According to Atheistic/Agnostic Worldviews, what is the basis for morality? [duplicate]

Question

Western Societies have laws that prevent abhorrent acts like murder, rape, pedophilia, fraud, slavery, and other crimes from happening. These acts seem to be seen as "immoral", in other words, there is a higher reason than political power for those rules to exist.

I was wondering on what basis those laws are considered immoral beyond the scope of our current society.

What argumentations exist that explain why those acts are immoral to do?

So given a society that does not have those rules and might even (unanimously) promote things like rape or murder (a good example here might be Nazi Germany):

Is there an argument that can still justifiably insist that these things are immoral to do?

Since I predict that a case for the Harm Principle might be made:

• How do those argumentations reason that harming others is immoral?
• How do those argumentations prevent egotistical individuals from legitimizing actions that harm others but benefit them?

Answer 1

It's tough to paint all atheists with the same brush. For questions such as these, I always appeal to two works by Frans de Waal:

1. The Bonobo and the Atheist
2. Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved

These two books, in the spirit of Wilson's Sociobiology, establish an understanding of human morality within the framework of evolution. Rather than presuming that people behave because they are handed rules by a supernatural being, morality in this way is considered an outgrowth of the evolutionary development of eusocial behavior. From WP:

Eusociality (Greek εὖ eu "good" and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups…. E. O. Wilson and others have made the claim that humans have evolved a weak form of eusociality.

On this view, morality and moral behavior is NOT external, but internal; it stems from our conscience. A simplified view of this might be given by saying that our brains have evolved specific regions that are devoted to being moral, a view that has an empirical basis in moral psychology. From WP:

moral psychology is a thriving area of research spanning many disciplines, with major bodies of research on the biological, cognitive/computational and cultural basis of moral judgment and behavior, and a growing body of research on moral judgment in the context of artificial intelligence.

So when you ask questions like:

How do those argumentations reason that harming others is immoral?
How do those argumentations prevent egotistical individuals from legitimizing actions that harm others but benefit them?

what is important to understand is that the arguments for morality are not within ethics, but external to it according to a naturalized epistemology. This dovetails to a great degree, in my opinion, with non-cognitive emotivism. Human beings have eusocial social and antisocial impulses, and then a person's moral theory is developed to organize those impulses, and in some sense is a rationalization of the impulses. This accommodates well both the universal aspects of religion and morality (such as the Golden Rule) and still deal with the great cultural variation of it.

Ultimately, what this entails is abandoning the idea that a moral theory is simply an argument stemming from interpreting moral pronouncements from one or more supernatural beings and moving to the idea that as human beings, we feel certain acts are righteous or taboo, and then largely reason about how to deal with the impulses and behaviors in society. It's a far more complicated approach to morality. It puts more onus on individuals to be educated and reason. It sweeps away the simple moral pronouncements of moral absolutism. And it makes many people uncomfortable because it introduces much more relativity and political compromise into ethics.

Answer 2

I don't like being harmed. I don't like harming other people. Do you like being harmed or harming other people? I presume not.

So let's call harming people "immoral", let's try to avoid doing it, and let's make laws to prevent people from doing so.

There you go, that's pretty much the gist of it.

If there is someone who wants to harm others, other people can agree on laws or other things to impede their ability to do that. One could potentially also discuss this with them, try to break down the reasons why they might want to harm others, appeal to their empathy or make the case that if they harm others (except out of self defence), then others are more likely to want to harm them, or at least be less concerned about harming them (which they probably wouldn't want).

* That's a very rough summary of the basis of morality under moral subjectivism.

To put it more formally: moral subjectivism is the view that there is no objective morality. We subjectively determine our moral values. These values can vary from one person to the next (as indeed they seem to). This doesn't entail basing one's morality on harm reduction, but I can decide on this moral value given our my empathy and the desire for self-preservation and peaceful coexistence, and I can try to convince others of the same moral value by appealing to similar emotions and desires that they may have.

There are also other secular moral frameworks.

What's the basis for morality under theism?

I'm fine with agreeing there's no objective morality under atheism, but I'm not convinced that can exist under theism either. "Objective morality" sounds like a contradiction in terms to me - it seems incoherent to me to say you "should" do something without following that up with a "because" to explain why you "should" do it. And that "because" can vary from one person to the next, and potentially from one situation to the next. So I don't even know how objective morality is something that could exist.

• Theism may have externally-imposed morality via a deity, but all theists can really do is to slap the "objective" label on said morality, whereas it doesn't seem to make much sense to me to do so.

• Theism has the "biggest stick" argument, i.e. what God says is moral because they have a really big stick that they'll hit you with if you don't do that. I'll agree that there's a sense of what you "should" do there (if you want to avoid that punishment), but I don't know that I'll call that "morality", as much as I'll just call that "law". A government might throw you in prison if you break laws, but that doesn't mean all laws are moral.

  If you want to call that in itself morality, then what God commands could be entirely arbitrary. He could drown a whole lot of men, women, and children, or he could tell you to go out and slaughter a bunch of people, and that would be moral merely because he says or does it (and I didn't just make up those examples, although one might say someone did).

• Theist say morality might be "written on your heart", or that you might be made with a specific sense of morality. But one could say our genes and upbringing do the same. Why should we do the thing that's been "written on our hearts"?

  Atheists can say: well, we shouldn't always do that. Some people have a sense of morality where it's okay to go around murdering people. We decide what we should and shouldn't do through reasoning, not by just doing whatever we want to do. Theists who make this argument have more of an issue saying that.

And this is not even going into all the reasons why I think theist claims are unjustified. Without those claims being true, all of this falls apart even further. Whereas if we follow secular ideals, we can still make the most of this life even if a god exists (but of course if that god wants to torture us for all eternity if we wear mixed fabrics or whatever, it would be important to try to figure out whether that's true).

People are going to disagree and do bad stuff either way

Theists like to act like theism solves the problem of moral subjectivism, but it simply factually and demonstrably doesn't.

Theists (even from just one religion) vehemently disagree about the morality of a whole lot of things. Views on morality within any given religion has changed significantly over time.

You could say a god has an unchanging morality, but if there is such a god who's tried to tell us what is and isn't moral, they've clearly done such a poor job, that we pretty much need to figure it out by ourselves in any case.

Also (much like I told you in the past), Nazis aren't a great example for a theist (especially a Christian) to use in this argument, because Nazis were overwhelmingly Christian (only 1.5% atheist). Soldiers had "God with us" as a slogan on their belt. Atheist left-wing organisations were banned. Hitler said "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction". Himmler didn't allow atheists into the SS. I wouldn't say Nazism is inherent to Christianity, or anything close to that, but it very directly challenges the idea that Christianity can prevent this from happening ... because they were Christian and promoted Christianity. Maybe you'd say they weren't "true" Christians, but then you have to argue theology, and it all gets very messy (and very much not objective).

Fighting for a better world is a long and constant struggle. There will always be bad people, and there's always a risk that you yourself may be blinded by one's harmful desires. We need to always be vigilant, stand up for what's right and fight against those who wish to harm others. This isn't something we can just easily fix by using the correct worldview. It is hard work no matter what, but we have made a lot of progress through discussion and protests and promoting empathy and critical thinking and challenging bad ideas. Saying "my religion is the only thing that can fix it" seems demonstrably false, doesn't really help get us to a better world, and achieves little more than making yourself come across as thinking you're better than everyone else.

Answer 3

Atheism / Agnosticism are not the kind of philosophical that prescribe any morality. Obviously they reject any knowable divine morality, but else there are various moral positions possible with atheism and agnosticism, and those would typically be called "Secular Morality", and those would be equally suitable for many people who believe in gods but not necessarily in specific ancient scriptures promoting Antiquity style morality.

As Wikipedia states (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_morality):

• Secular morality is the aspect of philosophy that deals with morality outside of religious traditions. Modern examples include humanism, freethinking, and most versions of consequentialism.

The maybe best-known grounding of secular morality might be the categorical imperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

In modern times it is generally beneficial for societies to have secular morality, to avoid religious wars between all the various denominations and cults pushing for their own morality that was supposedly revealed to their specific prophets.

Societies with strong religious ties to religious morality like Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia are good examples to discuss the issue of morality and religion.

So given a society that does not have those rules and might even (unanimously) promote things like rape or murder (a good example here might be Nazi Germany)...

Your history knowledge might need a refresher. Nazi Germany was about 90% Christian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany

The atrocities committed by Nazi Germany were at the same time against prevailing morality and also against written law (albeit without a court available that would serve justice).

While the regime committed mass murder, and probably also rape (though less due to the pure blood ideology), it is also obvious that among non-Jewish Germans, murder and rape remained both immoral and illegal.

Also the key Nazi ideologies of Social Darwinism, Racism and of following authority in matters of morality are quite compatible with the abrahamic religions.

How do those argumentations reason that harming others is immoral?

Since there are various secular morality frameworks, there are also various argumentations (just like there are various religions one might say). So typically in philosophy, it is assumed that there is no single objective framework of morality. Common groundings are in reason like the golden rule (“Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you.”) or in empathy. Some might also consider morality as evolutionary process in society, with those rules emerging successful that had the best benefit for society (this also helps with explaining "moral" behaviors within animal groups, who did not have the benefit of a prophet as far as we know). There is also obviously moral Nihilism, the position that all morality is an artificial construct.

In general the key issue for moralities is not "reasoning that harming others is immoral", but handling all the exceptional circumstances like self-defense, the Trolley problem, the issue of punishment for crime, the issue of war, the issue of triage during famines and so on.

How do those argumentations prevent egoistical individuals from legitimizing actions that harm others but benefit them?

Why would any egoistical individual care for any moral framework, or for legitimizing their actions?

But to give an example, following the golden rule, it's difficult to legitimize harming others for one's benefit.

Answer 4

Theists - Christians and others - sometimes argue that morality loses its "base" if we do not accept a theistic worldview. I take it this means something like: If I (or we) don't believe in God (or a God?), then it is no longer possible to explain or justify why we should act according to certain moral rules or values (such as, not to willfully kill someone else). The OP's question seems to implicitly contain this challenge.

In some of the responses others have sketched how this challenge can be directly met. I'd just like to point out that a reverse challenge was implicit in Plato's very first dialogue, the Euthyphro. The reverse challenge would be: Assuming, for the sake of argument, a theistic worldview, does this (or can this) actually explain and justify moral rules, and if so how?

The context of the dialogue is highly significant: Socrates is on his way to court to be tried for atheism and corrupting the youth, while Euthyphro is going to court to accuse his own father of murder, since his father killed a slave. The question then is "what is pious?" (what is religious action, and by implication moral action). The unresolved dilemma is: Is religious/moral action good because the Gods love it, or do the Gods love that kind of action because it is good?

In other words, either you accept as justification (1) "The rules are the rules because God (the Gods) made them" or you have to admit (2) "God (the Gods) made the rules because He (They) saw them to be good". Now, (1) doesn't seem to be a very reasonable justification, since it seems to ground the rules in a divine decision that is either arbitrary, or not comprehensible to humans. And (2) begs the question.

In this argument, if you admit (2) then you implicitly seem to admit that moral rules can (and should be) explained and justified without reference to God (a God, the Gods) as law-giver.

Answer 5

Natural Law Tradition

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/

Theists and atheists alike have advocated the natural law tradition in philosophy. Secular law is based on the separation of Church and State. The State ought not to impose the morality of religion but the morality under natural law. The theory of natural law holds that we discover morality as a feature of social psychology in much the same way that we discover the other non-moral laws of nature.

My professor of Legal Philosophy, Hugh Gibbons, understands that ethical and moral judgments are attributes of the human will and he applies natural law principles to the study of American law. I agree with him on these points. Hugh defines the human will, or the will, as an experience expressed by this I-statement: I am the cause of my desired perceptions. In fact the self is never the sole cause of perceptions, because nature and other moral agents are independent joint causes, but desire drives the self to control perceptions that are wanted or unwanted in the dramatic context. Ethics and morals are judgments or evaluations that we make when experiencing human will.

In this paper Hugh joins with Nicholas Skinner in an argument:

https://biologyoflaw.org/Downloads/BiologicalBasisOfHumanRights.pdf

1. brains cause minds 2. minds cause wills 3. wills cause undertakings 4. undertakings cause risks 5. risks cause duties 6. duties cause rights 7. rights cause law.

But I don't find the link between risks and duties compelling in the absence of an inference concerning human social psychology and cognitive functions. In terms of how we apply scientific models the natural law theory requires structures (human bodies) that perform functions (generate moral judgments).

Ethics, morality, and law would emerge as the product of a process wherein humans interact in society while generating moral judgments. If the moral judgments are built into each person in a hardwired program then there should be no dispute concerning moral benefit or harm in a particular social context. The crowd could stone the woman to death for adultery and Jesus would not inhibit their adverse judgment by saying, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

If the moral judgments are not hardwired into human bodies then there is wide scope for subjective moral judgments and for the many disputes we encounter in the social context. There would be something like an original biological intention of the newborn ego to benefit self and others, and to avoid causing harm to self and others, that could get twisted or altered during socialization. Or there could be the evil seed theory where a newborn human is judged to be inherently evil and sadistic without having become twisted or adapted in the social drama.

Answer 6

I believe there are various ways in which various philosophers have tried to explain in general why we should act morally - without recourse to theistic ideas. One family of argumentations that I didn't see mentioned yet are the various Social Contract arguments. For instance, John Rawl's theory of justice as fairness. This has as first principle :

Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all

If we look at concrete formulations of basic morality -- without reference to a divine or supernatural or otherwordly source -- we could start from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This states as Article 1:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. ...

And Article 4:

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

It seems clear to me that article 4 presupposes article 1. If we assume as a moral axiom that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity, then it seems impossible to me to justify slavery (apart from by denying that slaves are not "real" humans - which was often exactly the bad faith argument of slave holders, of course).

Of course, you can then ask, but why should we accept article 1? I don't know how to answer that question, and I have never seen a completely satisfactory answer to it either. It seems to me that at some point in this kind of debate (either with others or yourselves), you have to stop debating and admit:

Well, this is just what I do. This is one of my first principles, something I accept as given. For me this is self-evident.

Or you could say something like:

This is for me part of what it means to be a human person. What reason could there be not to accept this? To be human means to be able to see yourself (ourselves) in others, to try to see things through others' eyes. In otherwise equal circumstances there can be no valid reason to treat others differently from myself (or from our particular subgroup).

So, you could conclude from that that a non-theistic "grounding" of morality ultimately fails. But that's just because the "but why... but why" game is never ending (as any parent of a 3-year old also knows). Attempts to ground morality from a theistic point of view have, imo, at least the same or even more problems. If you would answer why should we adopt article 1 with

This is what our God tell us to do.

or

This was revealed to us as Gods will.

You could continue asking:

Ok, and why does God tell us to do that?

But you'd probably also have to explain:

Ok, and how do you know that it was your God who told you this?

which would open yet a whole other can of philosophical questions.

Answer 7

Moral is a set of rules to control the social behaviour of humans. These rules can be internalized by the members of the group, but they can be also questioned.

1. Slavery was accepted as a moral which controlled the social life in many antique societies. Today slavery is no longer accepted. The main driving force for the change was the fight of slaves against a moral which suppressed them.
2. The reason for the establishment, the change, and the abolishment of specific moral rules are different. Often the function of moral rules is to ensure the stability of the society. Questioning established rules often follows the principle of universalization: One has to consider in equal measure all groups which are affected by the moral.
3. An important insight into human individual moral development are Laurence Kohlberg's Stages of moral development.

Answer 8

If we accept that our reality is not a random chaos, then we have to accept that there are some rules and laws built into this reality. You can have strict rules, like laws of physics that can only break in extreme circumstances (for example black holes). You can also have more vague and flexible morality rules. All of these rules are required to a certain degree to make the overall system (reality) work and achieve its goals.

As such, morality rules don't have any basis, they are just part of the formula (mathematics) that keeps our reality together and running.