Thoughts on morality: part 1

 Let me start by saying that I do not believe that morals are subjective. I believe that there are certain moral statements that we can make which are binding for everyone at all times. I won't be discussing those in this post or how I arrived at that position. I simply wanted that out of the way so that I am not accused of preaching something I am not. 

There are a number of ethical theories which have been purposed for arrive at morals for individuals and society. Many of them don't compete as much as they try to offer better answers. In fact, a number of them can be said to supplement one another. That said, most ethicists push their theories as exclusive. But there is one that probably gets pushed as exclusive more than any other. That would be divine command theory. Most religions do this, but in America Christianity would be the religion that does the majority of the pushing. This is the religion I will address mainly in these posts if I address any at all.

The first line of attack Christian apologists will take is to point out that without a divine law giver morality is subjective and arbitrary. There are two problems with this. The first is that this is merely an assertion. Is it true that without a divine law giver morality is subjective and arbitrary? On the surface it could seem that way. But ethicists who have been wrangling with these ideas for centuries would certainly beg to differ. Typically, what the apologist is doing here is making a distinction between subjective and absolute morality, not subjective and objective morality. It is really objective morality we should be concerned with. It is true that some people believe in subjective morality, and a few years ago it was all the range at universities, but no one today takes it very seriously. It simply doesn't work and anyone, giving it even a modicum of thought, knows it. But here the apologist is being a bit dishonest because they are making it seem that the argument is about subjective vs. objective morality when he or she really isn't wanting to talk about objective morality at all. 

The second problem is best summed up with the question, "so what?".  As I stated in the beginning, I don't believe morality is subjective. If morality were truly subjective it would be a rather terrible situation. People would just being doing stuff because they wanted to do stuff, there could be no accountability and society would completely break down. Of course, subjective morality isn't even possible, but let's pretend for a moment that it is. So what? It doesn't follow that because not having a divine law giver means morality would be subjective therefore there must be a divine law giver. If morality is truly subjective, then it is subjective. The end. It is the burden of the Christian to prove there is a moral law giver. They cannot do this by pointing out what we would rather not have and show how having a god would make things better and then declaring "Here he is!" It simply doesn't work that way.  You might as well ask a child if they would rather have a world with Santa or without Santa. Their answer won't prove Santa's existence, even if having a Santa would be ethically the best option. 

Low hanging fruit

 "Where do you get your morals from?" This is a gotchya question Christians ask nonchristians frequently enough to be borderline comical. Street evangelists such as Ray Comfort and Frank Turek love to use this trope in an attempt to prove that without a moral law giver morals are subjective and ungrounded. 

The problem with this sort of questioning is that it is simply picking at low hanging fruit. Most people, including Christians, have never given the topic of ethics much thought. Even if you were to ask most Christians on the street as to where they get their morals from you will will, at best, receive one of two answers: the Bible or God. But these two answers (which are really only one answer: God), don't really answer the question. They simply put off the question one more step, just as the nonreligious would do if you gave them a chance.

When the nonreligious are ask this question, "I dunno" is typically the only answer Christians are expecting and, regardless of the actual answer, the only one they hear. At least, that is the only answer the ilk of Comfort are recording. But if given half the chance they will give more of an answer and many of them do. It may not be the answer they like and it may arguably not be a good answer, but it will be a better answer than "I dunno".  They may say, "My parents", or "The law", or "My heart", or "My brain", or any number of other answers. But here the Christian will no doubt argue that these answers are not good enough because they are subjective and arbitrary. But this is where my original point comes to the front. Christians are making a similar mistake when using divine command theory as their moral framework. Simply saying, "Because God" doesn't excuse them from explaining where they get their morals from. All they've done is put the question off into the distance a bit. Is there really a God? Where does God get his morals from? Why should we trust him? Which God are we talking about?, etc. Christians make a whole lot of assumptions when asking their questions.

The apologist will have answers for this, of course. However, we aren't talking about them, we are talking about apples to apples and therefore we must interview the man and woman on the street. I bet if we interview a dozen christians we will discover that few if any will have a good answer to this question. In fact, most will have the equivalent of, "I dunno". Something like, "Because he's God and God is moral".   

It is important that Christians, if they truly want to evangelize the masses, that they start having honest conversations with the people they are evangelizing. Stop with the gotchyas and start putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Be honest and stop with the trickery. It really doesn't set a good example for the person you are supposed to be representing.