I claim that most atheist that think they know the answer to this question, base it on a naive understanding of their own underlying value system.

(PS. I'm also an atheist)

By all means, enlighten me. Why is it wrong to kill a man? My personal reason is that I am an empathic person.

Personally, I don't believe in any objective source of morality, but rather that morality is a superstructure on top of the more fundamental values of individuals in a given population/culture. If everyone followed their deepest values directly, it would lead to a chaotic society, so morality represents a compromize that we may be willing to follow if others also do so.

The degree to which we follow this morality, depends on the degree to which it promotes our deeper value systems. If our environment changes, our actions will (slowly or quickly) adapt.

At the most fundamental level, I think these values are expressions of selfish replicators (genes and memes), as well as some random elements. Unless a moral axiom is actually within this bottom level value system (which could be the case for religious values), we will be willing to break them, if the right situation occurs.

Generally, we are not fully aware of these fundamental values. It is only when we are experiencing extreme conditions that we meet our true selves in this way. When we do this, we are often surprised, and sometimes we refuse to even believe it, which can be a cause of PTSD.

Note that everything above is descriptive. This is my hypothesis, it does not hold any value judgement, and is not intended to.

From introspection, I don't think "do not kill" is part of my most fundamental values. I think the reason I have that value, is a result of how my deeper values interact with a western european society, and that it might change if I lived under very different circumstances. On the other hand, I think I have an appetite for (scientific) truth, even when brutal, that may very well be fundamental.

I suspect you really do have firmer grounding for your position, but haven't performed the introspection necessary to figure out the boundaries of your position, or how to articulate them. And that's fine. Many people have the luxury to never be tested.

If we take the reductive approach of only using empathy, we wind up doing whatever it is that the other wants. Such a system has no room for doing what we think is the right response to the situation, because it has no mechanism for determining responses beyond those considered by the other. It leaves no room for personal self-determination because it has no way to evaluate our wants against another's. And has no way to handle a situation where you empathize with two people holding conflicting desires. I know I'm unfairly stretching an idea past it's breaking point, but that's sort of my point...

There must be a higher-order decision making process.

Frankly, I consider the way people frequently speak of "empathy" as an attempt to hide that process. Hiding it from just me, the world, or maybe from themselves too.

For religous people, experiencing doubt is turn into a test of faith, and if you pass the test, you are seen as extra virtous.

For SJW, if you really feel hateful and resentful towards someone (ie the opposite of empathy), you can reclaim your virtue by showing even more empathy for the people that are seen as victimized or oppressed by the person or group they hate or resent.

Similarly, "empathy" can be used by fundamentalists to justify pretty much the same things that religious fundamentalists can justify by "faith".

For instance: - to display virtue, often with the intent to gain status - to separate in-group from out-group (often with poor justification) - to punish members of the out-group when they "transgress" - dehumanize the outgroup. Sometimes to the extent that they do not deserve to be treated according to ethical rules. - to deny or make taboo science that contradict their dogma (sociobiology, iq research) - to classify certain positions as heretical or evil (if you believe X is a fact, even if it is a proven fact, you are a nazi, and must be neutralized) - to promote ideas that contradict scientific facts when it promotes the "cause" (ie tabula rasa, ghost in the machine)

It is not wrong to kill a man. It is only wrong to murder a man

> My personal reason is that I am an empathic person.

Lots of things can override empathy. Anger, jealousy, ambition etc. 'Do whatever you feel like' does not sound like much of a moral framework to me

Does the statement hold under all conditions?

For instance, say that a single man legally controls all food in an isolated village, and he is not willing to share. Maybe he is a disgusting man that nobody likes, and your children are about to starve to death.

Is it ok to kill that man, in order to prevent your children from starving to death, by taking his food?

Whether the answer is yes or no, what id the reasoning behind the answer?

Regardless of the answer, I don't judge. I consider both answers valid. Extreme situations like this, just like the gulags, cuts away all moral superstructures and pretences, and reveals your true values.

For one person "not murdering" can be fundamental, for another "ensure the survival of your childeren" can be more important.

Within in-groups, though, empathy is very useful if not overdone. You can have too much, though. My wife is pretty much unable to rinse the wounds when the children hurt themself, because of the short term pain an antiseptic causes when applied.

A rule based ethics can, at least in some cases, be more resilient to these issues.

Of course, rule based ethics can be of the type "sodomites shall be stoned".

And below all that: What values do we use when evaluating what ethical systems are better, and where do THOSE values come from?

What you describe about in-groups and out-groups happens all the time with religious communities. Even people sharing the same religion suddenly become "unworthy".

> And below all that: What values do we use when evaluating what ethical systems are better, and where do THOSE values come from?

Precisely. If you don't believe in any gods, where do you suppose religious value systems come from? :)

However, if we look at different societies, some work better than others. I think most people on HN live in societies that actually work quite well.

To think that you can somehow reason your way to anything better, from first principles (which have to be values, not rules), is very optimistic, in my opinion. First of all, you have to be very certain that you have the correct first principles. (I think this is a much harder problem in itself than most people realize), but even if you do, creating a full ethical system that maximizes those values, is computationally impossible.

To my knowledge, most attempts to introduce radical changes in this manner, has lead to societies that function worse, not better.

I think this problem is very closely related to defining a utility function to a superhuman AI, that you can trust to lead to good outcomes.

How atheists behave can also be observed now, regardless of how young the "society": some commit crimes, some don't. Some follow strict value systems, some don't. Some are empathic, some aren't. Some are monsters, some are heroes. Some are flawed, common people.

Just like religious people ;)

There are some exceptions, though, such as Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany and Mao's China. They each killed many, many millions. All three thought they could create a utopia by turning traditional morality upside down.

It is unlikely that the murder rate will ever reach absoulte 0 (unless we have an extremely totalitarian state, such as a chip operated into every individual to monitor their actions), but it is much better to have murder rates of below 10 per 100k than to have them in the 100s or 1000s per 100k, like we had through much of history.

I happen to think that in many ways, the western world has actually moved in the right direction under christianity. You present the existence of theft and murder as a boolean yes/no situation.

I think such argument are misleading. For these statistics, it only makes sense to present the RATES of theft and murder for each system.

As an athetist myself, I'm very aware of the urge to try to construct an utopia from first principles by revolutionary means. But I happen to think that this is very, very dangerous. It can easily take murder rates to less than 10 per 100k to killing a significant percentage of the population, as seen many times during last century.

It is not that I think that religion is very different from other cultural sources of value. I happen to consider relgion to actually BE part of culture. But just because the epistemology of religion is likely wrong, from a scientific point of view, I think the cultures that we live in, including much of a christian baggage has proved that it can sustain a fairly good society.

As an analogy, linux is not perfect, but if random people start modifying code in the kernel more at less at random and without deep understanding, the stability is likely to suffer.

Society is like the social operating system, and if it breaks down, everything breaks down.

EDIT: If you didn't notice, the argument above is pretty much the argument for atheistic liberal-conservativism.

EDIT: "Chesterton's Fence" comes to mind.

So in practice, I think we are left to make incremental attempts at improvements, while trying to make changes both small and reversible.

In computer science terms, this is gradient decent. It may not allow us to reach all global minima, but it is much more likely to lead to a good place than large semi-random changes.

Sorry, I simply don't see where anyone is talking about revolutionary utopias here, or first principles, or totalitarian anything. If you want to argue that non-religious value systems inevitably lead to genocide, feel free to do that -- and good luck with that, I'm uninterested in that argument.

All I'm saying, is that the western culture we have inherited, has proven to be pretty good at providing a good life for most people.

As we discover that the foundation of the religous belief system is wrong, we need be careful about how we dispense with the rules that have been justified in religous dogma up until now.

I think it can go wrong in two ways:

1. The far right atheists can argue that without Jesus, there is no objective reason for universal empathy, which we can use to justify extreme selfishness, eugenics, racism, etc.

2. Left wingers, on the other hand, can argue that ONLY empathy and happiness matters when we dispense with the supernatural soul. Because the religous reasons for free will are wrong, we should not treat individuals as moral agents, but instead treat all unwanted behaviour or unwanted outcomes as health problems or something caused by unfair treatment by society.

In small doses, I don't see either view as a big problem. But there have been cases where they have been taken to the extreme, and that went blody on both sides.

Scientifically, I think both views are simplifications to the point of being just wrong. In order to function as a society and as individuals, we need a balance between individual responsibility and empathy where it is due.

I think it is possible to reach this conclusion through science and philosophy, but that this is extremely difficult, and even more difficult to communicate to the electorate.

Which is why I argue that we should not change our moral rules too quickly, even if the traditional justification for them fall away.

Btw, it may very well be that we more or less agree on this. The discussion started further up, in response to the claim that moral behaviour (not killing) was a consequence of "being an empathic person", and nothing else.

Indeed, it may be that we agree. The problem is that the discussion got so sidetracked it's hard to see what we're talking about anymore.

As an example of how we're talking past each other, I wasn't responding that empathy is or should be the only restraint. I was specifically arguing against this assertion further up:

> I think that's a good point that lots of things can override empathy. It would require something much stronger [...] Religion with a belief in immortality and eternal justice with eternal possibility of happiness gives a very strong reason [...]

This is demonstrably, patently false: religion gets overridden and fails ALL the time. It should be noted that, traditionally, the argument goes "atheists forget religion and therefore have no value systems; what prevents murder when there is no god?", yadda yadda yadda.

To clarify, things I am arguing:

- Religion is not enough or better than empathy or other secular/atheist moral value systems. It works (sometimes), but it's not better or the only way. Arguments that start with "but without religion...!" are therefore wrong.

Things I'm NOT arguing:

- Religion always fails.

- Empathy is enough.

- Atheists never commit crimes.

Things I'm NOT interested in debating, because they're wrongheaded, red herrings, appeals to ignorance and/or "not even wrong":

- "But atheist societies aren't old enough!"

- Software development as an analogy to moral value systems.

- Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Patton, Torquemada, the French Revolution, etc.

The difference seems to be on emphasis: - You seem more concerned about religiously inspired fallacies. (I agree that they are fallacies, but I don't take them very seriously any more). - I am more concerned with preventing gulags. (Which you are not interested in dicussing).

I suspect the difference in emphasis may come from us living in different countries (I live in Norway, which is more or less atheist socialist in its value system)

Btw, the original article was: "Things I learned in the Gulag"

Yes, lots of things can override empathy in some people. Likewise, lots of things can override religious beliefs in some people, making them kill another person. So what's the conclusion?

There's almost no moral framework that cannot be overridden for some people under certain circumstances. I've seen no evidence religion is a stronger foundation for principles.

That they are both very useful in restraining murder ?

Having empathy for others is not the same as doing "whatever you feel like", by the way.

> Plenty of irreligious mass murderers out there by the way

Yes, there are irreligious murderers. Also plenty of religious murderers, and lots of nasty actions have been committed in the name of religion. So what conclusion can we draw from it, other than "both religious and irreligious value systems have been shown to be not enough to prevent murder"?

You single out empathy, but in fact every value system fails.

To explain where I'm coming from: one typical argument made by some religious people (not all!) is that atheists will inevitably degenerate into criminality, since -- the argument goes -- if you don't have religion to tell you something is immoral, and there are no consequences in the afterlife, what's the point of behaving well to others?

But is that a result of your cultural upbringing, or something innate. I would argue the former, in which case culture and religion actually do matter more than we think.

Would you be an emphatic person if you grew up in a different time and place.

For the cultural aspect, there are two interpretations: 1) Humans (non psychopaths) are born to feel empathy, and you only take that away if you inflict harm on the person 2) Humans (non psychopaths) are born with some latent capacity to develop empathy, but it must be actively taught in order to develop

From my experience as a father, it seems like empathy develops without much actual teaching. Maybe teaching it can boost it, but at least for my children that has not been needed so far.

But empathy is very definitive limits. It is much easier to feel it towards smaller children, cute pets, etc, and not very easy for children to feel empathy towards authority figures, scary/ugly animals. Also, when hungry, sleepy, scared or angry empathy seems to vanish.

I think this is typical. Nobody feels empathy for everyone all the time.

And it is when dealing with people that you DON'T feel empathy for, that you are most likely to break ethical rules or convensions.

And with (my) children, teaching them to behave morally when not feeling empathy, that requires dedicated effort from the parent.

Plus it causes distress in family and friends of that man. Which I also wouldn't like for myself.

And it also destroys the trust in the community around you if everybody could/is actively killing other people. Which is an evolutionary disadvantage.

In other societies, the conditions can be the opposite. In societies without an effective police force, the norm is that an honor culture develops, where avenging a murder with another murder is not only a right but in fact a duty.

In such societies, the first murder can actually be considered heroic, if there is no effective retribution, and the second murder is essentially always heroic.

Morality is much more dependant on our society than many think. If anarchist actually get their way, an honor society will emerge from the chaos fairly quickly.

(Examples: Current clan societies, such as northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, histoircal clan societies (vikings etc), hunter-gatherers, criminal gangs, etc,etc).

If you know the number of games, or it is the last game, always-defect is the Nash Equillibrium.

Depending on social circumstances (such as in a Gulag), murder can be the Nash equillibrium strategy if you optimize for survival.

It's just that such circumstances are outside of the experience of most people, and most people today cannot even imagine it.

"Why" implies to me that there is or should be a rationale. Our culture stores a lot of behavior and spreads it by the means appropriate. Some need rationale most do not.

Killing feels evil and is considered morally wrong. But in reality mankind, like many species, decided at some point, that killing its own should generally be avoided and is therefore allowed only under very specific circumstances.

nah it's not the point / goal of religion here it has nothing to do here with killing someone else or not. It's the fact of believing in "something else" outside of this world which gives you a reason to stay human (in a way that can include but not limited to 'not killing someone'). Basically if there's only "here and now" there's no point to be a good person or keep your animal instincts leashed. if there's "something else outside or after" there's a "superstitious" point to self-preserve your humanity ('for later')...

You do - but religion can be non-theistic. As an atheist, you nevertheless strive towards ideals that have ultimately no reason but your belief in them... That is religion - it is personal and it does not require supernatural beings.

https://www.theonion.com/god-angrily-clarifies-dont-kill-rul...

It's a pretty big claim that ethics has "no reason but your belief in it". There are plenty of logical reasons why one would want to behave ethically, even self interest, beyond you simply believing it.

There are also some moral principles that follow directly from factual matters, provided some very basic first assumptions are made. Theories of just resource distribution and social justice are of that kind. The principles that get things going are very basic, e.g. reciprocity, generality of moral statements, and fairness in the sense of trade/bargaining/exchange fairness get you very far.

It is a myth that religion provides values, as it can be shown very easily by historical comparison that it never has. The values defended by major religions such as Christianity and Islam have changed over the centuries again and again. Modern Christian values, for instance, mostly come from the enlightenment movement and were not endorsed at all earlier. (Christianity is just an example, AFAIK this is true for all religions.)

Churches and 'holy men' have always had a vested interest in selling their values as a product of their religion, though, and they are very good at selling this false story to the public.

Also, for the final paragraph: Your theory of religion seems to be based on intelligent design. I think it is more accurate (and less prone to conspiracy theories) to think of the evolution of religious memes in darwinist terms of "natural" selection.

Not necessarily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rationalism

This really isn’t hard. Morality is just goal-based behavior. Paths that lead to a goal are called good; paths that lead away from a goal are called bad. Whether or not a goal is itself good or bad depends on where it lies on a larger path.

So, what are the ultimate natural goals? Easy. One is life, which is the prequisite for being able to make choices; the other is death, where no more choices are possible. Certainly, you can switch between these goals, but the key point is that nature gives no clue which you should choose. Therefore, all natural ethics is based on personal taste.

N.B. In Christianity, something outside of nature steps in and says, “choose life.” That’s why atheists can act morally (search heuristics can end up being similar).

Direct pursuit of the ultimate goals is not efficient, both because it is computationally impossible to calculate what action is most efficient in any situation, and also because direct pursuit will lead to a lot of conflict.

As a solution to this problem, one or more levels of heuristic rules have developed that solve this problem in a social environment, and that form some kind of low-level social contract that we will follow if others follow it. Part of "signing" this social contract (ie be perceived as cooperative), is to bind yourself to the commonly accepted morality. Part of this is that you have to convince yourself that you hold the rules sacret.

Of couse, if you experience radical changes to the environment, it is likely that your fundamental goals will be in conflict with those additional layers, and your behaviour will change accordingly. Most people are surprised of themselves when this happens.

For some interesting points about how these aren't the same I'd refer you to Richard Holloway[1]. An ex-Bishop he has refered to himself as a recovering Christian and writes extensively on ethics. He realised that people could make perfectly good ethically arguments without any reference to religion when he sat on various national advisory commitees whilst Bishop of Edinburgh.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Holloway

even without a deep belief, the routine itself can keep you going: this can be compared to accounts from prisoner camp survivors; it's often mentioned 'falling into the routine' as part of holding up and moving forward.