I would like to pose a question to all my fellow Cosmic Atheists -- its a certain moral conundrum that Ive been trying to deal with, and really have no satisfactory answer for. First, let me establish the assumptions Im working with. 1. There is no inherent purpose to human life; there is no preconceived telos or end-goal. Our existence is the result of a random cosmic event and our actions are utterly inconsequential on a cosmic scale. However, this is not to deny that we can and should create our own meaning for the here and now and for the generations that will succeed us. 2. There is an objective morality -- or, at least, a species morality, insofar as we take morality to mean any action that promotes human well-being and seeks to negate suffering. As well, human well-being and suffering can be traced to physical states of the brain, and things like empathy, compassion and altruism, which promote well-being, are encoded in our DNA through evolution as things being beneficial to the survival of the species. Morality would be that which acts in accordance with these characteristics. Given these two premises, there is still a question that Ive seen posed to atheists before, and which Ive yet really to see answered. The questions is: why *should* we be moral? If life is inherently meaningless, then by what criteria can we argue that other people should adopt the meaning *we* have set forth? If someone says, why promote the well-being of humans? and we say because its the right thing to do -- well, what do we mean by right? Against what standards are we making this value judgment? Theists can easily retreat to God as the objective good against which all moral questions be gauged, but the atheist is stripped of that luxury. Yesterday I was telling a friend that the pursuit of truth and the contemplation of the Universe are critically important activities -- he asked me why they were important. I was tempted to answer that discovering the Truth is a worthwhile activity in itself, but I realized then that I would fall into the same trap outlined above -- against what standards is anything universally important? Not thinking enough in advance, I responded by saying because an understanding of the Universe as it really is can help us better promote the well-being and happiness of others. And still the problem repeats... And so, I would love to hear your responses. Perhaps someone better versed in moral philosophy than I would like to posit an answer. Even if we assume that morality exists, there is still the question of why moral is something that anyone *should* be. What does *good* mean in a world that lacks an objective meaning?
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 01:18:26 +0000
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