Moral Arguments

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Morality arguments make the case that morality cannot exist without a divine author.


This usually follows the lines of:

1. Absolute morality exists
2. This morality must come from somewhere
3. Therefore, the maker of this absolute morality must be a deity

This argument presents a false dichotomy. The conclusion fallaciously implies that morality must either come from a deity or from nowhere. Since it cannot come from nowhere the false dichotomy leaves only one choice, the arguer's chosen deity. The argument itself provides no way of differentiating between one deity and another (e.g. the Christian God vs. Allah), and this choice is arbitrarily made by the arguer on the basis of personal conviction. The argument fails to explore any alternate hypotheses such as Utilitarianism or Kant's categorical imperative as possible alternative sources of an absolute morality. Absolute laws are known to exist in fields such as mathematics and logic and as such there are resonable grounds to suppose that an objective morality could be of the same nature.

This argument also assumes that absolute morality exists yet does not provide any evidence to support this claim. It may well be that morality is, in fact, subjective; however, a person who attempts to effectively use this argument must first demonstrate that an objective morality actually exists in order to avoid a faulty (or undemonstrated) premise, which renders the argument unsound.

Only once objective morality has been established to be the case and all possible sources other than a deity are falsified can this argument be logically sound. Until then, the question of whether morality is subjective or objective, and if indeed objective, whether it comes from God or some other source, remains open.