Simple question, but surely the most important of all questions. If there are objective moral truths, what are they?
221 thoughts on “THE moral code”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
If there is no actual high ground (an objectively true nature to morality), then changing the opinion of others can only be a case of emotional pleading and rhetoric, because there can be no assumed objective facts about morality to reason from. Thus raising a child as a KKK member that hates blacks is necessarily as “rational” a “proving” process as any other, because there are no assumed facts or assumed objective truths to hinge a rational debate on.
Whereas, if the KKK member thinks that hating blacks is what God wants him to do, following a preferable, ‘rational’ approach to determining his ‘oughts’ … well, then what? Tell him he’s wrong about what God wants? How do you know?
I’m not sure what you’re doing is actually called, but I’m pretty sure it’s not “debating”.
It’s called “jerking people around just for the hell of it.”
It “serves his purposes.”
We’re where we’ve always been: on our own, hammering out ethical and moral questions both as individual persons and as human communities. That’s all there is, like it or not. I’m OK with that. Projection and reification of those efforts into imaginary agencies and imaginary absolutes doesn’t change one whit the fact the content of those “absolutes” is all of human devising, products of the same human efforts we are all engaged in. The difference is that we know it, and you don’t.
Amen, brother 😉
Well. it’s not a contradiction if you actually hear god talking. Don’t need no stinkin’ bibles then!
Like Abraham and Isaac. There’s nothing like preparing to burn your own son to death for proof that “morality” is about “doing as god commands”.
I think what WJM is trying to use is some twisted version of Godel incompleteness. No moral system can justify itself internally.
Of course incompleteness is a mathematical proposition and morality is a values doctrine so it is a false usage.
I also think that divine or not WJM is just peddling Command Theory. Authoritarians have always desperately wanted to be able to clothe their own despotism in the cloak of rational absolutism.
WJM, you keep using the example of torturing a baby because, with the exception of the mentally ill, virtually no one would dispute the immorality of doing such. It’s very rareness makes it trivial.
How about sodomy? Christian theology dictates that sodomy is immoral. Christian theology is also fairly adamant that this is an absolute and will always be thus. Is it immoral for Christians to violate the personal autonomy of people who would commit sodomy. Is it immoral for civil libertarians to violate the autonomy of Christians by restraining them from using the law to punish homosexuals. How do you reconcile what is a very thorny present day controversy.
I think it’s primarily a clumsy attempt at sophistry. I notice in all his enthusiasm to denigrate the basis of “atheist morality”, he has never once offered any moral foundation of his own. While he claims it’s objective, and then says it depends on two people’s agreement as to its terms, he’s never yet revealed whether any second person has EVER agreed with his premise — which means that either his morality is non-objective as well, or else he simply has none.
In the many, many cases I have seen of sectarians denigrating “atheist morality,” the motivation seems to be to tout their own sectarian “moral superiority.” Sectarians who do this firmly believe they have the inside track on absolute morality.
WJM seems to like jerking people around. Notice that his “theories” and “philosophies” never converge to anything definitive; he gets to believe whatever he likes and change his beliefs as often as he changes his underwear. The state of his “morality” toward others appears to be little different from viewing them as flies that he can pull the wings off.
It’s nothing but psychological mind games to the end; and extremely boring. He’s a troll.
Yeah, if he were interesting, I’d even be tempted to egage him. But he’s really not worth the time. I’d rather argue with people that have respectful and credible arguments that happen to be contrary to mine.
No they don’t. What statement about purpose is equivalent to the statement “You have a moral obligation to do X”?
Perhaps you are thinking about pragmatic, non-moral oughts, which tell us how to achieve some goal, such as “If you want to catch the train, you ought to leave now.”
You are no more able to get from an “is” to a moral “ought” than are atheists.
(If the existence of purposes really was sufficient explanation, then there’d be no problem giving a naturalistic explanation, since the existence of purposes is no problem for naturalism.)
William,
Aardvark raises an excellent point. Are homosexuals and/or their behavior immoral according to your (the) system of morals you espouse?
Simple question. That would be more more useful and relevant as an example then your “torturing babies” trope.
Bravo. The fact that I can convince myself of anything at all does not mean it exists or is true anywhere other then inside my head. Likewise William can twist and turn as much as he wants, believing in something only makes it real for you, not the universe.
I really believe William really believes what he believes. I further believe that he’s convinced himself that part of him extends out to wherever his objective morality can be found. None of that is actually true, of course. He’s in the same boat as the rest of us except we know it and he does not.
William, it’s possible to convince yourself that a lie is true. Have your guarded against that possibility? How? Don’t forget before you were a believer you were like the rest of us, you were wrong (compared to now) then, is it really so impossible you are wrong now?
You know, like when you wrote you books. You thought you were right then, and you no longer think that. In a while, won’t the same pattern hold for your current beliefs? If not, why not this time as for all the others?
Of course we can never completely guard against being wrong. All we can do is subject our beliefs to as much careful skeptical scrutiny as reasonably possible. None of us is perfect in doing that. But atheists typically try harder than theists. For theists the idea that God did it (or God explains it) tends to act as a magic explain-all which is not itself subject to scrutiny. In William’s case, the mantra that “it’s self-evident” has a similar effect.
William Murray:
I think William’s statements have been adequately dealt with by others. It is hard to disagree with Reciprocating Bill’s “Your argument is circular. You assert that the existence of just one objective moral truth establishes that something like God exists, while simultaneously citing the existence of something like God to justify the claim that objective moral truths can exist.”
But I find it interesting to ponder on the origin of morality, codes of behaviour, societal rules. Would we have ever needed a moral code as solitary animals? The apparently rapid and successful expansion of human population is paralleled by increasingly sophisticated social organisation. Family groups to tribes to city states to countries and empires. Any set of rules results in a better outcome for the local population than anarchy. It’s evolutionary. Those codes that work survive because they work! I cite the Cathars. They had a wonderfully democratic and fair ethical system, no costly and burdensome priestly caste. Unfortunately, they were let down by their conviction that the next world was attainable by exiting this one, notably by cosolamentum effectively suicide by starvation. They became extinct.
I think that this is an important insight: that the very attempt to reconstruct the foundations of moral judgment in strictly logical terms results — if successful — in a rational system that need bear no connection at all to reality. For there are multiple logics –all of which are immensely useful for various purposes, but we simply cannot assign any sense to the question as to which of these logics is the correct one. (That said, whether or not there could be some single correct logic remains hotly debated among logicians and philosophers of logic.) If logic is our only guide, we can be sure of consistency, but not of truth. Every logical system is a “castle in the pyrenees“.
“Grounded then…” Ouch.
Well, I guess it’s never a good idea to stray too far from the pack you’re running with.
There is the possibility that the reason everybody so far has found your claims to be unconvincing might actually be because your claims are unconvincing. It’s worth pondering, William.
What would you know? You are just a collection of atoms and molecules bouncing into each other through purely material forces. There isn’t even a ‘you’ to be convinced by anything!
😉
fG
The only central theme I can see running through William’s “logic” is “Atheists BAD, god bots GOOD!” Maybe that is what he is trying to “prove.”
I suspect he is has just fallen into the habit of jerking people around. Perhaps that’s his only source of satisfaction in life; and he has to believe he is morally superior.
This mud wrestling is really boring.
That was how I saw it.
William tries to make the case that I cannot logically derive my moral views from my starting world view premises. Well, duh! As far as I can tell, I do not have any world view premises, and I don’t expect to logically derive anything without premises.
Then, in another comment, William says:
Well, fair enough. But that statement is pretty much what I mean when I deny that there are objective morals. So William actually agrees that there are no objective morals. It’s just that he appears to have a different meaning for “objective”, which allows him to convince himself that morals are objective for theists.
I never expected to convince anyone of anything. The most I hope for is that someone at least understand the argument and be intellectually honest about it. KN and Robin have at least understood the argument, even if KN has decided now that obsequiousness is the better part of valor.
Robin, IMO, is at least intellectually honest in considering the argument and its ramifications. So I’m about as satisfied as I can hope for in a forum like this.
William,
Speaking of intellectual honesty, how about addressing some of the open challenges that commenters have posed to you?
Here are my latest:
Can you answer those challenges? If so, let’s hear your responses. If not, how about demonstrating some intellectual honesty by acknowledging your inability to respond?
Hi Keiths and William,
I hadn’t noticed that Keiths had already made similar challenges to William as I’ve done, in a previous thread. William’s response there was as follows:
The trouble is that William hasn’t limited himself to claiming that a god is necessary for the existence of objective morality. He claimed above that atheists need to “justify how an objective morality exists”, and implied that he had done this for theism. To justify how an objective morality can exist with a god, he would have to show how “a god gets you there”.
I’ve found my way back to a previous thread where William made his original argument. I think some confusion has been caused by his subseqently making stronger claims than were made in that argument. And when those stronger claims are challenged, William falls back on insisting that he only needs to support the claims made in the original argument. Be that as it may, I will now briefly address that argument.
First let me say that I reject the premise of self-evidently true moral statements. But I note that William has said his argument is only addressed to those who accept that premise, so I’ll let that pass for the sake of argument. I have other objections. To me the most problematic part of the argument is this:
There are two questionable premises here:
1. “Oughts” must be in relationship to a purpose or a goal.
As I wrote above, this may be true for pragmatic, non-moral oughts (which tell us how to achieve a goal), but there seems no reason to accept that it is true for moral oughts.
2. An objective purpose or goal requires a creator.
We humans have evolved to have goals. Unless you want to make an anti-evolutionary argument, such goals require no creator. And they are objective in the sense that they are real properties of real minds/brains. If you insist that mental properties are “subjective” by definition, then any creator’s goals are also subjective in that sense, since they are properties of the creator’s mind. Forget the words “subjective” and “objective” for a moment, as they are confusing here. What you need to show is that human goals and the creator’s goals are different in a relevant way, i.e. such that the creator’s goals are the right sort of goals for moral oughts to exist, but human goals are not.
Really? What if we were created by a sadistic god (or extra-terrestrial), for the purpose of seeing us make each other suffer? Would that mean we have a moral obligation to make each other suffer?
1. “Oughts” must be in relationship to a purpose or a goal.
This is so obviously true it doesn’t require a response. There is what one does and then there is what one feels they ought to do; there is no reason to feel one ought do a thing, unless that action serves a purpose, even if that purpose is just just the vague sense of “doing what is right”.
2. An objective purpose or goal requires a creator.
I’ve answered this already. Assigning purpose via the subjective part of our minds does not provide objective purpose. Purpose that exists as a fundamental aspect of an objectively existent, universal part of mind (comparable to gravity being a universal aspect of the physical world) would then be objective in nature. The only way to have that is if the source of creation and of humans did so for a purpose that is an objectively innate feature of all sentient minds.
Purpose can only exist in mind, but in my argument, not all aspects of the mind are subjective, such as the rules of math, geometry, logic, and the fundamental aspects of morality. These are qualities held in universal mind which are necessarily employed when that mind creates.
Under my view, if god was of a nature that torture was good, that is what would be self-evidently true. Under such a god, “sadism” would be a term we would respond to like we current respond to “altruism”. Whatever god is, is reflected in what it creates, is reflected in its purpose for what it creates, and so is shared by all sane, sentient entities not employing free will to deny it.
Obligation as a concept is meaningless without consequences. Obligated to whom, or what, and so what if one doesn’t fulfill it? If no one is watching, there are no formal rules, and there are no necessary consequences, what would “obligation” mean? To one’s own subjective feelings?
What I use the term “obligation” here to mean is that we are all created to serve a purpose (necessarily, since that purpose is an objective aspect of our mind); that sense of purpose and what it entails in the form of action and behavior is represented by a sound moral sense and reasoning (logic being another objective aspect of universal mind); if we do not live in a way that fulfills that purpose, there are consequences – not punishments, but rather the necessary, natural consequences of using something in a way it was not perfectly designed for, in way that even contradicts its design. If you use a computer monitor as a hammer, you will damage and eventually destroy it.
One can use their free will to be immoral if they so choose – to not fulfill the purpose for which they were created. However, like using any finely-tuned instrument used for something other than what it was designed for, and not taking care of it the way that is required, what we generally identify as our “self” can be damaged, broken, fall into disrepair and fail to fulfill its purpose. If it is used badly enough for some subjective purpose it was not designed for, it can even be destroyed.
This is not a “punishment” set forth by the creator; ultimately, the only thing that we can destroy is that which we generally recognize as our “self” – the set of personality characteristics we see ourselves as; but those are not the true “self”; those are tools calibrated to serve the purpose, like a specified tool belt we wear. The true self is the god within, operating within the limiting parameters of a personality. That is the only source of true self that exists; god has nothing else from which to create “others” except by taking self and then using free will to deny that self as being god by wrapping it(self) up with limitations and personal characteristics.
Ultimately, “we” as individuated personalities of god are obligated to serve the moral purpose because that is the objective purpose of that existence in universal mind and to not serve it harms and ultimately destroys the avatar we (god) have created in our particular case to serve the purpose. IOW, we are only damaging the wonderful tools we (as god-self) created and are using to serve (our) purpose if we act against that purpose (do immoral things); eventually, if we do enough damage to ourselves and fail to accomplish our tasks, we (as our avatar) may need to be replaced.
By “avatar” I don’t mean just the physical body, but also all of the subjective mental aspects that do not reflect the objectively, universal mind commodities, but only that which serves to give limitation and individualistic identity to the true god-self aspect (soul) within.
Out of interest, when you make your posts at UD what is it you are hoping for in a forum “like that”?
A sense of camaraderie and fellowship, but I don’t really post there much because I get that out of “real” life with family and friends.
Don’t you feel the need to “correct” their errors, in the same way you feel the need to correct ours? Or don’t they make any?
How can you feel a sense of camaraderie and fellowship with people (some of) who are self-confessed homophobes? Do you not correct nor challenge them on homophobia because you agree with them on that, or for some other reason?
William,
And don’t you ever feel you “ought” to call those out at UD who make demonstrably wrong (and often offensive) claims? As you never do such I infer you don’t feel the need to do so and as such you approve. And by extension this super-secret morality you have but won’t share the details of also approves.
Or, you know, simply say otherwise. Simply say that the association of homosexual men with pedophiles is offensive and that you won’t stand for it.
KF has plenty to say on the subject. Perform this search:
“site:uncommondescent.com “homosexualisation”
Personally I look elsewhere for a sense of camaraderie and fellowship. But if you lie down with dogs expect to get up with fleas. Have you caught UD’s fleas William?
Is that right….
Do you and KF serve the same god I wonder? If so, well, you are already done for. If not, I await evidence of such.
The problem I have with your argument, fG, is that behavior is not justification for itself:
All you’re saying is that a moral code is the basis for believing what one believes. Sure…no question, but that isn’t a justification itself. It’s likely saying you eat steak because it’s edible; being edible is not a justification, it’s just a characteristic of steak in specific and food in general.
“Right”, at least as William is using the term above, is related to authority. Morals don’t grant any kind of authority or influence. A person’s moral code has virtually no power over another person. In order to actually justify ones moral code, one needs to reference some form of authority or be able to influence others. And as William notes, this breaks down in one of two ways: either you reference a third-party authority (a la God) as your justifying moral authority, or you reference your right fist (or the gun in your pocket, or your police force or military force or whatever) as the influential justification for your moral enactment. But morals unto themselves are not justification for anything.
Well, not everyone. I may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but I do find William’s argument within its narrow confines sound and convincing. I’ve laid out why I think it’s of limited utility as well and why it has little effect on me personally, but that’s another story.
I think that most folk here are seeing William’s argument as far more complex than it is. Aardvark’s note that it resembles Godel’s Incompleteness is pretty close. But William isn’t trying to justify any Christian doctrine or God. He is arguing only from an if premise. If you reject the if premise, then your particular morals must incorporate that rejection. It’s pretty much that simple.
Hi William. I’m feeling a bit divided. On the one hand I want to thank you for going to the trouble of writing such a long response. On the other hand, it’s frustrating and time-consuming to respond to a lengthy post which is (in my view) mostly off the point. I’ll try to respond briefly, but will probably make this my last.
Well, now you’re talking about the feeling that one has a moral obligation, not about the moral obligation itself. That’s a very different subject. You’re talking about human nature.
I would agree it’s a fact of human nature that we have goals (purposes). If you want to argue from the existence of human goals (purposes) it would be simpler to do that directly, without bringing morality into it.
I find it impossible to understand what you mean by “subjective” and “objective”. I see no reason to accept that there are “subjective” and “objective” parts of the mind. Perhaps you are thinking of some sort of dualistic model (with something like a soul), but then your argument depends on the premise of a dualistic mind, a premise you haven’t explicitly stated.
In any case, what does this have to do with a creator? If the human race was created by extra-terrestrials, would that give our minds an “objective” part? How?
I think this is a red herring. To make things clearer, imagine that the sadistic god has made an additional world, separate from ours. So we in this world still have the same beliefs and language that you and I are familiar with. We can continue talking the same language without risk of confusion. Now, would the inhabitants of that other world have a moral obligation to make each other suffer, given that this is the purpose for which the god made that world? That’s the implication of your paragraph #5.
You can’t just define “obligation” to mean anything you like. You have to use it in accordance with its established meaning, or else you’re changing the subject.
That I can remember, the only thing I’ve called “wrong” is torturing children for personal pleasure. I have studiously avoided calling any other behavior or view “wrong”. All of my arguments have been about the rational coherency of belief systems – and I’ve never even called irrationally held beliefs “wrong”. I’ve just called them non-rational. Or at least that’s what I’ve tried to do.
I haven’t read anything that seems homophobic to me at UD, but then I don’t read most of the posts.
That said, I will admit that I’m not even-handed in my criticisms of logic. I criticize atheists and materialists more than I do theists, but I have criticized Craig’s “command morality” there (at least by saying that it is no better than “might makes rignt”). This may be because having been a consciously chosen, deeply self-reflective atheist to a degree far beyond my Christian upbringing (which was superficial), I understand atheism better than I understand Christianity.
I have to confess that I don’t know enough about Christianity (the kind of arguments KF, Stephen and Dembski can make) to know if an argument is necessary, much less how to formulate one. I would be arguing against my own straw man (and childish) conceptualization of Christianity, not their actual positions; but if something specific comes up – like command morality – that’s an easy objection to make. If they offer scripture-based resource, that’s easy; enough to object to.
I think someone there did try to make the case that because certain miraculous events came to pass (like Jesus rising from the grave, etc.), then we can trust the Bible to be the word of god and it’s moral admonishments perfect, which IMO is a complete non-sequitur; just because a Lion can talk and claims to be god, doesn’t mean the lion is god. I think I made that point there long ago, but the debate isn’t as vigorous within a fellowship-type community as it is outside, which may be why I go outside for those kinds of debates.
BTW, just for the record, there is (IMO) no Biblical hell, and atheism in and of itself doesn’t significantly matter in any spiritual sense. Even if one’s moral behavior cannot be rationally reconciled with their worldview premises, as long as they act morally, they don’t lose out on any “benefits” that only theists have available to them.
OMagain,
I’ve never seen anything that appears to me to be homophobic in what KF writes – but then, I don’t read everything he writes. It seems to me that he has made a clear distinction between objecting to something on principled grounds and having an irrational hatred about something. That one thinks homosexuality is morally wrong on principled grounds doesn’t mean one is homophobic.
I disagree that homosexuality is a proper moral issue at all (although true homophobia probably would be), and I think that KF is what I would call obsessive on many issues, but I don’t have a problem with his obesessive tendencies.
It’s improper to assume that because one doesn’t object to a statement, they agree with it. I don’t object to countless statements here and at UD and in life in general; that doesn’t mean I agree with them.
Richard could you explain how a purposeless process can “evolve” goals. What means that goals? Which are that goals evolved? We ought to follow a goal product of a process without goals?
Typically, we ascribe oughts to others. So are you talking about the purposes of the ascribee or the purposes of the ascriber?
So much the worse for the idea of objective purpose.
Robin
I hope I haven’t given any you cause to think that your bulb does not glow brightly. With regard to William’s argument, I am handicapped by not having any training in philosophy or logic and I find the jargon tedious, especially when I often find the deconstructed text trivial. Not having missed it for sixty years I probably don’t put in enough effort to find the baby in the bathwater.
I’d be open to you trying to translate from Williamese if you have the time and inclination.
OK. I am not convinced you can argue and arrive at any meaningful conclusion about reality without experiencing it . Experience, shared experience can then be developed into a pragmatic ethic, moral or way of living. Does this mean I am deaf to William’s music?
Easy for you to say! 🙂
Yes, I’ve been wondering what value can be ascribed to an objective morality. Any morality based on the whims of a creator are just the subjective desires of that entity. If the entity is the Abrahamic god, so much the worse. Better honored in the breach.
petrushka,
Yes, which makes William’s morality doubly subjective, though he seems oblivious to the problem.
William’s morality depends on his subjective moral intuitions about the subjective morality of his creator (whose existence he assumes). He cannot explain why his intuitions should be regarded as trustworthy, nor can he explain why the creator’s subjective morality should be elevated to objective status, such that it becomes binding on all of us.
Oh, no Alan. Nothing of the sort. However,given the level of expertise and credentials here and the level of detail some of the discussions tend towards, I do feel a weee tad undereducated at times. 😉
I can understand that. And, as it happens, regardless of the “check-your-priors-at-the-door” policy, it’s difficult to not get a little vexed by Williams…ahem…level of confidence. So I think I get where you are coming from.
I’m more than happy if I can. I should note that just because I now understand William’s particular point in this one instance, there have been plenty I’ve been completely lost on. Bottom line, you’ll get what you pay for. 😀
Not necessarily, but I’d still suggest a different approach. Consider hypothesis models. When one is attempting to describe an explanation for a phenomenon for the first time, that explanation might not be based on having experienced something similar, but rather going through the logic of how certain conditions might lead to given physical expressions. In other words, we can attempt to understand the workings of a given situations by taking a guess at how such situations might behavior if they were arranged in certain configurations.
So, think of William’s point as an essay on modeling perspectives on moral systems. William then is not insisting a specific scenario; rather he is saying that if certain variables are accepted, then certain scenarios must (or most likely) follow.
I hope William will forgive those of us who have followed his reasoning and find it boring and pointless.
It has the same relevance to my life as the proposition that if massless invisible unicorns exist, they could be all around us without our knowing it.
People have gotten along for a couple of centuries without objective morality. In fact, the invention of secular government has done for society what immunizations and public sanitation have done for medicine. Who would want to go back?
Innate, absolute, unchangeable characteristics, which is what I have argued is the kind of theistic morality necessary for a rationally coherent moral system, are not the “whims” of a creator, nor are they subjective, nor are they arbitrary. They are absolute (objective) and necessary.
But I expect at this point those that keep bringing this straw man into the arena know exactly what they’re doing.
William, I am simply arguing that a rationally coherent object moral system is a nice sounding platitude, but it is a phantasm, and the pursuit of it has been very expensive in terms of human suffering.
It is the worst of all possible implementations of morality. History demonstrates that those who pursued it were monsters, and the rejection of theist morality has been one of the greatest boons in human history.
I tend to agree Petrushka. I’m not making a judgement on the revolutionary nature (or lack there of) of William’s point or whether one must accept it or not, I’m merely noting that it is logically sound.
Correction: I’m merely noting that I find it logically sound. Clearly I could be completely missing some finer point that shows it to be completely bunk.
For what it’s worth, I totally agree with you on this, hence my rejection that objective morals could exist. However, note that Lizzie and a few others have said they believe certain morals are objective. How does one reconcile that absent a standard?
But logically sound phantasms are still phantasms.
The invention of negotiation and the rule of law has replaced revealed morality because it reduces the sum of human misery.