration than we would a rock.

I see what you are saying, but you have to ask yourself if that is reason enough to justify abusing something.

Neither grass nor rock nor tree posses the ability to suffer... but does that mean you are going to go outside and start wrecking nature for fun?

I think it's more a question of humanity as apposed to empathy.

One of the other things I find troublesome is knowing what things possess the ability to suffer. Some people believe plants have feelings; I don't, but it's a good example of how arbitrary this is.

For instance, do ants have feelings? Do they have an actual "hive mind" or is this just emergent behavior from many smaller minds? When some ants are in trouble, others help them. Many ants work in group efforts that are surprising.

As for a non-religious morality that works, read up on the works of John Rawls. His work is largely pragmatic; he hardly ever deals with meta-ethical issues, focusing instead on law-making practices and the equitable separation of public-private spheres.

Dynagrip

DeepQantas wrote:

Sentience beats life and robot sex trumps all. Scifi has taught me that much.

But supposing scientists don't come up with a way to upload my brain to a computer, I guess my only shot at immortality is being remembered as a great... something. And that's getting harder all the time with a population of 6 billion, too.

Just work on it.

TheHoradrim

I'm perfectly willing to simply create a sliding scale of wrongness that asserts that killing grass just for the sake of killing it is wrong, but it's a pretty inconsequential amount of wrongness.

Incosequential, yet also Unnecessary. Making it a matter of humanity rather than empathy. Think ethics.

I think the serious question is whether or not it's ok to intervene with another life(irregardless of how insignificant), what would/could justify doing so, and finally how would we (as atheists) would come to this conclusion. [/quote]

RandomEngy

Sentience is valuable, and sentient creatures should have rights. We have an obligation to protect those rights. However I do not feel we have an obligation to protect everything that can feel pain. Simply because there's just so much crap that can feel pain in so many ways, it become incredibly silly and impractical to try and do this.

Yar

You guys are throwing around "sentience" a lot. It's basically a science fiction term, and we had a whole thread debating what it means and it never got anywhere.

Sentience or not, suffering is a bad thing and happiness is a good thing. That's the axiom of morality.

DeepQantas

"Sentience" is a lot better answer than "love" or "not licking our genitals" when the question is what separates us from animals.

ElJeffe

Yar wrote:

You guys are throwing around "sentience" a lot. It's basically a science fiction term, and we had a whole thread debating what it means and it never got anywhere.

Sentience or not, suffering is a bad thing and happiness is a good thing. That's the axiom of morality.

Sentience is inexorably tied to suffering and happiness, though. It's not like saying "Suffering and happiness!" is a definitive answer. What qualifies as suffering? Does a rock suffer when I kick it? Does a human? Why one and not the other? The answer is that one possesses more "sentience" than the other.

LadyM

What about in cases where sentience has not yet been achieved (a newborn baby) or will never come (the severely mentally disabled)? Are their lives still more valuable than a full grown ape, dog, or horse, which is aware of its surroundings, interacts with others, and may understand several human words?

Part of me wants to say, "Yes, of course, because they're human!" and part of me knows if I had to choose between the life of a random infant and my dog, that kid would be out of luck.

Edit: Is all human life valuable, or only human life that fits certain criteria? If all human life is valuable, then why is it valuable?

redx

LadyM wrote:

What about in cases where sentience has not yet been achieved (a newborn baby) or will never come (the severely mentally disabled)? Are their lives still more valuable than a full grown ape, dog, or horse, which is aware of its surroundings, interacts with others, and may understand several human words?

Part of me wants to say, "Yes, of course, because they're human!" and part of me knows if I had to choose between the life of a random infant and my dog, that kid would be out of luck.

yawn... so yar had a point about people not understanding sentience.

a new born baby can be unhappy. So can non-vegatative retards.

understanding is spaipence. I know they look kinda alike. Both start with an "S", end with "ence", and have letters between them. It's an easy mistake to make.



Don't be stupid. All human life is valuable, just not equally valuable. Great big chuncks of morality and ethics are involved in determining how valuable a given life is compared to another one. We can't give life back, so any time you take a life, you are making in irreversable decision with signifigant opportunity cost. All life has some value.

fjafjan

DeepQantas wrote:

"Sentience" is a lot better answer than "love" or "not licking our genitals" when the question is what separates us from animals.

We only lick each other genitials?

Anyway, as for the topic

1 Human life is valuable, and if a person can be saved at the expense of money then it should be payed, the problem arrises when spending that money might also cause suffering to death among other people. Some fifty year old lady gets cancer and needs £50k to treat it, and people are dying from all sorts of stupid causes in poor countries. I cannot justify saving her...
A sticky situation about life is also ofcourse "death aid", allowing chronically ill patients to die, since it's creating a scenario where suffering outweighs the desire to be alive.
2 A human is the offspring of two humans, atleast untull we start having sex with other intelligent aliens. I do not think anything can revoke you of your "humanity", some people get messed up, others are born strange, yet they are all human.

3 As intelligent (by far the most so, not the ultimately or only so) creates we have the obligation to limit suffering and work towards a better world. What that exactly means, well shit, as little unnecesary death and suffering as possible and alot of joy.
I think we should try and treat animals as best possible, yet I see no problem with eating them once they have been killed.

My own question is about the amount of desire/suffering/work relating to satisfaction/joy/relaxation, which a capitalist society tends to push towards the desire/working part, rather than the Reward/relaxing part. Relaxing and actually enjoying something does not increase productivity.

Variable

can they, the baby, really consciously be unhappy or is it just a trigger?

because dogs whimper when you kick them.

I haven't studied any of this frmo the science side but questions like this are all I talked about in ethics class last year.

when does th human become a human, as far as though, emtion, empathy, etc. I don't really see how that's answered just by saying a baby can be unhappy.

edit - red, we can make life. How can we determine that the life I make tomorrow is not equal to the life I take today?

Qingu

Yar wrote:

You guys are throwing around "sentience" a lot. It's basically a science fiction term, and we had a whole thread debating what it means and it never got anywhere.

Sentience or not, suffering is a bad thing and happiness is a good thing. That's the axiom of morality.

What if suffering makes you happy? A la S&M?

And the problem with axioms is that by definition, nothing justifies an axiom. If I don't think your axiom of morality is self-evident, why should I be beholden to it?

I think ultimately, questions of morality only matter when they apply to the morals one would enforce on other people. (In other words, I don't care if you are against drinking alcohol, I only start to care when you try to enforce that on me.) Then the question moves from the abstract to practical compromise, because it becomes a question of force.

In other words, "where does morality come from" isn't answered by appealing to vague philosophical axioms, it's answered by negotiation and compromise among members of a society, or else by force (or manipulation a la priestly castes and divine right).

redx

Variable wrote:

edit - red, we can make life. How can we determine that the life I make tomorrow is not equal to the life I take today?

solved abiogenisis all on your own did you?

anyway I was talking about bringing dead shit back to life. Once it is dead, it is going to pretty much stay that way. We can make more... whatevers.

unless you were just looking for an excusse to play with a quote, and that was retorical.

god... headache so bad I'm kinda having a hard time thinking.

Variable

redx wrote:

Variable wrote:

edit - red, we can make life. How can we determine that the life I make tomorrow is not equal to the life I take today?

solved abiogenisis all on your own did you?

anyway I was talking about bringing dead shit back to life. Once it is dead, it is going to pretty much stay that way. We can make more... whatevers.

unless you were just looking for an excusse to play with a quote, and that was retorical.

god... headache so bad I'm kinda having a hard time thinking.

i was half just playing with the quote, half looking for an answer, but you gave me a good one, we were coming frmo different sides.

electricitylikesme

Qingu wrote:

Yar wrote:

You guys are throwing around "sentience" a lot. It's basically a science fiction term, and we had a whole thread debating what it means and it never got anywhere.

Sentience or not, suffering is a bad thing and happiness is a good thing. That's the axiom of morality.

What if suffering makes you happy? A la S&M?

A good point, but not entirely accurately stated. People into S&M aren't suffering in the same sense that people who we would say are genuinely suffering are. One of the important things a maker of BDSM stuff once said was that while yes you want to torture/inflict some degree of pain, you only want to do it in a very specific way at a specific level, under specific circumstances.

Qingu wrote:

And the problem with axioms is that by definition, nothing justifies an axiom. If I don't think your axiom of morality is self-evident, why should I be beholden to it?

This I agree with. I think we can do better then to declare things axiomatic somewhat arbitrarily. We can take generalized human desires as axiomatic - people don't want do die, people don't want to suffer, the same can be applied at differing degrees to other animals etc.[/quote]

templewulf

Qingu wrote:

And the problem with axioms is that by definition, nothing justifies an axiom. If I don't think your axiom of morality is self-evident, why should I be beholden to it?

I mentioned Rawls on the last page, but no one seemed interested. I'll bring him up again, because this exact problem is why I like The Original Position.

If you assume everyone is selfish at some level (we are), then The Original Position distributes fairness in a way that exploits selfishness. It's no self-evident axiom (if ever there was one), but I think it allows us to make the jump from meta-ethics to practical ethics.

If you want to discuss meta-ethics, I'm pretty typical in that I practice a moral mish-mash of Utilitarianism and Kant's Right Action ethics, because I assign intrinsic value to both outcomes and actions. The difference is that I know the names of the concepts I'm being wishy-washy about.

Qingu

electricitylikesme wrote:

A good point, but not entirely accurately stated. People into S&M aren't suffering in the same sense that people who we would say are genuinely suffering are. One of the important things a maker of BDSM stuff once said was that while yes you want to torture/inflict some degree of pain, you only want to do it in a very specific way at a specific level, under specific circumstances.

What about ascetics? People who believe physical reality is evil and try to strip it away by starving and beating themselves? (Usually religious, I know, so maybe not appropriate for this discussion.)

What about sadists? People who enjoy torturing other people? They certainly would not agree with your axiom that suffering is always wrong. What authority would you appeal to to convince a sadist that he is wrong to torture people?

This I agree with. I think we can do better then to declare things axiomatic somewhat arbitrarily. We can take generalized human desires as axiomatic - people don't want do die, people don't want to suffer, the same can be applied at differing degrees to other animals etc.

Suicidal people want to die. Ascetics want to suffer, sadists want to inflict suffering.

I don't think there's a single moral stance that is universally held by every human being. And since we're atheists, we know there's no superhuman authority we can appeal to to judge or condemn those who disagree with our supposed moral "axioms." It eventually boils down to a question of force: will you use your power to prevent a sadist from torturing you? Will you use your power to prevent a loved one from committing suicide?

Might makes right!

Qingu

templewulf wrote:

Qingu wrote:

And the problem with axioms is that by definition, nothing justifies an axiom. If I don't think your axiom of morality is self-evident, why should I be beholden to it?

I mentioned Rawls on the last page, but no one seemed interested. I'll bring him up again, because this exact problem is why I like The Original Position.

If you assume everyone is selfish at some level (we are), then The Original Position distributes fairness in a way that exploits selfishness. It's no self-evident axiom (if ever there was one), but I think it allows us to make the jump from meta-ethics to practical ethics.

Maybe I should read Rawls instead of a likely poorly written Wikipedia entry, but it sounds like the Original Position is predicated on representational democracy/republicanism? Or am I not understanding this correctly?

If you want to discuss meta-ethics, I'm pretty typical in that I practice a moral mish-mash of Utilitarianism and Kant's Right Action ethics, because I assign intrinsic value to both outcomes and actions. The difference is that I know the names of the concepts I'm being wishy-washy about.

Fuck meta. I believe in science!