The debate about the subjective nature of moral values versus their objective reality continues to rage between atheists and theists from a broad spectrum. What is the most common approach in the debate that is taken by theists in defending their position? By far one of the most influential proponents of traditional theism and Christianity is Dr. William Lane Craig who is a research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology. Dr. Craig has a particular format in which he constructs an argument for the objective nature of moral values in the universe. The argument goes as follows: If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist. Objective moral values exist. Therefore, God exists. Though this argument is quite convincing and powerful, it was difficult to put it in a way that would be easily explainable and defendable. I certainly had trouble understanding two issues. First, how are we able to recognize that an objective moral command or value is not based on society but independent of it? Second, are there any clues within the uniform experience of humanity that can give rise to the conclusion that objective moral values really do exist and have a transcendent foundation for all people? This essay is going to attempt explaining and answering both questions in a clear and concise way as possible.
First, what about the first question? Well philosophers have two terms that can be very helpful in understanding this core issue. The terms are epistemology and ontology. The former is about how we come to know something over time or through some kind of mechanism. The latter is about the nature of the subject or the foundation and grounding that justifies its truth. These terms are very important not to confuse as many oftentimes do. Let us tackle the first question: “How are we able to recognize that an objective moral command or value is not based on society but independent of it?” Sometimes I will hear people say that the reason why we have certain moral laws or commands is because it has been set in stone or sanctioned by the government or society. So, according to this understanding, rape, child abuse, and murder are morally wrong because that is what society has said and if we disobey these laws we will suffer the consequences. Now what are some of the problems with this way of thinking? One problem is that it suggests that whether something is true is dependent on how we come to know it or how we come to affirm it over time. A second problem is that it suggests that what is legal is moral and what is illegal is immoral. What the problem with this is because there have been cases where society has commanded certain things that I think anyone (including myself) would believe is immoral. Things like the Holocaust, and the tyranny of Stalin and Mao and Hitler were legal in the sense that the government sanctioned them. But what about the Jews in the Holocaust? If someone were to save the Jews and keep them from being captured and killed, then according to the government he was acting immorally. Are we to say that whatever the government dictates automatically justifies whether it’s true or not? What if the United States government were to create a law that commanded that the elderly be killed or “put to sleep”? Would we be immoral if we were to think it was an immoral command and therefore go against what the society has dictated? I certainly think not. So clearly there are no reasons why we should think that just because society has defined something as morally right or wrong, we should automatically conclude that it is moral or immoral.
A second problem is that it commits the genetic fallacy. The genetic fallacy in this sense is saying that how a belief originates or developed automatically shows it to be false or true. This can show that even if it were a good judgment on society to illegalize murder and prostitution, this wouldn’t prove by itself that murder is really wrong because whether a statement or a belief is true or not is an ontology/foundation issue and not about how we came to know it. All this would prove is that society has come to recognize that people as a whole should be treated right and they have affirmed people’s rights about morality and just treatment. But then again, going back to the first paragraph, we would be inconsistent in this way of thinking if we insisted that society has acted immorally when they legalize extermination of the elderly. So if we’re to be consistent with this way of thinking, then we must allow for both ways. In fact, we have to allow for almost all scenarios where government would command clearly immoral actions. It ultimately eliminates objectivity of right and wrong. So whether a belief or moral value is true or false is completely independent of how people or society comes to affirm them or recognize them over time because it results in inconsistencies of the reasoning and it commits the genetic fallacy. So if someone tells you that it is right for us to treat other kindly and to respect each other and to not commit murder, rape, or abuse children, challenge him to show how something is true simply because people come to affirm it over time. By the way, people do have finite knowledge and we certainly don’t always recognize what is moral or immoral so we can’t be the standard of why something is right and why another is wrong.
The second question goes like this:” Are there any clues within the uniform experience of humanity that can give rise to the conclusion that objective moral values really do exist and have a transcendent foundation for all people?” Someone, like you and I, might be thinking, “Since we already know that society can’t be the standard for objective morality, and then is there any hope of establishing that?” My answer is yes there is an answer to this dilemma. How do we know that objective moral values exist in the world among humanity? Well I think there are some reasons that can help establish the truth of this statement. First, people’s expectations of moral treatment from across all cultures presuppose objective moral values. What do I mean by this? Let’s suppose you have a guy named Fred. He likes to travel the world and go different places and visit different cultures. Now when he is back in the states, he would like to be treated as a human being with moral rights as anyone would. Now what happens when he steps into other cultures? Does his understanding change? Not at all. In fact he still expects to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of what airport he steps into or what country he visits; it ultimately doesn’t matter where he goes. So, how he thinks, he thinks that moral values and duties are required to be exercised regardless of where he is located. So he believes, through his beliefs and actions, that culture doesn’t decide what is morally right or wrong! Whether he is in China, India, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, or his hometown, he expects to be treated morally and fairly. Now does this doesn’t just apply to one person but to all human beings because all human beings (at least within the realm of our knowledge) believe that they should be treated right, regardless of the situation. Notice I didn’t say that they believe they should treat others right regardless of the situation. I only applied this truth to themselves and not to the other person. Second, how people react in situations also strongly suggests that objective moral values exist. This relates to the fact that whenever a person is the victim of a certain act that he/she thinks is immoral, her/his reaction suggests that there is a way to treat others regardless of where one is from. This reveals the fallacious thinking in that moral values aren’t more than mere opinions and go no higher than society because what happens when that person is treated as if morality is really subjective? He is outraged. Even a criminal believes he has been wronged when someone harms him or someone he loves (i.e. his family or friends) because his reactions confirm that there are moral and immoral actions that aren’t dependent on what the majority say or what government legalizes.
Now the illustrations of what I gave above don’t by themselves prove that objective moral values exist but they do prove that a world without objective human rights and values is ultimately unlivable and extremely inconsistent in its thinking. In fact, based off society, if one says society is the authority for moral values then that means he has to switch his mindset on moral values in certain cultures that don’t affirm what his culture does! Like if a man living ,in the states, believes raping a child is immoral, then he will have to give up that right if he lives or visits another country where raping children is authorized or allowed. What this shows that if moral values are dependent on society, then it becomes arbitrary. It is arbitrary because just because someone comes to believe something therefore justifies the truth of that statement or belief. This can go both ways with immoral and moral commands of society and people must be willing to consider these implications.
But are there any positive evidences that objective moral values exist? I believe there are. This is where I will address the ontology or nature of these values and explain why they matter. If something is true, then it is true in its own nature or otherwise it’s not objectively true. Let’s take murder for example. Is murdering people really immoral? Well, if we’re going to say it is true that murder is immoral then we need to give reasons or justifications completely independent of our knowledge and ability to detect their validity. First, murder is immoral because it is a violation of human value. Can we say legitimately that we are valuable creatures simply because we have come to recognize our own value? No we can’t because we didn’t always know we were valuable and neither did the first person who existed. Whether that person is really someone valuable or not has to be established on a foundation that is independent of his knowledge and ability to discover his own identity. If that is established, then he is in perfect right to affirm his own value because he didn’t’ come with it. So whether something is true or not has to be established on the grounds of its own nature. Where do we get our value from? From our parents? Where did they get theirs? And the questions go on and on and we reach a dead end because you have to ask the first person where he got it from. So if this is a necessary truth – a truth that exists by its own nature and independent of our knowledge – then it means that we have reasons to justify that anything is morally right or wrong. Instead of appealing to government which is made up of people (who make intellectual mistakes all the time) we can appeal to a Higher Law (Every law requires a law maker) who out of his own nature gave us the foundation for apprehending our moral values. Now this does not mean that something is moral because God calls it moral or immoral which would make it arbitrary. This means that something is moral because it comes from His own nature who exists not contingently – dependent on our knowledge or ability to detect it – but necessarily. Unless we can accept this as the truth for all morality, then we ultimately don’t have any basis for calling something immoral because authority is needed to justify why something is wrong and it has to be established on the grounds of necessity and nature and not “a means to know” or “the ability to affirm or detect”. In fact, any truth statement has to be justified on those grounds and appealing to human knowledge and detection ability is simply not enough to establish the objective nature of moral values because we have seen that it removes the objective basis for our rights. It also can become unlivable.
Conclusion
I hope this essay has helped clarify the issues of objective morality and why we need something in nature and necessity to justify the truth of a statement regarding morality. Anyone wishing to argue contrary to what I have written must provide an adequate answer that will provide a basis for all humanity and not just some. These issues have enormous implications and I say that he who thinks this matter is simple and rejects an open investigation is clearly misled and intellectually dishonest. May this essay help you in defending your faith as a Christian when it comes to matters of morality and whether they are objective or not. You decide.
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