Can one have morals without religion? 「Yes or No」

[Alcala-Cordel]

That is right and wrong.

You have failed to explain why it is right and wrong and why it is universal. And again, as I said, many cultures did not share this idea.

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

[Elbren]

Let’s monetise religion. Oh wait. It has already been monetised. Noice.

[Vassenor]

Yes.

[Albrenia]

You have failed to explain why it is right and wrong and why it is universal. And again, as I said, many cultures did not share this idea.

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

Many don't care about either. They just lay eggs and fuck off.

[Alcala-Cordel]

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

Many don't care about either. They just lay eggs and fuck off.

We happen to be some of the animals that do care, descended from some of the animals that do care.

[Punished UMN]

You have failed to explain why it is right and wrong and why it is universal. And again, as I said, many cultures did not share this idea.

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

That is not adequate for a universalist moral code.

[Alcala-Cordel]

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

That is not adequate for a universalist moral code.

Specific morals depend on the individual, but we all have the same core ideas.

[The Alma Mater]

You have failed to explain why it is right and wrong and why it is universal. And again, as I said, many cultures did not share this idea.

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

Those same animals usually have no problem with killing the young of other members of its race.
Or for that matter, with eating their own young if they feel like they cannot take care of them in scarce times.

[Alcala-Cordel]

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

Those same animals usually have no problem with killing the young of other members of its race.
Or for that matter, with eating their own young if they feel like they cannot take care of them in scarce times.

Yet they still have the basic ideas.

[Page]

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

Those same animals usually have no problem with killing the young of other members of its race.
Or for that matter, with eating their own young if they feel like they cannot take care of them in scarce times.

The same can be said of humans in dire circumstances. The siege of Leningrad is an interesting topic to explore for examples of this.

[Punished UMN]

That is not adequate for a universalist moral code.

Specific morals depend on the individual, but we all have the same core ideas.

We don't though. That's the assumption your entire view on this rests and you just keep saying it without any proof.

[Albrenia]

Many don't care about either. They just lay eggs and fuck off.

We happen to be some of the animals that do care, descended from some of the animals that do care.

Yup. Although the claim about morality being universal by using animal behaviour falls flat when one considers much of the non-mammalian life on Earth.

I don't understand why morality needs to be objective or universal to be worth following though. There's no magic rulebook on how we should act, but that doesn't mean we can't see a path to a better world for everyone.

[Alcala-Cordel]

We happen to be some of the animals that do care, descended from some of the animals that do care.

Yup. Although the claim about morality being universal by using animal behaviour falls flat when one considers much of the non-mammalian life on Earth.

It's not universal with every creature, just some species.

I don't understand why morality needs to be objective or universal to be worth following though. There's no magic rulebook on how we should act, but that doesn't mean we can't see a path to a better world for everyone.

That's true.

[Punished UMN]

We happen to be some of the animals that do care, descended from some of the animals that do care.

Yup. Although the claim about morality being universal by using animal behaviour falls flat when one considers much of the non-mammalian life on Earth.

I don't understand why morality needs to be objective or universal to be worth following though. There's no magic rulebook on how we should act, but that doesn't mean we can't see a path to a better world for everyone.

You say this and then say "a path to a better world for everyone" as if there is an objective or universal morality that we all want to follow. There is not, there are conflicts of interest, and for that, we need ethics (justice) to decide who is in the right and who is in the wrong.

[Ethel mermania]

I can reiterate it: Just about every animal on the planet cares about either its allies or its young. They consider their suffering to be wrong and their protection to be the right thing to do.

Many don't care about either. They just lay eggs and fuck off.

Speaking as a parent, those are the smart ones.

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

One can have morals without religion (although those morals will almost always be able to be supported by religion in some manner), and one can have religion and follow its rules without having morality, only legalistic rules and/or fear.

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

We happen to be some of the animals that do care, descended from some of the animals that do care.

Yup. Although the claim about morality being universal by using animal behaviour falls flat when one considers much of the non-mammalian life on Earth.

I don't understand why morality needs to be objective or universal to be worth following though. There's no magic rulebook on how we should act, but that doesn't mean we can't see a path to a better world for everyone.

Morality is pursuing that better world, but the path is merely the beliefs allegedly intended to reach that goal.

[Betoni]

Yup. Although the claim about morality being universal by using animal behaviour falls flat when one considers much of the non-mammalian life on Earth.

I don't understand why morality needs to be objective or universal to be worth following though. There's no magic rulebook on how we should act, but that doesn't mean we can't see a path to a better world for everyone.

You say this and then say "a path to a better world for everyone" as if there is an objective or universal morality that we all want to follow. There is not, there are conflicts of interest, and for that, we need ethics (justice) to decide who is in the right and who is in the wrong.

You haven't really made an argument here against evolutionary explanation of ethics, you are imposing some logical external construct of ethics on essentially a thing that forms naturally. The naturalistic fallacy doesn't really enter into a discussion about whether one can have morals without religion, because giving an example of how one could have morals without religion isn't actually assigning any value to those morals other than that they exist.

[Ethel mermania]

Yup. Although the claim about morality being universal by using animal behaviour falls flat when one considers much of the non-mammalian life on Earth.

I don't understand why morality needs to be objective or universal to be worth following though. There's no magic rulebook on how we should act, but that doesn't mean we can't see a path to a better world for everyone.

Morality is pursuing that better world, but the path is merely the beliefs allegedly intended to reach that goal.

My morality could compel me to destroy the world.

[Eranaia]

Morality doesn't have to be based on a quasi-religious belief, it's basically a matter of not being a dick.

But what does "not being a dick" actually mean? And why should we refrain from being dicks? Your statement is tautological; you're not really defining morality, you're just offering a synonym for it.

What constitutes being a dick is obviously subjective, socially determined and dependent on context. It's a fairly safe bet, though, that if you go around routinely assaulting, stealing from and lying to your family, neighbours, friends and colleagues you're likely to end up having difficult relations with the family and neighbours and run the risk of ending up without friends or colleagues. We don't need an objective standard of morality or an abstract philosophical system to decide that this kind of behaviour tends not to end well.

What I'm saying isn't tautological because defining morality is not what I'm trying to do. For you, moral principles are objective and "out there" and hence not necessarily connected to human activity, which is why you can say things like

Perhaps it is possible to find evolutionary pressures accounting for moral behaviour, but that's no reason why we should behave in a moral fashion.

The overwhelming majority of us don't want to rape, murder and steal. Has anyone actually been dissuaded from doing so by a philosophical argument?

What you're appealing to here is essential Kant's categorical imperative, the principle that we should always do what we would will to become the universal law.

No, it's not about an abstract system like Kant's. The thing is that we all of us already know what is and isn't moral. A large part of moral philosophy is concerned with providing a derivation of the beliefs we already hold rather than determining what's right or wrong. Hence when a system appears to justify something that doesn't match our existing preferences, such as when Kant refuses to lie to the axeman at the door or when utilitarianism seems able to sometimes justify punishing innocent people as a deterrent, we count this as a drawback for the system rather than a justification for a new type of behaviour.

Yet if we do reduce morality to an objective philosophical system we run into the Euthyphro dilemma and the is/ought distinction. As you've already said, the question "why be moral?" remains open. Why pay attention to the abstract objective standard as opposed to not doing so? And how can calling something good serve to commend it if all it amounts to is pointing put a correspondence to an objective standard? Absolutism can't account for the evaluative nature of moral language.

[Sundiata]

I don't think so, not really.

[Eranaia]

So what do you think of the idea that morality only exists for the in-group, and that the out-group is necessarily excluded from moral thinking?

Hunter gatherers, in that sense at least, had it easy. In the modern world the challenge is how to identify what counts as the in-group and the out-group. Though the idealistic among us might aspire to a world where everyone counts as the in-group I'm not suggesting there's a single correct answer to this. Look at it this way... whether murder is wrong isn't really up for debate, everyone says they're against it. What's debated is which instances of killing count as murder. War, self defence, capital punishment and abortion all provide examples of this. Who the rules extend to is very much the big question.

[Geneviev]

Yes, of course. There are a lot of people who don't believe in any religion and are still moral people.

[Sundiata]

It's possible to have a moral sense in the absence of religion but it's far too possible to be led astray by one's own preferences and those of others. God is the golden mean. The further a people deviate from that standard, the more immoral their behavior.

[Sundiata]

Yes, of course. There are a lot of people who don't believe in any religion and are still moral people.

Yes, but largely by good fortune.