February 29th, 2008
Atheism, Philosophy, and Religion
I started out deciding to write an essay of sorts about the foundation of morality for theists and atheists and the implications of each of those foundations, but I’ve decided instead to simply point to some interesting reading, and wait to provide a full essay in the future.
My future thesis will essentially be: morality apart from God is arbitrary. There is no way to determine moral absolutes without God. Instead, all that is left is a sort of moral preference based on whim.
The readings below do not necessarily support my thesis at all, but are related and extremely interesting in their own right. As of yet I’ve provided exactly zero argument in my favor - that is for another post - but these readings should help set the stage for our discussion.
Subject readings:
1) the Euthyphro dilemma
2) and Emotivism
3) The Book of Romans
4) God and Morality by Dick Farnell
5) Euthyphro, Hume, and the Biblical Word by John M. Frame
Some interesting thoughts on Farnell’s essay; when he describes the Euthyphro dilemma, he offers:
Another problem with the DCT [Divine Command Theory] is that it means that we can never act morally as an end in itself, but only ever as a means to simply comply with God’s commands. We might say that we obey God’s commands in order to act morally. But within this theory the term ‘moral’ simply means ‘in accordance with God’s commands’. So we would simply be saying that we obey God’s commands in order to act in accordance with those commands, which is of course the same as saying that we obey God’s command as an end in itself. Therefore, within this theory, acting morally is ultimately about complying with the whims of an amoral dictator, which is a far cry from the noble view of moral action held by most people today.
Notice at the end of this paragraph, the problem with the DCT is reduced to us “complying with the whims of an amoral dictator”, that dictator being God.
I understand what Farnell is trying to say here, but I think he has confused the underlying problem. In trying to discuss the foundation of morality, he has suddenly switched to how this foundation of morality defines the character of God, when instead it should be the other way around. What morality is and what God is are two entirely different discussions. When they overlap, as they do here, we need to be careful to study both discussions as they relate to the other, and not let one entirely define the other, as has been done here.
Later in the essay, Farnell does properly weave these two discussions together and explain the very reason why we should not consider God an “amoral dictator,” even if we accept the Divine Command Theory.
The philosopher Emrys Westacott draws the following conclusion about the DCT: ‘God, it seems, just happens to have disapproved of adultery; had his whim been different then adultery would be permissible.’…
But the dictionary lists three definitions of ‘arbitrary’ that are relevant here:
1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle: stopped at the first motel we passed, an arbitrary choice.
2. Not limited by law; despotic: the arbitrary rule of a dictator.
3. Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference: The diet imposes overall calorie limits, but daily menus are arbitrary. (see source 5)It seems to have been assumed that, within this theory, God’s command must be arbitrary in the sense of both the first and second definitions. But if God is all-loving, and therefore omnibenevolent, his command must instead be arbitrary in, and only in, the second and third senses. That is, God must be a benevolent dictator who’s commands are based on a natural preference to act in the overall best interests of all of us - and so he commands the kind of behaviour that he judges to be in the overall best interests of all of us. God’s arbitrary commands therefore could, and must, define morality without that command being arbitrary in the sense of being based on whim.
This rabbit trail is a small point really, but is brings up an important rule: sloppy word choice muddies and confuses discussion. It’s is incredibly important to be as exacting as possible with these sorts of discussions, so that we don’t accidentally imply or infer what shouldn’t be. The relatively straightforward resolution to the DST that Farnell provides rests on specific definitions of amoral, arbitrary, and goodness.
With all of my future posts, I will aim to be as precise as possible, but these confusions are bound to arise. If and when they do, I hope you’ll keep me accountable and ask for clarification.
Since we’ve already stumbled into discussing the DST, a comment from Frame’s essay (#5 above) is also useful:
The problem is resolved, I think, by the principle advanced in the lecture outline: that God’s nature is righteous and therefore normative. God loves goodness because he is good, and therefore he commands goodness in his revelation to man. Therefore in one sense, God loves the good because it is good; the concept is not arbitrary. Yet he does not need to look outside himself for a standard of goodness. That standard is his own character.
This resolution is a bit different than Farnell’s above. Instead of relying on God’s benevolence as the resolution to God’s moral whim, we realize that God simply is the moral and good absolute. Morality is not separate from God to dictate what God can and cannot command, instead morality is God and God himself decides what he commands. He cannot command immorality any more than He cannot be Himself.
Frame goes on to discuss Hume’s is-ought problem, which will be particularly applicable in my later posts about the moral foundation of atheism, but I’ll let you read through and think on it on your own. This post has been derailed plenty for now.
Since we’ve travelled quite far enough away from the main point of interest - the foundation of morality and implications thereof - I’ll bring this post to an end. I hope to write again and more specifically about my own beliefs regarding morality, religion, atheism, and philosphy, but for now we can consider this a research post.
Cheers