All morality is derived from the oneness of God

submitted by trident765 from old.reddit.com

sorted by:
new (suggested)
topinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]knotsy 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

How about natural law (per Gauthier) as a basis for morality?

The idea that I will desire to form voluntary agreements out of self-interest that lead to moral behavior. I do not wish to be murdered, and would wish to be defended, so I agree not to murder, and to defend my neighbors from murderers (obviously an oversimplified example but you non-morons should catch my drift). Game theory suggests these arrangements are optimal, and an entire code of moral conduct can be based on these ideas.

Whether or not these laws originate from a deity or not seems rather beside the point

[–]trident765[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

What you describe is a derivative of rationality but rationality fails in the case of the Voter's Paradox. A rational person will not vote, because an individual vote has zero chance of influencing elections, so it has zero benefit to society. This is a problem because in aggregate it is in the in the interests of society for intelligent people to vote. So it is better for intelligent people to have an irrational belief that their vote will make a difference than for them to be rational in this respect. Religion is a set of irrational beliefs that when people follow them in aggregate, result in a better society.

[–]knotsy 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

A rational person will not vote, because an individual vote has zero chance of influencing elections, so it has zero benefit to society.

This is a problem because in aggregate it is in the in the interests of society for intelligent people to vote.

You say it has no value to society, then you say it's in society's interest. This seems contradictory, it is in society's interest for me to vote, and therefore it is rational for me to do so.

This also seems like a rational justification here. There is clearly a rational reason to vote - its in everyone's interest including mine (assuming I am one of the intelligent voters you speak of) because as you say, we will all be better off if I do. Your non-voter just isn't perceptive enough to realize this.

This seems like being rational isn't the problem, so much as people not being intelligent enough to act rationally when the benefits of an action are subtle and not readily apparent.

[–]trident765[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You say it has no value to society, then you say it's in society's interest. This seems contradictory, it is in society's interest for me to vote, and therefore it is rational for me to do so

It's in society's interests for enough people to vote for the right candidate, but your vote will not affect this, if the election is large enough.

There is clearly a rational reason to vote - its in everyone's interest including mine (assuming I am one of the intelligent voters you speak of) because as you say, we will all be better off if I do.

If large numbers of intelligent people vote this benefits society, but from the intelligent individual's perspective, whether he contributes one more vote makes no difference.

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

But they add up, so it actually does.