The Declaration of Independence says "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." But what if we have no creator? Then shouldn't it say "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are evolved equal, that they are endowed by evolution with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." An obvious howler.
But is this a false dilemma?
Well, there are a couple of other options. One would be skepticism about the idea of human rights in general. States can give or withhold rights as they choose, and there is no moral fact (which is what the Declaration points to), that requires states to guarantee that our rights are respected. Thus, the right not to be taxed without representation, or the right not to be enslaved, is in the hands of whoever has the biggest guns. To accept this is to basically reject the moral foundation of what has energized us ethically over the past century in movements such as the Civil Rights movement. The other option is a kind of robust ethics in a naturalistic universe where the moral fact that states ought not to deprive citizens of certain rights is grounded in something somewhere in Plato's heaven. How such a moral fact can effectively be a deciding factor in someone decision to respect or violate someone's rights is something I have never understood. Jefferson thought he could argue for unalienable rights on the basis of how we as humans were brought into existence--that is, by Nature's God (A Christian God, just not a trinitarian God). If instead we were spat up by a blind watchmaker evolutionary process, then that argument goes out the window. The King can just say "I have the power, you don't, the Redcoats are coming, and if they win, you never had those rights in the first place." Apart from an appeal to God, how do we make the case that we don't just happen to have the rights we have because we won the wars we needed to win? How do we argue that it is not the case that if rights are being denied by some government, then they do not really exist at all? What are the moral consequences not just of atheism, but of naturalistic atheism, which rules out such things as Platonic forms, Aristotelian inherent purposes, laws of Karma, etc. on the same basis that it rules out God?
7 comments:
Vic I swear you've made very similar posts dozens of times so I don't expect anything will change your mind. however:
"Thus, the right not to be taxed without representation, or the right not to be enslaved, is in the hands of whoever has the biggest guns"
yeah, that's exactly the situation I see in reality. An appeal to gods as your "rights" are being violated may give you some sense of righteous superiority but it won't stop those bullets.
No, it won't stop those bullets. But does it explain the moral fact that those bullets shouldn't be flying, and does it assert that the people who are shooting them ultimately won't win?
Theistic morality says that a) the people with the biggest guns may be doing something that, as a matter of fact, is really wrong (not merely that some people don't like it), and that right will ultimately prevail. These ideas have energized everything from the battle to abolish slavery to the civil rights movement. They even provide the underlying basis for the gay rights movement, although a Christian can surely reply that these Christian ideas are being misapplied to this case. If you give these ideas up, you are paying a moral price. Maybe it is a price we have to pay to follow the evidence, I can argue with you about that, but that's another matter.
David Bentley Hart argues that Christianity brought the concept of human rights into the Pagan world in his essay,
Human Dignity Was a Rarity Before Christianity.
He goes into more detail in his book, <a href='https://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/dp/0300164297/ref=sr_1_1?crid=EI1YL2P6QWGV&keywords=atheist+delusions+by+david+bentley+hart&qid=1563010990&s=gateway&sprefix=david+bentley+hart+athe%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1">Atheist Delusions</a>.
Atheist Delusions
The claims here seem to be that giving up a particular account of the nature and origin of morality, ie, a meta-ethics, has an impact on moral content itself, and that this impact evaluated against contemporary moral principles is negative---it's a 'price' to be paid. Why?
" But what if we have no creator?"
The universe is our creator.
"The other option"
False dichotomy.
"What are the moral consequences not just of atheism, but of naturalistic atheism, which rules out such things as Platonic forms, Aristotelian inherent purposes, laws of Karma, etc. on the same basis that it rules out God?"
The consequences are that morality is an individual sensibility. Most have the feeling that we have certain rights, so we get together and by convention write that feeling into a governing document.
We don't need a source of objective morality. We operate well enough on shared sensibilities arising from our shared physiologies.
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