Greg Koukl explains how to be a consistent moral relativist

The absolute easiest way to get into a good conversation with someone is to ask them what makes something right or wrong on their view. You have to be careful not to get into a fight about a particular moral issue, though, so you have to choose a clear-case example, not something controversial.

Just ask the person you want to engage two questions:

1. Is it it wrong to treat people badly just because of their skin color?
2. What makes it wrong?

Now, as I see it, there are only 3 possible answers to this question.

1. I personally prefer not to do that – it is wrong for me.
2. Our culture has evolved a set of customs that apply for us in this time and place, and that set of customs says that members of the society ought not to do that. It is wrong for us, here and now.
3. Humans are designed to act in a certain way, and part of that design is that we ought not to do that. Acting in line with our design allows us to flourish, (Aristotle’s eudaimonia).

Response #1, is called “moral relativism”. Response #2 is called “cultural relativism”. Response #3 is my view: moral realism. I believe in a hierarchy of moral absolutes that exist objectively, because they are part of God’s design for us and the universe.

I wanted to go over a paper by Greg Koukl from Stand to Reason, in which he critiques moral relativism. His paper is called “Seven Things You Can’t Do as a Moral Relativist”. First, let’s see the list of sevent things.

1. You can’t make moral judgments about other people’s moral choices
2. You can’t complain about God allowing evil and suffering
3. You can’t blame people or praise people for their moral choices
4. You can’t claim that any situation is unfair or unjust
5. You can’t improve your morality
6. You can’t have meaningful discussions about morality
7. You can’t promote the obligation to be tolerant

You’ll have to read the paper to see how he argues for these, but I wanted to say a brief word about number 1.

Rule #1: Relativists Can’t Accuse Others of Wrong-Doing

Relativism makes it impossible to criticize the behavior of others, because relativism ultimately denies that there is such a thing as wrong- doing. In other words, if you believe that morality is a matter of personal definition, then you can’t ever again judge the actions of others. Relativists can’t even object on moral grounds to racism. After all, what sense can be made of the judgment “apartheid is wrong” when spoken by someone who doesn’t believe in right and wrong? What justification is there to intervene? Certainly not human rights, for there are no such things as rights. Relativism is the ultimate pro-choice position because it accepts every personal choice—even the choice to be racist.

In moral relativism, what you ought to do is totally up to you. Morality is just like a lunch buffet – you pick what you like based on your personal preferences.

I remember one particular discussion I had with a non-Christian co-worker. Both she and her live-in boyfriend were moral relativists. They were fighting because she was angry about his not having (or wanting) a job, and he was angry because when he asked her for space, she immediately ran out and cheated on him.

What’s interesting is that both of these people chose the other in order to escape being judged themselves. I think this happens a lot in relationships today. Both people don’t want to be judged by the other person, but they both want to the other person to treat them well and to honor moral obligations. Isn’t that interesting? I don’t think that you can have something like marriage work when neither person takes moral obligations to the other person seriously.

Filed under: Polemics, Greg Koukl, Laws of Logic, Moral Realism, Morality, Objective Morality, Postmodernism, Reformer's Dilemma, Stand to Reason, Tolerance

Do objective moral values really exist? Is moral relativism true?

Neil Shenvi has written an article about it on his apologetics web page.

Thesis:

Do objective moral values exist? Many people in our culture today would say that they do not. Morality, says the moral relativist, is constructed by individuals or societies; what is moral for you might not be moral for me. In contrast, the claim of moral realism is that there are objective moral values which specify concepts like good and evil, right and wrong, and which transcend cultures and individuals. To my surprise, I found very little information on the Internet presenting evidence for moral realism, in spite of the fact that it is the majority position of academic philosophers. Although I do believe that we can have immediate personal knowledge through our conscience that objective moral values exist, I believe that there are also several pieces of objective evidence to support this position. Indeed, my claim is that we have many good reasons to believe that objective moral values exist and few -if any- reasons to believe that they do not exist.

In the first section of this essay I will explain what we mean by “objective moral values.” I will also emphasize the difference between moral ontology and moral epistemology, and between moral ontology and moral behavior. In the second section, I will present a positive case that objective moral values exist. I hope to show that there are many good reasons to accept the existence of objective moral values. In the third section, I will do something far less theoretical and far more personal; I will try to show that every one of us knows that objective moral values do exist but is surpressing this knowledge. And in the final section I will try to show why we are attracted to moral relativism despite its implausibility.

Outline:

[L]et’s look at the five pieces of evidence that objective moral values exist. If objective moral values exist and we can intuitively perceive them, this hypothesis explains five pieces of empirical evidence

1. Nearly universally across human cultures, there exist the same basic standards of morality. In addition, there exist in all cultures truly altrustic acts which lead to no personal or genetic benefit.
2. The majority of people who explicitly deny the existence of objective morality still act as if objective morality exists.
3. There exists a nearly universal human intuition that certain things are objectively right or wrong.
4. The majority of philosophers recognize the existence of objective moral facts.
5. Many naturalists (like Sam Harris or Shelley Kagan) affirm the existence of objective moral facts, despite the problems inherent in grounding these facts in the natural world.

And more:

As I said in the first section, the basic premise of moral relativism is that there is no objective standard of moral behavior. All moral behavior is relative to individual persons or cultures; what is “good” or “bad” depends on the person, on the place and time, on the community, and on the culture. No action and no behavior can rightly be termed “bad” or “good” without qualification. Actions are only “good to you” or “bad to you”, “good to this culture” or “bad to this culture.” In the previous section, I tried to show that –based on the evidence– belief in moral relativism is unwarranted. It is theoretically possible to find ways around the evidence presented above, but each of these pieces of evidence seems to clearly point to the existence of objective moral values. In this secion, I will not attempt to show that belief in moral relativism is unwarranted; rather, I will try to show that no one actually believes in moral relativism. To do so, I will ask four questions. Each of them centers around a “thought experiment,” a highly hypothetical situtation which probes our reactions to admittedly unlikely circumstances. I urge the reader to take these questions very seriously.

The moral argument is probably the most intuitive and accessible argument for theism, with the possible exception of the cosmological argument.

Filed under: Polemics, Culture, Epistemology, Ethics, God, Moral Duties, Moral Facts, Moral Obligation, Moral Realism, Moral Relativism, Moral Values, Morality, Morals, Naturalism, Objective Morality, Ontology, Philosophy, Relativism, Theism

Richard Dawkins’ rhetoric about religion and child abuse

Vic Reppert wrote an interesting post a while back on Richard Dawkins’ view that parents teaching their religion to children is child abuse.

First, this is what Dawkins said:

“God Delusion” author Richard Dawkins complains that “Our society, including the nonreligious sector, has accepted the preposterous idea that it is normal and right to indoctrinate tiny children in the religion of their parents, and to slap religious labels on them — ‘Catholic child,’ ‘Protestant child,’ ‘Jewish child,’ ‘Muslim child,’ etc.”

Dawkins says those “labels” are “always a form of child abuse” and concludes:

“Maybe some children need to be protected from indoctrination by their own parents.”

Then Reppert writes:

The thinking that leads to religious persecution goes like this: those guys over there who are teaching false religious claims are exposing others to a greater likelihood of eternal damnation. So we have to stop these people no matter what it takes. Maybe people need to be protected from false teaching. Believe me, religious persecutors have everyone’s best interests at heart.

So do anti-religious persecutors. Removing eternal damnation from the picture doesn’t eliminate the temptation to persecute. They will say that these religious people may not be exposing people to hell, but they are spreading scientific illiteracy and possibly ushering in a new dark age, and they just have to be stopped.

If I were told that I could not teach Christianity to my children, you can bet I would consider myself to be a victim of persecution. (Unfortunately for Dawkins, we already “indoctrinated” our kids, and they are dedicated Christian adults now.)

Yes, yes, I know, Dawkins says maybe. And the next atheist that comes along will say definitely. And it will be more tempting for these people to say definitely the closer they are to acquiring political power.

I don’t agree with Vic Reppert on many things, but he’s right about this. And I think Dawkins’ views are particularly alarming given the moral relativism, anti-reason and anti-science ideas so dominant on the secular left. I posted recently about the atheist philosopher Arif Ahmed’s denial of moral facts, which is the view that is consistent with atheism and an accidental, materialistic universe. It was interesting to see how Ahmed’s denial of moral realism did not stop him from being politically active on the basis of his personal preferences. And he was perfectly happy forcing his personal preferences on other people despite admitting that morality is illusory when considered objectively.

Atheists don’t believe in moral realism, but they do believe in pursuing pleasure and avoiding moral sanctions from those who disagree with them. And the more militant ones liek Dawkins and Ahmed will use political power to pursue those ends. If you are religious, and you teach your children that some actions are objectively immoral, then your children may grow up and judge atheists or vote in policies that limit their hedonism. Then the more militant atheists would feel bad, or be prevented from doing things that make them happy – like killing inconvenient babies who appear after recreational sex. And the more militant atheists may want to put a stop to you making them feel bad. There is nothing in their worldview that prevents them from using violence to stop you from making them feel bad. On their view, the universe is an accident, and you have no “natural rights” like the right to life, objectively speaking.

So you can see how the denial of objective moral values and duties leads to things like abortion today. Their victims today are weak, and small. Many people are therefore inclined to agree with them that the right to happiness of the strong trumps the right-to-life of the weak, (a right not grounded by the atheism worldview, which denies objective human rights). Tomorrow, if they had more political power, perhaps the more militant atheists would graduate to more draconian acts, like other atheists (Stalin, Mao, etc.) have in the past.

Atheist Aldous Huxley explains what atheists believe about morality and why they believe it:

For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality.We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.

Atheism is just the denial of objective moral duties, achieved by denying the existence of the objective moral duty prescriber, also known as God.

Atheists oppose science and evidence

• Physicist Frank Tipler weighs in on Stephen Hawking’s theory
• Peter Atkins claiming that nothing exists, (the physical universe is actually nothing)
• Stephen Meyer debating Michael Shermer on the origin of life
• Richard Dawkins explains why he won’t debate William Lane Craig
• How good are the arguments in the new book by Richard Dawkins?
• Richard Dawkins cites fraudulent research, runs from public debate
• Richard Dawkins thinks that aliens may have caused the origin of life
• Richard Dawkins cites German professor as authority on historical Jesus
• Analyzing Christopher Hitchens’ case against God

Theists support science and evidence

• The origin of the universe from nothing
• The fine-tuning of the cosmological constants to permit life
• The fine-tuning of the galaxy, solar system, and planet to permit life
• Origin of the building blocks in the simplest replicating cell
• Origin of biological information in the simplest replicating cell
• Sudden origins of all major body plans in the Cambrian explosion
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The limits on what natural selection and random mutation can do
• Peer-reviewed paper says there is no atheistic explanation for the Cambrian explosion
• Does the Cambrian explosion disprove Darwinian evolution?

Filed under: Commentary, Atheism, Child Abuse, Children, Human Rights, Moral, Moral Realism, Morality, Rationality, Religion, Richard Dawkins, Secular Humanism, Vic Reppert, Victor Reppert

Greg Koukl explains how to be a consistent moral relativist

The absolute easiest way to get into a good conversation with someone is to ask them what makes something right or wrong on their view. You have to be careful not to get into a fight about a particular moral issue, though, so you have to choose a clear-case example, not something controversial.

Just ask the person you want to engage two questions:

1. Is it it wrong to treat people badly just because of their skin color?
2. What makes it wrong?

Now, as I see it, there are only 3 possible answers to this question.

1. I personally prefer not to do that – it is wrong for me.
2. Our culture has evolved a set of customs that apply for us in this time and place, and that set of customs says that members of the society ought not to do that. It is wrong for us, here and now.
3. Humans are designed to act in a certain way, and part of that design is that we ought not to do that. Acting in line with our design allows us to flourish, (Aristotle’s eudaimonia).

Response #1, is called “moral relativism”. Response #2 is called “cultural relativism”, and I will say a few words about that later. Response #3 is my view. I believe in a hierarchy of moral absolutes.

In this post, I wanted to go over a paper by Greg Koukl from Stand to Reason, in which he critiques moral relativism. His paper is called “Seven Things You Can’t Do as a Moral Relativist”. First, let’s see the list of sevent things.

1. You can’t make moral judgments about other people’s moral choices
2. You can’t complain about God allowing evil and suffering
3. You can’t blame people or praise people for their moral choices
4. You can’t claim that any situation is unfair or unjust
5. You can’t improve your morality
6. You can’t have meaningful discussions about morality
7. You can’t promote the obligation to be tolerant

You’ll have to read the paper to see how he argues for these, but I wanted to say a brief word about number 1. I already blogged about 2 here.

1. Relativists can’t accuse others of wrong-doing

In moral relativism, what you ought to do is totally up to you. Morality is just like a lunch buffet – you pick what you like based on your personal preferences.

I remember one particular discussion I had with a non-Christian co-worker. Both she and her live-in boyfriend were moral relativists. They were fighting because she was angry about his not having (or wanting) a job, and he was angry because when he asked her for space, she immediately ran out and cheated on him.

What’s interesting is that both of these people chose the other in order to escape being judged themselves. I think this happens a lot in relationships today. Instead of choosing someone who has character and who takes the role of spouse and parent seriously, people choose someone ammoral, who doesn’t threaten their autonomy.

Only later do they realize that marriage and parenting requires moral knowledge! I think that they each hope that they will later be able to change the other person into someone they are not. Which is probably why a lot of marriages break up. I just don’t see how it’s possible to get married without the ability to appeal to objective moral standards when disputes arise.

One of my best friends is married to a woman who I think is a really great wife and mother. A number of times I have disagreed with her about various topics, like firearms or masculinity. She goes away and reads a bunch of things and then comes back with a more thoughtful view. I think this is very important in a marriage. She’s changed my mind a few times as well.

(She spends her free night answering apologetics questions for seekers at her church)

A quick point about cultural relativism

Regarding cultural relativism, there a number of problems with it, some of which are described here. What constitutes a society? Who defines the moral consensus? What about the reformer’s dilemma? Why should I care what the herd thinks? Why should I sacrifice my own autonomy when the herd won’t catch me? Etc.

Also, I want to point out the 7-part series on morality and atheism that Tough Questions Answered put together a while back. I blogged about it here. Here’s another post with some debate about the rationality of moral rules and moral behavior on atheism. And then there was that debate with the postmodern moral relativist against Peter Williams.

Filed under: Polemics, Greg Koukl, Laws of Logic, Moral Realism, Morality, Objective Morality, Postmodernism, Reformer's Dilemma, Stand to Reason, Tolerance