Glenn Peoples on arguments from morality

Dr. Glenn Peoples gives a short talk about arguments from morality, arguing that we can know there is a God based on moral considerations.

The talk was presented at a Reason and Science Society meeting on Monday 6 September 2010 in Mac 3 of the biology building (hence the skeletons on display). Moral arguments for the existence of God are based on two main premises - that there is an objective morality, and that God is the best explanation for it. Dr. Peoples received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Otago. Following the talk we had a discussion on this topic for the rest of the hour.

Here's a link to Glenn Peoples' talk later the same evening "The new atheism, science & morality":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBdbw7RjPeg

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Glenn Peoples
• Morality
• Morals
• Argument from morality
• Moral argument
• Arguments
• God
• Existence of God
• Moral facts
• Natural
• Supernatural
• Is-ought problem
• Plato
• Forms
• Atheist
• Theism
• Old Testament
• Philosophy
• Reason and Science Society
• RSS

[fabianopetroni]

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.- Carl Sagan

[ludaniki]

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaa­aaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Oh dear, Somebody wants to look like Jesus.

"....Not that persuasive", there you have it don't waste 14.53 minutes of your one life to a mystery loving Psuedo-intellectual. Why don't you just cough up some real evidence for your mumbo jumbo claims.

[cheetah100]

"fact: a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true." The term moral fact is a contradiction of terms. Morals derive from subjective human values. Our common agreement to a set of values or morals makes them "fact" no more than common agreement that the earth was flat before the discovery that it was a sphere.

[binschmidt]

Perhaps the atheist cannot complain that the OT God is objectively immoral. But are theists really ready to claim that it is moral to be callous, heartless, and to condone torture? We all know those things are immoral, as surely as we know that there are moral facts. The actions of the OT God are so far removed from our intuitive sense of what is moral that we can know that if there are objectively immoral acts, then the actions of the OT God are objectively immoral.

[binschmidt]

It’s not true that an atheist can’t complain about the bad things the OT god did. An atheist might not appeal to objective moral facts to judge the OT god as “immoral”, but rather appeal to attributes that god has. e.g. if the OT god orders a genocide, this could plausibly be described as “callous”, “heartless“, or “condoning torture”, which is plausibly in conflict with other Biblical descriptions of God (e.g. “God is love”); an atheist can complain that the Biblical view of God is incoherent.

[binschmidt]

Re: Old Testament: “if we were to agree that the God of the OT did some pretty shady things, we’d still have to conclude that atheism is false”. Yes, but as Glenn says, we’d still have to deal with the claim that there is a god, but the OT doesn’t describe this god. Or, perhaps, the OT does describe a god, but a different one to the one who created moral law.

[binschmidt]

Premise 4: "The most plausible way to think of the supernatural basis of moral facts is in terms of a supernatural person who brings moral facts about."

Glenn gives poor arguments against Plato’s impersonal conception of morality. Why is “intentionality” important, and why does it require a person? A computer can goal states and form rules which help to achieve those goal states - what does that miss?

[binschmidt]

“we tend to think that these acts are things that ought not to be done, no matter what culture you come from” - but cultural universalism doesn’t imply universal. Possibly the rule against torture and child molestation apply just to us, and anyone somewhat like us. In this context, “somewhat like us” can apply to all human cultures, and perhaps even non-human cultures, but are not necessarily anything objective and universal.