/lit/ — Can morality be possible without religion?

>>25321835 (OP)
Yes lol what?
Are you retarded?

>t. theist

>>25321841
OH also, off topic, not a single piece of Literature was mentioned
>>>/his/
fuck off

No. But ethics can.

Yes, all that should be needed is the golden rule. Unfortunately most people are too dumb to follow even one code

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>>25321844
Oh man... We are heading into some deep intellectual territory

>>25321849
Is it good, yes.
Is it all we need even if people are not too dumb, absolutely no. its overly egocentric

there are no moral religions

>>25321854
That's fair. I guess it also doesn't really cover crimes like littering or vandalism of public property that isn't direct person-on-person crime

>>25321841
I'm retarded and I disagree but whatever

>>25321882
If you actually are disabled OP, I am sorry

yeah why wouldnt it be?

>>25321835 (OP)
That really depends on where you draw the line. Morality requires qualitative intuitive judgements that will be largely beyond the scope of propositional reason. And it will require you to create a hierarchy across those qualities. Meaning, your ethics are usually rooted in something that's almost indistinguishable from spirituality and religious thinking. Not in the sense of having rituals and explicit dogmas, but in the sense of considering something de facto holy - be it consent, freedom, personhood, power ... - and having some intuitive sense of how these holy things should manifest in the world - for example that babies shouldn't be 100% free or that consent of a drunk person is questionable.

It's technically possible to achieve that without religion... you can theoretically create an ethical system out of any random set of ideas if you brute-fact your way through. But the question is, will that system be sustainable? Not just logically, but pragmatically. Will the things you hold sacred still be up on the altar when it starts to cost you? As I grow older and more religious, I ironically lean more and more towards this being possible without religion per se, but definitely not without some kind of practiced spirituality. However, the line is so vague that to an average neoatheist, it might just seem that I'm saying religion is necessary for morality. And maybe it is.

Kant invented morality for atheists with the categorical imperative

>>25321914
got me there

>>25321914
You know Kant was also a freemason but this isn't talked about lol

>>25321926
Kant gets a pass.

>>25321835 (OP)
Religion is not possible without morality.
in order for humans to live peacefully amongst each other and cooperate sufficiently to form and propagate a religion humans must be instrinsically moral.
If we were Hobbesian murder machines we'd never have come together to form the preconditions of civilization.

>>25322007
This morality-as-cooperation and morality-as-survival framings are intuitive, but it didn't really work when they tried to base a field on this premise: evolutionary ethics. It turned out you can replace a good portion of morality with its exact inversion and the species will propagate just the same.
For example, some monkeys adopt each other's children, should their parents pass away. Other species of monkeys kill each other's infants regularly. From human perspective, children's right to life is one of the biggest ethical focal points ever and so its complete inversion across two species should naturally predict dramatically different successes of survival. But that's not what we found. It seems ethics cannot be explained as a mechanism of survival. Doesn't mean it's magic, of course, but it does mean the reduction is exaggerated.

>>25322050
Do monkeys have a civilization I don't know about?

No. But if you steal the word and redefine it to mean "whatever I personally approve of" then the most insane faggots in the world can reply yes.

>>25321849
why is this retarded low tier answer so popular now?
It's the same as saying "everyone should just follow the law". It doesn't justify anything or why I would even want to be reciprocal. Maybe I want to kill everybody else but me if I can get away with it. It's arbitrary and retarded. Hence nobody follows it blindly, it's not self-evident to everyone. It could be that you are retarded anon and maybe they are the smart ones not listening to your tard argument and take advantage of their present situation.

>>25321835 (OP)
What do you mean by "possible", that morality can be a true ought? Even in the case a God exists there still wouldn't be a true ought, an ought is always conditional to what the goal is. Religion just makes these oughts unconditional, which is a delusion. That said, there are still wise actions and unwise actions, just as there are foods conducive to bodily health and foods that are not. Whether you "ought" to do it is another story; if you want to be healthy, then you "ought" to eat healthy; if you want to be happy, then you "ought" to develop the habits and character that is conducive to happiness. I think this is ultimately what anyone means by "morality", how should you live a life that is fulfilling? Of course you can say that you don't care about being fulfilled by to whatever degree everyone cares even if it isn't explicit, because every action is a desire which seeks it's own relief, ie fulfillment. That is to say what we actually desire is the relief from when a desire is attained, and that every action is like this, even if it's self-destructive; self-destructive actions are just the result of ignorance.

>>25322365
Of course you can claim that you don't care about fulfillment, but to whatever degree*

>>25322365
God would be a Final Cause. That's a true ought.

>>25321835 (OP)
depends
> top ~15% of humanity
yes
> the rest
no

>>25321835 (OP)
You mean
>Can morality be possible without a universal authority?
If there is no single law or order that everyone refers to, then people have the will to choose their morality themselves; this has always devolved into people having terrible opinions on what's right because they just refer to their base instincts. Those don't get people anywhere on their own.

>>25322397
Not really, there's no ought even with the two different conceptions of God. If it's the kind where God makes commands and you're punished or rewards depending on whether you follow them, there is still no true ought. The ought is conditional on whether you want to be rewarded or punished. Of course, most people are not going to want eternal hellfire but that still doesn't make it an unconditional ought. Either that, or God is the Good, and the more an action is aligned with the Good the closer you are to God. Again, there is still no ought, you can say if people knew how amazing it was to live according to God's will that they would want it, but it's still conditional. It can be the most blissful thing ever but it's still not a true ought. And ultimately you really don't need any of this for morality, you can just leave God out and there will still be actions conducive to peace, happiness, and fulfillment, and actions that aren't conducive to that end. You may rebut and say that without something to ground these actions, it's just a tautology, in other words, you do it because it's good, and it's good because it just is, like how if you cut your arm off it just is painful; however, it is still tautological even if there is a God, now you do it because it's good, and God is good, and God is good because he just is. Literally makes no difference.

>>25322414
Not every society comes up with the same laws, so what possibly universal authority are they referencing? They only know what keeps their society functional and what they think will lead to a fulfilling life. And who comes up with these ideas? Obviously the people within that society, and this doesn't just devolve into people choosing their base instincts. Obviously people aren't necessarily making the choice all on their own, they look up to role models or people with wisdom, they learn customs and manners from their parents. All these things though are something that people themselves came up with that became tradition.

>>25322427
>there is a God, now you do it because it's good, and God is good, and God is good because he just is
This is correct.

>literature?

>>25321844
Tomato tomato. Morality was Cicero's coining of a translation of the Greek "ethikos".
>>25321835 (OP)
Morality has more to do with customs than religion, per se. You live in a society with customs, and thus morality. If you act in accordance with those customs, you are moral - if not, you aren't. The idea of personal morality doesn't really make sense because you can't really act against your own internal values - if you think you are or have done so, it is because you don't consciously accept your deeper unconscious values - but you will act according to them anyway - and if everything is moral, then the term becomes meaningless. The idea of objective morality also doesn't make sense, though I have no interest to go into that - many others have, and I'm sure would be interested in debating this.

>>25321835 (OP)
Yes. Sociologically speaking, religious morality is simply a way of saying "these fundamental moral axioms are beyond question". There's no explicit reason why an atheist society couldn't be as intolerant regarding the questioning of its own moral axioms. In fact, many people who chafe under liberal democracy feel this intuitively; this society which preaches tolerance becomes violently opposed to anybody that questions, let alone lives, too radically.

>>25322497
>you can't really act against your own internal values - if you think you are or have done so, it is because you don't consciously accept your deeper unconscious values
You can also act against your own values out of ignorance. Like every time someone gets food poisoning: if they knew a food was going to make them sick, they probably wouldn't have eaten it. So by eating it, they unknowingly acted against their own values. Or, for a less extreme but still food-related example, if you go to a restaurant, there might be a dozen dishes you've never tried before, and one of them you might really like more than any of the others if only you ordered it, but figuring out which one it is isn't necessarily perfectly obvious. You can look at the ingredients and know which ones you typically like and don't like, but certain combinations or unusual varieties of ingredients might surprise you.

What I'm saying is—try robbing a bank. You won't know for certain whether you'll dislike it until you're right there in the moment.

>>25321835 (OP)
Where this pic is from

>>25322527 (cont.)
Oh, and people also act against their highest values often out of limited willpower. Take for example anyone with an addiction. It could genuinely be the case that they would happier without, but overcoming the addiction might be incredibly difficult to impossible for them without fortunate willpower-improving circumstances or third party intervention.

>>25322539 (cont.)
You might also imagine a case where someone is a psychopath, but it's due to brain damage or a tumor somehow and they would be happier if it were cured, incidentally or not incidentally along with their psychopathy.

>>25322358
>Maybe I want to kill everybody else but me if I can get away with it.
How is that related to the golden rule at all?

>>25322566
Doubly interesting is that, having been cured, they might be very sad about what they did while still in the psychopath headstate. But if they did fewer bad things while a psychopath, they would have less to be sad about when no longer a psychopath, so it might conceivably be the case that purely out of self-interest, the psychopath should have acted more morally even when their subjective apprehension of their own values at the time, based on what they knew at the time, would give no indication of that.

>>25322442
>Not every society comes up with the same laws, so what possibly universal authority are they referencing?
The universal authority would be their religion/god that transcends the limitations of their society's existence. Your point about role models is true, but since you're taking your example from real life and I perceive the world as a Christian, your example is inseparable from God's influence.

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>>25322497
>You live in a society with customs, and thus morality

full retard

The concept of morality necessitates its objective nature and requires it to have not been made by humanity

morality requires God. otherwise "morality" is just arbitrary and meaningless.

>>25321841
you are also very dumb

>>25321835 (OP)
It is possible, but not the morality of the slave, but of the master. Slave morality has no logical justification without religion.

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>>25322531
git gud and lurk moar

>>25322480
Oh shut up this is the only board left with even a bare concentration of non retards to talk to

>>25321835 (OP)
Look up the etymology of the two words. They're the same thing, maybe a slight focus on formal ritual in the latter. So no.

>>25322758
Hard to believe when you see posts like >>25322723

>>25322702
>requires it to have not been made by humanity
What? Why can't humans make observations about objective natural facts? Who told you that, some imaginary demon that speaks to you when you pretend to drink human blood and eat human flesh?

>morality requires God. otherwise "morality" is just arbitrary and meaningless.
How is intentional physical harm arbitrary and meaningless? How is the Hippocratic Oath not a moral judgement made independent of any gods and their commands?

>>25322358
>Maybe I want to kill everybody else but me if I can get away with it.
Somebody like that probably just isn't cut out for morality.

>>25322808
>How is intentional physical harm arbitrary and meaningless
Meaninglessness is the default. If you have material evidence for why physical harm is meaningfully bad I'd like to see it. Evolutionary psychology arguments do not fit this criteria unless you have similar evidence for why we should allow ourselves to be bound by evolutionary psychology. You're confusing your intuition—as irrelevant to reason as my intuition that God exists—with something deeper.

>>25322760
Can morality even compete with ethics if it requires some invisible immeasurable ghost whose identity nobody seems to agree upon instead of observable objective facts regarding consequences of behavior?

>>25322813
*This criterion

>>25322815
Ethics are as real as your job's HR policy as far as I understand it.

>>25322813
>If you have material evidence for why physical harm is meaningfully bad I'd like to see it.
Ok, then feel free to induce great physical harm to yourself and prove it does not negatively impact you or your quality of life.

>>25322816
No, your understanding seems retarded, its more like every HR department of various industries getting together to develop a framework of productive, harm avoiding, behavior. Even if it were as you say, HR departments are infinitely more tangible than magical ghosts.

>>25322825
>No, your understanding seems retarded
Uhuh
>its more like every HR department of various industries getting together to develop a framework of productive, harm avoiding, behavior.
This has never happened and never will. There does not exist a shared coherent understanding of what "harm" even is between just the anons in this thread, let alone people in general.
>Even if it were as you say, HR departments are infinitely more tangible than magical ghosts.
Even more so the barrel of a gun pressed against your forehead. Should we acquiesce to the supremacy of violence? I'd rather not.

>>25322818
I have and I'm satisfied with it.

Both are impossible. But morality can be psychologically useful.

>>25322828
>This has never happened and never will
It happens constantly from licensing boards that set ethics standards for doctors to enforce things like the Hippocratic oath to regulatory authorities that oversee banking and commerce to food safety and standards even to things like the NIST that are currently overseeing ethics in AI while working with the internal ethics boards of multiple major corps like Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft.

>Should we acquiesce to the supremacy of violence?
What the fuck are you talking about? I was the one who said violence is bad, you are the one once advocating for a violent supreme being who regularly commands tribes to genocide each other while also manifesting violent disasters so he can violently burn the majority of people in a magical pit forever after he sent a son that specifically said he didn't want to bring peace but wanted to be like a sword and cut up families across entire nations, so by groveling to a demon like that, you are definitely acquiescing to the supremacy of violence.

>>25322829
How so? You accidentally drank coffee that was too hot or something?

>>25322845
>cope 1
Right, and that's not what you said. You said EVERY industry getting together.
>cope 2
You are actually fucking retarded lol. I extended your criteria of realness—you can go out and touch it, concreteness—to the most concrete immediate thing I could think of in order to show you why reductive realism is such a waste of time.
>a violent supreme being who regularly commands tribes to genocide each other while also manifesting violent disasters so he can violently burn the majority of people in a magical pit forever after he sent a son that specifically said he didn't want to bring peace but wanted to be like a sword and cut up families across entire nations, so by groveling to a demon like that,
I suggest getting over your daddy issues and childish fear of suffering before attempting philosophy.

If you're the anthropic guy I fear for our future.

>>25322762
I didn't say it was old school Usenet..