I’ve heard atheists claim that they must often defend themselves against claims that they are evil, or “have no morals”.
I’ve never met anyone who thinks this of atheists. I regard atheists as being as much a mixed bag of good and bad as any other group of people. I’ve met wonderful atheists (no big surprise there) and I know of dodgy Christians, though I haven’t met any.
Even so, if an atheist happens to subscribe to a plausible set of moral rules, this is no thanks to atheism. It’s thanks to the individual's sense, and probably largely a hangover from the much despised Judeo-Christian ethos.
Atheists are at pains to assert that you can have a perfectly respectable system of ethics without believing in God. By a “system of ethics”, I mean a set of rules, arrived at rationally and plausibly, that apply to everyone. I’m not talking about relativism, where everyone makes up their own rules and thinks they’re fine. Any narcissist can do this and, while atheists may be tempted, the serious atheist thinkers are trying for a real morality.
I’m not familiar with all their attempts to do this. I’ll mention a couple, which I find unconvincing, and then I’ll give a couple of reasons why I think developing an atheist morality will prove very difficult.
1) Moral authority
Once you believe in God, recognising God’s authority flows from that pretty automatically. God’s authority as God explains how people like me believe in the “moral authority” of moral rules.
For atheists, humanity makes morality – collectively. It’s like social contract theory, so far as I can tell.
If we’re talking about social contract, I must observe that I wasn’t present at that congress of human beings and do not consider myself bound by its deliberations. Might it meet again? Might I crack it for an invite?
Perhaps atheists mean, “It’s as though we humans all got together and formulated the rules”. If so, it is surprising that empirically minded atheists think it reasonable to replace a delusion with a hypothetical. “As though” is not persuasive, even if you don’t want evidence. If you demand evidence, as atheists tend to, then I think “as though” just falls on its face.
Whether actual or hypothetical, you end up with majority rule. I’ll wear majority rule for laws and convention, but not for morality. Not just because majorities often have a way of behaving badly, but because I simply don’t recognise the moral authority of the majority. Why should I? Because the majority is powerful? This just means “might is right”, which I reject.
I need something higher than me, not just a large number of people, if I am to recognise moral authority. I’m open to ideas, but at the moment I can see no other way of explaining the moral force of ethics and moral rules.
The next argument – and probably the atheist argument of first resort – is derived, naturally, from evolution. Morality exists, when you really get down to it, so that human society (humanity itself, I guess) can survive. This is why it has “moral authority”: it has to have it, in order to do its job of ensuring humanity’s survival.
For now, I will assume that morality does promote humanity’s survival. (Just a working assumption, though.)
However, while vast and complex, evolution is just a phenomenon: it’s just something that happens. It means that people, in fact, have views that they call “morality”. This doesn’t help me with the problem of identifying moral authority and force. Where is the “should” that forces me, right now, to regard these rules as authoritatively applying to me?
If someone wants me to accept moral ideas that just happen to have shown up out of humanity’s past, they need to explain how these rules bind me: it’s not enough to say the rules exist: really, why should I obey them? If I keep asking “Why should I?”, apologists for this view will eventually say “Because, if you don’t, the human race will not survive”.
To some, this is decisive, but I’m sceptical. I now ask “Why should the human race survive?”. The evolutionist/atheist has no answer that I know of, other than “It just must”. This only means that – at some level – our race propels itself towards survival. But, again, this is just a phenomenon: I still need a “should”.
The fact that the question “Should the human race survive?” can be asked is a problem for someone who wants to say that morality is nothing more than an evolved feature of our existence. In fact, there are people who might argue that the human race should not survive. Some uber greenies, who love Earth very dearly, might suggest that, as we are destroying Earth, we should actually not survive: we are a noxious infestation. They have a point.
Atheist humanists need to explain why human beings are the be all and end all. We can’t reasonably just take the idea of human primacy for granted.
So far, then, I don’t find atheism’s explanations for morality at all convincing.
2) Basic content of morality
Then, there are some circumstances that prevent atheists from establishing some of the basics of morality.
People like me believe that we humans are made “in God’s image and likeness”. I’m not concerned with whether or not this occurred on the 6th day of Creation (per Genesis) or at some auspicious moment during our evolution – though I favour the latter.
Naturally, atheists reject this idea. Okay, but that leaves atheists with two serious problems.
What’s to love?
I regard humans as neither good nor bad in the ordinary sense. No-one’s perfect and no-one is utterly evil: we are all mixed bags.
Add God’s image and likeness (the “divine spark”) to the mix and, all of a sudden, I have a reason to value human beings very highly - indeed, more highly than anything else.
Like the humanist does. Except, what is the humanist’s reason for valuing all humans highly (and being motivated, therefore, to love his/her neighbour)? No divine spark, of course. The value must arise from evolution, as there is no other source. So, what are we? The latest gorilla upgrade; the planet’s top predator; the possessors of huge brains, opposable thumbs, and fascinating eye-balls. All good stuff, but how does it inspire a special value and love for humans? Why not value physical strength, and prefer elephants and whales?
We can, and do, create the most wondrous beauty. But, also the most appalling horror. Again, what’s to love?
We are at the present extreme of one evolutionary strand: is it the best strand, how can we tell? Why are humans more valuable than other creatures? The humanist must explain this.
Equality and justice
A great deal of moral and ethical thought is dedicated to justice. And the secular world is awash with talk of justice and its opposite: discrimination. Usually, ideas of justice are based on the idea of humans being equal.
I believe that, because we all possess the divine spark, it bestows value that is not just high but equally so. It’s an equaliser in a setting where people are otherwise not equal at all. Again, atheists reject this.
The atheist who wants to talk meaningfully about justice must first talk meaningfully about equality. So, where is the evidence for equality? When I look around, I see all sorts of similarities and differences. Some of the differences are superiorities and inferiorities: eg differences in strength, intelligence, health. Perhaps I should omit beauty, in case it is not objective. And, for the sake of argument, I’ll omit wealth and other features that are a matter of nurture rather than nature. But, I will add personality and disposition, at least in the very general sense where some “types” are anti-social or dangerous. Anyway, I do not see equality.
According to the evidence, human beings are not equal. And, in the absence of evidence-based equality, the atheist humanist cannot develop plausible ideas about justice.
I believe that the difficulty that atheism experiences in developing a convincing morality arises from the absence of –
- a convincing moral authority;
- an understanding of human beings that inspires love and reasonably demands justice.
- Reader contribution by Gavan O'Farrell
