Presuppositionalists are famous for their Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG). This is the argument that attempts to prove God's existence by arguing that logic, morals, and science ultimately presuppose the Christian worldview, and that God's absolute nature is the source of logic and morals. The presuppositionalist maintains that the unbeliever "borrows" the truths of the Christian worldview, the existence of logic, the existence of morality and the ability to reason from the Christian worldview. They hold that these "truths" cannot be derived from the nontheistic worldview. The nontheistic worldview, they claim, has no basis to believe that the chance arrangement of atoms has produced a reliable basis for thinking (reason and logic) or for morality. These things are only possible if they come from outside of nature, i.e., a transcendent being.
An interesting dialogue took place on this issue between Douglas Wilson and Farrell Till. It was printed in Credenda/Agenda (Vol. 7; No. 1) under the title, "Justifying Non-Christian Objections."
Below is some of the interchange with my comments in bold.
DW: Many unbelievers commonly object to the God of the Bible on the basis of ethical "problems" with the character of God as revealed in the Scriptures. Whether they use psalms of imprecation, the slaughter of the Canaanites, the eternal wrath of God on the impenitent, etc ., the central theme is usually the same "Who would want to worship a God like that !" But despite the surface plausibility of the objection, a careful examination of it shows their Achilles attacking our Hector with his bare heel. Far from being the unbeliever's strongest case against the true God, this objection actually reveals the radical futility of unbelief; without God there are no ethical objections to anything.
FT: Although you didn't expressly state the "objective-morality" position of evangelical apologists, you certainly implied it when you said that "without God there are no ethical objections to anything." The fallacy of this position is its failure to recognize that morality is an intellectual abstraction. As such, it is no different from abstractions of tragedy, sorrow, or any of many other abstractions the human mind has formulated from its broad range of experience. Arguing that human intelligence cannot determine if acts are immoral without a god to tell us they are is as illogical as arguing that we cannot tell if events are tragic without a god of tragedy to tell us they are.
Wilson states: without God there are no ethical objections to anything.
Besides the fact this is an assertion not an argument, it does not agree with our experience and our knowledge of the world. People all over the world have beliefs about what is right or wrong and many of these people do not believe in a transcendent being. For example, there are nearly 1 billion Buddhists in the world, there are millions of atheists and agnostics. If only those who are "true Christians" as Wilson would define them have a true knowledge of this transcendent being, then that would mean well over 95% of the people on the earth don't recognize the true God and yet they all have a theory of ethics that they live by.
Where did man get this system of morality? Wilson would say that it is derived as a result of man being made in the image of God. I would dispute this on the basis that man's moral intuitions tell him that it is wrong to slaughter babies, yet the God whose morality we are supposed to reflect, ordered the massacre of babies in the OT on multiple occasions. Man's moral intuitions also tell him that it is wrong to punish an innocent person in place of the guilty person, yet God's plan of atonement is based on this very principle. How can man, on the one hand, have this sense of morality as a result of being made in the image of God and, on the other hand, God's actions betray this sense of morality?
So if man's sense of morality does not come from God from where does it come? I think it comes as a part of man's evolutionary development. Why do all men have a similar sense of basic right and wrong? Because we all are descended from common ancestors. We share the same human nature. It is as natural for man to have a common sense of right and wrong as it is natural for all men to walk upright. Why are there some differences among men as to the details of morality? I think its due to the fact that man lives in groups and these groups (societies) have over the years established laws based on what seemed to be the most advantageous for the betterment of the group. In many cases, these same "laws" would not apply to "outsiders." Outsiders could be treated in a way that would be wrong to treat insiders. Nevertheless when man thinks abstractly, he typically thinks of "laws" that should be applicable in every case to every man. This doesn't come, in my opinion, from a transcendent being but rather comes from man's ability to think abstractly and universally.
DW: Fine, I'll bite. If there is no God, then all the things you mention are in the same meaningless category. Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain, in turn created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else.
FT: You bit too hard. In equating all human abstractions with "swamp gas over fetid water," you overlook verifiable facts. The human mind can think; swamp gas can't. Human intelligence can evaluate situations and formulate abstractions of beauty, happiness, sorrow, fairness and morality; swamp gas can't. Are these abstractions valid? Well, what IQ level is needed to conceptualize abstractions like beautiful, sad, fair, right or wrong? Can one with an IQ of 100 do it, or must his IQ be infinite? The existence of moral concepts is verifiable; the existence of gods who put such concepts into human minds is unverifiable. Please address this problem.
DW says: Morality, tragedy, and sorrow . . . are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain . . . If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena.
Wilson is confusing the mechanical or chemical operations of the brain with what the brain produces. The operations of a computer could be described based on the electrical activity within the circuit boards, etc. but that would not discredit the data that is derived from this electrical activity working within silicon chips. If one wants to argue, "Yes but the computer was designed and if evolution is true, the brain was not," that is another issue altogether. We would now be moving to the teleological argument for the existence of God. There are answers to this argument but it would take us away from the argument from morality put forward by Wilson.
DW: You missed my challenge. You acknowledge the distinction between human intelligence and swamp gas, but you have no way to account for it. If there is no God, then why is there a distinction between the chemical reactions in your head and elsewhere? Suppose we agreed that the walls of a house are straight. I say there must be a foundation under it -- a precondition for straight walls. Your hypothesis is the house has no foundation at all and doesn't need one. "See, the walls are straight without a foundation." But given your worldview's assumptions, why ? Can you explain how time and chance acting on matter can produce the straight walls of reason and morality?
FT: No, you missed my challenge. You are the asserter, so you must bear the burden of proving your assertion. You have asserted that "without God there are no ethical objections to anything," so I insist that you prove that. You have admitted that human intelligence can formulate abstractions, but you say that " all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water." Prove that please. Can the brain's solution of algebra problems be right? If so, does "God" have to put the right solutions into the brain? If not, can a brain that correctly solves algebra problems correctly solve moral problems? If not, why not? Where did your god get his intelligence?
Wilson does move to the teleological argument and insists that without God, one could not account for how man's mind works. I think this is a failure on Wilson's part to understand evolution. Man's mind has evolved over thousands of years by adapting to its environment. Those adaptations that were useful for man's survival have been passed along whereas those that were not, have not been passed down. Since man is adapting to his environment it appears that there may be some design involved but this is only apparent not real.
DW: "There is truth in the theism-atheism controversy." Amen. You are able to say so because you assume that truth is objective. Again, you bet. But objective truth cannot be validly derived from the premises of your worldview. You are borrowing objective rationality and morality from the Christian worldview in order to attack the rationality and morality of the Christian worldview. There was a moral problem in the Amalekite attack -- Saul was disobedient and didn't kill everything as God instructed. You should have no objection. Given your worldview, there is no moral difference between the Amalekite massacre and a day at the beach. In both cases, all you have is atoms banging around.
FT: If the Amalekite children who were killed with Israelite spears could speak, would they say there was any difference in what happened to them and a day at the beach? You know they would. What IQ level would they need to distinguish the difference? You have evaded the issue long enough, so why don't you tell us how much intelligence is needed to formulate abstractions of beauty, loyalty, justice, etc.? Without a god of beauty, can one validly determine that a sunset is beautiful? If so, why can't one determine that acts are immoral without a god of morality? Truth is objective because of reality, not because some deity arbitrarily decides what truth is.
I tend to disagree that there is absolute objective morality or absolute objective rationality. I think that since all men are subjects and all the knowledge we have we received as subjects, that there is no way for any of us to speak in terms of the "truly objective." We can come to an agreement on what appears to be the case and this is about as close to objectivity as we can get. For example, how do we know that an apple is red? We "know" because we have come to an agreement on what "red" looks like. There is basic and universal agreement on the color "red." However, there are various shades of red and once we get outside of the basic color red we may no longer agree on whether a particular shade of red is truly red. So, in essence the identification of "red" is subjective but because we have come to universal agreement on at least one shade of "red," we can all agree that an apple is red. The same is true of language. The only reason we can communicate with one another is because we have agreed on what certain combinations of letters mean. There is basic agreement but once again it can break down based on the subjectivity involved (i.e., one's interpretation of the words).
DW: If morality is not objective, then it is subjective. If it is subjective, then it is as diverse as five billion subjective states of mind. Such fragmented subjectivity provides no authoritative ethical voice, and hence no morality deserving of the name. Related to this, you must now disclaim "objective rationality" as well as "objective morality," for the two are built on the same foundation -- or rather, in your worldview, not built on the same non-foundation. But if objective rationality does not exist, then your worldview does not permit you to reason for three words in a row, much less 115. The laws of logic are as nonmaterial as the God you so diligently oppose.
FT: Are you arguing that subjectivism cannot determine truth? If so, reality will not support your claim. You keep harping about my worldview, so please address the many problems in your "worldview." Where did "objective" reality come from? From God? Well, where did he come from? How can one determine what "objective" morality is? From the Bible? If so, a lot of subjectivism will be involved in reading and interpreting it. Looking for "objective" morality in the Bible will produce a morality "as diverse as 5 billion subjective states of mind." If not, why not? "Such fragmented subjectivity" will provide "no authoritative ethical voice" and so "no morality deserving of the name." Please address this issue.
When Wilson says that without God and objective morality, we will have 5 billion different views of what is moral, he fails to consider two things: 1) As stated above, all men share a common ancestry and our brains have evolved in the same way--thus we think similarly. Wilson's view could only be maintained if we all evolved separately on different planets and then were brought here to earth to form a society. Then, we would all think differently. 2) Morality is "objective" in the sense that men agree together on what they consider to be right and wrong within their social group. Just as red is "objective" in the sense that we have agreed on its basic color.
While the transcendental argument for God might seem convincing at first glance, once one "drills down" into the argument, it is found to be hollow (see these articles) It is really quite ludicrous to think that man can only have a sense of right and wrong if God exists and he can only know what is right and wrong if God tells him in a holy book.
Can we clarify one important misunderstanding here? Wilson is not saying either of these things:
ReplyDelete1. Unbelievers can't know the difference between right and wrong.
2. Unbelievers can never do good things.
What he is saying is something more like this:
3. The unbelieving worldview cannot account for the oughtness of moral judgments.
So, Ken, you might be able to craft an interesting explanation of the origin of moral judgments within an evolutionary framework, showing me that any human makes distinctions between certain kinds of actions as good and evil. And I may very well agree with the distinctions that are made.
And I grant that a great many unbelievers live morally upstanding lives; some, in many ways, more admirable than professing believers.
But given such an origin for moral judgments, I cannot for the life of me see how any such values are binding in any moral sense. When a baboon kills one of his own troop, has he committed an evil act?
It is in this sense that evolutionary moral values have the same ontological value as fetid swamp gas: they are merely phenomena, something that happens to chemicals at a certain temperature.
And in this lies the force of Wilson's argument: the atheist vehemently condemns God (I think of your recent post on Yahweh as a moral monster), but given an unbelieving framework, it seems to me that such opposition is only rightly greeted with a yawn. Why ought I care about your dis-ease with Yahweh's actions, as though your perceptions of things (or even our species' perception of things) lays obligation on me?
It is only on the Christian theistic worldview, in which moral judgments have an absolute foundation, that moral condemnations (which are common to both believers and unbelievers) have any validity whatsoever.
Just to be fair, shouldn't the last sentence read..."It's only on the Jewish-Muslim-Christian theistic worldview..."?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious. Is the J-M-C worldview the only worldview that claims that moral condemnations have an absolute foundation in a god or gods? I honestly don't know, so I'm hoping that someone else here knows more about other religions than I do (which isn't much).
Michael,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I do appreciate your interaction especially since you are currently enrolled in the Ph.D. in Apologetics at Westminster Seminary (the place where presuppositionalism in the US was born through the teachings of Cornelius Van Til).
You say: The unbelieving worldview cannot account for the oughtness of moral judgment.
As some others have phrased it: ""is" doesn't make "ought". I agree. But what is "ought"? I think it is what virtually all men agree is the right thing to do. How did man arrive at what constitutes "the right thing to do?" The presup. says it comes from God. As I mentioned in the post this is problematic since some of God's actions in the Bible run counter to what most men think is the "right thing to do." I would like to see how the presup. deals with this problem.
I think men have come to a pretty much unanimous agreement on the rightness or wrongness of certain actions based on how the brain has evolved biologically and its ability to utilize abstract thinking. We believe that it is wrong to kill infants because 1) the human race could not survive if all infants were killed; 2) killing is a form of punishment which is only legitimate if one has done something wrong (even little children have this sense as they will protest greatly if they are punished for what their sibling or classmate did), and 3) we can imagine how we would feel if this action was committed against us or someone we love and thus conclude that if we would consider it wrong, then perhaps it is universally wrong. There may be other reasons too but at least these three seem to be based on reason. Evolution would say that this kind of thinking is advantageous to the survival of the human race and thus our brain has evolved in this fashion.
You say: But given such an origin for moral judgments, I cannot for the life of me see how any such values are binding in any moral sense. When a baboon kills one of his own troop, has he committed an evil act. Its binding in the sense that men have agreed to bind themselves by this standard (social contract) because they agree that this particular standard is pragmatically valuable for the betterment of their society. As for the baboon, I don't know enough about animal psychology to make a definitive statement but my guess is that baboons and other primates have societal rules that they live by. If an action of one of the group violates these societal rules, the others will punish or ostracize the violator (I saw this in a Discovery series on Meerkats. One of the meerkats had violated the rules of the group by mating with an outsider. Her group ostracized her and her babies). Humans seem to be the only ones who attribute morality or immorality to certain actions but the origin of the idea that some things are not advantageous to the group seem to be present in other species.
ReplyDeleteYou say: the atheist vehemently condemns God (I think of your recent post on Yahweh as a moral monster), but given an unbelieving framework, it seems to me that such opposition is only rightly greeted with a yawn.
I don't think that most people greet the genocides in the OT with a yawn. I think that most people, regardless of their religion or worldview, see this as problematic BECAUSE it violates man's sense of justice. One could argue and some have that God is not subject to man's sense of justice but if God is that much different than man, then one wonders if man can understand anything about God. If whatever God does or commands is good, then the word "good" has lost its meaning. Instead of being something that is noble or right or virtuous, it is merely just whatever God does. If God orders the killing of infants, then its "good" even though this flies in the face of our definition of the word "good." So the word needs to be redefined. This is what is known as the Euthyphro dilemma first propounded by Socrates. Christians will attempt to escape the dilemma by pushing things back one notch and saying that the good is grounded in the nature of God. In my opinion, though, that doesn't solve the dilemma because the nature of God is seen in his actions and commands.
You say: It is only on the Christian theistic worldview, in which moral judgments have an absolute foundation, that moral condemnations (which are common to both believers and unbelievers) have any validity whatsoever.
First, I don' t understand why a moral principle is not valid unless it is based on an absolute standard. I think its validity is based on reason and the virtual universal agreement among men that it is valid.
Second, I don't think the Christian really has an absolute standard as there seems to be exceptions to just about every biblical moral command. For example, lying is usually wrong but there are exceptions. Killing innocents is usually wrong but there are exceptions. It seems to me that the Christian has a relative morality just as much as a non-believer does.
I look forward to your comments as I do desire to sharpen my thinking on this matter.
What is so wrong with moral relativism? It depends on your culture and background as to what you think is correct behaviour. It was Ok for Fijians in the old days to eat the occasional enemy, at least from a Fijian point of view and not that of a missionary (who might have been eaten) The Germans thought Hitler was great in the thirties when he got them out of the massive inflation problems they had at the time.
ReplyDeleteThere are people who do bad things, for example psychopaths who have no conscience, but most people instinctively or by upbringing, follow Confucius's Golden Rule. This has nothing to do with God, even though Jesus may have copied the idea in his second commandment.
As Ken points out, most of the ten commandments are irrelevant in today's society. It is OK to kill if it is the enemy in a war, or in self defense. Everybody lies and covets and if they say they don't they are lying! About half all married people commit adultery. That admittedly doesn't make it right, but what if you were Lady Chatterly married to an impotent man? Lots of people work on the Sabbath, and what if your parents are axe murderers? Would you still honour them? You get the jist of where I am going with this. It is all relative.
There are no moral absolutes, so even if you think there is a God, he is not the one to decide for you what is right or wrong. It is up to you how you live your life.
"Oughts" are the same as "shoulds" which are generally bad words and lead to feelings of guilt which is an unhealthy, man-made emotion. It is a factor in obsessive-compulsive disorders. If performing an action makes you feel guilty, then don't do it. Simple as that. No need for God to threaten you with eternal damnation.
Christians are hypocrites if they only behave because they will get into trouble with God if they are not. A mature adult person is able to internalise feelings of right and wrong and act accordingly.
The words good and evil need to be more carefully defined. I do not think that they are objects or things. Good stuff happens and bad stuff happens. This could be due to good luck,bad luck or good or bad judgement on the part of an individual. Showing your cleavage as in the "boobquake" experiment does not cause earthquakes!
Finally I think that the transcendental argument is one of the weakest ones the apologists have. The cosmological argument is really the only one that gives atheists any difficulty- the origins of the Universe.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteI'll reply to your first comment first (which, I suppose, is an obvious and logical procedure).
It seems to me that your comment reflects some confusion of two different questions:
1. What types of actions are right and what types are wrong?
2. Why are anybody's answers (yours, mine, Yahweh's) to question #1 binding on me?
So, for instance, you offer that evolution suggests to us various kinds of actions that we should consider to be evil, namely, those actions that imperil the survival of the human species. And so you say that those actions that we would consider may possibly be "universally" wrong.
But maybe not. Consider, for instance, these guys:
http://www.vhemt.org/
They argue that we have some sort of moral imperative to become extinct, for the good of the planet. It seems to me that their position poses an interesting question: isn't the desire to see our species flourish merely an example of species-ism? Consequently, our desire to see mankind flourish is no different, on an ultimate level, from the same desire in the baboons.
And if this standard is merely an arbitrary preference, rooted in us just because, if someone decides to flout that standard, on what basis do you condemn him? If someone decides to side with the baboons against the humans, has he done wrong? Are the VHEMT people traitors? What if they take up arms on behalf of the baboons? Why is it that our species-ism is more privileged than theirs?
Given evolution, Clare's post makes the most sense: there are no transcendent standards whatsoever, so we should live and let live. But I'll contend (with absolute assurance) that neither you, I, Clare, or anybody else reading this is capable of doing this. All of us, no matter how different the orientation of our moral compasses, believe that some people are evil. Clare thinks I'm a problem, clearly; because I insist on "oughts" and "shoulds," I am doing something bad (causing guilt, etc.).
And that's fine for her to think so; but why should I care what she thinks? She may say that it doesn't matter if I listen to her, but she really doesn't believe that; she truly believes the world would be a better place if people like me were more like her.
But her worldview can't account for her commitment; it just doesn't have the necessary resources. She believes it would be better for me to be like her, but she doesn't have the moral authority to say that I ought to be.
But she really does believe that I ought to be.
In the sort of universe posited by the godless, when everything finally burns out, none of it meant anything. If we live in this kind of universe, we must admit that all our moral values hang on nothing whatsoever; we're making them up; they mean nothing. They're merely a story we tell ourselves to pretend that there's some significance to all this sound and fury.
Some reading this may say that they're willing to bite that bullet.
But no one reading this actually lives that way. Not a one. You already know better than that.
I passionately believe in the intrinsic value of human life. I consider it MY presupposition. It is on that presuppositional foundation that I base most of my moral judgments.
ReplyDeleteBecause I embraced a Christian belief system most of my life, my presupposition was very much nurtured in the concept that all people are created in the image of God.
Indeed, if there is any "baby" I haven't thrown out with the "bathwater" of Christianity, it is that passionate conviction in the intrinsic value of human life.
So the presupposionalist can argue that my passionate conviction was founded in and perhaps still presupposes a God who bestowed on human life this sacred status.
But what I avoided for decades, but finally confronted head on, is the brutal fact that numerous Biblical passages, and core Christian doctrines, negate the argument that human life is intrinsically valuable. Being made in God's image counts for precious little in Biblical theology.
In the Biblical frameworks, certain ideas (e.g., God's "law," "the Word," "the truth," propositions about the atonement) are sacred -- and far more sacred than human life.
In fact, in the Christian framework, a person has no eternal value unless they embrace certain sacred ideas. If they don't embrace those ideas, they are "worthless" and nothing more than "objects" of "God's wrath," prepared for destruction.
Fundamentally, Biblical theology DENIES the intrinsic dignity of being human. In Christianity, human life isn't sacred. Only certain theologically right ideas are.
So a belief that atrocities against humans are wrong does not presuppose -- and cannot be sustained by belief in -- the monstrous jealous tribal god described in the Bible.
You can argue that it presupposes a merciful loving liberal God, but you cannot argue that it presupposes the late-Bronze-age notions of god set forth in the Bible.
Clare,
ReplyDelete“There are people who do bad things, for example psychopaths who have no conscience, but most people instinctively or by upbringing, follow Confucius's Golden Rule. This has nothing to do with God, even though Jesus may have copied the idea in his second commandment.”
I agree with you that most societies have come up with the idea called the Golden Rule. The timetable and the life of Jesus would suggest that he was quoting Torah law - Leviticus 19:18 - You shall not take revenge and you shall not bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your fellow as yourself - I am the Almighty. According to Judaism, the Torah was given 1313 BCE. The first temple was built approximately 850 BCE. Confucius lived 551 BCE to 479 BCE. It would seem that Jesus was quoting Torah law.
Sometimes a society agrees that murder for sport is morally acceptable. The Romans built the Colosseum for the main event, gladiators who fought to the death, people killed by wild animals, public executions etc. Societies throughout the world today still enjoy a similar level of visual entertainment although in most cases killing a human is outlawed, but the possibility of injury or death adds to the excitement. This too seems to be the nature of the human condition.
Discovery channel had a great video about the nature of the wolf pack from the alpha wolf to the omega wolf. The omega wolf was the weakest male who wouldn’t be able to survive on his own and needed the pack to protect and feed him. In return the male wolves would attack him and harass him. The conclusion was that the omega male provided stress relief for the wolf pack. Maybe there is a link between the need for stress relief and our need for violent entertainment.
DW's comment here gets under my skin, both for its arrogance and for its insouciance:
ReplyDelete"There was a moral problem in the Amalekite attack -- Saul was disobedient and didn't kill everything as God instructed. You should have no objection. Given your worldview, there is no moral difference between the Amalekite massacre and a day at the beach. In both cases, all you have is atoms banging around."
As DW's words make evident, DW himself doesn't give a damn about the Amalekite massacre. God commanded it and endorsed it. The moral problem wasn't in the massacre; the moral problem is that it wasn't complete enough. DW's reverence for the authority of the Biblical text strips him of a humanitarian response to that tragedy.
Then to this insouciance is added the arrogance that a non-Christian has no right to be humanitarian either.
DW presents a false choice between a theistic nihilism (no intrinsic dignity for the Amalekites and other unbelievers) and a secular nihilism (no intrinsic dignity for anyone).
Ken said,
ReplyDelete1. What types of actions are right and what types are wrong?
2. Why are anybody's answers (yours, mine, Yahweh's) to question #1 binding on me?
The answer to 1. is twofold:
A. There is no "universally" objective right and wrong--so there are no "actions" that are right and wrong in a universal sense. The collection of matter and energy in the universe doesn't care whether you torture children for fun; However,
B. Subjectively, we as humans each decide what is right and wrong based on our conceptions of those concepts together with our experience of the world. And sometimes we agree with other humans subjective ideas and pool these conceptions, making them binding on our group or whoever in in our sphere of influence. If they are codified in the form of statutes or the like, then we can consider them objective for our group and those under our influence. But that's it--if you are "outside" our sphere of influence, then none of our collective, objective ideas of morality are binding on you personally. Sure, we can still think individually or collectively that what you did is wrong, but we can't act on it, so the effect is a non-binding one.
The answer to 2. is: Because if you step outside the bounds of what I as an individual consider "right and wrong" or outside the bounds of what "society" collectively considers right and wrong, and you are within my/our sphere of influence, then you will be punished.
No matter how strongly you believe that atheists have no objective standard for right and wrong--if you kill someone (not in defense) you will be executed or imprisoned for life. Societies have collectively pooled the individual "subjective" ideas of right and wrong and act according to what they collectively think is best to preserve the collective idea of a "good" society. The statute a murderer violates is as close to "objective" as we humans can ever get.
If you make a mental choice to consider the rightness/wrongness of murder "non-binding" on you, then fine. You do that and end up in prison for life or executed. You can scream "But your idea of right and wrong is not binding on me" all the way to the electric chair.
I should add (in reference to the above post) that these are solely my ideas of the status of universal objective standards for right and wrong.
ReplyDeleteThere are philosophies that attempt to pursue universal objective standards for morality that are not based in religious ideas and I applaud these efforts. I'm just not sure that I agree with them wholeheartedly--I'm finding it easier to assert and defend that there are no universally objective standards for right and wrong, but instead only our subjective individual ideas that matches other individuals' ideas mostly (but sometimes not).
Michael,
ReplyDeleteOnce again, thanks for your comments. You say: So, for instance, you offer that evolution suggests to us various kinds of actions that we should consider to be evil, namely, those actions that imperil the survival of the human species. And so you say that those actions that we would consider may possibly be "universally" wrong.
But maybe not. Consider, for instance, these guys: http://www.vhemt.org/
They argue that we have some sort of moral imperative to become extinct, for the good of the planet. It seems to me that their position poses an interesting question: isn't the desire to see our species flourish merely an example of species-ism? Consequently, our desire to see mankind flourish is no different, on an ultimate level, from the same desire in the baboons.
I would agree that evolution has "designed" us in such a way that we do seek the survival of ourselves #1 and the survival of our species #2. The reason that these people you mention are wrong, in my opinion, is that they are not baboons. They are operating contrary to evolution in saying that man ought to become extinct in order to save the planet.
YOu continue: And if this standard is merely an arbitrary preference, rooted in us just because, if someone decides to flout that standard, on what basis do you condemn him? If someone decides to side with the baboons against the humans, has he done wrong? Are the VHEMT people traitors? What if they take up arms on behalf of the baboons? Why is it that our species-ism is more privileged than theirs?
It is more privilged for us because we are human beings. Evolution has made each species seek the survival of its own species.
I wouldn't say it is "arbitrary," I would say it is natural.
You say: Given evolution, Clare's post makes the most sense: there are no transcendent standards whatsoever, so we should live and let live. I agree EXCEPT when someone's actions begins to infringe upon me or my species.
ReplyDeleteI am a libertarian in political philosophy. I believe that people should be allowed by their gov't to do pretty much anything they want as long as it doesn't cause harm to me or other human beings. I actually oppose abortion because I believe it causes harm to a potential human being.
All of us, no matter how different the orientation of our moral compasses, believe that some people are evil.. I agree.
You said Clare truly believes the world would be a better place if people like me were more like her. But I think that is only natural. We tend to think that whatever we believe is "right," otherwise we wouldn't believe it. Thus, its natural for us to see those who disagree with us as being "wrong." Its natural for us to think they would be better off if they believed like we do.
YOu say: She believes it would be better for me to be like her, but she doesn't have the moral authority to say that I ought to be.
I agree. The moral authority comes into play when a group of human beings contract with one another to condemn certain actions. These actions are "wrong" within the group because they have agreed that they are wrong. One might believe that these actions are universally wrong for all men but he can't prove it. He can try to argue that it is reasonable to believe that these are universal principles but, at the end of the day, he can't prove it (except maybe to himself).
YOu say: In the sort of universe posited by the godless, when everything finally burns out, none of it meant anything. It meant something while it was here for the people who experienced it. My life has meaning and purpose for me right now.
You say: If we live in this kind of universe, we must admit that all our moral values hang on nothing whatsoever; we're making them up; they mean nothing.
They "hang" on the fact that we believe its in the best interest of 1) us, 2) our societal group, and 3) our species for us to have these moral "rules."
Again, I appreciate the dialogue
Michael,
ReplyDeleteYou are making an assumption that I believe that you should think more like me. I do not think that at all, You have a perfect right to believe anything you want to, and I have no right to make any type of value judgements.
The only exception, and I should have been clearer on this in my earlier post, is what Ken referred to. If your values impinge on my survival, or of our species. Being concerned about global warming might be an example of this.However, I think if one obeys the Golden Rule, behaving towards others as you would have them treat you, that would automatically take care of the species as well.
Great post Ken, I've learned a lot following along.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who points out that people do not realize that Enlightment's scientific reasoning and naturalistic worldview is "borrowing from Christianity." He says that scientific reasoning was only possible because of the Judaic concept of a god who ordered the universe in a coherent fashion, while the pagan religions subscribed to a theory of chaos of capricious Gods. And therefore the pagans wouldn't have expected to find order in the universe and so never went looking for that order. But Christian-influenced western culture gave people a worldview which led to the study of nature to find the god-given order, and thus the Enlightenment.
I suspect that argument is faulty historically, though I don't have the background to know myself. Is that argument tangentally related to the TAG? It seems like the same kind of presuppositionalist reasoning. Or is it just borrowing some of TAG's principles and language ("coherent world view" and "borrowing").
Atime,
ReplyDeleteI don't think your friend's argument is altogether true. Science flourished under the ancient Greeks. Many of the discoveries made are remarkably accurate even in light of modern science. I think there is an element of truth (as there usually is with any false premise) in your friend's argument. The Christian worldview was conducive to the rise of science since it did postulate an ordered universe. However, what is devastating to Christianity is that the rise of science produced the Enlightenment which allowed man to throw off the superstitions of the past.
And yes, many apologists, whether they are presupp. or not, will incorporate this argument into their arsenal.
Ultimately, if evolution is true, nothing that happens in the brain matters anyway. Why worry about what another animal is thinking, be it religious or not? And that IS the proof that we are God's creation, that we care.
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