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’re now discussing the “Moral Argument” for God. Now below is my latest response to Marshall’s recent defense of that argument.
That the Evidence Points to Atheism (XI)
by Richard Carrier, Ph.D.
Dr. Marshall has not actually addressed my response.
How We Discover What’s Good
Marshall observed I define a “good” person “as someone who aims at being the kind of person he (the idealized agent) would be okay with [themselves and] everyone else being.” But then overlooks my explication that this is what all rationally informed persons will conclude is good.
I demonstrated this ideal is the only understanding of “good” that any fully rational and informed person can actually maintain. If Marshall wants to argue that “the good” is instead not what rationally informed persons would conclude it to be, but only what irrational and ignorant or misinformed people would deem it to be, then he’s in trouble here.
We don’t need a God to exist to realize that persons so-defined are better for us to be around and to be than any other kind of person. Because that persons so-defined are better for us to be around and to be is a material fact. It requires no God to create or sustain that fact. Once the fact exists, by whatever mechanism it arrived (blind physics, random chance, biological and cultural evolution), it is the fact of the matter.
That is why this being the fact of the matter can never be evidence for God. It’s simply evidence of how cognitive social systems will always work in all possible universes. For all the reasons I set forth in my reply.
It’s All Consequentialism
Marshall attacks consequentialism. But it’s the only system of moral propositions there is any evidence is true (and thus the only one that can sustain his second premise); and all major moral systems reduce to it. [1]
Marshall argues that on consequentialism, “All moral claims become prudential advice: ‘If you want X—and believe me you really do—then you must not do Y’.” That of course is exactly his system as well. [2] Unless he is a Universalist and Theological Nihilist who thinks in his God’s universe there are no consequences to being moral or immoral and his religion preaches no such consequences nor expects anyone to decide any behavior in light of them; or even more bizarrely, if Marshall thinks that there being consequences to a good and bad life should be ignored in how we ascertain which moralities are true or false. If so, he’s propounding a profoundly irrational and self-destructive worldview, one all rational and informed persons will reject.
This is what I mean by Marshall’s first premise not being defensible. He wants God to have created some bizarre commandments no rationally informed person will have any reason to deem good or worth adhering to. Maybe God did. But there’s no evidence of it; and no reason to adopt them. God’s morality in that case would simply be false.
Unless Dr. Marshall wishes to argue that rationally informed persons will have sufficient reason to deem God’s commands good or worth adhering to. But then he’s a consequentialist. And those consequences are all we need to motivate identifying what’s good and pursuing it.
It’s amusing to see a believer in eternal damnation condemn “coercive” systems of morality; weirder to see him claim the fact that reality requires us to behave a certain way is “coercive.” He sounds like a radical nihilist who thinks we should be free to be happy wholly regardless of any behavior we engage in, and any system that prevents that is “damnable.”
The whole point of moral reasoning is to work out how we must act to best conform to the reality we find ourselves in, so as to best achieve a desirable life. Marshall can conform to reality and feel better about himself and his resulting life, or kick futilely against the goad of reality and be continually frustrated, ever complaining about being “coerced.” Rationally informed persons already know which of these choices is better for them.
The Psycho-Anthropology of Morality
Marshall quotes Richard Joyce declaring he’s “confident that no culture employs only hypothetical imperatives as its principal normative framework.” Note the word “only.” In fact all cultures do. Indeed, we biologically evolved to. As all cognitive social species did.
There’s an extensive scientific literature proving this. It all concludes the same: moral systems everywhere are pursued for their believed or actual consequences to the pursuing individual, and are always advocated as worth pursuing with the claim of positive outcomes to the pursuing individual. The brain does it (moral decisions are caused by stimulating neural reward centers). People do it (every culture has an extensive lore of how things will go better for you if you conform to moral ideals). [3]
Indeed, abundant science shows that moral motivation in mature adults is produced by the individual’s desire to be a certain kind of person—because it wholly dissatisfies them to imagine they aren’t. [4] Notably, exactly the reason Immanuel Kant gave for obeying categorical imperatives—thus reducing them all to hypothetical imperatives. [5]
Whereas it’s illogical for Joyce to list a bunch of consequences (“punish[ing] noncompliance” and “feel[ing] guilt” and “punitive anger towards noncompliers”) as evidence against consequentialism. Indeed, in all systems, punishment is used as a mechanism of consequences to “train” members of society to act according to the local morality. And conscience (what Marshall calls “guilt”) is an evolved mechanism for the same purpose.
How then do we tell the difference between good and bad moralities? God doesn’t help. He’s a no show on the subject. [6] So how can we know when these mechanisms are directed against human wellbeing and thus actually “bad” (like the Bible’s morally retributive guilt and anger toward gay men and apostates and gender equality and sexuality) and when they are directed toward human wellbeing and thus “good”? By observing which thing happens—actually, or predictively by modeling the social system as what it is: an interactive causal system, each iterated moral value emanating consequences upon everyone in the system. Hence even Marshall’s “Golden Rule” has been demonstrated consequentially ideal by systems modeling. [7] No God needed.
By contrast, we all know “folk retributivism” is a cognitive error, just like racism and other common malfunctions of human reasoning: it’s profoundly immoral to punish people to no purpose. Marshall cannot defend bad moral reasoning by citing the mere fact that it exists; that’s like saying oppressing women is moral “because everyone does it.” I also don’t fathom the point of Marshall’s analogy of Jacques the art thief. If he doesn’t know why Jacques’ lack of empathy and humility will undermine his own life satisfaction, he simply didn’t read anything I’ve written on this subject.
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Such is my latest response to Marshall’s Moral Argument for God.
Continue on to Marshall’s next reply.
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[1] See Richard Carrier, “Open Letter to Academic Philosophy: All Your Moral Theories Are the Same” (11 November 2015); as well as Richard Carrier, “The Moral Bankruptcy of Divine Command Theory: Matthew Flannagan’s Failed Defense” (8 October 2015).
[2] See my formal peer reviewed analysis on pp. 335-38, “The Logic of Christian Morality,” in Richard Carrier, “Moral Facts Naturally Exist (and Science Could Find Them),” in The End of Christianity, ed. by John Loftus (Prometheus 2011).
[3] Neuroscience of the inner moral reward stimulus: K.J. Yoder and J. Decety, “The Neuroscience of Morality and Social Decision-Making” Psychology, Crime & Law: PC & L 24.3 (2018). Psychology of self-fulfillment as moral motivation: Roger Bergman, “Why Be Moral? A Conceptual Model from Developmental Psychology” in Human Development 45 (2002): 104-124; Maria Cohut, “Generosity Makes You Happier” Medical News Today (16 July 2017); Cheung et al., “Why Are People with High Self-Control Happier?” Frontiers in Psychology 5.722 (8 July 2014); Josh Elmore, “Why People Make Sacrifices for Others” Greater Good Magazine (29 April 2015); “Self-Interest without Selfishness: The Hedonic Benefit of Imposed Self-Interest” Psychological Science 23.10 (1 October 2012). See also Wikipedia on the neurobiology and psychology of altruism. For fuller surveys and summaries of the scientific evidence: James Maddux, ed., Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction (Routledge 2018); Darcia Narvaez and Daniel Lapsley, eds., Personality, Identity, and Character (Cambridge University Press 2009); Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, ed., Moral Psychology, 5 vols. (MIT Press 2007-). Anthropology and cultural psychology studies likewise: Keller et al., “Reasoning about Responsibilities and Obligations in Close Relationships: A Comparison across Two Cultures” Developmental Psychology 34.4 (1998); Eisenberg et al., “The Development of Prosocial Behavior and Cognitions in German Children” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 16.1 (March 1985); Oliver Scott Curry et al., “Is It Good to Cooperate? Testing the Theory of Morality-as-Cooperation in 60 Societies” Current Anthropology 60.1 (2019).
[4] See, again, Roger Bergman, “Why Be Moral? A Conceptual Model from Developmental Psychology” in Human Development 45 (2002): 104-124.
[5] We should “hold ourselves bound by certain laws in order to find solely in our own person a worth which can compensate us for the loss of everything” and “There is no one, not even the most hardened scoundrel…who does not wish that he too [were] a man of like spirit,” and his reward for being so “is a greater inner worth of his own person,” Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. See my formal peer reviewed analysis of Kant’s declaration in pp. 340-43, “The Logic of Imperative Language,” in Richard Carrier, “Moral Facts Naturally Exist (and Science Could Find Them),” in The End of Christianity, ed. by John Loftus (Prometheus 2011). I also discuss this point in Richard Carrier, “Open Letter to Academic Philosophy: All Your Moral Theories Are the Same” (11 November 2015).
[6] See, again, Richard Carrier, “The Moral Bankruptcy of Divine Command Theory: Matthew Flannagan’s Failed Defense” (8 October 2015). Likewise in my Eighth Reply in this debate, “Moral History.”
[7] See Robert Axelrod, The Complexity of Cooperation (Princeton University Press 1997), which I had already cited before, and discuss in Richard Carrier, “The Real Basis of a Moral World” (12 November 2018).
I’d be very interested to see Dr. Marshall give an example of a non-consequential moral action, and then explain why we should (or shouldn’t) engage in it.
Precisely.
I think when Dr Marshall says non-consequential moral ought he doesn’t mean that there aren’t consequences when you ignore the ought. The consequential implies consequences w/out moral dimension, e.g. “you ought to hurry into the house if you don’t want to get soaked by the approaching storm”. The non-consequential may or may not have consequences (depending on how you define consequences). You ought not murder an innocent person because the rational society and/or God deems that to be immoral and there’s to be consequences if you do. Then, on atheism, if you do it and don’t get caught there are no “external” consequences “to YOU” . Some though consider your “internal” satisfaction or guilt as a resulting consequence. Am I missing something?
That’s just consequentialism again. I already explain how that proves my case and not his.
Is this the same as Rawls non consequentialism
as discust here
https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1866/10932/2014v11n2_Eyal.pdf ?
I’ve heard of some hypothetical examples.
One is where there is a man alone on a deserted island with a young girl. The 2 have no chance of ever being rescued/discovered and the girl is in a coma that she will never wake from. The man desires the young girl and wants to have non-consent sexual intercourse with her. He reasons that from a “consequential” standpoint this would not have no more impact than if she were just a mannequin.
Another example is with someone responsible for doing cremations. A homeless person with no family is brought into the morgue to be cremated.
This person is also an amateur boxer and enjoys punching the bag. So just before he cremates this body he hangs it up like a punching bag, puts on the boxing gloves and beats the crap out of this dead stranger’s body. He reasons that from a “consequential” standpoint this would not have no more impact than if she were just punching a punching bag.
A theist might argue that these are a couple of examples where our moral conscience tells us this is wrong even when we can’t point to anything of real “consequence” from our actions. Thus argues that our moral intuitions (conscience) and what is deemed as good moral behavior should not be limited to what is “consequential”. The theist might then suggest that it is because there is something else (GOD) at the root of our moral conscience.
Note that your examples ignore conscience: consequences are not only to outside persons and objects, but to yourself. What sort of person do you become when you act a certain way, and can you really be satisfied with it? The answer in the scenarios you describe is usually no.
In other words, there is one moral judge you can never escape: yourself.
And when you are reasoning only from true facts without fallacy, there are a lot of things you will not be happy with yourself doing. (Even before we get to the fact that the scenarios are unrealistic, e.g. no one knows who will stay endlessly in a coma or lost on an island or undiscovered defiling a body; those are actually quite rare and thus not predictable outcomes.)
Would you not agree that there are certain scenarios where one person finds a specific act to be unconscionable where another person does not?
For example the hunting and killing of animals for sport. Or even the slaughter of animals for food.
My point being that we can’t make blanket assumptions about what one person can live with (with a clear conscience) while another person cannot.
Is it possible that one person cannot in good conscience kill an animal for sport of food, another person can kill an animal for food but not sport, while another person can kill an animal for food or sport.
I’m not convinced that we all share the same conscience and reasoning facilities in that respect.
I for example could not beat a dead animal corpse with a baseball bat for fun. It would disturb me. But should it? Why should that disturb me? I would have no problems taking a bat to an animal like pinata.
Perhaps the answer is that I have a moral conscience that either can’t separate and reconcile the facts about the situation with the actual impact on the well being of the animal. Or maybe it is my brains way of protecting me from becoming desynthesized to certain situations. I’m not sure if everyone else would handle and processes that situation differently. If not are they acting immorally? Based on what consequence?
Having said that I think that we should all acknowledge that though moral behavior is rooted in the concern for the well being of conscious beings, it doesn’t mean that we all have the same moral conscious or that our conscious is always in factual alignment about the facts of the matter with respect to concern for the well being of ourselves and others.
So should what we define as actual moral behavior based on the understanding/intent/concern of the individual with respect to their perceived impact to the well being of themselves or others, or should it be based on an independently observe analysis of the impact to the well being of themselves of others.
Because I don’t think that they are always one in the same anymore than our understanding/intent/concern when it comes to safety (which is also rooted in the concern for well being).
There are only two ways this can ever happen. (1) One (or both) of you has false beliefs or is reasoning fallaciously, and thus arrives at false moral conclusions (whereas if you both reasoned without fallacy from all true relevant facts you’d actually instead arrive at the same conclusion, not a different one). Or (2) your circumstances are different, such that if you were in the same circumstances they are (and thus aware of the same information and facing the same conditions), or vice versa, you would agree with them after all (and thus your disagreement is merely your or their failure to take into account additional information that alters the conclusion, itself a fallacy—thus reducing the second error to the first).
Note there is a difference between interests and morals. Morals always derive from interests, but interests do not always entail morals. People who differ in their aesthetic preferences are not morally disagreeing (and this is proved with the condition 2 above: if you were in their shoes, your aesthetics would align with theirs, and therefore your moral judgment must take that into account).
But that aside, condition 1 above applies: there either are factual or logical errors resulting in the conclusion that hunting “for mere sport” is moral, or there are not. There is no third possibility. So you have to find that out: if there are no factual or logically valid reasons to deem that immoral, then it simply isn’t immoral, and you are disagreeing simply because you are wrong; and conversely, if there are factual and logically valid reasons to deem that immoral, then you are disagreeing simply because they are wrong.
So which is it? Are there factually true and logically valid reasons to deem hunting “for mere sport” immoral? Or are there not?
Indeed. We can be badly habituated in our access to empathy or self-respect or stuck with false beliefs or ignorances that lead us to false conclusions about what’s moral. Which the point of moral philosophy would be to call out and correct. That’s simply a restatement of my case.
This theist “can point to something of real consequence” an actual spiritual consequence called guilt. My physical body and brain could care less what I, the spiritual self, does. I think most atheists agree and assert that there is no real spiritual component to our make-up that can possibly continue upon death. From this you can make a deductive case that on atheism, attributes like guilt, love, hate etc are nothing more than chemical processes over time. So if you can get away with it and desire it, go for it. You’ll experience the consequence of satisfaction (maybe). But if you “feel/sense” there’s something wrong with what I just said and that there is an “actual” guilt (and not just an illusion of chemistry) then this should count as internal evidence for something that transcends our “mere” physicality. A spiritual capacity. If you disagree with me then go with Dostoevsky in that “all things are permitted” if atheism is true. He, at least, recognized that if atheism is true then there are no eternal “consequences” for anything you can dream up. Good luck with dealing with the current consequences though.
That’s a modo hoc fallacy. It’s as false as saying “my house is just a bunch of bricks, therefore there is no difference between my house and a pile of rubble.” Nothing is “just” the things it’s made of; it’s also the pattern into which those things are arranged and interact and what that then causes in the world (from phenomenology to action).
Psychology and sociology have taught us that your model of what will work is also false. The attitude of “just try to get away with anything you randomly desire” is profoundly destructive of the happiness potential of anyone who lives that way. Satisfaction requires liking yourself. And it requires cultivating good rather than bad odds of getting along well with others. These are realities we cannot wish away. And we ignore them at our peril.
Meanwhile, we have a well developed neuroscience of guilt. It in no way supports any of the superstitious theories you are inventing here, but quite the contrary argues soundly against them.
You say that all moral theories converge, but fundamentally you seem to be arguing for a kind of utilitarianism where the ultimate good is the maximization of a certain desirable psychological state (satisfaction/happiness/contentment/whatever your preferred term). The problem with this theory is that it assesses all choices and actions in terms of their ability to maximize such a state for an individual, irrespective of all other considerations, including concern and responsibility for others. If, for example, there were a pill that produced the highest possible satisfaction state for someone, on your theory the right action would be to take the pill, feel the highest possible satisfaction with oneself, and never do anything but continue to take the pill, despite the problems and suffering in the rest of the world.
If the good of a moral system ultimately reduces to a certain configuration of an individual’s brain chemistry, it’s difficult to see how such a system can credibly enjoin any obligation on its adherents, beyond that they find whatever ways they can to achieve that particular brain-state for themselves. As in the case of drug users, those ways will not necessarily track with what we mean by “good,” “right,” or “moral” actions.
It is not possible “to maximize such a state for an individual, irrespective of all other considerations.” Other considerations are precisely what limits and governs what can achieve that state.
The “magic pill” scenario is wholly inapplicable to reality so hardly of any concern; in reality “pills” that produce radical negligence are destructive of happiness, never sustaining of it. Nevertheless I already cover and explain its fault in my debate with McKay, cf. link, section (2b). It is also dispatched in Good and Real by Drescher, in the form of Newcomb’s Problem, which is different but its resolution is the same.
The key issue is that true moral propositions can never follow from false premises. Magic pills require adopting false premises, or destroying cognitive function. In either case, producing no true moral propositions at all.
As to “If the good of a moral system ultimately reduces to a certain configuration of an individual’s brain chemistry, it’s difficult to see how such a system can credibly enjoin any obligation on its adherents,” you must not be thinking this through. If there is no configuration of an individual’s brain chemistry, there is no consciousness, and thus no morality. Thus all moral systems reduce to configurations of an individual’s brain chemistry.
The question is instead “is it worth it.” Any rational person cognitively aware of all true information regarding the magic pill will answer “no” to all magic pill scenarios. Ergo there can never be a moral truth derived from it.
We’ve actually known this for thousands of years. It’s the whole point behind Socrates’ “The unexamined life is not worth living,” later reiterated by Mill as “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”
I take your point about “configuration of brain chemistry”; I should have just said “emotion.” On your theory, the highest good for an individual is to experience a certain state of mind. The problem is that states of mind—like satisfaction—are not always experienced for good reasons and not always tethered to reality. That is one of the points of the pill hypothetical: a brain-state can be induced without anything having been done to earn it. But there are also other counterexamples that are more realistic: people can rationalize, repress, ignore, or simply be unaware of the reasons they have to be dissatisfied with themselves. If those people nevertheless feel the desired satisfaction state, then your moral theory cannot motivate them. You could theorize to them about the need to be “fully rational and fully informed,” but if they have already achieved the (in your view) highest moral end—satisfaction with themselves—what compels them to listen to you?
Indeed. But true morals can only follow from true facts, not beliefs contrary to reality; and consequences extend beyond immediate emotion-states. That’s why actions that disregard long-term consequences to oneself, externally and internally, fail at a much higher rate than actions that regard them. If you only pursue your brain-state in the moment, you will have a lot of shitty brain states and eventually die having lived a miserable existence. Whereas those who act rationally, with regard for the total set of consequences and thus cultivate their future brain states as well as their present ones, both end up living much more desirable lives and living morally. That’s the only worthwhile point of morality.
What is with the claim of Polycarp being a disciple of the Apostle John?
My understanding is that there was no Apostle John.
We don’t actually have that claim from Polycarp himself. And there was frequent confusion between different Johns, mistaking one or another prominent John who wasn’t claiming to be an apostle with the John who was.
There certainly was an Apostle John (Paul attests to that in Galatians 2). But it’s very unlikely Polycarp was tutored by him. Most likely that was just a legend that grew up around Polycarp (possibly even stoked by him; in the same way the Christians may have invented John the Baptist’s endorsement of Jesus, to claim a pedigree giving their teachings authority).
RC Wrote:
“Note there is a difference between interests and morals. Morals always derive from interests, but interests do not always entail morals.”
Response: So if someone is simply not at all “interested” in the well being of others that is not a moral problem (per say)?
RC wrote:
“So you have to find that out: if there are no factual or logically valid reasons to deem that immoral, then it simply isn’t immoral, and you are disagreeing simply because you are wrong; and conversely, if there are factual and logically valid reasons to deem that immoral, then you are disagreeing simply because they are wrong.”
Response: Agreed. But I used this example not to point out that there isn’t an ultimate right or wrong answer (with respect to what is morally right). I used this example to point out that someone could be morally wrong and go through life not “loathing” themselves one bit about it. Which seems to contradict your assertion that people will necessarily “loathe” themselves when behaving immorally.
RC Wrote:
“Indeed. We can be badly habituated in our access to empathy or self-respect or stuck with false beliefs or ignorances that lead us to false conclusions about what’s moral.”
Response: Agreed. But once again this seemingly contradicts your previous assertion that people acting immorally will always and necessarily “loathe” themselves.
That is the point that I’m tying to make.
No. I said morals always derive from interests but not all interests entail morals. You chose an example of the kind of interests that entail morals. Not all interests do.
Not with true beliefs about themselves and the world. Psychology has demonstrated people can only do that by cultivating elaborate false beliefs.
True morals only follow from true premises. Not false premises.
Worse, the actual effects of relying on false beliefs are to create increasing frustration and dissatisfaction, which the subject falsely credits to others rather than the real culprit, themselves. The end result is a less satisfying life than what they could have had otherwise. The delusional person merely blames others for it.
People acting immorally who rationally arrive at conclusions about themselves from true beliefs.
Other people are simply wrong. By definition: because their conclusions derive from false premises, ergo their conclusions are false.