Morality: God-Given or Evolved?
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[Thanks to Jon for inspiring this one.]
Our intelligent design show sparked so many comments that it made us think there might be an interesting follow-up show to do.
In the comment thread, Jon pointed to an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition (4 August 2005), in which Senator Rick Santorum was asked why what he calls holes in Darwin’s theory of evolution matter to him as a Senator: “It has huge consequences for society. I mean, it’s where we come from. Does man have a purpose? Is there a purpose for our lives, or are we just simply, you know, a result of chance? If we’re the result of chance, if we’re simply a mistake of nature, then that puts a different moral demand on us — in fact, it doesn’t put a moral demand on us — than if in fact we are a creation of a Being that has moral demands.”
Philnick and fanya responded by saying that evolution favors organisms that cooperate in a kind of enlightened self-interest — which is uncannily similar to the Biblical “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
So here’s the question for the hour: is it possible to envision a world full of meaning and morality without God — or do they have to come from God? Put differently — in fanya’s words — do meaning and morality come from the top down or do they percolate from the bottom up?
Some of you suggested people on the evolution side (Robert Wright, Martin Seligman), but we’re looking for good guest suggestions on the religious side, too. We’ve put in a request for an interview with Rick Santorum but haven’t heard back yet. Thoughts?
Chelsea here, picking up where Katherine left off. Our Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Evil broadcast had us thinking that this is the perfect time to revivify this show after a long hibernation or — as some of you would have it — gestation.
Much like New Year’s eve, I fear that the anticipation for this show (and it’s sprawling, infinite comment thread) will transcend the show itself. Nonetheless we will try our darndest to give you a provacative, thoughtful conversation — or at the very least one adorable elephant calf (gestation 22 months).
Joshua Greene
- Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
The Very Reverend Samuel T. Lloyd III
- Dean, Washington National Cathedral
Peter Singer
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Utilitarian Ethicist, teaches at Princeton University
Author, Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, and most recently, The Way We Eat, written with Jim Mason
- Extra Credit Reading
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CliffsNotes: The Morality Comment Thread (Part 1), Open Source, April 9, 2007.
CliffsNotes: The Morality Comment Thread (Part 2), Open Source, April 13, 2007.
Marc Hauser and Peter Singer, Is morality God-given or simply human intuition?, The Taipei Times, January 10, 2006: “One problem is that we cannot, without lapsing into tautology, simultaneously say that God is good, and that he gave us our sense of good and bad. For then we are simply saying that God meets God’s standards.”
Peter Singer, Reason with yourself, The Guardian, March 20, 2007: “Greene’s work helps us understand where our moral intuitions come from. But the fact that our moral intuitions are universal and part of our human nature does not mean that they are right. On the contrary, these findings should make us more sceptical about relying on our intuitions.”
Samuel T. Lloyd III, Strange Fruit, Palm Sunday Sermon, delivered April 1, 2007: “One billion of the world’s people aren’t sure they will live until tomorrow. And our world has the capacity to end this, but doesn’t. There is strange fruit hanging from the tree, the fruit of our selfish, fearful, violent ways. We human beings have a lot to answer for.”
Stephen Law, The dependence of morality on religion, Stephen Law, April 13, 2007: “True, there’s evidence that religious belief can have a positive impact on social behaviour. Statistics suggest that U.S. cities with high church membership rates have lower rates of crime, drug and alcohol abuse than those with low membership rates. But that’s not yet to say religion is necessary if morality is to survive. It’s not to suggest, as Kristol and Strauss do, that without religion, society will, or will probably, fall apart. That’s a much stronger claim.”
Daniel Marquez, Ladner’s Thought Experiment, Daniel’s Journal, April 15, 2007: “Without any appeal to religion, everything must be rationalized, and tested to make sure it works. I believe this would further frustrate humanity. (Which by the way, makes the author’s of religious texts not just geniuses but hypergeniuses, because they got it right the first time–assuming there is no God).”
Ray Cotton, Morality Apart From God: Is It Possible?, LeadershipU: “A consensus of ethical norms apart from the supervision of God will eventually erode. Power begins to take over in determining our actions. Look at our government today. It is controlled for the most part by special interest groups vying for influence.”
August 18th, 2005 at 8:46 pm
This is not a new problem philosophically. There’s a Moral Reasoning course at Harvard called “If there is no God, then All is Permitted”: Theism and Moral Reasoning You might talk to the Professor Jay Harris.
The course web site is
http://my.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?course=fas-mr54
August 18th, 2005 at 10:24 pm
So here’s the question for the hour: is it possible to envision a world full of meaning and morality without God?
Of course it is possible. Planet Earth does just fine — where God is nothing but a figment of man’s imagination. It is for man to create meaning and morality — we’ve been doing it for thousands of years. We’ve invented God as a way of legitimizing whatever we want to do.
As an atheist I am morally offended by those who claim to have a monopoly on morality. A good system of morality should incorporate our collective wisdom, and not the narrow minded demands of a small minority.
Do you believe that morals come from God? Abraham says no! Check out:
http://thebridget.blogspot.com/2005/05/where-morals-come-from.html
Is it a violation of biblical principles to deny a dying person food and water? No! Read the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob is not punished for un-brotherly act. Instead, Jacob is rewarded. He even receives God’s covenant for cheating his brother.
I am morally offended by stories where reveredbiblical leaders commit acts of mass murder, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.
August 19th, 2005 at 1:56 am
There is no proof or verfiable evidence of the existence of “god” and “god” is not needed to derive morality. Our lack of understanding of nature does not constitute evidence of god. Morality derived from”god” rings hollow in that it is externally imposed (by religious doctrine/dogma) and not chosen for it’s own sake.
Morality can be derived from any number of other sources. I prefer biology. A strong “do unto others” can be derived from two conditions of humans. The first is that we, as individuals, require society to survive. We require at least the accumulated knowledge and, practically speaking, the accumulated wealth. The second condition, that I believe is unique to humans, is that the physically weaker members of our society have the capability of killing the stronger, through planning and/or technology.
The implication of the second is that we all are equal in terms of our potential to harm each other. The reality of the alpha male may be an echo of our biological past but we can no longer coherently derive our social organization nor our morality from that type of social organization.
Add to those two human conditions the desire to create a universal set of rules of behavior we call “good” (or bad) that apply to everyone i.e. morals. We now consider the ultimate equality of power between each other (our threat to eachother) and our need of each other when we think of rules to live by. It then starts to make sense that we agree not to harm eachother in various ways, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Because in the end, everyone is capable of exacting the ultimate revenge if we don’t, or they don’t.
This argument ignores the practical reality of state prohibitions on murder but that is irrelevant to the derivation. The morality comes first, the laws derive from our agreement on how to implement morality.
It is not a righteous derivation, not romantically good, or high-minded or in any way glorious. Those aren’t requirements for deciding the rules of good or bad behavior. The doctrines of socially sanctioned bogeymen, high-minded or otherwise, are not required either.
August 19th, 2005 at 2:08 am
Surely human society predates the hierarchical systems of male privilege we call religion (which as a concept isn’t much more than 2,000 years old). And clearly, early human clan-societies predate the contemporary dominant patriarchal monotheisms that arrogantly claim exclusive parentage of ‘morality’. Just as surely, the ’social glue’ of small early human societies wasn’t a code of behavioral edicts from a proto-Yahweh, but the manners most likely taught to siblings and first cousins by mothers. And I can’t imagine that those hard-working primal mothers cared to limit the love in their societies by proscribing all the natural sexual impulses that male-god religions so pathetically obsess over.
They’d have taught, through example, traits like kindness and sharing, not the callousness necessary for the objectification of persons, and certainly not your tedious, garden-variety evangelist’s medieval notions of ’sin’.
They’d have understood selfishness and have chided their children against it. They’d have recognized cruelty and done their best to protect their small clan-societies from its ravages (while likely and rightly attributing its evil existence to unmannered males). Thoughtless, selfish emotions had no place in the few scattered clans cooperating to maintain their cultures in the varied and often hazardous environments of the Pleistocene.
Any decently thoughtful human can tell you which emotions are vile and which are desirable. Attraction isn’t vile – but avarice sure is. Innocent lust isn’t vile, but jealousy sure is. It seems to me – a man, by the way – that only after men used physical size and petulant selfishness to wrest control of their clans from the mothers and grandmothers who had tried to teach them their manners did our ancestors need to begin promulgation of strict behavioral codes. (Like the last century’s arms-control treaties after too many nations got the H-bomb.)
‘Sin’ wasn’t original; it’s recent. Not to mention lamentable – as a concept, that is. A world without religion – at least as the ‘my god is bigger than your god’ crowd now practices it – is a world worth striving to create. Decency is a natural human virtue, not a religious artifact. And besides, as we see daily in the news from all around the globe, religion as currently proselytized in most of this benighted world is causing vastly more atrocities than it can ever claim to avert. Some morals.
August 19th, 2005 at 8:19 am
Wow, I appreciate the wide diversity of thought. I’m new to open source, so I submit the following humbly in spirit of this blog/show. Though I don’t like to label myself, I generally accept the term ‘Christian,’ in spite of all the baggage that goes with that.
At the forefront of my thoughts is that many times the morality and religion argument is an attempt at the proof of God. This, to me, is the wrong place to start. To answer the question up front. I believe that morality is the natural outflow of personhood, which ultimately finds its roots in God. We as persons can ‘discover’ a lot of morality by looking at other people, because they are made in the image of God. To keep it short, though I’d be happy to dialog on this further, in Genesis 9 ’shedding another’s blood is wrong because humanity is made in the image of God. In the book of James you should not bless God and curse man, who is made in the image of God. However, because morality at the root is related in what it means to be persons in relationship to one another and God, this doesn’t necessarily lead to the conclusion that you can prove God because morality exists.
In response to ChrisTover, to assume that the patriarchal stories are always about ‘teaching morality’ is a basic interpretive flaw committed by many people, Christians and non-Christians alike. Many times Biblical narrative is describing something completely different. For instance, the Jacob and Esau story isn’t about Jacob being morally superior, but perhaps it is about the importance of inheritance customs and Jacob’s desire for it. He had been deemed a greater position from a divine revelation at his birth, but still tried to maneuver and manipulate to get it. Ultimately it is a divine encounter that changes him rather than his own subversive acts at getting ahead. I guess there is some stuff about morality in there
However, many times our distance from the ancients and their culture obscures the message of the scripture.
In response to some of the evolutionary developments proposed not just of morality, but of religion itself, I think another error is being committed, similar to the first one that I addressed. Just because people are religious or are affiliated with a religion does not mean the religion caused the war. Just because hierarchical power has often oppressed doesn’t mean that hierarchy is naturally evil. To state so is to assume that there is a moral standard to judge those things by. If evolution of biology, society, and religion is true, shouldn’t the most dominant one be celebrated (as long as it remains dominant) because it has proven its superiority? We’re back to the battle of the gods.
To attempt to conclude, one of the most beautiful things about the Jewish and Christian depiction of God (these are the ones I feel most qualified to comment on) is that the essence of God’s character is not his superiority or sovereignty, or even His justice or morally, but rather his compassion, mercy, and love. For instance, when Moses asks to see God, but is told that no one can see God’s face and live, God still reveals himself, but embedded in this story is not something many expect from the Hebrew Scriptures. “I have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
Thanks for allowing me these few words. I know I glazed over a bunch of stuff and would be happy to elaborate, or to shut up.
Marshal
August 19th, 2005 at 5:43 pm
“God Without Religion” - Sankara Saranam
Powerful and intlligent; a must read for all of us.
August 19th, 2005 at 9:19 pm
I was going to say with Kenneth Miller, you don’t have to settle for either/or, but you’ve had him on the original show.
So, I would then take a look at Panda’s Thumb, a group blog on evolution, and see if anyone strikes your fancy (http://www.pandasthumb.org)
A recent article by Jason Weisberg @ Slate entitled “Evolution vs. Religion: Quit pretending they’re compatible” garned quite a bit of discussion there and elsewhere — you might want to speak to Mr. Weisberg about appearing.
Also, PZ Myers, a biologist and professor in MN, hosts a blog called Pharyngula (http://pharyngula.org) and is both deeply knowledgable as well as very opinionated — and for this, I read him “religiously.”
I would attempt to suggest some people for the religious side, but a) I’m not religious at all, and b) I’m a rabid, fervent holder of the view that science and religion have nothing to really say to each other. And for me, that’s OK.
But lest I seem completely useless, you may want to look at recent research on altruism in primates (e.g., sharing, feeding, grooming) — to me, this gave a glimmer into human behavior such that “morality” (or at least living with concern for others in some small way) may indeed be more than nurture. There was a good article in the April 2005 Scientific American (How Animals Do Business by Frans B. M. de Waal) touching on some of this at least tangentially — if you can’t get it let me know I’ll send it to you.
And one more — Dr. E.O. Wilson, emeritus from Harvard, would be an interesting guest on this topic.
Sorry this is so long, but this is a topic rather near and dear to my head if not my heart.
August 20th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
There has been an attempt at a universal global ethic–the Parliament of World Religions (http://www.cpwr.org/resource/global_ethic.htm.) Hans Kung, Roman Catholic Theologian has written several books in the past few years dealing with the need for a global ethical foundation–especially in the face of the forces of globalization and rapid economic transformation. Also, check out Tikkun.org and their new effort to form a network of spiritual progressives and the desire to reorient our economic system based on universal ethical principles–a new “bottom line” for our society–they are inviting religious and non-religious activists to enter into conversation about this new ethic.
August 20th, 2005 at 10:20 pm
I would like to chime in. I concur with mmorse. I think you explained things quite well and wish you, or anyone, not to shut up. I think it can only be helpful for all points to have a say. I, too, am a Christian. I will even go farther and call myself a born again christian. I find it amazing how polorized people can be.
I know morality is not a proof of God. I have friends that do not know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, who have a definite sense of right and wrong, and act accordingly. We need only to watch the news to see and hear people professing a belief in God and acting in a very immoral way. Proof of God is a spiritual thing that can not be measured through science. It is something a person “knows” inside. Knowing Him helps a person make right choices, but we only need to look as far as ourselves to know we have a free will and can decide to ignore right and do wrong, or vice a versa.
Having said that I would like to say I am a science buff. I love studing the different sciences, looking at the stars, nebulas, and what not through my telescope, and learning about all the new discoveries mankind makes. They in no way lessen my belief in God. Rather, they increase my respect and awe for His abilities. Science, as far as I’m concerned, explains how God did what He did.
As far as Evolution goes, I believe individual species can evolve to adapt to their surroundings. I have yet to see anything that PROVES we came from apes. Lots of theories, very little (if any) proof. There are no inbetweens still around; few examples of their exsistance at all as a matter of fact. Dinosaur bones seem to be in abudance though. I definitly believe they exsisted and am very glad they are not here now :O)The thought that we are all an accident seems hopeless. Looking at the way cells function, atoms hold together, or how the stars move leaves me in awe of the attention to detail that is required for all these things to happen. The chance of them happening on their own is so small that it is amazing that they happened at all.
So, where does that leave morality, God, and evolution? I believe morality is a personal choice (free will), encouraged by religions (for the most part), not a product of evolution (we can’t seem to do a lot with out some sort of gauge to measure right and wrong. I would like to submit for thought that prior to the Holacaust, most Germans would have thought killing a group of people just because was wrong. As Hitlers regime continued, more people were willing to go along with the killings because it became more “OK” or socially acceptable. After the Holacaust, everyone is shocked and discussed by the killings. Other genecides confirm the same thing. I wish I could remember the man’s name that ran a series of studies to see how much society pressures can influence a persons belief in what was right and wrong. The studies showed people who were out numbered in their opinion changed their opinion whether they were right at the start or not. I saw it on a PBS show earlier this year. Anyway, societal pressures can influence group behaviors to the good or bad is the point this long insert is trying to make. Since we seem to do this sort of thing over and over, evolution seems lame.) and not a proof of God’s exsistance (an individual need only look inside to discover a need for Him).
August 21st, 2005 at 8:43 pm
Most of the writers have said things I generally agree with, but no one seems to have precisely made the point that morality comes from reason. That’s my belief.
Exactly how reason leads to moral rules is very complicated. As societies have increased in size and sophistication, morality has “evolved.â€? Murder and other forms of physical harm must have been an issue from the outset, but incest wouldn’t have been an issue in small families living isolated from others (it would be necessary for perpetuation of the species). As population groups grew to the hundreds, the prohibitions against doing unjustified harm to others, lying, stealing, and sexual transgressions were established. However, exactly what constitutes infractions under each of those categories has continued to evolve. I don’t mean to imply that moral principles must be negative. Morality tells us to love others, and to forgive them; but the exact parameters of these are complex.
By the way, I don’t consider the Golden Rule a good example of moral principle. In some situations it may be appropriate, but we definitely wouldn’t want gays or masochists to apply it to us unless we happen to share those traits. The Golden Rule does, albeit very inadequately, give a hint of the reasoning process that leads to moral standards.
If reason is the source of morality, then obviously morality comes from God only if reason does. Assuming God exists, with regard to a given moral principle, I would say God commands it because it’s right, as opposed to it being right because God commands it. So I have no problem with atheists being moral.
Finally, religions incorporate morality, as well as theories of origins and other secular thinking. Moral principles incorporated into a religion become doctrinally mandatory, which relieves believers from analyzing or doubting moral rules. Religious authorities don’t necessarily have more insight or intelligence than anyone else, and so I tend to refrain from blind acceptance of religiously dictated morality. However, that doesn’t prevent me from appreciating the moral principles taught by religion. For example, I think one of the greatest moral lessons was taught by Jesus in the parable of the prodigal son. I believe the profound truth expressed in the parable is supported by reason, and doesn’t owe its validity to the fact that Jesus asserted it.
August 22nd, 2005 at 9:55 am
” … we’re looking for good guest suggestions on the religious side, too.”
Here are two:
Ravi Zacharias — http://www.rzim.org/ravi.php — is a well regarded speaker and author that would fit in very well with your topic. I have heard him speak and read his book “Can Man Live Without God.” He has an intriguing background and excellent presence.
John Polkinghorne — http://www.polkinghorne.org — is a well regarded physicist turned priest. I have not heard him speak, but have read his book “Belief in God in an Age of Science.” He has an especially credible scientific background.
August 22nd, 2005 at 7:41 pm
I cannot even believe that we are seriously considering this religion vs. science debate in the USA. This phenomenon, the funding decrease for the National Science Fundation, and other anti-science positions recently taken up by the Bush administration are taking the USA back to a European Middle Ages. We have seen what religion dominion over science has done to most Middle Eastern countries; lets hope the same does not happen in the USA.
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:30 pm
If there is a God, to ignore God is the greatest moral, ethical, and rational blunder we could possibly make. If God does not exist, then to believe in him/her is going to lead to moral, ethical, and rational blunders. Either way, I believe this question is of great importance. Because I think that morality is linked to personhood (and, contrary to manning120, it must go beyond rationality in order to actually account for morality related to self sacrifice that does not necessarily benefit the group) I think an important question to ask is ‘can personhood arise from non-persons?’ (I’ve heard this voiced somewhere before, so if anyone knows the source, please remind me where this thought originates.) On the one hand I think that humans can create complex machines that blur the boundaries, but on the other hand I think there is a mysterious element that confers a high level of sentience. (An interesting pop-culture reference dealing with this topic was a STTNG episode called ‘The Measure of a Man,’ where Data is put on trial to see if he has certain rights even though he is an android.) Science may be able to tell us where life begins and ends, but can it tell us where personhood begins and ends? It is those who are in power who tend to label others as objects rather than persons which leads to moral collapse. Mass slavery, genocide, and common prejudice all find their roots in the same objectification of people. Lest you think this allows for cruelty to the environment and animals, think again, as the way we abuse other forms of life and environment actually diminishes our own personhood.
For me, morality and personhood both flow out of viewing God as person(s), which is found in the highest form of Christian theology in the beautiful articulation of the Trinity. This ancient doctrine has often been misunderstood and relegated as a dusty relic of the past. However, I think God as articulated this way is the most beautiful and true basis for personhood, and thus morality. Sure, I can imagine a morality without God, but it is ultimately going to be very difficult to convince a generation that has been told over and over again ‘you came about by chance’ that ‘if we just work together we can at least make something of this mess.’ The failure of this message to work is evident in the fact that spirituality is at an all time high. A failure of modernist ‘church’ to see any growth as a result of this spirituality is probably connected to the fact that we have failed to provide a true encounter with the person of God. I just saw an interesting article on another major news magazine that dealt with this last topic and included the statistics. I’ll provide a link if that is ok.
August 25th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
Mmorse (8/22/05) asserts “morality is linked to personhood (and, contrary to manning120, it must go beyond rationality in order to actually account for morality related to self sacrifice that does not necessarily benefit the group).� This appears to argue that morality results not from a reasoning process, but from something non-rational. Religion, or religious inspiration, is the best candidate, although perhaps mmorse can explain exactly what “beyond rationality� means.
The quoted statement assumes that “self sacrifice that does not necessarily benefit the group� isn’t rational. In my post I didn’t, and I still don’t, adopt that assumption. I did discuss the idea that incest wouldn’t be immoral within a small family group needing to perpetuate the human species. Actually, what I said was that the prohibition against incest “evolved� as human groups became larger. That’s an argument that moral standards are fixed, like mathematics. But I digress.
Mmorse also says, “Science may be able to tell us where life begins and ends, but can it tell us where personhood begins and ends?� My answer is that science can provide some of the clues needed to answer this question, but the question ultimately is philosophical, not scientific. I believe personhood is defined in terms of memories. Every person’s set of memories differentiates him or her from everyone else. Other traits, such as physical appearance and psychological characteristics, because they can be shared among different people, don’t differentiate them as memories do. We can then define a (human) “person� as a human being capable of memory. Memory involves both establishing memories and recalling them. Without those abilities, a human being cannot be considered a person. The fetus, before it has the capability of memory, is a potential or developing, but not yet actualized, person. A brain dead individual isn’t a person.
This formulation doesn’t exclude God from being a person, although I wouldn’t describe God as a human person.
Mmorse then says, speaking of morality without God, that convincing people that working together will solve problems will be very difficult if people believe they came about by chance. My position is instead that by viewing morality (and the related field of ethics) as the result of reasoning about moral issues, we have a chance of persuading everyone to work together to “make something of this mess.� This is because reason is universally understood and accepted by all humans, from fundamentalists to atheists, regardless of gender, race, or nationality.
With respect to “coming about by chance,â€? the word “chanceâ€? is used to distinguish things that happen without the intervention of intelligence (human or animal or divine) from things that don’t. I fail to see how it makes any difference, if morality results from a reasoning process, whether human beings came about by chance. That’s why I think Rick Santorum’s quotation at the top of this column — “If we’re the result of chance, if we’re simply a mistake of nature, then that puts a different moral demand on us — in fact, it doesn’t put a moral demand on us — than if in fact we are a creation of a Being that has moral demandsâ€? – is nonsense.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:01 am
BobH wrote, “…the physically weaker members of our society have the capability of killing the stronger, through planning and/or technology…The implication of the second is that we all are equal in terms of our potential to harm each other.�
Your reasoning here is flawed; mere capability does not imply full equality of potential or likelihood. From there, much of the rest of your argument falls apart.
Nikos, your imaginative portrayal of pre-history reminds me of Daniel Quinn’s “The Story of B,�… a wonderful story, entertaining and quite believable, but still infinitely short of factual.
Manning120, I don’t think that the Golden Rule suggests that if you are a masochist (your example), you should extrapolate your own desires onto others. Instead, authentic application of the Golden Rule would begin with understanding the needs/desires of others, and then meeting their needs (doing unto them) as you would wish your own needs to be met [i.e. in like manner], without assuming that their needs are the same as yours. Your illustration is self-centered, where as the GR is ‘other’-centered.
Manning120, although I respect your extensive rebuttal to mmorse, I don’t know how you can claim that “This is because reason is universally understood and accepted by all humans.� Perhaps I could introduce you to a few people I know… .J -ha! On a serious note, though, there is a lot to be learned by going “beyond rationality,� but to do so, you’ll have to loosen your grip on reason (I’m not suggesting that you need to forsake it)… and although that may sound like intellectual suicide, I guarantee a Neo-escaping-the-Matrix-like awakening into a realm where meaning and morals are rooted… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
ChrisTover wrote, “It is for man to create meaning and morality.�
There is a problem with Chris’ proposition: If man is the sole origin of his own meaning and morality [and value], then mankind not only has the power to create man’s meaning/morality/value, but ALSO to destroy them… This philosophy empowers governments (for example) to endow some with human rights, and then later take them away, or deprive minorities of those same rights… I think many of us hope that meaning, morality, and value are rooted in a more objective substance than Chris purports.
We can solve this problem by declaring that meaning, morality, and value dwell intrinsically within us and are inalienable. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of where they came from… are they emergent properties of our evolution, or where they instilled by a Designer/Creator?
Spawned in chaos, evolution [as I understand it] is initially blind to the potential advantage a mutation might offer. No creature ever thought, “Hey, I don’t know what an eye is, but it sounds like a handy thing to have, so I’ll mutate a pair… I’ll bet they will increase my chances for survival.�
This means that evolution (at least initially) is not intentional. Existence is a prerequisite of intention (not the other way around). Therefore an organ or organism’s own intention/meaning/purpose cannot be the causal force initially driving the initial evolution of that organ/organism. In fact, since intention/meaning/purpose were not part of the original evolution equation, evolution has the daunting task of explaining when/how, if ever, they entered the life-equation.
And yet intention is central to our discussion of morality. We admire moral people who, like the Buddha, intentionally forsake advantages available to them, and choose what is often a more difficult path. We admire those like Jesus, who laid down their lives in sacrifice for others. We admire organ donors, who put their own survival in jeopardy for the chance to save the life of another.
Evolution calls these people “Suckers!� while many of us consider the self-less to be the moral elite!
Since evolution/mutation initially occurs at the DNA/cellular level, evolution certainly can’t be considered to behave in a socially consciousness manner. The (hundreds of-?) thousands of extinct species are monuments to the fact that evolution does not rise in defense of the weak, as most moral codes require of us.
Moral behaviors/attitudes, such as compassion, which mmorse so eloquently wrote about above, do not arise from the cold laboratories of chaos or evolution…
So, are we willing to selflessly consider the alternative: a Personal Creator of us, and our meaning and morals?
I don’t know. Some of us would rather die with white-knuckled fists full of nothing than open our hands and minds to something or Someone greater than ourselves.
August 26th, 2005 at 9:28 am
I find the last line of the previous post — “some of us would rather die with white-knuckled fists full of nothing than open our hands and minds …” — condescending and offensive. I did not grow up with religion and so have been free to figure out a lot of things on my own. I have a very highly developed moral sense — more so than so many so-called christians (um, Bush?!) — that just keeps developing as I get older. It is based for the most part on the golden rule and how I think a pleasant and civilized society should work — in other words, let’s be nice to each other, let’s be generous and thoughtful and try to help each other when possible, let’s think more of the greater good than our own individual gain and immediate gratification.
So, contrary to what Think seems to think, I don’t have an empty existence. I *have* opened myself to something greater than me — society in general, the health and well being of the planet and future generations. That’s enough for me, thank you very much.
August 26th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
I think things are getting a little too heated. A friend of mine has a saying that goes something like this: “Conflict is inevitable, combat is optional”.
By choosing our words more carefully, we can have a discussion.
I am a Christian and I believe Christians do a lot of good in this world. To be continually beaten down is silly, and might I add, immoral (that is if we can see kindness at the root of morality) Every religion, including secularism, has it’s fanatics and hypocrits. Let’s just leave it at that.
Think does bring up a good point (although I think you would get farther by using a less condesending way of expressing your views) I would like an evolution minded individual to address. We admire those who are selfless, but evolution is not in anyway selfless, how then can morality come from evolution?
I would also like to know if we keep repeating genecide, how is evolution at work there? We must be really slow learners.
August 27th, 2005 at 12:22 am
Morality: God given or evolved?
Provided that by the term “God given� we convey a deterministic component to morality, then I would say that perhaps both possibilities of morality being God given and evolved are quite plausible and in some ways the same! If morality is, in Spike Lee’s terms, “Doing the Right Thing!� then many organisms, depending on their degree of socialization, do exactly that. They tend to do those things that are not only “right� for themselves but also right for their species as a whole. This may indicate a natural tendency for morality. Survival of the fittest doesn’t simply apply to individual organisms in those cases. In highly socialized animals and insects such as bees, ants, and many mammals including the higher apes (yes, including but not limited to human beings) altruism is a byproduct of their nature. Here, a soldier ant, wasp, or bee may sacrifice itself for the sake of the colony. This seems counterintuitive from an evolutionary sense, where natural selection depends on the survival of the gene. But the higher calling in these cases is beyond that of an individual organism, it is a function of the species as a whole.
So, although social Darwinism alarms us of the horrors of natural law, this may not necessarily apply to human nature. Of course, within us are plenty of examples of humans not living up to their human ideals. I’m sure it’s true among ants, bees, and wasps as well, where some soldiers may go wondering on their own, abandoning the ways of the colony. But as a whole, there maybe a direction to our sense of morality and deep down, most of us may already know what “doing the right thing” entails.
Another interesting example of this source of innate knowledge comes from the archives of genetics. In mammals, there are specific genes in mammals that allow for caring for the young. These genes amplify feelingsthat regulate the feelings of parents towards their offspring. This has been demonstrated in mice, where a knock out of that specific gene in experimental animals results in indifference towards the offspring (mice push away the litter trying to nurse, do not nest and cuddle, and otherwise recognize them as “unrelated”).
So, given these facts, I rather paraphrase the question of God-Given vs. Evolved to the question of nature vs. nurture. Rather than comparing the Gospel of a designer against the mechanisms of science, we need to ask ourselves the following questions: Are we born with a sense of ethics or do we learn such concept as a result of culture? And leaving things to our own nature, would we act like beasts or would we have an inherent sense of fairness? Of course, higher morality is learned. But we first need to answer such fundamental questions irrefutably before moving on to the details. This way, we may end up with more debatable questions, rather than debating questions that lead to the dead end of faith. Debates that compare religion and science eventually lead to the concept of faith, where rational reasoning succumbs to the notion of blind belief. Comparing apples with oranges has never resulted in a meaningful debate unless you are a farmer or a food engineer.
August 27th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
Well said, Endoman! I started to write something similar, but you’ve said it much better than I ever could.
Another example, albeit slightly strange — cannibalistic tribes that clearly outlaw the practice within the tribe. Not acceptable to harm those within your smaller society, but certainly desireable when dealing with other tribes or individuals who are perceived to be a threat. Basically the same as our moral system dictates (though we don’t have the post-fight BBQ).
Which brings me to another thought — most of the current debate is based on the idea of a modern, christian-based god. How to explain the fact that our most basic mores have survived the millennia and been reinterpreted via countless theologies? Back to the cannibals — their beliefs obviously weren’t handed down by a christian god.
This is a GREAT discussion.
August 28th, 2005 at 3:40 am
The question of the hour, which Catherine wanted us to discuss in this comment thread was described as,: “is it possible to envision a world full of meaning and morality without God — or do they have to come from God?�
This clearly is an important question, something that countless philosophers have pondered and attempted to answer with pure analysis. Kirkgaard asked the following loaded question: “Why wake up in the morning?!� It’s interesting to wonder about how ethically we would live if there existed no omnipresent, pleuripotent divine being deserving of our worship. And when we look at it that way we begin to see that the question of morality goes far beyond the notion of fairness in our daily interactions, it goes hand in hand with the question of meaning in life. Why are we here? and what does it all mean? Perhaps that’s why religion is so attractive to many people; while science attempts to explain the how in things; religion aims to answer the why in them. This makes religion a powerful remedy to our insatiable appetite for knowing our place in the universe in a more meaningful way than our physical distance from extrasolar planetary objects.
However, I think that although religion had an important role in forming the early fabric of society, codes of conduct, morality, or ethics aren’t necessarily linked to the existence of a God. Even the Godless communists lived their daily life fairly and ethically. The society did not break into chaos just because they abandoned the need for a God. The Codes of Hammurabi were written by cultures that did not practice the brand of monotheism fashionable today. Monotheists, Polytheists, dualists, pantheists, and even atheists and pagans live for the most part according to the ethics of common sense. Social principals that encourage us to live ethical/moral lives aren’t the exclusive property of organized religion; they are common sense principals of rational thinking that allow us to live with our fellow human beings under the same roof.
Martin Luther King said: “Justice was created for the sake of peace, not peace for the sake of justice!� If this statement is true it becomes clear that we reap the benefits of our morality in this life in the form of social justice, which results in peace, not in some abstract afterlife where we are rewarded for being just.
As I mentioned in a previous post there may even exist an inherent sense of ethics in all of us. This could in fact be a byproduct of us being social animals, living in packs and our tribal mentality. This has never been truer than today, as we live in large, complex cities. Ironically, a city works in a similar fashion as a living organism. Every component has a function like a body comprised of cells, tissues, organs, and systems. If each individual is a cell, it’s the collective function of each cell in various levels of organization (tissue, organs, systems) that allows for the survival of the body as a whole. In this urban setting, interactions among the members follow a set of ethics as described by the law of the land, so peace is maintained and the city flourishes as a whole. This is why many people live in the city, do not believe in any form of devine presence, act philanthropically and ethically, and contribute to the advancement of the city. On the other hand, many free-riders take advantage of the system. This is not due to the absense of God, it’s probably due to the weakness of human beings. Afterall, prists, ministers, rabi, and imams, as well as many other religious leaders are fully capable of less than moral behavior.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Wow, this is quite the forum. Manning, I appreciate your thoughtful response. I would like engage in some further conversation related to Manning;s post, to return to the original question, and to posit a friendly challenge or two.
First off, I can imagine morally virtuous situations that go beyond rationality. For instance, in a classic ‘lifeboat’ situation, would it be rational that a young professional doctor jumps out of the boat so that an uneducated unemployed 60 year old could stay in it and live? I argue, that it may not be rational in any sense that she do so, but she would be most virtuous to give her life for others, particularly if they were not willing to do the same. In this way, I am suggesting that morality must go beyond rationality. Perhaps virtue goes beyond morality, as I might not deem her immoral for not wanting to sacrifice her life. At any rate, it is food for thought.
I do think that memory is a very risky thing to base personhood on. If memory is lost, is the person lost? Should we treat the mentally deranged as less than true persons? This seems like dangerous ground. Perhaps if you could expound more I would be more open to this possibility.
I do think of chance as related to randomness, and ultimate absurdity in the philosophical sense. How can we say that to exist is better than to not exist? How can we say that diversity is better than uniformity, unless we think that we must keep certain gene pools around in case we need them for future evolutionary or social development? And, once we master genetic engineering, why would we even need anything other than our elite selves. It appears to me that again the ‘one in power’ is the only one who can set morality in such evolutionary / chance based systems. How can we say there is good and bad, if we are merely doing what we are programmed genetically or socially to do? I’m not into biology too much, but maybe I’ve completely misunderstood survival of the fittest. (BTW, I hope you understand the nature of the tone that I ask the questions above, it is because I truly don’t understand the answers, not because I’m attempting to say that it isn’t possible through rhetorical method.) If there is a set of universal rational morality we should be able to diagram it with mathematics .. which sounds really fun!
To answer the initial question, and to pose my challenge: I believe it is may be possible to imagine a moral system without God if we can answer the questions posed above, but I do think the moral system would look very different, and would probably favor the strong. Through all this we must keep in mind that even if we can imagine a moral system that theoretically could function without God, ultimately if there is a God then to operate in a self-made moral system without him leaves us treating the ultimate Person as a Non-Person.
Just to avoid flames let me acknowledge that people who don’t believe in God can have meaningful lives and relationships, and even be very good and harmonious people in society. I think this because human personhood reflects Divine personhood, and therefore we have capacity for this even if we don’t acknowledge its ultimate source.
Oh, one more thing. I read a great article last year about monkeys having an inbuilt sense of fairness, but unfortunately the only examples given had to do with the monkey that was given a cucumber instead of a grape being upset…evidently the one who got the grapes didn’t worry about fairness so much. Really!
August 29th, 2005 at 7:34 pm
To KeepMoving, who wrote:
“We admire those who are selfless, but evolution is not in anyway selfless, how then can morality come from evolution?”
I would offer only this: perhaps morality stems from empathy, which, if it isn’t unique to humans, is certainly pronounced in our species. Empathy must surely stem from consciousness, which is also certainly pronounced in our species. And consciousness is an organic outcome of stardust, water, and sunlight combining becoming not only complex but self-aware — that’s the earth, including us — and therefore is one varation (of many) of evolutionary process.
Ergo, morality, through empathy and consciousness, indirectly comes from evolution. It’s not ‘an evolutionary goal’ (because nothing is), but it’s certainly one of evolution’s outcomes. And, like coral reefs, or gardens, and anything else we might deem beautiful, it’s an outcome worth treasuring — and weeding. ‘Morality’ that denigrates others is nothing ‘moral’ IMHO. The world’s major religions seem to differ with that humble opinion, however.
God? No, just us, I’d say. Although by ‘us’ I prefer to think of the earth in its wholeness, and not the isolated, orphaned ‘us’ of the Adam and Eve paradgim. Morality, warts and all, is an earthly product. A human product.
August 29th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
Nikos, can self awareness and empathy arise from dust without external forces? Can personhood arise from non-persons? Do we have any actual examples of this rather than hypothetical? I think such complexity might arise that we may not be able to determine if it is truly conscious (AI) … , but the greatest forms of life seem to be born of or created by things that are alive and sentient seem to come from things that are already alive. I’m just thinking ‘out loud’, I’m not familiar enough with cloning & biology, perhaps there are examples there you could refer too.
August 30th, 2005 at 12:51 am
mmorse Says:
“…can self awareness and empathy arise from dust without external forces?”
Thanks, mmorse, for a chance to articulate this a little further (and I hope someone else will pick up the thread where I leave it, and take it to heights of articulation I can’t hope to reach. Please! Somebody!)
The late philosopher Alan Watts liked to point out that just as apples cannot come into being without and apple tree, the idea of a stupid universe creating intelligence is nonsensical. In other words, the potential for intelligence is inherent within the universe, and just because we haven’t yet devised methods to scientifically discern and and quantify this potential doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. (Didn’t germs and virsuses exist before microscopes? Or galaxies before telescopes?) In this, many of us on seemingly oppositional sides in this blog-debate might find common ground: the universe isn’t blind and stupid, and humans aren’t a bizarre, randomly improbable accident. Every speck of life originates in an environment that births it. An environment that creates it. But that doesn’t validate the concept of ‘god’.
Like most of us, I’ve seen slivers of the cosmos revealed by telescopes, and slivers of the microscopic cosmos. The idea that some quasi-human ancient-king-like mind created all that staggering infinity is, in all honesty, as prespoterous as the notion that the sun, moon, and planets revolve around the earth. (Thank-you Liz Tracey!)
I was raised with weekly exposure to two different strains of christianity, and was sent to two different Sunday-schools. I’m not wholly ignorant of this country’s dominant religion and its many claims. But the sort of universe that science has shown we’ve grown within, the sort of universe that has come into self-awareness (us) by combining its energies and substances as has happened on this particular globular nook we call home, bears no plausible relationship to the gods of the morality-police called clergy. Especially not the relationship of a ‘Divine Father’ to His (o-so-wayward!) progeny. (And just so you know: the clergy I was intoduced to were kindly, caring people — although their gods, as their holy books described them, weren’t. It didn’t take any genius on my part to eventually understand that the god of the bible was a stern father archetype crafted by human monarchs in their own images.) Anyway, that sort of petty, jealous god — more interested in restricting and policing women and their natural sexual instincts than much of anything else (besides insisting that all non-beleivers convert or die) — doesn’t fit the universe I’ve been lucky to see through the gifts of human-made technology.
As an attempt to give it a sense of proportion: would you expect a two-year old to be write a novel? That’s pretty close to the sort of difference I see in the world described as ‘made’ by the bible’s ‘Almighty Creator’, and the universe we’ve discovered since.
And look, I’m not saying it isn’t mystical or magical. But ‘He’ didn’t craft man from clay — the magic of evolution did it.
The universe did it. All by itself.
Stardust, water, and sunlight transformed itself into increasing complex interactive organisms — and not machines like our unimaginative technologically-dependent similies say — but ORGANISMS. Not artifacts put together by a stern-father mega-mechanic, but living processes that grow from within. Living processes that then procreate in ever increasing diversity. I mean, what else are the all countless variety of species this planet has spawned if not variations of stardust, sunlight, and water? They began and evolved from the solar system’s inherent potential for them.
They SELF-Created. We are their progeny, blessed (and somtimes cursed) by self-awareness.
No, in the universe I see around me — the universe that is at once my parents, my sibling, and my-SELF — intelligence, consciousness, and empathy don’t need an external god. No one mind could have created all this wonder. Everything, and everyone, you see and feel is the universe looking in a mirror. Everything. And ultimately, the most persuasive moralities take this as their starting points: that harming another for anything less than self-preservation is immoral because it’s essentially the same as harming your sibling, or mother.
Not to be preachy or anything…
August 30th, 2005 at 5:14 am
Allow me to practice jujitsu on this juggernaut, but first I must deliver a blow to Santorum’s bs: “If we’re the result of chance, if we’re simply a mistake of nature, then that puts a different moral demand on us — in fact, it doesn’t put a moral demand on us …” Ah, grand PooBah, if the Designer has perfected the Universal Machine, then why is it imperfect? How about: My . Dad . Was . Chance, but that’s the last time you’ll be callin’ me a mistake, cowboy.
Is anyone else outraged that we have this rhetorical retard guiding policy? Does my future happiness depend on how many angels dance on the head of a pin, or whether God wrote the rules, or whether a big bang started it all? Where the hell is that good old ‘merican pragmatism that says “I can see what you done ain’t been good for the most of us?” ‘Stead were caught up in some funky monky deliberations about whether “chance” precludes morality. LAY OUT YOUR ARGUMENT, Santorum baby. Prove to me that chance and preference can’t build structure, can’t craft beauty, can’t find harmony. Better yet, WHAT DOES MORALITY MEAN TO YOU? Perhaps we’d do fine with less theory and more INVESTIGATION!
RANT OFF
Now for the jujitsu. Let’s go social-scientific on this dude. Morals must be defined more broadly than “what the bible says,” otherwise we gots us a clear-cut case of a theocratic tautology. Thank God Satan didn’t write that Bible. So if we look at moral and immoral atheists, and we look at moral and immoral (what! no such thing?) theists, which has a higher steady state morality over the generations? Which transmits morality better? I’m serious ’bout this! I really want to know!
August 30th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Thank God Satan didn’t write that Bible.
What makes you so sure his minions didn’t? (While disguised, of course!)
August 30th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
Nikos, your description of a self creating universe was so very…spiritual sounding. You seem to want to claim an intelligence without personhood and rationality without mind. A place that just ‘is.’ The ‘God’ you are rejecting certainly sounds small, and seems to warrant rejection, but He/She is not the God of Christianity, the Bible, or of me. Perhaps you are rejecting a perverse modernist or even medieval misrepresentation of God, but not the kind of God that I have experienced.
In spite of the rant I also agree a bit with Grandabound…morality must think more broadly than what the ‘Bible Says’ because all too often it has been those in power who have misconstrued scripture to twist it to their own ends. As a professional Biblical theologian (but not the fundamentalist type) I am quite often upset with how often scriptures are misinterpreted from people on both ends of these types of debates. However, I’ll save my lecture on interpretive methodology for another group.
I’m going to take yet another shot at the initial question and to provide some logic for why I feel chance leads to destruction of meaning and morality. I am not saying that an evolved universe would lacking order, but rather that it would be difficult to find meaning in an ultimate sense. For instance, either matter/energy, or God/gods is eternal (perhaps other non-western religions could contribute other options.) If matter is eternal then meaning would arise through the evolution of consciousness, particularly (as suggested so far, in memory and empathy). I see a couple of difficulties with this:
1. the basic idea of complexity arising from inert matter
2. consciousness arising from non-consciousness
3. with the death of memory and existence, significance would also go away. IE, if everyone affected by an immoral act was gone and forgotten, then the significance/meaning of that act would disappear. So, morality can exist only among those with memories. Therefore, meaning is only transient, and ultimately when the universe returns to baseline, will disappear. The act of murder and the act of love are ultimately left on the same ground. As long as persons exist then meaning can continue, therefore, in this system one of our greatest significant acts would be to perpetuate memory…so maybe the ancients had this part right with their high concern for posterity.
However with an eternal God, because personhood and the actions of each individual have a more profound impact. Personally I think this shows that the theist conception of morality is higher than that of a socially evolved moral system.
I am open to critique, as I feel as though I am learning a lot through this whole process. Please avoid the rants though.
August 30th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
Nikos wrote: “But the sort of universe that science has shown we’ve grown within, the sort of universe that has come into self-awareness (us) by combining its energies and substances as has happened on this particular globular nook we call home, bears no plausible relationship to the gods of the morality-police called clergy. ” I would like to address your comments on this “sort of universe”. I am currently taking college courses and have just finished several science courses. I think you would be interested to learn that if the earth was a little closer to or farther from the sun it wouldn’t exsist as we know it. This does bear witness to the clergy but to a God who did take the time to make sure we were safe and sound and wanted us to find out more about how he did what he did. Taking science classes, which is my absolute favorite subject, only leaves me in awe of his great power. And on a side note, becareful not to judge God based on mankind. He’s perfect, we’re not. Because we chose to interpret the Bible to fit our needs doesn’t make him flawed. Were so flawed that we make excuses for genecide. Some blame it on God’s Word. Which honestly sounds like an attempt to NOT accept responsibility for our own actions, since it is the interpretation that is flawed. I blame it on the flaw of man’s selfishness apart from God’s word. As far as women exploring their own sexuality, well, with all the STD’S out there, maybe keeping sex in a marriage isn’t a bad thing. Some of your interpretations of the God of the Bible are off too, but that is another blog:O)
This brings me back to one of my original questions. How can evoution be responsible for morality? Evolution claims we began as premortial (excuse my spelling, I really do like science a whole lot more than english!) goo. Eventually we became what we are. If evolution is responsible for our morality, we are really really slow learners. Genecide has taken place since the beginning of time. We have not stopped it, no matter how often it horrifies us. It is almost always based on some sort of predjudice. And now is being played out in a much more horrific way in suicide bombings. People are targeted based on the area they live in or frequent, and they are killed just because someone has a prejudice against them. No group is exempt from this behavior. So, again, how has evolution affected that? I can say, I have seen amazing changes in a person who based their relationship with Jesus Christ on Jesus Christ and not on what someone else told them they should believe about Jesus Christ. A person who was once angry and hateful learns tolerance and acceptance based on their relationship with Christ, not the clergy, and not a genetic switch over. In this way, I have seen morality God given.
September 1st, 2005 at 4:25 pm
Wow, this is kind of a phenomenal comment thread. It may take us another little while to get this show on the radio, but we’re working on it with your help.
September 9th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
The debates about whether or not ethics are “God Given” or human derived is thrown into sharp relief when it comes to environmental ethics. Environmental ethics asks simply: “As humans, how should we act in the ecosystem?” Or to phrase it in a slightly more extended form:
“As a participant species in an intricate and complex system, which we are only beginning to understand, how should we behave as responsible citizen-creatures in a system we did not create, we cannot control and we must not destroy?”
Environmental ethics challenges the validity of all existing ethical systems and forces us to reconsider all received wisdom from the ethical traditions of the past.
As Bill Coffin has pointed out repeatly, “Nobody has the authority to destroy the world. All we have is the power to do so.”
How. then, can we devise ethical norms to inspire effective forms of self-imposed, self restraint to keep us from destroying the environment that supports us? This is the great ethical challenge of our day, and we will be exploring this with students from all over the world via the Internet in this semester’s online course on “Environmental Ethics and Land Management” — see
http://ecojustice.net/2005-ENVRE120/
The events surrounding hurricane Katrine clearly indicate that we have a lot of serious thinking and public discussion to engage in very, very soon if the ethical fabric of western civilization is to be seen to have any meaning whatsoever.
September 13th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
Think (8/26/05) objects to my statement that the Golden Rule is not a good example of moral principle.
“I don’t think that the Golden Rule suggests that if you are a masochist (your example), you should extrapolate your own desires onto others. Instead, authentic application of the Golden Rule would begin with understanding the needs/desires of others, and then meeting their needs (doing unto them) as you would wish your own needs to be met [i.e. in like manner], without assuming that their needs are the same as yours. Your illustration is self-centered, where as the GR is ‘other’-centered.�
The Golden Rule (I believe it goes, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you�) doesn’t say you begin with understanding the needs/desires of others. It says you begin with what you want others to do to or for you. I think its necessary to understand that “the needs/desires of others� may differ from your own, but the Golden Rule doesn’t say that. Furthermore, the Golden Rule leaves it to the individual to determine what’s right or wrong according to the formula. I think we need more than just leaving it to the individual; we need the individual thinking rationally about circumstances and consequences and making considered, coherent judgments as to what should be done. Again, the Golden Rule doesn’t expressly call for these things.
If you want the Golden Rule improved upon, then I think you should re-right it instead of trying to read into it what the words clearly don’t say.
September 14th, 2005 at 9:33 pm
Those who suppose that morality or moral obligation is ultimatedly rooted in God’s nature or will (from Tolstoy, to Keirkegaard, to Aquinas) would suppose that goodness cannot exist if God doesn’t exist. Yet, the way that the question is posed here doesn’t offer an exhaustive disjunction. Morally might easily be both God-given and evovled. The many theists who suppose that evolotion is compatible with God’s existance might well argue that the values that govern our flourishing just are the ones evolution has selected. The either or your looking for might be Morality: God-given (or bases) or not. Tolstoy, of course, said that trying to found morality without God is like trying to get a flower to grow without its roots. The question you might be getting at is that if evolution fully explains moral value, then we need or don’t appear to need any other explanation, i.e., we don’t need God to support morality. It might be interesting to have a philosopher like Robert M. Adams (Yale, now Oxford) on who defend what is called divine command theory, a view that supposes moral obligation must ultimately be based in God’s commands. Such a position clearly would imply that Morality is God given. Here is some information on Adams: http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/robertadams.html
C. Steven Evans at Baylor has also just written a book on Divine Command theory. there is a jumble of thousghts on this topic
September 16th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Holding seemingly conflicting beliefs is something we do all the time and probably cannot avoid. Our very reasoning is by reference to models and metaphors that are necessarily indirect or incomplete insofar as such models themselves are not equivalent to whatever might constitute non-tautological truth.
While our scientific models have come to have considerable “how to� utility, even they have not seemed amenable of logical unification. And, it seems even more clear that our spiritual models (about God and/or morality) have not come to unified appreciation or guidance for what should be the “why to� for our moral choices.
Even our interpretations of sensations are indirect — thus, models. The very idea of an “I� is a model; whether “you� have existence in correspondence with Truth or God or Existence may be naught but a notion or model. “You� might be naught but an expression of Truth’s imagination.
While our various models serve various utilities, none combine into any unified, exact representation or correlation with non-tautological Truth. So, the more interesting question might not be whether we can envision a belief in morality without a belief in God. Of course we can!
Rather, the more interesting question might be whether morality itself can exist without an existing God. To “answer� that question, human logic will not take us very far. To “answer� that question may require a spiritual, not consistently definable kind of faith, insight, intuition, or vision. But, how can purpose, meaning or definition be attributed to words such as “meaning,� “morality,� “spiritual,� or “intuition�? Do such fuzzy concepts somehow spill over from appreciating that “something� seems to synchronize our experiences of disparate models that seems beyond logical unification within mortal reasoning? Maybe God might know, not me.
From mortal perspective, I see no more logical rationality for believing that morality may exist than for believing that God may exist. In other words, IT HARDLY MAKES MORE LOGICAL SENSE TO BELIEVE IN MORALITY WITHOUT GOD THAN TO BELIEVE IN MORALITY WITH GOD. Rather, insofar as we have no choice but to act on (or believe in) models, the choice for what model (to leap to believe in) may be defended or tipped based upon utility.
If the desired utility is to promote forums for working out common, civilized appreciations for what is moral, then the church forums that arise in respect of a Golden-Rule-God-belief would seem to win the tip. Against anyone who would profess that morality exists but that God does not, simply ask: how can it be rationally supposed that any supposed evidence for an existence of morality is better than any supposed evidence for an existence of God? Or, how can one scrupulously believe that we are better off not be believe in any basis for scruples?
September 17th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
OK, I’m guessing no one can address the fact that if morality comes from evolution, why do we keep killing and harming each other. If morality really came from evolution, why do we have to pass laws to make it clear we expect moral behavior to continue? I think that proves the point that morality must come from some place other than evolution.
September 17th, 2005 at 11:19 pm
Dlanorrenrag (9/16/05)says the difficulty of proving that morality exists is as great as the difficulty of proving the existence of God. This appears to lead dlanorrenrag to the conclusion that we ought to choose whatever “model� is more useful (“. . . insofar as we have no choice but to act on (or believe in) models, the choice for what model (to leap to believe in) may be defended or tipped based upon utility�). Dlanorrenrag accordingly finds that “the church forums that arise in respect of a Golden-Rule-God-belief� offer the proper vehicle for resolving moral issues.
The existence of morality and the existence of God are very different things. Morality is a set of concepts (rules or principles) governing how one should think and behave with regard to oneself, other human or non-human beings, and the environment. While people can disagree as to whether any proposed moral formulation is correct, no one can deny that moral formulations exist. God, on the other hand, is a being encompassing much more than concepts, and controversy about the existence of God has continued for centuries.
I think the most useful position is one of agnosticism as to whether morality arises from God. As I asserted before, the immediate source of morality is reasoning. It’s not necessary to get into unresolvable disputes about how we got the ability to reason. We should focus on addressing moral issues by using our power of reason, however we got it. We need to convince people like Rick Santorum to do this.
By the way, I apologize for the Freudian slip in my 9/13/05 post (I meant to say, “If you want the Golden Rule improved upon, then I think you should re-write it instead of trying to read into it what the words clearly don’t say�).
September 18th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
The trouble with “God given” ethics is that it is very difficult, indeed, perhaps impossible, ever to know what they could possibly be. The issue is not trivial. It goes to the root of theology. What is it that we mean by “God?”
As Voltaire is reputed to have said: “If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.” In short, the only kind of God that humans customarily accept as recognizable looks a great deal like themselves.
From what other source, then, might we derive legitimate principals of moral behavior? This is what many people from different religious and secular traditions will be exploring through an online course in environmental ethics:
http://ecojustice.net/2005-ENVRE120/Environmental-Ethics-Announcement.html
Is it ever possible for humans to develop a non-anthropocentric ethic? Is it ever possible for them to survive in an ecosystem for long without one?
Tough questions but we have to address them, and we need to begin with asking, “What is the appropriate context for Environmental Ethics?”
http://ecojustice.net/2005-ENVRE120/Earth-in-Space.htm
I hope many will join in the conversation.
October 3rd, 2005 at 1:09 pm
“Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”
John Stuart Mill
Mill goes on to write that this idea of utility extends to are tendency to promote “general happiness.” We tend to promote a general happiness in our society through a feeling of “duty” and a hope of pleasing. This idea reminded me of something Sartre wrote in “Existentialism and Human Emotions.”
“Existentialism’s first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him. And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.”
Jean-Paul Sartre
October 3rd, 2005 at 1:14 pm
are? uhhh… our!
October 12th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Whether behavior exists in a consistently definable moral sense seems debateable. Regardless, we tend generally to “leap to believe” that morality is a real, valid, or practical concept. But, for us to agree to “correct” or “best” ways to answer specific moral dilemmas, I doubt cold reason, logic, or science can lead us where we want or need to go. Rather, I suspect moral answers tend to arise out of a participatory process. People seem to need to take their concerns to a participatory forum. For a forum to attract participants, it needs a commonality for inspiring participants.
It may not matter so much whether the commonality is comprehended as that it is appreciated. It may not matter so much whether a point of common moral reference (such as God or Higher Decency or morality) can be proven or comprehended as that it can inspire and be appreciated and respected. A society can more likely cohere regardless of inability to prove either God or morality, provided the society appreciates a fundamental moral reference.
For many, it may be enough that God cannot be disproved, especially when, to some, God seems intuited.
One problem with utilitarianism is that it is merely an impersonal concept, which tends not to inspire one to wish the greatest good for the greatest number when the cost is borne by one personally.
October 21st, 2005 at 8:06 pm
I would like to suggest Dr. Michael Shermer as a guest speaker for this show. He is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, and has a long list of credentials. Dr. Shermer does speaking engagements on and has authored several books on the psychology of religion and science-vs.-religion type issues. According to the Skeptics Society website, http://www.skeptic.com, Dr. Shermer’s book, The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Share, Care, and Follow the Golden Rule, is about “the evolutionary origins of morality and how to be good without God,” which seems to sum up the basic subject matter of this debate. There are directions on the Skeptics Society website on how to invite Dr. Shermer to speak. http://www.skeptic.com/about_us/invite_to_speak.html
October 25th, 2005 at 7:58 pm
Is an action wrong because God forbids it or does God forbid it because it is wrong? Also a person doing a good deed without God in the equation may be doing it with greater purity of heart - simply because it is the right thing to do. While the religious person’s motivation may be clouded by fear of punishment or hope of reward.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
All of these arguments were gone over in my phil 101 class and i can tell you i found the answers we came to easy enough. god given morality has so many holes in it you could use it to strain noodles. a simple run scenario…
Jesus (the real not fake jesus) comes to you and says “stab your child till they die”
do you do it? If you dont you are violating a direct order from god, because if god told you to do it, its a “good” thing to do.
Most of us would not stab their own child, no matter who told them to do it. Hence morality is not based on faith or god or any super natural power.
As far as an evolved “morality” i can tell you this, human kinds biggest threat is to its own kind. other humans use the same resources you do, take up the same nich in the environment that you do, and compete for the same reproductive population that you do, hence it is only natural that we would fight with each other over things. the same way monkeys and insects and bacteria do. morality is a function of human invention. much in the same way that airplanes and cars are. we invented morality because it is useful. it keeps us from killing each other (too much), and allows us the time to get things done.
November 1st, 2005 at 9:47 pm
Ian Barbour, retired professor of both religion and science and winner of the Templeton Prize, is always worth hearing on the interrelationship between scientific theory and religious beliefs. See http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9342050?tocId=9342050
November 21st, 2005 at 7:27 pm
There was a very interesting article on precisely this topic in the December, 1989 Atlantic Monthly. Written, I think, by Glenn Tinder. That would be a person to talk to. As to the topic itself, I fear it is just another way of asking if God exists. I also think there is a strong possibility that whoever you book as guests will talk past each other. Religious and secular people define morality or “goodness” in ways that pre-judge your question. Still, just listening to them try to come to a common understanding of terms would be interesting.
November 23rd, 2005 at 6:02 pm
Is it possible to envision a world full of meaning and morality without God — or do they have to come from God? Not only is possible to envision a world full of meaning and morality without “God�, we have empirical evidence from which to draw this conclusion.
Consider Buddhism; an avowedly atheistic tradition established on the precept of moral behavior. An ancient and enduring tradition that predates Christianity (i.e. the teaching of Jesus the Nazarene) by several centuries.
Morality is a conceptual construct of human necessity, deriving from the needs of, and benefiting the development of society (i.e. the clan, tribe, village, city, nation, state – that which permits and perpetuates the existence of the individual). Morality is therefore appropriately viewed as ancillary to, not derived from or produced by, evolution.
Consider the epistemology. The English word “mores� is defined as the customs and habitual practices that a particular group of people accept and follow. It derives from the Latin mos; referring to the will and inclination. The word “particular� suggests the relative nature of morality. It is concerned with the nature of right and wrong within the context of human relations (to each other, the environment and divinity) within a specific culture at a certain time.
Senator Santorum’s statement is primarily an existential one that seeks (confusedly) to associate morality with “purpose� in an attempt to postulate “a Being that has moral demands� on us. This is the hallmark of egocentric-anthropomorphism that misapprehends the true nature of being.
And finally to address the question, “Morality: God-Given or Evolved?� To what do you refer when you say “God�? Can someone please define “God� for the purposes of this discussion? For what has evolved more in the previous 6000 years than the human notions of God? And if morality exists at all, how could it not evolve?
November 26th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
I am a refugee from the Intelligent Design shows. I can’t believe I read this whole thread! There are some very interesting thought- provoking posts here.
So here are my two cents worth.
If you hold a literal or non-metaphoric interpretation of the Bible you might take offense so forgive me. The God that some here ( and R. Santorum) speak of seems anthropomorphic in the sense that this God is created in the image of humans by humans. This God is imbued with human traits like intelligence and the ability to design as well as give laws, a sense of morality purpose and give solace. In other words this is God serves as a parent- guide.
Evolutionary biologists would hold, I believe, that humans created God out of a need after evolving to a degree of self consciousness or awareness from lower forms . Existential questions arising from that awakening are still very much with us and unanswered but for the answers that come from God and religion/s. The questions; Who are we (who am I)? Where did I/we come from?, Why are we here?. Where are we ( am I) going?, sentiments echoed by R. Santorum quoted above, invoke a fear and trembling in some about the possibility of life being meaningless. God and religion give to some answers that calm and give guidance bring us back from that bleak, unbearable, possibility.
Many manage to find answers within themselves without this concept of God, outside of religion. As “flow” above says there are other ways to calm the soul such as the Buddhist way through meditation. I disagree with “flowâ€?’s conclusion however that “morality is therefore appropriately viewed as ancillary to, not derived from evolution”. If God, the need for God, comes into the mind of man from an evolutionary awakening,which I believe it does, then morality must be a result of evolution as well.
I have trouble with the question posed because I have trouble with the dichotomy “God-given” and evolution. For me they are the same, from the same source or Source. The Source from which God as well comes, a source that embraces or includes all that we know and do not know, all that is.
The questions ( Morality: God-Given or Evolved? Is it possible to envision a world full of meaning and morality without God — or do they have to come from God? Do meaning and morality come from the top down or do they percolate from the bottom up?) imply it seems, a definition of God, a God or even a process that is incompatible with evolution. I reject that division.
Santorum and others view evolution as threatening: chaotic, random, meaningless. This idea of what evolution implies then brings back all the anxiety that belief in God relieves. So no wonder we are having this problem.
If you see this all as a whole, you do not have a problem with evolution or anything else we may come to know in an honest way such as through scientific inquiry.
Maybe the Dalai Lama can help us. ( Robert Thurman, our expert on Tibetan Buddhism)
November 29th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
Oops! please replace the first sentence of the 4th paragraph of my previous post that reads “Consider the epistemology” with “Consider the etymology”. (Must have been a floydian slip).
Thanks,
Floyd
December 21st, 2005 at 10:26 pm
Have any philosophers or scientists considered whether Homo erectus or earlier forms had moral systems? If you go back far enough, for example back to when our lineage was still squarely in the prokaryote camp, I suspect morality wasn’t high on the agenda. And some of my best friends are prokaryotes, I should add.
December 22nd, 2005 at 5:14 pm
I would be interested in making sure the Jewish right, not just the Christian right is heard from on this show. I find their positions fascinating and unpredictable and, frankly, I want them engaged in the debate so that I can figure out how to debate with them. So, how about inviting David Klinghoffer. He wrote, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus. And, he has a new book coming out on the 10 Commandments. And he has written countless essays on the Talmud and morality for conservative magazines. I want to learn how to talk to people like this.
December 28th, 2005 at 12:30 am
“Put differently — in fanya’s words — do meaning and morality come from the top down or do they percolate from the bottom up?”
I am going to take morality out of my comments: As someone who believes in God, I think that meaning goes both ways. I believe that God’s purpose is to help us progress in the eternal scheme of things, but our finite understanding stymies our ability to comprehend sometimes why things happen the way that they do (like death and when bad things happen to good people (and vice versa)). Personally, I believe that God is only happy when we progress, and He is saddened when we choose to digress. Also, I feel that in order for us to progress beyond this state-of-being, we need God. He is the ultimate source of our ability to grow and continue on beyond this life. Thus, He is also a source of meaning — just as we are a source of meaning for Him.
January 12th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Daniel Dennett (http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/~ddennett.htm) deals with this subject also in his book Freedom Evolves.
January 14th, 2006 at 1:07 am
>> So here’s the question for the hour: is it possible to envision a world full of meaning and morality without God — or do they have to come from God?
January 17th, 2006 at 1:53 am
Yes Grasshopper, I do think it is possible to both envision and live a moral and meaningful life adopting a non-theistic philosophy. Unlike western religions Buddhism does not involve an overiding deity.
In a public talk I heard the Dalai Lama give in Vancouver BC he talked about the importance of teaching ethics to our children regardless of our belief system or lack of belief system. He said, you would not expect someone who has never been taught to sit down and play the piano perfectly or instantly do complex mathmatics without being taught. In the same way people need to be taught ethical behavior. He often talks about developing secular ethics. The benefit of kindness is recognized in the reality of our interconnectedness.
For me personnally as a lay practioner of Tibetan Buddhism deep looking into reality through meditation, the effort to cultivate commpassion, studying the dharma, these practces bring meaning to my life.
January 17th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Here are a few direct quotes of H. H. Dalai Lama that I thought seemed relevant to this discussion. They are from his book, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality.
on darwinisn…
“I feel that this inability or unwillingness fully to engage the question of altruism is perhaps the most important drawback of Darwinian evolutionary theory, at least in its popular version. In the natural world, which is purported to be the source of the theory of evolution, just as we observe competition between and within species for survival, we observe profound levels of cooperation (not necessarily in the conscious sense of the term). Likewise, just as we observe acts of aggression in animals and humans, we observe acts of altruism and compassion.
Why does modern biology accept only competition to be the fundamental trait of living beings? Why does it reject cooperation as an operating principle, and why does it not see altruism and compassion as possible traits for the development of living beings as well?”
p 114
on the ups and downs of consciousness…
“I said to one of the scientists: “It seems very evid