Atheism

[scspkr99]

Can there not be a subjective and objective dimension to morality? Objective being, as I've said I believe, the core understanding and difference between right and wrong.. the 'moral spectrum'. The subjective dimension being that of which you described; telling someone that wrongness is a property of a specific act... filling up the 'moral spectrum' with human actions ect and placing them in an unfixed, often subject to change, position.

Although I'd agree in our every day lives we would use the subjective dimension far more but I believe that subjective dimension is built on the foundations of the objective. The way we define the terms good and evil, right and wrong.. it doesn't matter what language we use, the underlying meaning is understood by everybody.. its objective. People only get confused by the language of good and evil, most people (unless they have a mental condition) understand the concepts of good and evil.

The subjective is taught to us and developed through social norms and whatever, but its developed on top of an objective dimension imo.

This is a good post that raises a really interesting question.

Yes to the subjective / objective dimensions but I'm not totally at ease with your definition of objective. Generally objective and subjective are defined as mind independent and mind dependent. Our subjective experience occurs to us, objective facts about the world exist independently of our ability to identify or recognise them. What I think you are closer to describing is the distinction between metaethics and normative ethics. If these properties are real, we can call ourselves realists we accept there are real / objective properties.

If the foundations of ethics are objective then this is a metaethical claim. That there is this property to which wrongness or goodness refers. On top of this you also have normative ethics which will try and answer what we should do in any given situation, normativity seems to play the role you are ascribing to subjective, this is the dimension by which we can evaluate acts and is based on the foundations provided by metaethical objective foundations.

It's possible to be a metaethical anti-realist which brings you closer to subjectivism,

[Muncey]

Yeah I agree, I'm not totally at ease with my definition of objectivity either haha.. not gunna lie I've never studied, read or even thought (until this thread) about ethics/morals on a level like this before.. it has motivated me to look up some books though (recommendations are welcome).

The distinction between metaethics and normative ethics does sound like what I'm getting at, even if I don't fully understand what those terms mean

So can the idea of innate morality, objective morality, only be tackled on a meta-ethical level?

[scspkr99]

Kind of, for a start in metaethics there's a book I'd recommend Andrew Fisher's Introduction

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Metaethics-Intr ... 1844652580

It's pretty straight forward but it is not as interesting as Quantum so don't be disappointed

The major debate in metaethics centres around which of three positions to surrender. Briefly these are

Cognitivism. Cognitivists are the ones that will claim that moral judgements are beliefs, Non Cognitivists disagree and say they represent desires.

Internalism, Internalists claim that moral judgements necessarily motivate. If you say something is the right thing to do you are saying that you have a reason to do it. Saying that you should do something (where this represents a normative claim) and not doing it is incoherent. Externalists reject this they argue that we can know what we should do and not do it.

Humean account of motivation. Associated with David Hume, if not exactly from him, is the idea that beliefs and desires are two discrete mental states that act together to motivate us. My belief that there is a beer in my fridge isn't enough to motivate me to go and get it in the absence of the corresponding desire for a beer. Thus an act to be motivated requires the belief and a desire. Beliefs are considered inert.

The problem for ethicists is that they are unable to reconcile the three positions, if Cognitivism is true then moral judgements represent beliefs, if internalism is true then moral judgements must necessarily motivate but if both of these are true then beliefs are motivating in the absence of a desire and so the Humean account of motivation can't be true. You can have any two from three but not all. You can have 1 or fewer depending on your perspective.

The book referenced above splits ethics into three fields, the applied ethicists are the players playing the game, normative ethicists are the referees and metaethicists are the ones writing the rules. So if we allow the metaethicists to establish the objective moral properties normative ethics is left discussing what the actual frameworks for making ethical decisions are, how should we act. Metaethics doesn't really have a position on this this is the normative ethicists domain.

Apologies for the rambling responses itt it's kinda difficult to explain when I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I'll take a look later at what books I'd recommend. Peter Singer's Companion to Ethics is a very good start but this is primarily about normative ethics.

[Muncey]

[magma]

This page is fucking excellent.

[Jizz]

whole thread is 100x better than the standard atheist threads, its been page after page where no one's bothered about telling anyone whether God exists

[hubb]

It's Werner Herzog though isn't it?

[scspkr99]

whole thread is 100x better than the standard atheist threads, its been page after page where no one's bothered about telling anyone whether God exists

Yeah I tend to think whether God exists one of the least interesting subjects and how we should treat each other the most important.

[Jizz]

yes, Werner Herzog is God

and Nicolas Cage is The Son

[hubb]

[rickyarbino]

Is there any ideological difference between an atheist and a satanist these days? Don't they essentially play the same role as eachother? Perhaps atheism is branch of statanism. Perhaps the other way around.

[lovelydivot]

I haven't read the entire post - but will but saying…

If morality and ethics are constructions…
and there is - a definitive pure build i.e.
one that is devoid of all cultural and language embellishments

that new age castle/egg dome whatever…

Will that stop people from choosing to be badmen?



I was just thinking about this in regards to drug cartels…
Because OG Italian gangsters...
flipped their kids legitimate as soon as they could…
and with an iron fist…

it's a curious thing.

[rickyarbino]

What is the "new age castle/egg dome"?

[DrGatineau]

Is there any ideological difference between an atheist and a satanist these days? Don't they essentially play the same role as eachother? Perhaps atheism is branch of statanism. Perhaps the other way around.

You're framing the discussion pretty awfully imo. Atheism, or at least my view of my own form of atheism, is non-religious. Is shouldn't really have a name at all tbh, as if religion is something that doesn't even exist. By calling atheists satanists you're presupposing that everyone must subscribe to some kind of religious belief.

Aka, you're validating theism by calling atheists satanists imo

[Muncey]

Is there any ideological difference between an atheist and a satanist these days? Don't they essentially play the same role as eachother? Perhaps atheism is branch of statanism. Perhaps the other way around.

I think you're choosing to picture atheism as the stereotypical smug arsehole atheist again lol.. I'd disagree, isn't Satanism a belief system? Atheism is a rejection of an idea (the existence of a deity) and goes no further than that. If anything every single theism is a branch of atheism because they all start off with "all your Gods are wrong... but mine is the real one". Take the latter part of that statement away and you have a fully atheist statement, add the latter and you have a theistic statement. All religious people are atheist to some extent because they reject the idea of other Gods. So yeah I'd say it's the other way around, but not because of anything specific to satanism.

[rickyarbino]

Is there any ideological difference between an atheist and a satanist these days? Don't they essentially play the same role as eachother? Perhaps atheism is branch of statanism. Perhaps the other way around.

You're framing the discussion pretty awfully imo. Atheism, or at least my view of my own form of atheism, is non-religious. Is shouldn't really have a name at all tbh, as if religion is something that doesn't even exist. By calling atheists satanists you're presupposing that everyone must subscribe to some kind of religious belief.

Aka, you're validating theism by calling atheists satanists imo

I wouldn't say I'm validating since both are equally trivial in my opinion. To clarify, I'm trying to address the fact that contemporary atheism seems to organize itself such that it directly opposes christianity, which if I'm not mistaken is a duty of the satanists.

[rickyarbino]

Is there any ideological difference between an atheist and a satanist these days? Don't they essentially play the same role as eachother? Perhaps atheism is branch of statanism. Perhaps the other way around.

I think you're choosing to picture atheism as the stereotypical smug arsehole atheist again lol.. I'd disagree, isn't Satanism a belief system? Atheism is a rejection of an idea (the existence of a deity) and goes no further than that. If anything every single theism is a branch of atheism because they all start off with "all your Gods are wrong... but mine is the real one". Take the latter part of that statement away and you have a fully atheist statement, add the latter and you have a theistic statement. All religious people are atheist to some extent because they reject the idea of other Gods. So yeah I'd say it's the other way around, but not because of anything specific to satanism.

But it's wrong to treat atheism as anything more than a belief system, surely you see that atheism makes claims it fundamentally cannot support in order to contradict theism. Since there's no real experiment, and just discussion on the matter, it's really just a matter of belief. Religious people aren't inherently atheist, but atheists are inherently religious.

[Muncey]

But it's wrong to treat atheism as anything more than a belief system, surely you see that atheism makes claims it fundamentally cannot support in order to contradict theism. Since there's no real experiment, and just discussion on the matter, it's really just a matter of belief.

I'd say its wrong to treat it as a belief system full stop, its the rejection of an idea. At a very basic level thats a belief as well, I get that, but I think that argument is a bit pedantic and is an incorrect use of language because theres a very clear difference between the very big and complex belief system of all the major religions and the very simple idea of rejecting it. Treating the rejection of an idea as a belief system is misleading imo, we have conspiracy theorists, people who believe in ghosts/UFOs ect. we don't require a name for everybody who doesn't believe in that nonsense, because the rejection of those ideas aren't a belief system.. they're just the belief that its nonsense.

Religious people aren't inherently atheist, but atheists are inherently religious.

How so? I gave the example that all religious people start off with the premise "my God is the only true God" and therefore "no other Gods before or after are real" < the rejection of other Gods, atheism.. do you have any further explanation to support why its the other way around? No atheist needs to hold any religious views in order to reject them, you can simply wave it off as nonsense. You don't have to be inherently Muslim to reject the idea Allah, why would you need to be inherently religious to reject the idea of any God?

[ultraspatial]

atheism is non-theistic/deistic. it's still a belief system tho. just that prescribes not believing in anything. you believe that there is no creator
or at least it should be treated as a belief system post-zizek

[ultraspatial]

"true" atheism imo is more like apatheism aka not giving a shit, rather than a firm belief in the nonexistence of a deity