Friday, February 14, 2020

The moral argument in a nutshell

Usually when I come up with a really succinct way to explain an argument, I call it a "quick and dirty" post, but this version of the moral argument goes beyond quick and dirty, so I call this a "nutshell" post. Somebody on reddit asked whether anybody who believes in a higher power sees evidence in nature. This was my response.

I see evidence in just the innate information that is hardwired into our brains, like our perception of morality. I think our natural inclination to think there's a real difference between right and wrong that goes beyond individual or cultural preference is analogous to our natural inclination to believe our senses are giving us true information about a real external world that exists beyond our perceptions, or that our memories are giving us true information about a past that actually happened, or our natural inclination to believe that nature will behave in the future according to the same patterns and laws it has exhibited in the past. None of these things can be proved, but it seem extremely unreasonable to deny them. It's just as unreasonable to say there's nothing in the world actually wrong with murdering any and everybody.

Well, since morality makes demands on our behavior and ascribes real value to human life, then it's sort of like a law. But laws don't have force or validity apart from some source of authority, and nothing matters unless there's somebody it matters to. So the existence of a real moral law that exists independently of the subjective preferences of individuals and cultures and that dictates how people should behave, what really matters, etc., suggests that there's a higher power who created us with the capacity to apprehend these laws and who imposes these laws on us and who places value in human life.

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