[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 24, 2011. It was republished here on November 8, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date. I have added a summary of the linked blog post below.]
"Flannagan himself is guilty of misunderstanding Coyne’s argument about the Euthyphro dilemma and he wants to downplay some of the serious problems that the dilemma creates for God-based moral theories."
[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 19, 2011. It was republished here on November 8, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date. The link was also updated to its current location.]
Matthew Flanagan has written a response to my post on Jerry Coyne and explaining morality. I am quoting his response in its entirety, with Flannagan's permission.
Hi Jeffery, I tried posting this on your site but couldn’t, feel free to do so.
You write: ”I suspect that C.S. Lewis’ moral argument for God’s existence is probably much more influential among the average reader of USA Today than the work of Robert Adams. And Lewis does appeal to a variety of moral phenomena in in Mere Christianity as part of his moral argument for God’s existence. That phenomena includes not only what Lewis calls the “Moral Law,” but also moral emotions (e.g., guilt, obligation).”
I agree Coyne is probably referring to popular arguments like those by Lewis. (or Craig) .
However, I am inclined to see Lewis as offering a popularised version of Adam’s I spell this out in my article “God and the Moral Law in C S Lewis” which is forthcoming in a anthology on Lewis. In fact the phenomena of “guilt” is one of Adam’s central arguments in Finite and Infinite Goods, if you remember he argues that the such things as guilt, blame, and so on are central to the concept of obligation and suggest obligations are social requirements. The point I think in both authors is that guilt is not a feeling, it points to the state of being guilty, its possible for example to feel guilty for something and also know that reality its not your fault and you are not in fact guilty of the infraction.
I need to think about his thoughtful response before commenting. I hope to reply soon.
Update (21-Nov-11)
I just posted the following reply to Flanagan.
Hi Matt — Sorry for the delay in responding. You wrote:
I agree Coyne is probably referring to popular arguments like those by Lewis. (or Craig)
Fair enough. But if you agree that Coyne is probably referring to popular arguments like those by Lewis (or Craig), then I think you also must agree that Coyne’s naturalistic explanation for moral emotions is at least relevant to those arguments. Putting aside the issue of whether Coyne’s explanation is accurate, the problem with his response is that it is, at best, incomplete. As I argued in my original response, there is a distinction between the feeling of obligation and obligation itself.
You wrote:
However, I am inclined to see Lewis as offering a popularised version of Adam’s I spell this out in my article “God and the Moral Law in C S Lewis” which is forthcoming in a anthology on Lewis. In fact the phenomena of “guilt” is one of Adam’s central arguments in Finite and Infinite Goods, if you remember he argues that the such things as guilt, blame, and so on are central to the concept of obligation and suggest obligations are social requirements. The point I think in both authors is that guilt is not a feeling, it points to the state of being guilty, its possible for example to feel guilty for something and also know that reality its not your fault and you are not in fact guilty of the infraction.
I assume that you do not mean Lewis was familiar with and literally relying upon Adams’ work, since Adams hadn’t yet published anything on DCT when Lewis originally delivered his talks on the BBC which later became the book we know as Mere Christianity. Rather, I interpret your comment to mean that Lewis argued that the evidence to be explained includes not only the feeling of obligation, but also moral obligation itself. I agree with that interpretation of Lewis.
Still, I want to defend Jerry Coyne a little bit here. Lewis’ presentation of his moral argument is not exactly the clearest piece of analytic philosophy; it’s not like he he presents the logical form of his argument with numbered premises and a conclusion. In fact, I’ve read different Christian authors who are Lewis fans but who present his argument in different ways. (In fact, I think the clearest formulation of Lewis’s argument is to be found in a book by an atheist — Erik Wielenberg’s God and the Reach of Reason!) My point is simply that Lewis’s argument is not as clear as it could be. On the other hand, if Coyne were a philosopher, he probably would have recognized the distinction between the feeling of obligation and obligation.
As an aside, if you would be so kind to send me a copy of the article you wrote for the Lewis anthology, I would be grateful for the chance to read it. It sounds interesting!
[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 17, 2011 and then republished on February 24, 2016. It was republished here on November 8, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date. The link was also updated to its current location.]
(Originally published on 17 October 2011)
Jerry Coyne recently wrote an op-ed in USA Today entitled, "As Atheists Know, You Can Be Good Without God." Christian philosopher Matt Flanagan wrote an excellent critique, not of Coyne's claim that nonbelievers can be good without God (which Flanagan grants), but of pretty much everything else Coyne wrote related to metaethics. I wanted to highlight a couple of areas where I especially agree with Flanagan, since Flanagan points out some errors that a scientist wihout philosophical training can make. I also want to state where I disagree with Flanagan.
First, what is the focus of Coyne's critique? According to Flanagan:
The argument that our instinctive sense of right and wrong “is strong evidence for [God’s] existence” found its most important formulation in a 1979 article by Yale Philosopher Robert Adams.
Let me begin by saying that I am familiar with Adams' work and have great respect for it, especially his magisterial, Fine and Infinite Goods. Also, I agree with Flanagan that Adams' work has been influential among theists. Finally, I agree with Flanagan that nothing Coyne writes in any way undermines Adams' moral argument(s) for theism.
It doesn't follow, however, that Coyne is to be faulted, in the way Flanagan criticizes him, for not criticizing or refuting Adams' argument. Coyne is writing in USA Today, not a professional philosophical journal, so I think it's reasonable to expect Coyne to tailor his message to his audience. While I have no empirical data to back this up, if you want to name philosophers, I suspect that C.S. Lewis' moral argument for God's existence is probably much more influential among the average reader of USA Today than the work of Robert Adams. And Lewis does appeal to a variety of moral phenomena in in Mere Christianity as part of his moral argument for God's existence. That phenomena includes not only what Lewis calls the "Moral Law," but also moral emotions (e.g., guilt, obligation). Thus, I think it is legitimate for Coyne to offer a naturalistic explanation for moral emotions. In this sense, I think Flanagan is being unfair to criticize Coyne for not interacting with Adams.
On the other hand, Flanagan is absolutely correct when he says there is a difference between moral obligation and the feeling of obligation. So even if, for the sake of argument, Coyne is successful in offering a naturalistic explanation for the feeling of obligation, it doesn't follow that Coyne has explained moral obligation in general.
Second, Coyne is simply wrong when he claims that moral emotions "couldn't" come from the will or commands of God, even if we assume that Euthyphro dilemma is a fatal objection to divine command theories (DCT) of moral obligation. That is much too strong of a claim. Again, using the obligation vs. feeling of obligation distinction, at most the Euthyphro dilemma refutes the claim that moral obligation in general comes from God; it does not in any way prevent a theistic explanation for moral emotions, including feelings of obligation.
But is the Euthyphro dilemma a fatal objection to DCT of moral obligation? That's not obvious to me at all. I've read a lot of recent work by theists refining, clarifying, and defending sophisticated versions of DCT. While I am not prepared to take a definitive stance on the matter yet, here my sympathies lie with Flanagan. Why? That would be the topic for another post, some other time. :)
Update 24-Feb-16:
After the original publication of this post, I published my Primary on Religion and Morality. I cover many of these same topics in slightly greater detail there. LINK