Where do good and evil come from?

Sarky

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I what we lack is complete understanding of how they function and interact (although the existence of various mood altering drugs show that we can alter them).

Any mood altering drugs I've taken leave me with the impression that the mind is a whole load of various processes clashing together and the consensus is what people like to call consciousness. It's why you can argue with yourself, or do several things at once, or have doubts or cognitive dissonance or think of music in harmony or a load of other different things.

It's complicated. Very, VERY complicated. But it's not magic.

Andrewf20

The video has some intersting points that seem reasonable. However, heres some concerns I have...

The bible says "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." So why do some people assume that God is perfectly moral?

Also he says in the video: "I doubt you would want to live a world where there is free reign". But isnt that what God supposedly offers us? i.e free will.

The conclusion in the video may get you as far as the idea of deism (which im not convinced it does), but theism is another kettle of fish if thats what he is trying to get at.

Also to describe morality as supernatural is to say that it cannot be explained by natural law, therefore God is the answer. However this hints at the God of the gaps hypothesis. Either God is the source of morality (and immorality perhaps?) or we simply dont know enough yet to fully understand it.

Also he says because morals dont exist physically they must be supernatural. But do emotions exist physically? Are the causes of emotions supernatural as well, because his line of thinking would suggest that they are.

Also, how about the fact that religon was not needed for the 90+ thousand years in which the human population grew before the notion of a supernatural law setter came to be. As the Hitch said, we would not have gotten this far if it wasnt for some semblance of people being good to one another for the most part (without the need to appeal to a supernatural moral instructor).

Zombrex

Onesimus wrote: »

What do you think of this short 5 minute explanation?

Well I thought it was impressive how much nonsense he could fit into 5 minutes, so we have to give him that.

As for what morality is, it is pretty simple, it is human opinion on human behaviour. It is what you think about what you or someone else did. It is heavily influenced by evolution (his explanation for why evolution cannot explain morality is beyond laughable), influenced by reason, and influenced by culture. But it is just that, opinion. It is the same as thinking chocolate ice cream is the best ice cream or that Star Wars Episode I was a terrible film.

That doesn't mean the often quoted by Christian straw man that if morality is subjective it means we must respect everyone's moral opinion, even Hitler, because we cannot objectively say it is wrong.

You must respect a moral opinion unless you can objectively show it is wrong is after all, just an opinion that in of itself cannot be shown to be objectively right or wrong either. Or to put it another way, Who says?

I'm perfectly happy with the idea that my morality is "just" my opinion (as Christians like to say as if the "just" is some how a detractor), and I'm perfectly happy not respecting your moral opinion as well. If you think that is inconsistent well great, that is your opinion.

In fact Christians themselves do this all the time with opinions that cannot be justified objectively. Even if you accept the existence of God the opinion that if God exists and decides something moral that moral opinion must trump all others, or the moral notion that if God created life he can rightfully do what he likes with it, are just that, opinions.

Both those things are "just" moral opinions of Christians that cannot be referenced back to God as an authority without self referencing (God is the ultimate source of morality, we know this because God says so and he is the ultimate source of morality ... circular logic).

So, just like everyone else, Christians have to rely on their own moral opinions in order to even assert moral objectivity in the first place.

Zombrex

Onesimus wrote: »

If you accept that then where does the mind come from? If not from the human physical body and not from the physical earth and not from the physical universe, then where does it come from? This abstract mind atheists cannot account for.Could it not cross the atheist mind ( who believe only in the physical ) that this invisible mind of ours was given to us by an invisible but very real supernatural being?.

But we are told that ''one day will be able to know'' wow, in saying that your no different than mystic meg and all those charlatans you make fun of and deride here on your forum for being delusional.

The only evidence we have ever found is that the mind is a produce of the human brain (again extensive research into brain damage shows that said damage causes significant alteration of personality, memory, cognitive processes, desires and emotional responses.

But more interestingly we have also discovered why humans don't like this idea so much, despite it being the only one even remotely supported by the evidence.

It is because we evolved to abstractly think about identity separate to physical bodies. This allowed our ancestors to model and consider the actions and motivations of people who were not physically present, a mental skill that seems to exist only in humans and some other primates. We tend to think of the mind as separate to the body to allow us to think about the mind without the need of the body.

Or to put it another way, when I'm sitting in my hut thinking about you (a chieftain in another tribe on the other side of the river who we have been at war with for the last few weeks) I am concerned about what you are thinking, not what you are physically doing. I don't care if you are eating an apple, or sitting on the toilet. I care about what I think you are thinking, what your motivation is, what your plan of attack is.

So I don't think about what you are physically doing, I don't mentally model your entire body, I think of you an abstract "mind", simply the decision making process.

As we evolved to consciously consider what we are selves are thinking we naturally noticed we had this tendency to think of the mind separate to the body. The mistake a lot of religious and supernaturalists make is some how thinking this means something significant with regards to the physical make up of the brain and the mind.

The argument being, Well we think about the body and the mind as separate things, so surely that is at least evidence that they are separate things. Which of course it isn't. The only evidence we have discovered is that the brain produces the mind.

A good analogy is day and night. For a significant amount of human history day and night were considered two separate things, simply because that is how we mentally considered them.

We now know that in reality day and night are simply different stages of the same thing, the rotation of the Earth. At some points in this rotation we face the sun and others we don't and it is dark. Day and night are not two distinct things, they are simply markers on a continuos scale of rotation. But of course we still think of them as distinct, after all we still say "day" and "night".

ShooterSF

Onesimus wrote: »

Every scientist worth his salty taste knows this.

So yeah here's the thing. The scientists and I have been talking and while they don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or make a scene they did asked me to tell you that licking them while they work is making them a bit uncomfortable. I hope you understand. I'm sure a few would be up to consensual licking after hours!

pauldla

Onesimus wrote: »

But we are told that ''one day will be able to know'' wow, in saying that your no different than mystic meg and all those charlatans you make fun of and deride here on your forum for being delusional.

I don't see that this is a valid comparison. Science does indeed push forward the boundries of human understanding; Mystic Meg does not. Instead, she peddles vague assurances, half-truths and lies to the overcredulous (and no doubt pockets a tidy little dividend for her efforts). Science puts forward the message 'one day we will know, and we should keep striving to know, and by the way, here are the tools we're using', while Meg and her ilk teach 'only I know, through the mystery of <insert mumbo-jumbo here>'.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Onesimus wrote: »

Science and religion both believe and understand that the mind and the body are poles apart. One is physical ( the body ) and the other abstract ( the mind ). In other words the mind cannot be accounted for scientifically.

Certainly, there are dualists, who assert that there is a mind and a body. Descartes is probably the most famous example. The problem with this view is explaining how this invisible, spiritual mind can act on physical reality.

For what it's worth, Descartes contended that the connection between mind and body was through the pineal gland. I don't think anyone takes that specific proposition seriously these days.

And there are certainly many, many philosophers who contend that the implication of the mind/body problem is that no sound argument can be made for dualism. There probably are a couple of atheist dualists, somewhere, but I think dualism is pretty much a theist view of the world. Certainly, it absolutely is not a philosophical consensus position.

robindch

Onesimus wrote: »

how can humans invent something ( morals ) that are invisible and not even part of their physcial nature?

Maths is "invisible and not even part of (human) physcial nature" -- is that impossible too?

Dades

Onesimus, you are very clearly trying to find arguments to fit your preferred conclusion here. And every single one has been politely and comprehensively refuted, or at least shown to have no merit.

I'd almost sticky this thread as an example of the right way to counter an argument.

Zombrex

robindch wrote: »

Maths is "invisible and not even part of (human) physcial nature" -- is that impossible too?

As is every religion, or every other religion if you are religious. Neither a Christian nor an atheist thinks Zeus is real,thus he is invented, invisible and not part of nature. In reality inventing such concepts seem to be the easiest of things to invent for humans.

El_Duderino 09

Sofaspud wrote: »

Morality is a consequence of empathy. A person with morals simply wouldn't want to physically or emotionally harm another, as they can understand the negative feelings involved.

There, morality explained.

Thank you.

I remember listening to a Guardian Science Weekly podcast about 18 months ago. Neuro science has identified 12 centres in the brain which indicate empathetic response. As babies and small children those centres are exercised by one on one interaction and play with peers and become part of the brain response to empathise with others. It's why you cringe when you see a footballer break his leg, you are firing mirror neurons which allow you to empathise with the guy on with the broken leg. You might even feel a twinge in your own leg.

In the case of people without morals, Psychopaths for example, their brain does not show the same centres lighting up in the same situations as 'normal' brains and they are unable to empathise.

A final point is that if those centres are not exercised in the child brain they do not become part of the brain response system and the person does not empathise because their brain is not set up to empathise.

This is neuroscience. It does not disprove your god but it is relevant to the discussion. The topic of the brain's involvement in morality wasn't dealt with in your video.

To answer your question the video is at about Daily Mail standard of argument. it might be convincing in a pub but if you wanted to have a real academic discussion, this video would be embarrassing to put forward as an argument worth defending with out looking at the neuroscience

El_Duderino 09

Dades wrote: »

Onesimus, you are very clearly trying to find arguments to fit your preferred conclusion here. And every single one has been politely and comprehensively refuted, or at least shown to have no merit.

I'd almost sticky this thread as an example of the right way to counter an argument.

True enough that this thread is an example of the right way to counter a religious argument.

In fairness Onesimum could do the same as a textbook way to make a religious argument. Start by presupposing the point you want to demonstrate and repeat the assertion over and over ignoring any information that question the presupposition. Then claim that all scientists and religious people agree with claim you have presupposed.

Classic miscommunication.

Sarky

No, we're probably just close-minded and arrogant. :pac:

robindch

Zombrex wrote: »

robindch wrote: »

Maths is "invisible and not even part of (human) physcial nature" -- is that impossible too?

As is every religion, or every other religion if you are religious. Neither a Christian nor an atheist thinks Zeus is real,thus he is invented, invisible and not part of nature.

Indeedy.

The reason I picked maths is that most people will agree that mathematics "exists", while many (perhaps most?) religious people will claim that their particular religion exists as a concrete Absolute Truth and that everybody else's religion is a thin tissue of lies, while failing to notice that all are simply ideas.

oldrnwisr

Onesimus wrote: »

What do you think of this short 5 minute explanation?

Watch the whole thing, I thought it was very interesting.

The problem with Kreeft is that his argument is flawed to its very core and stems from a complete misunderstanding of evolution in general and the evolution of morality in particular.

Back when Stephen Hawking published the Grand Design, Kreeft offered his two cents and showed just how badly wrong you can be on something:

British scientist Stephen Hawking is at it again. In an interview with The Guardian, Hawking said, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." See here.

Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College, refutes this argument nicely explaining that, "A computer is not reliable if it has been programmed by chance rather than by rational design (e.g., by hailstones falling at random on its keyboard). The human brain and nervous system are a computer. They may be much more, but they are not less than a computer. So the human brain is not reliable if it has been programmed by mere chance..if materialism is true, if the soul is only the brain, if there is no spirit, no human soul and no God, then the brain has been programmed by mere chance. All the programming our brains have received, through heredity (genetics) and environment (society), is ultimately only unintelligent, undesigned, random chance, brute facts, physical causes, not logical reasons. Therefore materialism cannot be true. It refutes itself. It destroys its own credentials. If the brain is nothing but blind atoms, we have no reason to trust it when it tells us about anything, including itself and atoms...If materialism is not true, this means there is immaterial reality too. And that immaterial reality - usually called spirit, or soul - need not be subject to the laws of material reality, including the law of mortality."

The piece in bold is exactly where Kreeft's entire argument falls apart. Evolution is a deterministic process not a random one and until he gets his head round that, he is never going to come to terms with morality as an emergent property of civilisation.

This is something that has come up a few times both here and over yonder and like the previous threads I would advise you to have a read of the actual research on the evolution of morality before buying in to the arguments of a charlatan like Kreeft.


Books

The Origins of Virtue

Adaptation and Natural Selection

The Moral Landscape


Research

The evolution of reciprocal altruism

Fairness vs. reason in the ultimatum game

Five rules for the evolution of cooperation

The evolution of the golden rule

Volunteering as Red Queen mechanism in public goods games"

King Mob

robindch wrote: »

Indeedy.

The reason I picked maths is that most people will agree that mathematics "exists", while many (perhaps most?) religious people will claim that their particular religion exists as a concrete Absolute Truth and that everybody else's religion is a thin tissue of lies, while failing to notice that all are simply ideas.

I think the problem with that is that since math is so "perfect" and intrinsic to nature someone might simple say that that too is from God.

However if you use other subjective opinions such as taste in music or smells people like claiming that these "non physical" things were gifted by god sounds more and more ridiculous. (Because it is.)

El_Duderino 09

King Mob wrote: »

I think the problem with that is that since math is so "perfect" and intrinsic to nature someone might simple say that that too is from God.

However if you use other subjective opinions such as taste in music or smells people like claiming that these "non physical" things were gifted by god sounds more and more ridiculous. (Because it is.)

It sounds a lot like an argument for Plato's realm of forms and special pleading that the only thing in the realm is Onesimus' god.

Bannasidhe

What has always struck me about this notion that morality exists outside of us - it having been created by an omnipotent God - is that it contains a built in 'get out of personal responsibility' clause.
People do bad things because Satan 'tempted' them/possessed them/made them.
People do good things because it pleases God.

This argument which places the onus on a nebulous and ill-defined concept which exists independent of the person is, imho, a dangerous thing and makes puppets of us all.

If I do something 'bad' it is because I am being a c*nt, if I do something 'good' it is because I am being a decent human being - I have the capacity to do both and the choice is mine and mine alone and I, and I alone, must take ownership of all my actions - not claim they are the result of some outside force.

Ush1

I have a question for the OP, why do you want people to not understand things?

Zombrex

I think the OP has run away with his tail between his legs, probably mumbling something about how we just don't get it :P

Sarky

HHobo

Onesimus wrote: »

...use semantics all you want, but semantics don't change realities and that reality is that there is good and evil.

The posters point was not semantic. If anything, yours is.

If I am a dedicated pacifist I might consider the shooting of a person about to commit murder an evil act.
If I am not, I might consider not shooting the person an evil act.

Both cannot be objectively true. Both can be subjectively true.
What good and evil describe can be the same thing depending on who is doing the describing. The same cannot be said of black and white.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

HHobo wrote: »

What good and evil describe can be the same thing depending on who is doing the describing. The same cannot be said of black and white.

I think this is the nub of it, and a point that can be waffled around. The argument in the OP is really an example of how wooliness around this point can be turned into a (flawed) argument for theism.

Because the point you make highlights how the 'morality' based on things like empathy works. Empathy is about identifying with folk like ourselves, while freezing out folk who are different. Empathy is both what makes parents watchful for their childrens safety, and what helps child abusers form a ring.

Empathy doesn't need a supernatural explanation. Good and evil (in the absolute sense) do.

3ndahalfof6

Within.

HHobo

Onesimus wrote: »

But the very mind itself is invisible. Scientists are unable to detect physcially what it is that allows a human to actually imagine a dragon. Its not physical. The human mind can not be accounted for physcially. We are therefore aware of something ( and believe in ) something invisible when it comes to the human mind/morals. The very mind itself which is invisible exists apart from the human body, because it cannot be there for it cannot been SEEN physcially.

the very ability we have to study human behaviour cannot be seen physically.

Its a fact, not fiction. Anyone trying to argue against the fact that we cannot account for these things physcially would be seen as mad by the scientific crowd and the heavyweight atheist philosophers.

I hate to put it so bluntly but this is just gibberish.

If I open up the hard drive of my computer, no matter how hard I search I'm not going to SEE microsoft word in there or movie or anything else. The data on the drive is encoded. The human brain is similar in this regard. You can imagine a dragon without there being a dragon drawn onto you brain by activating particular clusters of neurons in your brain. You can SEE the brain processing speech but you can figure out what part of the brain is doing it. Interfere with that part of the brain and you affect speech.

Just because you don't understand it, or even if nobody understands it, it doesn't become magic. The meat of our brains has a direct link to behaviour, morality etc. It is a complex machine. Break the relevant part and a person who was a really nice, considerate chap yesterday can be turned into a psychopath today.

Consider the case of the man who suddenly exhibited all kinds of awful behaviour. Turns out it was a brain tumor.

http://www.crimetimes.org/03a/w03ap5.htm

What would your theory be about what happened. The tumor interfered with the reception he was getting from God's magic morality beam?

Never assume that beacuse you can't imagine how something works that this a good reason to think you know how something works.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

HHobo wrote: »

Consider the case of the man who suddenly exhibited all kinds of awful behaviour. Turns out it was a brain tumor.

http://www.crimetimes.org/03a/w03ap5.htm

What would your theory be about what happened. The tumor interfered with the reception he was getting from God's magic morality beam?

I'm not backing Onesimus' point. I'd just point out that there is a display of morality in that story. the man visited a hospital complaining of headaches and telling hospital staffers that he feared that he would rape his landlady.

Seeking help suggests that the individual had some concept of moral behaviour, that overcame his tumour-induced impulses.

I'm not sure what that story proves or doesn't prove. However, just on the evidence of the article provided, it didn't seem to impact on his concept of what is moral.

HHobo

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I'm not sure what that story proves or doesn't prove. However, just on the evidence of the article provided, it didn't seem to impact on his concept of what is moral.

From the article:
When he began visiting child pornography websites, visiting prostitutes, and making sexual advances to young children, his wife left him.

I can't be certain of course but I think it reasonable to assume that prior to the tumor he would not have considered sexual advances to young children morally ok.

Presumably, our morality is always at odds with our desires. For example, I see an Aston Martin with the door open and the engine running but nobody around, I might think. "I would love to take that car for a spin". Even assuming it were not illegal, I would like to think that my own moral prohibitions against going around stealing other peoples stuff would overcome my desire. Assuming a kind of tug of war, I would suggest that the man in the article has his moral fortitude, for want of a better term, impaired.

There is room for an argument that he was engaging in behaviours he would previously have had no desire to engage in prior to the tumor but even if this is the case, he was previously able to restrain himself. I would argue that this impulse control is part of our moral make up.

seamus

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Seeking help suggests that the individual had some concept of moral behaviour, that overcame his tumour-induced impulses.

I'm not sure what that story proves or doesn't prove. However, just on the evidence of the article provided, it didn't seem to impact on his concept of what is moral.

Except that morality isn't black and white, it's granular. We consider some things to be more wrong than others, and some things to be more good than others.

So it would stand to reason that morality isn't an on/off switch in the brain, but that much like intoxication as you start to interfere with people's judgement, you are more likely to start doing things which one may consider "wrong, but not that wrong", like looking up child pornography or going to prostitutes, but that doesn't mean they're still more likely to drag a woman down and alley and rape her.

A reduction in judgement will also cloud one's ability to correctly see the consequences of smaller actions. Morality isn't solely reliant on personal judgement, it's also tempered by known consequences. So you may not believe that going to a prostitute is morally wrong, but you know the consequences will be losing your wife and a big chunk of money, so you don't do it.
Rape however, carries the consequence of jail time and ruining someone else's life, so with a moderately clouded judgement, even if their sense of morality is completely gone they will still see and fear the consequences of such an action.

It's not black-and-white, which is really the crux of what HHobo is getting at. If morality can be affected by changes in the brain, then it stands to reason that morality is dependent on the brain.

krudler

Onesimus wrote: »

Morality cannot be studied physically, they ( morals ) neither exist in DNA, or any part of the physical human and cannot be studied by science at all. Therefore seeing as they do not exist in the physcial, and not in the human, they are laws ( moral laws ) bestowed upon the human from something supernatural.

By the way if there were no God, there would be no Atheists. So. . . how do you know if there were no humans there would be no good or evil seeing as I have demonstrated that morality is invisible, we are aware of them, but morality does not belong to our physical bodies at all. How do you know this then with all of that said, that good and evil would not exist if the human did not exist?

Every human being who has ever existed was born an atheist. Thats a fact.

Dades

krudler wrote: »

Every human being who has ever existed was born an atheist. Thats a fact.

For certain values of "atheist".

Zillah

Implicit rather than explicit, I would imagine.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

seamus wrote: »

If morality can be affected by changes in the brain, then it stands to reason that morality is dependent on the brain.

But I don't see the indication that the individual's concept of morality changed. His behaviour changed, but that's a different thing.

Now, if he'd started campaigning for a lower age of consent, that might be evidence of his view of morality changing. But what the story demonstrates (on the face of it) is just a reduction in that person's capacity to put moral principles into practice.

Sarky

That way lies priests still being moral after years of kiddy-fiddling, and other such farces.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Sarky wrote: »

That way lies priests still being moral after years of kiddy-fiddling, and other such farces.

Not really, as no-one (I think) is particularly contending the behaviour is moral. Morality is, presumably, just the set of principles you use to determine whether a particular act is moral. Which, I'm afraid, leads me back to repeating what I just said.

Sarky

But just their capacity to put moral principles into practice was affected. They're still moral.

Zillah

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Not really, as no-one (I think) is particularly contending the behaviour is moral. Morality is, presumably, just the set of principles you use to determine whether a particular act is moral. Which, I'm afraid, leads me back to repeating what I just said.

Do you think that someone that maintains that rape is immoral, but keeps raping people and describing themselves as failing to resist temptation, could be described as moral individuals?

If you don't judge someone as a moral creature based on their actions and ability to restrain themselves then I think your definition of morality is rather redundant.

Dades

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

But I don't see the indication that the individual's concept of morality changed. His behaviour changed, but that's a different thing.

Now, if he'd started campaigning for a lower age of consent, that might be evidence of his view of morality changing. But what the story demonstrates (on the face of it) is just a reduction in that person's capacity to put moral principles into practice.

While I agree with this, I think you are clouding the issue.

His ability to not act on immoral impulses was removed when one of his organs (his brain) was physically compromised. i.e. Both his mind's impulses and the ability to resist them were altered by physical means. This contradicts those who purport that the mind is non-physical.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Zillah wrote: »

If you don't judge someone as a moral creature based on their actions and ability to restrain themselves then I think your definition of morality is rather redundant.

Sarky wrote: »

But just their capacity to put moral principles into practice was affected. They're still moral.

Clearly he's not still moral. The point is that he'd agree with you, as his concept of what is moral hasn't changed. (Taking the story at face value.)

Dades wrote: »

While I agree with this, I think you are clouding the issue.

I fairness, I think I'm actually pointing out a significant ambiguity. The two posts immediately before yours suggest that there is confusion on this point.

Dades wrote: »

His ability to not act on immoral impulses was removed when one of his organs (his brain) was physically compromised. i.e. Both his mind's impulses and the ability to resist them were altered by physical means. This contradicts those who purport that the mind is non-physical.

I'd agree with that, and it's something that can also be demonstrated by something as simple as whether we'd feel people would make sound judgments while drunk.

Dades

I'm just conscious that the tumor case was posted in response to a post by Onesimus suggesting that "The human mind can not be accounted for physically".

HHobo

Dades wrote: »

For certain values of "atheist".

Yeah, even as an Atheist I find the "everyone is born atheist" a bad argument.

By the same rationale, everybody is born an a-moral, demanding, narcassistic a-hole and my shoes are also technically atheists

Mark Hamill

HHobo wrote: »

By the same rationale, everybody is born an a-moral, demanding, narcassistic a-hole

Well, that is a pretty good description of a new born baby :pac:.

Rev Hellfire

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Well, that is a pretty good description of a new born baby :pac:.

Just add the carrot and stick provided by social groups and you have the rest of us.