Does "RIGHT & WRONG" mean anything, without God or Religion?

[Lumpenproletariat]

How do you make moral judgments if there's no objective standard to prove what is "good" or "evil" or "right" or "wrong"?

For evidence that morality evolves . . .

You mean that it improves? that it gets better? What does that mean? What's better about it today, 2000 AD, than 50,000 years ago?

. . . and that religion is an (often deleterious) overlay, . . .

What's that? "deleterious"? something bad? How do you decide what is "deleterious"? Can you prove that it's "deleterious" to someone who has different feelings than yours?

. . . consider the Bible positions on any number of moral questions -- that today would be primitive and beneath even D. J. Trump:

Is it bad or wrong to be "primitive"? or "beneath" Trump? Is it right to be above and wrong to be "beneath"?

> there are no passages on slavery that condemn the practice; just the opposite, there are verses giving the faithful the right to chattel slavery, to pass the slaves down to future generations, and to beat the living hell out of them

Is it wrong that there are no such passages condemning it? Should it be condemned? Why? Is there something "wrong" or "evil" about slavery? How do you know? Are you just parroting back what you were programmed to parrot?

> death penalties for sassy teenage boys, for brides who can't demonstrate their virginity, for people working on the sabbath, for promoting a different god, for carrying on a Rudy Guiliani-style affair on one's spouse, for being gay, for touching or looking into a holy wooden box, for bitching about your monotonous diet....(catching my breath)
> genocide is portrayed as a heroic endeavor (see the entire book of Joshua), which makes bible god the most racist of deities (or maybe just hitting the standard of most tribal gods -- wouldn't want to overstate)
> rape of female war captives -- it's your right; do it

Are you saying it's NOT your right? or was not? How do you decide what is your right? Are you making moral judgments about the above items in your list? condemning those practices? saying there's something wrong about murder, racism, and rape? How have you decided these are wrong or bad?

> eternal suffering (as the prince o' peace puts it, the wailing and gnashing of teeth) for anyone who didn't catch the correct dogma within a microsecond of expiring -- note the eternal, which means this moral teaching prescribes torment with no possible redeeming or transformative value...

What do you mean by "redeeming or transformative value"? Is that something good? How do you know? Why do you think it's good? If someone said those are bad rather than good, would they be wrong?

I just realized that my final example is actually not considered primitive by most Christians today -- it's the norm. That's one that will have to evolve, although, because it's imaginary, it will be pointless in the end. People reject it when they conclude that deities are imaginary (although of course it did have real-world consequences when tribunals of the Dark Ages were torturing and executing heretics with the pretense of sparing them the hellfire.)

Were those consequences good or bad? Was it wrong for them to torture and execute the heretics?

Is "pretense" wrong?

What is your judgmentalism based on? Is there a standard or rule for good and bad behavior which entitles you to condemn the above and pass judgment on those who think or feel differently than you and thus do (or did) these things you're condemning here?

 

[bilby]

You mean that it improves? that it gets better? What does that mean? What's better about it today, 2000 AD, than 50,000 years ago?

. . . and that religion is an (often deleterious) overlay, . . .

What's that? "deleterious"? something bad? How do you decide what is "deleterious"? Can you prove that it's "deleterious" to someone who has different feelings than yours?

. . . consider the Bible positions on any number of moral questions -- that today would be primitive and beneath even D. J. Trump:

Is it bad or wrong to be "primitive"? or "beneath" Trump? Is it right to be above and wrong to be "beneath"?

> there are no passages on slavery that condemn the practice; just the opposite, there are verses giving the faithful the right to chattel slavery, to pass the slaves down to future generations, and to beat the living hell out of them

Is it wrong that there are no such passages condemning it? Should it be condemned? Why? Is there something "wrong" or "evil" about slavery? How do you know? Are you just parroting back what you were programmed to parrot?

> death penalties for sassy teenage boys, for brides who can't demonstrate their virginity, for people working on the sabbath, for promoting a different god, for carrying on a Rudy Guiliani-style affair on one's spouse, for being gay, for touching or looking into a holy wooden box, for bitching about your monotonous diet....(catching my breath)
> genocide is portrayed as a heroic endeavor (see the entire book of Joshua), which makes bible god the most racist of deities (or maybe just hitting the standard of most tribal gods -- wouldn't want to overstate)
> rape of female war captives -- it's your right; do it

Are you saying it's NOT your right? or was not? How do you decide what is your right? Are you making moral judgments about the above items in your list? condemning those practices? saying there's something wrong about murder, racism, and rape? How have you decided these are wrong or bad?

> eternal suffering (as the prince o' peace puts it, the wailing and gnashing of teeth) for anyone who didn't catch the correct dogma within a microsecond of expiring -- note the eternal, which means this moral teaching prescribes torment with no possible redeeming or transformative value...

What do you mean by "redeeming or transformative value"? Is that something good? How do you know? Why do you think it's good? If someone said those are bad rather than good, would they be wrong?

I just realized that my final example is actually not considered primitive by most Christians today -- it's the norm. That's one that will have to evolve, although, because it's imaginary, it will be pointless in the end. People reject it when they conclude that deities are imaginary (although of course it did have real-world consequences when tribunals of the Dark Ages were torturing and executing heretics with the pretense of sparing them the hellfire.)

Were those consequences good or bad? Was it wrong for them to torture and execute the heretics?

Is "pretense" wrong?

What is your judgmentalism based on? Is there a standard or rule for good and bad behavior which entitles you to condemn the above and pass judgment on those who think or feel differently than you and thus do (or did) these things you're condemning here?

I know you think you are asking clever questions that point out the flaws in ideologyhunter's argument; but you are really not.

Morality is determined by culture. It should go without saying that people subscribe to the morality of the culture in which they are raised. Ideologyhunter is not saying that slavery is objectively wrong. He is saying that we all agree that it is - because we are all a part of a 21st Century developed world culture in which that is one of the tenets.

If you had a time machine and travelled back to the 1st Century Middle East, you would find that everyone there would think you were an evil person if you went about freeing other men's slaves. You would be considered to be stealing their lawful property.

Your objection is based on your failure to believe that people disagree with you. This is particularly ironic in this context.

That morality is subjective does NOT imply that people from similar circumstances disagree about it.

You and Ideologyhunter agree on what is moral, because you share a culture. NOT because you both base your morality on some mythical objective set of rules.

Morality does evolve. That you think this means 'improve' just indicates that your grasp of evolution is as woeful as your grasp of the origins of morality, and your grasp of economics. In all of these areas you demonstrate a disinclination to accept the existence of complexity, and a tendency to build long winded but repetitive arguments.

A good argument recognises that reality is rarely simple; but a good argument is nevertheless brief. Your arguments are the exact reverse of this principle.

 

[DBT]

Are you making moral judgments about the above items in your list? condemning those practices? saying there's something wrong about murder, racism, and rape? How have you decided these are wrong or bad?

Isn't there something said about that in the bible? One the one hand condemning these things but on the other hand, condoning them when it suits the wants and needs of the tribe of Israel. Just one example of the contradictions to be found in the bible.

 

[funinspace]

Did the people who captured those planes and flew them into building on 9/11 think it wrong? In the below Gallup sponsored poll, 7% of Muslims felt the 911 attack was "completely justified":
http://twocircles.net/2008feb26/pol..._radicals_muslim_world_poll.html#.WBNUTPkrKUk

They were wrong. It was not justified. Just because someone believes it doesn't make it so. Same as with scientific / historical facts. Whether they thought Lincoln was the first president or they thought it was right to fly the plane into the building. Both equally wrong.

And what if 9/11 stops the United States from starting another war in the future which would have otherwise have killed 500,000 Muslims? Would that make it right?

Is a US pilot dropping 60,000 pounds in 108 bombs from 20,000 feet upon a country on the other side of the world, evil? How many Americans would agree? How many Vietnamese would agree?

A similar number were killed in Korea. But millions of Koreans today are better off than they would be if we hadn't done it. It is difficult to weigh all the good vs. bad consequences, but that doesn't mean we can't know what's right/wrong in many cases. It was probably best to drop the big one on Japan, to end the war and save more lives overall. There can be disagreement, but that doesn't mean there's no true answer. Just because it's difficult to calculate the correct answer doesn't mean there is no correct answer.

And what if 9/11 stops the United States from starting another war in the future which would have otherwise have killed 500,000 Muslims? I noticed that you refrained from stating whether US pilot’s actions over Vietnam were evil or not. Work on those true answers…

There is an objective standard. It's because there's an objective standard that everyone agrees. The agreement is based upon the objective standard.

There is nothing that "everyone" agrees about regarding right/wrong.

Yes there is. I.e., 99% or 99.9%. That's a sufficiently-close approximation to "everyone" for this purpose.

Anyway, as you think that "there's an objective standard that everyone agrees" to, then please show us a copy of it. Shouldn't be hard at all in the modern electronic information age. I'll keep asking you this now, until you either retract you silly declaration, or until you discover the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Likewise, murder is not wrong because people believe it's wrong -- rather, people believe it's wrong because it is wrong.

Try defining some that appears to be as concrete as one can get, aka murder, so that even 98% of the people would agree with the definition, and find out just how porous your idea of objective standards are.

OK, so let's abolish all the courts and the criminal justice system and prisons and police. When you agree to that, then you can claim there is no objective standard to criminal prosecutions and punishments.

I’ve noticed that you have quite the habit of thinking about issues in binary terms; and then trying to force the person debating you into adopting your hypothetical opposite binary position. It would be like someone being silly enough to argue that since one does not worship their God, then they must worship Satan. Kind of silly isn’t it? Nothing in my comments, or I dare say any comments by others on this thread, have suggested that there are no ethical standards by which we naturally socializing humans organize ourselves. To argue against the notion of the existence of a definable objective ethical standard set, does nothing to negate belief in subjective ethical standards as established by society.

 

[Underseer]

Right and wrong doesn't mean anything with religion.

There Euthyphro dilemma showed thousands of years ago that authority-based moral systems produce morals that are so arbitrary as to render them meaningless, and once the followers of that authority decide that something evil is good, no amount of persuasion can convince them otherwise. The increasingly violent and evil conservative Christians in America are a perfect example.

 

[bilby]

 

[Treedbear]

^

 

[Treedbear]

...
When you say it's good or it would be right or wrong, you don't just mean your own personal feelings about it. You mean that even if you didn't exist, it would be good or bad or right or wrong.

Suppose you say about something that's going to happen tomorrow, "That will be good," but then you suddenly die that night. Isn't it still the case that it will be "good" anyway, even though you

Morality is an evolving cultural adaptation to promote the survival of the species. So ultimately its principles are derived from what is good for humanity. That is partially dependent on what's good for the individual. Self-interest = good, selfishness = bad. What is good for humanity supersedes what's good for any particular individual. So, as I see it, the objective good and bad is what is good and bad for humanity as a whole. From there on in you're on your own.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Right/wrong is not subjective like one's personal taste for music or entertainment or favorite flavor.

Our understanding that crimes cause harm and should be prevented is a premise upon which criminal prosecutions are based. Likewise damage lawsuits. It has to be proved that harm took place in these cases, so evidence is presented to demonstrate the harm done, i.e., the "evil" perpetrated against someone who was victimized. But if "evil" cannot be proved, then there is no basis for ever prosecuting criminals or holding lawsuit trials.

Wrong.

Humans create laws. they're subjective.

No, not everything we "create" is subjective. Most laws are created for a practical purpose, to achieve a good result for society. Like a robot is created to serve a purpose.

They list behaviors we condone or prohibit.

But we condone or prohibit them for reasons. We are driven by objective reality to prohibit certain behaviors and not others. To produce certain desired outcomes which can be objectively measured, though often with difficulty. The difficulty-ness of it does not make it "subjective" anymore than the difficulty-ness of getting the right result with a robot or other device.

But they can change, because that's subjective.

If a law is changed it's done for a reason, based on objective reality. It's not "subjective" just because something changes. Change is "objective." Don't we give reasons for making changes? just like we give reasons to believe that something happened? What happened is objective, but our belief about what happened can change. That change doesn't turn the events into something subjective.

Human laws once protected the rights of slave owners.

Most of those laws were wrong. Maybe all of them. It's difficult to say for sure. Just because it's difficult to judge in every case does not mean it's "subjective."

Some beliefs also were wrong. Like the flat earth. And likewise some laws or practices were wrong.

Is military conscription a form of "slavery"? There have been times when it was probably necessary. It's not easy to distinguish between "slavery" and military conscription, except that the latter is not as bad, usually. But the same evil in a more limited form is still evil. And actually, some forms of military conscription historically were even worse than some cases of slavery. Some of the Greek and Roman slaves had a better life than many of the free people.

If slavery is objectively wrong, then comparing that to the human legal system is a doomed premise.

No, the legal system tries to prevent evil from happening, i.e., events which would be objectively bad, and slavery is objectively bad and should be prevented.

None of this is objective.

It's all objective. The only reason to call it "subjective" is that it's difficult to get perfect results, or it's complicated, and confusing, and flawed in many ways, but that's also true about objective reality. It's not "subjective" just because it's difficult and complicated and confusing and flawed.

We try to establish in court that what we define as harm was committed, . . .

Yes, and the definition is objective. It's about objective measurable empirical facts. Which gets complicated, but still it's objective.

. . . and we also place a value on the intentions of the perpetrator, which we try to establish in court. That's why there are so many different words for 'taking a human life' in our legal system.

All you're saying is that it gets complicated, and difficult to determine the intention. The intentions matter because we're trying to prevent future crimes from happening, and the intentions/motives are a factor which causes the crime to happen. The point is to prevent the future crimes, or produce a desired outcome, which is measurable and empirical and objective.

If taking a human life was objectively wrong, then intent would not matter, . . .

It IS objectively wrong, and intent DOES matter. If you kill accidentally, not intending to, the penalty should be less, for a practical reason, based on desired outcomes which are measurable. The intent makes it worse because it increases the chance of more killings in the future. Punishing the intent results in greater deterrence and thus prevention of future killings.

. . . and we would not treat murder, manslaughter, self-defense, accidents, cops at a crime, and soldiers at war differently when examining their actions.

Yes we would. An objective purpose is served by treating these differently, i.e., we get better results.

So, try again? Can you provide positive evidence that good and evil are objective qualities?

What makes them objective is that we demand agreement rather than leaving it to individual choice.

If someone suggests allowing torture as a form of entertainment, or slavery to get work done, we insist that this is wrong and should not be done.

Whereas something "subjective," such as one's taste for music or art or literature, is left to individual free choice. We don't argue with someone who has a different taste for music (unless the music contains dangerous lyrics or in some other way would cause harm).

If we use reason to change someone's mind, or force to change their behavior, then it's objective truth or objective right/wrong or good/evil.

If they prefer torture for entertainment, they're "wrong" and we have to correct them or prevent them, whereas if they prefer soccer to baseball, they are not "wrong" and we don't need to correct them (even though only a retard would prefer soccer to baseball).

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

It's not pointless. (Though you could argue that message boards like this are pointless, because all this arguing serves no practical purpose.)

By 'pointless rehashing' i refer to your throwing up logical fallacies, and using the same fallacy again after it's been identified as a fallacy. False dichotomy, argument from consequences, shifting the burden of proof...
Hundreds of pages of fallacies and repeated falsehoods is pointless rehashing, Lumpy.

Then why do you keep doing it? It's not pointless -- it's fun. I think I'm winning, you think you're winning -- so we're both happy, and staying out of mischief.

 

[DBT]

Faith is not ''winning,'' faith is a belief held without justification.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The "cultural norm" for a society can be wrong. Because society "says so" is not what makes it right/wrong.

Prove that it's objectively wrong to, say, burn down a black community's church.

Of course it can be proved. In the same sense that "Washington was the first President" can be proved.

There is pain to the owners or members, and there is no benefit to anyone else which possibly equals the amount of pain, or which can offset that pain.

If there is a sadistic craving by the perpetrators, who gain a pleasure, this is less than the loss of pleasure to all those who are harmed.

Anyone who disagrees and thinks it's good to commit such an act must believe that the total pleasure to be gained by someone is greater than the suffering inflicted onto the victims. Or that the pleasure gained by some is greater than that which is lost by the victims.

This is still based on the subjective axiom that inflicting suffering is morally wrong.

What's wrong with that axiom? Is "morally wrong" a meaningless term? If inflicting suffering per se isn't "morally wrong," then what's an example of something that IS "morally wrong"?

Morality is a matter of consensus. Something is morally wrong if society says so.

No, society can be wrong. Just as an individual can be wrong.

Different societies draw the lines in different places; different groups within a society may have differing morals.

Some of them are right and some of them are wrong. They're not all automatically right. The Nazi society was wrong about a few things, wasn't it? And some primitive societies were wrong to perform human sacrifices.

The Bible makes it very clear that slavery is not morally wrong, as long as it is done by the book.

No it does not make that clear.

The US Government made it very clear that slavery is morally wrong, and even fought a war to prevent the secession of those states that didn't agree.

The North was right about this. But it was arguably wrong on some other disagreements with the South. In most wars it's not easy to judge which side was right. It's often difficult, but that doesn't mean that right and wrong are based simply on what a certain society chooses. It could make the wrong choice. In some wars, one side was right and the other side wrong.

Whether you agree with the Bible or the US Government is a function of which of those authorities you prefer.

And the choice could be a wrong choice. There's no one "authority" that is right every time. Any authority you can name is wrong some of the time, no matter how revered.

Choose wisely though, because society will not hesitate to use force to impose its values on you.

In some cases it should. I.e., if those are good values that ought to be upheld. But in other cases those values may be wrong, and that society might be wrong to have those values or try to impose them.

A person who helps escaped slaves in the ante-bellum South, and a person who keeps slaves in the modern USA both risk arrest and incarceration (or worse).

The former was right (in most cases), and the latter is wrong. It was wrong to punish those who helped slaves escape (unless they committed murder), and it is right to punish a slave-holder today. Just because the society at the time did this or that does make it right. In some cases they were wrong.

The phrase "X is morally wrong" means "X is morally wrong in my current society and culture";

No it does not. If your current society tortures people for entertainment or runs slave colonies, it is morally wrong. What the "current society and culture" practices does not define what is morally right/wrong.

. . . the qualifiers are usually dropped for the sake of brevity.

No, "in my current society and culture" is not part of the meaning of "morally right/wrong" and for that reason is omitted -- not for brevity.

People with a narrow worldview could easily mistake their cultural norms for universal truths;

That's the mistake you make when you proclaim: The phrase "X is morally wrong" means "X is morally wrong in my current society and culture."

This pontification is not the grand universal truth you imagine. It's also a cultural norm you have absorbed which only pretends to explain what "X is morally wrong" means, and presumes to psycho-analyze those who say "X is morally wrong," which you are not qualified to do.

. . . but that's just shortsightedness. Those people should get out more and find out about the world outside their own heads.

When you follow this advice and find out more, you will learn that there are evils in the world which are condoned by societies, and this does not change those evils into something good. Those societies can be wrong in some cases, even if the wrong is the cultural norm for the society.

And you are giving them an excuse to not change, but to continue their harmful practices by just saying, "It's our cultural norm, you bigot!"

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

If inflicting unnecessary suffering is not evil, then "suffering" is not a real word and should not be in the dictionary.

What's wrong with that axiom? Is "morally wrong" a meaningless term? If inflicting suffering per se isn't "morally wrong," then what's an example of something that IS "morally wrong"?

The problem is that it is a subjective belief.

No. The following is not a "subjective belief" but a true statement:

Inflicting suffering (that produces no benefit) is morally wrong.

Saying this is no more "subjective" than saying 2 + 2 = 4.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

It's good to reduce pain. Less pain = good, more pain = evil.

Rather than being an ''objective measurement of pain'' you are describing felt pain and verbal report. Pain itself is a subjective sensation/experience.

It's both. It's "subjective" sensation/experience, but is also objectively measurable.

It's just something DIFFICULT to measure. The feeling of it is experienced by only one person.

But it's there as an event which can be detected, like subatomic particles, except maybe even more difficult to identify exactly. But still it's there.

And it's evil (i.e., the pain per se, in and of itself) and should be reduced as much as possible. We can make decisions, or take actions, regarding pain, just as we act or make decisions regarding "other minds" even though we can't "PROVE" that other minds exist.

Yet it's morally right to reduce the pain, and morally wrong to cause unnecessary pain, and this is not just a cultural norm but a fact of the universe.

 

[Lion IRC]

View attachment 8614

God did ban slavery.
Taking people's labour without paying is theft.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

"Suffering/pain = evil" is true just like "2 + 2 = 4" is true.

And the fact that pain/suffering exists does NOT mean we have an objective standard to say that suffering is always bad.

But if suffering (that produces no benefit) is not bad, then nothing is bad and the word "bad" should not exist. How's your crusade to eliminate the words "bad" and "evil" from the dictionary coming along?

If your argument boils down to eliminating a word from our vocabulary, then that per se proves you're wrong.

 

[Lion IRC]

Premise - Slave owners are greedy
Premise - The bible condemns greed (root of all evil)
Conclusion - Slavery is condemned by the bible (evil.)

 

[bilby]

Premise - Slave owners are greedy
Premise - The bible condemns greed (root of all evil)
Conclusion - Slavery is condemned by the bible (evil.)

Observation - the Bible includes extensive rules on how to properly treat (and exactly how much one may lawfully beat) slaves.

Conclusion - The Bible says that it is proper to keep slaves, as long as you do it by the book.

Observation - Bible fans in an age where slavery is no longer acceptable will deny the plain text of their book until they are blue in the face, before they ever admit that it describes a morality that is no longer acceptable.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Add up the total pleasure/pain/suffering, plug in the numbers, crank it out.

If there are 50 Muslims who habitually worship at a place in the heart of a metropolis where 2 million Christians believe it is in the best interest of everyone for them to destroy the place these people worship, does the self-righteous pleasure of 2 million Christians effecting the destruction of what they perceive to be an abomination outweigh the loss suffered from 50 Muslims? I'm just curious about how this Lumpenproletariat-math works.

Without any doubt you believe that the total net harm caused by the place being destroyed would be greater than the benefit.

You've already done the calculation, figuring in ALL those impacted far into the future, and you've decided that the total suffering/pain would exceed the benefit, factoring in everyone who experiences pleasure or pain as a result.

 

[bilby]

If there are 50 Muslims who habitually worship at a place in the heart of a metropolis where 2 million Christians believe it is in the best interest of everyone for them to destroy the place these people worship, does the self-righteous pleasure of 2 million Christians effecting the destruction of what they perceive to be an abomination outweigh the loss suffered from 50 Muslims? I'm just curious about how this Lumpenproletariat-math works.

Without any doubt you believe that the total net harm caused by the place being destroyed would be greater than the benefit.

You've already done the calculation, figuring in ALL those impacted far into the future, and you've decided that the total suffering/pain would exceed the benefit, factoring in everyone who experiences pleasure or pain as a result.

So you are saying that all we need, in order to reach an undeniable decision on whether something is right or wrong, is to know what harm is caused, and what benefits result?