Religion v Ethics

[Wootah]

It is said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

How does ethics avoid a similar attack?

[2ndRateMind]

Indeed, this is a common criticism of Mill, that he never actually defines what 'harm' is. Nevertheless, I think we can take a simple, common sense approach to this; if you damage my person, property or interests, you are inflicting harm on me. The greater the damage, the greater the crime.

That is my point. You are using a moral imperative to define "harm", i.e. a violation of property rights. It would then be circular reasoning to say that violation of property rights is wrong because it is "harm". The better argument is the social order argument. If one wishes to have social order, there must be property rights.

Actually, damage is a fairly objective criterion. In many cases, it is even possible to assign a monetary value to it, or otherwise the libel lawyers and insurance companies and so on would not have a practical business model. The only ethical consideration is to judge that harm, or damage, is a bad thing, and should not be unnecessarily inflicted. But I think this a fairly uncontroversial moral judgment, and that few would want to argue that harm, and damage, should be inflicted at whim, or that it does not matter if they are.

The problem here is that you are equating wealth with currency. Currency is limited by governing authorities. However, wealth is only limited by the willingness of the populous to exchange goods and services. Adam Smith makes this clear in "Wealth of Nations".

If I have a piece of land, but do not wish to sell it, that in no way diminishes its value.

This is a common misconception. You are presuming the assets controlled by one person is taken from another person.

I do not presume this, I am arguing quite rationally that this is the case. And I am getting a little irritated by your continued allegations about my misconceptions, and fallacies, and misunderstandings, and such. I do not so accuse you, and would be grateful if you would desist. When we have both said all we want to say, and the argument is finally decided, then we will know who is right, and who is wrong, but not until then. And until then, a little respect would be courteous.

If that asset is held static, the "poor" do suffer. However, if the "poor" are permitted, by the owner, to use that asset to produce more and/or better assets, the economy expands and the "poor" are benefited. In fact, that latter is exactly what does happen in a free market economy. If one that asset from the "rich" and give it to the "poor" for consumption, rather than production, the economy contracts and the "poor" suffer.

However, if the "poor" are permitted, by the owner, to use that asset to produce more and/or better assets, the economy expands and the "poor" are benefited. In fact, that latter is exactly what does happen in a free market economy. If one that asset from the "rich" and give it to the "poor" for consumption, rather than production, the economy contracts and the "poor" suffer.

I see no reason why it is in some way better that 1 rich person should control productive assets worth, say, $,1000,000, than 2000 ordinary people should each own a share of $500 in those assets.

Furthermore, the economy would grow no more slowly if the poor spend on consumption what the rich currently hoard. It could even expand the economy. Economic demand is a matter of both wanting stuff, and being able to afford it, as well as actually spending that money. Since the poor, by definition, have little money, they create little economic demand, which is the real factor that drives economic growth. While the rich do not necessarily spend their wealth, at all. Consequently, if the rich are encouraged to distribute the money they do not spend to the poor who actually will spend it to meet their fundamental needs, the global economy may benefit considerably.

So I see nothing wrong in realigning the global economy to produce rather more to meet people's basic needs, and rather less to meet the profligate desire for frivolous luxuries.

When everyone has enough to eat, clean water to drink, access to basic utilities such as power and sanitation, primary education and healthcare, why, then will be the time to party! But not until then.

The reality is that the rich don't amass wealth, they amass assets. The wealthy do not amass assets. They put those assets in production to create wealth, permitting the "poor" to earn a decent living by taking part in that wealth creation. You are taking a caricature of the rich and applying it to everyone who has control of assets. If your analysis were true, the Gates Foundation would be a mechanism of avarice and not a mechanism for good.

I am taking no caricatures of the rich, simply pointing out the consequences of their wealth on the rest of their brethren humanity.

Show me where that scenario actually takes place and I will condemn that individual along with you. However, even in those cases, incentives are much more effective in minimizing hording, than is confiscation. We have come full circle. If one wishes to have social order, there must be property rights and that means the right to use the assets one owns as one sees fit.

I am not sure what you want of me, here. It is quite plain that private jets and gin palace yachts exist, and quite plain that more than 9 million people a year die from starvation and hunger related disease (the Borgen Project). Should you want to assign blame to particular individuals, just get hold of a copy of the latest Sunday Times Rich List.

As for a quiet society, if one wants a sustainable social order, rather than one that needs greater or lesser degrees of physical and psychological oppression to persist, then one needs a socially just, equitable distribution of wealth. Or eventually the poor will, and justifiably in my opinion, cause unrest.

Cheers, 2RM.

[paarsurrey1]

It is said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

How does ethics avoid a similar attack?

The topic of the thread suggests that Religion is against Ethics or Ethics are against religion. I don't agree with the expression. Ethics is a part of religion. Did I understand the topic of the thread correctly, please?

Regards

To add further:

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from Ancient Greek ἠθικός (ethikos), from ἦθος (ethos), meaning 'habit, custom'.
Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
Ethics stem from the religion or no-religion of a person or society. In religion it is systematic but in no-religion it is supposed to be without a clear system. Right, please?

Regards

[2ndRateMind]

It is said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

How does ethics avoid a similar attack?

The topic of the thread suggests that Religion is against Ethics or Ethics are against religion. I don't agree with the expression. Ethics is a part of religion. Did I understand the topic of the thread correctly, please?

Regards

To add further:

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from Ancient Greek ἠθικός (ethikos), from ἦθος (ethos), meaning 'habit, custom'.
Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
Ethics stem from the religion or no-religion of a person or society. In religion it is systematic but in no-religion it is supposed to be without a clear system. Right, please?

Regards

Academia has identified three basic considerations as fundamental to three basic ethical systems. These are a) rules (deontology) b) outcomes (utiltarianism) and c) the flourishing of human character (virtue ethics). Different philosophers and ethicists choose different bases from which to argue for their own preferred moralities.

Religion tends to lean heavily on rules, particularly rules thought to be ordained by God. But I do not think it fair to judge secular ethics as necessarily unsystemetised. It is just that, at the current state of the art, the basic considerations of ethics above have yet to be prioritised and united into a coherent and consistent theoretical structural framework.

I expect this will happen, in due course. It might even make for an interesting PhD thesis. It just hasn't happened, yet, to the best of my knowledge.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Wootah]

It is said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

How does ethics avoid a similar attack?

The topic of the thread suggests that Religion is against Ethics or Ethics are against religion. I don't agree with the expression. Ethics is a part of religion. Did I understand the topic of the thread correctly, please?

Regards

What i was trying to get at was that people accusing religion as being a drug that pacifies the masses so that the rich stay rich and the poor have religion to comfort them.

However many atheists still believe in ethics. Ethics being the system of values they live by. And so I wonder whether an ethical atheist is elusional as well and opiating themselves.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 34 by Wootah]

I think you will find there is considerable wisdom in the epithet that 'virtue is it's own reward'. Try it; you might be surprised. A quiet conscience and character integrity really is better than masses of $ in the bank, whether one 'gets' religion or whether one doesn't.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 35 by 2ndRateMind]

'virtue is it's own reward' sounds like an opiate to me.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 35 by 2ndRateMind]

'virtue is it's own reward' sounds like an opiate to me.

Perhaps it does. But it could only be an 'opiate' if it produced some desirable effect; an issue for me is not just whether it nourishes or whether it degrades character, whether it is soul-making and soul-corroding, but whether virtue has desirable effects not only on oneself, but on everyone else involved with one, and on society as a whole. And it would be difficult to sustain an argument that virtue is only vice with a saccharine coating, and that both make no impact on the world, and that it is just that virtue makes one feel better within and about oneself, that distinguishes it from vice.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[paarsurrey1]

It is said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

How does ethics avoid a similar attack?

The topic of the thread suggests that Religion is against Ethics or Ethics are against religion. I don't agree with the expression. Ethics is a part of religion. Did I understand the topic of the thread correctly, please?

Regards

What i was trying to get at was that people accusing religion as being a drug that pacifies the masses so that the rich stay rich and the poor have religion to comfort them.

However many atheists still believe in ethics. Ethics being the system of values they live by. And so I wonder whether an ethical atheist is elusional as well and opiating themselves.

I appreciate if Atheism people believe in some ethics and it makes me happy, yet, why they believe in Ethics? They don't have to. Right, please?
This question is to the Atheism people, others may also respond please.

Regards

[JP Cusick]

I appreciate if Atheism people believe in some ethics and it makes me happy, yet, why they believe in Ethics? They don't have to. Right, please?

That is the one big complaint against Atheism that it has no moral or ethical standards, and so it also gives people a justification to be immoral and unethical.

Many in Atheism claim to have high standards but we in religion know that the true test is under pressure, because a liar will be truthful when it suits them, and a thief will not steal when there is no incentive, and a crook will not be crooked when it is not necessary.

Religion is not just preaching high morals - because religion is about perseverance and motivation and long suffering and going through trials and tribulations, and of coming through without compromise and without blemish.

When one does not know God (Atheism) then they do not have the over ruling authority to demand more from us, and to demand that we be true to the higher power.

[paarsurrey1]

I appreciate if Atheism people believe in some ethics and it makes me happy, yet, why they believe in Ethics? They don't have to. Right, please?

That is the one big complaint against Atheism that it has no moral or ethical standards, and so it also gives people a justification to be immoral and unethical.

Many in Atheism claim to have high standards but we in religion know that the true test is under pressure, because a liar will be truthful when it suits them, and a thief will not steal when there is no incentive, and a crook will not be crooked when it is not necessary.

Religion is not just preaching high morals - because religion is about perseverance and motivation and long suffering and going through trials and tribulations, and of coming through without compromise and without blemish.

When one does not know God (Atheism) then they do not have the over ruling authority to demand more from us, and to demand that we be true to the higher power.

Many in Atheism claim to have high standards+

+ (of Ethics and Morality)

Since we have so many from the Atheism and the like here, I request if they could express the codex of their Ethics and Morality, if any. Right, please?

Regards