'Morality: From the Heavens or From Nature?' by Dr. Andy Thomson, AAI 2009

Dr. Andy Thomson gives a talk on morality at the Atheist Alliance International 2009 Conference in Burbank, California. Dr. Thomson uses Francis Collins' claim that morality is proof of God as a jumping-off point to discuss what we know about how morality works and where it came from.

The conference was co-sponosored by The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, which brought in several well-known scientists to give talks.

Download Quicktime (720p HD):
http://c0116791.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/Andy-AAI09-720.mov

Other talks by Dr. Andy Thomson:
Why We Believe in Gods:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg
"We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpImeYCZKBk

Filmed & Edited by
JOSH TIMONEN

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org

Atheist Alliance International
http://atheistalliance.org

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Marc Hauser
• Hurricane Katrina
• Moral Dilemmas
• J. Anderson Thomson
• James Anderson Thomson
• The Language of God
• Memorial Hospital
• Joshua Greene

[KimmehCharmeleon]

I love how an audience member laughs after Thomspon goes "...or are they a gift from God?" :P (6:05)

[WhatWouldBukowskiDo]

I think the different responses to the two similar moral problems is down to uncertainty. Pushing the fat man off the bridge might not save save the others, Pulling the handle to cause the train to take another track is almost certain to save the others. We can never perfectly predict the outcomes from different actions.My hypothesis is that the more uncertain a situation is the more staying passive is considered moral.

[DutchDread]

I once had an argument about a version of the trolley problem. It was in the movie "the Dark Knight". I argued that it was immoral for the people on the boat to not kill the inmates on the other boat. Since from an outside perspective, it was a choice between 100% of them dying, or only 50% of them dying. And that not turning the switch was the equivalent of killing everyone on the boat. The other guy didn't agree ofcourse, good to see a study that proves me right. (there were other factors).

[Streyar]

@llnetbeast within the context of the situation they provide, your action (or lack thereof) can cause 5 people to live/die. So ,complying to your senario, if a handful of damaged or broken people lead to the benefit of an exponentially greater number of people, I contend that it is better to be a "psychopath" in these types of situations

[Oneironaut93]

Why not just tell the workers to get the fuck off the tracks?

[llnetbeast]

@Streyar

I think you missed the definition of a psychopath. How can a person be farther along the evolutionary scale and are capable of making rational decisions faster be possible if they lack morals and only seek out to fulfill themselves and leave a bunch of damaged people behind as he advances?

[GluttonForSex]

@TheAmazingamerica With or without religion, good people will do good things and evil people will do evil things. But to make good people do evil things, that takes religion.

[gregrutz]

If some people can't tell right from wrong then maybe we do need religion. LOL

[manonthemount]

you can't be properly selfish without being altruistic

[daveluik]

Don't get me wrong - I'm not arguing against rationalizations. To me it seems that Andy is regarding many/most of our thoughts as "secondary justifications" (which I call rationalizations). So uh, upon what do we have to discriminate?

[daveluik]

It seems to me that Andy regards our justifications of moral acts as just some post hoc rationalizations. But how can we distinguish these rationalizations from proper, good reasoning. Is there even such a thing?

On the second trolley example, I first thought that I'd push the fat guy to save the workers. Then I changed my mind after hearing that the workers knew they had a risk of death while working there whereas the fat guy was completely innocent. This isn't a rationalization, is it?

[Streyar]

23:45 why are they psychopaths? perhaps these are who are farther along the evolutionary scale and are capable of making rational decisions faster