DeoOmnisGloria.com

See my comments in the article "The Root of Moral Relativism"

Joe

I'm writing a paper on Moral Relativism. I'm personally outraged at the ongoing relativism that is now attacking the God given instituion of marriage and the recent Supreme court ruling on Sodomy. I'm standing firm that God has given us moral standards.

An interesting topic on which I disagree. I accept your point of view as what is important and pertinent to you. However, I believe that humanity has always set its moral guidelines based on the needs and opinions of the culture and society of the time and place in question. Religion is often a part of these mores, but it too is a creation of humans and therefore is subjective in purpose and code.

On the comment posted by Rob just two days ago, Marriage exists without necessarily a religious standing in many cultures, including most modern western ones. This would seem to preempt the idea of it being a 'God given instituion'. If you are indeed writing a paper on Moral Relativism, please be sure to research this concept throughly.

Adam,
An atheist would naturally argue that there are no moral absolutes, and yet we can see this is not true. There are absolutes: you can't murder (universal), rape, steal, etc. No culture condones this type of immorality.

The atheist also misses the bigger picture by ignoring the spiritual realm. Whether we would prefer moral abosolutes or not, they exist just as God exists. Nietzsche tried to argue that moral was defined by those in power and should be redefined, but he also did not believe in God, who contains the moral qualities we should strive to imitate.

Most atheists would then go on to say, God is an invention of the mind, a crutch for the weak. However, I think atheism is the invention - no one wants to have moral absolutes forced upon them, everyone wants to be able to follow their own lusts, so they invented atheism as a way out. Besides, if people were to invent a god, it would not be the Christian God. Why? He's all-powerful, all-knowing (He can even read your mind), omnipresent, and (worst of all) just. The Christian God is not our ideal 'all-loving' god that would simply accept our faults and move on.

This takes us full circle: there are moral absolutes and they are called the Ten Commandments. It would be nice and easy to believe moral relativism is okay, but it's not. Sorry. Unfortunately, I can't convince you of this since it isn't an intellectual problem - it's a moral problem.

Jay

I can just "feel the love" in your religious debate.

I resent your "decree" that if one is an atheist, naturally, it's an invention necessitated by their desire to pursue their own "lusts". Sweetie, I don't have any lusts -- except maybe for truths, trying to find goodness in others, gardening and, apparently, taking in and caring for stray/injured animals. I have what is considered to be a very "conservative" profession (which I find to be often immoral by my standards),I don't smoke, and, hold your hat, am celebate. So I'll thank you to keep your stereotypes to yourself.

And murder is often condoned by Christians -- I would certainly hope an omnipotent God didn't approve of that.

Cindy,
Why then do you reject God?

God bless,
Jay

Cindy and Adam,

Please do not confuse "love" with license. Compassion with tolerance. This sort of comment comes across frequently from people who are upset that "one person would attempt to impose their values on others."

Let's be clear: every law ever created and enforced imposed values upon others. Murder is "wrong", agreed? If so, it is only because it violates some moral law. Many argue that it is wrong not because it is immoral, but because it hurt's others or inhibits their freedom. However, that just means that hurting others or inhibiting freedom is immoral. Others say that murder is wrong because it is "uneconomical." Again, however, this presupposes that an economical world has "worth"--itself a moral judgment. Thus, everyone who believes that murder is wrong believes in a law that transcends humanity.

This law must have some source. Jews and Christians (and even Muslims to some extent) have identified that source for in excess of 4000 years. Congratulations to all of the atheists and agnostics who can so casually toss aside 4000 years of knowledge! But even if you do, let's be honest. Atheism is a logical paradox for all but the most cruel (i.e. except for those who do not believe that murder or anything else is wrong). To the extent you believe in moral law, you must believe in a God who created that law (or potentially a God who is that law). Either way, the "law" or God must be served and obeyed. Read "Pensees" by Blaise Pascal for further in depth treatment of this discussion.

In Christ,
Dave

In a country that separates church and state, it is not the law's place to impose the morality of a God onto citizens.

I am an atheist who rejects moral relativism insofar as it suggests that all moral points of view are equally valid. I do not think that there is an *objective* morality, because in order for there to be an objective morality there must be someone above humanity who bestows it--i.e., a god.

But clearly some actions are wrong if you believe in basic values. For instance, if you ascribe to the basic principle that the innocent have a right to live and hold that principle to be axiomatic, then you can condemn Hitler. You need not believe in God to believe that murder is wrong or to declare that your belief that murder is wrong is superior to another's belief that murder is okay.

Alan,

If there were no God, there would be no atheists.
- G.K. Chesterton

What is the foundation of your "basic values"? How can you tell me that the values that you hold to need to be the values that I hold to unless there is some "objective truth," for what you hold as of "value" might not be the same as what I hold as of "value." Therefore, your argument is not valid...how can you prove to me that murder is wrong, what "objective" point could you make to convince me that it was morally wrong? Keep in mind that if I don't believe in "objective truth," more specifically in "objective truth that is good" you really have no way of proving to me that murder is wrong. Atheism, by its very nature, encourages moral relativism.

You really need to think about these things.

In Christ,
Joe

Atheism does not "encourage" moral relativism; it is moral relativsm. Adam's statement that he rejects "objective" truth, but ascribes to "basic principles" is somewhat amusing. Is there anyone else out there who does not realize that these are one and the same? You can't reject one and ascribe to the other...

In Christ,
Dave

Joe,

You imply that because I am willing to make the objective statement “There is no God,” I am being inconsistent when I say that morality is subjective. But you are comparing apples and oranges. Whether or not there is a God is a question of fact; whether or not murder is wrong (for example) is a question of value.

I cannot tell you that the values I hold should be the values you hold--not if we do not first share some common beliefs. So, for instance, if you did not believe that innocent people have a right to live, then (in the absence of some other relevant common belief) I would not be able to convince you that murder is wrong. (I *would* set up my society to “impose” my morals upon you, however, and keep you from committing murder.)

You suggest that this is a fault in my argument, because I cannot “prove” that my values are superior to other values. However, your argument has the same problem. If your first principle is “There is a God, and He has given mankind an objective morality,” so be it--but you will have the same difficulty convincing someone who does not believe in your first principle in the superiority of your morality as I have convincing someone who does not believe in mine. If you want to fault my moral system because it does not prove its moral claims, then you must first tell me how your system *does* prove its moral claims.

You may say that your system proves its moral claims through the truth of Christianity. But that truth has never been established with an objective proof, in spite of centuries of philosophical attempts.

As for your G.K. Chesterton quote, I suggest a corollary: “If there were no unicorns, there would be no one who did not believe in unicorns.” (My intent is not to equate a belief in God with a belief in unicorns, only to indicate that each conditional statement follows the same logic.)

You say that I “really need to think about these things,” as though I have not. In the future, please spare me the condescension.

Regards,
Alan

Dave,

Objective truth and basic principles are not the same thing. Objective truth requires some transcendent giver of truths. A basic principle, on the other hand, only requires that someone think it. “Rock and roll bands are better than boy bands” is a basic principle that I believe in; I have no transcendent basis for that belief, but I believe it all the same.

I know that your God is perfect and that He never changes His morality. But consider this hypothetical:

God appears before you and says that murder is now acceptable under His moral laws. If you would accept this change, woe be unto you. If you would still consider murder immoral in spite of God’s decree, then you have to acknowledge that God does not give moral laws their value. Rather, moral laws must have intrinsic value, independent of God.

Even if God would never change His moral system, this hypothetical demonstrates that God’s moral system is not good because it is *God’s*; it is good because it is *moral*.

Plato used a similar argument to show that god(s) and morality are independent of one another.

So we both must answer where our basic values come from (unless, that is, you really would consider murder okay if God said so). There is no foundation to morality other than that which our own minds provide—but that is enough.

Regards,
Alan

Alan,

Well-stated. However, you have missed the deeper point of what I was saying. You are correct that a "basic principle" can exist in the absence of "objective truth". (My technically incorrect correlation of objective truth and basic principles was an assumption on my part that you were claiming an element of "truth" in your basic principles.) However, if the basic principle is not founded in objective truth it has no value. It may guide your actions, but your actions will be random and meaningless because they do not align with any "valuable" purpose. Value, of course, is defined here objectively.

You may respond that value can be subjective. For example, I do not murder because I do not like it. But this is a very weak objection to murder, carrying absolutely no legitmacy outside of the individual ascribing to that particular notion. You cannot tell somebody else, "murder is wrong because I do not like it." They will be no more bound to your belief re murder than they will to your particular taste in food. The end of your "basic principles" is simply a life focused on satisfying yourself. Nothing more, nothing less. To the extent you claim to hold value in satisfying others, I would correct you by noting you only do so in order to satisfy yourself. This results in a slavery of the grandest proportions; you are a slave to your own desires, the likes of which you cannot change nor control. And all of it directed towards the brevity of your own miniscule physical life. The greatest thing about this position is the vastness of its emptiness.

Your use of Plato is only half correct. He did postulate that the Greek gods were not the source of morality. This, of course, is a self-proving proposition, as the behavior of those gods was so widely varied (if they were the source and summit of morality/unchanging truth their behavior would have remained constant/consistent). Plato, however, did recognize an objective morality. More importantly, he recognized that this objective morality had a source: the unmoved mover. This unmoved mover is acknowledged to be the Christian God.

God is not simply the source of all Truth, he is Truth. Your hypothetical is, as you recognize, a non sequitor. The definition of God as Truth means that God's view of Truth could not change. Your hypo might be better stated as "what if God had always said that murder was morally okay?" To which my response would be, twofold: 1) I would naturally accept this Truth, and 2) more interestingly, you would also accept this Truth, though you would not know why. Which is precisely the situation right now. I accept the Truth that murder is wrong; you also accept this Truth, but you sit in a state of moral flux because you can point to no source for this Truth outside your own self.

I am curious how you resolve this issue. I imagine that coming to grips with the concept of morality must be very difficult for an atheist. You have already dismissed objective Truth, leaving you only to your self. You then claim that murder is wrong (along with, perhaps, stealing, adultery, etc.) Yet, if you are indeed human, there are parts of you that will desire each of these things at some point in time. Why resist the urges and temptation? Is stealing wrong if you can get away with it? Is adultery wrong if your wife never finds out? Why not give the trouble-maker down the street the ax (50% of all murders go unsolved you know)?

Alan, have you ever read "The Abolition of Man" by C.S. Lewis? If so, I would be interested to hear your thoughts. If not, it's a pretty quick read, and I would really reccommend it to you. In either case, I would appreciate another comment from you on the points I raised above.

In Christ,
Dave

Dave,

Thanks for your courteous and articulate reply.

The Unmoved Mover is an Aristotelian, not a Platonic, concept. And the Unmoved Mover is certainly a deity. But reconciling the Unmoved Mover with the Christian God is difficult, since Aristotle's naturalism is very much at odds with the Christian conception of the universe--hence the many condemnations issued during medieval times against Aristotelian scholasticism.

You are, of course, correct that Plato believed in an objective morality. I never said he didn’t. But the source of Plato’s objective morality is not God, as you suggest. To Plato, the transcendent source of morality is the Forms. The Forms share some traits with the Christian God--they are eternal and unchanging and they exist in a realm beyond the physical world. But they are Forms, not conscious beings, and they are multiple, not unified.

You say that if God’s morality had countenanced murder from the start, you would accept that. According to this conception, moral principles have no intrinsic value; their value is derived entirely from the authority of the giver. Here you share much more ground with the moral relativist than I do.

Some direct responses:

“However, if the basic principle is not founded in objective truth it has no value.”

Why not? Isn’t a moral system valuable insofar as it results in people who treat one another justly and who do not act with amoral license against one another? If you convinced a thousand people that your moral principles were objectively true, you would still have moral anarchy if those people failed to act on those principles. Conversely, I could argue to a thousand people that my moral principles, while not objectively true because they have no transcendent basis, are good principles to live by, and if they adopted my morality in thought and action a just community would result.

You say that a non-objective basic principle has no value as though it is self-evident; it is not. In fact, as I have just tried to show, there is little correlation between whether a basic principle is objective and whether it is valuable.

“It may guide your actions, but your actions will be random and meaningless because they do not align with any ‘valuable’ purpose.”

Why? It seems to me that my actions won’t be “random and meaningless” if I organize them around a coherent moral structure. For instance, let’s say that, even though I’m an atheist, I decide to order my actions around the Ten Commandments. Would my actions “not align with any valuable purpose” then?

Basing my actions upon any moral structure that dictates a consistent and substantive standard of behavior will keep my actions from being random and meaningless.

“[V]alue can be subjective. For example, I do not murder because I do not like it... [But y]ou cannot tell somebody else, ‘murder is wrong because I do not like it.’” [Here you’re giving a response you say I might give.]

You’re trivializing what I mean when I say subjective morality. All I mean is that my values come from my own moral intuition and not some external source; I don’t mean that my sense of morality is “touchy-feely” or based upon some personal whim. And since my morality concerns proper treatment of one’s fellows (see my next response), it is just as applicable to you as it is to me.

“To the extent you claim to hold value in satisfying others, I would correct you by noting you only do so in order to satisfy yourself… The greatest thing about this position is the vastness of its emptiness.”

Your rhetoric in this passage is quite lovely, but it is equally baseless. To repeat my same basic question, *Why* am I only interested in satisfying myself? Why will “the end of [my] ‘basic principles’” be “a life focused on satisfying [myself]?” You’re making a lot of rhetorical leaps here that you fail to justify.

I infer--and correct me if I’m wrong--that your morality is focused on satisfying God, that you behave morally for the sake of God. Well, I behave morally for the sake of others. Not that I’m some extraordinarily selfless person! But my morality is based upon a sense of obligation to treat others with respect and kindness--to treat them by the Golden Rule, if you will. So both of us behave morally for someone other than ourselves. How can you go from this to the conclusion that I behave morally only to satisfy myself?

I can quickly answer your question about why I wouldn’t steal, kill, etc. even if I knew I would never be found out: Because killing (for instance) the annoying neighbor down the street would wrong *him*. Being annoying is not a capital offense. My morality is not about me, and it’s not about God; it’s about my fellow man.

"‘[W]hat if God had always said that murder was morally okay?’... 1) I would naturally accept this Truth, and 2) more interestingly, you would also accept this Truth, though you would not know why.”

I have already addressed point one; see this post’s fourth paragraph, above. Point two is only true if God actually exists (and even then it still might not be true), and obviously that’s a point I do not cede.

“I accept the Truth that murder is wrong; you also accept this Truth, but you sit in a state of moral flux because you can point to no source for this Truth outside your own self.”

No, I don’t sit in a state of moral flux. Just because I don’t have any external source for my morality does not make my morality any less strong or permanent in my mind.

As an atheist, I don't think we have ever known an objective moral truth, because I don't think such truths exist. From what I can tell, the only moral truths we have ever known have come from our own minds. So naturally I think that such subjective truths can nevertheless provide valuable moral guidance. God and morality are discreet entities to me, as they were for Plato.

Plato believed that we could learn about the Forms through philosophical discussion. Unlike Plato, I don't think that the Forms actually exist, which, if they did, would give morality a transcendent, objective foundation. But like Plato, I do think that ideal values and standards of conduct can be determined through the use of reason.

I would like to read the C.S. Lewis book--I looked it up online and it sounds interesting. I’ll try to get it from the library over the weekend.

Forgive me for the length of this post! I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Regards,
Alan

Alan,
I have been watching your wonderful debate with the others and I am impressed by your willingness to debate what, in my experience, are issues many atheists would rather avoid.
There are a couple of points of your I would like to address if you don’t mind:
1. You state that you do not believe in objective morality but that you belief in basic values and basic principles. I would like to know from where you derive your basic values which include at least a prohibition on murder and a prohibition on “imposing” that prohibition on others? Relatedly, you state that if people adopted your morality a “just” community would result: what do you mean and how do you quantify “just?”
2. You object that no one has ever “proven” the existence of God. What is your standard of proof? From your writing it appears that you use a Cartesian standard of proof. But what if reality has a different standard and your standard is not the correct standard by which to judge God’s existence? Different things have different standards of “proof” right? We would not use the standard we use in mathematics to judge medicine or historical inquiry. Similarly, we should use the standard of proof that God’s nature requires and not one taken from another endeavor.
I believe in God for three (only analytically distinct) reasons: (1) religious; (2) philosophical; and (3) existential. I do not have “proof” of God’s existence just like I don’t have proof of your existence or that Great Britain is an island. I have never met you, walked the circumference of the U.K., or met God face-to-face, so to speak. But I believe that you and God exist, and that Great Britain is an island because everything that I have read, thought, and experienced point to the truth of those propositions.
I find the historical evidence for the proposition that Jesus Christ was/is God very strong. I find that the philosophical system used by Catholicism to comport with what I understand reality to be. Lastly, I have experienced Jesus touch my heart and I know that He exists.
3. You make a distinction between facts and values. I recommend to you Alisdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue and Three Rival Version of Moral Enquiry. He convincingly argues that the fact/value distinction that arose with the Enlightenment (most prominently with Hume but you use Kant’s arguments that build on the distinction as well) was the result of the rejection of the previous teleological view of the nature of man. If the Platonic forms actually do reside within us, and direct our growth and development to our actuality, then it is a fact that we should pursue our end (happiness) because it is a fact that we are doing so with all of our actions. You are in fact seeking happiness (truth as you admirably called it) which is your end, but what if you are mistaken about the object in which you think your happiness lies? Would you like to continue to mistakenly pursue that which will not bring you happiness, or receive correction (from friends or society through the law) such that you would truly and effectively pursue happiness? The answer is obvious from you very actions: you honestly seek the truth and if you were previously mistaken about the truth then you would change your actions. Thus, there is no distinction between facts and values because it is a fact that all beings pursue their end
(impelled to do so by their very being), and a fact that the end of man is happiness.
4. You use Kant’s argument that God’s moral system is good because of some non-Godly measure by which we judge those norms. In Catholicism, moral norms are binding on us, not because they are directly the Will of the Lawgiver, but because we are created beings with ends (with forms). Thus, the strawman that Kant (and you) beat on—that norms are from the will of the lawgiver—misses the point. We have an end to which we must strive because that is the way we are made. God could not change the moral norms (murder is wrong) without changing our nature (which is of course possible). What is good is dependent on the nature of the being in question: it is good for a fork to be used to eat food but not good for it to be used to tune a piano. But change the nature of the fork and what is good and not good in relation to it changes as well. Moral norms are good, not because they come directly from God’s will but because they come from our nature (which indirectly comes from God’s will). Thus, we do not use some outside measure to measure the goodness of the natural law, and the natural law is the creation of God who created us.
5. You stated that the law should not impose morality. Do you agree that the law in our society does and should not or that it does not and should not? I believe that the law does and should. For example, how does one justify anti-discrimination laws? We, as a society, are clearly imposing our belief on the inherent equality of all people regardless of race on those, such as employers, who think otherwise. We are telling racists employers: blacks are equal to whites and you shall hire them regardless of your perverted beliefs. I believe this is good because, in fact, blacks are equal to whites and the law therefore forces society to recognize that fact and the young who are brought up in our society learn that fact: the pedagogical function of law.
Sorry so messy but in a rush.

Lee

Alan,

Thank you for your reply. I have some comments in addition to what Lee mentioned. First, you mistate my point when you say that moral principles have no intrinsic value since they derive their legitamacy from the Giver. If you read my post more carefully you would recognize that the principles and the Giver, in the Christian ethos, cannot be separated. They are one and the same. The principles are simply another way of saying "the Giver's nature." I appreciate your instinct that my view of principles is relativistic, because it recognizes the problem of potentially changeable principles. However, your instinct is applied improperly because you fail to understand who the Giver in this case is. In fact, the Giver is nothing less than the infinite God. God's most profound revelation was given to Moses in the book of Exodus (written circa 1500 BC) where He identifies Himself as "I Am". Notice the lack of qualifiers. God is not "just", "loving", "merciful", "angry", "powerful", etc. and so on. Rather, He simply is. As the infinite being (the very personification of infinity), God is unchanging and unchangeable. This, of course, is something too grand for a finite being to even conceive, and so we speak of it as three year old children discussing some grand piece of art. This concept of the infinite God (too often confused with more limited notions of "omnipotence" etc.) receives its best treatment (to my small mind) in Pascal's "Pensees". (And at the risk of sounding like a Barnes and Noble salesperson, I also highly recommend this book.)

Second, and though Lee pointed it out, your statements regarding "good" principles to live by and a "just" society are confusing. In the absence of transcendentally founded morality, terms such as "just" and "good" have no meaning. Your position leads inevitably to everyone doing whatever s/he believes is right. And there is absolutely no way to control what "right" is, since it depends upon each individual and not something transcendent. As such, "just" and "good" become nothing more (and please point out if you think this incorrect) than creations of the ruling class. If that is a king, than it will be one person's opinion. If that is a democracy, it will be the opinion of the "majority". If that is the philosopher kings (see U.S. Supreme Court) it will be the opinion of nine justices. But ultimately, "just" and "good" boil down to the opinions of those who have enough power to suppress the views (or at least the exercise thereof) of any detractors. To quote a rather trite and simple addage, might makes right. Isn't this ultimately what your position boils down to? I am very serious here, and this seems so clear. Nothing you have said yet counteracts this simple fact, right? I really would like to know how you prevent this anarchic/"might makes right" result of atheism.

Now I am an admittedly simple person, and not nearly as well-versed in philosophy as Lee and yourself. However, with respect, you have decidedly not demonstrated that there is no correlation between a basic principle's objectivity and its value. Though you claim that your principles have value, the term "value" has no meaning outside of objectivity--which was my point from the beginning. The most that you can say is that you personally believe it is valuable. Strike that. You cannot even say that, because you reject objective value. So, the most you can say is that your conscience is comfortable with your basic principles. How can you claim value, when your own position on transcendent morality prevents making any normative statements. Again, show me where my logic fails.

With regard to my "leap" that your "morality" is really a fancy way of saying that you are only satisfying yourself: I accept at face value your "golden rule" morality. That is, you seek to serve others. I seek to serve God, and thus we are in seemingly similar situations. Such is not the case, however. While you seek to honor the wishes of others (a grand simplification I am sure) you do NOT adopt their view of the "good". That is to say, you seek to honor them because it satisfies YOUR definition of what is right, NOT theirs. I on the other hand seek to do what God believes is right. Let me give an example. The Church teaches that divorce and remarriage are wrong. If a Catholic does so, s/he must agree to remain celibate in their second marriage or they may not receive the Eucharist. I find this to be very harsh and somewhat offensive, and would not enforce it if I were "in charge"; in other words, my conscience tells me this is wrong. However, I am not in charge; God is (as represented by His appointees). Thus, even though I disagree on a personal level, I accept that my own view of morality is disordered due to personal and original sin, and instead submit to God's morality (i.e. the source, summit, and identity of morality). You on the other hand submit only to yourself (i.e. your view of the good. It pains me to use the term "good" because it is a misnomer. You have already disclaimed the idea of "the good", and thus you cannot "view" something that does not exist. For lack of a better term, let us call it "Alanness", not because it is lovely rhetoric, but because it is descriptively accurate). Thus, your life can be accurately stated as attempting to pursue Alanness, which is your own creation or nature, and thus you pursue yourself. On the other hand, my life is spent attempting to satisfy God by pursuing the good that is His nature.

On to randomness and meaninglessness. I again stand by my position. First, you are correct that if your actions track a coherent set of basic principles they will be in some sense predictable, and thus not random. You are also correct that if your "basic principles" align with objective Truth (i.e. the Ten Commandments) they will be valuable (at least externally or relationally).

However, regarding randomness, you skip a step. The randomness I speak of has nothing to due with the predictability of your actions, but rather the predictability of your basic principles themselves. In fact, they are not predictable for two reasons. First, Alanness originates solely in your person (conscience, soul, psyche, emotions, or whatever). There is no standard aside from that which is created by yourself. Since you are a random being, finite, limited, and disordered, a worldview that draws its legitimacy from your being will also be finite, limited, and disordered (i.e. random). And before you assail my logical leap here, bear in mind that Webster's defines "random" as "without direction" or "haphazard". As your "basic principles" are your direction (i.e. they are your life's pursuit), consider that my focus is on whether your direction, so to speak, has direction or whether it is haphazard. My basic principles have direction, and an objective one--they are focused on the pursuit of God's will, which everyone (according to Christian thought) can see (though obviously with differing levels of clarity). Your Alanness is haphazard in that it is focused on the pursuit of your will, something that is not clear to everyone nor has legitimacy as a law over anyone. The end of Alanness is anarchy (because it presupposes that Davidness, Jayness, Joeness, etc. are all equally valid worldviews). The end of my worldview is harmony to the extent that all people are reconciled to it (something that I am empowered to advocate by the fact of objective Truth). This is the first sense in which your basic principles are random.

The second sense in which Alanness is random is to the extent that, because you are finite, you are also changeable. Because Alanness is rooted in yourself, it too is finite and changeable (the very essence of a lack of an objective morality). Even assuming arguendo that Alanness had direction, it could change at a moment's notice. The brutal murder of your family, winning the lottery, a fall to drug addiction, ascension to a position of power, a cataclysmic event, and so on could very easily result in a complete realignment of Alanness. While each of these events could also realign anyone else's view of objective morality, they would have no impact whatsoever on Truth itself. So here, again, objective reality is stable while Alanness is random.

Now with regard to the alignment of Alanness to a valuable purpose, it is certainly possible, but there are several problems. First, as shown above, there is no guarantee of such an alignment because Alanness is random. Second, on the off chance that Alanness was so aligned, it could change at any time. Third, even if it never changed, the alignment of Alanness with objective truth would have only relational and external value (i.e. it would benefit the world and others around you). It would not, however, benefit you personally to any significant degree, because you would forever fail to recognize the true value of Alanness. To the extent you loved Alanness with all of your heart, and pursued it with a passion, your love would be nothing more than idolatry. The love of your own self, and the laws, rules, and ethics created by that self. You would ironically walk the path of God saying to yourself, "Look at the wonders my being has created, and the goodness of the moral order that I have formed!" To love all that God has authored, yet to deny His authorship, is the essence of blasphemy and idolatry. Objective morality brings you to God; since Alanness prevents this transformation (even if it mimics the road) it has no value to you of an individual and internal nature. (Note that this paragraph is not designed to convince you of objective morality, but rather to show that from a position of objective morality, the alliance of Alanness with Truth is valueless to you).

Now you will have to forgive me for the length of this post. To sum up, my main point is to contradict your protest that subjective morality is not "touchy-feely", that it can apply to others besides yourself (I still don't understand how your morality has any legitimacy outside of yourself), and that Alanness has any sort of "permanency". I look forward to your reply...

In Christ,
Dave

Gentlemen,

I’ll use this post to respond to Lee’s remarks. Lee, since you’ve divided your remarks into numerical sections, I will reply with corresponding numerical sections.

1. Let me clarify my point of view. I *do* believe in “imposing” a prohibition of murder on others. You and I are in accord here. This is one of the main things I’m trying to say: that not only am I not a “strong” moral relativist (someone who doesn’t hold any morality even for himself--a nihilist), I’m also not a “weak” moral relativist (someone who believes that because his morality is only a product of his mind or culture, he has no basis to judge the moralities of other individuals or cultures).

Where does my morality come from and what do my values mean? I’ve been trying to answer this fundamental question in my previous posts, but evidently I have been too preoccupied with responding to specific arguments to make my answer clear.

My subjective morality begins with the objective fact that there are other sentient human beings--“subjective” human beings in that they possess an internal consciousness formally identical to my own. Because I value my own consciousness, and their consciousnesses are qualitatively the same, I should value their consciousnesses and respect their dignity. (The clause that begins with “I should” is the first value judgment I have made in my morality--all that precedes it are facts--so that clause is my most basic principle.) And because every other individual stands in relation to other conscious humans in the same manner I do, this morality can be universalized--that is, not only *I* should respect human dignity; *you* should, too.

This dignity entails that all of us, as conscious beings, should not be deprived of their life, liberty, or property (John Locke’s trio) without cause. A society that ensures the protection of these things is a just society--where justice is defined (by Plato, memorably) as rendering to each his due. “Good” actions are those actions that respect and uphold human dignity and the concomitant human rights thereof.

(An aside: Under Plato’s definition of justice, punishment of transgressors is also valid. To execute a murderer is to render to the murderer his due.)

You no doubt are aware that moral philosophers often speak of moral “intuitions” when formulating their arguments. I would define an intuition here as a very basic value judgment, one that is almost instinctual. Discourse between moral philosophers begins when they agree on their most basic intuitions--as it would begin here, for example, when each philosopher agreed that one should value human consciousness and respect human dignity.
Because there is a value judgment at the beginning of and between each step of my moral argument above, my morality cannot be quantified or proven conclusively to someone who would deny the validity of those judgments outright. But *that is the nature of value judgments*. It is impossible to “prove” a judgment to someone because he can simply respond, “I disagree with your judgment.” To speak of proof here does not even make much sense, because moral judgments take place only in the mind and therefore cannot have their validity demonstrated in some external, “objective” sphere.

Having said that, look at my basic principle again: “Because I value my own consciousness, and [the] consciousnesses [of other humans] are qualitatively the same, I should value their consciousnesses and respect their dignity.” The value judgment I am making is very simple. Call it reciprocity, call it the Golden Rule--it’s something I think most people would (and do) agree upon.

Once that agreement is established, the only question is how to arrange a morality that reflects and upholds this basic value judgment. Philosophical discourse to determine the contents of this morality follows, with this end in mind.

At this stage in society, our understanding of dignity, justice, and goodness are (I think) more or less how I describe and define them above. They reflect the moral views of people of all faiths and people of none, and though there are differences between us on specific moral questions (such as abortion, premarital sex, etc.), the vast majority agree on the broad principals I have sketched out. This moral consensus is reflected in the laws and mores of Western countries such as America.

2. Regarding God’s existence: it is not my purpose here to show that God does not exist. I do not think I could convince you that He does not, not because of the weakness of my case (it is not weak) but because of the strength of your faith, and I see no reason to try. My more modest purpose is to show that atheism does not equal moral relativism--a point upon which we might all come to agree without any of us changing our beliefs (or, in my case, lack thereof).

You are right that the standard of proof used in mathematics is different from that used in medicine or history. Mathematics is deductive; proofs can be demonstrated conclusively because they are self-referential. Everything else, whether it is determining if a medical procedure was effective or if some historical event actually occurred or if an individual is guilty of a crime or if something outside the realm of direct experience exists, is inductive; we must use the evidence we have to fill in the gaps of what we know.

Descartes tried to prove God’s existence deductively by saying that, because God is an all-perfect being and because it is part of the nature of an all-perfect being to exist, God must exist. I am guessing that this is the argument you refer to when you say that “we should use the standard of proof that God’s nature requires.” But Descartes’ proof is unconvincing because, as Kant says, although existence may be an attribute of the concept of God, we might reject the entire concept of God along with its constituent attributes. This is far from complicated; it’s common sense. It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist, just that a deductive proof of His existence derived from His nature is unconvincing.

Any attempted proof of God’s existence must be performed inductively; therefore there can be no objective proof of God’s existence.

3. You seem to have melded Plato, Aristotle, and Christianity in a creative but philosophically inaccurate way. Aristotle had a teleological conception of the nature of man--that, as you put it, people “pursue their end... [and are] impelled to do so by their very being.” But Plato did not share this conception, and he didn’t believe that the Forms resided within us (as the Holy Ghost does according to Christianity); he believed that our souls had encountered the Forms before birth and that we could therefore come to recollect the Forms through reason and philosophical discourse.

In any event, you say that because we pursue happiness with all of our actions, it is a fact that we should pursue happiness. I don’t accept this for several reasons. First, I don’t subscribe to a teleological conception of man. So I don’t accept your premise that we pursue happiness with all of our actions. Second, even if we do, that does not necessarily make it moral. Just because we *do* something doesn’t mean we *should*. This is a basic distinction between “is” and “ought” of which I’m sure you are aware. (You might get around this by saying that because our nature was created by God, our nature is inherently good and thus that those actions that we do naturally are inherently moral--but again, I reject this teleological viewpoint. Plus, I’m not sure how well the “human nature is inherently good” idea would square with Christian doctrine.)

Third, and most importantly, there is a common sense distinction between values and facts. “Murder is wrong” is a value; “there is a computer on my desk” is a fact. Values refer to the mental realm; facts refer to the physical (or, in the case of God’s existence, metaphysical) realm. Tell virtually anyone you ask, from a person walking down the street to a philosophy professor, that values and facts are the same thing, and the response you get will be one of incredulity.

4. Your argument that God could not change the moral norms without changing our nature is a different interpretation from Dave’s (I think... Dave, correct me if I’m wrong). When you say that “[m]oral norms are good, not because they come directly from God’s will but because they come from our nature (which indirectly comes from God’s will),” you and I may share some common ground. As I have said, I don’t believe in God, and I don’t believe in a teleological conception of the nature of man. But, as you can tell by my response to your Point One, I do believe that moral norms come from the nature of man.

Even if you and I don’t mean the same thing when we say “the nature of man,” we both seem to agree that, because of the nature of man, moral norms have some *intrinsic* value. As you put it, “[W]e do not use some outside measure to measure the goodness of the natural law.”

That is the most important point that I am trying to establish here. If moral norms do have some intrinsic value, then atheism need not be moral relativism, because atheists can recognize an intrinsically-valuable morality even in the absence of a transcendent source of that morality.

5. I did not say that the law should not impose morality; I said that the law should not impose “the morality of a God”--that is, a religious morality. The law should and does impose a basic morality.

Thus I agree completely that anti-discrimination laws should and do impose morality onto employers. Racial equality is a moral principle that justifiably enjoys a near-unanimous consensus, save for the few racists in our midst. Anti-discrimination laws or murder laws or rape laws impose morality with justification both because of such a consensus and because the morality imposed has a basic philosophical justification--equal rights, right to life, and right to liberty from attack respectively.

But the morality of a specific *religion* should not be imposed upon those who do not share that religion’s beliefs precisely because *the truth of the religion itself* is a matter of disagreement.

I will try to reply to Dave’s latest post as soon as possible. If you guys could hold off on responding until I’ve posted that response, I’d appreciate it, because I don’t want to get hopelessly backlogged.

Regards,
Alan

Gentlemen,

Thanks for your (dare I say “infinite?”) patience. On to Dave’s comments.

Dave: I have always understood you to mean that God and His principles are inseparable. My intent initially was to show that either you accept that God and morality are separate, or else that your morality is arbitrary *with respect to human judgment*. (I failed to qualify the word “arbitrary” in earlier posts and perhaps should have; you have to keep in mind that for me human judgment is the only kind of moral judgment there is.)

You said that, had God said all along that murder was okay, you would have accepted that. So your morality is arbitrary in that you abdicate your ability to judge morality for yourself. I understand that that’s because you believe that God’s judgment is superior to human judgment, so I don’t mean this as a criticism, just an observation.

The point is, what you are saying is completely in accord with my argument that either God and morality is separate or else morality is arbitrary. So the point of contention between us is not there.

It is, rather, here: Morality should *not* be arbitrary towards human judgment, because morality affects human beings.

If you say “God’s morality is perfect because God is perfect,” and God and morality are unified, then all you are saying is "God's morality is perfect because God’s morality is perfect," which is tautological and validates a morality irrespective of its contents.

So let’s set aside the “murder is okay” possibility and look at a more extreme case. If God had set His morality up differently, so that, for instance, torturing innocent children was a great moral act, you would still abdicate judgment and defer to God's judgment. Yet it seems clear that torturing children with abandon, just by the extreme nature of the offense and the effect it has *on the children themselves*, would hardly be moral.

How would you get around this? You could say, "God is perfect, *so* His morality would not countenance behavior such as torturing children." This statement links God and morality causally but not in terms of identity (in contrast to the tautological statement above). God’s morality is not proper just because God makes it; rather, God makes it because it is proper.

This need not conflict with your beliefs. I'm sure I cannot divest you of the doctrinal unity of God and moral principle, so let it stand. But you must *conceptually* separate God and morality *in order to defend that unity*. You must agree, in other words, that the *reason* that God embodies the moral principles that He does is that He understands and accounts for the effect His morality will have on sentient human beings (hence His condemnation of torturing children).

Thus the fact remains: Christian principles, insofar as they are good, are good because they command people to treat one another properly. Thus they can be *conceived* as being good in and of themselves. And once moral principles are conceived as good in and of themselves--as intrinsically valuable--it is clear that atheists can share those moral principles even though they do not share a belief in God.

On to your second point. You say that “[i]n the absence of transcendentally founded morality, terms such as "just" and "good" have no meaning,” and that my position “leads inevitably to everyone doing whatever s/he believes is right.” Society devolves into a “might makes right” state of moral anarchy.

Your argument fails to make an important distinction. There are two parts of a moral theory: the theory in principle and the theory in practice.

In principle, both my morality and yours prohibit a "might makes right" society because they set certain normative standards to be followed regardless of the relative strength or weakness of the individuals involved in any given situation. (Thus, *my morality as much as yours precludes morality from being the creation of the ruling class*, because my morality prescribes a moral standard independent of whatever those in power say the morality is.)

In practice, both my morality and yours can be corrupted and perverted into a "might makes right" society, because those in power--or anyone else--might choose to abandon either of our moralities in favor of more selfish ends. Both your morality and mine are defenseless against those who choose to abandon them--that should be obvious, because the very nature of morality is to prohibit unjust action, but those who cast off morality have nothing to keep them from casting off morality and acting unjustly.

Your argument reminds me of an argument a religious friend made to me in high school and that, I think, characterizes your point of view while making it more concrete.

His argument was this: If three wolves and a sheep vote on whether the wolves can eat the sheep, the sheep will lose and be killed. Thus democracy alone cannot govern selfish creatures. A higher morality must hold sway, and that morality comes from God.

His argument fails on several fronts. First, the “democracy” referred to, where strong beings can wantonly kill a weaker being, bears little resemblance to modern-day democracies. The wolf/sheep democracy that allows the sheep to perish at the majority’s whim is a democracy without basic protection of the individual--without a Bill of Rights. So the argument has little force as a critique of the democratic political system.

Second, and more importantly for our purposes, the wolves in this allegory vote to take the sheep’s life because they have insufficient moral regard for the sheep’s right to live. If they had sufficient regard, they would not force their deadly will upon the poor sheep.

You talk as though the difference between moral order and anarchy is whether God is at the foundation of morality. But in the wolf/sheep example, that’s not the case. The difference between moral order and anarchy is whether the wolves follow a moral code such as yours or mine or whether they instead follow a “might makes right” code of conduct, which is not really a moral code at all. *So the difference between moral order and anarchy is between having moral standards and not having any*, not between believing in God and not believing.

Your point may be slightly different: namely, how can I *enforce* my morality in the absence of an objective value standard, and, in the absence of such enforcement, how can I prevent my morality from being stripped away and keep a might-makes-right society from emerging?

To respond: I don’t understand why the enforcement of your morality is easier than the enforcement of mine.

Let’s turn again to my example of a just society. What I was trying to establish was, What difference does it make what the source of a people's morality is *as long as they follow that morality* and as long as that morality is just (with justice defined roughly as I defined it in my last post)? Conversely, what good does it do that you believe that your morality is objective if others do not follow your morality?

You have not addressed this effectively. The very objectivity of your morality is not settled; it is in question. Even if it were settled, how would you deal with the unruly characters who might reject an objective moral code anyway? How would you keep them from subscribing to a "might makes right" philosophy?

This is not so much an attack on your position as a demonstration that your position and mine have the same problem, and that if you attack my position alone for this problem, it is simply the pot calling the kettle black.

The bottom line is, human beings will always be capable of descending into a might-makes-right society, and we must keep ourselves in line.

In your post’s third paragraph, you repeat again your opinion that “the term ‘value’ has no meaning outside of objectivity.” This sentiment pervades your posts, yet it does not seem at all justified to me. Remember that in this context “objective” means “having a transcendent basis.”

First, I *do* believe that my morality is valuable, and (as my last post demonstrates) I believe it is universalizable. As my last post further demonstrates, my morality is based on something far more tangible and important than my conscience being “comfortable” with my basic principles.

You say that my “position on transcendent morality prevents making any normative statements.” It's true that my position on *transcendent* morality prevents making any normative statements that are founded upon a transcendent morality; I don’t believe in any transcendent morality. But my moral code, like any moral code, *consists* of normative statements. After all, that’s what morality is.

Just because you can't prove a "should" doesn't mean that that "should" is any less compelling. How would you prove the statement, "You should follow God's morality?" You can't. It's a judgment.

As for your broader point that the only valuable principles have an objective basis: Why must rules governing conduct between humans have a non-human source? You have seen now that I justify my morality with basic observations about humanity followed by simple value judgments. If you honestly belief that the principles I have set forth have no value--principles that come not from me alone but from the tradition of Western moral philosophy--and if you persist in saying that the only valuable principles have a transcendent source, then what you are saying, in effect, is that human beings are incapable of forming moral principles of any value. Do you believe this? If so, you must justify it, because it is a radical point of view.

I understand now what you mean when you say that, in your view, I am only satisfying myself even when I claim to be satisfying others, because I act on my view of the good and not the view of the good of others. You contrast this to yourself, because you act on God’s view of the good even where it conflicts with your own intuitions. This critical part of your argument was missing before, which is why I did not understand the argument and said (correctly) that you were making “rhetorical leaps.”

I never disclaimed the idea of the good. As for your implication that one’s actions are self-satisfying unless one adopts another’s conception of the good: At the very least, you must distinguish between someone who gives himself the selfless morality of Mother Teresa and someone who gives himself the hedonistic morality of Epicurus. To say that the former and latter moral systems are equally self-satisfying is to confuse the source of morality with its substance.

The real issue here, I think, is the ambiguity in the definition of the phrase “self-satisfying.” On the one hand, it can mean “satisfying one’s own needs; self-*serving*.” On the other hand, “self-satisfying” can mean “satisfying one’s own code of conduct.” A self-given hedonistic morality fits both of these meanings, but a self-given selfless morality fits only the second.

If your complaint is that someone who gives himself a moral code satisfies his own code of conduct, then that seems like a silly complaint. If you’re saying that no one should give himself his own code of conduct but rather should adopt someone *else’s* conception of the good, then my question would be, Why? From a Christian standpoint it may make sense to adopt God’s moral standards on the basis that God has better judgment (and maybe on the basis that God is “the boss”). But where is the value to an atheist of adopting someone else’s conception of the good when the atheist has a perfectly justifiable and reasonable morality already?

(An aside: I don’t think I would say that my morality is entirely self-given. I have taken the morality I was taught from when I was little, tweaked it with the aid of my ability to reason and my knowledge of moralities formulated by members of the Western Canon, and created a synthesis that is aimed at satisfying a philosophically valuable standard of justice. But in the sense that I examine every moral idea to which I am exposed through the lens of my own reasoning faculties and ultimately decide for myself, it is inevitable that my morality is in a sense self-endowed.

I should say, in connection to this, that I do not hold the entirety of my morality to be universalizable. The minutiae is open for discussion; I’m not going to say that everyone should agree with me on whether it’s okay to pick an unclaimed coin up off the sidewalk and keep it for oneself. But I do expect people not to go around slaughtering each other.)

Regarding randomness and meaninglessness: I agree that I am finite and limited and that my worldview is finite and limited, but it does not follow that either I or my worldview am/is “disordered.” What makes you use this last adjective? I don’t follow. You say that my morality is “something that is not clear to everyone nor has legitimacy as a law over anyone.” The same can be said of your morality, from the perspective of a neutral (i.e., non-Christian) observer. About my morality’s clarity: as I suggest above, if your problem with my morality is one of enforcement upon neutral persons, then your morality has the same problem mine does. The truth of Christian law may be accessible to everyone according to your beliefs, but we can both agree that it is by no means apparent to everyone. As for legitimacy, I will repeat my claim that morality is legitimate as long as it imposes a proper standard of moral conduct in human affairs founded upon sound value judgments. That means that “Davidness” or “Joeness” or “Jayness” are equally valid worldviews only insofar as their moral systems comport with such a standard.

Regarding the “second sense in which Alanness is random:" Your basic problem here seems to be that I and my life's direction are changeable because I do not abide by an objective worldview. But those who do--such as yourself--are also changeable. That is, something equally dramatic as the events you cite may happen to you and make you abandon your own worldview.

That’s less likely to happen to you, you may say, because you know that your worldview is objective. But if an event destroyed your faith in Christianity, you would no longer have any reason to believe that a Christian worldview is objective. So in your argument that my worldview could change (which would not make it random, only fungible), you have once again played the pot to my black kettle.

You say that “[e]ven if [Alanness] never changed, [its] alignment… with objective truth would have only relational and external value (i.e. it would benefit the world and others around you).”

Your parenthetic phrases about benefit is all that I need you to acknowledge. Everything that follows this sentence in the paragraph it appears in is religious dogma and has no meaning outside of that dogma.

This illuminates again where we differ. I am arguing that acts are moral that are in accord with and benevolent towards the will of our fellow humans. If you want to define an atheist’s actions out of the possibility of being moral by saying that the only actions that are moral are those prescribed by a transcendent source, I cannot stop you. But such a definition carries no force of persuasion on its own.

To recap: God and morality must be separated conceptually if morality is to have any worth to human beings; this conceptual separation demonstrates that morality can be conceived as intrinsically valuable.

Both your morality and mine dictate a standard that prohibits a “might makes right” code of conduct. Both your morality and mine cannot prove their objectivity to a neutral observer, and either morality can be thrown off by someone who is determined to be immoral, so either morality is ultimately defenseless to stop someone who decides his code will be “might makes right.” Such a person must be dealt with through other channels, such as through government that protects the fundamental rights of all, including the weaker from the stronger.

You must justify your mantra that any non-objective moral principle has no value, because up till now it has been only a mantra and not an argument, and you must justify the necessary accompanying claim that no human value judgment has any value.

Someone who gives himself his moral principles is only “self-satisfying” in the sense that he acts to fulfill his own principles, the fulfillment of which may yet accord with the highest and most selfless moral goals.

God’s objective embodiment of the good might justify acting on His conception of the good, but to an atheist and as a general maxim, your implicit argument that acting on someone else’s conception of the good is inherently superior to acting on one’s own conception of the good seems baseless.

Your claim that as a finite and limited being I am also disordered and bound to produce a disordered worldview does not follow. Your claim that my principles could change applies equally to you, because it is conceivable that you would abandon your Christian faith and your belief in its moral objectivity along with it.

Your claim that having my own moral code is idolatrous and blasphemous is not philosophy, it’s religion. I have been trying to bridge the gap between us by showing that there is nothing inconsistent with your faith in understanding that atheists can be moral. But you have to meet me halfway. Surely you can distinguish between setting my own rules for myself on the one hand and worshipping myself or my rules on the other; these are not the same thing.

I appreciate that you have thought through your arguments and kept me on my toes, whatever our disagreements. With that, I sign off for now and look forward to hearing from you, and from our friend Lee, again.

Regards,
Alan

Alan,

Your philosophy is completely dependent on an "a priori" morality which exists from nothingness. Torturing innocent children is only wrong because the way God made the system. The only reason you think it is wrong is because torture and suffering are both things that God creates as bad. "Wrong" or "Right" is just a messure of consequence and result. If God created a system which said that it is good to torture innocent children, then His system would exist in a way which torturing innocent children would produce good results, and therefore, not be contrary to moral thought. Human judgement is completely dependent and not at all self sufficient. Using your philosophy, it is rediculous to accept Christ's teaching of turning the other cheek. "Human judgement" would say that the consequence of turning the other cheek is another sore cheek, therefore, it is wrong to turn the other cheek. If God and morality are seperate, then God is simply god for even he is subjected to a priori law which is out of His control. Human judgement only exists because God allows it. Even if I were to play "devil's advocate" and allow for morality to be seperate from God, there exists an implication that there is one morality, and that one morality says that torturing innocent children is wrong. People in Africa to this very day mutilate young girl's genitals and in Southeast Asia sell children into slavery or prostitution.(Not saying these things don't happen anywhere else) These people have neither a God established morality or this seperate morality that you speak of. Without God, it is all relative. It is perfectly "moral" as far as my own judgement is conserned to kill someone who is potential competition for a high paying job or a mate. Being the egotistic being that I am, and no way submitting to someone elses "morality," I live for me, and me alone. Unfortunately for your argument, the only reason you think anything is wrong is because you were taught so. If you lived an animalistic lifestyle with nothing but natural resources available to you, you would simply live to survive, even at the expense of another's life or well-being. Why do other's well beings matter? God says so, and Christ commands us to leave our egocentricity and do for others what we would want them to do for us. Why are there "evils" in the world? 'Cause people don't listen to "other" moralities, only their own. Everything works using God's morality that He did indeed create a system for. As for your "own personal morality" or "personal judgement" you can thank your Judeo/Christian influenced western style upbringing.

Michael,

I’ve reprinted your post in segments along with my responses.

“Your philosophy is completely dependent on an ‘a priori’ morality which exists from nothingness.”

How is my philosophy a priori? I describe my morality above (see the paragraph that starts with “My subjective morality begins…” in my March 4 post), and the argument starts with an empirical fact--namely, that I am a sentient being and that there are other sentient beings like me. That makes my argument *a posteriori*--based upon experience. From there I make value judgments, which, as I say, are subjective. But those judgments do not “exist from nothingness;” they come from the experience of being conscious, and from the conviction that other conscious beings deserve to be treated justly.

Moral philosophers the world over agree that starting with moral intuitions and then subjecting those intuitions to rational discourse can produce a sound and coherent moral system that is not arbitrary and therefore not vulnerable to the arguments of nihilism. Just because human value judgment is involved does not invalidate the tenets of the morality that is produced.

As you might imagine, the thought that the presence of human value judgment in formulating a morality would invalidate that morality is particularly silly to an atheist; as far as I’m concerned, moralities constructed by human value judgments are the only moralities that exist!

But setting that aside (given that we will not agree on that point), I’ll reiterate what I said to Dave:

First, if you believe that human value judgments have no worth, it seems to me that you and not I should be on the defensive on this point. The structure of this debate has put me on the defensive, since the debate began with Jay claiming that atheists are by nature moral relativists. But here you are traveling into controversial territory yourself. Most people, religious or not, would agree with me, I think, on the conviction that human value judgments have worth and that a morality based on those judgments is therefore not arbitrary and does not “exist from nothingness.”

Second, if you still believe that human value judgments about morality have no worth, such a belief is in any case incoherent. At some point, everyone makes a judgment about morality. Catholics do, too. Catholics say to themselves, “I should follow God’s morality.” That’s a judgment. It’s conceivable that someone could believe everything you do about God (factually-speaking) and still say, “I just don’t see why I should follow God’s morality.” And no matter what you said to him, there would be no way to *prove* to him that he should change his ways and be a moral Catholic, because moral judgments are value judgments that cannot be proved. You might tell him, “Jesus died for your sins.” He could say, “That’s very nice of Him, but I still don’t see why I should follow God’s morality.” You might reply, “You’re obligated to,” and he could shrug and say, “I’ve got free will, and I really don’t see any reason to.” The normative statement “You should follow God’s morality” cannot be proven the way that the factual statement “Chicago is in Illinois” can be, because, like every other normative statement, it involves a judgment.

“Torturing innocent children is only wrong because the way God made the system. The only reason you think it is wrong is because torture and suffering are both things that God creates as bad. ‘Wrong’ or ‘Right’ is just a messure of consequence and result.”

You’re not saying where my argument goes wrong, you’re simply imposing your faith onto observations that my morality makes without that faith--namely, that torture and suffering are bad. We don’t need God to tell us this, because we experience it ourselves.

In saying that “God creates [torture and suffering] as bad,” you are in fact proving my point: Since these things are bad in their own right, not inflicting them is good in *its* own right, and morality can be held separate from holding a belief in God. That is, you don’t need to believe in God to be a moral person.

“If God created a system which said that it is good to torture innocent children, then His system would exist in a way which torturing innocent children would produce good results, and therefore, not be contrary to moral thought.”

Fine. That has no bearing on my argument, which is that morality and God must be at least conceptually separated in order to claim that immoral actions are immoral because they have bad effects on conscious human beings, as opposed to the wholly empty morality which results from saying that morality is whatever God says it is. The way things would be if certain actions had different consequences is irrelevant. What is relevant is that immoral actions are bad not because God says so, or even because God created it so, but because the consequences of those actions are bad.

“Human judgement is completely dependent and not at all self sufficient. Using your philosophy, it is rediculous to accept Christ's teaching of turning the other cheek. ‘Human judgement’ would say that the consequence of turning the other cheek is another sore cheek, therefore, it is wrong to turn the other cheek.”

I agree, human judgment does at times contradict Christ's command to turn the other cheek. But I see nothing wrong with this. It is Christian morality, or at least an interpretation in which the moral command to turn the other cheek is always binding, that is lacking. If we always turned the other cheek, we would not have fought the Japanese after they bombed Pearl Harbor. The United States might now be a Japanese protectorate under the control of the Empire of Japan. We would not have fought Hitler, either. Europe would be ruled by the Third Reich today, and the world's Jewish population would probably be long since wiped off the face of the Earth.

George Bush did not turn the other cheek after 9/11. He decimated the Taliban and scattered Al Qaeda with organized violence. And rightly so. President Bush is a devout Christian. Any study of history shows that, while turning the other cheek is sometimes noble, it is at other times suicidal. Sometimes you must strike back.

(An aside: Christians such as President Bush probably consider a military response to a terrorist attack justified not just in a practical sense, but in a moral sense as well. Killing those who would continue to slaughter innocents before they do so saves innocent lives. In such a case, turning the other cheek instead would be not just suicidal, but *immoral*.)

So turning the other cheek is a conditional maxim that should be applied or not depending upon circumstances. That means that the very human judgment you scorn as insufficient is necessary to adjudicate the morality or immorality of whether to fight back.

“If God and morality are seperate, then God is simply god for even he is subjected to a priori law which is out of His control.”

One could say that engrained in the nature of God’s creation are moral laws that arise from how certain actions affect conscious beings. That would not make God subject to an *a priori* law, because it would be a law based upon experience. But you’re right that, having created human beings as we are, God would be obligated to lay down a certain non-arbitrary morality, as long as He was good. (If He were evil or morally ambivalent He could set morality in any way He pleased.) But that would simply amount to following His nature (that is, to being all-good), which He would have to do anyway (He could not, for instance, make Himself forget something and not be all-knowing, or make Himself in some way impotent and not be all-powerful), so I don’t think it would diminish His status as God.

Besides, you concede as much yourself when you say that “[t]orturing innocent children is only wrong because [that is] the way God made the system.” To spell out what you are saying: Given that the “system” of God’s creation was as it was, God’s hand was in a certain sense forced with respect to morality. You’re right to suggest that one way to solve this apparent paradox of God’s authority is to make morality itself a part of God’s nature, which brings us to the other option.

The other option would be to say what I suggested to Dave in my March 10 post: that God and morality are indeed one and the same, but that in order to justify God’s moral law as something beyond arbitrary, we must recognize that God’s morality is moral not simply because it is God’s but because it is *good*.

(In making the latter argument I am not conceding the point that the clearest way to solve the problem expressed in Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma is for God and morality to be separate. I am merely trying to show how one might reconcile such a separation with Catholic doctrine by making the separation conceptual and explanatory but not literal.)

“Human judgement only exists because God allows it. Even if I were to play ‘devil's advocate’ and allow for morality to be seperate from God, there exists an implication that there is one morality, and that one morality says that torturing innocent children is wrong.”

Yes, that’s what I’m arguing for--that there is one basic morality that everyone should follow. The minor details may be open for debate, but the major principles--no killing or torturing of innocents, no rape, etc.--should be accepted by everyone.

“People in Africa to this very day mutilate young girl's genitals and in Southeast Asia sell children into slavery or prostitution.(Not saying these things don't happen anywhere else) These people have neither a God established morality or this seperate morality that you speak of.”

Precisely. They have neither your nor my morality, and that is the problem. If they had my morality (or yours), they would not sell children into slavery or prostitution or mutilate female genitals. These people need to be taught a civilized morality, but it need not be a Christian morality.

“Without God, it is all relative. It is perfectly ‘moral’ as far as my own judgement is conserned to kill someone who is potential competition for a high paying job or a mate. Being the egotistic being that I am, and no way submitting to someone elses ‘morality,’ I live for me, and me alone.”

Only if your judgment is purely selfish and has no respect for justice or for human life itself! You seem to think that the only moral judgments one can make without the help of God are judgments based strictly upon one's own inclinations. Why?

In fact, you are wrong for several reasons. First, it is simply untrue that all godless moralities are selfish moralities. I am an atheist, but my morality is not based only upon my own desires. I do not, for instance, think it right to murder someone who is competition for a mate (and no, I do not think it wrong merely because I could get caught and punished).

Second, on a broader level, your argument refuses to recognize that, although we are on one level egoistic beings, we are on another level rational beings capable of constructing, justifying, and abiding by moral arguments of all stripes and colors.

How to determine which of these possible philosophical-moral constructs is the proper one to follow is a separate issue, and one that I have dealt with in previous posts by specifying and justifying my own morality. The point for the question at hand is, it is just not true that the only possible morality one might construct and then follow in the absence of God is a nihilistically selfish one.

“Unfortunately for your argument, the only reason you think anything is wrong is because you were taught so.”

The only reason *you* think anything is wrong is because *you* were taught so, too. How else do we learn morality but by having it taught to us? The only difference is, you were taught that certain actions are wrong both because of their bad consequences and because God says so, while I only was taught that certain actions are wrong because of their bad consequences. But the effect is the same; we are both moral people.

(As for the possible subsequent argument that your moral beliefs are stronger and more abiding because you believe they come from God and are therefore objective, whereas mine are more easily shaken because they have no transcendent foundation, I have already addressed it. See my comments “[r]egarding the ‘second sense in which Alanness is random’” in my March 10 post.)

“If you lived an animalistic lifestyle with nothing but natural resources available to you, you would simply live to survive, even at the expense of another's life or well-being.”

That may be true, but it is irrelevant to my argument. I have never been referring to those who live “animalistic” lifestyles in any of my posts. Obviously, a man who is unreflective and acts only on his instincts will act in a self-centered manner, often at the expense of others. But my argument does not concern such a man. It concerns atheists such as myself--rational men and women who are capable of rising above their instincts (just like many of their Christian counterparts) and who base their morality on some higher respect for others and for the due concern and just treatment that others deserve.

“Why do other's well beings matter? God says so, and Christ commands us to leave our egocentricity and do for others what we would want them to do for us.”

Why must God command this if we can command it for ourselves? In past posts I have already addressed how one can derive moral standards that value the well-being of others without relying upon God.

“Why are there ‘evils’ in the world? 'Cause people don't listen to ‘other’ moralities, only their own.”

The reason that there are evils is not because people don’t listen to “other” moralities but rather because people don’t listen to a *proper* morality. I have already discussed this as well; see my wolf/sheep discussion above (March 10 post).

What do you mean when you say that people only listen to “their own” moralities? If you are referring to people who only listen to moralities centered around themselves and their needs (as you suggest above), then you’re right to suggest that these people, with their selfish moralities, have a tendency to perform evil acts. But my own morality is not centered on myself and thus does not impel me towards evil actions.

You do the same thing that Dave did in blurring the distinction between these two completely different meanings of “one’s own” morality. Dave called it “self-satisfying” morality. See my discussion of “the ambiguity in the definition of the phrase ‘self-satisfying,’” again in my March 10 post.

“Everything works using God's morality that He did indeed create a system for. As for your ‘own personal morality’ or ‘personal judgement’ you can thank your Judeo/Christian influenced western style upbringing.”

I have acknowledged that my morality is based upon Western moral principles. But those principles have a wide array of sources, of which the Judeo-Christian tradition is one essential part among several essential parts.

Greek moralists Plato and Aristotle were pre-Christian (and were not influenced by Judaism, having little if any familiarity with it), while relatively recent moral philosophers like Hume and Kant were a-religious with regard to their philosophies; they based their moral systems on reason. Indeed, the Enlightenment system from which we derive many of the fundamental rights cherished in Western democracies was founded upon the primacy of human reason, influenced by but moving beyond Judeo-Christian values.

So one cannot say that Judeo-Christian values are the be-all, end-all source of Western morality; they were not even the first Western values. The truth is more intricate.

I am grateful to Judeo-Christian values in proportion to the part they play in Western values, no more or less. In my opinion, many Judeo-Christian values are still relevant (such as basic prohibitions against murder or stealing--although such prohibitions existed in pre-Christian Western societies; again, consider the Greeks), some are outdated (such as, in my view, the prohibition on pre-marital sex, which as far as I can tell was a moral command created by Hebrew society in a time before birth control to ensure the pre-existence of a stable family arrangement for a child to be born into; I am aware that many Catholics believe that birth control is itself immoral, so we may simply have to agree to disagree about the morality of pre-marital sex), and some are at times insidious (such as the already-discussed "turn the other cheek" dictum).

I would not ask you to be grateful all out of proportion to Enlightenment secularists for providing the philosophical framework of the right to free worship and speech. (We certainly cannot look to the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages to respect such rights.) But I expect you not to demand that I genuflect before Judeo-Christian values, either. We are all a part of the Western tradition: Catholics, atheists, and the rest. Let us at least respect one another for that.

Moreover, if I believed that Judeo-Christian morality was the only indispensable part of Western morality, I might then see even more cause for gratitude. But it would not change my lack of belief in God, which is an entirely separate question of fact unrelated to the primacy of this or that moral system in the Western tradition.

Allow me to expand on that point. Jay’s comments at the beginning of this page might be taken to mean that a) atheists cannot justifiably hold any moral viewpoint besides relativism, and b) therefore, atheists are wrong. Although Jay does not make point (b) of this argument explicitly, it is in the spirit of things. Religious people often attack atheists by saying that atheists are moral relativists, and the implication is, “Here’s a reason you shouldn’t be an atheist.” But the truth is, even if (a) were true, that would not make (b) true. Even if atheists could only be relativists, that would in no way diminish the case against God’s existence.

An atheist who believed that his stance on God obligated him to be a relativist might say, “It’s unfortunate, but I’m not going to believe in something that in all likelihood does not exist in order to save morality.” At least, I imagine that such an atheist might take that position. Or he might instead stand with Plato and decide that it is worthwhile to believe in a “noble lie” in order to stabilize human intercourse.

Either way, I cannot say for sure, because I am an atheist who believes that there *can be* and *are* clear moral standards to be followed even in God’s absence. All I mean to say is, you should not assume that the argument that atheists are moral relativists leads to the conclusion that atheists are wrong about God and theists are right. Whether or not there is a God is a question of fact. Even if it were inconvenient from a moral standpoint if God did not exist, such an inconvenience would not magically make God exist if He did not before. It is a good thing, then, that morality does have worth and meaning even if God is a fiction.

I hope I have done justice to the new arguments you have brought to the table. I would be happy to discuss with you further.

Regards,
Alan

Greetings. I've always found the debate between subjectivism and objectivism to be somewhat interesting, so maybe I'll just add a little input. I think the best way to bridge the gap between the atheistic and theistic groups is to establish a SECULAR basis for absolute, objective morality. We already know that there are many absolutes out there; we refer to them as the "natural law." Light in a vacuum travels at 186,000 miles per hour, gravity is the pull of an object upon another in relation to mass and distance, etc. No atheist or moral relativist would likely debate what are commonly held as scientific facts, because their community largely holds these facts as true, OBJECTIVELY true. And to answer the age old question of "if a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?" Well, it depends upon your definition of sound with regards to the question. If you are defining sound as what a person must hear, then the tree made no sound. But, in the strict scientific sense, we know the tree made a sound in terms of longitudinal sound waves. That is objectively true, despite the subjective opinions of those who say otherwise. Now, the reason that Atheists hold strict to moral relativism in terms of human behavior is because they see no such objective "proof" like sound waves, to account for the presence of a lawgiving creator. Since Judeo-Christian morality has always focused on the SOURCE of Morality and Rights, modern atheism is shying away from that, which is truly sad. They are abandoning an important philosophical point that they could still adopt without becoming theists. We, as Christians, could step back for a moment and realize that moral commandments from God are the same as "prescriptions." They are, objectively, what is "best" for us. Therefore in matters of choosing between what we know as a matter of tradition and reason to be "right" and what we may hold at the momentary time to be "best", we should choose what is right because it actually is what is best. We can recognize inalienable rights, such as Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and obviously they would entail universal laws to not restrict those rights unjustly. How can I say those Rights are Objective? Because there is no better model for human behavior then that. We should be restricted in harming others, but should maintain freedom in individual, non-public, personal choices, which guards are ability to make moral choices. However, what is the source of such rights, which surely should be a question for an atheist who is also an american. We do see evidence that a basis for these rights can be found in human nature. However, inalienable rights can have their source not in men or institutions designed by men. We must designate an objective unmoveable source for them, one that, regardless of our rejection or acceptance of the absolutes, would uphold and justify the morality of the rights. That is why atheists, and especially atheistic americans, are in somewhat of a quagmire with regard to morals. They can act morally, and many do; yet they are unable to attribute the basis for this behavior to anything other than human behavior or subjective opinion. If we were to base them FULLY on human nature, wouldnt we have to base them on ALL of human nature, including our negative qualities? From what basis do I call them "negative?" The concept of a deity, which atheists cannot stand, is the only source of human rights and morals. An atheist could agree that to be "moral" we must love ourselves, and perhaps even love our neighbor. But that discounts the presence of religion and the need to love GOD. The necessity to love God would seem to outweigh the need to not believe in him, or are my demographics incorrect? God represents the only possibility through which human beings can fulfill the "better angels of their nature." Without God, we live, die, and are never perfectly happy nor capable of satisfying our nature or objective moral law. With God, there exists the possibility of dwelling on our hope and our faith to escape the physical limitations of death and acheive full, eternal, satisfaction. Scripture holds that God loved us first; that is why the need to love God is so strong, because in the bottom of our stomach, in the depths of our soul, we know and desire to accept that Source of all the objective good in the universe. And, also, to say "Thank you."

the libertarian party does not adhere to 'objectivism' and ayn rand was by no means a moral relativist. ayn rand saw moral relativism as a 'denial of reason and objective reality'.

and by the way. all libertarians to not believe that an unborn child does not have a right to life.

-sweets

A brief response to Sean's comments, in case anyone ever reads this page anymore: Sean says that "inalienable rights can have their source not in men or institutions designed by men. We must designate an objective unmoveable source for them, one that, regardless of our rejection or acceptance of the absolutes, would uphold and justify the morality of the rights." Perhaps we would *wish* to designate an objective unmovable source, but that does not mean that such a convenient entity actually exists. As I've suggested above, the argument that "God's existence would be useful; therefore God exists" is no argument at all.

Sean also begs the question when he says that "[atheistic morality] discounts the presence of religion and the need to love GOD" (emphasis in original). The need to love God only exists if God exists, which has not been established to non-believers. You're not going to get a non-believer to follow your morality by resting that morality on a premise that the non-believer doesn't share.

Like Sean, I agree with and share wholeheartedly the American creed of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But I think that a simple observation of "the course of human events" yields sufficient reason and justification for recognizing these rights as inalienable.

Robert Spitzer presents an excellent defense of inalienable rights for both a theist and an atheist in his book, Healing the Culture. His ideas also go by the name Life Principles.

A good read for anyone, theist or atheist, and especially for Americans who believe in Inalienable rights. As a Canadian, that section had less pull for me as we have no tradition of inalienable rights. I found the other sections to be worth their weight in gold as it provided a solid philosophical (and very Aristotlean) underpinning to recognizing dignity and value of every human life.

Sadly, only the Roman Catholic Church teaches of the dignity and value of every human life both in the womb, on death row, on the battlefield, in POW camps, and for the terminally ill even though everyone Catholic or non-Catholic would do well to uphold the dignity of human life in every form.

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