In a prior post, I showed that Plantinga has failed to demonstrate a contradiction between atheism and moral obligation in any of this three types of contradiction: explicit, formal, or implicit. I want to continue to my exploration of the alleged contradiction between atheism and moral obligation, this time by asking if we can show that there is no inconsistency between atheism and moral obligation.
In the spirit of maximal transparency, what follows is mostly plagiarized material from Plantinga's book, God, Freedom, and Evil, Part I, Section a, sub-section 3, with the obvious exception that I have edited the material referring to God and evil with my own material referring to atheism and moral obligation.
To summarize our conclusions so far: although many moral apologists claim that the atheistic moral realist is involved in contradiction when he asserts the members of set D, this set, obviously, is neither explicitly nor formally contradictory; the claim, presumably, must be that it is implicitly contradictory. To make good this claim the moral apologist must find some necessarily true proposition p (it could be a conjunction of several propositions) such that the addition of p to set D yields a set that is formally contradictory. No moral apologist has produced even a plausible candidate for this role, and it certainly is not easy to see what such a proposition might be. Now we might think we should simply declare set D implicitly consistent on the principle that a proposition (or set) is to be presumed consistent or possible until proven otherwise. This course, however, leads to trouble. The same principle would impel us to declare the moral apologist's claim--that set D is inconsistent--possible or consistent. But the claim that a given set of propositions is implicitly contradictory, is itself either necessarily true or necessarily false; so if such a claim is possible, it is not necessarily false and is, therefore, true (in fact, necessarily true). If we followed the suggested principle, therefore, we should be obliged to declare set D implicitly consistent (since it hasn't been shown to be otherwise), but we should have to say the same thing about the moral apologist's claim, since we haven't shown that claim to be inconsistent or impossible. The moral apologist's claim, furthermore, is necessarily true if it is possible. Accordingly, if we accept the above principle, we shall have to declare set D both implicitly consistent and implicitly inconsistent. So all we can say at this point is that set D has not been shown to be implicitly inconsistent.
Can we go any further? One way to go on would be to try to show that set D is implicitly consistent or possible in the broadly logical sense. But what is involved in showing such a thing? Although there are various ways to approach this matter, they all resemble one another in an important respect. They all amount to this: to show that a set S is consistent you think of a possible state of affairs (it needn't actually obtain) which is such that if it were actual, then all of the members of S would be true. This procedure is sometimes called giving a model of S. For example, you might construct an axiom set and then show that it is consistent by giving a model of it; this is how it was shown that the denial of Euclid's parallel postulate is formally consistent with the rest of his postulates.
There are various special cases of this procedure to fit special circumstances. Suppose, for example, you have a pair of propositions p and q and wish to show them consistent. And suppose we say that a proposition p1 entails a proposition p2 if it is impossible that p1 be true and p2 false-if the conjunctive proposition p1 and not p2 is necessarily false. Then one way to show that p is consistent with q is to find some proposition r whose conjunction with p is both possible. in the broadly logical sense, and entails q.
How does this apply to the case before us? As follows. Remember that (1) and (2) are:
(1) God does not exist;
and
(2) Genuine moral obligation exists.
The problem, then, is to show that (1) and (2) are consistent. This could be done, as we've seen, by finding a proposition r that is consistent with (1) and such that (1) and (r) together entail (2) . One proposition that might do the trick is
If (AUTONOMOUS MORALITY) is consistent with (1), then it follows that (1) and (AUTONOMOUS MORALITY) (and hence set D) are consistent. Accordingly, one thing some critics of moral apologists have tried is to show that (AUTONOMOUS MORALITY) and (1) are consistent.(AUTONOMOUS MORALITY) Neither moral values nor the full set of genuine moral obligations of human beings are dependent upon the existence or properties of any non-human person.
One can attempt this in at least two ways. On the one hand, we could try to apply the same method again. Conceive of a possible state of affairs such that, if it obtained, genuine moral obligation existed but was not dependent on God's existence or properties. On the other hand, someone might try to show that such a state of affairs is not only conceivable, but actual.
Corresponding to these two methods of responding to theistic external inconsistency arguments from evil are two roles which critics of moral apologists can play. I will call the former "Autonomous Morality Defenders" (hereafter, "Defenders") and the latter "Autonomous Morality Atheodicists" (hereafter, "Atheodicists"). Atheodicists attempt to tell us how morality actually exists without being dependent upon God's existence or properties. In contrast, Defenders are not trying to say how morality without being dependent upon God's existence or properties; but at most how morality might exist. We could put the point another way. Both Defenders and Atheodicists are trying to show that (1) is consistent with (AUTONOMOUS MORALITY) and, of course if so, then set D is consistent. The Atheodicist tries to do this by finding some proposition r which in conjunction with (1) entails (2); he claims, furthermore, that this proposition is true, not just consistent with (1). He tries to give us a full theory of moral ontology and show that it is true. The Defender, on the other hand, though he also tries to find a proposition that is consistent with (1) and in conjunction with it entails (2), does not claim to know or even believe that r is true. And here, of course, he is perfectly within his rights. His aim is to show that (1) is consistent with (2); all he needs to do then is find an r that is consistent with (1) and such that (1) and r entail (2); whether r is true is quite beside the point.
In summary, we have seen that, using Plantinga's critique of Mackie's claim (that there exists an implicit contradiction between God and evil), we can use parallel reasoning to refute Plantinga's claim that there is an implicit contradiction between atheism and moral obligation. Furthermore, this reasoning does not even depend upon the metaphysical possibility of a world without God. Because the content of theism says so little about the relationship between God and morality, it is at least possible that God exists and (AUTONOMOUS MORALITY) is true. But that entails there is no implicit contradiction between atheism and moral obligation.
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