Conquer Club

All of an individual's moral values can be found to benefit that individual in some way if all other individuals are compelled adhere to them. Rather than serving any higher purpose, morality is merely a construct derived from self-interest. Even religious morality serves to do no more than protect the interests of the individual worshipper (hence the flexible interpretations applied to any religion's moral teachings).

There is no moral perspective that comes from any source grander than self-interest.

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Does your granny approve that you post pictures of her online? I'm just curious.

hahaha3hahaha wrote:How exactly does "do not steal" benefit me? The fact that I uphold this moral yet others don't means that I can only lose property, without possibility of gain.
EDIT: I suppose it could be argues that there is eternal reward for those who uphold God's commandments (ie. do not steal). Originally I thought your premise was silly, but it's interesting now I think of it.

Would like to hear what a secular humanist thinks.

The fact that you don't read properly is your problem here...

mrswdk wrote:All of an individual's moral values can be found to benefit that individual in some way if all other individuals are compelled adhere to them. Rather than serving any higher purpose, morality is merely a construct derived from self-interest. Even religious morality serves to do no more than protect the interests of the individual worshipper (hence the flexible interpretations applied to any religion's moral teachings).

There is no moral perspective that comes from any source grander than self-interest.

Also, there is no such thing as religious morality. Most religions give moral guidelines, but these are not religious morals, they are simply morals that happen to come from religious instead of secular instruction sources. The tests as to whether these things are moral or not is not the question "is this religious?" but the question "is this moral?"

mrswdk wrote:All of an individual's moral values can be found to benefit that individual in some way if all other individuals are compelled adhere to them. Rather than serving any higher purpose, morality is merely a construct derived from self-interest. Even religious morality serves to do no more than protect the interests of the individual worshipper (hence the flexible interpretations applied to any religion's moral teachings).

There is no moral perspective that comes from any source grander than self-interest.

This is one valid perspective of morality but it is not the only valid perspective. The basis of legitimate systems of morality (i.e. ones that are not rule-based deontology style) is the principle of universality (or "the golden rule," or the "categorical imperative"). Things in the realm of morality are things that you would have everyone do. The question of why you have chosen to act morally in the first place is an interesting one, and you might very well be right that it related to some inherent self-interest. For example, it could be that a person derives pleasure from knowing that they are acting according to what they believe is moral. However, this is not the same as saying the moral beliefs themselves derive from self-interest. My moral system requires me to donate money to those who are not nearly as wealthy as I am (in an absolute sense). It does not particularly help me in any material way to give away my money; I am a grad student and it is hard enough to make ends meet as it is. It is possible to construct egoistic reasons why I might do this -- such as that it makes me feel better to know I am helping someone. That is true. But it is not the reason I do it. I think most people have an intrinsic sense of what is right and what is wrong (even if that intuition often leads people astray) and they do many things outside of a specific self-interest.

What I am saying here is that self-interest can explain the fact that an individual has moral values but you can't just derive all of a person's moral values by knowing that they are self-interested in some respects.

Bollocks.