In my last post, I considered the fact that all people treat morality as if it objectively exists even if they claim they don’t believe in it. I also gave C.S. Lewis’ argument that this was proof that God exists. While I like the argument, I don’t personally find it coercive. However, I do think Lewis is right that there are no moral relativists except in name only. Yes, it’s easy for someone, given the right training, to say they don’t believe morality is objective. But the moment you take them out of the Ivory Tower, their belief in moral realism manifests without a second thought. 

Imagine trying to write a history of the United States that didn’t take a moral stance on slavery. We easily, and without much thought at all, condemn our ancestors’ the practice of slavery. But how much sense does it make to do this if morality is really just a subjective preference? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just accept that that society practiced their own brand of morality differing from ours and leave it at that? But we just can’t leave it at that, can we? We feel compelled to go on to assess the morality of others as if morality objectively exists.

To us, our 19^th century ancestors in the South did something immoral when they practiced or upheld slavery and that is that. We’re scarcely wiling to even give time to the consideration that maybe it wasn’t wrong after all. Yet all those who lived in slavery are dead and so are all those that benefited from it. So you can’t, much as you might want to, claim that morality is purely a practical matter. It means so much more to us than that. Continue reading →

Over a year ago I wrote a series of posts delving into the question of “what is morality?” But I never published them. So I’m going to now. And maybe I’ll even see if I can think of a way to end them, because they sort of dropped off in the middle. (That’s why I didn’t publish them, I guess. But to me the question of “what is morality?” is both interesting mind-candy and also a profoundly important question.

I remember being a young man struggling to make sense of it all: from life, to meaning, to my religion, to God. So please understand that this is something personal to me more so then merely intellectual, though it’s intellectual fun too I hope. I’m not asking questions because they are interesting, I’m asking because I want to know the answers. Continue reading →