Some say that if we live in a godless universe, there's no basis for morality, that is principles concerned with the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior or character. However, for many others religion is the problem. Their rejection of religion far from being motivated by a wish to escape moral accountability as some claim reflects a conviction that it's only through abandoning certain widespread religious ideas that progress towards a truly just and consistent morality is possible. This video series highlights some of the flaws in popular religious moral arguments and teachings and offers a moral outlook that makes no use of God concepts and is thus available to theists and atheists alike refuting the profound misconception that Gods are needed for morality. So on what do we base morality? We know it's not power, the one with the gun might have the means to impose their wishes. But this tells us nothing about their principles. We know it's not majority preference. If the spectacle of human sacrifice is the preferred entertainment of the majority, this doesn't make human sacrifice, right? We know it's not tradition. The fact that a practice may have endured for generations tells us nothing about its virtue. And although what's written in law may largely reflect what a society deems right or wrong we know law doesn't determine morality, laws can be unjust. When asking this question, it can be useful to consider how we go about assessing moral problems. In society. One, children are branded witches and blamed for famines and floods. They're ostracized by their parents starved, tortured and killed. What can we say about this? Well, we know these disasters aren't due to magic but natural processes. So before even having to consider the moral dimension, we can reject this behavior outright as resulting from a false view of how nature works. What makes it immoral matter is the kind of harm it involves, for things that cause no harm moral condemnation simply isn't appropriate. For example, homosexuality is often mis identified as a moral issue, but gay relationships involve no intrinsic harm any more than mixed ones. Indeed, when classing harmless things is immoral results in persecution. We've reasoned to condemn the misclassification. Are the parents in society one morally blameworthy if they're genuinely ignorant of their wrongdoing? We don't call well fed cats are still kill mice or young humans who crayon expensive wallpaper immoral because we don't attribute them with the capacity to grasp reasons for not doing so. People who harm children as witches may have their capacity for reason undermined by false teaching, and so be less blameworthy than knowing abusers in a very important sense, moral responsibility can be said to operate within the limits of education. This is why education, especially in science is crucial to moral progress. Among other things, it helps eliminate our vulnerability to superstition based abuse. Knowing better leaves us no excuse for not doing better. Once the justification for harmful practice is shown as false. There's literally no reason for it to continue. Scenario One is also about dehumanization. When the witchfinder convinces a parent her child is evil, even demonic. This is a potent way of eroding empathy and adaptive pro social trade notably lacking in psychopaths which keeps us sensitive to others suffering. During World War Two Jews were seen as vermin by their persecutors, some paint the nonreligious as degenerate or hell fodder. dehumanizing people is a known method for diminishing compassion and the guilt felt when abusing them. We learn much from history and the present day about the horrors it can enable. In society to the single lawmaker tells everyone, all who harm you will be punished, but you won't be punished for harming others, A and B harm each other. But when they each quote the first part of the law demanding the others punishment, the other quotes the second part, demanding immunity from punishment. According to the law, a and b must be both punished and immune from punishment. This is the kind of absurdity that results from having an ego centric system where only one's own suffering desires and so on matter If suffering is bad, in principle, then claiming it's wrong for others to hurt you while you hurt others would be appealing to the same notion of justice that requires you to recognize your own wrongdoing. This is why not only does it reduce suffering, it's also rationally consistent to have basic prohibitions against causing needless harm to other humans, and by extension, other life forms that we know have the capacity to experience suffering. Besides parts of morality, his essence is adopting a plural view, recognizing our impact on others and adjusting our conduct in response. Of course, sometimes causing harm is rationally permitted. For example, we risk painful medical procedures if there's a compensating benefit to our health, and sometimes we have sufficient justification to harm others when acting in self defense or to prevent greater suffering. In society, three, only males are allowed to learn to read and write. Is this just well, we No, there's no valid basis for making basic literacy dependent on gender. We know the real reason institutions and individuals have restricted basic education throughout history is to keep others subservient. As noted earlier, poor education increases vulnerability to abuse, forbidding female literacy is itself a mark of bad education and the unjust exercise of authority. But what if most of the women agree with this rule? Is it then acceptable? If an eight year old consents to an adult sexual advances are the advances acceptable? Of course not. This is why we don't talk only about consent but capacity for informed consent. People kept purposely uneducated can reasonably be said to have diminished capacity for informed consent. The rule is oppressive in its construction, even if the women agree with it. Indeed, when people who've been made subservient collaborate in their own oppression, this is normally caused for greater concern, not less. Those who defend their abusers are the most comprehensively enslaved. In society for all criminals are executed. Assessing this rule we can see it's flawed but not only because disproportionate punishment is unjust. Under this rule, those who commit minor crime have nothing to lose but all to gain by killing witnesses. Even suspected witnesses murder can't increase the consequences for them, it can only inflate their chances of evading execution. In this way, execution for all crime actually encourages minor crime to escalate. This gives us a reason to tailor punishment to the severity of the offense, especially within the category of more serious crime. For example, although rape is a horrific form of abuse, punishing murder more severely will tend to deter rapists from also killing their victims. As before with indiscriminate execution, the rapist loses nothing but might gain by also committing murder. In society five, the premier declared smiling on a Tuesday immoral, this causes no identifiable harm, so there are no valid grounds for declaring it immoral, nor can it be made immoral by forbidding it in law and then saying it's immoral to break the law. If this was how morality worked, any arbitrary behavior could be made immoral. We don't base morality on revelation from authority that would render us merely obedient. moral behavior is doing what's right, not what were told, unless, of course, what we told is also what's right. This is why when asking why is x immoral, appealing to scripture or suppose divine commands gets us nowhere. There must be enough to be said for or against a given action independently of whether it's commanded or forbidden by authority to classify as moral or immoral if intuition tells us something's immoral, we ask what triggers the intuition, there must be valid reasons. And once we're dealing with valid reasons, we're having a conversation that has no need to refer to scripture or authority, divine or otherwise, valid reasons are available to us all. Lastly, in society, six feeding someone chocolate and making green paintings are prohibited. But the people of this society have a genetic intolerance of chocolate, it causes them agonizing death. They also live in a remote island where green paint can only be made with a rare substance needed for a life saving medicine. Differing biology or practical circumstances can explain why some populations live by different rules. Also, different cultures may deal effectively with the same issue despite different approaches. But this doesn't commit us to saying all cultures are equally valid. Because some cultural differences are justified, it doesn't mean all are, as noted earlier, branding children which is categorically wrong to be rejected as a result of bad education not respected as a cultural truth. The fact that some cultures still have cruel practices does not mean morality is therefore arbitrary, and all opinions are equal. It simply reflects the fact that just as moral awareness takes time to develop an individual it also takes time to develop in societies with different societies developing at different rates. Some societies still believe in magic, some have largely outgrown belief in magic, but not animal cruelty, racism, sexism, or homophobia. Some have largely outgrown all of these and are focused on advances in other areas affecting the well being of life forms on our planet.
reviewing these scenarios, it should be noted there's nothing arbitrary about the arguments given for improving education, graduating criminal punishment, prohibiting needless harm and recognizing relevant difference. It's through such measures, as well as cultivating attitudes of cooperation and compromise despite competing interests that were able to coexist with minimal suffering. The worry that without religion or Gods we have no basis on which to discuss morality is without foundation. Plain empathy can trigger natural health responses to others distress and create natural aversion to causing others harm. Likewise, The simple experience of living alongside others gives us important feedback about how our actions affect each other and how we might need to modify our conduct in response, but to prerequisites for reliable moral assessment or reason and accurate, relevant information. sound reasoning won't lead to valid assessment if we're operating with flawed information. Nor will sound information if our reasoning is flawed. Without sound, reason and information. We can't determine how the universe works, how different life forms suffer or flourish, where responsibility lies, or what the short or long term consequences of our actions are on an interpersonal or global scale. And these are considerations on which moral judgment depends, so often declared the territory of religion. Moral Development is in fact something to which the scientific approach contributes far more and far more reliably, due to its emphasis on reasoned logic and evidence, the tools that help us discern what's true and false, and without which one can't even formulate a valid argument to make informed moral choices and therefore moral progress. Religion needs science, but science does not need religion. Indeed, findings in neuroscience are now pulling back the curtain on religious moral thought. In a revealing study by Nicolas Eppley and others, Christian volunteers were asked to report their own views the views of their deity and the views of others on a range of controversial issues such as legal euthanasia while having their brain activity scanned. Results showed that thinking about divine views activated the same brain regions as thinking about their own views, indicating that when believing themselves to be consulting a divine moral compass, theists may instead be doing what the rest of us do, searching their own conscience. An idea further supported by the finding that manipulating subjects beliefs consistently influenced their views about divine beliefs is Emily's team put it intuiting God's beliefs may serve as an echo chamber to validate and justify one's own beliefs. Some claim that without Gods, we're just animals. We are animals, but animals uniquely capable of appreciating reasons to do some things and not others of rationally assessing the consequences and justifications of our actions and beliefs. Whereas certain religions have traditionally used moral language to divide, control and frighten people into obedience. There's a more appropriate and principled function for morality to ease the challenges of coexistence. In a world of finite resources, each of us with different interests and desires societies in which individuals coordinate their different talents, and they develop effective ways of promoting flourishing and harmonious living while minimizing conflict and needless suffering will tend to be happier, more peaceful and more productive than those that don't. Because we live in a continuously changing world with new kinds of moral problem being generated all the time, and much harmful ignorance still to overcome. There's an ongoing need to develop and refine our moral understanding. Our collective moral progress depends upon the extent to which we are able and crucially willing to examine our behavior and most cherished beliefs in the light of increasing awareness of our predicament, and then share a moral insight through education so that future generations can avoid repeating our harmful and foolish mistakes. The next video in this series takes a more detailed look at problems with using religious scripture as a moral guide.
