This will depend on what you mean by “moral world”. In my view morality is a property of the human brain, the universe itself doesn’t have morality built into it apart from the fact that human brains are inside the universe. Do you mean something like a “Just World” where moral behaviour is rewarded and immoral behaviour is punished?
As an argument for not requiring God, I’d say that in my experience immoral behaviour is its own punishment. Anger, hate, jealousy and all of those emotions are very unpleasant to feel, and they bias the brain away from kindness, joy and compassion, which are immensely more pleasurable (purely as a matter of feeling tone). Immoral acts themselves lead away from these positive brain states, and this causes a certain built-in justice to the world, no need for God, a world where immoral acts prevent you from experiencing the most pleasant and refined mind-states is Just on its own.
Sorry for not being explicit enough. I have now detailed my intent at the end.
For the purpose of that question, I don’t care about rewards or punishments. I can imagine a moral but unjust world, one where killing is bad, but people receive +50 fuzzies for every kill. I feel like “killing is bad” and “people think killing is bad” are separate matters. After all, everyone could be crazy (in the same sense many rationalists think the real world is crazy). I feel like there is objective truth about why killing is bad, but I don’t understand why.
Doctors of the Church generally don’t explain why evil is evil. For most purposes, it’s just obvious (which matches my personal experience). However, when trying to justify the foundations of morality, they will dig into the Original Sin, the nature of Good and eventually end up at the core issue of What is God, and by that point, reason usually fails. I’m somewhat satisfied by that answer, but not quite, and I’d like to hear how other people resolve the problem.
I feel like there is objective truth about why killing is bad, but I don’t understand why.
I think here lies the crux. If you mean “my feelings tell me there is objective truth about why killing is bad”, then the answer is clear: your feelings don’t get to decide what is the objective truth. Rationality requires to see the world as it is and not as you wish it were.
Though your wording might just be a way to say “I believe there’s an objective truth about why killing is bad, but I’m confused about my reasons for believing that”. In that case, we should focus on clearing that confusion, and you’re gonna have to help us doing that. Can you name a personal argument for that belief? When did you start believing it? etc.
“People think killing is bad” is one of the many reasons to think that “killing is bad”. Other reasons might include “people die if they are killed”, “I don’t want to get killed”, “I don’t want my loved ones to get killed”, “I don’t want to get traumatized by killing”, “I don’t want to traumatized by witnessing murder” and so on and so forth. Lots of reasons to dislike murder. And we usually see dislike of murder developing naturally and independently in various cultures around the world. Sometimes it’s only extended to people within a group, but it is invariably there. If we need God for that principle, how is that possible?
Or let’s look from slightly different perspective. The 10th commandment states “thou shalt not kill”. It’s simple and strong, all murder is bad.
But do you really think all murder is always morally indefensible? I don’t know your position on any topic, so it’s hard for me to guess. But you would probably agree that someone who killed by accident is not as evil as serial killer. I’d expect you feel more pity towards that person than resentment, even if by law he ends up in prison. It’s even harder if you get attacked and end up killing your attacker in self-defense. In some countries you will get jailed for that, but not in others. People in general usually support defending side here, even in countries where it almost always ends with prison sentence. Speaking about law, what about capital punishment? It’s controversial, sure, but it used to be much more normal before morals became essentially secular. Talking about controversies, it’s even harder in cases of euthanasia and abortion. These are hard moral topics, and I’m not sure simple answer offered by religion holds up here either, considering all other exceptions. Or what about war? Soldiers do kill, but you will look really hard to find religious figure denouncing soldiers that fight on their side. All of this does not fit into simple framework outlined by “thou shalt not kill” commandment, does it?
And that’s killing we are talking about. I too on a gut level feel that it’s bad, I want to live in a world without killing, but the world we live in is much more complicated. It’s usually even harder when we talk about problems where, uhm, it’s not about people getting killed. Because it’s easy to agree that killing is bad (until I show up with controversial list of exceptions), but some other norms might not be quite as intuitive.
This will depend on what you mean by “moral world”. In my view morality is a property of the human brain, the universe itself doesn’t have morality built into it apart from the fact that human brains are inside the universe. Do you mean something like a “Just World” where moral behaviour is rewarded and immoral behaviour is punished?
As an argument for not requiring God, I’d say that in my experience immoral behaviour is its own punishment. Anger, hate, jealousy and all of those emotions are very unpleasant to feel, and they bias the brain away from kindness, joy and compassion, which are immensely more pleasurable (purely as a matter of feeling tone). Immoral acts themselves lead away from these positive brain states, and this causes a certain built-in justice to the world, no need for God, a world where immoral acts prevent you from experiencing the most pleasant and refined mind-states is Just on its own.
Sorry for not being explicit enough. I have now detailed my intent at the end.
For the purpose of that question, I don’t care about rewards or punishments. I can imagine a moral but unjust world, one where killing is bad, but people receive +50 fuzzies for every kill.
I feel like “killing is bad” and “people think killing is bad” are separate matters. After all, everyone could be crazy (in the same sense many rationalists think the real world is crazy). I feel like there is objective truth about why killing is bad, but I don’t understand why.
Doctors of the Church generally don’t explain why evil is evil. For most purposes, it’s just obvious (which matches my personal experience). However, when trying to justify the foundations of morality, they will dig into the Original Sin, the nature of Good and eventually end up at the core issue of What is God, and by that point, reason usually fails. I’m somewhat satisfied by that answer, but not quite, and I’d like to hear how other people resolve the problem.
I think here lies the crux. If you mean “my feelings tell me there is objective truth about why killing is bad”, then the answer is clear: your feelings don’t get to decide what is the objective truth. Rationality requires to see the world as it is and not as you wish it were.
Though your wording might just be a way to say “I believe there’s an objective truth about why killing is bad, but I’m confused about my reasons for believing that”. In that case, we should focus on clearing that confusion, and you’re gonna have to help us doing that. Can you name a personal argument for that belief? When did you start believing it? etc.
“People think killing is bad” is one of the many reasons to think that “killing is bad”. Other reasons might include “people die if they are killed”, “I don’t want to get killed”, “I don’t want my loved ones to get killed”, “I don’t want to get traumatized by killing”, “I don’t want to traumatized by witnessing murder” and so on and so forth.
Lots of reasons to dislike murder. And we usually see dislike of murder developing naturally and independently in various cultures around the world. Sometimes it’s only extended to people within a group, but it is invariably there.
If we need God for that principle, how is that possible?
Or let’s look from slightly different perspective.
The 10th commandment states “thou shalt not kill”. It’s simple and strong, all murder is bad.
But do you really think all murder is always morally indefensible?
I don’t know your position on any topic, so it’s hard for me to guess.
But you would probably agree that someone who killed by accident is not as evil as serial killer. I’d expect you feel more pity towards that person than resentment, even if by law he ends up in prison.
It’s even harder if you get attacked and end up killing your attacker in self-defense. In some countries you will get jailed for that, but not in others. People in general usually support defending side here, even in countries where it almost always ends with prison sentence.
Speaking about law, what about capital punishment? It’s controversial, sure, but it used to be much more normal before morals became essentially secular.
Talking about controversies, it’s even harder in cases of euthanasia and abortion. These are hard moral topics, and I’m not sure simple answer offered by religion holds up here either, considering all other exceptions.
Or what about war? Soldiers do kill, but you will look really hard to find religious figure denouncing soldiers that fight on their side.
All of this does not fit into simple framework outlined by “thou shalt not kill” commandment, does it?
And that’s killing we are talking about. I too on a gut level feel that it’s bad, I want to live in a world without killing, but the world we live in is much more complicated.
It’s usually even harder when we talk about problems where, uhm, it’s not about people getting killed. Because it’s easy to agree that killing is bad (until I show up with controversial list of exceptions), but some other norms might not be quite as intuitive.
“I feel like there is objective truth about why killing is bad, but I don’t understand why.”
I think I get that. I tried to explain “why” in my answer above. “Why” is because you’re built to feel that way. For good, practical reasons.