A reasonable distinction, but I don’t think it quite maps onto the issue at hand. You said to suppose “people get pleasant feelings from doing things they consider cruel, and feel guilty after doing nice things”. If one has a goal to feel pleasant feelings, and is structured in that manner, then that is reason to be cruel, not just reason why they would be cruel.
If one has a goal to feel pleasant feelings, and is structured in that manner, then that is reason to be cruel, not just reason why they would be cruel.
Agreed, but so much is packed into that ‘if’. We all seek pleasure, but not one of us believes it is an unqualified good. The implication of Swimmer’s post was that atheists have reasons to obey the ten commandments (well, 4 or 5 of them) comparable in formal terms to the reasons Christians have (God’ll burn me if I don’t, or whatever). That is, the claim seems to be that atheists can justify their actions. Now, if someone does something nice for me, and I ask her why she did that, she can reply with some facts about evolutionary biology. This might explain her behavior, but it doesn’t justify it.
If we imagine someone committing a murder and then telling us something about her (perhaps defective) neurobiology, we might take this to explain their behavior, but never to justify it. We would never say ’Yeah, I guess now that you make those observations about your brain, it was reasonable of you to kill that guy.” The point is that the murderer hasn’t just given us a bad reason, she hasn’t given us a reason at all. We cannot call her rational if this is all she has.
The implication of Swimmer’s post was that atheists have reasons to obey the ten commandments (well, 4 or 5 of them) comparable in formal terms to the reasons Christians have (God’ll burn me if I don’t, or whatever).
I didn’t claim that, and if I implied it, it was by accident. (Although I do think that a lot of atheists have just as strong if not stronger reasons to obey certain moral rules, the examples I gave weren’t those examples.) I was trying to point out that if someone decides one day to stop believing in God, and realizes that this means God won’t smite them if they break one of the Ten Commandments, that doesn’t mean they’ll go out and murder someone. Their moral instincts, and the positive/negative reinforcement to obey them (i.e. pleasure or guilt), keep existing regardless of external laws.
The point is that the murderer hasn’t just given us a bad reason, she hasn’t given us a reason at all. We cannot call her rational if this is all she has.
So we ask her why, and she says “oh, he took the seat that I wanted on the bus three weeks in a row, and his humming is annoying, and he always copies my exams.” Which might not be a good reason to murder someone according to you, with your normal neurobiology–you would content yourself with fuming and making rude comments about him to your friends–but she considers it a good reason, because her mental ‘brakes’ are off.
Their moral instincts, and the positive/negative reinforcement to obey them (i.e. pleasure or guilt), keep existing regardless of external laws.
Right, we agree on that. But if the apostate thereafter has no reason to regard themselves as morally responsible, then their moral behavior is no longer fully rational. They’re sort of going through the motions.
Which might not be a good reason to murder someone according to you, with your normal neurobiology–you would content yourself with fuming and making rude comments about him to your friends–but she considers it a good reason, because her mental ‘brakes’ are off.”
The question here isn’t about good vs. bad reasons, but between admissible vs. inadmissible reasons. Hearsay is often a bad reason to believe that Peter shot Paul, but it is a reason. It counts as evidence. If that’s all you have, then you’re not reasoning well, but you are reasoning. The number of planets orbiting the star furthest from the sun is not a reason to believe Peter shot Paul. It’s not that it’s a bad reason. It’s just totally inadmissible. If that’s all you have, then you’re not reasoning badly, you’re just not reasoning at all.
A reasonable distinction, but I don’t think it quite maps onto the issue at hand. You said to suppose “people get pleasant feelings from doing things they consider cruel, and feel guilty after doing nice things”. If one has a goal to feel pleasant feelings, and is structured in that manner, then that is reason to be cruel, not just reason why they would be cruel.
Agreed, but so much is packed into that ‘if’. We all seek pleasure, but not one of us believes it is an unqualified good. The implication of Swimmer’s post was that atheists have reasons to obey the ten commandments (well, 4 or 5 of them) comparable in formal terms to the reasons Christians have (God’ll burn me if I don’t, or whatever). That is, the claim seems to be that atheists can justify their actions. Now, if someone does something nice for me, and I ask her why she did that, she can reply with some facts about evolutionary biology. This might explain her behavior, but it doesn’t justify it.
If we imagine someone committing a murder and then telling us something about her (perhaps defective) neurobiology, we might take this to explain their behavior, but never to justify it. We would never say ’Yeah, I guess now that you make those observations about your brain, it was reasonable of you to kill that guy.” The point is that the murderer hasn’t just given us a bad reason, she hasn’t given us a reason at all. We cannot call her rational if this is all she has.
I didn’t claim that, and if I implied it, it was by accident. (Although I do think that a lot of atheists have just as strong if not stronger reasons to obey certain moral rules, the examples I gave weren’t those examples.) I was trying to point out that if someone decides one day to stop believing in God, and realizes that this means God won’t smite them if they break one of the Ten Commandments, that doesn’t mean they’ll go out and murder someone. Their moral instincts, and the positive/negative reinforcement to obey them (i.e. pleasure or guilt), keep existing regardless of external laws.
So we ask her why, and she says “oh, he took the seat that I wanted on the bus three weeks in a row, and his humming is annoying, and he always copies my exams.” Which might not be a good reason to murder someone according to you, with your normal neurobiology–you would content yourself with fuming and making rude comments about him to your friends–but she considers it a good reason, because her mental ‘brakes’ are off.
Right, we agree on that. But if the apostate thereafter has no reason to regard themselves as morally responsible, then their moral behavior is no longer fully rational. They’re sort of going through the motions.
The question here isn’t about good vs. bad reasons, but between admissible vs. inadmissible reasons. Hearsay is often a bad reason to believe that Peter shot Paul, but it is a reason. It counts as evidence. If that’s all you have, then you’re not reasoning well, but you are reasoning. The number of planets orbiting the star furthest from the sun is not a reason to believe Peter shot Paul. It’s not that it’s a bad reason. It’s just totally inadmissible. If that’s all you have, then you’re not reasoning badly, you’re just not reasoning at all.