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INTRODUCTION

In the United States, evangelists often claim that atheists have no
basis for morality, no "foundations" for ethics. This claim goes back
at least as far as the Apostle Paul.

Many examples could be given of this claim, by historical and
contemporary writers. Most famous is the character in the novel by
Dostoyevsky, who says in essence that "If God does not exist, then
everything is permitted." The claim is that for those without a
supernatural basis for morality, all morality must be relative. All
is permissible.

These evangelists also imply, and sometimes say outright, that those
who believe in a god are more ethical than nonbelievers. "For
theists, morality isn't relative. There is a standard by which to
judge such things."

So, in their view, believers are morally superior to atheists,
because THEY have a foundation for morality and WE do not. Not to
mention the obvious, that they MUST be morally superior, because THEY
are going to Heaven while WE are not. So, are they right? Do theists have
better foundations for their ethics than atheists do?

WHAT IS "ETHICS"?

Ethics, generally, are rules, principles, policies for behavior, with
the goal of ______ (fill in the blank). Religious ethics fills in the blank with something supernatural.
"Pleasing God", "Getting admission to Heaven", "Achieving Nirvana",
whatever. Atheist ethics fills in the blank with something in this world. What
is the purpose of human life? We have our choice on that. "Promoting
the health and happiness of my family, friends, adopted circle, and
our descendants." "Contributing to the long-run survival of human
civilization". "Maximizing my lifetime total of pleasure." There are
a million possibilities.

"FOUNDATIONS" OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS

Religious morality is based on faith. Faith is, ultimately, believing
what you are told, by someone whom you have chosen to regard as an
authority. Your chosen authority tells you about invisible things,
Heaven and Hell and God, and about what this God wants you to do and
not do.

Faith is required, to believe that this invisible god actually
exists, that he/she/it wants your obedience, and that for some reason
this god cannot or will not speak to you directly, but WILL speak to
this self-proclaimed authority. You must have faith that your chosen
authority is actually hearing from this god and not from some other
invisible spirit, some mischievous or malevolent ghost or demon. You
must have faith that your prophet is not making it all up out of
whole cloth, and is reporting accurately what this invisible spirit
is saying. If your chosen prophet lived centuries ago, you have to
hope that the words of this prophet were recorded, copied, and
translated accurately for, as Jeremiah said, "actually the lying pen
of the scribes has handled it falsely". (Jer. 8:8)
If someone calls you on the telephone and says they are working for a
good cause, what reason do you have to believe them? Last year
Americans were taken for $40 Billion dollars by fraudulent telephone
callers. If you know someone face to face in some OTHER way, and you
then recognize their voice over the phone, then you have reason to
trust what they say; but a stranger calling could be anyone. So, let
us assume that the Biblical prophets are honorable men; all, all
honorable men. A prophet hears a voice coming out of the air, out of
a burning bush, or whatever, and the voice says: "I am Yahveh, King
of the Universe. I am the Creator of all things." How do they know,
how CAN they know, whether this Yahveh character is telling the
truth? We don't even know if this is the real Yahveh, much less the
real Creator of the Universe. We don't know if it was the same voice
speaking to different prophets. The voice could be some imp or sprite
about three inches tall, playing a practical joke. It could be a
demon with darker plans. Is this Yahveh really the Creator of the
Universe, as he claims, or is he perhaps some local ghost? Perhaps
Yahveh is lying, as he has sometimes done. (1 Kings 22, 2 Chronicles
18, Ezekiel 14:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12.) Perhaps Yahveh is giving
bad laws deliberately, as he boasted in Ezekiel 20:25. All this has
to be decided subjectively.

Religious ethics comes down to obedience to (allegedly divine)
authority. Just as "faith" consists of believing what you are told,
religious ethics consists of doing what you are told. But a minute of
thought will show that morality is not the same as obedience. We all
know of examples where people who were obeying orders have done evil
things, and other examples where people who were rebelling against
authority have done good things.

We all start out as children, and we first learn morality by
instruction from our parents. We know what is right and wrong
"because our parents say so." For a small child, morality is nothing
other than obedience to parents. This is necessary and proper,
because the child does not have the understanding or perspective
needed to live by a rational morality. Humans are a social species,
we have been living in groups for longer than we have been human.
Children are predisposed to learn morality and social customs in the
same way, and for the same reason, that they are predisposed to learn
language. Both language and ethics are vitally important tools for
living, for a species that survives by cooperating in groups.
Religion hijacks this childhood instinct, substituting an invisible
cosmic parent for the earthly ones. Religious morality consists of
obedience to the instructions of this cosmic parent, as reported and
interpreted by whoever is bold enough (crazy enough, dishonest
enough) to do so.

Religion teaches a child's view of ethics, that "being good" means
"obeying your parent". It gives a moral blank check to those bold
enough, dishonest enough, to claim to speak for God.
If there WERE any Cosmic Parent, it would not need human messengers;
it could speak directly to whomever it wished. If a divine being
wants me to do something, they should tell me, not you. If they have
a message for all humankind, they could write it on the face of the
Moon, in letters five miles wide. Any alleged "revelation" DELIVERED
BY HUMAN BEINGS is presumptively fraudulent.

There is nothing more "relative" than supernatural belief. What you
choose to have faith in is entirely subjective. What writings you
count as scripture is both subjective and culturally relative. What
interpretation you put on those scriptures is likewise. Sincere
believers in the "same" religion have been pacifists and
imperialists, millionaires and ascetics, Capitalists and Socialists,
polygamists and celibates. Not to mention murderers. If a believer
wants to take any particular moral position, or commit any particular
atrocity, all they have to do is convince themselves that God
approves. This seems not to be hard, and God never shows up to tell
the believer that they are mistaken. Religious morality is inherently
subjective and relative, because it depends crucially on faith in
invisible, untestable things.

When a believer says that his morality is "absolute", it means he is
resolutely determined not to apply any of his own intelligence to
moral questions. When he says it is universal and unchanging, it
means his morality is indifferent to the consequences of trying to
follow it in the real world. He may also mean that he is willing to
apply whatever force may be necessary to make everyone else bow down
to his own chosen Lord.

Prophets are those who are deluded enough, or boldly dishonest
enough, to set themselves up as the local representatives of God.
Being human, they may give out bad teachings, and may exploit their
position. Understandably jealous and fearful, they suppress
questioning and independent thinking among their followers and cast
competing prophets as devils and servants of the Cosmic Enemy, the
Great Satan. From this follows all the bloody history of religion.
Instead of leading people to treat each other as kin, religion
historically has led them to treat selected others as "enemies of
God". Such enemies have been held to deserve whatever suffering you
can inflict on them and more, until and unless they submit and obey.
Contrary to its claim to be the source of all morality, religion has
sponsored and endorsed sectarian warfare, genocide, torture,
persecutions of lesser sorts, slavery, male supremacy, inquisitions
and thought control; even for the obedient, it has sponsored
self-censorship, self-abnegation, self-mutilation, rejection of
medical care, suppression of rational inquiry and scientific
education. Priests have been allied with kings and dictators
throughout history, using religion as a tool to keep exploited people
quiet. Religion has perpetrated a wholesale swindle on the human
race, diverting large amounts of time, thought, and wealth to
appeasing a ghost, and the ghost's local representatives. It has
perverted the field of ethics, severing it from any connection to the
consequences for real people in this world, denouncing as sinful any
attempt to apply human thought to moral questions.

FOUNDATIONS OF ATHEIST ETHICS

Ethics, generally, are rules, principles, policies for behavior, with
the goal of ______ (fill in the blank). Atheist ethics fills in the blank
with something in this world. What is the purpose of human life?
We have our choice on that. The fact
that we have our choice of what to value makes atheist ethics
relative. The fact that our ultimate value is something in this world
has the advantage that we can choose to value objective things,
making our personal ethics objective. Doing X will, or will not,
objectively contribute toward our chosen goal. For foundations,
theists have their faith in invisible things. Atheists have the
objective experience of living in this world that we see in front of
us.

Where can we get "objective" ethics? Look at the consequences of
actions for real people in this world. A consequentialist system has
an ultimate goal and a lot of derivative values, which are
recommended means to that goal. An objective ethic is a
consequentialist ethic that has an ultimate goal that is objectively
measurable. It then becomes an objective question whether a
particular recommended means will in fact lead to that goal, whether
another means might be more effective. The statement "If you want X
then you ought to do Y" becomes a statement about cause-and-effect
relationships that is objectively true or false, and can be
investigated by scientific procedures.

What about the choice of your ultimate goal, your ultimate value that
you are pursuing? Can we say that some goal is "better" than others,
and deserves to be adopted by everyone? I think there is one that we
can predict will be widely popular, because it is favored by natural
selection. But there is no logical or cosmic necessity that it be
adopted by everyone.

There is a built-in "default" goal of biological life, genetic
reproductive success, also called "inclusive fitness" by biologists.
For nonhuman life, this goal could be described as "promote the
health of your family", where "health" is defined as "survival
ability" and "family" is "all who share your genes, to the degree
that they share your genes". Reproductive success is the goal that
almost all living organisms pursue, because they follow their
internal urges uncritically. Their internal urges are shaped by
natural selection, and inclusive fitness is what natural selection
selects for. In short, the default goal of biological life is to
raise kids; failing that, help your kinfolk raise kids.
If the majority of living things pursue reproduction as their
ultimate goal, by itself this implies nothing about what I ought to
do. But I think it provides useful information I may wish to consider
while I am choosing what I shall try to do.

Human beings are a special case in at least two ways. First, we have
self-awareness and the ability to choose our goals; inclusive fitness
is only the "default option", toward which our nature will incline us
unless we consciously choose to pursue something else. Second, humans
are more than carriers of genes; we have original thoughts, we
create, receive, modify, and transmit culture. Therefore, for human
beings, "inclusive fitness" would as legitimately include our
cultural kin as our genetic kin.

Because we are all the offspring of uncounted generations of
family-health-maximizers, we may find adopting this goal consciously
to be congenial. The goal I advocate adopting consciously is "promote
the health of your circle". The boundaries of your circle are your
choice, but it would be entirely natural to include yourself, your
genetic kin and descendants, your cultural kin and descendants.
(There are no sharp natural boundaries to kinship, either genetic or
cultural, but near kin commonly receive more concern than distant
kin.) If you have no personal interest in raising kids, or in helping
your kinfolk raise kids, then contribute something to the culture.
"Health", defined as "survival ability", implies other derivative
values. The more knowledge you have, the more friends you have, the
more freedom, the more wealth, the more wisdom, other things being
equal, the greater your ability to survive, and promote the survival
of your circle. The fact that we have a "default goal" written into
our genes by natural selection accounts for our intuitive feelings
that certain things are "obviously" good or bad. But we don't have to
depend on intuition; logic is a better guide.

Human beings are social animals; social animals survive by
cooperating in groups. We have been living in groups for longer than
we have been human. We are more social than any other species; the
largest insect societies have a few million individuals, humans
cooperate in societies of hundreds of millions, even billions.
Because we are social animals, "Health" immediately implies "Peace"
as a basic value. Our ethics must promote the peace of our
communities.

In THE ELEMENTS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY, (an introductory textbook),
James Rachels writes (p. 129): "The key idea [of the Social-contract
approach to ethics] is that morally binding rules are the ones that
are necessary for social living. It is obvious... that we could not
live together very well if we did not accept rules prohibiting
murder, assault, theft, lying, breaking promises, and the like. These
rules are justified simply by showing that they are necessary if we
are to cooperate for our mutual benefit."

In other words, if you want to maintain peaceful and cooperative
relations with your neighbors, don't kill, steal, lie, or break
agreements. As Shakespeare wrote, "It needs no ghost, Milord, come
from the grave, to tell us this."

Social-contract morality is the ethics of Peace. It can set the
minimum standards of right and wrong. But there are many different
possible ways a peaceful and cooperative society might function.
Beyond the ABC's of right and wrong described above, necessary to the
cohesion and cooperative functioning of any group, the ethics of
Health can provide an objective standard for comparing possible
societies. Societies can be judged better or worse according to
whether they are a "healthy" place for your kin "unto all
generations" to live in. The ethics of Health imply the political
goal of Sustainable Civilization.

MEANING

Human beings are storytelling animals. For most people, "the meaning
of life" is what larger story they think their life fits into. They
get great satisfaction from having a larger meaning for their lives.
A philosopher named Braithwaite described religion as "morals helped
out by mythology." People want a "good" story to include heroes with
goals, ideals, aspirations; to identify obstacles and challenges
against which the heroes must struggle; to offer a real hope of
victory. To provide meaning for their lives, people must regard the
story as true, or potentially true, in its essentials. You must have
good reason to hope that, if you live by the morals taught, the
goals, ideals, aspirations will be achieved in reality.
Religious folk get meaning from their religion, and feel that if they
lost their religion, life would have no meaning. But the stories of
religion are not the only stories possible. Meaning is the story you
choose to join. There are other stories we can join, that have the
advantage of being true.

The story of life on Earth is a larger story that everybody's life
could fit into, and in fact does. Reading the story of life on Earth has
impressed me with the rarity and value of "the way we live now".
For three billion years the highest form of life was blue-green algae.
For a million years the human species made fire and stone tools, and lived
by hunting and gathering in small tribes. For ten thousand years most of us
lived by peasant agriculture, which is no fun. It would be a great tragedy if
our civilization crashed and burned a few hundred years after
discovering the scientific method. I would like to see a civilization
based on reason and freedom last for geological ages.

If our civilization is to be long-lived, we must face the challenge
of sustainability- stabilizing our population, establishing a
long-lived peace, developing forms of industry that do not poison our
water and air, forms of agriculture that do not create deserts,
energy sources that will supply us for millennia. For our long-term
health, we will also want to develop the ability to alter the orbits
of the Apollo asteroids, whose orbits cross the orbit of Earth.
Colonizing the solar system would not be a bad idea, either.
Fairy-tales about the supernatural are not necessary to give meaning
or purpose to life. Instead of seeking a ticket to Heaven by being an
obedient slave on Earth, we can gain meaning by taking a positive
role in history, seeking to make this Earth a better place.

THE BOUNDARIES OF MORAL CONCERN

Given that we have our choice, of our personal goal in life, what
goal shall we choose? As individuals, we can choose "life-goals" and
"legacy-goals". Life-goals are whatever would be a satisfying life
for you. This will vary according to talent and temperament.
Legacy-goals are the net effect you want your life to have on the
world. They are the last goals at which you have any chance to
succeed. Considering that accident, crime, disease, etc. leave all of
us uncertain as to our time of death, if you want your personal story
to end in victory, you will choose your actions at all times in your
life to be compatible with your desired legacy. In this way, your
legacy-goal may set limits on what you would be willing to do to
achieve your life-goals.

The ultimate source of fear and despair is death. Death is the
ultimate failure, the ultimate loss. If you want your personal story
to end in victory, what could be your response to this prospect? The
antithesis of death is health, defined as the ability to survive.
Though as individuals we shall inevitably die sooner or later, we can
survive through our genes (families) and through our communicated
thoughts (culture).

To the extent that you identify with your body, you will survive
death through your family of the body, i.e. those that share your
genes. To the extent that you identify with your mind, you will
survive death through your family of the mind, i.e. all those with
whom you share culture, with whom you could share your thoughts.
Joining the true story of biological evolution, we can seek to
contribute to the health of our families. Joining the true story of
cultural evolution, we can seek to contribute to the health of our
society.

Cultural evolution has led to a steady widening of the boundaries of
moral concern. The human species' development of comparatively high
intelligence, the development of language, the development of
writing, of new tools and methods, and in recent times of the
scientific method of understanding the world, has led to a great
increase in the potential value of reciprocity. "Reciprocity" here
refers to the whole network of trading relationships which are
peaceful, cooperative, and mutually beneficial. By discovering new
ways of producing desired things, other than hunting and gathering,
we discovered new forms of valuable cooperation.
For producing desired things by cooperative action, there are
advantages to having larger groups rather than smaller. There are
"economies of scale" that can be obtained only by larger groups.
Larger groups can support having a greater variety of different
products available, higher levels of specialized skill, and new types
of production that are not possible at all on smaller scales. Other
things equal, a larger group also has the advantage in intergroup
conflict.

Cultural evolution has come to wholly overshadow biological
evolution. With the continuing development of culture, the power of
the human race has multiplied and multiplied again. Peace has gotten
a whole lot better, and war has gotten a whole lot worse. It has
become vastly more advantageous to avoid conflict and maintain
peaceful cooperation, in ever-larger and more inclusive groups.
So- the fact that humans are not only social but also intelligent,
not only carriers of genes but also carriers of culture, tends to
make it advantageous to push out the boundaries of moral concern,
beyond the reach supported by instinct. I think the natural limit of
this process is to include all carriers of culture, all potential
cooperators, all persons, in one society.
Beyond persons, we may even choose to include more, for at least two
reasons.

First, I would advocate including "former persons"- those who have
died, and those who have suffered brain damage. This I call the
"insurance clause" to the social contract- we are all at risk of
becoming "former persons", so we all have reason to want certain
rights of "former persons" to be protected.

Second, I would allow an "adopted honorary person" clause. If any
person wishes to adopt an animal or a "pre-person" as a member of
their own family, being responsible for it's care, training, and
behavior, I would grant the adoptee certain rights.

A third reason for including nonpersons would be compassion. John
Rawls defined a "good person" this way: "A good person is one who has
the qualities of moral character that it would be rational for
members of a well-ordered society to want in their associates." In
short, a "good person" is a desirable neighbor. For many reasons, a
compassionate person would be a more desirable neighbor than a
callous one. We want our neighbors to have at least some degree of
compassion, but how much shall we ask for, as a matter of social
mores? If we say that a certain minimum is required to be socially
acceptable, then we must show that much compassion ourselves, which
could become expensive. A modest level would say that we should not
torture animals for fun. A higher level would require humane
treatment of farm animals, even if that interferes with maximizing
profits. A still higher level would ban hunting and promote
vegetarianism. The level required by social mores will be culturally
relative, subject to negotiation and change.

SUMMARY

Ethics are rules, principles, policies for behavior, with the goal of
______ (fill in the blank). Religious ethics fills in the blank with
something supernatural. This makes religious ethics inherently
subjective and relative, because you must choose to have faith in
what you are told, by some chosen authority, about invisible,
untestable things. Atheist ethics fills in the blank with something
in this world. We have our choice of what to value, so atheist ethics
are also relative; but if we choose to value something that is
objectively measurable, our ethics can be objective.
There is one particular choice of what we shall ultimately value,
that we can expect will be a widely popular choice across all human
societies and cultures, because it is favored by natural selection.
Because we are social animals evolved by natural selection, we would
be expected to value the health (survival-ability) of our families,
and the peace of our communities. This offers a "natural" standard of
ethics: The Good is that which leads to health, the Right is that
which leads to peace.

Our reasons for "being ethical" by this standard include kinship,
reciprocity, compassion, and the desire to have and preserve a larger
meaning for our lives.