[User23]

What is virtuous and what is moral for the atheist? Is it more than the bits of the religious morality his ancestors believed that doesn't contradict his present desires?

That question seriously troubled me for some time. Ethics cannot be deduced from logic and aesthetics. To give an example, why exactly is rape wrong? Logically, evolutionary science lets us conclude that it increases individual fitness by increasing mating opportunities and group fitness by spreading alleles that are good at reproducing themselves. Judging by the popularity of the subject in fine art, aesthetics can't condemn it either. So what makes it wrong? Is it anything more than a bald assertion? On what basis and by whose authority? Is ethics merely the science of discerning whatever it is that the strongest secular power one is subject to will permit? I find that proposition philosophically unsatisfying.

Meanwhile, while there is plenty of room for elaboration, a theist can rest on the moral foundation that Mankind was created with inherent dignity in the image of the Creator and thus rape, murder, theft, and various other offenses against that dignity are objectively immoral, regardless of what whoever holds the local monopoly on violence thinks. Additionally, to aid those who may not be capable of drawing those inferences, the sacred scriptures literally spell out the most obvious dos and don'ts.

[stkdump]

> Ethics cannot be deduced from logic and aesthetics. To give an example, why exactly is rape wrong?

Rape is wrong, because it induces bodily and emotional harm. You can deduce your whole ethics and morals from the 'reduce the suffering you cause' view. You don't need religion for that.

[User23]

That’s begging the question. Why is harming another human being wrong? It could be the benefit to yourself and others is greater than the harm caused. The children born of that rape may well think that their being alive is a net good. In fact, it’s statistically certain that all of us have at least one rape victim somewhere in our ancestry and thus wouldn't otherwise be alive.

Just because you personally think harming other persons is bad isn’t sufficient. What gives you the authority to impose that value on others?

[paulryanrogers]

> Just because you personally think harming other persons is bad isn’t sufficient.

What is insufficient about it?

That involuntary harm to one may occasionally benefit the many? Even if so can the aggressor and wider society know that ahead of time? And what about individual's right to freedom from harm?

> What gives you the authority to impose that value on others?

Society has to negotiate values together. The rule to avoid harming others is the least imposing value of all.

After 30y of "living by faith" I'm no longer a fan of trusting in authorities just because their rules are old or their existence is unfalsifiable.

[User23]

> What is insufficient about it?

Your opinion isn’t a valid ethical premise. It has no basis beyond your whims. Someone else might believe that it’s good and how would you refute them without claiming that your opinion is somehow more authoritative?

> Even if so can the aggressor and wider society know that ahead of time?

Obviously, in general, no. You can’t know that shooting a random person in cold blood wouldn’t prevent some greater evil. You can’t know that the child of that rape won’t cure cancer. The limitations of human reasoning are one of the reasons I’m convinced a correct ethics must have a superhuman author.

> The rule to avoid harming others is the least imposing value of all.

Once again this is begging the question. You’re trying to slip in the premise that minimal imposition is moral without any basis.

> After 30y of "living by faith" I'm no longer a fan of trusting in authorities just because their rules are old or their existence is unfalsifiable.

This betrays philosophical immaturity, which is of course fine. Most religious organizations do a very poor job with that aspect of formation, likely because those teaching are themselves philosophically immature. But this discussion isn’t about religion, faith, or your subjective experiences, it’s about whether the normative science of ethics can have any nontrivial conclusions without an objective foundation. If your anti-theism clouds your reasoning, feel free to instead pretend that we live in an advanced simulation and its authors defined human life as having inherent dignity. In that scenario ethics has a firm foundation. Now imagine the same scenario but without such a definition.

[paulryanrogers]

> But this discussion ... it’s about whether the normative science of ethics can have any nontrivial conclusions without an objective foundation

What is a more objective foundation than independently verified, experimental evidence?

> The limitations of human reasoning are one of the reasons I’m convinced a correct ethics must have a superhuman author.

So the apparent presence of this limitation is evidence of a higher power? How can you be sure that what you consider 'correct' ethics is objectively good?

[User23]

> What is a more objective foundation than independently verified, experimental evidence.

This sounds like the classic is-ought problem. Experiment can, up to epistemological and ontological limits, only tell us about what is. It cannot tell us about what ought to be. If it appears to you that it can then you’re implicitly slipping in an additional ethical premise.

> So the apparent presence of this limitation is evidence of a higher power? How can you be sure that what you consider 'correct' ethics is objectively good?

I can’t. That’s one of the limitations of abductive reasoning. Unlike deduction it cannot reach absolutely certain conclusions. And if I could this entire thread would be moot. As for correct ethics, I accept Peirce’s view that ethics, like logic, is a normative science. Just as logic is defined to be the normative science of what is true or false, ethics is defined to be the normative science of what is good or bad. Hence my question about whether or not that science is trivial and admits whatever conclusions anyone says it does, or not.

[dragonwriter]

> Your opinion isn’t a valid ethical premise.

Then there are no valid ethical premises, because all value propositions necessarily either are directly or rest upon subjective preference.

[User23]

> all value propositions necessarily either are directly or rest upon subjective preference

You haven't shown this, so you're just sneaking in the premise that ethics has no objective foundation, which is the very question under consideration. I could just as easily baldly assert "all value propositions necessarily either are directly or rest upon objective foundations," but I'm not because it would be philosophically uninteresting.

I accept that there are no valid ethical premises is a valid conclusion from the absence of an objective ethical authority. I can only abductively conclude the existence of such an authority because it appears to me that ethics is not in fact a degenerate science that can produce any result whatsoever.

[stkdump]

So your argument is that imposing the view that harming others isn't good is worse than imposing harm? Sorry I don't follow.

Also are you arguing that the fact that people harmed others has happened that somehow means a world where this happened less often or not at all is a worse one? With that line of argument you are excusing any crime at all that ever happened, because by vrtue of the butterfly effect we have to assume every action ever taken created the world we live in and is somehow sacred that way.

[mbrodersen]

There is clear evidence that morality originated with the evolution of societal thinking and human collaboration. Morality is evolutionary useful because it improves in-group trust and collaboration. In other words, there is clear evidence that morality existed thousands of years before religion. Experiments also show that even 2 year old humans and a number of animal species have clear moral thinking.

[User23]

> clear evidence [x2]

Don’t just tell us there’s evidence, share it please. This is a site for satisfying intellectual curiosity.

> it improves in-group trust and collaboration

Merely improving in-group trust and collaboration doesn’t meet any kind of acceptable moral bar. Viking raiders had high in-group trust and collaborated extremely well, while raping and pillaging to their hearts’ content. Unless you accept raiding as moral, you’ll have to do better.

> Experiments also show that even 2 year old humans and a number of animal species have clear moral thinking.

This is a risible claim to anyone who has any significant experience with two year olds. It also contradicts your first sentence.

Edit: Three replies to a single comment inside half an hour conclusively indicates emotional rather than rational posting, especially since not a single one of my queries was responded to. One would think after all these years I'd be desensitized, but I never fail to be a little bit disappointed when I encounter someone who is incapable of dialectic, and, to make it worse, covers for it with puerile rhetoric. On the plus side, this does neatly illustrate the point of the submission.

[mbrodersen]

I don’t think you understand what morality is. People can believe they are highly moral while killing “evil” outsiders (by their moral code). Religious organisations that declare themselves to be highly moral and follow the moral codes of a bible have historically had zero problems killing, burning and torturing people with different moral believes. Morality is a set of rules that a group of people (or an individual) choose to follow. There is no “universal” or “given by nature” morality. However morality is extremely useful in helping groups of people corporate and fight external groups. That’s why different moral codes from different culture/religions tends to be similar because they all help groups to collaborate and survive threats from external groups.

[mbrodersen]

Your arguments are flawed. I don’t have to accept raiding as moral for my arguments to be true. For example, many Americans followed a strict moral code, inspired by and based on the Bible, while happily owning slaves and hanging non-white people from trees if they dared to object to being slaves. A clear example of in-group morals and non-morals directed at an out-group. I am sure those slave owners had a strong sense of justice and fairness to people in their own group but none towards other groups. Exactly like the Vikings.

[mbrodersen]

> doesn’t meet any kind of acceptable moral bar

Says who? Backed by what empirically true evidence? The Vikings had a strong moral code. That’s why they worked so efficiently as a group. They believe in justice and feared their gods. While raping and pillaging.