Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist?

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This blog entry is part 2 in a series on the moral argument. The entries in the series:

1. The Moral Argument for God Part 1: Going from Morality’s Existence to God’s Existence
2. The Moral Argument for God Part 2: Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist?
3. The Moral Argument for God Part 3: Does Objective Morality Exist?
4. The Euthyphro Dilemma
5. Epilogue: Awakening the Sensus Divinitatis

Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist?

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Intro

A popular claim among proponents of the moral argument is “If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist” (with some variants, e.g. “If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist”). Here I’ll argue that this claim is correct.

A Brief Recap

While it’s better that one reads part 1 of the moral argument first, I’ll try to make this article a standalone entry and I’ll link some terms to the glossary for those who might be unfamiliar with them. I’ll also give a brief recap of stuff to know for this article.

By “descriptive ought” I mean that type of ought that is nothing more than some purely descriptive state of affairs, e.g. “If you want to do well in school, you ought to study” meaning something like “As a matter of practical necessity, you need to study to do well in school.” By “prescriptive ought” I mean that type of ought that is not a descriptive ought, e.g. “You should not to torture infants just for fun.” By “moral ought” I (roughly) mean the prescriptive ought as applied to human behavior. By moral properties being objective I mean that they exist independently of human belief and perception of them. Moral ontology is the discipline that studies the foundations of morality (e.g. are moral properties like moral wrongness physical or nonphysical?). Thus an ontological explanation of morality is an explanation of how morality exists and what sort of reality it constitutes.

What it means for moral properties to be non-natural varies between writers, but we can borrow philosopher Robert Adam’s description that it means moral properties “cannot be stated entirely in the language of physics, chemistry, biology, and human or animal psychology.”[1] Either morality exists solely as part of the natural world (moral naturalism) or it exists to at least some degree as part of the non-natural realm (moral non-naturalism). One of these has to be true, because if morality exists neither as part of the natural realm nor as part of the non-natural realm, then it follows that morality does not exist as part of reality at all. If morality exists, some type of ontological explanation or other must be correct.

For the sort of morality we’re concerned with, moral non-naturalism appears to be true. Since physics, chemistry, etc. deal solely with purely descriptive states of affairs, natural properties and natural facts are purely descriptive states of affairs. As such, since moral oughtness is a prescriptive ought and not a descriptive ought, moral oughtness is non-natural and moral oughtness properties (like moral wrongness, where an action is morally wrong for someone only if they morally ought not to do it) are non-natural.

Another indication that moral properties are non-natural is their empirical undetectability and causal inertness. To illustrate what I meant by moral oughtness being empirically undetectable I used this thought experiment: imagine a moral nihilist (who disbelieves in moral oughtness) and a moral realist (who believes in moral oughtness) observe some jerk kicking a dog just for fun; the dog whimpers in pain and runs away. Both agree on all physiological and psychological facts, e.g. that the dog felt pain and suffered minor injury. The moral nihilist says, “I don’t think moral oughtness (like moral wrongness) is attached to that action.” The moral realist says, “I think moral oughtness (moral wrongness) is attached to that action.”

There is no empirical way to determine who is right here. Both views agree on all the same empirically observable facts, and moral oughtness being associated with certain physical facts (such as the dog’s injury) doesn’t explain any physical fact. Not only do we have zero empirical evidence for the existence of moral properties, we can’t have empirical evidence for moral properties since they’re empirically undetectable. The dog kicker scenario also illustrates that moral oughtness is causally inert. Notice that whether moral oughtness is associated with natural facts (e.g. the dog’s pain and injury) or not, the physical conditions are the same in both cases, and so barring the supernatural, the presence or absence of moral oughtness makes no causal difference as to what those physical conditions will result in.

In part 1 of the moral argument I noted that morality appeared to exist as part of the nonphysical realm to at least some degree (e.g. moral wrongness is a nonphysical property), and I argued that if we posited just one nonphysical thing as the foundation for objective morality and tried to find the simplest explanation for that entity grounding moral values and obligations, we end up with an eternal, transcendent, metaphysically necessary entity that imposes moral duties upon us with supreme and universally binding authority. This observation (and the claim that it rationally supports theism to at least some degree) is what I’ve called the argument from moral ontological simplicity. (For the purposes of understanding this article, the details of how this works are unimportant; I summarize it here only because I mention the argument later in this article.)

A Deductive Moral Argument

In my previous blog entry (part 1 of the moral argument) I gave an argument that went from morality’s existence to God’s existence, but that isn’t the only argument out there. Here’s another one:

1. If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist.
2. Objective morality does exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

The above moral argument is deductively valid; the premises (lines 1 and 2) entail the conclusion (line 3) such that it’s impossible for the argument to have true premises and a false conclusion. To quickly check the argument’s validity, notice what happens if we were to have true premises and a false conclusion:

1. If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist (true premise)
2. Objective morality does exist (true premise)
3. God does not exist (false conclusion)

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4. Objective morality does not exist (from 1 and 3)
5. Objective morality does exist and objective morality does not exist (from 2 and 4)

Because true premises and a false conclusion lead to the self-contradiction present in line 5, it really is impossible for the argument to have true premises and a false conclusion. Since the premises entail the conclusion, the debate over the conclusion will be a debate over whether the premises are true.

This blog entry will largely be about justifying premise 1 (in the next blog entry I’ll try to justify premise 2). For a while the first premise was unconvincing to me. Why can’t morality be like logic and just exist as a brute fact? I wasn’t convinced that God was needed for objective morality.

The Material Conditional

A material conditional takes the form of “If P, then Q” and is equivalent to “It is not the case that P is true and Q is false.” Thus, whether the material conditional is true is determined entirely by the truth of P and Q as follows, where the truth table below exhausts all possible true/false combinations of P and Q. Note the second line of the truth table where P being true and Q being false makes “If P, then Q” false:

P	Q	If P, then Q
T	T	T
T	F	F
F	T	T
F	F	T

Notice that P being true and Q being false is the only time the material conditional is false; otherwise the material conditional is true. For example, “If 2 + 2 = 5, then life forms exist” is a true material conditional because “2 + 2 = 5” is false and “life forms exist” is true, thus fitting the third line of the truth table where P is false and Q is true. A material conditional may seem like a weak claim (in the sense that it doesn’t claim very much) but it’s good enough for our purposes since when P is true, then Q is true as well (recall a material conditional prohibits Q from being false when P is true, as can be confirmed by looking at the second line of the truth table).

To simplify, let’s reword “If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist” as “If atheism is true, then objective morality does not exist,” so an “If P, then Q” material conditional here goes like this:

P =	Atheism is true.
Q =	Objective morality does not exist.

Recall the truth table:

P	Q	If P, then Q
T	T	T
T	F	F
F	T	T
F	F	T

Notice from the above truth table that whenever P is false (and thus atheism is false), the material conditional is true. So anybody who believes God exists is committed to accepting the material conditional as true. Also notice from the truth table that whenever Q is true (and thus objective morality does not exist) the material conditional is true, and so any atheist who believes objective morality does not exist is likewise committed to accepting the material conditional as true. The only way for the first premise to be false is if atheism is true (making P true) with objective morality existing (making Q false).

One benefit of the material conditional is that it’s a theorem of mathematics and propositional logic that “Given P, probably Q” entails “Probably, if P then Q.” For example, “objective morality probably doesn’t exist if God does not exist” entails that the moral argument’s first premise is probably true. So if we establish that moral objectivism is unlikely on atheism, we’ll have strong support for the first premise.

For theists and those who deny moral objectivism then, the first premise is easy to justify; they just need to understand that the first premise is a material conditional and use a bit of logical thinking. Really, the only way to reasonably deny the first premise is to believe atheism is true and objective morality exists. So what about those people? For example, why couldn’t the atheist take my suggestion that objective morality’s existence is a brute fact?

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[1] Adams, Robert M. The Virtue of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 145.



Last major edit of this article: 2016-12-02-FR



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The Moral Argument for God

Home  >  Philosophy  >  Atheism/Theism

This blog entry is part 1 in a series on the moral argument. The entries in the series:

1. The Moral Argument for God Part 1: Going from Morality’s Existence to God’s Existence
2. The Moral Argument for God Part 2: Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist?
3. The Moral Argument for God Part 3: Does Objective Morality Exist?
4. The Euthyphro Dilemma
5. Epilogue: Awakening the Sensus Divinitatis

In part 1 of this series, I’ll introduce two sorts of moral arguments: one from the objective and non-natural nature of morality (I’ll explain what “non-natural” means shortly) and an argument of my own invention I’ll call the argument from moral ontological simplicity which goes from morality to a God-like entity and (by adding one further step) to a personal supreme being. In parts 2 and 3 of the series I’ll be addressing a more standard version of the moral argument that goes like this:

1. If God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist.
2. Objective morality does exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Part 2 in the series (Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist?) discusses the first premise and part 3 (Does Objective Morality Exist?) discusses the second premise.

Starting Points

Before presenting the argument from moral ontological simplicity I’ll define some key terms. By authority I mean being the source of some obligation. Moral properties (like moral wrongness) are objective in that they exist independently of human belief and perception of them. Morality is metaphysically necessary in the sense that its existence “couldn’t be otherwise.” If we let a possible world be a complete description of the way the world is or could be like, something like “kindness is a virtue” is metaphysically necessary in the sense that it holds in all possible worlds. Similarly, there is no possible world where “torturing infants just for fun” isn’t morally wrong. Moral ontology is the discipline that studies the foundations of morality (e.g. are moral properties like moral wrongness physical or nonphysical?). Thus an ontological explanation of morality is an explanation of how morality exists and what sort of reality it constitutes.

By “descriptive ought” I mean that type of ought that is nothing more than some purely descriptive state of affairs. That may sound strange, but one type of descriptive ought many of us are familiar with is the type found in hypothetical imperatives, which take the form of something sufficiently like, “If you want X, you ought do Y.” 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant says the hypothetical imperative represents the “practical necessity of a possible action as means to something else.”[1] An example of a hypothetical imperative is “If you want to do well in school, you ought to study” meaning something like, “As a matter of practical necessity, you need to study to do well in school.” Any type of “ought” that has no other properties besides purely descriptive ones is a descriptive ought.

By “prescriptive ought” I mean that type of ought that is not a descriptive ought, e.g. “You should not to torture infants just for fun.” The prescriptive ought is the type of ought used in morality; morality tells us whether we really ought to do something, and not merely whether certain actions are a good means to bring about some purely descriptive state of affairs. This is important because to get around the moral argument I’ve seen some atheists redefine morality so that it uses the descriptive ought.

The type of morality being referred to here involves the prescriptive ought, e.g. moral wrongness. An action is morally wrong for someone only if they ought not to do it. The property of moral wrongness is universalizable in that applies equally to all relevantly similar situations, and the property is supremely authoritative, overriding any other “ought” (e.g. legal rules). If we think of “moral rightness” as the property of following some moral obligation, we get the same thing as “moral wrongness” but in the opposite direction: an action is morally right for someone only if they ought not to do it etc.

Objective Moral Properties: Natural or Non-natural?

What it means for moral properties to be non-natural varies between writers, but we can borrow philosopher Robert Adam’s description that it means moral properties “cannot be stated entirely in the language of physics, chemistry, biology, and human or animal psychology.”[2] Similarly, natural facts are facts that are entirely in the language of psychology and the natural sciences, e.g. “the dog suffered a painful injury” is a natural fact.

Either morality exists solely as part of the natural world (moral naturalism) or it exists to at least some degree as part of the non-natural realm (moral non-naturalism). One of these has to be true, because if morality exists neither as part of the natural realm nor as part of the non-natural realm, then it follows that morality does not exist as part of reality at all. If morality exists, some type of ontological explanation or other must be correct.

For the sort of morality we’re concerned with, moral non-naturalism appears to be true. Since physics, chemistry, etc. deal solely with purely descriptive states of affairs, natural properties and natural facts are purely descriptive states of affairs. As such, since moral oughtness is a prescriptive ought and not a descriptive ought, moral oughtness is non-natural and moral oughtness properties (like moral wrongness, where an action is morally wrong for someone only if they morally ought not to do it) are non-natural.

Another indication that moral properties are non-natural is their empirical undetectability and causal inertness. To illustrate what I mean by moral oughtness being empirically undetectable, imagine a moral nihilist (who disbelieves in moral oughtness) and a moral realist (who believes in moral oughtness) observe some jerk kicking a dog just for fun; the dog whimpers in pain and runs away. Both agree on all physiological and psychological facts, e.g. that the dog felt pain and suffered minor injury. The moral nihilist says, “I don’t think moral oughtness (like moral wrongness) is attached to that action.” The moral realist says, “I think moral oughtness (moral wrongness) is attached to that action.”

There is no empirical way to determine who is right here. Both views agree on all the same empirically observable facts, and moral oughtness being associated with certain physical facts (such as the dog’s injury) doesn’t explain any physical fact. Not only do we have zero empirical evidence for the existence of moral properties, we can’t have empirical evidence for moral properties since they’re empirically undetectable.

The dog kicker scenario also illustrates that moral oughtness is causally inert. Notice that whether moral oughtness is associated with natural facts (e.g. the dog’s pain and injury) or not, the physical conditions are the same in both cases, and so barring the supernatural, the presence or absence of moral oughtness makes no causal difference as to what those physical conditions will result in.

One version of the moral argument is that moral properties like moral wrongness are objective and non-natural, yet these nonphysical moral properties are attached to actions in the physical world (e.g. a man stealing a television having the nonphysical property of moral wrongness). An ontological explanation is needed for that, and one could argue that theism is the best ontological explanation. For example, moral wrongness being one and the same property as that which God forbids explains why moral wrongness is objective (God’s authority is supreme) and non-natural.

Another version of the moral argument is what I’ll call “the argument from moral ontological simplicity.” If one has trouble wrapping their head around “non-natural,” one can substitute the claim of objective moral properties being non-natural with objective moral properties being nonphysical, and that will be close enough for our purposes (as the dog-kicker scenario above illustrates, it does seem clear that objective moral properties are at least nonphysical).

The Argument from Moral Ontological Simplicity

It is a principle of rationality that all else held constant, the simplest explanation is the best and most probable one. Given that moral properties are nonphysical and thus that morality exists as part of the nonphysical realm to at least some degree, it is interesting to note what would happen if we posited just one nonphysical entity and tried to find the simplest explanation for it grounding objective moral values and duties.

What must this nonphysical entity be like if we were to obtain the simplest explanation for it grounding objective moral values and duties? As a nonphysical entity, it must transcend the physical world. This is not surprising, but the entity in question is also the foundation of objective moral duties, and as the source of moral obligation is must also have authority in the sense that it imposes moral duties and grounds the “oughtness” of those duties. Moreover, for morality to be objective and universally binding, the entity must impose moral duties with supreme and universally binding authority, because moral duties supersede any other duties that any (other?) person or culture might create for themselves. Next, the entity must exist in every possible world (and therefore have necessary existence) to ground morality in every possible world, because morality is metaphysically necessary. While multiple entities spread about in different possible worlds grounding morality is logically possible, if we’re looking for the simplest explanation it is preferable to posit just one grounding entity to explain morality’s metaphysical necessity. And finally, the entity must also be eternal, since at no time and in no circumstances can metaphysically necessary entities fail to exist. Thus if we posit just one nonphysical entity and search for the simplest explanation for that entity grounding objective morality, we end up with an eternal, transcendent, metaphysically necessary entity that imposes moral duties upon us with supreme and universally binding authority. That this sounds so suspiciously like theism seems awfully coincidental.

Does this prove God’s existence with absolute certainty? No, but that we can so simply and straightforwardly go from morality’s existence to a God-like entity is notable evidence for theism. Although the above argument doesn’t say that the morality-grounding entity has to be a personal being, the entity being personal does, I think, most intelligibly account for the entity imposing duties upon us and having authority over people. If the entity is a personal being, we end up with an eternal, transcendent, metaphysically necessary being who imposes moral duties upon us with supreme and universally binding authority. We thus end up with some type of personal supreme being.

Conclusion

Objective moral properties are non-natural (or at any rate, nonphysical). Where a possible world is a complete description of the way reality is or could have been like, morality is metaphysically necessary in that it exists in all possible worlds; it cannot fail to exist. If we posit just one non-natural/nonphysical thing as the foundation for morality and tried to find the simplest explanation for that entity grounding moral values and obligations, we end up with an eternal, transcendent, metaphysically necessary entity that imposes moral duties upon us with supreme and universally binding authority. This observation (and the claim that it rationally supports theism to at least some degree) is what I’ve called the argument from moral ontological simplicity.

The argument from moral ontological simplicity is interesting because we start from some basic aspects of objective morality and reason from there to a God-like entity in a very straightforward manner. While this argument does not prove theism in any rigorous sense, it makes God look like an excellent candidate for grounding objective morality, and I think the argument enhances theism’s plausibility to at least some degree. And once the argument is made, I do not think it becomes tenable for the atheist moral objectivist to say, “I don’t need to provide an alternate foundation for objective morality.” With a God-like entity being such a simple and straightforward ontological explanation, the atheist moral objectivist owes us an ontological alternative. If no better alternative exists, I think theism wins the game of inference to the best explanation in regards to grounding objective morality.

What about atheism? Can it come up with a better ontological explanation? In part 2 of the moral argument, my next blog entry, I’ll discuss what I believe to be the best atheist ontological explanation for objective morality.  I’ll also explain why I think it’s inadequate.

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[1] Section 2 of Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (a.k.a. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals) in Thomas Kingsmill Abbott’s translation.

[2] Adams, Robert M. The Virtue of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 145.



Last major edit of this article: 2016-12-02-FR

Moral Nihilism and Defining Morality

Home > Philosophy > Ethics and Morality

Moral Noncognitivism

Moral nihilism denies the existence of moral facts and properties, thus denying that there are such properties as morally right/wrong/good/bad. One form of moral nihilism is moral noncognitivism and says that ethical statements like “torturing puppies just for fun is morally wrong” or “kindness is morally good” are neither true nor false but are instead e.g. expressions of imperatives (commands) or of approval/disapproval.

Two varieties of noncognitivism are prescriptivism and emotivism. Prescriptivism (also called imperativism) is the view that moral statements express commands, e.g. “torturing puppies just for fun is morally wrong” expresses “don’t torture puppies just for fun.” Emotivism disagrees with prescriptivism and says that moral statements are expressions of approval/disapproval, e.g. “kindness is morally good” expresses something like “Hurrah for kindness!” and “cruelty is morally bad” expresses something like “Cruelty, Boo!” Emotivism is sometimes called the boo-hurrah theory of ethics.

Depending on the noncognitivist, this could lead to some interesting conversations.

“Torturing puppies for fun is morally wrong.”
“When you say torturing puppies for fun is morally wrong, what you really mean by that is that you don’t approve of such torture.”
“Um, no, that’s not what I mean when I say that torturing puppies just for fun is morally wrong.”
“Yes it is!”
“I’m pretty sure I know the meaning I intended to convey better than you do.”
“No you don’t! I know because I read some philosophy on the internet!”

The result is some pretty stubborn misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. Fortunately, the noncognitivist need not stoop to this level. The noncognitivist can say “torturing puppies just for fun” expresses disapproval even though that’s not what the utterance means. As an analogy, the utterance “Ouch!” expresses pain but that’s not what the utterance means (as an interjection, the word “ouch” means, well, nothing really).

By my lights, noncognitivism is still a ridiculous theory of ethics, even for the moral nihilist. We can conceive of a greedy thief who approves of his own thievery even though he believes it to be morally wrong (with the unscrupulous thief not caring about whether his action is morally wrong), but this seems to suggest that moral statements aren’t necessarily expressions of approval/disapproval. Moreover, we can conceive of people making moral judgments without making commands, e.g. a person forming the judgment “pre-marital sex is wrong” without commanding anything (e.g. a libertine person who believes pre-marital sex is wrong but not only approves of pre-marital sex, he also commands it). There are other problems with noncognitivism, but for the nonce this will suffice for this little blog post.

When you think about it, emotivism is an easy assumption for the moral nihilist to make. We almost always do approve of things we believe to be morally good, and we almost always do disapprove of things we believe to be morally bad. But it’s still a mistake to think that approval/disapproval is all that moral judgments express, particularly since it’s possible for people to approve of an action they think is morally wrong (e.g. the case of the selfish and unscrupulous thief). Prescriptivism is also an easy assumption to make, since moral statements of what is right and wrong are strongly related to imperative statements, e.g. a society believes stealing is wrong and thus commands its citizens not to do it.  Still, not all moral statements express commands.

Defining Morality (sort of)

But if neither emotivism nor prescriptivism quite capture what it means for something to be morally wrong, what does it mean for something to be morally wrong? One thing to recognize is that the property of moral wrongness has an “ought” component, and to unpack that we should distinguish between two types of “ought.”

A conditional ought takes the form of something sufficiently like “If you want to do X, you ought to do Y” and says what conditions help accomplish a particular goal without saying whether one should aim for the goal in the first place, e.g. “If you want to poison your teacher to death, you should use a sufficiently strong toxin.” An unconditional ought says what ought to be simpliciter and is the sort of ought found in “You should not poison teachers to death” and “the worst possible misery and suffering for everyone for all eternity is a state of affairs that ought not to be,” and is thus goal-independent in a way that a conditional ought is not. When applied to a person’s actions, an unconditional ought refers to a genuine obligation for that person (e.g. “you should not torture infants just for fun”) rather than merely stating what actions help bring about some descriptive state of affairs (like a dead teacher or having more money). An unconditional ought is not to be confused with an “ought” that doesn’t rely on any circumstances whatsoever; e.g. one could believe the unconditional ought with respect to not killing applies in some circumstances but that this obligation does not exist in certain other situations (some self-defense cases perhaps).

Moral wrongness is a type of unconditional ought. An action is morally wrong for subject S only if S ought not to do it. The property of moral wrongness is universalizable in that applies equally to all relevantly similar situations, and the property is supremely authoritative, overriding any other “ought” (e.g. legal rules). If we think of “moral rightness” as the property of following some moral obligation, we get the same thing as “moral wrongness” but in the opposite direction. An action is morally right for S only if S ought to do it etc.

A fully rigorous definition of morality is beyond the scope of this blog entry and possibly beyond the ability of even the best philosophers, but this partial sketch at least helps us to understand e.g. how a selfish thief can approve of his thievery while also believing it to be morally wrong (he realizes he ought not to steal but doesn’t care). It also allows us to get a better idea of what morality really is and perhaps be in a better position to give the moral nihilist an alternative to noncognitivism.

A Better Solution for the Moral Nihilist

Cognitivism is the more sensible claim that moral statements do indeed have truth-values. A moral nihilist could grant that the statement “Dr. Evil’s action of torturing puppies just for fun has the property of moral wrongness” has a truth-value, and conclude that because the property of moral wrongness doesn’t exist, the statement is false. Moral properties do not exist, ergo it is false that Dr. Evil’s action has the property of moral wrongness. The idea that moral nihilism is true and that moral judgments have truth-values but that they’re all false (hence no moral facts) is a form of error theory. If I were a moral nihilist, I would be an error theorist.

And yet error theory is a form of moral nihilism, which implies that it suffers all the intellectual weaknesses that moral nihilism is heir to. For example, an error theorist would still believe that there is nothing morally wrong with raping and abusing small children, which surely seems implausible. Most of us intuitively recognize that there is something in reality, transcending human opinion, that says people shouldn’t behave that way. We have no more reason to doubt the reality of moral properties than to doubt our intuition of the external world being real. I think then we are justified in saying “Boo!” to moral nihilism.