I'm not sure what you mean, and why it would be true. Clearly we can morally judge people, and evolution is true, so it is possible.
Of course you can pass moral judgments on people. We do it all the time which actually confirms the veracity of (2). However,
UNDER NATURALISM you have
NO BASIS for doing so. According to proponents of the T.E.N.S., morality is nothing more than a tool utilized by the T.E.N.S. to aid in surivival and reproduction. Therefore under the T.E.N.S. when moral judgments are made, they are made with regards to whether or not an act aids or does'nt aid in survival and reproduction. Thats it. Its good if it aids it is bad if it does not aid. Thats as far as it goes
UNDER NATRUALISM.
I would love to present you with expert testimony from the men and women who are naturalists and who are currently engrossed in this subject. Would you like me to?
Well morality comes from a combination of an objective point of view, with subjective necessary human desires.
UNDER NATURALISM, the concept of morality originated as the by product of E.N.S.
You seem to be wanting to maintain objectivity while operating within a purely naturalistic framework but you cannot, because you are in the framework itself. You are a homosapien just like the man who kills the man for his food. You are not above him looking down on him, but you are right along side of him, a by-product of millions of years of evolution. You and him are the same. You can afford to buy your food, he, in a certain circumstance, had to kill for his food.
UNDER NATURALISM, neither person is
right or wrong in the
sense that you want to use the words. You were both justified because you were satisfying the needs of the body.
Well two starving people fighting over food is hardly an easy moral case to begin with.
You are wanting to change my case study to diminish the harshness of it. I said no where in my example that there were two starving men fighting over food. What I said was that (A) took the life of (B) because he is hungry and wants the food in (B's) possession.
A isn't obviously morally responsible in the same way we would think someone is who kills out of greedy rather than starvation. So I don't think your example is helpful for convincing me.
You are still talking about "
moral resonsibility". There is no moral responsibility
under NATURALISM.
And I think this is where the misunderstanding lies not only for yourself, but for anyone else who seeks to hold on to moral objectivity whilst denouncing God.
On the
NATURALISTIC worldview our concept of right and wrong, and moral obligations are solely the by-products of the T.E.N.S. They are by-products like our hands, feet, and teeth. They are reducible to chemical reactions that take place inside of our grey matter. They are nothing more than aids to survival and reproduction. That is it. There is nothing more to it than that. E.N.S is concerned with adaptation to aid in survival of our species. Right acts are those which are perceived as aiding survival, wrong acts are seen as those which are disadvantageous to survival. That is as far as the ideas of right and wrong can go in a naturalistic world composed of matter and governed by physical, natural causes. There is no more to it than that.
As atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse states:
"The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness
of morality because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a
biological adaptation, no less than our hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory.
I appreciate that when someone says, "love thy neighbor as thyself," they think they
are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless such reference is truly
without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any
deeper meaning is illusory."
So you see Paradoxum, there is no "moral culpability" afforded under naturalism as it is in theism. Does this mean that atheist do not make moral judgments? Not at all, for atheists like theists, make moral judgments everyday.
The point is, is that theists have a rationally justifiable reason for making such judgments. Atheists do not.
I would say objectivity and reason are above evolution. I have no idea what you are talking about when you say about stepping outside of evolution. Evolution is just a scientific theory.
On naturalism my dear, there is nothing above or beyond the natural. Everything must be explained via natural occurances. This, I hope, will help you begin to see how narrow minded one must be to hold to the view.
It is descriptive. And I don't think it says morality is an illusion.
The T.E.N.S. says nothing, as you noted, it is a theory. Atheistic and naturalistic
SCIENTISTS say that morality is ultimately illusory. These are the same ones that at the very outset deny the existence of anything other than the natural and are therefore forever doomed to work within its limited confines.
Evolution is just a theory about what happens, it doesn't prescribe action. I find it strange how you talk about it. As if evolution justifies anything on its own.
I am using the T.E.N.S. the way any naturalistic philosopher of science or biology would use it. In fact it was Darwins's work on the T.E.N.S. that led Richard Dawkins to shout with great joy that he could now be an intellectually fulfilled atheist!
You see Paradoxum, the naturalistic scientists would have you believe that the T.E.N.S. is essentially an intelligent, proscriptive, mysterious, unexplainable entity that picks and chooses which traits and genes to pass on and which ones to discard. They attribute such properties to the T.E.N.S. and then claim that it is the best explanation for life as we know it!!!!! They mark out certain boundaries in which they can work, fashion this ridiculous theory together that it all just happened one day, with not outside intelligence or superintendence, and then boom, life! Life from star dust and rocks to boom you and me. From goo to you via the zoo.
Not only is none of this actually proven, as Richard Dawkins himself admits, but those who hold to such theories have
faith that one day they will be proven right!
So we see my dear, and yes you are worthy of the name, the following sums it up well:
The atheistic ethicist, Richard Taylor, states:
To say that something is wrong because... it is forbidden by God,
is... perfectly understandable to anyone who believes in a law-giving God.
But to say that something is wrong... even though no God exists to forbid it,
is not understandable. The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart
from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone.vi
The brilliant philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein candidly admitted that if there are ethical absolutes they would have to have come to man from outside the human situation - "Ethics, if it is anything," he wrote, "is supernatural..."
vii
J.L. Mackie, one of the most outspoken atheists of this century agrees, "Moral properties are most unlikely to have arisen without an all-powerful god to create them
."viii
And if Ruse is right, then our strong intuitions that rape, selfishness, discrimination and hate are objectively wrong, even outrageously immoral, are just delusions. So, unfortunately for the atheist, there is no basis for objective morality in a universe without God.
As the Russian author Dostoyevsky put it, "If there is no God, then all things are permitted."
ix