What is Morality?

[Flash2024]

I gave up long ago trying to argue or debate faith.

[Crazy Anglican]

Do I imply only Christians are hypocrites? God no, plenty of those everywhere. MAGA and Christianity--well, pardon but the Right Nationalist Christians are the most vocal. I grew up in an Anglican Washington DC church back in the 60s and 70s (St Stephens of the Incarnate) which was a march and protest liberal flock. I sure wish I heard more from this type. But I don't.

You're hearing from one now. Anglican and everything (Church of the Advent- growing up). IT occurred to me after I wrote that about MAGA not being synonymous with Christians that the only two people in my immediate family who support Trump are my daughter and son-in-law (Muslim and agnostic respectively). The Christians in the family detest him to the point that my son and I had a political wishlist of MAGA republicans to defeat in the midterm (the state succeeded in ousting nine out of the ten that Trump endorsed including a beloved football star from years past.

[Crazy Anglican]

Now that alone doesn't mean anything about the percentage of Christians supporting Trump. What it does say is that maybe your stereotype of Christians is a little bit inaccurate? You're basically making a blanket statement about people's political opinions based on their religious beliefs. That can be troublesome as lots of atheists are fond of pointing out that we don't seem to agree on lots of doctrinal stuff, why would you assume we agree on politics?

[Crazy Anglican]

I'm not going to argue pros and cons of religion with someone named Crazy Anglican.

I gave up long ago trying to argue or debate faith.

Judging from the post that I responded to. Aren't you basically saying you want to badmouth my faith and that I shouldn' t defend it?

If you want to back out bud, that's fine. You were the one that came in with a bunch of derogatory remarks though. If you want to be civil. I'm okay with that.

But you're going to have to be civil to achieve that.

[Crazy Anglican]

As far as the embracing Christianity quote... that is fact. Sure, it is to make a point, as most facts are.

No it isn't. It's the fallacy of omnipotence. You don't embrace Christianity yourself, but you somehow know why Christians do. It's a basic strawman argument. Notice this whole time. I haven't imposed one thought one you that I expected you to defend as if it were your own, but you cannot be bothered with asking an actual Christian why she embraces Christianity?

[Crazy Anglican]

Okay, Let’s recap

I am a god.
I guess I have as much right to argue that as anyone who is a believer in Christianity has to argue that a man, perhaps born 2000 years or so ago, is one.

Clearly aimed at Christians, right?

Why is Christianity so prevalent? It is the religion of the winners, the colonizers. And there was a whole hell of a lot of colonization going on over the centuries. A good way to keep the poor in line and a good way to subjugate others, including women--starting with Exodus "thy husband shall rule over thee" to early Christian (Male) leaders sidelining women into subservient roles.
So why is Christianity so prevalent? It was forced onto many, and many saw it as the religion of the winners/colonizers/powerful and adopted it to try to benefit from it. Others, say "vikings" saw the Christian god as more powerful in battle. Hell, even Constantine supposedly converted after the Battle of Milvian Bridge, when he believed God gave him victory in a battle. And there goes the whole Eastern Roman civilization, and then later the Holy Roman Empire, etc etc.

Also clearly aimed at Christians.

So the is this the source of Christian morality? Don't fool yourself. I'd rather not look back at biblical and Christian history for my moral compass. Yes, we westerners share Judeo-Christian values and mores. And yes, Christ's teachings in many ways are wonderful (too bad most Christians don't really believe or follow them--MAGA and Southern Baptists, for example?). It is easy to say my morals are such and such. Most of the time it is just words uttered by hypocrites as regards Christ and His words as passed down by the disciples (what proof do we have these are Christ's words, anyway?)

Likewise clearly aimed at Christians.

And morals are not universal. There are societies who happily cannibalized, happily performed ritual human sacrifice. Some of us believe in abortion, some think a woman should die before doing so (and make laws to enforce this). Many in the US believed miscegenation was immoral. Some people now equate being gay with bestiality (Christians, again?). Don't be provincial and equate your views with others due to YOUR beliefs. I think a half billion Buddhists and a billion Hindus may disagree. Let alone the remaining animists and us good ol' atheists and agnostics. And natural scientists.

Wait! Starts actually taking about the OP, nope can’t keep it up ends up aimed a Christians.

I gave up long ago trying to argue or debate faith.

I think we have evidence to take this with a grain of salt.

I'm not going to argue pros and cons of religion with someone named Crazy Anglican.

That’s funny because we were talking about different views on the sources of morality until you came along and brought up the pro and cons of religion…. Again.


I mean if look back and actually read what I've said. You won't find a single assertion that my choices are any better than anyone else's. I won't for an instant allow you to assert that mine are inferior to yours without a defending myself and my faith.

Basically if you don't want to have a religious debate, you could stop attacking religion.

[CaptainFritz28]

I'm not going to argue pros and cons of religion with someone named Crazy Anglican.

And why should I argue the objectivity or relativity of morals with someone named Flash2024?

[CaptainFritz28]

I would like to denote, Flash, that if there is no objective standard of morality, then the world is entirely anarchist. If you make morality about what society agrees on, what you personally want to do, or anything based on humans, you end up with the conclusion that for the Nazis, what they did was perfectly moral. Same with the Communists, and terrorists, and anyone else you think has done anything morally wrong. You mentioned all the bad things people have done in the name of Christianity or used Christianity for as evil, but if I understand you correctly, you can't call anything they did right or wrong, because they might just have different morals correctly.

I suppose my point is to ask the question - are you seriously claiming that morality is subjective? If so, then you cannot say that anything that anyone has ever done is good or bad, because for them it may have been the opposite of what it is to you.

[Crazy Anglican]

I'm not going to argue pros and cons of religion with someone named Crazy Anglican.

And why should I argue the objectivity or relativity of morals with someone named Flash2024?

lol, or Capt. Fritz for that matter? Why should I talk seriously with someone named Capt. Fritz? I mean MajorMitchell outranks him, let’s go above his head

[Flash2024]

I was discussing the origins of morality. You seem to have a Christian chip on your shoulder

[Flash2024]

And by the standards of western morality, obviously the Nazis were immoral. And I suspect they (like many MAGAs) knew exactly what they advocated was immoral..but continued due to power lust. Don't confuse relativism with plain evil.

[Flash2024]

Ah since personality is being brought into what seemed to be an interesting theoretical discussion, I've got better things to do. Good talking to you. Time to go to work

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

And by the standards of western morality, obviously the Nazis were immoral. And I suspect they (like many MAGAs) knew exactly what they advocated was immoral..but continued due to power lust. Don't confuse relativism with plain evil.

I know you're trying to leave the conversation, but this is fascinating to me and these are points I wish other relativists would pick up.

Are Nazis really only bad because we think so today? If I hung out exclusively with skinheads, would it be reasonable for me to say that Nazism was actually good? In that case, is my opinion of the moral worth of Nazism just as valid as the one formed by the family of a holocaust victim?

How could the Nazis have knowingly been immoral, if morality is just defined by whatever a group (of what size?) believes to be moral? What moral standard are they comparing themselves to in this case?

I don't necessarily agree with the Christians about why relativism is evil, but I share their suspicion that any approach to morality that gives moral ascent to whatever customs or norms a group establishes will invariably justify genuine evil.

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

And by the standards of western morality, obviously the Nazis were immoral. And I suspect they (like many MAGAs) knew exactly what they advocated was immoral..but continued due to power lust. Don't confuse relativism with plain evil.

I know I am in the same boat as you when it comes to moral relativism, but how would you know what is evil?
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Your morals?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

And by the standards of western morality, obviously the Nazis were immoral. And I suspect they (like many MAGAs) knew exactly what they advocated was immoral..but continued due to power lust. Don't confuse relativism with plain evil.

I know I am in the same boat as you when it comes to moral relativism, but how would you know what is evil?
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Your morals?

Or there is really such a thing as morality and, even though we can't know it perfectly, we don't need to pretend to be confused about it in extreme cases like Nazism.

We've evolved a capacity to suffer, we know suffering more intimately than we know any other fact about the universe, and it might just be the case that more suffering is "bad" relative to less suffering. A reasonable person can make arguments to suggest that there is not enough "good" from Nazism to counteract the suffering it causes. A hardcore skinhead who thinks that an all-white utopia is worth the suffering Nazism causes gets to make their argument too, but I don't feel obliged to say their argument is just as convincing as the alternatives.

Maybe there might be other moral universals that are built into our evolved nature. These aren't "objective" in the sense that they could be changed with a widespread human gene-editing program. And yet there are concepts of fairness, respect for bodily autonomy, etc. that seem to be human universals and are even shared by other great apes and some other mammals. Natural selection really does seem to create "moral" animals in some social species - e.g., every human society punishes free riders and psychopaths while rewarding altruism.

Another potential source of non-relativistic morality might be something like the logic to the Golden Rule, which is genuinely convincing in a manner that is not totally unlike a mathematical proof. It really is the case that, if I'm not special (which is an empirical claim that seems to be true) and I want you to give me moral consideration, then I can't logically withhold that same consideration for you.

None of these views seems like a perfectly complete vision of morality and each requires suppositions you might not be willing to make. But if any of these contains even a partial Truth about morality then it gives us a place to judge Nazism without having to say "well they thought it was wrong, but they thought it was right, and there's no way to know".

[Hanging Rook]

I know you're trying to leave the conversation, but this is fascinating to me and these are points I wish other relativists would pick up.

I am not a complete relativist, but rather think there is no final criteria or rather don‘t know any criteria to determine that something is objectively true. But some ideas, views are useful, in the sense that they give those that hold them an technological/evolutionary/posperity/military etc. advantage, so others either voluntarily adopt them or are replaced or marginalized. There can always be better yet unexplored ideas or the right time for some ideas, we likely never know and I don’t think there ever will be a final end to this struggle.

I do think democracy, liberalism and free markets are among best concepts out there as it allows the individuals to participate in this strudle and for non violent replacement of ideas.- Collectivists of all colors, piss off!

Arguably Christianity did best in this regard among the religions in the recent past.

[Flash2024]

OK, one more. A good point, Will. Again, evil because they knew what they were doing (I'm talking about the leaders, not a lot of the sheep) was immoral. If a society, outside of Western norms, say a hypothetical mythical historical Teutonic society, acted this way toward "outsiders", the "other", within their (admittedly screwed up from our perspective) religious/moral system--would it be morally wrong? Not for them, I guess. It is hard to place oneself so far out of bounds of our belief systems to try to comprehend that. Because we are are colored by our belief systems.
But I know a bunch of skinheads hanging out on the corner then beating the crap out of an Asian at least suspect they are in the wrong, and revel in that aspect of what they do. Microsocieties like that may be in a strange gray zone, as were fanatic burgermeisters in 1934 Germany (and many MAGAs today) who parrot slogans and actions they think are acceptable due to their leaders' saying that is acceptable--even if the leaders know it is not. Why do they follow? Fear, greed--many reasons.
I grew up as a cultural relativist--back in the earlier days of social anthropology, that was all the rage. It has obviously been to some degree discredited--say an anthropologist in 1930 witnessed a sacrifice--are they supposed to step in and try to stop it, or document it? And what about a modern social scientist in the same position? I suspect they would differ. (as an aside, I wonder if there has been a Far Side covering that scenario?)
Remember, too, Esquire, that although there are dangers of relativism (and remember this whole argument was new to me 3 days ago and I am winging it), there are real real dangers of absolutism as well. Absolutism can breed intolerance. If I do believe in an absolute morality, and I encounter a new society or peoples who do not share it, are they wrong? Should they be punished? What if these peoples live within our own society? For me it is perhaps immoral to hit a child. For others, it is may not only be routine, but a sign of good parenting. What if I burn a bible? Certainly it is my right (but very very impolite). But then a pastor burns a Quran.
The point is I don't really know. AND LIKE MOST THINGS IN LIFE--there are really no definite answers. Hence philosophical debate. Probably, there is some middle ground (ah but then is that relativistic? Or is there being a middle ground, a grey area to all this, an absolute?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I know you're trying to leave the conversation, but this is fascinating to me and these are points I wish other relativists would pick up.

I am not a complete relativist, but rather think there is no final criteria or rather don‘t know any criteria to determine that something is objectively true. But some ideas, views are useful, in the sense that they give those that hold them an technological/evolutionary/posperity/military etc. advantage, so others either voluntarily adopt them or are replaced or marginalized. There can always be better yet unexplored ideas or the right time for some ideas, we likely never know and I don’t think there ever will be a final end to this struggle.

I do think democracy, liberalism and free markets are among best concepts out there as it allows the individuals to participate in this strudle and for non violent replacement of ideas.- Collectivists of all colors, piss off!

Arguably Christianity did best in this regard among the religions in the recent past.

I share this view and would not call it relativistic.

The only way you could reasonably assess whether a view is more "useful" than another is against a standard. No one can claim to know perfectly what the standard is, but I still think it's reasonable to make conditional judgments regardless.

I can't say exactly why murdering my neighbour in cold blood is actually "bad", nor why helping them clean their eavestrough is "good", but I don't feel paralyzed about which of these actions would be a "better" way to spend my evening. And I don't think the rightness or wrongness of my choice here is just a matter dependent on what I think or what my culture promotes.

[CaptainFritz28]

I'm not going to argue pros and cons of religion with someone named Crazy Anglican.

And why should I argue the objectivity or relativity of morals with someone named Flash2024?

lol, or Capt. Fritz for that matter? Why should I talk seriously with someone named Capt. Fritz? I mean MajorMitchell outranks him, let’s go above his head

Not in the navy, he doesn't! :D

But yeah that's my point. We all have silly usernames, so why should they have any bearing on our argumentation?

[CaptainFritz28]

Ah since personality is being brought into what seemed to be an interesting theoretical discussion, I've got better things to do. Good talking to you. Time to go to work

If you are referring to my post... you'll note that I was replying to a post in which you brought up personality, and I was satirizing it.