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Circular reasoning

Hey guys. I'm not sure I understand the logic behind the "circular reasoning" section. What argument is only valid if we assume that God exists? Certainly not the argument from morality, which is the subject of the page. That doesn't assume that God exists, but rather that absolute morality exists. It then concludes, solely on this one assumption, that God exists. So what argument assumes His existence? I just don't understand what the author(s) of that section are trying to say. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me. Then maybe we can all figure out a way to word it better. Thanks.

I'm cleaning the thing up and of course the circular reasoning issue has to be dealt with. I'm not sure I can formulate a non-trivially-circular argument that is equivalent to the original, at least not in the proper words. The idea of replacing the word "God" by "some fixed external standard of morality" only to conclude later that its name is "God" looks rather weasely to me, and moreover, it doesn't solve anything and just begs the question of how we are to know that this "external standard" exists. Then again, I'm an irredeemable atheist and positively perplexed. Anyone? --Pablo D. Flores 14:10, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PS Larry's Text (quoted in this page) should be somewhere. At least when he discusses the possibilities, it is rather neutral. And I would not object to include the rest as a quote. The text is very well written and should not be wasted.

In response to this concluding paragraph:

So in light of this, let us examine a claim brought out earlier: "If God is dead, then everything is permitted." If God were to have any reasons for what he forbids, those reasons are what make the forbidden things wrong. So it is argued that it is possible to understand that we might lead moral lives, and accept very strong moral standards, even if we deny that God exists. We do not have to believe in God in order be rational in accepting moral principles.

Suppose the reasons God has is that committing the forbidden actions leads to separation between God and humanity, and that separation from the source of existence leads to annihilation, non-existence. Thus it is possible for God to have reasons for what he forbids, that wholly depend on God's existence, that leave standing the initial claim, "If God is dead, then everything is permitted".

I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but it seems quite obvious to me that the Argument from morality is not (in any valid sense of the term proof) a proof of the existence of a/many God(s). Why? I'll quote from the article: "The argument is valid if and only if the following assumptions are correct:

1. God exists."

Any thoughts on this? shouldn't this be pointed out in the article? --snoyes 18:24, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The original version of the topic, from Larry's Text, begins with the assertion that morality comes from God. That presupposes the existence of God, so I included that as an assumption. Perhaps there is another formulation of the argument that renders it less trivially circular. Fairandbalanced 14:41, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

No, you're quite right that any "proof of God" will fail to prove him -- for the obvious reason that if a theistic God exists, he exists necessarily (that is to say, without need of anything else) rather than contingently (that is to say, because of some other fact). As a Christian, I nonetheless hold this position with some vigour. Incidentally, I think Larry's Text does a brilliant job of expounding my own view of ethics as flowing from the character of God. Which, I guess, is why (a) it doesn't belong in an article on some misguided "proof of God"; and (b) it needs work before it can enter an article on theological ethics. Wooster 15:58, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A simpler version of the argument from morality is the observation that, in any argument, the various sides make appeals to standards. Suppose person A says to person B, "I'm right because of so-and-so," the so-and-so is a standard which A thinks A and B (and presumably every reasonable person) ought to adhere to. Some, perhaps all, things that are wrong trouble the conscience, which is a standard once again. Now, if the ultimate "good" standard really exists outside of ourselves (here's the place where many atheists claim the argument fails), then we might as well call it "God" or a reflection of "God" or something similar. If the standard in fact does not exist, then all argument is a waste of energy. In addition, we would have no objective reason to justify any justice system; all possible justice systems would be arbitrary and capricious, as objective justice couldn't exist. This would be absurd, so God must exist. User:Ngchen 21:10, 9 Aug 2004

"If God exists, then God and God alone decides what is (truly) right and wrong. Without God there could be no ultimate standards of morality." Why? Why should there be only standarts set by God? In my point of view the first thesis is not correct, therefore none others are. Jack

Below is text I moved from the article, until someone integrates it. Wmahan. 20:15, 2004 Sep 11 (UTC)

Larry's Text

The following is a portion of Larry's Text, which consists of lectures given by Misplaced Pages co-founder Larry Sanger in courses that he taught at Ohio State University. Wikification and NPOVing are invited.

The stability assumption seems to remove all potential for ethical progress. If, for example, slavery was morally permissible in ancient times, it is morally permissible today, because God's commands never change. Human concerns then become to a degree irrelevant.

Socrates first provided one common objection to theological ethics. Do we want to say that an action is right because God commands it, or do we want to say, instead, that God commands an action because it is right? If we say that actions are right because God commands them, then we can't explain why God commands what he does. On the other hand, if we say that God commands right actions because they are right, then we're saying that what makes actions right isn't just the fact that God commands them. Rather, God sees that an action is right, and commands us to do it because it is right. If we accept theological ethics as our only ethical theory, then there's no moral explanation for why God commands what he does. If God had commanded us to murder each other, then that would be right -- by definition.

One might object to this, and suggest that God would never command us to murder one another, but this is entirely irrelevant. The point is that if what is good or right is so because God commanded it and not because it has any intrinsic moral qualities, then God could potentially command us to do the opposite and that would then become the morally right thing to do. If one entirely accepts this line of reasoning, then the morality becomes entirely arbitrary and unfixed.

One proposal is that there is something about human nature, and the nature of the universe we live in that makes murder wrong; God recognizes these facts and, having recognized them, commands us not to murder each other. So what if we do say that God has reasons for commanding and forbidding what he does? Then we say: God's reasons, the facts about our humanity and our universe that lead him to legislate what he does, are what make actions right and wrong. For example, suppose he forbids us to murder because murder is totally contrary to human happiness. Then we may say: the reason that murder is wrong is that it is totally contrary to human happiness. Then God's reasons for saying loving each other is right will be just the same as our reasons for thinking loving each other is right.

Morality is then, strictly speaking, conceptually separable from what God commands. In order to understand what is right and wrong, we need only understand what God's reasons for commanding things would be, if God were to exist. And that does not even require that God exists. It is not so easy to separate God's commands and morality if you assume that God created humans and the universe in such a way that was consistent with his commands. Conversely, separating God's commands and morality presumes that God did not create the universe in a way that was consistent with his commands, or that his commands are inconsistent with the nature of the universe.

So in light of this, let us examine a claim brought out earlier: "If God is dead, then everything is permitted." If God were to have any reasons for what he forbids, those reasons are what make the forbidden things wrong. So it is argued that it is possible to understand that we might lead moral lives, and accept very strong moral standards, even if we deny that God exists. We do not have to believe in God in order be rational in accepting moral principles. Instead, we can deduce the reasons that a hypothetical God would have for defining moral principles.

A possible response to this objection is that God's commands are not arbitrary, but are a reflection of His own infinite, eternal, and unchangeable nature. God is defined as being the highest good, so therefore it would be illogical for us, as His creatures, to be able to consider His commands or His actions and find them to be evil. But if we had been created by an evil god, then that would not explain why we seek the good. Also, it can be argued that it would be impossible for evil to be the fundamental of a universe, because evil is primarily a negation - actions and commands are judged to be evil insofar as they are contrary to our standards of good. So therefore, if the world was created by a god, this god is good and not evil. Then it would impossible for Him to command good sometimes and evil other times, because God cannot contradict Himself. It would be as illogical for God to be able to command evil as it would be for Him to create a rock that He couldn't lift, or to destroy Himself.

We can recognize the rationality and goodness of His commands because He created the universe to follow laws, rather than to be chaotic, and because we were made "in His image" (Gen. 1:26) and thus have an innate moral sense. There are some things that almost all people agree upon (murder is wrong, you shouldn't steal from others, we can't go around having sex with whatever we feel like {animals, children, our parents, etc.}). Even people who do those things would probably object if someone did it to them. Therefore, there is a conscience that convicts us when we do wrong, and a judicial sense that is offended when others do wrong to us. A purely utilitarian ethic is judged by most people to be flawed (for example, it is difficult to find the utilitarian reason one would sacrifice himself for his country, and then there are utilitarian ethicists such as Peter Singer who believe that infanticide is permissible and that the elderly and disabled can be removed from the population if they are a burden). If the conscience and the judicial sense do not function in a strictly utilitarian manner, then it makes a transcendent basis for morality seem more plausible. According to this view, areas of moral consensus show God's fingerprints on His handiwork, so to speak.

Accurate presentation of argument

I added the NPOV dispute, b/c I feel that the article currently does not, in the most accurate manner, present the best argument from morality. The divine command theory is a only a subset of the argument from morality, and the article spends an inordinate amount of space criticizing the argument as opposed to presenting it in its strongest form. My earlier statement in terms of standard that can be appealed to in any argument might be a stronger version of the argument from morality, and it is at least not trivially circular. However, other versions of the argument also exist, and the stuff on utilitarianism is commendable. With a reorganization fo the presentation of the article, I think we'll reach NPOV. Ngchen 04:00, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If reason is cunning, then morality is viscious.

You may quote me on that. At any rate, the problem with this artice is th subject itself... if we attempt to ask anyone (never mind multiple anyones) to define and edit these things, we might just as well ask our own mirror reflections to draw ourselves. Sweetfreek 14:15, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

C. S. Lewis link

The first link in the references section sounds as if it links to something by C. S. Lewis. The page that it links to, however, appears to be something else. -- Wmarkham 01:23, 3 May 2005 (UTC)