excellent point.

yes..HOMO SAPIANS!

I assume you mean homo sapiens.

Anyway, that's rather a counter example. Humanity as such more often followed faith-based rule system rather than humanistic ethics.

How is that an excellent point?

I asked him how he decides what is right and wrong without religion and he just told me that he would do what Moses did and make up his own (although presumably without a god).

He didn't even answer my question, let alone prove anything about his position.

As for the "old trope": "Is God good because his actions are good? Or are God's actions good because he is God?"... who says the two are opposites? I rather think that if G-d exists there would be no difference between a "good action" and an "action of G-d". Those two simply don't have have an "if X then Y" relationship so the question which of the two is X and which is Y is meaningless. (I could with the same justification ask whether good ice cream is tasty because it is good ice cream or whether it is good ice cream because it is tasty.)

Between the people who find outdated artifical and false dilemmas and think they have therefore found knowledge not understood by those they disagree with and the people who applaud them for having done so there is just not much to learn, I suppose.

Ethics is a study of certain behaviour sets, a philosophical examination of our beliefs and motivations (e.g., Hume claimed an ethical belief [conviction] was one which was self motivating) not a set a of deontological rules.

It is 'do I do this action because I am told it is just, or do I do it because it is just?' It is the way we examine how we decide what is good and evil.
Many strains stress the reduction of suffering, from Bentham's utilitarianism to the anarchist Marcos' claim in The Unquiet Dead that we cannot know 'the good', but only 'the bad', and try to avoid it. This chimes well with me, since our ideas of what is good often differ, and the best way to act justly is to reduce suffering, not follow absolute rules.
Ergo: justice can better be understood through an equiry into ethics, and is found to consist, in many interpretations, even ethical realist ones, as something other than the following of hard-and-fast laws.

As for the general theme that homo sapiens followed instincts of mutual aid, I direct your attention to pre-Judeo-Christian, animist peoples; to tribal systems which insisted that the results of the hunt be shared out amongst the community; to the guild system; to the Jura Federation of the late 1800s and many more examples where humanity comes together to free itself from depravity and deprevation.

Actually, I did answer you. You just didn't distinguish between ethics and morality. I have clarified above.

As for the old trope argument: You haven't actually addressed the issue. Admittedly this is because the question posits a hypothetical quandry, and you answer as if ... I'm not sure how. Some bizzarre sophistry. I asked 'how can we determine that God is good' and you replied by saying 'God is good.'
They arn't opposites - one is a noun, the other is a description of the morality of a position. The question is how one relates to the other. So saying that they arn't opposites, but rather the same, makes no sense.
But taking you supposition further, if there is no difference between 'a good action' and 'an action of God', then no action brought about by God is bad (that is, not-good). So how can you define 'good'? What makes God 'good?' i.e., how do we ascertain 'goodness' and 'badness'? We return to the point of the question.

This isn't an outdated, artificial argument - it is one put forward by some of the greatest thinkers in the history of ethics, one of the questions that university courses in the philosophy of ethics start off with, because it helps us understand ethical realist stances, and the implications for normative judgement.

[edited, as with most, almost immediately after posting]

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/350976

Unless there is a G-d and you hear his voice the only way you have to determine whether something is just is by what you were told by others.

Yes, but did the _animists_ do that without believing in a higher power they don't control?

I am looking for grand examples of tribes/peoples that used humanist systems of ethics rather than faith-based such. I believe the claim was made that such systems are obviously superior? So where are they?

As for the animist tribal systems; they were based on beliefs in the supernatural, not humanism, and as we can see among the remnants of these systems, they were quite barbaric. The modern romantic version of how tribal systems worked is quite different from how they did and still do work.

I'll give you an example.

One of the tribal conventions based on sharing amongs the community is the so-called blood feud which allowed one clan to avenge the death of a family member by killing the perpetrator or one of the clan of the perpetrator. This practice is a typical outgrowth of the animist tribal system humanity used for thousands of years. It's still common in more primitive corners of the world.

Jewish law, aka the Bible, introduced the concept of "cities of refuge". Those were cities (the Bible lists six) in which accused perpetrators of manslaughter who had been judged innocent could escape the blood feud and within which they would be safe from the clan of the victim.

In time laws against blood feuds became more common. But those laws always came "from above", i.e. were made by an authority who claimed they represented G-d's will and thus had jurisdiction to replace ancient customs the tribes came up with cooperatively.

I very much prefer the deity-based religion over the tribal cooperation system, thank you very much.

Another good example is women's rights.

In tribal societies, women are essentially property. They were (and are) sold to prospective husbands. It was the Torah (for the Jews) and the Quran (for Arabs) who first defined any kind of rights of women in those tribal societies. G-d (or people pretending to speak for G-d) introduced laws that the tribes were unable to make (or were unable to make and enforce without resorting to a claim that G-d wants those laws).

(Now don't confuse followers of pre-Islamic tribal rituals who claim to be Muslims but violate Islamic law regarding women with Islam!)

I was not aware that the priestly caste in Judaism was generally richer than the other tribes.

The decree to worship only one god didn't help the priesthood. Monotheism takes away from the power of the priesthood because people can approach one god much better than they can approach an entire pantheon.

This is why you historically find huge numbers of of powerful priests in polytheistic societies. In monotheism, priests are very different from polytheistic priests.

When Pharaoh Akhenaten introduded a monotheistic system in Egypt, the priesthood was very opposed to it. And after the Pharaoh's death, the old polytheistic system came back and was very much promoted by the priests. One theory goes that Moses was one of the priests of the monotheistic Egyptian religion and that the Israelites were a band of his followers.

Either way, the idea that monotheism is some sort of mechanism used by the priesthood to remain in power is false. Quite the opposite is true.

There is no such attitude and people do not agree about what things can be owned and whether ownership exists and whether everyone has a right to own things or not.

Try explaining to a nomadic people that they have an attitute towards stealing "your" land. You might instead find that nomadic societies often have no concept of land ownership at all.

You are trying to explain natural law to me. But the problem is that there isn't one.

You answered me, but you did not answer my question.

So I am not allowed to use the definition of G-d when you ask me about G-d?

That's weird.

So perhaps the answer is that the "old trope" is very true for any god but mine. But who would care?

Gah, yes, you're defining God, but you're defining him as something which is good. Which raises questions of what good is, and in what way God is good.
If I say the sky is blue, I am referring to a value of 'blueness.' The sky has the property of being blue. So if you say that God is good, then you are saying he has the property of being good. But that makes goodness an external value to God, so how can he be the source of values that differentiate between what is good and bad? Seriously, it's that simple.

As for 'not answering you', as I said, you conflated 'ethics' and 'rule-based morality.' Apparently pointing that out didn't clarify the answer. There is little else I can do.

And are you trying to piss me off? Did I ever say historical tribes had a humanistic ethic? Did I ever say animist tribes didn't have conventions by which their moral codes were enforced? No. The point was that these societies all had systems of mutual aid, constituted in various, specific social mores and functions. But the central theme was that an ethic that could be described as altruistic was a part of all these systems.
Seriously, do I have to summarise the entirety of Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, or Spencer's confidence in the animal instincts to provide a guide for moral action? The inter- and intra-species aid rendered by creatures in the wild? The way thse actions became customs in early language-based societies? The gradual codification of these customs as laws, both religious and secular?
No, there was no 'humanist ethic' in these societies. They were primitive, captives of their own ignorance and not yet fully self-aware (that's what philosophy is, to some extent, examining and becoming aware of our selves). Rather, the kernal of 'mutual aid' or 'altruism' was encased within their social conventions. The point of Kropotkin's analysis was that we can create a humanist, enlightened morality based on these natural impulses.

And no, those societies weren't perfect. They have been romanticised (just look at Rousseau) and had very negative aspects. But if the theory of antinomy teaches us anything, it is that contradiction surrounds us. These old societies teach us much about what makes us human, including the negative effects and actions. We can learn from both the positives and the negatives.
It is telling that you try to rescue old Judaeo-Christian society from this though, try to elevate them above their contemporaries. They had just as many faults. As for women, the Bible is astoundingly mysoginistic in many places. God is a violent dictator, especially (but not solely) in the Old Testament, who demands heresy be stamped out. When the Christians gained ascendancy by partnering with the emperor Constantine, they engaged in pogroms to extirpate non-believers (so quickly do the persecuted turn to persecutors in the religous sphere). And as for the priests, power is not solely measured in material wealth, but in obedience also; for centuries they remained the arbiters and interpreters of 'God's Will.'

Additionally, simply being religious, in the terms you appear to be thinking in, does not mean that the mutual aid impulses that we carry by instinct were non-existant in these Jewish societies. As goes for the other tribes mentioned above, these instincts were codified by religious/cultural doctrine (tradition).
You would do well to also pay attention to Feurbach and the concept of fetishisation. A devout believer in a god who does good attributes it to the grace of their god, to the inspiration of their religion, to the positive influence of their faith. In reality, their good work is their own. Their actions for others are a part of who they are, but religion has fetishised their god. Positive aspects are imparted to the god - it is 'good', 'kind', 'benevolent'. These are human words, loaded with human meaning. These aspects come back to the person in a form they do not recognise, imbued as they are with a new, religious significance. (This obviously leaves us with another trend in religious thought - that we are sinful, fallen, since all that remain are the negative aspects of human activity, all positive ones being ascribed to a god.)
It ought to be fairly simple to see how this works from the standpoint of the ethical naturalist approach. Behaviour influenced by mutual aid - generosity, sympathy, etc. - is ascribed to the religious convictions, whatever they may be, of the individual. You are doing the exact same thing with early Judeo-Christian society - the better aspects of their society, those we might judge as more positive than their contemporaries (who were not all alike, as you seem to imply, though I assume that is because this isn't really the place to go into each civilisation seperately) you ascribe to tyhem having a certain religion.

You are still creating a false dilemma. It is entirely possible for an entity to be X AND to be the authority over what constitutes X-ness.

In a world created by a god there is no "good" except that which the god created as such. And it is up to that god whether he himself is good or not.

The god that I believe created this universe also created the definition of what is good and decided that he is good.

I am sorry, I thought when you said " I direct your attention to pre-Judeo-Christian, animist peoples" you were trying to direct my attention to pre-Judeo-Christian, animist peoples. I was talking about exactly those.

The question is: it is said 'God is good', but what do we mean by that? Is God good by merely being God, in which case what is morality? Or is he good in reference to some value external of himself.
Let's put it like this: Why is God good? Because he is just, merciful, kind, etc. But what makes these things good? Are they good in themselves? If God were lacking in one or all of these qualities, would he still be good? Indeed, if he were, would those qualities still be good?
As I said, it's a foundation of modern ethical thought, not, as you decree, a false problem it is more comfortable to misrepresent than to understand.

In short, it's all very well for you to blindly insist that God is good, but what criteria are you using to determine this 'goodness'?

You are too creating the dilemma.

You are pretending that there exists a dilemma which only exists if one sees G-d the way you do.

But since religious people don't see G-d that way, the dilemma only exists for you, not them.

I wasn't. I asked for examples of human tribes that used the so-called superior method of defining ethics and morality and the subject of animist tribes came up.

If they are not an example (and I myself said they are not) then please come up with a tribe or society that followed whatever alternative to theistic religion you see and survived for thousands of years.

What you asked was this:[quote who="Leauki"]

Can you name one of those human tribes that follows such an approach and was able better to combat anything?
[/quote]It was said all humans, and this is true. The point is not the moral they held, but what ethical enquiry says about them.
So: within nature there is an observable instinct towards aiding fellow creatures. This instinct exists within humans also. We can see these instincts being enacted through social conventions in human society throughout history. We can (says the ethical naturalist) describe our construction of moral codes, in the forms of social conventions, traditions, laws, and religious edicts, as eminations of this instinct. A better understanding of this instinct also allows us to better describe a moral system which will treat people with more justice and which has a normative force all of its own.
Now, notice the distinction between ethical enquiry and moral rules, which you have resolutely failed to make previously.

I was never saying that previous societies had a better way of understanding ethics (though we still read and analyse Aristotle today), nor that they had a more moral way of living. That you should think I was when I spoke of Kropotkin's naturalism says disturbing things about your analytical ability. Instead, I said that ethical naturalists (and there is a passage within Blackburn's 'How to be an ethical anti-realist' which suggests the following is also commensurate with ethical non-cognitivism) saw the building blocks of human morality within historical human (and animal) behaviour. From this comes our conceptions of justice and all those other moral institutions. Simple.

As for the so-called dilemma, it is true that it is not a dilemma - in that that word has personal connotations. Tellingly, you were the first to use such a phrase.
But it is not true that the problem is beneath you, nor other religious persons - when such issues are brought before seminars and symposia on ethics (more often the former, those attending the latter tend to have moved on to more complex or at least more abstract matters) religious attendees have to resolve the issue just as their non-religious counterparts do. It has nothing to do with specific conceptions of God. 'God' is abstracted here. It is a question of saying that if 'God' is 'Good', then what does 'Good' constitute, and what criteria is 'Goodness' based on? Saying you concieve of God in a certain way (and it is just you, don't generalise to all religious people) is just another ad hominem attempt to make the question irrelevant to you. It isn't. I know for a fact it is still a problem presented to students and occuring in books and articles in peer-reviewed journals. In such situations it is never dismissed by saying 'nuh-uh, doesn't apply to me.'
If, in mathematics, the problem is given "X2-3=7, solve for X" you cannot simply argue that you have a different, special conception of the term 'X' and therefore don't have to try to ascertain its meaning.

LEAUKI POSTS 351

POSTS 353

Again, keep in mind there is natural religion, supernatural (God revealed) religion, false religion, and irreligion.

Supernatural religion is the virtue of justice which renders to God the honor, gratitude, obedience and worship due Him, and in the way proscribed by Him.

The practice of religion is necessary and I would venture to say that science provides some explanations for the appeal of religion. In other words Almighty God and biology are linked becasue we are hardwired for practicing religion...and why? becasue we instinctively believe there is a God because God is our end. We do not grow into the idea of God, but endeavor to grow out of it.

So the practice of religion is necessary becasue God has definite rights which we aren't justified in ignoring. Moreover, God commands us to adore and serve Him. The First Commandment .."Thou shalt love thy God....". A person with no religion who never worships God, never says a prayer to Him,is far from fulfilling the commandment of love. It is not enough to admit off hand that God exists, and then ignore His definite claims.