Argument from morality: Encyclopedia - Argument from morality

Argument from morality

The argument from morality is one of several arguments for the existence of God. These arguments fall under the larger category of philosophy of religion.

Argument from morality - The argument

1. Moral law requires a moral lawgiver.
2. There is a moral law.
3. There must be a moral lawgiver. (from 1 and 2)
4. This moral lawgiver is God.

The two premises must, of course, be defended separately. However, usually this argument is employed against those (the great majority of the human population) who already subscribe to the second premise. Thus, the first premise is the more oft-debated. That the moral lawgiver is God must also be justified, but so with most arguments for God's existence must the proven entity be shown to be God as regularly understood (ie, that Aquinas' prime mover is the God of the Bible). This is not, however, a circular argument.

Another argument from morality can be expressed as follows:

1. 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.
2. So, if people assumed that God does not exist, then they would be doomed to a life without fixed moral standards. They would have no reasons to think that lying, stealing, or even murder are wrong. According to this view, nonbelievers contribute to the corruption of themselves and the entire culture. (Cf the famous quote associated with Dostoevsky, "If God does not exist, everything is permitted".)
3. Given the above, it is necessary that God exists if society is to have stable standards of morality.
4. Everyone in society either obviously needs or already has stable standards of morality. Therefore, God exists.

That is the basis of theological ethics, or alternatively, the divine command theory. The argument is valid if and only if the following assumptions are correct:

1. God exists.
2. People are able to know God's commands, and the sources of such knowledge are infallible.
3. Something is right if and only if God commands it; something is wrong if and only if God forbids it; and something is morally permissible if and only if God neither commands nor forbids it.
4. God's standards are stable; God's commands are as valid today as they were when the infallible sources of information were created.
5. There is no alternative source of moral and ethical ideas and action; all other systems such as utilitarianism are invalid.
6. Stable standards of morality are required for the universe's existence.

Argument from morality - Criticisms

Argument from morality - Logical flaws

The most common attack on the logic of this argument is by the conclusion (4), which is an assumption. Objections point out that there is no reason to assume that God is the moral lawgiver; or that if he exists, he should be the only moral lawmaker. Such an assumption requires knowledge of the existence of God (which is what the argument is trying to prove) and of the character of God (which is disputed).

Indeed, there is no reason to suppose (or given by the argument) why man is not the moral lawgiver, and that morality is subjective. Morality can easily be explained as a social contract which everybody agrees to for the purpose of maximising survival - if everybody acted as they wished, most people would invariably end up committing selfish acts (eg. to gain power and possessions) at the expense of others; eventually nobody would live. Some people might unconditionally wish not to do harm, other people might wish not to do harm to prevent harm from being done to themselves. However, the result of a social contract being formed is the same.

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.

Argument from morality - Contrary evidence

Many believe that the most important prediction this argument makes can be expressed as follows: since God is the source of morality, then someone who believes that (and behaves as if) God does not exist, i. e. a nonbeliever, should generally behave less morally than a believer. Therefore, the argument goes, nonbelievers should perform immoral actions more frequently than believers. Some of these immoral actions fall under the category of secular crime in most legislations around the world (such as homicide, rape and theft); others are punished in some but considered private actions in others (homosexual intercourse, drug consumption); other are considered immoral by certain religions (such as divorce). Those who disagree with The Argument From Morality posit that if The Argument holds, nonbelievers should be found to perform these actions more frequently than believers.

The prediction has been found to fail in the following cases:

• In the United States, a 1999 poll by the Barna Research Group showed that in fact certain religious groups, such as Jews, Mainline Protestants, and Evangelical Christians, get divorced more often than atheists.
• If prison statistics in the USA are reliable, religious people are imprisoned by at least 40 times the rate of atheists.
• 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, e.g. the Soviet gulag camps of Joseph Stalin, they are not primarily motivated by their religious beliefs.

Statistics for other measures of morality provide similar results.

Thus, since there is no evidence suggesting moral behavior to be correlated to belief in a God or Absolute, it can be suggested that the Argument from Morality cannot be valid.

Argument from morality - Responses and counter-responses

Response: Many theists, or believers, will argue that the prediction stated above does not logically stem from its premises, ie. that the argument makes no such prediction. Thus, from this point of view, the "contrary evidence" would in essence be evidence against a straw man.

Christians, for example, argue that The Absolute Moral Law is written in our consciences, those of both believers and non-believers (Romans 2:15). It would then follow that the morals accepted by both believers and non-believers are essentially the same. Therefore we would logically expect their behavior to be essentially the same as well. The theist making this argument would claim that that is exactly what we see throughout history and even in modern societies today.

Response: The prediction claimed above assumes that because believers believe, they will always (or usually) act on this belief. Many Christians will state that this is contrary to well-established Christian doctrine, that all are sinners (Romans 3:23, 1 John 1:8), including Christians. Simply believing in a god of some sort does not necessarily enable anyone to behave more righteously than anyone else.

Response: When assessing the above tests and "morality measures" in the prediction, some issues must be taken into account:

• How terms such as "religious", "nonreligious", "atheist", "agnostic", "believer", "nonbeliever", etc. are defined, if at all.
• Whether the tests assume that there are no factors correlated with religiosity or belief that may influence the measurement.
• Whether the statistics have taken into account the religious demographics of the U.S. namely that the 'religious' far outnumber the atheists, which could account for the above results.
• Whether society prosecutes and punishes the "right" crimes (are laws moral? are the police, the judicial system, etc. biased towards believers or nonbelievers?).

The last point may be raised by some believers as an objection. It is entirely possible that those who make the laws are failing to conform with the "correct" moral standards (for example, most modern societies do not punish divorce or homosexual behaviour, which most believers consider to be morally wrong).

Response: Many theists may posit that certain societies, such as that of the United States, have been so molded by believers, that the modern individual morals of atheists are often molded by the historic values of the believers in that society. Thus, the behaviors of the two would be very similar in most circumstances.
Counter-response: While this may be so in some cases, there is nothing to suggest that this is always the case (ie the argument is not universal or objective). Indeed, there are counterexamples, for example in Ancient China where there was no structured concept of God, yet it had a highly advanced moral and legal system for its time.

Argument from morality - Counterarguments

Some structured counterarguments include:

Morality doesn't depend on the existence of a god

1. Humankind's core motivations are greed and a fear of the wrath of God.
2. Greed is defined as wanting things that benefit oneself, possibly at the expense of others, and avoiding things that cause detriment to oneself, possibly at the expense of others.
3. Greed causes people to want to experience as little suffering as possible since suffering is unpleasant.
4. Morality is defined as a set of rules that one should follow to prevent suffering.
5. Assume morality can only come from fear of God's wrath.
6. Then a world devoid of God would have no morality. (by 5)
7. Since greed is the only remaining motivation, people will engage in immoral behavior in order to satisfy their greed. (by 1, 2, 6)
8. This causes a state of nature.
9. Due to greed, humankind is eventually motivated to lessen the overall suffering of humanity (and thus its individuals) by preventing a state of nature. (by 1, 3)
10. Governments of some sort are established to further this goal. (by 9)
11. Governments create and enforce a social contract. (by 10)
12. This contract is a form of morality. (by 4)
13. But this contradicts Assumption 6 and its Logical Consequence 7.
14. Therefore Assumption 6 is incorrect, thus morality doesn't only come from a fear of God's wrath.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Argument from morality", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki