Atheists must appeal to an absolute moral standard when complaining about wrongs.

It's also not a one time judgement; while intent plays a part outcomes are equally important. Morality thus is not discreet but a continuum. When can say some act would be moral and still at a later point determine it was not moral. We can intend to improve peoples lives by tearing down the slums and building new roads bordering new housing but a few decades later realize we also destroyed a sense of community and through that loss of community did more harm than the poor living facilities.

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You have a serious misunderstanding of what human society is. Human society is not the immoral needs of a tiny minority. Human society is the common thread that runs through the vast majority of human society.

You had said that subjective needs and wants was a sufficient criterion for morality, and I was answering that such a definition won't work. Are you now changing your definition or what?

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If we use the term loving then intent is implied. That isn't really the case with beneficial.

Shouldn't matter whether the intent is implied or not as long as the intent is to be beneficial it is an intentional good i.e. moral.

Just to use the terms harm or benefit focuses on the outcome rather than the intent.

I can see and appreciate your definition, your focus, in the popular vernacular. But, here is where we will disagree.

To say something is beneficial does not void the giver's intent if the outcome was not as desired. You can constrict your view, your definition, to results only or you can give points for effort even if the plan fails.

Look at any action. Was the intent to be beneficial? If the answer is yes then the action was moral.

We can judge all morality by beneficial vs harmful without ever considering the outcome only the intent, and without having to specify "intended to be" to modify the adjective.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Tangle writes: Unlikely but possible but also irrelevant. Morality is an attempt to do the right or wrong thing.

So far so good. [/qs]

Tangle writes: Help or harm.

..and there is the same problem again. An attempt to do the right thing can result in harm.

Help or harm are the result and independent of the morality of the original act.

AZPaul3 writes: We can judge all morality by beneficial vs harmful without ever considering the outcome only the intent, and without having to specify "intended to be" to modify the adjective.

..but we don't know if it was beneficial or harmful until after we see the results.
I'll go back to my initial example. I give money, out of care and compassion to someone who is homeless, but he uses the money to buy drugs. He later dies from an overdose as a result of having that money to buy the drugs.

The original act was moral because of the intent to "help" but the outcome was one of "harm".

The original act was moral because of the intent to "help"...

Paraphrase: The original act was moral because of the intent to "benefit"...

End of story. The morality equation has been satisfied.

AZPaul3 writes: Paraphrase: The original act was moral because of the intent to "benefit"... End of story. The morality equation has been satisfied.

That is exactly my point. It is the intent to "benefit". It isn't simply the benefit itself.

For the reality of it all you need to accept the Biblical view: our spirituality, like our intellect, is fallen which means distorted. It's going to be distorted in lots of different ways because we lost our connection with God at the Fall and became subject to both our own fleshly misperceptions and the influences of the "gods" who are really demons.

How is God not implicated in all of that? "Fallen" by creating a self-admitted impossible standard -- just as Jesus stated, "No, not even one" can achieve moral perfection.

God creates man and imputes all of those self-imposed frailties and then gets pissed off when those imperfections manifest, uh, that he created. And before you say he didn't because he gave us freewill, he sure as hell did because according to the bible nothing exists apart from Him. He created the frailty, he created the ability to sin and, make no mistake, he created sin itself.

And "lost our connection?" Seems like it lasted 15 minutes as it was jacked up by literally the first people ever on earth which, by the way, we all get to pay for. Sins of the father, aye... and great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather.

I'm just glad He doesn't hold a grudge

If were Fallen its because he made it so -- The illusion of freewill.

Or you can just come to the eventual realization that its all a bunch of bullshit, smoke and mirrors in a feeble attempt to rationalize human nature.

Well, you have the choice of free will which leaves us susceptible to sin and therefore the inexorable dealings of the Moral Law which can be pretty harsh, or absolutely determined moral perfection without any free will to sin. God chose the former, would you have chosen otherwise?

The acts where still moral at the time they were made. It's just that the outcomes were not what we envisioned or could envision. Intending to make the lives of people worse by destroying communities would be immoral - doing it accidentally while trying to improve their lives would be unfortunate and maybe even a tragedy but it would not be immoral.

All you can say in hindsight is that they got it wrong, not that they were wrong to try to do the right thing.

Well, you have the choice of free will which leaves us susceptible to sin and therefore the inexorable dealings of the Moral Law which can be pretty harsh, or absolutely determined moral perfection without any free will to sin. God chose the former, would you have chosen otherwise?

God, in all of his omnipotence, could have created man with ability to desire, say, only one woman the way he says he intended. But instead he makes an attraction to women in general and then gets pissed if you have wandering eyes. God gives us anger and says its literally the same thing as murder. That's some freewill... its like saying we have the choice to breathe air or not. Its true, you could choose not to breathe by holding your breath... but the consequence is death. And even so, the autonomic system is so powerful (that he created, btw) that it would disallow you to stop breathing. But the choice is ours, right?

That's the kind of "freewill" we're actually up against... and that's really no freewill at all... just the illusion of it.

GDR writes: Help or harm are the result and independent of the morality of the original act.

That's just not correct, actual outcomes are irrelevant, it's intent that decides morality.

Is the intent to do good or harm? To improve the wellbeing of others or to make things worse? To benefit or to harm?

Intent is written into our laws, if you accidentally take something out of a shop without paying or kill someone you are not guilty of theft or murder. You do not have the 'mens rea' - the guilty mind - necessary to do the wrong. Even though the outcome may have been awful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

It is the intent to "benefit". It isn't simply the benefit itself.

And the outcome doesn't enter the equation.

GDR writes: The original act was moral because of the intent to "help" but the outcome was one of "harm".

Which illustrates why any attempt at "absolute moral standards" is nonsensical.