Natural Objective Morality

This supposed evidence for the existence of a creator is one of the most popular and most used. It is also one of the most dealt with and rebutted. This chapter was inspired by a video by Youtuber ZOMGitsCriss dealing with the issues of objective and subjective morality. This is my take on the question. Basically the claim asserts that without a divine law giver who is outside of naturalistic instincts and to whom we are all responsible, there cannot exist any absolute, objective morality from which to draw a standard of behaviour in declaring what actions are right or wrong. Since atheists/naturalists do not believe in such a being or such an ultimate standard, we are demonized as not being able to make moral judgements, and when we do our judgements are attributed to the moral law of the creator and it is said that we have followed the law but have not acknowledged it.

The standard rebuttal from the freethinking community is that we, as sentient and intelligent creatures can decide for ourselves what is moral and what is not, leaving out the fact that morality can be very well accounted for by the evolutionary development of altruism and that immoral behaviours are selected against by the community because they are retardant to survival and reproduction.

This argument is met with the assertion that if it up to humans to decide what is moral and what is not then our morality is simply subjective and is ultimately meaningless. If we leave it up to human beings to decide what is right and wrong, and if we value the right of the individual to think for her or himself then all subjective moralities are equal. There is then no basis on which to call someone immoral if their own morality accepts murder and adultery. However in no claim for atheistic morality is it required that all moralities are accepted as valid. The reason is this: as an intelligent and social species we are capable of reasoning together to create (yes, we can be the creator) a morality that is objective; objective in a completely naturalistic sense of the word, showing that a divine creator is not required for absolute morality.

The reasoning is as follows. Every living thing in nature seeks to avoid suffering, especially humans. This is a universal evolutionary imperative. We can say that suffering is objectively bad because it is universally avoided. Nobody wants to experience suffering. Suffering is an objectively negative experience, therefore if we create a moral system that seeks to relieve suffering by behaving in ways that do not cause suffering to others, we have just created a morality that is completely objective. It cannot be subjective because the experience and avoidance of suffering is universal throughout all people. ‘But what about the people who enjoy suffering, that proves that avoiding suffering is subjective, because not all people have the same opinion of it.’ Well those people, perhaps those who engage in painful activities for entertainment or due to depression are not behaving in a way that makes the avoidance of suffering subjective. In the case of those who hurt themselves for fun, they are not glorifying the experience of suffering, because for them the actions they engage in do not cause suffering in our objective sense. Neither are people who are depressed subjectively choosing to suffer by inflicting pain on themselves. They are behaving in a way that is consistent with the objective avoidance of suffering, in that the pain they inflict acts as a way to relieve the suffering they feel.

Here is my definition of suffering and my suggestion for an appropriate moral code without the standard of an absolute divine law:

Suffering is any unwanted physical or emotional experience that is perceived as negative, painful, life threatening or detrimental to the well-being of an individual or group. This experience is entirely objective because all human beings experience suffering in the same ways and the avoidance of suffering is universal. An objective morality is one that seeks to eliminate the suffering of others. Immorality is behaviour that contributes to or causes suffering.

Now there is a problem with my suggestions. The matter of suffering in nature; under the moral code that I have suggested, would it be immoral to let animals kill animals for food, and to do so ourselves? Would it be immoral not to alleviate the suffering of our animal cousins? This opens the debate between vegetarianism, veganism and the slaughtering of animals for food. This is not an issue that I have room to go into in this chapter, however a few points for a possible future chapter:

My suggested moral code would imply that killing animals for meat is immoral; that animals killing other animals is immoral; would it cause more suffering e.g. starvation to not allow the consumption of meat, especially in nature, in which case the lesser suffering is preferred over the greater; and finally we should not apply our human moral codes, although objective, to other animals which cannot comprehend morality.