In almost every talk I give on divine command theory someone in the audience inevitably will interpret me as saying that atheists can’t believe in moral requirements and will cite the fact unbelievers can know what’s right and wrong as a reason to reject the theory. This happens even when I have spent some time pointing out that this isn’t the case. I am not alone in this experience. In the book “Is Goodness without God is good enough” this objection is raised by Paul Kurtz to Craig and is pressed by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, amongst others. I recently addressed a paper by Richard Carrier where he defends this kind of claim.
Outside of philosophy departments, probably the most well-known response to this objection is that given by Willaim Lane Craig. Craig responds to this objection in his debates by noting it confuses moral ontology with moral epistemology. This is correct I think, however many sceptics outside philosophy departments don’t really grasp these terms or distinctions and think it’s a kind of philosophical triviality.
Perhaps a more straightforward response is to point out that this argument seems to commit the “Masked Man” fallacy ( a fallacy you can find mentioned interestingly on some sceptic websites on critical thinking)
Consider the paradigmatic example of the fallacy:
1.I know who my father is
2. I don’t know who the masked man is
Therefore
3. The masked man is not my father.
Or another less used example:
1. Lois Lane knows that Superman can fly
2. Lois Lane doesn’t know Clark Kent can fly
Therefore:
3. Superman is not Clark Kent
The mistake in each case is assuming that because A and B are identical and I know something about A, it follows I also know it about B.
Now compare these fallacious inferences with the following one:
1 Atheists know that right and wrong exist
2. Atheists don’t know that Gods commands and prohibitions exist
Therefore
3. Moral rightness and wrongness are not Gods commands and prohibitions.
It seems to me this is an analogous inference, with the same form as the fallacious ones. If I am correct this provides a simpler way of providing a response to the objection that moral requirements can’t be divine commands because atheists have moral knowledge than attempting to explain the difference between ontology and epistemology. One doesn’t need to do this, one needs only to point out it commits a well-known fallacy.
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Epistemology · Paul Kurtz · Richard Carrier · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · William Lane Crai10 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Id agree with you here, and as you state it its unfalsifiable, but i think most people who remain unconvinced by DCT would say you’re oversimplifying and ignoring the other masked men in the room.
Yes atheists generally agree that right and wrong exist and but gods commands are not the only reasonable explanation for them. There are a number of masked men in the room and some would argue that many are more tangible than others hence reasonably shelving DCT
John, your phrase “other masked men in the room” makes me wonder if you have misunderstood what the “masked man” fallacy is. As I explained, the masked man fallacy is a common mistake where one mistakenly reasons that because two properties are identical, they must also share what philosophers call “intensions” this is invalid. I contend that a certain argument against DCT commits this fallacy.
Whether there are other considerations against DCT doesn’t change this. It will still mean this argument is invalid.
But, to your claim, I agree there are other important explanations for the existence and nature of moral obligations which have been offered. But that by itself isn’t sufficient to refute DCT, what the opponent of DCT needs to show is either: (a) one of those theories is a better theory than DCT, it provides a better account of the nature of moral obligations. Or (b) while they can’t come up with a better theory there are powerful objections to DCT which render it an inadequate theory. I don’t think (a) and (b) have been done. I agree if they could be it would be a reason for “shelving DCT”, but until they do it’s premature to do so.
You also raise the issue that the “statement” is unfalsifiable. I am not sure what the import of this is supposed to be. Because lots of sensible claims in philosophy and science are unfalsifiable. In science in falsifiability only works as a test for theories not claims or statements. And in ethics and metaethics few claims or theories whether secular or theological “verifiable” or “falsifiable”. The early proponents of verifiability as a test for the meaningfulness of statements actually argued that all moral claims were meaningless precisely because it could be applied to ethical claims.
Then we agree on the fact that if atheists are making claims like that then they are committing the fallacy you claim.
I would think that if you had the chance to point it out directly they may simply rephrase.
I give that falsifiability is not always a good test in some categories, but it can work to weed out some unreasonable claims and can provide a framework and controls for the sociological studies that would provide the basis for getting closer to the truth.
My difficulty with DCT the theory is that the arguments may hold together but the mechanism (god) is simply beyond the reach of interrogation and can be reformulated as needed.
I’m curious whether you pursue DCT as a fundamental (possibly basic) belief to be defended or are you interested in using it to find god?
Unfortunately just making stuff up doesn’t make it true.
First, I was clear that I said I support RI in a secular school providing its voluntary. So, I never said I support someone going into your kids class room and teaching God exists, unless you choose for your child to attend.
Second, I was clear that I believed that the school board should be allowed to decide the kind of religious instruction if any, on the basis of what the school’s community needs are, so I grant that if a school has a large Muslim clintel and decides to have voluntary. Islamic studies classes that should be legal. I might have moral or theological objections to what is taught. But I don’t think it should be legally prohibited from being taught.
We also established in the previous comments that you are actually quite happy for people to teach the children of seven-day Adventists that their core beliefs are false and you in fact defend this and claim that these parents don’t have a right to not have this happen. So, in reality it isn’t true that you apply this consistently, you limit it to those religions you consider to not violate “fact” or “science”, given that many skeptical organizations believe that belief in God isn’t a fact and is contrary to science this really leaves the door rather narrow.
I mentioned that I believe parents should be allowed to choose, so I wouldn’t support it without consultation. But that’s an objection to the way RI is implemented in a given case, not the fact its implemented. Let me ask you this, suppose they did consult and suppose parents were informed, would SEN still oppose it? The answer is obviously yes, which means that this is a red herring isn’t it.
I just pointed out that’s untrue, suppose I lived in an area with large Muslim constituents and I knew that because of this the school my children attended allowed those kids who were muslim pray five times a day and had voluntary Islamic studies classes.
I can honestly say that if I knew this I wouldn’t ask the government to make those things illegal. I might choose to go to another school or ensure my children didn’t attend the classes. But the idea that I’d lobby to have this banned by law is simply false.
Unfortunately that analogy works against you, true at the moment evangelical athiests don’t do that, but that’s because the elders of those churches don’t allow it. Suppose however that a large percentage of the congregation were extremely liberal and held Geering like views. They gain a majority on the eldership and the elders choose to allow athiests to come in and do just that, would that be “illegal” no, could I demand the church be legally prohibited from doing this, No. I could try and persuade the elders to stop, or I could refuse to send my kids to Sunday school or the conservatives could leave and form a different church. But they couldn’t demand by law that the elders not do this.
So your not really demanding equality here like you say. Even a church couldn’t do what your be the case regarding schools
I already pointed out the idea that evangelicals and Catholics have a history of some kind of social privilege is false. In the Westminster system from England the opposite is true.
I find freedom of religion acceptable, and that means you cant legally ban people from teaching religious beliefs because you disagree with them.
Theism isn’t a religion either, there are certain theistic world views such as Islam, Judaism and Christianity which are religious just as there are atheistic world views like Theravada Buddhism which are religious. So that statement is just false. The law doesn’t prevent Theravada Buddhists teaching atheism is true as part of Buddhist Religious Instruction.
But not also that secular world views and philosophies are in fact privileged under the law. If education must be of an entirely secular nature, that wouldn’t rule out teachers expounding or teaching secular philosophical perspectives on various topics with the school open. Its only when they start teaching Christian or Islamic perspectives that the school must be shut and opt outs have to happen. So if anything secular world views get the upper hand in the current law.
That’s simply ignoring my counter argument and confidently asserting it fails. That’s simply bluster.
I actually pointed out its not discrimination , I also pointed out having all public schools secular and allowing only private and integrated schools as religious, which means only religious school patrons pay fees. Is discriminatory, by the logic of the very text you cited.
So again your just repeating the points I refuted and hoping repeating them will convince people.
No I see what I think you did there, because again in my example the kids “indoctrinated” weren’t “someone else’s” it was those who choose their kids to do so, despite the fact you keep insinuating it nowhere have I suggested the church should be allowed to educate the children of non Christians without the consent of the parents . There are lots of good pedagogical reasons why a school, a place designed for teaching is a better place for educating people than 30 minutes once a week in a worship service.
There however are no such reasons why a school which charges fees to cover buildings can be allowed to where as a school which gets subsided buildings don’t. Unless of course your purpose was to deliberately rig the market so that its more expensive for people to access RI.
Actually in NZ human rights law legal rights don’t override existing laws. Courts cant strike down legislation, that’s a difference between NZ’s westminister system with parliamentary sovereignty and the US system where courts do that all the time.
But your ignoring my point is that (a) I think the legal reasoning is questionable (b) the document actually has the entailment that having only secular public schools was discriminatory.
If you read the document it says that if one group (adults) pay fees for education and another (children) get it free that’s discrimination. Now replace that with people who are religious and want to exercise their right to have their children educated in their religion. Those who fit this criteria will have to go private which means they pay fees either full tuition or building costs. Those who want only a secular education get it free. That’s discrimination. Why do you support discrimination Dave? Why should someone have to pay fees for the same education your daughter gets simply because they wanted religion taught as one subject? They paid educational tax as much as you did. Care to explain why economic discrimination like this is Ok.
Considering the bulk of education at religious schools is not religious (I hope), it is reasonable that religious parents pay taxes toward these heavily subsidised schools.
That’s actually the ad homien fallacy, and I think its fairly selective history your citing and I think I have learnt more about the history here than most people have. Perhaps you might want to look at some advocates of secular education in places like Revolutionary France or the Soviet Union before you go down that track.
But whether the Catholic church is credible isn’t the issue. I wasn’t claiming they were. All I pointed out was that health classes can and do teach things which entails that their religious beliefs are false. So the claim secular education of this sort is neutral is bogus.
Freedom of religion isn’t limited to those religions you consider credible. The whole point is to tolerate those beliefs you don’t agree with.
The example I gave and your response shows that isn’t true. You said quite clearly that seven-day Adventist beliefs weren’t worthy of equal respect and in fact here is what you said
You can be certain that fairies made the earth from toothpicks three days ago if you like but that does not mean that your beliefs should automatically gain respect. You could not believe in maths or physics. The difference is that some beliefs are demonstrably ridiculous and should not be tolerated.
Here you deny that religious beliefs are entitled to respect, if they are demonstrably false, they should not be tolerated. So, it simply isn’t true, is it? What you really think is all religions which you think aren’t demonstrably false, should be respected.
This in fact undercuts any principled stance on freedom of religion because in many paradigmatic cases the doctrine is one outsiders think is demonstrably false.
Actually its not, youll find that in English history protestant dissenters haven’t been in a position of priveledged power and nor have Catholics since the time of Mary Tudor. There is a long history of legal penalties and suppression of these groups. These are the two main groups that set up educational alternatives to the secular system. Also Muslims have never held power in the west other than Spain in the early middle ages. On the other hand secularist have gained and abused power in Revolutionary France. Aisa, and Russia, often by closing down religious instruction and insisting all education be free public and secular.
Your view of history is just false
I don’t base principled positions on the role of religion in education and public life on facebook likes, sorry, I try to be a bit more rigorous than that.
No one complained you don’t want it, as I said I never said RE should be compulsory to those who don’t want it. I didn’t say schools should be compulsory and religious. You however support them being compulsory and secular.
Also watch census figures btw there is a lot of sociology of religion literature which notes that surveys based on religious self-identification aren’t reliable because they don’t distinguish nominal from practicing and the shifts between these groups. They also have as a result a subjective definition of “non- religious”.
I’m an atheist and I believe I can, without committing the masked-man fallacy, give an argument against God being the source of morality.
Why do most of today’s atheists and evangelical Christian inerrantists agree that burning a child to death for immoral acts Christians would call “sin” is absolutely immoral?
One of the bible-god’s morals was that girls who lose their virginity before marriage in their priest-father’s house, must be burned to death…
9 ‘Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire. (Lev. 21:9 NAU)
Inerrantist Christian scholar Rooker explains:
“If the daughter of a priest becomes a prostitute, it is a capital offense of death by burning (21:9). A priest who would allow a prostitute to reside under his roof would not be qualified to render decisions on behalf of the covenant community. This rare form of punishment was also suggested for prostitution in Genesis 38. This prohibition regarding the priest’s daughter may also be a warning of apostasy, since pagan worship often involved cultic prostitution. The priest was not in any way to be associated with these evil practices because he was the designated vessel in the service of God (21:8).
Rooker, M. F. (2001, c2000). Vol. 3A: Leviticus (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 274). Nashville: Broadman & Holman.
———————-
So we have to ask…how is it that even conservative Christians will agree with atheists that burning children to death is absolutely immoral, if one of the laws God placed in our hearts is Leviticus 21:9?
Will Dr. Flannagan be so bold as to say the reason we find burning such girls to death is because we’ve become desensitized to the serious consequences of sin? That maybe if Christians were as honest about sin as God wants them to be, they wouldn’t find burning girls to death for such sin to be as revolting as they currently do? How many conservative inerrantist pastors and scholars would be put off by any such claim by Flannagan?
Even if you could argue Jesus forbade Christians to apply the law that much to their lives, wouldn’t you argue that the Christian outrage against homosexuality arises from God placing his laws in Christian hearts?
If so, why are so many conservative evangelicals so horrified at burning children to death?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to say this agreement between atheists and Christians has nothing to do with “god”, but everything to do with the fact that most of the people in this hybrid group grew up with the same basic morals, where burning to death and most forms of death were eschewed?
Barry,
I could get into the distortions (such as the use of the word “child” and failure to understand progressive revelation and context) in that comment.
But to avoid going of on a tangent perhaps you could clarify how any of that provides a reason for thinking that moral requirements can exist independently of God?
Note the issue isnt wether our knowledge of what is right and wrong depends on the bible, but wether moral requirements can exist independenly of God.
Its failure to make this distinction between what exists (ontology) and how we know something exists (epistemology) which I was highlighting in the post.
Here you simply repeat the fallacy I pointed out, note what your conclusion is, atheists can know whats right and wrong through there upbringing apart from any beliefs about God, therefore moral requirements arent divine commands. See the post above where I explain whats wrong with this inference.
Oct 26, 2017 at 8:17 am
Barry,
I could get into the distortions (such as the use of the word “child”
—–to still live in her fathers house in the ANE is to imply she is 12 or younger given how early marriages took place in the ANE. Plenty of parents still call their adolescent daughters “children”. God allowed the KJV to misrepresent Elijah to Christians for 400 years as having caused two she-bears to maul to death 42 “little children”, when in fact the apologists today who are most concerned to make the bible god look more politically correct to modern western Americanized eyes, insist those kids were actually teenagers, so that the moral outrage is somewhat lessened. If you can forgive God for his allowing a 400-year long misrepresentation of older teens as “little children”, I’m sure you’ll agree that characterizing a 12 year old girl as a “child” in a blog post is likely somewhat less evil.
(Matt) and failure to understand progressive revelation
—-Did God ever require the Levitical Priests in the days of Moses to literally burn to death any daughter of such priests who had committed harlotry while still living in her priest-father’s house, yes or no? If not, then explain why you disagree with other Evangelical Inerrantist scholars who take the passage literally. Watch out for contextual clues in v. 8 and 10 that are literal, thus implying v. 9 is literal too.
I am an atheist, as you know, and I accord no more coherency to “progressive revelation” for Christians than I do for Mormons; I feel the biblical data can be explained on purely naturalistic/historical grounds. Please learn to stop characterizing another’s disagreement with you, as their “failure to understand”. It is unnecessarily insulting and only indicates you think you need something more than the merits of an argument to keep your followers continually convinced of your arguments.
(Matt) and context) in that comment.
—–The context of Leviticus 21:9 does not express or imply that the command to burn such a girl to death was anything other than literal, in fact, v.8 and v. 10 are apparently literal, so can you really say that the evangelical scholars who take v. 9 literally too (Rooker, “rare form of punishment…”, supra) have misconstrued something?
(Matt) But to avoid going of on a tangent
—-Answering me directly would not constitute going off on a tangent. Leviticus 21:9 gives every appearance of being ordered by the God who regrets his own prior decisions (Genesis 6:6) and who is likely to irrationally let his anger take over unless he accepts correction from sinners (Exodus 32:9-14).
(Matt) perhaps you could clarify how any of that provides a reason for thinking that moral requirements can exist independently of God?
—–You’d have to first clarify what you mean by “moral requirements”. There are countless situations in daily secular life where one person imposes moral “requirements” on others, but these do not implicate god, especially given that the morals people impose on each other in jails, gangs, churches you consider “heretical” and third world countries contradict morals of the Christian god.
(Matt) Note the issue isnt wether our knowledge of what is right and wrong depends on the bible, but wether moral requirements can exist independenly of God.
—-Noted.
(Matt) Its failure to make this distinction between what exists (ontology) and how we know something exists (epistemology) which I was highlighting in the post.
—-Noted. But I think the distinction is essentially useless in debates. First, it is useless here in our discussion. We agree that morality exists, and I think we agree on how we know it exists (i.e., other human beings exhibit their value-judgments to our empirical senses of sight and hearing about as often as they exhibit their shoes to such senses). Technical distinctions between what’s true and how we know what’s true, need not apply.
Second, when you debate an atheist on morality, it doesn’t matter whether God really is the ultimate origin of whatever morals you say are absolute. In a debate, all that matters is whether you can demonstrate your theory to be more plausible than your opponent’s. If you can’t, then the actual truth is not going to have force in the debate anymore than the truth that the suspect was framed will have force with the jury who thinks the suspect didn’t demonstrate his alibi was more likely true than his guilt.
(barry said)” Wouldn’t it make more sense to say this agreement between atheists and Christians has nothing to do with “god”, but everything to do with the fact that most of the people in this hybrid group grew up with the same basic morals, where burning to death and most forms of death were eschewed?”
(Matt) Here you simply repeat the fallacy I pointed out, note what your conclusion is, atheists can know whats right and wrong through there upbringing apart from any beliefs about God, therefore moral requirements arent divine commands. See the post above where I explain whats wrong with this inference.
—–I didn’t claim to know absolute right from absolute wrong merely through environmental conditioning or any other way (and I deny moral absolutes anyway). In my challenge, I only argued that the environmental conditioning theory makes more sense to explain humanity’s collective general eschewing of burning people to death, than does any theory crediting god for our moral outrage at such a spectacle. In fact there’s enough videos on the internet of people burning to death with the approval of local townsfolk standing nearby, that morality might just be an awful lot more relative and subjective than I give it credit for.
Third, you are also being just a bit disingenuous, since in many cases, it is true that the atheist and Christian engaging in debate DID grow up in similar moral environments. Do you deny that the morals of an adult can be shaped during childhood by environmental conditioning? Clay Jones tries to justify slaughter of Canaanite kids by asserting, on the basis of his own experience caring for foster kids, that a person’s moral outlook in life is usually settled in their early childhood and is nearly impossible to reshape after that point: http://www.clayjones.net/2015/05/why-couldnt-israel-adopt-canaanite-children.
whoops, “Elijah” should be “Elisha”.
Barry, your response again simply commited the fallacy I have called out.
The question is wether moral requirements depend upon God. This isnt a question about wether the bible is a reliable guide to what we ought to do.
Even if I granted your exegesis, which gratituously assumes a reference to a prostitute is a reference to a “little child” . It is irrelevant because it wouldn’t address the question.
The problem is the post said nothing about Leviticus or Genesis or even the bible itself. It was a question about a particular meta ethical theory the truth of which is independent of these issues. So again, your just on a big, “I hate the bible” rant, but I wasn’t talking about that. The question was wether moral requirements can exist independently of God. That question has nothing to do with wether the bible is a reliable guide to whats right and wrong.
By a moral requirement I mean something that its morally wrong to omit.
So again, suppose that the bible isnt inerrant, how does that entail that moral requirements can exist independently of God?
The post you responded to was about the failure to make that distinction and you offered an argument you said honoured it. So you cant turn around now and say its an irrelevant distinction to the debate
Second, when you debate an atheist on morality, it doesn’t matter whether God really is the ultimate origin of whatever morals you say are absolute.
I never mentioned the word “absolute” I don’t use that word because it tends to be ambigious and confuse. I use the word objective, (btw all your anti bible rant collapses if you deny objectivity)
But your comment that , it doesn’t matter whether God really is the ultimate origin of whatever morals you say are absolute is clearly false, given the question we were actually debating was wether moral requirements depend upon God.
I think a divine command theory is more plausible than secular alternatives, and you haven’t offered any reason for thinking other wise, other than firing scatter gun proof texts against the thesis of biblical inerrancy, which is completely independent of biblical inerrancy.
Again can you show me how you get from the claim : the bible isnt inerrant, to the claim “Moral requirements exist independently of God” I’d really like to know the inference rule in logic that justifies this, care to cite it?
(barry said)” Wouldn’t it make more sense to say this agreement between atheists and Christians has nothing to do with “god”, but everything to do with the fact that most of the people in this hybrid group grew up with the same basic morals, where burning to death and most forms of death were eschewed?”
So then its not absolutely wrong for someone to burn a young child to death or for Elisha to curse children, or for Israel to kill Canaaanites?
In which case you need to stop claiming it is, right?
Again conflating epistemology and ontology, cultural conditioning can explain why people eschew things, it doesn’t answer the question of wether moral requriements exist unless.
If morality is simply subjective, then it follows that if a community like say , ancient Isreal, burns children to death, its not wrong. So why the outrage Barry?
The word “morals” here is being used for moral beliefs, but I was asking for what explains the nature and existence of moral requirements not what explains why people believe in them? Again your simply repeating the same fallacy the post is about.
What Clay Jones says at another site is really neither here nor there, the question is wether you can, as you said you could, offer a rebuttal of divine command theory which doesnt conflate ontology and epistemology. You still havent done that, all you have done is repeat the amateur pop meta-ethics found on a lot of sceptic websites, which remain confused about these distinctions.
Barry, here is the response I made to y to Richard Carrier in an earlier post, it deals directly with the kind of argument your providing:
If you follow this argument you’ll see it provides reasons for thinking that appealing to the kind of passages you do is irrelevant to the the truth or falsity of Divine command theory.