If there is no god of any kind...

[Nicodemus]

study kant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

Kant was wrong, too.

 

[pinkgraffiti]

Kant was wrong, too.

if you want. either way, it should answer some of OPs questions.

long story short, since we're all humans and have the ability for empathy, our morals stem from putting ourselves in other people shoes. treating them as we'd like to be treated. cooperation does great things for the advancement of society.

 

[Polaris]

How does the conclusion that someone has absolute moral authority over you follow from the premise that they created you? It doesn't. If the universe was created by an evil being, he would be an evil being regardless of his act of creation. A god is not inherently good. So the idea that someone created us is really not an answer to the question of what we're going to ground morals in. At best, it might be argued that our ethical standards were programmed into us by someone, and that would give us a causal foundation for ethics. But we already have a causal foundation for ethics in processes described by evolutionary science and sociology.

Human beings (I assume all sentient beings) have a concept of good and experience something to the effect of happiness.

You're conflating two distinct senses of the word "good." There's good in the moral sense and good in the sense of pleasantness. That there's a difference between the two is clear from the fact that morals frequently direct people to forgo pleasure.

 

[WALMART]

This book taught me all I know about what makes the human mind special.

All science, no filler.

 

[Nicodemus]

How does the conclusion that someone has absolute moral authority over you follow from the premise that they created you? It doesn't.

I think it is supposed to follow from the idea that this someone created morality itself and put himself in charge of it.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

You're conflating two distinct senses of the word "good." There's good in the moral sense and good in the sense of pleasantness. That there's a difference between the two is clear from the fact that morals frequently direct people to forgo pleasure.

I didn't pleasure, I said happiness.

And I know some peoples' ethical schemes make them forgo their own and other peoples' happiness, and I look down on their ethical schemes. It may be the ethical scheme they try to follow, but it doesn't mean I think their actions are actually moral ones. I am passing a moral judgment on what they consider to be ethical.

There should not be a separation between good in a moral sense and good in the sense of a good state of mind. It is the only good we have.

The most happiness distributed across the most people for the longest time.

 

[Polaris]

I think it is supposed to follow from the idea that this someone created morality itself and put himself in charge of it.

Yes, I think so. However, if certain things appear moral to us because someone designed us to experience them as moral, then morality appears not to be intrinsic to the nature of reality. Morality instead appears to be a product of our creator's whim, since he might have given us a different set of scruples or no scruples at all.

A morality that is designed and chosen is not an objective and binding morality, regardless of who it is that does the choosing and designing. And if such a morality existed, it would positively demonstrate a lack of inherent objectivity in morality. It would be one case of morality existing as a free creation rather than as a binding given. The argument that morals are objective because they were created by God proves the opposite point.

 

[iNtrovert]

Yes, I think so. However, if certain things appear moral to us because someone designed us to experience them as moral, then morality appears not to be intrinsic to the nature of reality. Morality instead appears to be a product of our creator's whim, since he might have given us a different set of scruples or no scruples at all.

A morality that is designed and chosen is not an objective and binding morality, regardless of who it is that does the choosing and designing. And if such a morality existed, it would positively demonstrate a lack of inherent objectivity in morality. It would be one case of morality existing as a free creation rather than as a binding given. The argument that morals are objective because they were created by God proves the opposite point.

That makes sense if you would equate the whim of a god to that of a human. I think it's common belief (at least related to the god of the 3 major religions) that if he were the creator according to their faith he would absolute truth. As creator of well everything he would reserve the right to define moral code. Since I asked the question I will tell you that is the view point of which the question was asked. Morals in that sense would not be subjective because I would equate the morals of the god responsible for everything above that of my own seeing as he's responsible for everything. So if that kind of go didn’t exist ect. Something tells me your still going to go on about that disproving objective morals so I’ll respectfully ask you to indulge me.

 

[Jaq]

From what I've seen in my experiences, when you cross the line into morality. You find a lot of hypocritical people, or just people out for themselves.

Keep in mind I'm not denying the possibility that there is a god. Since at the moment we just don't know if there is or isn't one.

Though I don't believe that humans have a "higher" purpose or a "divine value".

 

[Polaris]

And I know some peoples' ethical schemes make them forgo their own and other peoples' happiness, and I look down on their ethical schemes. It may be the ethical scheme they try to follow, but it doesn't mean I think their actions are actually moral ones. I am passing a moral judgment on what they consider to be ethical.

The fact is that these people experience their actions as righteous ones. This demonstrates that the perception of an act's moral goodness is distinct from the perception of an act's ability to provoke happiness.

Apart from there being a distinction between morality and happiness, happiness is not something that can be measured and quantified. A certain configuration of brain cells is not happiness any more than the letters C-A-T are a cat. A certain configuration of brain cells merely signifies (in non-real-time: you would be seeing the brain as it appeared before the light reached your eyes) what a patient under highly artificial circumstances may or may not report is their feeling of happiness. And they will not be able to put an exact, objective number on their happiness even if you can put an exact, objective number on certain bodily signals they're giving off. And different people or even the same person will have differing reactions to the same set of circumstances, so that even if it were possible to acquire completely accurate measurements of people's levels of happiness, it would be impossible to derive from that anything approaching a detailed list of universal moral guidelines.

 

[SensEye]

The inability of mankind to locate, idetify or adhere to an objective morality does not disprove it.

True enough. But not being able to identify/locate objective morality doesn't make a strong case for it existing either (rather the contrary IMO).