jlowder

W.L. Craig says that objective morality requires an ontological foundation, and that only God could be the ontological foundation for morality.

Does anyone know what the hell it would mean for morality to have an "ontological foundation"? For example, I believe that the laws of logic and arithmetic are objective, but I've never thought of them as having an ontological foundation. Does anyone else find this (the notion of morality requiring an ontological foundation) as odd as I do?

NOTE: I am not looking to discuss whether objective morality exists, what objective morality means, the Euthyphro dilemma, etc. I am ONLY asking for the definition of "ontological foundation."

[ August 16, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

Scorpion

I'll try to avoid to speak about the nature of the existence the laws of logic etc. as it's a can of worms I don't want to open, but I don't find it odd that your average apologist makes this kind of assertion. In short, I think the argument stems from the usual assumption in any religious community that their values are the real values (whatever that means) - in fact I believe that one of the reasons religions exist in the first place is to give some sort of metaphysical (or ontological if you will) foundation to the customs of a given community (so when someone questions your values you've got something more than "this is what we've always done" to answer).
Now when this assumption is formulated as a specific argument to prove that God exists, it becomes a powerful intuition pump (even the argument itself is weak as best). I've interpreted the demand of "ontological foundation of morality" as simply the philosophically formed assertion that morality is a fundamental, irreducible property of reality (is Craig insisting that it's something different than objective morality BTW?). Anyway, the argument then goes as this (behold the strawman ):

1) if morality is fundamental and irreducible property of reality, God exists
2) morality is fundamental and irreducible property of reality
3) Since 1) & 2) are true, God exists.

..well, I can't quite see how 1) is self-evident, but the real intuition pump is in 2). If go and deny it, the apologist picks one's favourite atrocity and asks you how you can say it isn't really wrong. The trick is in a subtle shift of context: first you're talking strictly about ontology and then, without warning, you're dragged into a moral discussion where the concepts of right and wrong do have meaning (i.e. "is" no longer refers to ontological primes only)... I think I have seen this line of reasoning in some threads here recently, but Ï'm too lazy to look it up...
Anyway, the argument probably goes on to ask how one can justify, say, bombing of Afghanistan after 11/9 if one thinks morality is relative and without ontological foundation - i.e. what makes my values better than bin Laden's? If I can give reasons for choosing my values over someone else's, I'm supposedly back to "real" values, and if I can't, I have no business saying crashing the towers was wrong nor take or support any kind of retaliation. This argument is faulty to the bone - first of all, I can give reasons that are intersubjective, i.e. I can try to find some basic assumptions common with my and Osama's moral systems and try to convince him based on them that he is off the wrong path - no need to refer to any universal, "real" values. However, if I don't find any common values, I will not refer to any values at all. Actions can and usually should be based on values, but they don't need to based on any values. If I have a neighbour whose values are fundamentally incompatible with mine, I will get rid of him/her and won't justify my actions at all. Justification will simply no longer have anything to do with it.

-S-

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Scorpion ]</p>

99Percent

jlowder: I think W.L Craig was refering to the fact that if you have objective morality then you are assuming that things and have a reason of being.

Theists derive their ontological foundation because for them the reason of being comes from God. However this is not necessarily true.

For example living things have a reason of being: to live. Therefore what is good for their reason of being namely what promotes their livelyhood then it is good for living things and what is bad for their reason of being namely what causes death is bad for living things.

Extreme subjectivist would point out that even what is "living" is subjective. After all living beings are just a bunch of molecules, right? But if you reject pure logic and go with reason you can make reasonable objective criteria as to what is living. Human beings are certainly living and therefore you can derive ontological assumptions as to human morality.

Even though all things in nature are ultimately just a bunch of matter or energy, we humans appoint reason of being for everything because that is our modus operandi, that is how we survive. Therefore things do have a reason of being from the individual perspective and that is where language comes from when we share ontological communication. And this is where we derive an ought from an is.

Theists seem to confuse this reason of being as coming from God, when in reality it is coming from our own.

EvilTeuf

Craig says a lot of things. I believe the most accurate phrase describing him would be "full of it."

He's basically asserting that in order for morality to exist, it must be objective in order to be moral(and understand that I'm working from memory here, as I find even thinking about Craig and his annoying little TAG intensely irritating, much less reading the damned things...). His argument is unusual in that it doesn't assert that Atheists cannot be moral ( a fruitless line of argument, as we all know) but rather that any defence of any kind of morality results in a TAG-like situation, in which the person "loses" the argument and "concedes" the existence of God, because in order for the concept of morality to exist, there must be a God.

If it were syllogised, I suppose it would go something like:

1) Morality is contingent upon the existence of God
2) Morality exists
3) Therefore, God exists.

Simply refuted, of course, by denying the first premise; if morality is contingent only upon human behaviour and standards, the argument obviously collapses.

I think, although I'm not sure, that the argument results from an idea that morality would never arise in a purely naturalistic system, or that evolutionary principles predicate against it, or some such bunk.

jlowder

I don't think you answered my question. Forget about Craig or morality. What is an "ontological foundation" in general?

jlowder

Craig does not morality has to be objective in order to exist or in order to be moral. Craig would freely grant that if God does not exist, a subjective morality could exist. What he does seem to be saying, though, is the following:

(1) If morality is objective, it has an ontological foundation.
(2) Only God can be the ontological foundation of morality.

In order to evaluate these two statements, I'm trying to pin down what "ontological foundation" means.

TAG is NOT one of Craig's arguments. You've confused Craig with the late Greg Bahnsen.

That isn't what Craig says. Craig does not say,
"in order for the concept of morality to exist, there must be a God." Rather, Craig says that in order for objective moral values to exist, God must exist.

Actually, Craig's moral argument for theism is the following:

(1) If objective moral values exist, God exists.
(2) Objective moral values exist.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

No, Craig agrees that morality arises through evolutionary means. Craig would say that such morality is not objective, though.

Sojourner553

and

I can interpret your logic two ways: and it all hinges on whether OBJECTIVE morality exists.

(1) If Craig agrees objective morality does not exist then this would be a proof the God of the Bible does not exist.

(2) But if Craig believes objective morality does exist and that there is more here than the "subjective" morality that arose from evolution-- then he needs to explain this for us.

For it is obvious to me objective morality does not exist! All the disagreement among religions and their sects as to what is "good vs bad" is the key to this: For if everyone woke up one morning agreeing on the DEFINITION of what was good vs evil, then I would agree only a divine being (of some sort) could instill this.

This is the true ontological test -- and it fails miserably.

Sojourner

[ August 17, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

99Percent

I am telling you already: ontological foundation is the supposed reason of being for everything.

dk

Excuse me for putting my two cents into the mix,
dk: I am always amazed by ad hominem attacks used to open a discussion, followed by egocentric gibberish like “in fact I believe...”. The “fact of believe” is metaphysical in nature, hence belief requires a metaphysical foundation. History demonstrates over and over again that the exaggeration of reason at the expense of belief produces tragic results, and visa versa. Reason alone turns the mind hopelessly upon itself in a decent into cynicism i.e. a lame bird that plummets into cynicism. Belief so strong it overwhelms reason renders reality unintelligible therefore descends into absurdity.
dk: - What is an intuition pump? The strongest argument for the existence of [g][G]od[s][ess][es] is people’s universal passion about [g][G]od[s][ess][es]. Immorality inappropriately directs people to label others as objects of blame or sympathy absent reason and judgment. Don’t blame the intuition pump for moral failures, non-judgmental people are a poor substitute for people with good judgment. Hitler blamed the Jews to pump the mob, Marx blamed the bourgeoisie to pump the mob, laissez-faire capitalists blame socialists to pump the mob, secularists blame religion to pump the mob, feminists blame men to pump the mob, Athens blamed Sparta to pump the mob and ,,, so froth and so on, right down the annuls of recorded history. Will the real Mr. Strawman please stand-up, he’s the guy that blames [g][G]od[s][ess][es] for the dismal failure of the social sciences. Make your case Mr. Scorpion, but it is unreasonable to propose a “fact of belief” upon an establishment of blame (or sympathy). Scientific morality regulates conduct with reason ordered to suite human nature, not by twisting people’s emotions into a pretzel with blame and sympathy.
dk: - Seems to me you’ve already made the case for the inter-subjectivity of scientific morality.. The case terminates with 200 years of total warfare, famine, pestilence and genocide. The French Revolution, the China Opium Wars (and present drug wars), French Terror, WW I Imperialism, WW II Nazism, and Communism deconstructed moral relativism leaving a philosophical void of cynicism and confusion. I would argue total warfare is the brainchild of inter-subjective morality and has obviously failed on its merits. Metaphysics is necessary to negotiate a true course, before post-modernist moral philosophy (positivism) descends into state of absolute cynicism.
Metaphysics is necessary to a ontological foundation.

[ August 19, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

jlowder

Note: Sojourner's post (along with several other on this thread) does not answer my question, "What is the meaning of 'ontological foundation'"? I therefore request that these off-topic discussions be moved to another post, and that all posts on this thread actually attempt to answer my question.

Not only would the "God of the Bible not exist," but God would not exist. As Graham Oppy <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/graham_oppy/god.html" target="_blank">notes</a>, if moral realism is false, then God does not exist.

Objective morality doesn't entail that there would be agreement among people concerning what is morally right and what is morally wrong. Ethical disagreement is a problem for religious interpretations of objective morality, but not secular versions of objective morality.