Following the death of faith in God non believers have become confused over the issue of ethics and morality. I shall seek to end their confusing thereby offering the honest answer to view on ethics to which a liberated atheist thinker would arrive. It is not humanism, but a qualified form of nihilism.
I shall look at confused responses that is: evolutionary psychology, humanism, utilitarianism, contractarianism and cultural relativism and find them lacking. To begin with it is essential to understand the difference between descriptive and prescriptive ethics. A dichotomy conflation of which has been the cause of most of the confusion regarding ethics. Descriptive ethics then, describes the behaviour of humans and other species amongst themselves. We can say describe the compassion and altruism amongst mankind. But describing behaviour does not logically entail that one prescribes or advocates that behaviour. Prescriptive ethics prescribes values that others "ought" to have, it prescribes behaviour one "ought" not to do this or that. For religions prescriptions are given by God. David Hume made clear it is logically impossible to derive prescriptive ethics from descriptive ethics. It is logically impossible to derive an "ought" prescription from an "is" description or a value from a fact. For example it may be a fact that we have evolved compassion to aid our survival. But from this fact it is impossible to derive the value that one "ought" to be compassionate. Such a transgression of logic is as invalid as deriving the value that one "ought" to be aggressive from the fact that we have evolved aggression. Morality then is not based on reason but on sentiment which is both biologically and culturally conditioned. As Hume stated : "It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger." (Its not contrary to reason, its just highly unusual)
Following this understanding to those who claim that we have a moral sense within us from what is good and what is evil I will reply with the following. It may be a fact that we have the characteristics of compassion, empathy, altruism etc But these are universal characteristics NOT universal values. They are facts not values. Different cultures value different characteristics for example the characteristic of "pride" was the highest value for Aristotle in Greece 2500 years ago. But was one of the lowest vices for medieval christianity being one of the seven deadly sins. So the characteristic of "pride" is a fact but it is merely culture not logic which decides whether it is a value. Like wise, Plato considered compassion to be a womenly vice. The Spartans considered aggression to be a virtue. The Vikings considered death in battle to be the only way of entering their heaven valhalla. Again characteristics, facts and values must be separated. With this understanding here are some responses to the question of our values. Evolutionary psychology, we can explain characteristics through evoltion. But we cannot explain which characteristics we "ought" to value from evolution. Evolution describes the facts, but it cannot prescribe values or bridge the "is", "ought" gap. We have evolved both aggression and compassion, evolution cannot tell us which we should value the more. Likewise humanism claims there are certain human characteristics that aid our survival and thus are universal values (human rights) However this again derives values from facts. Moreover other facts such as anger, aggression and manipulation have also aided and still aid our survivial. There is no way of proving them to be true and rights can only exist within a legal frame work. Outside of countries such notions are absurd.
Utilitarianism also suffers from logical inconsistency, it derives the value of the utility principle (increase everyones pleasure and decrease the pain) from the fact that we seek pleasure and avoid pain. Even if this were a fact it does not entail how we "ought" follow it. On may seek pain and avoid pleasure without contradiction. Facts do not lead to values. Contractarianism states that values are derived from certain characteristics such as altruism as they help society acheive peace and stability. However this assumes what it seeks to prove it begs the question, as it values peace and stability as a condition from which values are derived. Many cultures have valued war and battle, both cultural evaluations are subjective not objective. What has been said in no way leads to cultural relativism , they state that one "ought" not to criticise other cultures. This itself is a value and prescription (and "ought") that itself is relative to their culture and thus not an objective moral imperative either. Rather if we want to be rational we must criticise other cultures based on our subjective preferences and be conscious of the fact. This does not lead to classical nihilism as we understand that it is a fact that we value things whatever they maybe. Even perception itself is an evaluation. We perceive what is a value to us. Nihilism per say is impossible due to human nature. But different things are valuable to different people and different creatures. Therefore this account is known as neo nihilism. Objective morality is an illusion and like religion is a means to control others.
#promulgations #epiphan(y)
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