Morality Does Not Exist

[Irreligious]

Kakarot wrote

To me, morality begins as more of a question than a purpose. It asks me: "What is your function in this universe?" If I was created by a God or gods, then I must assume that the purpose of my existence precedes my existence. If I am a random sack of atoms, then I precede my purpose. If the latter is true, then my identity is determined by nothing more than genes and arbitrary social constructs. Where do social constructs come from? Other people. Where do other people come from? Genes. So if everything is determined by genes, why not act on every whim and immediately gratify every urge? Will another random sack of genes hold me accountable? Maybe. But should they?

Who or what is asking this question of you, the entity that asks you to define your purpose? Whatever it is, apparently, it does not ask this same question of other animal species. Yet, they do what their genes program them to do without need for any objective justification. Perhaps, we are different because our genes require us to ask the question, again because our powers for abstract thinking exceed our primitive instincts. In other words, perhaps it is only an internal question and not one coming from an outside source.

Edited to add: Just Us Chickens did fine answering the rest of your query. Cool avatar, by the way.

Kakarot wrote

A few questions...

First, for jollynihilist:

Do you consider yourself dogmatic? In other words, are you certain that your perspective on life and existence is the correct one, and will never be changed or disproved by any of your future life experiences?

Absolutely not. I always am open to new scientific evidence. If a reliable morality meter were invented, which was able to measure units of morality accurately, then I would accept morality as a natural concept worthy of our attention. However, anything less than scientific evidence, to me, is unsatisfying.

Also, if there is a transcendent meaning or worth inherent to human life, would you be capable of recognizing it? You seem to simply choose to disbelieve in the worth of human life, simply because you cannot explain it.

I would accept the "worth" of human life if that "worth" was able to be quantified scientifically. I want that "worth" to be capable of being gauged, measured, quantified and tested--or some combination thereof.

Moreover, it seems silly to me that one species of animal would have higher "worth" than another species of animal, since ALL species of animal reside on the same Tree of Life. If there is "worth" intrinsically found in life, I suspect it's equal among all species, not restricted to Homo sapiens sapiens.

This is the exact same behavior exhibited by Young Earth Creationists when presented with a case for Evolution--they can't reconcile science with their dogma, so they pick their dogma.

There is hard, tangible evidence for evolution--lots of it. There is no hard, tangible evidence for "morality" or "value of life." Again, that morality meter still has not been invented, nor has "value of life" been found under a microscope.

Words--not excluding 'morality'--signify things whose essence existed a priori to the signifier. Generally these essences fall into two categories: things that are actually a part of the universe, or things that are presumed to be a part of the universe. When the term 'morality' was first coined (I'm sure it was originally coined in another language), it must have either been used to signify something that a person or group of people actually observed, or used to signify a concept that a person or group of people invented. Due to your limited readership of classical texts, you've created three overly-simplistic possibilities that are not, in fact, representative of all potential essences for which human beings have ever used the signifier "morality." While it is possible that humans invented morality, no human creation--even a completely invented thing--is truly ex nihilo. "Unicorn" may signify something fabricated when you simply observe the sum of its parts, but break it into two pieces (horn, horse) and you've got yourself two perfectly rational, existant things. Before you decide whether or not morality exists, you need to understand a host of other things, namely the "real" facets that compose morality. If you've never heard of a unicorn, I can tell you "a horse with a horn," and you'd get it. With morality, it's not as simple.

I believe "morality" was fabricated in order to do one thing: sanctify speciocentric self-interest. As a species, we have a vested interest in not becoming extinct. As such, it's only rational--upon accepting that interest--to codify certain laws and strictures aimed, generally speaking, at preserving the species. I think most of our moral concepts are built upon that basis (prohibitions on murder certainly work here, as well as prohibitions on theft and adultery, both of which could lead to bloody and fatal conflict). But, my argument is that speciocentric self-interest--human morality's Key Factor--easily could be replaced by any other Key Factor, including the primacy of frogs. Our moral concepts have no meaning divorced from human thought, interests and survival instinct. "Do not murder your neighbor" is not written in the stars, which would be necessary for it to be a natural concept. Rather, that stricture was written in the minds of our survival-inclined forefathers, and passed down as false truth.


Again, this is key: For morality to be natural and real, its existence would have to pre-date human existence, and its essence would have to pre-date, and be wholly independent of, human thought.

JollyNihilist,

I'll admit that I don't think morality is quantifiable. But does the fact that something is not quantifiable mean that it is not true? I'm afraid I'm going to need to see some quantifiable evidence that all truths are quantifiable. ;)

TheJollyNihilist wrote

Again, this is key: For morality to be natural and real, its existence would have to pre-date human existence, and its essence would have to pre-date, and be wholly independent of, human thought.

I'm not sure what to do with this remark, since I pretty much said the same thing earlier--yet rethinking it, I'm not sure that I agree without stipulation. There are some things that can only exist upon the advent of a certain level of cognition within a universe. For instance, perhaps: love, vendetta, psychosis. You could make arguments for or against any one of those things, I suppose, but there must be something cognitive that only exists in man. Morality isn't quite the same, though. It does need to pre-date man, but it cannot exist outside of a higher mind of some sort. Since morality is a positively defined comment on human being's purpose for existance, it seems that morality can only exist if God--or some other universal mind--exists to generate morality and implant it into the human soul.

Let me back up for a moment, here. As a musician and composer, I do not believe that all truth is necessarily quantifiable, and I use music as my example. Most human beings who listen to a sad song will know that it's sad. If they've had any musical training whatsoever, they'll be able to tell that it was written in a minor key. But why do minor tones have such a "sad" or "depressive" effect on the human mind? Yes, using intervals to describe the relationship of the notes can help us to replicate the effect, but we cannot observe why the effect occurs.

Even my brief exposure to the sciences, as far as I'm concerned, affirms my position on truth. We can explain why matter behaves according to the Law of Gravity, using the theory of gravitons. But can we, as of yet, explain the theory of gravitons? Maybe there's something smaller that governs the processes of gravitons? Maybe not. My point is that somewhere along the line, there has to be a true statement about gravity that cannot be reduced, whose explanation is simply this: it is the way it is, and it can be no differently.

I say that morality is the way that it is, and it can be no differently. That doesn't mean that I don't think that the truth of morality can't be reduced at all--I just don't think that it can be reduced in an entirely quantifiable, empirical fashion. That is why morality must be explored through philosophy--science's only interest is in the quantifiable and empirical. As of now, science does not offer solutions to all of life's complexities--love, and the like. Our society's great intellectuals, rather than acknowledging that they are incapable of explaining everything, write off things like love and morality as "social constructs." The unspoken ramification is that only a layman would ever think there is anything of truth or reality in something that a genius has labelled a "socially construct." Hence, most pseudo-intellectuals, desiring the approval of their masters, have decided to pay homage to their pseudo-gods through the whole-sale acceptance of social constructivist thought.

Personally, I find it cowardly to deny something, simply because I cannot explain it (yet). Maybe murder is a punishable offense in Western society now, but murder in another time or place may have been a means of gaining approval. A moral relativist would have to call murder in that culture "good," but I cannot. At first I had no potential explanation for why I felt this way, but since I've applied myself to explaining it, I've come up with some ideas. The point, however, is that I was still capable of recognizing the reality of the situation before I could explain the reality of the situation. Yes, morality is a hard thing to explain. But we all know it when we see it. Even nihilists.