How do agnostics live? (Introduction)

by Mark , Tuesday, June 10, 2008, 19:48 (5797 days ago) @ dhw

My apologies at the start for a long post, but there's no alternative if I am to explain myself. - I agree that a decision is involved for both Christians and atheists in following a Christian and a humanistic moral code respectively. - I agree that there are core areas of agreement on morality between Christians and atheists. I agree that there are areas where they disagree. And I agree that both Christians and atheists disagree amongst themselves. There are areas where the Christian Bible and tradition are unclear, ambiguous or silent. - I am not claiming that Christians have direct access to God on all moral matters. When I raised the issue of objectivity I did not have in mind the certainty with which we can have moral knowledge. I was commenting on the nature of moral truth, more on which below. - If your challenge to me on the human input to the Christian tradition was because you believe that I was claiming that divine commands gave certain knowledge, then my clarification below on objectivity should answer. If your challenge was at a tangent to the question of morality, asking how Christians can have any knowledge of God and his law given the human mediation and origin of the Bible, then please say, and I can address that separately. - (As an aside, I am trying hard here to answer appropriately. I am aware that I can misunderstand you, and I can fail to express myself properly, so you end up misunderstanding me. I wish to engage as closely as possible and evade nothing. I am not in this for the satisfaction of winning arguments. I genuinely wish to know how others think.) - Now, on objectivity: - dhw says: "You think, however, that your code is objective and mine is not. With the more obvious moral laws that we all agree on... society provides guidance that is independent of the individual. But that is the nearest any of us can get to objectivity."
The question I am concerned with is whether moral truth is objective in the sense that it has reality outside of human minds. Is it real? - "The earth rotates around the sun" is a statement everyone at one time would have disagreed with. That did not make it false. The statement is true whatever humans think. It is objectively true. We would now consider anyone who disagrees to be irrational. I would challenge such a person. - However, if someone said to me "These peanuts are tasty" I would not challenge them, even though I strongly dislike all peanuts and could not make the statement myself. The difference is that this statement is subjective. It is not expressing, nor claiming to express, an objective fact to which all should assent. It is equivalent to "I like the taste of these peanuts". - The issue is this: what kind of statement is "Murder is wrong"? Does it express something real, such as "The earth rotates around the sun", or is it equivalent to "I like it when people do not kill each other"? - If you agree with the latter, you are a moral anti-realist. The problem then is that you do seem to be able to choose your own morality and no-one can say objectively that you are wrong, no matter how much they disagree with you. Intuitively I find this unacceptable. (It may be objected that you can't choose whether you like murder any more than you can choose whether you like peanuts, but I feel free to try a peanut from time to time, just in case I may develop the taste.) - However I must now correct an assertion I made in an earlier post: that atheists may make up their own morality. I was assuming that atheists must be moral anti-realists, but that is not so, I have since learnt. - Nevertheless, I do think the moral realist atheist has a problem. Just what kind of reality is a moral truth such as "Murder is wrong"? What kind of stuff is "good"? Does it arise from matter? If so, how? If not, where from? What is the foundation for this authority? And what is the purpose of it? And I cannot see how materialists, which most atheists are, I think, can be other than moral anti-realists. For how can science deliver a real moral truth? - Of course, you can ask about the origin and foundation of God. But I find it far easier to believe in God who has a will and a purpose for the world. And I am not saying all this as a proof. I do not see it as a proof. It is an attempt to see what follows from disbelief in God, and I would be fascinated to know how people cope with it.