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SethBrown's avatar
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SethBrown
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Topic
#4959

Can Atheism Provide a Rational Foundation for Objective Morality?

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Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

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After not so many votes...

It's a tie!
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
One day
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
Mall's avatar
0
Mall
1420
rating
398
debates
44.1%
won
Description

Ideas of morality have existed since the dawn of civilization. Most religious traditions attribute morality to divine commands, with holy scriptures being the source of moral rules. But can atheists, who reject divine authority, provide a rational foundation for objective morality? It is argued that without God, morality becomes arbitrary and subjective, and we cannot justify moral claims in objective, rational terms. But others reject this claim, arguing that a rational morality can be grounded in human reason, empathy, or social norms. In this debate, we will explore the arguments for and against the notion of whether atheism has any grounds for objective morality.

Assume objective morality exists in this debate (since this isnt if objective morality exists, rather if atheism can justify it)

pro: Argues atheism can ground objective morality
con: Argues atheism cant ground objective morality

Round 1
SethBrown's avatar
SethBrown
Con
#1
I’d like to thank mall for this debate, since it’s not my burden of proof I’ll end my argument here and let him talk
Mall's avatar
Mall
Pro
#2
For sake of the topic dealing with atheism I'll explain what I mean when using the term.

Atheism is to be without theism. What is theism? The belief in a deity.

So while a person is without a belief in a deity they can have beliefs in other things such as a code of do's and don'ts which can be labeled as morality. A term I don't particularly use as it's conflated all around.

These things to do and not do have certain results. So the person has a belief in something to be done or something to obtain. What do they do?

They do what it is that gets the result. A person that believes in continuing to get results, they'll do certain things to get results.

Of course getting them without impedance otherwise they're not getting results or the probability goes down to get them . Which ultimately means not getting them. That what a risk would mean in this equation. A risk of failing versus succeeding could be failure instead of success.

Step by step, goal by goal, every single one they believe in. To get one result comes from another that was received from another and another.

A baby that has come into the world without a belief in a deity has a natural inclination at work in order to get certain results. As the being ages, there will be an infantile rudimentary stage process that will develop into what we call beliefs via exposure of the upbringing, community, society and the physical world.

The do's and don'ts as we notice are two categories. We can think of them nominally as the categories of right and wrong which are what people colloquially mean in ethics.

So every ethical decision, moral decision or calculative decision leads to either a constructive effect or non constructive effect. This is what I go into on the topic of society being antihuman in another debate challenge open to the first participant to accept. Yes I wanted to do a plug on it right quick.

But so far I've explained that this is all in the mind of a person that is without theism. I may as well add this too since it appears revelant.

That is a person by the name of Neely Fuller Jr. He has a book in summary on constructive results and justice.

He has specifically taken the position called eclectic pluralism which is not subscribing to any theism but learning about all different types of belief systems as he goes along.

The bottom line is, the belief of right and wrong exists with a person just by being a person with goals going about moving about in the world by thought speech and or action.

Every person that has lived long enough on this planet to learn this understand this and operates by the same means making it objective. Having doing what needs doing in order to keep breathing on this planet separates the difference between right and wrong or what is a go-go and doing something we can instill in children that's a big no-no.

This even extends to animals (non persons). They operate at least by natural inclination. The same way I mentioned before about persons as infants...





Round 2
SethBrown's avatar
SethBrown
Con
#3
So in summary of what you provided, you said people have goals, which leads to morals. For example (do note you didnt say this, this is just a example) Lets say someone had the goal to have their species thrive, murder would obviously not help with this goal, making it undesirable.

Near the end of your argument you provided this:
Every person that has lived long enough on this planet to learn this understand this and operates by the same means making it objective
The issue I have with this (the 1st bolded part specifically) is that if we trace this back when come to the conclusion who started teaching this? Lets say Timmy's father taught him to be moral, and Timmy's father was taught by his father to be moral, we eventually reach a point where someone started this tradition of teaching morality, which is just pushing the question back to how did this person gain through morality? (I believe your sentence after this attempts to answers this, and ill address that later)

The 2nd issue I have with this is that this wouldn't make morality objective, this would make morality conventional, meaning based on or in accordance with what is generally done or believed:. The issue with this is that it doesn't prove objective morality.

The 3rd issue I have it doesn't answer why things are still young, say Timmy's father taught his son to murder people (what we would consider immoral) is that this wouldn't make Timmy immoral, because he was taught that way, still making morality subjective. Although you could argue its against conventional morality, but conventional morality isn't the same as objective

After that you said:
Having doing what needs doing in order to keep breathing on this planet separates the difference between right and wrong or what is a go-go and doing something we can instill in children that's a big no-no.
So this tries to imply that Human Flourishing Is The Standard, this is a idea perpetuated by Atheist philosopher Sam Harris has argued in his book The Moral Landscape that whatever contributes to human flourishing is good and what goes against it is evil. So this in a way begs the question, and argues in the circle. It implies that human flourishing is objectively moral, therefore your using a objective moral value to prove objective moral values, hence arguing in a circle, or as Tim Stratton says it would be circular reasoning to argue that the flourishing of humanity is objectively good because one assumes it is objectively good when humanity flourishes. let us concede for the sake of the argument that moral values could be grounded in human flourishing. This hypothesis fails to explain why the flourishing of humans would be objectively good rather than the flourishing of some other species. When you look at human life you can view the flourishing of humanity as a “virus,” and a “cancer of the planet.” just look at all the bad things humans have done, There have actually been people who argued that human flourishing is objectively bad for the earth and all other forms of life. This is projected by the idea, “If all insects on earth disappeared, within fifty years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within fifty years all (other) forms of life would flourish.” So I dont think this explains moral values.
Mall's avatar
Mall
Pro
#4
"The issue I have with this (the 1st bolded part specifically) is that if we trace this back when come to the conclusion who started teaching this? "

What gives the assumption of teaching?

Are goals taught or innate?

People have wants. They want to do something or want to do things. What do they want to do?

You can ask these questions since we're asking questions.

What do you want to do?

Why do you want to do it?

How do you plan to do it?

Most of all ultimately, what do you want or expect the constructive result to be?

Of course the constructive result would still include you breathing.

"The 2nd issue I have with this is that this wouldn't make morality objective, this would make morality conventional, meaning based on or in accordance with what is generally done or believed:. The issue with this is that it doesn't prove objective morality."

Let's go over what objective is at least upon me communicating the term to you. It is something that works the same way like a natural law of code. It is objective that water in liquid form is wet based on its constituent elements. It's not non wet or dry erratically or here and there for you or for me.

Same thing with the sun . The objective color is what it is . I can see it for myself as you do with non impaired vision. So we have goals . Those goals in nature function as they do regardless of the person. Just like any person breathing. That is objective. Breathing is just breathing for what it is. Hopefully this is clear .

"The 3rd issue I have it doesn't answer why things are still young, say Timmy's father taught his son to murder people (what we would consider immoral) is that this wouldn't make Timmy immoral, because he was taught that way, still making morality subjective. Although you could argue its against conventional morality, but conventional morality isn't the same as objective"

The problem is your stuck on the idea of something being taught . I guess because your foundation of your position is anchored in a creator or external Father.

I'm trying to get you to just look at things for what they are from what we can observe on its face.

If we observe and examine ALL the functions of our bodies alone, we learn that we are mobile creatures. We move not just as a bipedal form but internally there's movement and functions of cells and energy living and growing and moving, see. Everything points to an objective to live . The body appears to have goals in and of itself which goals as we know are objective.

"It implies that human flourishing is objectively moral, therefore your using a objective moral value to prove objective moral values, hence arguing in a circle, or as Tim Stratton says it would be circular reasoning to argue that the flourishing of humanity is objectively good because one assumes it is objectively good when humanity flourishes. "

What your saying I believe is that right and wrong based on living or not is just another idea that is subjective and not absolute. Although you run into the double standard with believing a creator that has life gave us life to live it but I won't go there because it's not about that in this topic.

I broke down the terms to the empirical nature of components.
This is why I'm illustrating things in their nature. Things you can see for yourself and know for yourself. That's key to demonstrating objective elements such as goals, breathing, do's and don'ts and results.

All these terms, right , wrong, morality, what do they all really mean in nature?

I'm stripping all these terms off to make things easier to follow.
Otherwise we just have labels on top of labels not getting to the root. Then we resort to dogma, philosophy, subjective interpretation and or religion to preach about a higher meaning and purpose to the why of everything or why everything is.

At the end of it, all we're doing is looking at what we can observe which is objective. Then learning and knowing what we do which is objective. I made a point about this earlier that every person that lives long enough will learn and understand this which is objective.

When we talk about right and wrong what are we talking about in essence? If we had no language of words, terms, labels, what is it are we observing or can observe?

Do's and don'ts according to our aims within our organic compositions. Alllll objective.

That's all we're really talking about that a person can classify as right and wrong , destructive and constructive. Two categories of results. It's the very difference between being alive or not. How can it not be broken further down than that? If you're not alive, nothing else matters because everything else that does apply to be being alive would pertain to your living existence.

"This hypothesis fails to explain why the flourishing of humans would be objectively good rather than the flourishing of some other species. "

Yes , see you're looking for a "why". But that's not the topic, why is something good objectively? It is can something be good objectively grounded in a person that doesn't have a belief in a grounded system outside themselves to include all of nature basically . Can the foundation be founded in themselves alone? Basically that's what we're talking about. 

If you want to go into "why", we can come back on another debate with that particular topic.

"When you look at human life you can view the flourishing of humanity as a “virus,” and a “cancer of the planet.” just look at all the bad things humans have done, There have actually been people who argued that human flourishing is objectively bad for the earth and all other forms of life."

This is just shifting the perspective. We're talking about something just applying to people. Not animals (non persons) or the planet. If you want to debate about the planet's morality or what agency the planet uses to do right or wrong, we can go there another time. We're talking about categories grounded/pertinent in people alone.

Let us not over generalize with the broad expression of "life" flourishing. We're specifying do's and don'ts down to persons.

"So I dont think this explains moral values."

Of course the explanation is lacking because you have to break down what you're talking about. 

All these terms. Right , wrong, morality, moral values. Just what do all these terms mean?

We have to get specific enough to explain and to understand the explanation.

This is what I labor to do in this exchange and continue to ....so here's where we can go from here regarding the next round.

Challenge what do's and don'ts are about, where they come from, what do they ultimately amount to for us being people of the planet. 

This is about where something is grounded is it not?

Let's start there. Everything else are just terms on top of terms on top of labels on top of that see.

Let's get to the core root.

Round 3
SethBrown's avatar
SethBrown
Con
#5
What gives the assumption of teaching?

Are goals taught or innate?

People have wants. They want to do something or want to do things. What do they want to do?

You can ask these questions since we're asking questions.

What do you want to do?

Why do you want to do it?

How do you plan to do it?
So where I got the supposed assumption of teaching, is from your original response where you said "Every person that has lived long enough on this planet to learn this understand this and operates by the same means making it objective." Here it says you learnt which implies teaching in a way, now perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by learnt, and instead you meant coming to a goal innately (as expressed in the reply you gave) to which id say this still wouldn't bring us to a objective morality, instead it'd bring us to a conventional morality, where if someone has a goal, say their goal is to cause as munch suffering as possible, that wouldn't exactly be immoral by this idea as its still a goal. This is sorta what I expressed in my 2nd issue with it, which you addressed with:

Let's go over what objective is at least upon me communicating the term to you. It is something that works the same way like a natural law of code. It is objective that water in liquid form is wet based on its constituent elements. It's not non wet or dry erratically or here and there for you or for me.

Same thing with the sun . The objective color is what it is . I can see it for myself as you do with non impaired vision. So we have goals . Those goals in nature function as they do regardless of the person. Just like any person breathing. That is objective. Breathing is just breathing for what it is. Hopefully this is clear .
Well first off, water isnt wet (at least not in the adjective sense), although I understand the point your trying to illustrate my objection to what you said was that it wouldnt lead to objective morality, instead conventional meaning that people just agree one it, for example metaphysical truths aren't objectively true, instead they are conventionally true, to expand on it further the idea that there is a physical world beyond us isn't objectively true, its conventionally true, this is because by definition metaphysics cannot be reached through objective studies of material reality. 

Now I don't think the objection you gave doesn't really rebut my point, the majority of people say the sun is yellow, mostly because it looks yellowish in the sky, this is a conventional truth, when in reality the sun is actually white [1] which illustrates that people agreeing on something doesn't lead it to being objectively true.

The problem is your stuck on the idea of something being taught . I guess because your foundation of your position is anchored in a creator or external Father.
I'm trying to get you to just look at things for what they are from what we can observe on its face.
Well again thats my mistake I misunderstood your idea, instead I can revise my idea to that if Timmy innately came to the goal of causing suffering, he wouldn't be immoral in this view, whereas say if bob came to the goal of causing happiness innately, he wouldn't be immoral either, both of these views are moral, yet they are nearly polar opposites, and as we know there cant be a true contradiction
If we observe and examine ALL the functions of our bodies alone, we learn that we are mobile creatures. We move not just as a bipedal form but internally there's movement and functions of cells and energy living and growing and moving, see. Everything points to an objective to live . The body appears to have goals in and of itself which goals as we know are objective.
The scientific evidence most certainly would, but what your arguing for (as I pointed in my response to the sun being white n stuff) is a conventional morality, as in most people came to a goal which doesn't make it objective.
What your saying I believe is that right and wrong based on living or not is just another idea that is subjective and not absolute. Although you run into the double standard with believing a creator that has life gave us life to live it but I won't go there because it's not about that in this topic.
I believe it can be justified in a world with a creator, although trying to pursue that would a Tu Quoque fallacy. Although if your interested id extend a invitation to a different debate about that
I broke down the terms to the empirical nature of components.
This is why I'm illustrating things in their nature. Things you can see for yourself and know for yourself. That's key to demonstrating objective elements such as goals, breathing, do's and don'ts and results.
I'm stripping all these terms off to make things easier to follow.
Otherwise we just have labels on top of labels not getting to the root. Then we resort to dogma, philosophy, subjective interpretation and or religion to preach about a higher meaning and purpose to the why of everything or why everything is.
At the end of it, all we're doing is looking at what we can observe which is objective. Then learning and knowing what we do which is objective. I made a point about this earlier that every person that lives long enough will learn and understand this which is objective.
Just because something is derived from objective views doesn't necessarily mean the conclusion is objective, again for example the sun appears to have a yellow/orangish tint, which this appearance is objective and is explained by the Earth’s atmosphere scattering other colors like blue, green, and violet more easily [2]
yet the conclusion that the sun is yellow is not objective, its conventional. So I dont think this rebuts my point
When we talk about right and wrong what are we talking about in essence? If we had no language of words, terms, labels, what is it are we observing or can observe?

Do's and don'ts according to our aims within our organic compositions. Alllll objective.

That's all we're really talking about that a person can classify as right and wrong , destructive and constructive. Two categories of results. It's the very difference between being alive or not. How can it not be broken further down than that? If you're not alive, nothing else matters because everything else that does apply to be being alive would pertain to your living existence.
Well as I pointed out your sliding in a objective standard in here, why is it a good thing for people to stay alive? Its trying to prove objective morality with a objective moral standard
Yes , see you're looking for a "why". But that's not the topic, why is something good objectively? It is can something be good objectively grounded in a person that doesn't have a belief in a grounded system outside themselves to include all of nature basically . Can the foundation be founded in themselves alone? Basically that's what we're talking about. 
If you want to go into "why", we can come back on another debate with that particular topic.
Well in a way this topic is a why, the topic is if atheism can ground objective morality, which then begs (if they can) why/how can they do it?
This is just shifting the perspective. We're talking about something just applying to people. Not animals (non persons) or the planet. If you want to debate about the planet's morality or what agency the planet uses to do right or wrong, we can go there another time. We're talking about categories grounded/pertinent in people alone.

Let us not over generalize with the broad expression of "life" flourishing. We're specifying do's and don'ts down to persons.
well this doesn't address the point I was making, the goal for you is to explain how atheism can explain objective morality, and in trying to explain it you presumed something was objectively good, hence arguing in a circle, begging the question.
Of course the explanation is lacking because you have to break down what you're talking about. 

All these terms. Right , wrong, morality, moral values. Just what do all these terms mean?

We have to get specific enough to explain and to understand the explanation.

This is what I labor to do in this exchange and continue to ....so here's where we can go from here regarding the next round.

Challenge what do's and don'ts are about, where they come from, what do they ultimately amount to for us being people of the planet. 

This is about where something is grounded is it not?

Let's start there. Everything else are just terms on top of terms on top of labels on top of that see.

Let's get to the core root.
Alright sure ill put some definitions below
Right:
being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper
Wrong:
unjust, dishonest, or immoral:
Morality:
principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior:
good:
possessing or displaying moral virtue:
bad:
morally objectionable : evil
Moral values:
Ideas concerning morality that a society deems important
conclusion:
Id like to thank mall for this debate but in the end I think pro's argument is at best fallacious and a non-sequitur.

as he argues most people have the goal to continue living which makes that goal objective, this premise wouldn't lead to objective values, instead conventional values, hence non sequitur 

His argument also presumes continuing to live is objectively good, hence begging the question, arguing in a circle.

sources:
[2] - Ashwin. (2022). What Is The Actual Color Of The Sun? Science ABC. https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/universe/whats-the-colour-of-the-sun-at-noon-in-space.html
Mall's avatar
Mall
Pro
#6
"So where I got the supposed assumption of teaching, is from your original response where you said "Every person that has lived long enough on this planet to learn this understand this and operates by the same means making it objective." Here it says you learnt which implies teaching in a way, now perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by learnt, and instead you meant coming to a goal innately (as expressed in the reply you gave) to which id say this still wouldn't bring us to a objective morality, instead it'd bring us to a conventional morality, where if someone has a goal, say their goal is to cause as munch suffering as possible, that wouldn't exactly be immoral by this idea as its still a goal."

No when I said where this assumption comes, it's in the response to the context of your question "who started teaching this? "

Maybe I could of added the "who" part in there to be sure but I was sure that the context was followed closely enough. The assumption of a "who" that is supposed to be teaching, do you follow? Why do you assume there's a "who's teaching"?

"Well first off, water isnt wet "

This is an example why we're having difficulty on this topic. We can't even agree that water is wet. I mean I did mention in its liquid form. If the foundation can't be squared away, we're at a lost comrade. Just plain and simple. But I'll respond to what I can.

"when in reality the sun is actually white [1] which illustrates that people agreeing on something doesn't lead it to being objectively true."

Ok objectively white then , whatever. Forgive me, I'm not an astronomy scholar. Whatever OBJECTIVE COLOR it is, my point stands. I'm talking about things that work as they are in nature period. The way it works is the same. It works the same like goals and breathing in their nature. A constant operation is going on with all of these.

Try to embrace the point overall .

I've explained to you what I've meant by objective. I hope you can follow along .

" if Timmy innately came to the goal of causing suffering, he wouldn't be immoral in this view, whereas say if bob came to the goal of causing happiness innately, he wouldn't be immoral either, both of these views are moral, yet they are nearly polar opposites, and as we know there cant be a true contradiction"

We can argue over what to call what in another debate. This would be called this here and that there. That's for another time if we have it . I'm simply arguing that objective innate systems exists within a person alone . That's what I'm supposed to be arguing. The very foundation exists within. Goals exists within. If you know that and understand that, there'd really be no debate.

A person acts on something, either doing or not doing to get a result. That's cause and effect which again is objective. Do you get that?

I'm explaining quite repetitiously now on how this objective system exists on its own. Just do's and don'ts. When folks speak about what you call morality, that's all it really amounts to. Do's and don'ts, do's and don'ts, do's and don'ts. 

I'm not here to explain why this or that is good or how or why somebody can determine or how exactly they have the basis to decide what's bad. I'm not here to argue why to call this particular thing or action good .

The morality system which are do's and don'ts, that system is innate because as I've said people have their goals innate which makes do's and don'ts innate which are tied to their beliefs alone without theism.

This is what I like you to take away in summary of this. People have an innate system of do's and don'ts which you can call morality from their innate goals and dreams. That's it. Whether what should be called right or wrong,  that's another topic.


"Just because something is derived from objective views doesn't necessarily mean the conclusion is objective, again for example the sun appears to have a yellow/orangish tint, which this appearance is objective and is explained by the Earth’s atmosphere scattering other colors like blue, green, and violet more easily [2]
yet the conclusion that the sun is yellow is not objective, its conventional. So I dont think this rebuts my point"

Hopefully by the the time you get to this point you'll have understood what I mean by objective. Moving on for the sake of character space . 

Any other points that appear I have addressed I'll have to move on . So if it seems like I'm not responding to certain things, it's for the sake of space and not being repetitious.

"Well in a way this topic is a why, the topic is if atheism can ground objective morality, which then begs (if they can) why/how can they do it?"

Whether this is goalpost moving or an ad hoc, one of the two, you're adding "which then begs". We can go on and on doing this beg the question rigamarole.

"well this doesn't address the point I was making, the goal for you is to explain how atheism can explain objective morality, and in trying to explain it you presumed something was objectively good, hence arguing in a circle, begging the question."

Just reiterate for the sake of simplification.

"The morality system which are do's and don'ts, that system is innate because as I've said people have their goals innate which makes do's and don'ts innate which are tied to their beliefs alone without theism.


This is what I like you to take away in summary of this. People have an innate system of do's and don'ts which you can call morality from their innate goals and dreams. That's it. Whether what should be called right or wrong, that's another topic."

Bottomline.

"Id like to thank mall for this debate but in the end I think pro's argument is at best fallacious and a non-sequitur.

as he argues most people have the goal to continue living which makes that goal objective, this premise wouldn't lead to objective values, instead conventional values, hence non sequitur 

His argument also presumes continuing to live is objectively good, hence begging the question, arguing in a circle."

The summary I made comes in handy. I'll reiterate 

"The morality system which are do's and don'ts, that system is innate because as I've said people have their goals innate which makes do's and don'ts innate which are tied to their beliefs alone without theism.

This is what I like you to take away in summary of this. People have an innate system of do's and don'ts which you can call morality from their innate goals and dreams. That's it. Whether what should be called right or wrong, that's another topic."

One thing you didn't do was challenge or question the system of do's and don'ts and its foundation. You just continued to be finicky over labels, terms and categories.

Then you gave definitions to the labels but what do those words in the definitions mean?

See we can go on and on but until you know exactly what the essence is of what we're talking about, we can just keep begging questions, why but why but why but why?

Maybe you were looking for me to explain what good is and what makes it good. The term good is electively applied to some sort of action or state caused by an action. I'm not arguing what to categorize everything in. The topic was just asking can people without theism have a system within that they don't have to go to an external system for that they don't believe in basically.

Again I take you to babies. See you didn't even respond to this point I made. There were many points that could of helped you understand better but I think you zeroed in on certain things based on the interest of a possible stronger refutation.

Babies that barely know what anything is let alone believing anything operate from goals within. How do we know? This is another point you didn't address. Our breathing is objective. The goal of our lungs is what?

The goal of the heart, the eyes, the cells, this component, that component. There is a system of do's and don'ts within the body that work towards a result. This inturn signals or inclines a being that has just been born to react or work in a way to get a result. Happens that way in every person that is born living. Works the same way. It is objective.

Now let's go a little further as the person ages. They're still operating in do's and don'ts to get a result. Working the same way, objective. This is an objective system all along without theism. Now you can call it morality. I don't have issue with that .

Like I said , I think the opposing side was looking for something more than this topic. They said one thing in the topic meaning something else or more and expressed the difference in the actual debate.