God and Metaethics

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 Topics:

1. What is Moral Realism? 
2. God and Morality
3. Euthyphro Dilemma? 
4. Atheism and Moral Realism 
5. Why should we accept Moral Realism? 
6. The Moral Argument
7. Conclusions

1. What is Moral Realism? 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as such: "Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true."

 

There's disagreement between moral realists on the exact commitments of Moral Realism - that being said, the very basic commitments have been stated above. I will take Moral Realism to be the proposition that a domain of Moral Facts exists, mind-independently or stance-independently, Russ Shafer-Landau writes: "The way I would prefer to characterize the realist position is by reference to its endorsement of the stance-independence of moral reality. Realists believe that there are moral truths that obtain independently of any preferred perspective, in the sense that the moral standards that fixthe moral facts are not made true by virtue oftheir ratification from within any given actualor hypothetical perspective. That a person takes a particular attitude toward a putative moral standard is not what makes that standard correct." (Moral Realism: a Defense, pp.15) 

William Lane Craig writes: "God’s moral nature is expressed in relation to us in the form of divine commandments which constitute our moral duties or obligations. Far from being arbitrary, God’s commandments must be consistent with His holy and loving nature. Our duties, then, are constituted by God’s commandments, and these in turn reflect His essential character. On this foundation we can affirm the objective rightness of love, generosity, and self-sacrifice, and condemn as objectively wrong selfishness, hatred, abuse, and oppression." (A Debate on God and Morality What Is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties (2020, Routledge), pp. 31) 

God's commands reflect his Good Nature, in doing so they give use Objective and Morally Good obligations, thus satisfying our ideal account of morality. 

3. Euthyphro Dilemma? 

The Euthyphro Dilemma is typically conceived as the chief objection to Divine Command Theory. Plato presents the objection in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro in which Socrates asks the latter: "‘Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?’"  - This boils down to: Is an act Good because God commands it or does God command it because is Good? 

There is a lengthy history of back-and-forth papers written defending and attacking this dilemma, some even arguing that there is no dilemma at all. Below I will highlight briefly my preferred response and mention some other (mostly anti-realist) solutions without developing those accounts. 

Is there a Dilemma at all? 

Angus Ritchie writes: "If central aspects of God’s character are necessary (that is to say, they are expressive of his nature rather than determined by his volition) then it may be possible to ground morality in God’s character rather than his will, and so avoid the sense that moral truth is somehow an independent constraint on God." (From Morality to Metaphysics, pp. 169) 

Above I highlighted my preferred model of DCT, and one of the reasons I've chosen it is that it seemingly escapes this dilemma entirely, as Craig would put it, it's akin to a "Middle Ground" between the two horns of the dilemma, so, how exactly does it escape the dilemma? 

Simply put, Moral Value is not merely consisted of what God commands, neither is it some independently existing standard, but it is God's own Nature. 

So what it means for something to be "Good" is to reflect or, as Adams puts it, resemble God's nature, which is itself the perfect Form of Goodness and Love.

 So it is not the case that an act is Good because God says so, neither is it the case that an act is Good because it abides by some mysterious independent standard of morality, but Morality is wholly grounded in the Nature and Character of God. This provides us with an objective standard because it is not the result of some choice or will made by God, but is merely his necessary nature. (For further reading, see: (Adams, 1999) as well as Craig's dialogue with Wielenberg) 

God's (somewhat) Arbitrary Commands

This response to the Euthyphro Dilemma draws from numerous sources, under this  solution, "God’s intentions, desires, emotions, or attitudes" (Page, 2017) are the ground moral facts, this, for obvious reasons, is an anti-realist account [1], some developments of such accounts: (Carson, 2012), Murphy (1998), Quinn (2001), Miller (2009), Zagzebski (2004), Jordan (2013). Some of these accounts argue that, although God's commands are to some extent arbitrary, we should still follow them. 

God's Necessary Commands 

Under this solution, one accepts that goodness is completely grounded in God's commands, but what God commands is necessary, hence counterfactuals along the lines of God permitting some presumably atrocious act x are false, this is a way of accepting that moral facts are grounded in God's commands and denying the consequence that God could command just about anything and it would be morally good.

This solution has been attacked in (Morriston, 2009), (Wielenberg, 2005) and (Sinnott-Armstrong, 2009) by utilizing counterpossibles instead of counterfactuals, a response in the form of a reductio ad absurdum can be found in (Pruss, 2009). 

Clearly, I believe the most promising solution is to deny that there is a Dilemma in the first place, as Craig does. 

4. Atheism and Moral Realism? 

One important question in this dialogue is whether or not atheists can have objective moral values, the conclusion will be relevant to the argument I will be presenting shortly. I will cover the main challenger to theistic ethical theories - Wielenberg's Godless Normative Realism, 

Godless Normative Realism

Angus Menuge writes in his review of Erik's Robust Ethics: "Erik Wielenberg espouses an interesting position in metaethics—godless normative realism—which maintains that objective moral properties exist and are knowable, whether or not God exists. Wielenberg claims that moral properties supervene on non-moral properties, but he agrees with G. E. Moore that moral properties are non-natural: they are not identical to, reducible to, or constituted by non-moral properties." 

There are three main aspects of Erik's Godless Normative Realism: 

• Brute Ethical Facts 
• Making Relation 
• Non-Naturalism 

The most important aspect here is the making relation, take some nature fact x which consists of, for example, an instance of unjustified violence, the fact that this is an instance of unjustified violence makes act morally wrong. Erik explains that this "making" relation is a robust type of causation, as for why it happens, Erik believes this is brute. (See: (Menuge 2016), Robust Ethics pp.24) 

Objection One: Implausible Platonism

William Lane Craig in his debate with Erik writes: "First, Godless Normative Realism involves extravagant metaphysical

claims which render it very implausible. Because Dr. Wielenberg wants to affirm the objectivity and even necessity of moral values and duties, he cannot take them to be mere byproducts of biological evolution and social conditioning. Rather he must find some transcendent ground for the objectivity of moral values and duties. He finds this in moral Platonism."  

 

Furthermore, after quoting Peter Van Inwagwn, he says: "So, van Inwagen maintains, the presumption should be that abstract objects do not exist. Nominalism of some sort is thus the default position. Indeed, van Inwagen believes, “one should not believe in abstract objects unless one feels rationally compelled by some weighty consideration or argument"  

 

The core of this objection is that we ought to be Nominalists unless we  have a reason to be otherwise, i.e It's the default position. Wielenberg himself confirms that he has no rationally compelling argument for the objectivity of moral values or even moral platonism (Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, pp. 4, 36–38.) 

With that being said, the intellectual costs of this view seem far too high with no real reason to accept them! This renders Erik's view implausible. 

Objection Two: Brute Facts and the PSR 

Under Wielenberg's view, some ethical states of affairs only obtain contingently (pp. 38), so the "making-relation" would be brutely contingent as opposed to necessary or continegnrly but not brutely. The problem here is obvious, if the Strong PSR  (S-PSR, where all contingent facts have explanations/ no brute contingency facts exist) is true, then such states of affairs are impossible, Wielenberg's admission of such states of affairs then poses a problem to his view. For an in-depth defense of the PSR, see: (Pruss, 2006, "The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment") 

Objection Three: Mysterious Making 

What exactly is it that makes something bad? Under Erik's view, when some natural facts are a certain way, they stand in a making relation with moral properties, but how does this connection arise? Upon investigating the natural facts surrounding some supposedly good and some supposedly evil act, there seems to be no relevant difference by which one would instantiate moral goodness and the other not. Angus Menuge writes: "Consider one of Mother Teresa’s supreme acts of kindness and a supreme act of cruelty by one of the Romanian communists that tortured Richard Wurmbrand. If we inspect the natural properties of these acts (those properties studied by the natural sciences), there seems to be no connection with any moral properties. In a godless world, there is no underlying telos according to which some natural properties conform to the way the world is supposed to be, while others do not. Rather, these properties simply are distributed in a certain way: there is no reason to think that the distribution underlying Mother Teresa’s act of kindness is morally good, or that the distribution underlying the communist torturer’s act of cruelty is morally bad." 

 

Once again we are left with a complete mystery as to why some natural properties relate to some moral properties. 

Objection Four: No Unconditional Obligations

This objection is built around one of Craig's central critiques of Wielenberg's Godless Normative Realism, he writes: "In any case, having decisive moral reasons to do an act implies at most

that if you want to act morally, then that is the act you ought to do. In other words, the obligation to do the act is only conditional, not unconditional. But a divine command provides an unconditional obligation to perform some act. A robust moral theory ought to provide a basis for unconditional moral obligations, which Wielenberg’s view does not." 

 

While Wielenberg is attempting to provide a model for moral realism, he ends up with a theory that is severely lacking in an important respect, under Wielenberg's account, we are not given any reason why we should act morally. Only that, if we want to, then here's what to do, but, as Craig points out, any robust moral theory must provide us with unconditional moral obligations, not conditional ones. In this regard, Wielenberg's account of morality seems lacking. 

I have not exhausted all the objections to Erik's view here, Craig and Menuge raise many more problematic objections, but for the sake of this article, I believe those objections provided will suffice. 

5. Why should we accept Moral Realism? 

Our Moral Intuitions seem to be good contenders for properly basic beliefs. Properly Basic beliefs are beliefs we assume to be true without evidentially showing them to be the case. For example, that our senses yield truths about reality is properly basic, we cannot prove this is true  (as we would then rely on our senses to do so) we merely assume it is. Likewise, our moral intuitions are properly basic, does there exist a defeater for them? In the absence of defeaters, we are justified in accepting our intuitions and other properly basic beliefs as true. It's not a good start to doubt our most basic "belief forming mechanisms" (as Plantinga would call them) for no reason. No reasons exist, so we are justified in believing these moral facts that come to us as intuitions are indeed true rather than mere illusions. 

A common objection presented to proponents of Moral Realism is the objection from moral disagreement. As the name implies, it draws upon the abundance of moral disagreement between people to dismiss the existence of real, stance independent moral values. But if moral disagreement can undermine the belief in moral facts, then epistemic disagreement can undermine the belief in epistemic facts! But this is absurd, epistemic facts clearly exist. So, it is not true that moral disagreement undermines the belief in objective moral facts. 

Other arguments exist for the sake of justifying the belief in objective moral values (see: "The Normative Web" by Terrence Cuneo and "Moral Realism" by Russ Shafer-Landau), but it would suffice to say that, in the absence of defeaters, our belief in objective morals is justified. 

6. The Moral Argument 

The most common form of this argument is forwarded by William Lane Craig, it goes like this: 

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

2. Objective moral values do exist.

3. Therefore, God exists. 

While I do believe this argument is sound, a more modest version is far more plausible: 

1. If Objective Moral Values exist, God is the best explanation for them 

2. Objective moral values do exist 

3. God is the best explanation for Objective moral values 

This argument leaves open the question of whether or not there can truly be objective moral values under atheism, I have argued against Wielenberg's account of morality above, as I don't believe it succeeds, but there exists other models (e.g Synthetic Ethical Naturalism, which I also believe fails) of atheistic morality which I will not cover here, in any case, the theistic account is a coherent one and a highly plausible one at that, if objective morals exist, I argue that this account is the most plausible account for them. If that is true, then, plausibly, God exists. If God plausibly exists, then belief in God is justified - and this is the end goal of almost any theistic argument. 

As for premise two, we have a good reason to believe objective moral values exist (see: "5. Why should we accept Moral Realism?"), so we have a good reason to think premise two is true. 

Given that the most plausible accounts of objective morality under atheism fail, while theistic ones do not, it seems premise one is a plausible premise. 

7. Conclusions 

I've (hopefully) presented, with not much depth, a coherent account of God and Morality that does not fall prey to the Euthyphro Dilemma as it is commonly stated, I have not covered other potential objections to this position, as I'd like to keep this article as brief as possible, so that'll be for another post. I've also provided a very basic argument for Moral Realism and an argument for God from the existence of objective moral values, I cannot do all these topics justice in a short article like this, for that reason I hope to expand upon this article with a series of brief posts on the different topics this article included in the near future. 

الحمد لله 

Notes:

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[1] -  Philosophers typically consider ideal observer theories to be anti-realist  (e.g Russ Shafer-Landau, Michael Rubin et al.), but others  (e.g Peter Railton) disagree.