Without refering to God: What makes something right?

Question

This is a continuation of my previous question on morality and ethics. This question is not an attack on anyone so I would appreciate it if personal attacks could be left out of posts.
My question is: If we do something because it's right: What makes it right? And if something is right can it be universally right? I'm looking for absolute rights especially and where they come from without reference to God.

Thanks

Answer 1

What the rest of society says.

Answer 2

The answer you seek in your question, you hobble in the details.

Most acts are morally neutral. It is the consequences of the act that determine its good or evil. And some are a mix. The guiding principle is how much an act benefits or injures. It can be as simple as distinguishing between the theft that deprives a person of their livelihood and the theft that saves a starving family. Or it can be as complex as setting a national policy that will take years to complete, a fortune to finance and with results not guaranteed.

Insisting on absolutes is nonsense. That assumes that every act has exactly the same meaning every time. You're looking for a list of no-nos. A responsible ethical system requires thought about what you are about to do (as well as self-monitoring while you do). One judges one's actions based on general principles (preservation of life, health, property, freedom, etc.) and what one's practical capabilities are under the circumstances.

Pretending that there are absolutes under a "God"-based system is self-deluding. There are always "exceptions". (About every hundred questions someone brings up a distinction between "murder" and "killing".) Some people like the idea of "absolutes" so they can always be sure they are "right". But history shows us many tragic examples of what happens when people insist on being perfectly "right", without regard to circumstances.

Responsible, mature, moral people work in the real world, not a vacuum. They can make ethical decisions on-the-fly, without being paralyzed by fear of making a mistake, and be willing to live with the consequences of their actions, whatever they may be.

Answer 3

There are no absolutes without God. If there is no divine intelligence, the only intelligence left is human intelligence. But for any given moral statement, there will always be at least one person who disagrees. So if human intelligence is your benchmark for truth, you will never be able to establish what is true and what is false in an absolute sense. In order to fully appreciate this you must have had the experience of being convinced of something wrong and then having God reveal to you your error. Without such an experience the notion of absolute truth is itself unsubstantiated. When you ask for an objective definition of right and wrong without reference to God, you are contradicting yourself for you want an absolute right and wrong without the absolute. Only a divine nature (i.e. all knowing and existing outside of human reason) can be absolute. Those who try to construct absolute moral systems without reference to God inevitably borrow their axioms from theistic moralities.

Answer 4

Morals can be determined by the community around you. An atheist state could work in theory, but communism doesn't work for a myriad of reasons. The best way to explain this is to give an example.

Offspring are loved by their parents in most species of animals. It's safe to say that human parents (for the most part) love their kids. Picture a godless community where you had kids. Another member of that community molests your kid. You'd still be pissed off, right? Depending on the community, that molester would be punished in some way, be it banned, stoned, killed, etc. Same goes for murder, theft, adultery, or any other "sin."

Answer 5

The concept of Natural Law is based on the premise that all rational people have an instict of what is right, healthy, helpful, and what is wrong, damaging or hurtful. It deduces that a rational person would want the former over the later choice out of simple instinct for preservation.

Answer 6

There are people that do things because it is the right thing to do,and a good reason to do it. But it is still in men to do evil.


Proverbs 16:9 All of the planning in the world will not change Gods plan. If man does something Good ,it is the plan of God.

Answer 7

Society and religion teaches us what is right and wrong. In some modern cultures a whole village will show up to witness the stoning to death of a member. In some ancient cultures the whole extended family will come to participate in the self (forced?) immolation of a widow.
They believed in their hearts that they were right. Do we now? Are we saying we are right now and they were wrong? What is to say that a millenia from now our decendants feel the same way about us?

Answer 8

Without God, there is no objective morality nor any obligation to follow any sort of morality. If there is no God then morality is a fabrication of the human condition and it is by definition subjective.

You just demonstrated one of the primary weaknesses of the atheistic worldview. Most worldviews have an objective source of morality, but atheism does not.

Answer 9

There is no such thing as absolute right. Morals and ethics are personal, cultural, situational, regional, etc. No path is identical to any other; no "right" cannot be shown to be "wrong". It's all spin, bias, interpretation and futility.

Answer 10

There are absolute rights that are inherent in nature...Murder for no reason...incest...stealing.. the ability to reason and make decisions is purely a human trait.....even some animals have these...If you look at herds or packs of animals, they have natural law without the mention of #$%

Answer 11

When it feels right within your heart. When your entire body mind and soul feels really good about the action you just took. Without regrets. When you can look back and say "I did a good thing" Good Karma only comes back to you as good Karma Get the picture? My motto is do on to others as you would like done on to you. It for for me:)
Good Luck