Journal snowgirl's Journal: A "Ten-Commandments" for Atheists? 16
This is a response to a video on Youtube done by a "tooltime9901", who in response to "jezuzfreek777", presents an interesting prompt. What are the "ten commandments" that an atheist should hold. This is so interesting because it comes to the fundamental philosophy of law and morality. Knowing that morality is fairly relative, and that morality cannot be viewed without context of the situation. Thus, there are justifications to killing another human. There are justifications for what would otherwise be considered theft.
Take these as examples. It is well accepted that self-defense is a legitimate justification for causing the death of someone else. Provided that said self-defense was given in a proportioned response. Thus, if someone simply attempts to assault you, you are only justified insofar as assault against that person. However, if an attacker is presenting a force which a reasonable person would find to be equivalent to lethal force, then one is justified in causing that individuals death.
Next, the justification of theft. It is well accepted that aquisition of ones own property is justified, even if the aquisition of that property would otherwise be considered theft. Thus, reaquiring ones own property is justified if someone has your property without your permission. Here is what is interesting though, you are not justified to use force or threat of force to reobtain your own propery. The use of force to obtain property is only permissible when force is being immediately or imminently used against you to obtain property from onesself.
So, we present here the point that we cannot justify a commandment-like proscription against killing another, or obtaining property in the posession of another. While proscriptions of murder and theft themselves are valid, one is then presented with the problem of defining murder and theft such that it accounts for, and allows justifications. This presents a further moral problem in that in defining murder, one can present the definition of "causing without reasonable and fair justification the death of another human being", because then one is presented with the problem of defining what a human being is. One would normally assume this to be an easy task, but recall that often a superior group of people will attempt to justify their actions by denouncing the humanity of another group. Whites denounced Blacks as humans, and thus the justification of slavery of that group, while slavery of whites was generally admonished. As well, the Nazis of Nazi Germany justified the wholesale slaughter of jews and the disabled as those categories of homo sapiens and being insufficient to warrant the protections afforded those of "human beings"
Thus, we are left with the necessity that the only commandment-like proscriptions and perscriptions afforded to us need be necessarily vague, and rather than covering specific details are presented as widely interpreted statements that present the foundation for a legal or moral system to be built upon more exactly. And thus, I can present from that notion the following six commandments, which I feel are reasonable, justifiable and rational. I use the speech of the time of King James in order to present an allegory and allusion to the commandments as they are considered by our modern age.
1. Thou shalt keep the trust of your word.
2. Thou shalt not do harm to others.
3. Thou shalt not endanger others.
4. Thou shalt honor thine obligations.
5. Thou shalt not act with intention to violate a proscription of law.
6. Thou shalt not act with knowledge, or willful ignorance to violate a requirement of law.
These six commandments actually establish the devisions of law within the common law system, and such commandments actually have equivalent notions in the civil law system.
The first commandment, I present as such, because of the importance of the issue. I see perjury and fraud as the fundamentally anti-thesis of reason, which is what a society must fundamentally be based upon. If the system cannot rely upon the word of an individual, then the system itself cannot operate. Thus, since the system must assume that parties are telling the truth, it is a fundamental requirement that this truth be told. This should not be considered to proscribe all lies, as not all lies are damaging to a moral system, however when presenting justification and context to a situation before an impartial party then the necessity of the trust in the words of the parties is paramount. And we should presume that any court, natural or not, would be impartial.
The second commandment presents a fundamental truth. We should not do harm to others. This is presented in commonlaw under the idea of intentional torts, and the third commandment presents a foundation for the idea of negligent torts. In both cases, if someone becomes harmed, either through the acts or the failure to act of another, then that person deserves the right to have their harm redressed.
The fourth commandment seems similar to the first, in that it would seem to require someone to be honest, and this is true, however it is more specific than that. The first commandment establishes the requirement that one be true in their word if there is a trust of that person's word, but it says nothing about when a trust of that person's word is fundmantally necessary. While the first commandment applies obviously where an impartial court is involved, it applies non-trivially to the announcment of obligations to others. This is the American idea of crossing ones fingers while annoucing an obligation, and thus that a trust was never intended in the announcement of that obligation. This commandment however provides that one must always place the trust of ones word in the announcement of an obligation. In the common law system, this commandment thus provides the foundation for contract law.
The fifth, and sixth commandments establish the foundation for criminal law in the common law system. These are specifically different from commandments two and three, in that it establishes that there is a legal doctrine for a society, and individuals are under an obligation (fourth commandment) to obey this "social contract". Thus the legal system should establish two types of criminal law, and while the common law system views both of these types of criminal law as identical, there exists the legal context that one may use a justification that one was unknowing of a specific law in some cases. This commandment thus places that requirement as apparent and opaque, as opposed to the current system that is vague on the issue.
The fifth commandment sets out that there are certain acts that are defined by a legal system to be impermissible. The legal system should define these in such a matter that the acts cause an effect, which the legal system finds intolerable, and thus knowledge of the fact that the action is proscribed is waived by all as being necessary. Only the intent of the action need be defined. The person intended to perform the act, and thus must be punished.
The sixth commandment takes a different tact. It states that the legal system should deem that certain actions must be performed by all within its jurisdiction. Thus, the idea that one must register and obtain a license to operate a motor vehicle on a public street. This requirement, done by the state however, states that it is in the best interest of all to require this, but that failure to perform the requirement does not imply by necessity that a violation of the commandment occured, because there are two parts to this commandment first, the individual must know about the requirement, as no one should be held to perform a requirement without being aware that such a requirement exists. However, this is provided that the individual not be willingly ignorant of the requirement. Thus, a person charged with violating a requirement to obtain a license to drive would not be a violation if the person did not know, and had no reason to know that such a license were necessary.
So, I've probably rambled enough, but this is what I think would be the best foundation for a system of commandments.
Very good...I think (Score:2)
I'm bookmarking this to re-read it when I'm a little more alert.
Interesting... (Score:2)
Very thoughtful. I like your approach, in general. Interesting that in the original ten commandments, there were three that governed one's relationship with God, and seven that governed one's relations with other human beings. Dispensing with the first three, you've come in quite close to the other seven, with six of your own (though quite different). I'd be tempted to combine your second and third, but the notion of "endanger" seems a slippery one to me - so best that it remain separate. Of course, th
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I did intend for the points to be taken in order of precedence, thus the first and foremost important requirement of these commandments is to be honest, even if it do harm to others, or endanger others.
I originally placed the 4th one as 2nd, as it is, essentially an extension of the 1st. It also sets up by way of a social contract, the principles of the third and fourth. Except, that the third and fourth are provided as unexceptional obligations.
The 2nd and 3rd are, however, contained in the singular comm
Obligation (Score:2)
Not sure I can agree with your fourth law. To me, an obligation is a duty expected of someone by a third party. It's something that you never give your word to do, and you don't think it's at all necessary, and by not doing so would cause nobody harm or break any laws but if you fail to do so, another person will be disappointed. For example, should "all males over the age of 18 are obligated to serve 10 years in the military" be given the force of a commandment?
I haven't thought about whether the rest f
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Your interpretation of "obligation" differs significantly from my understanding of the word.
To me, an obligation is a requirement that one willingly grants to another. "I shall clean up the room." When such action is not done, it can either lead to disappointment, or damages. For instance, "I shall give you $10, and you shall give me that chair." If either side fails to uphold their obligation to the other, and the other side does uphold their obligation, one of them caused damage to the other. Either
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Your interpretation of "obligation" differs significantly from my understanding of the word.
To me, an obligation is a requirement that one willingly grants to another. "I shall clean up the room." When such action is not done, it can either lead to disappointment, or damages. For instance, "I shall give you $10, and you shall give me that chair." If either side fails to uphold their obligation to the other, and the other side does uphold their obligation, one of them caused damage to the other. Either Alice doesn't get her chair, or Bob doesn't get his money, and the other one has both.
Yeah, I looked it up and your definition is the more common one. I was only thinking of it in the "duty" sense, but there are the more common ones which I think more broadly fall into the keeping your word category.
You also disregard that your very own first commandment is entirely open to interpretation. what does it mean to fuck your neighbor over? Does selling them a chair for $10 count as fucking them over? And what if you must necessarily fuck your neighbor over?
An example. You're driving down the road, and out of nowhere, you see your neighbor's small child run out onto the road! The only way you can avoid hitting the child is to plow into your neighbor's car. What do you do? You're basically forced to fuck over your neighbor in all cases.
I admitted that much in saying that it requires someone who already possesses a strong moral compass and because of that a more verbose version is required as a result. The implied statement is that not everybody has a strong moral compass (or one that even points the same direction) so relying
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Yeah, I looked it up and your definition is the more common one. I was only thinking of it in the "duty" sense, but there are the more common ones which I think more broadly fall into the keeping your word category.
Do you have a suggestion for a term that you would prefer? I think the best way to pursue better semantics is to discuss what terms individuals feel best fit the situation. ... of course, that could just be the linguist in me.
I admitted that much in saying that it requires someone who already possesses a strong moral compass and because of that a more verbose version is required as a result. The implied statement is that not everybody has a strong moral compass (or one that even points the same direction) so relying on them to interpret correctly is doomed to fail.
The problem is that no matter how verbose and well-worded one presents a commandment, there will always be someone attempting to squeeze a novel new idea in stating how they are not culpable, even though they actually did the action.
If you think about it though, the original ten comma
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Yeah, I looked it up and your definition is the more common one. I was only thinking of it in the "duty" sense, but there are the more common ones which I think more broadly fall into the keeping your word category.
Do you have a suggestion for a term that you would prefer? I think the best way to pursue better semantics is to discuss what terms individuals feel best fit the situation. ... of course, that could just be the linguist in me.
Not really. As long as the term is well defined so that people like me don't assume it only means an obscure definition, it's probably as good as any. And, since I'm not THAT pedantic, my patience would get taxed far too much thinking about it much longer. :)
I admitted that much in saying that it requires someone who already possesses a strong moral compass and because of that a more verbose version is required as a result. The implied statement is that not everybody has a strong moral compass (or one that even points the same direction) so relying on them to interpret correctly is doomed to fail.
The problem is that no matter how verbose and well-worded one presents a commandment, there will always be someone attempting to squeeze a novel new idea in stating how they are not culpable, even though they actually did the action.
And isn't that the reason why our laws fill numerous volumes? If everybody could agree on universal application of simple laws, we wouldn't have to create new laws for the hundreds of ways people find to get around each of the current ones.
Philosophy (Score:2)
So, you've ventured into philosophy, I approve. Your commandments fail. As do the christian ones. The problem is that it doesn't work to label a certain behaviour a "sin", or "wrong", because all actions are subject to circumstance.
Most of the time it's a good thing to not kill your fellow man, but as you've correctly pointed out, there's exceptions to that, so a blanket-order not to kill fails. (christians admit this too, it's not as if there ain't been plenty of "killing in the name of God")
Instead, you n
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I can't agree. There is never a justification for thieft or adultery, for example.
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But if there isn't, then the two systems agree. Kant says only that -if- you'd consider it right for others in a similar situation to act similarily, then the action can be considered morally right.
I don't think it's hard to find examples of situations where theft can be morally defensible, is it wrong to steal a car (or atleast "borrow" it) if that is nessecary to save a life ? Hell, some people consider all taxes to be theft, and there's some logic to that, but it's still not clearcut that all taxes are m
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First, every rule or law always has exceptions; if you stole my car to save someone's like I wouldn't mind at all. But as to the swingers, if a woman has sex with a dozen men and gets pregnant, nobody knows who the father is. Like I said, you could be marries to your sister and never even know it. Hell, I could have a couple dozen kids in Thailand, some of whom could be married to each other.
I'm no angel, that's for sure. I committed adultery once - I thought the woman who was living with me was divorced, b
Limited, though, to English Common Law? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that I disagree- but I'd point out that law is not the same from culture to culture. It doesn't even carry the same force; as a cafeteria Catholic priest friend of mine is fond of pointing out it's illegal to use your car horn in Rome but if you caused an accident by failing to use your car horn that is also illegal.
In other words- as Eivind pointed out- circumstances matter. That's where the Fundamentalist Christians that I blame for the rise in Atheism in the United States fail, and that's where having a system of commandments without a higher power to define them also fails.
I like Kant a lot. Much as I'm a moral absolutist, I agree with the idea that morality is not an end unto itself, but rather, is a means to an end. That end should be idealism- in the ideal world, what should happen in this situation with these circumstances? And that's the moral thing to do.
Christianity paints a picture with an ideal world being one that is designed for perfect justice and perfect mercy to be in harmony. One can't have commandments (justice) alone.
Why ten? (Score:2)
Except for the ones about blasphemy, the Hebrew commandments make sense for any honest person. I see you omitted adultery - consider that one. First, having been the victim of adultery I know how painful it can be from personal experience. Perhaps not to the adulteror, but to the adulteror's spouse and children.
And consider this: if one of your parents was unfaithful and kept it to him or herself, you face the possibility of of marrying you brother or sister without even knowing it. Evolution frowns on that
seriously, wtf? (Score:1)
why the hell would an atheist need to copy the bible?
Seriously, if you believe in no gods, or religon, then why model your behavior after a religious, um, manifest?
Since atheist's aren't a religon, nor do they meet up to discuss how to live their lives according to the "atheist bible" or whatnot, seems pretty stupid, no?
If you think your atheist, but need to follow how the bible did things, you are NOT atheist.
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What she's doing is trying to "take away" the deists claim to moral authority: if you cede the moral ground to the religious people, then they have a strong position in the argument.
I think dealing in terms of commandments is shaky though.