No, it isn't about why people are being good. I am not talking about motivation. What I'm saying is that morality instructs and its instructions have rational authority. These are, I think, conceptual truths about morality. But only an agent can issue instructions (it seems to me). And for those instructions to have rational authority the agent would need to have a huge amount of power over our welfare. Or so it seems to me.
Note, I am not saying a god is needed to explain moral phenomena. What I am saying is that for morality to be a reality - as opposed to a mere appearance - a god would seem to need to exist. This is just due to the kind of features morality has.
FOr instance, religious phenomena exist. There's no question some people believe in a god. And some people claim to 'sense' that there is a god. But this does not show that a god exists, of course. For a god is not a sensation or a belief. A god is the thing the sensation gives the impression of, a god is the thing believed. A god is some kind of supernatural agent. And so it would take the existence of such an agent to vindicate those sensations and beliefs. Atheism is the view that there is no god or gods and thus that all such sensations are hallucinations and that all beliefs in god are false.
Similarly, moral phenomena exist. And there will be accounts of how such phenomena has come to exist. But the phenomena is not morality. So it is not enough to account for moral phenomena. Doing that alone will not necessarily vindicate morality's existence.
Note, I am not saying a god is needed to explain moral phenomena. What I am saying is that for morality to be a reality - as opposed to a mere appearance - a god would seem to need to exist. This is just due to the kind of features morality has.
FOr instance, religious phenomena exist. There's no question some people believe in a god. And some people claim to 'sense' that there is a god. But this does not show that a god exists, of course. For a god is not a sensation or a belief. A god is the thing the sensation gives the impression of, a god is the thing believed. A god is some kind of supernatural agent. And so it would take the existence of such an agent to vindicate those sensations and beliefs. Atheism is the view that there is no god or gods and thus that all such sensations are hallucinations and that all beliefs in god are false.
Similarly, moral phenomena exist. And there will be accounts of how such phenomena has come to exist. But the phenomena is not morality. So it is not enough to account for moral phenomena. Doing that alone will not necessarily vindicate morality's existence.
