In the world of an Atheist who defines right and wrong?

[Jake_]

Where does your moral code come from?

The way I see it, either you don't know or you can't have one? And i don't see how such a thing could have evolved......

Anyhow, please tell me where, personally, your moral code comes from.

[Nickman]

You cannot exclude god from his own standards with an appeal to special circumstances.

The very standards god is telling his creation to uphold and obey he blatantly disobeys them himself. Do you think that is ok if he is our exemplar and what we are trying to be like?

How could God possibly be measured by the same standards as man? He is God; man is man. He is the Creator; man is not.

Because we have brains that tell us this guy is a hypocrite just like anyone else who says one thing and does another. Why can't we measure him by the standards that he supposedly set? Can we hold the government responsible for the rules they have deemed necessary for society? Yes we can. God is not exempt from obeying his own rules. They are HIS rules. If I make a rule in my house for my family, can I just ignore it and expect everyone else to follow it? No. Your doing what is called special pleading.

He can foresee the eternal ramifications of every action undertaken by Himself and man, and He coordinates these actions as best He can to result in the best possible eternal result. Half the time, man doesn't even know what the consequences for his actions will be an hour after he takes them. How could we possibly view the actions of one in the same light as we view the actions of the other?

If man will sit down and think about the possible consequences of his actions before he does them then he can in fact realize what is best. It is when we don't think before we act when we eff up.

Did you read my argument concerning genocide in the Old Testament? Is there something wrong with it? Because you didn't address it at all. Taking an action that would benefit a being eternally but cause him temporal pain is hardly immoral; in fact, I'd say it's the most moral action anyone could take.

Genocide is genocide. You cannot candy coat it. Your argument relies on the assumption that there is eternal life. This is something you cannot provide evidence for. Either way genocide is genocide no matter how you look at it and it is morally wrong to perform it and to condone it, which is the stance that you are taking. Instead of listening to your brain that tells you it is wrong to kill millions of people because you want land, you justify it on assupmtions you cannot provide evidence for.

So when, you say that we desire to emulate the character of God, then I would say you're right. Absolutely. In fact, we believe that the character of God is the foundation for morality.

So its ok to perform genocide then. Gotcha. What an exemplar this god of your is.

This is the sense in which morality is objective for the Christian. The difference is that God is omniscient, and we are not. No man has the right or authority to make the decisions that God made in the Old Testament, and no Christian (I hope) sees those events as examples to follow.

Right, and omniscience makes god responsible for sin in the first place because he created us with the knowledge that we would sin. He has therefore no right to condemn us because he knew he was creating a faulty creation. The responsibility and accountability lies on his shoulders, not ours.

Artie and Nickman, you're still attacking the ethics of the Old Testament, but my initial point had nothing to do with that. As I said before, you're still avoiding the issue. I'm talking about moral objectivity, or more specifically, the inherent worth of a human being. How would you answer the question I asked?

I think I have addressed your questions exhaustively. Morals are subjective not objective, and this entire world we live in confirms this. Every person on the planet believes differently about what is right and wrong. Apparently, to god, humans are not worth much and are expendable. If you knew much about the Hebrew bible before christianity stole it and tried to make it say what they wanted. You would know that the afterlife is not an issue in the Hebrew bible. Cnorman has wrote extensively on this as well as several other Jewish members of this forum. The Hebrew bible and the Talmud are focused on the here and now. Not an afterlife. Christianity is the one that made up this idea of the afterlife in the Hebrew bible.

EDITS: Spelling

[Bust Nak]

How can feelings be a foundation for morality?

How can it not be? An unfeeling robot that goes round destorying things is not evil. An unfeeling robot that go rounds provinding for other robots is not good.

Feelings themselves are subjective to morality; the feeling of compassion is morally right, but the feeling of murderous rage is morally wrong. Feelings cannot possibly act as a basis for morality.

You got it the wrong way round. Morality is subjective to feelings. Compassion is morally right because we like compassion, but murderous rage is morally wrong because we don't like rage.

I'm not about to deny that just yet, and, to be honest, it's not an argument I need to make to prove my point. But, out of curiosity, what kind of evolutionary strategies are there for developing a selfless morality? Natural selection--survival of the fittest--is the engine of evolution. Self-sacrifice cannot further one's own genes, but stops them cold. Isn't it more likely to impede evolution, then?

Praying mantis mating is a favorite example of mine. There are plenty other examples, bees killing themselves while stinging intruders etc. The point is while self-sacrifice do indeed stop one's own life cold, it doesn't necessarily stops one's own genes cold. In my first example, the male boosts the chance of his genes surviving by providing himself as food to the female; in the second, the worker bees won't ever get to breed in the first place, all her genes are past by proxy via the queen.

Finally! An answer! Thanks for your honesty. However, I feel that you're also illustrating my point. As long as morality is defined by a "simple conflict of value," then there is no inherent worth in the individual and no limit to how far this moral philosophy can take you.

Inherent worth is a concept that simply incoherent anyway, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If your point is that there is no theoretical limit to subjective morality, then you'll find no objection from me.

It would likely cause chaos, and mourning mothers and fathers would tear the society apart, but is there no other reason not to? If their genes cannot (or should not) go on, and if they have no chance of recovery, then what is their worth? Why should we feed and care for them?

We won't kill them because we don't want to. We will feed and care for them because we want to. We feel that is the right way to act.

This thinking, taken further, is the justification for ethnic cleansing and genocide. You can say that it "feels" wrong, but of what worth is that?

Of worth to whom? The worth of "I feel it's wrong" is invaluable to me.

Again, as long as morality is decided by "a conflict of value," then there are limitless examples of how man could (and have) justify (or justified) horrendous acts of violence and cruelty.

That there are limitless examples of what had happened matching what could happen according to my philosophy, is a great indication that my philosophy is accurately describing reality.

Again, if you appeal to an emotion as a moral inhibitor to these actions, then it's not enough to tell me how that emotion developed through evolution (though I'd be very interested to see how you think it did, as I said before). You must tell me, rationally, how it is a viable moral inhibitor to the progress of humanity.

Feeling is not rational. Even if you construct a rock solid case that killing millions of children is good for society, I won't do it, I can't do it. Emotion works as a moral inhibitor exactly because it's not rational, it's more basic than reasoning.

[Goat]

Where does your moral code come from?

The way I see it, either you don't know or you can't have one? And i don't see how such a thing could have evolved......

Anyhow, please tell me where, personally, your moral code comes from.

The issue of objective morality is often overlooked by atheists. I don't think I've ever heard a proper response to this issue by anyone other than the "hard" atheists of the past, like Nietzsche, Marx, Lenin, etc.

Let me take the question further, to clarify; if there is no God and no metaphysical foundation for morality, then there can be no objective moral values. What is "right" and "wrong" must be arrived at by logic. And, for an atheist, there can be only two sources of logical morality: evolution and the Marxist ethical concept of "justification of the means by the ends." If there is another that I've missed, please inform me, but I can't imagine any other foundation for morals that can be understood without appealing to the metaphysical.

The foundation for morals is reciprocal altruism and the evolved trait of empathy.

Morality also is a cultrually conditioned response.. .. which, I might point out, is neither evolution nor is it the concept of 'the ends justifies the means' .. which btw is not "Marxist'.

If evolution is the source of morality, then moral inhibition (not including sexual inhibition) is simply a chemical phenomenon in the brain that was developed after thousands of generations to make the individual organism more suitable for survival in a community. This would naturally be a very selfish "morality".

The desire for 'morality' is evolutionary.. what the morality is depends on culture.
Just like the ability to language.

But then, say, man evolved more and was able to reason. He could then look and see that the "greater good" is the survival of the whole of his community, race, or whatever. His reason would then override his natural evolutionary tendencies. This would have been the source of selfless "morality", as we now know it. Here is where the Marxists take up the mantle; "What is morally just is simply whatever furthers progress for humanity as a whole," they said. "Thus, any means are justified by their ends." Granted, the Marxists had a pretty deluded idea of what was good for humanity as a whole, but, nonetheless this thinking is intellectually flawless, assuming that there is no God or objective morality. Unfortunately, it also justified the Marxists' killing of 300 million people throughout the 20th century, at least in their minds.

Actually, that wasn't 'Marxists'.. that was 'totalitarian communists',. They were devoted to a specific ideology.

So, I have another question for the atheist, and I'm very interested to know what one would say to this. Suppose, in a hypothetical situation, that you are a public servant that does an incredible amount of good for your community. You are changing the world for the better, and you know that you are just getting started. Then say that, by some awful circumstance, you are placed in a situation where you have to choose between your life or the lives of five (or more) physically and/or mentally handicapped children. These children will never be able to have a job or contribute to society in any way, and you know this. Is it morally right to allow those children to die so that you may live? Or is it right to let yourself die for their sake?

Don't know.. hypothetical don't mean much .. Until someone is in that position,one does not know how one will react. That is true of the atheist, or the theist.

I know what the Marxist would say. "What is best for humanity is morally justified, no matter what it is. You can contribute to society, and they cannot. Thus, it would be a crime to let yourself die so that they can live." If you are an atheist and disagree, then please, tell me from whence your moral argument comes. Please refrain from appealing to abstract moral values like "compassion" or "love"; these need a justification if you do not believe in a metaphysical foundation for moral objectivity.

Would the 'Marxist' say that?? How do you know? This seems to be painting with too broad a brush, and making claims you can't back up.

In the world of the "Atheist', right and wrong is defined by society as a whole, where there is a constant tugging of opinion between various factions. On the other hand, this is exactly the same as the world of the theist, although the theist will proclaim it comes from God. Since what is considered moral will change with time, it would appear that the 'atheist' source of morality , and the 'theist' source of morality is actually the one and same.

I know this is an extraordinary scenario. But at the same time, it would be intellectually dishonest to espouse a worldview but not own up to its ethical implications, even in undesirable circumstances like these. Furthermore, there have been so many times in the past that tyrannical leaders--like Stalin, Hitler, and Mao Zedong--believed that they were in a similar situation. "Either I let the people be and allow them to hinder the progress of humanity as a whole," they thought, "or I do what is best for humanity and kill them." And kill them they did; there are tens of millions of deaths credited to each of the names I previously mentioned. Now, you can argue that the particular reasons that they killed the people they did were misguided, but can you challenge the underlying moral ideas that they held without appealing to moral objectivity?

Any thoughts?[/i]

Hitler did a lot of justifying his actions via 'The lords will' .. The one thing those three people had in common is overwhelming personal power, and large egos. That seems to be more of a point that their religious beliefs. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

OI can challenge their reasons based on the philosophy of secular humanism. ... and pointing out that they violated recipricol altruism.. they could get away with it because of power.

[mad_maverik93]

I apologize for the lateness of my reply. This is one of the busiest weeks of the semester for a college student.

The argument is that since we know people make up gods and there's no evidence for the actual existence of gods morality cannot come from non-existent gods. So morality is a result of evolution. Or do you have a third possibility

How can a god we know the ancient Hebrew made up be a foundation for anything? Wikipedia lists 108 creator gods, do they all have their own individual morality?

My argument is not, "There is a God; therefore there must be an objective morality." My argument is, "There is an objective morality; therefore there must be a God."

The only "argument" you've provided is that God is made up. This isn't a real argument; it's a restatement of what you believe. If you don't think there's a God, then of course He must have been made up by men, but you haven't offered any proof that He was. We don’t “know� that He was made up by the Hebrews. You're only assuming that. And to say that "there no evidence for God" in the middle of a debate over evidence for the existence of God is hardly a valid point. Beyond that, the reality of alternative deities does not diminish the necessity of there being a God.

This entire offshoot argument is completely off topic and not going anywhere. Once again, if you're going to evaluate the moral standing of the biblical God, then you must do so without atheistic presuppositions. To do otherwise is circular reasoning.

But obviously that is logically impossible because it would be your gods subjective morality. You can't simply pronounce something subjective to a god to be objective.

The idea of objective morality is that it is fixed; there are absolute standards to which we are all held accountable. Moral objectivity is the assumption that the "right" thing to do in a given situation is the same regardless of the individual. I am not saying that extenuating circumstances cannot alter the "rightness" of a decision, but I am saying that we should all be able to agree on a universal "right" in any given situation. This is universal; my argument is that, because this is universal, because we all have an innate and undying sense of moral objectivity, there must be a nonphysical foundation for that moral objectivity. I believe that foundation is God. That's what I've been getting at. And that's why I said that the topic of God's alleged immorality is completely unrelated to the argument I've been making.

What a paradox that you have to explain to a Christian a moral behavior that comes naturally to even vervet monkeys.

What Christian has contested the virtue of self-sacrifice? It's the crux of our moral system. We consider it the highest good. Yet you imply that we don't understand it? As though we're so primitive that monkeys can grasp what we can't? I never questioned why selflessness in general is moral or practical. My argument concerns circumstances in which the perceived morality and practicality of a choice conflict; that is why I asked the question (which you never answered). In such circumstances, what is right is determined by one of two means: practicality, which is decided from a "conflict of value," as Bust Nak called it, or an inherent sense of morality. My point is that what is practical can often be contrary to that inherent moral sense. That is why the idea of genocide is offensive in its own right. And that is what I am appealing to a nonphysical foundation for.

Your argument relies on the assumption that there is eternal life. This is something you cannot provide evidence for.

Yes! Exactly! And your argument that God is immoral is based on the assumption that He (and eternal life) does not exist. You can't evaluate the morality of God when you presuppose that He does not exist. That is circular reasoning. And you and Artie are both still doing it. I don't know how else to explain it to you.

So its ok to perform genocide then. Gotcha. What an exemplar this god of your is.

I've already addressed this twice. God's perception of the eternal ramifications of His actions places Him in a different position than any man can be in.

Right, and omniscience makes god responsible for sin in the first place because he created us with the knowledge that we would sin. He has therefore no right to condemn us because he knew he was creating a faulty creation. The responsibility and accountability lies on his shoulders, not ours.

This is the problem of evil. You two have addressed every apologetics-related issue under the sun except for the one this thread is devoted to.

The simple answer to the problem of evil is that God created man with free will, the ability to make decisions independently from God. That is why humankind can be held accountable for their actions. Yes, God foreknew that there would be sin in Creation, but He also foreknew the good, and you cannot have one without risking the other.

Artie and Nickman, you're still attacking the ethics of the Old Testament, but my initial point had nothing to do with that. As I said before, you're still avoiding the issue. I'm talking about moral objectivity, or more specifically, the inherent worth of a human being. How would you answer the question I asked?

I think I have addressed your questions exhaustively. Morals are subjective not objective, and this entire world we live in confirms this.

No you haven't. I was referring to the hypothetical question concerning the public servant and the handicapped children. What is morally right in that situation?

Apparently, to god, humans are not worth much and are expendable.

I've addressed this three times now. No, He doesn't. Even those He kills, He does so in hope of redeeming them eternally. You have yet to respond to that argument without resorting to circular reasoning.

If you knew much about the Hebrew bible before christianity stole it and tried to make it say what they wanted.

The Hebrew Tanak is derived from the same documents as the Christian Old Testament. I've read it; they say the same things. Christianity did not alter anything in its message.

By the way, please don't presume what I do and don't know. Your condescension is not necessary.

You would know that the afterlife is not an issue in the Hebrew bible. Cnorman has wrote extensively on this as well as several other Jewish members of this forum. The Hebrew bible and the Talmud are focused on the here and now. Not an afterlife. Christianity is the one that made up this idea of the afterlife in the Hebrew bible.

First of all, modern-day Jews believe in an afterlife as well, and they are certainly not influenced by Christian ideas. Yes, the doctrine of eternal life had not yet been established at the time of the conquest of Canaan, but why is that relevant? I'm not arguing from the perspective of the ancient Israelites; I'm arguing from a Christian perspective.


Unfortunately, I can only handle so much a night. . . . Bust Nak and Goat, I will reply to your posts hopefully tomorrow.

[Artie]

My argument is not, "There is a God; therefore there must be an objective morality." My argument is, "There is an objective morality; therefore there must be a God."

I have shown you several times that morality evolved. "Objective" morality is the correct moral behavior in any given situation. When a vervet monkey calls out and endangers himself for the good of the many that is "objective" moral behavior because this behavior gains most individuals. No god needed to tell the monkeys that they should behave in this way. They behave in this way because those who behaved this way in the past survived and those who didn't didn't survive.

The idea of objective morality is that it is fixed; there are absolute standards to which we are all held accountable. Moral objectivity is the assumption that the "right" thing to do in a given situation is the same regardless of the individual.

True. The moral act for a vervet monkey is to call out and endanger himself for the good of the many if he sees a predator. It doesn't depend on the individual monkey.

I am not saying that extenuating circumstances cannot alter the "rightness" of a decision, but I am saying that we should all be able to agree on a universal "right" in any given situation. This is universal; my argument is that, because this is universal, because we all have an innate and undying sense of moral objectivity, there must be a nonphysical foundation for that moral objectivity.

Of course not. It is "right" for a vervet monkey to call out and endanger himself for the good of the many. This is universal for every social animal because it allows as many individuals as possible to survive. That is why the behavior evolved.

What Christian has contested the virtue of self-sacrifice? It's the crux of our moral system. We consider it the highest good. Yet you imply that we don't understand it? As though we're so primitive that monkeys can grasp what we can't? I never questioned why selflessness in general is moral or practical. My argument concerns circumstances in which the perceived morality and practicality of a choice conflict; that is why I asked the question (which you never answered).

Please rephrase the question in enough detail so that it can be reasonably answered and I will answer it.

[Danmark]

Morality can certainly arise without religion. Man develops social rules and morality because he has learned his society works better that way and that he is stronger if he cooperates with others, so he needs society.

You can even see with higher animals and primates. Frans de Waals has written on this:

So these are the pillars of morality. If you ask anyone, "What is morality based on?" these are the two factors that always come out. One is reciprocity, and associated with it is a sense of justice and a sense of fairness. And the other one is empathy and compassion. And human morality is more than this, but if you would remove these two pillars, there would be not much remaining I think. And so they're absolutely essential.

There are videos showing chimpanzees cooperating so they both get food. They must cooperate if either is to get a treat. More interesting is that if they are both rewarded equally for the same task they work without a problem. But if one gets a tastier treat for the same task, rather quickly the other gets upset and stops working regularly.

It's really fascinating. You can watch a video of this on TED talks

[A Troubled Man]

Where does your moral code come from?

The way I see it, either you don't know or you can't have one?

I have none that I can call my own. Instead, I must weigh carefully each and every scenario depending on the circumstances using a wide variety of knowledge and understanding.

And i don't see how such a thing could have evolved......

Some have evolved while others came about through the use of logic and reason.

[Nickman]

Yes! Exactly! And your argument that God is immoral is based on the assumption that He (and eternal life) does not exist. You can't evaluate the morality of God when you presuppose that He does not exist. That is circular reasoning. And you and Artie are both still doing it. I don't know how else to explain it to you.

My argument relies on me coming to terms with my opponent and allowing for the existence of god for the sake of the argument, in order to judge his character. Just because I don't believe in him doesn't mean I cannot address the subject as if he is real. I can evaluate the morality of god whether or not I believe in god or not. Why do christians say this? It matters not if I believe in god or not. I can and will judge god by his own standards he set forth in the bible. He is direct violation of said standards, which I think you know this very well if you have studied the bible to any extent. How can you say we are not allowed to judge god, as if he is off limits? This sounds like special pleading. If god sets standards then he is also accountable to those standards, because they are his and what he requires. Why would you not judge a person or entity for not obeying their own standards, when they enforce them on you and at a huge price?

I've already addressed this twice. God's perception of the eternal ramifications of His actions places Him in a different position than any man can be in.

Genocide is not ok no matter what. There has never been a scenario where it is ok and never will be. Like I said, your entire argument stems from the idea that there is an afterlife, that of which you have no evidence for and cannot prove.

This is the problem of evil. You two have addressed every apologetics-related issue under the sun except for the one this thread is devoted to.

It is quite simple. If you were to make an invention and you had the foresight that this invention would break and kill or harm the operator using it, yet you continued to make this invention anyway, would you be responsible for the injury or possible death of the operator? Yes you would.

Now, lets apply this to your flavor of god. He knew we would sin and that he would have (want) to punish us and instead of creating us, differently, he continued on with this faulty creation. This makes him responsible for sin. At the point that your god saw this premonition he forefeited his rights to be angry or punish us. He ultimately became responsible because he could have stopped what he knew he didn't like to begin with. This is perfectly sound logic.

The simple answer to the problem of evil is that God created man with free will, the ability to make decisions independently from God. That is why humankind can be held accountable for their actions. Yes, God foreknew that there would be sin in Creation, but He also foreknew the good, and you cannot have one without risking the other.

No he didn't because of this little thing called omniscience. Can I do anything different from what god saw before hand? My life has already been played out and therefore I am now just going through the motions. That is the problem with omniscience.

No you haven't. I was referring to the hypothetical question concerning the public servant and the handicapped children. What is morally right in that situation?

My fault, I forgot the question then. Run it by me again. Im on about 15 different threads so if I miss something or fail to address it just run it by me again. Ill be happy to oblige you.

I've addressed this three times now. No, He doesn't. Even those He kills, He does so in hope of redeeming them eternally. You have yet to respond to that argument without resorting to circular reasoning.

Again, this is based on the presupposition that there is an afterlife. If there is an afterlife, which we cannot prove, then you may have an argument. If there is no afterlife as the Hebrew bible is unconcerned with, then the shedding of human life is tragic. The problem is, that when people have a belief in the afterlife they tend to take this life for granted. They participate in suicide bombings, crusades, inquisitions, abortion clinic bombings and the like. They do all of this on a belief in the afterlife and with no regard to this life. They care less about those they may affect or take the life of, and if there is no afterlife then think how tragic that truly is. You justify your god's genocide, 1st degree murders (UZZAH), hiring hit men, and the like based on faith in an afterlife. Why can't you see the flawed logic here and the problematic thinking? Could you understand why we athesits and non-theists don't want this type of thinking to permeate our society?

The Hebrew Tanak is derived from the same documents as the Christian Old Testament. I've read it; they say the same things. Christianity did not alter anything in its message.

There are many Jews on this site and all that I have debated with and have sat back and watched them debate christians, have said the same thing, they are not concerned with an afterlife. They don't teach the afterlife as a doctrine and they don't pretend to know either. If their is one then they leave it up to their god. All they are concerned about is this life. They don't base their beliefs on the idea of an afterlife.

Could you please show me a verse that explicitly states there is an afterlife from The TNK? I know of verses that actually say the opposite. Eccl 9:10“…in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.�

By the way, please don't presume what I do and don't know. Your condescension is not necessary.

Well if you state there is an afterlife in the Hebrew text and I know there is not then where does that leave my train of thought? The whole idea of ressurection is based on the idea of the cessation of life when one dies. Christians have changed it to mean other than what it originally meant. Tell me what good is a resurrection if you don't really die when you die? Your basing your idea of afterlife from a Greek understanding. Where do you think Hades came from? In the TNK you see the sheol or grave. In christianity you see the Greek influence and pagan ideas about life after death.

First of all, modern-day Jews believe in an afterlife as well, and they are certainly not influenced by Christian ideas. Yes, the doctrine of eternal life had not yet been established at the time of the conquest of Canaan, but why is that relevant? I'm not arguing from the perspective of the ancient Israelites; I'm arguing from a Christian perspective.

Some do yes but they don't draw this belief from the Hebrew scriptures. The reason I am arguing the point, is because you said that the afterlife is intrinsic to Hebrew belief and the Hebrew scriptures and I call your bluff becase I know they are not. Afterlife was a pagan concept and christianity borrowed a little here and a little there. Some from the Jews, some from the Greeks.

[sirsnipps]

The problem as I see it is this: the word 'moral' was created by humanity to describe a concept that made sense at the time but, unfortunately, it no longer does.|
The definition of the word 'moral' hangs on the existence of a higher power (or, at least, some ethereal yardstick). In this sense, I agree with the statement that without a god there can be no morals. Of course, all that really means is that without a god the word 'moral' is meaningless. The absence of a god doesn't necessarily change our perceptions of what is right and wrong, we just no longer have a neat little word to describe them.
So, where do our perceptions of right and wrong come from? In my opinion, they come from our sense of empathy (something that we have evolved as a result of being social animals) and the evolution of altruism (which is closely related to empathy and also present in many other species). We know not to hurt others not because some higher power told us not to, but because it makes us feel bad when we do.
There is, in fact, a specific kind of neuron in our brains that allows us to understand the actions of others and even copy them. They're known as mirror neurons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neurons. These, combined with our limbic system, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system, allow us to learn emotions from watching others. So the process goes something like this: I wonder what happens when I kick Fred -> Fred is sad -> Fred is sad so I feel sad -> when I kick people I get sad -> I don't like kicking people, so I won't do it. Interestingly, autism spectrum disorders have been associated with problems in the mirror neuron system, which provides a nice little explanation as to why autistic people have trouble understanding the concept of empathy.
In conclusion, I do not have a moral code as the word moral is meaningless to me. I learn right and wrong through observing the effects my actions have on others and paying attention to my emotions. The beauty of this method is that it cuts out a lot of the morals foisted upon us that don't make sense.