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Atheism and Moral Scepticism Atheism and Moral Scepticism By Jonathan Daniel Smith Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Philosophy) September 2009 The Department of Philosophy The University of Sheffield 2 Summary Many philosophers have argued, and continue to argue, that if atheism is true - if there is no transcendent creator of the universe or parts of it (most importantly, no transcendent creator of life on earth and of human beings) - then there are no moral truths. In this essay, I argue for the related but different thesis that atheists have reason to accept the claim that all of their moral beliefs are unwarranted (or unjustified), a claim I refer to as "moral scepticism". After explaining atheism and providing some metaethical preliminaries, I consider some empirical findings that might be thought to support the idea that everyone should embrace moral scepticism regardless of whether they are atheists; I argue that they do not support that idea. Going on to discuss Darwinism and morality, I develop what I call the argument for atheistic Darwinian moral scepticism. While this argument gives atheists reason to embrace moral scepticism, advocates of theism - the most widely defended alternative to atheism - do not have reason to consider their moral beliefs unwarranted, or at least not the same reason that atheists do. Acknowledging that atheists could avoid the argument for atheistic Darwinian moral scepticism if they can maintain an expressivist (or quasi-realist) understanding of the function of moral thought and discourse, I nevertheless argue that there is good reason to believe that expressivism is false. Lastly, I consider some consequences of atheists embracing moral scepticism, arguing against the moral jictionalist idea that moral sceptics can simply pretend to have warranted moral beliefs and carryon much as before. I also suggest that atheists will not be able to endorse two kinds of argument that many of them have wanted to endorse: the argument from evil against theism and moral arguments against purported divine revelations. 3 Contents Summary ..................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction and acknowledgements ....................................................................... 5 Chapter 1 - Atheism, theism, and preliminaries on moral thought and discourse .................................................................................................................................... 11 1. Atheism .................................................................................................................. 11 2. Atheism and Darwinism ......................................................................................... 20 3. Theism and Darwinism .......................................................................................... 25 4. Moral thought and discourse and some preliminaries ............................................ 30 5. Looking back and looking ahead ........................................................................... 36 Chapter 2 - On some potential empirical support for moral scepticism ............ 37 I. Moral intuitionism and moral scepticism ............................................................... 39 2. Sinnott-Annstrong's challenge in outline .............................................................. 43 3. Sinnott-Annstrong's appeal to partiality ................................................................ 44 4. Sinnott-Annstrong's appeal to disagreement.. ....................................................... 49 5. Sinnott-Annstrong's appeal to emotion ................................................................. 54 6. Sinnott-Annstrong's appeal to illusion .................................................................. 63 7. Sinnott-Annstrong's appeal to unreliable or disreputable sources ........................ 72 8. The challenge from Social Intuitionism ................................................................. 76 9. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 82 Chapter 3: Unguided Darwinism and atheistic Darwinian moral scepticism .... 84 1. Unguided Darwinism and true belief.. ................................................................... 86 2. Sharon Street's Darwinian dilemma ...................................................................... 90 3. First hom of the dilemma ....................................................................................... 94 4. Second hom of the dilemma .................................................................................. 97 5. First problem with the Darwinian dilemma ......................................................... 101 6. Second problem with the Darwinian dilemma ..................................................... 105 7. Third problem with the Darwinian dilemma ........................................................ 109 8. Richard Joyce's Darwinian argument. ................................................................. 110 9. Joyce's argument modified and extended - the argument for atheistic Darwinian moral scepticism ....................................................................................................... 115 10. Theism and Darwinian metaethical arguments .................................................. 126 11. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 128 Chapter 4: Avoiding atheistic Darwinian moral scepticism? Expressivism/quasi- realism ..................................................................................................................... 129 1. Expressivism explained ........................................................................................ 130 2. Expressivism and atheistic Darwinian moral scepticism ..................................... 139 3. First problem for expressivism - traditional religious believers .......................... 142 4. How expressivists could perhaps reply ................................................................ 147 5. Improving the argument ....................................................................................... 151 6. Second problem for expressivism - fundamental moral error ............................. 156 7. Blackburn strikes back ......................................................................................... 161 8. A reply to Blackburn on improvement. ................................................................ 163 4 9. In defence of Egan ............................................................................................... 168 10. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 172 Chapter 5 - The consequences of atheists' acceptance of moral scepticism ..... 173 1. Introducing moral fictionalism ............................................................................. 174 2. Richard Joyce on moral fictionalism .................................................................... 177 3. General problems for moral fictionalism ............................................................. 183 4. Special problems for atheist moral fictionalism .................................................. 191 5. Moral scepticism and real truth-seeking inquiry .................................................. 195 6. The argument from evil. ....................................................................................... 197 7. Moral scepticism and the argument from evil.. .................................................... 202 8. The argument from evil unbowed? ...................................................................... 207 9. Moral scepticism and "Unholy Scripture" arguments ......................................... 216 10. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 222 References ............................................................................................................... 223 S Introduction and acknowledgements Philosophers have long debated, and continue to debate, the relationship(s) between morality and the existence of God. One of the central questions debated is whether the existence of God is a necessary condition for the existence of moral truth - whether "everything is permitted" if God does not exist. That God's existence is necessary for moral truth has been maintained both by philosophers who accept theism (the thesis that God exists) and by philosophers who reject it. For example, theistic philosopher William Lane Craig maintains that, "If God does not exist, then it is difficult to see any reason to think that human beings are special or that their morality is objectively true" (1997), and the late atheist philosopher lohn Mackie held that, "objectively intrinsically prescriptive features, supervening upon natural ones," which he understood our conception of moral truth to commit us to, "constitute so odd a cluster of qualities and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events, without an all­ powerful god to create them" (1982, p.lIS). Other philosophers have likewise argued that moral truth requires the existence of God in order to be adequately intelligible (e.g., Mavrodes 1986; Budziszewski 2002), while some - such as Elizabeth Anscombe (1958) - have thought that God's existence
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