Talk:Secular ethics

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	To-do list for Secular ethics:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
Insert references for many of the statements. Rewrite humanist ethics (?) — Is this the right place for the chapter? Write a better summary on how Nietzsche's work relates to secular ethics, instead of just dropping names. Write an example of a good deed according to Kantian ethics. Criticism(s) needed

[edit] drafting

I hope people don't mind if I take the liberty to just compile a bunch of stuff I can find within Wikipedia itself and other sources and just vomit them over this page. The article was really empty when I found it, so I figured all it needed was something for people to work with. Im sure with the addition of content and some later reorganizing this will become top notch. I say this because some citations such as holyoake's and other stuff should probably fit in their own section, but I'm not too worried about that right now. Star Ghost 01:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

No, that was a good move. Thanks. Thomas Ash 11:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Darwinism

The article Darwinism already exists, of course. I consider Darwin's findings and the consequent -ism to have been a major factor in secularisation. Though 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' (which are not the same as the 'Law of the Strongest') can be cruel and do not seem ethical by itself, precisely the perception of such being a problem to the mind of humans has made them:

1. wonder where our sense for ethics comes from, and

2. think again about where to draw ethical conclusions from.

I'm more of an 'original research' type than one who familiarizes oneself with the publications by philosophers or moralists, let alone their biographers, though I suggest there should be something from this line of thinking in the article Secular ethics. —— SomeHuman 2006-07-30 04:59 (UTC)

Very interesting, I suggest you contribute with what you can in that vein and we can work from there! Star Ghost 23:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preliminary discussions amongst users Starghost, Chrisrivers, SomeHuman

(31 Jul 2006 copied here from their talk pages, with minor adaptations like inserting <name> of addressed person, indentation)

• Heya SomeHuman, I just wanted to say that I appreciate your comments for this article's Weekly Improvement Drive nomination. Cheers! Star Ghost 23:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Hey Starghost, noticed you started the Secular Ethics AID improvement drive. I don't think the article is going to get enough votes to be part of the official AID, but I'm definetly interested in helping to improve the article. If you can help and we can get a few others to join, we could get a team together to bring it up to the standard the topic deserves. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page. -Chrisrivers 16:40, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
• Heya Chrisrivers, it's too bad you didn't get a notice from the welcome team, so I will have to welcome you myself! I appreciate your interest in the Secular Ethics article, and I accept any suggestions for additions you might have. I found the article pretty empty and just followed a few clues from the little paragraph they had there and expanded them from looking at other wiki articles. The next step would be to read Nietzsche's work, but I am afraid I am kind of buried in college work right now. I strongly encourage you to add whatever you see fit, or just add whatever to give volume, so, as every great sculpture was once just a big block of stone, at this point I think we should gather the stone, so we can later sculpt it into something beautiful . Feel free to keep using our talk pages for discussion, I share every inch of your interest in this area and am just as eager to cooperate. Star Ghost 22:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
• Thanks for the message, Starghost, in total agreeance with the collecting of material first. I think we also need to define the terms of "secular ethics". By such do we mean ethics that are based solely on atheistic principles, or do we include "secular ethics" to include ethical works that come from any source except those that come directly from religious revelation? For instance can the ethical work of Deists (who beleive in a non-interventionist God and thus base ethics on logic and reason) be included? I am in favour of the latter approach and generally defining "Secular Ethics" as those being "Ethics based on solely human logic and reason, and not derived from religious revelation or supernatural guidance".
  On the practical side I am on holiday from college until late September so I have quite a bit of free time on my hands, once it has been decided what should be included I am happy to do research required. I am familiar with the works of Nietzsche so I am comfortable to go through that. I was reading your user page and we seem to have some good points of commonality (I am 19, going to college, studying Social Sciences) so hopefully the collaboration will be a good one. I am hoping we can get this up to featured article status, it definetely deserves it! --Chrisrivers 01:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• I agree with your point on Deists, Chrisrivers, and I think it should be noted that Secular ethics are not at all incompatible with many religious beliefs, I sort of stated that in my nomination comment but it didn't occur to me to put it in the article. I also thought about mentioning law's take on it and maybe something on the state. Good to see we're already making progress! I don't know if we will get it to FA, but I am sure to enjoy seeing it nearing GA status. Star Ghost 03:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• In fact, Chrisrivers, I took the liberty of making a few changes in the article borrowing from a few of your suggestions, hope you don't mind. Star Ghost 03:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Hey good include, Starghost, I am going to beef up the introduction and create some placeholders for issues relating to secular ethics. I think we should start by having a really good introduction to the concept of "Secular Ethics" as part of Moral Philosophy and then begin to explore moral philosophers who explored ethics from a secular point of view, (such as John Stuart Mill). We should also have a section on the Tenets of Secular Ethics, and then a section on criticism of secular ethics. Thus we have the following tabular layout:

• Brief Introduction
• Tenets of Secular Ethics (with references to philosophers or works where appropriate)
• Key philosophers and philosophical texts
• Criticism
• Footnotes

Of course we can add more into the table but this seems like a logical outline. This will also make it easier to flesh out the contect of it, and keep the structure relatively simple for the lay-reader. Hope that sounds okay, I'm taking the liberty of making some changes and then we can heavily edit from there. --Chrisrivers 12:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

• Starghost, just done some restructuring and fleshing out of some of the sections. Ordered the article closely to what I have described above. Still needs work improving the philophers and philosophical works sections, I am in two minds as to whether we should write about them from the point of view of secular ethics or simply reference them as secular ethicists or humanists etc. It would be a great deal of work to explore all of the philosophers in detail and then write the information. An example of what could be done is shown the Utilitarianism example; we reference utilitarianism and then say it is part of a larger article? --Chrisrivers 13:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Nice edit man. About the utilitarianism example thing, I think referencing to the ethics section in the main utilitarianism article is the best choice, since I'm not a big fan of being redundant between articles. We might just want to pick the most important parts that relate to secular ethics and leave the rest for the other article. Same with the rest of them. Star Ghost 18:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• By the way, on the tenets section, Im not sure I agree with this phrase: and in fact that some ethical behaviour condoned by religious texts is morally inferior to the secular ethics they uphold. What with religious people being able to adhere to these particular systems of morals, doesn't mean they think of religion as inferior. Some secular ethicist most certainly do, but I wouldnt call it a core tenet. I think we could do with this article not threading on such thin ice. Star Ghost 18:19, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oh yeah, Chrisrivers, forgot to say I agree with the placeholder structure you laid out. I'm glad you seem to have a good plan, because I am in fact learning a lot as we write this. Star Ghost 18:26, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Hey SomeHuman, thanks for the edits on the Secular Ethics article, we are trying to undertake a major rewrite and try and get it up to GA status. Any further input is greatly appreciated. Thanks again! --Chrisrivers 19:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Hey thanks for the suggestions, Starghost. We got some edits from SomeHuman which was useful. On the points you raised: (1) Good idea on referencing other articles, we need to decide what other types of moral philosophy are suitable for inclusion in the article. (2) Totally agree with what your saying, even though I would add that most secular ethicists beleive their moral framework to be morally superior to that from religious sources, I admit that actually putting it in the article is probably a little risky. I think in terms of things that need to be done now;

• I think we need to beef up the core tenets.
• Increase the number of the sources under the key philosophers.
• Probably find more argument/sources for Criticism.

Anything you can add to this would be great.

Thanks --Chrisrivers 19:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

• Chrisrivers, you indicated on Starghost's talk page (see paragraph copied 31 Jul 2006 here above) that you intend to find more for the 'Criticism' section. Nope. The section must not even exist, unless you also put a section 'Criticism' on each article on one or another religion with Nietzsche's viewpoints. The article is about secular ethics and should not be biased by criticism from religious viewpoints; you may assume readers to be aware of religions to exist. On the other hand, in case a brief description linking to a full-blown article on a specific philosophy is not an option (no article), that particular section might need to show criticism by other secular ethicists. Tip: try too put as little emphasis as possible on 'secular' versus 'religuous'. The core of secular ethics is that ethicism is intrinsically human. (Thus of course no supernatural entity or religion is needed to obtain a sense of ethics). That means also one does not need to compare. Setting secular ethics off against religious ethics, suggests that secular ethicists are just people who lost their faith and are looking for excuses. —— SomeHuman 2006-07-30 20:32 (UTC)
• Good point on the criticisms, SomeHuman, although I do beleive that having an outline of the general criticisms of secular ethics is important to have in the article. And since secular ethics main criticisms come from religious ethicists it makes sense to have it on these terms. Although it would be good to have each individual religions objections to secular ethics I imagine the anti-secular ethicist arguments would be very similar (in all theistic religions). Would you suggest that we remove the criticisms section entirely or simply expand it? -- Chrisrivers 20:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• I agree with everything you said, Chrisrivers. Now, about the criticism section, I do see how SomeHuman might have a point, but I think a good compromise would be to link to some article like Critique of atheism or anything else, so we would have a specific separate section to deal with the criticism. Its just an idea, we have plenty of time to discuss this. Star Ghost 23:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC
• SomeHuman, like I said on Chris's page, I think a good compromise would be to link to an article which contains the related criticism, what say you? Star Ghost 23:27, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

end of parts copied from talk pages, continuing discussion hereunder

• Chrisrivers asked me: "expand" or "remove" the section 'Critcism'.
  Best look into Ethics in religion (incl. subsection Criticism of Christian ethics which I think should better disappear because:

1. It is only a fraction of the criticism and expanding would take too much attention with respect to the main section.
2. It is selective against one religion's ethics: there exists also criticism on e.g. Islamic ethics but that section has no such subsection.
3. The criticism on Christian ethics is part of Nietzsche's philosophy and belongs there. Compare: criticism on catholicic ethics by catholic theologists, even if officially excluded from their Church, does belong in an article on catholicism.

Ethics in the Bible has a section with a selection of criticism by religious as well as non-religious people. At a first glance, perhaps this might be opportune, but I keep having some serious doubts about that part. I can't immediately check the relevancy and wager it against the relevancy of criticism that is not mentioned. In other words, it is very hard to establish whether it is POV and that perception alone seems undesirable.
Just try and find a section 'Criticism' with views by secular ethicists in any of these articles: Buddhist Ethics, or in Animism, Shamanism, Mana-ism, Bön, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Confusianism (includes criticism in a few sections), Judaism, Catholicism, Islam (includes not specifically secular criticism of outward actions allegedly by islam religion, also link to Criticism of Islam which page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved — perhaps indicating we might better refrain from creating 'Criticism on secular ethics'?), Protestantism... and you'll know whether or how criticism might be tackled.
Star Ghost suggested a compromise by creating a separate article containing the criticism on secular ethics. Assume we would finally end up with a dozen strains of secular ethics, would we then show the views of each religion on each strain? I consider it to be impossible because probably very few Shi`ites etc, ever even heard of Holyoake etc. If on the other hand we only show criticism that has been brought under larger public attention, we would need to be aware of just about every publication and its weight - I assume this is clearly above our capacities. I would forget about criticism: it's bound to become too complex and then still too disputable. In an article about a specific subject e.g. abortion, genetic manipulation, ..., the relevant ethical views will pop up anyway. There is also a theoretical philosophical problem: one who sincerely believes a god-creator must be accepted as master of his creation to whom his will was demonstrated, such religious person's criticism on secular ethics is predictable; as my remark about Nietzsche's criticism, this religious criticism is part of the religious ethics and has, though outspoken against secular ethics, nothing to do with secular ethics. Only criticism that manages to point out a contradiction or other logical flaw within a strain of secular ethics, if this criticism seems to have any weight in the general discourse, needs to be mentioned in the 'secular ethics' article (or in a separate one if it would become more than a few paragraphs) — regardless whether such criticism comes from an atheist or the Pope. Anyway, the article should only give a resumé of each strain that has its separate article which should already include noteworthy criticism.
May I suggest, if not yet done, to have a look at Religiosity and especially Ethics and its links?
SomeHuman 2006-07-31 03:13 (UTC)

• First of all, I'd like to say it was a great initiative to move the discussion. Second, I must say I mostly agree with all the points you just made, and do agree that we should delete the criticism section. If anything, it's too much of a burden to deal with criticism and controversies, for an article whose focus should be developing content. Star Ghost 04:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• The criticism though, strangely fits in the Secular ethics and religion section. Do your suggestions encompass that section as well? Star Ghost 04:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Agree with both your points guys, good idea moving it to the discussion page. I think we all agree that the criticism section should be removed, and we should just concentrate on developing content as you have both said. Starghost are you proposing that we move the Criticism to a "Secular ethics and religion" section or are we just going to get rid of it entirely? Aside from that what should be the priorities in adding more content? --Chrisrivers 08:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, I thought of moving some of the criticism there. I also thought of deleting the secular ethics and religion as well, but it really doesn't bother at all, so I can live with it. The tenets section is what I would call a priority, but I think the article will improve with every little addition and detail that we give it. Next step would be getting citations for everything. That is, unless you know some other key philosopher or section of interest, in which case that is also very important. Star Ghost 15:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• I was also a bit puzzled about Starghost's last question. Never mind. It does seem to me that sections as 'Secular ethics and religion' and views on specific subjects like 'Views on bioethics', if these do belong in this article (I assume there already are specific articles that elaborate further on the secular and religious viewpoints than would be possible in this article, I suggest a section 'Further reading' with just links to such articles but that is not our first priority), should be placed at the end (before 'External links' and 'References'): let us first — in time and in place in the article — concentrate on the secular ethics' different strains; only if a reader (or writer) has good enough an understanding of those to see the main picture(s), the viewpoints on specific details and/or relationships with non-secular ethics can be understood. Please take care to find relevant references and show these now already for just about each statement in the article, to avoid readers starting disputes with ourselves and thus hindering us to come to a reasonable presentation. SomeHuman 2006-07-31 15:28 (UTC)

• I agree with StarGhost, I think the "Criticism" and "Secular Ethics and Religion" sections should be removed, and we should simply concentrate on what Secular Ethics is. I also agree with SomeHuman's suggestion that "Views On Bioethics" etc should be moved to the Further Reading section. Concurrently with this StarGhost is definetely correct, the tenets section needs to be expanded and improved and everything that has been written has to be referenced and cited in the article. SomeHuman, I will make a few changes from what seems to be the general consensus, obviously if it doesn't work out we can go back to previous versions. --Chrisrivers 16:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Edited the article, as per discussion: (1) Removed Bioehics and added a reference in "Further Reading", (2) Removed the Criticism section and (3) Removed the section on "Secular Ethics And Religion". I suppose the thrust must now be toward filling out content and referencing sources? --Chrisrivers 16:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Yep, content and references. As simple as it seems, that mabe just be the hardest part. But when I look back to when I first found this article, we have come a long way now . Star Ghost 23:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Sounds good, your right this will be the hardest part, but it should make for an excellent article once complete. One of the problems I'm finding is that we know what "Secular Ethics" is, but there seems to be precious little sources of information that aren't simply based on opposition from Religious Ethics. I'll do as much as I can with content and then move onto citing and referencing as much as I can. Looking good though! --Chrisrivers 08:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• May I suggest the adition of a morally good act according to Kant? This should be easy if any of you are familiar with his sayings, which is not the case for me. Starghost (talk) 04:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• Starghost, "This may lead to a behaviour morally preferable to that propagated or condoned based on religious texts" (no longer just 'condoned'), does not acknowledge recognition of any intrinsic value of religious texts (and rather denies their practical value). It does not state anything about acknowledging their "Truth" either. The variety of philosophies/philosophers further on should clarify their respective relation to religion. "Most atheists..." migh have been an underestimation, but not all atheists have what we would call an ethical code. They're not all famous philosophers; are you sure psychopaths cannot be atheists? So I put it as "Nearly all atheists...". We are talking about large groups of people, not just the guys that invented a name for an idea they had worked out. Good job. I'm glad the earlier triple mentioned 'Golden Rule'/'Ethic of Reciprocity' no longer keeps working on my nerves ;-) — SomeHuman 2006-08-11 00:33 (UTC)

• I didnt mean to say aknowledge their truth, but their existance, sorry I was unclear. I don't know why they would need to be taken into consideration when considering preferences. I imagine someone who has never had any contact with religion would not so much prefer secular ethics over religious texts, but think of it as the only way. Instead of making the distinction of religious ethics or secular ethics, they would just see "Ethics" in general, completely neglecting the first. Just a thought. That edit was tentative because I think in general this is still better, since every single one of the 3 tenets listed had explicit opposition to religion in them, so I wanted to soften this opposition much to not lead the reader to think that this is what it is all about.
  
  On your second point, I didn't exclude the "most" because I thought it was underestimated, but mostly because we cant cite a proper number, so I omitted the word to something which I now think would be the best sentence, and am inclined to edit right now: "Atheists, irreligious... ... generally adopt some kind of ethics. There is another problem though, because when you add that sort of thing, you ARE implying that atheists can be psychos and stuff. I often wonder if we have special grounds to make this statement, since I don't think other articles state that Jews generally adopt an ethics code based on the old testament or Christians generally act according to the teachings of Jesus. Again, we can work on this to avoid this subjective but political incorrect phrasing. I might be paranoid, but controversies tend to arise very quickly when dealing with matters of religion and personal beliefs, I hope we remain as patient as we are :). Thanks for your comments though, we are slowly but certainly making progress.
  Oh yeah, about humanist ethics, you think it deserves to be moved to it's own article? We could link it from here, and keep just an intro like we did we the rest of them (although that is all we got, pretty much). Starghost (talk | contribs) 03:16 - 03:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• It's imperative to present 'secular ethics' as a set of ethics based on philosophies, not as if it were merely countering religious concerns. On the other hand, religions and in particular their ethical and moral stands had an immense influence on the standards by which all had to live (laws, customs, traditions) and secularists often needed and still need to fight off obligations imposed by adherers of standards once set out of religious concerns. There are still several countries with a State Church and most contemporary ethical issues are based on such controversy. These issues are not the immediate concern of the article 'Secular ethics' and I suggest we steer away from them as much as possible if we do not want to get caught up in eternal edit warring. But many considerations about secular ethics cannot be comprehended without situating their origin, history and present concerns in the broader world in which also religion played and plays its part.
  
  My remark on psychopaths may be over the top, I just wanted to express the fact that some people with a secular view may not be more ethically concerned than some with a religious one. While it is thus necessary to state that secularists "in general" have just as well ethics and morality, there is also the possibility of specific secularist philosophies that "do not concern themselves with ethics". My "Nearly all"... accounts for both kinds of exceptions without needing to go deeper into this matter that is clearly not comprised in our topic secular ethics. In other words, secularism might not necessitate ethics; it is a specific (group of) secularist philosophy(ies) that hold(s) ethics to be intrinsically human.
  In fact, 'generally adhere' can be interpreted as 'do not strictly adhere', and could be understood as if secularists may more easily drop their conscience; while many keep rigorously to their ethics. I therefore reverted to the 'nearly all' phrase; not citing a precise number is not a problem: it's about adhering to some kind of ethical code. It would be rather insulting if one would assume anything else, let alone ask to prove such, of anyone. A statement exaggerating the one I stated here above: 'Most keep rigorously to their ethics', would require figures. — SomeHuman 2006-08-11 12:01 - 15:23 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

Since secular ethics denies or basis its ethos on the concept that there is no higher power or that since we can't see it or prove its existence it should be taken out of the equation. They then go on to state that people can be moral without moral underpinnings. This seems to be based on a fallacy, certainly a good person could be good because he wants to, but this is meaningless. If you are kind and nice by nature fine, but what if your not? why is it wrong to kill? why is it wrong to steal? why is it wrong to rape?. The last question seems obvious, because of the suffering involved, which is true if you are the aforementioned kind person, but what if your driven by your own life experiences or by your own twisted desires to rape?, why is it wrong then?. Most people don't like to see others suffer but some abnormal people do, is the only reason its wrong that it damages human social structures and therefore we have consequences in the form of prison to keep us from acting?. This does not seem like much of a reason, if a person is willing to rape why would he care about the social contract?, and what if he is driven by an impulse of some sort?. The question becomes even more difficult when talking about murder and even more so when talking about theft, why is it wrong to kill, if its to prevent suffering in said victims loved ones thats fine as far as it goes but what if you don't care about others suffering?, what if you see said loved ones as an enemy as well?, is it moral to kill a hypothetical person who is disliked or hated and had no loved ones?. The problem becomes more muddled when looking at other society's, was it right that some peoples performed human sacrifice?, or cannibalism?, or accepted things such as pedophilia and the general subjugation of woman?, the society's that practiced these things thought they were right, does that mean that they were right in that context?. And if the bulk of society thought cannibalism was just fine does that mean its moral by virtue of our attitude?. This is an example of subjective morality.

It seems you completely ignored the article to present the cliché religious criticism of secular morals. The Golden Rule is pretty explicit within the article itself as a guideline, which you seem to have completely ignored, and it also can be completely secular, as it can be quite objective. It is wrong to rape because you are violating the freedom/free will/natural rights of others. The same applies to cannibalism. Nowhere does it say in the article that secular morals is merely a majority principle. Starghost (talk | contribs) 17:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Because if we are left without objective morality or you believe that objective morality exists, just without a deity of any sort than the question arises, how does such an general objective morality work, without an overriding intelligence behind it?. If its a natural law then almost everybody except a tiny statistical anomaly would be moral, and that is clearly not the case. And if its a natural law that compels most of us to be generally moral, based on a looser interpretation of natural law so that we are not compelled to be moral but drawn toward moral actions which would explain why most people are on average moral inasmuch as they don't kill or torture and rarely steal and try not to lie. This is fine except this only explains why most people are not evil as we define evil.

Where do you get that only a tiny statistical anomaly would be amoral (I believe that was what you meant to say otherwise it wouldnt make sense) if it was a natural law? Also, where do you get that it is not the case? As far as I know, the majority of the population are not criminals, if written law is one tool we are could to measure objective morality. Also, none is to say natural law is not subject to social phenomena. Read Emile Durkheim on the subject. A "social fact" could be responsible for triggering amorality, or even objective morality if you fancy the hypothesis. In fact, Durkheim and others have suggested criminality arises from social phenomena. Starghost (talk | contribs) 17:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

It still leaves open the question of why people who for one reason or another fall out of this natural moral law should act in such a way as is compatible with moral people. He is not drawn towards good acts or away from bad acts like others are, why should he pretend he is?. The fear of consequences becomes the only reason people act morally, but this means that if a person is cunning enough or believes he is cunning enough to get away with a crime, or is willing to take the risk of capture for whatever reward then there is nothing wrong with what he did, we can try to catch him for the betterment of society but telling him he was wrong serves no purpose because their is no objective morality to fall back on.

Fear of consequences has nothing to do with morality, perhaps perceived morality. The person is still amoral, he's only opressed by authority. You seem to imply some people are naturally amoral and there's perceived morality only because of social contract. We've also discussed earlier about the exceptions to the law that morality is natural, don't think I need to repeat myself. You also seem to make a tautological argument about there being no objective morality because there is no objective morality to fall back on. Empty argument. Starghost (talk | contribs) 17:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Or there is an objective morality but without anyone behind it, whereby since this hypothetical person falls outside this weak natural moral law, and since it doesn't apply to him naturally he can't be expected to abide by it. The question of subjective morality is equally problematic, if its correct by virtue of a society accepting it what defines a society. Is any grouping a society if it has borders?, or does it need borders?. And if its acceptable for a society why is it not acceptable for an individual?, if every person is autonomous and morality subjective than can't I define morality for myself based upon self-interest? and if not, why not?.

You obviously have no educated views on what defines society. Read Societal Laws by Maurice MANDELBAUM (The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. VIII, n.31, 1957, pages 211-224) on some aspects on methodological individualism and methodological holism, and the question of whether society is composed by a group of individuals or if the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. In case you are curious, he finds that methodological holism is in fact not the only alternative to methodological individualism. I could also cite a number of ways of "why not". You might start with a society with a number of arbitrary principles, then the ones most likely to succeed would eventually turn them into something non-arbitraty through the process of survival. You might also cite the objectivity of the Golden Rule. A million responses are appropriate to this. Starghost (talk | contribs) 17:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Kant's point about how stealing is wrong because if everybody stole it would destroy society and one shouldn't put themselves above everybody else is fine if you accept theism but otherwise we are autonomous and have short life spans, if the negative event is going to happen after all our loved ones are gone then why care?. making the world better for those who come after us is a noble concept but what if you aren't concerned with coming generations?, and what about anarchists?, there whole ethos is about destroying society structurally. And if Kant is correct than anarchists are just moving their agenda further by breaking the social contract.

You would be wrong to determine Anarchists destroy social structure. Anarchism is comprised of a series of complex social structures, as evidenced by the Nuer study of british functional-structuralist E. E. Evans Pritchard. Starghost (talk | contribs) 17:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not saying that secular ethics can't apply, all I'm saying that its not teachable and not useful, if you don't want to abide by it their are no consequences and without consequences society is at the mercy of anybody who has no concern for secular ethics. If taught to a youth, that there is no god and we should be good because we should want to be good or so we don't get caught, then we teach them them the opposite as well, that if we don't want to be good and don't think we're going to get caught then that's that, we should refrain from doing what we feel is repugnant, but if we want to do it and its allowed or we are not likely to get caught within a personally defined threshold of risk, then its acceptable. This criticism is in response to the desire for criticism stated at the beginning of the talk page, I can't put it in the page without citations but still feel it might come in handy if anybody was looking for a general critique of secular ethics.--74.120.33.251 01:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC) I wasn't signed in, sorry. The criticism was mine--Colin 8 01:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Your arguments fail to sustain the point you are trying to make. It is teachable, useful. It is specially teachable if you compare it to religious ethics. It is of specially useful understanding if you want a scientific understanding of society. They do not say there are "no consequences", this is just a straw man. They do not say there is no god, they just don't take it into account when considering the subject of ethics and morals. This criticism is hardly handy as it is uneducated, unsourced, and empty from a critical standpoint. Starghost (talk | contribs) 17:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Colin, Wikipedia is not the place for a theological or philosophical discussion, so I keep this short. The source of morality can be put wherever one prefers, but no assumed source has been able to prevent harming people or comitting crimes with much more success than any other source - so we still need prisons and social control. One may assume for instance that an individual may think he has the right to kill or that it would be an advantage to himself to do so, but if that individual does not believe in a supernatural source, he may be less inclined to assume the holiness, devine inspiration of his thoughts and realize the possibility of forgetting something, of making a mistake in one's thinking, and knowing that people are very much against killing, doubt his own conviction. If not absolutely sure, it seems a lot safer to find other solutions to a problem. It is then selfishness or self-protection, and the ease of knowing that others will think that way too and thus the nice feeling of being safe between others, that steers us in an ethically acceptable way. — SomeHuman 12 Dec 2006 02:53 (UTC)

[edit] Small Point

The first line of the Secular ethics and religion section appears to imply that atheists and agnostics are definitionally irreligious, which is untrue. Surely simply "irreligious people" is an exhaustive description of the group of people that the sentence is referring to. Heihachi 16:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)