Is secular morality arbitrary?

[FinalEnigma]

I've been wanting to create this thread for a while, and particularly, I am hoping that Jester joins us, since he gave me the impetus to create this thread.

Afterlife
Logical basis for the objective reality of ethics

The above was stated as a benefit of a theistic worldview. This and another comment sparked this thread.

I believe it is your position(Jester(and many theists for that matter)) that all secular morality necessarily has an arbitrary basis, correct?



First of all, what is morality? I propose the following definition:
Moral actions are those which are to the benefit of fellow humans(you may generalize this to living creatures, or specify it to actions which are of the greatest benefit as you like).


I have a few thoughts on this, first I would like to approach it from an evolutionary direction. I'm sure everyone has read the evolutionary explanation for morality, but I would like to point something out.

Evolutionary basis for morality

One major theory for the existence and origin of morality is that those humans which acted cooperatively and possessed a higher sense of morals had a higher rate of survival than those which did not, and so, it eventually came that the majority of humans were moral creatures.
Arbitrary implies random, and if evolution is the basis for morality, then moral actions are those which are the most likely to propagate your genes, and, vicariously, moral actions are those which benefit your society as a whole, because a stable society stands the greatest chance of allowing your genes to propagate. The above is decidedly non-random.


Arbitrary morality
This is a somewhat different approach. If morality is arbitrary, then so what?

Is something which is arbitrary necessarily wrong? Think of it this way. no society I know of claims that things which are harmful to society are good and moral, and I would be fairly confidant in saying that it is true that no society believes such.

This being the case, the word morality is used to describe actions which are beneficial to society.

Why are these actions moral? Because they benefit society.
Why is benefiting society moral? Because benefiting society is what is moral.

Sounds circular doesn't it? How about this?

Why is a red pen red? Because it's color is that which is called red.
Why is that color called red? Because that color is the one that was defined as red.

Things which benefit society are moral because that is how morality is defined. It become a tautology.

[theAtheistofnoIllusions]

Morality is completely arbitrary. Right and Wrong are names that we give what gives us pleasure and what causes us pain. Nothing more than that. What is beneficial for society? I care about the betterment of society insofar as it doesn't cause me any pain and brings me pleasure, but beyond that the betterment of society is irrelevant. People wanted to believe that their actions had any justification beyond the fact that they did it so they created the idea of Morals.

[glassart]

Secular morality is simply conforming to current societal whim. The most moral man would be the man who conforms most totally to current societal choice.

"...society decides what is moral and what isn’t. What is good and what is evil. And this is very dangerous because what that means is that the moral man, is the man who most conforms to his current societal norm. It means that one should not, indeed cannot, call a man such as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis evil. Or bad. Sure they didn’t abide by our societal norm, but they did by theirs. They created theirs and made it manifest. If they had won, it would have become the world’s morality. And it would be the standard for good. But to the critical thinker, there is no moral difference between what Hitler did with the Jews, and what Lincoln did with the slaves. To deny this while holding to the pretense that society can say what is moral and what is not is utter delusion."--Stephen J. Ardent

http://socyberty.com/religion/the-benef ... -thinking/

[FinalEnigma]

Secular morality is simply conforming to current societal whim.

Can you support that with anything? or is it simply an assertion?

and your quote is simply a quote of somebody making the same assertion.

[glassart]

I think it is self-evident.

If there is no God, then all morality, even the "higher standard" that many will appeal to, are simply adopted via human value judgments.

The morals a society adopts, and then promotes, will then judge based on conformity to those morals. QED the more one conforms, the more moral the person is.

Pederasty is abhorrent to us, but at various times and various places it has been both illegal, yet accepted, legal, and the norm. In at least one case it was considered necessary for the transition to adulthood.

By what right do we condemn it? We can condemn it for our culture. But we cannot with any kind of intellectual honesty condemn it anywhere else.
We can't even say that it would be wrong, should our current culture move in the direction that makes it first commonplace, then legal.

[FinalEnigma]

Note my opponent's arguments in the following thread:

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... hp?t=10416

An evolutionary basis for morality escapes your false Dichotomy.

[glassart]

If we are talking about FinalEnigma's three point, they are all false.

1. Is obvious.
2. One quick example here are the Romani.
3. Pederasty has a long and sometime honored history among humankind.

The breakdown that there are evolutionary forces at work to instill these "morals" is ridiculous. There is no evidence for any of these, scenarios, and even if there were the conclusion is based on human value judgment.

Finally, even if we accept that evolution could create morals, they are not really morals. Just devices by which the species may be propagated more easily. Not to mention the fact that as the biological machinery changes so would the morals, so again, relative and transitory. And does not justify the application of the word "moral".

[FinalEnigma]

If we are talking about FinalEnigma's three point, they are all false.

1. Is obvious.
2. One quick example here are the Romani.
3. Pederasty has a long and sometime honored history among humankind.

First of all, if you don't pay attention to my posts, I won't debate you. I said 'my opponents arguments' and since I am finalenigma, I was not referring to my own arguments.

The breakdown that there are evolutionary forces at work to instill these "morals" is ridiculous.

I could site a dozen sites to support this, but one will do for now.
http://www.philipbrocoum.com/?p=451

and even if there were the conclusion is based on human value judgment.

Please elaborate. I want to be certain of what you mean.

Finally, even if we accept that evolution could create morals, they are not really morals.

By what definition of morals is this the case? I recall no definition of morality that speculates on required source for it to be valid.

Just devices by which the species may be propagated more easily.

Okay, without presupposing God, what are morals for? You seem to object that morals cannot be for something so mundane as propagation of the species.

[Cathar1950]

The same line of attack can also here: http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 522#256522

And here:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 207#255207


I am seeing a pattern here with this secular straw man morality and an apology rather then a clear argument or claim.
I would like to know the source of this apology or faulty line of reasoning and attack
There is too much in common including language and presumptions to be some random or original “Assault� on secularism.
I would love to see the source if anyone knows it, as I am sure it is out there in some apologist’s arsenal of tired and faulty arguments that always seem to find themselves often taking threads off topic but at least it belongs here and I am going to suggest it be taken up here.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 207#255207

So it looks like BibleGod was not needed in order to recognize the value of, for example, this moral command. It simply helped the survival of the group, the community, the clan.

I was not arguing that the concept of ethics originates with the Bible, I was arguing that accepting a concept of a deity as a premise is the only grounds for a logical proof of the objective validity of ethics.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 522#256522

Jester wrote:

I don't expect you to build one for me, nor is what I ask based on a claim that I can't present. Specifically, my claim is about what proponents of secular ethics have not presented, rather than something I was presenting myself.

Now I need to go back and read the The Argument From Morality thread and see where I need to go with this.

At this point it seems someone has issues with Pederasty and insists it is a moral issue.
I think their conception of morality is not only vague but confused.
glassart wrote that “

Secular morality is simply conforming to current societal whim.
“

While it can be just as easily argued that religion and in particular Christianity has been shaped their surroundings, cultures and whims and have a 2000 year history of examples.
I am betting our poster has been influenced by19th century culture and society as well as battles with Christian liberals.

It seems self-evident to me that if as glassart claims

“The morals a society adopts, and then promotes, will then judge based on conformity to those morals. QED the more one conforms, the more moral the person is�

is also true of their concepts of God which is what
Glassart insists is needed for a

“"higher standard" that many will appeal to�.

He fails to see that his concepts of God

“are simply adopted via human value judgments�.

The problem he claims to have with morality without God are the same ones he has with his concepts of God yet insists morality must be based on this higher and more complex abstraction that is even further removed from the actual grounds of morality and the evolution of our species, cultures and language which are based on relationships and have evolved with our cultures and conditions.

[glassart]

We can "interpret" the evolutionary forces are at work in morality, but that does not make it so. It assumes far too much.
Even worse, it anthropomorphizes inanimate "forces". Evolution does not "want" anything. It has no goals or ideals. Suggesting that evolution is reponsible for the majority of social structures is interpretation bordering on pretense. And it is absurd.

For one, while the rest of evolution calls slow change, everything I've read concerning evolution for social morals would call for rapid change, at least relative to the physical changes.

The problem is not that the concept of morality from God is the same as man based value judgments, the problem is the assumption that this is so. It would only be so if there were no God. It's like saying that anything is wet that we decided to call wet. While that is true, it's nonsense, because indeed some things are actually wet while others are not, by definition.

Ethics and morality are not the same.

We are assuming that a stable society, and isn't that a broad definition, contributes to the propagation of genes.

So what if morality is arbitrary?
There have been many societies that were stable, yet cruel beyond belief, thus by this logic they have set the norm for morality. Yet even in these cases, while the populations accepted it, they did not as a whole find it moral.