Evaluating Dr. Craig's Moral Argument
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- I'm joined by Dr. Dustin Crummett, professor of philosophy at the University of Washington Tacoma and Seattle Pacific University. In this interview he critiques Dr. William Lane Craig's version of the moral argument.
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certainly interesting, but we need a discussion between Dustin and WLC. Without Craig's response to Dustin's critique we're left hanging
Wait, is this some sort of a trick to get me, an unsuspecing atheist, to watch apologetics content? 😀
potentially ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Do it. No balls
This was really good, as is everything I've seen by Dustin. Such a sharp dude. I just watched his defense of his Moral Knowledge argument on the Explore Christianity channel. That was really worthwhile, just a great conversation over all in tone and content. Subbed to his channel and super excited to see the Oppy/Pearce convo.
I hope he post more videos because he does have better stuff to say than some of these channels on youtube using outdated arguments.
Around the 40 minute mark they discuss the low reputation moral arguments like this have among philosophers and wonder why it's so popular with the public. It seems like a big part of the answer must be the weight C. S. Lewis puts on a similar argument from morality in Meer Christianity. That was the only book of apologetics I had read at least till my 20s and when I first encountered it as an adolescent I was very persuaded by it (though I don't find it so convincing anymore). Lewis must be one of the most, if not the most influential Christian writers today, so I imagine his emphasis on the argument must have had a big impact.
I like Dustin but this was pretty incoherent. In what way is morality objective without divine command? We never got a clear answer here. “We just ought not to do it” isn’t an objective standard.
Nice interview. It seems to me the best approach to defending a moral ontology argument is a systematic assessment of theistic and atheistic metaethical views, offering independent objections to atheistic ones and defenses of theistic ones, building an inductive case for a theistic explanation of moral values and duties. Now that would be extraordinarily difficult, and would be probabilistic (but deductive arguments often just have hidden probabilities anyway), but at least on the right track. Thoughts?
that seems right
I agree.
One could also make the case that duties can only be grounded by persons, and are broken when these persons fail to keep their commitments, and so, some sort of ground of moral duties in a morally perfect person might be a good theistic explanation to put up on offer.
@@quad9363 Interesting idea!
I struggle to see a potent objection levied here. The best point was that divine command theory(DCT) seems to make moral duties "extrinsic", but to me that's just a narrow perspective on DCT. Does DCT even posit that the "only" reason you do an act is because God specifically commanded "thou shalt not X"? I doubt it. To me, DCT also includes the "command" to "not harm for no reason", not just a wooden moral acts. What if I'm the scorpion on the frog's back; why should I ultimately care about interpersonal or mammalian moral reasoning? I'm a scorpion.
Seems like he is missing the whole point. How can you ground morality itself and your "dont harm for no reason" stopping point? Just because harming for no reason would be true, doesn't mean I *ought* to abide by it at all. He seems to be violating the is-ought principle. Who cares? What if I feel like slapping somebody for fun? How can a Christian possibly not ultimately ground it in God Himself? Are you really going to ground that in "well I can find reasons in each situation." That is begging the question that any reason you give will ultimately impose and ground an ought. This is an insurmountable problem all atheistic ethicists face, why is a theist taking on their skin?
God is the light of the world, not your rationalistic harm principle or whatever else you can think of. That is the moral framework, God. He himself grounds any intrapersonal reason for doing a moral act you can think of. And all the moral intuitions and reactions we feel originate from and are thus grounded in the holy nature of God. Which is beautifully articulated by Craig's solution to the euthyphro dilemma.
You can reject 1 for non-theistic accounts of objective moral values such as Platonism. It just doesn't work.
Craig never solved anything. He wants to have the cake and eat it too. Morality cannot be dependent on god otherwise you destroy its objectivity. It is really simple and evident but you guys don't want to accept it!
@@anteodedi8937 this seems false/wrong/doesn't follow. couldn't one say(as some do) that morality is dependent/grounded in God and is objective because God is objective or something like that?
@@jonathacirilo5745 The whole point of morality being objective is that it is so independenlty of anything. The divine command theory works only in the sense of using god as a moral transmitter but then it becomes trivial and Craig's argument doesn't work.
@@anteodedi8937 idk about that, but i don't know enought to properly argue for this position. craig and others probably do/did tho.
I feel like this entire conversation was talking past Craig's argument. Crummett kept saying that all we need is to reference particular experiential factors (i.e., like my being a conscious being who feels pain) to explain the wrongness of my causing pain. But his last response to my question about most ethicists having deeper unifying explanations reveals that such factors fail to provide a wholistic explanation of why such moral values and duties supervene at all. Many ethicists are like Craig in that they DO see the need to have a deeper unifying explanation than "well, causing pain unnecessarily is wrong because it causes pain." Which is Craig's whole point! We need a deeper explanation of why "wrongness" supervenes on a wide variety of different states of affairs, and he gives a variety of reasons in his published work. It's a little disappointing that this discussion focused on a 3-minute video and barely touched on Craig's defenses of this argument.
I guess I'll more or less repeat what I said on Facebook: my argument was that the fact that something causes you pain for no reason is sufficient to make it true that you ought not do it. (That, by the way, is a separate issue from whether there is some deeper moral explanation for *why* causing pain is wrong. What I mean is that that's all that has to be true of concrete reality for it to be wrong.) On Craig's view, that is not true. If it was, it would be wrong in the atheistic world too, since actions that cause you unnecessary pain still do so in the atheistic world. On Craig's view, something else also has to be true of concrete reality for pointlessly causing you pain to be wrong: it has to be that God has issued a command forbidding causing unnecessary pain or whatever. And that's what I say is incorrect.
@@dustin.crummett Thanks for your response!
@@dustin.crummett but without god you cannot ground/justify why something is objectively evil/wrong. The grounding and justification to universally bind morality at the objective level is what is needed
super informative video, thank you
Under rated content 🎉❤
I had to stop in and just share with you that anytime I see a child on a thumbnail with a hot take on William Lane Craig‘s arguments… I don’t expect too much. This way I don’t get disappointed🤪
Nice interview! One question I wondered is whether you're thinking of uploading more of the youtube interviews as podcasts? From a personal pov, an hour + interview is better as a podcast than a youtube video as you can use it on commutes/long journeys etc. Regardless, appreciate the content!
Nice interview. I think a better type of moral argument would maintain, not that there can be *no* objective morals without God, but that theism allows for a significantly more *robust* morality (which, of course, would need to be explained and defended).
It isn't a bold and powerful apologetic move to say that "atheists can be moral" instead of "THERE IS NO MORALITY WITHOUT GOD".
but I agree with you 100%.
@@p00tis well of course, anyone can be moral (albeit imperfectly). that's not at issue. the issue is, do objective moral values and duties exist and if so, how are they grounded. There can be a confusion of ontology and epistemology
Nothing new or groundbreaking here, but what about the following. Objective morality implies that we ought to do certain things and ought not do certain things. Since persons (not nonpersons) are the sorts of things that ought's apply to, doesn't it just seem that fundamental to the nature of these ought's would be a person. It appears to me unlikely that an impersonal foundation of reality would account for a world where person's ought do anything.
Let's assume people evolve from mere matter and there is no god. They get to a level where they develop empathy as a survival strategy that aids the group, becoming so empathetic that they actually suffer themselves in witnessing the suffering of others. So they reason that they ought to reduce suffering on the grounds that they understand it, dislike it, and minimizing suffering is best for everyone. So the ought is grounded pragmatically in their well-being, the well-being and longevity of the family, tribe, species, etc. If they value those things as goals, then they ought to reduce suffering, etc.
I thought Dustin dealt with that when he addressed those who think morality must have a social dimension. It was toward the beginning of the interview, I think.
@@andrewmoon1917 doesn’t seem to me that he did but I could be wrong. His argument and he even says in a comment below that something is morally wrong IF it causes pain for no reason. One, I’m not sure I can imagine any example where that is the case considering whenever anyone acts, moral or immoral they do it for a reason. Let’s say there are instances of this though, what about instances where bad is done for clear reasons? What if Bob wants a new pair of Air Jordan’s so he robs Cindy? Bob is not doing this immoral act for no reason, quite the contrary, to him he has a very good reason, namely to buy new shoes. It just seems like Sam Harris’s moral argument which still doesn’t seem to be objective morality. Again, I could just be off on this and not tracking but idk.
Edit: I did go back and watch the entire video again and I do have to concede that Dustin has gotten me a lot closer to his view. It just still seems like something is missing. Anyways, I’ll continue thinking on it.
Being made in the image of God, it is a necessary property of humanity over the animals which stands so clearly unique. The ability to imitate God or not. Love is the law of God walked out in the social interactions of the image bearing community. And this likely extends into the animal kingdom on a sliding scale. We were designed for a world which has moral obligations. He made it that way so we can relect His light or not. This was purposed to "silence the Accuser". It is literally why we exist, in part. To play out the necessary condemnation of the Rebellion. This is why evil exists. So that a remnant can't live forever with God, and vindicate God's government before the unfallen inhabitants of the creation.
46:36 I also want to add that presumably divine command theorists also wants to say that God isn't just grabbing a bunch of disparate non related things and saying "these" or that his nature is just a bunch of disparate unrelated virtues.
The problem with the Divine Mandate Theory is that it invites to be answered with the Euthyphro Dilemma and with the possible arbitrariness of God. And if you answer, as many apologists do, that God would not command, for example, to kill because He is the embodiment of good or because He is the good you invite the response that you are changing from a God who can do anything He wants to a God who can do anything He wants that is not against his nature. In effect, you are putting limits on God in order to save your argument. Under that meric then we are all omnipotent because why can't I fly or breathe underwater? Because it is not in my nature.
Thanks, that was a very good video, I really like Dustin's takes on many topics.
Honestly, the moral argument from Craig is as bad as you get in terms of apologetics (and in philosophy more broadly). I think it may even beat the level of badness of the ontological arguments.
The optimum of cringe is when Craig says : If atheism is true, then we are animals and since animals don't have moral obligations, then neither do humans. I mean, obviously the fact that non-human animals don't have moral obligations has nothing to do with them being animals, nothing to do with them being from another species and everything to do with them not being rationnal enough to be moral agent.
I wonder how Craig can make such bad points, makes me think that he is engaged in motivated reasoning.
Your cat doesn't, you think? What if thinks it does? Not to our degree, but what if there was a small tick of obligation? We may not know now, but what if in the future we do? Is that possible?
Maybee it's because your dealing with a 5 minute video, but it seems that your either begging the question yourself, and/or deriving an ought from an is.
I can say that an inventor designs a thing for a purpose. You can use that thing in ways that the inventor did not intend. Thus you would be violating a standard set by the inventor. God still seems to be the origin of how things should be.
Does the purpose or standard set by an inventor determine how the invention _ought_ to be used?
@@chad969 it depends on who the inventor is.
@@malvokaquila6768 Why does it depend on who the inventor is?
@@chad969 do you have any moral philosophy under your belt?
@@malvokaquila6768 Yes.
Nearly every criticism you made of the argument has been answered by Craig or many others. For instance when you tried to claim that other people obligate me to treat them well, that was a really niavè statement. That may work on a highly agreeable person, but on any dictator, criminal or sociopath they could not care less about what you try to obligate them to do. There is simply not a single compelling reason to act morally, objective or not, if your actions are totally divorced from your destiny/wellbeing. I don't hold to Craigs divine command theory, but regardless of Craig the entirety of ancient and medieval Christian tradition has seen God as The Good, The absolute standard of morality toward which all moral action is directed. Without God nothing would exist at all, so it may be a redundant counterfactual to ask "would there be objective morality without God", it's like saying "would there be emotions without consciousness". With any proper definition of God the answer will still always be no, there would be no objective morality without God, there would be nothing without him for He is the fundamental Reality that upholds all phenomena.
" There is simply not a single compelling reason to act morally, objective or not, if your actions are totally divorced from your destiny/wellbeing" - And what's your argument for claiming that? Moral rationalism, i.e. the idea that it's always irrational to not follow one's moral obligations, is a very popular theory and it would establish that every rational being, always, everywhere has a reason to act according to morality, even in a Godless universe. In general, the question "Why should I do what I ought to do?" seems completely silly to me - you should do it because you ought to, there's nothing more to say.
@@dominiks5068 You really don't seem to have grasped the true enormity of the question, 99 percent of people haven't and that's why they give the same reply you gave at the end of your reply. Most people haven't delved very deeply into this area, done any integration of the shadow or moved passed the dictates of the super ego for moral action. So to them the very question of "why act morally?" Seems silly. Also I'll point out that when you say "why should I do what I ought" you are deriving an ought from an is, you are saying the world "ought" to be a certain way. As Immaneul Kant pointed out, you cannot derive an ought simply from what is, the world you see before you with no further inferences. Kant absolutely believed in an objective moral law, but he argued thoroughly that it could only be grounded in God/transcendent Reality.
I would agree that it is always rational to obey your conscience, if and ONLY if your conscience is actually a true moral compass pointing toward an objective underlying moral reality. That means that following your conscience is directly proportional to your long term wellbeing and therefore following it is in your own best interest, meaning it's rational. If you have a moral system like karma/the law of reciprocity then acting moral is rational because it's in your own best interest, because no one ever gets away with evil, if they don't face judgement in this life they will in the next. However without God/ Immaterial moral reality, without life after death, that is, in a purely materialistic universe, then what you call your conscience is nothing more than the residue of evolution and social conditioning to aid in cooperation between humans of equal power levels. As soon as an individual has sufficient power, the need to cooperate with those below him loses all utility and therefore his "conscience" at that point is nothing more than a vestigial pattern of brain wiring to be cast off, a shackle to his freedom.
I have written on this topic at length if you would like to read it.
I see nothing in this interview but opinions and conjecture.
Neither of you offers a rebuttal or argument of your own that stands up to WLC's.
I'd rather take WLC's epistemology anytime over "something like that" definitions 🤦♂️
If we consider the God of Sina, and a belief in Moral Realism, what does it mean that Christians largely jettison his moral precepts? Didn't Jesus die because we broke them?
Very interesting video. I think Craig's deductive moral argument is bad and I reject both of the premises.
You reject objective moral values & duties exist?
@@leonardu6094 I think they probably don't exist or, at the very least, that there are no good reasons for believing that they do exist.
@@yourfutureself3392 Thanks for the response. Let me ask you an honest question; Are you prochoice or prolife?
@@leonardu6094 I don't really care about that topic that much but I'm pro-choice. I want the father to have a say when it comes to aborting the child tho.
@@yourfutureself3392 Pro choice, as in you believe the woman has a moral right to do what she wants with her body?
Not quite sure what you guys are talking about, the moral argument is solid. If God does not exist, who/what says that objective moral values exist?
did u even watch the video?
@@emkfenboi I'll admit I could only make it through half of the video and once they started down the whole "begging the question fallacy" talk they lost me. Up until that point they really didn't say anything that would convince me the moral argument isn't solid. So if you did watch it, if God doesn't exist, please explain who says moral values exist?
Cringe
@@cultofscriabin9547 Still no answer?
@@derrickcarson The question is, do objective moral values exist if God doesn't exist, and the answer is, obviously yes, because moral values aren't dependent on God. What makes killing wrong is some facts about the killer and the victims, not some facts about God, to put it simply.
The moral argument is good for people with Theistic intuitions. It persuaded me. Now people have anti theistic biases so they'll just chalk morality up to evolution and not look too deeply into the problems of that
a very bad argument from a very smart person. thanks for giving pushback to that argument
a very bad argumemt from not a very smart person or a very bad argument from a very smart but also very dishonest person 😂
First of all I absolutely need to compliment your intellectual honestly on the subject. I knew how hard this is for theist since you presupposes the existence of god. To me this is one of the weakest arguments precisely because it's begging the question. I never spoke with a theist before who admitted this. So great.
Yet I have to push back. The most important question in this video is the part where you discuss god as a subject. This part seems a bit dishonest. It actually doesn't answer the question and the response actually does what christians often do. The response literally. Well if we change the definition and we tilt our head in a specific angle while watching it in a mirror it can be objective. You need to elaborate here.
Than we know right now that at this very moment over 30 million gods are being worshipped. They all give us different moral rules. This is crucial. Any choice for any possible god cones with a different set of rules. So you basically make a subjective choice for a religion that comes with a set of rules. How in any possible way can this not be subjective. You choose a set of rules, you decided it's the best god a d the best set if rules. Absolutely subjective.
I also have a question for you. Can you tell me what the purpose is of any set of moral rules? It seems that if you can answer that question and we can agree in the answer all moral rules supporting that goals almost automatically follow objectively without the need of any god
Lastly. God did order men to even kill babies. You didn't handle this well.
I really miss this in this debate. Is it because you both realize that you cannot actually refute them?