Re: Where Do Darwinist Atheists Get Their Moral Values?

On May 5, 7:36 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-atheists-make-huge-mist...
>
> Wednesday, April 23, 2008
>
> New atheists make a huge ethical mistake
>
> It seems quite popular now for new atheists to insist that one cannot
> jump from 'is' to 'ought'. For example, if a professional historian
> claims that what Hitler did was influenced by underlying Darwinian
> principles, the atheist will be quick to point out that those
> "Darwinian principles" are merely descriptive, i.e. they only tell us
> what is the case. But, we are assured by the atheist, the same
> principles do not imply anything prescriptive, i.e. they don't tell us
> what ought to be the case. So Richard Dawkins:
>
> I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian.
> But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society
> which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking
> after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical
> care (very un-Darwinian). It is one of the classic philosophical
> fallacies to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.
>
> On this point, theists should wholeheartedly agree with atheists. You
> cannot infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. And this is precisely one of the
> troubling metaethical problems for atheistic morality.
>
> Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism is true. Assume,
> furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. (Richard
> Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these
> assumptions.) Given our second assumption, there is no description of
> anything in the natural world from which we can infer an 'ought'. And
> given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and
> above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It
> follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there's no
> description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer
> that one ought to refrain from performing that action.


Even if you assume a God, how does that logically solve the problem of
deriving an "ought" from an "is'?  Saying that "God" wills it is not a
logical argument.  Saying you'll avoid hell and attain heaven is
basing it on self-interest--not a logical argument.  Thesists have the
same problem with morality--they just don't recognize it.