re moraltiy was re political atheists livesey solntze wpd sgi com jon livesey writes what if i act morally for no particular reason then am i moral what if morality is instinctive as in most animals saying that morality is instinctive in animals is an attempt to assume your conclusion which conclusion you conclusion correct me if i err that the behaviour which is instinctive in animals is a natural moral system see we are disagreeing on the definition of moral here earlier you said that it must be a conscious act by your definition no instinctive behavior pattern could be an act of morality you are trying to apply human terms to non humans i think that even if someone is not conscious of an alternative this does not prevent his behavior from being moral you don t think that morality is a behavior pattern what is human morality a moral action is one that is consistent with a given pattern that is we enforce a certain behavior as moral you keep getting this backwards you are trying to show that the behaviour pattern is a morality whether morality is a behavior pattern is irrelevant since there can be behavior pattern for example the motions of the planets that most all people would not call a morality i try to show it but by your definition it can t be shown and morality can be thought of a large class of princples it could be defined in terms of many things the laws of physics if you wish however it seems silly to talk of a moral planet because it obeys the laws of phyics it is less silly to talk about animals as they have at least some free will keith
