When you say there is evil, aren’t you admitting there is good? When you accept the existence of goodness, you must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But when you admit to a moral law, you must posit a moral lawgiver.[

1. The Moral Argument
Does our moral awareness come from
God?

2. Moral Law Posits a Lawgiver
The eminent apologist Ravi Zacharias says:
• When you say there is evil, aren’t you admitting
there is good?
• When you accept the existence of goodness, you
must affirm a moral law on the basis of which
to differentiate between good and evil.
• But when you admit to a moral law, you must
posit a moral lawgiver.[3]

3. Definitions
• Objective
– Something is objective if it
does not depend on the
opinions or beliefs one
person or even many people
hold about it. – Think of an
Object, say a mountain
• Subjective
– Based on or influenced by
personal feelings or
preference – for example
which do you prefer
chocolate or strawberry

4. Morality is Objective
• That morality is objective, binding, and
inevitable is most evident to us when we are
either the victims of injustice or when our
sympathies for the helpless are awakened.
• Everything within us cries out against such
experiences.

5. Morality is
Objective
• To say that moral values and duties
are objectively real is to say that
they exist independently of people’s
opinions or beliefs about them.
• If something is right, it would be
right even if everybody believed it
was wrong.
• And if something is wrong, it is
wrong even if everyone believes it
is right.

6. C-Section
Story
A number of years ago, I read a story about
a woman who had given birth through C-
section in a certain country. In the process
of the delivery, something went horribly
wrong. The doctors, one would hope
inadvertently, inflicted deep wounds on the
baby’s face. The baby could not breathe and
breastfeed at the same time. The doctors
assured the mother that the baby would be
fine in a couple of days and encouraged her
to take the baby home.

7. C-
Section
Story
Well, the baby got worse. When the mother
took the baby back to the hospital, she
discovered that, to her horror, the hospital
staff had purged all the records of her ever
having been to the hospital. They told her that
if she ever set foot in that hospital again, they
would call the police on her because of what
she had done to her own baby. It is impossible
for me to imagine any morally healthy person
reading such a story without reacting strongly
against the injustice.

8. C-Section
Story
• An unabashed craving for justice is
deeply woven into the very fiber of
our being, and it is strongly
awakened in such moments.
• Such a reaction betrays the fact that
we are very much aware of the
existence of a moral law that applies
to all of us.
• We can’t complain about evil without
at the same time invoking the
primacy of good, and to do so is to
acknowledge that morality is
objective.

9. Can you be good without God?

10. Common
Objections
Q. 1 Are you saying that believers in
God are more moral than those who
don’t believe?
• William Lane Craig: “The
argument is not that belief in God
is necessary to recognize moral
facts and order our lives
accordingly. The Bible says that
non-believers have the moral law
written on their heart.” (Romans
2:14-15)

11. Common Objections
Q.2 Hasn’t evolution taught us all that
we need to know about morality?
• Answer 1: If morality came about
through evolution through survival,
then morality is not objective. “If . .
. men were reared under precisely
the same conditions as hive-bees,
there can hardly be a doubt that our
unmarried females would, like the
worker-bees, think it a sacred duty
to kill their brothers, and mothers
would strive to kill their fertile
daughters; and no one would think
of interfering.” – Charles Darwin

12. Common
Objections
Q.2 Hasn’t evolution taught us all that we need
to know about morality?
• In a universe of electrons and selfish genes,
blind physical forces and genetic replication,
some people are going to get hurt, other
people are going to get lucky, and you won't
find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any
justice. The universe that we observe has
precisely the properties we should expect if
there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose,
no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless
indifference.” - Richard Dawkins, River
Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

13. Dangers of Subjective Morality
Some years ago serial killer Ted Bundy, who
confessed to over thirty murders, was
interviewed about his gruesome activities.
Consider the frightening words to his victim as
he describes them:
• Then I learned that all moral judgments are “value
judgments,” that all value judgments are subjective,
and that none can be proved to be either “right” or
“wrong”….I discovered that to become truly free,
truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited.
And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to
my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it,
consists in the insupportable “value judgment” that I
was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked
myself, who were these “others”? Other human
beings, with human rights?

14. Dangers
of
Subjective
Morality
Why is it more wrong to kill a human
animal than any other animal, a pig or a
sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you than
a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing
to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than
for the other? Surely, you would not, in this
age of scientific enlightenment, declare that
God or nature has marked some pleasures as
“moral” or “good” and others as “immoral”
or “bad”? In any case, let me assure you, my
dear young lady, that there is absolutely no
comparison between the pleasure I might take
in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in
raping and murdering you. That is the honest
conclusion to which my education has led
me—after the most conscientious examination
of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.5

15. Atheists Answer
• While in not accusing atheists in general of being
Ted Bundy-like, the question for the atheist is
simply: On what moral grounds can you provide a response
to Bundy?
• The atheistic options are limited. If morality has
nothing to do with God, as atheists suppose, what
does it have to do with? One response the atheist
could offer is moral relativism, either personal or
cultural. The personal moral relativist affirms that
morality is an individual matter; you decide for
yourself what is morally right and wrong.

16. Cultural Moral
Relativism
• But what about cultural moral
relativism—the view that moral
claims are the inventions of a
given culture?
• If right and wrong are cultural
inventions, then it would always
be wrong for someone within
that culture to speak out against
them.

17. Cultural Moral
Relativism
• If culture defines right and wrong,
then who are you to challenge it?
• For example, to speak out against
slavery in Great Britain in the
seventeenth century would have
been morally wrong, for it was
culturally acceptable. But surely it
was a morally good thing for
William Wilberforce and others to
strive against the prevailing
currents of their time and place to
abolish the slave trade.

18. Atheist Defence
• Here are three accounts that recent atheists have
defended:
1. Objective morality simply “is,”
2. Morality is based on the selfish gene, and
3. Morality is an evolutionary illusion.8
• Let’s take a brief look at each of them.

19. 1. OBJECTIVE MORALITY
SIMPLY “IS”
• One approach some atheists have taken is to affirm
that there are objective moral values.
• After all, couldn’t a person both believe that there are
objective moral values and believe that God does not
exist?
• Is the God/morality connection a necessary one?
• While there are some atheists, such as Jean-Paul
Sartre, Michael Ruse, J. L. Mackie, and others, who do
hold that morality cannot be objective without the
existence of a God, there are others who disagree.

20. 1. OBJECTIVE
MORALITY SIMPLY “IS”
• One such person is atheist philosopher
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. He puts the
point concisely: “In fact, many atheists are
happy to embrace objective moral values.
• Rape is morally wrong. So is
discrimination against gays and lesbians.
• Even if somebody or some
group thinks that these acts are not morally
wrong, they still are morally wrong.…
• [Agreeing that some acts are objectively
morally wrong] implies nothing about
God, unless objective values depend on
God. Why should we believe that they
do?”9

21. 1. OBJECTIVE MORALITY
SIMPLY “IS”
• But again the question arises: What grounds moral values?
Sinnott-Armstrong answers this way:
• “What makes rape immoral is that rape harms the victim in
terrible ways… It simply is [immoral].”10
• I can wholeheartedly believe that the lights in the room will
turn on after I flip the light switch without any
understanding of electricity. I can still function well in
society, going from place to place, flipping light switches and
never even entertaining the idea that electricity is involved in
the process of causing the lights to turn.

22. 1. OBJECTIVE MORALITY
SIMPLY “IS”
• If, however, someone asked me to provide a justification for
the lights going on when the switch is flipped, and my reply
was simply, “They just do,” this is no answer at all.
• The fact is, the flow of an electric charge (among other
factors) grounds our explanation for the lights going on
when the switch is turned on.
• The same applies to morality and God. One may well be able
to deny God’s existence and still live a moral life, but there
would be no fundamental basis, no objective moral
grounding, for such a life.
• There would be no answer for Bundy.

23. 2. Morality Is
Based On The
Selfish Gene
• A second approach some atheists have
taken is to attempt to ground morality in
biological evolution. This is the approach
Richard Dawkins takes. In his book, The
Selfish Gene, he argues that “we are survival
machines— robot vehicles blindly
programmed to preserve the selfish
molecules known as genes.”11
• In his view, our moral aspirations and
beliefs are predetermined posits of our
genetic machinery, selfishly programmed to
advance the gene pool.
• He grants that selfishness does not at first
glance seem to be a good foundation for a
moral theory

24. 2. Morality Is Based On The
Selfish Gene
• He argues, sometimes selfish genes “ensure their own selfish
survival by influencing organisms to behave altruistically” or
morally.13 This happens especially with an organism’s kin—
brothers, sisters, and children.
• For “a gene that programs individual organisms to favour
their genetic kin is statistically likely to benefit copies of
itself.”14
• But it also happens through another means, he argues:
reciprocal altruism. This is the “you scratch my back and I’ll
scratch yours” idea, and it takes place not just with one’s close
relatives, but also between various members of the species
and even among members of different species.

25. 2. Morality Is Based On The
Selfish Gene
• Dawkins adds two further elements to his moral
account: reputation for generosity (that is, one acts
altruistically so others will form the belief that he is
generous), and
• Buying authentic advertising (that is, one acts morally in
order to prove that he has more than another—that he
is dominant and superior—and so can afford to be
altruistic and moral).

26. 2. Morality Is Based On The
Selfish Gene
• In essence, this is what Dawkins seems to be saying:
our genes are preprogrammed selfishly to replicate
themselves. Even so, individuals don’t always act
selfishly because our genes— working at the level of
the organism—sometimes act in altruistic and moral
ways, as this offers better gene propagation over the
long haul.
• Now, an obvious and glaring problem with this view
is that it has virtually nothing to do with what we
generally understand to be morality—with real right
and wrong, good and evil.

27. 2. Morality Is Based On The
Selfish Gene
• On Dawkins’s account, a person is kind to his
neighbour because he’s been preprogrammed by his
genes to do so and he’s been so
programmed because acting this way confers
evolutionary advantage.
• There is no objective right and wrong on this view.
• We simply call something “morally good” because our
genes have, through eons of evolutionary struggle
and survival, gotten us to believe that it is so.

28. 2. Morality Is Based On
The Selfish Gene
• But do Dawkins and
other atheists who
affirm this view really
believe that rape,
murder, and the like are
not truly and universally
evil, but are merely
socially taboo for
purposes of
evolutionary advantage?
• Are good and evil just
illusions conjured up by
our genes to get us to
behave in certain ways?

29. 3. MORALITY AS AN
EVOLUTIONARY ILLUSION
• A third approach to an atheistic account of morality has been
put forth by evolutionary ethicist and atheist philosopher of
science Michael Ruse and his colleague Edward Wilson. Here
is how they describe it:
• Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation
put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics
does not lie in God’s will—or in the metaphorical roots of evolution or
any other part of the framework of the Universe. In an important sense,
ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to
get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Ethics is produced
by evolution but is not justified by it because, like Macbeth’s dagger, it
serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.…Unlike
Macbeth’s dagger, ethics is a shared illusion of the human race.16

30. 3. MORALITY AS AN
EVOLUTIONARY ILLUSION
• Morality, on this view, is something most of us
believe in, follow, and practice, even though it doesn’t
exist in reality; it’s just an illusion foisted on us via
evolution so that we don’t kill ourselves off as a
species.
• Such a view has dire consequences. Indeed
the Edinburgh Review, one of the most respected
British magazines of the nineteenth century, observed
that if Darwin’s evolutionary account of morality
turns out to be right.

31. 3. MORALITY AS AN
EVOLUTIONARY ILLUSION
• “Most earnest-minded men will be compelled to give
up these motives by which they have attempted to live
noble and virtuous lives, as founded on a mistake; our
moral sense will turn out to be a mere developed
instinct….If these views be true, a revolution in
thought is imminent, which will shake society to its
very foundations by destroying the sanctity of
conscience and the religious sense.”17

32. No Answer for Ted Bundy!

33. References
• http://www.equip.org/article/atheists-and-the-
quest-for-objective-morality/

34. The Euthyphro
Dilemma
• “Does God command the good because it is
good, or is the good, good because God
commands it?”
• Is there a standard of goodness that exists apart
from God?
• Does God decide what is good and bad?

35. The Euthyphro
Dilemma
Euthyphro’s problem
• If God appeals to a standard of goodness, it
means that God is subservient to something
other than himself. Morality is not grounded in
God.
• If God just decides that some behavior is right
and some is wrong, then morality becomes
arbitrary. God could decide that rape, stealing,
etc. is good, while mercy, justice, love are evil.

36. The Euthyphro
Dilemma
• “Does God command the good because it is good, or is the good,
good because God commands it?”
• Is there a standard of goodness that exists apart from God?
• Does God decide what is good and bad?
• Euthyphro’s problem
• • If God appeals to a standard of goodness, it means that God is
subservient to something other than himself. Morality is not
grounded in God.
• • If God just decides that some behavior is right and some is
wrong, then morality becomes arbitrary. God could decide that
rape, stealing, etc. is good, while mercy, justice, love are evil.

37. The Euthyphro
Dilemma
Answer:
• Reject both horns of the dilemma. It is a false
dilemma.
• Rather, point out that the essence of goodness
is God himself.

38. Kant’s moral argument
• There is an objective moral law that we must
obey
– The categorical imperative
– Determine by reason alone
– Doing our duty for duty’s sake

39. Kant’s moral argument
• We are required to attain the summum bonum
(the highest good)
– Reason tells us that obedience should bring about
the summum bonum
– But sometimes our obedience can lead to
misinterpretation
• This can lead to more suffering
– The summum bonum must involve both perfect
virtue and perfect happiness

40. Kant’s moral argument
• We can only be obliged to do something that we
can actually do
– Kant’s assumption
– We must be able to fulfil our obligation

41. Kant’s moral argument
• We cannot reach the summum bonum with the
assistance of God
– We are not the cause of the world
– We do not have the power to achieve SB
– Even if we could achieve perfect morality we cannot
guarantee connecting it with perfect happiness

42. Kant’s moral argument
• Since we are obliged to attain the summum
bonum, God must exist to ensure that we can
achieve that which we are obliged to do.
– If we cannot attain the SB on our own we need help
– It follows that such help must be the best and must
therefore be God

43. Agreement with Kant
• John Hick
– To recognise moral claims as taking precedence over all other
interests is, implicitly, to believe in a reality of some kind, other
than the natural world, that is superior to oneself and entitled to
one’s obedience… This is at least a move in the direction of
God.
John Hick Philosophy of religion, 1990
• H P Owen
– ‘It is impossible to think of a command without thinking of
a commander’
• Aquinas
– God wrote the laws into the design of the world

44. Freud’s criticisms
• If there is no moral obligation the argument
collapses
• If we do not need to attain that which is beyond
our grasp we do not need God
• Freud claimed that our apparent obligation
comes from the mind

45. Freud’s criticisms
• Our sense of moral obligation comes from:
• Our super ego that is our subconscious
• It is due to a conflict
– Between our desires and
– Society and parents
– Parents teach morals
Super ego
Subconscious desires Society demands
ego
Murder CareE.G.
Conscious mediator

46. Other objections to Kant
• People disagree as to what the moral laws are
• E.g. should you tell a lie to protect a person’s life?
• The categorical imperative says no
• W D Ross argues that the life is of more importance
• Cultural relativists
• Morality is based on cultural expectations

47. Other objections to Kant
• Erikson and Fromm
• Moral awareness is based on that what is of value to us
• Brian Davies
• Not illogical to aim for something beyond our grasp
• Does not have to be the Classical theistic God who helps

48. Putting it altogether
• Write bullet points that show how you would
go about answering the following exam
question:
a) Explain Kant’s version of the moral argument (33)
b) ‘The moral argument proves nothing more than the
desirability of there being a God.’ Discuss (17)

49. References
• http://www.equip.org/article/atheists-and-
the-quest-for-objective-morality/
• https://rzim.org/just-thinking/must-the-moral-law-
have-a-lawgiver/
• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-arguments-
god/