The External Guarantor
A Christian reader wondered in a comment on That Special Glow how atheists believe in “objective absolute moral standards/truths” and asked if I could elucidate. Being short of time, I noted that it’s a large subject and gave a sort of place-holder answer. He expanded on his own view: “The point about objective truths and religious belief is not that we only believe these things because we are believers and thus taught to believe them, whether or not they are right, but that this is an assurance that these standards/truths/rights are, indeed universal and always apply.” Now it’s my turn to wonder. I wonder how that works. Because in fact it seems to me that it doesn’t. It seems to me there is no assurance that moral standards (the commenter actually said ‘objective truths’ in the second comment, but he started off with moral standards/truths, which is a confused way of putting it, since it’s not clear if he’s talking about moral standards and moral truths, or moral standards, and, separately, truths; at any rate, I take him to be talking primarily about moral standards [or moral truths], so I’m addressing that) are universal and always apply. If there were such a thing, I don’t think religious belief would provide it, but I don’t think there is such a thing in any case.
The truth is (and this is a general point about the [widely-held] view, not a specific one about my interlocutor), I think the invocation of an external guarantor of this kind is just lazy, in the same sort of way that Barthes’s cited views are lazy: it’s an evasion of argument. If you want to make a case for a moral view, if you want to try to convince someone else to agree to a moral view, it’s a lot easier and simpler to say ‘god said so’ than it is to offer reasons; but the ease is precisely what’s wrong with it. It’s easy because it’s empty, and because it’s empty, it doesn’t do the work it is thought to do. It amounts to a hollowing-out of content, leaving just a shell of words behind, and using the shell of words to compel assent. But what we need is the content. Why should I persecute or refrain from persecuting homosexuals? Why should people have or not have certain rights? Why is assisted suicide acceptable or unacceptable? Why is torture acceptable or unacceptable? You have to offer reasons, and furthermore, once you have offered them, there is no guarantee that anyone will accept them. They’re necessary but not sufficient. Saying ‘because god’ is an escape from both of these irksome conditions – the effort of giving reasons, and the frustration when people don’t accept them. ‘Because god’ is, therefore, frankly just a cheat, and it ought to be more widely recognized as such, because to the extent that it’s accepted as valid, that just undermines rational discourse ever more.
The idea seems to be that the ‘assurance’ that moral standards are universal and always apply is added on to other reasons for adhering to them. But what is it that is added? What is it that provides the assurance? I don’t see it, myself, for one reason among several because the moral standards have conspicuously changed over time, and are still highly contested to this day. If god were a provider of assurance, then why would there be change over time, and why would there be disagreement? Why does it all seem to be so fallible? And if it is fallible, in what way is it assurance?
Dear OB
Thanks for addressing, in part, my request. That is very kind and I appreciate it. When I have finished my document reviews/editing – you know how these things tend to be prevaricated with but they must absolutely be ready for clients at 8am Monday and I have a football game to watch tomorrow afternoon, and Church in the morning – I will come back to you. But once again, thank you.
Best wishes
Combine the hollowness of such moral arguments with claims that there can be no moral standards without God, and you have an explosive mixture. This is a sort of moral brinksmanship. I have often been astounded to see former Christians, coming from sects which harp incessantly about morals, suddenly go berserk upon losing their faith. Their behaviour, if not criminal, is certainly self destructive. They remain convinced that only religion can support morality, and oblivious to the fact that other (now fellow) atheists have solid reasons that do not involve God for honesty, respect, and moderation. It seems that a moral muscle has atrophied from disuse, thanks to that simplistic catch-all, “because God.”
You’re welcome, Jeffrey. (By the way – I take back that silly comment about winning a round. That wasn’t even what I meant, and I don’t really argue to win anyway, I think that’s a dopy way of looking at it. I meant merely that I thought the point [which is far from original with me, as I’m sure you know] was a valid one.)
“It seems that a moral muscle has atrophied from disuse”
Yes. I think that’s one of the dangers of that view. It’s not inevitable, but it is a risk, I think.
I have returned the book to the library, but there was one contributor to an anthology of scientists’ unproven belief statements who as I recall said that if the existence of a god was ever conclusively proved, it would be a disaster for religion and its proponents, because the case would be closed, they’d have to move on, and they could no longer extol the benefits of faith –as if it was an exercise of the mind or something, a muscle that had to be kept strong. I forget whether this particular commentator was religious or not; many weren’t. I wish I still had the book, but it sounds like the religious people that person was describing just want us to absolutely work our mental butts off to get peace of mind, and that if said peace ever became easy to get, it’d ruin us, or something. The idea that everything we get must be suffered and bled for, or we don’t deserve it, or something, and to me that alone is fishy. It carries the stench of puritanism, at least for me.
Yet you and Mark have made it clear that *some* amount of mental exercise might in fact be vital. I’ve known a couple of atheists who did vile, crazy things, but it wasn’t atheism that made them crazy, or lazy in the fashion you describe–I think.
BTW, I couldn’t make sense of Derrida either.
What gets me is the utter and complete pointlessness of trying to convince an athiest of some moral principle (eg euthenasia is evil) using the “god says so” argument.
A “god says so” statement tells me something about the person making it but adds nothing useful to the discussion.
But it is so often done.
Going agianst the gods, going against “that which there is no greater” is ill-advised. If you think that pissing off your pappy and facing the belt is dreadful, try facing That Which There Is No Greater Than sometime. So the psychological cudgel is powerful, even if morals are ultimately constructs designed to cohese civilization and preserve the dignity of the individual, you can always claim that they were handed down from on high.
My Pappy in heaven…
Paul Kurtz had quite a good article on naturally-based morality two or three years ago. If you do the thinking yourself, you’re bound to hit complexity that the followers of “revealed” morality can avoid, but that’s precisely a way of keeping that “muscle” working. A fundamental difference between thinking and revealed morality is the idea (from the religious side) that morality existed before we did, whereas a little contemplation makes it obvious that there can be no morality without the ability for certain relatively complex feats of calculation. To start with, it requires the ability to understand what another living entity has in common with oneself, rather than being just another external factor in need of eating or escaping from.
Just another short musing on a related topic:
Dennett, Dawkins and, I think, especially Sam Harris (who is a little problematic on the mysticism issue, as we have discussed) see the moderately religious as in some ways worse than extremists. In that they provide a respectable front for those who clearly don’t deserve it, camouflage of a sort, making it possible for the ideas that fuel fanaticism to live an apparently non-virulent life out in the open, as if unconnected to the fundamentalist variety. Also, the moderates may be seen as less honest than the out and out crazies, who at least mince no words, by having beliefs they decline properly to identify and define. Where I’m going with this is in the (to me) intriguing direction of those many moderates who claim their faith can easily co-exist harmoniously with science, in other words, those to whom, on the surface, intellectual curiosity is something positive and to be fostered and I’m wondering about the borders and limits of this. At what point has intellectual curiosity gone as far as it can safely go and what is offered as justification for the “stop” sign when it finally shows up? I find this kind of case much more interesting than the obvious nutcases, precisely because they are people whose ability to spot the contradictions ought to be so much greater.
Just a thought (and not a particularly original one, at that).
Do our thought processes and sensibilities get to play any part in determining what is and is not moral or is that question left 100% up to a god who created everything, good, evil, morality and the tendency to immorality included? If the latter (and no one can prove it isn’t so), hadn’t one better be certain a) that that is the case and b) (in the absence of direct verifiable communication from him) that all claiming to represent him are “certifiably” precisely what they claim to be, beyond any possibility of doubt, before proceeding along that path?
Could one definition of a believer be one for whom those two points are not strictly necessary? The certainty is indispensible; the grounds for it aren’t.
To be clear. I know that some, at least, atheists hold to objective, universal truths/moral standards. It is not in some sense of surprise but rather the pleasure in reading/hearing about the philosophical foundations of such beliefs that I posed the question. I do not hold with leading or trick questions.
One can aspire to hold truths/moral standards that are objective and universal, but achieving such a lofty aim is limited by our flawed humanity. In that sense, it must fall short of a version of same emanating from a divine source. But, unless you are a believer, for whatever reason, a divinely inspired morality means nothing more than an ordinary flawed human claiming to be representing the divine. If someone does that, a non-believer might perceive him as deluded or hallucinating, a plain liar, swindler or con-man or (best-case scenario) a genuinely committed idealist who thinks nothing else will work to achieve an orderly society.
In other words, a non-believer in the divine will be aware that a human and flawed attempt at objective and universal truths/moral standards is the best that can be aspired to, as something perfect is an illusion that doesn’t exist, no matter who claims it does.
“If you do the thinking yourself, you’re bound to hit complexity that the followers of “revealed” morality can avoid, but that’s precisely a way of keeping that “muscle” working.”
It’s also precisely why that muscle should be kept working – because that complexity that followers of revealed morality can avoid is just why that following is a problem. It’s why authority-based morality runs the permanent risk of being terrible morality; because, of its nature, it refuses to consider complexity.
The question of whether there is the possibility of objective, universal morals without God is the same question as whether there is the possibility of an objective, universally recognizable and acceptable standard of Goodness called “God.” Theists and nontheists are in the same boat when it comes to objective morality. In other words, the question comes down to this: if you believe God exists, then would ALL people who truly understood the nature and being of God then WANT this God?
If so, you are presupposing a universal, objective value or values of “Good” which are intersubjectively shared by all human beings. And you are doing this without prior reference to God. This is what all human beings are like: they recognize God as “good.”
If not (ie. if there are people who somehow prefer Hell, or reject God, even understanding what God is) then there is NO universal, objective, shared-by-every rational observer sense of Goodness (or morality or ethics) and bringing in a real true existing God that cannot unite people in worship makes no difference.
By analogy, if a piece of cake is “universally and objectively” delicious, then every single thing in the universe which eats must like the way that cake tastes. That’s what makes the standard “objective” — intersubjective agreement on a value. Start talking about the silly or nasty way SOME Eaters don’t think that cake is “delicious” or even very good, and there goes that claim for universality against which wrong people can check themselves and be self-corrected.
Universal means just that — not division, but unity. Fundamental agreement. If there is no ability to self correct — in cakes, gods, or morality — then all you have is another subjective system some people endorse, and others don’t.
Subsequently kicking the collective butts of those who don’t agree isn’t a means of smoothing everything into harmony.