Russell Stewart>>
>And it also comes down to empathy, a vital factor which you and everyone
>else conveniently ignore. It should be blindingly obvious that an empathy-
>based moral system *works*.
I include empathy when I say 'opinion.' Empathy is feelings-based, and how
we act upon empathy is logic-based. Feelings are subjective. You're
speaking about an inner sense of morality which we do indeed have, a sense
of right and wrong, of fairness - conscience if you will. But it's
intangible. We can't agree on everything - things such as capital
punishment, abortion, euthenasia and human cloning to name just a few. So
it *works* inwardly for the individual sure enough, at least to our
satisfaction. Yet we find disagreement when we compare our moral standard
to that of others, as I've pointed out. I might feel empathy towards a
family whose pet cat had just been run over and killed, but another person
might think it humorous. The empathy-based system is subjective because
the standard comes from within the individual.
Now before you respond to this in the manner you have so many times in the
past (by turning it on its head and charging the Christian theist with the
same thing), let me make this point to qualify: An atheist cannot point to
anything within their own worldview that is a transcendent and objective
standard of morality, whereas a Christian theist can. If you cannot accept
that statement after being certain of what I mean by it, then we may as
well cease discussing the matter. Two things to bear in mind -
'transcendent' and 'objective' refer to something *outside* of ourselves,
something above and beyond human beings, and 'Christian theist' as a
worldview is not the same as 'theist.'
Regards,
Peter Grice