D Rizdek recently posted an interesting comment on one of the threads here which he kindly expanded into a post:
Some theists think that I, by my atheism, have denied myself any objective grounding for moral judgment. One complaint is that without a god, there is no “higher court” which arbitrates morality.
As an aside,
1) I am defining objective as unbiased by personal preferences and existing outside myself. and
2) A lot of what I’m saying was made much clearer by Sam Harris in his book, The Moral Landscape. I won’t be quoting specific passages, but his thoughts are behind some of my essay.
As to the accusations….I disagree. I appeal to a “higher” (than myself) “court” of morality…namely others…wife, relatives, friends, neighbors, the society in which I live and the world at large. These “others” make a difference in what I think is right and wrong. My decisions, behavior and actions play out among other people who can respond let me know if my actions meet their approval. Their response causes me to rethink my decisions and sometimes teaches me new/better ways to behave. It is not always my first (selfish) preference to comply with other’s views, but I want to get along in (what I consider to be) peaceful, stable relationships and society so I adapt. That seems to fit perfectly with being objective as I am using it. Of course, if someone is saying that to be objective it must exist based on facts outside individual or collective minds, then no, my “morality” is not objective, but neither is a god’s. If a theist wants to claim they are using “objective” with that meaning, then I’ll leave it to them to make their case that morality which exists in the mind of their god qualifies.
As Sam Harris discusses in The Moral Landscape, just as we develop a sense of what is good health and how to achieve it, we can develop a good sense of what is moral and how best to achieve it. For example, I might not be able to define what it means to be healthy. But I can imagine what better health is and reason out the ways to achieve that. And while there is no ultimate and “outside of minds” description of perfect health, once one determines a personal, or adopts a societal, goal of better health, one can decide, objectively using science and reason, the best ways to reach that goal. And those “ways” are irrespective of personal wants or desires; they are in some sense objective. The same goes for morality. Just as it is true some may be unconcerned with good health, folks can be unconcerned with morality. If folks can agree on what is generally a better moral society, they can derive objectively which actions tend to move them toward that goal vs. away from it. And those actions might not all be the things individuals want to do but instead are adapted because their desire to live peacefully in society overrides personal desires or convenience. And yes, just as with theistically derived morals, folks can disagree or even ignore what others are convinced are moral standards. Since some people can disregard a god’s morality, why is it significant that they can disregard my, or society’s secular-based morality?
It seems that from a practical standpoint, with or without a god, we have to weigh options based on some internal judgement. Don’t many Christians revisit interpretations of the Bible to keep its mandates relevant? Don’t they have to think about any possible “divine inspiration” to be sure it is right before acting on it? That suggests some standard aside from the Bible and aside from the inspiration they (think they) are receiving. At a minimum, it seems circular to claim to use one’s “god-given” standard to judge “god-given” scripture and “god-given” inspiration. Ultimately, how can one know if they are being objective? I think they do it the same way I do…through a thoughtful, iterative process involving reason and observation. They reason out the “likelihood” that, in their opinion, this is what god meant, check it against how it is received among folks they respect and then reconsider it before assimilating it. That is what I do, except I don’t imagine any of it comes from a god.
Ill leave it there and try to respond to posts in favor of a god being the source or reason for morality or challenging my approach.
