In my recent post Japan, and God, I made the point that within the worldview of atheism, along with a naturalistic mindset, one cannot escape the conclusion that objective morality is but a mere illusion - a category of behavior that must be reducible solely to physical properties. I referred to the resulting landscape of such a philosophy as a vacuous wasteland, and for good reason, namely - that of the resulting moral relativism.
A commenter engaged me in a discussion on the post, yet he completely ignored the point I was making, choosing to take issue with the rationality of belief in God. He also assumed, incorrectly, that I was claiming atheists are incapable of acting morally.
During our "discussion" a few issues seemed to arise regarding knowledge and morality. The commenter appeared to place a great deal of trust in the scientific method as a means of acquiring knowledge, especially with regards to how it can be used to substantiate (or negate) religious belief. Notice that the definition of knowledge, in the methodology of naturalism, can only refer to that which is natural, concrete, or material - that which can be measured and analyzed empirically. Yet, humans are well aware of the existence of the abstract, or the immaterial. Whether it be the thoughts you perceive in your mind (note, in your mind, not in your brain), or the love that you know you have for a "loved" one, you are aware of and confident in the existence of those abstract realities. Now, consider the fact that the scientific method is incapable of providing data on the abstract realities you know exist - for example, measuring the love you have for your children.
Given the mandate of naturalism, that all which exists is comprised within the natural realm, one must conclude that even the notion we describe as morality is simply an outgrowth of evolutionary processes and, as such, must be guided by natural laws. Indeed, that is what the commenter posited, that moral behavior is simply behavior, and that it was derived from evolutionary processes. While this may sound quite proper on paper, the real-world impact of such a propostion is staggering. If, in fact, what many of us consider to be abstract notions, such as morality, are nothing more than the physical interaction of genes, then objective right and wrong moral values cannot be determined.
Do you see where this leads? If a bear attacks a hiker on a trail, although we lament the tragedy of the event, we do not accuse the bear of moral indiscretion. No, we acknowledge that the bear just did what it does - because of the way its genes are sequenced. Regardless of whether or not the bear acts in manners that mimic human expressions of the abstract, naturalism mandates that such notions are the direct consequence of biology and, as a result, the bear has no objective moral code. Well guess what? If we want to be consistent with our application, then we need to do the same with the human genome. If we are nothing more than particles in motion, then the supposed moral notion "I ought" is reduced to a physical reaction and is no different than any other physical reaction, such as "I have indigestion" (HT: CS Lewis).
Thus, morality, in the world of naturalism, is no different than burping.
For further reference, check these articles by Greg Koukl, at Stand to Reason:
How to know immaterial things exist
Regarding the conflict I pointed out between faith-based beliefs about some god to be the cause for human morality and humanity itself, I think Lerner's description of what methodological naturalism (MN) actually means is rather important:
Methodological naturalism is not a "doctrine" but an essential aspect of the methodology of science, the study of the natural universe. If one believes that natural laws and theories based on them will not suffice to solve the problems attacked by scientists - that supernatural and thus nonscientific principles must be invoked from time to time - then one cannot have the confidence in scientific methodology that is prerequisite to doing science. The spectacular successes over four centuries of science based on methodological naturalism cannot be gainsaid. On the other hand, a scientist who, when stumped, invokes a supernatural cause for a phenomenon he or she is investigating is guaranteed that no scientific understanding of the problem will ensue.
In other words, within the confines of MN, claims of the kind Rusty makes of an objective morality require evidence. He offers us none other than repeated assertions that belief in an objective morality is somehow preferable to a human-based morality he calls subjective... so subjective, in fact, that it necessarily leads to the wasteland of some kind of secular hedonism/nihilism. This proposal is flawed at every turn, beginning with the misrepresentation that the methodology of science through MN is synonymous with 'physical' empiricism only.
The irony of this assertion is completely lost on Rusty, in that empiricism itself is a method based on first accepting the legitimacy of a symbolic representation of the physical in order for comparisons to be made. By claiming that MN somehow denies the abstract is not only absurd but so simplistic in suggesting that its adherents only accept what empiricism represents that the point he makes defeats itself: one cannot adhere to empiricism without first accepting that it is an abstraction!
To claim that trust in empiricism equates with a vacuous wasteland of humanity bereft of all the goodies belief in god supposedly allows us to enjoy, such as comfort, is rather funny. Empiricism itself is just as 'relative' in the same sense as is the morality Rusty claims us non believers must support. For example, when we translate something physical in empirical representation - let's say of dimensions and mass - we use numbers. What do those abstract numbers mean? Well, numbers relate to comparative quantity. A number such as 4 is of greater quantity than is a 3 but less than a 5. The meaning of the representation we call the number 4 is relative in terms of quantity. The meaning of the representation we call empiricism is relative in terms of the natural. As soon as we move outside and/or beyond what we can compare in nature we have lost our points of reference and so we cannot measure how many angels can sit on the head of a pin. Rusty cannot legitimately claim any knowledge whatsoever outside of MN for his assertions about god and his objective morality because we simply have no points of reference. Unless we can describe something about humans in terms of biological life as we know it, we have nothing to go by.
Unlike Rusty's claim about objective morality provided by a supernatural god as a necessary condition to avoid a vacuous moral wasteland suffered by us non believers, at least the burp he refers to is real and we can know something about it.
Posted by: tildeb | March 25, 2011 at 08:36 AM
Why do you avoid the real question of how to address real abstract notions that you must experience and, instead, resort to caricature "arguments" (aka strawman points). As soon as I start advocating pink elephants in nostrils, muk muk, or angels on the head of a pin, then you can address them.* Otherwise, why not stick to the real issues? Do you love your children? Yes, or no? If yes, then where does that love physically exist - how is it measured by science - what data points can you demonstrate as "love"? According to your definition, we have no means to describe such a quality in terms of biological life and, thus, we have nothing to go by. Therefore, in your worldview, the love you have for your child is an illusion and does not exist. The same goes for objective morality, by the way. So... live by your worldview, if you can.
* I daresay you've progressed into the B.U.R.P.-ing mode: Bringing Up Ridiculous Propositions.
Posted by: Rusty | March 26, 2011 at 08:26 AM
I try to show why your premises and conclusions do not offer us good reasons for substantiating the theological claims you make while trying to assure your readership that the square peg of suffering fits seamlessly into the round hole of a benevolent powerful god. To help me reveal why your attempt has failed, I show that the reasoning you offer is context dependent, meaning that it is untrustworthy when placed in a different context. And yes, I do resort to placing the same reasoning you use in an absurd caricature setting to reveal just how vacuous a wasteland it inhabits.
You ask me if I love my children and that if I cannot quantify that love then you think my argument about the soundness of epistemology that only MN offers us is shown to be false. You tried that with morality and now switch to love. But your reasoning remains the same and it is insufficient for the task at hand.
Just as you assumed an objective morality was indeed true but without any evidence to support the assertion that it came to us from god, so too do you now make the same inadequate presentation for love. This remains badly confused reasoning because you cannot provide any evidence for this objective love any more than you can for objective morality. All you can do is shoot arrows in the vicinity of morality and now love and hope that these terms, which are represented by human activities and human behaviours in the natural world, are mistaken for your objective out-of-this-universe platonic form target. So I ask honestly, where are these objective forms independent of their human expressions? You have no accurate answer, any more than Plato did, except by more metaphysics about the magical aether and other such unknowable 'realms'.
Morality and love are not things in and of themselves but nouns we use to describe relationships based on some comparative spectrum. I tried to explain this notion about what informs morality, what it means, namely, an abstract spectrum of intentional and consequential human behaviour we deem falling somewhere between good and evil, right and wrong. (Obviously you remain impervious to appreciating my attempt so I fail yet again. But hope springs eternal!) After all, we don't call a river 'immoral' for rising and falling or a volcano for erupting. Describing physical processes in terms of morality is silly, just as describing human life in terms of purpose is silly. We can call the effects of rivers rising and volcanoes erupting and lives that effect change good and evil depending on how much suffering is caused, but please note that without the relative human element, the terms lose all meaning because we have lost their human - or as you would call it, our subjective - points of reference.
Love is not a thing independent of these human points of reference. Love is a term we use to describe deep and affectionate feelings. Without biology to be the focal point of reference of how these feelings differ from, say, disgust we have nothing left to describe love. It's not perched on a tree or under a rock. It doesn't live under water or on the back side of the moon. It doesn't wait in some other 'realm' to be sprinkled unto humans causing deep feelings of affection to suddenly strike. The notion that love exists independently of people who use the term has no evidence, whereas we have oodles of evidence that this kind of emotional response is very much within and affected by our biology. If I bash in a certain part of your head, I can directly impact your ability to feel deep affection. That indicates that the brain is the center of our emotional life. The source of these feelings exists here and now somewhere within your skull because we have no evidence the brain is a conduit from this other 'realm' to this one. I strongly suspect that if I remove your brain, you will feel nothing including love, and suggesting that our brain functions are dependent on some supernatural internet connection is an unnecessary complication that has no good reason for thinking it may be so.
The next error in thinking you make is that (again) if something is not 'physical' then those who appreciate MN must reject what the terms describe. Just because a noun is not necessarily a physical object does not mean it cannot represent concepts and relationships. Good grief, Rusty, but that's what math IS. Your insistence on maintaining this belief about 'naturalists' cannot justify accepting terms for abstract reasoning is almost painfully wrong because the evidence against it being true is overwhelming. You make it seem like a naturalist cannot possibly use and understand and fully appreciate a metaphor, be in awe of beauty, feel deep love, and so on, because you so grossly misunderstand what the terms you have introduced as evidence for god actually mean!
All this insistence on MN reliant only on the physical and rejecting outright the abstract is simply absurd. Some of the most moving accounts of beauty and grandeur come to us from those who dedicate their lives to furthering our collective knowledge about the universe and what it contains. One does not either accept or reject the fullness of human life based on respecting what's true and knowable through methodological naturalism; one simply cannot respect the statements and assertions and assumptions made by those who replace I don't know with godidit as if that were both a reasonable and compatible answer. It's not: it's no 'answer' at all and most assuredly not knowledge.
Posted by: tildeb | March 26, 2011 at 11:42 AM
Another way to think of the moral question (Where do we get our morality from?) is this:
How does your religious belief in an objective morality stop you from going forth and raping and stealing and murdering and having sex with dead bodies if these behaviours are truly what your self genes promote?
Do you see the problem here?
Posted by: tildeb | March 27, 2011 at 09:12 AM
You ask me if I love my children and that if I cannot quantify that love then you think my argument about the soundness of epistemology that only MN offers us is shown to be false. You tried that with morality and now switch to love. But your reasoning remains the same and it is insufficient for the task at hand. Just as you assumed an objective morality was indeed true but without any evidence to support the assertion that it came to us from god, so too do you now make the same inadequate presentation for love. This remains badly confused reasoning because you cannot provide any evidence for this objective love any more than you can for objective morality.
I notice that you have not answered whether or not you love your children and where, exactly, that love resides. And whether or not I'm speaking of love or morality, we really must not think that electronic impulses in the brain define their essence. By the way, I've not claimed that the soundness of MN epistemology is false, only that it is limited. That you cannot or will not see that is beyond me (but I too, have that abstract hope springing eternal). I have offered you at least one example of objective morality, that of whether or not the act of torturing infants for pleasure is now, has always been, and will always be morally wrong. If you cannot answer in the affirmative, you do not accept objective morality (and, consequentially, must accept all the baggage that entails).
Posted by: Rusty | March 30, 2011 at 08:53 PM
You write we really must not think that electronic impulses in the brain define their (love and morality's) essence.
Why? On what do you base this? If, as Stephen Pinker suggests, the mind is what the brain does then you are going to have to show where else it originates, by what mechanism it transferred, and we adapt so that we can then utilize this intrusion. This process you assume must be true is far more complicated than is the assertion that what we call love and morality are abstract notions that resides in the biology of our brain.
Inflicting needless suffering on another for pleasure falls at the end of our right and wrong spectrum of behaviours we call morality. This placement of such a behaviour is consistent across the species. You claim this placement reveals an objective morality that cannot possibly be biological. Although I agree that this spectrum is used across the species and certain species-wide consistency does indeed exist, this does not mean that morality is somehow separate from our biology. It is this assertion that I am in fundamental disagreement with. If you wish to move past this stumbling block, you are going to have to come up with the causal effect by means of a mechanism. This you cannot do, whereas I can.
Posted by: tildeb | April 02, 2011 at 02:36 PM