Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cbscc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!sabre!zeta!epsilon!gamma!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!cbosgd!cbsck!cbscc!pmd From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul M. Dubuc) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion Subject: Re: Schools and Churches (really 'support' for areligious moral codes) Message-ID: <5957@cbscc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 09:02:18 EDT Article-I.D.: cbscc.5957 Posted: Mon Sep 23 09:02:18 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 06:51:16 EDT References: <623@hou2g.UUCP> <5884@cbscc.UUCP> <1154@mhuxt.UUCP> <5906@cbscc.UUCP> <1683@dciem.UUCP> <5934@cbscc.UUCP> <1687@dciem.UUCP> Reply-To: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul M. Dubuc) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus Lines: 85 Xref: linus net.politics:10476 net.religion:7348 In article <1687@dciem.UUCP> mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) writes: > >> Paul Dubuc >>I did not suggest that moral codes derive from religions (that may >>be true or false, but it was not my point). My point is that only >>religiously grounded moral codes can claim any real authority over >>other human beings. This is a transcendent standard, one that subjects >>that king to the law as well as the peasant. If the law is not based >>on a transcendent authority, then it is whatever the king (or government >>in today's terms) says it is; those in power define right and wrong. >> >>If moral codes are a product of evolution as you say, then so is my >>ability to reason and question those moral codes. Should I just obey >>them because they were supposedly right for "primitive humans"? Do it >>because that's the way it's always been done? The technology we have may >>help me avoid the consequences they had. How does this basis for >>morality help answer the question of whether it is right for me to cheat >>on my income tax? > >Two points here: Law = Morality, and evolution both develops moral codes >and allows us to question them. You forgot the one about the basis for the authority of law. I thought that was my main point. >(1) Law = Morality: > I totally reject any idea that the law should support any religiously >based morality. It can, however, support moral behaviour whose value has >been shown by long experience (e.g. don't kill, steal, etc.), as well as >behaviour that we reason will be beneficial. Reliance on religious bases >for morality leads to conflicts between religions as to what is moral and >what is not, except in these core areas that have evolved over periods >longer than humanity has existed. Much of what Christianity calls "moral" >is aimed at maintaining authority rather than improving life. One can >argue that the makers of law have a similar self-serving motivation, and >therefore one would expect law to parallel Christian morality, but that >is not a good reason to derive laws from Christian morality. But you seem to think that it is a good reason to reject a moral code based in religious belief. Again, I am not talking about the derivation of moral codes, I'm talking about the authority we may claim for enforcing them. By whose experience and whose reason are these values shown to be beneficial (to whom)? >(2) >>If moral codes are a product of evolution, then so is my ability to reason >>and to question those moral codes. > >I totally agree, but I think it contradicts your statements about moral >codes having a religious basis. I believe it is absolutely necessary that >we try to break out of the straitjacket of moral codes that evolved to >suit small bands of social animals, and develop through reason new codes >that suit our Global Village. We cannot afford a code that permits people >to mentally deny personhood to those that live in different places or >under different circumstances (e.g. Vietnamese "gooks"). We cannot afford >to allow wars, little or big, against groups whose aspirations conflict >with those of our group. Morality that allowed, and even approved, such >conflicts, worked when communication and travel was slow, and only small >groups contended. The elimination of a foreign group was OK (Carthage >must be destroyed -- and it was), because they were not real people >(not Romans). But now, the elimination of the foreign group might mean >the elimination of us all, and that morality (which was supported by >the Christian Church) won't work any more. >Unfortunately, our deeply evolved morality seems to be gaining the upper >hand. We see more and more genocidal tendencies, murders of dehumanized >people (Sunni by Shiite, city-dweller by Pol Pot, Jew by Hitler, >victim by mugger, black S. African by police, and so on and so on). >Such acts are not un-human, but inhumane. They are a consequence >of our morality, which must be re-thought if we are to survive. And we >can't rely on the morality of an Avenging Lord to guide our rethinking. >Jesus had the right idea in a lot of what he said, but somehow that often >gets transmuted in "Christian" morality. I'm a little confused as to the point of these paragraphs. You talk about what "we" can't allow or afford. But what if "they" decide they can? Why are we right and they wrong? What if they don't value individual rights or human lives (except their own)? You might have the strength to force them to, but in what would you base you authority to do so? How can we claim that "they" are under that same authory and are bound to respect what we believe are human rights? What gives the moral beliefs we hold any transcendence over what people think? -- Paul Dubuc cbscc!pmd Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com