What is morality without God?

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One major hurdle for me as I was leaving my religious upbringing was trying to understand what morality is outside of the Christian worldview. As a child I was taught that God was the arbiter of all that is good- even going as far as to say that God is himself the personification of good. In this way anything antithetical to God's nature was considered to be bad or evil. For a long time this was exactly how I defined good and evil.

As I then began to abandon my belief in the god that determined my morality, I wrestled with how I can continue using terms like; moral, good, bad, evil, etc? If these terms are inextricably linked with the faith then how could I move on and still have a belief about good, bad, moral and immoral? I found the answer in the philosophical discipline of meta-ethics.

Meta-ethics is the study of what these moral terms I was struggling with actually mean. It takes the intuitions and ideas we have about moral language and questions why we have them. It helps us to come up with comprehensive definitions that allow us to discuss these topics more seriously. Through my study of meta-ethics, I've developed a working definition of morality. For me, morality is the system by which minds attribute value to the actions or virtues of moral agents. In this case good would be defined as some action or virtue with a positive value and bad is an action or virtue with negative value in the system.

This framing of morality is incredibly important for me because I honestly believe it fits in with my prior worldview, my current worldview, and the ethical worldview of most other people I know. Even when I was a Christian, if I had been pushed far enough to be this pedantic about the subject, I would have said nearly this exact same thing about what morality is. Even in the Bible we see this being roughly what God outlines for his people. He praises virtues like loyalty, honesty, patience, kindness, etc. as well as encouraging good actions (like forgiving your neighbor) or condemning bad actions (like lying, stealing, etc). Arguably the good moral virtues are all virtues of God himself, good actions are directly related to a person who embodies such virtues and bad actions are linked to the bad virtues inherent in human nature as the Bible so often describes (Mark 7:21-23).

As a Christian, I always thought that it would be hard to define these terms without God at the center, but I began to realize that all along I was defining them without God. Upon further introspection, I realized that God was my justification not my definition. All of the beliefs I held about what was good or bad were justified through the scripture (the Bible). They didn't define good or bad, they simply justified my belief that any given action or virtue had a moral value.

It seemed to me, that regardless of my belief in a god or gods, I had some semblance of a moral system. I knew when something happened- when I witnessed human actions, I had some gut instinct as to whether it was good or bad. I knew that things like murder, rape, robbery, etc. all seemed wrong. Even if I didn't understand where this impulse came from. This is what I mean when I refer to moral intuitions.

I had previously attributed these intuitions to a divine being who engraved them onto our hearts. By the time I was considering these things, however, I could no longer use this as an explanation. It seems to me that if I can't justify that something exists, then I can't use it to justify something else. Additionally it seemed silly to me that if there was a god out there that had written these moral intuitions onto our hearts (Romans 2:15), then you would see more agreement on them- though it seems to me that there are very few moral intuitions that the whole world agrees on. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, I found my moral intuitions in conflict with the god of the Bible in many different areas. It seemed to me that if this god existed and he gave me these moral intuitions, there would be a way to reconcile them with his nature/his commands. This wasn't the case.

With all this said, I am still unsure what prompts this moral intuition, but I'm confident that all moral agents have such intuitions, even if they don't always align. It seems likely to me that these intuitions are a product of our experience and our nature. Somethings, like our desire and value for life can be derived from our nature (ignoring fringe cases like sociopaths or some such other mental illness), while other things like the value of liberty is going to vary greatly depending on what culture you are raised in. For now though- it is enough to say that at the very least- these intuitions exist regardless of a belief system.

It was at this time that I had to begin to look at how justification could come about for these moral systems that existed. I started by pondering my previous justification for my morality- God. This was an easy place to start, and if I didn't want so badly to find the answer, I may have just given up with the obvious, and yet very shallow, answer to this question. My moral system was based on the commands and nature of God. It doesn't end there, however, there is a more important question that arises from this answer. 

Why did I accept God's commands/nature as good? Even if he did exist, why did I accept it? The honest answer is because I was conditioned to accept it- but I had never really given it deeper thought. Scottish philosopher David Hume talks about this problem a bit when he raises the issue of deriving "ought" statements from "is" statements. In this case, even if it is the case that God exists, that doesn't tell us how we ought to act. In order to want to act in a certain way we need to have some kind of goal- some end in mind. German philosopher Immanuel Kant discusses this as a hypothetical imperative. If it is the case that God exists, and we desire to show him our love, then we ought to follow his commands (1 John 5:3). This ought statement is only entailed by the prior is statement because of the desire. This want is what distinguishes a hypothetical imperative from a categorical imperative (though I won't discuss that distinction further)- and it links statements of fact with moral statements.

Sometimes these hypothetical imperatives are not in this same structure- but they can always be adapted to it. For instance, someone may say, "If I want to be considered trustworthy, I ought not lie." In this case we have no is statement. This is because there is a hidden premise, "someone who lies is not considered trustworthy". Without this hidden premise the sentiment doesn't actually make sense- because without it there is no reason to believe that doing the thing (in this case not lying) is going to produce the desired end (being considered trustworthy). However we all seem to know the hidden premise so we don't need to state it. Here is an example of it written in a logical argument:

1. Liars are not trustworthy [hidden premise]
2. I want to be considered trustworthy
3. I should not lie

It seems to me that when I was a Christian, I had this exact moral framework. I thought there was a god. I also thought that if a god existed, I wanted to please him. If both of those are true, then I ought to love him and follow his commands (as that would please him). One of the main reasons I gave up belief in a god in the first place was because I began to question, even if he existed, why he was deserving of my attention at all. I came to the conclusion that he wasn't- at least not if the Bible was literally true (and I plan to write a blog to outline my criticisms of this version of god- I'll update this with a link when I have done so). 

The point of explaining all this- the is/ought dilemma and hypothetical imperatives was to explain that even when I was a Christian, my choice for justification (God) for my moral beliefs, was arbitrary. I was under the impression growing up, that any moral beliefs a person has that aren't based on the Bible were arbitrary- but it seems to me now, that the choice to base your moral foundation on the Bible is an arbitrary one as well. (To be perfectly clear and overly pedantic- when I say something is arbitrary, I mean that it is based on an intuition or belief prior to reason.)

This isn't to say that there isn't a justification, just that if you continue to ask the question why? you will find yourself down a rabbit hole that ends in a choice that lacks any good justification for it at all. For instance, one reason I remember wanting to follow God's commands as a youth was to avoid suffering in Hell. At the time, this was motivated only by my desire to avoid suffering- a desire that is innate- something I can't control or change. It is arbitrary- if I didn't have it, I wouldn't be able to choose to have it. It simply is or isn't. Perhaps your justification is different- maybe you choose Christian morality over others because you believe God has done something for you and you owe him. If this was the case, I would ask, why do you think you owe someone something because they did something for you? Regardless of how great or insignificant the thing is- why do you feel like you owe the person anything? If you are like me, you'll find that this is simply an intuition that you have about the situation. The origin of this intuition (experience or nature) isn't so much important as the fact that it is an intuition and is therefore arbitrary as by definition anything intuited isn't arrived at by reason.

Upon realizing this, I found it much easier to acknowledge and understand what made me so uncomfortable with the morality in the Bible, because my moral intuitions didn't align with it. As I've already said in my brief overview on why I left Christianity (see this blog), this realization allowed me to seriously contemplate if there even was a god. Many have tried to convince me in the past that God gives us these moral intuitions, as I've already mentioned- however for me this only bolsters my perspective. I can't possibly respect a God who creates a person with moral values that directly conflict with his own and then condemns such a person for them. You may claim it's the evil human nature that makes me value these things- however when my own evil human nature makes me value women as equals to men and not property to be bought and sold by fathers' to husbands' (Exodus 21:7-11, Exodus 22:16-17); or value people as more than mere property (Leviticus 25:44-46); or value life enough to not decimate innocent children and infants for the crime of being born in the wrong neighboring nation (Deuteronomy 20:16, 1 Samuel 15:3)- I'll take my evil nature over God's divine goodness.

Accepting these ideas about morality allowed me to begin to consider deeper ethical questions- specifically questions about whether or not morality was objective or subjective; absolute or relative; cognitive or non-cognitive; etc. Essentially this realization blew open the doors to all kinds of moral theories I had previously closed myself off from. 

I don't want to get too deep into my current beliefs on normative or applied ethics, but I do want to address the foundation of all ethical systems. I mention this because it seems to me that if anything is objective or absolute in ethics, it is the fact that we all have some conception of morality that I have been calling moral intuitions. The foundation for this seems to come about prior to our reason and may even contradict themselves at times.

It is my belief that all of our moral ideas and beliefs come from these basic moral intuitions. Our normative moral frameworks- things like utilitarianism, egoism, Kantian ethics, or even divine command theory are a product of reflecting on these intuitions. It seems whichever you find to be the most compelling is the one which best maps to your more base moral intuitions. Additionally your other philosophical intuitions will certainly play a role here as well- especially those regarding metaphysics. For instance, it would be impossible for a person without belief in a divine being (metaphysical claim) to hold divine command theory as their normative ethical theory. However, as previously stated, this belief- the belief in a divine being- must be accompanied by other beliefs and intuitions to derive a moral system or theory. 

It seems obvious as I reflect on matters of morality that all of our moral beliefs are based on our moral intuitions and desires. We aren't reasoned into believing one or the other- but we accept them because we are predisposed to agree with them based on our nature and experience.Why does this matter? For me, this is important because it solidifies to me that all moral beliefs have the same foundation- our subjective moral intuitions.

Some may object and try to appeal to serial killers or sociopaths as having no morals. If you can accept my definition of morality that I mentioned prior, then they do indeed have morals- just morals that you and nearly everyone else on earth fundamentally disagree with. They have a value system where they see things as right and wrong- we just disagree about what those things are. Does this make their beliefs as credible as others? Almost certainly not- but the credibility of a moral system and the application of it is an entirely different subject that I'll likely write about another time.

So in summary, what is morality without God? Simply put- it's the same as with a god. It is the value system that moral agents use to judge the actions and virtues of other agents. Good is the positive value given in this system and bad is negative value. The only difference between my current moral framework and my past is that I have given myself the freedom to follow my own moral framework- to critique it and rationalize it- when previously I wasn't allowed to. When I say something is good, I still mean the same as you do- I mean that it has a positive moral value. Where that value comes from may be up for debate, but what morality is- what good is- what bad is- is the same.