Question 110

As an atheist, do you think ethics are eternally true or do you think that they change over time?

• I think "MORALS" change as society changes (witness the notion of living together, for example). But ethics? Them are constant, albeit with shades of grey (lying to your spouse about an affair as opposed to lying to your spouse to prevent him/her from discovering a planned surprise party, etc.) (MagyckMe #554)

• I think ethics change over time. What has been acceptable has certainly not stayed constant throughout recorded history. (Dan McEwen #1617)

• Ethics become more elegant over time. When we were protozoa the only "ethic" was to reproduce, even if it meant subsuming our neighbors. That lasted half a billion years or so until we came along and started adding little flourishes to the theme. We're still doing that; sometimes adding, sometimes taking away, but the basic ethic remains the same. (chibiabos)

• They change to fit whatever people think is right.

  I myself resort to "situational ethics", trying to think of each situation as being completely new and apply the best solution to it. (Blackguard #869)

• I don't think that there are any absolute rules about ethics. Theists contention that god makes the rules is a big weakness, since god seems to violate all of them at will.

  The definitely have changed over time, and will continue to change. We think they are getting better, but that is just because of our social conditioning.

  Murder is considered to be universally bad - but that is only because murder is defined by all cultures to be bad. Killing is not considered to be universally evil - self defense, war, capital punishment for some people are all considered ethical in at least some cultures. (Scott Davidson #1045)

• Interesting question, and apparently not phrased too well. Anyway, as I have certainly said before, I am a moral objectivist; I thus believe that there are moral truths independent of people's beliefs, societal conventions, &c. I further believe that there are some moral truths (which could be called general moral truths (I will ignore just what the propositional content of moral claims are for right now)) which are independent WRT time, though of course, for most instances of time, they don;t really apply to anything, since for billions of years there weren;t any moral agents. I also however believe that there are also moral truths (call them contingent moral truths) which are derivable from the combination of general moral truths with contingent states of affairs which obtain at a certain time. And of course, these contingent moral truths are not necessarily invariant with time; most in fact are not invariant it seems. (Ed. Stoebenau #143)

• I think that there is a basic ethical framework that remains pretty constant, but that otherwise ethics can change depending upon the society from which they arise. Ethics are, after all, a human construct, based on the values of the people from which they arise. But I do think that certain ethical principles, such as the one prohibiting murder, are very basic in nature, and could thus be considered eternal, for lack of a better term. (Michael J. Nash #1651)

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• Ethics change according to the current needs and desires of society. For instance, in an under-populated country, it may be considered a duty to procreate, whereas in modern day China it is considered unethical to have more than one child.

  As another example, at the moment assisting in voluntary euthanasia is treated as murder and is punishable by law in most countries, but in The Netherlands it is acceptable. While this is actually a legal difference, it is based in ethics. Some people consider it unethical to take a person's life, no matter what the circumstances, while others think it is unethical to keep a person alive artificially when they are in constant pain and have no hope of recovery.

  One tends to think that there is some basic morality, some sense of right and wrong, or even good or evil, and that some things always have been and always will be unethical, but I believe that an situation could exist that would make even the most heinous crime (by our standards) not just acceptable, but ethically unavoidable. (GoatBoy #1684)

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• First of all, ethics are obviously human constructs, and thus are limited by human timeframe -- this disqualifies them for the 'eternal' label.

  What was meant to be asked, I guess, is whether ethics are objective or subjective. I would like to say that ethics are at least to some extent objective, but that presupposes some consistent properties across different culture -- rationality, most likely. Since rationality is not a universally-admired (or universally-recognized, for that matter) thing, I must say that ethics in general tend to be relative across cultures.

  Now one could argue about some set of ethical rules being better than others, but this is a whole different ballgame. (Victor Danilchenko #696)

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• I'd say that all ethics change over a long enough time period. There were no ethics immed. after the big bang, and for a long time thereafter, because there were no people. If we restrict our consideration to human history, the answer is "yes and no". This is because some conditions change while others do not, and ethical principles are a response to conditions, both within the mind and without. As entropy triumphs in the far distant future, ethics will once again cease to exist. Ethics are stable only to the extent that certain basic facts of human nature or the environment remain stable. This can constitute a substantial portion of the body of ethical principles, since humans evolve slowly (from the perspective of history) and the natural world changes slowly as well. (John Burton #639)