The Moral Argument

The Moral Argument

It is important to remember that Kant didn't regard the Moral Argument as a an argument for the existence of God, as God's existence can only established through faith. He instead thought of it as a postulate (something we should assume), based on the nature of morality.  Kant reasons that God must exist to provide a moral structure to the universe, because of the transcendent nature of morality itself. Kant didn't believe it was technically possible to prove the existence of God through rational or empirical means.  The argument is centred around the assumptions that the universe is fair and the world is fundamentally rational.  The unspoken assumption that the world is fair is owed to the dominant belief of the enlightenment period; that the universe was ultimately knowable through reason. It is important to know that Kant began a new way of looking at knowledge. He believed that we could know the world through reason in an a priori synthetic way. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c70HEI2vRN0 (Embed)

Immanuel Kant

Kant was a philosopher of human autonomy, who believed that reason is sovereign over determining our purpose and the right course of action. (Autonomy is the ability to make your own choices and decide what is moral.) He believed that the objective of human existence was to reach the Summum Bonum, the supreme good, which is a state of contentment and happiness free from any pain. Kant said that he believed in God because he must. According to Kant, God's existence is a postulate, or something we should assume, given the nature of morality.  Read more about Kant:Introduction to KantKant in DetailAn Overview of Kant

477a9d88-ba0e-45bb-ab44-8c93d3722054 (image/jpg)

Evidence for Objective Moral Law

Kant said that people universally agree that some actions are right and wrong. For instance, murder is always considered to be wrong. This is proof of an objective moral law that everyone knows about. This knowledge of an objective moral law is known as innate moral awareness. We also feel an obligation towards the moral law, because it is the right thing to do. Applying moral reason reveals to us the moral law and gives us the categorical imperative (making a moral decision from a sense of duty without any consideration of the outcome) which we should obey.  (God's commands are not the basis for morality. Instead, God wills the moral law and we discover it through reason. Duty is doing a good action for no other reason than we know it is our duty. According to Kant, doing your duty is the only moral action. Ought implies can, which means that it must be possible to do your duty, and thus achieve the Summum Bonum. When virtue and happiness come together, it is called the Summum Bonum (greatest good). The Summum Bonum cannot be achieved in this world, so it is logical to think that there is a an afterlife to fulfil this.

If this is true, then Kant's Three Postulates of Moral Reason must also be true; 1) Freedom - we are free to act in accordance with one's duty 2) Immortality - it must be possible to reach the Summum Bonum in the afterlife 3) God - if there is an afterlife, then there must be a God that connects moral behaviour with the Summum Bonum. Only God can make the Summum Bonum achievable, because there must be a higher power or judge that decides if someone has done their duty and if they are deserving of the Summum Bonum.  Kant concludes that we must assume that God exists, because the absence of a moral system and a reward for following it would mean there is no point in being moral. In a nutshell:  It is logical for perfect virtue to be rewarded by perfect happiness. Humans cannot get the Summum Bonum without God and an afterlife. God must exist to provide the Summum Bonum. 

God influenced absolute morality

Absolute morality is a theory that there are moral absolutes - principles that will always be true no matter what.  These moral truth are not dependent upon anything else and they can never change. For instance, 'murder is wrong' is a moral absolute, so that in any point in time, murder is always wrong. Religious believers believe that morality comes from God. Christians believe that God gave us morality and gave us the capacity to become moral individuals, If we follow the moral guidance  in the Bible, such as the Ten Commandments, we will become moral people. Most Christians (particularly Catholics) believe that these are moral absolutes, meaning that the Bible will always be true and we should therefore always follow it. Some people take this to be an argument for the existence of God. The argument states that God alone can make sense of objective and absolute moral values, and since these values exist, God must exist.

https://youtu.be/OxiAikEk2vU (Embed)

God-independent absolute morality

Some people believe that we do not need God to have objective moral truths, and that these truths can be found elsewhere. For example, Plato believes in God-independent transcendent moral truths. This means that we do not need to refer to God to show that there are moral absolutes in the world.  Instead, we appeal to another form of transcendent moral truth - The World of the Forms.  The World of the Forms is beyond our realm of existence and understanding. Philosophers alone can access the World of the Forms. Once we have gained information of the Form of the Good, then we can be moral people. The Form of the Good is the ultimate concept of 'goodness,' so we need an understanding of it to be moral.  The Form of the Good is eternal and unchanging, thus making any imitations of it absolute and unchanging also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbQBw5DM41o (Embed)

Caption: : Morality cannot come from God.

Kant's Ethical Theory & Moral Absolutes

Kant's theories also advocate absolute morality. He states that we ought to act in accordance with certain principles (which he calls maxims) and we must only do things which we could will to be a universal law. These principles must, therefore, be worked out logically by thinking about universality and other factors.  If we use reason to work out the maxims, then we could not possibly have brought about another maxim. For this reason, maxims are universal and absolute.

46542939-9dbe-4597-85c5-6c86f618aa85 (image/jpg)

Naturalism

Naturalism is a theory that moral facts are natural facts and that 'good' can be identified as an empirical property. Therfore, naturalism is not concerned with finding moral truths through reason.   Moral absolutes can instead be derived from a study of human nature, for example, 'it is a fact that suffering evokes human sympathy.  Moral properties are therefore natural properties of people, actions and motives, and to be good, an action must possess that unique quality of goodness. There are moral facts and properties which are independent of people's attitudes about what is right, and moral judgements that can be true or false. 

4080028e-fe1c-4bcc-86ad-87f86c7912b1 (image/jpg)

c9c023ca-eebf-4da4-b058-ad3a9c5a375f (image/jpg)

Sigmund Freud offered criticism of Kant's reasoning. Click here to read it.

Freud argues that morality comes from the super-ego, but there is no evidence to suggest that morality comes from the super-ego. Perhaps God uses the super-ego to give us morality. Just because different people have slightly different rules, this doesn't mean that there isn't a moral law.  Kant's argument gives purpose to being good, as the Summum Bonum is achievable in the afterlife. Kant also explains where our ideas of right and wrong come from.  John Hick supports Kant's belief in objective moral law leading to a belief in God. He explains that recognising moral claims as taking precedence over all other interests is to believe in reality of some kind, other than the natural world, that is superior and entitled to our obedience. This is at least a move in the direction of God. H.P. Owen's version of the moral argument suggests that if there is an objective moral law, there must be a law-giver. Owen says, 'It is impossible to think of a command without thinking of a commander,' as objective moral laws are not self-explanatory, because they do not write themselves. 

Strengths of the Moral Argument

846dba65-a193-4736-97aa-93f526052052 (image/png)