Kai-man Kwan
“Moral Arguments for the Existence of God [addendum].” In Donald Borchert, ed.,
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol.6, 2nd edition (Detroit: Macmillan
Reference USA, 2006), pp. 358-60.
MORAL ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
[ADDENDUM].
The moral argument purports to show that
the evidence from our moral experience supports the existence of God. From the
1970s onward, various forms of moral argument continue to be developed by many
philosophers. While the defenders argue with increased sophistication, they
also tend to make more modest claims about the force of the moral argument.
Moral Arguments as Abductive and
Cumulative Arguments
If the moral argument is construed as a
deductive argument which moves from, say, the objectivity of moral values to
the existence of God, then to rebut the argument, the critic only needs to show
that the objectivity of moral values and the non-existence of God are logically
compatible. This is a relatively easy task. However, developments in
epistemology and philosophy of science since the 1960s lead many to think that
it is more realistic to look for an abductive argument in most areas of
inquiry. We can also formulate the moral argument as an abductive argument, or
an inference to the best explanation, i.e., to argue that among diverse
worldviews, the theistic worldview is the best explanation of, say, the
objectivity of morals, especially in contrast with naturalism.
Since abductive arguments are by nature
cumulative arguments, the force of an abductive moral argument will not depend
on any single feature of morality, but rather on how well it can explain the
whole gamut of moral experience, both its form and its content. For example,
Louis Pojman (1992b) argues that “given the assumption of standard contemporary
secular moral philosophy: I. The notion of moral obligation becomes seriously
problematic; II. The notion of the supremacy of morality either becomes
problematically analytic or it vanishes; III. The problem of morality and self-interest becomes insoluble; IV. The idea that human beings have intrinsic value ceases to make
sense.” Hence, “most contemporary secular ethical systems offer no hope of
guiding human conduct, and should be abandoned” (p. 4).
In contrast, ethical systems which
proceed from transcendent assumptions can offer resources unavailable to
secular, ethical systems. For example, the Christian tradition can appeal to a
perfectly good, omnipotent God who created humanity in his image. Each person
is endowed with a specific telos which he or she must seek to realize. Within
this framework, all humans have equal intrinsic worth, free will and eternal
destiny (see also Pojman 1991, 1992a). Morality consists of obeying God’s
commands, which are related to human flourishing, and are backed by sanctions
of reward and punishment. All these provide solid foundation for the existence
of moral obligation and responsibility.
Are Moral Truths Analytic?
Not
all theistic philosophers accept the moral argument. For example, Richard
Swinburne believes that the fundamental moral truths
are necessary truths, and they do not need to be explained. Defenders have
several ways to respond. First, they may flatly deny Swinburne’s claim by
pointing out that moral nihilism and relativism at least appear to be logically
coherent positions. Second, even if many moral principles were necessary
truths, it would not follow that they could not be explained by more basic
necessary truths about the essential moral nature and logically necessary
existence of God. Some even suggest a Cosmological–Ethical Argument which
utilizes “the resources of a theistic metaphysic in providing a singular,
comprehensive explanatory account of moral truths as well as other essential truths”
in addition to its ability to explain the existence of the cosmos. In this way,
theism may prove to exhibit “a marked simplicity and force missing from its
competitors” (Taliaferro, p. 290).
Third, the realm of necessary moral
truths appears to be mysterious and queer from a naturalistic perspective.
Anyway, it is puzzling why we should be aware of these truths and why
moral consciousness features so prominently in human existence. Necessary moral truths by themselves do not
have creative power, and a naturalistic universe cannot have any causal
interaction with these abstract truths.
Why then should we suppose that a morally blind world would endow us
with correct moral intuitions?
The case is different with sense experience whose reliability is to some
extent tied with our survival. It is not
without reason that most naturalists would rather adopt moral scepticism. As
John Mackie admits, “there can be a secular morality, not indeed as a system of
objective values or prescriptions, but rather as something to be made
[invented]” (p. 227) (cf. Harman).
The Queerness of Moral Obligation
For Mackie, another reason why morality is so queer is that moral
claims have objective prescriptivity, a kind of authoritativeness: “any wrong
(possible) course of action would have not-to-be-doneness somehow built into
it” (p. 40). George
Mavrodes points out that naturalistic evolution may
well produce creatures with moral sentiments which are survival-conducive. However, the existence of actual moral
obligations appears to be strange, especially because moral obligations often
come into conflict with self-interest.
Some atheists try to reconcile moral obligations with self-interest,
and claim that in the long-term it is in the best interests of everyone for every
individual to act morally (cf. David Gauthier; Gregory S. Kavka). The viability
of this kind of contractualist project depends on whether it can satisfactorily
answer questions like: Should one still be moral when in fact not everyone else
will act morally? What about the moral free-rider? Do the extremely powerful
people really need to act morally? Why should we sacrifice our own interests
for the benefits of people who cannot reciprocate, e.g., future generations,
extremely marginalized people in our society, and people in distant countries?
Is it rational to sacrifice one’s life for the sake of morality?
The Moral Gap
A broadly Kantian moral argument continues to find
defenders. Ronald Green starts from the question: “Why should I be moral?” John
Hare focuses on the gap between the moral demand and our capacities to meet
this demand, according to most moral theories. Since ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, the
description of the life in this moral gap is incoherent. To resolve this
incoherence, secular moralists either exaggerate our moral capacity, reduce the
moral demand or to find some God-substitute to help bridge the gap. Hare
criticizes many of these options, and argue that the Christian doctrines of
atonement and incorporation in Christ can solve the problem. Debates surround
whether Hare’s
criticisms of the secular options are cogent, and whether the Christian faith
can really offer something that other options cannot (see Linda Zagzebski).
The
Euthyphro Dilemma
Atheistic philosophers like Kai Nielsen and Michael Martin have
produced sustained replies to the moral argument. They think the Euthyphro
Dilemma shows that morality has to be independent of God. If morality depends
on God’s command, then morality will become arbitrary because God might command
cruelty for its own sake. If one denies this possibility, one already commits
to an independent standard of goodness apart from God.
Some
theists reply by saying that God’s essential nature, from which the divine will
flows, provides the ultimate standard of goodness, and this is neither
independent of God nor arbitrary. Robert
M. Adams has proposed a Modified Divine Command Ethics, which
postulates contrariety to commands of a loving God as the nature
of wrongness. This is not an analysis of the meaning of ‘right’ and
‘wrong’ because Adams grants that our moral practice gives us some basic
understanding of morality apart from religion. However, he thinks that it
doesn’t follow that we can understand the nature of wrongness. (Even if
we all understand the meaning of ‘water,’ it does not follow we cannot further
discover that the nature of water is H2O.) On Adams’s view, the answer to the
Euthyphro Dilemma is that a loving God will not command cruelty for its
own sake.
Critical Dialogue between Ethical Systems
The success of the moral argument in the
long run depends on the relative merits of the theistic and atheistic accounts
of morality. (In the future we should also include, say, Confucianist ethics
and Buddhist ethics among the contenders.) Adams (1999) has developed his
theistic ethics into a comprehensive theory of the good and the right. Michael
Moore and Michael
Martin have made use of naturalistic moral realism (e.g., David Brink)
to show the superiority of naturalistic ethics and the superfluity of theistic
ethics (cf. the debate between Paul Copan and Martin [Copan 2003,
2004]). The moral argument does not appear to be a
conclusive argument. Its significance mainly lies in its possible contribution
to a cumulative case for the existence of God, and its capacity to stimulate a
lively debate on the implications of different worldviews on morality. (1,415 words)
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Kai-man Kwan, Hong Kong Baptist University
