Does Morality Require God? © 2010 James Gray About This Ebook Almost everything in this ebook originally appeared on Ethical Realism, my philosophy website.1 These are my personal notes. I am not an expert of religious philosophy, but I have spent a great deal of time studying philosophy, ethics, metaethics, and moral realism. Many religious arguments concerning ethics appear to require ignorance of the actual ethical arguments that philosophers are currently concerned with. Although there is currently a popular debate concerning God's relevance to morality, almost no contemporary philosophers of the acedemic world are part of the debate. Contemporary philosophers are almost unanimous in the opinion that God is not necessary for morality. In order to know if God is required for morality, we need to know both sides. The atheistic worldviews offer alternatives to the traditional Christian worldview that many people have assumed to be true. Even if atheism is false, the atheist view that morality does not require God could be correct. If you are not familiar with “”intrinsic values or metaethics, then I recommend that you take a look at my ebook, “Is There A Meaning of Life?” This ebook has not been sufficiently edited and there are probably many grammetical errors that I missed. 1 Ethical Realism is found at <http://ethicalrealism.wordpress.com/> Table of Contents Chapter 1: Should We Want Morality To Require God?....................4 Recent Meta-Ethical History.....................................................5 Why we shouldn't want intrinsic values to require God or the Forms......................................................................................7 Conclusion...............................................................................9 Chapter 2: Does Morality Require God?.........................................10 Introduction...........................................................................10 Plato's Forms..........................................................................12 God........................................................................................13 The world of natural science....................................................14 Now what?..............................................................................17 Conclusion.............................................................................18 Chapter 3: A Moral Argument for the Existence of God Based on Skepticism.....................................................................................19 Three More Objections...........................................................22 Conclusion.............................................................................24 Chapter 4: Practical Arguments for the Existence of God.................26 Conclusion.............................................................................29 Chapter 5: William Lane Craig's Argument from Morality...............30 Craig's Argument....................................................................30 How Plausible is Craig's Argument?.........................................31 Some Additional Constructive Criticism..................................33 Conclusion.............................................................................35 Chapter 6: Everyday Arguments that Morality Requires God...........36 Ray Cotton's Arguments..........................................................36 Marvin Olasky's Argument .....................................................40 Luke Pollard's Argument.........................................................41 Conclusion.............................................................................43 Chapter 7: Kant's Argument for Faith in God.................................44 Free will.................................................................................45 God........................................................................................46 Conclusion.............................................................................49 Conclusion....................................................................................50 Chapter 1: Should We Want Morality To Require God? Plato might have been the first philosopher to suggest that ethics requires a "foundation," which ended up being his theory of the Forms: A realm quite unlike the physical world (eternal, unchanging, perfect, and so on). An action is virtuous if it resembles the nature of the perfect human being. The Stoics and Epicureans did not agree with Plato because they only believed in the physical world. They found the Forms to require unnecessary commitments concerning reality. The physical world seemed sufficient to explain ethics. Then for a couple thousand years Christians dominated meta-ethical philosophy and agreed with Plato that a special foundation is necessary for ethics. In particular, God must exist (which, like the forms, is eternal, unchanging, and perfect). An action is virtuous if it resembles the nature of God. The Christians argued that if God doesn't exist, then nothing really matters. The question is, "Do we need a foundation for ethics?" (Is Plato's Forms or God necessary for anything to really matter? If we reject the Forms and God, will we then have to reject intrinsic value and become nihilists?) I will argue that we should prefer that the answer be, "No." We should prefer to believe in intrinsic values even if the Forms or God doesn't exist. It is preferable to believe intrinsic values can exist without the Forms or God for at least three reasons: 1. The simplest explanation is preferable. 2. We don't want to be required to accept unproven facts about reality. 3. Not everyone accepts the existence of the Forms or God. I am not arguing that the Forms don't exist, or that God doesn't exist. Even if we reject that intrinsic values could exist without the Forms or God, these parts of reality might exist. 4 I am not even currently arguing that we don't need the Forms or God in order for intrinsic values to exist. I am merely arguing that "if it is possible to rationally accept intrinsic values without the Forms or God, then we should prefer to do so." I will discuss the recent history of Meta-Ethics and then I will address why all things equal, we should prefer that intrinsic values can exist, even if God or the Forms don't exist. Recent Meta-Ethical History Nietzsche's saying, "God is dead," reflected the fact that atheism was growing in respectability. An atheist would no longer be tortured or executed for heresy. In fact, God's existence was not proven, so it was quite rational for people to question his existence. Unfortunately the dogma of the time was that "God exists, or nothing really matters," so atheists could no longer justify morality. Thousands of years of Christianity (and the taboo of atheism) left atheistic ethical philosophy in shambles. No atheistic justification for morality was available. Of course, Nietzsche was only discussing facts about society. Just because people think God is necessary for morality doesn't mean it's true. So, "God is dead" means that we are all used to relying on God, but some people of Nietzsche's time wished to no longer rely on God anymore. Science seemed to be the most fruitful intellectual activity, and the idea of God was not helpful to it. Nietzsche did not prove God doesn't exist. The fact is that it is natural to question God's existence just because it hasn't been proven to exist. People aren't certain that God exists, but we still want them to be certain that human life has intrinsic value. Therefore, it would be preferable to find out that God isn't necessary for intrinsic value. 5 Even Christian philosophers at this point almost unanimously agreed that discussing God was not fruitful to philosophy precisely because of the practical considerations already mentioned. In particular, God's existence is uncertain and disagreement about God's nature could not be resolved through experience or argument. The temptation to reject intrinsic values and believe "nothing really matters" became acceptable. It didn't take long for many philosophers to officially reject intrinsic values. Hobbes, Nietzsche, Hume, Ayer, and Hare are among the most respectable philosophers who gave up on the idea. We can still see the effects of "God's death." People often doubt whether or not anything really has intrinsic value. Some people even suggest that a rabbit or mouse might have just as much worth as a human being. Why? Because it's all just meaningless, isn't it? We just say human beings are more valuable because we are human beings and we want to have the right to eat and exploit other animals. But all of this talk is really little more than skepticism towards intrinsic value. Such skepticism doesn't amount to much when given by someone with no understanding of meta-ethical philosophy. Moreover, the metaphor "God is dead" does not refer to rampant immorality from atheists, as some Christians seem to argue. The best way to make sure we treat other people well is to understand meta- ethical philosophy. To learn about intrinsic values and our experience of morality. Persecuting atheists and forcing Christian dogma upon the masses didn't succeed in creating virtuous citizens because we can't replace a philosophical understanding of intrinsic values with obedience to a church. The terrible crimes and wars waged by Christians during the middle ages is a good reason for us to doubt that their kings and priests could really believe that people have intrinsic