CHAPTER 4: The Moral Argument
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MORAL ARGUMENT
A number of ethicists, such as Robert Adams, William Alston, Mark Linville, Paul Copan, John Hare, Stephen Evans, and others have defended “divine command” theories of ethics, which support various moral arguments for God’s existence. I myself stumbled into the moral argument through the back door when speaking on a university campus on the absurdity of life without God. I argued that if there is no God, then there is no foundation for objective moral values. Everything becomes subjective. To my surprise, the response of the students was to insist that objective moral values do exist—certain things really are right or wrong. Now what the students said didn’t in any way refute my claim. Instead, they had unwittingly supplied the missing premise in a moral argument for God’s existence!
THE MORAL ARGUMENT: A SIMPLE FORMULATION
This simple little argument is easy to memorize and is logically ironclad. I had argued for the truth of the first premise and the students had insisted on the second. Together, the two premises imply the existence of God.
What makes this argument so powerful is that people generally believe both premises. In a pluralistic age, students are scared to death of imposing their values on someone else, so premise 1 seems correct to them. At the same time, however, certain values have been deeply instilled into them, such as tolerance, open-mindedness, and love. They think it is objectively wrong to impose your values on someone else! So they’re deeply committed to premise 2 as well.
Let’s examine more closely each of the argument’s two premises in order to see what defense might be offered on their behalf and what objections might raised against them.
Premise 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Before we look at reasons for accepting the first premise, we need to clarify a couple of important distinctions. First, the distinction between values and duties. Values have to do with whether something is good or bad. Duties have to do with whether something is right or wrong. Now at first sight this might seem to be a distinction without a difference: “good” and “right” mean the same thing, and the same goes for “bad” and “wrong.” But if we think about it, we can see that this isn’t the case.
Duty has to do with moral obligation, what you ought or ought not to do. But obviously you’re not morally obligated to do something just because it would be good for you to do it. For example, it would be good for you to become a doctor, but you’re not morally obligated to become a doctor. After all, it would also be good for you to become a firefighter or a homemaker or a diplomat, but you can’t do them all. Furthermore, sometimes all you have is bad choices (think of Sophie’s Choice), but it’s not wrong for you to choose one, since you must choose.
So there’s a difference between good/bad and right/wrong. Good/bad has to do with something’s worth, while right/wrong has to do with something’s being obligatory.
To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or bad independent of whatever people think about it.
Second, the distinction between being objective or subjective. “Objective” means “independent of people’s opinions.” “Subjective” means “dependent on people’s opinions.” So to say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or bad independent of whatever people think about it. Similarly, to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us regardless of what we or anyone else thinks about it.
So, for example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought that it was right, and it would still have been wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them, so that everyone believed the Holocaust was right. Premise 1 asserts that if there is no God, then moral values and duties are not objective in that sense.
So why should we think that premise 1 is true? First, let’s consider moral values. Traditionally, moral values have been based in God, who is the highest Good. But if God does not exist, what is the basis of objective moral values? In particular, why think that human beings have objective moral worth? The most popular form of atheism is naturalism, which holds that the only things that exist are the things postulated by our best scientific theories. But science is morally neutral; you can’t find moral values in a test tube. It follows immediately that moral values don’t really exist; they’re just illusions of human beings.
Even if the atheist is willing to go beyond the bounds of science, why think that on atheism human beings are morally valuable? On a naturalistic view, moral values are just the byproduct of biological evolution and social conditioning. Just as a troupe of baboons exhibit co-operative and even self-sacrificial behavior because natural selection has determined it to be advantageous in the struggle for survival, so their primate cousins homo sapiens exhibit similar behavior for the same reason. As a result of socio-biological pressures there has evolved among homo sapiens a sort of “herd morality” which functions well in the perpetuation of our species. But on the atheistic view there doesn’t seem to be anything about homo sapiens that makes this morality objectively true. If we were to rewind the film of human evolution back to the beginning and start anew, people with a very different set of moral values might well have evolved. For us to think that human beings are special and our morality objectively true is to succumb to the temptation to species-ism, an unjustified bias toward one’s own species.
So if there is no God, any basis for regarding the herd morality evolved by homo sapiens as objectively true seems to have been removed. Take God out of the picture, and all you’re left with is an ape-like creature on a speck of solar dust beset with delusions of moral grandeur.
Let’s now consider moral duties. Traditionally, our moral duties were thought to spring from God’s commandments, such as the Ten Commandments. But if there is no God, what basis remains for objective moral duties? On the atheistic view, human beings are just animals, and animals have no moral obligations to one another. When a lion kills a zebra, it kills the zebra, but it does not murder the zebra. When a great white shark forcibly copulates with a female, it forcibly copulates with her but it does not rape her—for there is no moral dimension to these actions. They are neither prohibited nor obligatory.
So if God does not exist, why think that we have any moral obligations to do anything? Who or what imposes these moral duties upon us? Where do they come from? It’s hard to see why they would be anything more than a subjective impression resulting from societal and parental conditioning.
Certain actions such as incest and rape may not be biologically and socially advantageous and so in the course of human development have become taboo. But that does absolutely nothing to show that rape or incest is really wrong. Such behavior goes on all the time in the animal kingdom. The rapist who goes against the herd morality is doing nothing more serious than acting unfashionably, like the man who belches loudly at the dinner table. If there is no moral lawgiver, then there is no objective moral law that we must obey.
The question is not about the necessity of belief in God for objective morality, but about the necessity of the existence of God for objective morality.
Now it’s extremely important that we clearly understand the issue before us. The question is not: Must we believe in God in order to live moral lives? There’s no reason to think that nonbelievers cannot live what we normally characterize as good and decent lives.
Again, the question is not: Can we recognize objective moral values and duties without believing in God? There’s no reason to think that you have to believe in God in order to recognize that, for example, we ought to love our children.
Rather the question is: If God does not exist, do objective moral values and duties exist? The question is not about the necessity of belief in God for objective morality, but about the necessity of the existence of God for objective morality.
To repeat: belief in God is not necessary for objective morality; God is.
Some atheists might respond that moral values like justice, mercy, love, and so on, just exist without any foundation. Let’s call this view Atheistic Moral Platonism. It holds that objective moral values exist, but are not grounded in God. What might we say about this view?
First, Atheistic Moral Platonism seems unintelligible. What does it mean to say, for example, that the moral value justice just exists? It’s hard to make sense of this; it’s easy to understand what it means to say that some person is just, but it’s bewildering when someone says that in the absence of any people justice itself exists. Moral values seem to be properties of persons, and it’s hard to understand how justice can exist as an abstraction.
Second, this view provides no basis for moral duties. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that moral values like justice, loyalty, mercy, forbearance, and the like just exist. How does that result in any moral obligations for me? Why would I have a moral duty to be, say, merciful? Who or what lays such an obligation on me? Notice that on this view moral vices like greed, hatred, laziness, and selfishness also presumably exist on their own as abstractions. So why are we obligated to align our lives with one set of these abstractly existing objects than any other? Atheistic Moral Platonism, lacking a moral lawgiver, has no grounds for moral obligation.
Finally, third, it’s fantastically improbable that the blind evolutionary process would spit forth precisely that sort of creatures who correspond to the abstractly existing realm of moral values. This seems to be an utterly incredible coincidence when you think about it—almost as if the moral realm knew that we were coming. It’s far more plausible to think that both the natural realm and the moral realm are under the authority of a God who gave us both the laws of nature and the moral law than to think that these two independent realms just happened to mesh.
So what’s the atheist to do at this point? Most atheists want to affirm the objective reality of moral values and duties. So they simply embrace some sort of humanism and stop there. Whatever contributes to human flourishing is good, and whatever detracts from it is bad, and that’s the end of the story.
Most atheists want to affirm the objective reality of moral values and duties.
But just taking human flourishing as your ultimate stopping point seems to be premature because of the arbitrariness and implausibility of such a stopping point.
Given atheism, why think that what is conducive to human flourishing is any more valuable them what is conducive to the flourishing of ants or mice? Why think that inflicting harm on another member of our species is wrong? When I put this question to the Dartmouth ethicist Walter Sinnott-Armstrong in our debate on the existence of God, he replied, “It simply is. Objectively. Don’t you agree?”7 Of course, I agree that it is wrong to harm another human being, but I pointed out that this is not the question. The question is: Why would it be wrong if atheism were true? When I put this question to University of Massachusetts philosopher Louise Antony in our debate on “Is God Necessary for Morality?” she shot back, “I wonder if you have any friends!” I just smiled—but the point remains that, like it or not, given an atheistic worldview, picking out human flourishing as morally special seems to be arbitrary.
Moreover, it seems implausible as well. Atheists will sometimes say that moral properties like goodness and badness necessarily attach to certain natural states of affairs. For example, the property of badness necessarily attaches to a man’s beating his wife, while the property of goodness necessarily attaches to a mother’s nursing her infant. Atheists will say that once all the purely natural properties are in place, then the moral properties necessarily come along with them. Now on atheism this seems extraordinarily implausible. Why think that these strange, non-natural moral properties like “goodness” and “badness” even exist, much less somehow get necessarily attached to various natural states of affairs? I can’t see any reason to think that on atheism a full description of the natural properties involved in some situation would determine or fix any moral properties of that situation.
These humanistic philosophers have simply taken a “shopping list” approach to ethical questions. Because they hold to humanism, they just help themselves to the moral properties they need to do the job. What is needed to make their view plausible is some sort of explanation for why moral properties attach to certain natural states of affairs. Again, it’s inadequate for the humanist to assert that we do, in fact, see that human beings have intrinsic moral value, for that’s not in dispute. Indeed, that’s the second premise of the moral argument! What we want from the humanist is some reason to think that human beings would be morally significant if atheism were true. As it is, their humanism is just a stubborn moral faith.
Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist.
That brings us to the second premise, that objective moral values and duties exist. You might think that this would be the most controversial premise in the argument. In my debates with atheist philosophers, however, I find that almost nobody denies it. It might surprise you learn that surveys taken at universities reveal, perhaps contrary to impression, that professors are more apt to believe in objective moral values than students, and that philosophy professors are more apt to believe in objective moral values than professors in general!
Most philosophers who reflect on our moral experience see no more reason to distrust that experience than the experience of our five senses. I believe what my five senses tell me, that there is a world of physical objects out there. Similarly, in the absence of some reason to distrust my moral experience, I should accept what it tells me, that some things are objectively good or evil, right or wrong.
Most of us would agree that in moral experience we do apprehend objective values and duties. When I was speaking several years ago on a Canadian university campus, I noticed a poster put up by the Sexual Assault & Information Center. It read: “Sexual Assault: No One Has the Right to Abuse a Child, Woman, or Man.” Most of us recognize that sexual abuse of another person is wrong. Actions like rape, torture, and child abuse aren’t just socially unacceptable behavior—they’re moral abominations. By the same token, love, generosity, and self-sacrifice are really good. People who fail to see this are just morally handicapped, the moral equivalent of someone who is blind, and there’s no reason to let their impairment call into question what we see clearly.
Although people give lip-service to relativism, ninety-five percent can be very quickly convinced that objective moral values do exist after all.
I’ve found that although people give lip-service to relativism, ninety-five percent can be very quickly convinced that objective moral values do exist after all. All you have to do is produce a few illustrations and let them decide for themselves. Ask what they think of the Hindu practice of suttee (burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands) or the ancient Chinese custom of crippling women for life by tightly binding their feet from childhood to resemble lotus-blossoms. You can make the point especially effectively by using moral atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion. Ask them what they think of the Crusades or the Inquisition. Ask them if they think it’s all right for Catholic priests to sexually abuse little boys and for the Church to try to cover it up? If you’re dealing with someone who’s an honest inquirer, I can guarantee that almost every time that person will agree that there are objective moral values and duties.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
From the two premises, it follows that God exists. Non-theists will typically counter this conclusion with the so-called Euthyphro Dilemma, named after a character in one of Plato’s dialogues. It basically goes like this: Is something good because God wills it? Or does God will something because it is good? If you say that something is good because God wills it, then what is good becomes arbitrary. God could have willed that hatred is good, and then we would have been morally obligated to hate one another. That seems crazy. Some moral values, at least, seem to be necessary. But if you say that God wills something because it is good, then what is good or bad is independent of God. In that case, moral values and duties exist independently of God, which contradicts premise 1.
Fortunately, we don’t need to refute either horn of the Euthyphro Dilemma because the dilemma it presents is a false one. For there is a third alternative—namely, God wills something because He is good. That is to say, what Plato called the Good is the moral nature of God Himself. God is by nature loving, kind, impartial, and so on. He is the paradigm of goodness. Therefore, the Good is not independent of God. God is the Good. Moreover, God’s commandments are a necessary expression of His nature. His commands to us are therefore not arbitrary, but are reflections of His character. In short, our moral duties are determined by the commands of a just and loving God.
The Euthyphro Dilemma presents us with a false choice, and we shouldn’t be tricked by it.
So the Euthyphro Dilemma presents us with a false choice, and we shouldn’t be tricked by it. The morally good/bad is determined by God’s nature, and the morally right/wrong is determined by His will. God wills something because He is good, and something is right because God wills it. This view of morality has been eloquently defended in our day by such eminent philosophers as Robert Adams, William Alston, and Philip Quinn. Yet uninformed atheists continue to attack the straw men erected by the Euthyphro Dilemma.
The moral argument complements the cosmological and design arguments by telling us about the moral nature of the Creator of the universe. It gives us a personal, necessarily existent being who is not only perfectly good, but whose nature is the standard of goodness and whose commands constitute our moral dues.