Answer 189

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QUESTION 189

Theists often accuse atheists of being without morals. While it is true that atheism imposes no morals, most atheists follow some kind of moral code. What form does this take for you and which philosophies/religions influenced this for you as an individual?

Self respect, and self acceptance have been the guides to my life and the many wonderful friends I have shared it with that now includes a grandson. The pathways I have been most at ease with myself and my life came about after encountering yoga some twenty odd years ago. Self confidence, self worth, and all the pleasures in my life come about from understanding what unites us, not what divides us. I don't please everybody, but then again it doesn't matter, I'm here as me, and I'd rather be a healer than a punisher. I look after people and people look after me. (Kerry #1773)

My moral includes the following: The Golden Rule - deal with others the way you would like others to deal with you.

Respect intelligence, aka individualism: let other intelligences do their own decisions. (Be it human or not human.) Of course, only until it doesn't cause problems for others.

Respect emotions: try to minimize pain for other beings with feelings. (This is a rather weak 'command'; even mosqitoes I slash feel pain, and self-defense also causes pain.)

Respect uniqueness: acknowledge and defend the right of existence of real individuals, of special landscapes and stone formations, of products of art, of endangered species. (This does it wothout a loopback at humans; i.e., save the planet for the joy of future generations, save art for the memory of its creator/s.)

Tolerance, aka I could be wrong. If others make decisions or actions I wouldn't, but it only affects them, let them be. (Daneel #323)

"Morality" is little more than a broad term for the pact one makes with the rest of society in order to be able to live in that society. In its simplest terms, the pact states, "I will do as little harm as possible to other members of the society, and I will try to help others in the society whenever necessary." There are many sub-clauses in the pact, such as, "When I see someone else doing harm to the society, I will try to stop them or at least not assist them," and, "If I see something wrong with the society, I will endeavor to change it, within the constraints listed above."

In short, I view morality as a contract that lets me remain a member of a social group. Breaking the more important terms of the contract may get me ostricized or segregated (or executed); breaking the less important ones will bring criticism and/or disfavor.

It's important to note that while some aspects of my morality were codified and enforced by religion, they were in existence long before religion was invented, and do not depend on religion for the continued survival of society, or my place in it. (chib)

I'm a libertarian. This is a moral as well as a political position. It is immoral to enforce moral ideals upon another person without justification. My moral 'code' is based upon personal experience. Religious influences have been limited but include Christianity, Budhism, Hellenistic Greek Pantheism, various American Indian religions, a limited examination of occult practices -- the Tarot, fortune telling, numerology, horoscopes, biorythms, etc. I never practiced any of these (I have done personal Tarot readings - I view it as a psychological exercise), but having reviewed them, and others, and having known practicioners makes them influential -- sometimes positive other times negative.

Other influences include a knowledge of history, political observation, and a limited study of philosophy... In short, morality is a result of knowledge and social experience. My own moral 'code' can be summed up by such things as the golden rule and the wiccan rede. There are, of course, addendums -- but they would take a long time to list and don't necessarily apply to anyone else. (Frank #1930)

I don't have any systematic kind of moral code by which I determine my everyday actions, I generally try to be kind and not to cause any harm to anyone and I even try not to dislike people, but other than that there is not much to it. There are no real moral dilemmas for me to face, other than the question whether or not I should do more to advance the well-being of the world (I should, but I shouldn't make promises without having some certainty that I will keep them).

There is not much influence of philosphy/religion in here, but wait! Once I have a clear picture of what character I think of as ideal I shall begin striving towards it, keeping in mind that my fellow human beings have a right to one of their own, but also that we are in many ways similar, so though I shall advocate it, I won't force it on people.

Here we have Spinoza and moral pluralism. (DJ Nozem #1465)

Well the short answer is the same place everyone else gets their "morality". I put morality into quote because I don't care much for the word its become to loaded with religious influence and deluted to the point of uselessness. Generally I prefer the word Ethics.

Still the long answer. "Morality" is a evolutionary adaptation that has served the human race quite well. There is a reason that most major religions agree on the big points and that's because they are predated by them.

Its simple in actuallity cooperation is a very strong pro surival trait. More than the opposing thumb and the bigger brain I believe that social structures and cooperative enterprises is what has resulted in the success of the species.

So traits that encouraged this cooperation have been reinforced (empathy sympathy love ect.) while the lack of those traits has been detrimental and generally dealt with harshly by society as a whole.

We know enough about how the brain works now to know that these emotional responses are the results of chemical changes in our bodies. However not many people have made the corelation between emotions and social evolution. A mentally healthy human being will react to suffering of others. This is a normal natural emotional responce brought out by certain circumstances. Crinminal especially very violent sociopaths seem to be missing the mechanism that causes these responces. Look at your serial killers almost as a rule they are emotionally empty showing no real comprehension of the effects their actions have on others. They do not see their victims as people but instead as objects. Generally if they feel any remorse its is for their own situation not for their actions.

I've always found the legal contention about insanity rather inane. I mean come on Jeffery Dalmer lets see he killed people and then put their remains into a refridgerator for later dining. Insane seems like a no brainer to me. A violent criminal is most certainly insane, They're not wired right. They are missing the empathetic responce that tempers a rational sane persons actions.

Of course, most people don't want to recognize this after all that means that evil as they see it isn't. And society could no longer justify killing or punishment. Since the perpetrators at that point become victims of biological realities rather than personal choices.

It would make us have to completely rethink how we deal with violent criminals rather than demonizing them and looking on them with loathing. Of course the possitive aspect of this would be that this sort of behaviour would become predictable and eventually treatable and preventable. But to get back to the conversation at hand our morality comes from our very nature as social creatures and evolution has assisted us by providing physical means of feed back to reinforce successful behavior. (Shawn #1074)

I recently wrote a paper about this very thing. There are many theories of moral development in children. Piaget is generally looked at as a pioneer in the ideas of mental development and he had moral stages mapped out. These where later expanded upon by Kohlberg. This may be long, but either bare with me or move on.

The first stage of development is called preconventional. During this stage punishment is tied to morality. Children think of morals, rules and laws as set in stone and outside of themselves. Morals become based on this and treating people as they treat us.

The second stage, conventional reasoning, involves loyalty to other as part of our moral decisions. We then incorporate social order, law, justice, and duty into our moral code.

Finally, we enter Postconvential reasoning. Now we internalize our morals. We can evaluate the validity of rules and laws and make decisions. We eventually develop our moral standards based on our feelings on universal human rights and our own internalized thinking.

I figure that those people who need a book to tell them what their morals are and think that they exist without question are stuck in an early stage of their moral development. Atheists would actually be more morally developed under this system, having internalized their morals and not needing any system to tell them what they should be. (ClaySkye #4)

Simply speaking my personal morals boils down to - "Who gets hurt and how much?" - Of course it's a lot more complicated than that as the entire situation needs to be taken into consideration, but roughly speaking it will do. If you hurt someone who tries to kill you, then is one thing, but to kill someone for an insult is completely out of proportions, to take two extremes. It's a moderated form of doing what you want, as long as you don't hurt anyone. I try to hurt as little as possible and help as much as I can, but no one's perfect and it's impossible to avoid doing any harm at all. Some things, such as revenge on someone, who has killed someone dears to you, is on one hand not something I approve of, but I find it humanly understandable. (Nikitta #1759)

Well, my parents were atheist and agnostic, so I didn't have a moral foundation from religion. Nonetheless, I had a strong moral foundation early on. Most of it, as I recall, came from the repeated invocation, "How would you feel if someone did that to you?" and variants thereof, coupled with parental rants on whatever injustice was really burning them at the moment. I also recall (clearly) a lecture from my Mom following my 5-year-old attempt at shoplifting, explaining just why I shouldn't have done that, with additional references to the public shame involved had I been caught. :) I was exposed to any number of moral issues and principles through widespread reading, of which "The greatest good for the greatest number" most sticks in my mind.

Of course, I learned a great deal by example. After all, m'Dad nearly lost his job when I was a kid for standing up for a principle. (Some accused anti-Vietnam demonstraters were expelled without having been proven guilty, let alone questions of free-speech rights. A number of professors signed a circular saying that they did not accept this and would still admit the students to classes. All of them had trouble later...) My Mom cared about people, individually and in groups, so much that it sometimes hurt to watch her tear herself up trying to help them.

Later, I learned to put names to these qualities: integrity and compassion. They're still the basis of my personal moral code. In adulthood, those basic principles have caused me to associate myself with ethics broadly classifiable as humanist. The "How would you feel if...?" is now classified under empathy, while the childhood phrase I encountered in books, "Greatest good for the greatest number," is now viewed in the more sophisticated format of Utilitarian principles (which, among other things, incorporate the "least harm to the minority" corollary).

Really, it was pretty much like anyone else learns theirs: you pick up, by explanation and example, some principles from your parents; these are augmented by what you're exposed to from other sources; then when you're older, you actually categorize those principles according to the systems you know of. These are refined and readjusted along the way as you're exposed to more information. Theists do this within a theistic concept; atheists do it without the theistic concept. Rosa "April" Williams #1723)

The golden rule just about sums it up for me. Philosophy? "How would I like to be treated?" (Al Klein)

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