The games people play with morality

Over the last few posts I have been arguing that morality is objective and that naturalistic (i.e. non-supernaturalist) views of the world are unable to ground morality as objective. Thus, insofar as we agree that we do in fact know certain moral facts as objective, absolute facts (e.g. it is a fact that it is wrong to torture infants for fun as surely as it is a fact that 2+2=4), this counts against the truth of naturalism and is indeed a reason to reject naturalism.

In other words, the atheist must choose which of the two propositions is more plausible:

(1) Naturalism is true 

(2) It is objectively wrong to torture infants

If a person concedes that (2) is more intuitively compelling than (1), then a person has a defeater for naturalism. And that means that the existence of objective moral law compels a person to admit a form of supernaturalism (i.e. one with objective non-physical moral laws).

This concession to supernaturalism might not bring us over the threshold and into theism, but it certainly brings us a lot closer. As a result it is not real suprising that my atheist friends have been resistent to affirm (2) given their penchant for (1).

But this is not to say they openly reject (2). At least some have sought some non-supernatural way to affirm the objective facthood of (2).

And this brings me to Sorceror who has been describing morality as a game. As a further explication of his views, Sorcerer pointed me to two websites, one of which I took a look at:

ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/strategies.html

Unfortunately, this left me sensing the inadequacy of the analogy more than ever.

Is morality a game?

We can cut through the argument by starting with the article's conclusion:

By cooperating with others, we improve our own lives. I enjoy living in a house that I could never have built by myself, and eating food that I could never have grown by myself, and using a computer that I could never have built on my own, and listening to music I could never have composed, and so forth.
I contend that I am ethical and moral, that people in general are ethical and moral, because the alternative is running naked in the woods fighting over scraps of food.

 Essentially the argument seems to be this: we are playing a game called "human flourishing" or "human happiness". And the best way to win that game -- to achieve our happiness -- is to engage in behaviors that are of the kind we call moral. Because I act morally, I enjoy my comfortable home, silver Hyundai, and loving family. If I violated the game (to a certain degree anyway), I would lose those things and might end up in San Quentin prison or worse. So we act morally because it makes sense for us: it ensures our happiness.

I ask you, is this really an adequate conception of the moral life? Here are some problems.

The Moral Monster Problem: according to this view, morality is constitutive of the sum total of external acts that yield the greatest total happiness (either for the individual or the group or perhaps both).

But this is consistent with an individual who acts *morally* externally (i.e. by seeking self interest through the greatest happiness) and yet has an inner life where he fantasizes about killing, dismembering and eating infants. Since such an individual acts externally in a "moral" sense, that person is, on this view, moral. Surely however this is wrong: the interior life of a person is as fundamental for their moral character as their exterior actions. (This point was memorably hammered home by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.)

The Who Decides the Goal of the Game Problem: This argument depends on a game that stipulates certain ends as the objectively preferred ends. For instance, lounging in front of a big screen TV and drinking a Budweiser with a plate of chicken wings is superior to running naked in the woods fighting over scraps of food. Thus the person that gets the big screen TV wins while the dude left to run naked in the woods loses.

The problem with that is that not everybody agrees on the rules of the game or the desired outcome. Sorceror's article tacitly concedes this:

Are humans similar enough to each other in fundamental desires and capabilities that a basic 'universal moral framework' is possible? I believe so; while there may be aberrant individuals who have some inborn need to become a serial killer, I think such are few and far between. Most people understand the Golden Rule and similar guidelines. Almost everyone is willing to cheat sometimes, under some circumstances, but I think nearly everyone understands the reasons for moral behavior.

Let's think about a person who disagrees with our rules of the game. They may be few and far between, but they are there. And they constitute a defeater for the purported objectivity of our rules. This person wants to play a different game.

For instance, most of us would agree that getting killed and eaten by a cannibal is losing the game. But a few years ago two blokes in Germany made the headlines because they had a pact where one killed and ate the other. For these two, that was considered a game winning move.

This game account of the moral life leaves us with no recourse to say that objectively that was not a game winning move. Rather, we are forced to concede that they won their game and we are striving to win ours. But there is no objective basis to judge which game is superior or inferior because there is no fact about that. As a result, superiority is wholly relativized to the individual.

The Ethical Egoism Problem: This game account of the moral life could be taken to be consistent a form of utilitarianism: always act so as to secure the greatest happiness for the greatest number. If this were the view, it would beg the question of why we should think that the greatest good for the greatest number is a binding criterion of the moral life.

But really it seems to me that this game account of morality boils down to a form of ethical egoism. That is, the right thing to do (and thus the moral life) consists of acting so as to maximize my own personal happiness. Again, this is a deeply counterintuitive notion of the ethical life.

Moreover, it leads to the moral obligation to commit actions we recognize as heinous. Consider the following scenario:

Lewis encounters a new immigrant (a miserable curmudgeon mind you) with no family or friends who has just left the immigration station and has slipped and fallen beside a creek where he hit his head and was knocked unconscious. Lewis can turn the curmudgeon over into the creek where he will drown, empty the man's life savings from his wallet, and provide a happy life for his poor wife and children. Or Lewis can take the miserable miser to the hospital where he will recover and probably blame Lewis for his fall.

If Lewis' own happiness (or even the sum total happiness of society) is the criterion, it might be his obligation to kill the man and steal the money, even though these would strike us as immoral actions.

In sum, the game attempt to reduce morality to something decidedly pragmatic and "natural" fails. There is an objective moral law as surely as there are laws of logic. And so much the worse for naturalism and the supposed truth of (1).