Atheist Morality Without God

Abstract

This essay is a response to James Sterba’s “An Ethics without God That Is Compatible with Darwinian Evolution.” As an atheist philosopher I show that atheist morality is essentially and thoroughly a secular morality, and that the most reasonable ethics are secular systems in that they do not require a God, gods, or goddesses. I go on to defend an atheist morality based on polls showing that countries with atheist populations are healthier than religious ones. Then I point out the sources of human morality, arguing that there is a common neighborly morality that matters, based on facts about who we are as a species, which includes the pre-human sources in the animal world. Finally, I mention how that Sterbaian Ethics, as it should henceforth be called, can succeed.

I have published a small encyclopedia of books as an atheologian and philosopher of religion on atheism and theism1. But even though I studied in a PhD program at Marquette University with a double major in theology and ethics, and even though I taught ethics classes for five different colleges2, I have written relatively little on ethics/morality3. So being invited to contribute to this special issue of Religions provided me with the opportunity to do just that. I must remind my readers that since I cover a lot of territory I cannot chase down and answer all objections. This is a paper not a book4.

1. On Atheism and Secular Morality

When speaking of a morality without a God most people naturally think of atheists. I am an atheist. I am fairly certain there is no god of any kind. At its most basic level the word atheist describes a nontheist. It is literally derived by combining the words “a” (or “non”) and “theist” into one word. So, we are nontheists. We do not believe in religious theisms, such as pantheism, polytheism, henotheism, panentheism, monotheism, or tritheism, and by extension all religions. We are therefore nonbelievers. If anyone thinks atheism is a religion, then they need to provide a definition of religion that applies both to supernaturalism and to its denial. Any definition of religion that includes atheism will either deny the inherent supernaturalism of religion, or end up describing religion as a social grouping of some kind.5

The words “morality” and “ethics” are basically synonymous with each other. However, for my purposes the word “morality” will refer to good behavior, as opposed to bad behavior. It is best to see morality and immorality as a matter of degrees on a continuum. A moral person is judged to be someone who does good deeds and does not do bad deeds, more often than not. An immoral person is judged to be someone who does bad deeds and does not do good deeds, more often than not. More often than not, a moral person acts in ways that are helpful, not harmful. An immoral person, not so much.

By contrast, the word “ethics” will refer to the rules, principles, and/or systems that are supposed to define, explain, and prescribe good and bad behavior.6 For even if it turns out there is not an adequate system of ethics, or set of ethical principles, there is still a reasonable explanation for atheist morality. We might not be able to solve every ethical issue, or decide the ethics of every action, in every culture around the globe, and in every historical era. But atheists can and do act morally in ways that can be described as good, from motives that can be described as good, and this should be good enough.

From the outset, if the question is whether atheists can have a reasonable morality, we embrace a secular morality, one that lacks the sacred, one that most of us can and do share. One of my favorite atheist writers on morality is Ronald Lindsay, former president of the humanist/atheist Center for Inquiry. He tells us, “secularism is not the same as atheism. It’s perfectly consistent for someone to be religious and also to be committed to secularism.” He adds, “Indeed, millions of people in Europe, North America, and elsewhere are religious secularists” (Lindsay 2016, p. 175). We draw from it when legislating and adopting laws in America, and in judging cases in our courtrooms. Neither Bible verses nor Bishop’s decrees provide the basis or content for laws in our democracy, nor should they be. The ideal for laws in the United States comes from the Constitution, a secular document, the highest binding document that does not refer to any God, gods, or goddess. The basis of it comes from “We the People of the United States…” not any deity, or king, or dictator, for that matter. The First Amendment is emphatic about this.

When it comes to having defensible atheist ethics, it depends entirely on whether or not there are defensible ethics at all. Nearly all ethical systems are secular ones that do not require a God or gods or goddesses. This includes the systems by Aristotle, Arthur Schopenhauer, John Stuart Mill, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henry Sidgwick, John Rawls, and atheist philosopher Michael Martin’s Ideal Observer Theory. There are other ethical philosophies that are secular, such as Buddhism7, Confucianism,8 and Marxism.9 When we add them together, the number of people who live and legislate according to secular ethics is probably in the billions.

One dominant system of ethics is based on natural law, which stands in the tradition of Aristotle, and Thomas from Aquino. It is based on nature and reason. It is an antiquated view of morals in that it presupposes the world has values built into it by the theistic God, such that moral rules can be derived from nature.10 Of course, the question is how this is possible, given the massive ubiquitous amount of human and animal suffering in our world? As far as we can tell, the universe does not act morally or immorally. It does not intentionally act at all. But at its fundamental core, our ongoing evolutionary past and present is best described as a nature red with blood, tooth, and claw.11

Nevertheless, if natural law theory is correct then it follows that the moral standards governing human actions are derived from the natural world, which means a God is not required for our morals. This is a morality that does not depend on a God, and is not learned by revelation from a God. Objecting to this view is ethical philosopher James Rachels, who tells us, “this means that the religious believer has no special access to moral truth. The believer and the nonbeliever are in exactly the same position. God has made all people rational, not just believers; and so for believer and nonbeliever alike, making a responsible moral judgment is a matter of listening to reason and following its directives” (Rachels 1993, p. 53). Philosophy professor David Brink calls this the “autonomy of ethics,” because “the objectivity of ethics is not hostage to the truth of theism” (Brink 2007, p. 154). Accordingly, atheists do not lack a morality without a God.

By contrast, a strictly religiously based understanding of ethics in the divine command theory has been discredited.12 Sterba does a stellar job of this in his paper. The divine command theory is in such disrepute in today’s philosophical circles that only modified divine command theories are being considered. Christian apologist J. P. Moreland claims, “I’m not a divine command theorist… This view implies that morality is merely grounded in God’s will as opposed to His nature. That’s not my view. I think God’s will is ultimately expressed in keeping with his nature. Morality is ultimately grounded in the nature of God, not independently of God” (Moreland and Nielsen 1990, pp. 130–31; and Moreland 1987).

Philosophers Robert M. Adams and Philip Quinn both defend this view (See Adams 1973; Delaney 1979; and Quinn 1978). Adams, for instance, claims that a theistic God must properly command what is loving, or consistent with that which is loving, because that is his very nature. God is love. Therefore, God can only command what is good and loving. But this difference makes no difference. It does no good to step back behind the commands of God to his purported nature, for we still want to know whether God’s nature is good. God’s nature cannot be known to be good without a standard of goodness showing that it is. Unless there is a moral standard that shows God is good beyond the mere fact that God declares his nature is good, we still do not know whether God is good. God is, well, just God.

The basic criticism of Adams’s view has been stated adequately enough by Louis P. Pojman: “If we prefer the modified divine command theory to the divine command theory, then we must say that the divine command theory is false,” but then the modified divine command theory means “we can discover our ethical duties through reason, independent of God’s command. For what is good for his creatures is so objectively. We do not need God to tell us that it is bad to cause unnecessary suffering or that it is good to ameliorate suffering; reason can do that. It begins to look like the true version of ethics is what we called ‘secular ethics’” (Pojman 2006, pp. 255–56). Pojman continues by asking this important question—“If Adams wants to claim that it is goodness plus God’s command that determines what is right, what does God add to rightness that is not there simply with goodness…If love or goodness prescribes act A, what does A gain by being commanded by God? Materially, nothing at all” (Ibid.). It is at this point where both a modified divine command ethic and a secular ethic share the exact same grounding. Why? Because then with Pojman, we must ask what difference it makes whether or not the same ethical principles come from “a special personal authority (God) or from the authority of reason?” For this reason, atheist philosopher Kai Nieslen argues that the divine command theory in its modified forms “does not meet secular ethics head on” and consequently “does not challenge… secular ethics.”13

But even if theists continue to defend it, the divine command theory does not say in advance which God, god, or goddess is the one doing the commanding. There is the barbaric god Yahweh in the Old Testament.14 There is also the militant God of Muslim terrorists, and a multiple number of other deities. Need I go on? As an ethical theory it provides no guidance on its own, regarding behavior. What we need is an ethical theory that provides the content of morality, one that specifies what moral duties we have. And on that score, it offers nothing. In addition, such a viewpoint flies in the face of the actual practice of religionists and their God, gods, or goddesses, who, on my account, permit and even cause horrendous suffering.15

2. On Atheist Morality

My main point is that secular morality is something everyone can embrace. Atheists and theists can agree on the exact same morality. It depends entirely on the specific divine commands and the specific religions. As long as theists and atheists act in accordance with a public morality that everyone has a good reason to accept, we are all free to live our lives as we see fit in a democracy. I titled my essay, “An Atheist Morality without God” because atheists can also be moral, not that religious people cannot be moral. Atheists, for instance, should indeed be committed to transhumanistic values.

While both atheists and religionists can agree to embrace a secular morality, the difference that makes all the difference is that atheist morality is a thoroughly secular one in which atheists reject religious faith as a basis for morality or ethics.16 Atheism is, after all, a moral position that rejects religions for the sufferings allowed by, and caused by their God, and gods.

Can atheists live entirely by secular moralities, norms, and values, without learning from sacred books, gurus, imams, bishops, priests, and preachers? Can atheists be good moral people without their God, gods, or goddesses? In 2014 an international Pew Study found that most people around the world think atheists must believe in a God in order to be good. Of Americans, 53% agreed.17 Twenty years later in 2023, when Americans were asked which statement came closer to their views, 73% selected “it is possible to be moral and have good values without believing in God,” while only 25% picked “it is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values.”18 In a world where there is little progress, here is some good news!

Another one of my favorite atheist authors on ethics/morality is Phil Zuckerman, professor of sociology and founding chair of the nation’s first secular studies program. He provides the needed overwhelming data. Zuckerman bluntly tells us that “ample social scientific evidence soundly refutes this mistaken belief” (Zuckerman 2019, p. xxii). He is emphatic, saying, “It’s an old, widespread notion. And it’s demonstrably false” (Zuckerman 2015). He adds, “If it were true that when belief in God weakens, societal well-being diminishes, then we should see abundant evidence for this. But we don’t. In fact, we find just the opposite” (Zuckerman 2019, p. xxii). So “we must counter and ultimately reject the notion that our morals come from God. They don’t” (Zuckerman 2019, p. xxxi).

According to Zuckerman, “Nonbelievers in God as a group come in fourth place after Christianity (2 billion), Islam (1.2 billion), and Hinduism (900 million) in terms of global ranking of commonly held belief systems. Between 500 million and 750 million humans currently do not believe in God” (Zuckerman 2008, pp. 55, 61). That is a lot of us! Poll counts from different countries show the percentages of nonbelievers or atheists in them. The polls differ due to the kinds of questions asked, but the results are significant. Atheists are numerous in Sweden (from 46% to 85%), Vietnam (81%), Denmark (from 43% to 80%), Norway (from 31% to 72%), Japan (from 64% to 65%), the Czech Republic (from 54% to 61%), Finland (from 28% to 60%), France (from 43% to 54%), South Korea (from 30% to 52%), Estonia (49%), Germany (from 41% to 49%), Russia (from 24% to 48%), Hungary (from 32% to 46%), the Netherlands (from 39% to 44%), Britain (from 31% to 44%), Belgium (from 42% 43%), Bulgaria (from 34% to 40%), Slovenia (from 35% to 38%), Israel (from 15% to 37%), Canada (from 19% to 30%), Latvia (from 20% to 29%), and so on down the line (Zuckerman 2007, pp. 47–65).

When we study these societies what do we find? Zuckerman tells us:

Societies in the world today with the lowest rates of belief in God and church attendance are among the best-functioning and most humane societies on Earth. As has been amply documented by contemporary economists, criminologists, and sociologists, the nations with the lowest murder rates, violent crimes rates, infant mortality rates, child abuse fatality cases, incarceration rates, etc., are the most secular, while those nations with the highest rates of corruption, murder, violent crime, inequality, political repression, and violence, are the most God-worshiping and church-attending.

(Zuckerman 2019, pp. xxiii–xxiv)

Elsewhere Zuckerman says, “The least religious countries are better off than most of the religious countries. Atheist countries have a higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, less crime, fewer suicides, fewer homicides, higher literacy, less poverty, greater gender equality, better healthcare, and so forth (Zuckerman 2008, p. 61).

In other words, countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Australia and others, are better off, better functioning, and more humane than societies that believe in a God, gods, and goddesses. Commenting on this data, Sam Harris says, it “should abolish the ever-present claim that religion is the most important guarantor of societal health” (Harris 2010, p. 147).

Zuckerman also notes “that a precipitous drop in religiosity does not result in an increase in day-to-day violent crime—but just the opposite occurs.” For instance,

The homicide rate in medieval England—a deeply pious time—was on average ten times that of twentieth-century England, a time of rapid secularization. That is, contemporary England—now one of the most irreligious society in the history of the world—is 95 percent less violent than it was back in the Middle Ages, when faith in God and religious devotion were deep and wide. And while all societies have experienced a notable decrease in daily violence over the course of the last several centuries, that decrease has been most acute in those societies that have experienced the greatest degrees of secularization.

(Zuckerman 2009, 2019, p. xxv; Butterfield 1994)

Looking just at the United States alone, the states with “the highest levels of belief in God” such as Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama, “have much higher rates of violent crime, and other social pathologies than those in states with the lowest levels of belief in God” such as Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Oregon (Zuckerman 2019, p. xxiv). Lindsay comments, “In fact, atheists are underrepresented in the prison population. Of course, if there are relatively few atheists in prisons, this implies the overwhelming majority of felons are theists” (Lindsay 2016, p. 139).

To believers who demur that this data is merely a statistical correlation, Zuckerman responds with the strength of that correlation:

The correlation is clear and strong: The more secular tend to fare better than the more religious on a vast host of measures, including homicide and violent crime rates, poverty rates, obesity and diabetes rates, child abuse rates, educational attainment levels, income levels, unemployment rates, rates of sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy, etc. You name it: On nearly every sociological measure of well-being, you’re most likely to find the more secular states with the lowest levels of faith in God and the lowest rates of church attendance faring the best and the most religious states with the highest levels of faith in God and rates of church attendance faring the worst.

(Zuckerman 2014)

3. On Neighborly Morality That Matters

It is commonly supposed there is some sort of objective basis to morality, one that is unavailable to nonbelieving atheists. But if that is true, there is a problem believers must face. If there is indeed objective morality, doesn’t this data suggest nonbelieving atheist societies have it? Why not?

In what follows I’ll argue for some sort of objective basis to morality. But there are difficulties. For instance, if morality is indeed objective, how do believers acquire it in the first place? Another favorite atheist author of mine is cultural anthropologist David Eller, He explains one difficulty:

By the time the free individual is ready to choose and decide, to act autonomously, she is already a product of external forces, namely society and culture (including, for most, religion). Succinctly, most (if not all) of our individual tastes and pursuits, our values, wants, and ideas are acquired—we are not the author of them—and they are acquired during, through, and from social interaction.

(D. Eller 2024, p. 15)

What Eller says is factually true. Besides socialization, another major difficulty is our genes and brain matter, which if they do not determine our actions and thoughts, it’s hard to see anything left for significant metaphysical free will. These are the kinds of considerations all ethicists should face, both believers and nonbelievers. If objective morality exists, how can it be reasonably justified by our socialization, due to when in time, and where on earth we were raised, and/or metaphysical determinism? I think I know, and I will share it later. For now, my point is that believers must face these facts head on. How does any believer know they have an objective morality, or ethics? How can they have it if at a bare minimum, it is largely determined? Believers who claim to have an objective morality, in the sense that 2 + 2 = 4, are terminally wrong.

What we know is that Christian theists have gotten their self-described “objective morality” wrong in some significant ways when it comes to the Dark Ages, Crusades, Inquisitions, Witch-hunts, Colonialism (with the destruction of indigenous people), slavery, the subordination of women, homosexuality, and many others, as shown by philosophers, scientists, and other experts.19 So if morality is indeed objective in the sense that 2 + 2 = 4 how could believers get it so wrong, for so long, inflicting so much pain and suffering upon others and themselves? While religions do many things that are good, the bad deeds done also need to be considered, despite having a God who supposedly commands them to do good, grants them the motivation to do good, and gives them the Holy Spirit to provide the power needed to do good, but who fail to do the good. From the history of the church, it looks exactly like relativism. Or, is God the relativist?

In this context, consider another favorite atheist author of mine, Hector Avalos, a biblical scholar. He wrote a book about the hideous institution of slavery, saying that “if slavery is not regarded as wrong, then little else can be. And if slavery is regarded as inexcusably wrong, then biblical ethics stands or falls on its attitude toward slavery. As such, this book is a critique of the broader idea that the Bible should be the basis of modern ethics.” His main points are “that reliance on biblical authority was instrumental in promoting and maintaining slavery far longer than might have been the case,” and that “it was by abandoning or marginalizing biblical argumentation, and shifting to secularized economic, humanitarian, legal, and practical arguments, that made a much greater impact on abolition.”20 Or as Lindsay slyly said, “If Christianity prohibited slavery it took over 1800 years for most Christians to realize this” (Lindsay 2016, p. 122).

The fact, however, is that the basis for morality is not objective, as is commonly understood. Let me turn to Lindsay again, who says it so well:

Morality is neither objective nor subjective as those terms are commonly understood. The term ‘objective’ is typically used to designate statements that make assertions about some reality that exists independently of human desires, feelings, wishes. ‘Subjective’ is used to designate statements that refer to our inner sentiments, that is, an individual’s desires, feelings, wishes. But morality is not a description of a state of affairs. We don’t acquire moral understanding merely by discovering a set of facts, whether it’s facts about ourselves or facts about the world. Morality isn’t constituted by a set of facts, but rather is a set of human practices. These practices enable us to live together by, among other things, reducing social conflict.

(Lindsay 2016, p. 101)

Lindsay explains, “moral judgments are not equivalent to scientific statements about the world,” or “statements of objective facts,” but “neither are they merely expressions of personal preferences.” He writes, “Morality is still objective in the ways that matter” (Lindsay 2016, p. 101). How so? “Morality has certain functions, that is, it serves human interest in needs by creating stability, providing security, ameliorating harmful conditions, fostering trust, and facilitating cooperation in achieving shared and complementary goals (Lindsay 2016, p. 104).

It seems pretty clear that each society, each tribe of people, is based on a common morality, one that people in each society or tribe have toward others in that same society, or tribe. That is a tribal morality, which is eminently useful. Tribal morality is expressed in a few negatives such as do not murder, steal, lie, cheat, or inflict needless pain on others in one’s tribe. Expressed positively are the norms of telling the truth, keeping promises, doing acts of kindness, and so forth. More importantly—and this is the real point—morality is a necessity in order to keep a tribe together.

Now it is possible to find an outlier tribe that does not care much for others in the same tribe. But it is pretty clear that common moralities keep tribes together. They survived. Others did not, or will not! To ask why it is important for human beings to care whether or not they survive is a question that just does not come up. It’s just what happened. There is no other alternative but to die out as a tribe, society, or species. The fact that Homo sapiens survived means exactly what it entails, that morality matters, as Lindsay said. Whether we survive as a species plays no role in how we treat others. But the beneficial by-product is that it helps us to survive as a species. We are either good to others, or we will die out as a species. This is as objective as we get when it comes to morality.

Lindsay makes some other significant points. He says, “If we accept the institution of morality, then we are tacitly agreeing to be bound by moral norms. We cannot logically maintain that moral norms apply to everyone except us” (Lindsay 2016, p. 110). He also cautions, “it’s not irrational to reject the institution of morality altogether. However, “the consequence of rejecting morality entirety is to cut oneself off from human society” (Lindsay 2016, p. 111).

Lindsay writes, “the revolutionary transformations in morality that have taken place have not changed the content of our core norms, but they have broadened the class of individuals who are entitled to moral respect” (Lindsay 2016, p. 119). Let us spend some time on this point. Take, for example, the question on the minds of people in the Gospels: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29; 16:15). We find the character of Jesus enlarging their definition with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), and the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). [But remember, he also called a Syrophoenician woman to be part of a race of “dogs” before dogs were domesticated, and only begrudgingly helped her (Mark 7:24–30)]. Loving one’s neighbor was their primary moral requirement, based on the second greatest commandment. Anyone not considered to be their neighbor was outside the institution of their accepted morality. That is a tribal morality. The only people who mattered to them were the people in their own tribe. Non-neighbors, at the very minimum, could be ignored, ostracized, maligned, shunned, and treated harshly. At their worst, non-neighbors could be slain in war, or taken as slaves, leaving their wives and daughters to be raped, and their babies to be dashed upon the rocks (Psalm 137:9; FYI, babies are the last ones killed in a genocide). The reason Nazis in Germany could slaughter millions of Jews (and others) during WWII was because they were demonized as non-human non-neighbors.

Keep in mind the Hebrew Scriptures made a distinction between Hebrews and non-Hebrew neighbors, which can be seen in their institution of slavery. Hebrew slaves were considered hired servants for a certain length of time. They were not to be treated “with harshness”, although they could be beaten within an inch of their lives (Ex. 21:2, 20–21). This same consideration was not accorded foreign slaves who were considered the owner’s “property” who could be bequeathed to their sons. (Leviticus 25:39–55)

As our world becomes larger we learn to care about more and more people. In today’s world we can no longer reasonably demonize other people or treat them as barbarians, precisely because we live together in a global society. Everyone is now our neighbor to some degree. As we became aware of more and more tribes, and integrate them into our tribes which in turn encompassed still more and more tribes, little by little we have enlarged the number of people with whom we share the institution of morality. Little by little we are learning to care for them. Little by little we are achieving a consensus.

If nothing else, laws hold a society together. Probably the first major global state was the Roman Empire, which ruled over the Mediterranean, and much of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa in its glory days, from 27 BCE to 395 BCE, and even later in its western form until 476 BCE. It ruled over and controlled a number of different societies, cultures and tribes. There was a shared type of moral conduct people were obligated to obey by virtue of Roman laws, or else.

Thrasymachus (427 B.C.E.) argued that “might makes right.” The person with the power, the might, the gold, and the influence makes the rules. Most people in history have been ruled over by a morality they would reject if they could. This is a top-down morality, imposed on serfs and subjects, who might normally reject it. Emperors, kings, dictators, presidents, bishops, priests, pastors, shamans, imams, rabbis, gurus, and others have inflicted that kind of morality upon others. So, morality is usually dependent on who are ruling over the rest of us. When we say we have different cultures and moralities it just may mean there have been different rulers over us throughout history, and most of them were probably religious, or used religion to govern.

Since religions have reigned over different territories throughout history, the adoption of different Gods, gods, and goddesses produced different territorial moralities, which resulted in conflict and war, allegedly spurred on by their Gods, gods, and goddesses. Gods are territorial, much like lions, bonobos, and ants. Tribal religions produce tribal moralities, many of which do not treat other tribes very well, since several of them originated in the barbaric past, and since religionists regard themselves as God’s privileged people. What seems clear is that a diversity of religions still keeps our moralities diverse.

If it was not for religion, human beings would have achieved a better consensus on morality. We would be neighborly to more people. This is one of Hector Avalos’s main points with regard to violence, the most pernicious kind of tribal conflict. He did a careful analysis of the fundamental texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to show how four ‘scarce’ resources have figured repeatedly in creating religious violence: sacred space (churches, temples, holy cities); the creation of holy scriptures (exclusive revelations); group privilege (chosen people, the predestined select few); and salvation (only some are saved). Avalos shows that religious violence is often the most unnecessary violence of all since the scarce resources over which religious conflicts ensue are not actually scarce, or need not be scarce (Hector 2005; See also Hector 2019). So, if we could reduce religious violence then we would take a great deal of unnecessary violence out of the world.

Nonetheless, in our modern era with the existence of massive megacities, mass world-wide transportation, and mass communication (especially with the internet), we have enlarged the people with whom we are forced to blend in with, and allow into our shared institutions of morality. The larger our world, the more and more we accept people as our neighbors, then the more we become neighborly.

4. On the Sources of Human Morality

Atheist professor David Eller has also argued something we must consider:

I submit that everyone has been asking the wrong question about morality until recently. As Michael Shermer has aptly expressed it. Asking “Why should we be moral?” is like asking “Why should we be hungry?” or “Why should be horny? or for that matter we could ask “Why should we be jealous”, or “Why should we fall in love?” In other words we have been looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. The question that we should ask, the only question that makes sense and is important is “What is it about humans that make them ‘moral’ species?…In short, “Why are we the kind of beings for whom moral concerns are possible and necessary?

(J. D. Eller 2007, pp. 372–73)

Eller points out recent research which suggests morality “has a perfectly natural basis and is a perfectly natural phenomenon” (J. D. Eller 2007, p. 373). He tells us, “Morality is not utterly unique to humans but has its historical, evolutionary antecedents and (therefore) its biological basis. In other words, morality does not appear suddenly out of nowhere in humans but emerges gradually with the emergence of certain kinds of beings living certain kinds of lives” (Ibid., p. 374). Primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal confirms this:

To neglect the common ground of primates, and to deny the evolutionary roots of human morality, would be like arriving at the top of the tower to declare that the rest of the building is irrelevant, that the precious concept of a ‘tower’ ought to be reserved for its summit. Are animals moral? Let us simply conclude that they occupy several floors of the tower of morality. Rejection of even this modest proposal can only result in an impoverished view of the structure as a whole.

(de Wall 2006, p. 181)

Eller continues as follows:

Scientists and philosophers researching into this disagree on a variety of issues, but there is a consistent core to their messages. The core of the core is that “morality” is not utterly unique to humans but has its historical/evolutionary antecedents and (therefore) its biological bases. In other words, “morality” does not appear suddenly out of nowhere in humans but emerges gradually with the emergence of certain kinds of beings living certain kinds of lives. This is not to assert that animals have full-blown “morality” any more than they have full-blown language. It is to assert that morality, like language, is not an all-or-nothing thing but rather the kind of phenomenon that a being can exhibit more-or-less of until we cross a threshold into a full human version.

de Waal goes on to inform us that, “Empathy sympathy, reciprocity, fairness, and other basic tendencies were built into humanity’s moral order based on our primate psychology” (de Waal 2014, p. 167). His research is backed by S.M. O’Connell, who tells us of many cases of “empathy” and “moral” behavior in chimps, and that furthermore, “This has been documented in a variety of species, from birds, elephants, to primates” (J. D. Eller 2007, p. 376; O’Connell 1995). Bernard Gert adds, “We do not develop this order from scratch, but had a huge helping hand—not God’s, but Mother Nature’s” (Gert 2014, p. 7). Or as experimental psychologist, neuroscientist, and philosopher Joshua Greene said, “Morality is a set of adaptations for cooperation,” so “we today are moral beings only because our morally minded ancestors outcompeted their less morally minded neighbors” (Greene 2013, p. 24). Zuckerman said it this way—“Cooperation evolved not because it was a ‘nice’ thing but because it conferred a distinct group survival advantage” (Zuckerman 2019, p. 127).

Eller is a cultural relativist. He equates human morality with using different languages, saying “Just as there is no such thing as ‘language’ but only ‘languages’ and no such thing as ‘religion’ but only ‘religions’—so there are ‘moralities’ but no ‘morality’” (J. D. Eller 2007, p. 368). Other people in different parts of the world speak a different language than we do, he says. Sure, we use different words, but we refer to the same things. It’s this sameness about different languages that is important here. When it comes to the sameness in morality the objective fact is that certain types of moralities produce the flourishing of life on earth. Others do not. Some of them can extinguish life as we know it, as Phil Torres explains in his important book The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us about the Apocalypse (Torres and Blackford 2016).

So, to answer Eller’s question as to why we are the kind of beings “for whom moral concerns are possible and necessary?” the answer is clear. Human beings as a species survived, precisely because moral concerns produce a distinct evolutionary advantage over others who did not adopt them, who were abandoned to fend for themselves, who subsequently died out. Given the evidence of animal morality, as Sterba and others accurately pointed out, we know that morality has an evolutionary presence in the species that have survived. Those that share a common morality have an evolutionary advantage. So, a shared morality, one that is beneficial to any given species, helps that species to survive. Others do not survive. They have died out, or they will!21 That this process worked to help us survive as a species entails that human beings share some sort of common morality, one that seems universal, and important, not merely cultural and relative. As humans evolve into a different species, we may develop a different type of morality, just as we evolved out of a chimpanzee morality.

Philosopher J.L Mackie has argued that all ethics are relative, that we invent ethics. Perhaps a much better way to think about it is to say we discover ethics in a backhanded manner, after we see what works. More on this later. But even if ethics are relative, atheist philosopher Michael Martin wants us to acknowledge that “relativism is compatible with complete agreement on all ethical matters” (Martin 1990, p. 9). It is quite possible for a type of cultural relativism to be the case, simply because human beings have evolved to accept a tribal morality, and that is it. As we continue to merge into bigger and bigger societies, we might eventually share a common morality as a species, just as we find a rudimentary morality for other species like lions, bonobos, and ants. If pre-human species are known to share some level, some type of morality for each of their species, why should it be surprising that human beings as a species have some kind of basic, common morality? Eller and I should be in agreement about this. Of course, religion as a source for morality must first be jettisoned from our brains.

What else is a source of human morality? Zuckerman tells us. Morality comes from “our infant and early childhood experiences.” How so? “Each of us—to a man and to a woman—was utterly helplessly for a long time, totally dependent on another human being for our survival” (Zuckerman 2019, p. 134). So we know what it is like to feel helpless and in need of care. In her book, Caring, Dr. Noddings argues “the mother–infant relationship creates the foundation or schema or blueprint for our subsequent ability to be sympathetic—that is, responsible to the needs and suffering of others. It’s the nearly the universal dyad between the one caring and the one cared for that primes us, ultimately enabling us—as we eventually grow up to care for others” (Zuckerman 2019, p. 135).

Finally, human morality comes from within us, in the wirings of our brains. Just consider oxytocin, a hormone and neurotransmitter produced by the hypothalamus. It is sometimes referred to as the love hormone. Zuckerman says the following: “Oxytocin is a key neurological player in our evolved sociability, featuring significantly in our experience of compassion, generosity, and affection. When we care for others, or are cared for by others, oxytocin is released in our brains” (Zuckerman 2019, p. 153). This encourages sympathy and empathy for others. Zuckerman concludes with the following:

The core components of our morality… are essentially within us. They are an embedded, inherited part of us. We don’t go out and ‘choose’ them per se. Our morals have been inherited from our evolutionary past, molded through our early childhood nurturance, enhanced and channeled through cultural socialization, and as such, they rule us from within.

(Zuckerman 2019, p. 136)

5. On a Fact-Based Human Morality

Morality is based on human needs and human interests, and nothing more. Morality is based upon some solid evidence about who we are as human beings, and why we act the way we do. As human beings we do not like pain, unless we are testing our own physical endurance for an upcoming sports contest, in which case the pain is worth the reward. There is mental pain, social pain, physical pain, financial pain, and so on. The avoidance of pain for humans is a huge motivator. So is the seeking of holistic pleasure, the kind higher primates seek, like the avoidance of guilt, the pleasure of success/accomplishments, the anxiety of upcoming challenges, and so forth. So, the avoidance of pain, and its corollary, the seeking of holistic pleasure, can account for human morality without a God, gods, or goddesses.

There is solid objective evidence that rational human beings have certain needs. Take, for example, psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1943; and his book Maslow 1987). Our needs are diagramed in the shape of a pyramid, with the most fundamental survival needs at the base of it on bottom. At that bottom level of the pyramid are the essential physiological needs, like air, water, and food. Clothing and shelter are also needed for protection from the environment, as is sexual satisfaction considered a need. Then above that level are safety needs that we attend to after our physical needs are relatively satisfied. Among those needs are personal security, financial security, health, and well-being. Above that level is our need for love and belonging. As social beings we need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, so we need our families, friends, and our partners through sexual intimacy. Above that level is the need for self-esteem. All humans have the need to have self-esteem and the respect of others. At the very top of the pyramid is the need for self-actualization, which is the need to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

If we look closely at these needs, it’s obvious we must be good to other people if we expect to have our needs met, because they have the power to help us meet our needs. That is a good enough reason to be good to others. We need other people to achieve the things we need and want, especially when it comes to Maslow’s love and belonging level, but even before that. So, we also want the needs of the people we love to be met, which in turn means doing good for the people we care about, which in turn means doing good for the people they care about, along with the community at large. We also want enough challenges to make us strong and enough pleasures to motivate us to continue wanting to live. These things are undeniable. They are obvious. Rational people want their needs met and cannot have them met without being good to others. So, in order to be happy, we must meet the needs of other people to a large degree.

It is widely accepted that David Hume was correct that an “ought” cannot be derived from what “is”. Why should we desire to be happy? According to Hume the fact that we want to be happy has no bearing on whether we ought to desire to be happy. But when we consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs there is solid evidence for what human beings need to live a full and happy life. To the degree our needs are met, we are happy. The higher one climbs on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the happier that person is going to be. Not having our needs met makes us unhappy, especially the needs at the base of the pyramid which can lead to death if lacking. So, if we want to be happy, we ought to be good to others. We ought to help others meet their needs. At this point, paradoxically as it might seem, seeking holistic happiness means genuinely caring for others. We need to care about others—genuinely care—in order for our needs to be met. If we do not genuinely care for people, especially those closest to us, they will usually detect it, and when they do, they will ostracize us.

We can always ask why we ought to do whatever we think we should do, and why we ought to do that, or something else, until the questions peter out into oblivion. The fact remains that if we want to be happy we should pursue happiness, which means paying close attention to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is a good enough “ought” that needs no higher justification. Regardless of Hume, if you want to be happy then you ought to pursue happiness. In fact, given Maslow’s hierarchy of needs it should make us happy to be good to others.

As Aristotle argued, happiness is our goal in life because happiness is the supreme good. We do not want happiness for any other reason. It is an end in and of itself. Happiness for Aristotle and the virtue ethicists means “holistic” happiness. It is not being a “pig satisfied.” It is not having mere hedonistic pleasure.22 In having our needs met we achieve happiness—holistic happiness—the supreme end of life. To critics who ask why we should want to be happy, I simply say that because rational people want their needs met, it follows that they ultimately want to be happy. This is simply the way it is. Critics may ask why we ought to seek holistic happiness, but the question just never arises. We cannot rationally do otherwise but strive for a happy life.

I am not arguing for selfishness as a basis for an atheistic morality. Selfishness, by definition, is being concerned solely with one’s own interests, needs, and wishes, while ignoring those of others. It describes a person who is only concerned about oneself. It implies the unholy trinity: me, myself, and I. Selfish people will lack the things that make them happy. It’s an anti-social attitude for which there are consequences that follow.

A selfish person will not be able to satisfy the needs Maslow described. Consequentially he or she will not be holistically happy to that same degree. Being shortsighted, he or she is only interested in instant gratification, not in the long-lasting benefits of being a good spouse, father, Mother, son, daughter or friend to others. Selfish people will usually and ultimately suffer the results of their anti-social attitudes, and this is often unpleasant. They will experience loneliness, anxiety, self-destructive tendencies, very few trustworthy friends, depression, fear, paranoia, disappointment with life, and a short life. They will not work well with others and will probably be fired from good-paying jobs, resulting in some degree of poverty. If they are overly selfish and abusive toward others, they will be banned from society or jailed.

By contrast people who seek holistic happiness will seek the long-lasting benefits of happiness. This means denying oneself instant gratification for those better, more-beneficial, long-term lasting goods of friendship, a sense of importance, self-esteem, and other such things.

There is therefore no mystery to morality. If any person or any class of people is harmed then it harms us all in varying degrees. To cause harm or to allow harm will harm us all. Doing good or allowing for good, is good for us all. The moral principle we can all adopt is that harming people is morally wrong and doing good is morally right.

We can look at it another way based on a fact we all acknowledge. We care for our families, genuinely care for them. Since we do, we must genuinely care about the people who are close to them, and in turn the people who are close to them, and so on and so forth, which means caring for our community at large and by extension the country we live in and the world beyond that.

For someone to ask why we should care about our families is to ask an utterly nonsensical question. We must. We cannot do otherwise. It forms the basis for most everything we think and do. The members of our family are an extension of who we are, and why we exist. To phrase it in terms Sam Harris would agree with, it is not “healthy” to do otherwise. Anyone who disagrees ends up rejecting the institution of morality, which means what they think does not matter. What I am expressing is the norm for healthy, rational people. If they disagree, they have opted out of the institution of morality, and subject to the above-mentioned anti-social harms that follow from doing so.

Healthy people universally value having their needs met, as described in Maslow’s hierarchy met. People cannot be considered healthy if they have a flagrant disregard for them. People who are not healthy have a deep-seated Freudian “death wish.” While it is probably true we all have some degree of a “death wish,” people who refuse to care about themselves, or who do not care about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to a significant degree, or who refuse to continue living, are simply not healthy people. Some criminals, for instance, may prefer being behind bars because they cannot live on the outside world for various reasons, or they have some inner need to punish themselves due to guilt or self-loathing. People who do not care about themselves, or anyone else, or want to die, or commit suicide, are people who are unhealthy. They are hurting themselves and others around them. This goes against our instinct to survive and to live life to the fullest. Any person who acts contrary to that survival instinct is not healthy in the sense that doing so goes against a fundamental built-in drive to live. Morality therefore is part of our survival instinct. To survive, we need other people. The values of tolerance, family, and friendship provide people with the ability to avoid pain.

There are therefore sufficient reasons for atheists to be good. It starts with an overall life plan. Philosopher Louis Pojman argued that it is reasonable to choose and act upon an overall “life plan,” even though there will be many times when one may have to act against one’s own immediate or short-term self-interest in keeping with that plan. “To have the benefits of the moral life—friendship, mutual love, inner peace, moral pride or satisfaction, and freedom from moral guilt—one has to have a certain kind of reliable character. All in all, these benefits are eminently worth having. Indeed, life without them may not be worth living.” “Character counts,” Pojman continues, and “habits harness us to predictable behavior. Once we obtain the kind of character necessary for the moral life—once we become virtuous—we will not be able to turn morality on and off like a faucet.” With such an understanding, “there is no longer anything paradoxical in doing something not in one’s interest, for while the individual moral act may occasionally conflict with one’s self-interest, the entire life plan in which the act is embedded and from which it flows is not against the individual’s self-interest” (Pojman 2006, p. 188).

So, we do not need an “ultimate” anything to live life in this world. There just are not any, anyway. But there are nonultimate reasons. And while I do not think what I do in life will matter for all of eternity, what I do, does matter very much to the ones I love. This life is all there is: a short blip of existence in the cosmos. So, it makes what I do of utmost importance because this life is all there is. I should therefore be motivated to give all I have today, for this is all I have. By contrast, believers with an irrational hope for an afterlife “in the sky” have, all too often sacrificed this life for that ill-founded hope. Most of their lives have been too heavenly focused to be any good here on earth. Karl Marx adequately described that kind of religion as “the opium of the people” in that it deadens them from the pain of present injustices.

6. On Ethical Rules, Principles, and Systems

When it comes to ethical rules, principles, and systems, we are addressing rational adult humans who are not mentally challenged, or suffering from a degenerative brain disease like Alzheimer’s, or otherwise brain damaged. We are not discussing ethics with sociopaths, or psychopaths, who have clearly rejected the institution of morality. Sociopaths have little or no regard for others, or moral rules. Psychopaths have a brain disorder that keeps them from having empathy for others. All we can do is monitor them, manage them, and medicate them.

Let me reiterate that the only reasonable ethical systems are secular ones. So, it does not really matter which ethical system atheists adopt, since all reasonable ethics are secular. As long as one or more of them succeeds without too many intractable problems, the problem of atheist ethics is also solved.

What we know is that moral behavior came first, and then came the ethical rules, principles and systems. Non-human animals, who developed the initial stages of morality, did not first adopt rules for behavior, or ethical principles for morality. Lindsay puts it this way: “Before explicit moral norms, there was conduct modified by the reactions of others. Conduct disruptive to the community produced negative reactions; altruistic conduct produced positive reactions. In other words, patterns of behavior evolved before there was any explicit normal guidance” (Lindsay 2016, p. 107).

This point is significant. Ethical types of “discussions” had to wait until human beings developed higher levels of thinking about them, along with the languages used to discuss them. Prior to our stage, animals and early Homo sapiens just did not need them. So too, children raised to be good do not need ethical principles to be good. When we discuss ethical principles we are mainly playing catch-up on how we really behave. This is learning our ethics in a backhanded manner. We learn from doing. We learn from the results of morality that prove to be beneficial to us. Even as adults, no one needs to study ethics to learn how to be a good human being. In fact, most adults in the western world probably do not understand Aristotelian, Kantian, or Utilitarian ethics, much less Confucianism or Buddhism. Goodness is a learned behavior as taught by our parents in a shared culture. Our parents might offer ethical platitudes like the golden rule, but it is their behavior, and that of our siblings, extended families, and peers, that ultimately teaches us our morality.

This is not an anti-intellectual position that denies ethics. It simply describes how we behave irrespective of ethical principles and systems. Ethicists and philosophers make and defend their ethical systems by aiming at consistency across the board. But the principles were always forged first in the fires of moral choice-making.

There was a time, even as a former Christian, when I thought any given moral choice was “solved” depending on which ethical theory I turned to for an answer. My choice, I thought, was dependent on which ethical theory was best at dealing with the specific moral question before me. Given one moral question, I might choose to use a version of Utilitarianism, while a different moral question was solved best by one of the other major ethical systems of ethics, be it virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, and even egoism as I could gerrymander it. But it was not long before I realized this was not having a principled approach to ethics. It was an unprincipled approach instead. For the person doing the choosing was me. I was making the choices I considered best, given everything in my background knowledge and who I am.

Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre said that when searching for a counselor we seek out the one(s) who will tell us what we want to hear. In other words, we seek to confirm what we believe. Ethical principles can be like that. Many times, ethical rules can be gerrymandered, twisted, and turned on their heels by moral choice-making as needed. It depends what data we plug into them, and what data we ignore, or leave out. When it comes to ethics we disagree about the basis for them, about their content, and the motivations for obeying them. We can agree on several basic ethical rules but disagree, sometimes vehemently, with how they are supposed to be applied.

From my life experience, I have been flying by the seat of my pants, making choices as they arise the best I can, based on previous experiences, even as a Christian. I admit though, when I was a Christian I had an additional stumbling block to overcome, since I had to gerrymander the Scriptures to support moral positions. I chose to reinterpret the abominations we find in the Bible, like slave ownership, the inferiority of women, the so-called sin of homosexuality, and hell being an everlasting fiery torment. As far as I remember, it is hard to say which particular ethical system or principles I have followed consistently.

What I know is that for the most part I made choices that brought me happiness, without harming anyone directly, and to a lesser extent did not harm anyone indirectly. Or in other words, I chose to be happy without making others unhappy, and if I thought I was making others unhappy, I would adjust my behavior to mitigate their unhappiness, or mine, depending on the circumstances. With strangers as well as acquaintances my happiness came first. Why not? If I do not take care of me, who will take care of them? I could care for others and myself at the same time, so this is not an either/or choice, but a both/and one. I care deeply about my family, and friends. Again, it is not a type of selfishness but rather a holistic kind of happiness, taking into consideration my mental considerations, who I pictured myself to be, my social standing, and in other words, not being a “pig satisfied.” Sometimes, many times, I sacrificed my own happiness for others depending on how close they were to me. Sometimes I didn’t.

As I look back, my ethics might possibly have been described as moral particularism. Dr. Jonathan Dancy defends this view in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on it.23 The most vigorous version of it “is the claim that there are no defensible moral principles, that moral thought does not consist in the application of moral principles to cases, and that the morally perfect person should not be conceived as the person of principle.” Its most defensible version is as follows:

It holds that though there may be some moral principles, still the rationality of moral thought and judgment in no way depends on a suitable provision of such things; and the perfectly moral judge would need far more than a grasp on an appropriate range of principles and the ability to apply them. Moral principles are at best crutches that a morally sensitive person would not require, and indeed the use of such crutches might even lead us into moral error.

Apparently, I did not need moral principles. Or did I? One thing for sure is we do not need to have an exhaustive knowledge of an action before we can say we acted ethically. That is an unreasonable requirement. Nonetheless, is it really true that at bottom, after all of the discussions have petered out, there is not a principle down there, wherever “there” is! I think there probably is one. If nothing else, ethical norms can stand in as generalizations. That can be good in and of itself.

For an example that shows much of what I am saying here, consider Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, whereby we should act on the maxim that one’s action should be universalized. Atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen offered an updated depiction of it—“For an act to be moral or for an attitude to be moral, it must be universalizable. By this is meant the following: If A is morally right for X, it is similarly morally right for anyone else in like circumstances” (Nielsen 1989, p. 63). About this, David Eller objects by saying, “universalibity” is much less useful than moral theorists think:

A Muslim father who kills his daughter for having sex before marriage (a so-called “honor killing”) would presumably have no trouble universalizing that action. ‘It is good for a father to kill a daughter who has dishonored her family’ is not only a possible but the actual maxim of his action. Therefore, people can and easily do universalize all kinds of things that we might find morally reprehensible. It is no help at all.

(J. D. Eller 2007, p. 370)

From one perspective this is a damning indictment on Kantian ethics. From another perspective it is clear that specific religious “moralities” can wreak havoc with any type of ethics that matter. So, from this perspective, the Muslim father’s objection should have no bearing on the legitimacy of Kantian ethics. Neither should Eller’s objection show John Rawl’s “veil of ignorance” to be faulty, or Utilitarian ethics for that matter. I just do not think reasonable ethical evaluations should allow religious objections to destroy the ethics being considered. We should ignore and reject religious moralities that are obviously false. Only by doing so we can better understand and defend ethics.

Eller subsequently offered a legitimate objection to Kant’s universalizable thesis, as updated by Nielsen, by saying,

“The qualification ‘in like circumstances’ is the death of ‘universal morality’ since it is no longer universal, or merely trivially so: in other words, if I say, ‘You should never kill, except if you are a soldier in the line of duty facing enemy combatants,’ we are not longer talking about universals but situationals. Otherwise the ‘universal’ moral claim is that it is bad to kill unless you are a soldier and unless you are at war and unless your victim is an enemy combatant, etc. But that is a mockery of ‘universalization.’”

Now it might be the case that the relevant situationals eventually dwindle away into nothing after a short while. These disputes are tough, but probably not insoluble. What makes them impossible is when religious believers bring their myths into ethics, which shouldn’t have any secular standing.

Still, there are many significant debates yet to be resolved by the consensus of ethicists. For his part, Sterba has argued that the moral guidance given by different ethical rules, principles, and systems, turns out to be the same in practice. He tells us, that when it comes to Aristotelian, Kantian, and Utilitarian ethics, “all three of these traditional ethical theories, when given their most morally defensible interpretation, seem to be leading to the same practical moral requirements” (Sterba 2013, p. 4). In another place he wrote the following:

Traditional theories of ethics be they Aristotelian, Kantian, Millian, or whatever, have come to be revised and reformed in such a way that, at least in their most morally defensible formulations, they no longer differ in the practical requirements they endorse. This explains how contemporary philosophers can claim allegiance to the various figures in the history of ethics, while rejecting many of the substantive requirements these figures endorsed. On searching for what is morally defensible in these traditional theories, contemporary defenders have jettisoned much of what had distinguished these traditional theories from each other.

(Sterba 2005, pp. 1–2)

No matter which ethical principles or systems we adopt, there are problems. But I think with Sterbaian Ethics, as it should henceforth be called, we have a way forward. He tells us to “Treat all relevant interests fairly,” which “is further justified by the nonquestion-begging requirement of good argumentation.” I can see how this ethic can apply to the non-human animal world, along with a global concern for all people, including dire global warming concerns. We are in his debt.