Can an atheist have a code of ethics?

Comments (62)

1. It isn’t rocket science to figure out what we ought to do in most situations. You can see principles of fair play being worked out on playgrounds all over the world as interacting kids spontaneously recognize norms of reciprocity as they take turns swinging on the monkey bars. What makes it difficult for theists to think that morality could persist without God is not a Humean meta-ethcial dilemma, but the more practical problem of defending very particular moral rules that aren’t obviously reasonable at all. God isn’t necessary to show us the difference between right and wrong, but He or something like him is necessary to justify slavery and oppression. This is one of those issue which might be mysterious to philosophers, but is pretty obvious historians or even to anybody who just reads a lot of old books. What the machinery of hell and heaven and the commandments of the Creator are most often invoked to protect are not the widow and the orphan but the lord of the manor or, in the modern instance, the 1%.

   1. Not that this detail really challenges your very strong argument, Jim, but do children “spontaneously” take turns on the playground equipment, or do they imitate the behavior of the slightly older kids?

      1. I haven’t reviewed the literature recently so I’m still relying on Kohlberg and Piaget’s research on the development of morality in children. I don’t doubt that older peers are a huge influence on the thinking of children; but reciprocity seems like a pretty good idea to me on its own merits; and at this point, I don’t have any older peers of my own now that Methusalah’s passed on.

2. I thought Catholics, who are a largish minority of humanity, adhered to some form of Natural Law morality that originated with that renown drinker Aristotle and was modified by the stoics and systematized by dudes like Aquinas. So I wonder if it is the default in Western nations that are nominally Catholic (thinking Ireland, Spain, Italy, etc). Of course, I was raised Catholic and was never taught any of this, just that things deemed bad by the church were ‘unnatural’ and things deemed good were good I guess. Makes me wonder why homosexuality is unnatural and flying in an aeroplane being natural and how any of that doesn’t come a cropper on the naturalistic fallacy, but I digress…

   According to Rachel in his little gem of a book about morality, he holds that Natural law is the prefered stance of religion than divine command theory which seems to be more for the literalist…

   1. Here’s the quote of Rachels that I had in mind:
      ‘In the history of Christian thought, the dominant theory of ethics is not the Divine Command Theory. That honor goes to the Theory of Natural Law.’
      http://faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/Rachels%20–%20Does%20Morality%20Depend%20on%20Religion.htm

   2. Catholic tradition took Roman law seriously, and developed the natural law theory in the middle ages. Obviously this is not the target I had in mind. However, many Catholics fail to realise this (despite the status of Virgil, the virtuous pagan, in the Inferno).

      1. Yes, not your target, but neither is the god of philosophers Dawkins’ target…(runs away)
         Just extracting the urine there. But if I understand your point, it’s that many Catholics fail to realize that Catholic morality is underpinned by Natural law theory, not divine command theory? (as many believers believe in a Santa Claus god who answers prayers and not an indifferent first cause of Aristotelean kind? 😉
         I’ve not read Dante, I only got my Italian to a basic level before dropping it.

3. You say;
   It appears to imply that we are all sociopaths at best and psychopaths at worst, and that without Divine Command and Threat of Punishment, we would all be rapists, murderers and thieves.

   Unfortunately, this seems to be a widely held belief.

   http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Atheists+rapists+list+people+religious+believers+distrust+most+study+finds/5794699/story.html#ixzz1fdCrz9Bc

   “Religious believers distrust atheists more than they do members of other religious groups, gays or feminists, according to a new study by University of B.C. researchers.
   The only group the study’s participants distrusted as much as atheists was rapists, said doctoral student Will Gervais, lead author of the study published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
   That prejudice had a significant effect on what kinds of jobs people said they would hire atheists to do.”

4. The real question is, “Why would a Christian need to think only theists are moral?” And the answer to that is “Because it makes being Christian (or theist) more important in their eyes.”

   I suspect it has, at least in part, to do with the “social glue theory of religion”:

   http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2008/09/on_religion_and_apologies.php

   After going to all the expense of the elaborate social signaling, to then allow just anyone to be trustworthy is defeating the point of the whole exercise. And the easiest way to distinguish “us” from “them” is to ask “Do you believe in and obey our god.

5. Reading Judges, there seems to be some pretty serious psychopathy and sociopathy going on there, at least in how members of one tribe or village treat members of another. Divinely sanctioned slaughter by coalitions of pissed-0ff neighbors might have been the only effective deterrent. (I am assuming here that Judges, which is really old, gives at least an authentic flavor of the moral world of the early Hebrew tribes. It certainly doesn’t paint them in a very good light. There are bits that the Rabbis have been trying to talk away for centuries.)

   The Other Jim:
   You say;
   It appears to imply that we are all sociopaths at best and psychopaths at worst, and that without Divine Command and Threat of Punishment, we would all be rapists, murderers and thieves.

   Unfortunately, this seems to be a widely held belief.

   http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Atheists+rapists+list+people+religious+believers+distrust+most+study+finds/5794699/story.html#ixzz1fdCrz9Bc

   “Religious believers distrust atheists more than they do members of other religious groups, gays or feminists, according to a new study by University of B.C. researchers.The only group the study’s participants distrusted as much as atheists was rapists, said doctoral student Will Gervais, lead author of the study published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.That prejudice had a significant effect on what kinds of jobs people said they would hire atheists to do.”

6. I believe that the ten commandments are universal laws. They are not the edict by which those that follow the bible are bound to. If one can remain true to these commandments, he/she will have a easier, more harmonious life.

   1. At least three of the ten commandments are cultic in nature: the insistence on monotheism, the prohibition on graven images, and the institution of the sabbath. Even the Jews did not think that the commandments were binding on mankind in general: a better candidate for a statement of natural laws in the Bible are the so-called Laws of Noah in Genesis 9, though even that brief code reflects a parochial, tribal preoccupation with blood.

      In lieu of these religious credos how about appealing to the original French Rights of Man or the eight principles of Spinoza (as extracted from the philosopher’s writings by Jonathan Israel):

      (1) adoption of philosophical (mathematical-historical) reason as the only and exclusive criterion of what is true; (2) rejection of all supernatural agency, magic, disembodied spirits, and divine providence; (3) equality of all mankind (racial and sexual); (4) secular ‘universalism’ in ethics anchored in equality and chiefly stressing equity, justice, and charity; (5) comprehensive toleration and freedom of thought based on independent critical thinking; (6) personal liberty of lifestyle and sexual conduct between consenting adults, safeguarding the dignity and freedom of the unmarried and homosexuals; (7) freedom of expression, political criticism, and the press, in the public sphere; (8) democratic republicanism as the most legitimate form of politics.

   2. Let’s look at the version in Exodus 20:2-17.

      Commandment 1: Directly commands exclusive worship of YHWH. Not universal (not even for Christians).

      Commandment 2: No representational art. Not universal even for Christians.

      Commandment 3: Only serious swearing of oaths using YHWH’s name. Not universal, even for Christians.

      Commandment 4: No work on seventh day. Not universal, even for Christians.

      Commandment 5: Honor father and mother. Not far off being a universal, but as Shakespeare said, almost, this needs no bible to tell us that.

      Commandment 6: No murder; almost (but not quite) universal. Neither the Bible nor any other society prohibits murder entirely. [Yeah, yeah, I know the little dance you guys do about the difference between murder and killing.]

      Commandment 7: No adultery. Except for Abraham, David, Solomon, …

      Commandment 8: No thievery. Universal.

      Commandment 9: No lying (against a neighbour). Like many such prohibitions around the world, this is for those of “our” group only.

      Commandment 10: No desiring of your neighbour’s stuff. Other peoples’ stuff is okay, according to the Judges/Chronicles/Kings narratives, though.

      So basically we have three, maybe four, universal principles (and which occur in most legal codes independently. Wow.

      1. I strongly support that three of the Ten Commandments should be part of any civil law code: do not murder; do not steal; no false testimony. By the way, commandment nine focuses on false testimony in a court-like situation instead of any lie, not that all other lies are encouraged.

      2. What counts as “adultery” is different between our culture and the culture from which we take the 10 commandments. We think “adultery” means a person betraying their spouse by taking another lover. (I think a lot of us are not ready to wrap our heads around the possibility of the spouse consenting, but that’s a whole other can of worms.) In ancient Mesopotamia, “adultery” seems to mean one man betraying another man by stealing his wife, who is his property. So I don’t think Abraham, Solomon etc. would have been committing adultery in the relevant sense. However, this basically bolsters your point about biblical morality not being universal, because let’s face it, the presupposition that women are property is morally noxious.

         1. Well, this bolsters my point that some biblical morality is not universal, which incidently was a teaching in various New Testament books such as Mark.

         2. This reminds me of my advisor’s joke about how the pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra. The only trouble is that nobody can tell when he’s speaking ex cathedra and when he isn’t.

            (Well, I thought it was funny.)

7. jennifer mcculloch:
   I believe that the ten commandments are universal laws.They are not the edict by which those that follow the bible are bound to.If one can remain true to these commandments, he/she will have a easier, more harmonious life.

   Or rather one can have an easier and more harmonious life, if the others follow the commandments given.

8. Well, another reason why a Christian would think that only theists are moral is akin to the reason that Christians think non-believers can’t go to heaven – it is an inducement for them to win converts to Christianity. Which means that it is part of the explanation for the spread of Christianity from a small corps of initial believers to be one of the dominant religions. From what little I know, Islam is similar in this regard. This explanation may break down with respect to Buddhism – maybe that is attractive on its own merits without needing an incentive for believers to proselytize.

9. Hillel suggested a sound foundation for a moral code. An atheist can adopt it easily, but what do I know, I’m just a stupid monkey.

   1. I remember that one: “an it harms none, do as thou wilt”…

      1. I was thinking more of this, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow”. Of course, that only works for reasonable people. But we can say that about any ethical standards.

         1. I knew that, but was having fun quoting Aleister Crowley as a moral source.

10. John, I understand that atheists can be ethical. But there is more to ethics than following norms because some cultural norms are evil. For example, theists and atheists alike challenge various norms in various cultures. Likewise there is more to ethics than following norms, even if that is where ethics typically begins.

    1. That begs the question, James. You define ethics to be more than norm following and then say that norm following is not ethics. But I say that all moral codes are codifications of existing norms (or some subset that serves a ruling group), and there is nothing more to them. That some societies can be malevolent in our terms does not mean either that all ethics derived from social norms are (after all, any evolutionary process, including social ones, can get trapped on suboptimal peaks that can lead to extinction), or that we have to have some deeper moral truth to justify norms.

       In short, Nazis do not mean a liberal society is impossible.

       1. But surely, whatever the value of this response in general, it fails in this particular context — James isn’t begging the question when the challenge already on the table is for you to show that an atheist can have moral rules (it isn’t begging the question to restate the original problem in different words); and you certainly can’t respond to such a challenge that of course they can have moral rules because you’re going to claim that moral rules are just what they need to be in order for atheists do have them — if that’s all you have, you’ve simply conceded the point (it’s not a fatal point to concede, but you’ve conceded it): in the sense they mean, or in anything broadly like the sense of moral rules that they probably mean, and that James is pointing out here, there is apparently no Wilkins-style way for an atheist to have moral rules — to get atheists together with moral rules in a Wilkins-style way we have to insist that moral rules are nothing more than X rather than X&Y as they are (perhaps incorrectly) assuming they are. Now, this isn’t defeat, because you could still reasonably argue, and I presume would argue, and hopefully reasonably, that what they want is impossible, or something like that. But it as much as concedes that any rhetorical high ground here is illusory: what you are really claiming is that there is a better question, not that you can answer their question as they mean it — and arguing that there is a better question requires a substantive philosophical position about the requirements for normativity that they likely would not consider obvious, and thus needs to be argued, not assumed. Primates can do whatever primates do, and if it doesn’t establish what is really required for genuine moral normativity, it’s all irrelevant; what needs to be established is that our being primates doing what primates do gets us everything one can reasonably require of an account of moral rules. I think your basic position remains intact in that case — you are essentially saying that their question really, contrary to what they might expect, has more to do with their (presumably incorrect) philosophical account of normativity than whether God exists.

          And that’s actually right, I think; the account of moral rules you are trying to give is just as inconsistent with the accounts of any atheists with a rationalist approach to ethics, e.g., Thomas Nagel, as of any theist. You’d have to make the same argument just as much in a world of Nagelian atheists as in a world of divine command theorists.

          Of course, I can understand not giving another long lecture on normativity in response to the question, and think your response to it on the spot was quite as good as anyone can expect to give to such a question on the spot. And, of course we both know that this is an area in which you are being completely philosophically respectable. But I think some of the rhetoric in the post and the thread is not really justified; it has the force it does only so far as we are equivocating on two different sets of assumptions about what is necessary to have a genuine moral rule.

          1. I’m probably missing something here, but I assume that John is not merely arguing that even apes have norms, but that them apes are right, at least more of the time. It isn’t just that some sort of rules emerge from the social activities of primates, but that the rules they come up with are binding.

             It seems to me that there are two ways in which theologically-based ethics have or claim to have something extra:

             1. The theological machinery provides a reason why you should let your betters use you as they like.

             2. One is supposed to get from ethical reason something more than simply cogent reasons to prefer one set of rules rather than another. Somehow being moral doesn’t merely facilitate a better life here on earth, but shows that we are semi-divine, i.e. made in the image of God.

             I can understand the appeal of surplus #1 if you happen to be on top. I haven’t bought into surplus #2 for a very long time. Oddly, it was Martin Luther, with whom I disagree in almost every conceivable way, who convinced me that treating morality as a matter of metaphysics was just an instance of human vanity.

          2. Brandon, it’s hard to reply to this in a comment, not least because of the run-on nature of your comment, but here are my points:

             1. Assuming that moral rules equals divine or moral realist theory is question begging no matter how you set it up, and I am not required to adopt that standard simply because a theist says that morality must be like that. There are plenty of moral philosophies in which that is not the case (all the Greek approaches to eudaimonia for a start). If yours and James’ point is that the moral claims of theism are not identical to the moral claims of atheists, well, sure. So?

             2. I reject normativity as an irreducible property of moral claims; norms are what social animals construct, and there’s an end to it. If that is in contradiction to Thomas Nagel’s views (and that, it seems to me, is a virtue on its own), so? I am not required to adopt all other atheist views either. I dispute quite a lot of other atheists – you may have noticed.

             3. The challenge is not how I can have moral realist views about morality if I am an atheist; it is how I can have moral rules at all. I gave such an account – it is implicit in being a social ape. Now this may not satisfy those who want their morality to tell them something about the nature of the universe (rather than about the nature of social apes) but I also do not need to meet them on that point, either.

          3. [1] You certainly are not required to adopt “that standard” — I pointed this out, in fact — but I find no such assumption in either the original question or James Goetz’s comment. The original statement of the problem was, and I quote you, “If you are an atheist, how can you have moral rules?” Such a question on its own assumes nothing except (1) that there are adequate nonatheist accounts of moral rules; and (2) that it is unclear how there could be an atheist account of moral rules in the same (or at least a reasonably close) sense. Goetz likewise made no assumption “that moral rules equals divine or moral realist theory,” as far as I can see; he started with the claim that it’s reasonable to judge some cultural norms as evil and concluded from this that ethics couldn’t just be following norms (and thence that your response didn’t seem to be adequate). Labeling this as begging the question itself requires the assumption that the only way someone could hold that some cultural norms are evil (or conclude from it that ethics can’t just be following norms) is if they already concluded it from principles of moral realism (or theism). I am very skeptical that there is any plausible argument that shows this; and in any case it’s the sort of thing that needs to be shown, not assumed.

             [2] (I’ll skip the second point, since I think we’re simply talking past each other here.)

             [3] If a Cartesian asks a Humean, “Being such a strict empiricist, how can you have infinites in geometry?” and he says, “Oh, there’s no real problem with that, and you are silly to think there is; human beings have a vague sense that things keep going,” the Humean hasn’t answered the question the Cartesian was actually asking. To do that he would need to show how he can get the infinite the Cartesian wants or else (conceding that he can’t get the infinite in the Cartesian sense) to show why the infinite he can get is all that the Cartesian should want. If, on having this pointed out, he tried to say that all he had to do was show that he could get anything that someone might call infinite, and that he succeeded by finding something he calls infinite, and that anyone who insists after this that there’s still something to the Cartesian’s challenge is begging the question against his position (despite the fact that his position doesn’t answer the challenge as it was actually meant), no one would take him seriously. The Humean is equivocating “no matter how you set it up”. I don’t see why you think the same strategy works here. (Or imagine someone, challenged to show that he could get the existence of gods without appealing to anything not empirically observable, arguing that since gods are just whatever people worship, and people worship the golden image in the temple, obviously at least one such god exists and atheists are just making a fuss denying the obvious because they like to pretend they’re more clever than other people; and, when told this really wasn’t an answer, treating as question-begging any attempt to argue that the conception of gods used in his argument is inadequate, since obviously to answer the challenge all he had to show was that gods existed at all.)

       2. I admit that I have a belief in intrinsic moral truths, regardless if I perfectly understand them or not, but my initial reply was not trying to make such a claim. My comment was a mere preliminary, “John, there needs to be more to ethics than cultural norms.” And I suppose some atheists would agree with that.

          Here are example questions to ponder:

          1. If a given cultural norm requires vocal support of theism, then would it be evil for an atheist in that culture to vocally support atheism?

          2. If the first pro atheist in that culture convinces everybody of pro atheism, would the pro atheist go from evil to good based the cultural norm changing from pro theism to pro atheism?

          3. If a given cultural norm includes shipping Jews to death, then would opposing the cultural norm be good or evil?

          1. In that society, yes to all three. But I don’t live in those societies, nor would I want to, so in mine (and yours) Nazis are Bad and atheists are (to some) acceptable if not Good. I will live according to my own values, acquired from my culture (or that part of it I find rational).

             Aristotelian and other Greek ethical theories held that the best ethics is that which allows humans to live well as a society. While I don’t think that is the whole story, there is something to it: a society that has what we think are malignant values are less likely to flourish. But it may be that nepotism, patriarchalism, and violence against the weak are more “natural”, in which case I would say that I reject those values and will oppose them. In fact, that is exactly what we seem to be seeing now…

          2. I first want to pull over part of what you replied to Allen after your reply to me:

             So the answer I gave explains why humans are moral. If you choose to justify your own moral code by appealing to moral truths or divine commands, fine; it holds no weight for me or those who are error theorists or atheists. And you should not be surprised that is so. The evidence is that humans are moral because they are apes and apes follow moral norms because they are intelligent, and social. Justification is another game altogether.

             And your reply to me included:

             I will live according to my own values, acquired from my culture (or that part of it I find rational).

             I have yet to write an article about moral theory, but this is encouraging me to eventually pull together a piece. For now, I think I have some constructive criticism.

             You essentially answer that atheists can have ethical codes because they are social and can follow ethical norms, which is an impractical answer. The answer is impractical because typical intellectual atheists/agnostics (such as yourself) follow social norms that they find rational. In fact, few if any atheists would follow ethical norms that they find irrational. By the way, many theists also follow social norms that they find rational.

             I suppose that any rational rejection of ethical norms must have a basis for the rationalization. In my case, I believe in intrinsic ethical principles while I might misunderstand them. I currently know nothing about error theorists, but I want to know how atheists rationalize the rejection of various ethical norms. What is the basis for such a rejection that is an intrinsic part of typical atheist ethical codes?

11. I am surprised that some religious fundamentalists seem to think (I use the word in its loosest sense) that atheists don’t have codes of ethics. I would have thought that “It is OK to eat babies” counted as a code of ethics of sorts.

    1. That’s a recipe, not a moral code.

       1. What a terrible recipe. Where’s the list of spices? Where’s the cooking time? You can’t just eat them raw, you know.

          1. Well you can, but you have to puree them first.

             Actually I meant to say it’s a diet. The recipes are various.

12. “an it harms none, do as thou wilt”…

    Possibility of hubris in the “Feckless Disclaimer” that shields against guilt.
    (I was only following orders, sir)

    without Divine Command and Threat of Punishment, we would all be rapists, murderers and thieves.

    Self-deceit is a beautiful thing

    But I say that all moral codes are codifications of existing norms (or some subset that serves a ruling group), and there is nothing more to them.

    How about ‘critical reasoning’ to be used in the emotive context?

13. “If you are an atheist, how can you have moral rules?”

    This is just Christian exceptionalism, again.

    I’ve never heard of the question being phrased as “If you are a Buddhist, how can you have moral rules?”. Or even “If you are a (Predeterminism) Calvinist, why do you bother about moral rules?”

    Or there is even “If you are a Chimpanzee, how can you show moral behaviour?”

    It would be much more accurate to ask “If you don’t share my beliefs, how can you follow my special moral rules?”. But then this would acknowledge the humanity of the questioner.

    1. This is an instance of the “Non-believers aren’t fully human” trope that we keep running across. It allows believers to dehumanise their competitors and, when in the majority, to deny them rights and sometimes life.

       1. Too true, sadly.

          I’ve come to view religion and religious belief as a sweatshirt (bear with me). Most children get issued with a small sweatshirt bearing the logo of a particular faith or sect and take on the common identity of the logo.

          “How can you keep warm without a sweatshirt?” they ask, failing to notice that the warmth (social rules, morals etc) comes from the sweatshirt, not the log0.

          Atheists have chosen to wear a plain sweatshirt in the past. Although I am as much an atheist as Richard Dawkins, I don’t care to wear a sweatshirt with a red A on it – I see no point in extending the battle of the logos. I do resist the expectations of others though.

14. John S. Wilkins:
    This is an instance of the “Non-believers aren’t fully human” trope that we keep running across. It allows believers to dehumanise their competitors and, when in the majority, to deny them rights and sometimes life.

    Well, there are some who say that not being ‘spiritual’ or religious we’re denying our humanity or not fully human. As if believing in a deity were required to be a full person. I’m not ‘spritual’ in the sense of believing in spirits/afterlife, and if that’s what’s required to fully human, then…You can always find a way to define the other as bad.

15. It appears to imply that we are all sociopaths at best and psychopaths at worst, and that without Divine Command and Threat of Punishment, we would all be rapists, murderers and thieves. My response is that I really do not want to be around people who, if they lost their faith for any reason, would default to such behaviours. Ordinary folk, however, will not. And Atheists are ordinary folk, nearly all of the time.

    The Divine Command theory of morality strikes me as both silly and self-serving. What more likely works against people committing rape and murder willy-nilly is all the other people who’d actually prefer not to be raped and murdered. There is also the example, as if anyone needed reminding, of the US being one of the more religiose nations of the world yet having rape and murder rates that are not noticeably lower than those of more secular states.

16. “The men from Dobu are not good like us; they are cruel, they are cannibals. When we come to Dobu, we are afraid of them. They might kill us. But then I spit out ginger root, and their attitude changes. They lay down their spears and receive us”

    “Thus the clan and tribe, and peoples have learnt how to oppose and to give to one another without sacrificing themselves to one another. This is what tomorrow, in our so-called civilized world, classes and nations and individuals also must learn….There is no other morality, nor any other form of economy, nor any other social practises save these…. It is useless to seek goodness and happiness in distant places. It is there already…in the mutual respect and reciprocating generosity that is taught by education.”

    Certainly raise my glass to Marcel Mauss, A scholar and a gentleman.

17. While it is true that norm-following is a trait of social apes, and also true that, in any naturalist/materialist account of human morality, that trait will (almost?) necessarily take on a crucial role, it is far less clear that norm-following alone can provide an adequate basis for a discussion of human morality.

    In reading these responses, I am reminded that there is still such a great divide between moral philosophy and the science of moral cognition (as well as its applications to culture and society).

    On the philosophical side, there is the edifice of categories used by moral philosophers: deontological and consequentialist theories, the social contract, virtue ethics, pragmatist ethics, and ethics derived from specific figures such as Hume and Nietzsche, etc.

    But to counter certain types of presumptions, such as those of fundamentalist theists concerning the basis of morality, these theories can often fall short—as can the evolutionary approach. Whether one supports the notions of self-interest or altruism as primary motives, simplistic formulas do not shed light on such complex human capacities.

    In the wider social sphere, we are confronted with many competing (and contradictory) ideologies—Calvinists, secular authoritarians, Social Darwinists, market libertarians (though the contradictions apparently don’t stop a determined person from being all of those at once)— who all in one way or another assume that people have narrow motivations for moral behavior.

    Thus, it is not just the evangelical fundamentalists who hold this fallacious and simplistic view.

    These assumptions are soundly countered by brain and developmental science. And yet, in philosophical discussions, it remains very rare to find any of these scientific findings being used to critique (and powerfully confront) the aforementioned arguments. Many adherents—from various viewpoints— ignore, are unaware of, or try to devalue, the burgeoning body of empirical research on the basis for moral cognition and behavior.

    And this empirical research has moved far beyond trolley car thought experiments, and game theoretic constructs such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma. It is certainly not limited to the recently criticized work of Marc Hauser, Joshua Greene and Jonathan Haidt.

    All facets of moral reasoning are being extensively studied by hundreds of scientists from the developmental, social, brain, and behavioral sciences. Particular advances have been made in Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience (SCAN), developmental psychobiology and cultural neuroscience.

    Areas of study in moral psychology and neuroscience include: the dissociable and overlapping neural networks related to moral emotions and moral intuition (internalized conscience, compassion, concern for others, empathy, sympathy, forgiveness, altruism, generosity, cooperation, and ethical consistency); the cognitive and emotional aspects of moral reasoning; the role of mirror and spindle neurons in social cognition and simulation; the role of theory of mind in moral judgment; cultural and individual differences in moral cognition; how our brains weigh fairness and project intent onto others; moral judgment versus moral behavior; motivated moral reasoning; and much more.

    Other researchers study the ways various moral capacities can be disrupted by adverse childhoods and acquired brain damage. Neuroscience has shown observable differences in brain structure, metabolism and functioning in individuals who exhibit marked and persistent deficits in their moral reasoning. There are epigenetic and neurological effects of exposure to toxins such as lead and mercury both in gestation and in early childhood. Abuse, neglect and trauma can impair the development of brain wiring and result in moral and emotional impairments such as psychopathology, alexithymia, malignant narcissism, and social learning problems. For example, childhood emotional neglect can hinder (biological) development of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex—an area crucial for direct empathy. Prolonged alcohol abuse can also damage these pathways and lead to psychopathic behavior.

    In many cases, people may have cognitive moral codes, but a lack of empathic imagination for those outside of their ingroup. Also, people will judge others by their own deficits, e.g. “based on my own lack of concern about what happens to others, it can not be possible that those claiming to be motivated by such concerns are sincere”. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that if a person’s cognitive, “rational” rule-following becomes disconnected from their brain’s empathic and emotional processing, the moral decisions such a person is likely to make are considered disastrous under almost any moral code—even those that emphasize supposedly dispassionate reason.

    The use of multiple tools (such as functional imaging, neuropsychology, genetic assays, lesion studies, psychophysiological readings) allow for cross-correlated lines of evidence. Further, the improvement of these tools still proceeds at a rapid pace: improvements in imaging resolution, new computational methods, and more careful experimental formats are frequent. And while there have been critiques of “voodoo” social neuroscience, these sciences, as is usual when science is proceeding productively, have taken steps to address the valid criticisms and move on.

    The key point to draw from the research:

    Morality, conscience and socialization do not arise in a vacuum.

    Moral development relies on the wiring of empathic and social brain networks in response to essential nurturing childhood experiences over many years. A new integrated model is emerging. For example, in a review of dozens of studies of empathy alone, the complexity is clear:

    Human empathy relies on the ability to share emotions as well as the ability to understand the other’s thoughts, desires, and feelings.

    Recent evidence points to 2 separate systems for empathy: an emotional system that supports our ability to empathize emotionally and a cognitive system that involves cognitive understanding of the other’s perspective. Converging evidence from neuroimaging and lesion studies shows that a neural network that includes the inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule is necessary for emotion recognition and emotional contagion.

    On the other hand, the involvement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, and the medial temporal lobe in self-reflection and autobiographical memory places these key regions as necessary for cognitive empathy.

    The proposed dissociation between these systems is supported by recent neurochemical experiments involving administration of oxytocin as well as by ethological, psychiatric, and developmental studies.

    Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. “The neural bases for empathy” (2011). The Neuroscientist: A review journal bridging neurobiology neurology and psychiatry, 17(1), 18-24.

    Why aren’t more philosophers tracking this research to inform their discussion?

    My impression is that when philosophers do keep up with the science, they can help the empirical researchers interpret the data and ask better questions. There have been many false starts when certain scientists have naively attempted to map their research findings to the categories of moral philosophy.

    One fruitful partnership has been that between (philosopher) Jim Woodward and (neuroscientist) John Allman (see e.g.).

    A few recommended scientists:

    Frans de Waal, Bud Craig, Jean Decety, John T Cacioppo, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, David Amodio, Rebecca R. Saxe, Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Liane Young, Matthew Lieberman, Ralph Adolphs, William P. Smith, Jay Van Bavel, Chris and Uta Frith, Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, Marco Iacoboni, Antonio Damasio, Mark D’Esposito, Joseph LeDoux

    [Part 2 to follow on how a moral sense, conscience, and empathy are internalized.]

    1. I’d like to promote this and its second half to a post, Jocelyn. Let me know if that is alright.

       One comment: to be sure, moral philosophy is barely scratching the surface of neuropsychology. I suspect the reason why naturalistic accounts of morality seem so undermotivated by neurological and psychological facts, though, is that moral discourse has been artificially inflated by those who, like the theists I discussed, have some vested interest in morality being mysterious. We may not be able to reduce ought-talk to is-talk; the fallacy is to think that ought-talk somehow represents irreducible facts about the world. I am a deflationist: I think moral talk is conventional, based on the underlying shared nature of all human beings (and apes).

       1. do what you like with this. Thanks

          I worked on it quickly late at night to get it done before the post went cold, so it is not up to my ideal standards. But I will trust your judgment. At some point in the future, may I submit a better version (perhaps in collaboration with my writing colleague Plover) for your possible posting?

          1. Certainly. Take your time. We aren’t going anywhere…

       2. [This is a follow-up to my earlier comment above.]

          * * *

          How a moral sense, conscience, and empathy are internalized
          (The developmental roots of morality and empathy in a nutshell)

          A person’s “moral compass” begins to form as emotional brain circuits are wired, creating gut reactions to help guide decision-making. This wiring begins long before a child can understand intellectual concepts such as religion or morality.

          From the very beginning of life, neurohormones such as oxytocin, vasopressin, and prolactin weave bonds between parent and child — forming the physiological basis for feelings of connection, familiarity, trust and belonging. Each caregiver-child interaction is accompanied by neurobiological states in both parties. Depending upon the quality of the interaction, these states promote or interfere with the wiring of healthy brain circuitry.

          From the earliest age, a child absorbs and incorporates experiences and interactions with those around them, whether of warmth and kindness, or cruelty and harshness, and these are “imprinted” in the amygdala, insula, cingulate, prefrontal cortex and other areas of the brain and affect the healthy functioning of the child’s physiology and nervous system.

          *

          Empathic Responses Start Early

          When we first experience empathy as children our initial emotional reactions don’t have a mental context. For example, when a baby hears another baby crying or sees somebody in distress they often interpret that person’s distress as their own and start to cry as well. This “emotional contagion” (activated by the mirror neuron system) continues in other forms as we mature (i.e. yawning in response to other’s yawns).

          By the time they become toddlers, most children already reach out to help or display interest or concern for the suffering of others. Children who develop strong empathy at a young age are often more helping, sharing, and caring in later life as well as less aggressive and more pro-social.

          Infants as young as 12 months of age begin to comfort victims of distress, and 14 to 18 month old children display spontaneous, unrewarded helping behaviors. [Forman et al. 2004 (citation below)]

          Girls tend to be more comforting and consoling and boys tend to offer practical help like fixing something or physical protection. However, there are a lot of exceptions to this and no child should be held to a preconceived notion of gender behavior.

          Around the age of two, self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment, guilt, remorse, and shame first arise in conjunction with self-awareness and more sophisticated mentalizing (Theory of Mind). A child is motivated by a search for parental approval while also testing parental boundaries and personal limits and learns socialization lessons from early interactions with other children and siblings.

          By the time we are about six, we have established a basic cognitive moral map. In addition to an empathic model for understanding other people’s suffering, experience and thoughts; this map includes mental ideas about others’ intent and fairness, right and wrong, and deontological social norms established as a set of acceptable, obligatory and taboo behaviors. These mental constructs are linked to our gut responses and become part of the basis for a life-long moral/ethical code. We also acquire language skills to express these ideas.

          Children with different types of temperaments and resilience levels develop in distinct ways. Little children with developmental problems may have trouble identifying emotions or recognizing another’s distress and thus need extra guidance to learn how others are feeling. The earlier this intervention begins, the more chance there is for an optimal outcome. In cases such as high functioning autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, compensatory skills can be acquired, such as learning to “cognitively” recognize the emotional correlations of specific facial expressions—as they may not respond automatically (like most people) to micro-expressions, demeanor, and tone of voice.

          Other children with reward deficiencies may be more prone to oppositional disorders, and later behavior problems. However, appropriate interventions by parents, counselors and teachers can help these kids develop internal regulation, so instead of being labeled “troublemakers” and thrown into the pipeline to delinquency, they can become the creative, brave and unique people they truly are.

          *

          Parental Modeling

          A child’s observation of a parent’s reaction to situations is wired into learning and memory, whether or not the behavior is approved of within a specific religious or moral belief system. When parents (and other adults in the environment) act with compassion and show respect toward others, the concern is expressed in their eyes and demeanor and leaves an imprint in the child.

          Consistent and loving emotional interactions help children develop a healthy sense of self that is not dependent upon absolutist tenets. Children with secure emotional lives can more easily learn to feel comfortable with the ambiguities and mysteries of life. However, when there is harshness, violence, or instability, or helplessness, many forms of disruption can occur leading to a higher rate of mood, behavioral, learning and problems later in life.

          There are many changes in the body and the brain that occur during developmental stages that can help or hurt a child’s ability to perceive what somebody else is experiencing and have authentic concern for others. Coercive parenting, where a child is pushed and pulled by a parent’s whims, where every aspect of their life is tightly controlled, is very destructive. This control is not always direct, but can also show up as undue or implicit disapproval, admonishment, “guilt-tripping”, yelling, impatience, or harshness. Narcissistic parents set the child up to fit their image, to be something that will reflect well on them—and the child may have trouble developing a healthy sense of self.

          But parents who give indiscriminate and constant praise can also be unintentionally damaging. By not providing the trial and error learning and honest feedback a child needs in order to build skills of competence, and a sense of perspective, the child does not trust his or her own ability to improve or progress through effort. They rely on the approval of others or have a distorted view of actual attainments.

          Young people have to undergo many other socialization and reflection experiences throughout childhood, adolescence and young adulthood in order to activate the full range of capacities required for a mature moral sense. There will be periods of rebellion, mood changes, and risky behavior as an adolescent seeks a balance between belonging and autonomy and forges his or her own identity in the greater world. Executive Function skills (such as volition, veto power, organization, planning) continue to mature into adulthood—our brains do not fully stabilize until our late 20s, when the myelinization process is complete.

          As the brain matures, a young person gradually acquires the capacity to regulate and cope with various emotional states, whether difficult, uncomfortable, pleasant, or painful and to direct his or her behavior and responses with thoughtful concern for their effects on others. As we continue to mature, the emotional and cognitive aspects of the morality network begin to integrate via brain connections and to build an internalized moral compass within the context of a fully developed ethical schema.

          *

          To summarize

          Science refutes the premises of literalists who cannot imagine people being moral without either external dictates based on fear, obedience, and coercion— or self-interest, desires for status, power and social approval, or the avoidance of punishment. They do not acknowledge that emotionally healthy people have real concern for and sensitivity to others, and the capacity for loving kindness, generosity, altruistic motivations to contribute to the community and an imagination that recognizes the humanity of others outside one’s own group.

          When children are told to love God and be “good”, but are brought up in an authoritarian or absolutist household, a coercive and repressive atmosphere of conditional approval, inconsistent affection, and harsh punitive discipline—a true dissonance is created: love becomes associated with fear and judgment, and morality becomes moralism based on an ingrained disgust for people in the outgroup, denialism and system justification: the concern for maintaining one’s social image rather than for justice or compassion (i.e. a father killing his raped daughter for “dishonoring” the family.)

          Some developmental researchers to check out:

          Alison Gopnik, Bruce Perry, Andrew Meltzoff, Patricia Kuhl, Paul Bloom, Grazyna Kochanska, the late Stanley Greenspan, Kyle Pruett, Bruce Wexler, Wayne Chugani, Marilyn Diamond, Susan Gelman, Nathan Fox, Charles A. Nelson

          Note: These thoughts are extracted from far more extensive work summarizing emerging conceptual models of empathy and moral cognition drawn from developmental psychology and neuroscience

          *

          Sample papers:

          David R Forman, Nazan Aksan, Grazyna Kochanska. “Toddlers’ responsive imitation predicts preschool-age conscience.” (2004) Psychological science 15 (10) p. 699-704

          Ronit Roth-Hanania, Maayan Davidov, Carolyn Zahn-Waxler. “Empathy development from 8 to 16 months: early signs of concern for others.” (2011) Infant behavior development 34 (3) p. 447-458

          Jean Decety, Kalina J Michalska, Yuko Akitsuki, Benjamin B Lahey. “Atypical empathic responses in adolescents with aggressive conduct disorder: a functional MRI investigation.” (2009). Biological psychology 80 (2) p. 203-11

          Ilaria Castelli, Davide Massaro, Alan G. Sanfey, Antonella Marchetti. “Fairness and intentionality in children’s decision-making.” (2010) International Review of Economics 57 (3) p. 269-288

          Narvaez, D. “Human Flourishing and Moral Development: Cognitive and Neurobiological Perspectives of Virtue Development.” (2007). Handbook of moral and character education, 310.

          Jean Decety, P L Jackson. “A social-neuroscience perspective on empathy.” (2006) Current Directions in Psychological Science 15 (2) p. 54-58

          Lian T Rameson, Matthew D Lieberman. “Empathy: A Social Cognitive Neuroscience Approach.” (2009) Social and Personality Psychology Compass 3 (1) p. 94-110

          Paul J Eslinger, Jorge Moll, Ricardo De Oliveira-Souza. “Emotional and Cognitive Processing in Empathy and Moral Behavior.” (2003) Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (01) p. 34-35

18. Read this with a great deal of interest Jocylen and I particularly enjoyed the article by Jim Woodward and John Allman . It reminded me of an incident that occurred when I trying to write up an m-phil proposal some years ago.

    Was finding it somewhat difficult to work as I had two young pre-school kids running about the house, my youngest son had just uttered his first words that week.

    I was in the bedroom with about ten art history books scattered all over the bed depicting a variety of man- like -apes and their historical ancestors. My partner was next door attempting to develop Jamie’s language skills using a pop up toy, press a button a horse would pop out and make a horse type noise followed by a pig and cow. Jamie could say the word but could not associated the word with the image.

    He got bored and ran next door to see me. He took a great deal of interest in what I was doing and started to look at one of the images I was working with.
    I explained it was a monster and he pointed at the image, pointed at his own face and said “Jamie eyes monster eyes” and ran out of the room (my partner had been having more success teaching him the name for parts of his body).

    Next night he had a bath got out ran round the house stark naked for ten minutes roaring, with his face screwed up, his hands clawed, chasing his sister round the house, throwing his toys and cloths all over the place and with great delight shouting monster.

    He had picked up all the key motifs of the creatures I study without any discussion and appeared to demonstrate a strong grasp and understanding of the concepts and ideas we play with when we discuss and deploy these creatures in our thoughts and actions .

    I don’t like to speculate on origins and find it far more interesting to understand how these concepts change and evolve historically but I suspect that the origin and development of these things has a strong relationship with the developmental bonds between children and their adult kin.

    Subjects a tangled mass of overlapping related concepts.

    1. Jeb,

       Your anecdote aptly describes why it is so important to allow a young child to direct his/her own learning through exploration, play, trial and error, and a non-pressure environment. Especially during early childhood when there is an over-proliferation of brain connections and they are absorbing vast amounts of information and beginning the many-year pruning process that will create more streamlined circuitry [from a quadrillion to 100 trillion connections].

       Create a stimulating, attuned, responsive environment and let children “direct” their learning through their own curiosity, natural mimicry, simulation capacities, and osmosis. Most children will naturally develop a metaphorical symbol system based on a combination of embodied cognition, imagination and exposure to variety of stimuli and ideas. Children will also automatically orient to their parents, intently observing mom, dad or older siblings having interest and excitement in the things they are doing.

       In daily interactions the child reveals who they are to their parents. By following the rhythm of their play, imagination, and expression, the parent goes on a tour of their child’s interests, sensibilities, talents, and difficulties. Parents then can respond appropriately and tailor the boundaries, structures, and stimuli to the child’s individual temperament and changing needs. Letting a child ramble on with ideas and stories helps them put together their creativity in a coherent form. And thought experiments occur when a child listens to stories and then tries to elaborate upon them later. And unstructured play is the most effective learning method.

       Our natural intrinsic motivation for learning can be destroyed by force-fed, over-structured goal-oriented education.

       At later stages of development most children will be ready for more structure and seek it out. Other goals will emerge, as well as the desire to challenge themselves and develop new competencies.

       However, here in the U.S., the new official focus on test scores, rather than learning itself, has been singularly destructive Add sleep deprivation, family and economic difficulties, violent and unsafe neighborhoods, media overstimulation, and other stressors, and we have a generation of pretty miserable students, and an enormous drop-out rate.

       Reading suggestions: Paul Bloom, Daniel Seigel, Stanley Greenspan, Bruce Hood, Alison Gopnick, Jesse Bering, Carol Dweck, Alfie Cohn.

       Jeb, please let me know if you would like pdfs of papers on any of the topics I bring up.

19. The first time I have seen this subject make perfect sense. I come from a culture that particularly values the ability to speak and tell stories, you are encouraged to perform and play in such away from a very young age.

    Many new atheists seem to be suggesting that my culture and it’s traditions represent some form of threat viewing this form of activity as religious in origin and intent.

    It is the way we entertain each other, learn to use language and be creative with it from childhood. Rather than producing a society of religious lunatics it produces a culture in which creativity and the ability to use language and express yourself well in a group is widespread. It is a form of activity that has always been viewed as threatening and subversive by the administrative classes, political, religious and with the start of universal education educators as well.

    A population that is well versed in speaking its mind with confidence and using a form of culture that cannot be officially controlled and repeatedly sought to ridicule church and state was never going to have official blessing. Traditional culture was viewed by the church as posing a significant threat to its teachings.

    Part of the ethical code of many atheists appears to be a traditional bog standard middle -class protestant perspective that was fully developed by the 19th century, which despised and considered ethnically different cultural groups that used such cultural practises such as my own to be an ignorant, morally inferior minority who’s only use was as a form of cheap unskilled labour.

    We were of course entirely unsuited to engage in any form of activity that required intellect, that was the sole preserve of those who were morally intellectually and culturally superior to us.

20. Kudos on the well-developed dialogue on this matter. As a Christian, this question of ethics is one that comes up within the evangelical and fundamentalists circles. For many of us, the taught suspicion towards an atheist’s or agnostic’s ethics boils down to the following: a naturalistic (non-determined) cosmology cannot inherently produce natural (ethical) law; persons in a naturalistic world are not held to any natural law (read: higher power), therefore ethical behavior is only bound to a relativistic social construct which within any given generation may develop prejudicial, genocidal, or eugenic tendencies.

    The truth is I am sure that none of my peers or the vast majority of Christians I know actually think that atheists are psychopaths and sociopaths waiting to snap. The question in the back of our mind is how does a world view which (by our understanding) is not based on any objective moral truth, natural law, or known transcendent purpose establish a foundation for a sustainable ethical code?

    Please understand my goal here is not to troll, but to engage in honest dialogue with people outside of my regular sphere.

    1. Allen, this got lost in the scruff of comments, so forgive my delay.

       I appreciate your view, and I understand your problem (and the problem of those who I addressed at the theology conference). You have been told all your life that to have an ethical stance is to be bound by natural law or objective moral value revealed to us by a certain religious scripture. Hence, when you encounter those of us who lack them, you are confused.

       The trouble is, you were told something that doesn’t bear scrutiny. All humans everyhere have lived by moral codes, from shamanists to atheists, Vikings to Victorians. If they needed your God’s edicts to be truly moral, why? I hear about “the moral sense”, but this merely restates the phenomenon. If the moral sense is enough, why do we need objective moral truth? If not enough, then why are non-Christians moral? Or non-theists, or wherever you draw the line? There will always be people unlike you who are moral. The conclusion is that morality is a human trait, not a religious one or a moral realist’s one.

       So the answer I gave explains why humans are moral. If you choose to justify your own moral code by appealing to moral truths or divine commands, fine; it holds no weight for me or those who are error theorists or atheists. And you should not be surprised that is so. The evidence is that humans are moral because they are apes and apes follow moral norms because they are intelligent, and social. Justification is another game altogether.

       1. Is anybody really denying that moral codes are ubiquitous? The issue at question is not the existence of codes as cultural facts, but their validity or cogency. Granted that “humans are moral because they are apes and apes follow moral norms because they are intelligent, and social,” should we apes follow these norms?

          I date back to simpler time when there was a long and acrimonious debate about metaethics with relatively few appeals to primate ethology. It seems to me that the most defensible position that emerged from this argument turned out to be a middle case between something like emotivism and moral realism. The famous chasm between the ought and the is doesn’t prevent people from arguing meaningfully about what they should do because as a matter of fact we share a great many premises. The moral rules at which we arrive aren’t geometrical theorems, but they aren’t just opinions either. They have force and create obligations for rational beings. It isn’t just that your tribe has a low opinion of recreational homicide. You shouldn’t go around killing people. It isn’t just that atheists can have a code. They can (and do) have a binding code, which, to a great extent, is pretty similar to other moral codes.

          The theists I know are not happy with my middle case because they want a guarantee that there is a complete and consistent set of moral rules, and I don’t know of any reason to believe that there is such a thing. After all, a total moral code would have to tell us which side of the plate to put the salad fork, which seems absurd. In any case, the fact that people can reason about what to do simply does not imply that there is one and only maximum solution, especially since what we ought to do surely depends in large part on always changing circumstances—for example, our responsibility to other human beings becomes greater as our ability to actually help them increases.

          The religious people I know also want morality to have metaphysical significance. They apparently took the famous snake at his word that knowing good and evil would make us like gods. I’m happy if it keeps us from stepping on a rake.

21. a relativistic social construct which within any given generation may develop prejudicial, genocidal, (going to miss out the next word as I found it an unfortunate inclusion) tendencies.

    “He went up from there to Bethal: and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, Go away, baldhead! Go away baldhead!” When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two boys.”

    I don’t think Christians are psychopaths or sociopaths but as a powerful cultural force it can and has certainly has been used to justify a range of horrors and has produced some very strange notions indeed with regard to cultural difference, which betray the usual obsessions .

    “Strange inventive contradictions against Nature, practically maintained by divers Nations, in the ordering of their Privie parts.”

    I think the basic fault line is when you arrive at the conclusion that people are incapable of having an acceptable ethical or moral outlook and that such thing are the preserve of one particular group. It leads to the type of behaviour that causes you such concern.

    This behaviour is not caused or limited to religion but religion does not escape these tendencies and has been used to encourage and foster such beliefs. It has no escape from jail card here.

    I can reject the existence of god but I don’t think I escape a 1000 years of Christian cultural tradition. I live quite happily with this the words below but as I am not a fundamentalist Christian I read it in a literal manner.

    Ama, et fac quad vis (love and do what you will)

22. God as an Atheist and Scientist : Ten Scientific Commandments.
    ===.
    Can a Rational Individual believe in God ?
    In other words:
    Can God be atheist, governed by scientific laws?
    Of course
    Because if God exists, He/She/It would necessarily
    to work in an Absolute Reference Frame and had set of
    physical and mathematical laws to create everything
    in the Universe.
    If we find and understand this Absolute God’s House then
    is possible step by step to find and understand God’s Physics
    Laws, which Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, Planck,
    Einstein and many others scientists discovered.
    

    1. Your first and only warning, socratus: post this stuff again and you will be banned. Do not troll here.

       Note to others: this guy is a known internet troll. If he behaves, I will allow him to discuss matters. Otherwise, gone.

       1. I’m not socratus and I was banned from Laden’s blog. My personal opinion is that Laden gives atheists a bad name.

          (Sorry that I cannot express my thoughts more clearly herein)

23. John wrote, “I think that one cannot hold to a non teleological view of the universe and believe in moral realism, myself. Your mileage may vary.”

    I have been studying up on this since I first read your post. I would not have guessed that some hold to “a non teleological view of the universe and believe in moral realism.” Would you call that nihilist moral realism? 🙂

    1. “Nihilism” is a term that only means the speaker is abusing their opponents. So far as I can tell it can only mean the denial in a domain that anything exists. If they are in favour of moral objectivity, they can’t be nihilists about morality, can they?

24. John, what do you mean by when you say, “‘Nihilism’ is a term that only means the speaker is abusing their opponents.”? Are you saying that speakers only call an opponent a “nihilist” when they are abusing their opponent? If that is what you are implying, then I will have nothing to do with that. But I heard atheists refer to themselves as nihilists and I hope to refer to nihilism as a broad category in moral theory.

    I am thinking of three broad categories of moral theory: (1) nihilism, (2) accidental moral realism, and (3) teleological moral realism.

    Do these categories appear clearly defined and non-abusive?

    1. I meant it as a rule of thumb. If somebody uses a term like “nihilist” as a term of disapprobation, like “Darwinist” and “relativist” and “reductionist” it probably means nothing more in that case than that the speaker dislikes the person they are talking about. Of course there are technical meanings that can be used properly, only almost nobody ever does use them thus.

       The standard term in ethical theory is “error theorist” with “moral antirealist” a second choice, AFAIK.

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