Do Objective Moral Duties Require God?

Can objective moral duties exist if there is no God?

I would argue “No, they cannot.”  I would also argue that they actually do exist…therefore, there must be a God.

If you recall, in “Moral Arguments for God’s Existence: Moral Values and Duties” we discussed the difference between Moral Values and Moral Duties.

Moral values help determine whether something is good or bad.  Moral duties are about whether something is right or wrong and imply a duty, or ‘oughtness’.

Where Do Moral Duties Come From?

Moral duties are traditionally thought to come from God’s commands, and His commands stem from His nature, or ‘the way He is’.   Most will agree we have a moral duty to do what’s right or to avoid doing things that are “wrong”.  If there is no God to command us to do what is right and wrong, where do our duties come from?

Some might say that we do not really have moral ‘duties’…which means we have no moral duty to protect a child from physical or sexual abuse…we have no moral duty to avoid driving while drunk and putting others at risk…no moral duty to help our neighbours and avoid harming them.  To be frank, I believe anyone who truly has the view that we have no moral duties has a deficiency as a human being.  Most people do not hold that view, and those who say there are no moral duties rarely live that way.

However, taking the naturalistic view that humans are just high functioning animals, we should have no objective duties to one another.  Animals have no moral duties.  If a predator animal kills their prey, like a lion killing a gazelle, then they have done nothing wrong.  They do not murder…there are no moral implications to the actions of animals. If a male animal forcibly copulates with a female, he does not ‘rape’ her.  Again, there are no moral duties associated to their actions.

If there is no God, and we are just high functioning animals, why would there be objective moral duties to our actions?  If moral duties evolved from our social structure and conditioning, as naturalists believe, then they are subjective.  An accident of nature that could have turned out differently.

To be consistent, in a world without God we must acknowledge that our moral duties are subjective.  If there is no moral lawgiver to set the standard, then the standards are arbitrary.  Right and wrong or moral duties are arbitrary accidents of random evolution that happened to be helpful for survival.  Things that we consider ‘wrong’ are only wrong because of social constructs.

“Rape is Wrong”…An Objective or Subjective Moral Duty?

Forcible copulation is not uncommon in the animal kingdom, but amongst humans we call it rape. It is considered to be wrong, and it’s not just our moral duty not to do it, but also to protect others from it too.  Why is it different between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom?  If the difference is just a social construct that evolved for survival value, we’d have to admit that it could have evolved differently.  The act of forcible copulation could have become one of the ways our species perpetuated itself and in that case, it would have been the right thing to do.

This idea is repugnant.  It is contrary to human rights, equality of women, and multiple other issues…but if moral duties are subjective, there is no real objective reason to assume human rights are anything but a subjective impression of how we think humans should be treated because our society has evolved to think that way. There would be no reason other than chance and survival that we think that way and no objective reason why humans should be treated any differently than animals, or that human safety and well-being should take priority over other animals.

I recall a story about a woman on the television show Politically Incorrect. She was talking with a couple of men who were arguing for the idea that there were no objective moral duties or values.  I don’t think that was technically the actual topic, but that was the gist of the conversation.  She asked them one question: “Can you explain to me a situation where rape would be OK.”  They couldn’t give an answer.  Whether they were willing to admit it or not, they knew that rape was wrong…objectively wrong.

Objective Moral Duties Come From God

The issue then comes back to explaining where objective moral duties come from.  If they evolved from the natural world via random evolution, they are not objective and could have evolved differently…evolved so that rape was OK, breaking promises was he norm if it got you what you wanted, and ‘might makes right’ was the reigning paradigm.

Most people ‘just know’ that certain things are right and wrong.  It can be argued that this is  an innate part of human knowledge, like the knowledge that you exist, and that there is a physical world around you…but we’ll have to save that discussion for another time.

If a naturalistic explanation for objective moral duties does not exist, then you have 2 choices:

1. There must be a supernatural explanation.
2. There are no objective moral duties.

Most will agree there are objective moral duties.  That leaves option 1: A supernatural lawgiver who gives us our moral duties.  That’s the conclusion I came to in my life, and I often wonder why there aren’t more questions about the moral lawgiver…

• …whether He has more to offer than just a sense of right and wrong
• …whether this life is all there is, or if He has prepared a life for us beyond death
• …whether He might require more from us in this life than just doing our best to follow His moral laws
• …whether He wants to reveal Himself to us and relate to us ….
• …and the list goes on.

Though it doesn’t always seem like it when you look at my life, I don’t believe there is anything more important than seeking answers to these questions…and following up and drawing closer to the Answer once you find it.  Unfortunately most of us get caught up so much in the day to day rat race that we don’t take the time to contemplate anything else.

Hope to see you again next time.

Tagged as: Moral Duties, moral duty, Objective Moral Duties, subjective moral duties