Atheism and morality (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, October 21, 2010, 01:13 (5293 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: I have said many times that I think humans have the capacity to know the difference between right and wrong, but not the capacity to do the right thing. The idea that a societal consensus can define something 'right or wrong' is utter rubbish. What society can do is make something legal or illegal, which has little if anything to do with right/wrong or moral/immoral. There does exist a 'right/wrong', but it does not lie in a book, or society, or in a legal system. It lies in the 'heart' of a person.
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> 'Society' is an abstract idea, in the purest form, meaning merely a collection of individual relationships. However, in allowing this abstract creation to govern the will of the individual, we make the morality of the individual subservient to the will of the society. Once a society extends beyond a very very few people, it is no longer acting as a moral compass taking its direction from its constituents, but as a legal entity fully equipped with the whipping stick and the ability to wield it. The 'Society', as an entity, is not compelled by morality, right/wrong, good or bad, but by its own survival and power and in this regard it is no different than the entity known as 'religion'. Societal consensus can only define something as right/wrong as applied to its own survival, which supersedes all of an individuals personal freedom. The unfortunate side affect of this is that it allows groups of people to enforce their will on other groups of people within the society, as the society must placate as many as possible in order to ensure its survival as an entity. So I am not in disagreement with your statement that society tries to deem what is moral, only that they fail miserably at it because they put freedom as secondary to survival of an abstract institution by allowing one persons aversion to something to control the actions of another. Individuals in general will do what is right for them. It is not the responsibility of others to condemn, control, or clean up the mess made from those choices. The only role I advocate for society is for protecting its members from force, whether internal or external. I prize my life, and the liberty to live that life as I see fit, and the liberty of others to do the same, above all things. 
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Good writing. -However--though we'd like to separate our will from that of the social organism, you still haven't answered the critical question; that which we call 'moral sense,' be it a 'feeling' or derived by logic: How is it that we can derive its reality beyond that which the society makes real? -I still hold (and dhw to some degree) maintain that morals are a function of society. You have actually countered yourself already when you defended laws of Deuteronomy in one of our previous discussions, as having a basis in another purely moral concept called "health." In that post you defended anti-adulterousness, the position of being anti-sodom, (in regards to sexual preferences--both hetero and otherwise), and against the virtue of promiscuity. Your position in that thread was that of the "personal welfare," though your real target was the "common good." (Though to paraphrase Nietzsche, "common" and "good" are oxymorons.) -My point is that you appear to adhere to a rather conventional morality yourself, and the challenge of dhw and myself is such that conventional morality is exactly that which is and was delivered to you by the world in which you were raised. You praise the ancients, but also forget that the morals of ancient Greece included male rape as a consequence of war. The story of Spartan boys in the agoge as being male sexual pairs to older Citizens is partly true. The only philosophy allowed in Sparta was that of phobos. (The study of fear.)Some of the boys were subjected to the same treatment that would be expected if they were defeated in the field. -I might agree that each of us as individuals wishes to
1) Not be raped
2) Not have our wives stolen from us
3) Have liberty persist-But the fact of the matter is that without at least one other human being (or the capability to dominate many others) these 3 will be violated as a law of nature.-Morals can only exist in a society, can only persist in the same, and can only be altered by changing the society. -My open challenge to you (and anyone else) is to try and forge a strong challenge to what I just outlined above. I don't see a way or path that moral contextualism is false.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"