Philosophy: Logic & Apologetics (Week 8)

In America, many people think everyone should decide for themselves what’s right or wrong.

No one has the right to tell others what their morals should be;

instead, people in a group or culture each have their own ideas and values.

And when you add all these ideas together,

you get a culture’s moral system.

But this also means that what one group thinks is right, another group might think is wrong,

And no one can say the other is “Wrong.”

This idea is called moral relativism.

But not all atheists like this idea.

For example, the atheist author Sam Harris says:

“moral relativists generally believe that all cultural practices should be respected on their own terms, that the practitioners of the various barbarisms that persist around the globe cannot be judged by the standards of the West, nor can the people of the past be judged by the standards of the present. And yet, implicit in this approach to morality lurks a claim that is not relative but absolute…”

“Most moral relativists believe that tolerance of cultural diversity is better, in some important sense, than outright bigotry. This may be perfectly reasonable, of course, but it amounts to an overarching claim about how all human beings should live. Moral relativism, when used as a rationale for tolerance of diversity, is self-contradictory.”

Question: Why is the statement, “All truth is relative” contradictory?”

Not only is it contradictory,

But it’s an unlivable worldview.

it can only be embraced from the comfort of one’s living room chair.

The reality is, for most of us, when we spot injustice, we can’t sit idly by and chalk it up to cultural differences;

Deep down - we know better.

Example, slap/spit in their face.

Almost everyone will freely admit that what Adolph Hitler did was wrong.

We don’t care if he thought it was morally OK

It wasn’t, and he ought not to have done what he did.

The theologian G. K. Chesterton wrote about this problem in the early 1900s, saying:

But the new rebel is a Sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it . . .

As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time . . . The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts . . .

In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”

The truth is, to say that all moral actions are relative to the person and their opinion, is philosophically unlivable.

Even if we are unaware of it, we all measure people’s actions by some absolute standard that transcends personal opinion.

But if right and wrong are relative to the individual, we have no right to do this, yet we do it anyway.

If you don’t have an external and objective moral standard,

Then this means that you end up thinking your culture is superior to other ones - just cuz you’re special.

This is cultural imperialistm.

And why is called that?

It’s because we are forcing our own values onto others, but what gives us that right?

When we step outside of our everyday lives and look at the world as it really is, full of injustice, we can’t just ignore it.

The truth is, we all have strong instincts about right and wrong that we can’t shake, even when they don’t fit perfectly with what we believe about the world.

So the question is: why do we feel this way,

and where do these instincts about right and wrong come from?

According to Darwinism, the strong eat the weak.

So if humans are simply bigger brained animals,

then why is it wrong for stronger humans to prey on the weaker ones

Violence is a natural part of our world.

When one animal devours another animal, we don’t believe it is morally wrong,

so why is it only wrong for humans to take advantage of the weak?

In the 1940s, the Nazis shocked the world with their extreme cruelty.

But we shouldn’t forget that Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ didn’t happen in an uneducated or backward place—it happened in Germany,

one of the most educated countries in Europe.

Despite their education, reason alone didn’t convince the Nazis that their terrible treatment of Jewish people was wrong.

They believed they were right based on their understanding of science, specifically eugenics.

Questions: What is Eugenics?

OK, so during this time the intellectuals of Germany had rejected belief in God,

so on what basis could other Germans argue for basic human rights?

In Western history,

people believed that human rights were discovered, not invented.

The United States’ Declaration of Independence even says:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But if rights don’t come from God,

then how can we explain their existence?

Some people argue that human rights must come from nature.

They think certain behaviors just work better for us,

so morality should encourage those behaviors.

But, again, why on earth should I care about what works best for everyone?

Especially if Darwinism is true, and it’s the survival of the fittest!

The philosopher J. L. Mackie argued that human rights could not be derived from any self-evident truths;

instead, they had to be created by humans and were developed over time.

But if human rights are created by the majority,

then there is nothing to appeal to when they are legislated out of existence.

Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner.

The famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche criticized the English intellectuals of his day for throwing off Christianity without also throwing off Christian morality.

He saw this extremely hypocritical.

He wrote:

“They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality . . . When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads…

Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands . . . Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth—it stands and falls with faith in God.”

Though Nietzsche believed that God was dead (which means that God doesn’t exist),

like Dostoevsky,

he was not sure if it was a good thing.

Nietzsche said that if people stopped being loyal to the Christian God,

they would transfer their old faith in God to something else.

In fact, Nietzsche predicted that people would put their trust in cruel “brotherhoods with the aim of the robbery and exploitation of the non-brothers.”

Almost prophetically, this is precisely what occurred half a century later with two world wars that led to the deaths of millions.

Question: So today in America, what are some common moral beliefs most people hold, even if they do not believe in God? (Human Rights)

Why do they believe these things?

Where did it come from?

Like the English intellectuals, they have thrown off their belief in God, but they can’t help but cling to His morality, at least in part.

But as Nietzsche pointed out, it is hypocrtical to cling to the morality of the Christian God while denying His existence.

Another thing, not everyone agrees with us Americans about human rights.

For example,

China claims that the idea of human rights is a Western notion that we are attempting to force upon the rest of the world,

which amounts to cultural imperialism.

And what is Cultural Imperialism again?

If human rights are not universal and true for all people at all times,

then different cultures have every right to their own moral standards,

and we cannot say that any one action is moral while another is immoral - including Nazi Germany’s.

But if this is the case, and morality is similar to color preference,

then who gets to put their subjective, arbitrary moral preferences into law?

The majority?

What if the majority decides to exterminate the minority?

If you say that’s wrong,

how do you justify your moral preferences being mandatory for others to follow?

If there is no God, then all moral statements are nothing but expressions of our arbitrary, subjective feelings,

which means there is no external moral standard to judge them by.

This means, that if God does not exist,

it is impossible to justify human rights.

But the fact is,

we cannot seem to shake the obvious truth that human rights do exist.

Recognizing this challenging truth:

the agnostic law professor Arthur Leff bleakly wrote:

“As things stand now, everything is up for grabs. Nevertheless: napalming babies is bad. Starving the poor is wicked. Buying and selling each other is depraved . . . There is such a thing as evil. All together now: Sez Who? God help us.”

Question: What is moral relativism?

Question: What are examples of moral relativism in our culture today?

Question: What is cultural imperialism, and how does this lead to racism?

Question: What would you say to someone who thought God doesn’t exist, but then said the God of the Bible is evil?