ant wrote:Objective morals such as love, justice, etc are beyond flee picking and have been and always shall be agreed upon universally.

It is not picking fleas to say this claim about moral objectivity is rhetoric without substance. Justice is far from a universally agreed concept. Some people say it is unjust to deny people freedom of movement between countries. Others say national sovereignty is a higher moral value than this universal justice. Some say love extends only to family, others variously extend love to nation, to friends, enemies, all humanity, to animals, to the earth and to all of the cosmos and to a God outside reality. Love is not agreed upon universally.

Moral values are based on axioms, such as the primacy of a particular sense of identity, or a universal vision of human flourishing, or a theory of supernatural duty. By definition an axiom cannot be proved but must be assumed as a necessary truth. Each moral axiom is more about inter-subjective consensus than objective fact. This is why there is a categorical distinction between facts and values - facts are based on observation and evidence, whereas values are grounded in language, transforming observation into ideas, as a transcendent cultural agreement. Axioms may seem utterly obvious, as when we claim a specific moral stance is objective and absolute, but at bottom they always have an arbitrary subjectivity. Calling morality objective is just a way of preaching that asserts that your personal values have an absolute and ultimate religious status. Such status is only ever conferred by human decision.

These are not easy questions. Dostoyevsky's Ivan Karamazov prompted much moral consternation with his teaching to Smerdy that without God all things are permissible.

DWill wrote:

Robert Tulip wrote: It is fine to advocate pluralism and respect for difference. Indeed any rejection of pluralism involves an arrogant assertion of intolerance. But this involves a fine point – in respecting others we also have to respect ourselves, and our own capacity to discern right from wrong and true from false. If others can ignore our views as ‘optional’, where do we draw the line? Acceptance of scientific facts should not be seen as optional – claims are either true, false or uncertain. And there are moral views that are held universally by all sane people.

But Robert, if you are really going to respect difference, uphold tolerance, there must be something to be tolerant toward, and if this is not possibly a rather major thing, then tolerance has little meaning. What I'm getting at is that we must, indeed, accept the right to exist of ideas and attitudes far from our own. That is the difficult thing about pluralism. We engage in a dance of sorts, casting a wary eye at times on others to make sure they aren't stepping over boundaries, as would be the case with creationism invading public schools or--God forbid--Rick Santorum being elected president.

I'm not sure we disagree on tolerance. What I was getting at is that Hitchens' assessment of all religion as 'optional' is the tolerance of the bigot, asserting that the way to deal with religion is by ignoring it as deranged. This assertion that there should be no room in the public square for religious discussion contains a pile of dangerous assumptions, because it is not clear that any society can sustain its life without religion, without anti-religions emerging that perform the same function as religion. So we have the public religions of sport and popular culture while traditional religion retreats to the private realm. It is not clear this is a good thing, except that the public expressions of fundamentalism are dangerous and mad.

Hitchens’ real agenda here is to denigrate religious views as insane, confining them to the private madhouse of church where they do not impinge on anyone else. As soon as we say a claim is optional we assert it has no evidence or truth content, and is mere sentimental fantasy. That seems to me far too harsh an assessment of religious ideas, as it dismisses their symbolic and archetypal meaning along with their literal uncertainty.

You're making Hitchens out to be the kind of relativist he probably would have disliked. His claim is specific: Religion must be optional and private. He says nothing about all truth claims being merely relative or something we all need to recognize as somehow valid to their believers, which is an impossible mental act, anyway. The sense of 'optional' appears to relate to geo's idea of chosen without any compulsion., though I know you disagree with that.

No, you misread my comment. Hitchens was no relativist, he said science is true and religion is false. I am simply questioning the validity of his sweeping condemnation of all religious views as optional. Hitchens said science is not optional because it is true, while religion is optional because it is false. It is a polite way of saying it is optional to wander the streets in a clown suit, only a fool would do it.

My point was that religion can have persuasive rational content. It may not be compelling in the way facts are compelling, but religion can pull together a meaningful story with real ethical content. Hitchens suggests that religion is obsolete and we can rise above it through atheist enlightenment. I think this neglects Chesterton's mot that when people stop believing in God they do not believe in nothing, they believe in anything. Society always needs symbols and ritual and shared myths, so wherever these are found is where we can find a communities' real religion.

ant wrote:

You can't imagine any of these guys defending the Indian caste system, men 'marrying' children, or honor killing, can you?

That is up to them to make a clear distinction between humans as moral agents and animals. They have not insofar as their primary claim that morals are a product of a species' evolution.
Further, I do not believe that I have made the claim that morals can not progress over time. Socio cultural relativism can not base its moral development on anything other than evolution. It has no base for morality. That is not to say that evolution itself is bogus.

But why, ant, is evolution not sufficient to explain whatever agreement we now have about morals? Would you agree that something like human moral behavior can be observed in primates, yet clearly isn't the same as human morality? All we need is a few million years continuation down the path the primates started on, with crucial contribution from frontal lobe development and thus true reasoning and language, and voila, morality. Why is that a denigration of either morality or humans?

I see a little species chauvinism in the pride for human morality. Okay, it's a great thing, but let's not get carried away about being so much better than the other animals. We have also done infinitely more in the way of immoral behavior than any other animal could.

DWill wrote:

ant wrote:

You can't imagine any of these guys defending the Indian caste system, men 'marrying' children, or honor killing, can you?

That is up to them to make a clear distinction between humans as moral agents and animals. They have not insofar as their primary claim that morals are a product of a species' evolution.
Further, I do not believe that I have made the claim that morals can not progress over time. Socio cultural relativism can not base its moral development on anything other than evolution. It has no base for morality. That is not to say that evolution itself is bogus.

But why, ant, is evolution not sufficient to explain whatever agreement we now have about morals? Would you agree that something like human moral behavior can be observed in primates, yet clearly isn't the same as human morality? All we need is a few million years continuation down the path the primates started on, with crucial contribution from frontal lobe development and thus true reasoning and language, and voila, morality. Why is that a denigration of either morality or humans?

I see a little species chauvinism in the pride for human morality. Okay, it's a great thing, but let's not get carried away about being so much better than the other animals. We have also done infinitely more in the way of immoral behavior than any other animal could.

Mercy, justice, love, forbearance - what is your basis for these moral values?

If a tribe in the Congo does not recognize any of these but is the dominant tribe among several competing for power, are their immoral ways justified to you?

An entire nation attempting to position itself as the superior race nearly justified the annihilation of another race during WW2. If it had resulted in bringing them global dominance because they all cooperated in their murderous endeavor, would they have been wrong to have felt they were correct in their value system at that particular time ("we are superior, everyone else inferior should be slaughtered") if it helped their nation (tribe) flourish?

If your basis for morals is evolution, then you must answer yes to the above questions because all values are relative.

The question here, it seems to me, is how morality relates to nature and nurture, whether morality is primarily based in genetics (nature) or culture (nurture).

The answer is both, but this then leads to questions such as how much nurture is grounded in nature, and whether nurture opens up some role for a transcendent reality, and whether we can in fact have culture without religion. This is all murky. Brains and language are part of our natural genetic inheritence, but they enable nurture, which has a feedback loop - more nurture produces more adaptive and abundant offspring, encouraging genes for good nurture.

It is like genes provide the enabling environment for morality, but nurture requires active transmission of acquired characteristics, otherwise we encounter the problems of delinquency, that people who are nurtured badly lack moral values.

If religion is an ordered method to prevent delinquency, it can be hard to imagine a functional social morality without religion.

If religion is an ordered method to prevent delinquency, it can be hard to imagine a functional social morality without religion.

That's not to say that religion is one ordered method to prevent delinquency amongst many. There are foster houses and many other social institutions that provide a moral framework. Any good set of parents can instill a lasting and respectable moral code into their children, religious or non-religious. Organizations such as boy and girl scouts as well, which have secular aspects. Perhaps delinquency can be correlated to religion in some way(the lack thereof), but it seems the cause would be bad parenting.

ant wrote: Mercy, justice, love, forbearance - what is your basis for these moral values?

I tried to give some of the basis in the post, but I'll have to ask you to explain why it fails.

If a tribe in the Congo does not recognize any of these but is the dominant tribe among several competing for power, are their immoral ways justified to you?

Actually, the tribe would almost certainly recognize these values within the group. They have a warlike disposition toward other groups, apparently. Do I think their wars are justified? Probably not, but I'm missing what your point may be.

An entire nation attempting to position itself as the superior race nearly justified the annihilation of another race during WW2. If it had resulted in bringing them global dominance because they all cooperated in their murderous endeavor, would they have been wrong to have felt they were correct in their value system at that particular time ("we are superior, everyone else inferior should be slaughtered") if it helped their nation (tribe) flourish?

My answer to this question would be "no." Here again I'll have to ask you to clarify your point for me, ant.

If your basis for morals is evolution, then you must answer yes to the above questions because all values are relative.

I'm zero for four! You'll have to give me more, because right now I just do not understand. Is it that you believe evolution could only promote aggressive traits, so that the existence of morals couldn't be the handiwork of evolution?

Mercy, justice, love, forbearance - what is your basis for these moral values?

If a tribe in the Congo does not recognize any of these but is the dominant tribe among several competing for power, are their immoral ways justified to you?

An entire nation attempting to position itself as the superior race nearly justified the annihilation of another race during WW2. If it had resulted in bringing them global dominance because they all cooperated in their murderous endeavor, would they have been wrong to have felt they were correct in their value system at that particular time ("we are superior, everyone else inferior should be slaughtered") if it helped their nation (tribe) flourish?

If your basis for morals is evolution, then you must answer yes to the above questions because all values are relative.

I didn't see your post before this ant. The tribe in the congo needs serious education. Teach a man to fish and he no longer needs to kill his neighbor over raspberries. If we understand morality to be greater than merely a tribe morality, then the tribe in the congo are indeed acting immorally. Their code isn't sustainable.

Same for Hitler. Trying to exterminate your own species is typical of one tribe trying to wipe out another. We have evolved the mechanisms for morality, but that doesn't mean evolution is the "source" of morality. Only the source of the mechanisms. We must still use our brains. The free-floating rationale behind most modern morality can be viewed through the lens of Game Theory. Read up on evolutionary stable strategies, and consider what you learn as it applies to living on a world filled with others. What will jump out at you if you think about it is the inevitable symmetry of every action you take. It's karma, but using probablistic terminology.

then the tribe in the congo are indeed acting immorally

WHY are they acting immorally?

ant wrote:

then the tribe in the congo are indeed acting immorally

WHY are they acting immorally?

My personal opinion on these questions is that morality can best be understood as the values that produce an evolutionarily stable strategy, and that surprisingly, the most likely source for such an ESS algorithm is the Christian doctrine 'love your enemies'.

In a global context, feudal moral views do not work. Pretending that we can live in a high castle and not speak to the neighbours became an obsolete moral framework with the invention of artillery. Nuclear bombs make separatism even more untenable.

Sadly, Hitler's attitude that some people are subhuman remains an operative ethic for many today, but its repressive attitude of refusing dialogue is not sustainable.

If human flourishing is posited as the highest good, then we need a rigorous analysis of what can actually promote human flourishing. My view is that it just doesn't work to imagine that humans can flourish at the expense of the rest of nature, so we need to develop an attitude of deep cosmic reverence. Such an outlook can be entirely compatible with both Christian ethics and materialist science. You cannot claim to be moral if you will not speak with your neighbour.