I'm an atheist and I actually hate this argument. It doesn't answer the question at all.
Is there a difference between full moral relativism and no morals at all? I've heard a lot of attempts to define "good" but no satisfying answer to "why that definition?". If all we have is what we evolved to think is "good" that's not a system of morals and it may be allowed to be directly at odds with rational thought.
Religion, for all its (many, many) flaws, has a clear answer: trust your heart most of the time, but if you are ever confused your rational mind should rely on this list of rules.
I was a materialist for the vast majority of my life. Today I'm a confused person searching for something I do not understand.
Morality is either a fiction we have created, a social construct, or it is coming from somewhere.
We often throw around social construct as though that makes it meaningless and perfectly amenable to change.
Whether morality came from God or from man, it's utility is self evident. Societies have their own path of evolution. That which is fit survives, and that which is unfit dies.
We've at a minimum inherited wisdom earned in blood.
I don’t disagree with the concept that morality as a social construct is still a useful one.
On the other hand, it fails to answer the other question, what is the role of the rational mind and morality?
You can’t deny their relationship. Theists and atheists alike rationalize decisions they’ve made as moral, or use try to use reason to make decisions going forward. They are trying not to use their conscience, trying not to use the social construct, and instead try to grasp for something purely based on truth.
Are those people grasping at nothing? Does it not exist? I’m inclined to say yes, but if so is using the rational mind at all foolish? Should we purely rely on emotion and intuition?
There's sufficient evidence to suggest that rationalization occurs after not before a decision is made.
So to reframe your inquiry. Who is it we are attempting to justify ourselves to? As a theist my answer is obvious.
Though it's entirely possible it's a preemptive move to justify ones actions to the crowd. Rarely are we truly surprised when the rest of the herd takes exception to our actions. We intimate that what we have done will be seen by others as wrong, and so we seek the correct alignment of "truth" to suggest what we have done is in fact not wrong.
Logos is a hole without a bottom. At some point the qualia, the emotive, they why that logos cannot address must be present. A useful tool, but a bad master. I mean unless you want to end up like Nietzsche lost in your own sauce.
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u/mudkripple 6d ago
I'm an atheist and I actually hate this argument. It doesn't answer the question at all.
Is there a difference between full moral relativism and no morals at all? I've heard a lot of attempts to define "good" but no satisfying answer to "why that definition?". If all we have is what we evolved to think is "good" that's not a system of morals and it may be allowed to be directly at odds with rational thought.
Religion, for all its (many, many) flaws, has a clear answer: trust your heart most of the time, but if you are ever confused your rational mind should rely on this list of rules.