A common objection to reductive moral naturalism (aka 'ethical naturalism') is the so-called "naturalistic fallacy." This fallacy comes into flavors: logical and semantical.The Logical FormThis version of the naturalistic fallacy is normally referred to as the is-ought fallacy, the fact-value fallacy, or, in honor of its author, Hume’s Law. The source of this form of the naturalistic fallacy is the following passage by Hume. In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I … [Read more...]
Jonathan MS Pearce on Christianity and Inter-Testamental Moral Relativism
Jonathan MS Pearce recently posted a very interesting argument. Pearce starts with the fact that there are important differences between Old Testament ethics and New Testament ethics. If Divine Command Theory were true, however, he argues that this would be an example of "inter-testamental moral relativism."LINK … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Christianity, theistic metaethics Tagged With: divine command theory, inter-testamental moral relativism, Jonathan_MS_Pearce Leave a Comment
Interesting Book On an Argument for Moral Realism
I haven't read this book, which was published last year. I'm posting this based solely on the description provided here.As someone interested in metaethics generally, I think the book looks very interesting. I'm skeptical, however, of the claim that "were it not for the existence of moral facts, we would not be able to perform ordinary speech acts such as promising." I guess I'll have to read the book to find out how Terence Cuneo defends that claim. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: books of interest, metaethics Tagged With: moral facts, moral realism, Terence Cuneo Leave a Comment
Christian Philosopher Richard Swinburne on One Type of Moral Argument for God’s Existence
“Now if the basic moral principles are analytic, the existence of what they describe cannot provide an argument for the existence of God. An argument could only take off from the truth of some or all synthetic moral truths (e.g., from the fact that it is wrong to drop atomb bombs on Japan rather than from the fact that it is wrong to kill people who will not certainly come to life again). Now the fact that certain moral truths hold can only confirm, add to the probability of, the existence of G … [Read more...]
Filed Under: metaethics, moral argument Tagged With: analytic moral truths, Richard Swinburne, synthethic moral truths, William Lane Craig Leave a Comment
God, Last Night’s Republication Debate, and Moral Disagreement
During last night's prime-time Republican Presidential Candidate Debate, Fox News host Megyn Kelly said this: after the break, we’re going to let the candidates make their closing statements, their final thoughts, and God. Stay tuned for that. After the commercial break, Kelly said:“An interesting closing question from Chase Norton on Facebook, who wants to know this of the candidates: ‘I want to know if any of them have received a word from God on what they should do and take care of fir … [Read more...]
Filed Under: arguments for atheism, debates, metaethics, society & culture Leave a Comment
Another Christian Apologist Tears Down a Straw Man of Atheist Morality
My friend Wintery Knight (WK) has written another blog post on the topic of morality. Like so many other theists (and a few atheists), he manages to completely botch the topic of atheist morality.Who Speaks for Atheists, Anyway?If you want to determine Christian beliefs about something, you can see what the Bible and various representatives of the (Christian) church hierarchy have to say. So if you're a Christian apologist trying to make sense of atheist morality, it follows that you sh … [Read more...]
Filed Under: apologist watch, meaning of life, metaethics, moral argument, nontheistic metaethics Tagged With: Wintery_Knight Leave a Comment
What Are Objective Moral Values and Duties, Anyway?
The concept of "objective morality" is notorious for its ambiguity. You might even say that people--or, at least, philosophers--have a moral obligation not to use that expression unless and until they first give a very nuanced definition of what it means! Because the concept is often misunderstood, I'm going to try to offer a "layman's guide to moral objectivity" in this post.Morality and Moral ConceptsLet's start with "morality." The average person who is not a philosopher probably … [Read more...]
Filed Under: metaethics Tagged With: epistemological objectivity, objective moral values, objective morality, ontological objectivity Leave a Comment
An Amazing Coincidence about God’s Commands
Isn't it amazing that God's commands as reported by holy books just happen to reflect the views of the culture in which they were written? It's almost as if the authors of those books took their own opinions about morality and said they were God's opinions. … [Read more...]
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