Why do atheists, or more generally people who don't believe in a just god, care about morality?

All social mammalian species have two primary moral instincts -- empathy and altruism. Empathy is the ability to put the Self in the Other's shoe's, altruism is the capacity for self-sacrifice.

In social species, this is evolutionarily advantageous. Empathy reduces inter-group fighting ... I do not want to hurt the Other because I comprehend that I would not want the same hurt for the Self. Altruism is genetically superior in groups because the tribe/pack is closely related, and so even if a member dies, the survivors share most of the genes of the deceased member. Imagine that an adult wolf sacrifices its life for three puppies who share 80% of its genes -- this is a net gain for those genes! One dead - three living.

In short -- ethics are quite evolutionarily advantageous.

When you complicate things with abstract thought, there is still a secular basis -- If I agree to restrain myself by the goals I and my culture agree on, I am contributing to an environment where others are distinctly more likely to restrain themselves. These Others will assist me then against the Other who injures me, either by immediate aid (stopping an attacker) or by providing enforcement after wrong doing (ostricism, enforced isolation, confinement, etc).

In short, I advantage myself far more freedoms by disadvantaging myself a few freedoms.

All morality is goal-based, and the interplay between Self goals, Tribe goals, and Other goals, is the interplay between good and evil itself.

why do people care about morality (with religion out of the picture)? and why did we evolve this way?

i hope i am narrowing your questions down so that my answer makes sense (as opposed the the short, uninsightful bashing ones).

It depends on how exactly do we define right or wrong. is it necessity so that the species can survive? female lions provide the food for the pride and work together without killing each other. yet the male lions will kill the young of defeated male lions. is that just animal instinct?

i would say that part of the reason to care about morality IS the necessity to survive as a society. however, caring about morality is not always a choice. many have answered that they don't need a god to tell them killing is wrong. that type of answer merely avoids the question altogether. because besides wanting to have some form of order in society for survival, there is still more to it.

i say morality is not a choice because we also do not kill each other (without counting the actual psycho murderers of course) not just out of necessity but because of GUILT! however we want to describe that feeling. be it a littel voice inside, a god, moral compass, etc. we have that innate feeling of having done something "bad".

that is why we care about morality. because it is part of what makes us humans. it is an inherent instinct that we feel guilt for doing thing we consider bad or wrong.

as to why we "evolved" into having this inherent feeling? i don't know the answer to that one. but it implies that we are to assume that before we evolved, we did not feel guilt for doing the wrong things. but if even animals that can comit brutal acts (killing the young) can also show love or affection (elephants acknowledging their dead, female lions nurturing their young) then it begs to question that maybe we did not evolve into caring about morality but we had this inherent feeling since we first became humans.

A moral system is evidence of evolution, not a proof of god. The precursors of moral systems can be observed in man's closest relatives, the great apes. A moral system confers a Darwinian selective advantage on both the individuals and the groups who possess it. Yes, there is always tension between moralists and cheaters, but this tension is predicted by game theory which is itself incorporated into evolutionary theory. Survival instincts in highly social animals can be very different from survival instincts in nonsocial animals. Lions have their own social structure, and they do not kill members of their own pride for food. Those conflicts are avoided by complex display behaviors. It's good that you are showing an interest in evolutionary biology, but you know far to little about it to draw any sweeping conclusions. Read, study, learn.

You have hit on a point I have struggled with for a couple of years now. It come to this, what are the rational grounds of an atheist's ethical conduct?

This is the short version of what I've puzzled out for myself. It's imperfect, to say the least, and I don't want to push it on you. It's just something of a comfort to read someone else asking the same question.

Consider animal behavior. Lions will take their share based on their strength, but you will notice they are not cannibals. They do not eat their own young. The do not kill other males, only face them down. They restrict there behavior. Survival of a gene is not always based on survival of an individual, but sometimes the group that individual is in. Compassion need not have a supernatural origin. In fact, it fits well into existent zoological behavior theories.

Compassion also seems to have a psychological basis as well. I've encountered the psychologically based theory that people find contradictions intolerable. We are constantly seeking to validate our own thinking. Your own question is a good example of just this.

It seems to me, a humble lay person, that this is the very foundation of the golden rule. It is that we do unto others as we feel we ourselves deserve. It is only a personal observation, but I have noticed that self esteem does rather seem to go hand in hand with virtue.

This said, it make sense to me that reason and compassion are enough. They are base components in the human nature. They are what we should use as our guide to moral behavior, not the Bronze Age sacred books of nomadic Shepperds.

Well, I've struggled for years with this. I can only wish you luck with your own struggles.

The matter of the existence of God is one of Faith.

A knowing that you feel within the pith or soul, an energy that invigorates the spirit that dwells within the soul . . .

Proof like this is relative, and unreliable. Since there are those a-moral, without any "compass" to speak of, the debater would say a "just god" would not give to some and not to others.

Religion should not be a focus here. Spirituality is where I see your question leading. Connecting with your spirit may or may not lead to organized Religion.

I hope you find your answers. I truly do. Doing so gives a gives another, profoundly wonderful dimension to life.

It is human nature to seek the path of least resistance. Manners and morality help a society run smoothly and happily.

Really the feeling bad part is taught to us by our parents and as we go through life - small children will take and hit without compunction, just as a lion would. We are taught not to steal as children, both in and out of a religious context. If we hurt someone we can see the pain in their eyes and that often evokes an empathic reaction. As others die, those around them start to wonder what will happen to them when they die.

I would also like to say that it is possible to believe in an all powerful energy that creates and maintains this existence without believing in God and Jesus. There are theories that say that we collectively make up God - we exist simply because we wish to, and it is our certainty and expectation that keeps this existence in place. There are theories that if God is an ocean, then we are all glasses of God. There is a rich world of spiritual ideas out there - and I wish you luck and interesting conversations and reading in y our flirtation with deism. Have you checked out the Belief-o-Matic? It's a quiz that tries to tell you what organized religions believe as you do - it's fun and interesting: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.htm...

Peace!

I am a Deist. I believe that morals exist because of human empathy. Also, we know that if it were okay for me to kill you and take your money, then I would have to live my life worrying about whether someone would kill me and take my money. I do not do it to you because I would not want you to do it to me or my loved ones. Further, as the most intelligent form of life on this planet, we have an inherent duty to protect the Creation and make the world as good of a place as possible. When someone does something good, even if it is something small, it makes the world better. When we do something bad, it makes the world worse. I think that this is indicative of a just Creator or Creators. However, I do not think that the Creator(s) intervene in the day-to-day affairs of humans. It is something that he/she/it installed in our brains.

By our nature, humans rely on each other for survival. Having a sense of compassion and morality enforces the concept of society, and thus ensures our survival as a species. (Much like rhesus monkeys, amusingly.)

Some things are (generally) universal morals, such as "killing is bad." Only social deviants [those who are socially or psychologically 'off'] violate these morals without need.

Others, such as "don't steal" and "don't cheat on your spouse" are social constructs, results of various societal values, such as a concept of ownership or monogamy.

Of course, I haven't really answered your question. So far, my post has been 'why we as a species have morals.'

So, to finally give you an answer: atheists believe they only have this life. Nothing afterwards. Therefore, even if their natural sense of compassion doesn't kick in, they feel it is in their best interests to follow laws & such to avoid spending their one life in a cell.

After all, if you had a choice of living with a few rules, or being stuck in a cage, which would you choose?

I think the answer has to be is that humans aren’t as stupid as lions, humans have the ability to understand what others feel, nothing magic or Godly about it, we just have enough intelligence to understand what are actions do to harm others, but in other terms, look at the working world, one person fights with another to be promoted, and those 2 or more people, well be like animals, despite maybe the fact that 1 of them might be a single father with 3 kids, while the other has not kids etc. you see the one who doesn’t really need the extra money wont care about the others 3 children, and only think about him self, so in the end this world is still very animal like, but in different ways, and humans are more understanding of others pain ect. so from that understanding, and being able to see through that persons eyes, we get morals, like you shouldn’t kill, steal etc

Morality? It's all part of the social contract. I agree not to steal from you, if you agree not to steal from me. It's very simple, and is a by-product of higher intelligence and the ability to communicate. A social contract would be impossible to establish through grunting alone which is why animals don't necessarily exhibit this trait. Some sort of advanced language is needed.

If our moral compass is proof of a just god, you might want to question where God's compass was when he commanded the Israelites to invade neighboring cities and slaughter every man, woman, and child, with the exception of all the little virgin girls who they were allowed to take as sex slaves. That's quite a moral compass.

Then perhaps C.S. Lewis could explain God's moral compass in Hosea 13:16 where he talks about smashing babies against rocks and cutting open the bellies of pregnant women.