What binds us to our moral duties?

Question

I used to follow a lot of atheist vs religion debates, and I realize now that there is a typical misrepresentation from the atheist side on the concerns of theists regarding morality. Of course, the atheist and the theists may have typically different conceptions of what is amoral and moral, but at the same time, the more pressing point which is raised by theist but not dealt appropriately by the atheist is that of moral duty; that which binds us to be moral.

I find most common arguement by theists (at least those I find online) suggests arguement by a wish for improvement of consequence, that is going to heaven instead of hell, or, maybe when one aethists wants to emphasize heavily the importance of acting morally, that of the judgement of god upon us.

On the otherhand, the atheist would say that all humans are bound to be moral by the inner human goodness (eg: I've seen Richard Dawkins make this argument).

Both seems unsatisfactory with the first view point often contested by undermining the idea of god that the theist would base their morality on, and the second one seems partial truth seeing all the different types of atrocities done in mass by humans themself.

This SEP seems related but I feel it's mostly tangential as it discusses mostly moral considerations post actions rather than considerations of morality at time of contemplation.

Could some theories explaining the binding of us to do moral actions be given?

Answer 1

On a schematic level, something isn't a moral duty unless it's binding in the relevant way; there's something of a definitional overlap involved (c.f. Aquinas' trivial imperative, "Avoid evil and do good"). One might question the concept of bindingness, then.

Historically, for those who don't believe in the is/ought gap (which is a contingent proposition, open to being denied without contradiction, however), or who see past/through the gap, the stronger idea is that our inability to will our obligations into nonexistence "just like that" is a reflection of the "stubbornness" of objective reality. If facts exist sufficiently independent on our beliefs about them, then wrong actions can be interpreted in terms of failure to accept the facts of reality; or, at least, this is the wish of moral objectivists so described. Even John Rawls, who is not obviously a simple such objectivist, speaks of "actions that express our true nature."

But Rawls also develops a specific subtheory about the binding force of promises, such as it is; and Immanuel Kant opens his Doctrine of Virtue with an elaboration on how the "pure will" within myself, which is not apart from myself too much, allows my noumenal side to command my phenomenal side so that I can't use my empirical will to release myself from those commands. For neo-Kantians broadly, it is the inescapability of the ability to reason about actions that constitutes the inescapability of reason's own commands to us as such (thus the Kantian standpoint on this matter is contrasted with Hume's elevation of passions to the initial role, the supplier of fundamental premises or defaults, in moral reasoning).

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To emphasize again, the above reads "moral bindingness" as the stability of obligations, their inability to be disintegrated by merely wishing that we were not under those obligations, or by merely having our stronger feelings fluctuate from desire to desire. Theological stability, or then theological bindingness, seems to come at these things from a rather different angle, where the persistence of duty is an effect of the power of an inescapable deity, and that deity's further power to avenge virtue and grace upon the impenitent or unforgivable. So of course, from the philosopher's angle, the theologian's picture seems lacking if we attribute to the deity's arbitrary will the self-same foundations of our binding duties (worse, if the deity retains the right to alter its commands at random, then our obligations would seem possible to destabilize in a way contrary to our intuition of bindingness).

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Oddly, Bernard Williams took issue with the claim that morality is indelibly binding:

... “moral obligation is inescapable” (185: 177): “the fact that a given agent would prefer not to be in [the morality] system will not excuse him”, because moral considerations are, in some sense like the senses sharpened up by Kant and by Hare, overriding considerations. In any deliberative contest between a moral obligation and some other consideration, the moral obligation will always win out, according to the morality system. ... The notion that moral obligation is inescapable is undermined by careful attention to this concept of importance, simply because reflection shows that the notion of moral obligation will have to be grounded in the notion of importance if it is to be grounded in anything that is not simply illusory. But if it is grounded in that, then it cannot itself be the only thing that matters. Hence moral obligation cannot be inescapable ...

I say that this is odd for Williams to claim, since those of us who believe that all moral dilemmas should be resolvable will at least allow that we can escape a set of apparent obligations when we find that the elements of that set are in dire conflict with each other, whereas Williams undermines himself in this vein by saying that unsolvable moral dilemmas aren't one and all escapable! For present purposes, let this peculiarity of Williams' critique of the "peculiar institution" illustrate how difficult it is even for an intended critique of deontic binding to get away from the pressures of said binding force (even as a "mere" concept).

Answer 2

The most obvious answer is that we tend to perform certain acts as a consequence of evolutionary and social conditioning. Evolutionary pressures will have selected humans that have a tendency to certain behaviours, such as problem-solving, cooperating, anticipating danger, and so on. Those innate tendencies of humans are then influence more directly by our upbringing. For example, I was brought up in a Roman Catholic social setting, and throughout my childhood I was subject to a systematic attempt by teachers, nuns and priests to inculcate certain beliefs and values, including a set of moral values broadly based on the Ten Commandments. The combination of the indoctrination I received throughout my formative years, and whatever instinctive tendencies I inherited from my forebears, doubtless accounts for a whole range of compulsions that characterise my behaviour and outlook. There is no need to hypothesise a god, or an innate human goodness, to explain why we act in the way that we do.

Answer 3

Fiats with god and commandments won't count for you then.

I would relate the core of our moral reasoning and behaviour to intersubjectivity, like the most cross-cultural moral guide nicknamed the Golden Rule, often framed as 'Do as you would be done by'. Intersubjectivity supports learning and language use, and those we don't extend it to we effectively treat as objects, or as means not ends. Discussed here: Is the Categorical Imperative Simply Bad Math? :) The binding in this context is how we extend our own minds by treating others as like us, like say relying on their reports or experimental results as though we were in their shoes.

The idea we have a social contract, us one way of thinking. If someone violates the expectations of the community, they get exiled (like Atistotle), or imprisoned which seperates them from the community. Participation involves committing to obeying laws and social norms like that demonstrate you are a morally responsible persin, and the penalties for failure are various kinds of exclusion, and sometimes punitive measures. Rioting or revolution express a widespread sense the social contract is being violated, or needs to change.

Durkheim had another way of framing this, that the binding is around the 'enactment of shared attitudes to sacred things' resulting in social cohesion around them, and the absence of those results in anomie, puposelessness and negative feeling associated with lack of connections to others. Note enacted means not only asserted, but celebrated, paryicipated in. His framing can take in religions not just of the Abrahamic kind, but yogis, Shinto and shamanism, and also around codes like no-detention-without-trial, or the scientific community around the values of scientific method. The binding power is resisting anomie.

Moral Foundations Theory and the research it's based on, seems to indicate that we have 'moral drives', like for justice/fairness, because they enable human cooperation, which is so advantageous we develop mechanisms of peer-pressure and legal enforcement to manage tensions that would arise from people violating them without consequences. It should be noted that a small fraction in all societies exhibit psycopathy and can't be relied on to be governed by their moral intuitions, as well as people over-ruling their morality for the sake of other drives. The binding power here is evolved drives.

Nicholas Christakis talks about the evolution of a wider 'social suite' of behaviours that enable cooperation which seem to be the basis of our morality, in this podcast on Humanity, Biology, and What Makes Us Good. The binding power for him is how society and socialising well benefit individuals.

Patricia Churchland, has been developing the field of neurophilosophy. This specifically addresses the origins of moral intuitions, and of conscience. Discussed in this podcast: Conscience, Morality, and the Brain. The binding power here is brain structures and mechanisms.

It's interesting to note as well as what seems fairly universal, also how much humans vary around the world. Different balances of priorities, resulting from different historical contingencies. This is especially apparent around obscenity and pornography law differences, discussed here: Is artificially generating images of minors in sexual positions unethical? We can think of cultural norms as relating to game theory equilibria, which may be more or less srable, and have more or less mutaul benefits from maintaining them. Discussed here: Is the tyrannicide perpetrated by William Tell morally legitimate? Like it's interesting to note that in many ways Ancient Roman society was like ours but, the idea of making slaves fight to death for entertainment was not considered immoral. The group of moral concern was limited to Roman citizens. The binding power of game-theory derived morality is the benefits of maintaining unstable equilibria.

Peter Singer uses utilitarian thinking, to argue that abolishing slavery, and expanding sufferage and citizenship to the whole community, means expanding the 'circle of our moral concern', and that to do so represents the direction of moral progress, which in future should encompass animals. The binding power of this picture is from identifying a direction of positive development, which surely we will want to align with.

Intersubjectivity, enhanced cooperation by keeping to a social contract, and increasing the circle of who is a moral subject, can be linked together like in this answer: Studies exploring the rationale of gender equality as increasing a societies capabilities.

Joseph Tainter looked at the collapse of complex civilisations, and concluded that challenges like caused by resource depletion do not hit steadily, and result in sudden demands for increased human cooperation, or we face 'rapid simplification' of our living standards which is to say collapse of a society or even civilisational collapse, if we cannot face a new major challenge. Perhaps this is the real backstop to morality as systaining cooperation, we get benefits for cooperating, and they are all in the line if we can't ratchet up our ability to do so.

Answer 4

So, there's a couple of different issues that your question seems to be getting at.

First, there's this question: Why be moral? What reasons do we have for being moral? A highly debated question—one that's difficult to unpack in a short post. There are obviously some everyday, pragmatic reasons for being moral (i.e., maintaining stable relationships, contributing to a stable society that won't come back to bite you—even psychological reasons having to do with certain positive, subjective experiences associated with "ethical" and "virtuous" behavior). Certain theists (who accept certain theological views about the afterlife) are able to say that whatever a person has most moral reason to do, they also have most prudential reason to do (i.e., due to afterlife punishments and rewards). Without afterlife rewards and punishments, it's going to be impossible to align prudential and moral norms—it's not difficult to think of ordinary cases in which one's self-interest comes apart from what one ought to do, morally speaking. Lots of philosophers will simply say that the question is an odd question to ask. What they'll say is that morality just is reason-giving; we ought to moral because, well, that's just what morality is—it tells us what we ought to do, full stop.

There's also the question: Why do people follow moral norms? This is the descriptive question, rather than the normative one. The question is closely tied to questions about moral motivation—what it is, and how we acquire it.

Finally, you've got the epistemological question: How do we come to know moral norms? This seems like another way to understand what you've called "binding." There's a massive literature on this.

Answer 5

Morals are rules that govern social interaction.

Moral rules might contribute to the group in a positive way (growth/improvement/survival/integration, etc.), or in a negative way (degrowth/deterioration/extinction/isolation, etc.). How is the result selected? By natural selection. A group that consider that killing anyone is morally acceptable would probably tend to self-destruction.

So, what binds us to moral rules? That is not the right approach. We want to survive, to live well, to get a "positive" result (growth/improvement/survival/integration, etc.), so we formulate our moral rules.

So, we are not binded to moral rules, but to our common goals, and our common goals are ruled by morals, even if our morals rules produce destructive results.