“Moses with the Ten Commandments” by Philippe de Champaigne (source)
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I am a (fairly) convinced ethical naturalist. I think that “morality” (in the sense of that term employed by non-naturalist realists) is probably a pseudo-concept,1 while the Parfitian notion of “reasons” remains a mystery to me (gimme a call Lance, we’ll hang out, get a slice). At the same time, I am entirely unable to accept the claim that no course of action is ever genuinely, stance-independently better than any other. And so, by simple process of elimination, I am driven to a fairly radical sort of naturalism. According to the view I prefer, happiness is the constitutive end of rational action,2 and therefore, it is always unreasonable (i.e. bad qua rational action) to do what is opposed to one’s happiness. “Ethics” is simply the study of how to succeed qua rational agent, which (given the view of rational action just mentioned) essentially means “how to be happy.” This is (broadly speaking) the view of ethics taken by Aristotle, Aquinas, and their intellectual descendants.
And now to the point of this post: it seems to me that if one is inclined to accept the aforementioned sort of view, then one has very good reason to be a theist. This is because the sort of Aristotelian ethical naturalism (AEN) just described suffers from several significant (and related) problems:
The “universal norms” problem: AEN says that the right course of action for me is the one which will conduce to my happiness. But in what does happiness consist? Different people may desire very different things, and may be contented in many different ways. This seems to imply that the correct course of action in a given situation will differ from person to person, and will depend largely on what the particular person in question happens to desire. If AEN is to furnish us with robust, stance-independent ethical norms, then in any given situation, there must be some particular course(s) of action which will conduce to the happiness of any given person, and some course(s) of action which cannot do so (e.g. it must be the case that, when all is said and done, adultery can never conduce to the adulterer’s happiness). It is hard to see how this can possibly be the case given atheistic AEN.3
The Callicles problem: Even assuming that we can meaningfully speak of universally (in)correct courses of action, we face a problem concerning which courses of action will count as (in)correct. According to AEN, the right course of action for me is that which will conduce to my good. i.e. that which will benefit me. But on some conceptions of human flourishing, it seems that the behavior which benefits me will often not be what any ordinary person would call “good” behavior.4 As Jim Doyle puts the point, “we are faced with Callicles and his ilk, who say that if virtues really do benefit their possessors, then the real virtue of justice must comprise the qualities that enable one to dominate one’s fellows and expropriate their goods” (2017, 91). What is needed is some good reason to believe that “the conflict between what benefits me and your interest in not being treated unjustly is always, ultimately, only apparent” (ibid., 91). If our first problem is that of showing that there are universal norms for human action, then this second problem is that of showing that those norms will accord with what common-sense would label as “moral” conduct.
The problem of egalitarianism: We heirs of Christendom are overwhelmingly committed to the claim that all human persons are fundamentally morally equal. But as Nietzsche pointed out long ago,5 and as Paul Sagar has recently confirmed,6 there are no good secular reasons to believe that this claim is true (though there may be good reasons to act as if it were true).7 This problem is particularly sharp for ethical naturalists: if the right course of action is the one that conduces to one’s happiness, and if one happens to prefer the interests of one’s own tribe (ethnic, political, or religious) over those of outsiders,8 then why should one not act on one’s prejudices? Why shouldn’t the jingoistic American acclaim the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the grounds that this slaughter prevented “our boys” from shedding their blood in an invasion of the mainland? What is needed is some reason to think that the norms which genuinely conduce to our happiness involve treating all people as fundamentally equal.
The problem of universalizability: AEN grounds ethical norms in human nature and practice. But this raises the question of whether rational beings very different from ourselves (e.g. intelligent Martians) could have radically different ethical norms.9 It is plausible that they could: if their evolutionary histories and social conditions are sufficiently different from ours, then it is very plausible that their happiness would consist in something different than ours. But this would seem to make cross-kind ethical discourse and interaction extremely difficult, if not outright impossible. What is needed is some view according to which the same ethical norms would apply to all rational beings (this is similar to our first problem, though it approaches the matter from a different angle).
Now, I contend that theism (and especially Biblical theism) provides a relatively straightforward solution to all of these problems. If theism is true, then the ultimate happiness of all human beings consists in eternal friendship with God. Hence, the correct course(s) of action for any human being in any particular situation will be the course(s) which conduce(s) to friendship with God. This solves our first problem. Furthermore, if (as all theistic religions and virtually all theistic philosophers maintain) God loves all of those whom he has created, then it can hardly conduce to our ultimate end of friendship with God to abuse and mistreat our fellow humans. After all, if you want to make friends with somebody, you don’t go around mistreating their loved ones. In addition, Biblical theism teaches that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, in virtue of their being rational animals (i.e. creatures possessed of intellect and will). Thus, whenever one abuses or mistreats a human being, one abuses and mistreats an image of God. This can hardly conduce to eternal friendship with God. This goes a long way towards solving our second problem.
What about the problems of egalitarianism and universalizability? These can both also be solved by appeal to the notion that rational beings are made in God’s image: all human beings are (to use Sagar’s term) “basic equals” in virtue of this fact, since their being made in God’s image makes it unreasonable for any rational being to mistreat them. Furthermore, these norms and statuses will apply to rational non-humans as well. This is because, as previously mentioned, the image of God consists in our having intellect and will. But rational non-humans would also (by definition) have intellect and will, and so all that we have said so far would apply to them as well: their ultimate happiness would consist in friendship with God, so they would be bound by the same ethical norms. Furthermore, being made in God’s image, they would enjoy the same basic equality.
I conclude that advocates of AEN have good reason to be theists. Furthermore, since AEN is the best metaethical view on offer, everybody ought to advocate it, and hence, everybody has good reason to embrace theism.
See e.g. Frey, “Happiness as the constitutive principle of action in Thomas Aquinas,” Philosophical Explorations 22 (2019): 208-221.
I am far from the first person to note that atheistic AEN seems to have trouble accounting for universal and absolute moral norms. For a useful discussion of the existing literature, see McPherson, “Moral Absolutes and Neo-Aristotelian Ethical Naturalism,” in The Philosophy of Reenchantment, edited by Herbert De Vriese & Michiel Meijer (2020), Routledge.
Some try to solve this problem by arguing that possession of the traditional moral virtues is constitutive of human flourishing (see e.g. Foot 2001). Unfortunately, “Such a reply… reveals the one who makes it to already have a moralized conception of flourishing” (Ritchie 2012, 119). It therefore cannot be of any use to us here.
Indeed, this is Sagar’s own view: he adopts a form of fictionalism, according to which “basic equality is not a fact about us that exists independently of our contingent social practices. Instead, we are basic equals because of the complex ways in which we have come to treat each other in our recent history. Yet this is not a fixed or necessary feature of the normative possibilities available to creatures like us. If we collectively stop viewing and treating each other as basic equals, then we will stop being basic equals” (2024, 175). Presumably, then, if all or most of humanity were to embrace the ideology of the Nazis, it would then really be true that disabled people and Jews are not basically equal to so-called “Aryans.” I trust that this absurd conclusion is enough to show the inadequacy of Sagar’s view.
Indeed, the empirical literature on moral parochialism indicates that this sort of thinking is widespread and evolutionarily-rooted. See e.g. Fessler et al., “Moral parochialism and contextual contingency across seven societies,” Proc. R. Soc. B 282 (2018): 1-6; Holbrook et al., “Moral parochialism and causal appraisal of transgressive harm in Seoul and Los Angeles,” Scientific Reports 12 (2022): 1-10.
I owe this issue (and the example) to this discussion between Lance Bush and Kane Baker. Indeed, I believe it was seeing this discussion which prompted me to begin thinking about these issues to begin with. Doctors Bush and Baker have my thanks.
I am confused by this argument, as I don’t see a problem that isn’t solved by evolution and game theory (broadly), and I thought that was roughly what ethical naturalist meant.
“In what does my happiness consist?” I would say: In English (not entirely universal), the answer would be something like (but not exactly) that which best promotes the survival and continuation of my genes for the longest possible time – and if not mine, then those similar to mine. Suffering and well-being (and happiness) are signposts that have evolved along that path to guide us, and our articulation of ethics have evolved from those signposts.
Of course, given a billion years of evolution and our particular species’ set of evolutionary strategies, there are many layers between biology and culture that add complexity and interesting experiences, which is where social considerations and game theory come into play.
Even if we could articulate it as a universal principle (which would require language that can transcend the complexity, and say something that will be true for all cultures and species and situations at all time etc across the universe), I can’t imagine the kind of situation or person who would be so universally uniform that we could prescribe a “universally correct course of action”?
Anyway, the natural principle can be (robust and) stance-independent, even if the language we use to describe it and all the unique expressions of the principle cannot, as they are necessarily downstream of, and dependent on, the stance.
The argument, and the way the problems are posed, seem to presuppose a theist’s idea of morality (and maybe rationality?) – something fundamentally separate from nature, not evolved from it and entangled with it at every level. But that is confusing considering the intro of the post.
This is misinformation!