Naturalism’s Moral Foundations

_{William Dembski
February 17, 2010

Culture, Ethics, Intelligent Design, Religion

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Jeffrey Dahmer: “If it all happens naturalistically, what’s the need for a God? Can’t I set my own rules? Who owns me? I own myself.” [Biography, “Jeffrey Dahmer: The Monster Within,” A&E, 1996.]

Naturalists like to stress that you don’t need God or religion to be good. Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins even suggest that leaving God out of the equation actually allows one to be more moral because then our moral acts are authentic, motivated by deep conviction rather than by having a divine gun to our heads.

Even so, Dahmer’s logic is compelling. We need some external reference point — God — to justify being good. And that justification is significant in its own right. Without it, we can still rationalize particular evils, but we cannot dispense with the category of evil entirely.

I’d like to encourage in this thread other quotes like Dahmer’s — quotes by people who understood the logic of naturalism and the destruction of moral foundations that it entails.

Comments

Michael Martin's book Atheism, Morality and Meaning states that there's no reason for objective moral values can't be comprised of matter. However, search physics textbooks all you like and you'll never find the particles of hate, the molecules of love, or the atomic weight of compassion. If an atheist believes in naturalism (as Sagan put it, 'The cosmos is all there ever is, was, or will be') then he or she has to believe that the universe cam from literally nothing. For philosophers like Martin, values must somehow come from valueless processes. This makes no sense. Value comes from value, not valuelessness, as Paul Copan rightly points out.Barb_{February 17, 2010
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For me the most obvious problem with people like Dawkins or other atheistic philosophers acting as if they are morally sound and even can be superior to religious based morality, is the simple fact that more often than not they are unable to see the forest for the trees when it comes to their own moral self-analysis. To wit, a conversation: Atheist philosopher: You superstitious fools who believe in God, and who believe that morality needs a God to create and enforce it, are simpletons. Isn't obvious that morality can be based upon our own judgments using reason? Me: How do you know if you are being reasonable or unreasonable? Do stupid or crazy or evil people necessarily know they are so? If morality is relative to subjective interpretations of good or bad, doesn't that inevitably lead to moral relativism or the law of the jungle (might makes right) if enough people agree to cooperate to make it so? Atheist Philosopher: Evolution leads us to better and better forms of self-governing. Survival of the fittest memes. Since it is best for everyone to have moral laws society is evolving in that direction. And even if you believe in a God who can punish transgressors that doesn't seem to stop many people from committing terrible acts. What will more likely stop them is fear of retribution from government police or military. Me: Do you approve of abortion? Atheist Philosopher: What women do with the privacy of their own body is no one's business but their own. Me: So what we need is a big brother police state to enforce the legal ability for women to kill fetuses in the womb and force atheistic creation myths on children in schools so they end up believing that life has no meaning beyond a few short years and then eternal death? Atheist Philosopher: What's wrong with that?mentok_{February 17, 2010
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Mr Cordova, He got some support from a professor at Vanderbilt who wrote the book: Compassionate Cannibalism. You know this, how? Considering that Dahmer died in 1994 and the book was published in 2001.Nakashima_{February 17, 2010
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Interesting comments. But there are obvious guides of right and wrong. Humans have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years while living in groups. Natural selection over that time has led to societal norms that are almost universal. Just the fact that we all recognize the horror of a Dahmer demonstrates that there is an evolved logic to what we feel is right and wrong. Do you feel Dahmer’s actions would have been viewed any less deplorable in an atheistic society, or by an atheist sitting on a jury charged with judging his actions? There were numerous successful societies thousands of years before christianity and there are many highly successful societies today where theism is a minor factor. We don’t need a deity to set our societal laws because we have each other. The question you should be asking is why atheists choose not to break societal rules, while our prisons seem to be full of theists? To a fun-loving atheist like me, the answer is simple. When you know your time on earth is finite, that you are the only person responsible for your actions, and that you only get a single lifetime to make a difference, you realize just how precious and valuable life can be. I only get 70 or 80 years to enjoy my family and I plan to make the most of those years. I get the same limited time to make the world a better place than I found it. I cannot blame my mistakes, or the pain I may cause others, on any mythological, extraterrestrial entity. I have to use the logic in my Stone Age brain to make decisions…no Deity Determinism dictates my fate. These are the reasons atheists make such great neighbors. We love life and revel in amazement at the results of natural selection. Thanks for the opportunity to comment.Age of Reason_{February 17, 2010
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Some of these may have already been mentioned: If God is dead everything is permitted. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Brothers Karamazov) Communism abolishes all eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality. – Karl Marx One who does not believe in God or an afterlife can have for his rule of life…only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best. – Charles Darwin (Autobiography) Ethics is just an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. - E. O. Wilson and Michael Ruse Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear – and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death….There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will…. – Will Provine The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. Richard Dawkins “There is no good and evil, there is only power, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.” Voldemort (Harry Potter) "There is no good or bad there is only the law" Javert in Les Miserables (Movie, 1980s) “Worse, the worldview of science is rather chilling. Not only do we not find any point to life laid out for us in nature, no objective basis for our moral principles, no correspondence between what we think is the moral law and the laws of nature, of the sort imagined by philosophers from Anaximander and Plato to Emerson. We even learn that the emotions that we most treasure, our love for our wives and husbands and children, are made possible by chemical processes in our brains that are what they are as a result of natural selection acting on chance mutations over millions of years. And yet we must not sink into nihilism or stifle our emotions. At our best we live on a knife-edge, between wishful thinking on one hand and, on the other, despair.” Steven Weinberg http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21800Dick_{February 17, 2010
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Nietzche says:
There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
so where does morality come from
Fear is the mother of morality.
here is Nietzche's morality:
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
and
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
and
Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress. When you realize there are no goals or objectives, then you realize, too, that there is no chance: for only in a world of objectives does the word chance have any meaning.
and
The invalid is a parasite on society. In a certain state it is indecent to go on living. To vegetate on in cowardly dependence on physicians and medicaments after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost ought to entail the profound contempt of society.
and
We must be physicists in order to be creative since so far codes of values and ideals have been constructed in ignorance of physics or even in contradiction to physics.
scordova_{February 17, 2010
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If one needs religion to decide whether Hitler is good or bad, then how does one explain the fact that non-religious societies don't descend into chaos and cruelty?zeroseven_{February 17, 2010
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Mr Hayden, Dr Dembski, My suggestions are fairly traditional. We have evolved to be social animals, and our societies provide the external reference for definitions and judgements of what is good. I accept that this is a completely operational and imperfect way to proceed. As Mr Dahmer found out, societies do have immediate coercive power to enforce the shared view of what is good. One society, the state, locked him up, and another society, his fellow inmates, killed him. While our societies may have begun with definitions of good that are closely aligned with evolutionary success, we are endowed with minds that allow us to transcend those beginnings. We can choose to value our memes more than our genes, and choose a model of altruism beyond that defined by our kinship. I acknowledge and respect the fact that advances in this most important part of our societies have often been brought about through our religious impulses. I must honor those who stood for justice in the face of power. "Shall not the Judge of all the world do justly?"Nakashima_{February 17, 2010
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Dahmer practiced cannibalism. There are a few commentaries on how cannibalism gains an advantage through selection. This how one researcher commented on the evolutionary benefits conferred to cannibals:
I hope it will become a textbook example of how evolution happens It's a striking and timely example, given the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species Simon Mead
Gene Change in Cannibals Reveals Evoluton in Action Well how about evolving the common sense not to eat another human being's brains! Sheesh!scordova_{February 17, 2010
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"We fervently believe that, just as the leopard’s spots and the giraffe’s elongated neck are the result of aeons of past Darwinian selection..." Given darwinian assumptions what isnt the result of darwinian selection? Altruism and fratricide line up right next to each other, with exactly the same standing. We can argue about the blood clotting cascade and bacterial flagellum all day, but to me this is a show-stopper for the materialist: Darwinian selection understands nothing of good and bad--the only "value" that matters is expediency.SteveB_{February 17, 2010
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if naturalism leads to this type of behavior, why aren't we taking action to lock atheists up! They're all ticking time bombs waiting to go off!Fross_{February 17, 2010
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Dahmer was into cannibalism. He got some support from a professor at Vanderbilt who wrote the book: Compassionate Cannibalism. Below is a delicious quote from this professor. She redifines the meaning of "consuming passion".
We assume that cannibalism is always an aggressive, barbaric and degrading act, ... But that is a serious over-simplification, one that has kept us from realizing that cannibalism can have positive meanings Beth Conklin Vanderbilt University
scordova_{February 17, 2010
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Re: hdx (before moderation) And the dance begins... Do you believe he was inherently mentally ill? If so, why bother to point out that some family members were fundamentalists? Or are you actually insinuating that his upbringing is the cause of such illness, in spite of the fact that he stated clearly and outrightly that he "set his own rules" without God?Berceuse_{February 17, 2010
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Peter Singer legitimizes the killing of newborns:
the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to the nonhuman animal. If we can put aside these emotionally moving but strictly irrelevant aspects of the killing of a baby we can see that the grounds for not killing persons do not apply to newborn infants Peter Singer Professor of "BioEthics"
scordova_{February 17, 2010
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“Evolution favors reproductive strategies that produce the most offspring, without regard for human values of justice or fair play . . . Nature provides no moral guide to human behavior. . . . We don’t even know what is ‘natural’ for our own species . . . every few years a new theory emerges on what is our ‘natural’ diet, our ‘natural’ life span, our ‘natural’ sexual practices, our ‘natural’ social system or our ‘natural’ relationship with nature. Nature is endlessly fascinating, but offers no ‘natural’ way of life for humans to copy. Even in evolution, there is no ‘natural’ tendency toward ‘progress,’ ‘perfection,’ or ‘ascent.’ Most of the time, we don’t even know what is going on in nature.” Richard Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity’s Search for Its Origins (New York: Facts on File, 1990), 79, 124, 317.Barry Arrington_{February 17, 2010
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Here's an old staple:
No inherent moral or ethical laws exist, nor are there absolute guiding principles for human society. The universe cares nothing for us and we have no ultimate meaning in life. Will Provine Evolutionary Biologist
scordova_{February 17, 2010
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There is a moral of metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. Tis the crown & glory of organic science that it does thro’ final cause, link material to moral; & yet does not allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, & our classification of such laws whether we consider one side of nature of the other -- You have ignored this link; &, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which thank God it is not) to break it, humanity in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it -- & sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history. ~ Adam Sedgwick If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then -- then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing ~ Jeffrey Dahmer What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question. ~ Richard Dawkins Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear -- and these are basically Darwin's views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That's the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either. ~ William Provine If there is no God, everything is permitted. ~ Fyodor Dostoevskybevets_{February 17, 2010
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hdx: Instead of trying to throw the thread off track (the usual, nay, inevitable materialist tactic), why don't you favor us all with a materialist justification for ethics. Is Provine right? If not, why not?hdx_{February 17, 2010
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The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: ‘For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.’ DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden : A Darwinian View of Life (London: Phoenix, 1995), 133.Barry Arrington_{February 17, 2010
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William Provine: “Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.” Evolution: Free Will and Punishment and Meaning in Life, Second Annual Darwin Day Celebration Keynote Address, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, February 12, 1998 (abstract); on the web at http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/darwin/DarwinDayProvineAddress.htm.Barry Arrington_{February 17, 2010
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"…leaving God out of the equation actually allows one to be more moral because then our moral acts are authentic, motivated by deep conviction …" I suppose this statement can satisfy the need for some kind of objective basis for moral acts. The case of Dahmer v Hitchens et el is case in point. What makes Dahmer wrong – that Hitchens says so? Sartre was right; existence is meaningless without an infinite reference point.toc_{February 17, 2010
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over the eons of human evolution murder was so surprisingly beneficial in the intense game of reproductive competition David Buss Evolutionary Psychologist
That was essentially how he plugged his book which one can find at Amazon: The Murderer Next Door.scordova_{February 17, 2010
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Why, then, have the editors of scholarly journals refused to publish papers that treat rape from a Darwinian perspective? Why have pickets and audience protesters caused public lectures on the evolutionary basis of rape to be canceled or terminated? Why have investigators working to discover the evolutionary causes of rape been denied positions at universities? .... We fervently believe that, just as the leopard's spots and the giraffe's elongated neck are the result of aeons of past Darwinian selection, so also is rape. Randy Thronhill and Criag Palmer
Randy Thornhill is an evolutionary biologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Craig T. Palmer is an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.scordova_{February 17, 2010
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Inductively, the authorities who wield "BECAUSE I SAY SO" are many. In childhood it is our parents and our teachers who tell us what to do. As adults, it is society at large that enforces conformity to its morals, manners, religion, and law. "AND THEY WILL IF THEY WAS RAISED RIGHT." In America, however, we have a hoary tradition -- whose roots trace back through the larger culture of the West back to classical Greece -- of asking: "SEZ WHO?" Sez our orthodox Judeo-Christains, "SEZ GOD." Sez our orthodox scientists, "SEZ SURVIVAL OF THE FITEST." Sez our orthodox Judeo-Christains, after one hot war fighting godless murdering Nazis and one cold war fighting godless murdering Commies, "Gee, that godless thing sure doesn't work out very well. Does it?" Sez our orthodox scientists after one hot war fighting godless murdering Nazis and one cold war fighting godless murdering Commies, "WE STILL SEZ SURVIVAL OF THE FITEST."jstanley01_{February 17, 2010
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It's amusing to see naturalists tap dancing around this issue. I respect when a naturalist actually admits that their worldview allows anything to be permitted. I believe there was an occassion when Dawkins admitted it was very difficult to objectively call Hitler "wrong."Berceuse_{February 17, 2010
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Dr. Dembski, As a Christian, I disagree that we need an external God to be good or morally upright. If that is true, why doesn't this rule also apply to God? We set our own rules anyway, whether or not God exists. I believe that conscious entities are either good or bad by nature, not unlike the Biblical fig tree that either produces fruit or does not. Christians are taught that humans, as a species, are bad by nature, and desperately so according to Paul. One third of the Angels are bad and we're not really sure about the others. We need God, not because we need a moral compass to be good (we can't be good by nature), but because we need redemption. Otherwise, we're toast. One man's opinion, of course.Mapou_{February 17, 2010
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The Bible begins with creation. All along we hear, "God saw that it was good." Then Adam comes along, and God brings all the creatures to him so that Adam can "name" them. Humans 'identify' things---whether camels, bees, rainbows, or atomic particles---and then we name them. That is language. But it pertains to God to judge 'good' from 'non-good'. We 'humans', as persons, happen to share in this capacity to decide what is good; but it is a participation in a power that derives from God. So, too, we can reason intelligently; but again it is a participation in a power that derives from God. IOW, if raw "intelligence" is the by-product of strictly "material forces", then so is morality. If you can answer one question definitively, then the other is answered simultaneously. They're really interchangeable questions---and debates. I don't think my comments answer any questions completely, but they do help to focus on 'how' they can be answered.PaV_{February 17, 2010
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I am a bit confused by your logic Dembski, you seem at first to call for a standard outside of a person, but then to evaluate it using a person's own desires. Even if you could derive an external trancendent moral code, perhaps from the Judeo-Christian God, why should Dalmer follow it? You even say that he could tell god to 'jump in the lake'. It cannot be the case, that mere consequences should be sufficient. There is consequences in violating secular laws as well, possible loss of life, liberty, security and happiness. Granted the Christian God can whoop a person butt in an everlasting fashion. However it is a matter of personal preference in deciding whether to be in His presence, or go against him. Why should Dalmer choose God's moral laws, and not his own? How then is a trancendent moral code an improvement on a naturalistic account of moral reasoning? Other than a question of ultimate truth, what practical difference does it make?Leonhard_{February 17, 2010
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William Dembski @3,
Dahmer could say the same to a personal God who holds him accountable, but there would be consequences. What consequences does a Platonic universal enforce?
But what would be the point of a god that forced you to obey? That sort of personal god could be replaced with a personal armed guard. I think you have to be led to understanding not forced into behaviour.Toronto_{February 17, 2010
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Nakashima: But wouldn't any such external reference point be some sort of God? People have many conceptions of God. But what would an external reference point that provides a foundation for morality that is explicitly denied to be God look like? A Platonic universal? I could see Dahmer telling a Platonic universal to jump in the lake. Dahmer could say the same to a personal God who holds him accountable, but there would be consequences. What consequences does a Platonic universal enforce?William Dembski_{February 17, 2010
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