Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index.
We’ve covered the cosmological argument for god and the argument from evil or indifference against god, and now are moving on to his “Moral Argument” for the existence of God, which he originally briefed here, and to which I briefly responded here. And now below is my response to Marshall’s recent elaboration of that argument.
That the Evidence Points to Atheism (X)
by Richard Carrier, Ph.D.
Dr. Marshall rests on an equivocation fallacy, requiring one meaning of “objective moral values and duties” in his first premise (non-consequentialist values and duties), then a different one in his second (consequentialist values and duties). So his conclusion doesn’t follow. And any consistent definition results in either his first or second premise being false. So the argument doesn’t carry.
State of the Field
Marshall rightly says this is about “what morality is, and what seems necessary to ground it.” But he relies on a bunch of old or obsolete philosophy to press a case that morality must be “strange” and therefore inexplicable without God, ignoring all contrary philosophy and all relevant science (from anthropology and sociology to neuroscience).
Marshall cherry picks philosophers in his support who likewise ignore science and don’t address any of the latest defenses of naturalistic moral realism, just like Marshall—rendering his and their arguments against it impotent and uninformed. [1] In fact most atheist philosophers today are moral realists: roughly 60% by latest survey. [2] Ask why so many experts don’t affirm Marshall’s premises. Including Pinker and Dawkins, whom Marshall incorrectly cites on his side. [3]
Defining “Objective”
I’ve already said whether “objective moral values” exist depends on how one defines “objective.” In the sense of “exists even when minds do not,” there is no evidence any such values exist or even matter (in which case Marshall’s second premise is false). In the sense of “what all rational and fully informed minds would follow,” they exist necessarily (as the realizable potentials of any given universe); therefore no God is required (then Marshall’s first premise is false). [4]
What all people mean by “moral” and parallel terms in all cultures throughout history is “that which we ought to do above all else.” Nothing more. And what all such people mean by “ought to do” is what all good, rational, and informed persons will do in the same circumstances. And what all such people mean by “good person” is a person they can tolerate others and themselves being without a net adverse consequence to themselves.
“I will always be more satisfied being such a person and living among such persons than otherwise” entails all morals and is a fact-claim about social systems of cognitive beings. And as such it’s true or false only in virtue of the properties of that system. Thus even a God could not change the moral facts entailed by that system, except by changing it. Because “objective moral values and duties” are facts about people in a social system: that which will leave the highest odds of realizing the most satisfaction for everyone in that system regardless of what anyone in that system might mistakenly think will. [5]
As there will always be some true facts of that kind for all conceivable social systems of cognitive beings, all worlds have “objective moral values and duties.” Ergo no God is needed. They always exist. You need merely discover them. [6] Just like all normative truths about the world (“the best methods of growing food,” “the best ways of restoring health,” etc.).
Warranting Obligation
Dr. Marshall incorrectly assumes a “moral ought implies obligation” in some way consequential oughts don’t. But he can adduce no evidence any other ought-statements are true, for anyone. [7] The only obligations that truthfully exist are consequential: you ought to adhere to a given duty or else you risk a loss to your personal satisfaction, either with yourself or your life or both. If no such loss is risked, then no such duty meaningfully exists (other than as what someone might have improperly wished of you).
The practice of moral praise and blame, and assigning responsibility, are simply actions and statements regarding whether a given person is actually safe to have in our society and someone we’d actually be more satisfied to be like in the relevant characteristic. Which are objective facts about us and them and the system we live in, facts about which we can easily be mistaken, but can learn from empirical study. Indeed the ubiquity of moral error disproves any notion that morality is “properly basic” as Marshall avers. [8]
Systems, Evolution, and Morality
Moral facts about a given system are always true of that system regardless of what anyone believes or thinks they want; but change the system, and you change the moral facts. If everyone who was killed was always promptly resurrected fully healed of all infirmities and injuries, killing deformed babies and people in comas would be a moral duty in that system. That’s how we know morals derive from systems, not from gods.
Dr. Marshall also mistakes what evolution actually produces with the ideal fitness functions it fumbles toward. Evolution is not normative. Much of what it did to us is useful, some not, but now that we’re cognitively aware, we don’t have to serve its ends anymore. We can serve any ends we want. And we’ve found there’s only one end actually worthwhile, for which all others are merely instrumental: satisfaction with our lives and who we’ve become. We can directly perceive now that nothing else is worth living for; and that everything else we value (such as the life-satisfaction of future generations that will outlive us) derives therefrom (regardless of what we think, we’ll actually be happier being the sort of person who values this).
What humans more and more discover is that there could never have been anything worth seeking but a desirable life. And moral values and duties are what we must embody to maximize our opportunity for that. But evolution, being unintelligent and indifferent, did a better-than-nothing but still poor job of developing for us reliable organs of reason and moral perception. Which actually proves there is no God; for He’d be morally obligated to install in us reliable engines of reason and moral perception, while atheism successfully predicts evolution wouldn’t, requiring us to fix it. [9]
Finally, you can’t just rewrite a social and cognitive system, much less on any arbitrary desire you may have. So it’s not the case that you can just “choose” to operate as if a different system exists. Try, and the system that does exist will crush or frustrate you. This is not only true of the social system (“thieves and gang members, serial killers, pedophiles and sadists” and “Nazis” statistically end up nowhere near optimal life-satisfaction, but typically end up crushed or miserable) but also of the cognitive system (such persons are psychologically always dissatisfied, with themselves and the world; often even wallowing in loathing and misery). [10]
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Such is my response to Marshall’s Moral Argument for God.
Continue on to Marshall’s next reply.
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[1] Alex Rosenberg is particularly inept here: see Richard Carrier, “Rosenberg on Naturalism” (17 November 2009). Indeed contrast all the articles Marshall cites (none of which interact with the latest philosophy or science on the subject) with leading experts in Moral Discourse and Practice (Oxford University Press 1996), Personality, Identity, and Character (Cambridge University Press 2009), and the ongoing multi-volume set Moral Psychology (MIT Press 2007-), particularly Volume 2; as well as: Robert Axelrod, The Complexity of Cooperation (Princeton University Press 1997); Patricia Churchland, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality (Princeton University Press 2011); Mark Fedyk, The Social Turn in Moral Psychology (MIT Press 2017); and my own peer reviewed chapter, “Moral Facts Naturally Exist (and Science Could Find Them),” in The End of Christianity, ed. by John Loftus (Prometheus 2011), pp. 333-64, 420-29, including the moral philosophers there cited in support (p. 420 n. 6).
[2] See The PhilPapers Surveys, “Accept or lean toward: moral realism,” answer: 56.4%. Antirealists comprise only 27.7%. The rest responded “Other,” but “Other” included 2.5% answering that they accept an intermediate view (partial moral realism), which puts some form of moral realism at 59.1%. And this was not caused by theism. In the correlation tables, 59.2% of atheist philosophers “Accept or lean toward: moral realism” (386 so-declared out of 651 atheist respondents); which means even more, when adding in “intermediate view” respondents.
[3] Marshall cites Pinker’s NYT article “The Moral Instinct” in which Pinker explicitly defends “moral realism” as at least plausible, saying it “is not crazy” and that there is evidence moral facts exist “in the nature of things,” in accord with Pinker’s comments in Better Angels, pp. 694-95. Pinker’s argument for moral realism is formally developed by Makoto Suzuki in “Moral Realism and the Wide-Spread Directed Change in Moral Judgments”, The Journal of Philosophical Ideas, Special Issue (2017): 245-73. Dawkins is agnostic on the issue, declaring “I don’t feel equipped” to argue the subject in “The Simple Answer: Nick Pollard Talks to Richard Dawkins”, The Third Way 18.3 (April 1995): 19.
[4] For a full explication see Richard Carrier, “The Real Basis of a Moral World” (12 November 2018).
[5] For a full explication see Richard Carrier, “Objective Moral Facts” (15 December 2016).
[6] See Richard Carrier, “How Can Morals Be Both Invented and True?” (11 August 2017).
[7] See Richard Carrier, “Open Letter to Academic Philosophy: All Your Moral Theories Are the Same” (11 November 2015).
[8] On what “properly basic beliefs” must be limited to see Richard Carrier, “Epistemological End Game” (29 November 2006). The satisfaction-states that I argue are the end-goal of all true moralities might be properly basic, per Dr. Sharon Rawlette, The Feeling of Value: Moral Realism Grounded in Phenomenal Consciousness (CreateSpace 2016), but as such are still products of naturalistic cognitive systems, and do not by themselves tell us what behaviors (“values and duties”) will most reliably obtain them.
[9] See my argument that “the evidence of human moral development disproves moral gods” in Richard Carrier, “The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My First Reply” (17 April 2019).
[10] See Richard Carrier, “Your Own Moral Reasoning” (19 March 2018), with: Roger Bergman, “Why Be Moral? A Conceptual Model from Developmental Psychology” in Human Development 45 (2002): 104-124; Kent Kiehl and Morris Hoffman, “The Criminal Psychopath”, Jurimetrics 51 (Summer 2011): 355-97; and the works on moral psychology and character cited in Note 1 here and in Note 6 in “My Eighth Reply.” And it works both ways round: Rick Nauert, “Happiness Tends to Deter Crime”, PsychCentral (8 August 2018); Stanton Samenow, Inside the Criminal Mind, 3rd. ed. (2014). For both sides of the coin, consult the entire content of James Maddux, ed., Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction (Routledge 2018).
Dr. Carrier, you stated “What humans more and more discover is that there could never have been anything worth seeking but a desirable life. And moral values and duties are what we must embody to maximize our opportunity for that” and then “Which actually proves there is no God; for He’d be morally obligated to install in us reliable engines of reason and moral perception”.
This seems to me to be 2 assertions that you didn’t establish. Could you expand on them?
Why tie morals to desire (or happiness)? It is not difficult to think of scenarios of actions that would be considered morally good that may not be desirable for an individual and may expose the individual to injuries that would contribute to a non-desirable life – like running into a burning building to save an elderly person or infant.
1a. In your assertion these moral values and duties would also be subjective in that it would be left to opinion on the best way to “maximize our opportunity…”, which is your mechanism for defining morals.
1b. I think we can all agree that a life of happiness and health is desired but it seems arbitrary or ad hoc to just tie that to morals or base morality off of that.
Why would God be obligated to us? This would seem to assume that God created us so that He could be the servant and we could be the master but what reasons do we have to think that would be the purpose for which He would have created us? I’m not advocating an idea of a cruel, malicious God but just questioning how you arrive with an idea that God is obligated to us.
I also think you are assuming that we don’t have reliable engines of reason and moral perception. I don’t think you established that fact. There do seem to be a lot of actions that we all know and agree are morally right and\or wrong, and this knowledge and agreement seems to go back as far as we can find in history. Agreement does not entail that they are objective but it does seem to be evidence our moral perceptions have been fairly reliable over time, at least, on a number of key actions.
I’m not assuming we don’t have reliable engines, we have considerable scientific evidence now that we don’t (I already established this earlier in the debate). In fact our engine of reason is substantially broken as is our engine of moral perception, as proved not only by human history and all its examples of total gut certainty in false moral systems (e.g. The Old Testament) but also by the neuroscience of moral reasoning (see the links provided in my entry above; but here’s an example discussion).
As to why god would have moral duties, that’s because he’s moral. By definition, if he had no moral duties, he would not be moral. Conversely, the only way he can be moral, is if he acts like a moral person. So you have to choose: either there is no God, or God is not a moral person like you or me.
Meanwhile, you don’t have a correct understanding of the difference between subjective and objective. Subjective facts change with belief; objective facts don’t. So anything you can have false beliefs about and still it’s true, is by definition objective. Ergo I have not described subjective but objective moral facts. See Objective Moral Facts.
I appreciate the response but I don’t see that you are establishing a basis for morality that refutes Wallace’s argument.
I don’t see where you have established that human desire is the goal for morality. We can all agree that it is what we want but why does it define the morality? And where is the basis that would establish if this morality is rooted in the desires of an individual or the greater part of society? The observation that people like the Nazi’s and others end up dissatisfied, wallowing in loathing and misery goes nowhere to establish morality. Many individuals who strive towards the moral good also end up dissatisfied, wallowing in loathing and misery.
I suspect that a society living morally good is more likely to lead to happiness than a society seeking happiness will lead to a society living morally good.
A couple of thoughts regarding your reply: When you say our moral perceptions are broken and refer to human history as an example, you are saying the people in that history are not morally culpable because their moral perceptions were broken (just as a mentally handicapped individual or small child is not morally culpable in today’s world). We, being intellectually elite to them, are able to see the moral failures that they could not. The Nazi’s, the Crusaders, the ancient Israelites slaughtering the Canaanites, were all just victims of their broken moral perceptions. I don’t believe that and I really suspect that you don’t either. I really think a perspective like that displays an unjustified modern arrogance.
Regarding God and morals, I would say that, if He exists, He must not be moral in the same way we are in that He cannot have moral duties. If He has duties then that would imply something greater than He that would impose them on Him but by definition for something to qualify as God it must be the greatest conceivable being. A being that has something imposed on it cannot be the greatest conceivable being. God must be moral, not because He has a duty to, but because it is His nature. He has no choice.
You have described, in your writings, many actions that we can all agree are good but Wallace’s argument isn’t about what is good but WHY it is good. I am not finding an answer to that in your rebuttal or reply or other writings.
I (and others) do in the works I cited. This is an 1100-word-an-entry debate. I made several statements of fact, like that one, that lead to my conclusion, and cited the authorities backing those statements as facts. No doubt Dr. Marshall will attempt to challenge those authorities, and then I’ll elaborate on why they are right. Etc.
But if you want to skip ahead and find out why they are right, read them. I suggest starting with my chapter in The End of Christianity, as it has an appendix with formal logical syllogisms demonstrating, for example, why only human desire can motivate moral truth. And it was peer reviewed by several professors of philosophy.
Rather, why does it determine true moral facts; as opposed to false. False moralities abound—we are here only concerned with which moralities are true. So you have to start by explaining what your truth conditions are. What makes your chosen “moral system” true, as opposed to false? Once you pick your truth conditions, we can show either (a) you are right, no other moralities will supersede that one and therefore it is the system all rational, informed persons should obey or (b) you have described something no one should care about, because there are other moralities they should sooner obey instead.
For example, you could say “the moral is whatever a majority of persons at any given time says it is.” Obviously you would (I hope!) reject that as not a true morality. It’s “a” morality, in the sense that there “is” a system of morals called by someone somewhere “morals” that is, and is only, “whatever a majority of persons at any given time says it is” (we can historically and anthropologically find countless examples, all contradicting each other because majorities differ over space and time). Such systems exist. But no one should care about them. They are false moralities. It in no way motivates any rational agent to obey a moral commandment that is merely “whatever a majority of persons at any given time says is moral.” And that is what makes those morals false.
If no rational and informed agent will obey your morals, that means you have only described what irrational and ignorant people believe is the right thing to do. And you cannot defend conclusions arrived at irrationally and ignorantly as “true,” certainly not as objectively so.
Once you get this far, you might start to realize why it is that only what a rational and informed agent would do can ever be morally true. And once you get that far, you might start to realize this means only what a rational and informed agent would want to do (above all else) can be moral.
But if you can’t find your way through these steps on your own, the formal deductive syllogisms are in TEC.
Assuming you mean people who pursue actual moral goods, e.g. you mean people who don’t pursue false moralities (such as command that homosexuality is bad), for whom their misery is precisely owing to their pursuing false moralities, then you are overlooking the role of risk management and that all outcomes are relative to possible other outcomes and not impossible other outcomes. In other words, a true moral action will be the one action actually available to you that will increase the odds of a best outcome; all other actions will decrease those odds.
But, first, that does not guarantee the best outcome; it only increases the odds of it.
Thus, it is irrational to spend a dollar on a 50/50 chance of winning $1000 when you could spend that dollar on an 80/20 chance of winning $1000. You might in either case end up with nothing (a “bad” outcome), but it is still correct, and only correct, to make the second and not the first choice (all else being equal; complex odds structuring in real life can warrant a diversity of choices like risk-asset spreading and bet hedging and opportunity-costing and so on: because reality is not simple). It is thus not a valid objection to say “but I ended up with nothing, therefore I shouldn’t have bet on the 80/20.” It’s not even a valid objection if, in hindsight, you observe the 50/50 won. This is true for all other “goods” and “losses” (not just money) and thus fully applicable to moral reasoning.
All else being equal (crucial caveat), it is always irrational to bet a low winner when you can bet high winner. Regardless of what actually ends up happening. This can be demonstrated by iterating the decisions, e.g. every time you lose an 80/20 you switch to the 50/50 when someone else won the 50/50, while another version of you always keeps betting the 80/20. The long run outcome will demonstrate one of you cashing in far more in net benefit over time; and it won’t be the one who keeps switching. It will be the one who sticks to their moral guns. The odds of this not being the case diminish over time to vanishingly small probabilities; which is also why pointing to extreme outliers is also not a valid objection, because the odds of becoming an extreme outlier are by definition extremely low. So it is always irrational to bet that way, even if a scant few people get lucky at it.
Better engineered social systems would not have this defect, BTW. Which is one of the things humans have started doing: evening out odds outcomes to minimize “lucky evil” and insure the “unlucky good.” If a God existed, he would have already engineered the universe that way. That we had to do it instead, with no useful guidance from above (and thus with thousands of years of disastrous mistakes and ignorance), is one more reason we can be sure there is no such engineer.
And, second, outcomes are relative to available opportunities.
In other words, you may have only two choices, one leads to being 50% miserable and the other leads to being 80% miserable. It is invalid to say “choice one made me miserable therefore I should have made choice two instead.” Obviously that’s false. Moral lives lead to the best possible outcomes available to the agent. Not the best possible outcomes imaginable or the best possible outcomes someone else could achieve because they enjoy different circumstances and opportunities. This is so obvious I am hoping I do not need to explain this further.
Not necessarily. It is a non sequitur to say “my senses are imperfect, therefore I cam be excused from every mistake.” That’s as true of eyesight or logic as any other perception system in the brain.
In reality, false moralities have to be maintained on elaborate systems of enforced delusions and oppression of dissenting voices (and often, outright lies). Those maintaining such systems generally are not good people; as were they, they’d have noticed these defects and done something about them. Because by definition that is what a good person would do.
But as to the limits of when moral excuse does or does not exist, see TEC, endnotes 34-37, pp. 425-27.
Then God cannot be good.
I don’t see how this follows even from Marshall’s own construct. On his construct, moral duties follow from the nature of God, not from something “outside” him. Unless you are going all Nietszche here and defending the necessity of God being a total sociopath so that he can be totally free of all constraints (even constraints of morality and reason). But that would be by definition defending an evil God. If that’s what you want to do, I’d be curious to see you actually do it. It might tell us something disturbing about you, that you would revere such a monster rather than damn him. But that might at least be more honest.
I’ve stated it several times now, e.g. “that there could never have been anything worth seeking but a desirable life. And moral values and duties are what we must embody to maximize our opportunity for that.”
There is only one Good: being as satisfied with who you have become and the life you are living as is physically possible for you in the circumstances you are in. Literally nothing else is worth anyone pursuing (try as you might, you wont be able to come up with any persuasive argument anyone should pursue any end except that very motivation: see, again, TEC, pp. 335-39). Consequently, there can be no greater good than that. How one achieves that good in a system of other people then leads to the empirical observations and even sciences discovering how empathy and prosociality are necessary for obtaining this good. Among other things.
All as explained in the articles I’ve linked to in my endnotes above.
I think we may be talking past each other by using different terms. What I would call good morals and bad morals it would seem you are calling true morals and false morals. I might call someone’s actions morally wrong while you might call it an action of a false morality.
You take it farther though. You say that “only what a rational and informed agent would do can ever be morally true”. You are defining what is morally good/true by what a rational and informed agent would do and defining who is rational and informed by what you see as morally good/true. It seems circular to me but I am sure you disagree.
You misunderstand what I have said about God and moral duties. I am confident my view is consistent with Wallace’s. I agree, with Wallace, that OUR moral duties come from God – they come from His commands. God does not make commands to Himself though, therefore, He has no moral duties. That is not to say He has no moral constraints though. He is constrained by His nature. His nature is the good. He cannot act counter to His own nature so He can’t not be good.
You said, “There is only one Good: being as satisfied with who you have become and the life you are living as is physically possible for you in the circumstances you are in. Literally nothing else is worth anyone pursuing.” Really?? Nothing?? What about sacrificing for another? What about giving up something I desire so my child could have something she wants or needs? Isn’t that good. For your Good to be what you say it is I think you would have to show that all actions of sacrifice are done for selfish reasons.
FWIW, thanks for the thought out replies. It is clear that you have spent time and thought into your responses while many would just flippantly dismiss counter thoughts.
I don’t just define it that way, I just demonstrated it must be the case, as in, there is no other possibility. For example, true moral duties cannot be what only irrational or ignorant persons would do. And the only things that remain are what rational and informed persons would do. There is no third option. Q.E.D.
This is self-contradictory. If God is good, by definition he adheres to the moral duties defining a good person. If he does not adhere to duties defining a good person he is by definition not a good person.
So you have to pick one. Either God will act as a good person ought. Or he is not a good person. There is only one other option: God does not exist. There is no fourth option.
Which one only ever does when it satisfies them to do so. I discuss the actual psychology and logic of motivated self-sacrifice in TEC, pp. 346 and 350; and more in Sense and Goodness without God, pp. 341-42.
This is a common error the scientifically illiterate make in these debates: confusing self-interest with selfishness. There are often self-interested reasons to make sacrifices, even total ones. And indeed, those are the only rational and thus genuinely moral reasons to do so. In fact all human self-sacrificing behavior is defined by its self-interested motivations (how it makes you feel, or prevents your feeling in future, or even what reciprocal benefits it bets on). No one would do it otherwise. There has to be a motive. And per Aristotle that motive always ends in the chain of explanations with “why I wanted that outcome and none other.” Even in the Christian worldview it does so (see my previously cited pages from TEC on that point).
You said, “If God is good, by definition he adheres to the moral duties defining a good person. If he does not adhere to duties defining a good person he is by definition not a good person.”
Maybe our hang-up is on the definition of “duties”. I am working off of a definition that means an obligation or responsibility. An obligation or responsibility is something that someone can satisfy or fail to satisfy. The way you are using “duties” seems more like what I refer to as one’s “nature”.
So, God’s is good, not because He has an obligation or responsibility to be so but because His nature will not allow the opposite. Maybe a simple analogy would help you understand. The nature of water is that it will freeze at 32 Fahrenheit. It is not obligated to do so. It does not have a responsibility to do so. It does not have a duty to do so. It will freeze because that is its nature. If it doesn’t freeze then it is not water.
You said, “This is a common error the scientifically illiterate make in these debates: confusing self-interest with selfishness.”
I had to chuckle at that. First, you probably know little about me. You probably don’t know my education, my occupation and the experiences I’ve had so you are not prepared to infer that I am scientifically illiterate. It is irrational for you to make such a claim. Hmm, would you call that a false morality?
Second, if someone is confusing self-interest with selfishness their illiteracy is not scientific but semantic. Furthermore, most dictionaries list the two as synonyms.
You said, “In fact all human self-sacrificing behavior is defined by its self-interested motivations (how it makes you feel, or prevents your feeling in future, or even what reciprocal benefits it bets on). No one would do it otherwise. There has to be a motive.”
That is just false. A person can perform a true sacrificial act – one that in no way is out of self-interest. They could do it just because they think it is a morally good thing to do – it has good moral value. Don’t confuse that with moral duties though. You might, for example, help out a homeless person by giving them a meal. You could do this without drawing any attention or praise to yourself. You could do this with absolutely no benefit to yourself. You could do this while knowing that it won’t make you feel any better about yourself. You are not bound by any duty to help this person. You could help them simply because you think it is a good thing to do.
If this is false then next time you help someone and they thank you, the honest and morally true thing for a rational person like yourself to do is to tell them not to thank you because you did it out of your own self-interest.
A good person is by definition someone who helps their friends and the helpless when they can. A bad person is by definition someone who is indifferent to anyone else’s needs or welfare.
This entails a set of duties, which reflect the character of the person. A good person, to be a good person, must help their friends and the helpless when they can.
There is no trick that gets God off this hook. He is either a good person, as in someone who helps their friends and the helpless when they can, or he is not a good person. No semantic hoop jumping can escape this.
Meanwhile, you aren’t thinking things through again when you say “A person can perform a true sacrificial act – one that in no way is out of self-interest. They could do it just because they think it is a morally good thing to do – it has good moral value.” Because that simply refers again to a self-interest: they desire to realize “good moral value” more than any other pleasures; they are more satisfied, with themselves and their lives, being the sort of person who does that. Thus they are doing what they want. More specifically, what most satisfies them. Just as I said.
There is no way to escape this. All moral action is sought for personal satisfaction. Otherwise no one would ever be moral. The only differences between people is where they realize the highest peaks of self-satisfaction reside, as in, through which paths can they obtain them. Most have mistaken ideas about this, e.g. pursuing money leads to maximized satisfaction (scientifically disproven); whereas the science shows quite a different story, e.g. pursuing a life of helping and prosociality and measured reciprocal sacrifice is a required element of any path that does lead to maximized satisfaction.
We are ultimately happier people when we are genuinely moral. Not when we obey false moralities. And only relative to available pathways (one can only gain the highest level of happiness available to them; not the highest level conceivable, as that may require a change of circumstances not available to them by any choice they have or know about). This is what science has shown. And all genuinely laudable sacrificing behavior is motivated by this.
This is not about “drawing any attention or praise to yourself.” This is about feeling good about yourself. Are you satisfied being the sort of person who does what you do? That’s the motive underlying everything all human beings do. The only difference to mediate is whether they seek this end rationally and informedly or irrationally and misinformedly.
Meanwhile, if being a good person does not “make you feel any better about yourself” than being a bad person would, then you are either following a false morality, or have a genuine psychological problem that could pose a threat to yourself and those around you. I would suggest you seek serious and real professional therapy if that’s the case.
Are you allowing for a person to be both good and bad? A person could help the needy on one day and be indifferent to them the next. It would seem in your explanation a person like this would be rational on one day irrational the next. Is this necessarily a sociopath? If no, what is the demarcation point?
You said, “There is no trick that gets God off this hook. He is either a good person, as in someone who helps their friends and the helpless when they can, or he is not a good person. No semantic hoop jumping can escape this.” I believe you misunderstand what I have been saying. God IS a good person. He helps all people. I am just saying that He doesn’t do it because He has an obligation to but because nature prohibits Him from not being a good person. [Note: I realize that my statement that “He helps all people” could lead to a POE discussion. Don’t know if this is the time\place to go there.]
You said, “…But that simply refers again to a self-interest: they desire to realize “good moral value” more than any other pleasures; they are more satisfied, with themselves and their lives, being the sort of person who does that. Thus they are doing what they want. More specifically, what most satisfies them.” That is just an assertion and I believe a false one at that. Is there a study you can cite that has psycho-analyzed people who have done perceived selfless good acts and found they were all, in fact, self-interest motivated?
You said, “All moral action is sought for personal satisfaction. Otherwise no one would ever be moral”. I would thank you for your reply but since it was all done for your own self-interest I guess there is no need to.
Yes. We have lots of science showing that. I already cited a bunch of it. Including Roger Bergman, “Why Be Moral? A Conceptual Model from Developmental Psychology” Human Development; much more is collected in: James Maddux, ed., Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction (Routledge 2018); Personality, Identity, and Character (Cambridge University Press 2009); Moral Psychology (MIT Press 2007-) esp. Volume 2; “The Development of Prosocial Behavior and Cognitions in German Children,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Self-sacrifice makes us happy. We have neuroscience proving it. We have psychology proving it. Exercising self-control (literally a sacrifice, of imminent pleasures) is pleasurable and conducive to overall life satisfaction. And self-sacrificing behavior of all varieties is demonstrably motivated by the happiness it produces in the acting party, or the avoidance of greater misery they’d suffer from inaction, which is the same thing: choosing optimal available personal satisfaction. Study after study finds, for example, the cognitive awareness that “the specific trade off between benefiting the self and others … inhibits happiness with self-interest” (such that “the agency inherent in choice reduces the hedonic value of self-interest”) is precisely what causes us to make sacrifices for others.
This is indeed an evolved feature of cognitive social animals generally. The inability of sociopaths to enjoy this pleasure is precisely a key defect caused by their disease; the effect of which is not to make them happy being self-interested, but even more miserable and self-defeating.
This should have been obvious to you.
No one just does things for no reason. By definition people only do what they want. The only scientific question is why do they want that. They can have irrational and ignorant reasons; or rational and informed ones. There are no others.
Think this through. There are only two possibilities: when someone acts morally, they are dissatisfied and disappointed in themselves for doing so, and unhappy with their choice; or, they are more satisfied with themselves having done so, happy with their choice, that’s why they did it. The third possibility, that they are completely indifferent to whether they act morally or not, won’t cause them to act morally and so is out of account. We don’t do things we are completely indifferent toward. We do things we care to do.
And that’s where science comes in. We now know that without an activating desire there is no neural motivation to act; and without a greater activating desire than a competing desire, we act on the competing desire instead. This is the fundamental neuroscience of human decision-making: see The Neuroscience of Morality and Social Decision-Making; for broader background, The Neuroscience of Making Decisions. It’s called “stimulus valuation” and it governs all decisions: a higher valued stimulus causes the decision we choose, by producing the greater cognitive reward (or what we anticipate to be such, hence how false beliefs, and thus false moralities, can conduce to misery rather than happiness).
The difference between a selfish and a self-satisfying person is that the former doesn’t enjoy making sacrifices for others, while the latter person does. The next question then is why; and we’ve found that it’s usually due false beliefs about cause and effect. The selfish person mistakenly believes they will be better off (more satisfied with themselves and their lives) if they act selfishly and not make any sacrifices; the science proves them wrong. Whereas the self-satisfying person correctly believes they will be better off (more satisfied with themselves and their lives) if they act with judicious degree of self-sacrifice; and the science proves them right.
Scientific study of apathy disorders only confirms the point. Apathy is indifference, and it de-motivates, rather than motivates action. Thus no one who is indifferent to how moral action makes them feel will reliably act morally.
I assume when you say “Yes. We have lots of science showing that. I already cited a bunch of it” you are responding to my request “Is there a study you can cite that has psycho-analyzed people who have done perceived selfless good acts and found they were all, in fact, self-interest motivated?” I looked at two of the articles you cited – they were available online. These were Bergman’s “Why Be Moral?” and “The Development of Prosocial Behavior and Cognitions in German Children”. Neither cites a study that supports your assertion that all perceived selfless good acts are self-interest motivated. The closest was in “Why Be Moral?” where subjects did not view their moral acts as sacrifice. That is far different from what would be needed to support your assertion.
What struck me in “Why Be Moral?” and the rest of your reply is that it is dealing with the motives to be moral. I can agree that behaving morally can make us happier. In your previous replies you have said that our happiness defines morality. This results in a statement that says nothing. Let me demonstrate: morality=seek happiness; so if we say “People act morally because it makes them happy” all we are really saying is “People seek happiness because it makes them happy”. That really isn’t saying much of anything. The moral argument isn’t about people’s motives for being moral.
Funny you picked the two articles that were not any of the numerous articles I cited on the science of selfless action.
Now we know what you are about.
As to “People seek happiness because it makes them happy … isn’t saying much of anything,” wrong. Because what makes them happy is then an empirical matter to discover. The discovered result: the only true morality.
You are confusing the true tautology (nothing is more worth end goal than happiness, more correctly satisfaction with self and life which is not always exactly the same thing depending on one’s definition of “happy,” but it’s the same tautology) with the true facts of what obtains this highest goal, and what does not. That is determined by the nature of existence. And has to be discovered.
You said, “Funny you picked the two articles that were not any of the numerous articles I cited on the science of selfless action.”
It’s funny that you would take issue with the two articles I looked at.
1. I looked at them because they were part of the list that YOU listed in your last reply. Your exact words were: “Yes. We have lots of science showing that. I already cited a bunch of it. Including Roger Bergman, “Why Be Moral? A Conceptual Model from Developmental Psychology” Human Development; much more is collected in: James Maddux, ed., Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction (Routledge 2018); Personality, Identity, and Character (Cambridge University Press 2009); Moral Psychology (MIT Press 2007-) esp. Volume 2; “The Development of Prosocial Behavior and Cognitions in German Children,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.”
2. If they didn’t provide the evidence I asked for regarding your assertion that all sacrifices are out of self-interest why did you bother listing them as if they did?
3. Those two were the only of your list in your previous reply that are available online. The others you listed are not available in my public library and I am not going to spend money on a book just because you list it in a reply.
You said, “Now we know what you are about.”
What am I all about? Please tell.
You said, “You are confusing the true tautology (nothing is more worth end goal than happiness, more correctly satisfaction with self and life which is not always exactly the same thing depending on one’s definition of “happy,” but it’s the same tautology) with the true facts of what obtains this highest goal, and what does not. That is determined by the nature of existence. And has to be discovered.”
You missed my point which was that in your definitions the motive and the moral are the same thing. It is incoherent. The “why” and the “what” are the same in your definitions but clearly we know that why someone does something isn’t the same what it is they should be doing.
Dude, do you not see the huge list of links I gave specifically on the subject of self-sacrifice?
Why did you ignore every single one?
Meanwhile, regarding your claim that “the motive and the moral are the same thing. It is incoherent.”
First, a tautology is by definition coherent, so claiming two things are the same is not an argument for incoherence.
Second, “the motive and the moral are the same thing” is false.
The only thing any rationally informed person will agree is worth living for is a life worth living, a.k.a. a desirable life. Therefore no imperative destructive of that goal (in the presence of an actually available alternative that isn’t) will ever be acknowledged as binding on any rationally informed person. But how to achieve that goal is then an empirical question that requires examining numerous facts about themselves and the world they reside in. These are therefore not the same thing. One is a tautological fact about all cognitive beings (what all rationally informed persons will deem good). The other is an empirical fact about how to engage oneself with the world, i.e. how to behave, a.k.a. morality.
Jumping into the question of whether all self-sacrifice is selfishly motivated:
It’s important to distinguish outcomes from motivations. Let’s say, for example, that I take care of my son and sacrifice for him because I love him and I want him to have a good life. Now, do I feel better about myself and more satisfied in my relationship when I do so? Of course, because I have done something that is meaningful and that helps someone that I love. But so what? The mere fact that a choice brings some positive outcomes for me does not even begin to establish that those outcomes were my primary motivation. In fact, I think there is very good reason to doubt that selfishness was my primary motive: direct experience. I have at least some level access to my thoughts and motivations, and I know that I love my son, and that I consistently take actions for his benefit rather than for mine, actions that annoy me and that I would rather not do, but that I know I ought to do. And I know that I do this without working out any cost/benefit analysis in my head. Perhaps they will ultimately benefit me. I certainly hope so. But that wasn’t why I did them.
When the other person (Carrier) argues that I’m actually doing that MERELY because I know it will benefit me in the end, I’m simply going to ask him how he knows my thoughts better than I do. Maybe HE uses some sort of pain/pleasure calculus when he cares for his children, but I don’t. If he argues that I’m subconsciously choosing what benefits me the most, such that I don’t realize it, I’m going to ask how in the world he knows that.
Science has no way of knowing my thoughts or anyone else’s. Those studies Carrier cited were just laughably irrelevant. Showing that making moral choices produces positive feelings does nothing – I mean LITERALLY nothing – to show that those feelings were the original motivation of the decision. It’s a perfect example of scientists trying to draw philosophical conclusions and just highlighting their ignorance of the issues.
So for Carrier to argue that my direct experience (and the experience of billions of others) is wrong shows that his theory is driving his interpretation of the experiential data, rather than letting the experiential data drive the theory.
Furthermore, it seems that many self-sacrificial choices deprive the sacrificer of far more than what he gains. A patriotic father who loves his family and home, but willingly signs up for war and dies for his country, for example: what did he gain? A little bit of pride, a ton of suffering, then death: the end of all possible satisfaction, of watching his children grow up, or of making love to his wife. How does that fit into the pain/pleasure calculus? Any idiot could see that the far greater pleasure and satisfaction would come from living a happy life. And once again, if you asked these men why they do it, many would argue that they do it because their country is worth fighting for – not because they will get the most satisfaction out of it. To argue that his momentary satisfaction in dying for his country just HAS TO outweigh all the other satisfactions is another perfect example of trying to force the data to fit your theory.
So Carrier is just not understanding what he needs to show. He doesn’t just have to show that moral choices ultimately positive outcomes. Of course they do! Morality wouldn’t make sense if it always made life WORSE. Neither is it sufficient to show that, even in the most self-sacrificial situation, the sacrificer benefits something. He might or might not depending on the specifics. What carrier needs to give is an argument which concludes that these outcomes are ALWAYS the primary reason that the person acts. And it needs to be a pretty strong argument to overcome the evidence from direct experience and from supererogatory acts like dying for someone else. I haven’t seen an argument yet which can begin to do this.
“Maybe HE uses some sort of pain/pleasure calculus when he cares for his children, but I don’t.”
It’s a matter of scientific fact that you do. See, again, all the neuroscience of decision making. I’ve directed you to some.
Maybe you don’t know how your brain works. But neuroscientists do.
It satisfies you more to be a man who makes certain sacrifices. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t make them. That’s a neuroscientific and psychological fact of human beings. And you are a human being.
But . . . those studies don’t show that . . . most of them are irrelevant, and as Bill Clute pointed out, one of the studies actually argues the opposite of what your point is.
So, “Dude,” are you even reading the studies you are posting? Or are you just finding random studies with titles that sound relevant so you can claim “science” is on your side?
You don’t know how to read a science study then. See below.
Seriously!!! You directly responded to my request for a certain study by listing various articles and books that you said supported your assertion. Was I really to think that, no, these reference aren’t the ones Richard wants me to look at to support his assertion…he just posted them for no reason. Of course not! But I did go back to scan for other articles that you might have referenced to support your assertion.
In one of your earlier replies you stated “And self-sacrificing behavior of all varieties is demonstrably motivated by the happiness it produces in the acting party, or the avoidance of greater misery they’d suffer from inaction…” and you hyperlinked to an article titled, “Why People Make Sacrifices for Others” with the subtitle “A new study asks: Is costly altruism motivated more by self-centered distress or a compassionate desire to relieve another’s pain?”
(https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_people_make_sacrifices_for_others)
Well, surely this must be one of the studies you are basing your assertion on. I was quite astonished though to find that the conclusions of the study are just the opposite of your assertion. The article states, “From these results, the researchers surmise that acts of costly altruism are more strongly associated with feelings of compassionate concern than with a selfish need to relieve one’s own distress.” You must have posted that article by mistake. I am sure you wouldn’t intentionally post a study that refutes yourself.
Yeah. Compassionate concern makes you happy and satisfied. Thus proving my point: people act according to what satisfies them as a person.
You are confusing pain avoidance with pleasure seeking. Both can increase satisfaction state. What they found is that satisfaction seeking in altruism tends usually to be pleasure seeking. Though note the effect size: still a great many people do it for pain avoidance as well. Both are seeking self-satisfaction.
Richard, c’mon. The study’s conclusion put the compassionate concern motive as counter to the selfish need to relieve one’s own stress. They concluded that these sacrificial acts were selfless not selfish (syn. Self-interest). They don’t agree with the assertion you had hyperlinked it with.
While it may be true that compassionate concern MAY make one happy the study determined that it WAS NOT the motive of the study participants. Your proposed moral framework is about self-interest motivation and the study’s findings are counter to that.
You can say that I don’t know how to read science, as you have said to others, but it is all out there for anyone to read that wants to look at it. I’ll just leave it at that.
You don’t understand the difference between doing things because they make you happy and doing them solely to avoid being made unhappy?
Wow. I can’t help you here. Until you figure that out, you won’t understand anything being said on this.
I used to teach moral philosophy at a college, and this is the most brilliant writing about morality that I have seen.
I know this isn’t a comparative religion discussion but how simple from the perspective of everything that’s been written here is the Buddhist understanding that we exist to be happy and the surest path to that is to help others. Your penultimate and final paragraphs are totally compatible with this understanding, intentional or not. Additionally, their recognition that every human being has accumulated enough merit to be worthy of full respect regardless of sex or tribe or circumstance stands in stark contrast to, frankly, all the sky god religions.
Since the Nazis have finally made their appearance here let me point out that the Nazis achieved total control over the German State in the 1930’s and killed and/or outlawed every opponent person or group that stood in the way of that domination. Yet can anyone say that any Nazi was ever happy? They were certainly obsessed and devoted to the ideal perfect state, but were they satisfied in any humane sense? No, they were on a totally misguided path and wound up crushed and miserable as you pointed out. Actually, they were miserable the entire time, they just didn’t know it.
Excellent writing, Dr. Carrier, thanks. And thanks for all the footnotes.
Yes, the Nazis were miserable in the end. But suppose a Nazi (or any similar person) who knows the end will be bad but commits some horrible atrocity anyway as a protest against the absurdity of life — how will the atheist respond to this? “You ought not to commit this atrocity because the end will be bad”?
Can you describe a real world example? I cannot imagine the scenario you are abstracting.
Dr. Carrier wrote:
Response: But consequential to whom? What if there is a potentially adverse consequence that I’m not personally impacted by and will never lose any sleep over? Not everyone in this world is so aware/caring/empathy of what is happening to others in this world to necessarily be impacted from a “personal satisfaction” standpoint. And to a great extent like our economic system there can be winners and losers. Then it becomes a question of the pleasure/pain trade off and whether I should even be concerned about whether my selfish pleasure is at the detriment of others (in certain instances). Perhaps in certain situations I might be concerned but in others my response might be “sucks being you”.
Consequential to the moral agent. Only such consequences ultimately matter, even in Christianity. As I demonstrate in The End of Christianity, cf. pp. 335-39. Because only they are motivating; and unmotivated imperatives are by definition false.
As to what you might “not lose sleep over,” that’s not how it works. Sociopaths sleep well, for example. Yet are persistently angry and empty and miserable (as we have abundant science now showing). They are just insane and thus incapable of recognizing that their actions are the cause of all their inner misery and their unfulfilling and frustrating public life.
Follow the links I provided to understand why empathy is necessary for a fulfilling and satisfying life whether one is aware of this or not. For example, see “Your Own Moral Reasoning: Some Things to Consider.” We have abundant science now supporting this conclusion.
Dr. Carrier wrote:
Response: I agree with this 100 percent. There are facts to be known about everything. I think the hangup that theists have with morality is the need to equate immoral behavior with “sin”. But of course they will tell you (in so many words) that God hates since because he loves us and is concerned for our well being.
But when it comes to something like safety, which is also something that we all should be aware of and concerned about for the well being of ourselves and others, the Christian is just as pragmatic about it as everyone else. They use their logic, reasoning, research, analysis to try and discern what is worth being concerned about (with respect to safety) and what is not. They don’t rely on their religious dogma to tell them that they need to buckle up when driving.
They rely on the scientific data like everyone else.
And when it comes to questions about our safety where the scientific data is not quite so conclusive (e.g. Can cell phones cause cancer?) they are likewise in the same boat as the rest of just, trying to do a risk assessment based on what scientific data is available to us all at that time. I don’t expect that they pray or look for God to provide then with answers to such questions or decisions with respect to the well being of themselves and their loved ones.
Perhaps this might be the junctur t ask u, Dr Carrier about psychopaths or sociopaths. These or one of them lack empathy. I don’t know if empathy plays a nesasry part in producing morality. I suppose whot is a satisfying and desirable life fr them is t kill human beings – eg that christian apologist sociopath david wood whu’s gon t prisun fr grievus bodily harm.
Empathy is a perceptual sense required to reliably act morally and benefit from it. By having this sense crippled, sociopaths frequently act contrary to even their own well-being and cannot achieve satisfying lives. Indeed psychologists have documented they even envy and resent the rest of us for having the pleasures and satisfactions of empathy and an empathic life.
In following this debate, I feel that it hasn’t been productive because you tend to not respond to what Marshall says and rely overmuch on your personal theories that not only aren’t necessarily as strong as you think, but more importantly that you know that Marshall doesn’t agree with. This means that there’s little actual argumentative clash and that the two of you end up talking past each other more often than not.
This part is of particular interest to me because I’ve talked about your moral system on my own blog and don’t find your theory as convincing as you do.
Here is a prime example of you not responding to Marshall:
The problem is that Marshall gave the definition of morality that he was working with: “something that would be wrong even if everyone on the planet thought it was okay.” And later you actually at least in passing comment that your system can indeed accommodate that. So why even talk about those different senses instead of simply taking Marshall’s on and pointing out that your view can handle it without invoking God?
The heart of the issue with your move here comes from this:
The issue here is that you have the statement backwards, as you move from that to concluding that therefore whatever we do want to do — or value — or than anything else therefore defines what is moral. But we don’t mean it that way. What we mean is that whatever it is that turns out to be the right moral theory is what we therefore ought to value and what we ought to do above all else, and that if we don’t value or do that that’s a sign of something in US that needs to change, not a sign that the morality needs to change. Given that, you simply cannot move from what would give us personal satisfaction to saying that that therefore defines what is moral. Anyone who disagrees with any conclusion you come up with here will always be free to say that you are, in fact, simply wrong about what it means to be moral, and that if you deny something as being moral because it gives you no personal satisfaction that the fault is in you, not the morality. So you need this move to refute Marshall but as Marshall comments this move, in fact, relies on a misunderstanding of what is mean by “that which we ought to do above all else”. It’s a prescriptive statement, not a descriptive one.
This is also backwards. We have ideas of what we think a good person would be, and so think that we want to be in a society with them and that they won’t have a net adverse consequence. But if it turned out that a good person would be overly strict and religious, say, then we likely would conclude that they are still good people but that perhaps we don’t like good people. For all practical purposes, we’d try really hard to avoid that state, but all moral philosophy has to accept that it might actually be the case, given the concept of morality we’re working with and what we mean by the term.
First, this isn’t actually even true of consequentialist moral systems, as they would start from a moral system that says that the moral facts are determined by calculating the consequences using whatever consequence-assessing function they define — utility for Utilitarianism, for example — and running it against the system a person is in. In this case, the only reason that this seems to be an obvious moral duty is because by almost all of these functions doing this would have the better consequences. Second, there are valid moral systems that might deny that this is a moral duty. In particular, a theistically defined one might deny this precisely because doing so would be “playing God”, and making decisions that only God can decide. I’m not certain what moral view Marshall holds, but pretty much any theist will be sympathetic to this argument, so you should be aware that he is likely to disagree here. Also, all deontologists could appeal to murder being wrong no matter what the consequences, and again theists will tend towards deontology. It’s only if you assume consequentialism is correct that this is obvious, but you’re in a debate with someone who is unlikely to be a strict consequentialist, and without that the argument doesn’t hold except at an emotional level.
The thing here is that the paradigmatic examples of moral people are people who would be willing to act morally even if the system would crush or frustrate them. So if this follows from your moral system it seems you end up in the situation Marshall talks about: talking about something using the word morality, but not using that word to describe what people really consider morality to be.
Because his argument is that godless systems CAN’T accommodate that and therefore “that” requires God. I am arguing the contrary. Do you not understand that this is what we are debating?
Likewise, my point is that he has no evidence non-consequential morals are ever true. We have abundant evidence consequentialist ones are. Thus he can’t get his argument to work. One premise requires a kind of morals there is no evidence are true; another premise requires the morals we do have evidence are true. Producing either an equivocation fallacy, or rendering false one of his premises. The argument thus doesn’t carry.
That’s what we are debating.
But my point was that Marshall gave a definition of objective, but you never actually acknowledged that definition and instead spent over a paragraph talking about various ways the term “objective” could be meant, even though you could make a case that your view can meet that definition (in fact, meeting Marshall’s definition is precisely what you use to call it objective). Not addressing the definition Marshall is actually using directly means that the two of you really look like you’re talking past each other.
But, again, this is you relying on your theory being true despite the fact that you know that Marshall doesn’t agree with it. Even if you’re right — and I don’t think it’s as clear as you think, as I said in the rest of my comment — there’s no way that Marshall is going to simply accept that, and so again the two of you end up talking past each other.
And my whole article here’s point is that his definition refers to things we have no evidence exist, thus negating his second premise. If we switch to a definition that describes things that we can show do exist, doing so negates his first premise.
That’s the debate. You seem to have missed it.
I think I might have confused you by referring to “morality” in my first comment when I meant “objective”, because you never actually address Marshall’s definition of “objective” despite tangentially accepting it later in your post. What you claim “doesn’t exist” is moralities like the ones Marshall believes in — ie non-consequentialist ones — and as I already said the REST of my comment was built around pointing out that your arguments for that rely on assumptions that you make and misunderstandings and so are not simply facts as you believe.
That’s precisely the point: Marshall defines an objective morality in such a way that it ends up a morality that does not exist or for which there is no evidence, negating his premise that such a system exists. I pointed this out. Thus addressing his definition.
The only alternative is to switch to an objective morality there is actually real and substantial evidence exists. But once you do that, we find it has no requisite connection with gods, negating his premise that it must.
Either way, his argument fails. Q.E.D.
so summat can be morally rong but consequently good and vice versa?
And u, Dr Carrier, ar contending that without human minds objectivly rong/right items don’t exist in the same way as 2 plus 2 equals 4 without human minds, which is the theistic view (I suppose)?
…Eg paedophilia can’t be sed to be wrong when there’s no pepl or if all the pepl say it’s OK?
And the consequentialist would aver that paedophilia is rong becaus it harms the child.
And the theist can retort: well if any harm can be assuredly averted then paedophilia wud be unobjectionabl?
ie u’r not a moral absolutist…
2 + 2 = 4 is analytic (it is true by virtue of the definitions of terms and thus is true in all possible worlds, i.e. regardless of what is empirically the case). Moral propositions are synthetic, i.e. empirical, not analytic (they cannot be true simply by virtue of the definitions of terms in the proposition; they can only be true or false by virtue of what actually is the case in the world, e.g. what the actual nature of people are, what the actual physics of their circumstances is, how the resulting social systems actually operate, etc.).
But no, I am not a moral absolutist; there are no demonstrably true moral absolutes (other than uninformative tautologies). All moral truth is contingent on corresponding realities. Thus, there can easily be an alien species somewhere in the universe for whom sex with a ten year old is cognitively identical to our having sex with an eighteen year old, owing to the faster cognitive development of that species; and thus our prohibition against sex with ten year olds would not apply to them. There could also possibly be a species where sex at any age can produce no cognitive or physical harm (I cannot personally imagine this, but I cannot rule it out deductively). But as we aren’t that species, that’s irrelevant to us.
I discuss this under “Caveman Say Science Scary” in my End of Christianity chapter. Generally all attempts to try and argue acts that harm their targets and compromise the empathy of their perpetrators “won’t do so” if this or that were changed, imagine things unrealizable in practice (at least for Homo sapiens sapiens), and what is unrealizable, is not relevant to real-world moralities; or else they overlook continuing harms to target and perpetrator.
There is a reason our highest moral ideas are what they are: they’ve been thoroughly empirically vetted by these metrics and thus all quests for exceptions have confirmed there aren’t any, at least not in the world as it currently is or could even plausibly soon be.
verbosestic wrote:
Response: In such a debate why should Dr. Carrier concern himself with whether his position is in agreement with any/all such belief systems. I can for example define morality as being what is pleasing to unicorns. But until I can provide sufficient evidence that unicorns exist (moral unicorns at that) and can prove what unicorns find pleasing, then why should Dr. Carrier concern himself with whether his moralistic definition is consistent with my particular belief system (and all it entails). Failing that I might resort to arguing that the very existence of morals is in fact proof of my holy unicorns. That is essentially what this debate is about.
Good point. In the same way, why should you or I concern ourselves with whether our positions are in agreement with Dr Carrier’s belief system. Answer, we’re checking ourselves to see if we are getting the whole picture (meaning, value and purpose in life) correctly in focus. Is living in the here and now all there is and nothing more? Is it possible that all of our existence is not just
an accident? Unicorns aren’t usually credited for creating universes with the fine-tune precision to host an environment to sustain life or writing all the information and instructions in DNA for millions of lifeforms that not only survive and flourish but also reproduce or for being a reasonable grounding for moral values.
It’s funny, I hear atheists continually say “if you believe in God, you may as well believe in unicorns”. I would agree in so many cases because atheists are getting so many conflicted descriptions of who/what God is. I suppose I too would reject thousands of gods if they weren’t the “actual”.
One point to add, you say, “I can “define” morality as what is “pleasing” to unicorns”. The Christian theist should say we define morality as the essence and standard from which moral values and goodness flow necessarily and then “point” to God (“pleasing” wouldn’t be a part that morality itself hinges on) and certainly not to societal systems and their changing and conflicting social contracts. Just my thoughts.
First, they aren’t merely belief systems, but philosophical systems, and philosophical systems that modern moral philosophy still considers “live”. So, no, you can’t just make something up and have the same credibility as moral systems that have existed in one form or another for hundreds or thousands of years and that have already had the evidence for them assessed and considered at least potentially valid.
Second, the issue here is that Dr. Carrier insists that if when someone was killed they were immediately resurrected in a perfect body it’s obvious that killing deformed infants and people in comas would be a moral duty. The problem is that that’s only obvious if you hold to his strict consequentialist morality, and not only are there other valid moralities that would disagree, but he should be abundantly aware that Marshall is far more likely to hold one of those than strict consequentialism. But if that moral duty is not obvious then Dr. Carrier’s point there is meaningless. It’s not a good idea in a debate to rely on something being seen as obvious that you are well aware that your opponent will not in any way see as obvious.
And note, there is zero evidence any “other valid moralities that would disagree” are true. Whereas there is abundant evidence my consequentialist morality is true, in every relevant sense of the word “true,” as in, empirically demonstrably the system we actually in fact ought to obey (and not some system someone merely thinks or insists or wants us to obey).
“And note, there is zero evidence any “other valid moralities that would disagree” are true. Whereas there is abundant evidence my consequentialist morality is true, in every relevant sense of the word “true,” as in, empirically demonstrably the system we actually in fact ought to obey (and not some system someone merely thinks or insists or wants us to obey)”
This is the third time I have seen in this debate that you refer to things that are not empirically verifiable as having zero evidence. I just want to be clear on what you mean by zero evidence.
Are you saying that only things that are empirically verifiable are true? You surely can’t mean that, because the statement that “only things that are empirically verifiable are true” is not itself empirically verifiable. It is a philosophical knowledge claim.
So then you must mean that empirically verifiable evidence is preferable. But that wouldn’t be zero evidence and to which I would respond that the conclusions made based on the evidence are only as good as the assumptions the evidence rests on, which are philosophical.
There seem to be fields of knowledge that you would exclude by this definition as well. Mathematics and logic by way of example. But if you include logic as a genuine field of knowledge then you could certainly accept argument as support for a position even if you don’t find the argument persuasive. But then there wouldn’t be zero evidence. Unless again you define evidence in such a strict way that it is self-defeating.
You aren’t paying attention if you think “what you ought most do” is among “things that are not empirically verifiable.”
You really need to start back from the beginning and follow along. Because you’ve lost the thread here. There is an empirical fact of the matter what you actually ought most do (as opposed to what someone wants you to do etc.). I demonstrate this by formal syllogism in The End of Christianity. As I’ve noted many times.
The only empirically provable imperative statements are hypothetical imperatives. The only hypothetical imperative that can truthfully supersede all other hypothetical imperatives is one governed by the highest goal attainable (the goal of yours that will supersede all others upon rational reflection on the true and relevant facts). Per Aristotle. These are empirical questions (what is that goal, a question of human psychology; what obtains it, a question of economics, sociology, group and personal psychology, etc.).
No other imperatives have any claim to being true, as in, actually motivating for any rationally informed agent. That’s why they are irrelevant.
To put it another way, the question “Why should I obey those morals instead of these?” has no rationally compelling answer. There is zero evidence anyone should. Whereas for hypothetical imperatives, there is tons of evidence everyone should.
I just talked to God.
He said He is a warrior God who values things like lust for more Power, Money, etc., and that is what he wants to see in us.
2000 years ago, as a test, he sent Jesus to preach the opposite of this, things like value in meekness, kindness, poverty, etc.
The test was, if you heard Jesus’s message, and followed him, you were damned to Hell for not maintaining the warrior spirit. However, if you rejected Jesus’s message even though he threatened you with Hell for doing so and still strove for wealth and power, ignoring the downtrodden, you passed the warrior test of displaying your strength, and will be granted Heaven!
So, there you go.
Why should one think that personal satisfaction is not dependent on culture? Dr. Carrier seems to be implying that we all (humans) possess the same standard of happiness. In other words, we all will be happy if compassion is adopted (for example).
Do the sources you presented argue for these intrinsic standard of happiness? Do these psychologists (and neurologists) did this research in other countries with different cultures (and races)?
And what if one has some neurological defect that prevents him from being satisfied when being generous and compassionate? What if the only way he can feel satisfaction is by abusing women in the streets? Do your moral theory also covers it? Because if it does not, then it’s possible to have a society (composite of men that possess this biological defect) where abusing women is morally acceptable. And since this is the only goal these men can have, then you cannot judge their standards. Perhaps they create women (like animals in a farmer) just to abuse them. And this maximizes their life satisfaction.
Yes, in fact. Moral psychology has done or employed a lot of cross-cultural and cross-historical study. And neuroscience is of course human universal.
I’ve actually repeatedly said morality is a cultural invention, installed through upbringing and enculturation. It has some innate universal tools. But no universal moral system emerges from human DNA or at-birth neurology. That’s why humans have taken thousands of years to develop their morality toward superior forms, as in, less self-destructive and less-dysfunctional moralities. Through cultural, not biological, evolution.
As to what happens when brain damage causes us to fail to feel empathy, we actually have that: it’s called sociopathy. And sociopaths are in result perpetually miserable (and if left to themselves, wholly incapable of maintaining successful societies; e.g. they’d end up getting regularly undermined and murdered by the women in your hypothetical; as well as by each other; stymying any ability to sustain what we would call “civilization”). A finding that supports my whole point about what’s necessary for human happiness. The mentally ill may be barred from access to a rationally fulfilling life by virtue of being insane; but that’s a defect of nature (one that’s inexplicable on the existence of any but a totally indifferent God).
How we manage these mentally ill people is a whole other matter. There are actually Game Theoretic arguments for sociopaths to conduct themselves morally that don’t require them to have access to the benefit of empathic pleasures and satisfactions; but those arguments to be heard and effective require rationality and sensibility, which sociopaths also lack owing to their mental disease (e.g. their diminished fear response makes them extremely poor at any rational impulse control or planning or productive self-reflection; and their crippled empathic sense in turn cripples their ability to reason logically from third person perspectives; etc.).
But ‘successful societies’ (for us) are those that allow us to reach some goal; life satisfaction. However, in the case of the society composed of women slavers, the only thing that will bring satisfaction is abusing women. So, that’s their goal.
“end up getting regularly undermined and murdered by the women”
It only shows that they have to create better ways (methodologies) to prevent women from killing them. The same way we need to create more sophisticated cars to reduce accidents, so they can help us to reach the goal; arriving in some location. And I’m not necessarily talking about ordinary sociopaths. As you pointed out, they have other problems, like a lack of fear and rationality (which would undermine men’s safety). In this hypothetical society, they only lack compassion and empathy for women. Which is not so far-fetched, since we do present different levels of empathy for different races and gender (a very known bias).
“How we manage these mentally ill people is a whole other matter.”
Yes. Since, in this scenario, the ill has it’s own functioning society. We can’t even deal with them, since that’s their business.
That’s what we are discussing here: if they would be morally right in doing what we consider repugnant.
It’s not true that “the only thing that will bring satisfaction is abusing women” when the women start undermining and killing them, as then avoiding that will be key to satisfaction, and all the exhaustive costs that involves destructive of it; and their lack of empathy (which they must lack to even gain this reward pathway in the first place) will cause them to abuse, undermine, and kill each other, and avoiding that will be key to satisfaction, and all the exhaustive costs that involves destructive of it. That’s why no society of “such people” can sustain any civilized existence, nor achieve the most accessible level of satisfaction available to them (to the contrary, they will end up deeply undermining it). This is why sociopathy is rare: it is not adaptive; it’s a disease. A brain deformity. That results, when too numerous, in dysfunctional social systems.
Note again “they have to create better ways (methodologies) to prevent women from killing them” is exactly the problem: the amount of resources they have to exhaust to this, eats into their ability to obtain satisfaction (and doesn’t work anyway; as we can see historically, no system has ever been that successfully oppressive). Likewise all they then have to implement to then protect themselves from each other. The result is massively expensive and dysfunctional systems so highly restrictive that satisfaction acquisition becomes near impossible. That’s why they never work very long. Whereas free and empathic systems do far better for everyone in them, are more prosperous generally, and have greater longevity.
Meanwhile, “In this hypothetical society, they only lack compassion and empathy for women” is scientifically impossible. Women aren’t factually different from men in any way rationally distinguishable to empathic neurosystems. Once you are able to model other minds and are triggered to share mirrored emotive responses in result, there is no way to “turn this off” for some minds and not others. Minds are minds. It would always be rationally apparent that there is no explicable reason to distinguish one mind from another, as what is activating the empathy in one case, is identical in the other. This is why, in practice, such “limited empathy” systems depend on enforcing massive regimes of false beliefs and various forms of segregation (to prevent people discovering that the “other minds” are just like “local minds” in all the machinery empathy keys on to operate). The racism you speak of, for example. Notice how it works. And what breaks it down. If you can’t dehumanize the other, you can’t dehumanize the other. Empathy thus can’t be selective without delusional belief systems that force you to falsely believe “others” are not human. Until, inevitably, a constant percentage of you learn they are. Which results in the slow forward march of progress away from dehumanizing systems overall in world history.
The question “if they would be morally right in doing what we consider repugnant” is incorrectly asked here, since you have constructed a physically impossible scenario. There is a more plausible “sociopathic system” you can imagine: a singular godlike unempathic AI (or alien species, like in Aliens or Starship Troopers, actual examples I use when discussing this issue in TEC, pp. 354-56). Or really, just, God. Since he can’t be harmed by being a sociopath, he can just be one, and function fine. Provided he doesn’t want anything involving sentient beings, as then they can frustrate him. Otherwise he doesn’t need a reciprocating prosocial system for the obtainment of goods and joys. He isn’t a social animal.
Although he would thereby lack a major component of cognitive satisfaction: such a god can never experience the joys of empathic prosocial life. But as that would be inaccessible to him, there wouldn’t be any way to “argue” that he should change himself so as to be able to expand his cognitive access to satisfaction. He would just be evil. And our only correct response to him would be to loathe and frustrate and make war upon him.
But these weird alien scenarios don’t really matter to us. It does not matter if there is an alien species for whom the moral good is perfect sociopathy. We aren’t that species. So its morals are not true for us, as a matter of objective fact. Only moral facts that are true for us govern us
We will also always be able to claim cognitive superiority over such “cognitively blind” species, as we have access to a cognitive dimension of happiness and satisfaction that species will forever be cut off from.
And if we ever encounter them, we will be morally obligated to kill them all.
Thank you for responding, Dr. Carrier. I know it takes time and effort to write these responses.
I think I agree on most points here. Just want to respond to some points regarding empathy, which I think are very important for your theory of morality to work.
“This is why, in practice, such “limited empathy” systems depend on enforcing massive regimes of false beliefs and various forms of segregation (to prevent people discovering that the “other minds” are just like “local minds” in all the machinery empathy keys on to operate).”
But we feel more empathy for who looks like us (for who is more similar). For example: a person who suffered like you in infancy. A person that has the same difficulties that you had. Perhaps you will feel more empathy for someone who likes philosophy than a person who has no interest on it.. and so on. It’s something spontaneous. You cannot force empathy. And even if you intelectually know these people can suffer like you, you’ll have more empathy for the more similar.
So, empathy is not enough to establish morality if it’s naturally biased in this way.
This is a point made by Paul Bloom. A Professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University (the autor of “Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion”).
He talked about it in a podcast presented by Sean Carroll: Episode 34: Paul Bloom on Empathy, Rationality, Morality, and Cruelty.
“If you can’t dehumanize the other, you can’t dehumanize the other. Empathy thus can’t be selective without delusional belief systems that force you to falsely believe “others” are not human. Until, inevitably, a constant percentage of you learn they are. Which results in the slow forward march of progress away from dehumanizing systems overall in world history.”
This is another point which Bloom talked about. He said:
“Some of the worst things we do to other people are in the full recognition of their humanity. The dehumanization thesis is so cheerful. It basically says all the evil in the world is based on a mystique. If people confusingly think the Jews or the blacks or the gays or the women aren’t fully human, once they come to their senses and realize that they’re real people then then all this cruelty and nasty stuff will go away.
It’s so cheering, but I think that when you look at atrocities in everyday violence and cruelty often it’s motivated by a full appreciation of others humanity.
There’s also the case studies. Kate makes the case we regarding gendered violence like domestic abuse of women by men and she says: you know when this guy hates women or beats up on his spouse it’s not that he’s thinking they’re non-human (that they’re just things, they’re just objects). If you thought that, then why would you want to make people suffer? Why would you be so angry at them? Rather he’s responding in a way one responds to people.
If I wanted to make you suffer, if I thought of you as just an object or a machine, well then maybe I wouldn’t treat you kindly but I’d have no interest in hurting you. We don’t go out of our way to abuse chairs and tables, right?”
In addition, you made the case that creating and improving new methodologies would not bring satisfaction due to the “the amount of resources they have to exhaust to this.”
But the goal is to abuse the women, right? That’s the only way they can achieve satisfaction. That’s a defect in their brain. If they do not invest the resources on this, they will not be satisfied.
And I don’t think one can use the examples of failed societies that tried to achieve this. Since it only implies that these societies failed to implement or think of some methodology to control people in such ways that prevent them from cheating and ultimately overcoming the system.
Only due to cognitive error.
Which is why, once corrected, the effect goes away.
This is what I’m talking about: morals based on false beliefs are false; only morals based on true beliefs are true.
No such creature exists. So we hardly need concern ourselves with it. Any morals governing that strange species would not be true for us. We have to obey only those morals that are true for human beings as we actually are.
Scientifically though, we can predict that strange species would drive itself extinct. As since it will neglect all other concerns necessary to sustain a civilzation and continue. Even just to learn and be motivated to do other tasks to achieve that one task, requires finding enjoyment in those other tasks, thus satisfaction is obtainable other ways, which is not the alien species you are describing. Whereas to remove all source of inherent motivation even for ancillary tasks would be lethal to any species. Apathy and neglect would kill it.
“Which is why, once corrected, the effect goes away.”
I’ve actually responded to this comment.
I wrote that you “you cannot force empathy. And even if you intelectually know these people can suffer like you, you’ll have more empathy for the more similar.”
How on Earth could you correct this natural bias?
Regarding your last point, I completely agree. But do they care about extinction? We value those things, but that does not imply they also must value the continuity of human species.
But you did not address my strongest point. The argument by Paul Bloom regarding empathy. He seems to reject empathy and favor ‘rational compassion’. Could you please give a short comment on that? If that’s not going to take much of your time. Thanks.
No such thing exists in reality. So you are again talking about a non-existent species.
It’s also impossible even to build such a thing, for the reasons I already explained. Nor would such a thing naturally survive long enough to build a civilization.
As to Bloom and empathy: he is ignoring scientific facts; I am basing my beliefs on scientific facts. As in, the actual facts (psychology, neurology, sociology, and phenomenology) of empathy in the species Homo sapiens. Philosophers who ignore science are just writing pseudoscience.
Nevertheless, properly constructed (as in, on actually true scientific premises and not armchair assumptions and wishes), the basic notion that compassion must be moderated by reasonableness is demonstrably true. Game Theoretic models have well proved this; just as I cite and discuss in The Real Basis of a Moral World.
Dr Carrier, earlier you said “God has moral duties because He IS moral.” God being moral, being the essence and standard for morality is a different definition than people being moral, being in alignment with the essence and standard for morality. We have the duties, that is, we look up to the standard. In God’s case there is no up to look to, therefore no duty. God’s morality could be understood in His actions but there wouldn’t be something higher for him to be obligated to unless you’ve been stuck on the Euthyphro dilemma. So saying God has moral duties is completely wrong.
You often appeal to “what good moral people would do” but won’t consider that God, if He exists, may have objectives that make it necessary that He is doing what is for our best interest while at the same time we are to continue with our obligated duties. You’ll probably say “there’s no evidence for anything you just said”. I’m saying (now) if a moral God exists (and I give a thumbs up to several evidences for His existence) then that in itself is sufficient reason to trust that His actions which we don’t always understand will be in our best interest.
So if I put my above comments in a question form, to what or who is God submitting to in His duties (that is, in the picture of God you are seeing Christians describe)? You can’t say Himself because in the Christian God you see moral actions and not performances of duty nor either of the gods described in the Euthyphro dilemma because we are not arguing for either of those.
There is no “different standard.” A good person is a good person. It is by definition impossible for a good person to be cruel and indifferent and not help friends and the helpless when they can. Anyone who is cruel or indifferent or doesn’t help friends or the helpless is a bad person by definition. Because that’s what we mean by a bad person. There is no way to “excuse” God from this conclusion with any possible metaphysical legerdemain.
If instead you want to call a bad person a good person, you are just playing word games, not actually vindicating God as good. Because changing what things are called does not change what they are.
Meanwhile, the argument that he “may have objectives that make it necessary” to act exactly like a completely indifferent person is not the same argument. You are confusing two different things here. You started by trying to claim God has no moral duties, and that somehow he can still then be a good person. Which is semantically impossible. It simply perverts what the phrase “good person” means. But now you have switched tunes and claim God does have moral duties, they simply compel him to act differently than we think he should—such that, were we in his position, we would agree a good person would so act.
So you have to pick one. Either God has moral duties and is a good person. Or he doesn’t, and isn’t.
Once you’ve chosen the first one (and thus repudiated your own argument, by rejecting that second option), then you can try to say “Yes, God has moral duties, but they compel him to refrain from doing anything to help the helpless etc.” And then we are back to where we started: there is zero evidence any such excuse exists or is even probable; indeed, on present information, it’s millions to one against. Therefore, the God you are describing is improbable; indeed, on present information, it’s millions to one against.
So you end up with God being unlikely to exist. Or else not being in any relevant sense a good person.
Just as I said.
I’m having trouble with your definition, “And what all such people mean by “good person” is a person they can tolerate others and themselves being without a net adverse consequence to themselves.” I’m not sure if it’s a missed or comma or something. Is it “person that they can tolerate” comma, then the 2nd part? Not sure why “and themselves” is included in a definition about an other person being good?
Or is it, “a person that can tolerate others and themselves being without a net…” that makes a little more sense, but I want to be sure I’m getting this.
If you cannot tolerate yourself being a certain kind of person, then you will not regard that sort of person as good either. This is the difference between a person being good and a person being useful.
See my discussion in the linked article Your Own Moral Reasoning about self-loathing etc. for context (e.g. “Nor would we like ourselves if we became the sort of person we loathe” etc.).
Dr Carrier,
The Christians say that the only way for their god to save people from hell fire is to die a violent death.
Since according to them, punishing a sinner cannot satisfy law of justice.
Does this mean that the god of christians is morally obligated to satisfy his own law?
if he doesn’t punish himself, he would have no choice but to punish the sinners ,but punishing the sinners does not satisfy the law of justice, then doesn’t this mean he would be obligated to appease his own law otherwise he himself would become sinner?
i am asking, doesn’t this mean law of justice is stronger than god?
I don’t quite follow your question.
As best I can make out, you are asking if, given that God apparently can’t just forgive people but has to engage in a bizarre, elaborate, magical blood ritual in order to do that, God is therefore subservient to some higher power taking away his omniscience, crippling him, and thereby forcing him to only be able to forgive people by deploying a bizarre, elaborate, magical blood ritual.
My answer in that case is yes. Christian theology and soteriology is incoherent. It posits an all powerful God whose powers are extraordinarily suppressed and limited by some other, more mysterious higher power that God apparently cannot do away with or control, compelling God to be its slave, and thus obey strange laws of physics that therefore cannot have been created or caused to exist by God. As otherwise, he just wouldn’t create them, or would just remove them at will, and thus would never have to obey such a strange scheme, but would simply forgive people, like the rest of us have the power to do…somehow, ordinary humans are thus more powerful than God himself.