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Atheism, Christianity, epistemology, Godless in Dixie, meta-ethics., morality, relativism, Shaefer-Landau
I generally spend more time reading and commenting on atheist blogs than I do posting my own blogs. Since a lack of a satisfactory morality is, to my mind, a real problem for the atheistic belief system, I frequently ask atheists what they make of morality.
On one atheist’s blog, the author was comparing being Christian to be being like John Nash as portrayed in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Just like John Nash believed in people who weren’t real, he argued that Christians believed in an unreal God. He also compared Christianity to Buzz Light Year’s belief that he was really on a mission from mission control. The author thought he could relate to Buzz Lightyear because, when he was a Christian, he thought he was on a mission from mission control and had to face the hard realization he really was not. The blogger was hoping that he could disabuse Christians of their “make believe” ideas.
As it turns out this blogger replaced the idea of mission control, with the idea that when it comes to morality we create our own meaning. I found this interesting. He was trying to help people stop believing “make believe” but he thinks he “creates” his own meaning when it comes to morality, and presumably lives his life based on these creations. It became clear to me that this author and perhaps a few people who follow his blog did not see the irony. So I explained the difference between moral realism and relativism. He clearly indicated he is a subjectivist. That is, he is some who thinks right and wrong is dependent on our own view of what is right or wrong. In other words morality is a creation of our mind – just like those imaginary people John Nash believed in.
I am aware meta-ethical views and their implications are really not all that well known outside of philosophers interested in the field. I did a brief introductory blog on it here https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/20/what-do-you-mean-im-wrong/ So I am not trying to be critical of the blogger, or any of the other commentators, defending him. They were all pretty intelligent and reasonable people. I think this is an important illustration of why gaining an understanding of these issues is critical if you want to discuss the reasonableness of believing in Christianity. Here the blogger assumed we shouldn’t live our lives based on make believe. Yet this person admitted he lives by a morality he made up.
Russ Shaefer-Landau said it best:
“Nihilists believe that there are no moral truths. Subjectivists believe that moral truth is created by each individual. Relativists believe that moral truth is a social construct. These three theories share the view that, in ethics, we make it all up. ” Page 11 Whatever Happened to Good and Evil.
But don’t take his, or my word for it, think it through yourself. If your morality is based on creating your own meaning you are indeed “making it up.” Now there are several reasons people might not believe in God. But if you reject belief in God because you fear God might be “made up”, it seems you would be contradicting this principle, to then accept some sort of relativist theory of morality. Because there you know you are living your life based on make believe.
In the end if a rational person really wants to keep close contact with reality then rejecting a view that might be made up for one that you know is made up seems a poor approach.
True and Reasonable 
How do you square moral realism with the traditional concept of God (I’m assuming you subscribe to both those ideas, correct me if I’m wrong)? I’m always interested to see how people try to do that. It seems to me that you must give up some qualities of God or some degree of realism for moral entities, i.e. they must become properties or succumb to some other sort of dependency.
Hi Keithnoback
Thanks for commenting on my blog. I don’t mean to say the Christian worldview doesn’t have problems of its own to contend with. It does, and things don’t always happen exactly like i would think they “should” but I am happy to give you my take.
Yes I do believe in moral realism and what I think is the traditional concept of God.
I am not quite sure why you are saying these are incompatible. I’m aware of a few different general approaches such as:
The problem of evil ie, How can the Christian God exist if there is evil in the world?
Another question has to do with the “Divine Command” theory of morality. (which I tend not to believe in)
Another problem can arise from how can we have free will if the Christian God exists, and with no free will how can our actions be blameworthy?
Or are you saying how can the Christian God be good when the bible says God did __________ [fill in bible verse here]__________.
So really I admit there are lots of thorny issues to deal with as a Christian. But I am not sure which one you are raising. And I suspect it might be that you are raising an issue, I haven’t mentioned. Can you tell me why you think the traditional Christian God is incompatible with moral realism?
It relates to divine command theory, or rather why people are attracted to that idea. If good is a real thing, for example, if it has an independent existence and is not simply a description of preferable relationships as in “it is good to relieve the pain of another”, then isn’t it an impediment to God’s autonomy as well as God’s completeness? If the proper way to say things is “to relieve the pain of another is right” (it fulfills a requirement of the good), then it would seem that there’s an obligation in it for God as well. He is constrained by it, not in action of course, but by possibility. He can do what he wants, but it is no longer possible that what he does is necessarily good, unless we see his will as limited. I know that people default to utilitarianism to solve the problem – saying that good is a sum – but I don’t think the move works. The intent is to say that God is constrained by his will alone, which is to do good, and so his actions are directed toward maximizing the quantity of good in the end. But then the fix is in, isn’t it? We don’t know what the ultimate good-making activities might be and it would not matter if we did. God will do what is best, he works in mysterious ways and that’s all for ethics.
Very well put. I think you might be right to some extent. I think God could choose to do wrong – he has a free will but he wouldn’t do wrong. So I don’t agree with people who say God never “could” do wrong. Its just that he wouldn’t.
Just like i don’t think my mother would ever try to murder me for money. Its not that she couldn’t. There is no such limit on her autonomy. Its just that she wouldn’t.
Whether that is consistent with some understandings of God as being “necessarily” good, I don’t think it is.
One thing I don’t really have a view on is whether God could have made the world such that different things were good. Its sort of a hybrid of command theory. Could God have made a world where lying stealing and cheating were good? I tend not to think so, but I am not sure I entirely rule it out. That, I think, is different than saying God can change the rules in this world as divine command theory seems to indicate.
The thing is I can only imagine a God that is bound by the rules of logic. If someone says God is not even bound by the rules of logic then the concept becomes indiscernible. Not to say that God can’t exist that way. I find lots of paradoxes of the infinite indiscernible. Yet I think numbers go on infinitely.
I think the answer depends on what you think the purpose of morality is. If the purpose of morality is to allow humans to live together with less conflict, then we can ask what rules of behavior would lead to that outcome. Thus, even though these rules are “made up,” they are still rational. And furthermore, we would be rational to obey them, since obeying them is in our own interest.
If, on the other hand, you think morality is a set of rules that have no rational basis, then I can see why you might prefer them to come from (a possibly non-existent) God rather than just making them up yourself.
But I would ask, why do think moral rules have no rational basis?
By the way, I only came across your blog recently but I have been enjoying your posts. I like to engage with thoughtful theists, so I linked to your blog from mine.
Robert Oerter
Thank you for the kind words. I also like to talk with people of all different views. So I am glad you like my blog and chose to comment here. I will check out your blog when I get a chance.
You make an interesting comment when you ask what is the purpose of morality. I think morality is *the* ultimate purpose. At base something is moral if you “should” do it. You don’t need to do moral thing for any other purpose but just because it is the right thing to do.
The idea of moral realism is that there really are things we should do and and should not do. (regardless of what people believe about whether its right or wrong) Relativism says if you (or a group) decide something is right then its right.
Nihilists say nothing is really right or wrong in a moral sense. But of course we do things to accomplish certain objectives for a variety of reasons.
Now when you say:
“If the purpose of morality is to allow humans to live together with less conflict, then we can ask what rules of behavior would lead to that outcome. Thus, even though these rules are “made up,” they are still rational.”
It is interesting. It is not clear if you are a moral relativist or realist or even a nihilist.
If you are realist you might think it is really good that we “live together with less conflict” even if you (or someone group) thinks conflicts are warranted.
If you are a nihilist you do not really think it is morally good “to live with less conflict” but perhaps you don’t want conflicts because emotionally they upset you. Or you might think conflict might lead to your death and you want to avoid that because you enjoy eating good food and want to eat good food longer. But in none of this do you think there is any really morally right or wrong thing to do.
if you are a relativist, you might think “to live with less conflict” really is good but its good because you (or some group) think its good. If you and everyone else decided living with less conflict was no longer good then it would not longer be good. You see the moral relativist thinks the morality of involved with living with more or less conflict is entirely dependent on our beliefs about it.
“And furthermore, we would be rational to obey them, since obeying them is in our own interest.”
You seem to equate following your own “self interest” with with rationality. I think the term “rationality” does have that connotation at times. Sort of like the term “rational self interest.” But in my use of the term “rationality” I do not mean to link rationality with self interest at all. I link it with a goal. And I agree we should think of rationality in terms or rational toward a goal. But the goal might not be self interest.
The goal I think we should rationally pursue is to do good to the extent that there is a “real” morality. That is if moral realism happens to be true we should try to find out what it is and follow that. That may involve pursuing self interest but it also might mean self sacrifice.
Thank you for your comment. Meta-ethics is full of ambiguous terminology and I hope I sort of clarified what i am getting at. But if not or you have other questions/comments please share. A big reason for this blog is to find out what other people think on these issues.
“Now there are several reasons people might not believe in God. But if you reject belief in God because you fear God might be “made up”, it seems you would be contradicting this principle, to then accept some sort of relativist theory of morality.”
I will address your point in part. You said “because you fear god might be “made up.”” It is not that I fear that gods might be made up, it is simply that there is no good evidence which points to the existence of any gods. IOW, I am unable to discern this world from a world in which no gods existed.
As I mentioned previously, it is unlikely that there are gods simply because there is no good evidence that there are gods. (not certain, just unlikely)
Adding an unlikely proposition, “gods exist,” to a system of morality, does not transform said code into objective morality unless:
1: The unlikely proposition is true.
2: We can determine which god/s exist, and what he/she/it/they is/are like.
3: We can determine what this/these god/s say about morality.
Most religions have attempted to answer these 3 questions, it turns out that they all come up with different answers.
Wanted to make a clarification here.
I do believe that Christians and other believers do have some evidence which supports their belief. IOW, I am NOT claiming that the theist is irrational or has no basis for their belief.
By lack of good evidence, I mean that, one, it is not patently obvious that there is a supernatural aspect to this world, and two, that there is no good convincing empirical evidence that any god/s exist, much less which one in particular exists; or, stated another way, there is no phenomenon in this world which requires a supernatural explanation; sure we don’t have answers to everything, but all of the previous mysteries which, in the past, we thought had supernatural explanations, were found to have physical explanations, every single time; and the converse has NEVER been the case.
David W
Thanks for commenting here. I enjoy talking with you on other blogs and I am glad you chose to comment here as well.
I was actually on vacation last week so I hope to have more time this week. My response to your comment is long enough that I am going to actually put it in another blog soon.
Thanks for asking about my views.
Heya t&r,
Sounds good, I will plan on reading it.
I recently listened to most of Fincke’s audio interviews, from his camelswithhammers blog over at patheos; I suspect you are familiar with him, but in the event that you are not, he is a Phil professor, he is atheist, he has a Phd in philosophy, and his primary interest seems to be morality.
I seem to remember reading that you have an undergrad in philosophy, as do I, so really, we are on the outskirts of most debates, as our philosophical prowess, while far better than the average persons, still pales in comparison to that of professional philosophers.
Fincke gives a very detailed account of his moral philosophy.
A former professor of mine also has a blog dedicated to atheistic concerns, provingthenegative.com. on the left side you will see lists of essays, there is a ‘morality and atheism’ section that I thought you might be interested in.
Fincke mentioned something like this in one of his interviews: people really are trying to do the ‘good,’ we try to do the moral thing; we just have differing opinions about what the good is, and what the moral thing is; when there is a disagreement about what is the good, and what is moral, part of the reason for the disagreement is lack of specific information and considerations held by one person or the other.
So, it is important to keep in mind, as I believe you do, (but I am speaking to the theist community at large here), the atheist is really trying to do the ‘good’, and is really trying to make moral decisions, we just disagree with you about what these things are at times.
David W
Thank you very much for the comments. I have been looking over some of their blogs. I posted a few things as well. Nothing of substance on Fincke’s blog yet I am still trying to make sure I have a grip on his view that efficiency is the ultimate good. But on your former professors blog I did post my views on his salem with analogy. Here:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8716347331682132223&postID=8126667787284988715
I will be interested in his reply. BTW as you might be able to tell much of my faith does assume that we should at least consider the consequences of our beliefs. So although I made some comments about his historical claims regarding scripture and tried to poke holes in his analogy, I am more interested in what he will say about pragmatic encroachment.
“So, it is important to keep in mind, as I believe you do, (but I am speaking to the theist community at large here), the atheist is really trying to do the ‘good’, and is really trying to make moral decisions, we just disagree with you about what these things are at times.”
I think this concern was my first step back to Christianity. Taking that issue seriously and thoroughly trying to understand how we might know what is good and do it is what lead me down this road. It isn’t that way for everyone though.
I think some atheists share that concern. Some really don’t care about morality. Some have thought about it in depth and don’t believe in any moral good for the same reasons they don’t believe in God. Although I highly doubt Joyce thinks God is necessary for objective morality to exist, he does use his non belief in God as a sort of analogy with his non-belief in morality. (Joyce is an error theorists when it comes to morals) E.g.,
“Error theoretic moral skepticism is the thesis that while our moral discourse does
function assertorically (contra the noncognitivist’s view), the world lacks the
properties and relations that are necessary to render these assertions true. A good
analogy is atheism: The atheist denies that when someone utters, say, “God loves us” the speaker is merely expressing his/her feelings; rather, religious speakers really are making assertions about the world. (Thus the atheist is a cognitivist about theistic discourse.) However (the atheist thinks), the world is not furnished with the items necessary to make “God loves us” true; religious discourse suffers from a massive and systematic error. Similarly, the moral error theorist thinks that in order for our moral judgments to be true, the world would need to provide properties like goodness and badness, rightness and wrongness, evil and virtue—which it simply does not.”
Click to access joyce_ethical.skepticism.pdf
I thought I read Fincke argue something similar in that they both agree that belief in real morality should pass the same sort of epistemic muster as belief in God. Joyce thinks both fail to pass this test. It appears Fincke thinks God fails but real morality passes. After I get an understanding of his views I will challenge whether Fincke is using a double standard. I will also ask what he thinks of the evolutionary argument against knowledge of objective morals that is supported by myself and 3 other philosophers including Joyce.
“I seem to remember reading that you have an undergrad in philosophy, as do I, so really, we are on the outskirts of most debates, as our philosophical prowess, while far better than the average persons, still pales in comparison to that of professional philosophers.”
No doubt they have learned certain ways of thinking that I have not. But In choosing to pursue a law degree and practice law I also learned some things, especially about evidence and beliefs. But on the whole though I do agree philosophy is the most important study for these questions if you had to choose one. But I think a well rounded education is really best. I know enough philosophy to understand what the professional philosophers publish in the fields that interest me. (for the most part at least.) History, how proofs work in law math and science are all important. If I didn’t go to law school I would have pursued a phd in philosophy – it was actually a difficult choice. But really allot of philosophy is not of interest to me. There is a small amount that I find interesting and enjoy and I feel I have a sufficient education to pursue it.
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