The traditional view of social scientists has been that morality is a construct, and is thus culturally relative,
Which means of course that English slave traders and Hitler’s Nazi party and Asian sex traffickers had and have as much right as you do to define what is or isn’t moral… and no one of these constructs can be any more “right” or “wrong” than any other, all of them simply being inventions and outcomes of the same evolutionary process, there being no external standard against which to judge one as being “better” than another… these all being constructs of our own cultural preferences and all relative to our various times and cultures.
I believe it’s both, God and evolution, as some others here have stated. I’ve always wondered why the 2 have to be separate? If God is the perfect standard by which we aspire… wouldn’t “evolution” be the experience and learning process to achieve that standard?
I am the father of 9. And I’ve had the enjoyment (most of the time) of raising them from children to adolescence and onto adulthood. Always asking the question, “Do my children have an innate sense of morality?” I watched and listened. And made mental notes.
When the youngest of my children would cry, or experience pain in some manner I would watch how my other, older children would react. I found “generally”, that there were three basic reactions: empathy, sympathy and curiosity. I’ll briefly explain. 1. Empathy, seemed emotional with a willingness to help in a physical manner. 2. Sympathy, was feeling the hurt the other child experienced, but with no other response. 3. Curiosity, was the awareness and interest in the situation but with a pedestrian or indifferent attitude. Without going on and on. It was mostly these traits that were exhibited by all my children, and at different times through to adulthood. As they grew, they either moved to the middle #2, or became more desensitized to others pain. I really don’t see the emotional empathy (#1) that many of them exhibited as children! It may be a hidden trait? And there may be other factors I’m not aware of? Or, the opportunity just doesn’t arise?
As a side-note, neither my wife or myself were very emotional in our response to an emergency…or what “seemed” to be an emergency! We found that the kids would react much worse if we were losing our heads over an incident. We tried to be very calm in every situation.
So, my learning experience in all this was and is that God has planted the seed in all of us. What we do with it? Well, that seems like it’s up to our own freewill. And honestly, people do react generally in those three ways to tense situations in life. Some, “help”. Some, “cry”. Some, “watch”.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
43
Do you know what love feels like? Looks like? Sounds like?
Do you know what a relevant discussion question looks like?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
45
Why do you ask?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
46
I asked what does love feel like because it is irrelevant how people justify their evil, i.e. do morality (which is very mainly based on appearing to conform to others’ expectations). We ALL know that slaving and genocide aren’t love. We all know what love is when we experience it. Lost in your fatuous non sequitur you couldn’t see my connection. Literalist Christians justify their narrow impotent psychopathic God the same way as slavers and Nazis justified their evil. And its nothing like love either.
As Dawkins pointed out so well, love is just an instinct not essentially different than aggression, xenophobia, hostility, etc. There’s nothing in evolutionary development or anywhere this physical world that shows a person is “right” for loving someone but “wrong” for enslaving them. That is simply an moral construct invented by yourself and your culture, and which other cultures may or may not share, having invented their own moral systems. and if another culture chooses to construct their morality to preference aggression and xenophobia and enslavement over love, that is what the same evolutionary process lead them to do. Neither can be more “right” or “wrong” than the other.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
48
It feels like @Daniel_Fisher has made a valid point that you can’t [haven’t] answered.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
50
Where? In a meaningless universe love is, feels meaningless? Kindness is, feels meaningless? Wow. Christians are the kindest people there are because God? And atheists prove that God exists because they’re at least as kind as Christians?
I might indeed come along on whatever guided tour you have in mind … if I had the foggiest notion where it is you are trying to take me. Maybe it’s a language barrier or just a complete mismatch of thinking. But the Socratic method of simply expressing incredulous questions isn’t serving you well here. Not if you’re hoping to engage any conversation partners and … well … communicate.
I do believe that’s what he’s aiming for. So you concede his argument, then? Were you hoping that I would be disagreeing with him? Because I was already on board with the assertion that if morality has its origins only in human culture, then there is no scientific support that can be given toward distinguishing good from evil. [I’ll amend this to strengthen the claim that I don’t think lack of scientific foundation is even tied to any origins premise at all … I don’t think scientific support can be applied here period.] I was already completely on board with him (and Lewis) about that. So I was rather curious what answer you were going to give to it if you disagreed.
Okay, not ‘just’ culture. But suppose our evolved traits which befit us for living together in large numbers are the source? So what if our common moral response has its roots in the same process -evolution- which made us bipedal and language users? That doesn’t exactly make them arbitrary.
Or if we’re so impressed with Dawkins’ argument (if he even makes it - I don’t read him) that love is just one instinctual response among many, why should that make it any less preferable? The fact that we have other potentialities but prefer love to hate is a point in our favor.
But if this is meant as a reason for endorsing Christianity, then isn’t that suggesting that overlaying an instinctual response with a worldview with an explanatory story can transform the instinctual into the holy? If it would be merely instinctual without the Christian mythos, then I don’t see how what we choose to think about it will make any difference.
What’s more, if all you need is an explanatory story to elevate the instinctual to the holy, the Christian mythos wouldn’t be your only option.
How we choose to think about it makes all the difference - to continue thinking Lewis’ thoughts after him here … The fact that we are “thinking about it at all” - meaning that it bothers us that some instincts should be elevated to equal nobility with other instincts when we would really prefer some to others. So we need some standard by which we can say "this instinct ‘x’ of mine here should really be discouraged - even disciplined away. This other instinct ‘y’ may be okay in some situations, but carefully moderated and tempered - never just let loose. And finally this other instinct ‘z’ is a really good one, and I should totally cultivate and nurture that one! They are all ‘evolved instincts’ and so equal on that ground. But (as Lewis insists) we need some standard from outside what science can reach to begin to judge and discriminate between all the tendencies and proclivities that come bundled with our biology.
So don’t get me wrong - I do think that morality is real; even in any evolutionarily explained sources that can be demonstrated for it. And I think our culture is right to see and ratify some of those moral convictions as significant (whether it be from Divine ratification or from mere cultural ratification). But either of those last two endorsements are still coming from philosophy / religion - i.e. something that Dawkins and others claim they despise. But contra their own claims, they most certainly are not living without it (thank God!). So I’m only pressing the so-called “anti-philosophy” crowd to come clean about their own shameless use of philosophy that they want everybody to think they can do without.
Whereas I must content myself with being merely glad to find the points of my moral compass enshrined in the common law. Frankly given all the abhorrent behavior in the news of late involving masking for thy neighbor, I may change that from glad to relieved. Of course I don’t hesitate to condemn bad behavior merely on account of lacking a divine co-signer.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
58
The apology has to be mine, but I am astounded at the cultural gap here. We are on different planets. Truly separated by a common language. To me I couldn’t be clearer and no I don’t concede that @Daniel_Fisher is right in the slightest. Is it me? You all seem to think that there is no morality without God. Evolution has enabled higher animal morality to all but fully emerge as transcendent morality in humanity. We ALL know what kindness is, no? Even psychopaths. They won’t experience it as non-psychopaths do, but they know something universally socially acceptable is going on. Fairness is mammalian at least. Isn’t that just DIVINE?!
You’re younger and smarter, start again for me will you Mervin? Jesus accelerated the emergence of morality but his followers have not shone in the light of that for a long, long while. Certainly not here. The measure seems to be all about seeing signs of God in the material. Which is analogous to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I see NONE in the Christian DNA here. No trace. Apart from the infinite patience of @T_aquaticus in dealing with @EricMH. There is more in that vein.
Tea time. Later.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
59
Can anyone link to a better, more moral, more Christlike human being than this this Muslim?
Well … to be fair … I don’t think there would be anyone or anything existing at all without God, much less evolved beings with enough firing neurons to be having a conversation like this.
But more to your actual point, (and speaking just for myself here, not necessarily @Daniel_Fisher), I do not think there is any morality without appeal to something beyond empiricism and beyond rationalism. Call it philosophy or religion if you want - one need not explicitly mention God, obviously in order to have some working form of morality. I think those who fancy they have worked up some morality by the bootstraps of empirical (even social) sciences and rationality alone are just softly deluded. I.e. ‘softly’ because it’s an understandable (even necessary … even laudible delusion – I mean we do appreciate morally sensitive folks even if they can’t correctly write any treatise on where their morals came from or why they should have them). But those of us here who at least know (or think we know) enough philosophy and logic to be at least a little dangerous ought to know better. The hardcore scientific rationalists are simply caught with their arm all the way down in the philosophical cookie jar; and then as we flip on the lights, they look up at us innocently (still up to their elbow in the jar) and try to tell us, “who me? leaning on philosophy? Never!”