Moral Arguments for God: An Analysis (MoR No. 97)

"Without God, all things are permitted." Wrong. Here's why.

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ADDITIONS

Here are some additions bolstering my points pertaining to the standard, WLC-style moral argument.

First, I didn’t get into many specific theories or accounts as to what grounds the rightness or wrongness (or im/permissibility etc.) of certain actions in a way that doesn’t involve God, but there are boatloads of such accounts. This alone shows that God isn’t needed to ground moral properties like rightness and wrongness.

A small sampling:

(1) Utility: an act’s moral properties could be grounded facts about utility — i.e., facts about what would/wouldn’t maximize well-being [understood perhaps in terms of pain/pleasure, or desire dis/satisfaction, or flourishing/languishing, etc.]

(2) Kantian universalizability: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in facts about universalizability [e.g., whether one could, in performing the act, consistently will that everyone does the act]

(3) Kantian ends-in-themselves: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in whether the act treats someone as a mere means rather than an end in themself

(4) Contractualism: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in whether principles allowing the act would be justifiable to others in a fair decision situation. Put differently (and with a Scanlonian vibe): an act’s moral properties could be grounded in whether the norms or rules underpinning one’s behavior could reasonably be objected to if they were to be agreed upon from an informed and unbiased vantage point.

(5) Virtue ethics: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in whether the act is one a virtuous person would do (or in whether it expresses a virtuous/vicious disposition)

(6) Care ethics: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in whether the act is one a caring person would do

(7) Ideal observer: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in whether an ideally situated observer would approve of the act

(8) Railton’s naturalism: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in objective facts concerning the maximal fulfillment of idealized desires, which are what individuals would want themselves to desire if they had access to all the relevant information

(9) Discourse ethics: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in universalizable presuppositions that underpin discourse between persons (see William Rehg’s work)

(10) Pluralism: an act’s moral properties could be grounded in a plethora of the aforementioned potential grounds for morality OR in particular facts about actions on a case-by-case basis (e.g., gross power imbalances, infliction of pain without consent or benefits accrued to the victim, etc.)

(11) Natural law: an act's moral properties could be grounded in whether it contravenes the ends built into one's nature

More generally, as Kevin Scharp rightly note