DEFENDING PREMISE 2 OF THE METAETHICAL ARGUMENT FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE
William Lane Craig’s metaethical argument for the existence of God can be stated this way:
P1 – If there is no God then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2 – Objective moral values and duties exist.
C – Therefore, God exists.
When I present this argument in my Philosophy of Religion classes P1 is mostly if not entirely accepted. P2, however, is challenged. One reason for this is that I have not been able to present the argument as clearly as I should. In an effort to do this I’m drawing not only on Craig but on Paul Copan’s excellent essay “God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality.” I am very impressed with this essay, and find Copan to be a clear writer. (Copan’s essay is in The Future of Atheism, 141-161)
Do objective moral values exist? Copan argues that they do. He writes: “We are wise to assume that our senses, our powers of reasoning, and our most fundamental moral instincts are not systematically deceiving us.” (142) Note these three: 1) our senses; 2) our powers of reasoning (Plantinga calls this “our belief-forming mechanisms); and 3) our fundamental moral instincts. They are all to be trusted in the absence of a defeater. Copan points out that even the most radical skeptic trusts in his sense experience and in logical reasoning. Thus statements like “I perceive a world external to myself” and “If P, therefore Q. P. Therefore Q.” are “properly basic.” While it’s certainly true that we can misperceive things and make logical mistakes, “such mistakes hardly call into question the general reliability of our sense or reasoning powers; indeed, they presuppose it. The ability to detect error presumes an awareness of truth.” (142)
We assume sense experience to be veridical. We cannot evidentially “prove” it to be so. That would require using our sense experience to “prove” its own veridicality. Likewise, we assume, e.g., modus ponens to be logical. We can’t prove it to be so by using logic, since that would require we trust in logic to “prove” that we can trust in logic. Copan’s claim (and Craig’s) is that we are to view our apprehension of objective moral values in juts this way.
Just as we can be mistaken re. our senses and our reasoning, so also we can by mistaken re. the making of moral judgments. In spite of this Copan says “there still are certain moral truths that we can’t not know unless we suppress our conscience or engage in self-deception. We possess an inbuilt “yuck factor” – basic moral intuitions about the wrongness of torturing babies for fun, of raping, murdering, or abusing children. We can also recognize the virtue of kindness or selflessness.” (142-143) What about people who can’t tell the moral difference between Mother Teresa and Joseph Stalin? “Those not recognizing such truths as properly basic are simply wrong and morally dysfunctional.” (143) It particularly this last statement that causes anger in some students when I make it. I’ll explain why I think this is so and why there’s no real need to be upset about this below.
Are moral values, like sense experience and logical reasoning, properly basic? Is our moral awareness epistemically foundational and “bedrock?” Some atheists think so. Copan cites atheist David O. Brink, who states: “Our commitment to the objectivity of ethics is a deep one.” Atheist Kai Neilsen writes:
It is more reasonable to believe such elemental things [as wife-beating and child abuse] to be evil than to believe any skeptical theory that tells us we cannot know or reasonably believe any of these things to be evil… I firmly believe that this is bedrock and right and that anyone who does not believe it cannot have probed deeply enough into the grounds of his moral beliefs.” (143)
If this is true, then basic moral beliefs are “discovered,” not “invented.” To explain this is to get at students’ complaints about the claim that, just as a person who cannot understand the logic of a disjunctive syllogism is logically dysfunctional, and just as a person who is skeptical that they are now eating breakfast when they are, so also are persons morally dysfunctional who cannot see that torturing and raping little girls for fun is objectively wrong. In my experience the person who protests against this usually does so because they think we have not discovered but invented moral values. The common explanation of the inventing of moral values is that of evolutionary theory.
Here Craig cites atheist Michael Ruse, who states that “morality” has evolved as an aid to survival and allows our species to perpetuate itself? (The Future of Atheism, 89) Craig says:
þ At its worst, this kind of reasoning is an example of the genetic fallacy.
þ At its best it only proves that our subjective perception of objective moral values has evolved.
þ Craig – “If moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual, fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm.
þ Many of us think we do apprehend objective moral values.
þ Even Ruse writes: “The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, 2+2=5.” (Ib., 92)
Further, what if there are objective moral values, and we evolved, without God guiding the process, to apprehend these moral values? Craig rightly says that such an idea is “fantastically improbable.” The odds of blind evolutionary processes evolving creatures that perceive objective moral values is hard to believe. It is more reasonable to believe we are created by God to apprehend moral values. (Ib.)
Daniel Dennett has written that, given that we have evolved, ethical decision-making “holds out scant hope of our ever discovering a formula or an algorithm for doing right.” (Copan, 145)
Students who freak out, when I say that a person who can’t see that torturing and raping little girls for fun are morally wrong, do so, I think, because they view such acts as personally invented subjective preferences, such as “I like Pepsi.” Surely the affinity for Pepsi is a subjective taste and not some objective truth. Philosopher Thomas Reid “claimed he did not know by what reasoning – demonstrative or probable – he could convince the epistemic or moral skeptic.” (Copan, 144) As for me, when I meet a person who thinks torturing and raping are only subjective preferences, I won’t let them near my kids. Copan puts it this way: “Although basic moral principles – to be kind, selfless, and compassionate; to avoid torturing for fun, raping, or taking innocent human life – are accessible and knowable to morally sensitive human beings, some improperly functioning individuals may be self-deceived or hard-hearted sophists.” (144)
Copan concludes: “Thus, we should reasonably believe what is apparent or obvious to us unless there are overriding reasons to dismiss it – a belief that applies to our sense perception, our reasoning faculty, and our moral intuitions/perceptions.” (144) Just as we perceive a world external to us, and intuit certain laws of logic that are properly basic, so also we apprehend certain moral truths to be objective.
William Lane Craig’s metaethical argument for the existence of God can be stated this way:
P1 – If there is no God then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
P2 – Objective moral values and duties exist.
C – Therefore, God exists.
When I present this argument in my Philosophy of Religion classes P1 is mostly if not entirely accepted. P2, however, is challenged. One reason for this is that I have not been able to present the argument as clearly as I should. In an effort to do this I’m drawing not only on Craig but on Paul Copan’s excellent essay “God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality.” I am very impressed with this essay, and find Copan to be a clear writer. (Copan’s essay is in The Future of Atheism, 141-161)
Do objective moral values exist? Copan argues that they do. He writes: “We are wise to assume that our senses, our powers of reasoning, and our most fundamental moral instincts are not systematically deceiving us.” (142) Note these three: 1) our senses; 2) our powers of reasoning (Plantinga calls this “our belief-forming mechanisms); and 3) our fundamental moral instincts. They are all to be trusted in the absence of a defeater. Copan points out that even the most radical skeptic trusts in his sense experience and in logical reasoning. Thus statements like “I perceive a world external to myself” and “If P, therefore Q. P. Therefore Q.” are “properly basic.” While it’s certainly true that we can misperceive things and make logical mistakes, “such mistakes hardly call into question the general reliability of our sense or reasoning powers; indeed, they presuppose it. The ability to detect error presumes an awareness of truth.” (142)
We assume sense experience to be veridical. We cannot evidentially “prove” it to be so. That would require using our sense experience to “prove” its own veridicality. Likewise, we assume, e.g., modus ponens to be logical. We can’t prove it to be so by using logic, since that would require we trust in logic to “prove” that we can trust in logic. Copan’s claim (and Craig’s) is that we are to view our apprehension of objective moral values in juts this way.
Just as we can be mistaken re. our senses and our reasoning, so also we can by mistaken re. the making of moral judgments. In spite of this Copan says “there still are certain moral truths that we can’t not know unless we suppress our conscience or engage in self-deception. We possess an inbuilt “yuck factor” – basic moral intuitions about the wrongness of torturing babies for fun, of raping, murdering, or abusing children. We can also recognize the virtue of kindness or selflessness.” (142-143) What about people who can’t tell the moral difference between Mother Teresa and Joseph Stalin? “Those not recognizing such truths as properly basic are simply wrong and morally dysfunctional.” (143) It particularly this last statement that causes anger in some students when I make it. I’ll explain why I think this is so and why there’s no real need to be upset about this below.
Are moral values, like sense experience and logical reasoning, properly basic? Is our moral awareness epistemically foundational and “bedrock?” Some atheists think so. Copan cites atheist David O. Brink, who states: “Our commitment to the objectivity of ethics is a deep one.” Atheist Kai Neilsen writes:
It is more reasonable to believe such elemental things [as wife-beating and child abuse] to be evil than to believe any skeptical theory that tells us we cannot know or reasonably believe any of these things to be evil… I firmly believe that this is bedrock and right and that anyone who does not believe it cannot have probed deeply enough into the grounds of his moral beliefs.” (143)
If this is true, then basic moral beliefs are “discovered,” not “invented.” To explain this is to get at students’ complaints about the claim that, just as a person who cannot understand the logic of a disjunctive syllogism is logically dysfunctional, and just as a person who is skeptical that they are now eating breakfast when they are, so also are persons morally dysfunctional who cannot see that torturing and raping little girls for fun is objectively wrong. In my experience the person who protests against this usually does so because they think we have not discovered but invented moral values. The common explanation of the inventing of moral values is that of evolutionary theory.
Here Craig cites atheist Michael Ruse, who states that “morality” has evolved as an aid to survival and allows our species to perpetuate itself? (The Future of Atheism, 89) Craig says:
þ At its worst, this kind of reasoning is an example of the genetic fallacy.
þ At its best it only proves that our subjective perception of objective moral values has evolved.
þ Craig – “If moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual, fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible perception of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm.
þ Many of us think we do apprehend objective moral values.
þ Even Ruse writes: “The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, 2+2=5.” (Ib., 92)
Further, what if there are objective moral values, and we evolved, without God guiding the process, to apprehend these moral values? Craig rightly says that such an idea is “fantastically improbable.” The odds of blind evolutionary processes evolving creatures that perceive objective moral values is hard to believe. It is more reasonable to believe we are created by God to apprehend moral values. (Ib.)
Daniel Dennett has written that, given that we have evolved, ethical decision-making “holds out scant hope of our ever discovering a formula or an algorithm for doing right.” (Copan, 145)
Students who freak out, when I say that a person who can’t see that torturing and raping little girls for fun are morally wrong, do so, I think, because they view such acts as personally invented subjective preferences, such as “I like Pepsi.” Surely the affinity for Pepsi is a subjective taste and not some objective truth. Philosopher Thomas Reid “claimed he did not know by what reasoning – demonstrative or probable – he could convince the epistemic or moral skeptic.” (Copan, 144) As for me, when I meet a person who thinks torturing and raping are only subjective preferences, I won’t let them near my kids. Copan puts it this way: “Although basic moral principles – to be kind, selfless, and compassionate; to avoid torturing for fun, raping, or taking innocent human life – are accessible and knowable to morally sensitive human beings, some improperly functioning individuals may be self-deceived or hard-hearted sophists.” (144)
Copan concludes: “Thus, we should reasonably believe what is apparent or obvious to us unless there are overriding reasons to dismiss it – a belief that applies to our sense perception, our reasoning faculty, and our moral intuitions/perceptions.” (144) Just as we perceive a world external to us, and intuit certain laws of logic that are properly basic, so also we apprehend certain moral truths to be objective.
