Why There Is No Morality Without God

This video challenges the idea that there can be moral obligation without the existence of God. Making use of the arguments and framework Anscombe introduces, I argue that while atheists can be moral and have moral beliefs, they cannot justify moral prescriptions (moral obligations or moral oughts) without the existence of God. I look at two possible broad views outside of saying that God is the justification of morality and demonstrate that those two views do not work.

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[Jeem]

Good topic, one of my favorites to discuss.

[thattimestampguy]

0:01 Why God is Necessary for Morality.
0:26 This Argument is NOT About:
- Not about moral perfection
- Not about whether only theists/Christians can be moral
1:14 - Even If ALL Christians in the world are morally reprehensible, this would NOT do any damage to the argument about Moral Obligation
- Not about whether atheists can be moral at all.
+ Moral Obligation exists *if and only if* God exists as a Moral lawgiver.

1:04 We DON'T CLAIM "all Christians in the world are perfect."
1:45 Moral Obligation exists if and only if God Exists.

*The Is/Ought Distinction, The Descriptive/Prescriptive Distinction*
1:55
Descriptive: X is moral (or X is immoral or X is evil)
Prescriptive: X ought to be moral.

2:23 "Murder is Evil." Atheists and Christians can agree about this.
2:51 Although when an atheist perscribes that we "Ought Not Murder" it is lacking in justification for why it ought not be done, on their own atheist worldview.
3:03 The Perscriptiveness is what Moral Obligation is.

3:25 From Anscombe,
"If there is a moral law, there is a moral lawgiver."
"The Moral Lawgiver is God"
"Therefore, to have moral law, you have to have God, The Moral Lawgiver."
- "A lawgiver cannot be judged unless they are judged by another lawgiver (or by their own law)"

4:01 *This is NOT an exhaustive list*

3 Possible Views
4:14
1. Moral Obligation is Sourced in God.
2. Moral Obligation is a Human Convention
3. Moral Obligation is based on Rationality, on rational principles.

5:25 "A lawgiver cannot be judged unless they are judged by another lawgiver (or by their own law)"
5:34 If Moral Obligation is based on View 2 (Human Convention) then it is going to be relative (relational) to what each human being thinks is moral or not moral. At the same time, this suggests that moral obligation doesn't really exist outside the minds people have.

6:13 Moral Judgement answers "How do we judge what is moral and what is not?"
IF the individual is The Moral Lawgiver, this takes what is Moral and makes it into "Rule to Power" aka each person has the ability to perscribe right and wrong, but only those with power will get to be the Perscriber/The Lawgiver over others by Power.
IF we have Society be The Moral Lawgiver, we make it impossible to judge societies and thus allow societal atrocities, because
- People disagree about morality
Personal Moral Law --> personal decisions which could be good or bad, (but hey you're just doing what you do, I'm just doing what I do.)
Societal Moral Law --> Norms which could be good or bad, ( but hey they're just doing what they're doing, we're just doing what we're doing.)
If the Perscriptive-faculty comes from the individual or the society of people, it allows for the justification of evil because if the individual or society holds authority,

7:15 "We made up Morality to advance as a species." <-- That is NOT Moral Obligation.
8:15

View 3: Moral Obligation Based On Rationality, on Rational Principles
11:00 Rationality is Independent of any human mind.
11:38 The Laws of Logic will still be true even if there are no logical beings to logic.
12:08 Dinosaurs existed and not existed at the same time (The Law of Non-Contradiction)
12:50 Morality
13:35 Moral Obligation necessarily exists. Meaning there must be Moral Agents that also necessarily exist. Moral Obligation *Presupposes* Moral Agents
14:23 "A lawgiver cannot be judged unless they are judged by another lawgiver (or by their own law)"
God will not contradict Himself. God would not ever contradict His Own Laws.
15:07 God is Obligated Eternally according to His Own Nature.

View 1: Moral Obligation is Sourced In God
16:42

17:38
What is The Justification for Moral Obligation?
you can't just say "Well this is our moral claim/moral theory."
18:22 What Justifies your moral theory? What makes your moral theory True? (True for all periods of time and peoples)
19:45 How do you connect with The Abstract Realm of Morals?
20:06 If you don't behave morally, what are the consequences of that?
- Stealing --> Jail time
- Lying --> bad consequences
21:19 "Nothing happens." Then this is not moral obligation.
How does a Secular Paradigm deal with Transgression of moral obligation?

22:30 "I don't believe in Moral Obligation."

[justanotherlikeyou]

The only consistent atheistic view is that everyrhing is permissable and nothing is forbidden.

[ByZBoyZ]

But if God exists and makes morality, why bad thing happen? Checkmate theists

[Christiansymbolism]

Welcome back David. Don’t disappear too long, I’m learning from you a lot ☦️🙏🏼

[SerkanCan-dx]

Erhan kardeşim türkçe videolar çeksen senin hakkında bilgilensek Bilgili gençlerin sayısını çoğaltsak hemde seni tanımış oluruz.

[dominikdurkovsky]

Could you ever make a video refuting lutheranism?

[christ-help-me]

David, could you make a video on why Divine Command Theory doesn't work?

[icosahedron]

How is your justification for morality different from the divine command theory?

[tenmilesfm]

If the Ten Commandments stands as the ultimate representation of the objective morality of the God of the OT, I have no idea how Christians don't feel ashamed. Three commandments that govern His own worship, one to say be lazy on the seventh day, one about respecting your parents, two decent ones about not murdering or stealing but nothing particularly revolutionary, one about not committing adultery that is kinda vague because it's probably ignored more by God's chosen than any other commandment. One against bearing false witness - again, certainly of some value but not exactly inspired stuff.

Oh yes, and then one which goes into great detail about not committing thought crimes?

This is the apex of object morality?

Oh wait, my apologies. Are we asserting the Ethical or Ritual decalogues here, since Mr Magoo Moses couldn't seem to keep the holy word of God intact for longer than a few hours.

[Chris-]

One of my favorite concepts to discuss

[jesterc.]

How can we know what god thinks about what is moral or not?

[Normal-uw]

Do masters fear God as in the least among them?

What is fear in the context of morality? Hard work? Pragmatism? Self relating negativity?

[Byzantios]

David: what happened to Fenerbahce....(Rhetorical question)

[akosorosz]

Morality is subjective. Still exists. Still, general agreements can exist. But in a way it's fake yes.

[AlexanderReiswich]

The questions posed in the video are perfectly fair, but the argument itself is very weak -- if god's nature is such that it's only compatible with certain things or behaviors (from which we can derive certain moral obligations) then it invariably follows that things have inherent, substantial differences (since otherwise god's nature would simply encompass everything, as all things would be morally equivalent to one another). This means that, for example, murder is immoral because of what it *is*, not because it has simply been declared to be immoral. But if things are morally either good or bad based on their own nature, then god is not actually required for morality -- his nature is simply in alignment with the "moral properties" inherent in things, but if he were to cease to be, nothing about morality would change. In this case, god can be considered to be a teacher, but not a law-giver, or the source of moral values.

In other words, the problem of morality is just as real for theists as it is for secularists.

So let me try to answer those questions in a way that works for either worldview:

What is the justification for moral obligation?
The source of moral values is the individual subject -- this is simply a fact that we need to accept and use as our starting point for further deliberation. Only individuals can hold values and pursue them. Individuals can be informed about their values from other sources (such as other people, or books, or simply by observing and interacting with the world). But insofar as moral values "exist", they do so only as concepts within our minds. That being said, moral values can be observed and verified objectively, because they manifest in people's behavior. A polite person manifests the value of politeness in the real world, and this can be objectively ascertained just as any other real-world phenomenon. Fundamentally, a moral value is simply a personal conviction that is held strongly enough as to affect our behavior. But why do we even hold moral values? To better understand this, let me explain the concept of "value-signals". All living things that have the capability to interact with other living things rely on value-signals to communicate their needs, desires and expectations. A bear marking its territory sends out the value-signal: "This is my private space. If you enter it, I will kill you." Similarly, humans also rely on value-signals to communicate what they want and how they expect others to behave relative to them. For the most part, we rely on language, which is a much more precise and sophisticated way to communicate value-signals. However, another way to communicate value-signals is through moral values. For example, when a person calls themself a free-speech absolutist, the idea here is to send out the strongest-possible form of a value-signal. Not only does this inform others what they can and should expect from this person, but it also creates an *obligation* in them, relative to that person -- *if* they desire their approval and respect. But how do we come up with moral values? Well, for pragmatic reasons. For example, a person can observe the world and conclude that things would be way better if free speech was treated as an absolute moral value by everyone. Other people with similar observations will then send out value-signals in support of that position. By adhering to the obligations required by this value, they can then manifest it in reality, and make it objectively "real".

How do you determine what is moral and what is not?
The sources of moral values are individual subjects, and philosophically, it is not a problem for a subject to formulate a moral principle. The real question is: how well does a principle correspond to reality once it's applied (i.e. does it realize the goals determined by our values)? Some principles lead to desirable results to the extent they're applied. Others only lead to desirable results when they applied with certain constraints. And others almost never lead to desirable results. The "performance" of a moral principle is what determines its "truthfulness". If a moral principle is supposed to lead to the maximizing of a particular value, but in actuality minimizes it, then that principle can be considered wrong or false to that degree. You might ask: what is the foundation behind the values that serve as the basis for moral principles. And the answer lies in our needs and desires. We value things only to the extent that they satisfy some of our needs or desires. To value something that has no relationship to our needs and desires whatsoever is impossible. It is fair to then ask: is something legitimate simply because it is a real need or desire? But I'll explore this in more detail in the final question.

Morality is not something physical, so what is it?
From an evolutionary-biological point of view, one might conclude that morality is just made up of hard-wired best practices in our brains. But a more correct way to view this is to consider those instincts and intuitions as manifestations of "real" moral laws, rather than as their source. Moral laws of course do not exist in a physical form, but they can be represented conceptually, in the same way as other "real" immaterial things such as distance, shape, amount, etc.

In a secular paradigm, what happens when you transgress moral obligations?
This is the most interesting question in my opinion. First, it's important to note that in a theistic context, this question does not have a proper answer. To transgress moral obligations simply means not to act in accordance with god's nature (or god's values). But what does this imply? What new information can we gain from this? What are we supposed to do when we transgress, or witness someone else doing it? What options do we have to make things right? A purely theistic worldview does not automatically answer any of these questions. Sure, specific religious beliefs have their own answers, but they're all different, and none of them provide a complete framework that can be applied universally to yield consistent answers. If such a thing existed, we would have integrated it into our law making processes a long time ago, since there is a real need for this (to clarify: there are of course religiously inspired principles that have made it into law, but what I'm talking about is a complete framework, not bits and pieces). My point here is not to criticize religion, but to point out that both theists and secularists have the same challenge, and simply invoking god does not automatically solve it. With that being said, I would argue that morality begins with the (subjective) acceptance of the existence of morality -- but not necessarily in an intellectual sense, but rather implicitly. Morality is one of those things that are really hard not to accept and rely on. Even something as basic as the acceptance of rules of logic requires the acceptance of morality (i.e. "you ought to accept that A and something that is not A can't be A"). To accept the existence of morality is simply to acknowledge the validity and necessity of certain normative propositions. That being said, it is always possible to deny anything, including the rules of basic logic or language. But doing so makes it impossible to reason and discuss these questions, so doing so is self-defeating. Once we accept some moral prescriptions, it automatically follows that accepting valid, legitimate normative propositions *is* moral, i.e. we have a moral obligation to do so. However, there is a problem: some normative propositions are logically necessary and unavoidable, which means that there are objective reasons as to why we should accept them. But this is not true for everything. For example, there is no easily discernible objective reason to be polite. To resolve this problem, I would argue that the only way is to accept that we can't know whether these principles are objectively true or false, and simply refer to each individual subject as the *objective* source of that principle. In other words, if a person values politeness, then it is morally correct to be polite relative to that person. If they don't value politeness, then you *can* be polite to them (if you value politeness yourself), but otherwise you have no obligation to do so. This approach is different from the golden and silver rules in a crucial aspect: because we don't (primarily) refer to our own values to determine what is moral, it becomes possible to derive new, objective knowledge. For example, if a person does not value property rights, what this tells us is that valuing property rights relative to that person is optional. In other words, we can conclude that people who otherwise value property rights have no moral obligation to do so relative to a thief. This is significant, because it actually tells us *exactly* why something like theft is immoral: it's immoral because denying the property rights of other people negates the legitimacy of your own claim to property rights by others. In other words, by stealing you are emitting a value-signal that you don't value people's rights to their property. As a result, you create an incentive or an obligation for those people who do value the property rights of others to restrict your behavior, such that you can no longer practice your values. It also informs us how a process of restitution would look like: ultimately, you would have to convincingly demonstrate that you have changed your ways and do in fact value all peoples property rights, to restore the legitimacy of your own claim for property rights. This paradigm fully explains why certain things are moral or immoral, to what extent and in what sense, under which circumstances, what constitutes legitimate exceptions and so on and so forth. And the degree to which it's correctly applied is the degree to which it yields the same results, no matter what your personal worldview may be.

[laoth]

Abi lütfen 2-3 tane de türkçe video gelsin.

[yagimii]

The thumbnail of this video, I assume, is jesus. I noticed it looks like the World Tarot card. Where there is what usually is a lady standing on the world with an angel, hawk, lion, bull in the same placement. I guess I am curious to the history behind the image and what it means and why the imagery is similar on both.

[adeleinetheartist]

Typical Christian strawman argument be like:

[evangelium]

I agree for the most part, but I wouldn't take the fact-value distinction as a given.