Quaestiones

[m_francis]

Elsewhere, the Usual Suspects brought up a perennial question, and it amused me to take the counterarguments and the sed contra from what seem at first unlikely sources.

De moralitate atheorum

Question: Whether those who do not believe in God may act morally.

Objection 1. It would seem not, because  as Jean-Paul Sartre held in "Existentialism is a

Comments

[whswhs]

This argument looks as if it might be equivocal in the meaning of "morality."

* Are we referring to morality as a cultural and institutional element of human societies, descriptively, or are we referring to morality as something that we are obliged to follow? It is a factual truth that nearly all human societies have moralities, and have effective methods of getting most people to adhere to them. Why this should be so is a partly empirical and partly philosophical question. The Christian may suppose that they exist because God has implanted a moral sense in human beings (even in human beings who are not Christians, as in this belief system Christianity is not simply the arbitrary belief system of one particular culture); the naturalist must suppose that they exist because they favor long-term survival, both for themselves and for their human hosts. (Presumably a morality could make its host mildly dysfunctional by making them devote effort to infecting others with the morality; an acute morality would kill too many of its hosts and die out.) I don't see that the latter is obviously wrong; Darwinism explains a lot of complicated forms of organization.

* Are we talking about morality in general, or specifically about Christian morality? For Nietzsche, at least, the claim that English utilitarians are being illogical in adhering to Christian morality while rejecting Christian faith is not equivalent to a claim that all non-Christians or all atheists must be immoral; Nietzsche was one of the first and most thoroughgoing ethical relativists, as one of the early chapters of Thus Spoke Zarathustra evidences . . . perhaps because his study of ancient Greek moral beliefs had made such a strong impression on him.

* If morality means Christian morality, then obviously atheists cannot have a logical basis for believing in morality. But if morality means morality generally, then the same claim appears question-begging: It requires us to grant at the outset that morality means theistic morality. There are other candidate moral systems.

There are other candidate moral systems.

[marycatelli]

Please provide these counter-examples.

Re: There are other candidate moral systems.

[whswhs]

Ancient Greek moral beliefs of the Homeric era (speaking of Nietzsche). Ancient Greek moral ideas of classical Athens, with, for example, the assumption that sex with a woman, a boy, or a slave was natural, but sex between two adult men was a perversion (some of the most abusive epithets in Greek, such as eurypygon and katapygon, refer to a man who accepts the "passive" role in homosexuality), and the assumption that there was a natural tie between democracy and pederasty. Buddhist ethics as taught by Gautama. The partially Buddhist ethics of samurai era Japan. Objectivism.

Re: There are other candidate moral systems.

[m_francis]

It is instructive that the Buddha was canonized as St. Jehosaphat [iirc] when his story began to circulate in Christian Europe. There are obvious differences: Christianity preaches social justice, Buddhism preaches a withdrawal from the world. Things like that.

Bushido is more akin to European codes of chivalry than to a system of morality. Professional engineers also have a code of ethics. It does not constitute a separate moral system.

You may be confusing a moral system with a set of specific commandments meant to cover all possible situations, as is the case with Qur'an, Confucianism, et al. If we instead adopt the Aristotelian-Christian POV of rationalism, we can see that such things are easily explained.

Or is burning widows on the husband's funeral pyre "moral" because that is the custom in one place, but not another.

Noooo

[ilion7]

"There are obvious differences: Christianity preaches social justice, Buddhism preaches a withdrawal from the world."

Nooo .... leftism preaches "social justice;" Christianity preaches justice. Chriatianity no more preaches "social justice" than that it preaches "racial justice."

Justice is due (from and to) individuals, as individuals.

Re: There are other candidate moral systems.

[ilion7]

I don't yet have a "feel" for 'whswhs,' but perhaps here he's doing similar to his response to this post of mine.

[m_francis]

* Are we referring to morality as a cultural and institutional element of human societies, descriptively, or are we referring to morality as something that we are obliged to follow?

The latter. The former is mere custom. (Though custom is never mere.) Augustine cites as example the wearing of a dalmatic, which in earlier times would have been regarded with great disapproval whereas in his own day, every man of culture wore it in preference to the toga.

* the naturalist must suppose that ["moralities"] exist because they favor long-term survival... Darwinism explains a lot of complicated forms of organization.

The mastery of electro-magnetic energies also favor long-term survival; but we mustn't suppose radios exist because they favor long-term survival. Electromagnetism is not entirely a cultural construct.

Darwinism is amazingly supple. Survivors survive. Whatever traits they possess can be "explained" via just-so stories as contributing to their survival. This "adaptationist" story telling is what the late Jay Stephen Gould used to complain about. That which explains everything explains nothing.
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* Are we talking about morality in general, or specifically about Christian morality? For Nietzsche, at least, the claim that English utilitarians are being illogical in adhering to Christian morality while rejecting Christian faith is not equivalent to a claim that all non-Christians or all atheists must be immoral.

It was his claim that a Christian morality -- love thine enemy, feed the hungry, etc. -- could not be maintained absent Christianity. Sartre said much the same thing. And it is this morality which most atheists are anxious to believe they maintain. Look at the various made-up codes, like those of "wicca" or "humanism", which attempt to retain these things by putting them on a different basis. But as Fish pointed out, the different basis usually palms the ace. They already know these are the "right" answers, and behind the "basis" there is an unexamined assumption.

But the moral structure I outlined in the main post was not specifically Christian. It was developed by the Aristotelians (and to some extent by the Neoplatonists). It never became widespread in Greece and Rome, except among the rationalist minority. Greek morality is summed up in the answer the Athenians gave the Melians for their unprovoked attack on that small city-state: "The strong take what they can; and the weak suffer what they must." And the Athenians were the good guys! We associate it with Christianity only because the Christians adopted the rationalist view.

* If morality means Christian morality, then obviously atheists cannot have a logical basis for believing in morality.

But it was precisely Paul's contention (and that of the Church) that a rational atheist was entirely capable of determining right action. Provided the atheist applied right reason and did not simply allow his passions to rule his mind. Humans being rational animals, reason was the key factor. If morality is one, then other peoples, lacking in the disciplines of Greek logic and reason, might only dimly perceive the essence of it. After all, if a thing is real, it is no surprise if different people see it from different angles or with greater or lesser clarity.
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But if morality means morality generally, then the same claim appears question-begging: It requires us to grant at the outset that morality means theistic morality. There are other candidate moral systems.

This notion derives from the triumph of the will. When the appetites rule the intellect and what is right is whatever is desired, then it appears as if morality varies from person to person. But this is only because they have foregone the use us reason. You will notice that in the main post there was no mention of a theos, and so "theistic" morality does not enter into it. All that was required was the acknowledgment that humans were rational animals, and that all seek what to them seems good. Reason tells us that not everything that seems good is good, and the rest follows.