Hello readers. I have been in a number of conversations with believers lately who, in our discussion about why they believe, or why they think I ought to believe, they offer the line, "if there is no God, there is no morality." There are a number of problems with this assertion. I will do my best to break them down in this post.
First, the reasoning in the statement isn't clearly articulated. There could be at least two possible renderings of the argument with the premise, if no god exists, there is no morality. Here is one possible rendering of the reasoning behind this statement.
P1 If there is no god, there can be no morality.
P2 A world with no morality is not desirable.
C Therefore a god exists.
This argument is fallacious. If you are interested in the specific kind of logical fallacy, you can look up argumentum ad consequentiam. There is no necessary logical connection between what we want to be the case and what is actually the case. Consider this example of an argument in the same form.
P1 If husbands were abusive to their wives rather than kind, women would be harmed.
P2 It is preferable for women not to be harmed.
C Therefore all husbands are kind to their wives.
Here is another example.
P1 If I won the lottery, I would have enough money to retire.
P2 I would like to have enough money to retire.
C Therefore I have won the lottery.
I hope you can see that the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises.
There is another possible line of reasoning that does not suffer from the fallacious reasoning of the first one. Here is how that might go.
P1 If there is no god, there can be no morality.
P2 Morality seems to exist in the world.
C Therefore a god exists.
There are still some problems with the argument even as I have rendered it here. For example, the first premise would be stronger if it said "the only source/foundation of/for objective morality is a supreme god." The reason that this rendering is stronger is that it excludes other possible sources for morality. I have left the first premise as is because this is essentially the way it has been presented to me in at least two separate conversations with believers recently. The claim that no other foundation or source for morality would have to be supported, but if that could be established as a fact, the only way the conclusion wouldn't follow is if it could be shown that no moral foundation or objective morality exists in the world. There are some issues with premise two, but A. there might be better ways to state that premise that could improve it and B, I do actually think there are reasons to believe that some moral objectivity exists (I will address this issue at the end of this post). Premise one is where I would like to focus my attention.
As I have already pointed out, someone asserting that morality cannot exist without a deity would need to provide support for that claim. Aside from that issue, another related question exists. Could any being actually be the source for morality. A similar issue arises with claims like God is the source of logic. Well, do you think it is possible for you god to have rendered logic or morality in another way? For example, could a god make it so that murder or rape was good? Could a god have made it so that the law of identity, law of excluded middle, or the law of non-contradiction did not hold? In other words, is morality founded on something arbitrary or is it a thing that could not be otherwise?
If you are not familiar with Plato's Euthyphro dialogue, I highly recommend you check it out. Plato uses Socrates as his mouthpiece in a conversation with a man named Euthyphro to point out the problem with the claim that morality comes from a god. Here is a link to a free English translation of the dialogue.
"PragerU" [the U stands for University even though it is not actually an institution that offers courses for credit toward degrees] is a conservative website founded by Dennis Prager that produces animated and narrated videos, one of which actually puts forward this claim about morality and the Judeo-Christian god. Here is a link to the video. (Sorry if the link doesn't work. I have replaced it 3 times now. Prager keeps changing the URL for some reason.)
https://www.prageru.com/video/if-there-is-no-god-murder-isnt-wrong/
Dennis Prager asserts that without a god, any moral claim a person could make is nothing more than an opinion. But what makes the god's moral claims more than opinions? Does the god base his moral laws on some other foundation? If so, it doesn't seem like a god is necessary. Those principles or foundations could seemingly be discovered or deduced by us. And if the god's moral laws are merely arbitrary rules, then it seems like the only reason you could have to say that his opinion on morality is more valid than someone else's is that a god is more powerful than mortal humans. Does "might make right"? That's not very satisfactory as a foundation for morality. If morality was merely issued from the dictates of a god, I don't see how that would be any better foundation than moral dictates issued by a king or other powerful human. You could say that a god has more wisdom than a man, but that would need to be demonstrated.
All of the previous problems relate to generic claims of moral origins from any supreme god. Other questions arise when we begin to examine claims about specific proposed gods and specific commands. Prager asserts that Western Judeo-Christian values were the source of human rights, the end of slavery, and women's liberation. I have heard similar statements from many Christians, and I used to believe this myself. But the idea is, in reality, ironic because the Bible specifically endorses slavery, women in the Old Testament are treated as property and lesser humans than men, and there is no mention of human rights in the Bible whatsoever. The fact of the matter is that human rights was concept that emerged during the Enlightenment when philosophers began to toss out the Bible and church as the ultimate authority of human knowledge and understanding.Writers like Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes, Kant, and Voltaire each put forward ideas and systems for morality and justice without referring to Judeo-Christian anything and in stead based their ideas on reason and their observations on the state of human society. Moreover, many of those who opposed these moral advancements cited by Prager fought against them by arguing that the Bible advocates for subjugation of women, for slavery, and for the divine right of kings.
It is true that there were many Christians who fought against the institution of slavery and who pointed to some broad verses in the Bible to support their opposition to slavery. However, slavery is mentioned many times in the Bible, nearly always as a practice that is permitted [at least within certain bounds], and there is not one verse in all of the Bible that condemns the practice of owning human beings as property.
I have had Christians tell me that the US Constitution was based on the Bible or the Ten Commandments. Well, how do you derive a tripartite government with three separate but equal branches or the Bill of Rights from the Bible? The Ten Commandments say you do not have freedom of religion, you do not have freedom of speech, you do not have the right to question authority, etc. The Constitution explicitly states the opposite of those commands. One Christian told me that he couldn't point to any specific verses to support his claim, but taken as a whole, you can get to those rights and ideas from the Bible. I'm sorry, but that's not how you support an assertion. You could say that about any text. Unless you can explain how you get from what the Bible says to what the Constitution says, you have presented no justification for your claim. Show your work.
One final note on this subject before I'm done. I do think it is possible to have some objective moral foundation without a god. Without getting into too much detail (because this post is already lengthy and this subject would likely double or triple the length), I would say that we can provide objective reasons that some actions and rules are better than other toward the goal of human well being and societal health. If you are interested in learning about some ideas about secular moral systems, I would recommend The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, the lectures by Matt Dillahunty on the Superiority of Secular Morality which can be found on YouTube, and the book A Theory of Justice by John Rawls.
Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to share, comment, or provide any other feedback.
Cheers,
Gavagai
First, the reasoning in the statement isn't clearly articulated. There could be at least two possible renderings of the argument with the premise, if no god exists, there is no morality. Here is one possible rendering of the reasoning behind this statement.
P1 If there is no god, there can be no morality.
P2 A world with no morality is not desirable.
C Therefore a god exists.
This argument is fallacious. If you are interested in the specific kind of logical fallacy, you can look up argumentum ad consequentiam. There is no necessary logical connection between what we want to be the case and what is actually the case. Consider this example of an argument in the same form.
P1 If husbands were abusive to their wives rather than kind, women would be harmed.
P2 It is preferable for women not to be harmed.
C Therefore all husbands are kind to their wives.
Here is another example.
P1 If I won the lottery, I would have enough money to retire.
P2 I would like to have enough money to retire.
C Therefore I have won the lottery.
I hope you can see that the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises.
There is another possible line of reasoning that does not suffer from the fallacious reasoning of the first one. Here is how that might go.
P1 If there is no god, there can be no morality.
P2 Morality seems to exist in the world.
C Therefore a god exists.
There are still some problems with the argument even as I have rendered it here. For example, the first premise would be stronger if it said "the only source/foundation of/for objective morality is a supreme god." The reason that this rendering is stronger is that it excludes other possible sources for morality. I have left the first premise as is because this is essentially the way it has been presented to me in at least two separate conversations with believers recently. The claim that no other foundation or source for morality would have to be supported, but if that could be established as a fact, the only way the conclusion wouldn't follow is if it could be shown that no moral foundation or objective morality exists in the world. There are some issues with premise two, but A. there might be better ways to state that premise that could improve it and B, I do actually think there are reasons to believe that some moral objectivity exists (I will address this issue at the end of this post). Premise one is where I would like to focus my attention.
As I have already pointed out, someone asserting that morality cannot exist without a deity would need to provide support for that claim. Aside from that issue, another related question exists. Could any being actually be the source for morality. A similar issue arises with claims like God is the source of logic. Well, do you think it is possible for you god to have rendered logic or morality in another way? For example, could a god make it so that murder or rape was good? Could a god have made it so that the law of identity, law of excluded middle, or the law of non-contradiction did not hold? In other words, is morality founded on something arbitrary or is it a thing that could not be otherwise?
If you are not familiar with Plato's Euthyphro dialogue, I highly recommend you check it out. Plato uses Socrates as his mouthpiece in a conversation with a man named Euthyphro to point out the problem with the claim that morality comes from a god. Here is a link to a free English translation of the dialogue."PragerU" [the U stands for University even though it is not actually an institution that offers courses for credit toward degrees] is a conservative website founded by Dennis Prager that produces animated and narrated videos, one of which actually puts forward this claim about morality and the Judeo-Christian god. Here is a link to the video. (Sorry if the link doesn't work. I have replaced it 3 times now. Prager keeps changing the URL for some reason.)
https://www.prageru.com/video/if-there-is-no-god-murder-isnt-wrong/
Dennis Prager asserts that without a god, any moral claim a person could make is nothing more than an opinion. But what makes the god's moral claims more than opinions? Does the god base his moral laws on some other foundation? If so, it doesn't seem like a god is necessary. Those principles or foundations could seemingly be discovered or deduced by us. And if the god's moral laws are merely arbitrary rules, then it seems like the only reason you could have to say that his opinion on morality is more valid than someone else's is that a god is more powerful than mortal humans. Does "might make right"? That's not very satisfactory as a foundation for morality. If morality was merely issued from the dictates of a god, I don't see how that would be any better foundation than moral dictates issued by a king or other powerful human. You could say that a god has more wisdom than a man, but that would need to be demonstrated.
All of the previous problems relate to generic claims of moral origins from any supreme god. Other questions arise when we begin to examine claims about specific proposed gods and specific commands. Prager asserts that Western Judeo-Christian values were the source of human rights, the end of slavery, and women's liberation. I have heard similar statements from many Christians, and I used to believe this myself. But the idea is, in reality, ironic because the Bible specifically endorses slavery, women in the Old Testament are treated as property and lesser humans than men, and there is no mention of human rights in the Bible whatsoever. The fact of the matter is that human rights was concept that emerged during the Enlightenment when philosophers began to toss out the Bible and church as the ultimate authority of human knowledge and understanding.Writers like Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes, Kant, and Voltaire each put forward ideas and systems for morality and justice without referring to Judeo-Christian anything and in stead based their ideas on reason and their observations on the state of human society. Moreover, many of those who opposed these moral advancements cited by Prager fought against them by arguing that the Bible advocates for subjugation of women, for slavery, and for the divine right of kings.
It is true that there were many Christians who fought against the institution of slavery and who pointed to some broad verses in the Bible to support their opposition to slavery. However, slavery is mentioned many times in the Bible, nearly always as a practice that is permitted [at least within certain bounds], and there is not one verse in all of the Bible that condemns the practice of owning human beings as property.
I have had Christians tell me that the US Constitution was based on the Bible or the Ten Commandments. Well, how do you derive a tripartite government with three separate but equal branches or the Bill of Rights from the Bible? The Ten Commandments say you do not have freedom of religion, you do not have freedom of speech, you do not have the right to question authority, etc. The Constitution explicitly states the opposite of those commands. One Christian told me that he couldn't point to any specific verses to support his claim, but taken as a whole, you can get to those rights and ideas from the Bible. I'm sorry, but that's not how you support an assertion. You could say that about any text. Unless you can explain how you get from what the Bible says to what the Constitution says, you have presented no justification for your claim. Show your work.
One final note on this subject before I'm done. I do think it is possible to have some objective moral foundation without a god. Without getting into too much detail (because this post is already lengthy and this subject would likely double or triple the length), I would say that we can provide objective reasons that some actions and rules are better than other toward the goal of human well being and societal health. If you are interested in learning about some ideas about secular moral systems, I would recommend The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, the lectures by Matt Dillahunty on the Superiority of Secular Morality which can be found on YouTube, and the book A Theory of Justice by John Rawls.
Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to share, comment, or provide any other feedback.
Cheers,
Gavagai
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