Does Objective Morality Exist?

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This blog entry is part 3 in a series on the moral argument. The blog entries:

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?

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Although this is part of a series on the moral argument, for the most part this article works as a standalone entry on arguing for objective morality. In part 2 of my series on the moral argument I mentioned the following deductively valid moral argument for God’s existence:

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

This blog entry will largely be about justifying premise 2 (in the previous blog entry, I argued for premise 1). But sometimes one person’s modus tollens is another’s modus ponens; an atheist could accept the first premise but conclude that, since God does not exist, then objective morality does not exist either, and thus such an atheist would reject the second premise. So what about the second premise? Why not accept moral nihilism in light of everything mentioned in part 2 of the moral argument? At least, why not leave it as a live option?

The Argument from Example

Do we really know that objective moral properties exist? I think the answer is clearly yes. When it comes to flagrantly morally wrong behavior like impaling babies with bayonets just for fun, most of us intuitively recognize that there is something in reality, transcending our opinion, that says people shouldn’t behave that way. It seems that raping children and committing genocide would remain morally atrocious regardless of what we believed. Even for many who don’t believe that God is the source of moral obligation (as I didn’t at one time), there just seems to be some component of reality beyond us, even if we can’t identify what it is, that says we should not do such things. So there appear to be clear examples of at least some things that are morally wrong independently of human opinion.  If we know examples of things that are objectively morally wrong, then we have grounds for believing that moral objectivism is true.

Beliefs like there being something morally wrong with torturing innocent sentient life (as infants) just for fun arise from moral intuition, but here I’m using “intuition” in the philosophical sense, as opposed to e.g. a guess based on a hunch. In philosophy, intuition refers to what the consciousness immediately apprehends and what is directly present one’s consciousness. Examples of intuition include sensory experiences and various intuitive perceptions like a person mentally “seeing” that 2 + 1 = 3. Another example is the intuition that the external world is real, as opposed to (for example) being merely a lifelong dream. It is logically possible (in the sense of not being self-contradictory) that our intuitions about morality existing are wrong, but it’s also logically possible that the external world you perceive is a computer-generated illusion and that you are really just a brain in a vat of chemicals hooked up to a supercomputer. At the end of the day we have no more reason to doubt the reality of objective moral properties than we do to doubt our intuition of the external world existing.

I’ve seen some criticize the appeal to examples like “There is something morally wrong with torturing infants just for fun” as emotional appeals, but I find that objection to be off the mark. It’s not as if the appeal to example is saying, “Torture makes one feel sad, therefore it is morally wrong.” It’s true that emotions are often tied up with moral beliefs, but if we were somehow rendered emotionless, it seems we could still rationally believe that there is something morally wrong with torturing infants just for fun. If certain atheists believe otherwise, the onus is on them to provide some sort of argument.

One could point out that not all moral beliefs are agreed upon, and argue that if moral objectivism were true moral disagreements would not be so widespread. But it’s unclear why anybody should believe that. At one point there was disagreement about whether the earth was flat, but clearly there’s an objective truth of the matter; the earth wasn’t flat millennia ago simply by people believing it to be so. A fact being objectively true does not (unfortunately) entail that it will be agreed upon by most people; indeed it is the very nature of an objective fact to be true independently of human disagreement. And while the truth of some moral issues may not be clear (just as some truths about the physical world may not be clear) that isn’t enough for us to reject what seem to be clear moral truths. For example, the existence of disagreement on some moral issues doesn’t provide adequate grounds for rejecting the idea that the morally wrongness of impaling infants with bayonets just for fun holds independently of human opinion.

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Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist? (p. 3)

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Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist?

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The Argument from the Unbiased Atheist

To support the claim that the evidence suggests the first premise of the moral argument is probably true, consider what I’ll call the Argument from the Unbiased Atheist (AftUA), where the Unbiased Atheist is someone who has no intuitions of moral oughtness existing or not existing, including not intuiting propositions that have moral oughtness’s existence implicit in them (e.g. the Unbiased Atheist wouldn’t have the intuition that Something is morally wrong is true or probably true), and she has no preconceived opinions about whether morality exists.[2] With the following symbolization key:

M =	Moral oughtness exists.
A =	Atheism is true.
K =	The relevant background data.
Pr(not-M|A&K) =	The probability of M being false given A&K, i.e. the probability of moral oughtness not existing given atheism and the relevant background data.

Presumably, there are objective probability facts regarding the evidential relationship between data and belief, e.g. “On the basis of the scientific data, quarks probably exist” is objectively true, and this is the sort of probability I have in mind when I say, “Given atheism, moral oughtness probably doesn’t exist” (viz. the objective evidential relationship between “atheism + background data” and “moral oughtness exists”). Because of the Unbiased Atheist’s neutral and unbiased nature, I think she provides a good vantage point to evaluate the objective evidential relation between the data (A&K) and the belief (M). The Unbiased Atheist starts out believing A&K but because of her neutral and unbiased nature, K doesn’t itself include propositions like M is probably true or M is false.

My overall argument can summarized thusly:

(P1)	If the Unbiased Atheist would be justified in believing Pr(not-M|A&K) is high, then Pr(not-M|A&K) is high.
(P2)	The Unbiased Atheist would be justified in believing Pr(not-M|A&K) is high.
(C1)	Therefore, Pr(not-M|A&K) is high.
(P3)	If Pr(not-M|A&K) is high, then Given atheism, moral oughtness probably doesn't exist is true.
(P4)	If Given atheism, moral oughtness probably doesn't exist, then the first premise of the moral argument is probably true.
(C2)	Therefore, the first premise of the moral argument is probably true.

Lines (P1), (P2), and (C1) are more or less the Argument from the Unbiased Atheist (AftUA). The main purpose of the AftUA is to show that on atheism, people’s intuitions of moral oughtness existing are probably delusory and not veridical, which of course implies Pr(not-M|A&K).

(P1) seems true due to what K can and can’t include, and the fact that Pr(not-M|A&K) is about the objective evidential relation between not-M and A&K. To see my point of view on why I think the Unbiased Atheist provides a good vantage point for this sort of probability, suppose an atheist proposes a probabilistic argument from evil, arguing that Pr(not-God|Evil&K) is high where K is some appropriate background knowledge (including e.g. free will for the theist who attempts a free will theodicy).[3] Suppose I argue that since belief in God is a rational intuition, we should include it in K, and when we do we effectively get Pr(not-God|Evil&God) which of course is extremely low, and thus Pr(not-God|Evil&K) is low. Therefore, I argue, the probabilistic argument from evil fails. Even though I think the intuition that God exists is a rational intuition, this maneuver does not seem philosophically appropriate. The intuition of God’s existence, while perhaps rational, is a subjectively experienced intuition, and the objective evidence would still be strongly against theism if Pr(not-M|Evil&K) were high when propositions like God exists are excluded from K. Similarly, I’m offering a sort of “probabilistic argument from atheism” against moral objectivism, arguing that atheism makes moral objectivism unlikely, and that Pr(not-M|A&K) is high when K doesn’t include propositions like Morality exists, though K would include propositions like People have intuitions of morality existing.

Line (P3) is true by definition, since what I mean by Given atheism, moral oughtness probably doesn't exist just is Pr(not-M|A&K) is high. Line (P4) is supported by a mathematical theorem.

My support for (P2) is the following inductive argument (with each premise predicated with, “If atheism is true, this is true:”), where objective moral oughtness is abbreviated as OMO.

1. There is zero empirical evidence for objective moral properties. This supports the idea that the Unbiased Atheist has no good reason to accept M.
2. It’d be a remarkable coincidence if moral intuitions happened to line up with what these invisible, causally inert moral properties are really like. Such reliance on remarkable coincidence suggests that we wouldn’t have real knowledge of objective moral truths; at best we’d have coincidentally true beliefs.
3. OMO properties are suspiciously queer, akin to invisible and nonphysical gods.  To illustrate the general idea behind the Argument from Queerness (AfQ), suppose someone claims there is an invisible unicorn floating above my head. This claim is possible, but not plausible. I would be justified in disbelieving in this unicorn. The unicorn is “queer” enough to be prima facia implausible, and we are prima facia justified in rejecting its existence. Moral oughtness is invisible, nonphysical, empirically detectable, and causally inert. To the Unbiased Atheist, moral oughtness likewise seems “queer,” giving her prima facia justification for disbelieving its existence.
4. Evolution occasionally gives false beliefs (e.g. gods).  So there’s precedent for evolution giving humans delusory intuitions for invisible nonphysical things. And belief in gods potentially serves some evolutionary purpose: “Don’t do stuff that harms the group even if we’re not watching because the gods are watching and they’ll punish you for doing bad stuff.”
5. Moral oughtness beliefs have evolutionary value whether true or not.  Suspiciously enough, belief in moral oughtness is kind of like the false belief in gods in potentially serving some evolutionary purpose: to get us to behave in the right ways. Such beliefs have evolutionary value regardless of whether moral oughtness exists.
6. Our best theory for why we believe in moral oughtness doesn’t require its existence.  Moral oughtness is causally inert; its presence or absence would have no effect on whether we’d get moral intuitions, and so the processes that gave us moral intuitions would do so regardless of whether morality existed. Consequently, we don’t need to posit something so extravagant as these invisible and highly metaphysical moral properties to explain moral beliefs; we can just say it’s a trick of evolution to get us to behave in certain ways.

Therefore: (probably) premise (P2) is true; the Unbiased Atheist would be justified in thinking that, like people’s intuitions of gods existing, people’s intuitions of moral oughtness existing are probably delusory and not veridical.

Note: I am not claiming that any single premise by itself is enough to justify the conclusion, but I do think the combination of all six premises justifies the conclusion.

One of my key claims that the AftUA illustrates is that on atheism the objective evidence suggests that people’s intuitions of M are probably delusory. In some cases our justification for beliefs comes from non-evidential grounds. For example, consider for example the following brain-in-vat (BIV) hypothesis: you are recently created (say, within the past five years) brain in a vat hooked up to a supercomputer feeding you all the memories, sense experiences, and intuitions you know have. We can’t justify our belief that BIV is false based on evidence, because there can’t be any evidence against it.[4] Instead it’s our intuition of its falsity that justifies our belief that BIV is false and that this perceived reality is real. The atheist moral objectivist (AMO) could similarly argue that he’s justified in believing OMO based on non-evidential intuition grounds, even if Pr(not-M|A&K) is high. But a crucial disanalogy is that in the case of BIV we don’t have any objective evidence suggesting BIV is true, whereas on atheism the objective evidence suggests that people’s intuitions of moral oughtness existing are probably delusory. This makes the a priori intuition option much less viable for the atheist.

Objections

Objection: moral intuition should affect our assessment of Pr(not-M|A&K)

One could say that although we shouldn’t include a proposition like Morality exists in K, moral intuition gives us nonpropositional support for morality’s existence, i.e. actually experiencing the intuition justifies our belief more than the mere fact that People have the intuition that morality exists (similar to how our intuition of the external world justifies our rejection of the BIV hypothesis). This a priori moral intuition makes us inclined to believe in morality, and this intuition needs to, for lack of a better term, bias our evaluation Pr(not-M|A&K) compared to a more neutral vantage point.

The problem is while that while a priori subjectively experienced intuitions about whether a theory is true might be appropriate for subjective probability assessments, the type of probability the AftUA is using is the objective evidential relation between the belief (moral objectivism) and the data (A&K). To illustrate, suppose that prior to examining the relevant scientific data, Smith has an overpowering intuition that creationism is true, and Jones has an overpowering intuition that evolution is true. Smith and Jones might come away with different subjective probability assessments of how likely evolution is after examining the scientific data, but to correctly evaluate the objective evidential relation between data and theory a more neutral vantage point seems appropriate. Hence the Unbiased Atheist.

In response, one could say that when a person’s intuition is a rational one, that person should use the intuition when evaluating the probability of a theory given the data if she is to assess the overall rationality of the belief. The problem is that even a rational subjectively experienced intuition is still subjectively experienced, and the type of probability the argument is using is nothing more than the objective evidential relation between theory and data, and not the overall rationality of a person’s belief.

To illustrate the difference between the two, suppose Smith and Jones know that in a particular factory 2% of all widgets shaped like a cube contain metal. Let T represent The widget from the factory contains metal and let D be The widget from the factory is shaped like a cube. The objective evidential relation between T and D is such that Pr(T|D) = 0.02, and Pr(not-T|D) = 0.98. Smith is a cyborg who knows she has a metal-detecting implant that gives her the intuition that a widget contains metal whenever a metal-containing widget is in her hand. Unbeknownst to Jones, Smith’s intuition tells her the cube-shaped widget contains metal and she is rational to believe it contains metal, but this does not change the objective evidential relation between T and D, which is still Pr(T|D) = 0.02, since Pr(T|D) represents the probability of the widget containing metal given just the shape of the widget. The overall rationality of cyborg Smith’s belief is such that she is rational in thinking the widget contains metal despite Pr(not-T|D) being high. In contrast, Jones (who is akin to the Unbiased Atheist) would be justified in thinking the widget does not contain metal because he doesn't have Smith's intuition, and is wholly reliant on the objective evidential relation between T and D.

In some cases it is possible for rational intuition to be relevant in evaluating the objective evidential relation between data and theory, e.g. intuiting principles of inductive inference. But the a priori intuition that moral oughtness is associated with certain natural properties is no more a rule of inductive inference than the a priori intuition that God’s existence is currently associated with the universe’s existence. The subjectively experienced intuition of morality’s existence, while perhaps a rational intuition, does not seem like it should affect our evaluation of Pr(not-M|A&K) when it’s the objective evidential relation between not-M and A&K that we’re trying to determine, and not the overall rationality of the belief.

Objection: even with Pr(not-M|A&K) being high, moral intuition still justifies moral objectivism for the atheist

A more promising approach is to bite the bullet and say that Pr(not-M|A&K) is high but only in the sense of an objective evidential relationship between not-M and A&K, and not the overall rationality of the belief. Consider the case of cyborg Smith. Although Pr(not-T|D) is high in the objective evidential relation sense, cyborg Smith’s intuition nonetheless makes it rational for her to believe the widget probably contains metal. Similarly, even though Pr(not-M|A&K) is high in the objective evidential relation sense, moral intuition still justifies an atheist’s belief that objective morality probably exists. Pr(not-M|A&K) as an objective evidential relation between theory and data ultimately becomes irrelevant, and the atheist moral objectivist is still justified in rejecting the moral argument’s first premise.

The problem comes when A&K encompasses all the relevant data, including the existence of moral intuition, and when this objective evidence suggests that the moral intuition is likely delusory. To illustrate, let’s modify the cyborg Smith scenario as follows: Jones shows Smith objective evidence suggesting that Smith’s metal-detecting implant would give Smith the intuition that the widget contains metal even if the widget did not contain metal, making Pr(not-T|D&K) high. Cyborg Smith’s intuition would no longer provide adequate justification, and Pr(not-T|D&K) being high gives her strong rational grounds to believe the widget does not contain metal. Similarly, on atheism the objective evidence suggests we would have the moral intuition even if morality did not exist. As mentioned earlier, moral oughtness is causally inert; its presence or absence would have no effect on what intuitions our brains would give us, nor would it have any effect on the evolutionary and environmental processes that gave us our brains. On atheism, this would seem to undercut our moral intuition as a source of adequate justification, and Pr(not-M|A&K) being high does seem to strongly justify the moral argument’s first premise.

Conclusion

Moral oughtness is invisible, nonphysical, causally inert, and empirically undetectable. So if atheism is true, why shouldn’t the consistent atheist reject the existence of this invisible nonphysical thing that cannot be empirically detected, if the atheist is to reject the existence of invisible nonphysical deities that have (allegedly) not been empirically detected? Given atheism, it seems more likely that people’s belief in moral oughtness is a delusion brought about by evolution to get us to behave in certain ways and help our species survive. Given atheism, objective morality probably doesn’t exist, which suggests that the moral argument’s first premise is probably true.

In providing a neutral, unbiased vantage point from which to evaluate the objective evidential relation between not-M and A&K, the Argument from the Unbiased Atheist helps show that given atheism, objective moral oughtness probably doesn’t exist, thereby suggesting that the first premise of the moral argument is probably true. We have a sort of “probabilistic argument from atheism” against moral objectivism to support the moral argument’s first premise, and I don’t see good way to refute it.

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[2] Wade A. Tisthammer created the Argument from the Unbiased Atheist (I mention this because I have been asked who came up with it).

[3] For the record, I do not believe that Pr(not-God|Evil&K) is high, but the hypothetical scenario of it being high does serve as a useful illustration.

[4] This can be shown with the help of mathematics (given that the sort of “evidence” we have in mind is something that makes a hypothesis more or less likely); see p. 2 of Why evidentialism sucks.

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Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist? (p. 2)

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Does Objective Morality Exist If God Does Not Exist?

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The Best Atheistic Alternative for Grounding Objective Morality

As I promised in my previous blog entry, I’ll address what I think is the best atheist ontological explanation for objective morality. While I had thought the atheist could accept a “brute fact” position, I later realized that “morality just exists” is inadequate because as I explained earlier either moral naturalism or moral non-naturalism is true (if you have trouble wrapping your mind about moral properties being natural or non-natural, moral properties being physical or nonphysical will be close enough for our purposes) and an atheist ontological explanation for objective morality ought to tell us at least whether moral properties are natural or non-natural. Given the nature of the prescriptive ought (recall that any ought that has no properties besides purely descriptive ones is a descriptive ought and not a prescriptive ought, and natural properties are purely descriptive in nature) and the dog kicker scenario, it seems clear that if objective moral properties like moral wrongness exist they are non-natural (if you found that argument unconvincing or unclear, thinking of moral properties as nonphysical will again be close enough for present purposes). So here’s the best atheist ontological explanation I can think of: objective moral properties “just exist” as non-natural properties that are attached to certain states of affairs, e.g. the nonphysical property of moral wrongness attaches itself to murder, and the nonphysical property of moral rightness attaches itself to a parent loving her child; no deity or any other entity is responsible for why these moral properties exist. Human beings and their actions are sufficient for moral properties to exist. If I were an atheist moral objectivist, this is the ontological view I would subscribe to. For the purposes of having a handy label, let’s call this view simple moral non-naturalism.

Is this ontological view simpler than the view I discussed in the argument from ontological simplicity? Perhaps it depends on the details of how instances of objective moral properties like moral wrongness exist. Personally, when I think of “nonphysical moral properties like moral wrongness just exist independently of our belief and perception of them” I think of nonphysical moral wrongness as an ectoplasmic gooey cloud attached to some morally wrong action, like stealing a television. If the innumerable instances of the objective moral wrongness property exist as a massive multitude of these invisibly gooey clouds (or whatever) that are somehow attached to certain actions, it seems simpler to me for objective moral properties to be grounded in a single entity, e.g. moral wrongness being that which God forbids. Even so however, I don’t think simplicity is the biggest problem here.

Even though simple moral non-naturalism is the best atheist ontological explanation I can think of, this view is deeply problematic to the point where I doubt I would accept it even if I were an atheist. To see why let’s first note some epistemological problems atheism has with morality.

The Warrant Problem

On theism, it makes perfect sense that there’d be some component of reality transcending our opinion that says people shouldn’t do certain things, but on atheism objective moral oughtness is rather strange when you think about it; it’s invisible, nonphysical, causally inert, and empirically undetectable. A theistic worldview allows for a God using superintended evolution to design our cognitive faculties such that when they function properly we intuitively apprehend basic moral truths, but what about atheism? Since objective moral properties are invisible and empirically undetectable, how is it on atheism we know objective morality exists?

The problem of how on atheism we can know that objective moral properties exist is what I’ll call the warrant problem. In philosophy, warrant is that quality (or quantity) such that enough of it added to true belief yields knowledge; so in some cases the warrant for a belief might be some type of justification or evidence for that belief. There are two issues that spell trouble for how on atheism we could be warranted in accepting objective moral oughtness.

The first is that if atheism is true it would be a remarkable coincidence if moral intuitions happened to line up with what these nonphysical moral oughtness properties are really like. Moral oughtness is causally inert; it’s presence or absence would have no effect on what intuitions our brains would give us, nor would it have any effect on the evolutionary and environmental processes that gave us our brains. On atheism, which moral intuitions we’d get from sociobiological evolution is unguided and random—random in the sense that it could have been otherwise, there’s no external intelligence like God directing which intuitions we’d get, and the processes that give us our intuitions are completely blind and indifferent to what moral properties are really like, such that even the very existence of moral properties has no effect on which moral intuitions we’d get. On atheism we could have had very different moral codes, even more different from the variations we’ve seen in human history, because moral intuitions would likely track adaptive behavior (behavior conducive for survival and reproductive fitness) rather than truth. Evolution could even have evolved a species where adaptive behavior would be to kill one’s own sibling, and we know this because it’s already happened (the Nazca booby bird). So all things considered, it would be a remarkable coincidence that the moral intuitions we’ve received happen to coincide with what these invisible and causally inert moral properties are really like.

The second issue, related to the first, is that because moral oughtness is causally inert, the best atheistic explanation for why we believe morality exists does not require morality’s existence. Ultimately, we believe morality exists because our brains deliver the intuition that it exists; e.g. it just seems true to us that there’s something morally wrong with torturing innocent sentient life (like infants) just for fun. Barring the supernatural however (like God-guided evolution or supernatural clairvoyance), moral oughtness is causally inert such that even the presence or absence of moral oughtness would have no effect on which intuitions our brains give us, nor would it have any effect on the evolutionary and environmental processes that gave us our brains. To illustrate why this is a problem, suppose a cyborg knows she has a metal-detecting implant installed in her brain that’s designed so that when a widget is in her hand, the implant delivers a strong intuition that the widget contains metal if it contains metal. Suppose however the metal-detecting implant isn’t working as designed and it would deliver the intuition that the widget contains metal even if the widget did not contain metal. Then even if the widget in her hand did contain metal and she believed it contained metal on the basis of her intuition, her belief wouldn’t count as knowledge. Moreover, if she learned the metal-detecting implant would give her the intuition that the widget contains metal even if the widget contained no metal, she would no longer have adequate grounds to believe the widget contains metal. Similarly, if atheism is true we would have the intuition of morality’s existence even if morality did not exist, and this this would seem to undercut our moral intuition as a source of warrant for morality’s existence.

Theoretically, the atheist could avoid this problem by saying we have supernatural clairvoyance of these nonphysical moral properties, such that if morality did not exist our supernatural clairvoyant powers would not deliver the intuition of morality’s existence—but an idea like this seems awfully far-fetched. If atheism is true, it seems very likely that we don’t have warrant for believing that objective moral oughtness is real.

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