Does Morality Exist Without God? Professor and Student Battle it Out

[ojasapratim]

The guy in the middle, is just sitting there … questioning his entire life

[firebrand]

They later both went on to leave the room even though it wasn’t on fire

[amiir.]

Alex, simply u are legend. I'm Somali, Watching u from Addis Ababa Ethiopia.

[spridle]

Sir, you're both the Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens 2.0, but without the ego.
Excited to see the minds you shape over the next 20 years. You don't try to have a 'got ya!' moment for the sake of applause, you seem rather interested in deepening people's minds. Bravo.

[radiofreeutah]

So the moral is to never put a philosopher in charge of fire safety.

[evangelistkimpatrik]

I like the humility of this young man, even though being an intellectual. I think it is quite rare.

[JoeSmith-lgmy]

The only meat Alex is interested in is the philosophical meat of the argument.

[tjblues]

Professor said: "God commands things because they're good. (...) You define God in terms of good." in response to "Are things good because God commands them or He commands them because they're good". IMO it is a circular reasoning.

[peacefulleo]

I always make this arguement much more simplified, but this was wonderful to watch, it explained it perfectly in detail.

[codav]

Alex nailed this dude. He doesn’t even realize all his “oughts” aren’t oughts, they are desires. Desires, according to Derek Parfait, can never be oughts. I’m hungry is not an ought, it’s a desire, and when I’m on a diet my desires and my ought are not the same.

[samuelwaller]

The thumbnail and title say it all. "Does morality exist without God?" and "why be good as an atheist?" Are completely different questions.

[siraf]

Alex: Makes a valid point
Professor: Well, i disagree

[j]

3:52 "Now hold on" is British for "you've activated my trap card".

[jacobscrackers]

The professor doesn't make this argument but it's what I thought of when I first started to hear him and it's this:
You both seem to be talking about reasons in the sense of philosophical justifications but I think that if you shift the discussion to reasons in the sense of motives/incentives, you get to an interesting point. That is, why should anyone be good? The best incentive that I can think of is if you are convinced that an all-powerful and all-knowing entity (or all-powerful process such as karma) will reward you immensely if you are and punish you equally immensely if you are not. Religion can provide that conviction. Can atheism?
I am an atheist. This argument is not a means for determining what is true nor for determining what to persuade someone you are convinced is capable of doing good regardless of the incentives to believe. Just a warning that teaching atheism to everyone indiscriminately may have unintended consequences.

[shaqsmith]

I always found it strange that some people would only act good underneath the presents of someone or thing. That says a lot about someone’s integrity.

[nlyThis]

Theism is no more than belief in some extra-natural entity (or entities) manifesting itself in/as natural events.
Religion, as the term itself suggests, is a communal venture presupposing: 1. such entity (or entities) to be open to interaction with humans, and 2. that there is already a set of moral values by which such humans interact with each other.

[pardivuspodcast]

Have you read the Bible lol? It is quite clear to me that the Christian God is not in anyhow kind of way a representation of an objective "good".

[zachio]

Morals can come from a variety of sources, including cultural and social norms, personal experience and reason, philosophical and ethical theories, and human empathy and compassion. The existence of a god is not a necessary condition for the development of a moral code.

[baldwinthefourth]

Yeah, it is possible to be a moral person as an atheist, but it is not possible for an atheist to objectively *justify* morality and why certain actions are moral and others are not.

[jerrythecanary]

4:30 “I don’t agree with separating off the normative from the descriptive.”

Well that’s the problem!!!
I’m no philosophy major, but isn’t that totally ignoring the is-ought distinction? He doesn’t seem to be able to understand it or think it true.