Debates can come off mean. I certainly would not want to be in one… unless it was a little more fun! I recently watched a Notre Dame debate held in April of 2011 between Philosopher, Sam Harris (known as one of the New Atheists) and Christian Philosopher, William Lane Craig. Overall, in my opinion, Dr. Craig had the best answers, but Dr. Harris had a better delivery. Harris was quit witted and charmed the audience. Craig is of keen intellect but came off a bit more distant and less personable. Guess who the university students warmed up to? Yes, Harris. They laughed at Harris’ comments, who obviously made a better impression on them, albeit with less plausible answers. Even though Craig’s responses were more logical and were the best answers to what grounds morality, the students didn’t seem to care—they liked the sarcasm of Harris.
This made me think… could I have debated in a witty way to gain a favorable audience reaction answering the same questions? I can’t compare in the slightest to Dr. Craig, but if I had the chance, just for kicks, I adapted his answers, mixing in what I’ve learned studying apologetics at Biola University, and came up with some hopefully winsome responses. Here’s my take:
Dr. Harris is a Naturalist, which means he does not believe anything immaterial exists. Naturalists have come up with theories on how to explain morality through the lens of biology. I argue that the Christian worldview has the best answer for why morals exist. (All the answers from Harris are taken from the Notre Dame debate.)
- Where does our sense of morality come from?
Harris argues that moral truth must be based in the context of science. “Belief in morality should not be rooted in religion, and belief in God is of itself a result of moral blindness. Our values of right and wrong have been drummed into us by evolution, and then modulated by culture.”
Lisa Q— “If all actions are causally determined, as the theory of evolution presupposes, it follows that people really shouldn’t have free will. If we’re simply programmed through evolution to behave a certain way, could we honestly be morally responsible for our own actions? If moral responsibility is a social construct, evolved through communal, subjective experiences, then no person should be held responsible for the actions they perform. There is no objective moral duty because, as this worldview suggests, we have no control over what we do since we’re biologically programmed towards certain behaviors. 
With no objective moral duty, since evolution states there is no moral lawgiver, we merely express biologically determined actions. It’s every man for himself; a free-for-all, if you wish, because ultimately, right and wrong do not even exist. In this worldview, everything is determined.”
- What is moral?
Harris: “The minimum standard of moral goodness is to avoid the worst possible misery for everyone. If we have a moral duty to do anything, it is to avoid the worst possible misery for everyone. That would be HELL – just sayin’.
It’s possible this will fail because you can be wrong in your beliefs in how to navigate this space.”
Lisa Q— “Mr. Harris, ‘wrong’ in your beliefs based on what, may I ask? Who determines what is wrong?”
Harris: “Questions of right and wrong, good and evil, depend upon minds and the possibility of experience. Minds are a natural phenomenon that depend upon the laws of nature in some way.”
Lisa Q— “Who made these natural laws? Since natural laws exist, it is possible that a lawmaker created these laws. Wouldn’t it be plausible that this lawmaker would also provide moral laws, too?”
- What is moral equivalency?
Harris: “In talking about these things, we all can talk about the facts that influence conscience creatures: genetics, neurobiology, psychology, sociology and economics, to name a few. Space of all possible experience as a ‘moral valley’ with peaks that correspond to the heights of well-being, and valleys that correspond to the lowest suffering. There may be different but morally equivalent ways of human beings to thrive, but there are many more ways not to thrive. There are clearly more ways to suffer unnecessarily in this world, than to be sublimely happy.
It is not unscientific to say that the Taliban are wrong about morality.”
Lisa Q —“Mr. Harris, if we have all evolved into moral beings, then what happened to the gene pool of those in the Taliban? Is this just an evolutionary flaw? It’s not cool to call actions out as “sin” today, but this is what Christians call it—the sinful nature. We all have it, which is why it must be redeemed.”
- Can being smart solve the moral problem of bad behavior?
Harris: “It’s clearly possible to value things that reliably make you miserable in this life.”
Lisa Q — “HUH?”
Harris: “If you were only intelligent and knowledgeable to want better experiences, than you could have them.”
Lisa Q —“So, believing something against whatever you describe as this ‘better experience’ is stupid?”
Harris: “It’s possible to not know what one is missing in this life.”
Lisa Q —“Is it? From whose perspective? Have you asked everyone alive today if they know what they’re missing? You’re making a huge assumption here.”
Harris: “The truth is, science has always been in the values business.”
Lisa Q —“Really. What about the man who developed the nuclear bomb? Or Hitler’s doctors who performed atrocious acts on Jews that I won’t even repeat here because of the horror of those inhuman experiments?”
- What about the problem of evil?
Harris: “What is wrong with spending eternity in Hell?”
Lisa Q —“Oh emgeee, Mr. Harris! The whole point of Christianity is to safeguard the eternal well being of souls. You can’t defend atheism in regards to objective morality, so you go after what you perceive as wrong in the Christian worldview. You’re avoiding the weaknesses in your own worldview.”
Harris: “Nine-million children die every year before they reach the age of five. A Tsunami killed a quarter of a million people. These people probably prayed that their children will be spared, and their prayers were not answered. Any god who would allow children by the millions to suffer and die in this way, and their parents to grieve in this way, either can do nothing to help them or doesn’t care to. He is, therefore, impotent or evil.”
Lisa Q —“Evil exists on this planet with or without belief in God. In your worldview, these kids die and that’s it. They cease to exist. In my worldview, Deuteronomy 17 suggests that children who die before they can discern between right and wrong go to heaven. My children go to heaven! Yours just cease. You obviously don’t understand the hope of heaven.”
Harris: “Most of these people will be going to hell because they are praying to the wrong God. Through no fault of their own, they were born into the wrong culture with the wrong theology, and they miss the revelation. 1.2 Billion people in India who are Hindus, which are polytheists. In a Christian viewpoint, they are doomed. You’ll be tortured in hell for eternity.”
Lisa Q —“Mr. Harris, for a man who likes evidence, there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of Hell in your worldview, so why does this concept even bother you? Nonetheless, I can say that only God knows the motivations of a person when they die. If they never got the chance to hear the gospel, then God will judge that justly. He knows the soul conditions of us all. He is the judge for eternal salvation or damnation. The Bible even says that some people who claimed to be Christians won’t go to heaven because they never really knew Him. So, we can’t assume anyone’s eternal destination.”
Harris: “A serial killer on death row, if he repents, can go to heaven, while innocent kids die?”
Lisa Q —“This has absolutely nothing to do with moral accountability! But okay… here is my answer: Children who are innocent and die are possibly ushered into heaven. We can’t know with certainty what happens;it’s speculative. But someone who truly repents and believes, which only God knows, will go to heaven.”
Harris: “You claim Christians are merely limited in capacity to understand God – that He’s mysterious – yet you claim he is good. How can we know this? It is tiresome when intelligent people speak this way, and morally reprehensible.”
Lisa Q —“Oh Sam, Sam, Sam… we know God is good by what He’s created, by the character traits attributed to Him in the Scriptures (when taken in context of the entire Bible), and by the numerous changed lives of people who have become Christians. This is enough evidence to know that God is good. Also, if God exists, He would have to be the most perfect being because that is the definition of God—a perfect, eternal, intelligent, and loving being. God is love, and that is good!”
Harris: “This kind of faith is the perfection of narcissism “God loves me.” Given that somewhere someone is suffering right now, this kind of faith is obscene. To think in this way is to fail to reason honestly, or to care sufficiently about the suffering of other human beings.”
Lisa Q —“Perspective is everything, and you are not seeing clearly! When someone says, “God loves me,” it is an admittance of grace—that He loves me despite myself! I am far from perfect, yet He loves me anyway. I used to reject Him, just like you, and He loves me anyway. He loves all of humanity to the point of choosing to become one, a mere man in the body of Jesus Christ, and took the penalty of crimes we committed against Him because we reject His sovereignty. He is Holy. Rejecting God is a crime against Him, and instead of rejecting us, He died for us to make a payment for this sin.
Sin must be punished because God is Holy and holiness is an attribute of His character. He can’t act contrary to Himself. And because of that kind of love, Christians turn outward to love on the hurting. Who established the Red Cross? The Salvation Army? World Vision? Even hospitals and universities were established by Christian monasteries! There are literally thousands of Christian humanitarian aid workers devoting their lives to help the hurting, and finding adoptive homes for orphans. In your worldview, being merely products of evolution, isn’t survival of the fittest the motto? Why help the weak?”
- What is the Universe ruled by?
Harris: “There is no reason to believe we live in a universe ruled by an invisible monster, Yahweh. True horror of religion—it allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions what only lunatics could believe on their own.
What kind of God would make salvation require believing in Him on bad evidence? Christianity is a cult of human sacrifice.”
Lisa Q —“So, when one gets desperate, one attacks by naming calling and degradation. That’s an ad hominem argument, and its weak. The true horror is atheism, where there is no ultimate meaning to life, and no life after death. This is all you get and then you’re gone! You are a random accident, and life is all about finding your personal “happy,” and that’s it. Atheism is definitely the less moral worldview. It’s man defining his own concept of meaning for his life. So who could say anyone else’s meaning is better or worse in this worldview? In a world without God, there is no reason to be good or bad. You just need to find your “happy,” and who cares about anyone else. It’s a self-centered existence.
…And a cult of human sacrifice? Oh, come on! If you consider all the humanitarian things the Christian faith has brought to the world (much more good acts have happened than bad), I guess you could say it is a ‘selfless sacrifice’, where you’re taught it’s better to give than receive. If that is what you mean by “human sacrifice,” then yeah, Christianity is all about giving in acts of charity, grace and mercy.”
- Faith in what?
Harris: “We don’t have to take anything on faith or lie to our children about the nature of reality. If we want to understand the nature of reality, we have to do it in the spirit of science. We rely on axioms.”
Lisa Q —“Hmmm…. ‘relying on axioms’…. Isn’t that just like faith? I didn’t think you believed in a “spirit” of anything, Mr. Harris, yet you do things in the “spirit of science”? I suppose we do take a lot of science on faith. There are things that are self-evident, like the knowledge of math, which science is based on. Mankind did not create these equations—we simply discovered them. These laws and properties sustain and govern the universe so that we can actually DO science. These are absolutes truths, and one can then infer that because these exist, they were created by an Intelligence.”
- Faith in whom?
Harris: “Jesus has a narrow worldview not any better than an Afghan warlord today. This vision of life can’t possibly be true—the one in the Bible. Governing over 9 billion people on this planet with sectarian views on an invisible God is not the way to do it. The only tool we need is honest inquiry.
Lisa Q —“Jesus is like an Afghan warlord? Oh dear, Mr. Harris, you’ve been reading the wrong Bible, or maybe the Koran, or some science fiction novel. Better get a copy of a New Testament – most hotels have one. Warlords are military leaders who fight and battle their way to power. Christ said we are to turn the other cheek, and we are to pray for our enemies. It’s ignorant to compare the two.
As far as being narrow, yes, Jesus said the road to truth was narrow, and that He is the only road a person can walk on to gain eternal life with our Father in Heaven.
Regarding honesty… can we truly be honest for “honest sake”? Who is Mr. Honest? I’d like to meet him in your atheistic-worldview.
Conclusion: Naturalism states morality is based in evolutionary biology. As I have shown, however, this worldview falls short of plain, common sense. Does the lumpy, bumpy gray-brain matter inside a person’s head just fire off patterns of behavior with no true meaning? Is calling morality a “biological mental-state” the best explanation for consciousness, intentional thoughts or moral sense? One does not need to be a scientist or a philosopher to see this is not the best answer to explain consciousness or moral processes. Common sense tells us differently.
It is quite self-evident that we do have intentional thoughts and actions, and innately seem to understand the difference between good and evil. There is a property of the mind, which is intentional and personal. It cannot be described biologically. It exists in the immaterial reality of the mind, our soul. Morality is not just a social construct. People at all times, all places, and all cultures have a basic sense of right and wrong. They are intentional in their thoughts and actions. Free will is evident by how we exercise moral choices—sometimes making very bad ones. These things are inherent in the human race, not derived from institutions or the luck of evolutionary chance.
The problem of evil is real, and we should never minimize people’s pain, but evil actually proves God exists because without Him, no objective moral values or duties would exist. Moral objectives are grounded in the character of God, His goodness and His love. Since people have gone their own way, it’s our disobedience that causes evil.
Author’s note: I have no desire to debate Sam Harris, or anyone for that matter, in “real” life. I am not trained in debating or have the necessary PhD to qualify. I just did this blog as an exercise to see how I would handle these issues in a more friendly-style, with a bit of humor thrown in.
Interesting, but… no. Just to refer your conclusion section… “Common sense tells us differently.”
This is a big problem. “Common sense” may be a starting point. But it is by no means a reliable epistemology. Simple example: electrons.
Common sense tells us that it should be either a particle or a wave. But it isn’t. It’s both. Or neither depending on how you want to view it. Common sense fails spectacularly when trying to understand physics at a subatomic level. As Richard Feynman said “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”
In fact, science seems to be coming closer and closer to the conclusion that brain states are indeed the proximate cause of morality and our experience of free will. And considering how it has been demonstrated over and over again how easy it is for us to be fooled (even when we KNOW we’re being fooled!), there is ample reason to be suspect about our moral and free will experience.
You will need to do much better than common sense to show that morality is objective or that free will is a real thing.
Hello Chip! We meet again… (or do you go by “Joshua”?) Anyway, thanks for your comments. This all boils down to worldview. When morality is analyzed under the predominate Western worldview of Naturalism, or Philosophical Materialism which attempts to explain all phenomenon without recourse to anything immaterial, how do we explain what kind of thing morals are if this worldview is true? Naturalism as a philosophy cannot be true since it fails to describe reality in its entirety, and if allowed to perpetuate, will fail us morally. Here’s why:
Naturalism fails to explain all of reality because it describes everything from a purely physical and/or biological viewpoint, yet we know more exists beyond empirical knowledge. If it (Naturalism) were true, then only material things could exist. Here is a partial list of things that do exist but are not material: [1] laws of logic, [2] morality (such as murder is wrong), [3] memory, [4] mathematical principles, and [5] ideas. There are many more examples of immaterial things that exist (see my blog here: naturalism fails), and thus, Naturalism fails as credible worldview because it doesn’t describe all of reality.
These immaterial aspects of reality involve an area of study called Metaphysics. In contract, physics studies the things of nature; metaphysics studies the nature of being. Essences are one of these things. An essence is what Dr. J.P. Moreland defines as a thing’s “whatness” — what kind of thing is its being? This is in reference to defining what it means to be human versus an animal, for example. Charles Darwin’s own evolutionary classification system claims there is just a minor degreed difference between mankind and monkeys—that we are not one of kind. Instead, humanity is just another type of animal with nothing unique about being human except that we have evolved into being the smartest species. Darwin, as with many evolutionary scientists, denied any real essences exist since this is an abstract principle that cannot be measured empirically. He rejected some of the great Greek philosophical ideas that suggested an individual has a primary substance (a body) and a secondary substance (mind/personality). It’s this secondary substance that is called the ‘essence’ of a thing.
It is within the essences where morality resides. They are expressed by actions, i.e. feeling guilty for breaking a moral (like stealing), or joyful for expressing a virtue like love. Morals are spiritual in their essences, each having a distinct function from the other manifesting in a person’s behavior. It is an essence that affects not only the spirit but imposes action on the physical. This has a philosophical term called Substance Dualism, which states that the mental and the physical are separate substances with independent existence affecting each another.
Naturalist philosophers propose morality is only material in nature. Some think morality is just a biological brain function. Dr. Daniel Dennett describes morals as mental states. He has adopted a term called the “Intentional Stance,” which is a way of describing habits that we form through our environment that affect our cognition of how the world operates. This stance enables us to interpret phenomena based on patterns that we detect and interpret. This means that our morals are just brain interpretations of phenomena and are not concrete. Dennett states there will always be uninterruptable gaps in our knowledge because of translation errors. In his theory, there is no way to strictly reduce meaning into the language of the physical sciences. Therefore, since mental entities cannot correlate to anything physical, morality basically becomes a game of interpretation.
Dennett describes himself as a realist, yet his theory suggests mental content will always be a complicated issue and not clearly fixed as realists suppose. There could be no real, intentional thought processes involved in mental states if natural selection is true because it does not have foresight. Darwinian evolutionary considerations conclude organisms simply adapt to changes after they occur. Therefore, there could be no intentionality.
Dennett biologically cannot explain how there is an “I” or unified mind, so he concludes these are just patterns performed in the brain. Everything is just a physical state, and mental entities are reduced to token brain states. Thus, we could not know anything except the last physical state. What then would be an acts of evil? In his theory, Dennett must answer that evil would seem to be just an interpretation of a physical event. There could not be any intrinsically right or wrong actions.
If morals are not essences, can habits, or mental patterns in the brain, adequately explain the moral phenomenon of a stranger diving into a flooded riverbed to rescue a child trapped inside a car, freeing the child at the diver’s peril? Many have died in rescue attempts. Why? Is this just an intentional stance or a delusion some man experienced because he wanted to help another in need? Even Dennett himself claims no definitive answer: “My theory sketch may well be false in many regards, but if so, this will be shown by confirming some alternative theory of the same sort.” This is what science does, he further explained, in that it puts forward something that can be either fixed or refuted by something better.
Dennett presupposes the very things he denies. He said that making these attributions and predictions requires real, intentional thought. Since Naturalism suggests no real entities of intention exist, then how could we know anything? It is quite self-evident that we do have intentional thoughts and actions, and innately seem to understand the difference between good and evil.
“Physical brains are subject to the laws of physics; mental states are subject to the laws of logic. Those who think mental states are entirely physical hold a logically contradictory position. In order to think rationally about their thoughts, they must have the freedom to do so, but this freedom in unavailable if the laws of physics and chemistry are controlling their thoughts,” J. Warner Wallace surmised. This would mean that people are more like zombies, being determined by scientific laws.
Why should we listen to Philosophical Zombies?
Since Naturalism cannot measure morals via the scientific method, many have concluded that morality must then be relegated to personal opinion. This is called Relativism which states that conceptions of truth and moral values are not absolute but are relative to the persons or groups holding them. “What’s true for you is true for you; what’s true for me is true for me.” This is often said out of the prevailing attitude that tolerance trumps truth. However, what happens when one’s truth collides with another? Without having a shared basis in transcendent, objective morals (know as telos), anyone in power could change the moral rules. This is called Subjectivism, and left unchecked, it could eventually lead to anarchy.
It is true that science is constantly changing based on new discoveries and interpretations which is why it is necessary not to base morality in science. If we do, morals would always be changing. What then would we base our morals in, the latest scientific theory or the most influential leader on Earth? For morality to be valid and binding on all, it must have some connection to objective essences that are independent of individual or community constructions. If humanity is going to be moral, then we must come to the realization that morality is ultimately owed to one greater than the individual and community.
Despite the philosophy that attempts to invalidate essences, the human soul and other immaterial substances cannot be the product of Naturalism. It is clear that our minds are not merely a function of a biological impulse because we have knowledge, memory and intentionality. These are immaterial things which makes us responsible for our moral activity. The objective nature of morality requires essence. Essences are immaterial and universal, so we can share them. The existence of immaterial things has a cause. Keeping one’s a priori worldview in check, a conclusion that best explains the available data should be made. With morality based in a transcendent source, it remains stable, constant, something human beings can be morally grounded in to remain anchored.
– “Hello Chip! We meet again…”
Yes, well, given that you’ve banned me on Twitter (twice), I’m mildly surprised you posted and replied to my comments and didn’t just trash them. Guess we’ll see how far that goes, eh?
– “(or do you go by “Joshua”?)”
Your choice. Both are pseudonyms. Although Joshua Waulk’s sister has protested my appropriation of his name and likeness. So for her sake you might want to stick with “Chip”.
– “This all boils down to worldview.”
I heartily disagree. According to your concluding paragraphs, it comes down to epistemology. You claim that through “common sense” you know that morality and free will transcend biology. I explained why common sense is potentially unreliable.
– “Naturalism as a philosophy cannot be true since it fails to describe reality in its entirety”
Just want to point out that this is an argument from ignorance. Would you say physics cannot be true because it fails to explain what happened in the big bang prior to the Plank time? Would you say Christianity cannot be true because it fails to explain the Trinity? A failure to explain everything is a quality of every philosophy, every field of study and every religion. This lack has no bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim.
– [extremely long attempt at justifying dualism]
I’d love to go into a detailed refutation of your many unsubstantiated assertions. But none of this has anything to do with my original criticism, namely that “common sense” is a unreliable epistemology. I’d like it if you’d address my claim. Then we can talk about whether morality is really objective or whether “essences” exist or whatever.
P.S. Can you modify the formatting of your comment section to put space between the paragraphs like your blog post? It’s hard to read this way.
The reason I banned you on Twitter is because you don’t use your real name, so I think you’re not as serious or honest about your intentions. Plus you kept bantering me. I will not engage in endless arguments – I have no time for that! If you use your real name, which shows me you stand behind what you believe in, then I will engage for short time. I’m not one to enjoy endless arguing. On this note, I will answer your questions here and be done.
My whole intent of the blog was to show Naturalism as a philosophy is not true and should not be the basis for moral knowledge. When clearly evaluated with no biases, this makes “common sense.”
You say common sense is not reliable. At what epistemology did you use to arrive at that conclusion? If your epistemology is global skepticism, then you are inviting a vicious, infinite regress (which is what I sensed from you before). I will answer once by saying that common sense is a general conscious awareness that gives us good reason to trust our senses/perceptions of the world around us. The fact that we are self-reflective beings is a good illustration of this.
It is true that with every philosophy there is some uncertainty about its ability to describe all of reality (in total completeness). The question then becomes what has the best explanation or the strongest explanatory power in explaining all of objective reality? I state Philosophical Naturalism does not have the best explanation for morality.
For a more detailed analysis of how I came to my conclusions, I would suggest you read “Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview,” by J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig. I will not go into great detail in this blog, or in the comments on this page, simply for lack of time. Thanks for your comments, and may you find what it is you’re searching for.