A short essay on morality
This is something that's been bouncing around the inside of my head for a while which I've been meaning to post. Constructive criticism welcome from anyone who takes the time to read. ^^
A concept that seems obvious to the vast majority of humanity is that there exists a difference between right and wrong. To do one thing may be good, while another may be evil. Standards such as “Murder is wrong” are essentially universal. Even in cultures with strong traditions of capitol punishment, a line is drawn between state mandated death and unjustified killings.
In the culture of theists, this is a very natural thing. A god or higher power has willed right and wrong into existence, and an act against this will is an act of evil. For an atheist, this is not the case. There is no universal authority. The foundation for a unilaterally applicable set of moral standards is nowhere to be found. This notwithstanding, it is the rare atheist I have spoken with who will agree that there is no solid moral ground to stand on without some type of higher authority backing it. The concept of things like murder being universal evils is nearly ubiquitous. Whether this is due to an inherent instinct towards a concept of morality or simply the habit of pandering to a society in which faith based moral constructs are the norm is up for debate.
Obviously there is the concept of a social contract, a man who supports a society in which murder is forbidden because he seeks the protection of a society in which he will not be murdered. Although this at first seems an argument against the concept of a necessarily amoral atheist, it is only an example of a set of arbitrary values which a given society adopts. The ethical taboo of murder in such a case is an arbitrarily constructed standard. Is it murder to plot and execute the demise of a man who slept with your wife? Different societies have different answers to this question.
Even if the assumption were to be made that murder is universally salient as a taboo to the designers of workable societies, there would still be no grounds to establish it (murder) as an evil. It has been suggested to me that “evil” can be defined as any force that is universally antithetical to a functioning society, but this forces the concept of evil to rely on our language, which is from where I stand, unarguably arbitrary. While it might at first seem a reasonable answer, it assumes the point I argue in the first place: “Right and wrong have no more definition than that which we ourselves give to them.”
The most difficult readjustment in my transition from theist to atheist was releasing any concept of a universal standard for good and evil. After careful reflection, I came to realize that there was a very self centered reason for that. If there is no good and no evil, that means that no one who has ever hurt me in any way has done anything wrong. As has every other person on earth, I have been purposelessly and in many cases needlessly harmed by others. In no case have any of those people done anything wrong. This was enormously difficult for me to accept.
It is after the last point that even many other atheists will tell me that I’ve gone too far. “This means that Hitler was not an immoral man,” they say. “If this were true, then in the grand scheme of things, Jeffery Dahmer would be as blameless as Gandhi.” Those are both very valid points. I believe that they are both true, and this offends my instincts. It is in direct opposition to my belly-feel that I am able to allow myself to believe that Hitler did nothing wrong and that Dahmer is in the same boat with Gandhi (and you, and me and everyone else who ever has been).
The fundamentalist Christians who have harassed me for my sexuality have done nothing wrong in their physical and emotional abuse. Whoever stole my bike did nothing wrong in stealing it. The United States is doing nothing wrong in invading other countries as its administration sees fit. It is important however to remember that this is a transitive rule. There is also nothing wrong with retaliation (in any form) on the part of the victims.
This all meshes with my overall philosophy, which I have recently come to realize is largely nihilistic. There is only what meaning we create for ourselves and the will we impose on those around us. I personally support things like gay rights, overall equality for all individuals and a generally liberal set of values, and people tend to assume that because of these things I place some sort of universal weight on the idea that supporting them is morally preferable to the alternative. I do not. I support a system of society and government which most benefits myself and the people whose wellbeing I care for.
A concept that seems obvious to the vast majority of humanity is that there exists a difference between right and wrong. To do one thing may be good, while another may be evil. Standards such as “Murder is wrong” are essentially universal. Even in cultures with strong traditions of capitol punishment, a line is drawn between state mandated death and unjustified killings.
In the culture of theists, this is a very natural thing. A god or higher power has willed right and wrong into existence, and an act against this will is an act of evil. For an atheist, this is not the case. There is no universal authority. The foundation for a unilaterally applicable set of moral standards is nowhere to be found. This notwithstanding, it is the rare atheist I have spoken with who will agree that there is no solid moral ground to stand on without some type of higher authority backing it. The concept of things like murder being universal evils is nearly ubiquitous. Whether this is due to an inherent instinct towards a concept of morality or simply the habit of pandering to a society in which faith based moral constructs are the norm is up for debate.
Obviously there is the concept of a social contract, a man who supports a society in which murder is forbidden because he seeks the protection of a society in which he will not be murdered. Although this at first seems an argument against the concept of a necessarily amoral atheist, it is only an example of a set of arbitrary values which a given society adopts. The ethical taboo of murder in such a case is an arbitrarily constructed standard. Is it murder to plot and execute the demise of a man who slept with your wife? Different societies have different answers to this question.
Even if the assumption were to be made that murder is universally salient as a taboo to the designers of workable societies, there would still be no grounds to establish it (murder) as an evil. It has been suggested to me that “evil” can be defined as any force that is universally antithetical to a functioning society, but this forces the concept of evil to rely on our language, which is from where I stand, unarguably arbitrary. While it might at first seem a reasonable answer, it assumes the point I argue in the first place: “Right and wrong have no more definition than that which we ourselves give to them.”
The most difficult readjustment in my transition from theist to atheist was releasing any concept of a universal standard for good and evil. After careful reflection, I came to realize that there was a very self centered reason for that. If there is no good and no evil, that means that no one who has ever hurt me in any way has done anything wrong. As has every other person on earth, I have been purposelessly and in many cases needlessly harmed by others. In no case have any of those people done anything wrong. This was enormously difficult for me to accept.
It is after the last point that even many other atheists will tell me that I’ve gone too far. “This means that Hitler was not an immoral man,” they say. “If this were true, then in the grand scheme of things, Jeffery Dahmer would be as blameless as Gandhi.” Those are both very valid points. I believe that they are both true, and this offends my instincts. It is in direct opposition to my belly-feel that I am able to allow myself to believe that Hitler did nothing wrong and that Dahmer is in the same boat with Gandhi (and you, and me and everyone else who ever has been).
The fundamentalist Christians who have harassed me for my sexuality have done nothing wrong in their physical and emotional abuse. Whoever stole my bike did nothing wrong in stealing it. The United States is doing nothing wrong in invading other countries as its administration sees fit. It is important however to remember that this is a transitive rule. There is also nothing wrong with retaliation (in any form) on the part of the victims.
This all meshes with my overall philosophy, which I have recently come to realize is largely nihilistic. There is only what meaning we create for ourselves and the will we impose on those around us. I personally support things like gay rights, overall equality for all individuals and a generally liberal set of values, and people tend to assume that because of these things I place some sort of universal weight on the idea that supporting them is morally preferable to the alternative. I do not. I support a system of society and government which most benefits myself and the people whose wellbeing I care for.