Board index ‹ Morality

[Newbie]

It's pretty common for Christians to subscribe to the Moral Argument, and the most common I've seen is pushed by William Lane Craig and it goes as follows:

1.If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.1

Now, I disagree with premise (1), as do most professional philosophers2, but I'd like to talk about premise (2). Even in debates that I've seen (Christopher Hitchens vs. William Lane Craig), I feel that Craig hasn't established this premise, or even attempted to do so in any respectable way. In his debate he literally says "objective values do exist and deep down we all know it".3 This is the only justification he gives for premise 2.

I'm looking for a more convincing argument that establishes premise 2, that could be used to make for a more convincing Moral Argument.

SOURCES
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/formulat ... l-argument
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blo ... s-believe/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

Time for YouTube video is about 27 minutes.

[jimwalton]

I think Zacharias has a better version of the moral argument. It goes as follows:

1. We all admit that evil exists in the world. G.K. Chesterton has stated that the depravity of humans is the most empirically verifiable truth.
2. If evil exists, one must assume that good exists in order to know the difference.
3. If good exists, one must assume that a moral law exists by which to measure good and evil.
4. If a moral law exists, one must posit an ultimate source of moral law, or at least an objective basis for a moral law.
5. The source of a personal, moral law must also be personal and moral.
6. Therefore God must exist.

[Slayer]

> We all admit that evil exists in the world. G.K. Chesterton has stated that the depravity of humans is the most empirically verifiable truth.

That's the problem right there. I don't have to admit that "evil" is anything more than how I feel about something. I think things are evil because I think they're evil, and that's my opinion. I don't think that it's because "evil" is some objective thing. The rest falls apart without that assumption.

[jimwalton]

Let me get this straight. If a person can just change the way he or she "feels" about Hitler killing 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, then maybe he or she can learn to have the opinion that it was neutral, or maybe even good—that it's not evil intrinsically, but only because we've been socialized to perceive it that way? And if we are socialized to perceive it differently it could become a virtue? Well, I have to credit you for staying true to scientific naturalism, but to me that's a horrid perspective, virtually evil in and of itself—that it's only evil if that's "my opinion" of it. Any action, then, by definition, as long as it's perceived as acceptable in my feelings (we really can't use the terms "good" or "evil" any more, because in your world view they are meaningless), is acceptable: murder, torture, hatred, discrimination, racism, sexism, suppression, oppression—you name it. What we are left with, truly, is a world where "I" can do whatever I want as long as my inner radar tells me it's approved behavior, and outside of my own opinions there is no such thing as right and wrong, good and evil.

I see some wild contradictions and travesties:

We should disband all police forces, because people are only doing what in their opinion is acceptable.

We should disperse lawmakers, because they only legislate the will of the majority or the will of the rich and powerful, and my opinions (along with many others) differ from that, and I have a right to act on my own behalf, according to my own convictions, er, opinions. It's impossible to condemn suppressive war, sexual abuse, social oppression, or crime. By the same standards, it's impossible to praise beneficence, compassion, and rescue.

We should dissolve all courts of law, because they inflict the opinions and actions of someone else (a supposed higher authority, when such a concept is illegitimate) on the opinions and actions of perpetrators merely acting according to how they "feel about something."

To me, my friend, your philosophical scientific naturalism is a prescription for anarchy, violent oppression, and brutality. Our world is Auschwitz, and that's fine? A human person has no value whatsoever, for even the value we place on a human by choice is primally meaningless. We can take no offense at any action. If I hack a baby to pieces, I have not done anything fundamentally wrong, but only wrong in some people's opinion.

You can tell I'm worked up and sincerely disturbed by your position. I don't know how you can live in a real world with that world view. Please talk to me more about it.

[Park Em There]

I wanted to add an example that shows the ultimate failure of your argument. I could just as easily phrase the argument like this.

We all admit that bad movies exist in the world.
If bad movies exist, one must assume good movies exist in order to know the difference.
If good movies exist, one must assume that a critical law exists by which to measure good and bad.
If a critical law exists, one must posit an ultimate source of critical law, or at least an objective basis for a critical law.
The source of a personal, critical law must also be personal and critical.
Therefore God must exist.

I think we can all see that even though we acknowledge that good and bad movies exist, this doesn't make the individual values we place on these movies objective.

[jimwalton]

i acknowledge your phrasing of the argument to show the ultimate failure of the moral argument. What the logical premises (viz., your alteration) fails to take into account is the distinction between normative morality (morality that has an "ought" component to it) and descriptive morality (that which merely describes certain evaluation of better or worse). The question is "Is there a moral 'ought' built into each one of us, existing independently of what each of us may think or prefer?" Such an inquiry is not subject to scientific verification, because objectively existing unconditional moral "oughtness" has no physically observable effect. All things considered, there is no experiment to validate the concept of objective morality, but only inferring to the most reasonable conclusion. And if there is no physical referent, then logically it makes sense that moral properties are nonphysical, morality exists as part of a nonphysical entity, and we find possible groundings in transcendence or metaphysical necessities.

Rather than a logical syllogism, I have to appeal to a teleology of human nature, which I grant is subjective: we all have a sense that rape is always wrong, torturing babies for the fun of it is always wrong, and killing for the fun of it is always wrong. While I cannot express it in an airtight argument, teleologically we all know and agree to the reality of objectively existing unconditional morals. Now, I have had conversations with people here who say there really is no such thing as right or wrong, whether nurturing babies or hacking them into pieces, it's all a matter of opinion. While that may be a logical conclusion of taking scientific naturalism at its word and playing it to its inevitable conclusions, I happen to think it's a more reasonable inference that none of us live that way or truly have that opinion. If we do, why are so many people living as if there is objective morality holding back such atrocities?

[The Slayer]

I'm sorry that you find the idea icky, but you've done nothing to argue that it's untrue.

I'm just going to try to clarify some things.

>Let me get this straight. If a person can just change the way he or she "feels" about Hitler killing 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, then maybe he or she can learn to have the opinion that it was neutral, or maybe even good—that it's not evil intrinsically, but only because we've been socialized to perceive it that way? And if we are socialized to perceive it differently it could become a virtue?

Well, if we were socialized to perceive it a different way it wouldn't become a virtue, it would simply be perceived as a virtue. The actual act would remain neutral.

> Any action, then, by definition, as long as it's perceived as acceptable in my feelings (we really can't use the terms "good" or "evil" any more, because in your world view they are meaningless), is acceptable: murder, torture, hatred, discrimination, racism, sexism, suppression, oppression—you name it.

It's only acceptable to you. I don't have to think your values are of any merit.

> "I" can do whatever I want as long as my inner radar tells me it's approved behavior, and outside of my own opinions there is no such thing as right and wrong, good and evil.

If there were no such thing as law, or society this would be true—but, some moral statements are practically intersubjectively true—meaning that almost every human would agree with them. Since this is the case, these practically intersubjective moral positions (murder is wrong, rape is wrong, torture is wrong) are imposed on everyone within the society.

Your whole rant about get rid of lawmakers, police forces, and courts of law is simply outrageous. This is exactly what a society is, and enforcing the majority opinion is what these people are supposed to do. If we didn't live in a society, you'd be free to do those things if you wanted to, and I'd think you're a disgusting asshole, but I still wouldn't say that you're somehow doing something objectively immoral, just that you're probably mentally ill and don't deserve to live in a society anyway.

[jimwalton]

Sorry, I didn't mean to just express the "icky." Let me give you my argument that it's untrue.

First, I would argue that we all admit that there is evil in the world. We abhor child sexual abuse, rape, genocide, torture, and bigotry. Despite that some, such as yourself, say these things are neutral until we interpret them, it's a philosophical position that doesn't square with reality. Stalin's murderous purging, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Rwanda genocides, inner city rapes and countless other atrocities are exactly that: atrocities. Even the existentialists and atheists of the day acknowledge the disconnect between a philosophical position and real life.

Dawkins says that the universe has “precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” But this is not the reality. The tragedy in Newtown, CT, in Dec., 2012, tells a completely different story in reality: There was an outpouring of grief, compassion, and generosity, not blind, pitiless indifference. There were acts of selflessness, not selfishness: in the school staff who sacrificed their lives to save children, in the sympathetic response of a community and a nation. There was a deep belief that the people who died mattered, and that something of inestimable worth was snuffed out on December 14.

What makes sense is to subscribe to a world view that makes sense of reality, not one that denies it. The concepts of good and evil are ingrained in our nature, our cultures, and in our environment, so much so that good and evil are the principal characteristics differentiating human being from all other natural entities or quantities. Even accusing God of evil (as many atheists, agnostics, agnostics, and many detractors do, and causing Christians of hypocrisy are both accusations that claim to discover a moral flaw and a contradictory position in that religious belief system, but such vilification is impossible if there is no foundational objective morality.

Jean-Paul Sartre, famous philosopher and existentialist, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Bertrand Russell, all stated the impossibility of living these philosophies out in practice. Sartre condemned anti-Semitism: "a doctrine that leads to extermination is not merely an opinion or matter of personal taste, of equal value with its opposite."

Richard Wurmbrand, a man tortured by Communists, said, "The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners."

I would argue that a universe without moral accountability is devoid of all value (except artificially imposed value), and therefore unimaginably terrible.

For instance, if God does not exist, then natural selection dictates that the male is dominant, and women have no more rights than a female goat or a chicken have right. In nature, whatever is, is right. Who can live with such a view of the neutrality of oppression and bigotry?

The world was horrified when it learned at a Dachau, the Nazis had used prisoners for medical experiments on living humans. But if there is no objective morality, there can be no objection to using people as human guinea pigs. The world view upholds that population control in which the weak and unwanted are killed off to make room for the strong is part and parcel of survival of the fittest. Do you agree with that?

Some scientists such as Joseph Mengele used electric shocks in experiments with humans. Do you agree with that?

To me the ultimate argument is that such a position, while philosophically consistent, is impossible to accord with reality. We become meaningless monsters in a meaningless world. To me, a world view that is consistent with reality is the more rational persuasion. Truth is often thought of in terms of correspondence: a claim is true if it corresponds to what is." Einstein himself said, "Truth is what stands the test of experience." My argument would be that your world view doesn't stand the test of experience, and therefore isn't true.

By the way, what is the real and substantial difference between your concept of "some moral statements are practically intersubjectively true" and my concept of "objectively existing unconditional morals"?

[Sunburned and Bad]

> Let me get this straight. If a person can just change the way he or she "feels" about Hitler killing 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, then maybe he or she can learn to have the opinion that it was neutral, or maybe even good—that it's not evil intrinsically, but only because we've been socialized to perceive it that way?

Correct. If you were a member of the Nazi party in WWII it is possible that it was morally acceptable that killing Jews was moral. From the outside looking in we can say that killing Jews is not moral, this is because we are using our own subjective assessment.

> We should disband all police forces, because people are only doing what in their opinion is acceptable.

I think you misunderstand. Morality is derived not only from personal opinion and beliefs but also from the society of which a person belongs. When we gauge what is moral we also take into account what is socially acceptable action.

> To me, my friend, your philosophical scientific naturalism is a prescription for anarchy, violent oppression, and brutality.

We live in a world full of anarchy, violent oppression and brutality.......

[jimwalton]

> Morality is derived not only from personal opinion and beliefs but also from the society of which a person belongs. When we gauge what is moral we also take into account what is socially acceptable action.

But "socially acceptable action" is still just a matter of personal opinion. So when society, as you said, indicates that it's OK to slaughter Jews, it's OK. And when society says it's OK to abuse slaves, it's OK. Or oppress women, kill babies, torture whomever. You seem to be comfortable with the philosophical pose that we are all animals at core, the result of natural selection, and so morality is a construct we have imposed on life to improve our chances of survival. But this doesn't square with what we know to be true. If your best friend were to die, you wouldn't stand at the grave and say, "Well, he/she was just a meaningless animal anyway." You know that you feel there should be purpose in life. You seek for meaning and significance. We all do. And that's the point: WE ALL DO. It's in us that life has meaning, that we're not just a meaningless agglomeration of chemicals assembled by chance, but that life has meaning, that love is real, that pain is real, that suffering is an affront, and that evil is evil. No one can live in the real world and consistently view reality the way you are claiming, because it doesn't accord with life as we know it. To me, a world view that is consistent with reality is the more rational persuasion. Truth is often thought of in terms of correspondence: a claim is true if it corresponds to what is." Einstein himself said, "Truth is what stands the test of experience." My argument would be that your world view doesn't stand the test of experience, and therefore isn't true.

> We live in a world full of anarchy, violent oppression and brutality.......

Indeed we do, and the goal is to make it stop, not brush it off with "people are only doing what in their opinion is acceptable." It's human to work for justice, to end oppression, to relieve suffering, and to bring hope, meaning, and significance to life. And it's not human because we have foisted that template on our environment, but because we know inside of us that it's right and good. To me, the Christian world view and the moral argument make far more rational sense than the view you are propounding.