You know, since the belief that there are no moral absolutes is immediately self-refuting, it’s automatically guaranteed that there’s a flaw in your argument somewhere.
- One cannot actually prove true something that is false, only appear to do so.
- Moral relativism is false (easily known because it is self-refuting).
- Therefore, no argument can actually prove that “there is no such thing as objective morality.”
That said, it will be a fun philosophical exercise to try to figure out where you’re wrong. I wonder if I’ll succeed.
According to your own philosophical tradition, a man is always bound to follow his conscience. So, hypothetically, if a man were sincerely convinced that there is no God, he ought not believe God exists and in fact ought believe that it doesn’t exist.
I think you’re off the mark right off the bat. Yes, it’s true that one is always obliged to follow his conscience.
But your statement makes no sense, because you say that a man sincerely convinced of atheism “ought not believe God exists.”
The reason that makes no sense is because this isn’t a matter of “ought” or “should”: such a man
cannot (is not able to) believe in God.
Your statement is like saying, “If I know I can’t swim, I shouldn’t swim.” It’s not a matter of “should” - such a person simply
can’t swim. A more logical way of phrasing that would be, “If I know I can’t swim, I shouldn’t
jump in the deep end of the pool.”
So you’re confusing what is
impossible with what is
inadvisable.
But you are correct that there is a subjective obligation regarding what to believe that rises out of such a man’s disbelief in God.
A person
genuinely convinced that there is no God should
not lie to himself and try to pretend he DOES believe.
That is what he “
should not” do.
But he
should actually believe in God, although if such true faith is beyond his ability, he is not of course morally culpable for his disbelief.
Furthermore, hypothetically, if a man were sincerely convinced that God ought not be loved, that man ought not love it. But if God as your philosophical tradition says is absolute power and absolute goodness and absolute truth and these are in res all one and the same thing, then you would be acknowledging that in this situation the man being so would be obliged, subjectively, by conscience, to not love absolute goodness.
No, he’s still obligated to love Goodness and Truth (i.e. God). But to say it would be “wrong for him to do so” if he doesn’t truly believe, makes no sense for the reasons explained above. It is simply not
possible. What
should happen is for him to come to genuinely believe in God (again, that may be beyond such a man’s power at any given moment, so he may not be morally culpable for his disbelief).
There is a way to avoid these contradictions and that is to reject the notion of objective morality. The fact that Catholic philosophy distinguishes between what one is subjectively obliged (or not obliged) to do and what one is objectively obliged (or not obliged) to do causes a fundamental problem that cannot be repaired by the rejection of monotheism. Here’s the problem. According to your own philosophy, if one is subjectively convinced, sincerely and not in a self-deceiving kind of way, that one ought to burn a heretic (and let’s assume for the sake of argument that this is objectively speaking always morally forbidden), then one has a subjective obligation to do so. But how can one in any sense be obliged to do that which is “objectively” forbidden or (and let’s assume that this is the case) intrinsically perverse? If burning a heretic doesn’t qualify, substitute that with torturing an innocent child.
When crucial human rights are at stake like that, one is obligated to follow his conscience
only if it is properly formed.
My rights end where yours begin.
The conscience of a man who wishes to torture children simply has no moral authority, so none of these principles apply in the first place.
This is why I reject the notion of any objective morality. Morality is real, but it is an expression of who you are and what is moral or how moral it is is just determined by how truly it expresses your true self – and since what one subjectively believes, thinks and feels is part of one’s true self at any given time (though not the entirety of what define’s one’s true self), there is no conflict in my proposal between “objective” and “subjective” obligations. We ought ask not whether something conforms to some external or object-based standard, but simply whether it is an instance of someone’s self-expression, personal growth and evolution.
You know, no one actually believes that, even if they think they do. One’s “self-expression, personal growth, and evolution” cannot determine good and evil.
Peter Kreeft writes that there are no real moral relativists. If someone truly rejects moral absolutes, (s)he would not balk at genocide, rape, torture, abuse, and murder.
And everyone does, unless they’re separated from such acts by a great deal of time and space and don’t perceive their true, destructive nature.
The bottom line is this - and
please respond to this point specifically, to
both of them:
If moral relativists practiced what they preach, they would have no objection to someone’s raping a child, using nuclear weapons, or engaging in heinous acts of torture.
If moral relativists preached what they practice, they would start preaching a belief in moral absolutes.
It’s really that simple.
I couldn’t agree more that mutual learning - including mutual listening and an attempt to understand before arguing - should be the goal here, rather than “winning.”