Sensible people understand that there is little connection between belief in God and moral conduct. As has wisely been noted, with or without religion good people will do good, and evil people will do evil.
On the other hand, we could survey the nations of the world and note a strong inverse correlation between the level of religiosity in a society and its level of morality and basic decency. The least religious nations in the world are among the most socially conscious and morally decent on earth. The most evil and despotic are also the most theocratic.
Nor is it hard to fathom a connection between certain extreme forms of religiosity and immorality. Believing that you are in possession of personal communications from God telling you beyond question what is right and wrong makes you a fanatic, not a clear-thinking moral philosopher.
While we're at it, there are certain sorts of moral depravity that are encouraged by many of the world's most popular religions. Appalling treatment of women and homosexuals, for example, or the notion that dissenters and nonbelievers are just enemies to be conquered. The belief that those who disagree with you are destined to burn in hell is hardly a strong foundation for treating all people with decency and respect.
So if you really want to have this discussion, then I think theists have far more to be embarrassed about than atheists do. Religious societies have had ample opportunity to prove to the rest of us that they have special insight into morality. They have never availed themselves of that opportunity.
Lydia McGrew disagrees. She thinks she has a really whiz-bang argument to establish that atheism “interferes” with morality. I shall present her argument momentarily, but I think you should prepare to be underwhelmed.
McGrew opens as follows:
There are two atheist “memes” (to use a jargon term) that seem to me to be in prima facie conflict. I will not claim to be able to cite chapter and verse showing that the same atheist uses both of these memes. But I'm quite sure that there are atheists out there who have done so.
So these are not exact quotes from anyone but approximate statements that reflect things that I, and I suspect you, dear Reader, have heard and read.
Atheist meme #1: It is offensive to imply that being an atheist is in any way detrimental to being a moral person. Atheists can be just as moral as religious people.
So far, so good. That meme is correct; I said almost exactly that in Among the Creationists.
What's the second meme?
Keep your eye on the ball. The question of what is meant by “just as moral” will be crucial.
Atheist meme #2: The idea that man is in any way special is speciesism derived from religious ideas like the image of God. Once we get rid of those religious concepts we can see that man is just another animal, though a highly evolved one. Man's continuity with the animals means that abortion, euthanasia, killing those in “vegetative states,” and even infanticide are all “on the table” for ethical debate. The decision in specific cases should be made on the basis of utilitarian considerations without any notion that human life per se is valuable.
This one's just a mess. There are very few, if any, atheists who would agree with the first sentence. That this is a common atheist meme is something McGrew just made up. That human beings have a special status in the natural order is an obvious empirical fact. You hardly need religion to justify it.
Then McGrew compounds her error by suggesting that what she regards as objectionable views on abortion and the rest derive from a rejection of “speciesism,” or from notions regarding our continuity with animals. I have no idea where she got that from. The pro-choice view on abortion, for example, is based on the idea that it is absurd to argue that a fetus, especially in its early stages, is the moral equivalent of an actual human woman. McGrew might disagree with that view, but what matters for the moment is that it has nothing to do with speciesism.
But wait a second. Let's accept for the sake of argument that McGrew's meme is accurate. How does this lead to the conclusion that atheism interferes with clear moral thinking?
It should be pretty obvious that the proposals in atheist meme #2 are socially radical. They represent a departure from what a lot of people for a long time in Western society have thought of as moral behavior. Yet atheist meme #2 says that, once you are an atheist, you should consider them to be viable options.
Prima facie, this conflicts with atheist meme #1. It's pretty obvious that, if atheist meme #2 is true, atheist meme #1 is false: Atheism does make you a less moral person if atheism leads you to consider doing all those things or even advocating them.
Did you catch that? If I may fill in a few unstated premises, then McGrew's argument is this: Atheists sometimes come to moral conclusions that are different from those commonly held by religious folks. But religious folks are in possession of the absolute truth about morality. Therefore, that atheists often disagree with religious folks on morality is proof that atheism interferes with being moral.
Of course, atheists would simply turn that around. We would reply that standard Judeo-Christian morality leads to plainly immoral outcomes on a host of issues, especially those related to sex or to questions related to the beginning and ending of life. That religious folks so often come to absurd conclusions (for example, the idea that a fetus is the moral equivalent of a human being), and that these conclusions lead to obvious suffering and misery in societies that base public policy on them (for example, poor treatment of women and homosexuals), is proof that theistic belief interferes with morality.
But McGrew has anticipated me:
Suppose someone wanted to hold both of these to be true. What could he say? He could try to say that, since the ethical system outlined in atheist meme #2 is actually correct, atheism doesn't really make you less moral. It just leads you to redefine what constitutes morality so that it allows things that previously (traditionally, according to Judeo-Christian morality, etc.) were not allowed.
The problem with that response is that it turns atheist meme #1 into a pointless tautology. If atheist meme #1 has a point in communication, it must be either to reassure people about atheist morals or to shame those who question them. Neither of these ends is served if “moral” in atheist meme #1 could mean “Moral according to norms radically redefined by atheists themselves.” If that's the only meaning, atheist meme #1 is compatible with, say, finding that atheists are bank robbers at a much higher rate than the general populace, so long as they are following some atheist redefinition of morality that makes it okay to rob banks. But that would certainly undermine the point (at least if enough people noticed), because then people would decide that atheists qua atheists are less likely to be “nice people.”
But I could turn this around as well. I could say that the theistic claim to having special insight into morality is a pointless tautology, since theists simply assume that morality is defined by what they believe. If you start from the assumption that religion already knows the truth about morality, then it is easy to argue that theists have a leg up over atheists. I would think, though, that this is an instance of assuming what you were supposed to prove.
Skipping ahead:
What this shows is that anyone who trots out atheist meme #1 but also plans to advocate atheist meme #2 is doing a bait and switch... I have sometimes wondered, when atheists complain (a la meme #1) that others think they are less moral than theists, what they would say if asked, “What do you think of abortion, infanticide and euthanasia? Is your position on these matters at all influenced by your atheism? If yes, and if I consider your position grossly immoral, then why should you be offended to learn that I consider that your atheism makes you less moral?”
Now who's engaging in a bait and switch! If McGrew wants to point to specific atheists who have made their views known and say that she finds their views immoral, then that is fine. I certainly have no problem criticizing specific theists for the grossly immoral views their theism has led them to endorse. But that is a far cry from a blanket statement that atheism interferes with morality. Her article is titled, “Does Atheism Interfere With Being Moral?” Apparently it should have been titled, “Do Some Atheists Disagree With My Opinions On Morality?” Far less dramatic.
The best part is that after hectoring atheists for so many paragraphs, she then gives away the store at the end:
The funny thing is that I actually believe that the true positions on these issues are available by the natural light and hence do not require theism to understand. (Though theism helps. Human beings always find it useful to have more sources of information than strictly necessary.) I examined some of these issues in this essay. In Western society, however, the brand of atheism most commonly held is not some sort of virtuous, Platonic atheism that cleaves to the Good and accesses the natural light but rather some version of naturalism. And that is highly detrimental to moral insight.
Go back to the original for the link.
That is indeed funny, since it simply concedes everything to the atheist. That you do not need theism to understand morality is precisely the main claim atheists are keen to defend. If you are defending your moral views without reference to God, or scripture, or revelation, then you are playing on the atheist's turf. And good for you for doing so! For now we can have a reasonable conversation about morality, instead of having one side pretend that they are in possession of the absolute truth, because God graciously revealed it to them.
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The problem here is that you can't actually say that, because for most of the things you would use there you end up having to assume a standard of morality and then judge them by that, which is pretty much her objection with the two memes: to save yourself from criticism that where you differ from theistic morality because you gave up the religious principles you are actually acting immorally, you have to then assert that the moral principles you derived atheistically are, in fact, morally correct. This, then, is really you simply assuming that you aren't less moral because of how you define morality, which is actually going far further than she or most theists do. Yes, you can argue that their views ARE immoral, but we have to discuss that. Which is something that I, as a philosopher-theist, am always willing to do.
Wait, what? Following the current scientific thinking following from evolution, we AREN'T special. We may be more advanced -- although evolution doesn't really have a notion of advanced either -- but for the most part the rudiments of everything that could make us special in this regard exist in other animals, including consciousness and moral sensibilities. MANY atheists have argued that morality is nothing more than empathy and that many animals have that (see the examples of the monkeys when another monkey is in pain, for example). So that we have some kind of "special place" in the empirical order seems odd considering that there ARE no special places given evolution.
Following on from that, while I think you are right to deny her direct link to abortion and the like, it IS pretty clear that many atheists argue that the only reasons to think those immoral is the religious underpinnings that formed that belief, including the one that human life is sacred and cannot be taken for pretty much any reason. Given this, her clash of memes holds: the atheist insists that they are not less moral than theists, but then accepts things as moral that traditionally were considered immoral based on the rejection of theistic or religious principles. Thus what she calls the bait and switch: you insist that you are not less moral, but the only way the theist can accept that is if you can convince them that your way of moralizing, without the religious principles, is correct.
Now, I think that atheists can indeed be moral, because I think that morality is independent of religion, which is what she accepts as well. But the issue is here: in order to demonstrate that, you have to accept that you can't simply say "I'm more moral than you because my definition of morality says I am!". And, yes, theists have that burden as well. But the argument presented in the memes is a bad one; you need to demonstrate what morality IS and what the right morality is before you can make it.
Not necessarily. As just one example, conservative US Christians consider sex and child-bearing out of wedlock to be a moral evil. Okay fine, we'll use their criteria. The more liberal, atheistic states that educate young people on safe sex practices are also the states with the lowest teen, unmarried childbirth rates. And as Planned Parenthood etc are fond of pointing out, abortion rates go down when you provide women with easy access to contraception. So using the first criteria taken from conservative theists, yes it is true that the least religious US states are also the most moral. And using the second criteria taken from conservative theists, yes it is true that some atheistic practices lead to more moral outcome than the practices the theists support and prefer.
How many other self-aware bipeds are there on the planet?
"How many other self-aware bipeds are there on the planet?"
I would guess dozens among the parrots and corvids. But perhaps they don't count because they are using their forelimbs for something other than toolmaking?
Much of the thinking on these issues by theists is very muddled IMO.
There's three issues as I see it:
1) Where do we derive our values
2) How do we legitimate those values
3) How do people *in fact* acquire values ( or in fact behave ).
I've found that (2) is done by theists in the West by appealing to the bible. However, the bible is not used for (1). Regarding (3), morality is highly contextual and very fluid and has no relation to (1) or (2).
An interesting book that touches on (3) is: The Self Beyond Itself: An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences, and the Myth of Free Will.
Ummm... like Verbose Stoic (#1) I too hold that we ARE animals and that we do NOT hold any special position in the universe. There is no such thing as "advanced" in the sense that is implied. To baldy state that that the first sentence in "meme #2) is false and no atheists hold that view is itself a false statement. IT is the REST of her statement about the consequences of that meme that are utterly false and frankly offensive theist propoganda.
I think Lydia is confusing Christian apologetics with philosophy.
The first "meme" is in one sense trivial - if one atheist is more moral than any one theist. Without operationally defining "moral" independent of god belief, this is untestable and just becomes an pissing contest of anecdotes.
The second "meme" is confused at best - it is without a doubt that we share common ancestry with other living things, but neither ancestry nor genetics is destiny. We all share "humanity" with some despicable individuals much worse than any animal - so what? Why shouldn't everything be on the table? Nothing is ever as clear cut as Lydia wants us to believe. She wants to isolate a fetus from its environment and declare its life more important than all other lives. Can she say without a doubt that a pregnant woman is less important than the fetus she is harboring? Is human life so valuable to her that she would sacrifice hers for any other human? If she is willing to kill any person who directly or indirectly threatens her life, then her argument fails.
Nonsense on stilts.
Candace--
I actually said “very few if any” hold the view McGrew described, which is that man is not special in any way. I'd say there's an obvious way in which humanity is special. We possess an adaptation that makes us uniquely able to adapt the environment to our needs. Do you disagree that that makes us special?
Moreover, our high intellect relative to non-human animals has obvious moral significance. That's why our moral obligations to animals, while real and important, are far lower than our obligations to each other. I've never met an atheist who objects to swatting a fly. I also have never met an atheist who thinks it's OK to kill another person simply because that person is annoying.
I don't want to engage in a genetic fallacy here in regards to her argument, but she wants Ted Cruz to be the Republican nominee for president.
I just read through the rest of the comments on that post I linked to in #8 - Jeffrey Shallit makes some on mark comments that put Lydia's knickers in a twist and she starts raving about Feseresque "natural" uses of human organs. Everyone knows that a penis can only ever be used to enter a vagina - duh.
What a tool.
Yes, I was too flip in my second response to VS but this is kind of what I had in mind. I don't see any atheists proposing that we take our infirm to the vet and put them to sleep, like we do our pets. I also don't see any athiests proposing that when a dog bites a person, we should put the dog on trial for assault. So we recognize a difference. Where atheists depart from theists is (at least in some cases) in not attributing the difference to the divine or supernatural (e.g., presence of a soul), but to natural neurological and behavioral differences.
Incidentally, I think most atheists (and humans in general) apply the same sort of neurological/behavioral analysis to other animals too. We don't treat cats and fish the same. This doesn't mean we think cats are ensoulled but fish aren't; it mean we think they have bigger, more complex brains making them more capable of complex thought, feeling, and emotion.
@9: did you also catch the bit in your link where she compares allowing SSM to allowing people to kill their babies? Evidently both are in the same category - objectively immoral - and of course saying humans can change the law leads to slippery slope blah blah blah.
eric,
You're seriously trying to make this argument?
Okay, the thing that conservative Christians are opposed to is pre-marital and out-of-wedlock sex. In general, they're ALSO opposed to using birth control. Now, what those atheistic practices allow is having sex without facing the consequences of pregnancy, which include births and potentially abortions (if you're willing to take THAT immoral step as well). So, sure, if people use contraception then they have less pregnancies; no one denies that. But what that means is that people following those atheistic practices might be able to have 3,4, 5, 10, 100 or more times the pre-martial sex than those following the religious principles and STILL have fewer births and abortions than those following the religious principles. This means that they are having much more immoral sex -- remember, this is from the perspective of the conservative Christians -- than people who are religious, and are using immoral means to prevent the pregnancies that would result from that. This, of course, allows them to avoid the immorality of abortion, but only through immoral means to start with, and they are using those means to allow themselves to avoid the consequences of their initial immoral actions (again, from the perspective of conservative Christians).
That doesn't sound like they are acting more morally by the standards of conservative Christians to me.
I'll skip the argument so flip as to not actually be one, and move on to your clarification in 10:
But there have been a number of cases where we propose allowing the family to terminate the life of someone when they feel that the quality of life of the person isn't sufficient, which is opposed by some religious on the grounds that human life is sacred. This is identical to the reasons why people are, at least, SUPPOSED to put pets down -- to end their suffering -- and so isn't actually all that different after all.
Which we also don't do to humans that we don't consider mentally capable of understanding those actions, or for human children. So if you're trying to demonstrate that humans AS HUMANS are special, you're really missing the mark, here.
@7
" I also have never met an atheist who thinks it’s OK to kill another person simply because that person is annoying." - Many of us westerners are indeed fortunate.
But overall - fallacy of induction :-)
Also: Killing your offspring ( abandoning them ) is still a form of family planning. See: Mother Nature, by Sarah Hrdy.
Jason,
That adaptation is probably "hands" and "bipedal posture". MAYBE reasoning to tool use, but that's actually probably less important.
But fish, for example, have evolved an adaptation that makes them uniquely able to survive in the sea. Why is THAT not as important an adaptation? So, again, all you're doing is declaring an adaptation or ability to be particularly meaningful, but by evolution no adaptation is, in fact, so special or meaningful.
We also don't think it OK to kill dogs or cats simply because they're annoying. The reason for it being OK to kill flies by most atheists is because they don't think that they suffer enough to make that immoral, not because humans are in some way special morally. Even if we are, it's a difference of degree, not of kind, and the"specialness" the OP talked about is specialness of kind, not merely of degree.
If you take evolution seriously, I can't see how you can argue that humans, taking it into account, are special in kind, and I'm really not sure why you'd want to.
Natural light? Is she referring to a diet drink?
Correct; normal adult humans have a mental capability for understanding quite different from other animals, which makes it rational to do things like 'have trials.'
What was Lydia's point again? Oh yeah, that no naturalistic, non-theistic basis for the special treatment of humans exists. But you just pointed one out. So she's obviously wrong about that meme #2, isn't she?
VS are you serious? birth control atheistic? families killing grandparents?
eric,
Her point was, in fact, about there being no reason to think of humans special in kind, and so no reason to think of their lives as being more valuable because they are human lives. Read the meme again:
Your points in no way address that.
Michael Fugate,
Would you mind restating this as something with direct reference and preferably quotes to what I've actually said and in the form of an actual argument?
I think Ms. McGrew is saying that humans being special in theological kind is the only rational basis for moral rules such as a rule against infanticide. But this claim is wrong both ways; there are non-theological criteria we can use to say its wrong, and a theological human specialness does not logically or necessarily lead to a rule against it.
And since I said in my very first comment that making the link from that attitude to those specific moral stances is indeed something to be challenged, what the heck is your actual point? And why are you ignoring my comment on your purported example that you used to go after my main point in order to make this one, whatever it is?
Your main point was: Jason can't say that atheistic societies are more moral because he has to use atheistic views of morality to get to that conclusion. You're wrong. Though since you don't like my example I'll use two others.
"Thou shalt not steal" is not a solely atheistic moral view, yet the more atheistic societies of Europe have a theft rate 1/10th the more theistic US rate. The same is true for "thou shalt not kill." There's lots of criteria for "moral society" that most theists would accept, on which some more atheistic societies fare better than the US.
So it is entirely possible to say atheistic societies can be more moral, because we don't have to use atheistic moral codes to say it. It is also possible to point out some atheistic societies that fail to do better using these shared and mutually acceptable criteria, but even doing that supports the point that one can do the comparison in a non-tautological way - i.e. in a way that doesn't solely use in-group definitions of morality.
eric,
It's not that I "don't like" your example. It's that it doesn't demonstrate what you claimed it did. You never, ever admit that your examples could possibly be wrong or any of your arguments could be wrong. Instead, you quietly ditch them and often drag them back in later.
Now, onto this NEW argument. These examples don't work because the exact same moral principles are in play here, so we don't have a clash between theistic and atheistic moral principles. Jason's examples -- whether he realizes that or not -- are indeed based on clashes of principles, which is why her point still holds: in order to claim that the principles are even equally moral, atheists have to presume that the conclusions, when they differ, work out on the side of the atheists, or that their conclusions are, in fact, moral when the theistic conclusion is that they aren't. And that's just dodging the issue.
In addition, in your example you'd have to show that it is the atheistic principles and/or mindset that make the difference, and not something else entirely. And that you can't really do.
LOL then atheism doesn't necessarily interfere with morality, does it? That's the title of McGrew's piece, the overall point Jason is arguing against.
Or they could be simply aping theistic moral principles. Or it could be social inertia. Or any number of other things. The key point that you've missed is that there's nothing ATHEISTIC about those principles. If you want to show that atheists can be as moral as theists using those examples, you have to show that the behaviour follows from something atheistic, or that the immorality follows from something theistic. And, again, you can't really do that without establishing what really is or isn't moral.
The best you could do is derive the same principles from an atheistic standpoint, but you would STILL have the issue of when the principles and conclusions clash, as if they clash and theists are right, atheism WOULD make atheists less moral than theists.
The big gods hypothesis explains why people might be moral, but doesn't tell us what is moral. Just exactly how does theism tell us what is moral? Do all theists have the same morals? Don't we have to figure that out for ourselves? How does common ancestry make any difference - we could view all life as equally valuable and reject killing of all living things, no?
This nonsense and it is nonsense about "the purpose of a is only b" and not b through z is comical at best. I could come up with thousands of uses for any body part - who is to say which one is the correct one? Not Lydia McGrew. Theism and $2 will buy a cup of copy, but it won't tell me what is moral.
eric,
To make this clearer, her point is not that atheists can't ACT as morally if not more so than some theists. It's about the overall moral system. And if atheists want to argue that they have an equal -- if not superior -- moral system, then they need to show how that leads directly to equally if not superior moral stances. But they can't do that without assuming that their moral system produces correct moral stances whenever it clashes with theistic moral systems. Hence, what she calls the bait and switch: atheists can argue that they can be just as moral as theists as long as we assume that their moral system is indeed as good as that of the theists, even when they clash over what really is moral.
How does one decide what is moral then?
Can you provide a list of theistic morals for us? Can you explain why they are theistic and not humanistic or atheistic?
I know theist who are on both sides of the birth control debate, the abortion debate, the same-sex marriage debate, the death penalty debate, and on and on.
McGrew's column is not about theism v. atheism, it is about right-wing politics v. mainstream and left-wing politics.
Love your neighbor as yourself - where everyone is your neighbor - your worst enemy, ooo... even an atheist. How can McGrew reconcile this with her abhorrence of the other? Morality - not hardly.
When you're a kid, being good means doing what your parents tell you to do. When you grow up that kind of morality doesn't help any more because you have to tell yourself what to do—whether you believe in God or not, for practical purposes there's nobody here but us chickens. Seems to me a lot of religious people seem unwilling to believe that anybody can actually grow up. From the point of view of many believers, the fundamental problem with any rational view of ethics, whether atheistic or not, is that it puts us in the position of the one who chooses, not the one who obeys. Whether you're a Kantian or a Utilitarian, the point isn't to figure out how to be a good little boy or girl but to put yourself in the place of the lawgiver. That sounds like putting yourself in the place of God, and Satan can tell you how that works out! Of course, if you're a thoroughly secular person, of course, it doesn't feel like pride. It feels like responsibility.
#5 expresses my opinion, but of course there are nuances.
Humans are special to other humans, just as cats are special to cats. Humans are the types of beings we want to associate with, cooperate with as semi-equal partners, share our DNA with, raise children with, etc. That's probably the main reason for our innate sense of specialness, but it doesn't make us special in an absolute sense.
We happen to have evolved the most abstract reasoning capability on this planet, just as the giraffe has evolved the longest neck, the elephant the longest nose, etc. Again, I see that more as a subjective type of specialness than an absolute--because, in evolutionary terms (the best evolved for survival under any conditions) I like Stephen J. Gould's answer: bacteria. They'll be around long after we're gone. We invented nylon. They then invented a way to digest it.
Now, as part of our evolutionary development we (or most of us) have mirror neurons, hormonal responses, etc. that foster cooperation and empathy and desire for friendship. I think those are the basis of shared moral precepts, and atheists and theists feel them since we are all products of the same evolution.
But special in an absolute sense, as that this whole universe was fabricated just to provide us with a stage for a morality play, and/or that our mental abilities are supernaturally based, not a natural, physical result of adaptation over billions of years in this small, niche environment - that I don't believe.
Summary: subjectively special to ourselves--yes, objectively special to the universe--no.
I would bet that these views of a certain GOP presidential candidate sum up McGrew's thoughts pretty succinctly.
JimV--
The point is that we're special in a way that is directly relevant to moral reasoning, which is what is at issue in this post. Of course we're not special in the absolute sense you have defined, but McGrew had something much stronger in mind in her “atheist meme two.”
Jason.
Putting aside the question of how any view of our specialness could be STRONGER than "an absolute specialness", that's exactly what she had in mind. That's why she links it to abortion, euthanasia, and so on, because her argument is that under the atheist view human life has no special value as HUMAN LIFE, which then allows for those things to be considered moral. Human life is not sacred under the atheist view, in her mind, and so there is no special reason to preserve it, and so other considerations can trump that and allow human lives to be taken for reasons that those who consider human life in and of itself sacred wouldn't allow.
Now, for all of the things she cites the reasons they are allowed really have nothing to do with that, but it really is her point that the atheistic principles mean that human life itself is not special -- at least not in the same way as it is to theists -- and so it can be taken or lost in certain circumstances without that being immoral or a tragedy.
Now, as JimV says, given that mirror neurons and empathy exist in non-human animals as well, if you use that as the basis of morality even your point about us being special as moral reasoners doesn't work, or at least not strongly enough to make the point, and discussions of moral obligations to humans vs animals ALSO presumes a moral worldview, so you don't even escape her overall challenge doing that.
VS--
McGrew wrote this:
Note the phrase “in any way.”
VS, come on that is cheap and I expect better from you. Of course human life can't be sacred if you don't believe in gods - that is by definition - it is meaningless. It is just playing with words.
Let's look at actions - when have theists ever viewed ALL human life as sacred? The evidence would say never. The US government which people like McGrew would claim was founded by Christians for Christians certainly never has and still doesn't - bombing a hospital in Afghanistan just this week....
Jason,
Which, in light of how she breaks out the rest of the meme, should be interpreted as "Since they can't see it as special in ANY way, they certainly don't see it as special IN THIS WAY, which leads to the clash of moral principles". So, again, you can't get around the argument by simply saying that, say, we're capable of making moral decisions, as she wants to know why, under atheism, our lives should have inherent value just because they're HUMAN lives.
Michael Fugate,
What's "cheap" and "playing with words" is you, here, stopping at "sacred" as if I didn't say, in some detail, what the impact of that was wrt her argument, and thus going beyond the idea that it was just about it being "religiously sacred". Plus, you CAN use sacred without referencing religion, you know.
I assume when Dr. McGrew says "theist" she means Christian (or perhaps even a more specific sect), since I as understand it Hindus are theists who believe that all life is sacred, not just human lives, and (at least some) Islamists are theists who believe that infidel lives are not sacred, and so on. For that matter, there have been a lot of historical instances in which Christians placed the unproven concept of a "soul" above actual human lives, e.g., the Inquisition (burning people at the stake to save their "souls"). One might say this is placing a utilitarian consideration above the sacredness of human life, and indeed the religion itself began with a human sacrifice. Perhaps she really meant to say the human soul is sacred, not the infinitesimal amount of eternity (according to her religion) it spends in human life.
Anyway, since I am not sure what she means by "theist" and "the sacredness of human life" I can't engage with her argument. In the end, as Dr. Rosenhouse says and she seems to partially agree, if one defines morality as "that which I and my associates believe in and practice", then anyone else is immoral.
In which case, her entire essay is an example of what I, personally, find most immoral about certain theists: the closed mind. (I am willing to concede that many theists are nicer people than I am, but since Dr. McGrew complains about me I feel justified in raising my counter-complaint.) Example: I overheard one of my very nice, Christian relatives at a family gathering, end some discussion with, "Why would you believe anything you read at an atheist website?" That, to me, is an immoral position which many theists, possibly including Dr. McGrew, hold. I hereby declare them immoral (and welcome them to the club).
But is she, VS? Why use sacred, if you aren't referring to God and religion? Why not a less loaded term?
I still not sure why you are defending her, do you agree with her "argument"? If so, I am surprised.
VS @24:
Your own field has done that. There are several moral/ethical systems that don't require a deity to arrive at moral rules. Utilitarianism and Kant's categorical imperative spring to mind. A moral rule derived from "act in such a way that your rule could be applied universally" is atheistic in that it doesn't invoke a God as necessary for morality or God's commands as the source of morality.
That wasn't either McGraw's original question or yours. She asked if being atheists interfered with being moral. You asked if we could assess atheist behavior without assuming some atheistic set of morals very different from theistic ones. The answer to the first question I think you'll agree is a "no." The answer to the second question is yes, because we can assess atheist behavior according to criteria that are acceptable to both theists and atheists. Getting away from the abstract and looking at concrete examples, the US is not as moral as many more atheistic countries according to a number (but not all) of these shared criteria.
Now if your new question is "how can we decide which moral system is the best?" then I will agree with you that it is impossible to answer that question without identifying some criteria for "best" - some measures we use to compare system - and that different people may sometimes disagree on what criteria to use. That sword swings both ways: the subjectivity of 'best system" makes it as impossible to ultimately justify theistic systems as it does atheistic ones. Fortunately for us, very few people demand ultimate justification before acting or making decisions. Its a "nice to have" but very few people are going to feel philosophically paralyzed because they don't have it.
My apologies to the original author, that should read McGrew.
VS on McGrew:
I would argue that atheists have social and personal goals just as any theist does, and that the "special reason" for morally valuing humans above most animals derives from those social and personal goals. We can see how our moral values derive from social and personal goals by looking at the range of opinions on morality in atheists. I think it's okay to eat chicken; I'm sure there are other atheists that would disagree with that, because to them the "special reasons" for valuing human life apply to chickens too.
So are my special reasons for valuing humans over chickens linked to some objective, non-arbitrary trait of humans? No. Its partially linked to having a complex brain, but as Jim V points out, that's a somewhat arbitrary trait to pick. But functionally there is no difference between a value that atheists admit is based on a combination of personal and societal/cultural goals + somewhat arbitrarily picked criteria, and a value that theists claim is objective when they have no evidence for any objective value. The functional equivalence is especially apparent given that we observe different theisms have different 'objective' values, and in many cases those 'objective' values seem to match up quite strongly to local culture and customs.
Lastly, I would say McGrew's meme #2 fails to be true for the simple reason that it would be quite astounding if all atheists the world over were strict utilitarians. Some assuredly are and many others are probably partly utilitarian, but its simply not the case that there is some single monolithic atheistic philosophy that results in every atheist believing "[the] decision in specific cases should be made on the basis of utilitarian considerations without any notion that human life per se is valuable." Again, some might believe that, but as a generalization, its going to be just plain factually wrong for lot of cases. Its a straw man.
Doesn't this whole thing reduce down to the "is/ought" divide? Just because we evolved (we did - get over it VS) and share common ancestry with non-humans and even if there is no God or at least not a personal God and so on and so forth doesn't tell us how we should act. Our personal histories aren't our destiny which the "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" crowd keeps telling us is the way the world works. We can all be millionaires, we can all be presidents or whatever. Its the freakin' American Dream, Apple Pie, Baseball and Ronald Reagan, etc.
McGrew is sending such mixed messages how could you take anything she says with anything other than a grain of salt? How can you defend her? Anyone who tries to claim "one man - one woman" marriage is "normal" implying that every other marriage is abnormal just can't be taken seriously. Normal? I don't think she has a clue what normal means.
Let's look at Christianity - hardly a "normal" religion - many indigenous religions believed humans weren't special - we were kin with other living things and even non-living things. Living things might sacrifice themselves for the good of others.
Once again I don't see how Christian apologetics gets confused with a serious argument.
eric,
You aren't grasping the actual clash here. What we have, paraphrased, is this:
1) Atheists insist that saying that they're less moral because of their atheism is wrong.
2) From commonly accepted atheistic principles, it follows that certain things are moral that the people accusing them of being immoral in 1) consider to be, in fact, terribly immoral.
Conclusion: The only justification for their comments that their atheism doesn't make them less moral is the assumption that the morality that follows from their atheism is, in fact, moral.
If you look at Jason's comment, he's pushing that line even MORE directly than McGrew does, and thus runs into the same problem: he can't say that the atheistic morals are better unless he can demonstrate that his is right and theirs are wrong.
YOU tried to put it into their context, but you can't do that by simply pointing at a couple of things they have in common and arguing for that, because that wouldn't include the things where the moral codes disagree. Your first attempt was laughable because it was so incredibly disconnected from the overall moral systems. Your second attempt failed because you ignored the differences in the moral systems and so where the clashes that McGrew talks about would arise. Your third attempt failed because, again, you failed to talk about it at the level of moral systems; even those secular philosophies will disagree with theistic ones on some key and not-so-key moral principles.
Can you acknowledge that your previous attempts failed before you move on to another argument, please?
Also, the "social and personal goals" doesn't work to justify morality to a theist, and so again doesn't establish that that is right. In fact, appealing to that leads to subjectivism and relativism about morality, and since theists -- and some others, like myself -- are objectivists, you have quite a ways to go there.
Michael Fugate,
I think her link to the specific moral differences she talks about is bad, as I pointed out. However, I think she is quite right to point out that the atheistic defense of their morality -- often, as Jason does here, to be point of declaring SUPERIORITY -- relies on the unstated assumption that the moral system they, as atheists, have derived is correct. This is at least ONE thing that those pushing "that old canard" disagree with them about.
Your #2 is erroneous. Not all atheists consider these things moral. Moreover lots of Christians use their faith to arrive those same "objective moral" conclusions she's calling terribly immoral. Basically, she appears to be conflating "liberal" with "atheist." There's overlap between those groups to be sure, but lots of non-overlap too.
Second, both her and your #2 makes the conclusion reached the whole and only measure of whether someone can reason morally, ignoring the entire sound/valid distinction. A much more reasonable claim would be that atheism interferes with ones' ability to accept correct Christian premises about the nature of man, which then causes even the best moral reasoners to reach wrong conclusions (i.e., their reasoning may still be valid, but because their atheism has caused them to reject important premises, it is not sound). Neither of you phrase it this way, though, because that gives up the game; after all, what reason or evidence does any non-Christian have to accept Christian theology is correct about the nature of man?
Lastly, your #2 is not her #2, you are leaving out several of her problems. Absent from your #2 is her claim that atheists consider theological arguments speciesist. Frankly, I've never even heard anyone make that claim before - atheist OR theist - so it makes me think she's arguing with the atheist in her head, not actual atheists. You've also left out her claim that the only atheist measure of human value is utilitarianism. This is again IMO patently not true, because it implies all atheists must be utilitarians, which is hard to accept as anything other than a gross generalization.
So, overall I think your #2 is both wrong, and papers over some pretty bad mistakes that Ms. McGrew made in her #2 but which you've selectively chosen to remove from yours.
Well an unsubstantiated claim to have objective moral truth doesn't work to justify your morality to any non-Christian. Christianity lacks an evilometer - a big problem when you're claiming an objective existence for evil. Christianity also leads to different and contradictory moral judgments depending on the sect. Both problems highlight the fact that Christian moral objectivity is an unsubstantiated claim. Is using prophylaxis a moral evil? To the RCC, Protestantism "interferes" with correct reasoning here as much as atheism. To protestants, Catholicism "interferes" with correct moral reasoning. And neither has any objective measure to justify their conclusion. You know who also thinks abortion should be legal and doesn't constitute murder? A heck of a lot of mainstream Christians. So how can "atheism" be the cause of this incorrect moral reasoning when Christians often reach deep down into their theological well of objective truth, and bring up the exact same conclusion?
I'm not sure where you think I'm going. My point is that there is functionally no difference between what you claim to be doing and the subjectivity you dismiss as not good enough. There is no way to tell your claimed objectivity from subjectivity. If aliens land on Earth tomorrow, and you tell them "those guys base their morality on mere opinion, but we have access to objective moral truth" and the aliens respond "ok, show us how to detect this objective moral truth," what are you going to point to? The bible? Do you think that would be at all convincing to an outsider?
Do I think I can convince an evangelical fundamentalist like Ms. McGrew that her bible is not giving her objective moral truth, but is just a reflection of culture and social mores of the people who wrote it (and those who read it)? Probably not. But I would like to think that you will admit that even if objective moral truth is out there, no sect of any religion has come up with a credible outsider-convincing argument to have it.
What does an "objective" moral look like when its at home?
If my reading of history is correct, no one considered abortion before "quickening" to be immoral (1st trimester approx.) until very recently. Birth control - any takers on when it became immoral? Slavery? Torture? Death Penalty? Euthanasia?
Objectivity and a subjective subject like ethics and morality don't mix. This is why IMO Sam Harris is wrong and it is why McGrew is too. Ethics come from living in society taking part being able to put yourself in the shoes of someone else. If you can't imagine what it is like to be the "other" then you can come close to being moral or ethical - even then you are likely wrong.
Life is too messy for absolutes. If a person were to threaten my life by their actions - is it "moral" for me or the police to harm or kill this person whose life is also "sacred"? What if a fetus were to threaten the life of a mother? What about a corporation?
Wikipedia says the RCC has opposed it since the 2nd century, so basically "the entire time." That's not a primary source so maybe the question is still somewhat open, but the Romans knew about both drugs to prevent and end pregnancies (though I have no idea how effective they were), and condoms, so its not an unreasonable estimate.
eric,
Where did either she or I imply that ALL atheists thought this? SHE explicitly starts from an atheist principle, and thus that not all hold that is irrelevant. I disagree that the link holds, but still those beliefs are common enough among atheists that, yeah, you can say that it's commonly held. If you want to argue that NO or VANISHINGLY FEW atheists hold that, be my guest ... but I've already taken on the principles and given that abortion is on the list I think you're going to have a hard time arguing that.
If taking an atheistic stance causes you to accept principles that lead your moral reasoning to not be sound, the objection that your atheism leads you to bad moral reasoning would seem to be confirmed, wouldn't it?
Nothing, but I think she'd accept that, and in fact consider it part of the problem: you can't have correct moral reasoning unless you accept that God exists, and since atheists don't, they don't reason morally correctly and so are immoral. The most you can do with this is argue that atheists have just as much cause to call theists immoral as theists do to call atheists immoral, which would be a stronger argument if atheists weren't ALREADY doing that to a large degree. Thus, if atheists are to find it offensive when theists claim that their atheism leads them to immorality, then theists are just as justified in being offended when atheists do that to them. Ultimately, the bait and switch -- the key point of her post -- holds. The atheist starts by insisting that they are moral in precisely the same way as the theist thinks of morality, even by citing -- as you did -- moral principles they agree on like murder and theft, but then expects that to carry on to the principles that they think follow from their atheism that CLASH with that of the theists. The last part assumes that the atheist is right; if they aren't, then the charge of "Your atheism makes you immoral" works. And the theists don't think they're right here.
I left them out because they aren't relevant to the bait and switch. That atheists don't come out and say "Speciesism" doesn't mean that their view of evolution and morality doesn't imply it. For example, a number of atheists base their morality on empathy and some -- and, I think, you -- point out that a number of animals have that sort of empathy and even have the rudiments of morality. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude as she does that atheists and their view of evolution implies that man is just an animal, though a highly evolved one ... and given standard views of evolution even calling man "highly evolved" is a stretch. As that's something that a lot of atheists do talk about, the comparison seems fair. As for utilitarianism, a large number of atheists are SOME sort of utilitarian, so again it's a fair starting comment. For those who aren't, again, as I said, their views are likely to still clash with that of theists, and so the bait and switch still holds. And if they are identical, on what basis do they claim that they didn't just repackage the religious moral system? And it won't be identical because, again, the religious system grounds morality in God, and since intent and reason for doing things matters in morality, that's still a major difference.
All she needs for the bait and switch argument is a clash. You can't deny that by saying that some atheists don't clash in the way she outlines.
So, because something else can cause a similar error, that means that it can't be atheism causing that error in atheists? Do you really think that reasoning viable?
It's not a matter of detection, as what the right moral system is is a conceptual and not empirical matter. But the real issue here is this: if you give up being able to specify what the right moral system is, then this whole discussion becomes points. Meme #1 becomes false, because saying that atheists are immoral because of their atheism is no more offensive than saying that atheists don't like a TV show that almost everyone else likes because of their atheism. Who cares? Whether you like the show or not is just subjective preference. If that's the case for morality, then when they say that atheists are immoral all they'd mean is that atheists have a different moral system than they do, which is unimportant and, well, true. It's only if you want to say that people should follow your preferred moral system because it is the right one that you have to worry about objective morality.
And atheists, obviously, want to say that a LOT.
Michael Fugate,
People once thought the world was flat. That did not mean that before people thought that it was round, it actually WAS flat.
If you deny objective morality, then you can't say that slavery is just plain morally wrong. Or that murder is just plain morally wrong. Or anything else that you think is just plain morally wrong. Instead, you have to make it relative to SOMETHING: an individual, a culture, whatever. You thus give up an awful lot to get that.
Too funny VS - now you are saying science can determine morality - I though your kind hated Sam Harris?
Michael Fugate,
No, I'm not, as you can see below:
But facts are facts, regardless of how you get to them.
Also, what "kind" do you think I am? I was once entirely defined by not being on any side, specifically, so trying to associate me with a "kind" after certainly having enough experience with me to be, in your own words, "disappointed" seems ... odd, to say the least.
I really don't see any bait and switch going on here, by either side. I think everyone on both sides of the aisle will acknowledge that (for example) secular morality generally doesn't see working on the Sabbath as bad, while some religious morality does. Such disagreements exist. Agreements exist too, and in those areas where secular and religious morality agrees, the more secular countries of Europe tend to have lower rates of 'bad acts' than the more Christian US. AFAIK, none of these claims is controversial.
If the 'there are differences' part of these claims is all she's saying, that's not a very controversial statement. Its also not particularly illuminating.
Personally I think she was going after a much bigger claim, that the atheism "flaw" is going to extend more generally to all moral reasoning, including such things like theft and putting murdering one year olds 'on the table.' She explicitly mentions that atheism leads to infanticide being put on the table. That's where she goes wrong (IMO). I see no empirical evidence of atheism correlating with such moral conclusions. I see nothing philosophically inherent in atheism that would lead to those conclusions more often than theology does; both atheists and theists can fashion moral reasoning for doing it, and for not doing it. Abraham was willing to commit infanticide at God's command, and there are plenty of other stories of infants dying by God's hand or command in the bible too. So how the frak does anyone look at the evidence of how atheists actually behave, and the stories that actually occur in old testament, and come to the conclusion that atheism-writ-large is flawed in a way theism-writ-large is not, and leads to infanticide being put on the table in a way it is not put on the table under theism?
You must be doing something when you declare an action objectively moral or immoral. Going through some reasoning process, some winnowing and weighting of the facts of the event, some application of a decision-making heuristic to those facts. If other people can't understand what you're doing or reproduce it - or if they do understand it, but it has no objective basis - then you really have no good evidence to back up your claim of objectivity.
No, because meme #1 is a comparative statement: atheists can be just as moral as Christians. If morality is subjective, neither has any objective 'rightness' to their code and Christians are still in the same boat as atheists; its still true that atheists can be just as moral as Christians.
But I think that's much more abstract than what she was actually trying to say. I think Ms. McGrew was going for the far more straightforward claim that atheists find it offensive if Christians say atheists are less moral in the standard, vernacular sense of committing more actions like murders, rapes, thefts, adulteries, they lie more often, etc... That is offensive. Statistically, AFAIK, its also untrue; at the level of individuals there is little to no correlation between someone's religious belief and the commission of such acts. At a societal level, as I've already mentioned, the correlation seems to run the other way - at least when it comes to modern western societies; modern western societies full of church-going Christians have higher rates of those acts than modern western societies full of atheists and nones.
Belated: thanks to Jason for reformatting one of my earlier posts. Sb really needs a comment editor.
Slavery was morally acceptable throughout recorded human history until about 200 years ago, then, after long struggle among theists, it was declared immoral. What changed? Lead us through how it was immoral from the beginning, but just universally deemed to be immoral in 19th c. What did all those people miss?
I still lack a definition of what Dr. McGrew considers a theist, and how that definition implies that human lives are sacred, but I know it has something to do with human beings being "special" in some objective sense. I can easily reconcile that view with evolutionary theory. It seems to me that is exactly the view that evolution would tend to inculcate in each species. (I wonder what Dr. McGrew's position on the death penalty is - it seems that in the USA the states with the most religious populations favor it and the least religious do not.)
The views of Dr. McGrew's "theist", whatever they are, are either entirely right or at least partially wrong. History suggests that theists are capable of error in moral judgments, e.g., slavery, burning people at the stake, segregation, etc. (not all theists, but some). So there is no convincing evidence that theists have an absolute grip on objective morality. Therefore, there is the possibility that their world view might be wrong. In arguing that atheists (who make the two claims she cites) have a contradictory position she is assuming her world view is right (that human life is sacred) - on no good evidence that I know of (despite my 15-19 years of attending Sunday School and church services at which this evidence could have been offered). Most atheists, myself and Richard Dawkins included, admit the (small) possibility that they could be wrong, and do not argue in absolute terms from set premises like Dr. McGrew, but argue based on the best evidence available. This seems to me a more moral position. For one thing, it seems more charitable for me to attribute Dr. McGrew's views partially to her evolutionary heritage than for her to attribute mine to hypocrisy..
It has never been clear to me why ( or how even ) the existence of a god or gods has any moral implication for human existence.
The Big Gods hypothesis tells us how theism might be involved in enforcing morality, but doesn't tell us what is moral. The latter seems to derive from humans talking among themselves - not from talking with gods or anything to do with believing in them.
eric,
Well, it is when contrasted with the other meme, that says that it is offensive to say that atheism makes one less moral because it is WRONG that atheists are less moral. If there are serious moral differences that follow from being an atheist vs being a theist, then by the theist's standard's that atheist is, at least, less moral than the theist is, and thus it is nothing more than a statement of their moral positions. Thus, if you think that theists shouldn't be horribly offended when atheists say, for example, that their views on homosexuality or on abortion are immoral bigotry, then atheists ought not be offended when theists say similar things to them.
Because it follows from the principle that she's identified, and in some abortion discussions it has, in fact, come up. If she wanted to talk about theft or murder, she could have. She didn't. Thus, to make this claim you'd have to argue that she's REALLY talking about the things that she explicitly DIDN'T talk about and that aren't at all argued for or supported by her starting point. Or, alternatively, you could interpret with a minimal degree of charity and focus on the bait and switch that she explicitly talks about and focuses on herself.
The "atheists act immorally" is only ONE way in which the "canard" plays out, and it is the most SHALLOW one ... and one that is relatively easy to refute. There is also the "There is no such thing as a morality if it isn't grounded in God" argument, and what I think she is after which is the lack of a justified and correct morality if it doesn't follow from the principles espoused by God. If you insist on interpreting it only in the light of the former, you will do many people -- especially, as you know, myself -- a great disservice in trying to understand and address their arguments.
Whether or not there is other intelligent life in the universe is, I think you'll agree, an objective fact. Now, that we currently have no way to prove whether or not there is other intelligent life in the universe doesn't make that any less of an objective fact. The same thing is true for morality. Morality is a VERY hard question, like many conceptual questions that are out there. But that it's hard to resolve doesn't, in fact, mean that there isn't a fact of the matter about what is moral and what isn't.
The evidence for objective morality is essentially what happens when you try to deny that morality is objective. You have to accept that if some relevant society, culture, or whatever you think is the relevant structure thinks that, say, a certain class of people ought to be able to murder each other, then that's moral. If that structure decides that a certain class ought to be enslaved, then that's moral. And that, in general, is absurd. That's NOT how we think of morality AT ALL. If all you have to counter that is that some people have thought those things moral in the past, you run into the "Flat Earth" problem.
If morality is subjective, then if you and I disagree on what is moral that is the same sort of disagreement as my vanilla more than chocolate, if you like chocolate more ... and equally meaningless.
You're ignoring the first part of that meme: if morality is a subjective judgement and merely an expression of an opinion, why should atheists be offended when theists merely express their opinion? To translate the meme further, it means "Atheists should be offended when theists claim atheism makes people less moral because it is WRONG that they are less moral than atheists". So, under this condition, you MIGHT be able to claim that it is still wrong, but that's at the cost of making the expression of that statement utterly meaningless. At which point, atheists ought be no more offended by that then when I say that vanilla is better than chocolate.
Michael Fugate,
So, are you seriously arguing that slavery in the U.S. South, for example, was moral until they lost the Civil War?
There are a number of advances in thinking that led to changes in slavery in multiple areas (and in some places before the time you cite, and it still isn't universal now) and thus to the realization that it was immoral. For the U.S., for example, a growing understanding that blacks were human and not animals helped with that. Also, a greater respect for individual freedom. And a number of other reasonings. But the key point that you keep dodging is that if you claim that morality is subjective you are saying that there is no fact of the matter about whether slavery is morally right or morally wrong. This ... seems like an odd stance to take, to say the least, so I'd love to see your reasoning for that beyond "Some people didn't think it true for a long time" because, well, "Flat Earth" and all ...
Chocolate vs. vanilla: chocolate is too rich, vanilla is too bland. The correct moral position is to buy Breyer's Vanilla Chocolate, and mix some of each in a bowl. Let it sit until it melts slightly (or you can put chocolate syrup on vanilla, in a pinch)..
Differences of opinion almost always cause offense, because they imply that one side is correct and the other side is mistaken. Being mistaken means that one does not have the infallible brain which we depend on to get us through life. We all have Dunning-Kruger to some extent.
Hence the importance of the scientific method and hearkening to the evidence. Logic alone can never settle issues of differing premises.
VS - where does theism come into the slavery issue? What exactly does believing in a God have to do with morality? You still haven't explained how you know slavery was always immoral and if it was who is to say that same-sex marriage hasn't always been moral or birth control or divorce or anything else that certain theists are railing against. You are just making it up as you go along and then declaring it "objective" - not helpful.
What else could it be but subjective? "Oughts" are not facts like "ises". Theists seem much more opposed to individual freedom than agnostics or atheists - you belong to God first. Slaves to God slaves to Kings - fits perfectly.
VS:
But I don't say that! An SSM-opposer is free to take offense at my opinion that their opposition is (very likely) rooted in bigotry. And I am free to take offense at someone who says my having sex while unmarried makes me a slutty slut slut. But these sorts of statements are, IMO, very different from the broad claim that being atheist makes one less moral than being a theist. In that case Ms. McGrew is not basing her judgment on specific facts on which we all agree (we agree [example person] opposes SSM; we agree I have sex outside of wedlock), she's making a negative stereotype or generalization; something most people find offensive when targeted at them. Its the generalization I and many others will take offense at.
Huh? She's really talking about infanticide. She specifically mentions it. She specifically mentions abortion as a separate item on her list, so infanticide obviously doesn't refer to that.
So now that that's cleared up, would you care to defend her position that atheism puts infanticide on the table in a way theism does not? Because I see no empirical evidence of that in the way people behave. I also see no philosophical justification for claiming theistic-based morality systems - as a group - exclude infanticide more than atheistic ones (also taken as a group). We can certainly point to examples of theistic ones that say it's immoral and non-theistic ones that say it isn't, but we can just as easily point to reversed examples too. Here, I'll do it for you: Buddhism's first precept is against killing. Strict utilitarianism, OTOH, would allow infanticide in some cases. Now the reverse: Divine Command Theory allows it. Heck, it says its the only moral choice and not-killing is immoral in some cases. Meanwhile, an atheist following the categorical imperative model of morality would say it's immoral. See? There is nothing specifically about theism (or atheism) that takes it off the table or puts it on. There is instead a wide range of both theistic and atheistic moral systems. The property of "being a theistic system" does not in itself cause some moral system to rule out infanticide, and the property "being an atheistic system" does not in itself cause infanticide to be put on the table.
So IMO, she's wrongity wrong wrong about that. Let's hear you tell me why she's right. Tell me how theism writ large takes infanticide off the table in a way atheism writ large does not.
Sorry for the delay in replying; I've been a bit busy over the past couple of days and wanted or needed to do a lot of other things.
JimV,
Um, things that are actually considered matters of opinion NEVER imply that the other person is right or wrong. They are simply statements of what one person's view is. It's only when they're treated as matters of fact that they become insulting, and so stating those scientific and logical facts as if they are facts is going to be more offensive. For example, taking the vanilla/chocolate example, if I say that I like vanilla better than chocolate, that shouldn't cause any offense in people who like chocolate better, because all I'm saying is that _I_ like it better. It's only if I say that vanilla IS better than chocolate that we get anything like a statement that what I said is just correct.
A lot of people express mere opinions as if they were facts, and this might be a charge against my arguments for objective morality, that we think that statements of morality are facts when they're really just opinions. However, most subjectivists don't seem to care for the consequences of treating moral views as if they were mere opinion.
Speaking of which ...
Michael Fugate,
We're discussing whether morality is objective or subjective. Knowing me as you do, you'd know that I'm NOT going to make a claim from God's Word here, so how is that relevant to the discussion? The question is: is morality objective or subjective, and my question for you is if you can take the consequences of claiming that it is subjective ... which you keep dodging.
The argument which includes slavery is this: if slavery is correctly deemed immoral today, then it was always immoral and for some reason we just didn't understand that. The consequences of rejecting that -- and thus rejecting objectivism -- is that you have to say that until a society -- or whatever relevant grouping YOU make morality relative to, since you haven't bothered to say anything about how you determine what is or isn't moral subjectively -- decided that slavery was immoral, then slavery just WAS moral ... and that goes for everything you listed. Thus, slave owners who treated their slaves terribly because it wasn't considered immoral to do that at the time were, in fact, at LEAST not acting immorally, and might have been acting MORALLY at the time if the moral code of the relevant grouping said that that was morally obligatory. This strikes me as being so utterly insane that it isn't worth considering, but perhaps you have a different view that you might be willing to argue for beyond short soundbites.
Why do you think that oughts simply can't be objective?
eric,
So, let me return to the meme. The meme -- and it is exemplified in posts like this -- is not meant to be a simple statement of "You offend me". It's meant to be statement of "This is offensive because it's wrong, and so you should stop saying that". Thus, if atheists can say "Your theism makes it so that you think homosexuality/abortion/euthanasia is morally wrong which means that you have an inferior morality to me", then theists can say with equal validity "Your atheism makes it so that you think homosexuality/abortion/euthanasia is morally right which means that you have an inferior morality to me" .
As for what point she's making, she EXPLICITLY says this in the post, so it seems reasonable to think that when she's talking about the immorality of atheists, this is what she means: you think things moral that we think immoral.
You're incapable of quoting reasonably, aren't you? I have NEVER had to go back and quote what the person I was replying to actually said as much as I have with you, and even worse have never had to go back and quote what _I_ said in the comment that the person is quoting to try to drag discussion back on topic as I have with you.
Okay, let's do that again. You said this:
Making it clear that you think that she's including things like this in her discussion, as opposed to limiting it to the things she talks about in the second meme. And I was replying to this statement of yours:
Now, let's look at that entire paragraph that you chopped off to make this point, and thus the heart of my reply:
From this, you should have been able to get my two points:
1) She talks about infanticide explicitly because, like the other things -- abortion, euthanasia -- she thinks that it follows from the basic principle that she claims atheists have to or do accept.
2) If she wanted to talk about murder, theft, rape, or lying, she would have done so.
Thus, your point about her really being after the broad point that includes simple murder, and so one that you can refute by pointing out incidence rates, seems unsupported.
I'm not going to defend her inclusion of infanticide because I've already said that her links from the atheistic principles to the specific moral positions is weak at best. For things like abortion and euthanasia, it's usually OTHER principles that justify that, often even over the idea that human life has inherent deep value. For infanticide, not many atheists actually hold that that is true, so again it's a bad example, and most of the popular atheist views would claim it immoral based on the basic principles they DO hold. So, no, not a good example. That doesn't mean that you can ignore that that is what she's actually doing: starting from purported atheistic principles, claiming they lead to an immoral outcome, and pointing out that in that case atheists saying that they are just as if not more moral than theists is them assuming that their moral and atheistic principles are right.
I also find it interesting that you are so focused on infanticide rather than abortion or euthanasia. I suspect the reason is that infanticide is not something that most atheists consider moral, while the other two are things that many atheists DO consider moral. But even if your argument came off, she could still point to those two as an example of the clash, so what you'd be doing here is trying to limit the discussion to one principle where you can win, claim that because she generalizes across the board -- which you have no reason to claim -- you only have to defeat her on one of them, and declare victory. Which doesn't work for the argument she actually made.
Alternatively, you could have simply pointed out that they don't follow from the purportedly atheistic principles she espouses, and point out -- as has been done, even I think once by you -- that she assumes her principles are right, too. Unfortunately, neither of those would really invalidate the point that I think does have some clout, and would be things that _I_ said, and so there'd be no clash, and we can't actually AGREE on things, can we [grin]?
I suppose everything we think is an opinion, as I think Socrates would say. Where offense enters in, in my ... opinion, is when they are stated as objective absolutes. Saying you like vanilla better than vanilla plus chocolate is not offensive to me, because it I don't view it as a difference of opinion. You know that you like vanilla better (although if you never tried vanilla plus chocolate it could be a false opinion rather than a fact) and I know I like vanilla plus chocolate better--we could both be right. Saying that vanilla is absolutely better than a mixture of vanilla and chocolate would be a difference of opinion (implying that my choice is wrong) and could be mildly offensive. Similarly, saying that abortion is immoral and that those who believe otherwise and claim to be moral are baiting and switching is offensive to me, and I think intentionally so.
Michael Fugate,
Why do you think that only ises can be objective?
P.S. On the morality of abortion, it occurs to me to that in my ~19 years of Sunday School/Church/Daily Vacation Bible School/Public School Release Time Religious Education, abortion was never mentioned, and that according to my rough historical knowledge, infants' lives were not considered sacrosanct (in desperate times) around 0 BCE.
Googling "Does the Bible forbid abortion" produces many sites, most of which conclude that the Bible does not.The Christian site which claims it does offers some very strained interpretations, it seems to me. (Abortion goes against the maternal/paternal instincts which evolution has imbued in us, but survival instinct can overcome these in desperate times.)
Personally, I don't feel that great wrong would have been done to me had I been aborted as a fetus (on many days I would have preferred it, and chances are I will die in greater or more prolonged agony), so I don't feel an empathetic outrage on behalf of those that are.
Perhaps Dr. McGrew is the one who is baiting and switching, I might say if I were the sort who would use that analogy for disagreements on moral questions - which of course I'm not.
@64 Because no one has demonstrated that oughts are objective. I know of no methodology for uncovering any "true" ought; there are trade-offs for any decision so there can be no absolutes.