Transcription
If our thoughts are the result of some random evolutionary process, why should we believe anything we think is true?
Well, the first thing is that evolution isn't a random process. But that aside, let me put it this way: it's either directed by an outside intelligence or it's not.
Sure, okay, if it's not directed by an outside intelligence, then it's random. Yes. So if it's directed by intelligence, then perhaps God exists. If it's not directed by intelligence, why should we believe anything we think?
There's an awesome back-and-forth exchange. You really see the conversation unfold and go to deeper levels as it does. So without me talking anymore, let's go ahead and dive in, and then I'll give some of my thoughts on the back end. Enjoy.
If evil does exist, as much as that may be a problem for why a loving God would allow evil, nonetheless, it's a signpost that something beyond the material world has to exist to allow this realm of good and evil to.
I think Alex recognizes that signpost because on his website, he rails, I think rightfully, against some of the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, where he talks about how priests have sexually abused children. Obviously, that's a great wrong.
But my question is, Alex, if you really think that is a great wrong, why would you deny objective morality? I mean, is that really wrong, or is it just a matter of personal opinion?
Well, I think that we agree in one sense that evil doesn't necessarily disprove God. I'm with you on that.
What I would say is, to answer your question, objectively, no, it is a subjective thing. Morality to me is entirely subjective.
Why do you say that?
Well, because firstly, a thing to note is that objective morality—let's talk about what objective actually means, I suppose.
Objectivity to me, if you want my definition, would be to say that it is true regardless of human intervention, regardless of human consciousness. For instance, the Earth or the Sun—that would be true if all humans disappeared. Every single one of them. It would still be an objective fact.
But to say that murder is wrong if every human disappeared? That couldn't still be wrong. Surely that would be a nonsense concept without some kind of human psychology.
The only way that you could argue that perhaps it would still be wrong is if there was some kind of a transcendent being. But then you need to have that being in order to prove the existence of the objective morality that you're then using to prove the God.
So what we're doing is we're reasoning from effect to cause. We have this effect known as this moral law that is pressing on us, as you admitted in the video.
And look, videos—two-minute videos, ten-minute videos—you can't expound on all the nuances. So if this is wrong, correct me. But you seem to say that we—in fact, I think you quoted the—let me just quote you accurately on this.
Because in the video, you said this: you said, "Moral truths are so deeply ingrained in us that they feel like they are objective."
Right, okay. So my question is, why would you doubt their objectivity if they're so deeply ingrained in us?
Well, because this is where I think Sam Harris is right in the sense that if you have certain assumptions—so let's say that we could assume that human well-being was a good thing—we'll discuss why shortly. But let's say we assume that.
We could then say that it is objectively true that we should act in certain ways, for instance, trying not to murder people. That would then become an objective morality.
So because evolution has instilled within us, through our genetics, a drive to stay alive, then we can derive objective moral truths about how we should act in order that complies with this inner nature, which I think has come about through evolution.
So even if you don't subscribe to the idea that certain moral actions, such as not killing or not stealing, have come about through evolution, the instinctual nature within us to stay alive causes us to think of those as objective truths.
But it's a technicality. So for all intents and purposes, you could say they're objective truths. If you grab a hundred people off the street and ask them, "Is rape wrong?" a hundred of them will say yes.
But that doesn't mean it's objective. I mean, for instance, I put it to you: would you say that chocolate is tasty?
Yeah, I would.
But that's subjective. Some people may not like chocolate.
So, taste can be just as subjective as chocolate.
Mhm. But that's no problem, right? That's no problem whatsoever.
So when you say something along the lines of, "Oh, so morality is subjective," so what Hitler did—being wrong was just an opinion?
Well, yes, but in the same sense that chocolate tasting as good as tar is an opinion.
I think when it doesn't make a difference—
Well, no, I think it does. Because it's much more obvious that, say, sexually abusing children is wrong than atheism is true.
Right, so why would you say that atheism is true in order to avoid the obvious conclusion that sexually abusing children is wrong?
You already know sexually abusing children is wrong. Now, if you want to use an evolutionary argument, the problem is that it undercuts everything you think.
Because if everything we think is the product of evolution, the product of the laws of physics or biology, whatever it is, then why should we believe anything we think?
Forget about morality for a second. Why should we even believe that atheism is true or that Christianity is true?
If we're completely—I'm sorry, I'm suffering from jet lag here—if our thoughts are the result of some random evolutionary process, why should we believe anything we think is true?
Well, the first thing is that evolution isn't a random process. But that aside, let me put it this way: it's either directed by an outside intelligence or it's not.
Sure, okay, if it's not directed by an outside intelligence, then it's random. Yes.
So if it's directed by intelligence, then perhaps God exists. If it's not directed by intelligence, why should we believe anything we think?
Because, I mean, this is the old argument against naturalism that people like C.S. Lewis and indeed modern practitioners like Plantinga have put forward.
Which, as I understand it, is effectively saying if evolution is meant for the propagation of our DNA, it's not aimed at us receiving true beliefs. It's not aimed at us actually—it's not aimed at reasoning.
No, and ultimately, you could even go as far as to say that the actual processes of matter in motion—atoms banging into each other, electrochemical processes—those are non-rational.
Why would we assume that they produce rational thinking?
Because ultimately, I mean, and your argument here, I guess, Frank, it undercuts the whole project. It's this idea—it's almost sort of existential. You know, why should we believe anything if there's no guidance?
To me, it's like asking the question, like you said earlier about, you know, how do we know that we even exist or that the universe wasn't created last Thursday?
For me, it's somewhat based on consensus. It doesn't prove it's true, but reason is one of those things that we need to assume in order to get anywhere.
In the same sense, we need to assume that we exist in order to have a philosophical discussion.
No, that's a very wise point. I agree with you. The question is, how do we explain reason on a naturalistic worldview?
Well, reason and consciousness can be explained as coming about through evolution—our way in which we sense the world.
But let's stop there for just a second, though, Alex. If that's the case, why should we trust it?
Well, we don't necessarily have to. Again, it's a subjective thing. But every single person—
But that would mean reason's subjective.
Yes, well, it is.
Well, if reason is subjective, then how do you and I come to different conclusions using both using reason?
Because we have free will.
If reason's subjective, we couldn't even communicate if there weren't these objective, unchanging laws of life.
Well, yes, there are objective rules and tenets of reason, but reason itself is subjective in the same way that morality—you can say under certain assumptions there are objective truths about morality.
If you have a certain assumption about reason, then yes, there are objective tenets.
Well, that's what I mean. These immaterial laws of logic that aren't made of mules—how do we explain those on a naturalistic worldview?
How do you mean?
How do we explain—why are there laws of logic? Why are there laws of mathematics?
They're a product of consciousness.
And laws of mathematics are not a thing in themselves, but rather a way to explain the universe.
So the laws of mathematics would not exist without human beings, so they are subjective. But the things that they describe would.
Oh, so when you talk about logic, when you talk about reason, these things aren't ends; they're means. They're means to understanding certain things.
So we use reason to understand that the Earth goes around the Sun. We use the laws of math to understand how that happens.
But you just said the laws of mathematics are human conceptions, basically.
Yes, it's a language.
Well, let me ask you this: let's say there were no human beings on the Earth and there were just two rocks on the Earth. Was it true there were just two rocks on the Earth?
Well, it depends what you mean by two. I mean, sure, like you—if in the everyday sense of the word.
This is where things get confusing because, for instance, I suppose what you're asking is something similar to the question of does 2 plus 2 still equal four if there are no humans?
And to me, the case is—you have to think about what you're describing when you say 2 plus 2.
So for instance, if you're saying if there were two rocks and you added two more rocks, would there be four rocks? Absolutely.
Mhm. But to say that 2 plus 2 equals 4 is a good way to bring in the idea that mathematics is a language.
Because in the same way that I can say—
But it's not an arbitrary language.
Well, it is. In fact, language itself is based on mathematics, and that's not arbitrary.
I'd say it's absolutely arbitrary.
Math is arbitrary?
No, math isn't. But the language we use to describe it is. It evolves and changes.
Well, yes, but they're referencing objective facts. If we want to call this one book "MH," there is only one book here.
Yes, okay, that's an objective fact.
If we wanted to call it "a" like in Deutsch, that this is one book, okay, that's a different word, but it's representing the same objective fact.
And if we're going to say that reasoning is objective, then there's no way we can come to any conclusions about anything.
There are different ways, even within the laws of mathematics.
Did I say objective or subjective?
Don't—if we're going to say reason is subjective, then there's no way we can come to any true conclusions about anything.
That actually is an objective truth claim.
Well, I would say that even with something as objective as math, there are subjective ways in which to understand it.
The language we use—even though it seems that it wouldn't be the case.
For instance, if you want to find the roots of a quadratic equation, you can do it by using the quadratic formula. You can do it by expanding the brackets, and you get to the same answer.
But the reason you're using to get there is subjective.
So the answer is a fact of nature. It's true that would still be the answer even if humans didn't exist.
But the language we used to get there and the reason that we used to get there wouldn't.
Yeah, but that's—no, the reason is objective.
But there are different levels here. You have ontology, which is the study of being.
Sure, okay. You have epistemology—that's how we know. The study of being.
Then you might have semantics, which is how you describe the epistemology to get to the ontology.
This can be arbitrary, but it's still tethered to objective facts.
It's ultimately tethered to an objective ontology.
So what are the tenets of objective reason to you?
Well, start with the basic laws of logic. For instance, the law of the excluded middle, things like that.
Law of non-contradiction, law of excluded middle, law of inference, law of identity—those are the essentials of the laws of logic.
And you start with those, and then you use your sense perceptions to draw conclusions about the real world using those tools—those objective laws of logic.
They are tools.
And this is the thing that I see when we're talking about whether reason exists. Reason is a method.
And so it almost helps us in epistemology. But if they weren't tethered ontologically—if they weren't tethered to reality—there'd be no way we could know anything.
You're making the claim that this realm exists that we call the laws of logic and so on, and that it really is something that we discover.
In that sense, it's an element of the reality we live in. We don't determine them; we discover them.
Exactly. Whereas you're making the case, obviously, that they're something we produce.
We invent because it helps us.
You see, that's an objective truth claim right there.
That's why it's self-defeating. Alex is saying it's objectively true that reason is subjective.
And the same applies to the moral argument as well, which is you're saying there's this realm of real right and wrong, good and evil, and you're saying, "No, these are just concepts we invent. We don't discover them."
But we invent them.
And I know many people whose journey to belief in God has been based on the fact that they came to the view that there really is a realm of right and wrong that I discover.
I no longer believe that it's all subjective.
And obviously, others who take your view as well, Alex. I mean, fundamentally, is that where we come to an impasse?
Where you say, "Frank, there are real realms of these objective laws of logic, and there's a real realm of good and evil," and you just say, "No, in my opinion, it can all be explained as subjective."
Because ultimately, I believe in objective moral good and evil because, for me, I see that as a bit like saying racism is wrong is the same as 1 plus 1 equals 2.
But you say, "No, that racism doesn't exist when humans don't agree with you."
I see it as the same. To me, they are both as instinctual.
But that 1 plus 1 equals 2 is, again, it's a mathematical language.
But if you're talking in the literal sense that one thing and another thing equals two things, then yes, that is objectively true.
But to say that racism is wrong, although it feels just as instinctively true, it doesn't have the same objective.
Say you were living a few hundred years ago in the American South, and maybe racism is kind of just part of the culture.
That's the accepted way of things, at least within the white population, let's say.
Because that's the generally accepted fact, you know, way of people thinking about it. Would that mean racism is okay in that culture?
Because that's—well, it's a difficult question.
Okay, pretty funny ending to the clip there.
But I want to kind of just break down really the substance of that conversation, and it's actually very simple.
Even though they've gone back and forth a number of times, there really are two options.
Either morality has been given to us from above by God, in which case it is objective because God is actually able to say, "This is how things ought to be," and therefore that is how things ought to be.
Now, I will grant to you that that implies that you must have a belief in God in order to believe in that.
But I'm saying if there is a God, meaning an ultimate source of reality, of truth, of goodness, of beauty, of the universe itself, then He can say 2 plus 2 equals 4, and it is.
And He can say that murder is wrong, and it is.
So that's the top-down method of morality, which is the objective moral understanding.
Or morality has kind of evolved from the bottom up, and society has decided that murder is wrong.
Society has decided A, B, and C.
But if it is just from the bottom up, then it will always be subjective.
You can't have something that is just a byproduct of time and matter and chance and biology and utility and Darwinian theory and all these things.
It can't be a product of evolution in a sense, in a materialistic model, and be objective.
So either morality is objective and it is given to us by God from above, or it is subjective and it has arisen from the bottom up.
The problem is this: we all know deep down that morality is not subjective.
We know that there are things that are absolutely wrong.
These things are wrong not just because the majority of people agree that they're wrong, but they're implicitly wrong.
And we know this in the same way that 2 plus 2 equals 4.
Whether or not a particular society agrees, if there is a society that says that it's three and a society that says that it's five, it's still four.
It's objectively four.
It's ultimately four.
And this is the same thing with morality.
If Hitler took over the world and convinced the majority of people that Jews are animals, and if everybody came to agree on that—that they have no value, that they don't have human rights, and that the Holocaust is a morally justifiable event in history—it would still be a heinous evil, even if 100% of people were convinced to the contrary.
So morality is objective, and we know this at the deepest level.
So then finally, because morality is objective and because objective morality requires there to be a moral lawgiver, it follows logically that there is a moral lawgiver—that there is actually a God.
And so ultimately, objective morality—this whole conversation about morality—is incredibly useful to illuminating the fact that there also must be a God.
And so ultimately, I think this conversation is great.
And I would love to hear—I know people in the comments, I'm expecting it, I'm anticipating it.
People are going to have, I think, some disagreements with that, and so I welcome those.
I want to hear those.
I've seen those in other videos, but I haven't really effectively seen anybody actually dismantle that core, basically, syllogism.
And so with that being said, I'll see you guys in the next one.
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See you guys in the next video. Peace. Bye.