Just Atheists

by Daren J

I’ve been considering the idea that forced rape could be necessary to propagate the species, and while it is highly unlikely such a scenario would ever present, I thought of something else. This topic was discussed in THIS POST, particularly in the comments, but I would like to bring up a tangential point: Using the furtherance of the species as a justification for rape supposes that species survival is “good,” or at least what humans “ought to do.” Now, I can’t argue that species survival isn’t “better” than extinction (as a matter of my opinion since I am a human), but is it “good” ?

Example: I don’t think many people would argue with the position that it is “better” to have money enough to survive than to live in poverty. However, it does not follow from that that being wealthy is “good” and poor “bad.” Does it?

[Note - I’ve left myself wide open for criticism that I’m implying that “goodness” can exist outside of human consciousness… or have I ?].

by Daren J

I’ve given quite a bit of thought to what it means when someone says something is “wrong.” Suppose someone says to me, “it is just your opinion that murder is wrong, and someone else’s view is just as valid as yours because there is no truth in ethical questions.” I also happen to find lima beans to be very disagreeable. However, I do not hold the opinion that eating lima beans is “wrong.” Why doesn’t my opinion in that case lead me to declare eating lima beans as immoral? My hypothetical opponent may then counter with this, “well, the fact that so many other humans agree with you that murder is wrong has given you the illusion that it is objectively so, but chances are you know people who like lima beans.”

Actually, I don’t, but I can infer from their availability and persistence that someone, somewhere does indeed like them. So, is the only difference between these two questions merely how much agreement I share with my fellow humans? I think not.

You may remember awhile ago there was a man from Afghanistan who was slated for execution because he converted from Islam to Christianity (which is punishable by death under Afghan law). The West was outraged, but Islamic countries agreed that this kind of apostasy was indeed capital. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the world was divided roughly 50-50 on whether this man should be spared. Now what about the lima bean? We have a lot of disagreement on the moral question of killing this man, yet that hasn’t changed the certitude of those who want him dead. It would appear that consensus alone among humanity is not enough to determine morality.

Here is how I see the lima bean question: it is not really a moral question. Many questions can be couched as ethical or moral, but at their heart, are not really. These kind of questions can be distorted by culture, and can be become quasi ethics questions. Another example: is it really wrong to not keep the sabbath holy, in the same way it is wrong to steal? I do not think so. Some ethical questions really get to the gravamen of what it means to be a cooperative species and others do not. Those are the masquerading ethics questions. [Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker calls these types of moral assertions “disagreeable, unfashionable, or imprudent.”]

This to me, that is the biggest danger of cultural relativism. It gives credence to the idea that whatever your culture happens to believe is indeed right. Therefore, the idea that a muslim who becomes an atheist ought to be executed can’t be criticized as immoral. I think it certainly can, because that is a real morality question. Cultural relativism mixes up true ethics questions with bogus ethics questions.

In sum, the lima bean is not evil, but killing a human on poor justification is.

by Daren J

I promised to answer the question of whether an objectively wrong action (such as murder) would still be wrong if the human race no longer existed - say it is the year 100,000 CE, and the human species, along with 97% of all other living species, are wiped out from a massive caldera eruption in North America. Mass extinctions of this scale appear in the fossil record approximately every 250 million years or so, and we’re about due statistically. [I believe the mass extinction of 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs was less than 50% extinction, but I digress]. There are no humans now living, so is “murder” objectively wrong? The short answer is “yes,” the long answer is very complicated.

The Long Answer: Because humans experience the flow of time in a specific direction, known as the “arrow of time” which flows from what we call the past to the future we conceive of things of having not existed yet (as in the children I have not yet fathered) and the things that no longer exist (such as Tyrannosaurus Rex) but perhaps this is a peculiarity of how we, as temporal humans, understand the universe. Bear with me; time is actually a dimension of the universe, and viewing everything through the way in which we experience time may be failure of imagination. For example, we know that other theoretical dimensions exist, and that it is theoretically possible for a physical four, or five dimensional cube (called a “hypercube”) to be observed in our three dimensional universe. We as three dimensional creatures have a tendency to see our perception of the physical as the “real” universe. However, we may simply be limited by our physical reality - the “real” universe appears to be far more complex with perhaps billions of symmetric and asymmetric dimensions.

Here is my point: the asymmetry of time’s arrow cannot change either what has or what will be. Thus, once it was objectively wrong to murder at any point along time’s arrow, that fact simply exists, regardless of whether it is being actively perceived by a creature at a particular point along the arrow. The same holds for what has not yet occurred to our senses. When pterodactyls ruled the skies, human murder was still wrong. The pterodactyl experienced our same arrow of time, and just because it was limited to experiencing time in the same asymmetric way doesn’t mean that occurrences along the arrow “later” aren’t just as real simply because the creature hasn’t yet experienced them.

This of course does not mean that the dino understands murder, or is bound by the human objectivity of it. As I’ve said, it is only objective in human cognition. Yet, the fact that it exists at all makes it exist, period.

by Daren J

I often hear the question, “how can you conceive of a just world without god?” Usually it is intended as a rhetorical question; the inquirer typically has no training in anything but dogma, and thinks this to be a stupifying question (I can think of another adjective for this question with the same root word, anyway). Responding to this question is not easy. It’s kind of like asking “what is the universe?” to a physicist. Likely, he wouldn’t know where to start.

So, where do we start? First, I’d like to point out that I am an objective moralist, and a naturalist. That is, I believe that there are concrete “right” and “wrong” actions, and that we can explain how those rights and wrongs came to be purely through natural explanations (without resort to any kind of supernatural, or spiritual phenomena). I hope to gradually illuminate how I got to this mental place through this blog; though I will also tackle other ethics related questions. So you know, few atheist ethicists are also moral objectivists. Many embrace cultural relatavism (that your ethics and morals depend largely upon the cultural in which you were raised), or a form of utilitarianism (that which is good brings the most benefit to the most people). For reasons we will discuss at length on this blog, I reject cultural relativism outright, and reject much of utilitarianism.

Stated as simply as I can, I believe that humans are social animals. Social animals must cooperate in order to survive. Actions that impede social progress, trust, and survival are “wrong.” Things like rape, murder, and theft undermine our social order, and they are wrong no matter what culture you are from.  Thus, they are not a simple matter of opinion.

One of my problems with utilitarianism is that it fails to adequately explain human compassion. For example, whenever a person catches a contagious disease it actually benefits the most people to kill that person to stop the spread of germs instead of caring for that person. Humans do, however, make some utilitarian judgments, so it is not entirely devoid of merit as a way of viewing morality.

If you agree with me, I’d like to see your answer to this question: what if the human race is wiped out? Are the actions still right or wrong without a human population to which the actions relate? I’ll post my response in the next installment. If you disagree with me that right and wrong are objectifiable - by all means take it up in the comment section; I’d love to discuss with you.