Morriston on God and the Ontological Foundation of Morality (Part One)

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Sometime back, somebody — alas! I cannot remember when or who — asked me to write an analysis of the following article by Wes Morriston:

“God and the Ontological Foundation of Morality” (2012) 48 Religious Studies 15-34

At the time I rejected the suggestion. I had read Morriston’s article when it was first published, and while I found it to be pretty good, I didn’t think it contained any revelatory insights into the putative relationship between theism and morality. More recently, however, I have had the occasion to re-read the article, and although my original interpretation hasn’t changed greatly, Morriston’s discussion has become tangentially relevant to something else I’m researching and writing at the moment and so I am much more motivated to engage with its details. Which is precisely what I’m going to do in this and the next blog post.

Morriston’s article is a sustained analysis and critique of William Lane Craig’s views on the relationship between God and morality. According to Morriston, throughout his work on this topic, Craig has defended two clear theses about this relationship:

Thesis 1: If theism is true, we have a sound (ontological) foundation for morality.

Thesis 2: If theism is false, we do not have a sound (ontological) foundation for morality.

The problem, as Morriston sees it, is that both of these theses are false. It is not true that God provides a sound foundation for morality, nor is it true that without God we would lack a sound foundation. I will discuss Morriston’s analysis of each of these claims over the next two blog posts.

In this post, I will cover Morriston’s discussion of the first thesis. I start by outlining, in a fairly quick-fire manner, Craig’s basic views on the ontological grounding of moral values and moral duties. I then look at Morriston’s critique of Craig’s views on moral values, before closing with Morriston’s critique of Craig’s views on moral duties.


1. Craig’s Moral Ontology, in a Nutshell
The universe consists of entities, activities and states of affairs. Every actually existent entity, activity and state of affairs can be called a “fact”. One of the curious features of these facts is that they sometimes have moral statuses attached to them. There are basically two types of moral status that can attach to a fact: (i) a value status, according to which the fact is held to be “good” or “bad”; and (ii) a deontic or duty-oriented status, according to which the fact is held to be obligatory, permissible or forbidden.

The central assumption guiding Craig’s moral theory is that the moral statuses we attach to facts need an ontological grounding. Without this ontological grounding moral facts would fail to be objective in the sense required by Craig (I discussed Craig’s views on objectivity at some length before). Whether this assumption is a good one is a question to which we shall return. For now, let us focus on the ontological grounding that Craig offers.

Let’s look first to Craig’s ontological grounding of moral values. According to Craig, moral values are grounded in the being of God. They aren’t simply inert abstract facts, as the moral Platonists would have us believe and which Craig thinks metaphysically “queer”, they are facts about a concrete God. Specifically, they are facts about God’s essential nature or characteristics. God, according to Craig, is essentially just, kind, generous, loving and so forth. These characteristics ultimately constitute the moral good; and the fact that they are characteristics of God thus provides the good with its ontological grounding.

Craig’s views about the ontological grounding of moral duties builds upon what he says about moral values. As regards moral duties, Craig adopts a fairly typical divine command theory (DCT): the obligatory, the permissible and the forbidden are grounded in God’s commands. Something is obligatory if God commands us to do it; something is forbidden if God commands us not to do it; and something is permissible if God neither commands nor forbids it.

Craig adds to this typical DCT the additional claim that what God commands “flows from” his moral nature. In doing so, he hopes to avoid the typical Euthphro-based objection to DCT that on this account God’s commands could be arbitrary, i.e. that God could command us to do anything, including raping and torturing children, and that if he did we would be obliged to do it. This potential arbitrariness of God’s commands seems to clash with some deep intuitive beliefs we have about moral facts, namely, that they are necessary, i.e. the same in all possible worlds. But if God’s commands flow directly from his moral nature, the arbitrariness objection is, arguably, overcome. God’s commands are no longer arbitrary, they are constrained by his morally perfect nature.

The diagram below tries to summarise Craig’s views about the ontological grounding of moral facts.

2. Morriston on Moral Values
Morriston offers two main critiques of Craig’s attempt to ground moral values in God’s essential characteristics. The critiques essentially amount to the same thing, but they differ in terms of their rhetorical strength, at least they do so in my opinion. The first, and in my opinion rhetorically weaker critique, is effectively a reformulated version of the Euthyphro dilemma. The second, and in my opinion rhetorically stronger critique, probes a bit more deeply into Craig’s conception of the grounding relationship.




2.1 - The New Euthyphro
The reformulated version of the Euthyphro works like this. Craig is claiming that things are morally good to the extent that they resemble God’s essential characteristics. In other words, as the diagram above makes clear, he is claiming that goodness is equivalent to God-likeness. But this raises a dilemma. Either God-likeness is equivalent to goodness because his essential characteristics — like kindness, lovingness, generosity and justice — are independently good, or those characteristics are good solely in virtue of the fact that they are possessed by God.

If Craig takes the first horn of the dilemma — and says that characteristics such as kindness, lovingness and so on are good independently of God — then he effectively concedes that God is not needed to ground objective moral values, they are independent, free-floating properties. This would surely not be welcome to him. But if he takes the second horn of the dilemma — and says that those characteristics are good simply because they are possessed by God — then he faces two problems. First, he appears to make the good contingent upon God’s characteristics which, arguably, could have been different. Making moral values contingent in this manner clashes with some people’s deep intuitions about the nature of the good. And second, he seems to commit himself to the claim that, in a godless universe, someone who was loving and kind would not be good. Morriston thinks this is strongly counterintuitive: we have no real reason to think that those characteristics would not be good in a godless universe.

Craig may respond that these two criticisms of the second horn of the dilemma involve counterfactual claims with impossible antecedents (call these “counterpossibles”) and that counterpossibles of this sort have, on the standard account, merely trivial or vacuous truth values. That is to say, no serious objection to his view can rely on claims like “If God had different characteristics, then those characteristics would be good” or “If God did not exist, then kindness would not be good” since it is impossible for God to have different characteristics or for God to not exist. I’ll discuss this kind of response in more detail below when I consider Morriston’s critique of Craig’s account of moral duties.


2.2 The Moral Metre Stick
The second criticism of Craig’s ontology of moral value looks more closely at the kind of ontological grounding Craig envisages. Morriston looks at a number of quotes from Craig’s debates at this point in order to determine what Craig thinks about this relationship. I will simply summarise the results of this investigation. According to Morriston, Craig’s vision of the grounding here can be understood in terms of “informative identification” and/or “paradigmatic instantiation”.

The best way to understand what an informative identification is is to look at some examples. Two are cited in Morriston’s article. The first is that “water” can be informatively identified with the chemical compound “H20”; the second is that “heat” can be informatively identified with “mean molecular motion”. To me, these are two classic examples of reductive ontological groundings, i.e. cases in which one set of properties is reduced to another. In theory, this could lead to the elimination of the first set of properties. In other words, all talk of water could be eliminated in favour of talk about H2O, or all talk of heat could be eliminated in favour of talk about mean molecular motion.

Does Craig intend to make similar claims about talk of goodness and talk of God-likeness? It’s not clear to me that he does, and the possibility that he does raises issues not addressed by Morriston in his article so I will not pursue them here. All I will say is that there are significant problems associated with reductive accounts of the good of this sort (which, I hasten to add, is not to say that all reductive accounts of the good are problematic, just that some are). Mark Schroeder’s article “Realism and Reduction” is a good place to start if you wish to explore these issues in more detail.

The notion that God provides a paradigmatic instantiation of the good is rather more interesting and, I believe, significant. The analogy Craig uses to make his case is a familiar one: the metre stick analogy. According to popular lore, the length we refer to as “one metre” is determined by reference to a standard metre stick (an iridium bar that is kept in Paris). This is the paradigmatic instantiation of the metre. But this use of this physical paradigm has a curious effect on the ontology of the metre viz. the degree to which an distance is one metre in length just is the degree to which it is similar to the length of the standard metre stick. There is nothing more to the ontology of the metre than this similarity relationship.

Craig argues that this is also true of the ontology of moral goodness. That is to say, God functions as something like a standard moral metre stick: the degree to which any person, object, event or state of affairs in the real world is good just is the degree to which it resembles God.

I have attempted to summarises the main features of the metre stick analogy in the diagram below.

There are several problems with Craig’s use of the metre stick analogy. For starters, the story about the standard metre stick is a good deal more complex than is being let on. The precise definition of a metre, and the physical paradigm that is used to define it, has changed over the years. At the moment, a metre is defined as “the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1 ⁄ 299,792,458 of a second”. It is not defined by reference to the iridium bar that is kept in Paris. The fact that the paradigm has shifted in this manner over time suggests, perhaps, that the “metre” is not simply reducible to any physical paradigm but is, instead, an abstract property. It may occasionally be helpful to identify it with a physical paradigm, but this should not detract from the fact that it is really an abstract concept, something that is ultimately separate from any physical instantiation. Arguably, this is also true of the good: the good is an abstract property, not reducible to any particular physical paradigm.

This may not be persuasive to everyone so it’s worth notin a second problem with the metre stick analogy. This is that units of measurement are arbitrary in a way that moral values are not. In order to measure things and engage in physical sciences reliant on measurement, we need some conventional system of measurement. These conventional systems can arise from completely arbitrary starting points, e.g. the length of Henry VIII’s thumb, but this does not matter: as long as the units are matters of conventional agreement, the measurement game can begin. The same is not true of moral values. We cannot just pick an arbitrary paradigm, such as God’s characteristics, and say that being good consists in similarity with those characteristics. The good is a more important, and metaphysically robust concept than that.

This leads me to suggest an alternative analogy that might be more in keeping with what we think about the good: the straightedge analogy. The analogy is inspired by Dan Dennett’s discussion of the history of the straightedge in this talk. A straightedge is a tool that is used, unsurprisingly, to draw straight edges or to check the flatness of machined surface (among other things). Over the years, many physical objects have served as paradigms of the straight edge. But the straight edge itself remains an abstract, indeed, mathematical, entity. Although our physical paradigms might get closer and closer to this abstraction, they are still not ontologically equivalent to it. I argue that something similar is true of the good: approximations of it can be found in physical paradigms, but it is not reducible to those paradigms. So there may be many reasons for thinking that God, if he exists, would serve as an excellent paradigm of the good, but this should not be taken to imply that God is ontologically equivalent to the good.

(Note: the last three paragraphs are really based on my own ideas, not Morriston’s)



2.3 - So what does ground moral values?
If the preceding criticisms succeed, then Craig has failed to show that God provides a sound ontological foundation for moral values. This raises the obvious question: if God doesn’t provide it, then what does? Morriston’s preferred answer, which has been hinted at above, is “nothing”. Moral values are abstract, sui generis facts, just as a moral Platonist would hold. Craig might object that this makes moral values metaphysically “queer” but Morriston avers that Craig’s claim that moral values just are equivalent to God’s essential characteristics is no less metaphysically puzzling.

When it comes to finding ontological groundings for facts it’s always going to be a question of which is the most appropriate stopping point. Since not every fact can have a grounding (lest we risk an infinite regress of groundings) we have to decide where to call a halt. Morriston argues that Craig has done nothing to show that God is a more appropriate stopping point than the moral properties of kindness, generosity and justice themselves.



3. Morriston on Craig’s Account of Moral Duties
After that rather elaborate discussion of moral values, my discussion of duties will seem like somewhat of a damp squib. But that’s for two reasons. First, I think the analysis of values is more fundamental and more interesting. And second, Morriston has relatively less to say about this topic.

Recall that for Craig moral duties are grounded in God’s commands, but that God’s commands are constrained by his essential nature. As a result, Craig thinks he manages to slip between the horns of the classic Euthyphro dilemma: duties really do depend on God’s commands, but God’s commands are not arbitrary.

This means that Craig thinks he need not respond to the classic “What if God commanded something terrible?” objections to DCT. Why not? Because these objections depend on counterpossibles, i.e. commands that God could never issue. This could mean one of two things:

(a) The objection relies on a counterfactual claim with a vacuous truth value according to the usual Stalnaker-Lewis semantics of counterpossibles; or

(b) The objection relies on a nonsensical claim. Asking “what if God commanded something terrrible?” is like asking “what if circles had straight edges?”. Whatever answer we give to these questions would be meaningless.

Morriston rejects both of these suggestions. He thinks that counterpossibles can be both non-vacuously true and meaningful. The example he chooses is an unusual one. He asks us to consider what would follow if an omniscient and perfectly honest being told us — per impossibile — that 2+2=5. In response he suggests that we would have to take the claim seriously since it seems to be the case that whatever an omniscient and perfectly honest being tells us has to be true. In other words, this seems to be a counterpossible claim that is neither vacuously true nor non-sensical. Hence, it is still possible for “what if God commanded X?” objections to have some effect on Craig’s DCT.

I’m not entirely sure I follow Morriston’s reasoning here. Those who are better versed in the semantics and logic of counterfactuals will be better-positioned to evaluate his argument. I’m rather more persuaded by Morriston’s second observation about counterpossibles, which is that Craig himself seems to have an inconsistent attitude toward them. In particular, it seems that Craig thinks that there is at least one counterpossible that is neither vacuously true nor nonsensical:

Thesis 2: If theism is false, we do not have a sound (ontological) foundation for morality.

This is a counterpossible because Craig seems to adopt the view that God is a necessary being, i.e. a being that could not fail to exist. But despite this Craig expends a great deal of energy defending the truth of this counterpossible. We’ll consider what he to say in part two.

If Morriston is successful in his refutation of Craig’s ontology of moral duties, the obvious question arises: what does ground moral duties? Morriston argues that there are two possibilities.

The first is that duties, like values, need no ontological grounding. After all, there are a variety of normative laws — e.g. one ought not to believe any argument that commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent — that seem to create something akin to duties but have no grounding outside of themselves.

The second is that duties could be grounded in the commands or desires of a strictly hypothetical agent, as is done in Ideal Observer-style theories of ethics. In this case, the actual existence of the ideal observer is not needed since all that matters is what the observer would command/desire if he/she existed.


4. Conclusion
To sum up, Craig thinks that if theism is true, then we have a sound ontological foundation for moral facts. Specifically, he thinks that moral values are grounded in the essential characteristics of God and that moral duties are grounded in the commands of an essentially good God.

In response, Morriston has argued that Craig’s attempt to ground moral facts in God is flawed. His grounding of moral values relies on a questionable account of the grounding relationship and is open to a revised version of the Euthyphro dilemma. Likewise, his grounding of moral duties relies on an inconsistent attitude toward the truth of counterpossibles. In addition to this, Morriston has argued that moral facts either do not need any ontological grounding or, if they do, that non-theistic groundings are available.

It should be noted that Morriston does not think that there is anything atheistic about his view. Indeed, he self-identifies as a Christian and thinks that his view, which is shared by other Christians (e.g. Swinburne) should be preferred by theists over that of Craig.

Is there a connection between human nature and moral norms?

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This post examines how natural lawyers view the connection between facts about human nature and ethical norms. To guide me through this difficult topic, I’m going to use an article by one of the leading contemporary natural lawyers, Patrick Lee. The article in question is called “Human Nature and Moral Goodness” and it appeared in the book The Normativity of the Natural: Human Goods, Human Virtues, and Human Flourishing.

The article is relatively short and covers three key points. First, it considers an incorrect view of the relationship between facts about human nature and ethical norms. Second, it considers a more correct view of that relationship. And third, it addresses some intramural theological worries about knowledge of basic moral principles. I’m not too concerned about the theological worries myself, so I'll skip those.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s worth noting I have no interest in defending natural law myself, I’m merely interested in understanding it.


1. The Wrong View of the Connection
The wrong view of the connection between human nature and ethical norms is the simplest view. And the simplest view is the one that stipulates that whatever is natural is equivalent to what is moral. In other words, the “natural” simply is the criterion of the “moral”: if the world is naturally in State A, then it ought to be in State A. In the specific case of human nature this means that whatever it is the human beings do naturally (e.g. perform a certain biological function or engage in rational thinking), is the same as what they ought to do. We can call this the “whatever-is-is-right”-view (WIIR-view, for short), in honour of the line from Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man”.

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood,
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

Although the WIIR-view can be found at work in some natural law arguments, Lee thinks it is wrong. He uses an example to make his point. Suppose the natural function of speech is to communicate the truth as one sees it. Lying would then be a corruption of the natural faculty. Does it follow that lying is morally wrong? It would seem to, but as Lee points out that doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason to think lying is wrong. After all, why couldn’t it be that lying is some brilliant ethical innovation in the speech faculty, something that allows us, on occasion, to secure morally superior ends? (There are countless other objections not raised by Lee, e.g. how does one correctly discover a “natural” function as opposed to “artifactual” function).

A more sophisticated version of the WIIR-view can be found among the Aristotelians. The Aristotelians do not believe that all human natural functions are guides as to what is morally right. Rather, they believe that only those natural functions that are distinctively human are guides to what is morally right. They usually single out the faculty of reason as being the distinctively human faculty. And they propose that we ought to develop this faculty as much as possible in order to live the good life.

Lee rejects the Aristotelian view too. He does so on the ground that the Aristotelians are wrong to think that all aspects of our natures other than the capacity for rationality are shared with other animals. For example, although it is true to say that animals other than human beings have the capacity for reproduction, it wrong to say that it is the same capacity across all species. The human capacity for reproduction is distinct because humans reproduce a different kind of being when compared with other animals; they reproduce another human, complete with a rational “soul”.

There’s lots to disagree with Lee about here. But since I care more about his positive views than his negative views I shall move on.


2. The Correct View of the Connection
If the Aristotelian view and the WIIR view are too simplistic, how can we arrive at a view that is appropriately sophisticated? We must begin with an appropriate conceptualisation of a being’s nature.

The Nature of a Being : is the structure that is internal to the being itself, that provides it with inherent tendencies and potentialities, that distinguishes it from other types of beings, and that constrains what it is possible for that being to do.

Lee thinks it is wrong to think that human beings do not have natures. He knows that some existentialists maintain that humans have no intrinsic natures and that they are completely free to determine their own tendencies and life plans, but he thinks that even the existentialist must admit to the reality of an intrinsic nature. Why? Well, prior to implementing their freely chosen life plans, the existentialist will have to have acknowledged the differences between them and their surroundings, and to have taken note of the predictable ways in which they are affected by those surroundings. This requires the implied recognition of an intrinsic nature.

The presence of an intrinsic nature has ramifications for freedom of choice. It doesn’t necessarily hinder or limit our capacity for free choice and action — Lee insists that such an interpretation would be wrong wrong — rather it is the intrinsic nature that makes choice and action possible in the first place. For when we choose among options, the possibilities are set by our nature; and when we act, we are actualising one of our natural potentialities or tendencies.

Natural law theorists see the actualisation of our potentialities and tendencies as being the key to understanding the relationship between human nature and ethical norms. Our natural tendencies and potentialities are complex, but limited. Their actualisation is what constitutes the good for beings like us. Natural law theorists thus call the actualisations of our natural potentialities tendencies the basic goods , and these are the mark of what is moral.

But surely this is to say too much? After all, if every action is the actualisation of a natural potentiality, and if every such actualisation is a basic good, then it follows that all actions are morally good. Thus, we can never be said to act in a morally impermissible manner.

Not so fast. Lee argues that there are two ways in which to actualise a potentiality. One of these is morally acceptable the other is not. The first way is to act so that each good respects and honours the basic goods that are not actualised in that particular act. The second is to act so that one good is honoured at the expense of the others. The first way is morally acceptable, the second is not.

This then is how Lee thinks our nature can begin to provide us with moral guidance.


3. From Practical Oughts to Moral Oughts
Although the actualisation of potentialities is a first approximation of how our natures provide us with moral guidance, it is not the whole story. Lee is persuaded by Hume’s famous claim that you cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”. He thinks that moral norms are ontologically grounded in our natures, but not logically derived from them. But this then raises the question: how do we derive practical oughts?

In answer to this question, Lee, like most of the new natural lawyers, appeals the self-evident nature of the basic goods. In other words, to the idea that there are some ends to which practical reason can be directed that are self-evidently good. These ends include life, personal integrity, friendship, marriage (Lee explicitly includes this in his list of the basic goods), knowledge, sociality, aesthetic experience and play. When it comes to these things there is no need to ask the question “what is it that makes them good?”, it is just obvious that they are.

Self-evidency claims of this sort can be more or less persuasive. For instance, Finnis makes a pretty good case for the self-evident good of knowledge. How does he do this? By pointing out that there would be a self-contradiction (of sorts) present in anyone who denied the value of knowledge. The person who argued that knowledge of X was not valuable, would first have to know what X was. In other words, it is only after knowledge of X is attained that value judgments can be made about it. Other self-evidency claims are less persuasive. For instance, it’s not clear to me that life is always and everywhere a good. There would seem to be some situations in which life is necessarily traded off against other basic goods (e.g. as in euthanasia scenarios).

This leads to a more general criticism of Lee’s position on moral norms. In distinguishing between practical oughts and moral oughts, Lee once again points to the difference between actions that honour all the basic goods and those that sacrifice some in order to promote others. The former are morally permissible, the latter are not. There are two important clarifications to be made of this position: (i) it means that morality is not a set of rigid hard-and-fast rules, there is some flexibility as to what one ought to do; and (ii) it does not mean that we cannot promote one good more than the others, it only means we cannot promote one good at the expense of the others.

What’s the problem with this position? Well, in order for it to be practicable it must be the case that no moral dilemmas actually exist. After all, a moral dilemma is a situation in which, no matter what you do , at least one morally undesirable outcome will occur. As such, any choice in a moral dilemma would involve a trade-off between recognised goods. And so, under Lee’s view, no matter what you do in a moral dilemma, you are doing something morally impermissible.

Take the ticking bomb scenario as an example. If the scenario exists (and I think variations on it probably do), you are forced to choose between (a) torturing someone and thereby causing pain and promoting mental/physical disunity; or (b) not torturing somebody and allowing many people to die. This seems to involve a necessary trade-off between the good of life and the good of personal integrity. How can a natural lawyer like Lee deal with this?

I mention this example for a good reason. Lee has actually written an article about interrogational torture in which he defends his natural law approach. I read this several years ago, but as far as I recall the article illustrates the problem I’ve highlighted here. Lee resolves the dilemma by engaging in questionable definitional practices. In particular, he narrows the definition of torture so as to allow for the permissibility of certain coercive interrogational practices. I think the definitional game he plays highlights the problem that natural law has with moral dilemmas.

Darwin and Moral Realism: The Survival of the Iffiest

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I’ve covered Sharon Street’s evolutionary debunking argument of objective (mind-independent) moral reality before. I’ve also covered some responses to the argument, along with some more general reflections on arguments of this sort. I’d recommend reading some of those posts before tackling this one.

In this entry, I’ll be covering the following article:

Skarsaune, K.O. “Darwin and Moral Realism: Survival of the Iffiest” (2011) 152 Philosophical Studies 229

It’s a direct response to Street’s Darwinian dilemma. So a quick recap on her argument is our first port of call.


1. Street’s Darwinian Dilemma
Non-natural moral realists believe that moral properties (values, rights, wrongs etc) exist in some mind-independent realm. Further, these realists tend to believe that we acquire knowledge of this realm through the exercise of our intuitive evaluative judgments. In other words, our intuitive evaluative judgments are some how in tune with this mind independent realm.

Now we all know (irrespective of our metaethical proclivities) that most of our intuitive evaluative judgments are the products of a complex evolutionary history. That is to say, most of our intuitive judgments can be said to have come about due to their fitness enhancing abilities. So, for example, our belief that we have certain duties to protect our offspring, or our enthusiasm for reciprocal forms of altruism, can be explained in terms of fitness enhancement.

But this creates a problem for the defender of moral realism. It implies that our evolved judgments have somehow managed to coincide with the mind-independent moral truth.

The thoughts set out in the preceding paragraphs can be expressed as an evolutionary debunking argument:

(1) Causal Premise: Our intuitive evaluative judgments are the product of a complex evolutionary processes.

(2) Epistemic Premise: Evolutionary processes are fitness enhancing, they do not track the truth of mind-independent moral properties.

(3) Therefore, our intuitive evaluative judgments are unjustified.

Street thinks that in responding to this argument the realist is confronted with a dilemma. As with all dilemmas, there are two horns on which they can impale themselves:

First Horn: They can argue that there is a relation between evolutionary processes and the mind-independent moral truth (which seems implausible).

Second Horn: They can argue that there is no such relation, in which case they land themselves in an unwelcome form of scepticism.

Skarsaune thinks the realist can be open to both horns of the dilemma, no matter how pointy they may appear to be. To be precise, he argues that the realist can provide an account of the relation between evolutionary processes and moral truth; and that if this account fails, then they could happily embrace the scepticism conclusion. He also makes some interesting concluding remarks about the nature of moral realism. We’ll look at all three of these elements in what follows.


2. Pain and Pleasure
Skarsaune’s willingness to embrace the two horns of the dilemma stems from his belief that he can provide a pre-established harmony account of the relationship between evolved evaluative judgments and the moral truth. If you have read my series on David Enoch’s response to Sharon Street, this will be a familiar idea, however, I think Skarsaune’s account is slightly more persuasive.

Enoch focused on the correlation between evolutionary goals such as survival and reproduction and deeper moral truths like the intrinsic goodness or badness of pain; Skarsaune focuses directly on the evolutionary utility of pain and pleasure.

He begins by making the following substantive claim:

• P: Pleasure is usually good (for an agent) and pain is usually bad (for an agent).

This claim is agent-relative and non-absolute. It accepts that there may be exceptional cases in which pain might be good for the agent. This possibility does not matter for Skarsaune’s argument, provided such cases are relatively rare.

P can be restated using the language of reasons as follows:

• P*: The fact that x would give the agent (S) pleasure is usually a reason for S to bring about x; likewise, the fact that x would give S pain is a reason for S to avoid bringing about x.

Skarsaune argues that two plausible inferences can be made from P (or P*). The first of these maintains that if P is true, then the first horn of Street’s dilemma is tenable. That is to say, a connection between evolutionary processes and moral truth can be found. The second inference maintains that if P is false, then the second horn of Street’s dilemma is tenable. That is to say, the realist has nothing to fear if P is false because this would imply that an awful lot of what we think we know about morality and about reasons for action would be in error. Realists usually accept such risks of error (indeed, one reason for being a realist is that one accepts the risk of error).

3. The Evolutionary Utility of Pain and Pleasure
Turning our attention to the first inference, we need to understand Skarsaune’s confidence in the connection between evolution and pain and pleasure. Surely, we might argue, evolutionary processes direct us toward that which is fitness enhancing, not that which is intrinsically good or bad?

Yes, responds Skarsaune, but one way in which evolution directs us toward that which is fitness-enhancing is by making things that are evolutionarily beneficial pleasurable and things that are evolutionarily detrimental painful. (You might like to read this series I did on Paul Draper’s evidential argument from evil for related ideas).

It’s easy to see how this is the case in relation to pleasure: the belief that something is pleasurable provides motivation to act; those individuals who took pleasure from evolutionarily beneficial activities were motivated to act in evolutionarily beneficial ways; as a result they tended to leave more offspring than those who did not take pleasure from such actions. Thus, the fact that we associate pleasure with certain activities plays a part in evolutionary explanations of our existence.

So far so good, where do we go from here? Well, we simply point out that P is true - that pain and pleasure are part of the essential moral fabric of the universe - and so evolutionary processes can track the truth of moral states of affair. Problem solved; dilemma dissolved. Right?

Not so fast. Doesn’t this really only imply that evolutionary processes create value? In other words, that evolutionary processes have made certain things valuable to us, and not that evolutionary processes have somehow managed to direct us towards the independently determined moral truth?

Skarsaune has a response. It is true that evolution has created a type of value by using the pleasure/pain mechanism, but we need to be clear about what this is. Evolution has merely made it the case that we find certain states of affairs to be valuable; it has not made it the case that pleasurableness itself is a good. The goodness of pleasure (and badness of pain) is independent of evolution. The distinction is subtle, but essential.

So there is, in effect, a pre-established harmony between the pleasure-seeking (and pain-avoiding) mechanism used by evolution and an independently specified moral truth. This allows the realist to embrace the first horn of Street’s dilemma.


4. What if we are wrong about P?
Not content to rest on the foregoing argument, Skarsaune also thinks he can show that a moral realist should be undeterred by the second horn of Street’s dilemma. The realist might be forced into that horn by someone arguing that P is wrong: that pain and pleasure are not usually good/bad for the agent pursuing them.

Skarsaune asks us to assume, for sake of argument, that this critic is correct. What would follow from this? Only that most of our beliefs about practical reason and morality are false. And presumably if this is the case, we’ll have bigger things to worry about than the plausibility of moral realism.

For example, suppose it were really the case that pleasure did not supply you with a reason for action. This would mean that most of your beliefs about what you have reason to do would be false. Maybe that's not significant since it relates to the agent-relative aspects of pleasure and pain. What about the agent neutral aspects? Well, similarly, the falsity of P would deprive us of many reasons for acting in the interests of others since most of those reasons relate to making the lives of others more pleasurable.

Either way, if P is false, then a lot of what we take for granted is false.


5. Realism and Mind-Independence
Even if Skarsaune’s argument to this point has been convincing, there is one final objection. Indeed, this is an objection raised by Sharon Street in her original presentation of the dilemma. It runs roughly along the following lines:

Sure, we can say that pleasure and pain are valuable and can be tracked by evolution, but in saying this aren’t we renouncing our commitment to moral realism? After all, realism is usually understood to be the view that moral facts are mind-independent. But pain and pleasure are very clearly mind-dependent. So to place them at the centre of our moral theory is to switch from realism to anti-realism.

Skarsaune disagrees. He thinks Street only makes this argument because she has an impoverished conception of moral realism. Realism is not committed to the view that moral facts are entirely mind-independent. We have to be more discriminating in our understanding of what the realists think is independent from what.

To be precise, we need to more discriminating in our breakdown of the various mental states from which a moral fact can be independent. Skarsaune argues, citing the examples of Nagel, Parfit and Shafer-Landau, that realists do not think moral facts hold independently of all mental states. They think that moral facts hold independently of beliefs and judgments, not independently of affective states.

I don’t know what to make of that claim. In some ways, I don't care what those defending realism actually believe. It is often the case that individuals hold beliefs that are inconsistent with the theories they defend. What matters to me are the implications of those beliefs. I think that if what Skarsaune says is true, then there is no important difference between realist and anti-realist theories. This would be an odd result, but I'd be glad to hear that defenders of realism are coming round to my position.

On Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (Part Three)

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(Part One, Part Two)

This post is the third in a short series of posts on the following article:

• Kahane, G. “Evolutionary Debunking Arguments” (2011) 45 Nous 103-125

As we learned in part one, an evolutionary debunking argument (EDA) is something that attempts to undermine the warrant or justification for a particular belief by pointing out its evolutionary origins. All such arguments begin with a causal premise which specifies how evolution brings about the belief in question; they follow it up with an epistemic premise arguing that evolutionary processes do not track truth; and they thereby conclude that belief is unwarranted.

We saw in part two how such arguments are sometimes employed in disputes in normative ethics. The example given came from the work of Joshua Greene and Peter Singer. Both of these authors seemed to argue that deontological intuitions could be undermined by an EDA. This fact could be marshalled in support of utilitarian principles.

In response, it was argued that Singer and Greene’s argument is difficult to sustain since it needs to show that their preferred utilitarian principles do not draw upon other debunked intuitions. In other words, we need to be given some reason for thinking that global EDAs are not possible.

In this entry we consider whether global EDAs are possible.

1. Joyce and Street
In recent times, two authors in particular have pushed the idea of a global EDA. One of them is Richard Joyce; the other is Sharon Street. (I’ve discussed Street’s work at considerable length elsewhere on this blog, should you want more detail than you’ll be getting here). Michael Ruse should probably get an honourable mention as well.

Joyce argues that all our moral judgments can trace their origin to cultural and environmental influences affecting the hominid line. If we were, say, evolved from the social insects, we would come with a completely different set of pre-packaged moral commitments.

Joyce thinks this won’t do. On semantic grounds, Joyce maintains that moral discourse is committed to a type of absolutism, i.e. our moral discourse purports to provide us with a set of reasons for action that apply to all times, places and subjective dispositions. The contingency implied by modern evolutionary theory is diametrically opposed to this kind of absolutism. Thus we are forced to embrace a form of error theory about morality. (Joyce thinks we can still be happy with pragmatic, subjective reasons for action).

Street makes similar claims, but arrives at a different implication. She thinks that moral realists (particularly of the non-natural variety) should be deeply troubled by evolutionary history.

This history implies that many of our evaluative beliefs are directly moulded by the pressures of survival and reproduction. For example, altruism towards kin can be readily explained through evolutionary game theory. Despite this, realists must still believe that somehow these beliefs line-up with abstract moral truths. But surely this is incredible? Wouldn’t it be too much to think that the selective pressures of evolution just happened to coincide with the abstract, causally inert moral truth?

Street thinks this argument provides good reason for rejecting metaethical realism and embracing some form of antirealism (constructivism in particular). This position is not nihilistic or sceptical about moral truth. It just thinks that moral truths are not mind-independent.

Note that neither Joyce nor Street quite goes “all the way” with their debunking. Joyce still thinks it is rational to act in accordance with our subjectively perceived self-interest; and Street thinks moral truth can still exist. It might be possible to go even further with the debunking and point out that all normative beliefs (including beliefs about epistemic norms) are undermined by evolution. This is, effectively, what Alvin Plantinga does in his argument against evolutionary naturalism.


2. Responding to the Global EDA
At this stage its worth identifying the potential responses to EDAs by proponents of ethical objectivism/realism. There are three of them, and they should be unsurprising to anyone familiar with epistemological debates of this sort:

• They can say that no evaluative beliefs are affected by the argument.
• They can say that some evaluative beliefs are affected by the argument.
• They can say that all evaluative beliefs are affected by the argument.

The third option seems unattractive for a variety of reasons. As noted above, if the proposed scepticism leaks into other normative domains then it’s basically impossible to rationally justify anything. The first option looks equally unappealing. Someone wishing to make this response would need to argue that evolutionary processes really do track moral truth (see here for a version of that response).

The second option is probably the most attractive but it is precariously balanced. Its defender needs to show why certain beliefs are unaffected. Basically, this requires that they show how the evaluative belief they wish to protect originates in or is supported by considerations that override evolutionary history. It is this kind of position that interests Kahane since it is maintained by the likes of Singer and Greene.

Consider once more Singer’s position. He thinks that an EDA can undermine deontological intuitions but not utilitarian ones. How can he be so sanguine? Because he thinks utilitarianism is supported by rational reflection that is not the outcome of our evolutionary past.

Does this kind of response work? Here is where the role of the reflective equilibrium (RE) in normative reasoning might be important. The RE proposes a kind of test for ethical beliefs. The test is coherentist in nature. It begins with a set of moral principles, it then tests these against a range of scenarios, and then modifies these principles in accordance with what seems reasonable, usually appealing to intuition when doing so.

Such an approach to normative reasoning might be uniquely susceptible to an EDA. Why? Because the equilibrium could be based on debunked intuitions. If that is how Singer ultimately justifies his utilitarian principle then he could be in trouble.

On Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (Part Two)

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(Part One)

This post is the second in a short series of posts on the following article:

• Kahane, G. “Evolutionary Debunking Arguments” (2011) 45 Nous 103-125

As we learned in part one, Kahane’s article sets out to examine the use of evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) in normative and meta ethics. An EDA is an argument which attempts to show that the evolutionary origin of a particular belief undermines the warrant for that particular belief.

We’ve only really considered the use of such arguments in the abstract to this point. In this post we’ll look at an actual example of such an argument being used in a normative debate.


1. Deontology vs. Utilitarianism in the Trolley Problem
Most people reading this will be aware of the widespread use of trolley-problem thought experiments in ethics. The experiments are designed to show how people’s moral intuitions can vary as a result of seemingly insignificant changes in circumstances.

In the classic example, the trolley problem involves you having to make a decision to kill one person in order to save five or alternatively, let the five people die. In one scenario, the killing of the one person is an indirect consequence of another action (flipping a switch or a lever); in the other scenario, the killing of the one person is a direct consequence of your own actions (e.g. pushing someone off a bridge).

Most people, when asked what they would do in these scenarios, say they would be willing to indirectly kill the one in order to save the five in the first scenario, but they would not be willing to directly kill the one in order to save the five in the second scenario.

From a utilitarian perspective, these responses are difficult to explain. The utilitarian calculation is surely the same in both: one person dies, five people live. Killing the one person is clearly merited in both cases, isn’t it?

From a deontological perspective, the responses might be a little easier to explain. There is an absolute injunction against an action which directly kills another; there is no such injunction against an action which indirectly kills another. No problem.

For some reason, the majority of humanity seems to intuitively back the deontological position. Are they right to do so?

Joshua Greene

2. Singer and Greene: Debunking Deontology
Peter Singer and Joshua Greene think not. They reckon that the deontological intuition can be debunked using an EDA. Greene in particular seems to reason as follows:

• (1) Our commitment to the deontological intuition in the trolley problem is merely due to the fact that “up close and personal” violence was common in our environments of evolutionary adaptation (EEAs) and so an aversion to direct violence was selected for; indirect methods of killing are more evolutionarily recent and have not been selected against.

• (2) Evolution does not track the truth of evaluative propositions.

• (3) Therefore, we are not justified (or warranted) in our commitment to the deontological intuition.

There are several things that could be said about this argument. For one, the causal premise (1) could easily be challenged (as such explanations often are). For another, as noted in part one, the argument seems to assume metaethical realism/objectivism. If the person who is committed to deontology is not a realist, then they will be unswayed by this argument.

We will not focus on these points here. Instead, we’ll address the supposed implications of this argument. No doubt, both Singer and Green take it that this argument somehow supports utilitarianism. But clearly this is not a straightforward implication, however seductive or appealing it may seem to be.

To successfully infer that, one would have to show that the commitment to utilitarian principles is not also undermined by this argument. In other words, one needs to provide some reason for thinking that the EDA does not spread to all of our evaluative principles.

This raises the potentially unwelcome possibility of global debunking arguments. We’ll discuss these in part three.

On Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (Part One)

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Regular readers of this blog will know that I have previously covered some articles looking at the use of evolutionary debunking arguments in metaethics (see here and here, for examples).

I recently finished reading the following article which also looks at the use of such arguments:

• Kahane, G. “Evolutionary Debunking Arguments" (2011) 45 Nous 103-125 (seems to be available for free at the moment)

I must not have read the abstract closely enough before downloading this one since I was expecting Kahane to offer a more fulsome critique of the use of such arguments, but it turns out that wasn’t really what he was interested in.

Nevertheless, the article is a good one and I thought I might share some of its details here. One thing I particularly liked about it was Kahane’s attempt to elucidate the general structure of such arguments and to show how they are used in normative and meta- ethics.

In this first part, I’ll cover Kahane’s general analysis of debunking arguments. In the next part I'll consider their use in normative ethics.


1. An Introduction to Debunking Arguments
First things first, we need to be clear about the nature of a debunking argument (DA). Obviously, “debunking” is, in its everyday usage, intended to denote the practice of undermining or exposing some set of beliefs as being false. Given that this seems to be a common goal in philosophy, there could be many philosophically interesting DAs worth considering.

For present purposes, the focus is on what might be called causal-DAs. These are arguments that try to undermine some belief or set of beliefs by explaining its causal origins. Such arguments are, in fact, widespread. You probably use them all the time.

To consider an obvious example, anyone who has studied Marxism will know that Marx seemed to think (or at least, can be interpreted as thinking) that offering a causal-historical explanation of an ideology could be an effective way of undermining that ideology.

Now expressed in these terms such an argument is patently unsuccessful. It is an example of the genetic fallacy: Just because an ideology has a particular causal origin, does not mean that the ideology is false. But this in itself doesn’t mean that causal DAs are without merit. They just need to be reinterpreted in a more subtle way - as arguments that don’t undermine the truth of particular belief, but do undermine the justification (or warrant) that the believer might have for holding that particular belief.

Here’s an example. Suppose Bob believes that there is a particular object (X) outside his house. Now suppose further that we learn that Bob has a rather peculiar process for determining what to believe is outside his house. Every morning he flips a coin, and if the coin comes up heads, he believes there is an X outside his house. Surely, such a causal explanation for a belief undermines the warrant or justification for holding that belief?

Contrast this with an alternative causal explanation. According to this explanation Bob acquires the belief that X is in front of his house through visual perception of the object. Surely this causal explanation (assuming no additional defeaters) supports the justification or warrant for Bob’s belief?

We can refer to the difference between these causal explanations in terms of processes that are “on track” (i.e. track the truth of whatever proposition is under consideration), and processes that are “off track” (i.e. don’t track the truth of whatever proposition is under consideration). This is illustrated below.

Note that in the example given, the “off track” process is purely random. A more common variety of “off track” process might be one that is biased in a particular direction.


2. The General Structure of (Evolutionary) Debunking Arguments
Building upon the preceding example, we can specify the general template or structure that is shared by all causal DAs. It looks something like the following:

Causal Premise: S’s belief that P is caused by causal process X. 

Epistemic Premise: Causal process X is off track 

Conclusion: The belief that P is unjustified (or unwarranted).

As you can see, this is an argument that could work with any type of belief and any allegedly off track causal process. The concern in this article is to specifically examine arguments that focus on the evolutionary process and its implications for our evaluative beliefs.

Such arguments will have the following structure:

Causal Premise: S’s evaluative belief that P is caused by the process of evolution. 

Epistemic Premise: The process of evolution does not track the truth of evaluative propositions of type P. 

Conclusion: S’s belief that P is unjustified, or unwarranted.

Before we consider specific examples, there are three things to note about this style of argument.

First, the causal premise refers to the process of evolution in general. It does refer to any specific mechanisms of evolutionary change. Although it is fair to say that most attention has been paid to adaptive explanations that appeal to the mechanism of natural selection, genetic drift or other processes could also be targeted.

Second, the epistemic premise needs to be supported in a particular way. It must be shown that the off track process (in this case evolution) completely removes the influence of any potentially on-track processes. If there are on-track processes that also contribute to the causal explanation of the belief, then they might restore justification or, at the very least, not completely undermine it.

Third, and this is one of Kahane’s key observations, the argument assumes that S is an ethical realist/objectivist. To be more precise, it assumes that S believes in mind-independent moral properties. Someone who believes that moral properties are constructed out of whatever evaluative attitudes we happen to have will be unpersuaded by this argument.

Okay, that’s enough for now. In part two we’ll consider an example of an EDA drawn from the field of normative ethics.

Craig on Objective Morality (Part Two)

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(Part One)

You should probably read part one before attempting this, but if that seems like too much to ask, then be reassured that I’ll try my best to summarise the important parts of that discussion when it seems important to do so.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to work out exactly what Craig means when he says that God makes objective moral values and duties possible. As noted in part one, this is an important exercise since imprecision in what is meant by objectivity can be a way to both confuse and be confused.

Craig dedicates two paragraphs in his book Reasonable Faith to clarifying what he means by objectivity. Last time out, I subjected the first of these paragraphs to a close analysis and concluded that Craig seems to mean at least two things when he claims that an entity or property is "objective": (i) that it is mind-independent; and (ii) that it is non-relative. It is important to keep these two concepts distinct since they need not always go together.

In this entry, I’ll first look at paragraph two in more detail and then consider moral platitudes and metaethical theories in general.


1. Paragraph Two: Cognitivism
Again, for ease of reference, I’ll quote the paragraph in full:

“To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or bad independently of whether any human believes it to be so. Similarly to say that we have objective moral duties is to say that certain actions are right or wrong for us independently of whether any human being believes them to be so. For example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that it was wrong even though the Nazis who carried it out thought that it was right, and it would still have been wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in exterminating or brainwashing everybody who disagreed with them so that it was universally believed that the Holocaust was right. The of premise (1) [of Craig’s moral argument] is that if there is no God, then moral values and duties are not objective in this sense.”

In many ways, this paragraph just further elaborates on the distinctions and clarifications we discussed in part one. For instance, the concept of mind-independency is once again clearly to the fore, as is the idea that moral truths are not relative to particular sets of cultural beliefs and practices (e.g. those of the Nazis).

What is interesting about this paragraph is what it has to say about the truth value of moral propositions. It is clear that Craig thinks, in addition to being mind-independent and non-relative, moral propositions such as “the Nazis were wrong to carry out the Holocaust” have a truth value and, indeed, that that truth value is positive in this instance.

In some ways this observation probably ties in better with a discussion of premise (2) of Craig’s argument (in which he affirms the existence of objective moral values and duties), but I think it is worth making here for a couple of reasons.

First, not all metaethical theories accept that moral statements like “X is good” or “I have a duty to do A” have truth value. Such theories are non-cognitivist in nature. Examples include, universal prescriptivism, expressivism, and emotivism. These theories usually argue that a non-cognitivist approach is more plausible on semantic and ontological grounds, and that it can actually give us a good deal of what we want from morality in return for sacrificing the possibility of truth value.

Second, it is possible to believe that moral propositions are intended to refer to mind-independent phenomena, to be non-relative in their scope, and to have truth value, and still deny that they have positive truth value. In other words, it is possible to be a moral nihilist or error theorist and still accept Craig’s other claims about what is needed to have an objective morality. This would really be a rejection of premise (2) of Craig’s arugment. We call theories that accept the positive truth value of moral propositions “realist”.

Third, and most importantly, although it might be correct to say that cognitivism follows straightforwardly from mind-independence and non-relativity -- and so, one who accepts those claims automatically accepts cognitivism -- it is not necessarily true to say that one who rejects these properties rejects cognitivism. In other words, it could be argued that moral propositions are mind-dependent but still capable of having a positive truth value.

This is a significant observation since it seems to me that Craig’s argument as whole is intended to appeal to the fact that people really want to be able to affirm that certain things are good and bad ( or right and wrong). Like Craig, I think we all really want to be able to say that what the Nazis did was just wrong and that no amount of cultural brainwashing will make it otherwise. But if that’s what we want to be able to say, then it seems like all we really care about is positive truth value - mind-independency and non-relativity might be purely incidental.


2. What are the key moral platitudes?
So far I’ve been analysing what Craig has to say about objectivity. I now want to step back from this analysis and offer some more general comments on metaethics and successful metaethical theories.

Let's ask the question: What is so important about moral objectivity? Why does Craig latch onto objectivity in his moral argument? I hinted at this above, but to be more explicit now, I think Craig’s discussion is only interesting to the extent that it tells us something about the kinds of things we demand from a successful moral theory. These are sometimes referred to as the "platitudes" of moral discourse.

Craig clearly demands objectivity, but as we have seen his use of this term is imprecise. He could be referring to mind-independence, non-relativity, or cognitivism, or some combination of the three. It could also be that he has other demands that are more implied than explicit.

So let's not be too wedded to what Craig wants, let's focus instead on the kinds of things we all might want from a successful moral theory. I don’t know if I can do justice to all the demands we might place on a successful moral theory, but the following list seems to me to be fairly typical. I’ll define the terms as I go along (there’s going to be some overlap with what I’ve already said):

(a) Mind-Independence: We hope that moral properties exist independently of the desires and beliefs of human beings. If we wish, we can be even more discriminating in how we define mind-independency. We could, for example, distinguish between desire-independent and belief-independent theories. I won’t do that here, but it’s worth noting anyway. We could also distinguish between theories that make moral properties independent of our own personal minds and theories that make moral properties independent of all minds. 

(b) Absolutivity: We want moral propositions and claims to hold true for all people, at all times and all places. How absolute is “absolute”? That depends. We may include a number of contextual factors in our moral theories (e.g. “X is morally obliged not to kill another human being (Y) provided that Y is not trying to kill X), but we could hold that anyone who find themselves in a similar context is bound to affirm the truth of such a proposition. This would be a kind of absolute morality. To distinguish it from an even more absolute morality, we might like to refer to "strong" and "weak" forms of absolutivity.

(c) Practicality: We want moral properties to actually affect how people behave. In other words, if someone recognises that they have a moral obligation not to kill another human being (unless certain contextual factors apply), then we would expect them to acknowledge that they must act in a way that is compliant with this obligation. We could add an “overridingness” condition to this if we wish. This condition would stipulate that we expect the recognition of a particular moral status to supply a reason for action that overrides any other reasons for action that a particular agent may think he has. 

(d) Positive Truth Value: We want it to be the case that at least some moral propositions are true and at least some are false. We don’t want to be moral nihilists. 

(e) Non-trivial truth value: This might be a slightly unusual condition and so requires some explication. I’m adding it in here to exclude a certain type of moral theory. The theory I have in mind is one which satisfies our demand for positive truth value, but does so in a manner that is trivial or vacuous. As it turns out, this might be one ground upon which to object to a theistic metaethics, but it is not prejudicial against this position. It can apply equally well to non-theistic theories. Here’s an example: 

• In Plato's Republic, Cleitophon proposes at one point (340b) that “justice” is whatever the strongest believes to be to his advantage. Suppose we drop the “whatever the strongest believes...” clause and apply this to all individuals? This would mean that a proposition like “X is just” has a positive truth value. But that truth value is surely trivial in nature: the individual could never be mistaken about what is just since it is relativised to their occurrent beliefs about what is to their advantage.

(f) Non-Scepticism: We want it to be possible to find out which moral propositions are true and which are false; we don’t want to be moral sceptics. This is an epistemic constraint and Craig seems to think such constraints are irrelevant in metaethical debates (at least in the ones he has had). I disagree (see here for more). It seems to me that a moral theory which satisfies the other conditions but which forces us to be moral sceptics would be unwelcome.

(g) Fit with Background Knowledge: We want the theory to be consistent with other parts of our worldview. Obviously this might be difficult to apply in some cases: theists are likely to think that morality must be consistent with God’s existence, and naturalists are likely to think that it would be nice if moral properties were somehow reducible to natural properties. Despite its difficulty, it still seems like a reasonable condition since it applies to all theories, not just moral ones.

These are the platitudes or conditions of success I’ll work with for the remainder of this entry. I could probably add more, and refine them a little bit, but I don’t want this to become too tedious. If you have any complaints about what I’ve said, or think certain refinements are necessary, feel free to comment below.

I doubt very much that any metaethical theory can satisfy all of these demands. The history of moral philosophy would seem to support this observation. Still, I think it is possible for some metaethical theories to satisfy a good number of these demands and so get us a good deal of what we want from morality. Indeed, I think the way to assess competing theories is on the basis of which ones get us the most of what we want.

This suggests that when deciding which is to be our preferred metaethical theory, we may be forced to compromise. We may have to give up one of the things we want in order to have more of the others.

All of which begs the question: which of these platitudes would we be willing to give up?

I’ll lay my own cards on the table at this point. I’d be willing to give up mind-independence. If I could formulate a metaethical theory which allowed for some degree of absolutivity, practicality, non-triviality, positive truth value, non-scepticism, and is consistent with my background knowledge, I’d be delighted. It would be like all my Christmases come at once. It would be bordering on petulance if I were to hold out for mind-independence after getting all of these things. Wouldn’t it?


3. The Scorecard Exercise
Now that we have some idea of what we want from morality, we can put it to use in the analysis of Craig’s theory. As was the case in part one, I am going to propose an exercise here. Its completion is left to the reader.

First, I suggest that we construct a scorecard with which we can evaluate different metaethical theories. On the "row" side of the scorecard we will have the moral platitudes outlined above. On the "column" side of the scorecard we will align all the different metaethical theories. Obviously, the goal is to see how well the different theories do with respect to the platitudes.

To perform this evaluation properly, we will have to have some idea of the available competitor theories. This is one area in which Craig’s discussion in Reasonable Faith is sorely lacking. He only seriously considers non-natural realism (or Platonic realism, as he calls it) as an alternative to theistic metaethics. I think we need to be far more expansive in our search of the available theoretic space.

Here is an abbreviated list of the available moral theories to get the ball rolling (I’m going to exclude non-cognitive theories):

• (1) Non-natural realism: Moral properties are real, but they exist in some abstract, non-natural realm.

• (2) Theological voluntarism: Moral properties are real, but they depend for their existence on one or more of God’s voluntary acts (willings, desirings, or commands).

• (3) Paradigmatic Exemplarism: Moral properties are real, but only in virtue of the fact that there exists a being that is a paradigmatic exemplar of those properties (I confess, you probably won’t find this theory mentioned in the available textbooks. As far as I know, the name is of my own invention. Nevertheless, it comes close to Craig’s own views with respect to how God grounds the existence of certain moral properties; and it is distinct from theological voluntarism).

• (4) Naturalistic Realism: Moral properties are real, but they are *reducible* to natural properties. I use *reducible* somewhat reluctantly since there are different theories and some of them object to the label of reductionism (Luke Muehlhauser has been doing a series on these recently, which is well worth reading).

• (5) Extreme Moral Subjectivism: Moral properties are real but their content is directly determined by the beliefs and desires of each individual.

• (6) External Moral Subjectivism: Moral properties are real but they depend for their existence on the subjective attitudes of one or more individuals external to oneself.

• (7) Constructivism: Moral properties are real, but they depend for their existence on some appropriately construed constructive procedure (e.g. a social contract). This comes in a variety of forms (Kantian, Humean and Decision-theoretic) and has been discussed on this blog before.

• (8) Nihilism: Moral properties are not real. We might think they are, but they’re really not.

Here then is the proposed scorecard (click to embiggen).

Now all we have to do is determine how each of the available theories does in relation to each of the proposed platitudes. We could place a tick or an “x” in each box for comparative purposes, and whichever theory satisfies the most of these demands “wins” (gets the most ticks), in the sense that it is the best we can hope for. I've kick-started the process by marking the score for nihilism.

I suggest that if we perform this exercise, Craig’s theory might not do nearly as well as some of its competitors. Furthermore, even if it does equally as well as some of its competitors, Craig’s moral argument is undercut. Why? Because he claims that God’s existence is essential for getting what we want from morality, but if there are other theories that get the same amount (or more) then this is wrong.

We must careful when doing the necessary comparison. This is for two reasons. First, it is probably best to construct a separate scorecard for each of the moral properties under consideration, i.e. one for moral values and another for moral obligations. Second, we should only reach a determination on a particular criterion after having evaluated the associated argument.

I’m not going to go ahead and actually fill in the remainder scorecard here since it requires a good deal more careful analysis to do this properly. Still, I think this is a good methodology to adopt when addressing Craig’s (and others’) arguments about metaethics.



4. Conclusion
The discussion in this post has taken us away somewhat from the original concerns with Craig’s definition of objectivity. I’ll try to tie it all back together.

As we have seen, Craig thinks the existence of God is the only way in which to secure the objectivity of morality. The problem is that it is not entirely clear what he means by objectivity. He might mean mind-independence, or non-relativity or positive truth value, or some combination of all three.

In light of his lack of clarity, I suggest we are better off interpreting Craig’s claims about objectivity as being akin to those of someone placing demands or constraints on successful moral theories. I further suggest that there are many such demands and that those employed by Craig may not even be that important.

In order to properly evaluate proposed metaethical theories, I think we should construct a kind of scorecard on which we determine how many of our moral demands are satisfied by the different theories and compare them with one another.

That’s it for now.

Craig on Objective Morality (Part One)

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[Note: I’m hoping that this might end up being part of longer a series, but I don’t want to get too ambitious at this stage. I would appreciate any comments and suggestions on improving my analysis, but do bear in mind that I have two more entries on the objectivity issue planned]

“So many debates in philosophy revolve around the issue of objectivity versus subjectivity that one may be forgiven for assuming that someone somewhere understands this distinction.” 

(Richard Joyce, “Moral Anti-realism”, SEP)

I like Richard Joyce. He has written some lucid and highly engaging stuff on moral philosophy over the years. Now I don’t ultimately agree with him, but I like the above quote because it captures one of the key difficulties in all philosophical arguments: the imprecision of terminology.

Many concepts that we use in everyday speech, like “objectivity” or “subjectivity”, have been subjected to highly intricate and elaborate philosophical theorisations. So to say that something is objective, or to affirm the existence of objective entities, can be both uninformative and misleading.

I mention all this because, of course, the centrepiece of Craig’s moral argument is the claim that “objective moral values and duties exist”, and that they can only do so if God exists as well. What does Craig mean by this? In the text of Reasonable Faith (p. 173, to be precise), Craig dedicates two paragraphs to directly answering this question (further indications of what he means by “objective” are peppered throughout his discussion). Let’s see if things become clearer if we subject these paragraphs to close scrutiny.


1. Paragraph One: Objectivity and Relativity
For ease of reference, I’ll quote the first paragraph in its entirety here (emphasis added):

“Let me say something to clarify the distinction between something’s being objective and something’s being subjective. To say that something is objective is to say that it is independent of what people think or perceive. By contrast, to say that something is subjective is just to say that it is not objective; that is to say, it is dependent on what human persons think or perceive. So, for example, the distinction between being on Mars and not being on Mars is an objective distinction; a particular rock’s being on Mars is in no way dependent on our beliefs. By contrast the distinction between “here” and “there” is not objective: whether a particular event, at a certain spatial location occurs here or there depends upon a person’s point of view.”

Noting the highlighted phrases, it becomes pretty clear that I think Craig makes two interesting clarifications here about the nature of objectivity. I want to discuss these in some detail.

The first clarification is the idea that in order for something to be objective, it must be mind-independent. In other words, like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, an objective entity continues to exist even in the absence of a mind which perceives its existence.

I like to think of this as the core, or privileged, sense of “objectivity”. In other words, as the sense that is closest to that implied in the paradigmatic applications of the term. But because I think objectivity is a confusing term, I will use the more precise term “mind-independence” to refer to this sense of objectivity. Similarly, I’ll use the term “mind-dependent” to refer to that which is typically considered under the term “subjective”.

The second interesting clarification comes from Craig’s use of the indexical terms “here” and “there”. When I see this it immediately sets certain alarm bells off in my head. Indexicals are probably the distinguishing mark of relativistic claims (moral or otherwise). So I take it that Craig’s use of the terms here is intended to exclude the relative from the domain of the objective.

But this raises the question: what does it mean for something to be relative? Roughly, a proposition or state of affairs is relative when its truth/falsity (or existence/non-existence) cannot be determined on its own terms, but only relative to some other proposition or phenomenon.

To modify Craig’s example, the claim “there is a desk ten feet in front of me” can only be assessed for its truth value relative to my current spatial location. It cannot be assessed in the absolute. It is perfectly possible for this claim to be true for me and not for you; no contradiction is entailed by this possibility (but note: it can still be true or false).


2. Do we need to distinguish the objective from the relative?
If Craig is conflating relativism and mind-independence in the course of clarifying the nature of the “objective” in paragraph one, then there might be a problem. While it might generally be true that mind-dependency and relativity are present at the same time, it is not necessarily true.

Richard Joyce actually makes this point in the course of his article on Moral Anti-realism. He argues that there can be mind-independent relativisms and mind-dependent absolutisms. As follows:

Mind-Independent Relativism: Michael Jordan might be tall relative to most other men, but he might be average in height relative to other basketball players. Thus the truth of any claim about his tallness is going to be relatively determined, but at the same time there is nothing particularly mind-dependent about it.

Mind-Dependent Absolutivity: We might decide that “X is good” means “My grandmother approves of X”. This would make goodness a mind-dependent property, but would it make the claim “X is good” a relativistic one? No; the truth conditions of that statement would hold true for all individuals at all spatial and temporal locations (it might be epistemically difficult for some of those individuals to gain access to those truth conditions, but that’s another matter).

This suggests that we can construct the following two-by-two matrix.

In future entries, I’m going to suggest that this two-by-two matrix is inadequate because there are even more dimensions to be considered when assessing metaethical theories. But for the time being we can use it to perform two interesting exercises.

First, considering the two dimensions we have identified, ask yourself: what is it that we would like from a metaethical theory? Is mind-independency really that important? Or is absolutivity the most important thing? I’m not going to propose any answers here. But it’s worth thinking about since one of the most common ways to do metaethics is to first specify what we demand from our moral terms and then look around to see if any of the available theories satisfy these demands. It could well be that no single theory satisfies all the demands and so when it comes to actually figuring out which theory is the most acceptable we have to compromise.

The second exercise we can perform is to try to position some moral theories on the grid. I have provided an illustration below. I put “extreme moral subjectivism” in the top left. This is the theory that makes moral truth entirely dependent on your subjective whims, which can vary from time to time and place to place. I put “external moral subjectivism” in the top right. This is theory that makes moral truth dependent on the subjective whims of another. This would be akin to the grandmother subjectivism discussed above. I put nothing in the bottom left because I am unsure what belongs there. And I tentatively place Craig’s preferred metaethics in the bottom right.

The placement is tentative for a couple of reasons. Although it is true that -- based on what he has said in paragraph one -- Craig wants his theistic metaethics to belong in the bottom right quadrant, his desires are obviously not going to determine the issue. We need to see whether his actual theory merits this placement. It may not.

For instance, Luke Muehlhauser has been arguing for some time that Craig’s theory really belongs in the upper right quadrant since he makes moral truth dependent on God’s mind (much like I did with my grandmother earlier in this post).

We need to be somewhat careful about this claim since it raises issues relating to the Euthyphro dilemma and Craig has some responses to this (or, rather, he adopts the responses of others) which I’ll have to comment on later (even though I have discussed them before).

But I should note that I have similar concerns with Craig’s theory myself. Elsewhere in his discussion, Craig seems to endorse the idea that moral obligations are relativistic. To be precise, he endorses the claim that moral obligations arise from relations between human beings and God. This would seem to make obligations (if not values) relativistic. Now maybe he could argue in response that the obligations we have towards God never change and are hence (contingently) absolute. The problem with this is that it is not obviously or necessarily true. For instance, I am sure a Christian (who believes in Hell) would have to believe that our obligations changed in the post-Jesus era. If this is right, then our obligations are not absolute.

Anyway, that’s enough for this post. I’ll look into paragraph two next time round.