The Sye delusion

There has been a great deal of debate on Stephen Law’s blog recently. A presuppositional apologist called Sye Tenb has a website that claims to offer a proof for God’s existence. Stephen’s comments on this ‘proof’ opened the floodgates, and the ensuing battle that raged between Sye and his critics ran to 254 comments, and has since spawned numerous additional posts from Stephen. In this post I will briefly explain why I think Sye has failed to make his case.


Sye’s unsound argument

In a nutshell, Sye’s argument is as follows:

P1: The existence of logic presupposes the existence of the Christian God.
P2: Logic exists.
C: Therefore, the Christian God exists.

This is a valid deductive argument, but it will only be sound if both premises are actually true i.e. we agree to accept that they are self-evidently true, or else they are the conclusion of some other sound logical argument. Of course, both of these possibilities can be contentious, for what are we justified in taking as self-evidently true, and where do we finally stop in our chain of justifications if each premise is the conclusion from some other argument? Ultimately, it turns on the concept of properly basic beliefs (beliefs that require no further justification), as this is where the buck finally stops if you do not believe that there is an infinite chain of justifications, or that we can have circular justifications. However, Sye has not provided a sound argument (or series of arguments) to justify his P1. Nor has he asserted, much less attempted to justify (which would be impossible to do anyway, in my view), that his P1 is a properly basic belief. Therefore, I will accept that P2 is true, but as P1 is not self-evidently true, and is not justified as the conclusion of a further deductive argument, I will not accept it. Hence, I conclude that his argument is unsound as it stands.

Sye has not admitted that his argument is unsound, as he doesn't seem to think that his P1 is in need of any further justification, although he never explains why this should be the case. Perhaps he doesn't understand the structure of a deductive argument (a conclusion that is logically entailed by a set of premises), or perhaps he thinks that his P1 is a properly basic belief? Anyway, along the way, he has informally presented a number of subsidiary arguments, so I will look at these next.


Sye’s attempts to rescue his unsound argument

Sye has tried a number of approaches to rescue his unsound argument, but each fails. Here are some of his attempts:

Sye attempts to justify P1 from the above argument with the following argument:

P1: Logic cannot be accounted for on any atheist worldview
P2: Sye’s Christian worldview is not an atheist worldview
C: Therefore, logic can only be accounted for on Sye’s Christian worldview

However, this argument is even worse than his original one. Firstly, his new P1 is also not self-evidently true, and is left unjustified – so the argument is not sound. Secondly, even if we grant his new P1 (which we don’t), his argument is not even valid, as it is a false dichotomy. At best, all that it could ever prove is that logic can only be accounted for on some non-atheistic (i.e. theistic) worldview – not necessarily the one that Sye subscribes to. It could just as easily be one in which God is omni-malevolent, or entirely uninterested in humanity, or one that posits a multitude of gods.

Sye has also tried the following argument:

P1: If nobody has yet proven that logic can be accounted for on any atheist worldview, then logic cannot be accounted for on any atheist worldview.
P2: Nobody has yet proven that logic can be accounted for on any atheist worldview
C: Therefore, logic cannot be accounted for on any atheist worldview.

Whilst formally valid, this is a clear example of a logical fallacy: argument from ignorance. Firstly, the people commenting on Stephen’s blog form a very small subset of humanity, so their inability to ‘prove’ this cannot be taken to entail that ‘nobody’ can produce such a proof. Secondly, it is possible that one of more of the people on Stephen’s blog can actually provide such a proof, but they have so far chosen not to do so. Thirdly, even if nobody in the whole world can produce such a proof, or will ever be able to produce such a proof (an assumption that we are not justified in making), the first premise is still false as it stands, as our inability to prove a proposition does not render it false. The first premise would only be true if we presuppose that at least one of Stephen or his commenters is omniscient, and that they would have provided such a proof if they knew it. This assumption is unjustified.

Another variation on the same theme is this attempt from Sye:

P1: If Sye’s Christian worldview is correct then the laws of logic will exist
P2: The laws of logic exist
C: Therefore, Sye’s Christian worldview is correct

However, this argument is an example of a formal fallacy known as affirming the consequent. Even if God’s existence entails that the laws of logic will exist, the converse is not true unless we can show that the laws of logic can exist only if God exists (in which case P1 would become: If and only if God exists then the laws of logic will exist). However, this is not self-evidently true, and Sye has not justified it, so the argument is unsound as it stands.

Sye tried a different approach with this next argument:

P1: People who do not believe that logic can only be accounted for on Sye’s worldview are not entitled to use logic to construct their own arguments
P2: Stephen and some of his commenters do not believe that logic can only be accounted for on Sye’s worldview
C: Therefore, Stephen and some of his commenters are not entitled to use logic to construct their own arguments

However, P1 is not self-evidently true, and Sye offers no good justification for it, so the argument is unsound as it stands.

There is a general theme that runs through Sye’s arguments: his worldview accounts for logic (due to God), so his worldview should be taken as being true unless we can produce a better alternative. However, in general, this is a bad way to argue. Even if we were to grant that it really is the case that there is only one known explanation for some observation (and it is not instead that the arguer is just ignorant of the alternative explanations - as with Sye), then we are still unable to say whether this explanation is a good or bad one without doing some more work. That it is the only explanation doesn’t in any way entail that it is not a bad explanation. Julian Baggini wrote an article about this point.

In fact, Sye's assertion is even stronger than just taking his worldview to be true by default. He asserts that it is actually impossible for any other worldview to account for logic. Moreover, he believes that the onus is upon those who disagree this claim to prove him wrong by proving that their worldview can account for logic, rather than upon him to substantiate his impossibility claim. However, it is clear to all other than Sye and his ilk that the burden of proof rests upon those who make the claim - particularly if this claim disagrees with the consensus view, and even more especially if this claim is contrary to a vast amount of evidence about how the universe actually works. In this case, by asserting that it is impossible for logic to exist without the existence of some supernatural agency (when we have no good evidence that the supernatural exists at all), then Sye has his work cut out. For a good discussion on the burden of proof, see this.

In fact, for a variety of reasons, I would suggest that Sye’s ‘God explanation’ is a very bad explanation – and should therefore be rejected, even if we have no alternative explanation to hand (which isn’t actually the case). In order to validate his theory, what Sye is doing is focusing on one apparently confirmed prediction made by his God theory - that logic exists - and ignoring all of the other failed predictions. Moreover, as we already know about the existence of logic, it looks suspiciously as if God has just been defined in such a way that logic is entailed – as opposed to actually predicting it and finding this prediction met. In any case, if we are really seeking the truth, rather than just indulging in self-delusion, then we cannot focus solely on successful predictions from our theory, and ignore the failures. What Sye should instead be doing is looking to see if his theory can survive his and our best attempts to falsify it. Moreover, to be properly falsifiable, his theory should make clear, unambiguous, and bold statements that can be compared empirically against reality. If his theory’s predictions are vague and equivocal, then it will be difficult to falsify, since it is not clear what would constitute a failed prediction. Equally, if his theory merely predicts things that we already know to be true (such as the existence of logic), then we have no good reason to favour his theory over any other that merely predicts the same observations.

In fact, I would argue that the God theory (based upon the core Christian beliefs) is a bad one, as it is implausible, lacks parsimony, and has little explanatory scope or power. In order to explain the existence of the physical universe, it posits some unseen and inscrutable supernatural realm ruled by a universe-creating superbeing. Since we have no independent proof that anything other than the physical universe actually exists, this makes the theory inherently implausible. As such, its extraordinary claims require a correspondingly high standard of supporting evidence. Do we have such evidence? Theists will typically resort to the evidence in the Bible, to what their religious leaders (or other people) tell them, or to their own perception of religious experience.

Firstly, the Bible. In general, I would contend that forming empirical beliefs about the world based upon statements contained in ancient historical documents is liable to be unreliable. Due to the many known examples of misplaced credulity, exaggeration, and fabrication in historical documents, and to the lack of knowledge of the world possessed by people in these ancient times, we must be very careful about granting too much credence to the contents of these documents. Descriptions of events are always questionable unless they can be corroborated by relevantly similar descriptions in other sources – preferably those already known to be reliable. Additionally, in the case of contentious elements (miracles and suchlike), we need to consider whether it is more likely that the events or things described actually happened, or that (as a minimum) the supernatural elements of such descriptions are false. In the particular case of the Bible, we have a number of serious problems:

1) We have accounts that were written many years after the events themselves were supposed to have happened
2) We have inconsistent and contradictory descriptions of the same events
3) We have little or no corroboration in any other sources
4) We have methods that are known to introduce unreliability - word of mouth, geographically dispersed multiple authors, editing and compilation that is arbitrary or that has an agenda, elements that were revealed in dreams etc.
5) On top of all of this, we have a number of extraordinary metaphysical claims about supernatural entities (including God) and events. Some of these claims are in opposition to our current reliably formed knowledge about how the universe actually works.

In light of this, I would argue that the Bible clearly does not constitute the necessary extraordinary evidence for the extraordinary metaphysical claims made about the existence of God and a supernatural realm.

Appeal to religious leaders or other people fares no better than appeal to the Bible as a source of the requisite extraordinary evidence. The first problem when it comes to relying on such testimony is that the set of statements made by such people is partially or wholly contradictory, so choosing to believe any particular statement or set of statements on this basis alone would seem to be purely arbitrary. Generally, we can accord some measure of reliability to testimony if the statements come from someone who has demonstrated that they are an expert on the topic concerned. However, in the case of religious leaders, the statements are usually vague metaphysical ones that offer no means by which their truth or falsity may be determined. We have no independent yardstick against which to judge the reliability or otherwise of their metaphysical statements, so no determination can be made. Hence, we have no good reason to judge this as a reliable truth generating mechanism, and plenty of other reasons to judge it otherwise (some statements contradict reliably formed knowledge, and many statements are in contradiction with each other etc.). So, this also fails to meet the necessary high standard of evidence.

How about people’s religious experience – does this provide the necessary evidence? I would argue that the simple answer is no. Firstly, any divine messages and revelations that people claim to have received by such means are culture-specific, inconsistent and contradictory. Secondly, any such messages seem to consist of nothing more than banalities or vague and unverifiable metaphysical notions. No new and verifiable scientific or mathematical knowledge is ever produced, for example. Thirdly, we are aware of many more plausible and more mundane alternative explanations for such feelings of the transcendental – dreams, hallucinations, power of suggestion, psychotic episodes, delusions etc. Are we justified in taking such experiences at face value (as basic beliefs), in the same way that I would do when I perceive an object in front of my eyes? No, as the difference between the two cases is that we have no evidence that religious experiences reliably generate true belief, whereas we have lots of mutually-reinforcing evidence of the reliability (most of the time) of our senses. Furthermore, as the beliefs acquired through religious experiences are often contradictory, we know that some or all of them must be wrong. Hence, it is clearly an unreliable mechanism for generating true belief, and can be discounted as a way of acquiring the necessary extraordinary evidence for God’s existence.

What’s more, even if we were to grant some supernatural communication (which we have no good reason to do), neither we nor those communicated with have any way to establish that the message comes from God – as opposed to it being a deception from some evil demon, for example. Even God, if it exists, would have no way to determine if it was actually being deceived by some evil demon into thinking that it is the creator and ruler of the universe (since, if it is being deceived in this way, then it is not actually omniscient and omnipotent at all – this is merely part of the deception).

Attempts have been made to prove the existence of God by analytic means alone – for example, the Ontological Argument. However, this argument is open to a number of objections, and few philosophers are convinced of its soundness. Theists might also resort to one or other of the cosmological or teleological arguments for God’s existence. However, all of these arguments have been convincingly rebutted, and most can anyway only argue for some inscrutable universe-creating entity as opposed to the specific Judeo-Christian God.

So, in conclusion, there is no good evidence, much less extraordinary evidence, that God and his supernatural realm exist at all.

Furthermore, when we examine the predictions that the God theory makes, we find that it predicts a very different universe from the one that we find ourselves in. We would expect it to be far smaller, more congenial to our type of life, contain far less suffering, and contain clear and unambiguous evidence of God’s existence. What we actually find is that the universe is very old, very big, almost entirely lethal to our type of life, and that life evolved by some meandering and haphazard process. Why? Moreover, why does God need a universe at all? Surely we should all be in Heaven (or Hell) already, as an omniscient God must know how we will choose to act (even if we were to grant the existence of free will).

What's more, our world contains far more suffering (both natural and man-made, ours and that of other animals) than is reconcilable with the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. Why would God create a world containing so much suffering, when he surely had an infinite number of other possible ways that he could do it? And, if he did knowingly create the universe this way, is he not morally responsible for all of this suffering?

In addition, why would God’s existence be unknown to billions of people who have lived, or are alive today? Why wait until the last few thousand years, and then only reveal it to a handful of people in Palestine? If we need to believe in God’s existence in order to enter Heaven, as many Christians believe, then God has knowingly consigned billions of people to eternal suffering (or, at best, they will not enter Heaven). Why?

Yes, the theory can be patched up by the introduction of a plethora of entirely ad-hoc elements (e.g. necessity of human free will, benefits of suffering, God’s mysterious plan etc.). However, by such means we could justify any theory. To proceed this way is intellectually dishonest, as it renders the theory unfalsifiable. Whatever criticism is levelled at the theory, the theist will just introduce some additional ad-hoc element to explain it away. Therefore, Ockham’s razor would rule against such a theory in favour of some more plausible and parsimonious natural explanation for the world. For much more on this, I would recommend the following essay (which Sye, in particular, would do well to read and ponder).


Conclusion

Anyway, back to Sye’s original ‘laws of logic’ argument. At several points in the discussions, he gives the game away by saying that he knows that God exists, as he has had an ‘objective revelation’. So, it seems that even he isn’t really convinced by his own argument (as well he shouldn’t be), or else he would not need to justify his belief in God by reference to this ‘objective revelation’. What this ‘objective revelation’ is he never explains. Until he is prepared to spell it out in detail, I cannot evaluate it one way or the other, so I will ignore it.

Sye has repeatedly asked for an explanation of how the laws of logic can exist on an atheist worldview. As I have explained, the absence of such an explanation in no way helps Sye’s case. Nevertheless, I will point him in the right direction with the links below. In the meantime, he needs to answer the following question – which he has repeatedly and conspicuously failed to do. Until he does, then his arguments amount to nothing.

Sye: Please demonstrate, by means of a sound logical argument, that logic can only be accounted for in your worldview.


http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/logic.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/induction.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/reppert.html

Free will and punishment

Do we deserve to be punished when we break the law? Many people would say yes, and there is some philosophical justification for this view. Kant, for example, argued for a retributivist theory of punishment. He reasoned that people in general are rational agents who choose their own actions, and should therefore be held morally responsible for them. With reference to the first formulation of his moral imperative, Kant argued that, by acting badly, criminals bring the punishment upon themselves – since by punishing them we are acting towards them as they are acting towards others. Moreover, he took this one stage further, by suggesting that the severity and type of punishment should fit the crime (the Biblical lex talons). For this reason, he argued that capital punishment was justified for (at least some) cases of murder. Kant felt that the sole justification for punishment was that somebody had behaved criminally. Whilst he accepted the utilitarian arguments that punishing people might increase overall societal happiness, deter other would be criminals, and possibly help to rehabilitate existing criminals, he nevertheless believed that these reasons could never be used as the justification for punishment. At best, they would be merely positive by-products of punishment. To do otherwise, he reasoned, would be to treat people as means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves (i.e. punishing the criminal would be the means to achieve the end of deterring other would be criminals, and punishing criminals would be the means to achieve the end of improving overall societal happiness). Kant argued that we should never do this.

However, Kant’s concept of retributive punishment presupposes that those being punished are rational agents who are able to freely choose their actions and make their own decisions, and are thus morally responsible for them. For this reason, Kant held that animals, babies, or the severely mentally impaired shouldn’t be punished for their actions. But, are we responsible for our actions in the way that Kant’s theory of retributive justice requires? Do we freely choose our actions? Could we have chosen otherwise? In other words, do we have free will? If not, then this theory of retributivist punishment does not apply to us, as it is unreasonable to hold people morally responsible for the consequences of actions that they were constrained to make. For example, if I was forcibly pushed out of a window, and landed on a pedestrian, then I could hardly be held morally responsible for any injury I caused them, as it was out of my control. Whether we are able to morally justify retributive punishment or not has clear implications for the way that we judge and punish criminals. As the possession of free will seems to be essential to assigning moral responsibility for actions, I will examine it in some detail.

Intuitively it does seem that we do (in general) possess free will, are rational agents, and should therefore be held morally responsible for our actions and decisions (on Kant’s theory). However, the existence or otherwise of free will is open to a great deal of metaphysical debate, and this calls into question our moral responsibility. This metaphysical debate first splits into those who accept determinism and those who don’t. Determinism is the theory that, given the state of the physical universe at any specific time, together with the laws of nature, the state of the physical universe at any other time (in the future or in the past) is uniquely determined. In particular, if we assume that our cognitive activity is entirely dependent upon physical processes within our physical brains (I will consider alternatives later), then our future cognitive activity (which governs our future decisions, actions etc.) is already uniquely determined by the state of the universe now, together with the laws of nature. So, on determinism, free will seems to be an illusion, as every one of my future decisions and actions is already uniquely determined. But, is determinism true?

According to classical theories of physics (e.g. Newtonian dynamics), the universe is, in principle, perfectly deterministic. However, on the subatomic level, there is some debate as to whether quantum events are deterministic or not. If indeterminacy is inherent in quantum events, as current theories suggest, then this would clearly rule out determinism (although, it should be noted that the effect of a certain amount of quantum indeterminacy might be limited at the macro level). However, it could be that events at the subatomic level are actually perfectly deterministic, but that the provisional nature of our current quantum mechanical theories doesn’t allow us to determine this. Nevertheless, even if there is some indeterminacy inherent in the quantum world, this might be irrelevant as far as moral responsibility is concerned – as we shall see a little later. So, determinism is at least a plausible theory that has some evidential support. Perhaps it is the argument to the best explanation.

Note that fatalism is not the same as determinism, and is not entailed by it. Determinism does not say that the future will be the same whatever course of action we choose, in the way that fatalism does. Rather, it says that there is only one possible future, and all of our future actions are already determined by the current state of the universe together with the laws of nature.

Those who reject determinism are known as libertarians. Some libertarians have supernatural beliefs that cause them to reject determinism, and others not. In the former camp are those who believe that we possess a non-physical mind or soul that somehow enters into the causal chain in the physical world leading to physical actions. According to supernatural libertarian theories, whilst the physical universe might be deterministic, the non-physical mind or soul can override the physical and allow us to retain free will. However, the proponents of this theory have yet to give any satisfactory explanation as to how a non-physical entity can have a causal effect upon a physical one (e.g. the physical brain). They have yet to produce any good empirical evidence that such non-physical objects actually do cause such effects (even if we don’t know how they do it). Moreover, they have yet to produce any good empirical evidence or compelling arguments that such non-physical entities exist at all. Thus, such theories lack plausibility, have little evidential scope and power, and require the positing of various ad-hoc entities and mechanisms. We could invent an infinity of such theories, and have no reliable way to discriminate between them in terms of likely truth. This is a very unreliable way of getting at the truth.

In the latter camp are those libertarians who reject determinism for naturalistic reasons e.g. by appeal to quantum indeterminacy to create some ‘elbow-room’ for free will. Whilst such theories at least have the benefit of plausibility, they would appear to achieve nothing more than allowing that some events in the brain are random (due to the random nature of some quantum events). However, this wouldn’t give us genuine free will. One could no more be held morally responsible for the consequences of random events in the brain than for the results of actions constrained by a lack of free will. So, whilst some of these non-supernatural libertarian theories are feasible, it is not at all clear how they can entail the free will that is necessary for moral responsibility.

Amongst the determinists, there are those that believe that determinism is incompatible with free will, and those who believe that the two are actually compatible (i.e. not mutually exclusive). The former are known as hard determinists, and the latter as compatibilists. The compatibilist argues that we retain free will so long as we are not actually forced to make a particular choice (by having a gun to one’s head, for example). They further argue that possession of free will under this definition entails moral responsibility. Hard determinists argue that compatibilists are wrong to base their definition of free will upon the everyday usage, rather than on causal necessity, in order to give them a basis for moral responsibility. They argue that we might feel that we have free will, but that determinism entails that this is an illusion. The hard determinist also notes that only certain constraints would remove free will in the sense that the compatibilist employs it. Being physically restrained or hypnotised might do it, but having a gun to one’s head would not, since one can still freely make the choice to be shot.

More importantly, the hard determinist would argue, why does the compatibilist think that certain causes are compatible with free will (determining ones), and others not (constraining ones)? Is this distinction not arbitrary? For example, imagine that someone is hypnotised to always choose a particular flavour of ice cream over others, but is unaware that they are hypnotised (this example is based upon one given by Stephen Law). As far as they are concerned, they are always freely choosing chocolate rather than anything else but, in reality, they are under the control of the hypnotist. The compatibilist would probably agree that this person no longer has free will, as they cannot make any other choice but chocolate (or whatever). But, what is the relevant difference between this situation and the one under determinism? In both cases the choice is constrained, as no other choice is actually possible, but the person still has an illusion of free will. Moreover, the onus is on the compatibilist to explain why we retain moral responsibility under one type of constraint (the deterministic type), but not under another (the everyday sort). Why should a person be morally responsible for an action that they were powerless to avoid?

For example, on determinism, it might be an absolute certainty (from the state of the universe now, together with the laws of nature) that a particular person will be born tomorrow, and that this person will go on to commit a murder thirty years later. This future is the only one possible. However, as this future is uniquely determined already, how can we be justified in eventually holding this person morally responsible for this action, even though it is something that they cannot avoid doing (any more than we can hold morally responsible the person who is pushed out of a window and lands on a pedestrian)? We can further motivate this concept by comparing it with the past – which is similarly invariant on determinism. Imagine it is a fact that somebody committed a murder yesterday. Further imagine that we can time-travel into the past to witness this murder. Would we say at the moment of committing the act of murder that the person involved has the free will to choose not to do it – despite the fact that we know that the murder will be committed (as we have come from the future, where it is a recorded fact that this murder was committed)? Since we already know the outcome, we know that the person involved must commit this act. It is hard to see how we could defend the argument that the person has the free will to choose not to commit the murder, as free will seems to entail that one could choose to act differently.

Perhaps we can defend the idea that free will doesn’t require choice? One thought experiment that is used to motivate compatibilism (courtesy of Harry Frankfurt) asks us to imagine a person who intends to rob a bank. Unbeknownst to this person, a bank-robbery loving demon is watching him, and will step in to force him to rob the bank should he choose to call off the robbery. However, the demon’s intervention is not required, as the person does not change his mind. In this case, it seems intuitively that the person freely chose to rob the bank, even though no other choice was actually possible (because of the demon). Moreover, from his personal perspective, he retained a feeling of free will. From this we are supposed to conclude that free will does not require that we actually have more than one possible choice – free will is compatible with this constraint. However, the hard determinist could argue that the situation under determinism is closer to the hypnotism thought experiment above, rather than to the bank robbery one – which is a subtle but important difference. Frankfurt’s thought experiment, they would argue, leads our intuition astray, as it makes us feel that the robber initially has a perfectly free choice, and that the demon will only need to enforce one particular choice if the robber makes the wrong one. However, on determinism, there is never a time when the choice is free – as the choice is already determined before the person makes their choice (in fact, from the beginning of the universe). They are constrained just as the hypnotised person is. So the case that free will doesn’t require choice is not made.

The compatibilist says we are free if our actions come from our character and desires without coercion. However, on determinism, our characters and desires are caused by forces outside our control – we did not choose our characters or our desires. This is a serious problem for the compatibilist. This objection actually applies to the supernatural type of libertarianism as well. In that case, our actions come from our character and desires, as well as our soul (either acting independently, or influencing our character and desires). The only difference from the compatibilist case is the introduction into the equation of a supernatural soul. However, the design and properties of our soul were not within our control either – they were designed and given by God (or some other supernatural agency). Even if our soul changes according to our (supposedly free-willed) life choices, then the rules governing any such changes were created by God (or whatever). So, this is out of our control as well, and free will becomes incoherent on this theory too.

So, where does each of these metaphysical possibilities leave us with regard to moral responsibility? Of the varieties of libertarianism, only the supernatural variety would seem to allow any room for genuine free will (and that’s open to debate, as the theist’s concept of free will may be incoherent). So, on this theory moral responsibility might exist (notwithstanding the implausibility of the theory itself).

Of the theories of free will that admit determinism, only one might be compatible with free will, and hence moral responsibility – compatibilism. However, in order to rescue free will, the compatibilist has to explain why it is that free will might be removed by some physical constraint (handcuffs, hypnotism etc.), but not by determinism (without equivocating between relevantly different concepts of free will). Furthermore, they must explain why the concept of free will is not incoherent. Hard determinism does not allow for genuine free will. The non-supernatural variety of libertarianism allows for a certain amount of randomness, but this doesn’t seem to entail that we have genuine free will.

So, where do we stand when we return to Kant’s theory of retributive justice? Kant argued that it should apply to rational agents who are free to choose their actions. Under these circumstances, such agents are morally responsible for their actions and, if necessary, should be punished accordingly. However, if we are not free to choose our actions because such actions are uniquely determined by the state of the universe, together with the laws of nature, then retributive justice should not be applicable. As we have seen, hard determinism dictates that we do not have genuine free will so, on this theory, retributive justice would be inappropriate. Furthermore, whilst compatibilists and those who subscribe to some non-supernatural variety of libertarianism wish to allow for free will, it can be argued that they have so far failed to successfully make their case – at least in a form that would entail moral responsibility. So, on both of these theories, retributive justice would also seem to be inappropriate. The only theory of free will that I have examined that might allow for genuine free will is the supernatural type of libertarianism (and this theory is implausible for a variety of reasons).

If we reject free will, and hence moral responsibility, then it would seem that retributive justice (at least as formulated by Kant) is untenable. In this case, should we still be in favour of punishing those guilty of crimes? Perhaps there is a way of reconciling determinism or libertarianism with free will, and this retributive justice but, regardless, we can still justify punishments, including the removal of freedom, on Utilitarian grounds. If a criminal is removed from society, then they are no longer able to commit such crimes – which tends to improve the overall happiness and well-being of the rest of society. Furthermore, such punishments plausibly act as a deterrent against the committing other crimes (if you think not, then try to imagine a society in which there was no legal consequence for law-breaking). One problem with the utilitarian approach, as opposed to the Kantian one, is that it doesn't inherently entail that we punish the criminal himself, rather than some innocent scapegoat (it also does not entail that we match the severity of the punishment to the severity of the crime). If this latter approach resulted in an increase in societal happiness, then why shouldn't we do this on utilitarianism? However, the utilitarian can counter this objection. Firstly, it would not prevent the real criminals from committing more crimes, as they would still be at large - so any increased societal happiness would probably be short-lived. Secondly, the arbitrary punishment and removal of liberty that this strategy entails would indirectly lead to less happiness and societal well-being, as people would justifiably fear that it might happen to them. So, on a more sophisticated version of utilitarianism, I think that we can actually derive the rule that only the real criminal should be punished.

Whilst the end results of punishment on retributive justice and on utilitarian grounds might have similarities, it is likely that they would diverge in many ways. Under hard determinism, we could no longer justify punishment in terms of being ‘an eye for an eye’ (although such an act might arguably psychologically benefit the victims of crime, which could form a utilitarian justification for retribution in particular cases). Instead, it would perhaps need to be justified on utilitarian grounds as maximising the overall happiness of the rest of society. By contrast, if we were to accept that we do have genuine free will, and we do not reject retributive justice for some other reason, then we could easily justify beating violent criminals, and executing murderers, for example (with no thought to any benefits from deterrence and societal happiness). Without retributive justice, such justifications become much more difficult (but perhaps not impossible). Our justice systems include elements of retributive and utilitarian theories of punishment. If we do have genuine free will then, arguably, retributive justice could be given much more focus. Conversely, if we do not possess genuine free will, then any elements of retributive justice should arguably be removed altogether from the legal system. In this latter case, we can still say that somebody is bad, but allow that this was totally outside of their control. In a sense, they are just unlucky. Nevertheless, as part of our implicit contract with the state, we agree to hand over much of the responsibility for our protection, on the understanding that the state will take this role. That carrying this out will involve restricting the liberty of people who might have had no choice but to behave as they do is unfortunate but unavoidable, as it is better than any of the other options. If the state did not do this, then the inevitable resulting rises in crime would increase the total sum of misery, and people would inevitably start to take matters of justice into their own hands, probably leading to the eventual breakdown of the state.

As human beings, we are drawn to retributive justice, as it was adaptive behaviour when enforcing social contracts. However, we need to consider if such behaviour is still appropriate. If determinism is true, as I believe it to be, then perhaps we could still attempt to rescue retributive justice by appeal to the Social Contract theory of morality, although there would be some serious obstacles to overcome. In any case, we should care about our conclusions, as the nature of our justice system affects us all in some way or another, whether directly or indirectly.

Am I a brain-in-a-vat?

The brain in a vat hypothesis is an example of radical scepticism, and is a contemporary reworking of Descartes’ evil demon argument. It may have no practical significance for me (even if true), but it does challenge us to consider and justify what we think we know about the external world, and so is a useful exercise.

The sceptic’s challenge is that, for all I know, I might exist only as a disembodied brain floating in a vat of nutrients. The brain is connected to a supercomputer that is producing electrical impulses that are stimulating it in an identical way to those that would arise from normal perception. So, when I currently think that I am sitting in my office typing on my computer, I actually exist only as a brain that is sitting in a vat and being fed the inputs for all of my perceptions of the world around me. Is there any way that I can answer the sceptic’s challenge?

Firstly, we should note that arguing that I cannot be a brain in a vat, as I can experience the external world in all of its rich texture (and I have detailed memories of it) gets me nowhere, as the hypothesis states that the inputs to my brain are identical to those that it would receive from my senses if I was really experiencing the external world, and therefore the two scenarios are indistinguishable to me.

One possible solution is to say that the hypothesis is an empty one. If I am actually a brain in a vat, but have no way to ever verify this, then it makes no difference to me, so it is as if I really do exist in the world. In this sense, it is a bit like having an invisible and intangible elephant in my garage – it is no different to having no elephant at all. However, there is a crucial difference here that makes the analogy false. At the moment the brain in a vat hypothesis makes no difference to my existence, but if it is actually true then there is the possibility that it might make a difference in the future (the inputs might be changed radically, or stopped completely, for example). So, in that sense, the brain in a vat hypothesis is not an empty one.

Another solution might be attempted by appeal to Occam’s razor. I might venture that the hypothesis that I am a brain in a vat is less parsimonious than the hypothesis that I really do experience the external world as I believe it to be. However, my idea of which hypothesis is the more parsimonious is based upon my experience of the world. If this experience is illusory, and the external world doesn’t exist as I seem to experience it, then my real world hypothesis may be the less parsimonious one. Having said that, there is an intuitive sense in which the brain in a vat hypothesis contains more ad-hoc elements. In this scenario, my experiences need to be based upon something – either upon some reality within the world in which my brain is en-vatted, or else pure fabrications (or some combination of the two). If the former, then some version of the world that I experience does exist somewhere but, for some unknown reason, I exist in it purely as a brain in a vat. If the latter, then it would seem to require a great deal of effort in order to fabricate an internally consistent world of the complexity that I experience, with no obvious reason as to why this should be done at all (note though that the simulation needn't be of an entire universe, as I don't actually experience the entire universe - only a very small subset of it). In both cases, intuition suggests that these options are less parsimonious than the hypothesis that the real world just exists with me in it.

A number of semantic responses have been attempted (by Putnam and others) along the following lines:

P1: If I am a brain in a vat, then my word ‘tree’ does not refer to trees.
P2: My word ‘tree’ refers to trees. So,
C: I am not a brain in a vat

However, all such responses appear to beg the question. The whole point of the sceptic’s argument is that I don’t know that my perception refers to anything in the real world, so P1 and P2 above are not both true (and might be both false). My word ‘tree’ may or may not refer to actual trees, if they exist, but I cannot deduce anything significant from that. For example, imagine that the brain in a vat world is identical to our world, with the exception that the expertise and technology exists to put brains into vats and feed them inputs that are indistinguishable from external perception in the BIV world, and that ‘I’ am one of those brains. In this case, there is a sense in which my word ‘tree’ does refer to trees (the stimulation of my brain is identical to the stimulation that would come from perceiving a real tree, as real trees do exist in the BIV world). In that case, P1 is false, and P2 is true, so the conclusion does not follow. There is also a sense in which my word tree does not refer to trees, since I have never actually seen a ‘real’ tree. In that case, P1 is true, but P2 is false, so again the conclusion does not follow.

In the end, I think that I am warranted in believing that I am not a brain in a vat - even though I cannot prove it. The most parsimonious explanation for all of the evidence that I observe is that I actually do exist in the real world. Any other 'fake world' hypothesis, including the brain in a vat hypothesis, requires me to posit some inscrutible other world in which some agency or agencies exist that have the means and motivation to create a fake world for me. This has to be less parsimonious than the real world hypothesis.

Furthermore, based upon my experience of my world (whether real or fake), the most rational course of action is to attempt to achieve my goals (happiness, for example). Whether my world is real or fake, this course of action is the same. There may be no way, even in principle, for me to determine whether I am a brain in a vat or not, but since the course of action is the same in both cases, it makes no difference to me now (although that might change in the future).

Do some people know the moral rules by which God wants us to live?

Some theists believe that God has laid down a set of moral rules detailing how we should live our lives and, further, that they know what these rules are (I will restrict this discussion to the Judeo-Christian god). This idea that morality is dependent upon God is known as the Divine Command Theory of Morality (as opposed to Divine Essence Theory, which I will not be discussing). But do these people really know what they claim to know? They might believe what they claim, but do these beliefs count as (propositional) knowledge? This is an important question for, if we have good reason to think that the beliefs are true then we should all wish to know this, as the belief system entails that eternal suffering (or, at least, the failure to achieve eternal happiness) may await those who don’t accept these beliefs and live by these rules. Apart from that, if such a wise moral system exists, then we should all wish to live by it. Conversely, if we have good reason to think that the beliefs are false, then the believers should wish to know this, as they otherwise risk spending their lives striving towards bad goals, and not striving towards good goals (by good goals, I mean the goals that they would strive for if they had the correct factual knowledge about the universe, and acted rationally based upon this knowledge; by bad goals, I mean goals that they would not strive for if they had the correct factual knowledge about the universe, and acted rationally based upon this knowledge).

How might we determine whether these beliefs can be described as knowledge? We need to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be classified as knowledge, and then establish whether the beliefs in question meet these conditions. Most epistemologists would agree that knowledge requires at least true belief. So, for example, for me to ‘know’ that the Earth orbits the Sun, then I must believe this proposition and, further, it must also be true. However, whilst belief and truth are necessary conditions for knowledge, they are not usually judged to be sufficient conditions, as this would otherwise allow lucky guesses to be included as knowledge. Intuitively, it makes sense that we should need some reasonable justification for our true beliefs in order for them to qualify as knowledge. There is a sense in which acquiring knowledge, as opposed to mere true belief, requires some work or achievement on our part. For example, if I believed in advance that a tossed coin will come up heads, and it did, then I could not legitimately claim this as knowledge, unless I could somehow justify my true belief (for example, if I knew that the coin was a biased one that was almost guaranteed to come up heads).

However, this tripartite definition of knowledge as justified true belief has a serious flaw, as pointed out in the notorious counterexamples of Edmund Gettier. I might believe some true proposition, and I might be able to justify my belief, and yet it might still not be real knowledge. For example, in the coin toss case I mentioned above, if I think that a biased coin is being used, and therefore have a justified true belief that the coin will come up heads, then I would seem to have knowledge. However, it could be that unbeknownst to me somebody switched the coin for an unbiased one, which came up heads by chance alone. In this case, I could not really be said to ‘know’ that it would come up heads.

The definition of knowledge as justified true belief also has an additional challenge, in that it needs to answer a regress problem in the series of justifications for a true belief. If I believe some true proposition P, and I justify it by means of justification X, then what belief justifies X, and so on? The three possibilities are that we have an infinite series of justifications; that some of our justifications are circular (i.e. they are used to justify each other); or that we finally reach a point in our series of justifications where we have basic beliefs that are in need of no further justification. Each of these possibilities presents its own particular difficulties. It is hard to see how an infinite or circular set of justifications can be used as a solid foundation for knowledge, and it is not at all clear that we can have any basic beliefs that are at once indisputably self-evident (e.g. 2+2 =4) and yet can act as a foundation for all other knowledge. For example, Ayer postulated in his book Language, Truth, and Logic that from tautologies we can deduce only other tautologies, and that there is no such thing as a true a priori synthetic statement (we can only attempt to verify it by observation).

I believe that the way around these objections is to accept that there are properly basic synthetic beliefs that act as a foundation for all of our empirical knowledge. These beliefs are those of our direct experience - since it is undeniable at those moments that we are experiencing some cognitive sensation, even if we might be wrong about what that sensation is. From these properly basic beliefs, we can create our chain of justifications for the rest of our empirical knowledge. The other required element in our theory of knowledge is that each justification in our chain should be the result of a reliable process. That is, knowledge is justified true belief where each justification is the result of some reliable (i.e. truth-conducive) mechanism (and our chain of justifications ultimately rests upon foundational properly basic beliefs). So, for example, I can be said to know that there is a computer in front of me if this belief is true and if I can justify this by some reliable mechanism (e.g. if I can see it, and I can justify the general reliability of my visual perception through a series of justifications that ultimately rest upon my properly basic beliefs). I thus avoid the need to produce an infinite or circular series of justifications for this belief. Now, reliabilism, as this concept of using reliable mechanisms is called, is open a range of possible objections, including Gettier ones, but it still seems to be the most promising of the possible alternatives.

So, armed with our definition of knowledge, we can now look at the Divine Command Theory beliefs of the theists (note that there are a number of objections to this theory, including Euthyphro’s dilemma, which I will not examine here). If we unpack the Divine Command Theory of morality, then we have the following propositions:

1. God exists (and is usually defined as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, immaterial, the uncreated creator of the universe, and having a particular interest in humans).
2. God has a set of moral rules that humans are required to obey.
3. God has communicated these rules to humanity.

Note that propositions 2 and 3 are dependent upon the truth of proposition 1, as they each assume God’s existence (or, at least, that God has previously existed and communicated his moral rules to humanity) – if this is false, then propositions 2 and 3 are necessarily false. What are we to make of these? Ayer would suggest that these propositions are literally meaningless, as they fail his Verification Principle. He would maintain that the proposition that God exists is not true by definition and, further, its truth or falsehood cannot be determined (even in principle) by any observation. However, if we ignore this objection for the moment, and grant that the proposition that God exists is meaningful, then what can we say about these three propositions?

Making use of the analysis of knowledge given earlier, can the belief of these three propositions be considered to be knowledge? In this case, and unlike my example of the coin toss (where I might have a lucky true belief), the actual truth of the beliefs is not known, so we haven’t necessarily satisfied the truth requirement of knowledge. All we have so far is belief. However, since the reliability criterion itself will tend to maximise true beliefs whilst minimising false ones (assuming the validity of inductive reasoning), can we at least determine whether these beliefs have been reached by some reliable mechanism? If so, then this will point towards their truth or, if not, then towards their falsity. Furthermore, if the mechanism can be shown to be an unreliable one, then these beliefs will not count as knowledge, even if they might be true. In that case, they would at most be mere true belief, and would thus lack the stability of real knowledge.

Attempts have been made to prove Proposition 1 by analytic means alone – for example, the Ontological Argument. However, this argument is open to a number of objections, and few philosophers are convinced of its soundness (even if it is difficult to pin down exactly where it goes wrong). Theists might also seek to establish the truth of proposition 1 by means of one or other of the cosmological, teleological, or moral arguments for God’s existence. However, all of these arguments have been convincingly rebutted, most can anyway only argue for some inscrutable universe-creating entity as opposed to the specific Judeo-Christian God, and none successfully supports the additional elements of propositions 2 and 3 . In particular, since we are interested in determining the reliability of the theists’ belief-creating mechanism, it should be noted that few theists form their beliefs based upon these arguments anyway (although they may trust that some of these arguments are sound). Rather, in order to establish propositions 2 and 3, theists will typically resort to the evidence in the Bible, to what their religious leaders (or other people) tell them, or to their own perception of religious experience. I will examine each of these in turn to determine if they constitute reliable, truth-conducive mechanisms.

Firstly, the Bible. In general, I would contend that forming empirical beliefs about the world based upon statements contained in ancient historical documents is liable to be unreliable. Due to the many known examples of credulity, exaggeration, and fabrication in historical documents, and to the lack of knowledge of the world possessed by people in these ancient times, we must be very careful about granting too much credence to the contents of these documents. Descriptions of events are always questionable unless they can be corroborated by relevantly similar descriptions in a other sources – preferably those already known to be reliable. Additionally, in the case of contentious elements, we need to consider whether the events or things described seem plausible. In the particular case of the Bible, we have a number of serious problems:

• We have accounts that were written many years after the events themselves were supposed to have happened


• We have inconsistent and contradictory descriptions of the same events


• There are other supposedly revealed religious texts that differ in significant ways from the Bible, and yet God's message is held to be universal and revealed the same to everyone


• We have little or no corroboration in any other sources


• We have methods that are known to introduce unreliability - word of mouth, geographically dispersed multiple authors, editing and compilation that is arbitrary or that has an agenda, elements that were revealed in dreams etc.


• On top of all of this, we have a number of extraordinary metaphysical claims about supernatural entities (including God) and events. Some of these claims are in opposition to our current reliably formed knowledge about how the universe works.

In light of this, to take the word of the Bible when it comes to extraordinary metaphysical claims about God and his supposed moral rules for humanity would clearly seem to be an unreliable mechanism for generating true beliefs.

Appeal to religious leaders or other people fares no better than appeal to the Bible as a reliable mechanism for generating true beliefs. The first problem when it comes to relying on such testimony is that the set of statements made by such people is partially or wholly contradictory, so choosing to believe any particular statement or set of statements on this basis alone would seem to be purely arbitrary. Generally, we can accord some measure of reliability to testimony if the statements come from someone who has demonstrated that they are an expert on the topic concerned. However, in the case of religious leaders, the statements that they make generally have no means by which their truth or falsity may be determined. We have no independent yardstick against which to judge the reliability or otherwise of their metaphysical statements, so no determination can be made. Hence, we have no good reason to judge this as a reliable truth generating mechanism, and plenty of other reasons to judge it otherwise (some statements contradict reliably formed knowledge, and many statements are in contradiction with each other etc.)

How about people’s religious experience – is this reliable? Does Calvin and Plantinga’s hypothesised sensus divinitatis constitute a reliable mechanism through which to acquire true beliefs? I would suggest that the simple answer is no. Firstly, any divine messages and revelations that people claim to have received by such means are culture-specific, inconsistent and contradictory. Secondly, any such messages seem to consist of nothing more than banalities or vague and unverifiable metaphysical notions. Thirdly, we are aware of many alternative explanations for such feelings of the transcendental –dreams, hallucinations, power of suggestion, psychotic episodes etc. Plantinga would have us take such experiences at face value (as basic beliefs), in the same way that I would do when I perceive an object in front of my eyes. However, the difference between the two cases is that we have no evidence of the reliability of the sensus divinitatis, as it is unverifiable, whereas we have lots of mutually-reinforcing evidence of the reliability (most of the time) of our senses. Furthermore, as the beliefs acquired through the supposed sensus divinitatis are sometimes mutually contradictory, we know that some or all of them must be wrong. Hence, it would clearly seem to be an unreliable mechanism for generating true belief. This also confutes the idea that such a hypothesised sensus divinitatis could produce properly basic beliefs.

Based upon the foregoing, I would conclude that the theistic belief that God has communicated to us a set of moral rules by which we must live has been generated by unreliable mechanisms. Unreliable mechanisms tend to produce false beliefs, so this belief is likely to be false. However, even if it is true, this belief does not constitute real knowledge, but mere true belief. As such, it lacks the stability and robustness of real knowledge.

Moral relativism

Moral relativism is a stance that is popular in some (particularly academic) circles, but a little thought demonstrates how problematic a position it is to defend. According to moral relativists, there is no objective moral truth, only truths relative to social, cultural, historical, or person circumstances. However, the moral relativist now has to swallow some pretty unpalatable conclusions, or else explain why they cannot legitimately be deduced from the premises of moral relativism. For example: slavery was morally right in the American Deep South; killing Jews was morally right in Nazi Germany; the Stalinist purges were morally right in Communist Russia; the inclinations of certain US leaders to impose their views upon other countries by force is morally right for them; oppression of women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan is morally right for them.

In fact, if we dig a little deeper here, we can expose some more problems with moral relativism. Firstly, how exactly do we determine the society, culture, or group that the morality is true for? For example, we might suppose that oppression of women is moral in Iran, but how about the women being oppressed – don’t they count in our calculations? In fact, culture and state is a transient and mutable thing – a set of traditions, religious and political ideologies, and individual, tribal and group power struggles. If a culture or state is oppressive, patriarchal, or tyrannical, there is no reason why its citizens should be forced to endure it. We are defining the correct morality for that society based upon what the powerful wish to impose upon the less powerful. It should be further borne in mind that nobody chose to be born into a particular culture and state. It was purely chance that governed where they were born, and they shouldn’t be condemned to a miserable life under some totalitarian regime because of this.

Following on from this, defining the correct morality in terms of the society or culture has the effect of rendering morally wrong anybody fighting for moral change within that society. So, according to this view, the (slavery) abolitionists were wrong since they were fighting against the accepted societal morality, and the suffragettes were wrong, as they were fighting against accepted societal morality etc. In fact, it would seem that only a non-relativist can be truly tolerant, since they can hold it as an objective property of any good morality that tolerance must be enshrined. By contrast, the relativist has little choice but to accept intolerance as moral for any society in which it is normative. A point usually lost on relativists is that if our morality is such that we wish to impose universal freedom and equality upon other societies, then that morality is true for us.

I think that these examples expose moral relativism for the absurdity that it is. As a system of ethics, I don't think that it gets off the ground. The moral relativist and I would concur that there is no absolute moral truth. However, I would go on to reject the idea that moral truth exists in a relativistic sense either. Nevertheless, in the absence of an absolute moral truth, I believe that, under almost any rational definition of morality, it is still possible to say that some moral systems are better than others. Hence, our task is to discriminate between the possible candidates, and try to determine what characteristics a moral system should possess in order to be a good one. Oppression, intrinsic inequality, and support for wholesale slaughter of the innocent are unlikely to be part of any such good system, and should not be excused because they are present in some other society or culture.

In the past, Westerners have tried to impose upon others by force systems of morality that have left much to be desired (they have usually been religious moralities). This was wrong, but it doesn't mean that we are now wrong to judge bad moral systems in other societies.

The Divine Command Theory of Morality

I think that the divine command theory of morality suffers from a number of problems that, cumulatively, render it fatally flawed:

Does God exist?

A serious objection to the divine command theory of morality is that it assumes God’s existence. If God’s existence can be questioned, then the argument for a divine command theory of morality is undermined. In fact, I would contend that not only are we entitled to doubt the existence of God, but that we can go much further and argue that the case for the existence of God (with all of its very particular properties and desires), is very weak – although I won't elaborate upon that any further here.

If God doesn’t exist, then we have no mandate to follow the moral rules attributed to God for that reason alone. We might still decide to incorporate some of them into our moral framework, but they must stand or fall upon their own merits, not because they are supposed to be commands issued by God.


What makes God’s commands morally good?

If, for the sake of argument, we assume that God exists, then we are entitled to ask why the morality commanded by God is good. When considering this question, we might usefully refer to Plato’s famous Euthyphro dilemma: is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

In the former case, then we can just help ourselves to this morality without reference to God at all, as it makes God just the passer-on of a morality that exists independently of him. It also leads to a number of further questions that the theist needs to answer. For example, where did this morality come from in the first place, if not from God? Did it exist before the universe? If so, does it make any sense to conceive of some abstract or idealised concept of morality existing before the universe? If this morality is somehow independent of God, then how does God know that it is necessarily good, if he has no absolute moral yardstick against which to measure it?

Alternatively, the theist may take the second option. In this case, God could have commanded murder to be morally good, for example, and it would be so - since the command comes from God. In this case, the theist then has two further options. They may just bite the bullet and accept that murder would indeed have been morally good had God commanded it so. However, few are willing to subscribe to this view, as it contradicts our most basic concepts of what constitutes moral behaviour. On the other hand, the theist may contend that God would never have commanded murder to be a moral rule as God, being perfectly good, would only command what is good. However, this is just circular reasoning, and doesn’t deal with the dilemma, as we can rephrase it to deal with this objection i.e. is God good because to be good is just to be whatever God is, or is God good because God has all the properties of goodness? We are back in the same situation again with goodness either being arbitrary, or existing independently of God.


Why should we obey God?

Again, if for the sake of argument we assume God’s existence, then why should we obey God’s commands anyway? If God was to command us to torture and murder others, then would we be obligated to obey such commands, even though they go against our common moral sense?

Of course, the theist may contend that God would not command us to do such things, as God is perfectly good. However, there are at least two problems with this reasoning. Firstly, there are plenty of examples in the Bible of moral atrocities supposedly being commanded by God, so the precedent clearly exists. Furthermore, some of the moral rules attributed to God would seem according to our common moral standards to be cruel and disproportionate in that they specify a penalty of death for such supposed crimes as blasphemy, picking up sticks on the Sabbath, being a witch, and talking back to one’s parents.

Of course, some Christians might object that the New Testament gives a far kinder message, as preached by Jesus, and describes the new covenant between God and man. However, the New Testament still contains various odious rules and strictures, a command to still obey the rules of the Old Testament, as well as the introduction of the concept of eternal punishment for a variety of supposed sins. Moreover, in some Christian worldviews, the avoidance of hell comes by accepting Jesus as one's saviour - which therefore bars entry to heaven to all those who existed before Jesus lived, who don't hear his message for any other reason, or who have heard his message but have chosen to reject it in favour of some other belief system or of none. Moreover, the whole concept of the New Testament preaching a kinder message implies that God's personality or teachings have changed from those described in the Old Testament, or that he has changed his mind. But surely this cannot be so, as this would imply some sort of moral development or improvement on God's part, but he is by definition omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect. As such, how can he improve, and for what reason could he ever change his mind, since he already knows all there is to know?

Secondly, how can we ever know that something is good just because it is commanded by God, since we can never know that God is perfectly good? We cannot take God’s word for this, as it merely begs the question. And just defining God as perfectly good doesn’t settle the matter either, as I would contend that God’s existence and characteristics are synthetic propositions, not analytic ones, as we are dealing with aspects of the real world rather than just formal logic.

Furthermore, if somebody alleges that God has given them some moral command or other, or detailed a list of commands that we should all follow, then this too is highly problematic. How are we to know that this person is not deluded or lying? Moreover, assuming that the person in question truly believes that God has given them this moral command, then how can they themselves ever know that they were not just imagining it? Furthermore, even if they did actually receive some genuine communication, how can they or we ever know that this communication emanated from God, and not from some other entity – supernatural or otherwise?

For the foregoing reasons, I don’t think that anyone is entitled to evade moral responsibility for their actions by arguing that they are merely following a command from God, even if this were actually true.


What are God’s commands?

The moral and ethical guidelines in the Bible are often contradictory, and are open to multiple interpretations. So, how are we to determine exactly what morality is espoused therein? In light of this, I think that we might also ask why such supposedly important messages for humanity were not communicated in a clear and unambiguous fashion - one that is not open to multiple and often conflicting interpretations?

Of the moral guidelines that are more clearly expressed in the Bible, some deal with matters that would seem to be unimportant or neutral when it comes to a moral life. For example, rules to not eat shellfish, and to not wear clothes of mixed fibres.

Theists might attempt to gloss over the multiple inconsistencies in God’s moral law, as detailed in the Bible, and interpret it in order to render it more agreeable to our current moral sensibilities. However, if we decide to ignore or interpret certain of God’s moral rules (killing blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, witches, disobedient children; not eating shellfish, and not wearing mixed-fibre clothes etc.), but to follow other rules, then we have either made an arbitrary choice or else, more probably, we are making our choice based upon some other moral yardstick that is independent of the Bible. If it is the former, then it would seem to be a rather unreliable way to build a moral framework. If the latter case, then we might as well reason our way to this independent morality without reference to the Bible at all.


Are God’s rules necessary for a moral society?

One might argue that, even if we doubt God’s existence, society should still adhere to religious morality, as it will lead to greater moral health. However, it is rather conspicuous that many societies have or have had ethical systems that are not based upon some divine command theory, without them having any consequent morally bankruptcy. For example, the Ancient Greeks had a very well developed secular ethical system (they condoned slavery, but then so did Christian societies). Even though the Greeks had their own gods, these Gods apparently did not concern themselves with dictating moral laws.

Further, there is very good empirical data that shows a strong positive correlation between a society’s level of religiosity and the prevalence of all sorts of ills – crime, illiteracy, mortality rates etc. For example, many Western European societies are amongst the least religious in the World, but they can be seen to have a good moral health by almost all of the relevant markers. This doesn't necessarily imply a causal relationship, but it does undermine the theory that a society’s moral health is dependent upon it being religious.

Some theists argue that modern Western society is in moral decline, and correlate this with an increasing lack of religiosity. However, this is a fallacious argument. By almost any marker, Western societies are more moral than they ever were when they were more religious. They are freer, more equal, less violent, more compassionate, and so on. What the theists are doing when they make this type of argument is to confuse such societal tendencies as greater consumerism (which I would argue can be morally negative, neutral, or positive, depending upon the specifics), with a moral decay.

The theist may also assert that atheists or secular societies that they would consider to actually be moral are only so because they are living off the moral capital built up by a previous religious tradition. However, this argument seems to be an entirely ad hoc one, with no good supporting evidence ever being produced.


Who is the more moral?

We might reasonably ask who the more moral person is. The one who acts morally out of a selfless desire to treat others decently and compassionately, or the theist who is doing it in blind adherence to divine laws, or for prudential reasons, in order to gain a reward, and avoid a punishment from God?


Where does morality come from?

So, if morality doesn’t come from God, then where does it come from? I think that we have an innate sense of morality, and that this is derived from our evolutionary heritage. Our cultures and intellects have given us additional moral drivers, and modified existing ones, but I think that the roots of our morality are evolutionary. When our primitive ancestors started to form groups, their chances of survival were increased by acting in certain cooperative ways, and decreased by acting in others. Clearly, those who acted in those ways conducive to survival were more likely have offspring and to pass on their genes. Hence, tendencies towards such things as reciprocal altruism were selected for by evolution.

For example, the so-called Golden Rule clearly has a survival advantage for each member in a group if all group members adhere to it. In fact, it has been demonstrated in game theory that the principle that gives the best result for individual group members is one in which a member will initially cooperate with another member, but will henceforth copy the last action of the other member in a tit-for-tat fashion – either cooperating or not. The theory behind this is known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Lo and behold, examples of this type of behaviour are indeed witnessed in nature, and can quite clearly be seen to be precursors to our own morality.

That our innate morality is based upon our evolutionary heritage doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t seek to improve upon it. Science helps to explain what is the case, but not what ought to be the case. For this, we need to apply the methods of reason.


Can we have a secular morality?

If we are to dispense with religious morality, then what can we put in its place? Three major types of secular morality have been devised: Virtue Ethics, Kantian Ethics, and Utilitarianism. Each takes a different approach - emphasising virtue and flourishing, duty, and consequences of actions respectively, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps none is sufficient to take as a complete moral framework, so we may need to attempt to combine the best aspects of each in a way that doesn’t lead to contradictions and internal inconsistencies.

One big advantage that all of these secular moral systems have over the divine command theory is that none inherently entails a dogmatic and blind adherence to its moral strictures. Each offers a set of moral objectives or meta-rules but, as they were arrived at by means of evidence, reason, and reflection, they are theoretically open to revision and improvement. By contrast, divine commands are intrinsically dogmatic, since they were supposedly handed down by God, and they are thus strongly resistant to change. The result of this is that such moralities still incorporate many ancient rules that reasoned analysis would now class as either morally neutral (e.g. eating shellfish), or as unenlightened and bad (such as enshrining the inequality of women).

Furthermore, in light of the previously discussed flaws with the divine command theory of morality, I think that stipulating death for victimless crimes like the breaking of trivial ad hoc rules or for professing unbelief in God is in itself immoral. So, I would argue that for these reasons alone any of the secular moralities mentioned above is better than the divine command theory.

Conclusion

I would argue that some of the supposedly divine moral commands are merely parasitic upon our innate sense of morality, whilst others are at best irrelevant to a good morality and, at worst, in direct opposition to it.

I would further argue that the case for a divine command theory of morality is rendered fatally flawed because God’s existence is in clear doubt, because any such system of morality would either be arbitrary or independent of any God, because we should not just blindly follows such rules, and because the rules are ambiguous and inconsistent anyway.

I don’t think that any absolute and true divine system of morality exists (or any other absolute moral system, for that matter), so we don’t have the misplaced certainty of the theist. Instead, we need to build upon our innate sense of morality by devising a secular morality through the investigation of evidence and the application of reason. This task will not be easy, and much more work needs to be done, but I think that this is the best way forward in the quest for a good morality, as morality does not depend upon God.