David Withun discusses the Historical Method and it's relevance to the ancient Church.
Anamnesis
8 years ago
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Response to "Morals without God."
My comments on a recent Opinion piece in the NY Times by Dr. Frans De Waal; Read the piece here.
Dr.De Waal makes the claim throughout his article that man can behave morally, or adhere to moral precepts without a belief in God. But this is quite different from his assertion in the title of the piece: "Morals Without God." It is evident that individuals can lead moral lives without a belief in God. But without God, which is to say, if God doesn't exist, can anyone be truly moral? I believe the answer is unequivocally in the negative. "Right" and "wrong," as objective realities, do not exist without God.
Dr.De Waal makes an excellent case for the genesis of ethical values from the socio-biological framework in which human beings evolved. He points to altruistic behavior commonly observed in various mammals, most notably chimpanzees and other primates. It may indeed be the case that altruistic behavior and moral values arose in an evolutionary context, but how does this assertion do anything to indicate that those moral precepts are actually true? For instance, If one holds the belief that it is wrong to kill innocent people for pleasure, is this belief held merely because it is a by-product of conditioning, or is it held because human beings realize that it's truly wrong to kill for pleasure? On Dr.De Waal's view, the only reason human beings adhere to certain ethical values is not because these values are necessarily true, but because we happened to evolve that way. It is highly possible that given different conditions, our "herd morality" would look quite different. For instance, our closest relative, the Chimpanzee is noted for certain altruistic tendencies that seem to be a result of socio-biological conditioning. Sort of "almost morals." But there is the flip side: Researchers in Uganda have observed repeated instances of cannabilistic infanticide among wild chipmanzees; that is, adult chimps kill and eat infants. They've posited that this behavior has some sort of adaptive advantage. We can't say that chimpanzees are being "immoral" in carrying out this behavior, nor would we hold them accountable. But being highly evolved primates, it is quite possible that given the right conditions, our own behavior could have developed along the same lines. Would this behavior then be considered "moral?"
Thus if we find an an event, say the Holocaust, to be abhorrent, we are disgusted by it simply because we have been biologically and/or socially conditioned to feel that way, not because the event was truly evil, in any sense.
Richard Dawkins sums it up quite well: "There is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference. We are machines for propagating DNA. It is every living object's sole reason for being."
Dr.De Waal makes the claim throughout his article that man can behave morally, or adhere to moral precepts without a belief in God. But this is quite different from his assertion in the title of the piece: "Morals Without God." It is evident that individuals can lead moral lives without a belief in God. But without God, which is to say, if God doesn't exist, can anyone be truly moral? I believe the answer is unequivocally in the negative. "Right" and "wrong," as objective realities, do not exist without God.
Dr.De Waal makes an excellent case for the genesis of ethical values from the socio-biological framework in which human beings evolved. He points to altruistic behavior commonly observed in various mammals, most notably chimpanzees and other primates. It may indeed be the case that altruistic behavior and moral values arose in an evolutionary context, but how does this assertion do anything to indicate that those moral precepts are actually true? For instance, If one holds the belief that it is wrong to kill innocent people for pleasure, is this belief held merely because it is a by-product of conditioning, or is it held because human beings realize that it's truly wrong to kill for pleasure? On Dr.De Waal's view, the only reason human beings adhere to certain ethical values is not because these values are necessarily true, but because we happened to evolve that way. It is highly possible that given different conditions, our "herd morality" would look quite different. For instance, our closest relative, the Chimpanzee is noted for certain altruistic tendencies that seem to be a result of socio-biological conditioning. Sort of "almost morals." But there is the flip side: Researchers in Uganda have observed repeated instances of cannabilistic infanticide among wild chipmanzees; that is, adult chimps kill and eat infants. They've posited that this behavior has some sort of adaptive advantage. We can't say that chimpanzees are being "immoral" in carrying out this behavior, nor would we hold them accountable. But being highly evolved primates, it is quite possible that given the right conditions, our own behavior could have developed along the same lines. Would this behavior then be considered "moral?"
Thus if we find an an event, say the Holocaust, to be abhorrent, we are disgusted by it simply because we have been biologically and/or socially conditioned to feel that way, not because the event was truly evil, in any sense.
Richard Dawkins sums it up quite well: "There is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference. We are machines for propagating DNA. It is every living object's sole reason for being."
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