Where Do Good and Evil Come From? | 5 Minute Video

If there is a God, why is there so much evil? How could any God that cares about right and wrong allow so much bad to happen? And if there is no God, who then determines what is right and what is wrong? The answers to these questions, as Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft explains, go to the heart of ethics, morality and how we know what it means to be a decent person. 

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Script:

I'm going to argue for the existence of God from the premise that moral good and evil really exist. They are not simply a matter of personal taste. Not merely substitutes for "I like" and "I don’t like."

Before I begin, let's get one misunderstanding out of the way. My argument does not mean that atheists can't be moral. Of course atheists can behave morally, just as theists can behave immorally.

Let’s start then with a question about good and evil: ‘Where do good and evil come from?"

Atheists typically propose a few possibilities. Among these are evolution, reason, conscience, human nature, and utilitarianism.

I will show you that none of these can be the ultimate source of morality.

Why not from evolution? Because any supposed morality that is evolving can change. If it can change for the good or the bad, there must be a standard above these changes to judge them as good or bad. For most of human history, more powerful societies enslaved weaker societies, and prospered. That’s just the way it was and no one questioned it. Now we condemn slavery. But based on a merely evolutionary model, that is an ever-changing view of morality, who is to say that it won’t be acceptable again one day? Slavery was once accepted, but it was not therefore acceptable. And if you can’t make that distinction between accepted and acceptable, you can’t criticize slavery. And if you can make that distinction you are admitting to objective morality.

What about Reasoning? While reasoning is a powerful tool to help us discover and understand morality, it cannot be the source of morality. For example, criminals use reasoning to plan a murder -- without their reason telling them that murder is wrong. And was it reasoning -- or something higher than reasoning -- that led those Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust? The answer is obvious: it was something higher than reasoning -- because risking one’s life to save a stranger was a very unreasonable thing to do.

Nor can conscience alone be the source of morality. Every person has his own conscience and some people apparently have none. Heinrich Himmler, chief of the brutal Nazi SS, successfully appealed to his henchmen’s consciences to help them do the ‘right’ thing in murdering and torturing millions of Jews and others. How can you say your conscience is right and Himmler’s wrong if conscience alone is the source of morality? The answer is you can’t.

Some people say ‘human nature’ is the ultimate source of morality. But human nature can lead us to do all sorts of reprehensible things. In fact, human nature is the reason we need morality. Our human nature leads some of us to do real evil, and leads all of us to be selfish, unkind, petty and egocentric. I doubt you would want to live in a world where human nature was given free reign.

Utilitarianism is the claim that what is morally right is determined by whatever creates ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number.’ But to return to our slavery example: if ninety percent of the people will get great benefit from enslaving the other ten percent, would that make slavery right? According to utilitarianism it would.

We’ve seen where morality can’t come from. Now let’s see where it does come from.

[samdoo]

PragerU is about sharing views not always popular in the media. They intend to make videos you're going to disagree with. Get over it, be a little open minded and then after you've thought over it, take it or leave it and move on.

[noahtackett]

One of my favorite quotes actually comes from a video game: "Greed... As individuals, it is our greatest strength. As a species, it is our greatest weakness." Dr. Makarov, Resistance 3

[kawaiijp]

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." -John 1:5.

[lesyah.]

I really like this professor. His students are lucky.

[darthutah]

back during the hunter gatherer years, people grew up being taught to do what's best for whichever group they were in. Later on in the ancient era, these became good and evil. Good was helping others in their own group while evil was bringing forth harm to their own group.

[ninjadonkey]

Sigh. I'm honestly dumbfounded by some of the comments. Close-minded subjectivists. And even more that they dare call the video dumb or bad. *He is arguing for an objective morality. So evolution cannot be the source for that; whether or not objective, universal morality exists is irrelevant to the validity of his logic.* You can discuss the soundness of it all you want, but most are just injecting what they believe to disprove his logic.

[EXALTEDDIRT]

"In the beginning God created man perfect in his own image" but after the fall of man into sin and selfishness man has been returning the favor ever since...creating a false image of god in their darkened minds who is nothing like the true and living God...

[EvErLoyaLEagLE]

this really ties together with C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity." I highly recommend it for all members from ALL forms of the Christian religion.

[fourtwentywalshswed]

Thank you for empowering the people PragerU and all your speakers. May God bless you all

[linasahawneh]

“Whenever you appeal to {Morality}, you appealing to {God}”

[cool]

I’ve never seen anybody misunderstand utilitarianism so poorly oh god

[Commanderhurtz]

I think this is a great video, but hear me out. This video is subjective, if he's a Christian and wants to argue for God, let him do so. If this was an Atheist arguing against God and using things against God, I take the bet most of you whom are calling this dumb would agree with this guy. I'm not taking one side, I'm just saying, keep open minded. To be honest this is the best argument I have heard thus far for God's sense of morality. And by the way, before you reference that God is some tyrant, do keep in mind that while you might say the Bible was written by men with agendas, that might not represent God well for men may have changed what God originally intended. Just a neutral point of view.

[phantasiai]

Morality is merely what people see as right and wrong. It essentially is just conscience and empathy, which came about through evolution. There are no concrete morals. There are common morals that most people agree on, but there are others that are highly under debate. Most people agree cold blooded murder is wrong, but not everyone can agree that eating meat is wrong.

Does good and evil even exist? Or is it merely something we created through our conscience in order to unite the human race? Obviously, there is a reason conscience evolved in the first place, and it is exactly as I said. While humans are highly competitive with each other, we mostly have a tendency to work together and keep order. That is why civilization exists in the first place. It is why we've gotten as far as we have.

However, we aren't simply born with a conscience. We develop it. It is taught to us. There is some genetic origin to it, but much of it is learned through nurture rather than nature. That is why morality changes so much over time. Because culture changes, general views change, and with it morality. Perhaps one day eating meat will be seen as unacceptable as slavery is considered today. Really, eating meat enforces the slavery of animals, but I'm not arguing that now.

We do tend to see morality as something very objective and concrete, but there's really no proof to suggest that. It's quite a ridiculous notion to think that everyone will ever agree on the same thing. It's equally ridiculous to think anyone's moral opinion is superior to all others. Morality really is just opinion based conscience resulting from evolution.

And what about the idea of the greater good? The ends justify the means? Is an immoral act that results in a more impactful moral act justified as being moral? If the slavery of a thousand men were to result in the creation of a machine that would save thousands, would that slavery then be "right"? People tend to focus more on the evil then the good, leading them to always put far more weight onto the evil than the good. If a good man does one evil thing, he's instantly evil, but if an evil man does something good, he's no less evil. Why is that?

[GottfriedLeibnizYT]

Most of the people in the comments never understood the philosophical arguments represented in the video.
this idea is not new and atheist philosophers take it seriously to the point some of them decided that morals & ethics are illusions and are not needed so it doesn't contradict their atheism.
well you can ignore all of this and keep living your life normally as usual, but the truth is that one can only choose to be a theist or to give up on morals. unless of course you have a better than god model, which philosophers tried to find over years.

[Supermariocrosser]

I cry bit every time when he hears humanity says : "loyalty above all I know how tragical it Will become. People will end up as victims and tribunal executed losers once again.

[tverdyznaqs]

Well, why did God change his mind about slavery all of a sudden?

[ido]

A better definition for "Utilitarianism" (In my humble opinion) would be "that which causes the least suffering".

[Tinfoil_Hardhat]

morality exists because of empathy. I can but myself in someones shoes and think how I would feel. People generally don't follow the path of others mainly because they had terrible things happen to them and they break or in some circumstances they might think that they are helping people by killing them.

[TheNavvaK]

4:14 IF "Morality doesn't exist physically" AND "Morality exists" THEN "Morality proves the existence of the supernatural"

Let's replace Morality with another word and see if we still agree with the logical development.
IF "Racism doesn't exist physically" AND "Racism exists" THEN "Racism proves the existence of the supernatural"

You can replace Morality with a lot of other words like Imagination/Culture/Bigotry or whatever you'd like.

The reason why this is flawed is simple. "Supernatural" isn't an antonym for "Physical'. Immaterial, psychological, spiritual, mental are, depending on the context.

[borood]

"There is no such thing as evolution." - Albert Einstein