Atheism and Moral Progress (1)

Abstract: If there were no God, would morality still bind our lives? Would moral duties still guide our actions, and moral values provide goals to strive for? It is my contention that they would not. If God does not exist, an objective moral standard do not exist. By "objective", one means something like, "valid and binding independently of human opinion." To say that rape is objectively wrong, for instance, is to say that it is wrong to rape another person, whether or not anyone actually thinks that it is. My claim is that if atheism is true, morality cannot exist so-defined. If I am on the right track here, then if God does not exist, genuine moral progress among the world's cultures cannot occur either. But if we think that moral progress does take place, we will conclude that God exists. Below is a conversation I had with an atheist thinker about these reflections on God and morality.

Written: June 2015.

Jack - Can someone explain to me why atheism cannot account for moral progress? The way I've heard it is you have to have some idea in mind of what you're trying to achieve in order to know you're progressing toward it. I just don't see how it implies there's an objective moral standard.

Donahue - The argument does something like this:

1. If God does not exist, an objective moral standard does not exist.
2. If an objective moral standard does not exist, moral progress does not take place.
3. Therefore, if God does not exist, moral progress does not take place.

Premise (1) is the first premise of Craig's moral argument, so the key premise is (2). But before we can defend (2), we need to understand what moral progress is. A preliminary observation is that moral progress is a temporal notion. The United States' ethic once allowed enslaving millions of African Americans. It no longer does. Germany once held in power the Nazi Party, which led to the extermination of millions of Jews. It no longer supports that party. In short, moral progress is about a culture’s moral beliefs over time. So, to say that some culture, x, has morally improved is to say something like this:

• x makes moral progress if and only if x’s moral standards improve from t to t*>t.
• x’s moral standards improve from t to t*>t if and only if x’s moral standard at t* has more in common with an objective moral framework than x’s standard at t.

By moral standard, I just mean the widespread beliefs held in some culture about what is moral and what is immoral. The pivotal clause here the second bullet point. Only if there is some objective moral ideal/framework (an ideal independent of any particular culture) by which each culture’s moral history can be judged can we possibly speak of moral improvement. If there is no such ideal, we can speak only of moral change. So it does seem to me that if there is no God, we can only affirm that various cultures have changed their moral beliefs over time. But we cannot assert that such changes were good or bad, closer or further away from what they ought to be. But if we think that moral progress does take place, we will be led to the conclusion that God exists.

Jack - Yes, as long as there is morality, there can be moral improvement. This argument just reduces to the standard moral argument. That being said, you write, "So it does seem to me that if there is no God, we can only affirm that various cultures have changed their moral beliefs over time." I don't have that seeming, nor do most philosophers it seems. Both moral realism and atheism are majority positions among philosophers, and many of the the main defenders of moral realism these days are atheists; if God was necessary to explain morality I would expect the experts to have noticed. Likely, then, theists who think God is necessary for morality are just incredibly confused about the nature of morality. In my experience, people think God is necessary for morality only because they're confused subjectivists or even nihilists, and what they really mean is that God is necessary for their version of subjective or psudo-morality.

Donahue - Hold on a moment. Your original objection to the argument from moral progress was that you "just don't see how [moral improvement] implies...an objective moral standard." I gave a fairly thorough defense of that implication, and you did not care to disagree. I take that omission as a concession. Instead, you're now claiming that atheism can account for an objective moral standard; well, that's a very different claim. But for what it's worth, I'm convinced that Craig's moral argument is a good one.

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

With respect to (1), you seem to think that because "moral realism and atheism are majority positions among philosophers", premise (1) must be false. After all, if it were true, we "would expect the experts to have noticed." This is, I think, a supremely unimpressive objection. First, I see no reason to think that moral realism and atheism are the majority positions among philosophers. Can you cite any professional studies? If so, can you tell us what the parameters of those studies were, the questions asked and the philosophers surveyed? I think you're simply generalizing from your limited experience to the whole of professional philosophy, anecdotal evidence that fails to convince. Second, there is no such thing as "the atheistic moral realist" position. Instead, there are a variety of mutually exclusive atheistic moral theories (e.g., Platonism, atheistic moral humanism, Sam Harris's peculiar proposal, etc.), and they have no cumulative probability when considered collectively. These are different positions, and you cannot lump them together under the title atheistic moral realism, and then assert that the majority belong to this camp.

Third, and this is really the main point, there are no experts in philosophy. At the end of the day, what matters is the arguments for a position, not the number of philosophers who hold it. As has rightly been said, truth is not decided by counting noses, and philosophy is no exception. You want to prove that atheism can account for moral values and duties? Fine, but don't content yourself with a smug, "The philosophers agree with me." Instead, dig deep, get your fingers dirty, and present your arguments. Doing so will be far more impressive, I can assure you.

Jack - 

Hold on a moment. Your original objection to the argument from moral progress was that you "just don't see how [moral improvement] implies...an objective moral standard." I gave a fairly thorough defense of that implication, and you did not care to disagree. I take that omission as a concession. Instead, you're now claiming that atheism can account for an objective moral standard; well, that's a very different claim.

Yeah, I missed that he said that in the OP, and I was agreeing with you that (objective) moral progress requires that there be such thing as (objective) morality.

First, I see no reason to think that moral realism and atheism are the majority positions among philosophers. Can you cite any professional studies? If so, can you tell us what the parameters of those studies were, the questions asked and the philosophers surveyed? I think you're simply generalizing from your limited experience to the whole of professional philosophy, anecdotal evidence that fails to convince.

You can look for yourself: http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl.

Second, there is no such thing as "the atheistic moral realist" position. Instead, there are a variety of mutually exclusive atheistic moral theories (e.g., Platonism, atheistic moral humanism, Sam Harris's peculiar proposal, etc.), and they have no cumulative probability when considered collectively. 

Sure they have cumulative probability. It's more likely that either non-naturalism or reductive naturalism or cornell realism is true, than any one is true.

At the end of the day, what matters is the arguments for a position

I agree, but there are no good arguments for thinking that God is necessary for morality.

Donahue - I'm pleased you referenced the Bourget and Chalmers survey of contemporary philosophy, because it does not support your claim that the majority of philosophers are atheistic moral realists. The comprehensive overview of the survey's results, and the methodological principles employed therein, can be found here:http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP.pdf. As it so happens, only 1,972 philosophers from 99 universities were surveyed, and only 931 philosophers actually completed the survey. That's less than a 50% response rate and according to sociologist Rodney Stark, the results of a survey with a less than 85% response rate cannot be trusted. Moreover, of the 99 departments surveyed, the vast majority of them were secular institutions. According to William Lane Craig, who himself did not receive the survey, "Talbot...Wheaton...Westmont, [and] even many Catholic institutions" were not included in the target group [1]. Clearly, the demographics of philosophers will be skewed when only secular universities are considered (certainly when it comes to belief in God, at least). In short, it remains to be seen if atheistic moral realism truly is the dominant position among philosophers today.

Furthermore, there is no such view as atheistic moral realism. The term instead designates a diversity of mutually exclusive views. Nevertheless, you think these views "have cumulative probability." I beg to differ. The conjunction of all atheistic moral realist views has no cumulative probability because (a) a conjunction of alternatives (e.g., "a or b or c or...") is not itself an alternative and (b) each disjunct is mutually exclusive with all other disjuncts; if one of them is true, the rest are false. So really, it does not matter if most philosophers are atheistic moral realists. It may still be the case that divine command theory has the most adherents when compared with every other alternative.

[1] http://www.reasonablefaith.org/religions-smart-people-problem

**Continue to Part Two