Talk:Argument from morality

And/Or?

On "Variation 3: Moral order (Kant)" it reads:

1. The summum bonum is where moral virtue and happiness coincide.
2. We are rationally obliged to attain the summum bonum.
3. What we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.
4. If there is no God or afterlife, it is not possible to attain the summum bonum.
5. God (and the afterlife) must exist.

Shouldn't the last one be "God (or the afterlife)" to correspond with the premise? One does not nessarily implies the other.

Note: I edited it myself, so revert it back to "And" if you don't find it to your liking

Circular Reasoning 2

I've removed the following:

The assumption that "God exists" is an instance of circular reasoning, since the argument attempts to show precisely that God exists. However, despite this, many believers still consider this argument to be valid, because they consider God to be a necessary entity by most believers (making it an argument from personal belief). That is to say, they believe that God must exist and cannot not exist (the opposite of this would be a contingent entity, such as the Earth or the Sun — which exist but could very well not exist). This stance however, is criticised because it avoids logic and reason, despite it being what it tries to use to prove its assumption in the first place.

The argument doesn't take as an assumption that "God Exists" (and if it's written here so that it does then it should be changed); rather, it takes as a premise that objective morals exist, and that the only explanation for this is God. Those are both, of course, contentious claims, but they're not circular; one (prima facie) doesn't have to first prove God in order to prove objective morals. Read C. S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man for a good (non-theistic) reductio ad absurdum argument for objective morality (which he calls "the tao"). (Lewis does later argue in Mere Christianity that God is nessasary to explain why the tao exists, but that is seperate from the question of whether it exists.)

Finally, the stuff about God being a necessary entity is an entirely seperate argument (either the Ontological Argument or certain forms of the Cosmological argument) and doesn't belong here; any formulation of this argument which appeals to such a concept to explain God is no longer argueing from morality. Snowboardpunk

Edit ok?

I dont edit wikipedia, but I thought I would this time...Is the edit ok, and if not, how could I have improved what I added? I may add/change criticism and objections section later. If you disagree with my edit, just revert it back. Hpmons 19:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

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Circular reasoning

Hey guys. I'm not sure I understand the logic behind the "circular reasoning" section. What argument is only valid if we assume that God exists? Certainly not the argument from morality, which is the subject of the page. That doesn't assume that God exists, but rather that absolute morality exists. It then concludes, solely on this one assumption, that God exists. So what argument assumes His existence? I just don't understand what the author(s) of that section are trying to say. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me. Then maybe we can all figure out a way to word it better. Thanks.

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I'm cleaning the thing up and of course the circular reasoning issue has to be dealt with. I'm not sure I can formulate a non-trivially-circular argument that is equivalent to the original, at least not in the proper words. The idea of replacing the word "God" by "some fixed external standard of morality" only to conclude later that its name is "God" looks rather weasely to me, and moreover, it doesn't solve anything and just begs the question of how we are to know that this "external standard" exists. Then again, I'm an irredeemable atheist and positively perplexed. Anyone? --Pablo D. Flores 14:10, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PS Larry's Text (quoted in this page) should be somewhere. At least when he discusses the possibilities, it is rather neutral. And I would not object to include the rest as a quote. The text is very well written and should not be wasted.

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In response to this concluding paragraph:

So in light of this, let us examine a claim brought out earlier: "If God is dead, then everything is permitted." If God were to have any reasons for what he forbids, those reasons are what make the forbidden things wrong. So it is argued that it is possible to understand that we might lead moral lives, and accept very strong moral standards, even if we deny that God exists. We do not have to believe in God in order be rational in accepting moral principles.

Suppose the reasons God has is that committing the forbidden actions leads to separation between God and humanity, and that separation from the source of existence leads to annihilation, non-existence. Thus it is possible for God to have reasons for what he forbids, that wholly depend on God's existence, that leave standing the initial claim, "If God is dead, then everything is permitted".

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I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but it seems quite obvious to me that the Argument from morality is not (in any valid sense of the term proof) a proof of the existence of a/many God(s). Why? I'll quote from the article: "The argument is valid if and only if the following assumptions are correct:

1. God exists."

Any thoughts on this? shouldn't this be pointed out in the article? --snoyes 18:24, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The original version of the topic, from Larry's Text, begins with the assertion that morality comes from God. That presupposes the existence of God, so I included that as an assumption. Perhaps there is another formulation of the argument that renders it less trivially circular. Fairandbalanced 14:41, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

No, you're quite right that any "proof of God" will fail to prove him -- for the obvious reason that if a theistic God exists, he exists necessarily (that is to say, without need of anything else) rather than contingently (that is to say, because of some other fact). As a Christian, I nonetheless hold this position with some vigour. Incidentally, I think Larry's Text does a brilliant job of expounding my own view of ethics as flowing from the character of God. Which, I guess, is why (a) it doesn't belong in an article on some misguided "proof of God"; and (b) it needs work before it can enter an article on theological ethics. Wooster 15:58, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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A simpler version of the argument from morality is the observation that, in any argument, the various sides make appeals to standards. Suppose person A says to person B, "I'm right because of so-and-so," the so-and-so is a standard which A thinks A and B (and presumably every reasonable person) ought to adhere to. Some, perhaps all, things that are wrong trouble the conscience, which is a standard once again. Now, if the ultimate "good" standard really exists outside of ourselves (here's the place where many atheists claim the argument fails), then we might as well call it "God" or a reflection of "God" or something similar. If the standard in fact does not exist, then all argument is a waste of energy. In addition, we would have no objective reason to justify any justice system; all possible justice systems would be arbitrary and capricious, as objective justice couldn't exist. This would be absurd, so God must exist. User:Ngchen 21:10, 9 Aug 2004

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"If God exists, then God and God alone decides what is (truly) right and wrong. Without God there could be no ultimate standards of morality." Why? Why should there be only standarts set by God? In my point of view the first thesis is not correct, therefore none others are. Jack

Below is text I moved from the article, until someone integrates it. Wmahan. 20:15, 2004 Sep 11 (UTC)

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Isn't Premise 2, "There is a moral law", also a blatant assumption? Definitions of what is and is not moral differ from culture to culture, and there are no absolute moral statements which apply in all conceivable circumstances. --StoatBringer 14:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Larry's Text

The following is a portion of Larry's Text, which consists of lectures given by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger in courses that he taught at Ohio State University. Wikification and NPOVing are invited.

The stability assumption seems to remove all potential for ethical progress. If, for example, slavery was morally permissible in ancient times, it is morally permissible today, because God's commands never change. Human concerns then become to a degree irrelevant.

Socrates first provided one common objection to theological ethics. Do we want to say that an action is right because God commands it, or do we want to say, instead, that God commands an action because it is right? If we say that actions are right because God commands them, then we can't explain why God commands what he does. On the other hand, if we say that God commands right actions because they are right, then we're saying that what makes actions right isn't just the fact that God commands them. Rather, God sees that an action is right, and commands us to do it because it is right. If we accept theological ethics as our only ethical theory, then there's no moral explanation for why God commands what he does. If God had commanded us to murder each other, then that would be right -- by definition.

One might object to this, and suggest that God would never command us to murder one another, but this is entirely irrelevant. The point is that if what is good or right is so because God commanded it and not because it has any intrinsic moral qualities, then God could potentially command us to do the opposite and that would then become the morally right thing to do. If one entirely accepts this line of reasoning, then the morality becomes entirely arbitrary and unfixed.

One proposal is that there is something about human nature, and the nature of the universe we live in that makes murder wrong; God recognizes these facts and, having recognized them, commands us not to murder each other. So what if we do say that God has reasons for commanding and forbidding what he does? Then we say: God's reasons, the facts about our humanity and our universe that lead him to legislate what he does, are what make actions right and wrong. For example, suppose he forbids us to murder because murder is totally contrary to human happiness. Then we may say: the reason that murder is wrong is that it is totally contrary to human happiness. Then God's reasons for saying loving each other is right will be just the same as our reasons for thinking loving each other is right.

Morality is then, strictly speaking, conceptually separable from what God commands. In order to understand what is right and wrong, we need only understand what God's reasons for commanding things would be, if God were to exist. And that does not even require that God exists. It is not so easy to separate God's commands and morality if you assume that God created humans and the universe in such a way that was consistent with his commands. Conversely, separating God's commands and morality presumes that God did not create the universe in a way that was consistent with his commands, or that his commands are inconsistent with the nature of the universe.

So in light of this, let us examine a claim brought out earlier: "If God is dead, then everything is permitted." If God were to have any reasons for what he forbids, those reasons are what make the forbidden things wrong. So it is argued that it is possible to understand that we might lead moral lives, and accept very strong moral standards, even if we deny that God exists. We do not have to believe in God in order be rational in accepting moral principles. Instead, we can deduce the reasons that a hypothetical God would have for defining moral principles.

A possible response to this objection is that God's commands are not arbitrary, but are a reflection of His own infinite, eternal, and unchangeable nature. God is defined as being the highest good, so therefore it would be illogical for us, as His creatures, to be able to consider His commands or His actions and find them to be evil. But if we had been created by an evil god, then that would not explain why we seek the good. Also, it can be argued that it would be impossible for evil to be the fundamental of a universe, because evil is primarily a negation - actions and commands are judged to be evil insofar as they are contrary to our standards of good. So therefore, if the world was created by a god, this god is good and not evil. Then it would impossible for Him to command good sometimes and evil other times, because God cannot contradict Himself. It would be as illogical for God to be able to command evil as it would be for Him to create a rock that He couldn't lift, or to destroy Himself.

We can recognize the rationality and goodness of His commands because He created the universe to follow laws, rather than to be chaotic, and because we were made "in His image" (Gen. 1:26) and thus have an innate moral sense. There are some things that almost all people agree upon (murder is wrong, you shouldn't steal from others, we can't go around having sex with whatever we feel like {animals, children, our parents, etc.}). Even people who do those things would probably object if someone did it to them. Therefore, there is a conscience that convicts us when we do wrong, and a judicial sense that is offended when others do wrong to us. A purely utilitarian ethic is judged by most people to be flawed (for example, it is difficult to find the utilitarian reason one would sacrifice himself for his country, and then there are utilitarian ethicists such as Peter Singer who believe that infanticide is permissible and that the elderly and disabled can be removed from the population if they are a burden). If the conscience and the judicial sense do not function in a strictly utilitarian manner, then it makes a transcendent basis for morality seem more plausible. According to this view, areas of moral consensus show God's fingerprints on His handiwork, so to speak.

Accurate presentation of argument

I added the NPOV dispute, b/c I feel that the article currently does not, in the most accurate manner, present the best argument from morality. The divine command theory is a only a subset of the argument from morality, and the article spends an inordinate amount of space criticizing the argument as opposed to presenting it in its strongest form. My earlier statement in terms of standard that can be appealed to in any argument might be a stronger version of the argument from morality, and it is at least not trivially circular. However, other versions of the argument also exist, and the stuff on utilitarianism is commendable. With a reorganization fo the presentation of the article, I think we'll reach NPOV. Ngchen 04:00, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If reason is cunning, then morality is viscious.

You may quote me on that. At any rate, the problem with this artice is th subject itself... if we attempt to ask anyone (never mind multiple anyones) to define and edit these things, we might just as well ask our own mirror reflections to draw ourselves. Sweetfreek 14:15, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

C. S. Lewis link

The first link in the references section sounds as if it links to something by C. S. Lewis. The page that it links to, however, appears to be something else. -- Wmarkham 01:23, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Explanation of my edits

Dunno where else to put this, but here:

The theist would cite counterexamples to those above, such as human rights abuses in atheist societies, typically communist China, North Korea, old East Germany and the former Soviet Union.

The "examples above" are already an counter-example to the argument's own prediction. There is no point citing counter-counter-examples.

To the theist, this would be further evidence for, not against, the concept of an Absolute Moral Authority, and it's universal application in the human conscience, and thus for The Argument From Morality. For if peoples in a society with no structured concept of god have similar morals to those of believers today, the theist would argue, it would appear as though there must be an Absolute Morality.

This part is irrelevant, the previous paragraph is a counterargument to "influenced morality by history". It has also been mentioned already. It is also circular reasoning because it is assumes the validity of the original premise - "If there is a moral law, then there must be a moral lawgiver."

Infinity0 17:06, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup January 2006

I added the cleanup tag, and readded the NPOV tag, because the article currently reads like a disjointed hodgepodge of attacks against several variations of the argument from morality. I think the article definitely needs to be thoroughly reorganized, perhaps listing the variations of the argument first and their underlying assumptions and brief justifications of the assumptions, and then proceeding onto criticisms and possible rebuttals and counter-rebuttals. Of course, rebuttals shouldn't be nested ad infinitum, but I don't know what a reasonable depth is. Also, the prevalence of various clear straw man arguments for all sides probably need to be removed. Ngchen 03:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Contrary Evidence section needs to be cut.

I don't really see the point of entertaining an argument about whether atheists or theists killed more people. The arguments, not facts, laid out against theism are rife with faulty logic and are not at all what wikipedia should accomplish. For example:

"Believers have been solely responsible for countless historical atrocities, including (but certainly not limited to) the Crusades and the September 11 attacks. While atheists have also been responsible for some atrocities, such as the Soviet gulag camps of Joseph Stalin or the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, they are not primarily motivated by their religious beliefs."

It can be argued that theists were not motivated by religion in their atrocities either, and that faith was used as an excuse for violent political action. Osama, it has been argued, is committing these acts for political rather than religious reasons.

I'm getting off topic, the point here is that this argument should take place somewhere else, not in an unbiased article about the AFM. It's a synthetic(logical) argument, so lets talk about logic, and get rid of this emotive garbage.

I am admittedly not unbiased enough to edit this article, so someone else needs to do it. Would deletion of the offending sections be acceptable?

WEll, the section is only small, a few lines or so. I think it should stay that size and not be deleted. On the other hand, if you see some problems in wording (like the ones you have pointed out) feel free to change them. :) -- infinity0 17:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this section should be cut; if anything its purpose in the Criticisms section is counter-productive as it sets up the critics position as a subjective one, which is echoed in parts of the response further down. Both of these seem inconsistent with reasoned/logical arguments above them. -- mr_happyhour

Complete Rewrite

I have rewritten the entire article, basing my rewrite largely on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article (perhaps being a bit too liberal in my borrowing of its form and wording). As it stood before, the article was a mess - arguments were poorly constructed, the "contrary evidence" section was irrelevant, and the "responses and counter-responses" section was a haphazard hodgepodge. My current version is not perfect, but hopefully it presents a nicer template to work with. Each variant of the argument will have its own criticism section, and the final "general criticism" section can have criticisms common to all forms of the argument. Dshin 06:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Infinity0, I like your revised numbering scheme. Dshin 20:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks :) Uh, just a heads up, it's customary to put new talk page sections at the bottom. :P -- infinity0 20:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Oops, that makes sense. Fixed! Dshin 22:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps somebody could attempt to incorporate a "Moral anticipation" argument, highlighted in the "Eager anticipation" section of the following Internet essay: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/tom_wanchick/critique_vuletic.html. It is a hybrid of an argument from design and an argument from morality. William Lane Craig is among its proponents, and agnostic philosophers like Paul Draper recognize the argument as evidence for theism. Dshin 07:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Best explanation

I do not like the phrase "the best explanation". What does it mean exactly? I also don't like the phrase "This seems unreasonable". It's very logically weak. Srnec 02:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is ambiguous about the phrase "the best explanation". It simply means that competing explanations do not add up. As for the "this seems unreasonable" phrase, I agree that it could be flushed out a bit more. Four distinct points are raised in the Euthyphro dilemma article, and I'm not sure which of the four should be highlighted, or if the reader should simply be referred to that article (personally, I find the second point the most compelling). I'm a bit worried about getting into too much detail about all the various arguments and counter-arguments, as this can cause the article to spiral out of control (like the previous version did). I've copy+pasted the relevant paragraph below-

The second horn of the dilemma (known as divine command theory) runs into four main problems. First, it implies that what is good is arbitrary, based merely upon god's whim; if god had created the world to include the values that rape, murder, and torture were virtues, while mercy and charity were vices, then they would have been. Secondly, it implies that calling god good makes no sense (or, at best, that one is simply saying that god is consistent). Thirdly, it commits the naturalistic fallacy; to explain the evaluative claim that murder is wrong (or the prescription that one should not commit murder) in terms of what god has or hasn't said is to argue from a putative fact about the world to a value (to argue to an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’; see is-ought problem). Fourthly, it seems to lead to the conclusion that all moral values are at the same level (because what is wrong is simply to disobey god); that is, committing murder is no worse than telling a lie.

Is "the best explanation" the right one? That's what I'm saying. The paragraph you pasted above seems to better catch the drift of the objections. Srnec 17:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, "best explanation", to rephrase, would probably be best translated as "most likely to be right" - of course, we cannot say for certainty that it absolutely is the right one, but I am not sure hashing this out is beneficial. Dshin 20:24, 18 May 2006 (UTC) (sorry, forgot to sign my previous comment)

General critiicism

The old "general criticism" is incoherent as stated because it only applies to Variation 2, and thus belongs there. Variations 1 and 3 do not depend in any way on the origins of moral norms. In addition the old general criticism section was not worded NPOV and was mostly un-refed. NBeale 00:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Locke

Why is Locke included here in such a manner? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.52.215.78 (talk) 00:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

Citation 2

I don't see how that has to do with anything. Unless... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.52.215.78 (talk) 00:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

Evolutionary dynamics?

Why is this link pointing to a non-existent page? Furthermore does it seem to anyone else that the phrase in brackets : "although some leading researchers on the evolution of altruism are Christian" is irrelevant to the validity of criticisms of the moral argument based on "Evolutionary Dynamics". This phrase is found near the picture of Nietzsche and anyone willing to edit...

What does argument from morality have to do with god?

I found this article searching for "argument from morality" and it simply does not make sense.

An argument from morality is merely any argument which its directive comes from the morality of the effects being discussed. Why is this article about one particular argument? VTNC (talk) 02:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

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Newman

Newman's classic argument from the conscience would be good to include here.