Here is my venison of the moral argument that I put up a week ago.
Argument:
(1) Humans are possessed of moral motions which we find to be real and important. We cannot deny the senes of moral outrage over "evil" or the sense that one "ought" to do that which we find "good."
(2) Such moral motions can be understood as grounded in terms of behavior in our genetic endowment, but no explanation can tell us why we find them moral or how to justify them as "ought's."
(3) Genetic explanations only provide an understanding of behavior, they do not offer the basis of a moral dimension (trying to turn "is" into "ought").
(4) Social contract theory offers only relativism that can be changed or ignored in the shifting sands of social necessity and politics (this is both a practical issue and a matter meta ethical theory).
(5) matters of feeling are merely matters of taste and should be ignored as subjective (the atheist dread of the subjective).
(6) God is possessed of a loving nature that makes the good a matter of rational on the part of the creator and his status as creator means he is more than qualified to be judge to translate te good into moral values.
(7) Therefore, God is the only source of grounding which works as a regulative concept for our moral axioms and at the same time actually explains the deep seated nature of moral motions.
Eric Sotnak makes this comment:
One quick observation: the way your argument is written, it is not logically valid. This can be easily shown by the fact that logically (deductively) valid arguments can't contain information in the conclusion that is not present in the premises (with the exception of arguments that rely on disjunctive addition). Your conclusion contains "God is the only source of grounding which works as a regulative concept for our moral axioms" but that's the first time "regulative concept" appears in the argument.Probably so because i wrote that before I studied modal logic or read much Hartshorne or Plamtimga. this was years ago late 90s. I think it is important to get it rioting. Still I think it only takes tweaking and the argument is basally sound.
New version:
(1) The concept of-God provides a st roger grounding for moral axioms than do any of the naturalistic optimists in which atheists seek to ground their axioms.
(2) Humans are possessed of moral motions which we find to be real and important. We cannot deny the sense of moral outrage over "evil" or the sense that one "ought" to do that which we find "good."
(3) God is the best explanation ror that moral sensibility
(2) Such moral motions can be understood as grounded in terms of behavior in our genetic endowment, but no explanation can tell us why we find them moral or how to justify them as "ought's." God could imbed a moral law withe or without genetics,
(3) Genetic explanations only provide an understanding of behavior, they do not offer the basis of a moral dimension (trying to turn "is" into "ought"), unless God was eh source of the energetic code then it would be the result of actual ought written into the basis of reality.
(7) Therefore, God is the only source of grounding which works as a regulative concept for our moral axioms and at the same time actually explains the deep seated nature of moral motions.
(3) God is the best explanation ror that moral sensibility
(2) Such moral motions can be understood as grounded in terms of behavior in our genetic endowment, but no explanation can tell us why we find them moral or how to justify them as "ought's." God could imbed a moral law withe or without genetics,
(3) Genetic explanations only provide an understanding of behavior, they do not offer the basis of a moral dimension (trying to turn "is" into "ought"), unless God was eh source of the energetic code then it would be the result of actual ought written into the basis of reality.
(4) Social contract theory offers only relativism that can be changed or ignored in the shifting sands of social necessity and politics (this is both a practical issue and a matter meta ethical theory). God as the basis of morality woule p-rovode an all knowjing jiudge whoccancdece the gtruth or morality.
(5) matters of feeling are merely matters of taste and should be ignored as subjective (the atheist dread of the subjective).
(6) God is possessed of a loving nature that makes the good a matter of rational on the part of the creator and his status as creator means he is more than qualified to be judge to translate te good into moral values.
(7) Therefore, God is the only source of grounding which works as a regulative concept for our moral axioms and at the same time actually explains the deep seated nature of moral motions.
(8) Belief in God as a regulative principle fro morality is warranted.
I think that's a bit better, though maybe we can still find things about it to tweak. But meanwhile, I'll bite on the first premise: The concept of-God provides a stronger grounding for moral axioms than do any of the naturalistic options in which atheists seek to ground their axioms. (I assume 'options' is what you meant?)
ReplyDeleteThis premise already might seem to beg the question in favor of the view you are arguing for, depending very much on what, exactly, "stronger" means. Stronger how?
Suppose there are good reasons to doubt that the concept of God is instantiated. Then the ground of any theistic ethics is going to be fairly weak, since I don't think you can provide a good grounding for something in something else that doesn't exist.
Suppose there are good reasons to doubt that the concept of God is instantiated. Then the ground of any theistic ethics is going to be fairly weak, since I don't think you can provide a good grounding for something in something else that doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteIf this was a straight up proof I would say it is begging the question .I pointed this out in the original post where I introduced it.I'm really trying to do a Kant thing and argue for a regulatory primncple as in critique of practical reason
My original task was to make an argument i thought was sound and valid as opposed to WLC's suckie argument.
i doubt that there is a good reason to think there's no God. although it would be just as efffective perhaps to argue we can't understand God if there is one. As a regulatory princple it;s just a reason to believe not proof.
I'm going to come back to this: "The concept of-God provides a stronger grounding for moral axioms..." and ask, this: How, exactly, do you think the concept of God grounds moral axioms? Can we know what those axioms are?
ReplyDeleteIn Christian theology we have moral law on the heart, special revelation (Bibe, Prophets and Jesus is they latter is the ultimatel.
ReplyDeleteJesus no only tells us but models the behavior as well.
God is a stronger grounding because as creator and perfect judge he puts the ought in it in way that is ambitiousness than another source, Not necessarily epistemically although I think that's true too. But also judicially so to speak.
How do we reliably recognize the behavior of Jesus of special revelation as foundations of morality? Which of Jesus' behaviors ground morality, and how do we recognize these as doing so?
ReplyDeleteThe Bible appears to condone slavery. How does this relate to the grounding of morality? It seems to me secular ethics does a better job, here, and that in order to "explain away" the morally repugnant bits of the Bible, one has to borrow from secular morality and interpret the bad stuff away.
For example, I am quite happy to say that I don't think there is the slightest thing morally wrong about homosexuality, and so for me a secular ethic provides a much better grounding for morality that a religious tradition which has only recently been significantly reinterpreted to try to squeeze moral condemnation of "sexual sins" out of the picture. It isn't theological innovation that is to credit for this, but mostly the phenomenon where people discover "hey, so-and-so is gay and would you believe it - is still a wonderful person!"
The real question here is what is is to "ground" morality.
Consider cultural traditions that are generally non-theistic. Chinese moral philosophy is not grounded in theism, yet Chinese history has been neither more nor less devoid of ethics than cultures steeped in theistic beliefs.
w do we reliably recognize the behavior of Jesus of special revelation as foundations of morality? Which of Jesus' behaviors ground morality, and how do we recognize these as doing so?
ReplyDeleteMeta:>>>everything he did was cool and specoial
The Bible appears to condone slavery. How does this relate to the grounding of morality? It seems to me secular ethics does a better job, here, and that in order to "explain away" the morally repugnant bits of the Bible, one has to borrow from secular morality and interpret the bad stuff away.
Meta:>>>I kind of wrote off the OT as cultural background. NT Paul crlassifies s;lave traders among the worst of sinners.
For example, I am quite happy to say that I don't think there is the slightest thing morally wrong about homosexuality, and so for me a secular ethic provides a much better grounding for morality that a religious tradition which has only recently been significantly reinterpreted to try to squeeze moral condemnation of "sexual sins" out of the picture. It isn't theological innovation that is to credit for this, but mostly the phenomenon where people discover "hey, so-and-so is gay and would you believe it - is still a wonderful person!"
Meta:>>>Christian ethics has always put the individual as a end in himself/herself. so the imdividial is the point and value of ethical behavior. they always a;ways lived up to it but it's been there.
The real question here is what is is to "ground" morality.
Consider cultural traditions that are generally non-theistic. Chinese moral philosophy is not grounded in theism, yet Chinese history has been neither more nor less devoid of ethics than cultures steeped in theistic beliefs.
Meta:>>>people have a innate sense of the good and so try to find reasons for it. it's a matter og what your are content to acceptl if you can rationalization having weak gronding fine but most aren't.
9:38 AM
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