Ethics

Sat - December 1, 2007

Why Would You Deny Objective Moral Values?

I raised this question in comments on Thursday. It may seem a little stark, a bit obvious, even rather horrifying, but I had a reason for approaching it that way:

Consider two actions:

1. A mother providing adequate love, care, shelter, nourishment, etc. to her newborn baby.
2. A mother grinning in glee while she lets the baby starve, gaining pleasure from watching and hearing the baby cry, and occasionally getting extra pleasure by burning the baby in various places with her cigarette.

Now, is one of those mothers (and her actions) morally more right than the other? Or are they morally equivalent?

Posted at 07:04 AM Read More |

Mon - June 25, 2007

Naturalism's Ethical Dilemma

Here is a fascinating discussion by Brian Trapp at christianthinker.net. He considers what it might take for metaphysical naturalists to establish a real sense of ethics--and what they might have to give up in order to do that.

Posted at 11:07 PM Read More |

Mon - May 28, 2007

"If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural"

Today's Washington Post reports that thinking about being good to each other makes us feel good, and therefore morality reduces to evolutionary hardwiring in our brains. Anybody see any small problems with this?

Posted at 08:20 AM Read More |

Tue - May 15, 2007

Marc Hauser's "Moral Minds"

Discover magazine has interviewed Marc Hauser about his book Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. The magazine opened up its website to non-subscribers for a limited time, so you can read the interview here.

Hauser's thesis is that empirically observable facts about human moral reasoning show that evolution has hard-wired us for moral reasoning, much of it on an unconscious level:

"Millions of years of natural selection have molded a universal moral grammar within our brains that enables us to make rapid decisions about ethical dilemmas."

Posted at 01:33 PM Read More |

Thu - March 22, 2007

Darwin and Ethics

Critics hooted and hollered when Richard Weikart published his book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. Weikart suggested, as summarized in this review, that evolutionary theory gives rise to certain views of humankind which helped lead toward the Nazi atrocities.

One critic complained,

"the validity of a scientific theory does not hinge upon how it has been interpreted by German dictators. And...a scientific theory is not an ideology; it aims at explaining nature, not telling us what to do. Evolutionary biology did not oblige Hitler to kill Jews any more than nuclear physics mandates Kim Jong-Il to acquire the atomic bomb. And the theory of gravity does not require that you go jump off a bridge."

The idea is that Darwinian theory has no ethical implications. I haven't read Weikart's book, so I won't comment on the Darwin-Hitler connection. I brought it up here just to introduce the topic that really interests me today: this question of whether evolutionary beliefs lead to ethical outcomes.

Posted at 01:50 PM Read More |

Tue - March 20, 2007

It Boggles the Mind

"Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.

"Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are."

Posted at 07:54 PM Read More |

Wed - March 14, 2007

Apropos that last post

"'To a neuroscientist, you are your brain; nothing causes your behavior other than the operations of your brain,' Greene says. 'If that’s right, it radically changes the way we think about the law. The official line in the law is all that matters is whether you’re rational, but you can have someone who is totally rational but whose strings are being pulled by something beyond his control.' In other words, even someone who has the illusion of making a free and rational choice between soup and salad may be deluding himself, since the choice of salad over soup is ultimately predestined by forces hard-wired in his brain."

Posted at 11:28 AM Read More |

Wed - December 13, 2006

Tolerance: Elton John Meets Socrates

This is classic, in more than one sense of the word. Now, what does someone like Elton John really mean by "tolerance"?

Posted at 04:04 PM Read More |

Fri - September 15, 2006

Moral Confusion

I just heard a teacher from Orlando on the radio, telling about students at her school who came dressed as terrorists for "Superhero Day." An administrator told them it was inappropriate, and they answered, "What's wrong with it? They're superheros in their countries!"

Someone responded on the radio, "that's really twisted." I say, "What do you mean, twisted? They're just living out exactly what we're teaching them."

Posted at 05:50 PM Read More |

Sat - July 29, 2006

On God's Right to Set Moral Standards

The Christian says that morality and ethics are determined by God, and reflect his eternal character. Some dissenters have asked what right God has to do that; or rather, what is it about God that gives us confidence his moral standards are to be taken on as our own? To most of us theists that's an incredible question. It shows a very small and bounded view of what the glory of God can and does mean. Few could express this as well as C.S. Lewis.

Posted at 05:41 PM Read More |

Tue - July 11, 2006

A side thread on relative ethics

On the thread related to my July 4 post, a side conversation began, relating to how a relativist can (or cannot) apply ethics to another person. To keep that thread focused on its original topic I'm posting this as a place to continue that part of the discussion.

Posted at 10:06 AM Read More |

Wed - July 5, 2006

Theism as Obvious Morality?

doctor(logic) commented recently that theism's morality is an attempt at objectifying what we all know already to be moral and right:

Theism says that our moral feelings are basically correct (they are a reflection of God), and that, broadly, we should follow our hearts. Indeed, Judaism and Christianity have been pretty much in lock-step with changing cultural norms from day one. . . . You might claim that theism dictates that people should behave in a way we all find morally good, but then why did we need theism to tell us to do what we all agree we should do anyway?

There are serious Biblical and historical problems with this view. Here I want to explore another side of the question: isn't this terribly culture-bound?

Posted at 07:09 AM Read More |

Mon - June 19, 2006

Evolution and Motherhood

I could comment on this now, but my morning schedule is too tied up. I'll put it to you to get the discussion rolling.

"Teenage and 60-year-old mums are consequences of evolution"

Posted at 11:04 AM Read More |

Thu - June 15, 2006

Is Discussion Possible?

Brian Trapp at christianthinker.net has been observing our dialogues about ethics here from a distance. He's wondering if real discussion is possible when our fundamental bases for decision making are so far apart--between the Christians/theists and the atheists who visit here.

Posted at 12:53 PM Read More |

Tue - June 13, 2006

What About Pedophilia?

Some of our interlocutors here think that morality is a matter of opinion or of culture. Look where that seems to be headed. Is this what you had in mind?

Posted at 09:36 AM Read More |

If you can't live with it, it just might be wrong

"Conscience must concur with church's moral teaching, politicians told"

"How Can You Lie If Truth Is Relative?"

Taking the Ethics Question Another Direction

Behavior and Morality

"The Problem With An Almost-Perfect Genetic World"

P. D. James: "Belief had its social uses. We haven't exactly found an effective substitute."

What's To Become of Right and Wrong? A Wrapup

Resource on Relativism and Ethics

What do "Right" and "Wrong" Then Mean?

The End of Right and Wrong?