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=========================To Stu.
As an atheist, I wonder how you classify ethics because right and wrong are usually dictated by the conscience and conscience means “with knowledge” i.e., con=with + science=knowledge.
It is assumed that ethics and conscience are concepts that are associated with God or at least a god. But surely if there is no God, then right or wrong is only society deep in order to keep it working.
If you do not believe in God, and ethics are the result of evolution, then you have to admit that they don't always prove to be a survival instinct. In fact to lay your life down or die for others for example means that you do not get to reproduce your DNA and hence could be seen as a bad thing in a carnal survival of the fittest world.
Adolph Hitler was an evolutionist for example. And he justified killing of so-called lesser races in favour of the Aryan race. He certainly didn't go down in history as an ethical man, yet he played out the philosophy of survival of the fittest to the letter.
The ironic part was he lost.
But it is somewhat baffling that one can be ethical and at the same time say that God doesn't exist. If there is no God, judgement, and ultimately no right and wrong, then how can there be ethics?
Hi t8,
Sorry I was a bit slow off the mark with this one.
++”As an atheist, I wonder how you classify ethics because right and wrong are usually dictated by the conscience and conscience means “with knowledge” i.e., con=with + science=knowledge.
It is then instructive to ask the question where is the conscience located? Is it coded in DNA? Is it the connections between neurons that started forming from an early age? Is it the first informing the second?
++”It is assumed that ethics and conscience are concepts that are associated with God or at least a god. But surely if there is no God, then right or wrong is only society deep in order to keep it working.
Yes, the first statement is only held by the religious, and is self-evidently wrong. The rules by which we operate are essentially as you question, society-deep in our species.
++”If you do not believe in God, and ethics are the result of evolution, then you have to admit that they don't always prove to be a survival instinct. In fact to lay your life down or die for others for example means that you do not get to reproduce your DNA and hence could be seen as a bad thing in a carnal survival of the fittest world.
Altruism is a commonly posed argument against natural selection. Richard Dawkins’s view of this is that while altruism may not help your survival and reproductive capacity (and there are ways in which it could do that although they stretch a strict definition of the term), you are not the only person carrying your genes. You could lay your life on the line for a nephew who carries a significant proportion of the same genes as you, say. We share most of our genes with all other humans, so the principle would extend, say in the event of alien attack on all of us(!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki….biology has some more on this.
++”Adolph Hitler was an evolutionist for example. And he justified killing of so-called lesser races in favour of the Aryan race. He certainly didn't go down in history as an ethical man, yet he played out the philosophy of survival of the fittest to the letter. The ironic part was he lost.
Hitler justified his atrocities to some as him performing his duty as a good Catholic, commanded by God. Hitler did not carry out natural selection. He did the same kind of artificial selection that produced dogs from wolves, or different varieties of rose. He went that grisly step further of not only selecting Aryans for reproduction, but also attempting to eliminate others from any chance of contributing to the gene pool. Is artificial selection morally right or wrong?
++”But it is somewhat baffling that one can be ethical and at the same time say that God doesn't exist. If there is no God, judgement, and ultimately no right and wrong, then how can there be ethics?
It is important to realise that non-believers also think there is right and wrong. How can an atheist be ethical? I think the first thing to do is find out whether people who do not believe in gods behave in a responsible way. The answer to this, obviously, is yes.
http://www.atheistresource.co.uk/ethics.html has a comprehensive answer.
http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/ethics.html has a prosaic diatribe on the subject.
http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/ethical_atheist.html will boil your Judeo-Christian blood!
http://ohkermie.blogspot.com/2007….st.html has what it says in the URL!
Stuart
t8
Having made a response to your initial post, I think it is important to address the title you have chosen for the thread. Evolution and Ethics is a different topic from Atheism and Ethics, although we have lumped them together. I find it is generally only religious people who would conflate these three ideas.
Evolution can explain ethics. Some of the explanations are hypotheses (based on sound reasoning, but as yet lacking supporting or contradictory evidence), others are well-developed theories. This is a first question – that of how natural selection has given us the thing we call ethics.
Atheists behave ethically approximately to the same degree as believers. You have to exclude from your ethics discussion such believer-specific issues as blasphemy – such a concept would be meaningless in the context of non-belief and ethics, except perhaps to ask whether it is ethical to deny or criticise the supposed character of gods in the presence of the devout. The second question we have begun to deal with is that of a “source” of ethics for an atheist.
Stuart
The atheist’s corollary of the believer’s patronising “god has a plan for you too” may be “the source of our ethics is actually the same”. Before the Enlightenment, ethics were simply the result of a personal god in operation. From then on “natural philosophers” became important thinkers about what was right, and why. Both methods have been left in the dust by neurosciences and their detailed explanations of the mechanics of our ethical brains.
From a Wikipedia entry, which I think possibly sums up the consensus on the (very new) subject of “neuroethics” to date:
“Neuroethics also encompasses the ethical issues raised by neuroscience as it affects our understanding of the world and of ourselves in the world. For example, if everything we do is physically caused by our brains, which are in turn a product of our genes and our life experiences, how can we be held responsible for our actions? The question of whether and how personal responsibility is compatible with [the findings of] neuroscience is a central one for neuroethics.”
“The widely held assumption that people have a body and a soul would also appear to be incompatible with the worldview emerging from neuroscience. As neuroscience teaches us more about the way the brain instantiates personality, love and moral values, there is less and less reason to hypothesize any immaterial component of a person, and consequently any possibility of an immortal soul. Thus neuroscience calls into question some of the most deeply held religious beliefs.”
I have never thought the concept of an “immaterial component” described anything real, but I think the second paragraph leaves many questions unanswered. Nevertheless, perhaps the question is becoming “what makes you think a god is a source for your ethics?”
Stuart
Dan Gardner writes in the Ottawa Citizen on the subject:
http://www.canada.com/ottawac….69c6853
Stuart
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