The Moral of the Story: On the Relativity of Strangeness (Part 2)

Ahh the relativity of strangeness. That which doesn't fit with one's presuppositions is suddenly suspect, brazenly bizarre. So it seems to be is the reaction when some atheists countenance the existence of a moral law that exists objectively regardless of the existence of any and all finite creatures.

AnAtheist.net's comments on my post "If there is no God then is everything permissible?" provides a great example. I explained there to AAN that I was concerned with the existence of objective morality, not merely morals that exist only relative to our species. (The former would mean, for instance, that it is wrong for all rational creatures to torture other creatures for fun. The latter would be that the wrongness of torture is relative to a given species [e.g. humanity] such that it may be morally praiseworthy for other species to torture for fun.)

I have no interest in evolutionary, species-relative morality not least because thought experiments on ethical situations of inter-species contact provide strong grounds that such a view utterly fails to account for our moral intuitions.

The interesting thing is that AAN, though a very bright fellow, could apparently not get his head around the very idea of non-species-relative, objective morality. So he says, with an incredulous flourish:

"If you are not talking about an objective moral system that is relative to our species then what are you talking about? Where is this independent objective moral law? How can I consult it? You point in your post to 'the fact' of 'the existence of objective value' but say nothing about how you know about this 'fact'."

The funny thing is that the vast number of ethicists back to Plato and Aristotle have believed both that there is such a thing as objective virtue and vice, good and evil, and that the essence of the moral life consisted in striving to attain the good and avoid the evil. So it is striking that AAN cannot even seem to understand what the claim means.

Perhaps you might seek to defend AAN by saying that objective morality is an elite concept only understood by elite ethicists. Hardly! The vast majority of people on the street recognize that there is such a thing as objective virtue and vice, good and evil.

Don't believe me? Just do an informal poll. Go out in the street and describe a heinous crime to passerby, such as a mother brutually killing her child for sadistic pleasure. Assuming you have not bumped into a sociopath, you will get immediate and unqualified assent that this is a moral abomination.

Then go to the next step. Ask this Joe Six-Pack that you stopped on the corner, a fellow who has never read Aristotle, Kant, or John Stuart Mill, why this act is evil. Is it evil because our society has deemed it evil, such that another society could deem it good? Or is it good because of human evolutionary history such that a different rational species on a different planet could inflict unspeakable suffering upon their children for pleasure and thereby exemplify the good qua their species? Or is it wrong because, well, because such actions are just always wrong.

I guarantee that the last explanation will resonate most deeply with both the moral intuitions of most ethicists (certainly historically) as well as most people on the street. In addition, and this is important, even among those who don't share the view, most will have no problem understanding the basic nature of the claim.

Sadly this seems not to be the case for AAN who leaves us with this: "What objective moral law? If it's not what one might claim has emerged from millions of years of human evolution and thousands of years of human social development - then what would the aliens be violating?"

Well AAN, if advanced aliens came to earth and sadistically began torturing human beings and throwing them into elaborate gladatorial contests, and raping them for pleasure, the law that they would be violating is the absolute moral law that exists as plainly as Mt. Everest. Yes such a law, and the objective moral facts that follow from it, do not fit comfortably within the house of naturalism, in which case my observation is simple: perhaps it is time to renovate.