ARE SECULAR ETHICS GOOD ENOUGH?

A rallying cry of many anti-theists is that secular ethics is superior and more rational than theistic ethics (Divine Command Theory). However, are secular ethics good enough? Are they as rational as they say? I will argue here that secular ethics are without foundation, and the only foundation for ethical values is found through or by God.

THE IS OUGHT PROBLEM

Atheist philosopher David Hume noted that when formulating an ethical system, one must jump from a statement of is (or a statement of observation) to a statement of ought (or a statement of moral obligation). He observed that even if one took the entirety of human observations about the nature of the universe, it seems impossible to derive a statement of value or obligation from it.

For example, imagine you were standing next to a track where a trolley was racing towards a man tied to the track. If you pulled the lever, then the trolley would divert and not kill the man.

One can easily observe that the man is in mortal danger. So is it logical to say that you ought to pull the lever and divert the trolley?

Is it logical that in this situation, you should save the man's life?

THE THEISTIC VIEW (DIVINE COMMAND THEORY)

In this case, the theistic view is simple (note that this goes with the assumption that Christianity is true). We can express it as a simple logical argument:

Premise 1: God is good, or has the literal property of defining what is right and wrong.

Premise 2: To not pull the lever and save the man would violate God's conception of what is right and wrong.

Conclusion: Because God defines what we ought to do, and God tells us that we ought not to let the man die, you ought to pull the lever.

Of course, this ethical system hinges on the fact that God exists and has revealed his nature to us through commands, which is another topic entirely. Therefore, whether or not ethics matter hinges on God's existance. But let's see how the secular world deals with this situation, to see if there are adequate competing ethical philosophies.

OBJECTIONS TO THE FIRST PREMISE

This is a false dilemma, because there are actually other options for the theist than those presented. But let's unpack each option:

"If they are good because God commands them, they are subjective."

The objection is saying is that if commands are just God's opinion, then they are no better than the opinion of anyone else's. This is of course false; God is the supreme good. Therefore, they are good because God commands them, because the things that God commands are coming from the standard of goodness (Him), not because we just decide to listen to what God says in fear of Hell.

"If they are God commands them because they are good, God is being held to a higher authority and therefore is not sovereign over creation."

We can simply apply Occam's razor here. God gives the command he gives because of some authority that defines goodness. Either that authority is God Himself or someone else. It makes more unnecessary assumptions to say that God gives commands and there's some other entity that defines goodness, than it does to say that God gives commands according to a standard of goodness and that the standard comes from Himself. Therefore it is true that God gives commands because they are good, but that standard of goodness is Him!

His nature is defining good. It's a description of how He is. So yes, God is good because of his nature.

That's true; it can't be proven that God's good because to say so would presume that we can formulate an objective standard of good by ourselves by which to judge Him, which is not true and hasn't been demonstrated to be true.

However, to reject the standard of God would be to be left with nothing, since secular ethics ultimately fail. Also, it is far more conceivable that an all-knowing entity would know what's right or wrong than humans, who can't tell right from wrong. Therefore it's not quite an unreasonable leap to say that God is trustworthy.

OBJECTIONS TO THE SECOND PREMISE

We can know who has the "right" God by seeing what God best fits the evidence. To do this, you must evaluate religions on a case by case basis. This is, again, a bit beyond the scope of this article, but for example, there is strong historical evidence that Jesus was who he said he was, compared to most other religions. For example, whereas many religious leaders simply claimed to have communicated with God, Jesus supported his claims of Divinity by rising from the dead in front of many eyewitneses. However, the more I talk about the historical groundings of Christianity, the more I'm tempted to compare it to other religions like Islam so I'm going to stop now and avoid offending anybody.

OBJECTIONS TO THE CONCLUSION

This statement has strong emotional power but is lacking intellectually. Yes, it is broadly possible that God would command somebody to murder. But that doesn't make it an actual possibility; there's no indication that at any point in the future God would command somebody to commit an atrocity.

This statement is also redundant. What the objector is asking is essentially, "if we are obligated to murder, are we obligated to murder?" One couldn't say "no" to that without committing logical suicide.

Lastly, this statement doesn't expose a contradiction in Divine Command Theory at all. It is not logical for an atheist to label something as immoral unless the atheist can resolve the is ought problem, which hasn't been done satisfactorally. Therefore, it would not be logically incoherent for God to command murder (though, again, not necessarily possible in real life).

SECULAR SYSTEMS OF ETHICS

This objection is brutally simple. However, brute simplicity does not mean correctness. You may feel very strongly that not pulling the lever is wrong. However, there are others that would feel differently. For example, sado-masochists and sociopaths would probably feel indifferent; a psychopath would positively want to kill the man. They all feel very strongly about their own system of ethics, so what makes yours superior to theirs? From this persepctive, what is right and wrong is just a matter of personal opinion, like the difference between liking chocolate ice cream and liking vanilla ice cream. This system of ethics is no system of ethics at all.

Furthermore, why is it that we ought to listen to our feelings about what is right and wrong? There's no logical justification for why that is so. Therefore, this argument is unsubstatiated on many levels.

This objection sounds cogent on the surface but falls apart quickly. The person arguing is asserting that purposes defines what is right or wrong; since humans have the "purpose" to survive and flourish, then you ought to pull the lever and help the other man's survival.

However, this argument simply assumes that humans ought to follow these "evolutionary purposes." Why not go against these supposed purposes? It is true that humans have evolved with the purpose of spreading genes, growing, and reproducing. But why does it matter if that's how we evolved? What binds us to follow these evolutionary drives? There is no logical justification for why we ought to follow them.

This objection is unsubstantiated. Why is it that the fact that many people agree that murder is wrong proves that we ought to prevent it? There is no logical justification here.

Furthermore, popular opinion can change. If Nazi Germany had conquered the world, everyone would agree that white supremacy is good. Again, this system of ethics is extremely subjective.