Andrew4Handel wrote:

You seem to be trying to commit the naturalistic fallacy and selecting some behaviour from social animals as praiseworthy. Social behaviour is just social behaviour it doesn't gives us any moral ought. Humans are the most social of all animals yet we have had slavery and the holocaust etc. Atrocities coexist with other behaviour social animals enact. Like I said early the persistence of moral style behaviour is no more evidence of truth than the persistence of supernatural and religious behaviour.

I have moral preferences but nature doesn't care about them and does not enact justice ion my behalf.

The break down of meaning for people like my own experience and the Tolstoy example is when you fail to be able to justify any of your motives or see any reason for acting.

Ah, you seem to think that because human's engage in behaviours now seen as negative or immoral, that this somehow magically cancels out positive behaviours. It also fails to consider what the origins for those moral behaviours are, most of which are the products of humans as a social creature i.e. co-operation, sharing, not murdering each other, understanding of possession and so forth.

Just so we're clear, first and foremost behaviours drive morality and invariably morals start to fail when they are either a) no longer driven by behaviour or b) the behaviours change that make the morals obsolete or worse, harmful.

Also morality =/= justice.

As for nature not having much regard for your morals, clearly you do not consider you other humans to be the most significant part of nature with which you interact, day in, day out. Your morality to humans is explicable and also highly relevant. That you've decided to remove humans from the equation, seems to be little more than a convenient cop-out on your part.

hackenslash wrote:
The existence of morality does not entail that everybody behaves in a morally acceptable manner all the fucking time. Learn this elementary lesson that is obvious even to a toddler, but apparently not to somebody with a fictitious degree.

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There is no such thing as a moral contract. I never signed one. The point from my own examples is that my whole child hood was blighted by other peoples behaviour. It wasn't intermittent and reciprocal.

I cared for my older brother for 4-5 years. That was not a contract. Like I said there is literally no agreement on what morality is and your notion doesn't tally with any of my experiences.

When I was bullied in school I turned the other cheek. I didn't think "Oh! now they have broken the social contract I can kick the crap out of them." There was no contract. I just behaved by my dispositions which was not to bully people and they exhibited their dispositions.

Human morality has failed because of the wars and genocides we have had and the on going inequality and oppression etc. Agreeing to be fair on some arbitrary occasions is a crap moral basis.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
Human morality has failed because of the wars and genocides we have had and the on going inequality and oppression etc..

Human morality has succeeded because in spite of the wars and genocides, we're still here as a species.
Human morality has succeeded because we now recognise inequalities and oppression where we did not before and are far more active in trying to address these behaviours.

I could go on, but.....you're not listening.

Sendraks wrote:
Ah, you seem to think that because human's engage in behaviours now seen as negative or immoral, that this somehow magically cancels out positive behaviours.

No I have repeatedly pointed out these behaviours (effortlessly co exist) And that selecting certain behaviours as innately desirable is a naturalistic fallacy and or personal preference not objective morality.

It also fails to consider what the origins for those moral behaviours are, most of which are the products of humans as a social creature i.e. co-operation, sharing, not murdering each other, understanding of possession and so forth.

You seem to be being very naive about the prevalence of and reason for these behaviours. The warring. sexism, slavery homophobia and inequality have been equally prevalent. Peoples motives for cooperation can be inherently selfish. People want a society they can flourish in but everyone's desires have led to overpopulation and damage to the earth's environs. It is easy to exhibit some moral behaviours and fail to scrutinise a lot of other behaviours and the wider impacts and context.

Your morality to humans is explicable and also highly relevant. That you've decided to remove humans from the equation, seems to be little more than a convenient cop-out on your part.

It is my interaction with humans that have made morality seem so implausible. Some people are nice and generous but that in my experience has been the minority. I think we would also widely disagree on what constitutes a good person.

Sendraks wrote:
Human morality has succeeded because in spite of the wars and genocides, we're still here as a species.
Human morality has succeeded because we now recognise inequalities and oppression where we did not before and are far more active in trying to address these behaviours.

I could go on, but.....you're not listening.

How is dying in a gas chamber morality succeeding? You mean it is succeeding for you now??

Human historical conduct is the abject failure of morality that has meant billions of people have suffered horribly and died. Now in the brief era of modern technology and prosperity we have the luxuries of the chattering classes. This is an abnormal period of humanity fuelled by technology and prosperity rather than morality and still filed with suffering and inequality and people starving and ISIS and civil wars etc.

Andrew4Handel wrote:No I have repeatedly pointed out these behaviours (effortlessly co exist) And that selecting certain behaviours as innately desirable is a naturalistic fallacy and or personal preference not objective morality.

You keep pointing this out, whilst failing to recognise that these innately desirable behaviours are what have allowed us to thrive as a species.

Andrew4Handel wrote:You seem to be being very naive about the prevalence of and reason for these behaviours.

7 billion human beings say that I am far from naïve on the prevalence and reason for these behaviours.

Andrew4Handel wrote:It is my interaction with humans that have made morality seem so implausible.

Boo hoo? Your inability to see beyond your interactions and view yourself as a tiny part of a much larger system, is your problem, not anyone elses'.

Shrunk wrote:

Decent odds. I'd take them.

You are gambling on someone else's well being not your own.

Hello wall, what do you think? Really? Well, I don't agree, but it's considerably more thoughtful than the OP's idiotic blather.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
How is dying in a gas chamber morality succeeding? You mean it is succeeding for you now??

Not dying in a gas chamber is morality succeeding. And human history shows that a) the majority of humans have not been gassed to death and b) there is growing consensus in humanity that gassing people to death is bad, shouldn't happen again and denial of it happening is reprehensible.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Human historical conduct is the abject failure of morality that has meant billions of people have suffered horribly and died.

Human historical conduct is the abject success of morality that has mean billions more people have not suffered horribly than those who did.

Andrew4Handel wrote:This is an abnormal period of humanity fuelled by technology and prosperity rather than morality and still filed with suffering and inequality and people starving and ISIS and civil wars etc.

You can see into the future can you? Clearly you must be able to, in order to make any such statement about this being an abnormal period of humanity.

You could drop yourself in innumerable periods of history and reach the same fuckwitted conclusion, if you operated on the presumption that what was happening around you was a) abnormal and b) as good as it was going to get.

Sendraks wrote:
You keep pointing this out, whilst failing to recognise that these innately desirable behaviours are what have allowed us to thrive as a species..

No behaviour is innately desirable.

There is no evidence that life has a purpose to flourish within. Desirability is a subjective claim based on your personal preferences. The worst thing that has happened to me is a loss of meaning. I was not depressed as a child despite having lots of problems I had an innate positivity.

The loss of meaning made everything seem futile and makes everyday seem like a burden regardless of whether any one is being nasty to me and even when I have some luxuries and a roof over my head. Victor Frankl talked about this, about how having an overarching meaning made everything more bearable even living in a concentration camp like he did.

People like to do a competition of who suffered worse but Frankl who was actually in a concentration camp did not use that to belittle other peoples suffering but argued that the lack of meaning was what made the difference. Someone from an "idyllic" background can commit suicide in despair whilst some people flourished after surviving a concentration camp nightmare.

Andrew4Handel wrote:No behaviour is innately desirable.

For a social organism to thrive, all sorts of behaviours are innately desirable, otherwise the organism will not survive.

Sendraks wrote:
You can see into the future can you? Clearly you must be able to, in order to make any such statement about this being an abnormal period of humanity..

Modern prosperity and longevity in the West is a a blip in relation to the the entirety of human history. There are good reasons to give a poor analysis for the future. Climate change? Overstretched resources. A trillion dollar weapons industry....etc

Sendraks wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:No behaviour is innately desirable.

For a social organism to thrive, all sorts of behaviours are innately desirable, otherwise the organism will not survive.

We don't survive we die. I see no reason to keep the species going indefinitely.

Andrew4Handel wrote:Modern prosperity and longevity in the West is a a blip in relation to the the entirety of human history. There are good reasons to give a poor analysis for the future. Climate change? Overstretched resources. A trillion dollar weapons industry....etc

So was prosperity and longevity in Roman Empire compared to the entirety of human history to that point.
The fact remains that in order to make any claim of "abnormality" you need to able to articulate this period of history in terms of both the past and the future. Which you can't do.

There are also reasons to give a good analysis for the future. Some of which are simply because we recognise the issues you are concerned about. Some of which you simply haven't thought of, because of your rampant negativity.

Andrew4Handel wrote:We don't survive we die.

7 billions humans again say you're wrong.
Again - there is more to this than you.

Andrew4Handel wrote: I see no reason to keep the species going indefinitely.

Neither do I. Nor do I see any reason for the species not try to continue to exist.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

THWOTH wrote:
A number of posters have put forward arguments to demonstrate the conditions in which moral judgements might be validated. And yet, you ignore all that is said to you and just keep repeating bland assertions.

Which of these arguments for validating moral judgements did you think was successful?

If they feel their judgements are validated by reference to some subjective standards, that is (pretty much by definition) good enough for them.

If it's not good enough for you, and you're unrealistically demanding some definitive philosophical proof before feeling a judgement is meaningful, that's really not their problem.

Getting to the wider point which is supposedly regarding atheism, it seems pretty evident that most atheists here simply don't have a problem with the lack of a deity as an alleged source of morals.

If someone was to give up religious belief, 'morality' should only become an issue for them if they can neither accept that morality does involve subjectivity nor erect some secular 'principles' they can pretend are objective absolutes the way believers pretend their religious principles are.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
Modern prosperity and longevity in the West is a a blip in relation to the the entirety of human history. There are good reasons to give a poor analysis for the future. Climate change? Overstretched resources. A trillion dollar weapons industry....etc

That's a block or two from our house. It ain't all trash-choked third world shitholes. Sure, plenty of people live like that, but you don't, I don't, pretty much no one posting here does.

I will quote someone else here from the Philosophy forums.

Not to get off topic but I think many people in our society are not aware that right now there is a silent, worldwide suicide epidemic.

The rough figures are staggering: about one million people kill themselves and an estimated 10 to 20 million attempt suicide around the world each year; over 41,000 people died by suicide in the U.S. in 2013. Hundreds of thousands are admitted into hospitals in just the U.S. alone every year for acts of self-harm. It is difficult to know how many suicides are registered as "accidents" and to tally all of the attempts that are not reported -- the reality of the actual number is guaranteed to be significantly higher.

It is sobering to think that every 40 seconds around the world someone loses their life to suicide. We lose at least 3,000 people a day. There are far more suicides than homicides.

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/thre ... 78-10.html

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here Andrew - which is at least consistency on your part.

Yes - people commit suicide and this is tragic and sad and there are a whole host of issues, some of which differ society by society, to tackle the issue of why some people take their own lives.

However, whilst 3000 people per day are lost to suicide, roughly 370,000 people are born every day and 153,000 people die every day.

I wonder how many of those 3000 daily suicides are nihilists?