debitage

4.11.06

Thoughts On Divine Command Theory And Atheist Morality

One of the most common calumnies advanced against atheists is that one can't be moral without belief in God. Aside from explicitly religious moral injunctions like "thou shalt go to church every week," this claim is empirically false -- the atheists I know quite happily follow general principles like "love thy neighbor," and you can even find atheists adhering to some of the more specific and arbitrary religious injunctions like "no gay sex."

The claim about atheist morality also has to be addressed at the philosophical level, since the empirical morality of atheists could be explained away as a form of false consciousness arising from immersion in a religious culture. (That is, while religion is clearly not necessary or sufficient to motivate moral behavior, it may be necessary to justify moral behavior.) The usual approach here is to defend some secular moral theory like the Categorical Imperative or enlightened self-interest to show that it's possible to build a moral system without God.

I think, though, that from a theistic perspective positing a fully omnipotent creator and advocating a divine command theory of morality*, it makes sense to think not just that atheists can have some morality, but that they can arrive at the same morality that religion does. To say that religion is required for morality means that the only way to know whether something is right or wrong is for God to weigh in on it directly. The implication is that moral rules are just tacked on to the world, arbitrary declarations that have nothing in particular to do with the structure (physical or logical) of the world around us. Not only could God have declared whatever he felt like to be right or wrong, but if he had, nothing whatsoever would be different about the factual world we inhabit. This may have some appeal if you value obedience for the sake of obedience, but it's otherwise unappealing. Indeed, I'm not even sure that this kind of arbitrarily added-on morality would be morality -- some kind of connection, some link between the facts of the world and God's pronouncements, is needed to make those pronouncements binding on us rather than being the pointless blatherings of a random being.

What makes more sense is that just as the facts about the world are interconnected, so too the correct moral code is embedded in the logical and physical structure of the world. Morality fits the world and is part of the world, rather than being just added on as an afterthought. God created our world in such a way that a certain moral system would be the correct one.

(Note that this argument is different from the one proposed by Socrates/Plato in Euthyphro. Socrates' argument related to the a priori arbitrariness of God's choice as to which actions should be moral, whereas my argument relates to the arbitrariness of morality with respect to logical and empirical facts. This view must still bite Socrates' bullet by saying that God's choice of what moral system to embed in the world is arbitrary.)

The trick about this embeddedness view, however, is that we can discover that morality without God's direct instruction. We can apply our reason to empirical facts and logical principles that we know to be true, and from them deduce moral principles -- through, for example, the aforementioned Categorical Imperative or enlightened self-interest. Thus it's possible for atheists to have not just a morality, and not just a morality that by coincidence approximates the correct one, but one that is the truly correct moral system.

So why do we need God here? If morality is discernable in the structure of our world, then shouldn't Occam's Razor cut God out of the picture (at least when we're discussing morality)?

Certainly the existence of God is no longer proven by the existence of morality (at least in any way separate from a generalized "first cause" argument). But I think even under the theory I'm proposing, God still plays two roles. First, God is part of the causal explanation for morality, from the theist's viewpoint. Atheists can figure out what morality demands, but a correct explanation of why that particular morality exists -- why the structure of the universe is set up in such a way as to lead to that morality -- requires reference to God. (Atheists, obviously, will hold that a secular causal explanation is possible. Additional non-moral information would be necessary to settle this.)

Second, God may play an epistemological role, if the God who actually exists is one who is in the habit of revealing himself directly to his followers. It's much easier to just read Matthew 7:12 than to follow Kant's derivation of the Categorical Imperative. However, this epistemological fast lane is compromised by the added burden on theists of determining accurately what things are in fact the word of God, since false prophets and conflicting interpretations are rampant.

Indeed, I would go so far as to say that a responsible theist ought to begin by establishing her morality on a purely secular basis. Once we determine what actions truly are right or wrong, we can use that knowledge as a test of which version of God is the correct one. For example, it's quite clear to me (for reasons I won't go into here) that correct morality includes the principle "gay sex is OK." Therefore any conception of God that entails an injunction against gay sex is inaccurate. This moral test won't necessarily pick out the one true religion, but it will certainly narrow the field (including eliminating some of today's biggest contenders).

*Note that I actually hold neither of these positions. In my view, the logical structure of our world -- and hence the moral code derivable from it -- are prior to, and constraining on, God, and even within this realm God's power is substantially limited.

Stentor Danielson, 22:22, |

3.11.06

Voting In Arizona

In lieu of real posting, here are my intentions for Tuesday. Conveniently, my polling place is right next door to my apartment complex. From a vote-security perspective I'm happy we use scantron ballots, but from an aesthetic perspective I'm kind of disappointed to leave behind the old-fashioned push-the-lever machines I used in Pennsylvania.

Senate: Jim Pederson
This is much more a vote against John Kyl than for Pederson. Pederson made his fortune as a developer, which right there is a big strike against him, since I resent living in sprawl-topia. But Kyl is among the more conservative Republicans in the Senate, and his attack ad claiming that Pederson supports amnesty for undocumented immigrants (he actually supports the much more modest proposal for earned legalization) only made me more likley to vote D. I don't actually think Pederson has much of a chance of winning. There's been a lot of talk about the DSCC's decision to pour some 11th-hour money into this race, but I think both the "head fake" and "they know Pederson has a good chance" explanations are wrong. I think it's a combination of looking for a new angle after getting frustrated at not making progress in the key swing races (e.g. Tennessee and Missouri), and getting caught up in their own hype.

House (District1): Ellen Simon
Another vote against, this time targeting incumbent Rick Renzi, who's under investigation for various (albeit not very sexy) incidents of corruption. He also gets a big fat 8% from the League of Conservation Voters (which is actually an improvement over last year's 0%). Sadly, Simon has even less of a chance than Pederson.

Governor: Janet Napolitano
Jeez, my choices just get worse and worse as I move through the ballot. I have an irrational prejudice against candidates who feature their first names more prominently than their last names in their campaign materials (I'm looking at you, Rick, Hillary, and Joe). This race is all about immigration, and Napolitano is bad on immigration. The problem is, Len Munsil (the Republican challenger) is even worse. At least Napolitano is likely to win.

Other Races
I don't know enough about the remaining races to give much analysis. I plan on voting for the Democrat in any contested race, and writing in my friends for any uncontested race.

Now we get to the fun part: the propositions. I generally dislike the proposition process, since I don't think that a one-time vote of 51% of the general population should be able to change the state constitution. (I'd rather have propositions become regular laws, albeit shielded from legislative interference for a set amount of time, with some sort of multiple-supermajorities condition for constitutional amendments.) This year's theme is playing defense against petty and spiteful xenophobia.

Prop 100 (Denying bail to illegal immigrants): NO
This is one of several propositions meant to hurt immigrants without actually addressing the issue. With the advent of tracking bracelets that cut down on absconding, I think we should be getting more generous about granting bail. After all, if one of the problems with immigration is that immigrants suck up too much of our tax dollars, why should we be paying to feed and house them at our prisons?

Prop 101 (Recalculating property taxes): NO
This is an attempt to lock in lower tax rates. Right now each municipality has a cap on how much tax they can levy, but not all of them charge the maximum. Prop 101 says "use it or lose it," capping tax rates at the current actual rate.

Prop 102 (No punitive damages for illegal immigrants): NO
Another bit of anti-immigrant sadism. Courts would be barred from awarding punitive damages to illegal immigrants -- meaning that people and companies would be freer to hurt them, since the punishment would be less. If one of the problems with immigration is that immigrants work for lower wages in poorer conditions, why are we trying to make it easier to take advantage of them?

Prop 103 (English as the official language): NO
Government exists to serve the people. If some of the people (including many native-born citizens, mind you) speak Spanish, then the government should serve them in Spanish.

Prop 104 (Municipalities can use debt to finance public safety and transportation): YES
Given the way Arizona is growing, municipalities may need to get their infrastructure in place now, before the property taxes from the new golf-course subdivisions start rolling in.

Prop 105 (Land conservation): YES
Prop 106 (Land conservation): YES
Prop 106 conserves half again as much land, so I'd favor it. But Prop 105 is better than nothing, so I'll vote yes as a backup.

Prop 107 (Attack on marriage): NO
If you think I'd support a "marriage and marriage-like status for opposite-sex couples only" amendment, you need to spend some time in the archives of this blog.

Prop 200 (Voting lottery): NO
This is a frivolous waste of money. There are a lot better ways to enhance voting -- for example, make election day a holiday, and run candidates that are worth voting for.

Prop 201 (Smoking ban): NO
Prop 206 (Smoking ban): NO
I'm mildly in favor of smoking bans, but I don't think this ought to be in the state constitution. Municipalities can each pass their own smoking regulations.

Prop 202 (Minimum wage increase): YES
I'm in favor of anything that shifts business profits toward the workers, and minimum wage is a modest way of doing that. I'll side with the empirical data over the abstract models when it comes to whether a whole $1.60 an hour will cause massive layoffs.

Prop 203 (Increased early childhood education funding): NO
I'm on the fence about this one, but the fact that it's funded by a regressive cigarette tax pushes me into the "no" camp.

Prop 204 (Better cages for farm animals): YES
As animal rights measures go, Prop 204 is a micro-band-aid -- the tiny handful of pigs and calves raised in the state would get room to lie down most of the time. Which makes it all the more depressing that people can manage to vote against this proposition. Can your capacity for empathy be that stunted?

Prop 205 (Voting by mail): YES
This is a tough call, but stories about voter intimidation and disenfranchisement at polling places tilt me toward yes. I'd be a more solid yes if the proposition didn't seem so eager to shut down in-person voting locations -- it would be better to give people a choice of method.

Prop 207 (Private property): NO
This is a case of libertarian extremists hijacking the legitimate backlash against the Supreme Court's Kelo decision. Prop 207 would require compensation for "regulatory takings" -- any reduction in property value caused by, e.g., zoning laws or environmental regulations. That would cut the heart out of attempts to establish a more sustainable society.

Prop 300 (No classes for illegal immigrants): NO
Another case of trying to hurt immigrants for the sake of hurting immigrants.

Prop 301 (No probation for meth users): NO
One would think that the point of the criminal justice system is to prevent crimes from being committed -- a goal that can often be accomplished through efforts to rehabilitate offenders. But most people seem to see the criminal justice system's goal as proving that we have Really Big Penises because we Get Tough and Crack Down on Bad Criminals.

Prop 302 (State legislators' salaries): YES
I don't actually have much of an opinion as to whether the salaries are adequate (and I have trouble believing many people do it, or decline to, because of the money anyway). But I'll vote yes just because I'm happy to see this question put to the voters, not the legislators.

Stentor Danielson, 11:40, |