I’m going to look at an argument for objective morality that I heard enunciated on a Christian podcast a week or two back. You’ll know it, it’s not new. This time, however, it really got me thinking, and it could be the basis for a talkie-video on NonStampChannel2 some time. Before I put the time into that, though, I need to put it out there and see if there’s something to it that I’m missing, because I’m convinced this is just about the worst argument for a Christian to make. The flaw of this oft-repeated line of reasoning is staring me in the face. It’s so obviously a DREADFUL argument. It appears to me to be so blatantly bad that I’m truly afraid I’m missing something.
Here’s the argument, transcribed almost exactly, so forgive the speaker the stop-start nature of the prose.
What do you think about that example,… the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Does our moral revulsion at those concentration camps, … Is that because there is an objectively real fact about the matter?, that treating people that way is wrong,…?
Say Hitler had won the war, and we now lived in a society where because of that and the propaganda, everyone believed that anti-semitism was good, and gassing Jews was fine, would that mean then that that was simply the morality that we accept?
Is morality simply, at the end of the day, what society thinks about a matter? Or would it still be wrong? Even though nobody thought it was wrong?
Would it actually still be wrong, because we can be wrong about moral facts?
And if that’s the case, does that suggest that there is a moral dimension that isn’t part of our natural world, that somehow transcends it? Could this be the evidence for god…?
Well, let’s investigate that hypothetical scenario. If Hitler had won, and the Jews were all gone, here’s what I think would happen…
Firstly, we wouldn’t condemn Hitler for having done it. That’s part of the analogy, I know, but it’s worth stating again. We would possibly admire him for having done it, if we were brainwashed enough, although that is not necessary for the analogy to hold. At one extreme we’d praise him for it, at the other, we’d just be hush-hush about it with a tacit acceptance. Chances are there’d be a middle-ground between adoration and tacit acceptance that most people would occupy. All, though, as the example specifies, would pretty much be in line with the idea that Hitler had done the right thing.
What we would think, at the very least, is that it had been necessary. That’s the kind of justification that would come out for it, and would be held by just about everyone, even those not necessarily praising Hitler for having done it. We would look back and think, and maintain, that in the case of the early 20th century, things had gotten so bad, or were about to take such a massive turn for the worst, that drastic action had become appropriate, and the genocide had been a viable option, even if not necessarily the only one. For some, it would have been the best option. For others, simply necessary and justified.
If we were all brainwashed by propaganda, as the example mentions, then that propaganda would, again, necessarily, include the idea that the Jews had deserved their genocide. Even if we didn’t share Hitler’s zeal, we would all at least be sitting around saying that yes, there had been extenuating circumstances that had deemed it necessary in that particular case for the Fuhrer to have carried out such an incredible act.
Now, the hypothetical seems to be suggesting, that no matter the propaganda, it would still have been wrong to have carried out the Holocaust. Read it again and check the language. The analogy ends with a kind of suggestion that indeed this is part of the whole moral argument for the evidence for God, as a necessary objective moral law giver. “Would it still be wrong…?” Because, presumably, we all do know that it was wrong. I mean, certainly the world gets along on that assumption.
But look again at the picture I was painting there. Doesn’t it look familiar? Making excuses for genocide? Pointing out its necessity? It should be very familiar: It is comprised of exactly the kind of responses that Christians give when challenged on the Old Testament genocides.
Yes, they (very mostly) say: genocide is bad. Objectivity bad. Absolutely immoral. It’s just that in this case, the case of the Israelites entering the promised land, genocide was actually moral and morally necessary. It has to be viewed in the correct context to be correctly understood morally.
For a bible-believer, genocide is one of those things that are objectively immoral, yet OK, depending on the circumstances.
In the hypothetical Hitler analogy, we would all be excusing the use of the gas chambers. In the Old Testament case, believers excuse the use of swords and arrows and knives against innocent women and children. (William Fuckwit Lane Craig goes as far as to suggest that we should feel sorry for the soldiers who had to carry out the murders.)
In the hypothetical Hitler analogy, we would all be excusing the millions and millions and millions of deaths as having been justified and necessary. In the Old Testament case, believers excuse the hundreds of thousands of deaths, (at a time when the world population was orders of magnitude smaller, and before World War II weaponry technology), as having been specially justified and necessary.
The example attempts to point out the ludicrousness and moral repugnance of a position in which possibly excusing the Holocaust even becomes an option, and talks about the ‘brainwashing’ that would be necessary to get a population to think that way.
Christianity: you are, and always have been, in that ludicrous and morally repugnant position on the question of genocide. You ARE that ‘brainwashed’ population.
Allow me to rephrase a section of the example slightly to demonstrate:
Say the Israelites had won the promised-land wars, and we now lived in a society where because of that and the propaganda, everyone believed that destroying all those nations had been good, and that “utterly destroying everything that breathed” (see Joshua 10:40, for example) had been fine, would that mean then that that was simply the morality that we accept?
Is morality simply, at the end of the day, what society thinks about a matter? Or would it still be wrong? Even though nobody thought it was wrong?
The Hitler analogy is designed to shock us into realising that viewing morality as not objective could potentially lead us towards making enormous errors of moral judgement, were morality to come to be viewed as ‘what society thinks about a matter’. And it goes straight for the jackpot: the most evil act within living memory, because everybody agrees: anyone who would excuse or justify that act is sick. What Christians bringing up this issue and this example fail to realise is that with a Christian view of objective morality, you are forced to do exactly the thing that you’re suggesting would make someone appear to be a brainwashed sicko at complete odds with civilised society.
You can’t imagine living in a world in which genocide could be considered moral, and you make up an analogy pointing out how misguided excusing such a massive slaughter would be, yet in the next breath, you will excuse genocide carried out by an Old Testament hero (probably Joshua) who was simply Hitler with a different ideology and less effective weaponry!
And rather than deal with the incredible inconsistency at the heart of the Christian worldview, you are so much more comfortable turning the table and laying the problem at the feet of those who do not accept even that God exists, deflecting any light away from the fact that your god doesn’t condemn it as immoral, but instead orders it and actively assists in its being carried out. The exact thing that you’re bringing up as the best possible example of a hideously immoral act, that someone could only get wrong if they were brainwashed!
I’m calling bullshit on this. I’m calling bullshit on someone challenging the basis of the morality of a secular society, when the example they use to illustrate immorality is something that they’d justify as having once been holy and sacred!
Especially as your next step is, usually, to challenge us secularists to name the standard by which we’re judging the morality of the acts mentioned in the bible. After all, we’re just atheists who don’t have a basis for yeah, bah blah blah heard it all before. Well, I can tell you this: Whatever basis we have for calling out the Hitler-like acts of the Old Testament genocidal warlords, it’s a better and more reliable standard than the one you’re using: You’re using the bible, and the morality inherent in the bible, to judge the morality of the bible.
WELL WHAT THE FUCK GOOD IS THAT?
How can you not see the circular reasoning and invalidity of this line of reasoning?
How can you not see that condemning genocide does not play in the favour of a Christian view of objective morality? You worship a god that ordered and encouraged kings and military leaders to do things that Hitler, in a way, simply perfected. And then say that this god is the basis of objective morality, and that getting this point wrong could lead to people coming to think that genocide would be OK?!
This is utter insanity! What the fuck am I missing here?
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Stuart Ingrouille
December 4, 2012 at 11:57 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Nope. You aren’t missing anything. You’re right on the money. Excellent post. I hope you can work this up into a vid in the future.
NonStampCollector
December 4, 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Thank you sir.
A talkie-vid, at least. Not everything is adaptable into dialogue form!
Or maybe I’m just not trying hard enough…?
richardelguru
December 4, 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Forget Joshua, forget Hitler (Hey! I unGodwinned!)
They are rank amateurs.
God is the genocidal nut par excellence—think Flood!
And that was apparently necessary.
Unless the Bible isn’t true…
Otherwise you post is great
richardelguru
December 4, 2012 at 12:35 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
your post
(mumble mumble editing mumble grumble)
Stacy
December 4, 2012 at 12:39 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I predict the Christians will reply, “But Gawd commanded those genocides–Joshua & crew didn’t decide to do it themselves. Gawd can command genocide, because he’s Gawd, and he and only he can see all possible outcomes. Also, the little Canaanite babies went straight to heaven.”
Still bullshit, but that’s the distinction they’ll make.
Dunc
December 4, 2012 at 1:01 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Was the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki wrong? Plenty of people are perfectly happy to argue that that was justified and necessary.
Was the alliance with Stalin wrong? Plenty of people are perfectly happy to argue that that was justified and necessary, despite the fact that Stalin’s eventual body count was way higher than Hitler’s.
I can fairly easily construct a plausible counter-factual history in which we sided with Hitler against Stalin, and on balance, it turned out better than actual history…
Where’s your objective morality now, eh?
Actually, that’s a good question: where is your “objective” morality? I mean, if it’s objective, it would exist even in a completely unpopulated Universe…
Riptide
December 4, 2012 at 1:10 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
A possible point to make is that Hitler also seriously considered himself as doing God’s work, not only in facilitating the murder of just about 6 million Jews, but also 5.5 million non-Jewish Europeans (not to mention the horrendous civilian casualties of the war itself in Russia, which number upwards of twenty million). And that the almost completely Christian societies in Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, France, Italy, and the Baltic States *did* tacitly approve of these genocides as they occurred, without incurring a contradiction with their ‘objective morality’. And that the only Nazi to ever be excommunicated from the Catholic Church was Joseph Goebbels–for the unpardonable sin of marrying a Protestant.
I actually relish when religious people bring up fascism as though it were some kind of counterpoint to atheism, when in fact nearly all fascist movements have been happy to call themselves ‘parties of God’.
jamessweet
December 4, 2012 at 1:24 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
To be clear up front: I agree with you. But you asked for holes in the argument, so I will do my best.
The biggest problem is that this is somewhat reminicent of a tu quoque argument. In this case I think it’s valid, or at least it can be valid, but you need to be careful what you are arguing/counter-arguing. In essence, the Christian contention here is, “Atheism is inferior because it cannot provide a coherent meta-ethics”. You can argue, “Christianity can’t provide a coherent meta-ethics either, therefore atheism is not inferior” — but unless you plan on fleshing out this argument immensely, you have to be careful to avoid arguing that “Christianity can’t provide a coherent meta-ethics, therefore atheism does have a coherent meta-ethics.” (That would be a tu quoque) Note that some would argue that there are coherent secular meta-ethical cases for truly objective morality (Daniel Fincke comes to mind as a strong proponent of this), and while I won’t go as far as that, I don’t think morality is purely subjective either. But the argument you are making does nothing to establish that, so be careful not to imply that it does.
In fact, if it were me, I would even go so far as to explicitly acknowledge that you are not making a case for a secular objective morality, while at the same time perhaps pointing people to resources that do discuss such a possibility.
Now, with that caveat out of the way, this is an interesting angle of attack on Divine Command Theory, similar but not quite identical to Euthyphro. The strength of this argument is that, unlike Euthyphro which is concerned exclusively with hypotheticals, this argument shows a practical failing of DCT within the Christian framework, and does so by analogizing it with a hypothetical-based attack on secular morality. One downside is that by relying on something which, while manifestly evil, would unavoidably be classified as good by a Christian adherent to DCT, this argument has no power over someone who has already subscribed to DCT whole hog, e.g. William Lane Craig.
Oh, one more warning: We’ve got a couple of Uncle Leos on my wife’s side of the family, and having had some experience with them I can tell you without any doubt that some people will find this argument antisemitic. “How dare you compare the Israelites’ triumph with the Holocaust? You trivializing the Jews’ suffering while mocking their religious traditions!” So be prepared for that.
coozoe
December 4, 2012 at 1:31 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
If my sister had b*lls, she’s be my brother. Humans evolved to have morals because that helped with survival. The outcome of Hitler winning, while a potent idea, is not worth pursuing. I’d rather see something about sisters with jewels.
freebird
December 4, 2012 at 2:54 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“This is utter insanity! What the fuck am I missing here?”
Uh, God kills people he does it because he loves them, duh! Hitler killed people because he was a cold heartless evolutionist possessed by a gay sex demon.
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December 4, 2012 at 4:00 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
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Lorinda
December 4, 2012 at 4:25 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
It sounds solid to me. Hitler seems to get used a lot as an example of someone purely horrible that we can all see the “immorality” of — but what about things we are more used to — most of us in the U.S. and Canada benefit because the native people have been moved, killed, marginalized, disrespected, and so on. We actively benefit. Many, many native people were executed after being forcibly baptized, starting almost immediately after Columbus reached this side of the world. Slavery was/is justified using bibical terms and concepts. The Hitler argument itself, it seems to me, is a way of pointing out evil without actually taking any responsibility for any of one’s own.
This is no doubt a whole different argument, but since that Hitler justification is new to me, these are the things my mind started following. It’s not an argument like yours, all fitted together — it’s more of a playground “look who’s talking” kind of jeer. But it’s true
Peter N
December 4, 2012 at 4:40 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Do these same Christians think that I will suffer eternal torment as a consequence of having an inquiring mind, and that’s moral? That I can get to heaven because a completely innocent man was punished for my crimes, and that’s moral?
busterggi
December 4, 2012 at 5:05 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I suspect that had Hitler won and suceeded in exterminating everyone of Jewish descent that, as more than fifty years would have passed for legends to build, the ‘final solution’ would be considered as a miracle in compliance with Jesus’ will. And Christians would have no trouble incorporating another genocide into their collection of beloved fairy tales.
Lorinda
December 4, 2012 at 6:21 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“And Christians would have no trouble incorporating another genocide into their collection of beloved fairy tales.” Busterggi, your are correct — said it quicker than I did, but we DO live in a world where hitler-like people won.
Spaj
December 4, 2012 at 6:51 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I don’t get the Christian point in the first place – their argument that “morality is absolute, look at this example of how if society was different, you’d all find this morally repugnant”?
Well, your morals are already influenced by this society, sorry.
Go find I dunno, a Mongol tribesman, or an ancient Greek, and review Hitler’s actions with him, and they’d be wondering why you were wasting a supply of slaves, not worrying about cruelty to others. Morals are clearly socially formed, and not absolute, and Hitler is not the worst monster from history either.
If you could present factual evidence that something was morally right or wrong, that would prove “the existance of a moral dimension that transcends reality” blah blah etc. But we’re subjective observers, not objective ones.
Until then, no god, nice try, next!
Greta Christina
December 4, 2012 at 7:00 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Yes. This. Excellent point, one that had never occurred to me, and one that I’ll no doubt be referencing a lot in the future. Especially if it’s in video form…
The one thing I’d add is this: If the Nazis had won, I think it’s very possible that, decades in the future, their descendants would learn to be deeply ashamed of what their ancestors had done. In the United States, for instance, the genocide against Native Americans is widely (although not universally) seen as reprehensible, one of the foulest stains on our history. White people were the victors in that war… and yet many of us now don’t excuse it as necessary, justified, or deserved. We excoriate it, and are deeply ashamed of it.
But here it is, thousands of years after the genocides described in the Old Testament, and many Christians are still, still, defending them.
And they have the audacity to try to shame the rest of us for moral relativism.
Morality isn’t just situational or social or learned, and it isn’t just chosen by the victors. We seem to have some core ethical values hard-wired into us through our evolution as a social species, and those values often outweigh the power of rationalization. Especially with time. But in the case of Christians who are still defending genocide simply because God commanded it… maybe not so much.
billhaines
December 4, 2012 at 8:51 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Seems to me you’re equating ‘moral’ with ‘good’ which is not accurate. ‘Moral’ refers to behavior generally regarded as ‘good’ within a particular society or group, regardless of whether or not that behavior actually is ‘good’ in terms of maximizing both individual and collective happiness.
Yes, given that horrid hypothetical, the Holocaust would be moral — in exactly the same sense that Biblical genocides are moral within groups taking the Bible literally and believing all morality comes it.
But no, of course, neither the Holocaust nor Biblical genocides were good in terms of maximizing both individual and collective happiness — and anyone seeking to base morality on actual effects of behavior in these terms will find both highly immoral.
jcsscj
December 4, 2012 at 8:59 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
What I find interesting is that they set up a completely hypothetical situation and then end with saying that this finally could be the proof that god exists.
My only conclusion is that god is also hypothetical. I know this is not logical sound.
What is sound is that if god doesn’t exist then Hitler would have lost. Which is the case, but he could have lost for different reasons.
If Hitler would have won, then god would exist. I have to say that is completely in character, because god always allows a lot of people to die as proof he exists as a mora…..
alnitak
December 4, 2012 at 10:20 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Imagine that there was a genocide to which Americans would turn a blind eye? Impossible! Ask any Native American….
Zugswang
December 5, 2012 at 2:27 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Most recognize that what we did was a travesty, but we also sure as hell aren’t going to do anything to fix their continued mistreatment (and I say ‘continued’ because I know someone who works for IHS, and the abuse and neglect that Native Americans continue to suffer is significant)
maxdwolf
December 5, 2012 at 4:01 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I tend to agree w. Jamessweet. This does destroy the argument of Christians who consider the bible without errors and a perfect model of morality. But for those Christians who do not consider the bible inerrant it does not work. More important, for me, is that it does nothing to face the argument of humanists, agnostics, and atheists who argue for an objective morality. For me the question of deciding what is right and wrong is a serious one and I have been struggling with it my whole life.
I’m afraid I must also disagree with Billhaines. “Good” is no more objective than “moral”. His particular definition is likely popular, but it is still subjective and an artificial construct. It is also one I cannot entirely get behind. Imagine a world of the future of vast technological superiority, where we have advanced machines running everything according to “greatest individual and collective happiness” (despite its somewhat contradictory wording). All of our needs are taken care of and we need for nothing. We have no power to speak of. We are entertained and coddled. No education beyond what is necessary to be considered sapient. By the simplistic measure given this is a good outcome, likely the best outcome possible. But to me this is a nightmarish future.
nohellbelowus
December 5, 2012 at 4:03 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Horrible argument. Let’s change a few words:
Naw. It just means that we had no good explanation for our belief.
Julien Rousseau
December 5, 2012 at 7:28 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
That.
It amuses me how they claim that objective morality comes from an entity, which is by necessity a subject.
You just need to swap one source of supposededly objective morality for another (say, jesus to allah) to see that the morality is not objective but subjective as it changes with the subject (can’t eat pork anymore…).
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December 5, 2012 at 9:46 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Its onerous to seek out educated people on this topic, however you sound like you know what youre speaking about! Thanks
NonStampCollector
December 5, 2012 at 10:07 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@Jamessweet @8,
thanks for the ideas. I would only want to clarify that I’m not positing atheism or non-theism as superior on this question. My stance is firmly towards getting us all to settle on “I don’t know”, as a starting point to an actual honest inquiry. The theistic position is absurd and that’s all I’m really pointing out. It pollutes the discussion of this important stuff.
NonStampCollector
December 5, 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@Bill @18
Good points, but for this example to fail, one needn’t even go towards arguing for that (far superior) definition of morality (greatest good for the greatest number).
This Christian argument uses its own morality to shoot itself in the foot. And then points to the shot foot to demonstrate how everyone else is lame!
NonStampCollector
December 5, 2012 at 10:16 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Re the mentions of Native Americans –
As an Australian, I can tell you that we carry our own shame for the invasion of the territory that had belonged to the Aborigines for 60,000 years. A bunch of white guys showed up and declared that nobody lived there “Terra Nullius”, then set about killing the people who (ahem) lived there.
God probably told them to do it. He tends to do that, apparently.
Helmi
December 5, 2012 at 10:38 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I thought you were going to go in a slightly different direction when I saw this question (restated to replace “society” with “minds”, since society is a collection of minds):
No – if it’s objective, it means it does not originate from a mind. (That is what the world objective means) Just like all objective facts, minds are required to determine them, but they do not generate them. My opinion that “fish tastes good” is subjective, but my determination that “fish normally live in water” is objective.
If morality is nothing but the reflection of a mind – whether Hitler, my neighbor Jon Smith, or your god Yahweh, then it is not objective. It doesn’t matter how powerful the mind is. It is only objective if it does not come from a mind. So it’s a bit strange to compare “morality is nothing but a reflection of the minds of men” with the Christian “alternative” of “morality is nothing but a reflection of a specific magical mind”. (or, more accurately, a reflection of the minds of the ignorant barbaric human men who dreamed up this god)
The only option for morality to be objective is if it does not come from a god. Sure, some would argue that morality is subjective whether or not it comes from a god – in which case this Christian argument is the pot calling the kettle black – but it can only be objective if it does NOT come from a god – in which case this Christian argument is the pot calling the silverware black. (as AronRa would say)
grumpyoldfart
December 5, 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Not quite sure how this fits in, but:
Morality changes the closer one gets to the action. During WWII many Germans agreed wholeheartedly with the murder of the Jews. After the war some American troops took the people on a tour of the local death camps and attitudes quickly changed.
Kevin K
December 5, 2012 at 3:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
What’s the difference between Hitler and Joshua?
Hitler tried to kill all the Jews.
Joshua tried to kill everyone but the Jews.
Simple.
Yes, it’s patently absurd to declare that morality is gods-given and cite biblical morality as an absolute standard. But not only because of the rank hypocrisy you point out.
Also because the moral standards outlined in the book don’t even survive the book itself. There’s a Commandment, written in stone from the hand of Yahweh itself: Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. And the OT punishment for not keeping the Sabbath holy was death by stoning. We know that story.
But then comes along this Jesus fellow, and completely overturns the prohibition. John 9:14-16 and others.
There are also the laws in Leviticus about what is or is not fit to eat. Shellfish being an abomination and all that. Which is overturned by Jesus himself in Mark 7:18-19.
So. There it is. Right in front of anyone who cares to read. The “objective” morality espoused in the bible is nothing of the sort. It’s conditional and subject to change.
And frankly, if I were the god who was creating objective moral standards, I would not have chosen “Don’t Covet” as one of my 10 large. I would have chosen “Don’t Rape”. And as one of my laws, “Don’t force your daughter to marry her rapist, no matter how much money he pays you.”
Lorinda
December 5, 2012 at 4:06 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I am probably in over my head! I don’t generally think in terms of the word “morality.” I may have a concept of it that I call something else. But I looked up “moral” just for a starting place; it wasn’t exactly helpful. BUT when I look at other connected words — moralism, moralistic, morality — they all have a subjective bent to the definitions — “undue” concern for the morals of others, “narrowminded” morality, a system, such as “Christian” morality — which shows me that at least in terms of my dictionary there is no one standard — that morality has to have a qualifier to become something we can talk about?
So, going back to the definition of the noun, moral, I see that it is identified as “the lesson… contained in or taught by a fable, a story, or an event.” (Am. Heritage Dic; 3rd edition). Which then says to me that your moral will change with your story line or myth.
Somewhere in this conversation someone pointed out that where you are in history affects your morals — and to that I add, so does your level of information. I have, for instance, seen a member of my family become more and more open about gay people. Recently he said, “Well, I used to think that gay marriage was not a good idea. Then in was a non-issue. But I still thought gays in the military was not a good idea. And now I don’t see any problem.” Of course a ton of your traditional Christians would not call his stances advancing morality, but I do, at least as far as I would use the term “moral.” . I think he is more interested in what is true, rather than anything he would label as moral.
busterggi
December 5, 2012 at 6:02 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Had to think about this overnight but as some of you may know, the Allied nations had knowledge of the ‘final solution’ concentration camps before WWII started but kept that quiet, especailly in the US, as they knew that many citizens would have had no problem with Hitler’s actions as anti-Semitism was very high.
Morality in 1937 was very different in 1946 apparently – at least in public.
fractalheretic
December 6, 2012 at 4:30 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“…does that suggest that there is a moral dimension that isn’t part of our natural world, that somehow transcends it?”
There’s that fallacy again. Theists keep confusing the abstract with the supernatural. Whether it’s morality or logic or numbers or whatever, they assert that something abstract can’t be accounted for by our “materialistic” world view where everything is just atoms bumping around, and therefore that abstract concept must be magic. It’s like they can’t understand how abstract concepts can exist without the supernatural.
I believe in objective morality, but the theist’s followup question “where does it come from?” is gibberish. Morality doesn’t “come from” anything. It just is, the same way 2 and 2 is 4, and that fact doesn’t need to “come from” anything or anyone.
danielliev
December 6, 2012 at 7:29 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
There’s also a hidden argument within the main body, that a moral fact is self-evident and thus it would be impossible for the Holocaust to be seen as not wrong.
The glaring flaw in this of course is that many people who would otherwise test as sane did not see this self-evident fact. Even before the Holocaust wide swaths of the European population wanted Jews to just go away, with the occasional pogrom or ghetto burning to hammer the point home.
It’s similarly true with slavery, incest, polygamy, homosexuality, genocide, capital punishment (in Europe), I’m sure several other issues I can’t think of off the top of my head. Gut feelings for self-evident moral facts have a terrible, terrible track record. It’s demonstrable that there are no actions which have always inspired moral revulsion, and so no successful test to determine what a self-evident moral truth would be.
Sids
December 6, 2012 at 8:51 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The problem I see here is that Christians don’t tend to say that genocide is objectively wrong – they simply use that as an example of what atheists would consider as such.
The Christian worldview says that disobedience to their god(s) is objectively wrong, and the actions of their god(s) are objectively right. The genocides in the Bible did not go against this objective morality.
ThinksImImposterPft
December 6, 2012 at 2:42 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I heard a good definition:
good and bad is defined as how something will affect oneself for better or worse, i.e. a selfish consideration.
right and wrong is defined as how actions will affect other people for better or worse, i.e. how actions will affect someone other than the self
Here, right and wrong = morals.
Marcus Ranum
December 6, 2012 at 5:06 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
What the fuck am I missing here?
I think the only piece of the puzzle you’ve left off the table is that if you ask most people if they’d be OK with a genocide against them, would they accept the same reasons for it being “necessary” and “acceptable”?
Marcus Ranum
December 6, 2012 at 5:09 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
right and wrong is defined as how actions will affect other people for better or worse, i.e. how actions will affect someone other than the self
Well, that’s one way of arguing that a morality is objective rather than subjective – I think it’s pretty clear I’d be being subjective if I only talked about what’s right for me or wrong for me. When I start reasoning about what’s right and wrong for an other and I’m not part of the picture, then I’m a step closer to being objective.
Marcus Ranum
December 6, 2012 at 5:10 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The genocide of the native Americans would be another case where the genocide, being completed, is rationalized away as “it happened long ago” etc.
Marcus Ranum
December 6, 2012 at 5:32 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
One more comment and then I promise I’ll shut up for a while.
…
It’s always seemed to me that “god’s will” is just a great general-purpose excuse for the arbitrary exercise of power. Why did christians launch crusades? Was it to free the holy land, or was it a land, goods, and power-grab? It seems amazingly coincidental that the holy parts that they particularly wanted to free were the wealthy, valuable, gold-encrusted parts! It seems amazingly coincidental that god wants his chosen people to take over prime real estate! Of course we all see that: a ruler is going to find an excuse like “deus vull’t!” as vastly more convenient than having to explain to his followers that “well, we’ve been subdividing our fiefdoms thanks to this feudal primogeniture thing that we do, and now we have all these combative nobles that want parcels of land for their warrior offspring, and don’t want to have to give up any of theirs, so we thought maybe we’d go carve up those guys’ lands, what do you think, mm?” No need to expose the ugly details of politics to the people who are going to do the bleeding and dying, now, is there?
So god’s will is just a shorthand for the will of arbitrary authority, which goes a long way toward explaining why god’s alleged choices are so flippin’ arbitrary. God’s actually the scapegoat in this situation.
Lorinda
December 6, 2012 at 5:42 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
And THEN, Marcus, to have the audacity to talk about “the white man’s BURDEN”. Damn. A reason for using Hitler would be to say, “well all those other times they were godless savages (ie: non-white). Yup.
N. Nescio
December 6, 2012 at 5:48 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
“Even though nobody thought it was wrong?”
It’s like what the people undergoing genocide think about the matter doesn’t even enter into consideration by the person who thought up this scenario.
I am not interested in being lectured on morality by somebody who displays that tendency.
fentex
December 6, 2012 at 9:47 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
This post refers to Christian objective morality, but the point of subservience to a God is that there is no need for the objective, doing what God wants is just fine.
The posed question is a good question for it does require an answer from anyone who maintains that morality is objective.
Just pointing out that the questioner subscribes to a highly subjective morality based on flawed premises does not establish that objective morality exists.
The same question arises considering clearing the west for white settlement, the use of slavery, and every time the stronger ignores the interests of the weak.
The answer to it can not be an appeal to the appalling nature of the questioners religion, that wouldn’t even have been available if it had been phrased by an Atheist with regard to Stalins murderous purges.
The quoted question has two parts to it – the interesting question which is not answered by attacking the questioners religion, and the non-sequitor that not having answered the question implies god.
That the non-sequitor is nonsense still doesn’t answer the first part.
bobo
December 7, 2012 at 1:50 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Not only will Christians try to refute your argument with ‘genocide is ok if God commands’ ‘well, that was part of God’s covenenant with his people (also an excuse for slavery)’ but I would not be surprised if they brought out (and they have) the excuse that genocide wasn’t really genocide cuz they wuz killin demons!!!!
me
December 7, 2012 at 1:54 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Hitler got the idea for the Jewish genocide from the Armenian genocide, as I understand it. That seemed to have been forgotten (it probably would be if it hadn’t been for his using it as a model). So I don’t think he’d be praised or condemned, it would just be forgotten, possibly even denied as propaganda or similar. That’s how such things have worked in similar regiemes subsequently. Morality is fairly constant (with some degrees of freedom). It’s much easier to influence memory.
Lorinda
December 7, 2012 at 3:53 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The Armenian Genocide is still totally denied by the perpetrators. We have to remember (well, okay, we don’t have to) that Hitler did not come out of a vacuum. At the time here in the US a large number of states (including, I am ashamed to say, mine) engaged in eugenics, sterilizing people not considered worthy of reproduction, in order to “improve” the bloodlines of the country — a master race perhaps? In my area native peoples, and less intelligent folks, people with mental issues, and people with large families (ie:Catholics) were particularly targeted. This was considered legal and a smart idea. I believe that Margaret Sangster worked so hard for birth control because she saw it as a way to control the immigrant population. This continued at least into the seventies in some areas — on reservations, for one place, probably in others — without any mother’s consent. It may still continue, I am not sure, but I AM sure that it is always the less fortunate that suffer it in the hands of others.
david
December 7, 2012 at 7:42 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
All the points in the post are true, but are also well above what is needed to deal with the stupid suggestion that if Hitler had won, the holocaust and camps might have been viewed as acceptable. The simple fact is, even the Nazis knew that what they were doing was wrong, at the time they were doing it. That’s why they built the camps in the first place: disseminated killing, in the many different home towns of jews, by Einsatzgruppen was too brutal for even the Nazis to stomach. They had to isolate the killing and only have the most hardened sociopaths exposed to it. Yet even they knew that it was wrong, at the time. That’s why they tried to destroy the evidence as the end drew near. The fact is that Nazis almost all knew they were doing something evil, and they excused the immorality with arguments about necessity.
pinkey
December 7, 2012 at 9:55 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Hitler worked in mysterious ways. Perhaps his plan was “above” normal human comprehension, so who are we to question the morality of his genocide?
nakarti
December 7, 2012 at 10:28 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Morality is subjective… But that’s not the point. The point is that the Bible can’t be objective if it justifies subjectively the same sort of genocide we mostly recognize as immoral. You definitely can’t claim it is an objective source for morality condemning that similar genocide because it actually supports it!
Why do we have to explain this like we’re talking to small children!
Ing:Intellectual Terrorist "Starting Tonight, People will Whine"
December 8, 2012 at 6:22 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Isn’t this exercise fundamentally flawed because it is asking us to imagine a future different morality and ethos…and judge it based on our CURRENT morality and ethos?
NonStampCollector
December 9, 2012 at 1:40 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@Marcus @38:
“I think the only piece of the puzzle you’ve left off the table is that if you ask most people if they’d be OK with a genocide against them, would they accept the same reasons for it being “necessary” and “acceptable”?”
OMFG. Mind:blown. Get me William Lane Craig on the phone right now.
Susan Carroll
December 9, 2012 at 3:37 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Wow, lately… Hitler and WWII have been heavy on my mind. I don’t even have to look for it. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the post. You address the very same question I ponder. Definitely an Interesting read.
~Suki
Arthur Klym
December 9, 2012 at 4:09 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Spot on!!!!! Can’t wait for your video on this subject.
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December 9, 2012 at 6:13 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
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left0ver1under
December 9, 2012 at 6:30 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I disagree. Consider two relevant examples:
(1) The “burning times”, the farcical witch hunts and mass murder of women. Religion held power and dominance, it was not defeated by an outside army, and yet today we look upon those who did it as idiots. We see them for what they were, power hungry misogynist bigots, and yet they were the “winners” at the time and never faced punishments for their crimes.
Some might say that’s not a good example because there are still women. In that case, I offer this:
(2) The 100% genocide of Tasmanians by the English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanian
http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/index.html
As a result of disease and war, the British military annihilated every single human being on that island, the total eradication of the population. The English were the “winners”, and while they may have gone unpunished for war crimes, no one today would claim that the complete genocide of a population was a good thing.
Eventually, all dictatorships and oppressive regimes fail and their crimes are exposed. It’s only a matter of time. Unfortunately, it does mean that the guilty will go unpunished having died long before the culture shift happens.
Marcus Ranum
December 9, 2012 at 3:56 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Get me William Lane Craig on the phone right now.
I’d love to hear that.
It’s basically the “test of otherness” applied to divine command justification for genocide.
… Because by my understanding of his ideas, he’d be required to be appreciating the beauty of the divine plan, while they told him to dig the hole, climb into it, and kneel. I doubt “praise god!” would be what went through his mind when he heard the hammer on the 9mm go back. It’d be more like 168 grain FMJ.
I think the only move Craig would have left would be to assert that it was his responsibility to struggle and scream while they were killing him, because otherwise the divinely mandated genocide wouldn’t be, um, “genocidey enough” – it’d be more like a party, or some stupid thing like that.
Marcus Ranum
December 9, 2012 at 4:08 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
(BTW, I just had a rather odd mental image of Tasmanians taking over London and shooting the upper class men in Pall Mall, then hauling their children out of schools so they could be properly educated … Somehow I suspect the Victorian English would not have accepted the argument that Tasmanians genociding them and breaking apart civilization as they knew it was “for their own good.” Of course there’d be a few British who’d agree and doff their woolens in favor of Tasmanian costume and attitudes, but they’d still be rightly looked down upon for generations for being too pale.)
Pierce R. Butler
December 11, 2012 at 1:19 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Last I heard, the Allied nations killed a lot more Germans than the Germans killed Jews, and just about everybody (on the winning sides, and quite a few among the losers) still finds that necessary, justified, and appropriate.
Marcus Ranum
December 11, 2012 at 2:30 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
just about everybody
Not me.
Flippyman
December 11, 2012 at 6:22 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Like many people said, morality is not the same as good. It’s the idea of good of a specific person. The ideas of good and bad that are shared by the majority of people in a society becomes that society’s morality.
Therefore, what’s moral is ALWAYS subjective. In fact, in ethics, the main difference between a moral rule and a religious rule is that the moral rule comes from within, whereas a religious rule comes from outside, in this case, a divine entity.
So, if Hitler had won, yes, the killing of Jews would be considered necessary and justified, at least for some decades or centuries. Especially in Western cultures that love stories with a clearly good guy and a clearly bad guy.
In fact, you don’t have to imagine what would happen. We have examples of Hitlers winning all over human history. For example, the Simas taking over China, Hernan Cortes conquering the Aztecs, the English wiping out the Natives, the USA and the USSR promoting dictatorships all over the world during the Cold War era (while being close to vaporizing every human being in the world more than once), etc. Most people don’t feel so outraged by these acts, unless they belong to a specific culture or country.
Now, Hitler was a terrible man, but the main reason we hate him is because he lost. He became the villain and we remember only his bad acts, and then mostly the killing of Jews. Not so many people condemn him about the killing of homosexuals and communists and disabled. In the same vein, people don’t remember his support for animal rights or his promotion of technology which led to things like highways. And before you flame me, I am NOT defending Hitler, I’m just saying that we don’t study him objectively.
Let’s compare him with another dictator, but one that we like, Julius Cesar. Do we remember Julius Cesar and Rome for genocide, pillage and raping? No, we remember Julius Cesar and Rome as a great conqueror and a civilization. That’s because morals change.
Hitler and Cesar weren’t very different in their actions. But one lost and the other won. We like one and we dislike the other, and therefore, we have different morals.
So, to answer the questions:
Is morality simply, at the end of the day, what society thinks about a matter?
Yes, because that’s precisely the definition of morals (unless you want to get too technical in which case it’s what a person thinks about a matter and if that belief is shared by the majority of members of his or her society).
Or would it still be wrong? Even though nobody thought it was wrong?
No, it wouldn’t be wrong by the morals of that hypothetical society where nobody thought it was wrong. But we don’t live in such a society, but in one where we think it’s wrong.
Would it actually still be wrong, because we can be wrong about moral facts?
No, because we can’t be wrong about moral facts. Our morality decides what is right or wrong. For example, in the abortion debate, every side thinks it’s doing the right or moral thing.
And if that’s the case, does that suggest that there is a moral dimension that isn’t part of our natural world, that somehow transcends it? Could this be the evidence for god…?,
No, because that’s not the case.
I loved my ethics class.
However, I do believe that as we learn more about the human body and mind, about societies and about the universe, we are in a much better position to decide what’s wrong and what’s right.
That’s why we thought it was ok to make other races slaves. People sincerely believed they were inferior. As we learned more about biology and the human body, we discovered that they aren’t inferior, and so our moral ideas changed and we think it’s wrong to discriminate on the basis of color.
I hope it helps.
Al B. Quirky
December 12, 2012 at 12:37 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Moses talked the talk; Joshua walked the walk, but was it Nazism? We’re all hungry-gutted human beings, but Hitler had more choices than Joshua, who’s options were to keep wandering aimlessly around the Arabian peninsula, or go back and work for Pharaoh. Sure, we can say that (with or without religious instructions) he overdid it with the Baal-worshiping infant-sacrificing Canaanites, but there was probably a bit of over-exaggeration back when, about how utterly enemies were destroyed, and not just in the Bible. We don’t do that now; I don’t hear anyone boasting about how many Japs were nuked at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That doesn’t mean human nature has ‘improved’ since Joshua’s time, and neither should we hypocritically slash our wrists to claim the Moral High Ground. We’re here because our ancestors were fighters, murderers, rapists (or victims of rape) and slaves. Freedom is the only reference-point for judging morality.
Dan
December 12, 2012 at 7:35 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
A perfectly fair argument. The notion of an all powerful God that allows the suffering of something he/she/it loves is internally inconsistent because either
a) That God could achieve whatever it is she/he/it wanted without suffering and chooses not to
or
b) That God is bound by some higher power such that they can’t
If (a) they aren’t loving, if (b) they aren’t God.
There argument in the blog is weakened by the entirely unfounded assertion that there are moral facts.
There is no evidence or reason to suppose there are moral facts and any belief in them is arbitrary assumption.
qwerty
December 12, 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Maybe they should have used the “what if the South had won the Civil War” analogy?
Oh, I forgot, there was slavery in the good book.
And that analogy migh be too close to home.
Erp
December 15, 2012 at 10:14 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
@59 Pierce
I suggest you check your sources. The highest total in the wiki article on WW II casualties is 6.9 million German excess deaths because of the war and aftermath. However that total includes military deaths (4-5.3 million), indirect deaths due to famine, and also killings by the German government against its own people (e.g., disabled, German Jews, other religious or ethnic minorities, homosexuals, political prisoners, etc.) as well as civilian deaths due to direct Allied actions in particular strategic bombing (probably about 400,000 to 500,000). The strategic bombing did kill more German civilians than the Nazis killed German Jews (the Nazis possibly killed more disabled Germans (~200,000) than German Jews [though there is some overlap in the categories]); however, the vast majority of Jews killed in the Holocaust were not German but rather Polish or in other occupied countries (probably a bit under 6 million though may be more).
In addition the bombing of certain targets has been heavily criticized, in particular the Dresden fire bombing.
Ataraxic
December 19, 2012 at 11:30 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Another amazing example of Christian cognitive dissonance – in their view, the holocaust is a clear example of an extreme moral wrong. But by their theology, the murdered Jews and gays would have been thrown into hell to suffer eternal torture for not believing in Jesus, a concept they consider entirely just and reasonable.
Dan
December 19, 2012 at 6:13 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Perhaps murdering Jews and gays is worse than murdering Christians because they’re being damned to eternal torment early and Christians are sent to heaven.
Only sayin’
philisyssis
December 19, 2012 at 11:52 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
NSC, you should watch the debate between Shelly Kagan and William Lane Craig. Kagan mops the floor on the issue of morality without god and this exact question about “What if the nazi’s won” is asked by an audience member at the end to Kagan, who answers it brilliantly.
Pat Hurley
December 20, 2012 at 8:20 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
This well written observation and your explanations regarding specific sub-issues actually upset me. Not in a tearful, choked up way, but more of a “you have to be kidding or clueless” to not view this analogy with disdain. I am not familiar at all with the proposition we are somehow ‘hard wired’ to recognize right from wrong. I believe we are somehow programmed, or at least actively encouraged to ‘do good’ for the sake of our species’ development. Many of us have been taught by non-theists to pursue the ‘greater good’, for the sake of humanity in general.
This posting has given me pause to consider this analogy and its ramifications, even though I have seen it numerous times. I am both concerned that some use this as a justification for OT atrocities, and others believe it actually addresses the Christian objective morality issue.
While I am appalled in general, and with certain passages specifically (theirs, not NSC). That being said, I still need to give this more thought, do enough research to satisfy my need to be competent in any potential discussion.
This issue as a whole deserves continued observation, but I a fairly sure I will end up calling BULLSHIT on this too.
You are NOT missing anything on this. Your call of BS is completely supported by the facts and contextual references in this case.
On another note – this was one of the BEST posts I have EVER read. On your timeline or on others. Thanks for making me think a little bit more.
NonStampCollector
December 20, 2012 at 9:46 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Wow. Thanks, Pat.
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December 23, 2012 at 7:31 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
It’s great that you are getting thoughts from this post as well as from our discussion made at this time.
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Goldstein Squad Member
December 30, 2012 at 1:31 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
What the poster is missing is that he justifies what he wants based on…what he wants.
Abortion? Its OK because we want to carry it out.
WMDS? Its OK because we have to follow science wherever it leads…intellectual honesty and all that.
Goldstein Squad Member
December 30, 2012 at 1:33 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
There is another uncomfortable position.
Say God exists.
In that case, He can do whatever he wants, and make whatever rules he wants.
Don’t like it?
To Damn bad.
It'sEasyIfYouThink
January 14, 2013 at 7:01 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
This post is incredible. I’ve thought a lot about this topic, but I never could have precipitated my thoughts into something so elegant and rational as this. This is something I will save for the roughest of arguments, and I suspect it will serve me well.
Keep looking up,
ItsEasyIfYouThink
NoAssume
February 4, 2013 at 12:02 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I think some people are being a bit too cynical about modern morality.
God existing? I can deal with that. He will merely have provoked the attention of those infinitely his greater.
One thing that bothers me is that people are conflating the trite rationalization of ‘neccesary’ evil with actual sacrifices to the greater good, mere cases where we were not smart or rich or formidable enough to avoid all harm.
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[...] mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it“. So along these lines, some have suggested that siding with Hitler rather than Stalin may have been a more morally acceptable approach based [...]