What is Morality?

Morality is either descriptive or normative.

• Descriptive morality: certain codes of conduct put forward as simply the state of reality. This is done frequently by societies or religious groups.
• Normative morality: a code of conduct that would be accepted by all moral agents (those who meet some intellectual and volitional conditoins, such as rationality). Some theists adopt this view, for example in Aquinas' case accompaniying a belief that the knowledge of reason is implanted everyone by God.

Both of these types of morality require further frameworks, since not all codes of both types would be accepted by all moral agents.

• Moral skeptics say that no code existsthat all rational persons would endorse
• Moral realists say that there is some existing set of codes that all rational persons would endorse given the right circumstances

Morality from God

Divine Command Theory is the view that morality is fundamentally based on the commands or character of God, and that moral obligation consists in obedience to God.

Some claim that benefits of divine command theory include the guaranteed connection between moral action and proportionate happiness, or that it provides an objective metaphysical foundation for morality

A fameous problem with divine command theory is called the Euthyphro Dilemma: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” In other words, “Does God command this particular action because it is morally right, or is it morally right because God commands it?”

If an action is morally right because God commands it, it follows that if God commanded that we inflict suffering on others for fun, then doing so would be morally right, and inflicting suffering unnecessarily intuitively runs ammoral. If however, on the other hand, God commands acitons because they are morally right, two new problems now arise. If such were the case:

• God no longer serves as the foundation of morality, undermining divine command thoery all at once, and
• God no longer maintains sovreignty, being subject to an external moral law.

Various responses to Euthyphro's dilemma can be found.

• Bite the Bullet - it is a mere logical possibility that God could command adultery or cruelty, and not a real possibility
• Human Nature - our state dictates how we are fulfilled, which is done by following the modal code from God
• Alston's Advice
• Modified Divine Command Theory

Morality without God

Morality is determined by humans in a social structure. Just because a given set of moral ideas is unique doesn't mean there aren't strong common themes that span most or all sets of moral structures.

What is the reaon that there are common themes of morality across all cultures? It is common to claim this as evidence for a diety, but it could be that these are just evoutionary traits of humans in groups.

Whether that morality can said to be absolute or merely relative is not incredibly relevant, except in answering the question of the existence of objective morality.

Why does it matter if morality is subjective or absolute? The presense of one or both of these does nothing to demonstrate the existence or not of a deity, since such a deity would be bound by the same dilemma. If a god defines morality, then morality is subjective, and if the god is the perfect example of an objective morality, then the absolute morality superseeds this god. Benefits of Religion

Rights

Do we have rights? Some rights are claimed by the vast majority of humanity to be essential: The right to life, the right to a fair trial, freedom from torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the rights to health, education and an adequate standard of living.