So, morality.

I know zip squat moral theory either from the atheist position, the Christian position, the philosophical position, or any other position out there. I have little idea how to really think about the issue. Nevertheless, at the request of Boeciana, my first spasmodic attempts at figuring it out - and, specifically, why I think common Christian arguments against Atheist morality are nonsensical - are as follows. (I remind commenters that I do not consider the words of David Hume to be holy writ. I have not the slightest intention of accepting the very existence of the "is/ought" problem unless given very good reason to do so.)

(1) To begin: there is this moral instinct we call "conscience", shared by most human beings, concerning the ordering of our actions. How do we explain it? Where does it come from?

(2) "Right" and "wrong" are what we call the sensations of this instinct corresponding to desire and aversion. Insofar as this instinct can be likened to more physical instincts, they are the rough equivalents of satisfaction/pleasure and hunger/thirst/pain.

(3) As hunger relates to food, "right" and "wrong" relate to our behaviour towards other human beings and/or our own nature (particularly our sexual nature, as most human societies have some concept corresponding to "chastity") and, if we're believers, to God or the Gods. (The relation to God would be highly disputable from an atheist POV.) It is the clear nature of "right" and "wrong" that they apply at the very least to how we treat human beings.

(4) We all recognise a human being when we see one. We do not all share the same theoretical explanation for the nature of the human being. Different views of what it means to be "human" will lead to different views on morality and what the moral sense is detecting. If the human being is merely a collection of atoms, a walking meat machine, then "right" and "wrong" are concepts which relate to men, who happen to be walking meat machines; thus, the moral sense emerges from physical considerations. If the human being is a soul clothed in matter, then "right" and "wrong" are concepts relating to men, who happen to be souls clothed in matter, and "right" and "wrong" may thus have a spiritual/metaphysical aspect. If the moral sense arises from the purely physical, "moral" may be a kind of social self-preservation instinct: "moral sense" may be how we perceive "what is good for my family, tribe and society". If we are created by God, "moral sense" may be how we perceive "whether my intentions are actions are in resonance with the will of God". (There are probably other views. I don't know them yet. See disclaimer at start.)

(5) Thus: "it is not wrong to vandalise mere matter, if no spirit values or animates said matter" results only from assuming that humans are more than mere matter; if humans are mere matter, there are lumps of mere matter (namely human beings) that it is wrong to vandalise, because it is wrong to kill humans senselessly.

(6) Therefore, to say "if men are merely purposeless random lumps of chemicals, murder is no sin" is a circular argument: you are saying "let us derive our moral philosophy from the assumption that human beings have souls. This moral philosophy would clearly give junk results if applied to the hypothetical case in which human beings are mere matter. Therefore, materialism destroys morality." No, it doesn't. You've just switched your assumptions about what a human being is half-way through your argument and blamed the resulting logical pile-up on anyone who disagrees with you. Look, if I were an atheist, this would drive me hopping mad.

(7) Similar arguments apply to anything resembling "rights" or "moral imperatives". If you derive these things from a non-materialistic worldview, apply them within an non-materialistic worldview. Do not apply them to a materialistic worldview without appropriate modifications and blame atheists for your oversight. Do not claim that if human beings have no God-given human dignity then it's open season on the weak and the unfit: or at least, do not claim such a thing lightly. In the hypothetical situation of human beings having no God-given human dignity, the obvious implications are that there is something other than "God-given human dignity" behind the moral knowledge that "murder is wrong". (Whether this alternative view would be as satisfying or as useful I will not discuss yet.)

(8) The variation on this argument, that a God-free morality would have no binding claim on human beings, is similarly a circular argument. It makes the binding nature of morality contingent on the existence of God. This raises the question of "why does God have any right to tell us what to do?" But "morally binding" means "has the force of moral sense behind it" regardless of whether we posit (or have revealed to us) the existence of God as the essence of morality; your conscience has moral authority by definition.

Allow me to dramatise how all this possibly looks to anyone for whom the existence of God is not assumed or proven (with apologies for any wildly insulting generalisations and misrepresentations that follow):

Mr. Archibald CONSCIENCE: Murder is wrong!

Mr. Hiroki T. CHRISTIAN: Conscience guy is right!

Mr. Ngao F. ATHEIST: Yeah! Common ground! Although, uh, what about the Inquisition?

HT CHRISTIAN: *suddenly reproduces by cellular division, like an amoeba*

HTC(1): Uh, yeah, sorry about that. It was a really dumb idea, we won't do it again.

HTC(2): You kidding? The Inquisition was all HTC(1)'s fault! Besides, anyone who tortures someone else for the faith is obviously not a True Christian.

NF ATHEIST: ...can you say "No True Scotsman"?

HTCs (1) & (2) together: Also, what about the Soviet Union, dammit?

NFA: Stalinist communism was cultlike, like a religion! Stalin nicked all his ideas from the Jesuits! And the Russian Orthodox Tsars! That was all religion's fault too! He wasn't a Real Atheist!

HTC(1): ...can you say "No True..." what was it again? Irishman?

HTC(2): I'm pretty sure it was "Welshman". "No True Welshman." About jam on your scones or something?

HTC(1): No, no... I've got it! No True Frenchman!

HTC(2): No True Belgian?

NFA: All right, you've made your point already!

HTCs (1) & (2): (recombining) So, yeah. ANYWAY. We think the highest moral authority is one Mr. J. GOD. Therefore Mr. Conscience over there is the direct deputy of God! He speaks with the authority of God, and God is the authority of what's right and wrong.

NFA: Really? Hey, Conscience, is this true?

A. CONSCIENCE: Search me, mate, all I know is I've got this job to do.

HTC: So if you deny the authority of God, you deny the authority of Archibald here! And he's such a necessary chap you don't want to be undermining his authority.

NFA: ...wate wut? Why should I regard God as the source of moral authority?

HTC: Because he is!

NFA: Why can't I regard Archibald as the source of moral authority?

HTC: Regard Archibald as the source of moral authority? Ridiculous! Who gave him this authority?

NFA: Well, who gave God this authority?

HTC: God is the First Cause by definition! The termination of the infinite regression of cause and effect!

NFA: So in other words, He gave Himself authority?

HTC: Yeah!

NFA: Look, I can't see this God. Given that practically speaking, "moral authority" means "what Mr. Conscience here says", I think I'll forget you said all this and go back to howling about theocracy every time a politician mentions "God" in the same sentence as anything I disagree with.

HTC: But you're undermining Archibald by saying this stuff! Soon you'll be killing people in the street!

NFA: Mensch, you people are raving paranoiacs with a persecution complex. I'm glad my paranoia about significant participation of religion in public life being a sign of imminent fascist theocracy is more reasonable.

HTC: So where did Archibald here come from, anyway? Eh? EH?

NFA: Well, you might have heard of the Theory of Evolution? It makes sense to have evolved a strong negative instinct against screwing each other over, it clearly benefits everyone.

HTC: *Splits again into two*

HTC(a): I don't accept the Theory of Evolution!

HTC(b): Ignore that man. Look, the Theory of Evolution's fine, but really, Archibald clearly isn't just some random concatenation of matter. Can you really imagine his voice - Archie, remind us again?

A. CONSCIENCE: MURDER IS WROOOOOONG!

HTC(b): ...can you really imagine that that voice just represents some evolved instinct towards self-preservation of the species?

NFA: Can you really imagine that this wonderful and beautiful sensation of "green" really represents electromagnetic fluctuations of about 700nm wavelength? I mean, when you meditate on the concept of "700 nanometres", does "green" come into your head?

HTC(b): That's totally different. Our sense of sight and Archie's voice are qualitatively different! One speaks of physical things, one speaks of moral things!

NFA: Well, they may be different, but still analogous in some respects. And if the moral arises from the physical, they're not so different.

HTC(a): No! The moral doesn't arise from the physical!

NFA: Says who?

HTC(b): Says the fact that Archie-warchie is clearly too majestic and holy to arise from the physical!

NFA: Is this judgement perhaps informed by the fact you think Mr. Conscience is basically the deputised voice of God?

HTC(b): ....um, maybe?

NFA: Can you say "circular argument?"

HTC(b): So totally not circular it's not funny.

NFA: Also, "Archie-warchie"? You're getting very chummy with Mr. Conscience there.

A. CONSCIENCE: *feels loved*

NFA: So, like, do you have any actual arguments for this "God" person that aren't circular?

HTC(a) & (b) together: I've seen miracles!

NFA: All of which are dubious on source-critical grounds, as well as plain common sense.

HTC(b): On "source-critical grounds", do you mean "on the grounds the only people who report them are superstitious, ignorant fools", and by "common sense" you mean "they never happened to me"?

NFA: Well, yes, and that they happened neither to me or anyone whose word I'd trust.

HTC(a): And you can tell how superstitious and ignorant someone is by how much they believe in miracles?

NFA: It stands to reason.

HTC(b): So the only testimony you'd believe is that of someone who saw a miracle but still doesn't believe in them?

NFA: It's an entirely reasonable philosophy, dammit. It gave us science!

HTC(b): Can you say... what was it... "triangular argument"?

HTC(a): I think it was "oblong". Yeah, definitely "oblong".

HTC(b): I've got a sneaking suspicion it might have been a "trapezoid argument"? Hey, Mr. Atheist, can you help us here?

NFA: You do know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, yes?

HFC(b): Except when you're mocking us?

NFA: Touché.

--

....and at this point I run out of both material and snark, and draw the dialogue to a close. (Maybe next time NFA undergoes amoeba-like division into NFA(Hitchens) and NFA(everybody else). Hilarity ensues!) In conclusion: I propose that it's self-evident that morality is a mode of perception which evaluates our actions according to some particular end which is hard-wired into us, and that it's of no small importance how or why this mode of perception has been given to us, and also that it's utterly silly to point at someone whose explanation is different from yours and shout "if my explanation is right, yours is wrong!" and assume this constitutes a crushing rebuke. If Christianity is right, "moral force" means "resonance with the will of God" (AFAIK, Judaism and Islam would essentially agree). If Atheism is right and morality means a kind of self-preservation instinct directed to the society and not the individual, "moral force" means "for the good of everyone, particularly my family and tribe" (unless there are any other atheist explanations out there for what "moral force" means; as I say, I know very little about the area. What non-monotheistic religions think constitutes "moral force" I have no clue).

Whew. Maybe at some indefinite point in the future, I'll be able to say something more informative on the subject, like the relative merits of different views of morality, which (as I said) I know little about. Anyone who feels their views have been unfairly belittled above, please hit the combox to clarify. (Anyone who feels their views haven't been unfairly belittled, uh, I'll try and pencil you in for the future >.>)

...you know, I didn't really intend to do anything much with this blog beyond stick up art every now and then so when I get an art site running I'd have a blog to point to with some minimal archives to flick through so people weren't disappointed. And here I am sucked into philosophising...

PS Boeciana (or anyone), do you have an english translation of Walafrid's Ad Amicum around? Because I can't read latin, alas.

PPS Important credit: above dialogue semiconsciously riffing off and covering some of the territory of Nick Milne's treatment of the idea that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (worth reading, and commendably takes the matter seriously rather than slipping into farce mode, unlike a certain other blogger whose post you happen to be reading right now >.>)

PPPS Also, having checked, green is ~500 nm; 700 would be red. I think I got confused because something would look green if it absorbed 700 nm light.

PPPPS Via Mark Shea, I note that the Pope's just weighed in on atheist morality. He thinks atheist morality insufficient and a shortcut to Bad Things, but does credit it with desiring justice in a world where God doesn't seem in any hurry to turn up and provide it for you. (I looked, and there was no-one to help; I was appalled that there was no-one to support; so my own right arm worked salvation for me, and my fury, it upheld me.) I also notice that the comments section features someone launching philosophical arguments against Atheist morality (including the highly interesting question as to where the idea of justice could be derived from); whether to wade in or not? H'mmmm....

PPPPPS I suppose if I'm going to treat moral sense as being like any other mode of perception, the question should be asked as to whether self-righteousness is a form of gluttony?

PPPPPPS Waded in on Mark Shea's combox; any interesting arguments may wind up here in short order. Also, a good-humoured atheist's joined in discussing the Pope's comments, and has a post up here: 266 of 266 Popes agree: You Should Believe in Our God, Atheism is Naughty. Well, to be fair, sticking up for the Catholic Faith is in the Pope's job description. You want atheist priests, mix it up with the Anglicans...