How Does an Atheist not become a Sociopath?
Please accept my apologies for the length of this. I have broken it up into rough sections to help with that. Please consider this essay a work in progress. There is much organizing and fleshing out to be done, but here are some beginnings to a secular morality.
Root of All Evil
Unlike some, I do think religion is the root of all evil, if "evil" can be said to mean anything in the real world. Religious moral philosophy, and this is true even outside the trinity of monotheistic holy horrors (the Abrahamic religions), makes basic assumptions about the human animal that not merely jaundice the view of others, but also the view of oneself. Internalizing the idea of humanity as an intrinsically evil monster barely restrained by means of internalized normative chains is about as disgusting an idea (and self-fulfilling a prophesy) as it is possible to conceive. Religions are actually in the business of convincing us that we are evil and need their metaphysical bullshit to avoid becoming raping, thieving, murdering, monsters. They are in the business of creating "evil" persons by emphatically telling us we want to be evil and that we necessarily are evil. If that marketing of concept of self and other hatred isn't "evil," what is?
And this ties in with the supposed "Where do you get your morals from?" critique - as if morality is impossible without religion. Now, given that religious people have been indoctrinated into thinking they are intrinsically evil and so are the rest of us, the "critique" becomes plainly obvious for the error it is. But this is only part of the story...
Extra-Human "Morality"
The religious, especially theistic, concept of morality is, to be perfectly straightforward, alien, bizarre and strange, incoherent and incomprehensible and worst all, perfectly inhuman. perhaps I should back that up...
The one rule from the Old Testament any of the miscellaneous offshoots cannot and will not rid themselves of is the primacy of god. Contrary to common opinion there are some advantages to studying philosophy - here's one of them. It gives on a sense of the history of maelstrom of ideas that humanity has entertained, a kind of time line, and it provides a context for the debates over the overarching conflicts of ideas. One of these is the primacy of god or humanity (god-centered vs human-centered). This is not a debate that started just yesterday afternoon over a Bunsen burner. There is a long tradition and history of god-centered thinking, and the theistic, in their "moral" righteousness, have worked very hard to quell and eradicate human-centered thinking. For the most part they have been successful until the modern era, in which we are seeing humanism rise again.
What does it mean to be god-centered, especially with respect to morality? We often hear phrases like, "There can be no morality without god, or "God IS love," and we think very little about what statements like these imply. What they imply is that we, as humans, have zero capacity for any kind of morality and just to drive the point home, the word morality is defined such that an extra-human agency is required for anything we can call moral to be exhibited. In many cases, religious folks actually conceive of moral agency as god working through a monstrous construct - namely us, as if we are merely conduits of some sort. So, to be god-centered is to dismiss any and all potential for humanity with regards to realms like morality.
So, god is intrinsically moral and humanity is intrinsically non-moral. Given this kind of understanding, we can begin to truly appreciate the force of the "where do you get your morality from?" critique. At the heart of it lies the conditioned assumption that all humanity is, by necessity, intrinsically without morality. Hence, I say "utterly alien and strange" because, according to the god-centered religious view, we, as humans, are innately estranged from morality.
As a side note: I refer to this as alien and strange because not only is the religious concept of morality defined as separate and apart from humanity, but it corresponds with almost no concept of morality as the word is used in natural language. Theologians are speaking a radically different language than the rest of us...
Human Morality
The question is, is it possible to conceive of morality by some understanding other than this alien and strange misanthropic view? Although humanist thinking has been under the sacrificial dagger for millennia, we are beginning to posit alternative understandings. Some are presenting concepts like weak-sympathy based on evolutionary biology, social necessity and other ideas. Some of us are throwing out the idea of intrinsic evil altogether and considering beginning fresh with a pro-human, social growth and learning concept of humanity. Here's a question to consider: if people did not conceive of themselves as innately evil, reveling in evil, desiring to be evil - as religion tells us we are - what kinds of effect would that staggeringly different mindset have on human behaviour. One skeptic has, as a tagline in a signature, "The default position is to punch the other guy in the face and steal his stuff." Now is this necessarily so, or is it a case of it becoming so because we have been convinced it is so? It would seem, on reflection, that pure naivety and pure misanthropy are extremes that may need tempering. Is it possible to account for deviance while still assuming, as a base-line, that deviance is the exception, not the rule? If you think not, then why do you think this?
Accounting for Deviance
Let's take the worst possible secular case - let's assume for the moment that we are nasty and brutish critters in need of controls on our behaviour. We can institute various means of instituting controls and they can come in versions that needn't be religious or non-secular. Social norms backed by rule of law are serviceable secular bases for moral understanding (assuming one does not specifically define morality beyond that realm) in that they provide reference beyond oneself. The primary traditionally understood functions of morality, prescriptivity and universalizability, are accounted for.
External Referents
Now this, it seems to me is critical; the idea that morality be a reference to something beyond the self. On this the religious and I seem to agree, but usually only in appearance. I say this because an understanding of morality that posits a source that is unverifiable and known only through revelation or, worse, subject to the whims of individual conscience, is to effectively deny external referent. It places morality entirely within a private mental realms, with only the illusion of external reference. In this way, the religious are actually guilty of the "flaw" they accuse atheists of! Really. We aren't the necessary sociopaths - they are, because their external referent is not an external referent at all.
Evaluating God
A local philosopher pointed out something interesting at the last freethinkers meet-up here in Saskatoon. If one cherry-picks from the Bible, one is not, in fact submitting to a higher moral authority, but one is, instead, actually referring to one's own moral standards to evaluate the Bible's content. Seems an "interesting and contradictory use" of an absolute moral external referent, doesn't it? Think about that for a moment...
The "where do you get your morality from?" critique actually has much of its force in being an accusation that atheists are refusing to look beyond themselves for their idea of morality. Now, first we must concede that it is possible to look beyond the self for a source of morality - even the religious must accept that or their idea of god qua moral source is meaningless. Can it be done in a non-religious way? Are there possible external sources of morality beyond the self that do not involve god? Why, yes, of course, there are, even if they are not absolutist. We are raised in a context of social norms which serve almost perfectly well as a moral realm. The definition of self, itself, is a very secular function.
So, Morality From Where?
So, to answer the question, I respond "From the people around me and the negotiated social context I live and participate in. Because, you see, to disregard the people around me and my social context, is to remove humanity and/or external referents from consideration, and if anything is to be considered sociopathic, surely it is removing human considerations from our ideas of morality which is precisely what god-centered, religious stipulations of morality do." We speak of human knowledge as growing and developing, in the sciences and in understanding, but not in the realm of morality. We seem to assume that we know the moral truths and that there is no room for growth, nothing we might not understand, that we have access to the Truth (capital T) and that there is absolutely nothing more to be learned. How strange an assumption this is. How else are we going to be able to progress and learn about morality if we cut off negotiations as a matter of absolutist policy? Doesn't it seem more rational to keep the lines of communication open? Is closing off all conversation what is considered the antithesis of sociopathic? How strange a twist in thinking...
Now, let's refer back to the idea of humanity as intrinsically evil monster needing to be controlled. Is it, do you think, more moral for people to hold a morality based on threat of violence or denial of self-interest, or for morality to based in mutual consent in a negotiated social context? Depends upon your definition of morality, I suppose. Still, one cannot be surprised if those advocating absolutism (while effectively making their morality perfectly subjective by means of denying external referents) demand a stipulation of morality that denies negotiation. Is that not practically the definition of sociopathic?
Does this all seem terribly Pollyanna to you, assuming that humans are not innately evil and thinking we might be a kinder, gentler people if we cast away the assumption of intrinsic evil? Well, is it possible that the Pollyanna interpretation is a function of your upbringing? Does it seem odd to suggest that the kind of people we are is greatly influenced by who and what we think we are? Maybe that's a centuries-long, generations-deep history of absolutist indoctrination, institutionalized and all-pervasive talking.
Anything is Permitted
We often hear moral absolutists claim make this claim about secular and /or relativistic morality. I'm sorry - permitted by whom? If we lose the absolute moral guide, then the context and meaning of the question is radically changed. The idea seems to be that without god there is something doing some sort of active permitting, or that there is not anything refusing permission. Consider that for a moment; remember my claim that religious philosophy posits us as intrinsically evil, needing constraint. In this context "permitted" seems to mean "unconstrained." Permission is a social construct, the word loses meaning without a social context. Are the religious really claiming that that without god we don't have a social context anymore? That is absurd in the extreme.
As an aside, anyone who wishes to refute my interpretation of that will likely find themselves confirming my claim previous that the religious are speaking a radically different language than the rest of us. Have fun.
So, even assuming we need constraints, or at the very least need to account for deviance, are we to say there are none without god? Ridiculous. We have societal norms and laws, whole realms of reasonable expectations both of ourselves and of others. Yes, you just read the "Golden Rule" there, although phrased in an analytic ethics kinda way.
How does an atheist not become a sociopath?
An atheist, like anyone else, avoids becoming a sociopath in the same way anyone avoids becoming a sociopath - by engaging and participating in a human social context. I posit that atheists are actually less likely to be sociopaths because they do not have a ready made extra-human moral philosophy with which to discard any mere secular concerns. We (atheists) also need not define humanity as intrinsically evil and need not deny the human meaning of morality in favour of some inherently alien and strange supernatural stipulation.
Please accept my apologies for the length of this. I have broken it up into rough sections to help with that. Please consider this essay a work in progress. There is much organizing and fleshing out to be done, but here are some beginnings to a secular morality.
Root of All Evil
Unlike some, I do think religion is the root of all evil, if "evil" can be said to mean anything in the real world. Religious moral philosophy, and this is true even outside the trinity of monotheistic holy horrors (the Abrahamic religions), makes basic assumptions about the human animal that not merely jaundice the view of others, but also the view of oneself. Internalizing the idea of humanity as an intrinsically evil monster barely restrained by means of internalized normative chains is about as disgusting an idea (and self-fulfilling a prophesy) as it is possible to conceive. Religions are actually in the business of convincing us that we are evil and need their metaphysical bullshit to avoid becoming raping, thieving, murdering, monsters. They are in the business of creating "evil" persons by emphatically telling us we want to be evil and that we necessarily are evil. If that marketing of concept of self and other hatred isn't "evil," what is?
And this ties in with the supposed "Where do you get your morals from?" critique - as if morality is impossible without religion. Now, given that religious people have been indoctrinated into thinking they are intrinsically evil and so are the rest of us, the "critique" becomes plainly obvious for the error it is. But this is only part of the story...
Extra-Human "Morality"
The religious, especially theistic, concept of morality is, to be perfectly straightforward, alien, bizarre and strange, incoherent and incomprehensible and worst all, perfectly inhuman. perhaps I should back that up...
The one rule from the Old Testament any of the miscellaneous offshoots cannot and will not rid themselves of is the primacy of god. Contrary to common opinion there are some advantages to studying philosophy - here's one of them. It gives on a sense of the history of maelstrom of ideas that humanity has entertained, a kind of time line, and it provides a context for the debates over the overarching conflicts of ideas. One of these is the primacy of god or humanity (god-centered vs human-centered). This is not a debate that started just yesterday afternoon over a Bunsen burner. There is a long tradition and history of god-centered thinking, and the theistic, in their "moral" righteousness, have worked very hard to quell and eradicate human-centered thinking. For the most part they have been successful until the modern era, in which we are seeing humanism rise again.
What does it mean to be god-centered, especially with respect to morality? We often hear phrases like, "There can be no morality without god, or "God IS love," and we think very little about what statements like these imply. What they imply is that we, as humans, have zero capacity for any kind of morality and just to drive the point home, the word morality is defined such that an extra-human agency is required for anything we can call moral to be exhibited. In many cases, religious folks actually conceive of moral agency as god working through a monstrous construct - namely us, as if we are merely conduits of some sort. So, to be god-centered is to dismiss any and all potential for humanity with regards to realms like morality.
So, god is intrinsically moral and humanity is intrinsically non-moral. Given this kind of understanding, we can begin to truly appreciate the force of the "where do you get your morality from?" critique. At the heart of it lies the conditioned assumption that all humanity is, by necessity, intrinsically without morality. Hence, I say "utterly alien and strange" because, according to the god-centered religious view, we, as humans, are innately estranged from morality.
As a side note: I refer to this as alien and strange because not only is the religious concept of morality defined as separate and apart from humanity, but it corresponds with almost no concept of morality as the word is used in natural language. Theologians are speaking a radically different language than the rest of us...
Human Morality
The question is, is it possible to conceive of morality by some understanding other than this alien and strange misanthropic view? Although humanist thinking has been under the sacrificial dagger for millennia, we are beginning to posit alternative understandings. Some are presenting concepts like weak-sympathy based on evolutionary biology, social necessity and other ideas. Some of us are throwing out the idea of intrinsic evil altogether and considering beginning fresh with a pro-human, social growth and learning concept of humanity. Here's a question to consider: if people did not conceive of themselves as innately evil, reveling in evil, desiring to be evil - as religion tells us we are - what kinds of effect would that staggeringly different mindset have on human behaviour. One skeptic has, as a tagline in a signature, "The default position is to punch the other guy in the face and steal his stuff." Now is this necessarily so, or is it a case of it becoming so because we have been convinced it is so? It would seem, on reflection, that pure naivety and pure misanthropy are extremes that may need tempering. Is it possible to account for deviance while still assuming, as a base-line, that deviance is the exception, not the rule? If you think not, then why do you think this?
Accounting for Deviance
Let's take the worst possible secular case - let's assume for the moment that we are nasty and brutish critters in need of controls on our behaviour. We can institute various means of instituting controls and they can come in versions that needn't be religious or non-secular. Social norms backed by rule of law are serviceable secular bases for moral understanding (assuming one does not specifically define morality beyond that realm) in that they provide reference beyond oneself. The primary traditionally understood functions of morality, prescriptivity and universalizability, are accounted for.
External Referents
Now this, it seems to me is critical; the idea that morality be a reference to something beyond the self. On this the religious and I seem to agree, but usually only in appearance. I say this because an understanding of morality that posits a source that is unverifiable and known only through revelation or, worse, subject to the whims of individual conscience, is to effectively deny external referent. It places morality entirely within a private mental realms, with only the illusion of external reference. In this way, the religious are actually guilty of the "flaw" they accuse atheists of! Really. We aren't the necessary sociopaths - they are, because their external referent is not an external referent at all.
Evaluating God
A local philosopher pointed out something interesting at the last freethinkers meet-up here in Saskatoon. If one cherry-picks from the Bible, one is not, in fact submitting to a higher moral authority, but one is, instead, actually referring to one's own moral standards to evaluate the Bible's content. Seems an "interesting and contradictory use" of an absolute moral external referent, doesn't it? Think about that for a moment...
The "where do you get your morality from?" critique actually has much of its force in being an accusation that atheists are refusing to look beyond themselves for their idea of morality. Now, first we must concede that it is possible to look beyond the self for a source of morality - even the religious must accept that or their idea of god qua moral source is meaningless. Can it be done in a non-religious way? Are there possible external sources of morality beyond the self that do not involve god? Why, yes, of course, there are, even if they are not absolutist. We are raised in a context of social norms which serve almost perfectly well as a moral realm. The definition of self, itself, is a very secular function.
So, Morality From Where?
So, to answer the question, I respond "From the people around me and the negotiated social context I live and participate in. Because, you see, to disregard the people around me and my social context, is to remove humanity and/or external referents from consideration, and if anything is to be considered sociopathic, surely it is removing human considerations from our ideas of morality which is precisely what god-centered, religious stipulations of morality do." We speak of human knowledge as growing and developing, in the sciences and in understanding, but not in the realm of morality. We seem to assume that we know the moral truths and that there is no room for growth, nothing we might not understand, that we have access to the Truth (capital T) and that there is absolutely nothing more to be learned. How strange an assumption this is. How else are we going to be able to progress and learn about morality if we cut off negotiations as a matter of absolutist policy? Doesn't it seem more rational to keep the lines of communication open? Is closing off all conversation what is considered the antithesis of sociopathic? How strange a twist in thinking...
Now, let's refer back to the idea of humanity as intrinsically evil monster needing to be controlled. Is it, do you think, more moral for people to hold a morality based on threat of violence or denial of self-interest, or for morality to based in mutual consent in a negotiated social context? Depends upon your definition of morality, I suppose. Still, one cannot be surprised if those advocating absolutism (while effectively making their morality perfectly subjective by means of denying external referents) demand a stipulation of morality that denies negotiation. Is that not practically the definition of sociopathic?
Does this all seem terribly Pollyanna to you, assuming that humans are not innately evil and thinking we might be a kinder, gentler people if we cast away the assumption of intrinsic evil? Well, is it possible that the Pollyanna interpretation is a function of your upbringing? Does it seem odd to suggest that the kind of people we are is greatly influenced by who and what we think we are? Maybe that's a centuries-long, generations-deep history of absolutist indoctrination, institutionalized and all-pervasive talking.
Anything is Permitted
We often hear moral absolutists claim make this claim about secular and /or relativistic morality. I'm sorry - permitted by whom? If we lose the absolute moral guide, then the context and meaning of the question is radically changed. The idea seems to be that without god there is something doing some sort of active permitting, or that there is not anything refusing permission. Consider that for a moment; remember my claim that religious philosophy posits us as intrinsically evil, needing constraint. In this context "permitted" seems to mean "unconstrained." Permission is a social construct, the word loses meaning without a social context. Are the religious really claiming that that without god we don't have a social context anymore? That is absurd in the extreme.
As an aside, anyone who wishes to refute my interpretation of that will likely find themselves confirming my claim previous that the religious are speaking a radically different language than the rest of us. Have fun.
So, even assuming we need constraints, or at the very least need to account for deviance, are we to say there are none without god? Ridiculous. We have societal norms and laws, whole realms of reasonable expectations both of ourselves and of others. Yes, you just read the "Golden Rule" there, although phrased in an analytic ethics kinda way.
How does an atheist not become a sociopath?
An atheist, like anyone else, avoids becoming a sociopath in the same way anyone avoids becoming a sociopath - by engaging and participating in a human social context. I posit that atheists are actually less likely to be sociopaths because they do not have a ready made extra-human moral philosophy with which to discard any mere secular concerns. We (atheists) also need not define humanity as intrinsically evil and need not deny the human meaning of morality in favour of some inherently alien and strange supernatural stipulation.
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