The question of God’s existence in correspondence with morality and ethics has been a highly debated issue in modern philosophical thought. Some would claim, such as A.J. Ayer, that ethics are no more than subjective feelings. Others, such as Adams, would say that actions are wrong if they are contrary to the commands of a loving God. William Lane Craig would argue that the fact that objective morals exist constitutes the existence of God; yet, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong would say that objective morals exist because of the contract humans have with one another. Ludwig Wittgenstein is a bit more complex in thinking. He claimed that ethics and aesthetics are essentially the same thing, and many terms are synonymous. This paper will explore these beliefs, and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Layman, a later modern thinker, has argued that if God does not exist, it would be in a person’s best interest to commit a morally wrong act if they could get away with it, for it is often the morally virtuous person that ends up being miserable (261). Say one did something moral, but did not reap very good benefits. Why would they want to continue to do what was morally required? But God’s existence makes the connection between prudence and morality possible without any real conflicts. So if the benefits of a virtuous life are not achieved during life, then they must be reached in the afterlife. But to suppose that an afterlife exists, means that a God must exist.
In Craig’s argument, objective morals must exist, otherwise, there would be nothing inherently wrong with committing an act of rape, except for the fact that it may have become socially taboo. But this is not the case. Moral values must come from somewhere, namely God (249). He claims, “the truth of an idea is not dependent upon how that idea originated” (250). This is to say that the truth remains true, even if someone thought differently about it. Sinnott-Armstrong in contrast claims that moral actions exist because of the contract humans have with one another. Morality also exists because humans naturally would not desire to harm one another. He does not deny the existence of objective morality, but does claim to adhere to a subjective understanding of it.
Adams declared that there are three options for regarding any action “x” as wrong: one is that X is ethically wrong if it goes against what God commands; two, negative attitudes towards x make it ethically wrong; finally, God is loving and would not command things such as practicing cruelty. But for three to work, it relies on the believer’s confidence that He would not command things such as killing babies, but does not rule out the possibility that He could do such a thing. From this it follows that God would command anything (x) that is ethically wrong because (x) is obligatory by God’s commands. Yet because God is a loving active agent, it follows that He would not command something that is not moral. God is good because he loves. In Adam’s mind, revealed will does not conflict with divine good pleasure, but they are not the same thing. A parent may command their child to clean the bathroom, but the pleasure involves the kids actually doing it. The revealed will determines the right and wrong. Yet, if there were no God, people would still ascribe wrongness to certain actions. In the human condition, there is a built a need for finding out why certain actions are wrong. If there were no loving God, then no actions would be ethically wrong, even if we were commanded to kill babies.
AJ Ayer claims that ethical statements are only ethical if they agree with empirical fact or sense data. But they do not because they are decided and judged by feelings (19). Ethical values are subjective and appeal to the emotions. A person may desire to have everyone be happy and therefore they choose to be ethical. To say that something is ethical is merely a use of language. It does not tell anyone anything about the empirical world.
Wittgenstein was a more complex thinker, whose ideas came to fruition in 1930 with his “Lecture on Ethics.” He regards ethics and aesthetics as synonymous. For example, one could say a statement of trivial value such as “that was a good game”; in contrast, one might also say a statement of absolute value such as “Andrew is a good man.” The latter statement is ethical, but the former is not. Are these statements saying the same thing? Well in one sense, no, but Wittgenstein says that there must be a connection somehow to this “word play.” Statements of fact are not judgments of value.
The overall problem with William Lane Craig’s argument is that he does not address the issue of human contract or the desire for happiness, as Sinnott-Armstrong does. Armstrong however, ties objective morality with biological differences in human beings, and that people can think subjectively about them, while still allowing them to exist. This does not seem possible. How can one claim that objective morals exist, while allowing the idea of subjectivism? AJ Ayer does not claim to have a standard to compare things to, and at the same time, he presupposes empiricism. Why must statements of value appear only to empirical sense data? What grounding is there for that?
For Adams, he held a pretty viable argument. There has been debate over his argument that God must be a loving god. First of all, perhaps the human understanding of loving is different from God’s overall knowledge of it. Since God created the law upon which humans must abide, doesn’t it follow that He could deviate it from it if he so chose to? God is not limited to human’s understanding of Him, nor to the law that we are subject to. Kierkegaard himself, made strong reference to Abraham, and God’s command for him to kill his son Isaac. Does this mean to say that God is not a loving, good God because He commanded such a thing? Layman had more of the human perspective, which was also a strong argument. Humans naturally are inclined to do what is contrary to moral rightness, and so if there were no God who superseded everything, including right and wrong actions, then why would someone even choose to do what was right, unless they reaped benefits from it?
To conclude, to claim any kind of objective moral, a person must acknowledge some kind of external being. Ethics is not merely some intrinsic feeling, nor must it be based on empirical fact. Humans are naturally inclined to go against the moral order, and to claim that morality is simply a construct of human design is nonsense. There is a designer of the world, who shapes the realm of ethical thought, and He is the standard of objective morality.
