What is the moral calculus of atheists

There are a number of professed atheists in this forum. I was curious as to what sort of moral imperative atheists are beholden to when presumably no one is looking.  Speaking as a theist, I am constantly cognizant that there is a God who considers what I do and is aware of what I do, even though that awareness on my part may not always result in the moral behavior which I aspire to.  But let’s take a fairly mundane example — say theft.  We’re talking about blatant theft in a context where one could plausibly or even likely get away with it.  I affirm to you that as a Christian, or more relevantly possibly, as a theist, I would never do that.  Possibly it has just as much to do with my consideration for the feelings and rights of  some other individual, who has “legal” possession of said items, as it has to do with my awareness of an omniscient creator who is aware of what I’m doing and who would presumably not bless me if I violated his laws.  I mean,  I care about the rights of other people.  And, considering other moral tableaus, those of a sexual nature for example — I would personally never consider going to a prostitute for example, in that I feel empathy for that person, and how they are degrading themselves in the sight of God, and how I would not want to contribute to their degradation, so that my own human lust would never result in me victimizing another human being in that way.  So in summary,  there are all sorts of constraints on my personal behavior that stem directly from my belief in God,  and I am honestly curious about the inner life of professed atheists in such matters.  In other words, do atheists for example, in such junctures of moral decision, only consider whether they can get away with it, i.e escape the detection of human authorities?  I am just honestly curious about the inner life of atheists in such matters.

692 thoughts on “What is the moral calculus of atheists

  1. Blas,

    If you believe that God wants you to do some things, and not others, then my question makes perfect sense.

    Suppose that God wants you to do X, and Stephen Colbert wants you not to do X. Why is God’s desire binding on you, if Stephen Colbert’s isn’t?

    I think I know why you’re afraid to answer the question, and I’ll bet others can see it too.

    William definitely sees it. He’s been avoiding similar questions for months.

  2. It’s subjective with respect to any made-up set of rules: Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, WJMism. It’s all subjective. There are similar subjectivisms and there are many similarities as many adopted social rules make practical sense. But it’s all subjective.

    You are assuming your consequent – that the rules are not interpreted approximations of an objectively-existent moral landscape, but are rather just “made up”.

    There is a fundamental difference between assuming that one is subjectively interpreting an objectively-existent reality and assuming that the thing in question is itself subjective in nature. In the former, our subjective views are considered to be prone to error wrt what the objective reality is, and we can attempt to refine our understanding of that thing as it is and clear up our misinterpretations and bad conceptualizations. IOW, we can be wrong wrt what is moral and what is good.

    In the latter, though, there is no capacity to “correct” what is assumed to be entirely subjective in the first place. You cannot “correct” what one considers to be the best flavor of ice cream. You cannot rationally argue that a particular color should not be your favorite. One would assume that such proclivities are conditioned by genetics and culture, but even so, they are still considered entirely subjective in nature. Calling them the product of genetics and cultural conditioning doesn’t save them from the problem of subjective morality.

    If one posits that morality is generated by genetics (evolution) and cultural conditioning, they are still entirely subjective, no matter how widespread that proclivity is – no matter how many people think vanilla is the best flavor, or that curry tastes GREAT, or that the Beatles are the greatest band EVAH, those are still just subjective proclivities ostensibly (under atheism) generated by genetics and culture. You cannot be “wrong” in preferring vanilla or the beatles.

    Under this kind of worldview, someone who prefers raping children for fun is every bit as moral as someone compelled by their genetics and cultural conditioning to intervene. As such, calling your actions moral and their actions immoral is a distinction without any rational substance. It’s just rhetoric.

    But that is not the way that atheists actually argue wrt morality. That’s not the way they actually behave. They argue and behave as if whatever morality comes from overrules genetics and culture and is not subjective in nature.

  3. William J. Murray,

    The problem lies not in our actual behavior – as I have repeated many times – but in whether or not we can rationally reconcile our behavior with our worldview premises.

    Whoa, let me stop you right there. It is entirely rational to act in accord with the sense that we appear to agree we share – the ‘zap’. It is no more rational to ascribe that ‘zap’ to an external ‘natural law’ than to shared genes and culture. The consequences you ascribe to taking the latter view have nothing to do with whether or not we can rationally reconcile our shared experience of ‘the zap’ with our respective worldviews. Straw positions can be constructed on both, and are irrelevant on both.

    The rest of your post is a leisurely exercise in missing that point. As to the ‘consequences’ you conjure up, they are not the consequences that follow from my taking that view. This is not, I submit, because I fail to grasp your point, but because it is a strawman version of the genetic/cultural basis underlying behaviour. For example, it is emphatically not a matter of genetics to exterminate Jews. If you have any evidence that it is, present it. Nor is it really a matter of culture, granted that at a certain place at a certain time certain people presumably thought it acceptable or desirable (which is a long way from everyone, or anyone, considering it moral). Your assessment of the view is based upon a very poor understanding of both genetics and environment, and their role in the development of ‘the moral individual’.

    Add a dash of unproven and vague elision from genetic/cultural source to a purely cultural one, in your ‘transplant’ model, conveniently forgetting to re-run the developmental programs that took place in a cultural context largely determined by family and peer group, and there you have it.

    One does not, consciously, check what the current culture or gene set dictates and behave accordingly, any more than you check with Objective Morality to see if it’s changed its mind lately. These things are established early in development.

  4. William,

    You’ve identified “fulfilling God’s purpose for us” as the criterion for objectively moral behavior.

    Why is fulfilling God’s purpose objectively moral, if fulfilling Donald Trump’s purpose is merely subjective?

    Is it because you believe God created us, and Trump didn’t? Is it because you believe God is more powerful than Donald Trump, and that this somehow makes his purpose “objectively” moral (“might makes right”, to use one of your favorite phrases)? Something else?

    If you can’t come up with a sensible answer, then why are you irrationally trying to link “objective morality” to “God’s purpose for us”?

  5. William J. Murray: You are apparently confused about the difference between a straw man and a hypothetical example.Nazi Germany is a hypothetical example of “end justifies the means” and “what one should do for their long-term survival”.

    Of course it’s comparable and useful in examining your logic.Apparently, your argument is that ensuring your long-term survival morally trumps a single murder, but that your long-term survival doesn’t morally trump the likely deaths of several other people if you turn some Jews in to the Nazis. Is that correct?

    If there were two people on the island with you, would you kill them both (if you could, and if the meat wouldn’t go rotten) to ensure your long-term survival?

    This raises the question, why does it matter how many other people will die if your own survival is at stake?This points to some as-yet unspoken moral principle that apparently trumps even self-survival. What is it?Is killing other people wrong, except when it is only one other person and your own life is at stake?

    That seems to me to be a rather shaky moral principle to try to support. Are “other people” equal to you in moral worth, and so killing one for your own survival is morally neutral, but killing more than one a moral negative? Which means that turning one person in to the Nazis is okay, but more than one is not okay?

    Killing Jews for being Jews isn’t beneficial to anyone. Nobody gains. Killing a fellow survivor in the desert island scenario is at least meant to be to benefit one person, although it is to the disadvantage of another. You’re asking if one person should be sacrificed to save another, or you were anyway. I said no, it’s unnecessary. Although some may argue that in an extreme situation where it was necessary to survive, it is permissable. I’m not sure the island situation is that extreme. You could be found at any time and there is very likely to be alternative food sources. I’d just hang out and get a tan. Nothing to fret about. Especially as the primates will be showing up any minute.

    And no, the same principle applies, killing two fellow survivors who were my only companions wouldn’t be in my best interests. If it was my only way to survive, I probably would. Just like the vast majority of us would probably do all we can to stay out of the gas chambers if we lived in Nazi Germany. Yes, even if that was at the mortal detriment of others. We know this from conformity experiments in Psychology. That’s the trouble with using these extreme situations: in them, we are most likely to act instinctively and protect that which is dear to us. For some, yes, that might be their morality. For most, if will be themselves and their loved ones.

    It’s much more conducive to use moderate examples of ethical dilemmas. Examples that are likely to occur in the everyday lives of the audience. Examples where nobody dies but someone or something can be harmed whilst unless conscientious, the one that has harmed can be quite oblivious to the consequences of their actions. Nazi Germany isn’t that example.

    It matters how many people will suffer harm as a consequence to a choice, to me at least, because you have to compare it to the amount of people who will benefit. There are times when casualties are unavoidable, and one has to consider “The Greater Good”.

  6. petrushka:

    WJM: Morality is a set of oughts – how people ought behave, what they should do.

    Now all you need is the list of oughts and their source.

    Saying such a set is required is just an assertion.

    And suggesting that such a set is/could be sufficient is WJM’s unspoken assertion.

    Both are clearly wrong for the majority of humans on our planet. There may indeed be a few morally-blind humans who cannot be trusted unless they believe there is a god-given set of morals, to which they compare their own desires, and with which they restrain themselves from violating intuitive moral norms — that is, what would be intuitive if their own moral sense were operating normally.

    But such a set of rules, those “oughts” enumerated, is at best a poor stopgap. They can only provide a simulacrum of actual moral behavior. Again, your analogy about color blindness is good here; the colorblind person can function in a color world by using the hex codes, but cannot actually see; the person like WJM can function in moral society by using the “ought” codes, but cannot actually feel morally.

    For example, we know their set of oughts includes: Do Not Kill People … except in self-defense … or to protect the survival of someone you love …
    But what is “self-defense”, or how serious must a threat to one of our loved ones be before we can invoke the exception to Do Not Kill? There has never been a way to encode the answers to these real-world questions in any set of oughts, no matter whether we think the set has its source in god or not.

    IF the majority of theists followed the set of oughts that they claim to follow, they could not behave morally from day to day. Their morals would be both too rigidly programmed and too full of gaps. Morality has no objective reality under theism; it’s just as arbitrary and incomplete as the web-safe color codes (OT v.1 upgraded to NT v.2 upgraded to “I don’t have an actual book but I know specifically that I can’t torture babies for fun” v.3)

    Fortunately for us, the majority of theists get their morals from the same place the rest of us do, from being evolved social primates with families who raise them to feel and pay attention to the feelings of others. But for those who admit they need a book, a set of oughts, to restrain themselves from raping and murdering, I say Amen brother, glad you’ve got your book. As long as you don’t believe that your book tells you to murder doctors or to beat up gay men or to terrify children with hell threats, we’ll get along just fine with each other. You’ll go through your life not murdering and raping; I’ll go through mine likewise.

  7. keiths:

    William definitely sees it. He’s been avoiding similar questions for months.

    I see William trying to make you understand, but probably is as tired as me of trying to explayng basic metaphysic.

  8. William J. Murray,

    But that is not the way that atheists actually argue wrt morality. That’s not the way they actually behave. They argue and behave as if whatever morality comes from overrules genetics and culture and is not subjective in nature.

    No they don’t!

  9. hotshoe:

    Both are clearly wrong for the majority of humans on our planet.There may indeed be a few morally-blind humans who cannot be trusted unless they believe there is a god-given set of morals, to which they compare their own desires, and with which they restrain themselves from violating intuitive moral norms — that is, what would be intuitive if their own moral sense were operating normally.

    But such a set of rules, those “oughts” enumerated, is at best a poor stopgap.They can only provide a simulacrum of actual moral behavior. Again, your analogy about color blindness is good here; the colorblind person can function in a color world by using the hex codes, but cannot actually see; the person like WJM can function in moral society by using the “ought” codes, but cannot actually feel morally.

    For example, we know their set of oughts includes: Do Not Kill People … except in self-defense … or to protect the survival of someone you love …
    But what is “self-defense”, or how serious must a threat to one of our loved ones be before we can invoke the exception to Do Not Kill?There has never been a way to encode the answers to these real-world questions in any set of oughts, no matter whether we think the set has its source in god or not.

    IF the majority of theists followed the set of oughts that they claim to follow, they could not behave morally from day to day.Their morals would be both too rigidly programmed and too full of gaps.Morality has no objective reality under theism; it’s just as arbitrary and incomplete as the web-safe color codes (OT v.1 upgraded to NT v.2 upgraded to “I don’t have an actual book but I know specifically that I can’t torture babies for fun” v.3)

    Fortunately for us, the majority of theists get their morals from the same place the rest of us do, from being evolved social primates with families who raise them to feel and pay attention to the feelings of others.But for those who admit they need a book, a set of oughts, to restrain themselves from raping and murdering, I say Amen brother, glad you’ve got your book.As long as you don’t believe that your book tells you to murder doctors or to beat up gay men or to terrify children with hell threats, we’ll get along just fine with each other.You’ll go through your life not murdering and raping; I’ll go through mine likewise.

    Which is your point? The post is which is the moral claculus of atheists. If theist morality is irrational change the irrationality of atheists morality?
    Why do not try to explain the calculus of atheist morality?

  10. Blas: keiths:

    William definitely sees it. He’s been avoiding similar questions for months.

    I see William trying to make you understand, but probably is as tired as me of trying to explayng basic metaphysic.

    As I understand the score at this point, WJM has been claiming that natural law theory, unlike humanistic relativism or divine-command theory, successfully avoids the might-makes-right problem. Keiths is asking him for details as to how it does that. It’s a fair question. I mean, sure, Aristotle and Aquinas make it pretty clear how natural law theory avoids the might-makes-right problem, but they’re not participating in this debate. If WJM wants to put up natural law theory as avoiding the might-makes-right problem, that’s a claim he needs to defend.

    Let’s put it this way: what’s the difference that makes a difference between

    (a) a necessarily good divine being directly* reveals to us what is morally right and morally wrong,

    and

    (b) a necessarily good being creates the different kinds of beings with correspondingly different purposes, such that we rational animals can classify what is morally good as that which assists us in realizing our purposes, and what is morally bad as that which interferes with realizing our purposes.

    * where “directly” actually turns on the difficulty question of the transmission of the revelation, the authenticity of the texts containing or referring to the revelation, the authority of the tradition which interpreters the texts, and so on.

  11. Today I had a lengthy discussion with a senior colleague about whether the death of God entails the loss of objectivity. He was vigorously maintaining that it does not, and I think he’s right about that, but I had some questions about his views. So to some extent I was playing devil’s advocate.

    I’ve become pretty convinced that scientific progress and moral progress are quite different kinds of progress.

    In order to make scientific progress, we have to stick our necks out, so to speak, to allow the objects to disclose to us whether or not they have the properties and relations that our theories tell us they should have. We have to give the objects an opportunity to surprise us. And if the objects don’t behave as we expect them to, it’s our expectations — our theories — that need to be revised.

    I don’t see anything analogous to this in moral progress. In moral progress, we are expanding the circle of people who get a voice in our decision-making, and esp, they get a voice in making decisions that will affect them. That’s what it is (partly) to treat someone as a agent, or a subject — that they have a stake in shaping their own destiny, and get a voice in what happens to them.

    Revising the moral norms by bringing people into the community who were briefly excluded from it, and revising the epistemic norms of the community in light of what reality indicates about the adequacy of those norms, are quite different kinds of norm-revision.

  12. keiths: If you can’t come up with a sensible answer, then why are you irrationally trying to link “objective morality” to “God’s purpose for us”?

    Right. Even if we assume that god created the universe, and directly or indirectly created us, and therefore assume that god has a purpose for us (because everything that is created is aligned with god’s ultimate purpose, unless you assume god allowed itself to make mistakes) — even assuming all that, there is no logical way to get to anything like”god’s purpose includes/requires us behaving morally”. How under god’s blue heaven can any human have the chutzpah to say that we should behave morally, because, god, full stop.

    Balance of probabilities suggests that, if god does exist and we do have a purpose in god’s mind, the purpose is to behave “immorally” because it makes for a more interesting show. High drama or soap opera or just a crooked little carnival sideshow; it’s a cure for the boredom of good behavior. Eternal boredom? Hellish.

    Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain. The best actors always want to play the villain, because it’s the most fun and the most challenging. And god wants you to be the best actor you can possibly be.

    Logically, if WJM really believes in god being the source of his morality,then WJM should be aching for his next chance to please god by fulfilling god’s purpose by playing the villain.

    Oh, that’s not what WJM thinks his logic proves? Well, my logic is certainly as valid as his. Better, actually, because I’m not skipping a step between “objective morality” and “God’s purpose for us”.

  13. Kantian Naturalist:

    Let’s put it this way: what’s the difference that makes a difference between

    (a) a necessarily good divine being directly* reveals to us what is morally right and morally wrong,

    and

    (b) a necessarily good being creates the different kinds of beings with correspondingly different purposes, such that we rational animals can classify what is morally good as that which assists us in realizing our purposes, and what is morally bad as that which interferes with realizing our purposes.

    * where “directly” actually turns on the difficulty question of the transmission of the revelation, the authenticity of the texts containing or referring to the revelation, the authority of the tradition which interpreters the texts, and so on.

    b suppose that our conscience alone is able to know what is good and what is bad i.e. is able to know our goals.

  14. KN,

    As I understand the score at this point, WJM has been claiming that natural law theory, unlike humanistic relativism or divine-command theory, successfully avoids the might-makes-right problem. Keiths is asking him for details as to how it does that. It’s a fair question.

    Actually, that’s not what I’m asking. I want to William to answer this question:

    Why is fulfilling God’s purpose objectively moral, if fulfilling Donald Trump’s purpose is merely subjective?

    “Might makes right” is one of the answers that William could give, but he won’t, because he has loudly criticized that idea in the past (after falsely attributing it to me and others).

    “Because God created us for a purpose” is another answer he could give, but then that runs afoul of my “pimply-faced teenager” example:

    It can’t be merely because he created us. Recall my hypothetical example from a few months ago, in which humans discover how to create universes and some horny, pimply-faced teenager creates a universe in his basement because he wants to watch the inhabitants having sex. No sensible person would argue that the inhabitants of the basement are morally obligated to have sex for the voyeuristic pleasure of their creator.

    There are some other answers William could offer, but they’re all fatally flawed, as far as I can see.

    Let’s see if he can come up with an answer that actually works.

    Blas has already given up and is desperately trying to rationalize his failure.

  15. Kantian Naturalist: In order to make scientific progress, we have to stick our necks out, so to speak, to allow the objects to disclose to us whether or not they have the properties and relations that our theories tell us they should have. We have to give the objects an opportunity to surprise us. And if the objects don’t behave as we expect them to, it’s our expectations — our theories — that need to be revised.

    I don’t see anything analogous to this in moral progress. In moral progress, we are expanding the circle of people who get a voice in our decision-making, and esp, they get a voice in making decisions that will affect them. That’s what it is (partly) to treat someone as a agent, or a subject — that they have a stake in shaping their own destiny, and get a voice in what happens to them.

    I love this. Thanks for sharing your discussion.

  16. Blas,

    I see William trying to make you understand, but probably is as tired as me of trying to explayng basic metaphysic.

    I’m not asking you to share your (dubious) insights into “basic metaphysic”.

    Here’s my question. It’s quite similar to the one I’m asking William:

    Do you believe God wants you to do some things, and not others? (Rhetorical question; you obviously do.)

    Suppose that God wants you to do X, and Stephen Colbert wants you not to do X. Why is God’s desire binding on you, if Stephen Colbert’s isn’t?

    It’s a perfectly sensible question, and it hits at the heart of your moral system. Why should we obey God?

    If you can’t come up with a viable answer, your moral system has a huge problem.

    What is your answer?

  17. Actually, that’s not what I’m asking. I want to William to answer this question:

    I have given the answer. You either are ignoring it or you don’t understand how it answers your question. Earlier in this thread you asked:

    One of the biggest problem lies right at the heart of your “system”, and it is exposed by this simple question: How is God’s view of morality any more objective than yours or mine?

    Shortly afterward, I quoted that and responded:

    God doesn’t have a “view of morality”. God is the ground of all being and existence. God is what is good, and as the ground of all being and existence, inherently and absolutely instantiates what is good – not by command, opinion or decree, but by existential necessity. That is what makes “what is good” absolute and objective, even if – like anything else perceived by individual, subjective creatures – that objective good is subjectively interpreted and processed.

  18. The problem here is that keiths is asking me questions from a perspective of god that doesn’t apply to my perspective of god. God doesn’t command anyone to do anything. God doesn’t prefer that anyone do one thing or another – god doesn’t prefer that you not jump off a cliff without a parachute – that is your free will decision. God doesn’t prefer that you not torture infants for fun.

    The physical world doesn’t prefer that you not jump off a cliff without a parachute, but there are consequences. The physical world provides us with a whole host of necessary consequences to our actions – consequences we cannot escape because that is the way the world is – not the way the world would prefer we behave.

    In this sense, the moral architecture of universal mind is the same as gravity. It doesn’t prefer that you not do evil things, but there is an inherent, existential price to pay for jumping off the moral cliff.

    God is not “a” being in the sense that anyone else is “a” being, and god doesn’t have those individuated, contextualized characteristics that individual entities have. God **is** existence, god **is** being, god **is** mind/spirit.

  19. William,

    God is what is good, and as the ground of all being and existence, inherently and absolutely instantiates what is good – not by command, opinion or decree, but by existential necessity.

    That is pure assumption. How do you know that God is good?

    I could do the same:

    Donald Trump inherently and absolutely instantiates what is good — not by command, opinion, or decree, but by existential necessity.

    If I made that argument, you wouldn’t find it very persuasive. Your statement about God is unpersuasive for the same reasons.

    Back to my question:

    Why is fulfilling God’s purpose objectively moral, if fulfilling Donald Trump’s purpose is merely subjective?

  20. keiths:
    William,

    That is pure assumption.How do you know that God is good?

    Basic metaphisic keiths. What is good? Whay is The Good?

  21. William, in one comment:

    I have given the answer.

    William, in the very next comment:

    The problem here is that keiths is asking me questions from a perspective of god that doesn’t apply to my perspective of god.

    I see. So the question didn’t apply, but you answered it. I think you may be having a bad logic day, William.

  22. Blas,

    If it’s “basic metaphysics”, then you will easily be able to answer the question.

    How do you know that God is good?

  23. William,

    And of course, my question does apply to your conception of God.

    You are on record as saying that we are morally obligated to fulfill the purpose for which God created us.

    My question is perfectly applicable:

    Why is fulfilling God’s purpose objectively moral, if fulfilling Donald Trump’s purpose is merely subjective?

    What is your answer?

  24. That is pure assumption. How do you know that God is good?

    I’ve already flat-out stated that all of my existential beliefs are assumptions, and that I don’t know if any of them are true – other than “I experience”.

    I could do the same:

    Yes, you can, and are certainly free to do so.

    If I made that argument, you wouldn’t find it very persuasive. Your statement about God is unpersuasive for the same reasons.

    Then it’s a good thing I’m not trying to persuade anyone.

    Why is fulfilling God’s purpose objectively moral, if fulfilling Donald Trump’s purpose is merely subjective?

    My answer to this question depends on my concept of god – not yours or anyone elses. It doesn’t matter if I can prove my concept of god correct; the question is one of internal logic, not external truth. I’ve explained, under my concept of god, why fulfilling god’s purpose is necessarily and objectively moral, and why fulfilling DT’s is subjective. In my perspective, Trump is not the existential ground of existence and being; god is. That is what makes god’s good objective and absolute, and what makes Trumps’s good at best a subjective interpretation of objective good. I evaluate Trump’s good according to the objective good – not according to Trump.

    Also, I imagine you can escape the “consequences” of not living up to Trump’s good; you cannot escape the consequences of immoral behavior under god’s good. Not because god wants to bring you harm, any more than god wants to bring you harm when you jump off a cliff.

  25. Blas,

    I´m discussing about rationality not subjectivity.

    That’s fine, but the proposal you appear to be supporting is that it is irrational (or, alternatively, leads to Bad Things) to hold that morality is subjective. I was wondering how you’d avoid that trap, which goes beyond simply saying ‘it’s not’. You are of course under no obligation to answer.

  26. I see. So the question didn’t apply, but you answered it. I think you may be having a bad logic day, William.

    No, the question doesn’t apply, and I explained why it doesn’t apply in my answer. You are equivocating two entirely different things – god and donald trump, a subjective being and the ground of all being. It’s like asking me why gravity is objective and Donald Trump’s concept of gravity is not. Trump’s concept of gravity can be wrong, improperly interpreted,improperly conceptualized; whatever gravity is cannot be wrong wrt what gravity is. Whatever gavity is is what determine’s how correct Trumps concept of gravity is.

  27. keiths:

    That is pure assumption. How do you know that God is good?

    William:

    I’ve already flat-out stated that all of my existential beliefs are assumptions, and that I don’t know if any of them are true – other than “I experience”.

    Right. So you are assuming that God is good when you could have assumed instead that Donald Trump is good, with equal (lack of) justification.

    Any rational, intelligent person would be embarrassed to assume, without evidence or argument, that Donald Trump is the “ground” of objective morality. Yet you are doing exactly that with regard to God. It’s embarrassing.

  28. keiths: It’s a perfectly sensible question, and it hits at the heart of your moral system. Why should we obey God?

    I don’t know if “obeying God” makes sense in WJM’s system, because he’s a natural-law theorist, not a divine-command theorist. If you think that natural-law theory collapses back into divine-command theory, then make the argument. No insinuations, please.

    In ‘standard’ natural-law theory — and I find it hard to reconcile the natural-law theories I know about with WJM’s subjective idealism — the basic idea is this: every kind of activity has its proper goal or purpose, as a consequence of why it was created. So the morally right actions are those that contribute to the realization of those purposes, and the morally wrong actions are those that don’t.

    Everything here depends on how “kind” gets specified. Aristotle, for example, famously claims that a human being is a “rational animal” — that’s the kind of being that a human being is. So the actualization of a rational animal — what counts as flourishing for it, or the realization of its potential — involves both the cultivation of its animal side and its rational side. This means that we need to cultivate our capacities for feeling and perceiving (as animals) and also for deliberate control over our capacities for feeling and perceiving (as rational beings). This is why a rational animal needs virtues: deliberate, thoughtful exercises of our desires, feelings, and actions. Thus, to take the famous example, the virtue of courage involves feeling fear in the right way, at the right time, with regard to the right circumstances — excessive control of fear leads to the vice of foolhardiness, and deficient control of fear leads to the vice of cowardice.

    Notice that the theistic critic of naturalism has several options here. She could, if she is operating within the Christian intellectual tradition (which WJM clearly is not), accept that naturalistic evolution can account for the cardinal virtues but not for the theological virtues. (Or she could argue that naturalistic evolution could not even account for the cardinal virtues.)

  29. William,

    Also, I imagine you can escape the “consequences” of not living up to Trump’s good; you cannot escape the consequences of immoral behavior under god’s good.

    Another unwarranted, unevidenced, unargued assumption.

    I could just as easily assume that I can escape the consequences of not living up to God’s good, but that I can’t escape the consequences of not living up to Trump’s good. Maybe Trump will punish me in the next life for my Trumpgressions.

  30. hotshoe: I love this. Thanks for sharing your discussion.

    You’re very much welcome!

    I should add that in both cases — both epistemic and moral progress — I see “progress” as a term retrospectively applied, when we compare where are with where we have been.

  31. keiths:

    It’s a perfectly sensible question, and it hits at the heart of your moral system. Why should we obey God?

    KN:

    I don’t know if “obeying God” makes sense in WJM’s system, because he’s a natural-law theorist, not a divine-command theorist.

    The question you quoted was directed at Blas, not William. My question for William is similar, but it takes his statements about “God’s purpose” into account:

    Why is fulfilling God’s purpose [for us] objectively moral, if fulfilling Donald Trump’s purpose is merely subjective?

    KN:

    If you think that natural-law theory collapses back into divine-command theory, then make the argument.

    Why are you asking me to support a claim I haven’t made?

  32. keiths: Why are you asking me to support a claim I haven’t made?

    I apologize; I thought that was the claim you were making. But I see now that it isn’t; rather (as I understand it) you’re asking WJM to show that natural-law theory isn’t haunted by the same threat of arbitrariness that haunts divine command theory. Is that it?

    Lately I’ve been thinking the relation between the death of God and the Myth of the Given, and more and more it seems to me that they are fully complementary — that the former is the cultural-political dimension, and the latter the cognitive-semantic dimension, of the post-nihilistic condition — that meta-norms no longer compel our conceptual commitments nor attract our affective adherence. Not quite sure where I’m heading with this thought . . . will check back later.

  33. Kantian Naturalist: I don’t know if “obeying God” makes sense in WJM’s system, because he’s a natural-law theorist, not a divine-command theorist.If you think that natural-law theory collapses back into divine-command theory, then make the argument.No insinuations, please.

    In ‘standard’ natural-law theory — and I find it hard to reconcile the natural-law theories I know about with WJM’s subjective idealism — the basic idea is this: every kind of activity has its proper goal or purpose, as a consequence of why it was created.So the morally right actions are those that contribute to the realization of those purposes, and the morally wrong actions are those that don’t.

    Everything here depends on how “kind” gets specified.Aristotle, for example, famously claims that a human being is a “rational animal” — that’s the kind of being that a human being is.So the actualization of a rational animal — what counts as flourishing for it, or the realization of its potential — involves both the cultivation of its animal side and its rational side.This means that we need to cultivate our capacities for feeling and perceiving (as animals) and also for deliberate control over our capacities for feeling and perceiving (as rational beings).This is why a rational animal needs virtues: deliberate, thoughtful exercises of our desires, feelings, and actions.Thus, to take the famous example, the virtue of courage involves feeling fear in the right way, at the right time, with regard to the right circumstances — excessive control of fear leads to the vice of foolhardiness, and deficient control of fear leads to the vice of cowardice.

    Notice that the theistic critic of naturalism has several options here.She could, if she is operating within the Christian intellectual tradition (which WJM clearly is not), accept that naturalistic evolution can account for the cardinal virtues but not for the theological virtues.(Or she could argue that naturalistic evolution could not even account for the cardinal virtues.)

    EECH, I’m going to teach an intro to ethics class this fall, and this post reminded me I don’t know the first thing about Aristotle. #lacuna

  34. I could just as easily assume that I can escape the consequences of not living up to God’s good, but that I can’t escape the consequences of not living up to Trump’s good. Maybe Trump will punish me in the next life for my Trumpgressions.

    Yes, you can as easily assume all of that. However, I do not make that assumption.

    You seem to be arguing that if I assume something other than what I actually assume, my logical justifications will fall apart. I agree that if I do not assume god as ground of being and existential good, then god’s good is not much different from what I assume Trump’s good to be, and if I assume that Trump’s good is the ground of being and existential goodness, I would be calling Donald Trump god.

  35. William J. Murray: You seem to be arguing that if I assume something other than what I actually assume, my logical justifications will fall apart. I agree that if I do not assume god as ground of being and existential good, then god’s good is not much different from what I assume Trump’s good to be, and if I assume that Trump’s good is the ground of being and existential goodness, I would be calling Donald Trump god.

    Right, but that seems to concede a major point to keiths — namely, that there’s something deeply arbitrary about this whole system of yours.

    You simply assume that X, and go out to draw out some implications of that assumption — but it’s all completely ungrounded and arbitrary, because there’s nothing to constrain the assumption.

    Which is fine, I guess, except that it undermines your complaint that atheist morality is arbitrary and ungrounded.

  36. Any rational, intelligent person would be embarrassed to assume, without evidence or argument, that Donald Trump is the “ground” of objective morality. Yet you are doing exactly that with regard to God. It’s embarrassing.

    Whether I should be embarrassed or not is irrelevant to the fact that this is what I assume. Of course I could assume other things, perhaps other things that would leave your argument valid, but I do not.

    My actual assumption, if hypothetically true, invalidates your objection. If what god is is the necessary, absolute ground or being of morality (what is good, our purpose, what we ought do), and god itself cannot change its nature (any more than god can change 1 + 1 = 2, or invalidate the principle of non-contradiction), then the Euthyphro objection is no longer a problem.

  37. William,

    You seem to be arguing that if I assume something other than what I actually assume, my logical justifications will fall apart.

    No, I’m saying that if “God is good” is a pure assumption on your part, with no evidence or argument to back it up, then your moral system is no better grounded than one in which Donald Trump is assumed to be the source and Absolute Arbiter of goodness.

    Since no intelligent person would accept the latter, there is no reason to accept the former — unless you can offer additional justification for assuming that God is good.

    I think you were trying to do that with this statement:

    Also, I imagine you can escape the “consequences” of not living up to Trump’s good; you cannot escape the consequences of immoral behavior under god’s good.

    The problem is that inescapable consequences don’t establish God’s goodness. Suppose we couldn’t evade the consequences of defying Trump’s purposes. Would that render them good? Obviously not.

    Might does not make right, as you like to say.

    Can you offer some other reason why fulfilling God’s purposes is objectively moral, if fulfilling Trump’s purposes is not?

  38. At this point, I’m beginning to wonder how much of WJM’s “reasoning” consists of assuming everything he wishes were true, and then showing that the consequences can be pulled from the premises like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It’s less impressive if we saw you put the rabbit in the hat to begin with, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for your contention that “we atheists” are less rational than you.

  39. KN,

    I apologize; I thought that was the claim you were making. But I see now that it isn’t; rather (as I understand it) you’re asking WJM to show that natural-law theory isn’t haunted by the same threat of arbitrariness that haunts divine command theory. Is that it?

    Well, I’m really probing to see whether William can offer any justification, whether or not it’s based on natural law theory, for assuming that God is the ground of goodness while Trump is not.

  40. keiths: Well, I’m really probing to see whether William can offer any justification, whether or not it’s based on natural law theory, for assuming that God is the ground of goodness while Trump is not.

    From what I can tell, it’s sheer stipulation, without any justification at all.

  41. William,

    If what god is is the necessary, absolute ground or being of morality (what is good, our purpose, what we ought do), and god itself cannot change its nature (any more than god can change 1 + 1 = 2, or invalidate the principle of non-contradiction), then the Euthyphro objection is no longer a problem.

    Likewise:

    If what Trump is is the necessary, absolute ground or being of morality (what is good, our purpose, what we ought do), and Trump himself cannot change his nature (any more than Trump can change 1 + 1 = 2, or invalidate the principle of non-contradiction), then the Euthyphro objection is no longer a problem.

    So again, you’ve given no reason for an intelligent person to prefer your theistic morality over a Trumpian morality. They are equally ridiculous, unless you can come up with a better justification for assuming that God is good.

  42. KN,

    From what I can tell, it’s sheer stipulation, without any justification at all.

    I suspect that William makes these assumptions because they feel right to him. He doesn’t recognize how arbitrary they are until he’s forced to see it by something like my Trump example.

  43. Kantian Naturalist:
    At this point, I’m beginning to wonder how much of WJM’s “reasoning” consists of assuming everything he wishes were true, and then showing that the consequences can be pulled from the premises like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.It’s less impressive if we saw you put the rabbit in the hat to begin with, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for your contention that “we atheists” are less rational than you.

    I guess I’m simple-minded, but all along I’ve thought that was essentially what WJM “admits”—non-prejorative sense of that word, to doing. I still don’t see how it’s not a completely vacuous exercise.

    Edit: To clarify, I sorta see how it could be useful personally, but there’s not much point in discussing one’s arbitrary assumptions with others.

  44. Right, but that seems to concede a major point to keiths — namely, that there’s something deeply arbitrary about this whole system of yours.

    You simply assume that X, and go out to draw out some implications of that assumption — but it’s all completely ungrounded and arbitrary, because there’s nothing to constrain the assumption.

    The assumptions are not arbitrary because I do not begin with the assumptions and they are derived logically from functional requirements. What I begin with is my actual experience (nothing I assume can directly contradict my actual experience) and my essential requirements for enjoying life, which necessarily includes the sense that I’m a good person. I then conceptualize worldview assumptions to see if those assumptions can provide intellectual satisfaction wrt enjoying life as a good person.

    Theistic command authority (all things are permitted) and atheistic,subjective “all things are permitted” morality cannot provide me with that intellectual satisfaction – which basically means they are rationally coherent internally and reconcilable with necessary behavior and actual experience.

    Now, the goals are arbitrary – what I want out of life is to enjoy it as much as possible while still being intellectually satisfied that I am a good person – but the assumptions are not chosen arbitrarily but rather specifically to acquire the goal.

    Which is fine, I guess, except that it undermines your complaint that atheist morality is arbitrary and ungrounded.

    That’s never been my complaint. My argument (not complaint) is that the behavior (and most of the arguments/statements about morality) of many atheists is logically irreconcilable with their premise. For example, I have no argument with atheists who admit that atheistic morality boils down to “all things are permissible”, and make no insinuations that what anyone else does is inherently immoral, that if someone considers an act moral, then for them, it is in fact moral.

    That’s a logically consistent atheistic morality. However, for instance, Dr. Liddle has agreed that torturing children for personal pleasure is always wrong, in every instance, regardless of culture or other factors. That view is irreconcilable with atheistic morality. There are no atheistic grounds that can rationally support such a claim – that I’m aware of, anyway.

    I also have no argument with anyone that doesn’t require their actual moral behavior and statements be logically consistent wrt their worldview. These are not complaints – people are free to do and think whatever they wish, whether it is logical or not, whether their views are arbitrary or not.

  45. Whoa, let me stop you right there. It is entirely rational to act in accord with the sense that we appear to agree we share – the ‘zap’.

    That’s what I just said. For the 10 billionth time, this isn’t about how people act, but rather how they reconcile how they act with their worldview premises.

    It is no more rational to ascribe that ‘zap’ to an external ‘natural law’ than to shared genes and culture.

    That depends on what all you have to include in your rational justification.

    The consequences you ascribe to taking the latter view have nothing to do with whether or not we can rationally reconcile our shared experience of ‘the zap’ with our respective worldviews. Straw positions can be constructed on both, and are irrelevant on both.

    The “zap” isn’t the only thing that has to be reconciled. As I agreed with Robin before, if you agree that anything is moral for those that agree to it – including torturing children for fun – then yes, you can fully reconcile your views and behaviors with the gene and culture premise. I have no argument for those who say that for the individual that wants to do so, torturing children for fun is moral.

    IOW, if you agree that torturing infants for personal pleasure is never moral in any case regardless of culture/genetics, then you cannot maintain a genetic/cultural basis for your moral views. That is where the gene/culture premise fails.

    My only point in light of such moral relativism is that I consider it rather silly to call anything “moral”. There’s just what people do. Why bother invoking morality at all?

    The rest of your post is a leisurely exercise in missing that point. As to the ‘consequences’ you conjure up, they are not the consequences that follow from my taking that view. This is not, I submit, because I fail to grasp your point, but because it is a strawman version of the genetic/cultural basis underlying behaviour. For example, it is emphatically not a matter of genetics to exterminate Jews.

    I didn’t say it was a matter of genetics. I posited that it was a matter of genetics and culture, or cultural influences. Obviously, someone born on the other side of the world cannot have a genetic disposition to wipe out the jews – but, they can have genetic dispositions that increase the possibility of being willing to wipe out a group of peopl eand consider it moral – which would just so happen to be Jews in that culture at that time.

    If you have any evidence that it is, present it. Nor is it really a matter of culture, granted that at a certain place at a certain time certain people presumably thought it acceptable or desirable (which is a long way from everyone, or anyone, considering it moral). Your assessment of the view is based upon a very poor understanding of both genetics and environment, and their role in the development of ‘the moral individual’.

    Well, then enlighten me. If it is not a matter of genetics and environment that produces the view that exterminating Jews is morally good, what else is there – under atheism?

    One does not, consciously, check what the current culture or gene set dictates and behave accordingly, any more than you check with Objective Morality to see if it’s changed its mind lately. These things are established early in development.

    The problem is that there is nothing to check against under the gene/environment premise, because you **are** whatever it **has produced**. Whatever you think and feel is exactly what it has produced, thus anything anyone thinks is moral is moral by definition.

    Under my perspective, “how I feel” is not presumed to be the final arbiter of “what is immoral”, and so yes, it must be checked – as much as is possible – against objective morality. This is actually how I managed to change many of my views about what was moral and eventually change my reactions to various things. Under atheism, though, there is no reason to doubt if your moral views are correct – they are correct by definition, regardless of what they are. They are what genetics & environment have produced.

    I don’t really see what your argument is, then. Under atheism, however it is caused, genetics/environment (in some way) produces what a person considers to be moral. That defines what is moral for that person, whether they agree with their culture or disagree. If that person considers it moral to torture children for fun or wipe out all the Jews, then for that person it is in fact – inasumuch as there are any moral “facts” under atheism – moral.

    That other people consider it immoral is just their own genetic/environmental conditioning. For them, it is immoral.

  46. At this point, I’m beginning to wonder how much of WJM’s “reasoning” consists of assuming everything he wishes were true, and then showing that the consequences can be pulled from the premises like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

    I don’t wish any of my assumptions were true. I don’t care if they are true or not. I don’t expect them to be true. I select my assumptions solely because of their functionality. My assumption of god as inherent grounds of natural-law good (1) is not incompatible with my actual experience, and (2) is the only premise I can find/imagine (currently, anyway) that functionally avoids the dilemmas of atheistic moral relativism and the command-authority Euthyphro dilemma, both of which negate my capacity for an intellectually satisfying sense of being a good person.

    If atheism solved the morality problem, I’d be an atheist. If Allah solved the morality problem, I’d be a Muslim. I found a premise that solved the problem, so that is what I’m using. I don’t care if it’s true or not.

  47. To clarify, I sorta see how it could be useful personally, but there’s not much point in discussing one’s arbitrary assumptions with others.

    That all depends on what your purpose is, and whom those others are.

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