Moral Argument for God's Existence

[bennyboy]

In the end, I think it comes down to this: morality is about "right" behavior, and establishing rightness of action requires a goal for that action.

And determining if the goal is right requires a pre-existing moral code.

That's right.

If the goal is happiness, the cannibal is right to eat the child. If the goal is preservation of the world, removing people probably doesn't hurt. If the goal is to maintain the social contract, extending mutual safety to all, then the cannibal is wrong to eat the child.

And without a some form of morality, it is not possible to pick which of these goals should be chosen to follow up on and which should be disregarded.

That's right.

Is something not getting through?

Apparently not. Right now, I'm seeing a circle: if there's some common function or mechanism among humans which leads to moral ideas or behavior, then that is the objective foundation of morality. We must determine what mechanism does this by first knowing what people normally call "moral behavior." But in that case, it's merely an exercise in detective semantics, rather than the revelation of any real property of humanity.

Also, you seem to be equating moral agency with morality. Morality is doing what is right, or a system or ideology determining what is right, and moral agency is the capacity to do what is right. They are not the same.

Only if you can find a fault in the argument I just gave. Otherwise, there is an objective way to make that choice.

Okay, let's take the orange example, or the cannibal example, or any other. Tell me by what objective way the individuals involved will make their choices.