For all his seeming brilliance elsewhere, C.S. Lewis offered the most illogical, copout answer that he could regarding the foundations of moral epistemology in his book The Abolition Of Man. After spending pages addressing the important observation pertaining to values that feeling something is beautiful or good does not mean that it really is as the one making the judgment perceives, he claims that values must simply be accepted. I want to quote his own words before explaining why they are both false and destructive.
The excerpt reads as follows:
"'Do as you would be done by,' says Jesus. 'Humanity is to be preserved,' says Lock . . . Unless you accept these without question as being to the world of action what axioms are to the world of theory, you can have no practical principles whatsoever. You cannot reach them as conclusions: they are premises." (40)
When I refer to logical axioms, I call them self-evident because there is no way they can be false. It is impossible for truth to not exist, for deductive reasoning to be unreliable, for a thing not to be what it is, or for there to not be a way reality is. To deny these things, one must rely on them, and it is objectively, utterly impossible for any of these things (and several others) to not be true. But it is certainly not logically impossible for there to be no such thing as morality or for me to have an objective moral obligation to kill every living thing I see (there is no reason whatsoever to believe this though--see below for the truth about moral epistemology). Logic proves what is by necessity; morality details how things should be. Because of this, one can not simply observe things as they are and automatically know that the current situation involves some moral right or wrong. Lewis correctly says that values are not provable by use of deductive reasoning using premises to form a conclusion, but his assertion that they must therefore be assumed is a very erroneous and damaging one.
I will detail the only legitimate moral ontology and epistemology below [1]:
1). Conscience and cultural beliefs about values do not in any way establish that morality exists and are entirely arbitrary, unverifiable, subjective in their judgments.
2). Moral relativism is impossible (relativism of any sort is impossible). No two contrary claims about anything, including values, can be simultaneously correct. Any claim about values is either objectively true or objectively false. Note that this does not immediately exclude moral nihilism--the position that value claims do not correspond to any external moral reality at all--from being true.
3). Morality does not exist if God does not exist, but just because God exists does not mean that morality does. Without a deity there is no metaphysical anchor for values and no standard by which the competing value claims of individuals can be called true or false. One can prove infallibly that there is an uncaused cause [2], but no one can prove that it has a moral nature.
4). It is impossible to know moral truths unless God reveals them to us, since if he/she does have a moral nature humans are incapable of knowing that nature left to themselves, only having access to subjective conscience and arbitrary cultural beliefs. This moral epistemology is called theonomy.
5). However, as I said already, we cannot prove that the uncaused cause (God) that exists by necessity has a moral nature. Any knowledge of morality is based not on absolute logical certainty using deductive reasoning, but evidential probabilism that supports a particular theonomist system. This means that moral nihilism could still turn out to be true in the end, because there is nothing about moral truth claims that makes them true by necessity like logical or mathematical truths [3].
6). Christianity agrees with necessary truths and is internally consistent and is consistent with external evidence from many disciplines (science, history, archeology, etc.). As such, there is a vast amount of evidence for the truth of Christianity. Since no other ethical system can boast this evidential support, Christian theonomy is the only moral system that is consistent and somewhat confirmable.
Just assuming a particular value system to be true does not legitimately escape moral skepticism, nor does it provide any actual rational basis for belief in such value claims. Assuming that one's own conscience or the conscience of another person has authority begs the question and leads to a situation where everyone could do the same. Ultimately, if people making all sorts of different moral claims used this approach, people could defend things like rape, tyranny, and extreme torture simply by appealing to their own consciences, even as their ideological opponents would do the same with regard to the opposite claims. I hope that my readers recognize the utter illogicality and futility of retreating behind conscience as if it is necessarily accurate out of all the multitude of differing moral claims.
For these reasons, Lewis fails to provide an actual basis for his value system. The Abolition Of Man does contain some truths--but Lewis is outright fallacious and irrational when he pretends that basic moral truths are self-evident. They are not. And to believe that they are leads only to an environment where people can defend any value claim simply by assuming that their subjective preferences and feelings are true by necessity. I find it odd that any Christian would disagree with my arguments and conclusions on this matter, although many do and have expressed this to me. The Bible itself repeatedly condemns individuals within its pages for not abiding by revealed morality and instead doing what they subjectively thought was right or permissible. In the end, glorifying conscience actually leads to moral despair and skepticism when taken seriously, as someone who believes in his or her conscience only to realize the helpless subjectivity and malleability of conscience and the fact that people really do not agree about morality may lapse into a terrible misery. I know this pain from past experience. Lewis' moral epistemology can offer no rational source of relief for such people because it hinges on fallacious and assumptions, not demonstrable truths. The danger and irrationality of his moral epistemology can far exceed those of skepticism about conscience.
The Abolition Of Man. Lewis, C.S. Broadway: HarperOne, 1974. Print.
[1]. For more elaboration on these things, see here:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/moral-truths-are-not-necessary-truths.html
No comments:
Post a Comment