Morality and atheism: an analysis -- 3 of 3

See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.

Let's look again at the exchange with my friend via email:

BUT WHAT DOES WRONG MEAN? WHAT DOES RIGHT MEAN? WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOMETHING BEING RIGHT OR WRONG? AND WHY DOES THAT OR OUGHT THAT COMPELL TO ACT THIS OR THAT? FROM A THEISTIC PERSPECTIVE, IT MAKES SENSE. THERE IS A GOD WHO HAS THIS CHARACTER OF GOOD. WE ARE HIS CREATION AND OBJECT OF HIS CARE, AND OWE HIM LOYALTY AS HIM ON WHOM WE ARE UTTERLY DEPENDENT. HE IS ALSO THE JUDGE "WITH WHOM WE HAVE TO DO." THERE IS REASON TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS WILL. THERE IS REASON TO DO GOOD. IT ENTAILS THE DESIRE TO FULFILL OUR DESTINY AS THOSE MADE IN HIS IMAGE (TO BE GOOD), TO WALK IN INTIMACY WITH HIM, AND THE FEAR OF JUDGMENT FROM THE JUDGE

I think it should be clear that everything I've written in parts 1 and 2 was intended to deal with the question of whether or not, "from a theistic perspective, it [morality] makes sense." I attempted to argue that morality cannot be contingent upon God's nature, that God's nature is an unsatisfactory basis for moral justification, and that using God in talking about morality obfuscates, rather than enlightens. I further developed in part two on how using God in talking about morality brings up more questions than answers, given the inability for God to fit the criteria of moral virtue that our own (human) nature does.

In sitting here writing about morality, and in your sitting there reading about it, we both presuppose something important: that morality and moral motivation are amenable to reason. If, at a basic level, people will act how they feel like acting, despite rational arguments against this behavior, then both of us are wasting our time, in a cosmic sense. It is only in the hope that people can be swayed by argument and can respond to normative values that we spend time on this endeavor.

Two irreducible and irreplaceable components of morality are the fact-value and is-ought distinctions. If you cannot commit to the existence of ought or the existence of value (even if these are merely nominal or conceptual), then no moral argument can be made to move you, for all such arguments presuppose these two things. My approach in making a moral argument will be to talk about human nature, human desires, moral values and the principles of symmetry and justice. One of the things I need to assume for the sake of trying to persuade you rationally to act morally is that you have a value for your own life and/or that of others around you. If you (irrationally) conclude that your own life has no value and neither does anyone else's, then your feeling on this matter has precluded my ability to persuade you to rationally act on the values that I must assert exist.

It is here that theists often conflate atheism with a lack of value and/or lack of obligation. And they are correct in saying that if there is no value to anything, then moral realism is false and we are all really responding only to our genetic and evolutionary programming by acting on our desires and avoiding things that repulse us. If this latter scenario is correct, then we are wasting our time writing and reading about morality, and all we can hope for is that the instincts we have will serve us and our society well in the future. In fact, our "hope" in this case is just a "feeling" as well and does not necessarily conform to rational direction.

Now I want to address his question:

• Why does that, or ought that, compel us to act?

This is where meta-ethics is done and moral psychology comes in.

Now, some theists assert, belief in God is a necessary part of moral motivation. Let's put one thing out there first: even if this is true, we cannot will ourselves to believe in something that we are not genuinely persuaded to be true. That means, in effect, that unless the theist can give the atheist a genuinely reasonable argument that persuades the atheist to become a theist, then this assertion is not normative. And so, if belief in god is not possible for a given person, and if moral motivation is dependent upon god-belief, then obviously that person will lack moral motivation. It doesn't mean that they can motivate themselves to believe in something they find unreasonable in order to motivate themselves morally!

Second, the theist appeals to two things for moral motivation that may seem uniquely available to theists:

1. fear: if you don't obey God's commandments, you'll be punished for it
2. self-interest: if you do obey God's commandments, you'll be rewarded for it
   

Simply put, the components of fear and self-interest exist in the atheist's world just as much (if not more so) than a theist's. If this life is all that there is, then it takes on an extraordinary amount of value, given that it is all that we have. Morality is logically necessary for society to function, rather than fall apart into chaos. Therefore, one can be motivated as an atheist by fear of anarchy and chaos, as well as the self-interest of hoping for a stable, prosperous society to live in. In this way, atheists can use fear and self-interest just as much as a theist. I can make other arguments of a similar fashion, whether the fear is based on going to prison, or the self-interest is based on "let live in order to live" symmetry. Bentham argued along these same lines, in showing how self-interest was not contradicted by altruism, for the overall good of society.

When we use the word "good" we imply value. If one is an amoralist, and claims there is no real ultimate value to anything, then it would be rather difficult to convince said person to be motivated to act morally. By reframing the motivation into one of a reasoned argument, you are still forced to accept, at some point in time, that doing something good is of value to you or to those you care about. Here's a short simple example:

1. All of the following are good: wealth, health and happiness.
   
2. Human beings can cooperate in societies, or they can compete tribally
3. When human beings form societies, morality is necessary for order and stability
4. The lack of society, in the form of tribal competition, does not bring about the greatest amount of these goods (from 1) for the greatest number
5. Since the greatest good for the greatest number occurs within society, morality is necessary to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number
   

What this argument does is give context to "doing good" by showing that "doing good" brings about second-order goods, in the form of wealth, health and happiness. If someone denies the first premise, then of course we're back at square one. But denial of premise (1) would seem to pose a problem for a theist, as it seems that most religions accept that God wants good things for humans; what about belief in God could make (1) false?

In addition, it may simply be the case that morality is self-contained when it comes to motivation: you do what is good because it is the good thing to do; you shun what is evil because it is evil! This may be simple, but that doesn't disqualify it at all. In point of fact, this may be the best motivation of all: the nature of morality itself is normative and therefore motivates us. It does not require external factors or belief: when you know what is good, you do it; when you know what is evil, you avoid it.

• On meta-ethics

I intend to deal with exactly what the first two questions he asked mean:

1. What does wrong mean? What does right mean?
2. What is the significance of something being right or wrong?

One question that meta-ethics brings up is what our ontological commitments are. That is to say, what sorts of things exist, and what properties do they have? We do not have to (yet) "account" for the things we think exist in simply describing ontology, as this is the purview of metaphysics and requires a comprehensive analysis. The question that is relevant here is that of moral realism and how it may affect the existence or nonexistence of moral facts and moral properties.

The queerness of moral properties has been known for a long time, but is probably best summarized by John L. Mackie in 1977. The roundness of an object is given in the object's dimensions and relations to itself. This is an easy property for us to define and make sense of. What about the property of clumsiness? We all must admit it exists, but to define it, and to show how this property is instantiated and exemplified gets very complex. What may seem awkward and clumsy to one person may seem a least satisfactory to another. In addition, while the property of roundness is given in an object's relations to its own dimensions (its shape), what exactly about someone or something makes it clumsy? Its movements, yes? But exactly which movements? Therein lies the rub...

Let's consider the case of evil I've been using since the first post: drowning an otherwise-healthy infant. Is it my pushing an infant below the surface of water that is immoral? Obviously not, mothers bathe their children in the same way every day. Is it the moment at which the baby's heart and brain are clinically dead? Well, that seems to imply that if I was able to resuscitate the child to life, then I've done nothing immoral. So in the same way that it becomes difficult to pin down the exact dimension of movement that is clumsy, so it is difficult to pin down the exact dimension of action versus intent that is evil. This is part of the issue of the queerness of moral properties: how to locate and define them in the first place.

One of the things that I think causes theists to argue that God is necessary for, or at least comports well with, moral realism is that they recognize that God is attributed the same queer properties as morality is: transcendence and metaphysical ultimacy. That is to say, there seems to be nothing about space-time and physics that make moral properties what they are, and they don't seem to be contingent upon the world in which we live.

• If moral properties exist, and are metaphysically ultimate

If it is indeed true that moral properties exist in the same way the redness and roundness do, and are metaphysically ultimate (not contingent), like mathematical truths, then the answers to our questions about right and wrong are simple, although they may not be to our liking: 2 + 2 = 4 because by definition, that's just what it means to sum identities. In the same way, drowning an infant is wrong by definition, that's just what it means to be immoral. There is nothing "arbitrary" about this, it is the definition of what it is.

But wait, you say, that's not satisfactory! Perhaps it doesn't explain things to your liking, but if it's true, then it's true: morality may simply be about the issue of causing harm to others. That maybe all that it is, whether we like it or not. The problem we have with this is that even when we agree on the moral status of some act (like drowning a baby), we may come up with different justifications for why we feel it is so.

But is this problem unique for morality? Not at all. Think, for instance of defining something scientific, like the unit of length. We all use different systems of measurement, but the objects being measured, and their property of length -- assuming it is constant -- these things are not subjective, but objective. Are our own systems of measurement arbitrary? Absolutely! But, the object that we measure is not arbitrary!

Perhaps all we're doing with the different schools of thought on morality is measuring the fundamental harm that something causes, or looking at it from different angles, but we aren't changing the fact that morality is still all about harm!

Moving on to his second question: what is the significance of it? A simple answer exists: right and wrong possess their own virtuous force! The significance of something being good is its goodness, which motivates us and defines its value. The significance of something being evil is its badness, which also motivates us (away from it) and defines its (negative) value. If more significance is needed, such as fear or self-interest, then I've already covered that, above.

This is one answer to my friend's question, although we may not like it because it is "too simple".

• If moral properties exist, and are contingent

Another possible answer to my friend's question about what right and wrong "are" could be that they are related to some objective facts about the world which are not metaphysically ultimate (like mathematical truths and analytical truths). Morality could be based on human nature and evolution. Indeed, it seems to be the case that humans can all agree on a few things (if you disagree, feel free to point out which premises you find faulty):

1. Certain facts about human nature give us certain desires and needs.
2. We rank or order these desires and needs into a sort of hierarchy. The need for food and water are foundational to our own minute-by-minute survival, while the desire to procreate is contingent on these first-order needs being met.
3. We either: 1) assign value to these things, or 2) recognize that there is intrinsic value to them. This distinction is drawn for someone who may be inclined towards nominalism (1) versus realism (2) when it comes to properties and relations.
   
4. When actions and behaviors promote our values, these are "good" and thus are morally what we ought to do. When actions and behaviors detract from, or go against these values, they are "evil" and thus are morally what we ought not do. This seems to follow definitionally from the concept of something having positive or negative value to us.

Imagine for a moment that pulling off someone's arm caused them to experience an orgasm, and they immediately regrew the limb. For that person, would pulling off their arm be an immoral act? It seems clear that the facts and restrictions about human nature; namely, how we experience pain and pleasure, directly influence our concept of morality. All you have to accept is that pain and pleasure form the basis of moral value, given human nature and the desire and need to avoid pain and the desire and need to enjoy pleasure. Thus the basis for many ethical theories involving utilitarianism.

Besides this simple but easily-followed layout of how we get the idea of objective moral properties that are contingent upon human nature, we can talk about how our moral faculties evolved and what role biology plays in the exercise of morality. Please notice that we're going from what good and evil are to how we recognize them.

On a recent Point of Inquiry, Marc D. Hauser spoke of how our moral faculties may be like our grammatical faculties -- cognitive modules that either develop properly or don't, but are entirely based on biology and evolutionary logic. He and Peter Singer summarize this view in a nice article hosted by the CFI. His co-author (Singer) has also written some great pieces on this same issue -- the evolution of a moral sense -- for NYT Magazine, among others. (also see this, this and this)

Now, what these scientific explanations really do is give plausible mechanisms to explain the evolution of a moral sense in humanity, including such evolutionary oddities as kin altruism. This, in turn, explains why we have an innate disgust at the idea of child rape and a universal set of moral principles involving avoidance of suffering and harm. What this does not do is give a meta-ethical justification as to whether or not causing harm without justification (i.e., self-defense, warfare) is actually wrong.

For that, we return to the question of whether foundational concepts form the basis of morality:
"Causing harm without necessity is wrong," or something of the like. The best answer seems to be that morality is all about causing harm, and that, by definition, humans ought not cause harm without justification (self-defense or the law).

In conclusion, the answers I present to my friend's questions are:

1. Wrong and right refer to actions or behaviors that we ought not do, or ought to do, respectively. Either these things are metaphysically ultimate, such as 2 + 2 = 4, and therefore not contingent, or they are objective facts founded on human nature, based on the concepts of pain and suffering. If they are contingent, then, they are contingent upon human nature; the existence of these values flows from our own human natures: value is directly related to human needs and desires. These are universal and absolute, given that survival and death are universal human experiences, but may or may not be metaphysically ultimate. Either way, they are independent of the question of God's existence.
2. The significance of rightness or wrongness is, as Kant would say, "the thing in itself": the value of acting morally is its own significance. If this sounds circular it is meant to be so, because the entire idea of morality is self-contained: as we have seen, appealing to authority or fear are not the same as appealing to one's sense of duty and obligation. Doing good is, itself, good (valuable/significant) and doing evil is, itself, evil (it works in opposition to that which we value and find significant). One must derive value from "doing what is good/doing what one ought to do," nor find reason to oppose "doing what is evil/doing what one ought not do"

And so it seems the crux of the issue is this:

• If moral realism is true, then there are moral facts and objective moral properties.
• If moral realism is not true, then "moral facts" may simply mean that certain statements or beliefs about morality are just how humans feel about them -- this is the essence of cultural relativism
  
• If moral realism is not true, then we have no real cause to argue about morality, since you are simply affirming how you believe when you say, "X is good," or "Y is evil," and so am I. Our beliefs cannot be fundamentally proven right or wrong, and so moral disagreement may never be resolved.
  

See here for the outline of all three posts on morality and atheism.