Secular Moral Absolutes
David Hume
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYe_V2hOZ4
3. Where do you get your morals from?
Yet another tired old argument for theism–the moral argument–which I have dealt with before, specifically in regard to secular moral absolutes. His first major point is meaningless because it is based on subjectivity and outrage: “This is all that morality ends up being!”
The description he gives of the development of a moral tendency or moral behavior, according to the evolutionary model, is essentially correct. He makes the interesting point that morality at its core speaks to the future, and not the past–prescription, and not description. This is true, and it speaks directly to the is-ought problem as elucidated by philosopher David Hume. That is, one cannot logically deduce an “ought” from an “is.”
This means, unfortunately for the speaker, that even his own theistic morality is not supported by logic: just because God tells him to do something, it does not logically follow that he should. He cannot derive an “ought” from an “is.” Thus, a God-based morality and a human-based morality are equal when it comes to the is-ought problem. However, there are nevertheless several key advantages for a human-based morality, one of which is that we know humans exist, but do not know if God exists. Other things equal, it is better to ground your morality in something you know exists than in something you don’t know exists.
It should also be mentioned that the moral issue, while very interesting, is not really relevant to the question of the veracity of atheism per se. It speaks to consequences of the truth, but not the truth itself.
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