The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't even know what objective moral values "existing" would mean.

I can imagine that it would mean they existed in some weird platonic way which makes no sense to me either.

But despite the fact you think that idea is crazy (and I do as well) I am sure you can appreciate that platonic moral values is less improbable than platonic moral values + God, right? That's all my argument is about.

There's three senses in which I could interpret this:

1) Morality is physical.

This appears to me to be total nonsense. Evidence should back this up, after describing what exactly morality is within the physical world.

I agree it's nonsense if by "physical" you mean "outside of the mind". That leads to some kind of platonic existence. But idealistic platonic values (and Platonistic ideals are idealistic rather than materialist, of course) are just as crazy.

2) Morality is an abstract concept; a way of assessing actions.

Abstract concepts don't "exist" in the same way we usually describe things existing.

I agree and this is why I say I don't believe in moral ontology: Because most people don't even accept ontological subjectivity and most people wouldn't call that existing. It's the same reason why we don't say the truth of 2+2=4 "exists".

For there to be an "objective" morality, it can only mean that there's a "correct" way of measuring morality.

Or that there are moral truths in principle whether we can figure them out or not.

This also appears to me to be total circular nonsense. Correct for what? The disagreements about what morality is discuss precisely how you'd measure it in the first place. We could come up with a very specific definition of what morality measures, and thus develop an objective standard, but what is the point?

Well the point would be that that definition would be relevant to literally every other definition other people have ever come up with. For example: If people say that morality is about what God wants even if it causes people huge amounts of suffering... they still believe that if they suffer for God and do what God wants they'll get to heaven and get an eternal bliss so even then they still cash it all out with matters of well-being. So the reason why the notion of well-being is the best definition of morality is because it literally makes sense of everything anyone is concerned about. The very fact that someone is concerned or cares about morality is a matter of well-being. Morality only matters because people value it... so the view is that the reason why values are valuable is because we do value things. So if everyone could value whatever they wanted without frustrating anyone else's values (/violating anyone else's desires) then that would be a morally ideal situation.

It only applies (abstractly, and without effect) to people who subscribe to that particular definition. We'd likely have an objective standard for each person.

Right so the point is that one definition seems to make sense of literally all other definitions.

And it's like the definition of "health" imagine if some religious person wanted to say that "health" is just what God wants even if it's bad for our bodies and minds. Imagine if this religion spread and most of the world accepted that. Would that make doing what an imaginary entity wants "healthy" just because it was universally accepted that that's what the word "healthy" means now? Well, it would make it what healthy would then become to mean. But healthy in the sense that we mean it would still be more important, and we'd surely just end up using another word for it. So the point is not to agree on definitions the point is even if no one disagrees it's a useful concept with an objecitvely right and wrong answer.

If everyone stopped using the word "health" to describe matters of health... health would still be an important concept. Even without a word for it health would still be an important matter. In the same way, whether we call it "objective morality" or not.... the objective truths that could be called objective morality would still matter. And if an objective ethics in the future did spread... people could easily start referring it to ethics or morality because it would literally deal with whatever we've ever cared about (or anyone could ever possibly care about) with regards to ethics and morality.

3) Morality is a rule governing how reality functions, like the (apparent) laws of nature.

If this is the case, then there should be some way of demonstrating what exactly this law does. As it stands, it doesn't appear to do anything.

Since none of these make any sense, I can only conclude it's either people turning their own moral ideas into the "objective" morality, or an appeal to some authority. This is again pointless and circular.

I agree that this one doesn't make sense either.

But this thread is not about debating objective morality. If you want to debate that with me I'll happily debate it with you on another thread (just be aware of what I'm claiming and not claiming and what I mean by "objective morality"... I think it differs from what you mean by it ).

This thread already assumes that objective moral values exist (even in a way that I don't accept them! One of the premises for this argument is moral values existing in some sort of platonic way which is absurd and I don't believe in at all!)... this thread is me playing devil's advocate. Why? The point is just to demonstrate to the theist that however absurd or nor absurd moral values "existing" in some sort of platonic way is... platonic moral values + God is more absurd than platonic moral values. I am sure you can accept that. Here's another example: The flying spaghetti monster + an invisible unicorn existing is less likely than one of them existing. I'm just using the principle of parsimony here just to explain to the theist why even if objective moral values do somehow exist in some sort of bizarre weird way... they're more likely to exist without God.

Most atheists reject the objective moral values argument for the existence of God simply because they don't believe in objective moral values. I don't believe in objective moral values in the sense that they do either, I don't believe in moral ontology, but I wish to explain to them that even if I accept their premise that objective moral values exist independent of mind (exactly like you say, what the fuck would that even mean?!) it still makes even less sense to me for them to exist with God than without God.

A much simpler way to explain the crux of my argument is the following: The Euthyphro dilemma asks "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?" And the common theistic side-step out of this dilemma is to say "the morally good is identical to God's nature"... so my response is "Then you don't need God. All you need is the nature of goodness then. Why attach a God to it? It's more parsimonious to remove God from the equation."

That's not much of an argument but it's basically the crux of what my argument is getting at here.

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Oh, is that what the conclusion is supposed to be?  Heaven forfend I get in the way of reaching your desired conclusion, lol.

In any case, Neo's right.  Your idea of objective morality is incoherent, and not at all what anyone is referring to in moral realism.  Imagine how much it pains me to say those words.  Neos right.  There...I did it again.  Why Ham, why did you make me do that?

No he's not right because as I already explained I do believe objective moral values exist I just don't believe that they exist independent of minds and that is what most people think existence requires but it doesn't because, obviously, our minds are just as real as the external world is.

Desire Utilitarianism is an example of a theory of moral realism that refers to objective moral values existing within our minds:

Of course in another sense they refer to truths outside of exernal reality. Again, you are conflating moral truths and the existence of moral values. Moral ontology and moral epistemology are not the same thing. The point is that regardless of whether objective moral values exist inside or outside our minds those values refer to objective truths in the external world. Truths are not about existence, truths merely describe facts about the external world. For example the truth of the statement "The sun rises each morning" only exists inside my own head or can be expressed verbally (or with sign language).... but it describes a true feature of something in external reality (the fact that the sun really does rise each morning). Obviously the fact that we wouldn't be there to describe truths doesn't mean the truths would no longer be true. It would still be true that the sun rose without us there to describe it. Just as it is true that the sun rose before humans evolved to express those truths. But the point is even if the sun disappeared as soon as humans weren't around to describe it, and even if the sun didn't exist before humans were around to describe it... that is still not the same as the sun existing within our minds. And, likewise, just because objective moral values exist in our minds doesn't mean they don't describe objective moral truths about the external world. It is morally wrong for someone to use a crowbar in the external world to hit you in the face because it violates your values and thereby causes you suffering.

Moving along, moral realism not only lacks any divine contingency..the likelihood of moral realism being true is completely unaffected by the existence of a god.  It's not more or less likely that moral realism is true in the case of an existent god or a nonexistent one.

Not true at all. As explained in my argument it's more likely to be true without a God simply because of the principle of parsimony. It's more likely to be true because of a basic law of probability. Like I said to Rob what's more likely something as absurd as an invisible unicorn exists or the absurdity of both an invisible unicorn AND a flying spaghetti monster exists?

What I'm getting at is the same thing that Sam Harris was getting at here about why Mormonism is objectively less likely to be true than Christianity:

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Oh, is that what the conclusion is supposed to be?  Heaven forfend I get in the way of reaching your desired conclusion, lol.

And wow, going back to this... you either didn't read my conclusion at all or you're just being disingenuous again and pretended my conclusion didn't say what it said just because you wouldn't accept it if it were a premise. Again, you don't seem to understand that when I'm only arguing for validity I'm only arguing for validity. Just like on that thread in 2012 you turn into a disingenuous fuck and ignore what I'm actually claiming just because you consider certain premises unsound. This is when pragmatism sucks donkey balls: When it leads to people justifying their own intellectual dishonesty because they think such intellectual dishonesty is useful. If you consider my argument useless you are perfectly willing to pretend it isn't valid.