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.

[McCulloch]

So rape is just a challenge to accepted norms, a pushing of the envelope?

Now we're getting in the dirty.

So a certain amount of rape (not too high in proportion) is good for society?

So rape could then be considered a "good" then?

No, rape is not good. The human propensity to behave in a socially acceptable way is good. However, if we were all uniformly good and always strived to behave ethically, as our society defined ethics, our civilizations would not progress. There are good evolutionary reasons why we admire the bad boy why we idolize the rebel.

[Homicidal_Cherry53]

Evolutionary morality basically works on the principle that cooperation and compassion between people increase the likelihood of their survival - as well as their attractiveness as a mate.

Compassion isn't always advantageous though. Especially when resources are limited, wouldn't evolution condition us to take on an us and them mentality? In such a situation, would compassion still constitute evolutionary morality or is it whatever is best for survival in each individual situation?

Compassion can be categorized as ingrained biological morality developed through the generations. Evolution wouldn't suddenly change if one generation needs to survive rather than care for others. What's ingrained is already there whether it's required at the moment or not.

But there are so many other things that are ingrained in human behavior. Xenophobia, for example, has been rampant at basically every stage of human history. It is therefore possible that we have been evolutionarily conditioned towards being afraid of, and even harming outsiders. Is xenophobia therefore a part of evolutionary morality? There are so many different actions that could be attributed to evolution, so why are they not moral but compassion is? Not only that but, there is no way of actually knowing if we are conditioned by evolution to be compassionate or if we are influenced by society to be compassionate. Bloodsport, slavery, and execution were rampant in older civilizations. If evolution conditioned us to be compassionate, why, for most of our history have we been much less than compassionate?