/lit/ - Literature

>/lit/ discusses free will
I suppose I’ll have to make a thread soon to clear up all this confusion.

>>14140295
>”God”

>>14120550

>>14106495
lazy, rude, unthoughtful. You’re no use to me

>>14075332
Can you read?

>another morality thread filled with confusion
Morality is doing whatever benefits you the most. There is no reason to do that which doesn’t benefit you the most in the end. However, that doesn’t mean that whatever we think is good for us, is actually good for us. An unwise man might think it’s ok to murder, but going to jail for the rest of his life is probably not conducive to his well-being. There is always a “best move” in regards to morality, but we would have to be omniscient to always know which decision will favor us in the end. There are simply too many variables, too many pieces in the game. Some morals are obvious: it takes no calculation to understand that murder will lead to our punishment. Our instincts make us very aware of what is good or bad, and we often experience shame and guilt, or the positive, opposite feelings, as a result of our actions. But other decisions are not so obvious to the instinctual side. These morally gray scenarios are difficult because we don’t know, either by instinct or reason, which choice will be good for us in the end.

As for whether morality is objective, it is in the sense that there exists a best path action regardless of what you think is best. Of course, each person might have his unique best path laid out before him, so that morality is not always universal, and not always fixed. Perhaps it is sometimes good to steal, while most of the times it is not good to steal. But still, it is not good to assume that stealing can be good, because we don’t have the necessary knowledge to make that judgment. It is practical to use moral principles a guide, even though those morals might not actually exist all the time.

As for atheists, they easily have a moral system, because they too perceive self-benefit and act in pursuit of that benefit. The main difference is that theist morality is universal, fixed, and known to humans. The theist cannot imagine the possibility that murder may be right in some situations, because God has made murder a sin. But the atheist can murder and get away with it, and possibly benefit more than had he not committed murder. Both the atheist and the theist use faith, because they do not truly know which actions are best.

>>13909270
>become a warm and fruitful mother in her 30's.
>30’s

Let’s end these morality threads once and for all.

Morality concerns what we should and should not do. What we should and should not do is dependent on what benefits us. If you disagree, then you would have to assume that all actions are equally preferable, which is absurd and obviously not practiced by anyone who denies morality. Therefore, morality is ultimately derived from self-benefit and isobjective, since there exists a path of action that will lead to the moral agent’s greatest benefit compared to the other paths. Again, if you deny this, then you must give an account as to why you are still alive and relatively normal, for if all actions were equally preferable, then you would likely not live a healthy life, and the odds of your committing a crime or participating in deathly stunts are just as likely as eating, or taking a shower, or browsing the Internet.

So morality is objective. However, that does not necessarily mean that a moral agent perfectly understands what is moral in any given situation. Just because there is objective truth, that doesn’t mean that a human should be omniscient and fully grasp objective truth. Rather, humans partially grasp the truth, and likewise for morality. For example, we intuitively understand that killing random people is morally wrong, since this will likely lead to our suffering. But to claim that some scenarios have no morally correct options is the same as saying all options are equally beneficial in the long run. Again, just because you don’t know the objectively moral choice, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

With that said, can atheists have morals? Of course, in the sense that atheists can “have truths.” In other words, atheists have a basic grasp of morality, or how they should act in order to benefit themselves. Their moral system excludes the afterlife, and so their morals are based on this world, on naturalism. Morality is still objective for them. The difference is that they reject fixed or universal moral laws, and this is justified, if naturalism is true. Because though lying may be morally wrong in some situations, it is not necessarily wrong in all situations. But it would be absurd to claim that lying is never morally wrong, or that even murder is never morally wrong, for this would be the same as denying that these actions can be bad for you. Theistic morality, on the other hand, is universal, consistent, and known by humans. Killing is always wrong because God says so, and any material benefits of overstepping these moral laws are outweighed by the benefits in the afterlife. It does require faith to believe these morals are truly descriptive of what will benefit us, but all moral systems are faith-based unless you have perfect knowledge.

pic unrelated

>he uses the word “morality” to vaguely suggest some system of right and wrong, but doesn’t bother to understand what he means by the words “right” and “wrong” or why anyone should do what is “moral” or “right”

>>13207211
>no Monster

>>12985686
>make you feel better