I argue that biology is where what we term ‘morals’ finds its origins but that the combination of the sharing of ideas and the desire to live socially on top of fairly rudimentary biological instincts are what really constitutes the word “morality” when I use it in relation to humans.

I know you do, but since your view necessitates you believing that humans are no more than biological processes, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for me to refer to morals are biological imperatives. Your notion of “sharing ideas” and “desire” are also just biological processes or imperatives if your view is correct. The fact that they’re more complex than basic instincts doesn’t alter the fact. Notice that I’ve never suggested morality is just “plain genetics” in your view; I’ve just said that it’s no more than biological processes. Genetics is only one of the biological processes involved.

And regarding your complaint about the word “better”; you can’t use the word in a natural sense when you are still presupposing that all other referents are firmly lodged in the supernatural. But you can use the word when you give it subjective context for a start.

What are you talking about? Even if you define “better” subjectively as referring to some goal, how will you argue that your morals are “better” than Hitler’s? Because your goal differs from his? But then you have to argue why your goal is “better” than his goal. How do you propose to do that?

The thing is, when I attempt to see morality as a natural product, my observations make more sense than when I’m required to posit a ‘supernatural’ (whatever that means) being. I have seen and experienced morality among people and even among some animals and, to me, the concept that morality is subjective (but often shared) and naturally occurring especially among social species, makes perfect sense.

Lots of us think this way.

Also, I want to pull you up on your continual reduction of my moral argument as simply “biological imperative”. I argue that biology is where what we term ‘morals’ finds its origins but that the combination of the sharing of ideas and the desire to live socially on top of fairly rudimentary biological instincts are what really constitutes the word “morality” when I use it in relation to humans. I don’t believe worms experience ‘morality’ anywhere near what humans experience in exactly the same way that they don’t experience ‘communication’ like we do. That is not to say that they don’t communicate or that communication is supernatural, just that there is more to it than plain genetics which I take it you are implying.

And regarding your complaint about the word “better”; you can’t use the word in a natural sense when you are still presupposing that all other referents are firmly lodged in the supernatural. But you can use the word when you give it subjective context for a start. Which brings us back to my call for the use of the words “beneficial” or “detrimental” because we are required to give it context i.e. “beneficial for what goal?”.

We’re getting close to comment #100 now and I feel I’ve really benefited by being forced to think through the issues surrounding what people call “objective morality”. But I feel we’ve got to the ‘cud-chewing’ stage here, Bnonn. I can picture what it must be like to presuppose the Christian God and to make everything fit that presupposition but I’m not sure you’ve been able to picture what it’s like to see everything as a result of natural causes (likely my inability to get my ideas across). Obviously I think my hunches reflect what really happens in the world more accurately than yours and you think yours are more accurate than mine. No surprise there eh!

I’d still like to hear some thoughts by non-theists here though. Perhaps someone has different ideas to me about the origins of morals? Perhaps that there really is more to the human experience than the sum of our genes and our interactions? Perhaps that objectivity is very real but not what we think it is?

An interesting question is this (perhaps): If morality is socially constsructed (and ‘relative’ in this sense), then suppose Hitler was very ‘successful’ (as can be argued he [partially] was) in convincing social opinion as to the ‘benefit’ of his action. What would make a small, dissenting voice (i.e. Sophie Scholl – GREAT movie, by the way! – a must see…) more ‘moral’ than his?

Whatever role evolution did or did not play in shaping our capacity and ability to reason-out morality, “[n]ature has equipped human beings with urges which are both altruistic and non-altruistic” (as said at interesting site here…), so we are left to make our own value-judgments using reason.

But if morality is properly basic and irreducible, as I’ve argued, then of necessity moralness is something which is actually real in its own right. There is an ontological referent for it. And, as I’ve also argued, that cannot be in human beings themselves; it must imply a non-contingent moral authority. You keep objecting that I’m just presupposing the supernatural and thus rejecting the natural explanation, but what I’m actually doing is showing that morality is unintelligible on a natural explanation, and am therefore concluding that the supernatural one must be true.

As regards Hitler, the term “better” does not meaning anything in biology. You can’t say that you’re just using is subjectively. In biology, one process is not better than another. They are just different, and have different results. And one result is not better than another. It’s just different as well.

Must be my biology

It’s metaphysical, I’m sure of it

Try testing the logic of a world in which everything is the result of natural processes and see how it works. You don’t have to agree, you just need to stop assuming that I’m referring to some bits of my worldview as natural and others as supernatural. I don’t even think the word ‘supernatural’ has a meaning.

With regard to Hitler in this light, I find his actions despicable for many reasons: my upbringing, the thought of what someone like him could have done to me, the desire I have to live in a peaceful society, and so on. Your use of the word “better” also implies that you are measuring against some kind of external framework. I experience “better” subjectively and so do you and I’m content with that. My sense of “better” is formed in the same forge as my sense of “morals”, not as some absolute ideal plucked from thin air. And because you think that I’m in some way ignoring your external “better” you find it amazing that I could abandon what you perceive to be an absolute truth and therefore have no moral leg to stand on.

Bring it all into the context of the natural world and see if you can at least understand where I’m coming from. You don’t have to agree.