/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14933518]

How do atheist philosophers prove their morality exists?

[Anonymous No.14933527]

>>14933518
can't you keep this juvenile shit to one thread

[Anonymous No.14933528]

>>14933518
maybe they don't have a morality other than what is expedient

[Anonymous No.14933644]

In the same way that theists prove that their moralities exist.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!35L3OXn4AFn No.14933647]

Let me help you make sure this thread hits the bump limit.

[Anonymous No.14933671]

>>14933518
who gives a shit you pussy

[Anonymous No.14933688]

>>14933518
A better question would be why atheists would feel the need for morality and not taking their thinking all the way and doing away with all of that. There's nothing morally wrong with killing niggers if that's what you want to do, do as thou wilt.

[Anonymous No.14933692]

The problem with this question is that it presumes that morality is something that can be separated from human society and consciousness and independently grounded, justified, or explained. It's like removing a person's liver and demanding an explanation for why it—and it alone—exists while ignoring the body they've left bleeding out on the ground.

Morality is as integral to human society as a person's major organs are integral to the human body: although the functions of each can be discussed independently, explanations for each can only occur in the context of the entire system. Religious believers who see morality exclusively in terms of their god and religion are as unable to recognize this as someone who imagines that humans acquire a liver through a process other than through the natural growth that lies behind every other organ.

So how do we answer the above question in the context of human society? First, there are two questions here: why behave morally in some particular set of circumstances, and why behave morally in general, even if not in every case? Second, religious morality which is ultimately based on the commands of a god cannot answer these questions because "God says so" and "You'll go to hell otherwise" don't work.

There is insufficient space here for a detailed discussion, but the simplest explanation for morality in human society is the fact that human social groups need predictable rules and behavior to function. As social animals, we can no more exist without morality than we can without our livers. Everything else is just details.

[Anonymous No.14933715]

>>14933518
>Atheist are retards
>religious lemmings are retards as well as they do it for a afterlife reward
I have awakened the eye of dharma , therefore it is as if im compeled by a higher force to do good with no benefits just pure altruism but its not just any random good there is a sense of staying the path

[Anonymous No.14933753]

So what's the point of being moral if God doesn't exist? It's the same "point" that people should acknowledge if God does exist: because the happiness and suffering of other human beings matter to us such that we should seek, whenever possible, to increase their happiness and decrease their suffering. It's also the "point" that morality is required for human social structures and human communities to survive at all. Neither the presence nor the absence of any gods can change this, and while religious theists may find that their beliefs impact their moral decisions, they cannot claim that their beliefs are prerequisites for making any moral decisions at all.

[Anonymous No.14933760]

>>14933692
fuck off with your response made in good faith

[Anonymous No.14933767]

i fuck your mom in the pussy, i am your dad, therefore do what i say and what I say is the law. Fuck you.

[Anonymous No.14933794]

https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/ethics-without-gods/

[Anonymous No.14933844]

>>14933753
>increase their happiness and decrease their suffering

[Anonymous No.14933851]

>>14933753
>they cannot claim that their beliefs are prerequisites for making any moral decisions at all.
God is a prerequisite for making any sort of decision at all.

[Anonymous No.14933857]

>>14933692
>As social animals

[Anonymous No.14933858]

>>14933753
I want to increase human suffering and think a struggle for the death of man would be a worthwhile enterprise. You cannot argue against this nor can you condemn it.

[Anonymous No.14933860]

>>14933851
Lmao sheep

[Anonymous No.14933867]

>>14933860
I am indeed a lamb following Christ. Why would that be wrong under the atheistic view where we are all animals anyway?

[Anonymous No.14933891]

>>14933518

[Anonymous No.14933896]

[Anonymous No.14933899]

[Anonymous No.14933904]

[Anonymous No.14933915]

>>14933671
This. What is right is what is might. Morality is determined by the force of will of the barbarian. You weak and feeble men can't claim what is good or true or beautiful when your limbs are bound and your eyes are drawn to the brutal pounding of my muscled pelvis upon the pale moist rumps of your wives and daughters. Your tears and the moans and cries of your women -- that is the source of your "morality".

[Anonymous No.14933948]

>>14933671
Whats with the cub? Is he ok?

[Anonymous No.14933962]

>>14933644
God?

[Anonymous No.14933966]

>>14933518
These threads are so cringe and just make religious people look stupid or no smarter than atheists. KYS heathen

[Anonymous No.14933978]

>>14933966
Religious people are stupid, though.

[Anonymous No.14933983]

>>14933891
I apple God? That doesnt make any sense

[Anonymous No.14933986]

>>14933867
I'm not an atheist. I gave up on all that gay shit.

[Anonymous No.14934056]

>>14933794
>religionists

[Anonymous No.14934062]

>>14933692
>religious morality which is ultimately based on the commands of a god cannot answer these questions because "God says so" and "You'll go to hell otherwise" don't work.
Why not?

[Anonymous No.14934069]

>>14933986
>I'm not an atheist.
>denies the divinity of Christ
You are even if you lie to yourself.

[Anonymous No.14934072]

>>14934069
Denying the divinity of Christ makes you an atheist now LOOOOOOOL

[Anonymous No.14934073]

>>14934072
Yes

[Anonymous No.14934076]

>>14933518
If I do something bad to someone else, I don't feel good. If someone does something bad to me, I don't feel good. BAM

[Anonymous No.14934120]

>>14934069
I don't confirm or deny. I don't care enough to find the energy enough to answer that gay shit. I don't think in your lowly binary forms of cognition, mortal. I have evolved beyond your comprehension.

[Anonymous No.14934155]

>>14933962
No. The answer is "they can't."

[Anonymous No.14934163]

Human suffering is good and we should strive to maximise it.

[Anonymous No.14934164]

>>14933857
What did so¥poster mean by this

[Anonymous No.14934166]

>>14934076
>is is ought

[Anonymous No.14934173]

>>14933962
The existence of God is inconsistent with morality.

[Anonymous No.14934178]

>>14933518
Nobody can *prove* their morality exists, it's belief.
People do what they are accustomed to and what makes them feel good.

[Anonymous No.14934184]

>>14934163
you first nerd lol

[Anonymous No.14934187]

>>14934178
Yes, but it is rational to care about your future selves just as it is rational to care about other people. Morality is just non-selfish practical reason.

[Anonymous No.14934188]

>>14933753
>the happiness and suffering of other human beings matter to us such that we should seek, whenever possible, to increase their happiness and decrease their suffering

The question asked you to justify this part and you didn’t even do it, instead just wasting time writing unrelated shit

[Anonymous No.14934190]

>>14934184
Reading your post was the most terrible of torments, I hope you get to suffer just as much, faggot.

[Anonymous No.14934191]

Niggerhitler

[Anonymous No.14934192]

>>14934187
How is it rational?

[Anonymous No.14934194]

>>14934187
The most practical thing is to terminate others, that solves all problems.

[Anonymous No.14934199]

>>14934192
Are you a solipsist? If not, then you acknowledge that other people, include yourself in the future, also experience pain and happiness just as you currently do. Objectively, there is no difference between their pain and yours. So any more restricted basis for decision-making is irrational.

[Anonymous No.14934218]

>>14934187
To some extent, but
a) there are many situations in which an unethical action you can get away with will clearly benefit you
and b) rationality isn't a great motivator for the average person, and the best motivators like "virtue is inscribed into nature itself as the true calling of man" or at least "virtue is the way to heavenly bliss" are pretty much dead and buried nowadays, which leaves us in a pretty bad position.

[Anonymous No.14934222]

>>14934199
>Objectively, there is no difference between their pain and yours.
Thing is, nobody experiences objectively. People experience subjectively, and subjectively, there's pretty damn big difference between me being in pain and someone else being in pain.

[Anonymous No.14934240]

>>14934199
>Objectively, there is no difference between their pain and yours.

Yes there is, my pain is hurting me while their pain is not necessarily hurting me. Why should I care about pain not inflicted to me, if the only reason I object to pain is that it gives me a feeling of pain? Then you’d have to have another reason for pain being objectively bad, that cannot be based on ‘it makes me feel bad’.

[Anonymous No.14934243]

>>14934199
>Objectively, there is no difference between their pain and yours.
There's a fuckload of difference, I don't feel their pain and one can question if other people can even feel pain.

[Anonymous No.14934247]

>>14933518
they don't

[Anonymous No.14934250]

>>14934222
Doesn't matter. We're talking about objective morality, which applies to everyone equally. There are no measurable differences you being in pain at time t versus t+1 (or versus someone else at t). Hence there is no rational basis for preferring one state of pain over another. Morality is just practical rationality in its broadest extent.

[Anonymous No.14934260]

>>14934218
If it benefits everyone, then by definition it can't be "unethical". In any case, I'm talking about the truth of the matter, not what the best marketing tactics are.

[Anonymous No.14934261]

>>14934250
What motivates me to follow an objective morality if I don't even experience objectivity?

[Anonymous No.14934266]

>>14934240
Whether or not you care about acting morally is another matter entirely. I'm only talking about what it means to act morally.

[Anonymous No.14934271]

>>14934243
If you're genuinely a solipsist, then you are far too deep in the autism to pay attention to morality.

[Anonymous No.14934276]

>>14934261
A desire to act rationally.

[Anonymous No.14934282]

>>14934266
All you’ve said is that others can also feel pain just like me. I know that. You have yet to explain why I should act in a way that avoids others pain.


I think this is getting confused. Tell me, why should you avoid pain happening to you? If the answer is that it feels bad, then that cannot be applied to others because your reason against pain is necessarily only based about how it feels for you.

[Anonymous No.14934295]

>>14934282
Other people feel the same pain you do. There is no objective difference. Rationality means transcending your own limited emotional perspective and considering the overall state of things without prejudice.

[Anonymous No.14934310]

>>14934295
Okay so then the reason to avoid pain is not that it gives me a bad feeling (because if it was, then there would be an incredibly important difference between how bad my pain and their pain is), but because pain overall is just defined as ‘bad’? Could you justify why pain is ‘bad’ in any way that would lead me to have to consider other people’s feeling.

[Anonymous No.14934388]

>>14934166
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but I'm going to assume you're wrong.

[Anonymous No.14934406]

>>14934388
What you have to explain is why I should care that others feel bad, instead of just saying that they do.

[Anonymous No.14934412]

>>14934310
What makes pain bad is how it feels.

[Anonymous No.14934422]

>>14934412
Generally? I can see why I should care about pain against me because it feels bad for me and is bad for me. But for all, then it feels bad for humankind and is bad for humankind, but why should I care about what is bad for humankind?

[Anonymous No.14934425]

>>14933518
They accept that proof is not a reasonable criteria for establishing it as fact within your life. Similar to ones understanding that other people exist even though all of your human experience (all of your evidence) points to your being the only person to really exist (solipsism), except we do not believe this. Much the same we may believe in morality.

[Anonymous No.14934438]

>>14934422
>why I should care
Because it is irrational to treat objectively identical states differently.

[Anonymous No.14934441]

>>14933518
>Not understanding that knowledge, even the idea of knowledge, is an unescapable value judgement and the wellspring from which all value comes.
Knowledge is more important than life.

[Anonymous No.14934456]

>>14934406
I don't have to explain it, because emotions are a base function of humans unless they're suffering from something like extreme psychopathy.

[Anonymous No.14934468]

>>14934456
Emotivism is a bad foundation for morality. "x is bad because it makes me feel bad" is not a hole you want to fall into.

[Anonymous No.14934469]

>>14933518
The same way Theists do.
Shitty appeals to authority

[Anonymous No.14934470]

>>14933671
>>14933915
>NOOO YOU CAN'T JUST BOMB US MR CLINTON NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Anonymous No.14934478]

>>14934438
So I don’t want to be hurt because it is bad for me and my goal is that bad things shouldn’t happen to me, because that’s self evident.

Other people can be hurt and that is bad for them, but my goal is still that bad things should not happen to me. It is not self evident that my goal should be that bad things does not happen to other people, and how you could derive that it should be my goal from the fact that the pain is objectively the same, I don’t understand, since what my goal is is derived from what is self evident.


You seem to say that all pain is bad because of the way it feels, but it’s the case that pain to x is bad for x because of how it feels to x, but it’s not my goal, as stated before, since it’s not self evidently my goal, to care about what is bad for x.

[Anonymous No.14934490]

>>14933692
> Second, religious morality which is ultimately based on the commands of a god cannot answer these questions because "God says so" and "You'll go to hell otherwise" don't work.

This is Catholicism, exclusively. Hell being secondary, or even incidental, to the Morality described in Scripture.

[Anonymous No.14934492]

>>14934456
Yes I know I do care about other people’s feelings because it’s a human thing to do, but that’s purely descriptive, and you still haven’t justified why one should act in a way, only that they do. So if anyone acts in a way that is evil, you have no arguments against that, all your saying is ‘most people don’t like to do bad things’, which won’t stop most criminals.

[Anonymous No.14934498]

>>14933794

The first paragraph of the "psychobiological foundation" part is Logically disgraceful, as is the whole text.

[Anonymous No.14934504]

>>14933518
>prove
No philosopher ever 'proved' shit
They are all akin to stoners never shutting up about their pet theories
Atheists at least don't believe in some handwaving bullshit reason for why everyone should do what some mullah says just because muh gahwd

[Anonymous No.14934510]

>>14934468
You're right, but morality is such a complex subject. Like asking "how do you know humans are supposed to eat meat." The real answer is long and complex and involves multiple bio- and evolutionary sciences. But, in conversation, you'll say "because humans have meat-tearing teeth".

Morality is super complex, but in conversation, you use the reduction, to avoid getting lost in ad hominins. Morality exists because people have emotions. Being hurt feels bad, hurting others feels bad.

[Anonymous No.14934522]

>>14933518
The good atheists realize that believing in morality is just as cucked as believing in gods.

[Anonymous No.14934523]

>>14934510
>are supposed to
They aren't. They can, or they can not, depending on an infinite range of variables
Morality is social norm, nothing more, nothing less. De gustibus non est disputandum.

[Anonymous No.14934529]

>>14934478
It's not about what you feel motivated to do. You may in fact have no motivation to act rationally -- either for your future self or for others. For example, you may use heroin or crack cocaine because you don't care about what happens to your future self. After all, you don't have access to the pain that your future self feels. The point is, acting without regard to mental states other than what you are currently experiencing -- whether those of your future self or other people -- is acting irrationally. You don't need to be in the process of experiencing a state to know whether or not it is bad. Whether you have the motivation to act rationally is a matter of conscience and willpower.

[Anonymous No.14934534]

>>14934510
That’s just because you don’t understand the question. You can use all the biology you want to tell why humans do and can and ‘are supposed’ to eat meat, but you can’t use it to justify why humans should eat meat.


You’re not supposed to say why humans believe in morality or why they do act in certain way, rather the question asked you to justify why people should act in some way.

[Anonymous No.14934548]

>>14934523
>>14934534
I'm not going to get into a pedantic hair-splitting competitions with you.
Humans evolved as omnivores. Humans evolved emotions. Whatever else gets fucked up in our spastic monkey brains doesn't detract from those base facts.

[Anonymous No.14934555]

>>14934548
>is is ought


You’re so far off from answering the question. You’re making descriptive claims about morality when the question asked you to justify normative statements about morality.

[Anonymous No.14934563]

>>14934529
>It's not about what you feel motivated to do.

Well it is about what goal I have, which I only care about what is self evident. It’s also self evident a goal that bad things should not occur to my future self. The rational thing is just to act towards the goal that is self evident for me, not something that cannot be justified.

[Anonymous No.14934571]

>>14934504
But atheists are extremely skilled at taking the moral preferences that are usually projected onto God and dumping them on nature or evolution instead. It's amazing what kind of oughts you can find in there if you've made your mind up ahead of time.
Who could have predicted that cold hard rationalists like Sam Harris would discover that rational morality is so similar to our standard inherited Christian morality, that we pretty much had it right all along! Lucky us, what are the odds!

[Anonymous No.14934572]

>>14934563
Now you're just begging the question. You may act on what is "self evident" to you, but that doesn't make it rational. There is no objective reason to favor future states of 'yourself' over states of other people.

[Anonymous No.14934578]

>>14934571
"Christian morality" in practice is about fucking little boys. Not very rational.

[Anonymous No.14934579]

>>14934572
>There is no objective reason to favor future states of 'yourself' over states of other people.

Of course there is. And that reason is that it’s self evident for me that bad things are bad for me. It’s not self evident that things that are bad for x should concern me.

[Anonymous No.14934582]

>>14934579
Just saying you're right because it's "self evident" is not an argument.

[Anonymous No.14934588]

>>14933518
read kant

[Anonymous No.14934592]

>>14934522
You don't have to believe in morality when thousand of years of evolution have you by the balls. See >>14934510.

[Anonymous No.14934595]

>>14934582
Well what I’m saying I believe because it’s self evident. It’s self evident me being hurt is bad. That is the thing that is different between my state of hurt and other people being hurt. Why should I care about other people being hurt, when the only reason I care about me being hurt is that it’s bad for me, which is self evidently bad?

[Anonymous No.14934596]

>>14934548
>Humans evolved as omnivores. Humans evolved emotions.
That is not a reason or argument that anyone 'should' do anything. Or you wouldn't be posting online, you would be where you 'ought' to be, on the African savannah, spending all your days outside, moving, hunting and gathering. There is no should to it.

>>14934571
Again, morality is social norm. Obviously people will use different arguments to uphold similar accepted social norms. 'God' is not the reason the reason for morality, just another justification. One set of people use 'God' to justify bombing, killing, burning, beating anyone who disagrees with them, while another uses it to to see themselves in others and treat them with kindness and compassion. The rationale is not the cause.

[Anonymous No.14934598]

>>14934588

[Anonymous No.14934604]

>>14934596
>Again, morality is social norm. Obviously people will use different arguments to uphold similar accepted social norms. 'God' is not the reason the reason for morality, just another justification. One set of people use 'God' to justify bombing, killing, burning, beating anyone who disagrees with them, while another uses it to to see themselves in others and treat them with kindness and compassion. The rationale is not the cause.
Yes that was exactly my point.

[Anonymous No.14934608]

>>14934595
You're putting a lot of weight on a trans-temporal concept of 'you' that does not exist. There is no difference objectively between what you think of as a future state of 'you' and any other conscious state in the universe. 'You' is a convenient construct with no physical coherence to it over time.

[Anonymous No.14934629]

Objective morality is a superstition with no empirical basis, and even its intuitions start contradicting one another once you start examining them in some detail. For example, do humans always want the good, and they only act in evil ways because they misunderstand something evil as being good? If that's the case, the concept of moral responsibility is bunk, because failing to act morally is always caused by ignorance. Alternatively, if one can choose an evil action while knowing it is evil, it follows that knowing that something is good is not enough to motivate us to act good - hence knowledge of good or evil actions has no influence on human action and is entirely epiphenomenal. The whole system is full of contradictions because it's completely made up.

[Anonymous No.14934633]

>>14934608
You could’ve told me you were mad before, would’ve made this whole conversation a lot easier.


Could you explain further what you’re talking about?

[Anonymous No.14934635]

>>14934629
Your mind is too spook-ridden to engage in moral philosophy.

[Anonymous No.14934640]

>>14934635
Your post is too argument-free for it to be taken seriously.

[Anonymous No.14934642]

>>14934633
Say what?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-time/

[Anonymous No.14934659]

>>14934629
>For example, do humans always want the good
No.

>and they only act in evil ways because they misunderstand something evil as being good?
No.

>If that's the case, the concept of moral responsibility is bunk
It's already bunk.

> Alternatively, if one can choose an evil action while knowing it is evil, it follows that knowing that something is good is not enough to motivate us to act good
It's obviously not. Knowledge in itself is behaviorally impotent except in combination with a relevant desire.

>hence knowledge of good or evil actions has no influence on human action and is entirely epiphenomenal
Wrong. It has influence depending on the extent to which the agent desires to act rationally.

>The whole system is full of contradictions because it's completely made up.
Your whole strawman argument is made up.

[Anonymous No.14934690]

>>14934659
>Wrong. It has influence depending on the extent to which the agent desires to act rationally.
You already admitted that knowing something is good doesn't cause one to act good. If knowledge of goodness doesn't cause good actions, it is epiphenomenal. It's a really simple argument, even a moral realist should be able to follow it.

[Anonymous No.14934696]

>>14933794
>american
>atheists
double dose of crap

[Anonymous No.14934721]

>>14934690
Nope, you're wrong. Knowledge of anything cannot by itself motivate behavior. Knowing that there's beer in my refrigerator does not by itself motivate me to get up and retrieve one. I must also desire a beer. Likewise knowledge of what is good for me (or for others) does not by itself determine my behavior. I must also be motivated to act in accordance with that knowledge. I may know that going to the gym today is in my best long-term interest, or that recycling is good for the planet, etc., but unless I am motivated to act in line with what I know I should do, nothing is going to happen. On the other hand, I be in the opposite situation. I may be highly motivated to do the right thing, but not know what that is. I may be ignorant about the link between exercise and health, or between recycling and reduced waste. You need both desire and knowledge to induce rational behavior -- one or the other alone won't do it.

[Anonymous No.14934748]

>>14934721
Right, and my point is that if knowing the good is not by itself sufficient to provide you with a motive, you make moral decisions a matter of subjective desire. You can't say "you ought to do that, because it's the right thing to do" because on your account the good is not intrinsically desirable. Hence, what you ought to say instead is "this action is good, so you might want to do it if you are into that".

[Anonymous No.14934760]

>>14933671
I was conscripted and there was a mouthbreather wondering why we'd be trained to handle corpses. "Just let them rot."
I think it was the moment I invented the NPC/goyim category.

[Anonymous No.14934774]

>>14934062
I think his point is that people lament non-religious morality as being subjective; but "God says so" begs the question of God's morality being subjective, i.e. the age-old, "Are morals good because God ordains them (subjective), or does God ordain them because they are good (meaning moral values transcend even God, thus it's not exactly a moral authority, iirc).

[Anonymous No.14934782]

>>14934748
>if knowing the good is not by itself sufficient to provide you with a motive, you make moral decisions a matter of subjective desire.
I don't understand the objection. All decisions, to the extent that they are translated into action, require that the agent desire to act. That obviously doesn't make the agent's level of information irrelevant to his decision-making.

>You can't say "you ought to do that, because it's the right thing to do"
Sure you can. You are providing information that, in combination with the interlocutor's desire to act rationally, will result in the right thing getting done. You're only wasting your breath if the other party has no desire to act rationally, in which case communicating with him at all is rather pointless.

>because on your account the good is not intrinsically desirable.
Nothing is 'intrinsically desirable'. Empirically, people have all sorts of unexpected motives and non-motives.

>Hence, what you ought to say instead is "this action is good, so you might want to do it if you are into that".
No, because the original statement is not neutral on whether the action should be carried out. It's like saying "2+2=4, so you might want to believe that if you're into believing mathematical truths". No, you ought to regardless of what you're into.

[Anonymous No.14934841]

>>14934782
>No, because the original statement is not neutral on whether the action should be carried out.
But it absolutely is neutral to it if you concede the premise that nothing is intrinsically desirable. If goodness is not intrinsically desirable, where does the universal prescriptivity comes from? How can you say that you always ought to do the good if there isn't something intrinsically in goodness that makes it preferably to evil?

[Anonymous No.14936218]

>>14934774
If God created everything, and is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent, how could his will be subjective?

[Anonymous No.14936587]

>>14933518
Any moral universe is built on axioms, like mathematics and other universes, and axioms by definition do not require proofs - they are assumed to be true. Now you can ask what makes your axioms the right ones? The answer would be similar to mathematics as well - we select the axioms which are most useful for constructing useful analogies between reality and the metaphysics of our morality.

[Anonymous No.14937803]

>>14933753
>Man doesnt live for pleasure, only Englishman does