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.

Nihilism and The World Around You

Shafer-Landau in chapter 20 of the Fundamentals of Ethics describes moral nihilism as those who “deny that there are any moral qualities (Shafer-Landau 306).” To simplify what Shafer-Landau said moral nihilism is the belief that says that nothing is right or wrong that there are no good or bad moral actions only facts. Shafer-argues this point by expressing that “Facts exists; values don’t” like the table is made of wood would be an acceptable fact, but since “values cannot be factual, and so cannot be true (Shafer-Landau 306).”

Take a moment close your eyes and think of a World without morals. To today’s standard it would be a world of chaos and something straight out of one of the many post apocalyptic movies where the value of human life is the cost of a bullet or a movement of a blade through human flesh. Every man, woman, and child exist in a world where they have to take what you can for yourself before some one else takes it for themselves World. This is what I believed was the fatal flaw “if widespread acceptance of a moral theory would yield disastrous results, then that theory is false (Shafer-Landau 310).”  As you can see from how I picture it moral nihilism would result in disastrous results and therefore has proven to be false.

 But Shafer-Landau points out a very interesting argument. For instance if celibacy is moral and everybody practiced it and refrained from having sex, then no babies would be born, therefore the worlds population would start decreasing. With a continued decrease in population and no babies to fill the void of the dead, towns would die out followed soon by cities then countries and finally the entire human population of the World. This is if I am not mistaken a disastrous result from following a moral theory that is widely accepted and hasn’t been proven to be false yet. Therefore the argument of disastrous result cannot be used to disprove of the moral theory of moral nihilism.

The next way I tried to disprove moral nihilism is the fact that people are moral in their ways of life but some are just more apparent than others. So I sat down by the Hub and watched people’s actions for a while. I saw a guy pick up a book that a girl dropped talked to her for a while wrote down her number and parted ways surely that is a sign or morals, helping someone without asking for anything in return. But then after thinking for a while this action could be interpreted as a guy trying to get something for himself, in this case the woman’s number, instead of helping someone else out.

Nihilism, Objectivism, Relativism...Which Way Are You Leaning?

In class today, we left off at the start of a very interesting discussion. After reading the arguments for and against each philosophical view, we were asked where we saw our own views falling into place. There didn't seem to be any one theory that had overwhelming support behind it, nor one theory in which the entire class had completely dismissed.

At the start of this class, I was more of a subjectivist. For me, morality was all relative and no one person's moral principles could be superior to another's. In this belief I was grounded-- that is-- until we studied Shafer-Landau's chapter on "Ethical Relativism". Unable to refute the arguments raised by the author to my views, I turned to outside literature, but still was unable to come up with anything that could hold up against these objections. Now, however, I feel that my personal views may lie closer to those posed within nilhilism's error theory. The fact-value distinction in which Shafer-Landau notes drew me into nihilism (306). Also, since I agree that moral claims are "truth apt" yet all false because of the nonexistence of moral truths, error theory was more appealing than expressivism.