There is no such thing as objective morality. Moral standards vary in space and time.

Beliefs about Jupiter vary in space and time. Should we conclude from this that there are no objective truths about Jupiter?

Raevmo Says: There is no such thing as objective morality. Moral standards vary in space and time. What evidence or logic dictates that there exists a unique objective set of rules that determine what's moral and what's not?

Thanks, Raevmo. Your post is clear, to the point, and helpful.

My objective in this thread hasn't been to prove that there is an objective morality that applies to humans, much less prove what its content is. But I have been saying that atheism has no basis for supporting such an idea and that it has no inherent commitment to any morality. Consequently, it can have no essential or necessary moral constraint against any particular action. Help the poor or kill millions, either is consistent with atheism.

Your post highlights the fact that Darwinian processes do not produce an objective morality, as I was pointing out to Robin Levett. If they had, your own statement would be false, but in reality such processes can never accomplish that. Hence the conclusions of Dennett, Ruse, and Wilson, for example.

In response to your own thoughts, while moral standards have varied to some degree, that would not answer the question of whether there exists an objective standard. People disagree about many matters of fact.

What is more interesting is the fact that humans for the most part can't seem to get away from the idea that there is an objective standard and that some moral standards are closer to the truth than others.

Consider your own earlier statement:

Raevmo: You can't win this argument. There are just too many bad believers.

Now, if there is no objective standard, this claim turns to mush. It becomes something like "You can't win this argument. There are just too many believers doing things I don't like (or wouldn't choose, etc.)." But then, who are you and what is your subjective opinion, if it is just one subjective viewpoint vs. others?

Or is it majority rule? If the majority were to disagree with your standards on some specific matter, would that make them right and you wrong about that matter? Would you be willing to endorse that position? Or would you prefer to hold that the majority can be wrong about a moral question?

Or consider this value judgment:

Raevmo: That hateful and mysoginistic bunch of bronze age rules is hardly an admirable standard to live by.

As soon as one begins to argue that some standard is in truth "hardly an admirable standard", one is implicitly acknowledging that some standards are truly and justifiably more admirable than others. This too turns to mush if there is no objective moral standard by which to assess candidate standards.

It is nonsense to say only "A is closer than B". Closer to what? It is only meaningful if there exists something, e.g. C, that A comes closer to than B.

So, one of the first indications that there may in fact exist an objective moral standard is the pervasive sense that humans have that this is true. Stunney takes up this theme above. Even atheists have a hard time consistently escaping that perspective, especially when they want to pass judgment and are speaking as though it is more than just their subjective preference.

When even atheists cannot consistently live as though there is no objective morality, perhaps there is reason enough to consider the possibility that it does exist.

For more on this topic, I'd suggest the works of a former atheist — C.S. Lewis. The first part of his three part Mere Christianity deals with this very topic. He also takes it up in his The Abolition of Man.

It is a telling fact that every behavior prohibited by the Ten Commandments is a behavior that people have continued to engage in over vast periods of time. None of those behaviors have been weeded out by selection.

Of course they haven't. A genetic tendency towards behavior that leads to secretly knocking up your neighbor's wife would hardly be selected against, now would it?

Please don't tell me you consider the TC objective moral standards. That hateful and mysoginistic bunch of bronze age rules is hardly an admirable standard to live by.

There is no such thing as objective morality. Moral standards vary in space and time. What evidence or logic dictates that there exists a unique objective set of rules that determine what's moral and what's not?

The claim to "objective morality" is precisely the claim that, aside from human positions that favor one view or another for this purpose or that, there is an objectively correct answer to the question of how people ought to behave. If that is so, it is objective in exactly the same sense that there is an objective answer to which mountain on Earth is the tallest, though people may disagree.

Well said. I find that a lot of atheists confuse the idea that morality is objective with the idea that theists are committed to the belief that theists have privileged or even infallible knowledge of what objective morality enjoins in every situation. But I've never been able to fathom why so many 'brights' make this confusion. It is like confusing the idea that the physical world is objective with the idea that physicists are committed to the belief that physicists have privileged or even infallible knowledge of the physical world. The silliness of such a confusion is revealed by all the disagreements among physicists about how to interpret quantum mechanics and about to reconcile it with the proper theory of gravitation.

Naturalists believe that Jupiter exists objectively and that there are objective facts about mass, chemical composition, orbit, etc. There may be some people who think Jupiter has bad case of acne, or is streaked with paint, or is smaller than the Earth because when they looked at it through a telescope once, it looked smaller. No matter, beliefs about Jupiter may vary somewhat, but the naturalist will say, regardless of that, there are objective facts about Jupiter. And they make their case that those are objective facts because typical sensory experiences relating to Jupiter are such-and-such.

Most people experience that they are strongly obligated by moral conscience, and that conscience dictates that burning babies for fun is absolutely prohibited. This includes unhappy parents who may, in extreme circumstances, actually feel a strong inclination to throw the screaming baby of theirs in a furnace, and even imagine momentarily that they'd take pleasure in doing that. Still, overriding such feelings is their experience of an absolute objective prohibition against doing so. And so they don't do it (hopefully). And most would not hand over their infant children for Satanic sacrifice; not for 10 million bucks. Not for anything. Even if guaranteed against criminal charges. And it's not just their own babies they feel this about. They would feel it about all babies, even the babies of people they strongly dislike.

But, by parity of reasoning with the Jupiter case, this should yield a justified belief that the immorality of baby-burning for fun is an objective moral fact, just as that case yields an objective sensory fact. Both are rock solidly grounded in very common and typical, stable, and predictable experiential data—the deliverances of conscience and moral sensibility. In fact, there are very possibly more people who harbor beliefs about Jupiter—beliefs about how far it is from Earth, say—which are non-standard relative to the science about Jupiter, than there are people who hold non-standard views about the proposition that it's morally wrong to burn babies for fun.

So the Argument from Disagreement is not all that cogent, and the naturalist attempt to deny the objectivity of morality undercuts not only morality, but naturalism itself, since naturalism rests upon very common, predictable experiential data. This type of moral intuition goes way beyond inherent purposes or social utility. Neither of those properly accounts for our moral experience—the experience, as it were of Good and Evil. This experience cannot be plausibly explained by evolutionary naturalism. It is in my view decisive objection to that theory as a complete worldview, even if it admits of no strict demonstration. In that regard it's like a toothache"”–you know it's there but you can't absolutely demonstrate it's there to anyone else. You just have to wait until they get a toothache of their own. (One can substitute orgasms for toothaches if you find the latter too depressing an example.)

Robin Levett: I am assuming that you now propose to drop your claim earlier in the thread that they were fighting "for atheism"

Let's start here by pointing out that the extended quotation that follows in your post is not from me. You have me and my position confused with someone else. So I'm not "dropping" another person's claim — I will merely retain the position I've been holding.

I would consider it fair to say that some portion of what was done by communist states has been "for" the atheistic ideology of communism, but I have consistently distinguished the joining of atheism to such an ideology from saying "for atheism". Please see my own posts on this in this thread.

Robin Levett: What can be said to be an "objectively correct view of morality" must depend on the purpose you are considering. Darwin's view was that the golden rule resulted from evolution favouring populations where it was accepted …; in that sense, the golden rule is objectively "good"; but not necessarily normatively - prescriptively - good.

By definition, all longstanding behaviors and longstanding positions regarding moral questions have survived and thereby they can all lay claim to passing the test of selection. The golden rule has no uniqueness by that standard, so no unique claim to superiority in Darwinistic terms.

The more serious issue is that your analysis changed the meaning of key terms, specifically voiding the meaning of "objective" by substituting a subjective choice of purpose.

The claim to "objective morality" is precisely the claim that, aside from human positions that favor one view or another for this purpose or that, there is an objectively correct answer to the question of how people ought to behave. If that is so, it is objective in exactly the same sense that there is an objective answer to which mountain on Earth is the tallest, though people may disagree. It becomes a fact about reality, not just another subjective viewpoint among many, distinguished by various purposes for which one might evaluate various moralities.

Darwinism clearly cannot provide an objective answer regarding morality. Quite to the contrary, the whole "strategy" (if we can borrow that term) of evolution is basically to always keeping trying many, many different ways, and let selection weed out whatever it will. There is no promise even that what was weeded out in the past will be weeded out in the future, or that what passed in the past would not be weeded out in the future. Any and every choice that makes the cut, makes the cut.

It is a telling fact that every behavior prohibited by the Ten Commandments is a behavior that people have continued to engage in over vast periods of time. None of those behaviors have been weeded out by selection.

Consequently, Darwinism is not in a position to rule against any of them. Even if any had disappeared, Darwinism could not rule against renewed attempts to bring them back. From Darwinism's point of view, any option might "work" in a future landscape. As with stocks and mutual funds, past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

In short, Darwinian processes are fundamentally unsuited to the matter at hand.

Robin Levett: The idea that there is any "objectively correct view of morality" independent of the purpose you are considering is one that is as problematic for the religious as for the atheistic. The old question of whether God's commandments are good because he is good (requiring a source of morality independent of God), or because he is God (making obedience essentially the only good) is not one that has been satisfactorily resolved.

In passing I will note that this line of argument implicitly concedes my point against an evolutionary route to an objective answer. By claiming this is also problematic for the theistic position, it concedes the problematic nature for the atheistic position.

I disagree that this is necessarily problematic for a theistic position. As William Lane Craig has pointed out, this is a false dilemma. For more on this question, I would suggest seeking out his material on this topic.

Briefly, I would point out that God's nature is not arbitrary. Commandments that proceed from that nature are not arbitrary. It is not problematic that we should be called to live consistently with the non-arbitrary nature of God or with our own intended nature. This does not require a standard outside of God, since it is His own nature that anchors the non-arbitrary nature of the commands and of His intentions for humanity.

Robin Levett: You have a problem here, apart from the one of misrepresenting (inadvertently, because of your preconceptions) my position.

If I've misrepresented you, I'm truly sorry. It was unintentional and I welcome clarification.

Robin Levett: That problem is that atheism is not, as I said before, a comprehensive moral or political position. That does not mean, as you imply above, that atheism is a comprehensive philosophical position with no commitment to acting morally.

First, I do not claim that atheism is a comprehensive philosophical position. In particular, as I've said, it doesn't address morality. Why do you suggest that I imply it is a comprehensive philosophical position?

If it is incorrect "that atheism is a comprehensive philosophical position with no commitment to acting morally", then I would infer from that that you claim either

1) atheism is not a comprehensive philosophical position, or else
2) "atheism is a comprehensive philosophical position", but it is incorrect to say it has "no commitment to acting morally".

Robin Levett: Atheism is a characteristic of many diverse philosophical positions, just as theism is a characteristic of many diverse philosophical positions; in both cases, the philosophical position can be a force for good or for ill independently of whether it is theistic or atheistic.

"Atheism is a characteristic of many diverse philosophical positions" seems to imply #1 above, which is what I would have expected. I fail to see how this disagrees with what I have been saying. (Please be sure to check my own posts.)

I have claimed that atheism has no inherent commitment to any morality. Consequently, it provides no inherent or necessary moral constraint against any choice. In other words, an atheist could choose to help the poor or to execute millions of people. How does this differ from what you have just said?

With regard to theistic positions, however, I think your portrayal has not captured my own position. I am pointing out that discipleship (e.g. to Jesus) does create a basis where it makes sense to ask whether actions are consistent or inconsistent with what it means to be a follower of Jesus (or of some religious tradition). But there is nothing inherently inconsistent between professing atheism and killing millions.

As far as I can see, your points have not addressed my actual claims.

What can be said to be an "objectively correct view of morality" must depend on the purpose you are considering. Darwin's view was that the golden rule resulted from evolution favouring populations where it was accepted (one reason why Pez was so utterly wrong in his argument on eugenics - but's that's a thread that died when I had surgery); in that sense, the golden rule is objectively "good"; but not necessarily normatively - prescriptively - good.

Some philosophically sophisticated materialists adopt moral anti-realism. They bite the bullet, and hold that our different attitudes towards rapists compared with tsunamis don't involve any objective normative properties, since there are no such properties. They readily admit that if materialism is true, then our deepest moral convictions are not true, but are (roughly) adaptive illusions; that all there is to moral obligation and value is the functioning of rational instincts and desires. This type of position is called an 'error theory'. The basic problem with such a position is that it falls foul of naturalism's most basic starting point—human experience.

Naturalism privileges science as a form of knowledge because it relies on the most immediate data yielded by our consciousness of the world. In other words, naturalism rests its case on the sheer force and given-ness of sensory experience. But that force and given-ness is at least, if not more, present in the case of people's consciousness with respect to major moral duties and moral values. One is more ready to attribute an experience of green to optical illusion or bodily malfunction (such as color-blindness) than to give up as 'illusory' the idea that one must not kill kids or refuse water to a man dying of thirst in the desert. One is more ready, in a laboratory, to attribute the position of the dial to a random electrical disturbance than one is to attribute the notion that we should not rape our grandmothers to an illusion, or a mere lack of desire to do so. Naturalism, in order to dismiss morality as a projection or illusion with no real objective claim upon us, ends up having to deny the validity of the only thing that would even render itself (naturalism)
plausible in the first place—the deliverances and
character of the subjective conscious experiences of human beings.

The first problem with evolutionary theories of morality is that instincts, dispositions, and desires vary tremendously among humans—-some are instinctively aggressive, others instinctively deferential and compliant, some are extremely egoistic and cruel, others loving and altruistic. They vary from ethnic cleansing to caring for lepers. The second problem is that if reason (the 'rational' part of 'rational instincts') is only instrumental—that is, if reason only enters the picture as the process by which agents deliberate about and choose between various possible means to their various ends, then the naturalist is left having to face the fact that some people's ends are truly horrifying from a moral point of view. But in that case, one can't reduce morality to the ends people are disposed to pursue.

If, on the other hand, reason enters into the picture by actually adjudicating which ends ought to be pursued and which ought not to be, then one is back in a vicious circle. One has smuggled moral reason and moral judgement in to sort out the varying ends between which the naturalist, contemplating a factual description of the great variety of people's dispositions and desires, must choose in order to give any remotely plausible account of the content of morality. The biological perspective is simply that people have different urges to do different things. But biology provides no criteria for deciding why one set of urges should be labelled more 'moral' than another. We would be left describing the atrocities of the Pol Pot regime as yet another 'interesting' manifestation of humankind's factual dispositions. Thus, the attempt to derive morality from evolution is logically flawed. Evolution is simply a descriptive theory. Morality is a prescriptive theory—it PREscribes certain kinds of conduct for humans, and PROscribes others. But if evolutionary biology is to explain morality, it must show the link between morality and adaptive behavior. The trouble with this is that a very large range of human behavior is agreed to be immoral, while evolution has to hold that nearly all behavior derives from the adaptive features of our genetic makeup. From this it would follow that much, perhaps even all, immoral behavior is adaptive. But then adaptiveness cannot be that in terms of which moral (as against immoral) behavior is defined, or that from which specifically moral (as against immoral) behavior springs.

The idea that there is any "objectively correct view of morality" independent of the purpose you are considering is one that is as problematic for the religious as for the atheistic. The old question of whether God's commandments are good because he is good (requiring a source of morality independent of God), or because he is God (making obedience essentially the only good) is not one that has been satisfactorily resolved.

Why does God being good require a source of morality independent of God? I'm afraid I've never found the Euthyphro Dilemma particularly cogent. Unlike mere material or biological objects, reason and morality of necessity imply persons. They don't exist as independent abstract entities; they supervene on personhood. If no persons exist, then no rationality and no moral value exist either.

Kant's moral philosophy takes moral value as residing in the fact that rational beings or persons are ends in themselves. So it strikes me that it's at least reasonable to believe that an ontologically and explanatorily ultimate reality which is personal and necessarily endowed with supreme rationality and moral value or goodness—–recall Kant's doctrine that the only thing which is unqualifiedly good is a good will—-is a more probable hypothesis explaining morality than any alternative which posits that the ontologically and explanatorily ultimate reality is completely devoid of rationality or value.

What are we to say then about theism's relation to ethics? Well, the first thing is that theism is a philosophical hypothesis that centers on the concept of a transcendent creator in whom reason and goodness are perfectly and eternally realized. This hypothesis is logically independent of the claims made by any specific religion as to whether this creator's will is revealed through a particular prophet or text.
Just as such, then, theism implies no more than that we should be guided in our ethical lives by the norms of right reason. (Even within some specific religious traditions, this idea is explicitly adopted, as for example in Aquinas' natural law ethics.)

Theism per se no more would predict that moral norms will be arbitrary than that rational norms be arbitrary, since theism's God is perfectly rational and perfectly moral. In fact, atheists pay their dues to theism every time they invoke, as they nearly all do in practice, universal, objective rational and moral norms. Theism explains why this should be so. Evolutionary naturalism can't do so persuasively, since of course it prescribes no norms nor positive evaluations whatsoever, and can't explain the fact that those norms transcend the requirements of biological adaptation.

The idea of an objectively correct view of morality is undercut by the declaration that every sort of behavior and every sort of morality is the result of an evolutionary heritage. In this view, there is no objectively "right" answer against which the others are more or less "wrong". This is clearly consistent with your first point, that atheism has no comprehensive moral position.

What can be said to be an "objectively correct view of morality" must depend on the purpose you are considering. Darwin's view was that the golden rule resulted from evolution favouring populations where it was accepted (one reason why Pez was so utterly wrong in his argument on eugenics - but's that's a thread that died when I had surgery); in that sense, the golden rule is objectively "good"; but not necessarily normatively - prescriptively - good.

The idea that there is any "objectively correct view of morality" independent of the purpose you are considering is one that is as problematic for the religious as for the atheistic. The old question of whether God's commandments are good because he is good (requiring a source of morality independent of God), or because he is God (making obedience essentially the only good) is not one that has been satisfactorily resolved. Most fundamentalists will take the latter position - because otherwise all those genocides in the Old Testament become a little difficult to defend consistently with condemning, say, the Holocaust; but that makes their morality clearly relative.

You also said (in the subsequent post):

As Robin Levett correctly pointed out (see my preceding post), atheism has no internal commitment to any moral position. This also means it has no inherent internal moral constraint. The only requirements are the pragmatic ones recognized by cynical leaders, i.e. what will work to achieve my goal?

You have a problem here, apart from the one of misrepresenting (inadvertently, because of your preconceptions) my position.

That problem is that atheism is not, as I said before, a comprehensive moral or political position. That does not mean, as you imply above, that atheism is a comprehensive philosophical position with no commitment to acting morally. Atheism is a characteristic of many diverse philosophical positions, just as theism is a characteristic of many diverse philosophical positions; in both cases, the philosophical position can be a force for good or for ill independently of whether it is theistic or atheistic.

My fear of theism is that there are many theists who will, in all seriousness, tell you that the only reason they refrain from acting immorally - say by killing me - is that their god has commanded them not to. The implication of that is that they will act immorally - take the same example - if they are convinced that their god has commanded it. Andrea Yates is a notorious example of someone who heard "the voice of god" and killed as it commanded.

In reply to my comment:

I am, confused about one point raised in this discussion. If both the Soviets and the Nazis were fighting explicitly in the name of atheism, why were they fighting one another?

You now say:

For power and control, of course "” the same reasons atheists within a regime will maneuver against each other. (I don't really believe you find this as mysterious as you pretended.)

I entirely agree that that was the reason; but the atheism of the leaders (questionable in at least one case) is then irrelevant to the issue; what matters is two people fighting for power.

I am assuming that you now propose to drop your claim earlier in the thread that they were fighting "for atheism":

This is terribly disingenuous. Sure, fighting for atheism is probably not terribly compelling. But it has been inextricably tied to totalitarian regimes and dismal philosophies. The soldiers of its countries have indeed been compelled to go to war for it. It was not necessarily the ONLY reason they were told to go to war - to promote atheism - but it was part of a package. People are generally tricked into going to war for the nefarious purposes of the elite, and religion has been used that way, too. And those wars, too, are not usually all about religion, but only have religion as a a side issue.

I condemn Stalin not for his atheism - that position I share - but for its treatment of the people of Soviet Russia while and when he obtained pwer over them; and for his co-operation with Hitler which led to the conflagration that was the Second World War (among other things).

The linkage between the atheism and those actions is far from inextricable; as you point out above, the war was fought not in the name of atheism but in the name of personal power. That Stalin professed atheism whilst using "Mother Russia" ideology including a very generous helping of Russian Orthodox Christianity to motivate his largely Russian Orthodox soldiers is as relevant as the fact that Hitler professed a weird amalgam of Christianity with Norse myth while using his largely Christian people to fight Stalin and murder Jews; namely not at all.

advances in determining how memories are stored in the brain.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Tell me Keiths — if memory was actually stored in the brain, don't you think after spending hundreds of billions of dollars on brain science and 100 + years of dissecting monkeys, EEGs, neuron research, CAT and fMRI research, we would have something other than promising "advances in determining how memories are stored in the brain"

The utter failure of materialistic neuroscience to show where memories are stored in the brain, and how, leads one to begin to speculate that the entire enterprise is based on faulty assumptions. Doesn't that failure begin to shake your faith in reductionist accounts of consciousness and memory?

Raevmo Says: eric,

you have presented no evidence whatsoever that it was his atheism that caused Stalin to be a bad guy. …

I think you somewhat misunderstand my point. I wasn't claiming "that it was his atheism that caused Stalin to be a bad guy".

The claim is that as an atheistic dictator implementing an atheistic ideology over a largely theistic population,

1) he had certain objectives he wanted to obtain,

2) the disparity between the ideology and the population pushes toward certain categories of options (e.g. corrupting and cynically manipulating religion, and/or the "strong hand" options — whatever seems most effective), and

3) his atheism in no way provides any necessary constraint against choosing the brutal options when that seems best in pursuit of the ultimate goals. (See also my preceding reply to Robin Levett.)

If you think that analysis breaks down, I would welcome your thoughts on where. But I haven't said "that it was his atheism that caused Stalin to be a bad guy".

The key point that comes closest to that is the observation that there is no inconsistency between his atheism and killing multiplied millions of citizens, when that serves the greater goal of the atheistic ideology. Even if it is just for the sake of his own power, there is no inherent inconsistency between mass killing and atheism.

Hence, the atheism provides no constraint against such decisions. It is the ruthless pragmatism of implementing his rule that points him toward such decisions.

Raevmo: You can't win this argument. There are just too many bad believers.

Again, I think you mistake my position. How many bad believers are there? All of them (along with all of the non-believers). There isn't any one of us on Earth who is not in need of mercy.

The difference for the sake of this discussion is simply this. If a disciple (i.e. student, apprentice) of Jesus (or of some other teacher or religion, etc.) engages in some activity, one can legitimately ask whether they are acting consistently or inconsistently with their professed path. A person could not do as Stalin did and be consistent with following Jesus, whereas for an atheist there is no necessary inconsistency with their atheism.