There is No Universal Morality, Revisited

Previously on this blog, I made the case that there is no universal morality; there are only a variety of particular moralities. Furthermore, I made the case that any claim to objective moral truth must logically be based in some kind of transcendent reality. Thus, while Buddhist morality, Hindu morality, and Christian morality may be coherent, a secular or atheistic morality is incoherent. In this post, I will respond to some objections to this claim.

Morality and Self-Interest

Some have tried to argue that there is a secular basis for morality that can be grounded in self-interest. The argument goes something like this: in order to meet our own needs and to be happy, we need to treat others well. But, more than that, we need to genuinely care for other people in order to meet our own needs. This is because, if we do not genuinely care for other people, at least those closest to us, they will know that we do not, and this will ruin our relationships, preventing us from experiencing holistic happiness. 

The problem with this argument is that it is simply not true that people will always know whether we genuinely care for them or not. Con artists are often very successful at gaining people’s trust. And married people sometimes are very successful at keeping big, dark secrets from their spouses, such as a second family. People who lack genuine love for others are often very successful and happy. 

Besides, even if it were true that we must genuinely care for others in order to be happy, this would only establish that we should care for our friends and family. This would mean that there is nothing morally wrong at all with harming strangers, even to the point of committing genocide, as long as our relationships with our loved ones are unaffected. Such an idea hardly qualifies as morality.

Some have tried to argue that the modern reality of globalization can provide a basis for treating strangers well; in a globalized society, we are all increasingly interconnected, and so it is obvious that we should do good to all and refrain from harming all. However, this is not “obvious” at all. Globalization can (and does) just as easily lead to the exploitation of others as it does to mutual benefit. Most people in rich countries today who benefit from unjust economic systems that exploit people in other parts of the world are perfectly happy and content with this, and could not care less about the suffering of people in other countries. Globalization does not lead to moral progress; it is morally neutral. 

Another argument for a secular basis for morality grounded in self-interest is that those who act immorally will eventually be caught and punished by their society. However this is simply not true. There are many, many crimes that go unsolved and unpunished. Many criminals are able to profit off of their evil deeds without ever experiencing any negative consequences from them. 

Claiming that morality is grounded in the fact that you will be punished by society for the crimes you commit implies that, as long as you do not get caught, there is nothing at all wrong will theft, rape, torture, and murder. Obviously, this is absurd. The morality of an action cannot depend on whether you are caught and punished by society or not. Rather, the social expectations a society imposes on its members must be based on prior beliefs about what is objectively morally true. 

Furthermore, there are many times when societies and governments actually punish people for acting morally. For example, in Nazi Germany, some people risked their lives by illegally helping Jews to escape the Holocaust. Since societies and governments often actually try to force people to act immorally, objective moral truth must be independent of the laws of any government or the social standards of any society. 

Morality and History

Advocates of secular morality have argued that there has been moral progress in history, regardless of people’s religion or irreligion; in the real world, “human beings learn our morality, through trial and error and the lessons of history.”^[1]John W. Loftus, Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity, Revised and Expanded Edition (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2012), page 118. However, the idea that all changes in moral beliefs in history are a result of gradual evolutionary changes that are independent of religious/metaphysical beliefs is completely false. Many changes in the moral beliefs of societies have been the result of revolutionary new religious/metaphysical ideas. In Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, atheist historian Tom Holland details how Christian ideas, which were quite radical and new when Christianity first emerged in the first century, have profoundly shaped Western civilization. It was Christianity that introduced the radical ideas that every human life is equally valuable, and that it is more noble to suffer than to cause others to suffer. As a consequence of the Christian revolution, the West is still saturated by Christian assumptions, and the morals and ethics of Westerners, including atheist Westerners, are grounded in these assumptions, rather than in an imaginary universal morality.^[2]Tom Holland. Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the Word New York: Basic Books, 2019. 

Advocates of secular morality often argue that there must be a coherent basis for secular morality, since many nonbelievers do have moral beliefs, and there are societies with large percentages of atheists that are quite healthy. But no one is questioning whether there are atheists who have moral beliefs. The question is whether believing in objective moral truth is logically consistent with atheism, which rejects the existence of any kind of transcendent reality. Clearly, it is not. Atheists who believe in objective moral truth simply have incoherent, self-contradictory beliefs.

There may be societies with large percentages of atheists that are relatively healthy. However, there are many factors that affect the health of a society, so it can be difficult to determine exactly how the religiosity or irreligiosity of the population of a society affects that society’s health. In any case, virtually all healthy societies with large percentages of atheists are European societies, and Europe has a very strong Christian heritage. Even if many Europeans have turned away from Christian faith, they are still heavily influenced by Christian ideas which continue to shape their cultures. Again, the fact that there are many atheists who have moral beliefs does nothing to disprove the thesis that atheism is logically inconsistent with a belief in objective moral truth. 

There is no universal morality. There is no self-evident morality. What implications does this have for Christian apologetics? I will address this question in my next post.