Facts, Values, and Morality
“… if God does not exist, then morality is just a human convention,
that is to say, morality is wholly subjective and non-binding.”
-William Lane Craig
Table of Contents
Introduction
Sufficiency of Theism
Necessity of Theism
Conclusion
Introduction
Although Dr. William Lane Craig is certainly best known for his Kalam Cosmological Argument, I shall here address one of his more obscure papers: Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality. I write this both as a supplement to my own essay, Does Morality Require God, and also in order to refute the morality issue as it frequently appears in Dr. Craig’s public debates. Indeed, Craig’s essay more or less exactly corresponds to the “moral argument” frequently employed by him in those debates.
Indispensability begins with an entirely reasonable mise en forme. Craig starts by telling us that the issue of his paper is not whether atheists can be, and really are, moral — he not only grants this, but even grants that atheists “often live good moral lives… that sometimes put our own to shame.” The real issue, instead, is whether atheists ultimately have any objective foundation for their morality. That is, are atheists really ethical subjectivists who, perhaps just out of chance, occasionally happen to live according to the rules of objective morality? Could there be objective moral values if, as atheists suppose, God really didn’t exist?
I agree with this much entirely. Indeed, the only issue when we are discussing the dispensability of theological meta-ethical foundations for morality — i.e., whether or not acceptance of theism is necessary in order to have objective moral values — is the ultimate logical basis of atheistic morality. The actual morality practiced by atheists is an interesting, but ultimately irrelevant issue.
Unfortunately, it is on the relevant issue itself where I find myself in complete disagreement with Craig. He says that, “if God exists, then the objectivity of moral values… is secured, but that in the absence of God… morality is wholly subjective and non-binding.” Very simply, however, his paper is unable to establish that belief in God is in itself a sufficient condition for belief in objective moral values, much less a necessary one. These are separate issues, however, so I will respond to them each in turn.
The Sufficiency of Theism
The first part of Dr. Craig’s argumentation is to establish that, if theism is true, then objective moral values are necessarily true as well. I counter, however, that believing in God is not alone enough to assure the existence of any moral values, much less objective ones. This is not to say that theistic theories of ethics are not sufficient to establish moral values — I believe they are — but the distinction between simple theism and theistic moral theories will prove to be an important one.
Here is what Craig says on the matter:
On the theistic view, objective moral values are rooted in God. God’s own holy and perfectly good nature supplies the absolute standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. God’s moral nature is what Plato called the “Good.” He is the locus and source of moral value. He is by nature loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth.
This seems plausible enough on the face of it. But in this paragraph, Craig has not simply shown us what can logically result from accepting theism alone. Instead, he has constructed a moral theory in the context of theism. The reason for this is simple: value judgements cannot be derived directly from factual judgements. That is, we cannot infer moral value statements (like “God is good”) directly from statements of fact (like “God exists, and is loving, generous, and so forth”).
This can be shown by an example. Suppose we are trying to prove that Mahatma Gandhi was a good man — a reasonable proposition indeed! We might at first wish to propose an argument following this form:
1. Gandhi was a man who never hurt anyone, and helped a great many people.
2. Therefore, Gandhi was a good man.
This may look all right at first glance. But look at the relation between (1) and (2). There is no logical relationship. The argument we have proposed is a non-sequitur. Clearly, something needs to be added. We can solve the problem easily enough by adding one premise:
1. Gandhi was a man who never hurt anyone, and helped a great many people.
2. Anyone who never hurts anyone, and helps people, is morally good.
3. Therefore, Gandhi was a good man.
Now we have ourselves a valid argument. This also demonstrates very well the principle that values cannot be directly derived from facts. In order to get from the fact (premise 1) to the value judgement (premise 3), we needed a general theory about what sort of qualities comprise goodness. And what Dr. Craig has done, in the paragraph above, is skip this vital step.
Remember, Craig is telling us that God himself is the “locus and source of moral values” — i.e., the standard for what it means to be moral. This, in turn, he infers from the fact that God himself is perfectly good. But as we have just shown, in order to even conclude God was good in the first place, Craig must have already had some standard for objective moral value. Otherwise, calling God good would be arbitrary, and indeed ultimately meaningless.
All of this allows us to conclude that the factual statement inherent in theism — “God exists” — is not alone sufficient to justify moral values. Dr. Craig must also have in mind some general theory of morality. Bear in mind that, in itself, this is not a damaging admission at all — but, as shall be shown in the next section, it gives us the information we need to completely refute Craig’s primary thesis.
The Necessity of Theism
Dr. Craig writes: “…if atheism is true, objective moral values do not exist. If God does not exist, then what is the foundation for moral values?”
But, as we have just shown, the real basis of moral values — even in Dr. Craig’s view — cannot really be the factual statement “God exists”. Rather, if we revise his argument to account for the principle that values cannot be directly derived from facts, we get something like this:
1. God exists, and is perfectly loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth.
2. Anything which is loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth, is morally good.
3. Therefore, God is perfectly good.
Obviously, the real “workhorse” here is not premise 1, but premise 2. Moreover, we can remove (1) without affecting (2) in any way, because the general theory of morality is not dependent on a specific instantiation of itself. In other words, we can strip theism right out of the above argument, and be left with a perfectly straightforward (if perhaps simplistic) theory of morality: Anything which is loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth, is morally good.
What does this mean for Craig’s thesis that theism is necessary for objective moral values? Very simply, it means that, in order for Craig to have any rational moral values, he must have a general theory of what it means for something to be morally good. And this theory, precisely because it is general, must be true and applicable regardless of whether we add God to the picture. For example, without needing God at all, we can make this argument:
1. Bob is loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth.
2. Anything which is loving, generous, just, faithful, kind, and so forth, is morally good.
3. Therefore, Bob is good.
In other words, I, an atheist, can use the very same moral theory that Dr. Craig has to use in order to conclude that God was morally good!
So, clearly, theism is not necessary to have objective moral values. What is necessary for objective moral values is a general and universally applicable theory of what it means to be morally good, and anybody — whether they are an atheist or a theist — has equal epistemological right to such a theory.
Conclusion
Based on the above, then, we can see that anyone can believe in objective moral values, even if one does not believe in God. The only real necessary difference between the theist and the atheist on this matter is that the theist usually believes in a perfect example of objective moral values.
Still, there are a few other arguments employed by Craig which I have not yet addressed. So, I will address them here briefly.
The first is that atheism necessarily leads to the formation of an evolutionarily-centred “herd mentality” form of ethical subjectivism. However, Craig shows no sense in which the atheist must believe this. Indeed, there are a multitude of non-theistic ethical theories which are objectively applicable by nature, such as Kant’s Categorical Imperative, Mill’s utilitarianism, or Hobbes’ Social Contract Theory. These are general theories of ethics which may be consistently accepted by theists and atheists alike.
The second is that, since atheists do not believe in punishment after death, they necessarily have no reason to regard moral values. This is completely disingenuous. If that were true, Craig would have to advocate the idea that the meaning of moral values is dependent on the degree to which they are enforced. This is clearly untrue, however. If it is wrong to torture people, to use Craig’s example, it is simply and intrinsically wrong, and therefore ought not to be done regardless of whether or not one will be punished. Craig is suggesting as a principle of moral philosophy the idea that punishment justifies morality, which leads to ethical subjectivism more surely than atheism ever could. It should in fact be almost self-evident, that, on the contrary, it is morality which justifies punishment.
Craig’s third objection is that naturalism, because it affirms determinism, cannot affirm morality. This fails on two points. First, atheism is not naturalism; atheists do not have to be naturalists. Second, Craig’s objection has no proven relevance for naturalists, either, because he presents no reasons why determinism precludes morality. If there are objective moral values — and we have already proven that there can be, whether one believe in God or not — then it seems obvious that actions are objectively right or wrong whether one believes in determinism, free will, or some position between the two.
The fourth, and final objection, is that atheists have no reason to place value on other people’s lives, and must act only through pure selfishness: as he says, “sacrifice for another person is just stupid.” Presumably, for Craig, self-sacrifice is only rationally justified if one will be rewarded for it in the afterlife; unfortunately, that is not self-sacrifice! How can we respond to Craig on this point? Only with the fact that some of us — atheists and theists alike — believe all human life, not just our own, has intrinsic value. Craig wants to make morality in general entirely dependent on factors like afterlife reward… but in doing so, he is conveniently ignoring that true objective morality is intrinsically, not dependently applicable.
Craig tries to justify his objections by frequent appeal to the writings of people who agree with him. Unfortunately, the presence of agreement from some philosophers does not constitute substantiation for the idea that no atheists can affirm morality.
So, my original point remains. Objective morality, of necessity, is something which may be believed by theists and atheists alike. This is because objective moral values derive from general moral principles: principles which establish that certain actions are right or wrong period. Objectively good actions are good whether one will be rewarded for them or not, and regardless of whether one was predetermined to do them; and objectively evil actions, similarly, are evil independent of such factors. Craig’s essay tries to disprove atheistic morality by relying on a shallow and inconsistent view of morality — one which nobody ought to accept, whether they believe in God or not.