Showing posts with label atheistic ethic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atheistic ethic. Show all posts

An Atheistic Ethic: A Concluding Thought

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I’m going to cut short my defense of an atheistic ethic for now. I think I’ve already argued enough for people to get a rudimentary view of it. Let me sum it up so far and then conclude with a thought.

I previously said here that we need an ethic that is based upon some solid evidence about who we are as human beings and why we act the way we do. I also argued that the Christian ethic is practically impossible to obey, and the motivation for obeying must be judged to be based upon self-interest, which is basically the same ethic I argue for, without the barbarisms in the Bible.

Then I argued there is solid evidence that people want to be happy here, and that non-rational people do not want those things that make for happiness.

I dealt with the book of Ecclesiastes here, which claims we cannot find ultimate happiness without God.

I distinguished between selfishness and rational self-interest here.

I further argued there is an element of self-interest in almost every act we do, certainly with our over-all life-plan itself, which is the position of modified psychological egoism, better called "predominant egoism." To show this I took some of the toughest scenario’s and explained that there may be an element of rational self-interest in them.

I answered the Christian question of why we shouldn’t kill someone when we think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages by claiming there will never be such a scenario for a rational person here.

Let me just close this off by talking about the kind of character that rational self-interested people need to be happy. It must be a stable character.

The late Louis P. Pojman argued that it is reasonable to choose and to act upon an over-all “life plan,” even though there will be many times where I may have to act against my own immediate or short-term self-interest in keeping with that plan. “To have the benefits of the moral life—friendship, mutual love, inner peace, moral pride or satisfaction, and freedom from moral guilt—one has to have a certain kind of reliable character. All in all, these benefits are eminently worth having. Indeed, life without them may not be worth living.” “Character counts,” Pojman wrote, and “habits harness us to predictable behavior. Once we obtain the kind of character necessary for the moral life--once we become virtuous--we will not be able to turn morality on and off like a faucet.” With such an understanding “there is no longer anything paradoxical in doing something not in one’s interest, for while the individual moral act may occasionally conflict with one’s self-interest, the entire life plan in which the act is embedded and from which it flows is not against the individual’s self-interest.” [Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong 5th ed. (p. 188)].

An Atheistic Ethic: The Christian Debate Stopper

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salvationfound voiced what I was waiting for a Christian to say. He or she wrote:

If someone wants to kill and they feel the advantages outweigh the disadvantages why shouldn't they kill?
I'm assuming here that sf is talking about a premeditated unlawful and unjust killing of another human being. My answer?

Under these circumstances then he will kill, because that's why people get murdered in the first place by others who kill them. Since I'm arguing that every human being is motivated to act from self-interest, then if these conditions obtain for someone, they will therefore kill. And it doesn't matter what a person's religious or non-religious beliefs are at that point, because these beliefs also factor into whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Whether one is a Christian or not, people will kill under these circumstances.

There is no ethic that can stop someone from killing under these circumstances...none. Since Christianity numberically dominates in American society then a whole lot of Christians are killing other people. Men kill their wives. Women kill their husbands and children. Others kill while stealing. Men kill after raping a woman. Who do you think are doing most of the killing here? Christians. Why do they do this? Because the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Some do so while in an irrational rage, or because of paranoia, or due to drugs or alcohol. But they do it. And so do atheists and agnostics.

Christians will say that the Christians who kill others are not "real Christians." What can we make of this? According to such a definition a Christian is someone who obeys the Bible? But how does that follow from the contrary idea that we cannot earn our way into heaven? How can they have it both ways? Deeds mean little to the evangelical mind in front of a merciful God. Evangelicals will claim there is no deed God cannot forgive, so murder should be no problem for God. Christians say a person must repent before he can be forgiven, but does that mean they can fall away from God's grace, or that their repentence must be perfect before God can forgive them? And does this mean they should search out every possible sin and daily repent of it before God will forgive? Surely not. Lewis B. Smedes [in his book Mere Morality] makes a strong case that God can and does forgive suicide, and there can be no repentence after such a deed is committed.

Christians can have an excuse whenever they want to do wrong. I know. As a former Christian I knew God would forgive me if I did something wrong. So, when I felt the advantages outweighed the disadvantages I did it knowing full well God would forgive me.

Having said all of this, I dispute the basis of the question sf asked. I claim that the advantages will never outweight the disadvantages in unlawfully and unjustly killing someone, period. Give me a scenario and I doubt that rational self-interest will ever conclude the right thing to do is to kill someone (except in self-defense). My position is that people who kill are not acting rationally.

An Atheistic Ethic

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This is a continuation of an atheistic ethic that I’m arguing for.

I think there is an element of self-interest in almost every act we do, which is the position of modified psychological egoism, and might be better called "predominant egoism." I view altruistic acts and self-interested acts on a continuum, with one side representing acts that are almost completely self-interested ones, and the other side representing those acts we would call altruistic but which nearly all contain some self-interest in them. Let me present my case.

To show this let me take some of the toughest scenarios, then in a later post I'll deal with some objections to what I’m saying.

1) How do you deal with the obvious counterevidence against psychological egoism provided by, say, the firefighters on 9/11. What does it mean to say that their actions, which apparently resulted in their risking their lives for others, were really selfish?

In the first place I'm not saying their actions were selfish. As I argued earlier, I made a distinction between selfish acts and rational self-interested acts. Selfish acts do not gain a person happiness in the long run.

These firefighters have been trained to do a job. Their reputation is on the line. They have accepted the challenge of seeing how many people they can save. They did not think they would die in the process. Besides, people do risky behavior all of the time, most of it for fun. People enjoy taking risks and accepting challenges, especially if they can get paid for it. They also love the mutual respect from other firefighters (and policemen) for being a part of an organization that saves lifes.

Of course, some of them may have been operating from the delusion that God will reward them in heaven. But if this life is all there is, and we will die one way or another, then why not be remembered for doing great deeds? For the egoist that might be the only way for your life to count. If however, someone shirks in the face of responsibility, and saves his life while letting others die, he is known as a coward from that day onward. Sometimes in such a situation as this, it's better to die and be remembered as a great person than to live with the social shame and loss of employment in the only job said person ever wanted to do.

2) The "Freedom Rider" who went south to work for civil rights at the potential -- and actual -- risk of his life to benefit people he did not know, and in so doing expanding their own political power and rights, lessening his own or those of his family and friends.

What must be understood is that human beings enjoy a challenge. They enjoy fighting a good fight and winning, like any contest. They also have a need to belong. So they join causes to belong. Life would be boring if they didn’t. Those who fought and won can say they accomplished something great in this life. Why was this considered a good fight? Because whenever the rights of some people can be denied in a democracy then the rights of all people are at risk. Many of them did so because they had friends who were black, so it was personal with them. Many of them did so because they couldn’t stomach their own country. They might’ve thought, “If this was my country, and I am a part-owner of its policies, then I object to what I am allowing to happen, since I value freedom for all. I don’t like who I am for allowing it.” To deny anyone rights is to deny everyone's rights to some degree. It's about the kind of country they wanted to live in, and they valued the rights of everyone, because everyone includes themselves and their kin.

Why should they care about anyone else? Largely because they care for themselves. How many times have you heard that in order to love others you must first love yourself? Once people do care for themselves, in the rational self-interested sense I've previously argued for, they will quite naturally love others.

3) The soldier who sees the war he is fighting is lost, but who continues to fight on and even go on a 'suicide mission' out of a sense of honor or duty.

Once a soldier is in an army he gives up his rights to his own life. At that point he’s already committed to the possibility he might die. He was either forced into the army (in other countries) or he volunteered. If he volunteered he didn’t volunteer to die, although some volunteers are not acting rationally in that they just may want to die. He volunteered for the challenge. Some of these volunteers saw no better option, given the fact that they needed structure in their life and couldn’t do well out in a free society. Some wanted the hope of an education. Some are raised in military families who highly prize their service in defense of their country, so they might not know anything different. Seeing how his family highly values military service, he will probably do so as well. As a soldier he is also trained to follow orders and it’s terribly difficult to disobey such a command, since his mission may help save other soldiers in the field, and since being a deserter brings shame upon him and his family as a punishable crime. No one knows for sure it’s a suicide mission, either. And no one knows for sure the war is lost, since a soldier on the field doesn’t have all of the information needed to make that judgment. He’s defending his homeland, his family and his friends, even if the war is in fact “lost.” And since we are all going to die anyway, what better way to die than to be a hero, since being remembered well is the only thing a man has to live on after he dies.

4) The soldier who falls on a grenade to save his fox hole buddies.

Once the grenade hits the dirt this soldier is dead anyway, one way or another. If he chooses to run away, his life will never be the same, even if he does get lucky to save his own skin, and that's not sure. The guilt will be unbearable if he lives. Like Sophia in the movie "Sophia's Choice," she died the day she chose to save one of her children while letting the Nazi take the other one away. So why not do what the soldier was trained to do and save others by falling on the grenade? In the process he will be remembered as a hero, and by saving others who will continue to fight he will help protect those who will remember him back home.

5) Why should we care for pets? Because they give us pleasure. It makes us feel loved. They make us laugh. To hurt them is not acting rational. It would betray a hatred for oneself, and that’s not acting out of rational self-interest.

An Atheistic Ethic

20 comments

This is a continuation of a discussion about an atheistic ethic. I've already argued that any ethic must be based on who we are as human beings, and that Christians obey God because of self-interest. Then I argued that what we humans want above all else is to be happy. I also dealt with the book of Ecclesiastes which seems to claim we cannot find happiness without God. I'm arguing that rational self-interest can be a sound basis for an atheistic ethic.

I will not be arguing for selfishness as a basis for an atheistic ethic. My dictionary defines selfishness as being “concerned with your own interests, needs, and wishes while ignoring those of others.” It implies that a person is out for himself alone. It implies the unholy trinity: me, myself, and I. Rational self-interest is something different. A selfish person will lack things that make him happy. A selfish person will not gain the things in the list I mentioned earlier that make for happiness. Being short-sighted, he is only interested in instant gratification, not in the long-lasting benefits of being a good friend of others. A selfish person will usually reap what he sows. He will experience loneliness, anxiety, guilt, self-destructive tendencies, few trustworthy friends, depression, fear, paranoia, disappointment with life, possible jail time, and a short life. To the degree he is selfish he will be alone. He will be ostracized, and even banished from society. He will not work well with others and probably be fired for laziness, or for not getting along with co-workers. So he will probably not reap the financial rewards he wants to make him happy.

What I’m arguing for is different. It’s a rational self-interest that seeks the long lasting benefits of happiness. This means denying oneself instant gratification for those better, more beneficial, long lasting goods.

Next time I’ll argue that everything we do contains an element of self-interest to it.

What About Ecclesiastes?

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Logismous Kathairountes, in commenting on my atheistic ethic series said
"You've read the book of Ecclesiastes, right? That book is a negative apologetic against the very thing you've just put forward. The author didn't accept your axiom that worldly goods (money, sex, good looks, power, etc.) lead to happiness, and so he set out to test them to see if they really did lead to happiness. In essense, he had the things that you say bring happiness, as much as anybody in the world at that time had them. He discovered that worldly goods don't lead to happiness.That book is the record of an experiment undertaken with the goal of testing the exact assumptions that you make here. I'll add that my own experience matches up with that of the author of Ecclesiastes."
Let me briefly comment:


In the first place, I noticed you didn't say Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, even though it's obvious that if we believe what this book says about the author it must be Solomon. Yet most all scholars claim Solomon did not write it--many conservative scholars do not think so either. I find this odd, since the whole argument is about the personal experiences of Solomon. If these were not his experiences, and if this book is what we'd call today a "sock-puppet" for Solomon, then by who's authority should I believe what the author writes?

In the second place, the phrase "under the sun" is used repeatedly in this book to refer to life without God. Life "under the sun" is "vanity," says the author. Notice here the superstitious and pre-scientific cosmology of the world according to this author. According to him, as well as with all of the Biblical writers, God resided above the firmament which was held in place by the mountains along the edges of the earth, in which were hung the sun, moon, and stars and from which water was released to send floods and to water the crops. No wonder they felt closer to God when praying, worshipping or seeking God's guidance on a mountaintop (cf., Baalam, Moses, Jesus, and so forth); that's where God lived. So why should I care what the author says when he is wrong about cosmology? Maybe he's just a superstitious person? Maybe I should take what he says with a grain of salt (or a whole saltshaker full of it)?

Lastly, the message itself is only partly true; only part of the story--a half truth. Yes, it is true that we will die and so there is no ultimate meaning to anything we do in this life. Our life is ultimately in vain. Nothing we do in this life will ultimately satisfy the longing for eternal significance, and in that sense we cannot find complete happiness without such an assurance. "All is vanity" in that respect. This I admit. That's the truth--the half truth.

But this fact has little to do with how I should live my life on earth. I should still seek to be happy, even if what I do in this life will not be remembered when human life and this whole universe dies a future heat death.

Christians talk as if they would commit murder, theft, rape and suicide if there wasn't a God. However, they should consider the evidence of the many former Christians who continue to lead happy productive lives even after rejecting the existence of God. Why do you suppose this is true? Think about it. We don't do these things because they're not rational and they don't bring us happiness. (As I am explaining).

My argument is that people who live as if there is an afterlife, along with a judgment before God who will send us to heaven or to hell, are living a delusionary life. I'd much rather live with my feet planted firmly on the ground, than live a delusion.

More later...

An Atheistic Ethic

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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

An Atheistic Ethic: What do Human Beings Want?

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This is part two in a series arguing for an atheistic ethic. As I said earlier, we need an ethic based upon some solid evidence about who we are as human beings and why we act the way we do. Let's begin by looking at what rational people want out of life. I think I know.


I think there is solid evidence that rational human beings want (or value) several important things. Let me offer a list of them: we want power, love, friendship, riches, health, freedom, significance, importance, self-esteem, affirmation, approval, knowledge, understanding, long life, safety, good looks, sex, and so forth. We want enough challenges to make us strong and enough pleasures to motivate us to continue wanting to live. These things are undeniable, in my opinion. They are obvious.

People whom I consider non-rational are, roughly speaking, people who do not want these things. To say the same thing another way is that a necessary condition for a rational person is that said person significantly values the above listed things. A person cannot be considered a rational person if said person has a flagrant disregard for wanting these things. Non-rational people have a deep seated Freudian “death wish” that is far below the universal human standard. While it’s probably true we all have some degree of a “death wish,” those people who refuse to care about themselves, or who refuse to continue living, or who do not care about the things mentioned above to a significant degree are simply not being rational people. Some criminals, for instance, may prefer being behind bars because they cannot live on the outside world for various reasons, or they have some inner need to punish themselves due to guilt or self-loathing. People who commit suicide, or who want to die, or do not care about themselves, or anyone else, are people whom I think are not being rational. They are hurting themselves, and that goes against our instinct to survive and to live life to the fullest. Any person who acts contrary to that survival instinct is not being rational in the sense that doing so goes against a fundamental built-in principle to live.

Now, why do we want the above listed things? Why do we want power, and love, and significance, for instance? May I suggest with Aristotle that the reason why we value all of these things is because we want to be happy. According to Aristotle happiness is the supreme good. We do not want happiness for any other reason. It is an end in and of itself. We do not want power or love or significance as ends in and of themselves. We want these things because having them makes rational people happy.

To someone who asks me why they should want to be happy, or to someone who asks what is the ultimate standard which tells me I should be happy, I simply say you cannot rationally want anything else. It’s impossible for rational people not to want to be happy.

So I stand squarely in the happiness ethical tradition stretching back beginning with Socrates/Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Mill, and up to the the modern day “Virtue Ethicists.”

Happiness for these thinkers means “holistic” happiness. It is not being a “pig satisfied.” It is not having mere hedonistic pleasure. The more of the above list of things a person has, the happier that person is going to be. Lacking in any one of them will reduce one’s happiness by some degree, or not having these things in sufficient kind and quantity will reduce a rational person’s happiness. Having riches, for instance, without any of the other things, will not bring a person enough happiness. The happiest person will have all of these things to the utmost degree.

If we want to be happy we must pursue them, and we must have some acceptable degree of them all.

An Atheistic Ethic

53 comments
I am going to try to lay out a consistent atheistic moral philosophy in the coming days/weeks. In my opinion all ethical theories have some serious problems, some more than others. I’m going to present the one I think has the least amount of problems. I’m also going to try to answer as many objections as I can, and offer some reasonable test case scenario’s to show how this ethic can and does describe what we in fact do, and what we ought to do. The theory I will lay out will be shot at by people on both sides of the fence, both Christian and atheist. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to an atheistic ethic. Atheists disagree with each other on this issue, as we do about politics. So I do not expect atheists to agree with me, and so I invite helpful and constructive criticisms from everyone.


Since I have argued against the Christian ethic in several places, then I need to spell out my alternative, and I will. In the first place, I want an ethic that is based upon some solid evidence about who we are as human beings and why we act the way we do. Any kind of ethic that tells us to do that which we are incapable of doing, is too idealistic and guilt producing to be helpful to guide us as human beings. Such an ethic, in my opinion, demands that we behave non-humanly. I think the Christian personal ethic does just this, as one example. We are not divine beings. We’re human beings. The Christian ethic demands complete selflessness, although it doesn’t deny Christians ought to have self-respect as God’s redeemed creatures. Still, Christians are to “die daily” with Paul, take up their crosses and follow Jesus. Self-denial, self-sacrifice, and self-discipline seem to be the hallmarks of the personal Christian ethic in its most basic and fundamental sense. They are to have sacrificial agape love for everyone, although, Augustine argued that Christians are obligated to have this kind of love for the closest of kin first, then their community, then their culture and then finally to those outside their culture. That is, they have a primary duty to love the people closest to them, but they should love everyone. This means showing people mercy, and giving people the needed justice they deserve, depending upon the duty we have to each person as he is related to us. According to Christian teaching, the Holy Spirit, the divine paraclete, helps the believers to fulfill the demands of agape love.

There is more to the Christian view, of course, including the killing of heretics, and the beating of slaves. ;-) Still, it’s entirely unrealistic to expect people to have agape love toward people just as Jesus did (if we presume with them that Jesus is their idealistic model). It fosters guilt. It cannot be done, even with the Holy Spirit’s help (presuming there is such a being). Plus there is strong evidence down through the centuries that the Holy Spirit has not properly done his job well among professing Christians (the only kind of Christian we see). ;-)

Furthermore, the Christian ethic is based upon a motivation that must be judged from the Christian perspective to be a completely ill-founded and unethical. The threat is hell, however conceived. Think of it this way, if there is no hell and everyone will be rewarded equally in heaven when we die, then Christians would not need to try to live the Christian ethic, and I doubt many of them would care to do so at that point, especially when they want to do something they know is against “God’s will.” Christians might want to claim they obey because it’s “the right thing to do,” but just ask them one question on this. Ask them if they would rape, steal and kill if God told them to do so, lest they will be cast in hell forever. If they would obey God and rape, steal and kill, then their basic motivation is to obey because of the fear of hell. However, if they would not obey God by doing these things, then they do not obey God simply because obeying God is the right thing to do. [Q.E.D.]

Christians will claim God would never command them to do these things, but in fact the God of the Bible did do this. Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son. Would YOU obey God if he told YOU to do so? A female captive in war was forced to be an Israelite man’s wife (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). If a virgin who was pledged to be married was raped, she was to be stoned along with her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), while if a virgin who was not pledged to be married was raped, she was supposed to marry her attacker (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), not to mention the pleasure of “dashing of children against rocks,” and genocide itself. More to the point, the fear of hell is not a good Christian basis for being ethical. It would place the obedience to God on the same par with obeying a robber who has a gun pointed at your head.

In conclusion, I argue that I want an ethic that is based upon some solid evidence about who we are as human beings and why we act the way we do. The Christian ethic is practically impossible to obey, and the motivation for obeying must be judged to be based upon rational self-interest, which is basically the same ethic I will be arguing for later, without the barbaric divine commands.

This is part 1. To read the other parts see here.