Atheism and morality (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, October 23, 2010, 11:29 (5123 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Tony wrote: "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." I too see this as the basis of morality, which comes into play when one person's liberty impinges on that of others. -TONY: But society's moral compunction rarely, if ever, stops at the point where my liberty affects yours.-My apologies, but I don't understand what you mean, unless you're referring to authority's abuse of power ... which is a problem inherent in our social structure, but not in the evolution of the moral codes I referred to in my last post. In particular, I don't understand how this relates to the main point of our discussion: you dismissed the argument that a societal consensus can define something 'right or wrong' as "total rubbish". Your counter to that is that "there does exist a 'right/wrong'", and it lies "in a person's heart". You have now stated categorically: 1) that morality can only exist "in context of the interaction of living beings", and 2) "that does not mean that societies morality is right or wrong."-Matt and I have repeatedly pointed out that there is no such thing as objective right or wrong, and all we have is a societal consensus. Unless you believe that what is in a person's heart is OBJECTIVE (which is a contradiction in terms), you would therefore seem to be in agreement with us. In my post to you on 20 October at 16.42 I wondered if I had misunderstood your original statements, or you had not said quite what you meant. I asked you to tell us whether or not you agreed with Matt's summary, and if not, why not. He wrote: "[...] our moral sense is developed by (and only by) our contact with other people. And the culture we live in is what determines 'right' or 'wrong', even though no objective 'right' or 'wrong' exists." -Let me repeat the request. It may well be that a direct response will wrap this whole discussion up.