Your point is well-put. It always baffled me why apologists for the Problem of Evil cite Free Will as its cause, and yet they would deny us the Free Will they allege God gave us.

Even if a person does believe in God, don't we have the right to choose?

Von

Anyway, hooray for talking past each other, and hooray for agreement!

I never said that there was unquestioning agreement cross-culturally ABOUT ETHICS, but there is a noticeable amount about basic moral tenets (like the golden rule). The agreement is not enough to show that there are objective morals, but enough to support the idea that "they [morals] are (probably) refined concepts over a countless number of years."

Thus, I agree with what you said 100%.

@ Johan: Answers will vary, but for my part, I go with Bentham and say that human rights is nonsense on stilts. I think it's nonsense that we can all agree to, and we like this kind of nonsense, so let's go ahead and do it. I mean, if we decide to legislate rights into existence (the only existence they can have - people consistently acting as if they're real), then they still exist as concepts and cultural constructs in our world. That's all that human rights can ever be; we need to accept that and live with it.

@ Yahzi: What happens when the biological facts that form the basis of your morality come into conflict with the biological facts of some other species? Suppose that one group of sentient critters has such-and-such ethical needs that are in direct conflict with those of another group of sentient critters. How can you decide who "wins" in that situation? In other words, what happens when your system "breaks," for example if reality presents an insoluble dilemma for the categories you have superimposed upon it?

Alternatively, please clarify exactly what you mean by "thrive," and try to come up with something that everyone would agree is thriving - especially for people like myself, who get meaning out of paying the bills and having fun with whatever's left over, and people like my father, who take their paper trails very seriously and get meaning out of continuous career development. I suspect that you'll be unable to come up with any account of thriving that is both specific and universal, because some people have different ideas of "thriving" and these ideas can be incompatible with one another.

@ Brian: Are you sure you're not counting hits and ignoring misses? I mean, sure, the Golden Rule has popped up pretty much everywhere, but there really isn't any widespread agreement in ethics, either formally (between philosophers) or informally (between cultures). What rules we do in fact agree on are explained much more parsimoniously by the idea that these rules, or close variants to them, are necessary for social cohesion and stability. You simply can't live next to someone if they're just as likely to kill you as not, and you can't form a trade relationship if your business partners are significantly likely to take your money and run.

Scotlyn and I are dead-set on arguing about this until the Sun goes out. It's been wonderful discussion thus far, but I think our fundamentally different perspectives on the matter prevent us from coming to agreement.

I agree that it's a false dichotomy. I think what evolution does so well is illustrate how complex some of our basic ideas really are. Simple ideas such as love and friendship are not ideas that came about "randomly" or occurred just because we are human beings. Rather, they are (probably) refined concepts over a countless number of years. I see no reason why morality should be exempt from evolutionary explanations.

If what is right or wrong is totally subjective, then it seems strange that there is so much convergence on moral issues.

Even if we demonstrated, however, that evolution undoubtedly refined moral values within us, can we use nature to justify our actions? Can we say, "we evolved to do X, Y, or Z," "killing is antithetical of what we evolved to do" therefore "killing is generally wrong"?

I think people generally search for hard and fast rules (or commandments) to tell them what is right/wrong and to help them with the difficult decisions they need to make. Morality is more complicated than black or white; kill or don't kill; steal or don't steal.

I think the more effort we put into understanding why people think and behave the way they do, the more data we will have to help us make decisions.

Christian fundamentalists (for example) may say their hatred of gays (for example) is based on the studious reading of their holy books, and humble obedience to their god, but I for one don't believe it for a minute. You don't see them seizing the church organist and stoning her to death for working on the Sabbath, even though that "crime" is supposed to be just as heinous as homosexuality.

The religious, and all ideologues, cherry-pick those teachings and admonitions that they already agree with. Yes, by an amazing coincidence, God thinks exactly like they do!

I suspect a good starting point would be that sense of "fairness" that comes so easily to chimps and small children - an almost instintive recognition that a rule for one must be a rule for all,

Yes absolutely. I think moral concepts like the golden rule and fairness become hard wired into social animals and it is easily demonstrated in primates. In humans language and cultural development has built complexity upon these foundations, but the basic instincts that allow individuals evolved to live socially to "rub along" and avoid life threatening conflicts still inform our gut reactions to ethical dilemma.

I'm a bit wary of saying that all morality is subjective.

Yes, me too - this always makes me uncomfortable - and thanks for saying it. But I haven't found the way to argue against a subjective morality that doesn't elicit the question - "where does your objective morality live." I suspect this (objective vs subjective) is as false a dichotomy as Pascal's Wager, but I haven't successfully got there yet. I agree there can be no "objective" set of commandments written somewhere in the configuration of atoms in the universe, but I strongly feel that morality is also more than just a matter of personal convenience, as the only logical alternative. True moral judgments are often greatly inconvenient, and yet, feel "right" in all senses of that word. I suspect a good starting point would be that sense of "fairness" that comes so easily to chimps and small children - an almost instintive recognition that a rule for one must be a rule for all, a reward for one should match a reward for another similar effort, a pusishment for one should match a punishment for another similar infraction. Where does that come from?

Valhar2000, if a biological component exists that tends to make older people pessimistic then I'd be surprised to find it. The majority of science I've seen seems to suggest that on average people get happier as they get older. That's not to say that you can't be happy and pessimistic, but I don't recall reading about strong positive correlations between happiness and pessimism.

I'm a bit wary of saying that all morality is subjective. I think it's curious that cross-culturally people seem to agree on the same moral tenets. Morality may not be available (like an objective list of commandments) but there is no doubt that morality evolved in our species. Claiming morality is either objective of subjective seems too harsh of a dichotomy. Granted, you can't say "killing is always wrong because this or that says so" but I think it's acceptable to claim that "killing is generally wrong" by virtue of what we are—evolved human beings (both culturally and biologically).

So I agree that because there is no solid, unchanging set of rules that morality is philosophically subjective. However, I don't think that gives our evolutionary past enough credit. We have indeed come a long way by converging on many moral principles, and I think it would be wrong to say that "killing is acceptable because culture X disagrees with culture Y."