1. Objective morals exist.
2. Objective morals can not exist without the presence of God.
3. God exists.
This argument is called the Transcendental Arument of God (or TAG) and was first developed by Immanuel Kant in 1763. It is logically sound, by which I mean "If 1 and 2 are true, 3 follows." The lecture focused on proving 1 and 2 are true. Unfortunately, he did not offer a single persuasive argument for 1 or 2, so I will here argue that neither 1 nor 2 is true.
Do objective morals exist? First, the lecturer did not discuss what was meant by "objective morals." He simply used the argument that "child abuse is wrong, therefore objective morals exist." (Note: This may be an oversimplification of his position, and I may be straw manning his argument, but it is for the sake of space that I do not repeat his lecture verbatim) I agree that child abuse is wrong, but this makes all of ethics seem black and white. Defining a set of objective morals means there are two categories: right and wrong. In order for objective morals to exist, all people must agree that everything on one side is right and everything on the other side is wrong. I don't believe this is true. Ethics is full of gray areas. Imagine a train full of people is headed directly for a brick wall. Now imagine you are standing by a rail switcher which will change the course of the train and save the lives of everyone on board. Unfortunately, on this side course, a man is stuck, and if the course is changed he will be killed. Do you make the switch? People generally agree that yes, they would. Saving the train full of people is justified by the loss of one life. But now imagine the man trapped on the tracks is your son. Do you still make the switch? Imagine the train is full of 100-year olds and a pregnant woman is trapped on the side track. Or that it is a prison train, filled with rapists and murderers. Or imagine that there are five people on the train and four people trapped on the side rail. Do four deaths justify five lives?
My point is that if you ask one hundred people these questions, even one hundred of the most religious people, you will not get the same answers from everyone. Objective morals do not exist as it is defined here.
Which brings us to point 2. Here, we have two topics to discuss. First, do our morals require the existence of God? This point was discussed by the lecturer simply by cherry-picking quotes from his favorite philosophers. He then went on to attack the "atheist outlook." First of all, atheism does not profess to answer any ethical questions. Atheism is simply the answer to the question "is there a God?" The ethical set of beliefs that usually accompanies atheism is called humanism, or the belief that morals come from humans, not from a God (more on this later). He presented the typical argument that because atheists do not believe they are being judged, they can rationalize anything. He presented examples of Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin, and Hitler as atheists who rationalized their ethics (as a side note, it is generally accepted that Hitler was not an atheist, and remained a Christian up until his death). But consider this: atheists make up 10% of the U.S. population, but less than 0.1% of the prison population (though there may be confounders, such as higher education). If you define your ethics by your religion, then you say that you only believe what you do so you can get into heaven. If it were proven that God does not exist, does this mean religious people would suddenly believe murder and rape are accepted? Furthermore, I have read the Bible. It says that murder, theft, adultery, and homosexuality are unethical. It also says that eating shrimp (Leviticus 11:9-12) and wearing felt (Leviticus 19:19, Dueteronomy 22:11) are unethical. And rape can be justified, provided they are virgins and prisoners of war (Numbers 31:15-18). Is this really the basis for our ethics?
So if ethics do not come from religion, where do they come from? Simple: evolution. My favorite lecturer commented on the evolutionary argument for ethics, but it was clear that he had a rudimentary knowledge of evolution, at best. He, like many Christians, believes that evolution is a random process (for the last time, evolution is the OPPOSITE of random), and that no ethics can come from a random process. In "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins discusses the proposed evolutionary basis for ethics:
"We now have four good Darwinian reasons for individuals to be altruistic, generous or 'moral' towards each other. First, there is the special case of genetic kinship. Second, there is reciprocation: the repayment of favours given, and the giving of favours in 'anticipation' of payback. Following on from this there is, third, the Darwinian benefit of acquiring a reputation for generosity and kindness. And fourth [. . .] there is the particular additional benefit of conspicuous generosity as a way of buying unfakeably authentic advertising." (Dawkins, 219)
Basically, ethics developed as a way of preserving our genes, or the genes of those related to us. So why, then, do we extend these good deeds to complete strangers? The answer lies in sex. The feelings associated with sex developed as a positive reinforcement for passing on our genes through reproduction. However, when I wear a condom, I am well aware that I am not going to pass my genes on, yet I feel the same positive reinforcement associated with sex. The same goes for ethics. When I help a complete stranger, I know I am not preserving my genes, and yet I feel good inside. When confronting this concept, the lecturer said he "can not believe this could be true." Therefore it's wrong, right? Or is that the argument from personal incredulity?
In conclusion, I do not believe that the existence of God is required for ethics. Many people think they get their ethics from their religion, but I believe their intuition for ethics runs deeper than their religion. It may even be the case that religion derived it's basis for ethics from this humane intuition. It's the chicken and the egg. Regardless, I don't believe that I, as an atheist, am compromised in my morals. I don't need to justify my actions by being judged by a higher power.
For more, information, visit your local library.
Bibliography
1. Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin: New York. 2006
2. Hauser, M. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. Ecco: New York. 2006
3. Humanism- Wikipedia
4. Skeptics Annotated Bible
5. Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God- Wikipedia
4 comments:
I don't necessarily disagree on any single point. Somehow, most atheists are deemed evil because they don't believe in heaven. God forbid (God said in the most theoretical of terms) that we actually make a set of ethics derived from the furthering and betterment of mankind, rather than our own selfish wants, such as a promise of paradise.
And after going back to your blog, I remembered another point about the ethics the Bible gives. Most people argue that things such as not eating shrimp, etc. come from the Old Testament, and therefore should not be taken as seriously.
But the Ten Commandements also come from the Old Testament, so I guess that argument is worthless.
Also, I looked up a few other claims, mostly the ones from Bullshit. They mention that Leviticus or Exodus, I don't remember which, says that it is okay to sell your daughter into slavery. And while I'll admit it doesn't say it is necessarily "morally correct" at any point, it does give a full set of guidelines as to when and how one should sell one's daughter into slavery.
That's my point. The ethics taken from the Bible are cherry-picked. "God meant this, but he didn't mean this." I'm not saying all of it's true or none of it is, just that there is no *objective* manner for interpreting the Bible.
And yes, I know picking Leviticus 19:19 is a straw man. Guilty.
The whole "evolution of ethics" thing was very well-argued. Just to add - child abuse wasn't always considered ethically wrong. If you take any basic sociology class on social problems, it would tell you that a social problem is defined by how many people believe it is wrong and act to end it. Example: childhood obesity. 20 years ago you didn't hear anything about it. Now it's being called an epidemic.
Not that childhood obesity is an ethical question (some would disagree) but it's a similar process in defining ethical social problems.
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