• cincPhil
    22
    OK thanks again to anyone who offered help, or asked thoughtful questions. I'm going to try to start over in a new thread, which will hopefully touch on morality.
  • Noble Dust
    7.8k
    That's good because your thread apparently doesn't exist anymore.
  • Julianne Carter
    10

    I think that this argument has good potential, but there are a few points that I would like to critique, specifically regarding P1 and P2.

    P1 states that there is a link between the existence of God and the existence of objective moral values. This is an acceptable claim, but I think it would be strengthened if you demonstrated exactly what that connection is. In your response to the user "Noble Dust," you said that you're arguing that "if God does not exist, then morality is just an evolutionary spin-off." Are you implying that God created morality and objective moral values? If so, it might serve the goal of your argument to actually state that.

    P2, which states, "Objective moral values and duties exist," could benefit from a separate argument to support it. From my view, I can think of supporting examples for this: humans from infancy onward regard harming another as "bad," kindness is regarded as morally good, most people would consider events like the Holocaust to be objectively morally wrong, and so on. Still, I think others might question this assertion: can't widespread views of morality change with time? Is there always an objectively morally right or wrong course of action, or objective moral values that transcend differences in situations? I'm not denying the existence of objective morality, but I think that your presentation of this argument would be stronger if insulated against those types of questions.

    Further, I'm not sure that P1 or P2 support your stated intention with this argument: to show that morality is a product of evolution if God doesn't exist. You've asserted that, but your argument doesn't support or fully address it; instead, it focuses on linking the existence of morality to the existence of God. That claim could be a good basis for you to use to develop this argument and expand on it in order to reach your point about evolution. For example, if our morality is a product of evolution, what are the odds that it would be both evolutionarily productive and objectively morally right? If our morality is objectively right, doesn't it make sense that it is the product of an all-knowing Creator? These points are related to the stated purpose of your argument, but I don't see that the argument you chose to present supported your intended conclusion as clearly as it could have.
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