Similarities in Criticisms Against Moral Objectivism and Religion

The last chapter we read from Shafer-Landau's The Fundamentals of Ethics was about the division of moral skepticism that completely denies the existence of any objective moral truths called nihilism. This week's chapter is centered on the criticisms moral skeptics such as nihilists and ethical relativists use to attack moral objectivism. One group of people that Shafer-Landau mentions in both chapters that I found to be a particularly interesting example is atheists. In the chapter on nihilism he relates them to nihilists by saying that "Atheists are, in fact, error theorists about religion" (Shafer-Landau 2013, 308). In the next chapter he looks into the criticism some atheists have against moral objectivism which can be summarized into: Morality cannot be objective because God does not exist (Shafer-Landau 2013, 329). This follows the reasoning that in order for a law to be objective it needs to be authored or created by something with greater capabilities than a human being. I'm not sure if I agree with the atheist argument against moral objectivism or their general belief that God does not exist. However, I think the atheist perspective and their stance on the existence of God is a very interesting one that could help us understand and make comparisons to the perspective of moral skepticism. This is why I decided to look into the level of present day atheism in different countries as well as examine some of the main arguments that atheists make to defend their view point.
First I wanted to get a sense of what percentage of the population of different countries considered themselves atheist, or not believing in the existence of God or a spirit. The data from the United Kingdom's 2011 Census shows that 14.1 million or 25% of the country's population said they had no religion. This is a rise of 6.4 million people over the results from just a decade ago. A 2005 poll of religious affiliation in the European Union showed that 18% do not believe in a spirit, God, or life force. There is some disagreement on the status of atheism, or at least rejection of religion in the US. Some sources but the number at around 10% while others such as the Pew Research Center's study in 2012 claims that 18% of the US population does not affiliate themselves with any religion. What is even more important about the Pew study is that it also finds that 33% of the under-thirty population of the US does not identify with any religion which would signal a rise in that group of individuals that is unlikely to slow down anytime in the foreseeable future. I have provided links to these articles and reports at the bottom of this blog entry. The alleged trend in the growth of atheist is interesting, especially if we consider the potential to compare it to the percentage of people who would identify themselves as moral nihilism, but I will now turn the focus on the actual arguments atheists use to defend their views and the criticisms they hold against religion as a whole.

One of the most useful resources I found was a debate page called "Is Atheism a Religion?"

on The New York Times website that had the opinions of multiple different bloggers on the issue of atheism.

Link:
Is Atheism A Religion?

One of the main reoccurring arguments against religion that I found interesting and comparable to our main topic of ethics is that devotion to religion as a whole is not needed in order to believe and benefit from the individual ideals and lessons it advocates. Penn Jillette writes: "Religion also includes fellowship, joy, compassion, service and great music, and those can be replaced by ... fellowship, joy, compassion, service and great music" when talking about some what he believes are the positive aspects found in religion that don't require religion to exist (Jillette 2013). Pippa Evans and Sanderson Jones are the co-founders of The Sunday Assembly, an atheist church in London. In their post they state their motivation; "We started The Sunday Assembly ... because the idea of meeting once a month to sing songs, hear great speakers and celebrate the incredible gift of life seems like a fun, and useful, thing to do" (Evens, Jones 2013). I believe a similar argument can be made about the lack of need for moral objectivism. I think that morality, at its most basic form, can be understood as: it is wrong to cause unnecessary harm through action or inaction. This doesn't necessarily require a set of objective moral rules that everyone must agree to for any one individual to mold his actions so that they cause as little or no harm to anyone as possible. The opposite is true in that if everyone does assume that a set of objective moral rules does exist it doesn't stop any one individual from breaking these moral rules. So the argument could then be made that the existence of a set of morally objective rules or codes is unrelated to the more important communal goal we all should have as human beings of making this world the best possible version it can be for ourselves. 

Another argument that is probably the most prevalent when atheists express their views against religion and God is the lack of empirical evidence required or available for support of either. I think Mr. Jillette states it best; "Religion is faith. Faith is belief without evidence. Belief without evidence cannot be shared" (Jillette 2013). This is an argument that can easily be translated into moral objectivism terms. If there is no way to empirically prove that a set of morally objective rules exists why should we believe in them? Even more problematic from the view of moral skepticism is that if there is no way to prove that they exist then how can be begin to define them. It isn't hard to see why such a level of uncertainty could turn people away from moral objectivism. I personally don't agree with this view because I see it as a way of giving up on the search of what is right and what is wrong. We should also consider the fact that just because there is no empirical evidence to support moral objectivism now doesn't mean we will never be able to find it. 

Thank you for reading some of my thoughts on moral objectivism and the interesting, at least in my opinion, comparison that can be made between its rejection by moral skeptics and the rejection of religion by atheists. 

Vlad 

2011 UK Census Article

2005 EU Poll

US Atheism Article