franz kiekeben
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Philosophy
  • Publications
  • Contact

PETER KREEFT ON THE NATURE OF MORALITY

11/28/2018

0 Comments

 
In the Prager University video “Where Do Good and Evil Come From?”, religious philosopher Peter Kreeft makes so many mistakes that if you blink, you’ll probably miss some. This post points out the most glaring ones. 

The video’s overall purpose is, of course, to demonstrate the existence of God by means of the moral argument — that is, that objective morality exists, God is the source of that morality, therefore God exists. But there are explanations of morality that do not depend on God. Kreeft therefore begins by criticizing these “atheistic” accounts (two of which we will look at here), before proceeding to the religious one. 

Some atheists appeal to evolution as an explanation of morality. Kreeft rejects this approach by first pointing out that on such a view, morality changes — that is, evolves — over time, and then arguing that if it “can change for the good or the bad, there must be a standard above these changes to judge them as good or bad.” He uses the example of slavery to make the point, reminding us that it existed for most of human history, yet for the longest time “no one questioned it.” (Interestingly, he neglects to mention that one of those who didn’t question it was God. I’m sure this was just an oversight, though.) The idea, then, is that, just because slavery was once accepted, that did not make it acceptable — and so there must be a standard which applies independently of our change in attitudes. 

This is a rather strange criticism, however. Those who appeal to evolution as a basis of morality aren’t talking about cultural changes, like the one that took place over slavery. Their point is that human beings evolved to have a particular nature, and that nature determines what for us is right and wrong. But instead of presenting an argument against that, Kreeft presents one against cultural relativism. 

Perhaps he just means that the evolutionary account implies change in the long run, and so fails for the same reason cultural relativism does. Unfortunately, he then tries to argue against relativism by claiming that, if you can say that something might be accepted without being acceptable, “you are admitting to objective morality.” This, however, ignores alternatives to objective morality other than relativism. I can say that slavery is unacceptable, by which I mean that according to the standards I accept, it is wrong — even if it is accepted by some. And in saying this, I do not have to claim that the standards I go by are objectively true. In fact, I don’t. 

The next explanation for morality Kreeft considers is the attempt to justify it on the basis of reason. Now, I agree that reason isn’t the ultimate source of morality. Kreeft’s way of showing that it isn’t, however, is complete nonsense. He presents two arguments. The first is that, even though criminals use reason to plan and commit crimes, their reason fails to tell them that what they are doing is wrong. But if reason were the basis of morality, that shouldn't be the case. 

There are at least three things wrong with this argument. To begin with, it could be that the criminals realize that what they are doing is wrong, and simply don’t care. I’m sure Kreeft would admit that people sometimes knowingly do evil, yet he seems to forget that here. In the second place, if the reasoning they employ has to do with how to commit a crime, it has no more to do with morality than, say, reasoning about mathematics does. If the criminals aren’t reasoning about morality at all, then Kreeft certainly hasn’t shown the failure of reason to tell us the difference between right and wrong. And third, even if the criminals are reasoning about morality, it doesn’t follow that they are reasoning correctly about it. Their failure to conclude that crime is wrong doesn’t show that morality isn’t based on reason, any more than their failure to prove the Pythagorean theorem would show that geometry isn’t based on reason. 

Kreeft’s second argument against this view is, if anything, even worse. He brings up the example of people who saved Jews during the Holocaust, and claims they were obviously not doing that as a result of reasoning — for risking one’s life in that manner, he tells us, is very unreasonable. But this is just linguistic confusion. The unreasonableness in this case has nothing to do with right and wrong. If morality is founded on reason, and the right thing to do in such a situation is to risk one’s life, then correct reasoning about it will show that. The fact that that’s unreasonable from the point of view of self-interest is irrelevant. 

After having disposed of all atheistic views in this manner, Kreeft presents his case for God as the explanation by uttering the usual nonsense: “there are no moral or immoral atoms, or cells, or genes,” he informs us, therefore morality is non-physical, and therefore it must come from outside the physical universe. At this point, the video is just one obvious non-sequitur after another, so I’ll leave it to readers to see it for themselves. 


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

​

0 Comments

AQUINAS'S ABJECT FAILURE

11/13/2018

0 Comments

 
There are quite a few things wrong with the first cause argument, but the worst thing about it — Aquinas’s attempt to show that the chain of efficient causation cannot extend back to infinity — is ignored by most critics. The claim that there cannot be an infinite causal regress is often disputed, of course, but Aquinas’s bizarre reasoning to the contrary is usually passed over — maybe for fear it would just be confusing to readers. Whatever the case may be, I think it’s worthwhile to be aware of it, especially given that Aquinas’s old argument is still touted by many. 

The part I’m referring to is the following: 

“Now it is not possible to proceed to infinity in efficient causes. For if we arrange in order all efficient causes, the first is the cause of the intermediate, and the intermediate the cause of the last, whether the intermediate be many or only one. But if we remove a cause the effect is removed; therefore, if there is no first among efficient causes, neither will there be a last or an intermediate. But if we proceed to infinity in efficient causes there will be no first efficient cause, and thus there will be no ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes, which is clearly false. Therefore it is necessary to suppose the existence of some first efficient cause…” 

Translating from medievalese, this just says that if there is no first cause, then neither will there be a second, third, and so on — and thus no ultimate effect. But if the chain extends back infinitely, then obviously there is no first cause; there will always be others before any that we care to consider. Therefore, if the chain extends back infinitely, there will be no ultimate effect! 

This is such a bad argument that it is surprising anyone ever fell for it. Aquinas is simply confusing the existence of a cause that he calls “the first cause” with its property of being first. That is, what we might label the “first” cause cannot be missing from the chain, otherwise the “second” cause would also be missing, and so on. Given Aquinas's assumptions, that much is true. But it does not follow that this event that we're calling “the first cause” cannot have a predecessor. If the chain of causation is infinite, then there is no first cause. But no link in the chain will be missing on account of that. 

One can also understand Aquinas's mistake this way: he is either equivocating or begging the question, depending on how what he refers to as the “first” cause is interpreted at the beginning of the above passage. He is begging the question if by the “first” he means the cause that has the property of being first, for then he is simply assuming the very thing he is attempting to demonstrate. If, on the other hand, he is merely naming a particular cause in the chain the “first”, then he equivocates when he later uses the same term to mean the cause that has the property of being first.

Aquinas therefore has failed to show that the chain of causation must have had a beginning. As a result, his entire argument falls apart. 



Summa Theologica excerpt from the Laurence Shapcote trans. (London: O. P. Benziger Bros., 1911) 


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

​


0 Comments

FOREKNOWLEDGE AND EVIL

11/1/2018

0 Comments

 
The problem of evil and the problem of reconciling God’s foreknowledge with free will are usually treated as if they were entirely separate issues. But treating them that way hides the fact that the most popular theist views on them are in conflict with one another.

The existence of evil is most commonly explained as a consequence of free will. This is consistent with the biblical idea of the Fall of humanity. God gave humans the ability to make their own choices, and that means that he cannot prevent us from acting badly. However, most theists also want to say that God knew ahead of time what his free creatures were going to do – and thus knew we would be sinful.

Now, on the standard view, some free-willed beings do not ever choose to do evil. There’s at least one who doesn’t, God himself – though on the Trinitarian view, there would appear to be two other sinless personalities. Whatever the case may be, the theist must admit that it is at least possible for a being with free will to never do wrong. And even if the theist comes up with some excuse for why this applies only to God, and not to created beings, the fact remains that some humans are a hell of a lot worse than others. Most of us would not and could not ever do what, say, Charles Manson did. And some of us are far more moral than the average.

It follows that God could either have prevented all of the evil that his free creatures have done simply by creating only ones who would never chose evil, or, at the very least, that he could have prevented just about all of that evil by creating only highly moral beings. Either way, there’s no excuse for most of the evil out there.
​


[Originally published at Debunking Christianity]

​


0 Comments

    Archives

    April 2022
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Categories

    All
    Atheism
    Creationism
    Determinism And Free Will
    Ethics
    Infinity
    Politics
    Presuppositionalism

    RSS Feed

Link to my author's page on Amazon