Scott Alexander … claimed that many theists would change their mind if you could convince them on a gut-level that there could exist a godless moral world.
I guess I, and apatheists in general, are exceptions to this prediction, for while I personally am a theistic apatheist—and of the polytheist variety at that --, I don’t believe morality depends on divine will, be it either that of an absolute god, or that of a pantheon of gods. Reality, as I understand it, is essentially amoral, with morals being features we mortals add to it. Hence, my view is essentially similar to that of a godless moral world, except it has gods in it (or, more precisely, transcendent to it).
I would be grateful if someone could give me not only reasons why and how there can be a morality without God, but also arguments that could speak to my gut-level.
An usual approach is to find morality as a distillation from natural impulses filtered through high level cognition.
Dr. Larry Arnhardt, author of a number of books merging classic philosophy, classic liberalism, and evolutionary biology, identify 20 natural desires in human nature, all evolved through natural selection, which determine how humans interact with the world. Each one of those can be thought of a different axis along which uses and customs (a.k.a mores, from which “morals” and “morality”) develop; then are reasoned about, leading to the development of formal moral codes, to different ethical system, and to meta-ethical frameworks, through so many abstraction layers.
Different individuals hierarchize those desires differently, and different societies also have their own hierarchies for them, their members aligning or not with their societies’ hierarchy. One of those desires is “religious understanding”, so it isn’t really surprising that so many societies, and individuals, seek to interpret the entire set of desires, the uses and customs surrounding each one, and their corresponding abstractions, in terms of, and as part of, a religious understanding, which is, I venture, where the notion of morality sourced in divine design finds its root.
Notice, on the other hand, that “intellectual understanding” is also an evolved desire, so it isn’t surprising those who place it at the top of their hierarchy of desires will see things in non-religious terms. Or maybe, if both religious and intellectual understanding are at the top, from an intellectually-rich theological perspective.
In fact, we can notice the interplay between the 20 desires diversely hierarchized in the Christian Bible itself, as it provides not one, but at least four distinct moral codes:
The way God himself behaves as the basis of imitatio dei;
The commandments of God to the Hebrews;
The commandments of God to the Christians;
The way Christians are described acting in the afterlife.
There’s some minimal overlapping between these four moral codes, but on the whole they oppose each other. And one can disagree and criticize them either from a moral perspective based on none of the four, or from one based on a subset of one of those complemented by reasons outside all four.
Hence, if morality were to be of divine origin, then either only the minimalist set of behaviors at the intersection of all customs of all human societies in all times and places counts as the one spark of divinity amidst humanity, or, conversely, the maximalist set of the entire multidimensional ethics-space comprised of the full 20 axes counts. Anything in between would seem, at best, arbitrary, leading to a discussion about which meta-ethical decision making process is of divine origin, and which isn’t etc.
Myself, I have my own ethical framework, which is a combination of Virtue Ethics with a Consequentialism based not on utilitarian criteria, but on the preservation of information. Taking the four Biblical moral codes, it intersects with a subset of the commandments given to the Christians, but it certainly doesn’t align with the other three. I wouldn’t, however, assign my ethical code to any deity affirming it’s authoritative because of that assigning. But if I met a deity who opposed and acted contrary to it I’d feel quite on my right to criticize that deity as immoral from the perspective of my own ethics, irrespective of it being divine or not, and not out of hubris, but because I really would think of them as acting immorally.
I guess I, and apatheists in general, are exceptions to this prediction, for while I personally am a theistic apatheist—and of the polytheist variety at that --, I don’t believe morality depends on divine will, be it either that of an absolute god, or that of a pantheon of gods. Reality, as I understand it, is essentially amoral, with morals being features we mortals add to it. Hence, my view is essentially similar to that of a godless moral world, except it has gods in it (or, more precisely, transcendent to it).
An usual approach is to find morality as a distillation from natural impulses filtered through high level cognition.
Dr. Larry Arnhardt, author of a number of books merging classic philosophy, classic liberalism, and evolutionary biology, identify 20 natural desires in human nature, all evolved through natural selection, which determine how humans interact with the world. Each one of those can be thought of a different axis along which uses and customs (a.k.a mores, from which “morals” and “morality”) develop; then are reasoned about, leading to the development of formal moral codes, to different ethical system, and to meta-ethical frameworks, through so many abstraction layers.
Different individuals hierarchize those desires differently, and different societies also have their own hierarchies for them, their members aligning or not with their societies’ hierarchy. One of those desires is “religious understanding”, so it isn’t really surprising that so many societies, and individuals, seek to interpret the entire set of desires, the uses and customs surrounding each one, and their corresponding abstractions, in terms of, and as part of, a religious understanding, which is, I venture, where the notion of morality sourced in divine design finds its root.
Notice, on the other hand, that “intellectual understanding” is also an evolved desire, so it isn’t surprising those who place it at the top of their hierarchy of desires will see things in non-religious terms. Or maybe, if both religious and intellectual understanding are at the top, from an intellectually-rich theological perspective.
In fact, we can notice the interplay between the 20 desires diversely hierarchized in the Christian Bible itself, as it provides not one, but at least four distinct moral codes:
The way God himself behaves as the basis of imitatio dei;
The commandments of God to the Hebrews;
The commandments of God to the Christians;
The way Christians are described acting in the afterlife.
There’s some minimal overlapping between these four moral codes, but on the whole they oppose each other. And one can disagree and criticize them either from a moral perspective based on none of the four, or from one based on a subset of one of those complemented by reasons outside all four.
Hence, if morality were to be of divine origin, then either only the minimalist set of behaviors at the intersection of all customs of all human societies in all times and places counts as the one spark of divinity amidst humanity, or, conversely, the maximalist set of the entire multidimensional ethics-space comprised of the full 20 axes counts. Anything in between would seem, at best, arbitrary, leading to a discussion about which meta-ethical decision making process is of divine origin, and which isn’t etc.
Myself, I have my own ethical framework, which is a combination of Virtue Ethics with a Consequentialism based not on utilitarian criteria, but on the preservation of information. Taking the four Biblical moral codes, it intersects with a subset of the commandments given to the Christians, but it certainly doesn’t align with the other three. I wouldn’t, however, assign my ethical code to any deity affirming it’s authoritative because of that assigning. But if I met a deity who opposed and acted contrary to it I’d feel quite on my right to criticize that deity as immoral from the perspective of my own ethics, irrespective of it being divine or not, and not out of hubris, but because I really would think of them as acting immorally.