That doesn't mean it's immutable, only that reasonable, rational people can make determinations on these sorts of things.
Please note that in my first response to you I noted that your belief in argumentation itself assumes, without justification, that there are prescriptive, abstract, universal, unchanging laws of logic and reason. I wasn't referring specifically to laws of morality, but those can certainly be included along with logic and reason as unjustified and unaccounted for in an atheistic worldview.
If I may parenthetically answer your assertions about morality, I have read all of your posts in this thread up to this point, and it seems that in #212 and #223 you offer as a justification or account of morality a utilitarian description of morality as a system for homo sapiens to live with each other, in which it is obligatory that people seek to minimize or eliminate pain and suffering as much as possible.
One criticism that could be leveled at this description of morality is that announcing a utilitarian standard of morality concerning the well being of sentient beings doesn't justify it. If simply announcing a standard justifies it then the Taliban can stipulate their own standards just as you have. Fair is fair. If you are free to stipulate your own moral standard then I am free to stipulate a different one. For example, I could include other mammals, which you exclude.
When you point out that societies based on rape, murder, torture, and slavery do not last and eventually fail, as do those who base their lives on such, the deeper problem is that evolutionary assessments of moral behavior are only descriptive of past conduct. If I ask, why should I not be selfish and you reply that when I am selfish I hurt society and I reply, why should I care about society and you point out that societies based on rape, murder, torture, and slavery do not last and eventually fail, I can ask, so what? Why should I care about societies failing? If you reply that I ought to care about societies failing then you are simply presuming some prior moral notion that I ought to care about societies failing, which is not to account for moral incumbency, but to assume the very thing in question.
The preceding is parenthetical. What I want to know is, how you can have ANY kind of abstract "laws" at all in an atheistic system, i.e., a naturalistic, materialistic, ever-changing and contingent universe governed by chance. When you say, "that doesn't mean it's (morality) immutable, only that reasonable, rational people can make determinations on these sorts of things" you are also assuming prescriptive laws of logic and rationality. So, my question is, do you mean that the "laws" of morality, as well as the "laws" of reason and rationality are subject to change? Are they universal or are they conventional?
Cordially,
To someone who doesn't know what reason is, then I'm completely fine with saying "Don't kill or God will send you to the fryer." But I don't think that's a good reason any more than telling my two year old "because I said so". I'm interested in having a discussion about morality with sentient, rational individuals.
One criticism that could be leveled at this description of morality is that announcing a utilitarian standard of morality concerning the well being of sentient beings doesn't justify it.
Detailing the system doesn't justify it, but I thought I made clear that the only supposition one needs to make is that a universe with maximum suffering is worse than a universe with less suffering.
If someone can't make that leap, then I would probably not bother arguing with them, and step away slowly. I don't claim to be able to justify a worldly system of morality to a psychopath.
For example, I could include other mammals, which you exclude.
I exclude animals from the responsibility of morality, since there's no evidence they are cognizant of the moral implications of their actions. There are very faint echoes of morality in animals, like the gorilla example I posted earlier, as well as in the hearts of dog lovers like me. I love my pups and see them as moral creatures since they don't hurt other animals or people, but know that that is likely to be from their nature and not because they have some sort of moral code.
I do not exclude animals from morality when it comes to how humans treat them, and I do believe that causing unnecessary suffering to animals is immoral, for the same reason that a universe with less suffering of living creatures is better than one with maximum suffering.
Someone who delights in the torture of animals is unlikely to be open to my worldly moral justifications in the same way that he's unlikely to be open to your moral justifications based on God. He's a psychopath, and the rules of morality aren't written by such people, nor do your or my justifications break down logically simply because we can't explain things to a crazy person.
If I ask, why should I not be selfish and you reply that when I am selfish I hurt society and I reply, why should I care about society and you point out that societies based on rape, murder, torture, and slavery do not last and eventually fail, I can ask, so what?
This is different from why I gave the example that I did, about societies based on rape murder or torture. I think that those societies falling is an example of some sort of innate nature in us about acting in a moral manner.
I never said that the detrimental societal impact was the ONLY reason for not acting in a moral way. I can give you a whole lot of reasons not to murder someone that have nothing to do with "society" or civilizations.
So, my question is, do you mean that the "laws" of morality, as well as the "laws" of reason and rationality are subject to change?
They are only subject to change if my original supposition changes, that a universe of maximum suffering is indeed undesirable.
If there was some sort of current moral taboo that no longer created suffering, let's say that in 100,000 years mankind had discovered a technology that allowed each human being to control the pain receptors in their brain, then hurting someone might not be of the same moral consequence as it is today, since it wouldn't cause suffering in the same way.
But I think it is, in the scheme of things, rather unchangeable. We've learned in the human experience, that no matter what your religion, geography, creed or color, the same sorts of things seem to be objectively beneficial to the human condition.
I can appreciate appealing to the extremes as you've done here, such as with the Taliban. But to me, these sorts of questions about suffering are parallel with mental and physical health.
You claim that without divine intervention, the Taliban's version of morality is the same as mine. Yet if the Taliban said, "Vomiting 24 hours a day and chopping your limbs off is just as healthy as eating lean meat and vegetables, and exercising every day", you probably wouldn't have to appeal to the supernatural to say that they're wrong. They're objectively wrong because we have an understanding of "health", and we know it's not "healthy" to mutilate yourself and vomit all day, and we know this without divine permission.
Correction “administering medicine to the dead.”