I'm going to clip off our earlier conversation, just for the sake of shortening the space here, if I may. It is, of course, located above, for anybody who is tracking with us.
I'm finding your comments very stimulating and useful. Thanks for taking the time for the conversation. I'll keep the entirety of your remarks recorded below, so as to be sure to cover everything that is your concern, so much as I can.
thomyum2 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2026 11:10 pm
Hello again IC, it’s been another week and I’m finally able to sit down and put together some thoughts. I appreciate your patience and also that you’re interested in continuing to work through some of these ideas. Our discussion is becoming a little and cumbersome to format, so rather than bring it all forward, I’m just going to list some of my thoughts on a few of the ideas. On the whole, it seems to me we probably agree about more things here than we don’t, but I still feel there’s some things I’d like to put down in writing, as well as others I'm still thinking about.
Good. Let's go.
Let me start with your very last quote which I think sums up well your full position:
The secularist may behave morally -- as indeed, many do -- but he cannot derive any warrant for his belief in morality from his own first principles. And so his commitment to morality cannot become durable or well-founded. At some point, he'll find that he's free to disbelieve in it entirely, as Nietzsche found.
To start with, I’m in complete agreement with your argument that within the worldview that you call an ‘accidental’ or ‘happenstance’ universe, that there’s no sound logical reason to believe in an objective morality. I do recognize a fundamental incompatibility of a hard belief in this kind of world with an idea of right or wrong that is anything more than just subjective opinions.
Right. And "subjective," in respect to morality...to understand the fatal flaw in that idea, we have to go back to what we look to morality to do for us.
When do we refer to morality? You'll note it's never when
what I want and
what I should do are exactly the same thing. For instance, if I have money for ice cream, and I want ice cream, I can have it: I don't ask myself, "is it okay for me to buy this ice cream?" However, if I were fat, or had no money, or was stealing, or for some other reason had a hesitancy about buying the ice cream, I would have to ask myself whether or not it was moral for me to be getting the ice cream. So it's when
my wishes and
the right thing are at variance that morality is supposed to do some work for me, and tell me what my final action should be. Otherwise, I don't even need it.
But this is where subjectivism gets its first problem: because "subjective" often simply means, "what I want to think," or "what I want to do." Subjectivism is, if nothing else, personal, individual, and private -- that's why people like it, because it affords them total freedom in choosing their own values. But it's personal in a bad sense, too, in the sense that it obligates nobody...not even me, really, since I can choose to change my subjective wishes any time I want. Subjective morality cannot be binding, obligatory, required of me...and hence, it really has no justification to be constraining any of my wishes.
"Maybe it doesn't need to," we might say. But if so, exactly what work is morality doing for me? How is it helping me form right decisions, since impulse, instinct or desire are not being contradicted by it? So Subjectivism is failing to inform me of anything. It's not telling me what's "right"; and if that's what I really want to know, I've lost my moral compass.
"Maybe morality doesn't need to do any work," we might reply. But I don't think we can say that, can we? After all, human beings DO look to moral axioms for all sorts of needs, both personal and social. Of course, we're looking to morality to inform our own personal choices; that's already been said. But what else? How about our social relations with others? Is not one of the things we look to morality to do to tell us what kind of respect or duty we owe to neighbours? And beyond that, don't we use it to guide the ethics of institutions of various kinds? And don't we need it desperately in questions of justice, whether informally or in a formal justice system? In the extreme, how do we explain to ourselves that we incarcerate murderers, who are only acting on their subjective impulses, and reward those who save lives with medals and honours? Such decisions have serious social implications: and this brings us to a second fatal flaw in moral subjectivism: it cannot guide our social relations.
If we all had exactly the same moral conscience, we could, perhaps rely on that. But it's clear that conscience, however universal it might be thought to be, is deficient in psychopaths and sociopaths. But even more critically, it tends to be informed and reshaped -- as you later seem to point out -- by things like acculturation and training. So that a person who mass-murders in Boston is thought to be evil, but one who shoots up a theatre in France genuinely supposes he's obtaining eternal bliss and 72 virgins. How are we to arbitrate such extreme cultural oppositions, if morality is merely subjective? Can we be sure the terrorist is not subjectively convinced of his moral position? How did we arrive at that conviction?
In short, morality is supposed to do a lot of important things for us: not just to guide my personal decisions, but to structure my whole society and inform my entire conception of justice. And those concepts are not mine alone; they're
socially-shared and socially-harmonious concepts, in that I need to be able to persuade my fellow citizens of their rightness, so that laws and social relations are as they ought to be.
Can Subjective morality do these things for us? No, because its fatal flaw is that it is limited to the private and the personal, and does not have any impartiality from my personal agenda and impulses. Subjectivism, we might rightly observe, is not genuinely
moral at all: that is, it doesn't do anything we look to morality to do for us. It turns us loose, and gives us no guidance.
But part of where I disagree is that you’re attributing atheism and materialism in a generalized way to all secularists. In my experience, more people who consider themselves ‘secularists’ are closer to being agnostic on both of these questions.
I think that's true. It's not always admitted by them, to be sure; but I think it's the case for anybody rational. After all, the hard Atheist position ("I know there is no God") is not intellectually or scientifically tenable. So the only alternative for a rational and honest thinker is going to be something softer, some form of agnosticism.
But "agnostic" really only means, "I don't know anything (about X)." While that might be an honest thing to admit, it's not particularly laudable if one
should know something, is it? And
should we know something about God's existence? Theists suggest we should, from various evidences. Since we, as agnostics, are admitting to having no information, how do we know they're wrong?
Sometimes agnosticism even tips over into an untenable conclusion: "I don't know anything about God,
and you can't either." But how would we decide that we, who don't know, can know that others are not permitted to know what we fail to know? There can be no justification for such a sudden flash of certainty interrupting our agnosticism: would we not have to stop at the more sensible point of saying, "I don't know; but maybe, possibly, somebody else does"?
And I also think that many people adopt metaphysical positions in the same way that science adopts theories – that they are more often held because they are seen as the ‘best available explanation given the information I have at the moment’ – rather than committed beliefs.
Yes, I think that's right.
So these kinds of worldviews differ from those of faith in that they are not always a deeply held commitment to a particular belief as much as they are a ‘working hypothesis’ that serves a more pragmatic purpose, and as such are much more readily subject to revision. I’ve actually found most secular people to be pretty open minded about alternative ways of looking at the world (although from what is argued in many philosophy forum posts, one certainly gets the impression that’s not the case.
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Just one problem: life does not stop when we don't know things. We still have to make our own decisions, live in a society, structure a justice system, and even make judgements of international and cross-cultural moral evaluation, regardless of our agnosticism. Life does not have a pause button, and will not spare us from making decisions while we figure things out. This is precisely why we often have to go forward on partial information, as you put it, on "the best available explanation given the information I have at the moment." And that is precisely what faith is, actually: it's the extension of the best available information into the more uncertain zone of future action.
So faith inevitably returns. And agnosticism, like Moral Subjectivism, does not provide us with the information we need in order to obtain the desired certainties. In fact, agnosticism doesn't provide us with anything, really. To "not know" is a useless first premise in any syllogism. We can't build any conclusions from it, except that we're not yet emotionally or cognitively ready to act...and yet, we still have to act. So we end up committing on exactly what you suggest: "the best...we have at the moment." That's just how all of life works.
Another point I’d offer for consideration is that in logic and philosophy we tend to think in linear terms, such as that metaphysical positions act as ‘first principles’ from which all others, including moral principles, are derived. But is that necessarily so, or just due to the way we conceptualize the world? In terms of how human thought develops, it doesn’t seem to me to be how most people operate. I think that moral sense is something that develops very early in life with the infant’s recognition that other persons have real being and are not just objects in their world (which I think is also is why morality is so deeply held by people in general), whereas metaphysical worldviews evolve more gradually during the course of education and experience, and reflection, and are perhaps for this reason also more malleable and subject to revision than basic moral convictions. So, counterintuitive though it may appear, it seems to me that it is reason that drives change to metaphysics out of moral first principles, rather than the other way around. For example, I’ve noticed that even the most hard-core materialists still acknowledge the existence of other people, and treat them as such, even while their worldview should be telling them that those persons are nothing more than a mindless collection of atoms, which suggests to me that this sense of the personhood of others endures even when a seemingly contradictory metaphysical position is taken.
I think this is astute. But does it really indicate that metaphysical knowledge is founded on something more intuitive and taught later in life?
Procedurally, developmentally and chronologically, I think you're correct: we first learn morals, then learn reasons and justifications for them in later life, if we pursue further understanding. But in rational order, metaphysics still is primary. It may not be the order in which we discover things, but it's the order in which rational justification is eventually established in our minds, because logically, rationally, conclusions have to be supported by sufficient premises.
Michael Polanyi, the great philosopher and epistemologist, makes a wonderful case for this in
Personal Knowledge, his magnum opus. Most of what we learn in life, we learn not by rational knowing of the premises, but by a kind of "apprenticeship" to others, who teach us the conclusions by rote, long before we understand the premises which make the conclusions rational.
He gives the example of riding a bike. How many of us know the physics of bicycle wheels? Hardly anybody, actually. The dynamics of repeated oscillations on curves (wheels) are obscure to almost everybody who rides a bicycle -- that it's a series of "falling" motions, accelerated by the differential radii of the bottom of each wheel and the sides of the same wheel, that's all unknown to the kid learning to ride a bike. He may never have any understanding of it, but still ride his bike very successfully.
But does that mean that the physics is not the reason his bike works? NO. It just means his level of understanding is very limited, and the truth of the physics is something that would have to be explained in detail to him. Bike riding is still made possible only by the physics. And without the truth of the physics, there would be no bike riding.
In the same way, a person may be trained into morality long before he comes to understand the metaphysics behind that morality. However, the existence of the morality is still dependent on some tacit or personal knowledge, a having-been-apprenticed to something one has not yet understood. So one can morally "travel" for years, in complete ignorance of the whys and wherefores. Still, a proper understanding of morality is always premised on a metaphysics; and those who are able to make this metaphysics visible, conscious and relevant are ahead of all those who cannot. For it is quite possible to be founding one's moral convictions (as taught by one's parents, say) on nothing. It's even possible to be wildly wrong or immoral, based on ignorance of the underlying metaphysics.
In short, when we see a house, we often do not see the foundation. It's below ground. Yet without the foundation, the house is not stable, and can easily fall. So we need to know the metaphysical foundations are in place, before we build our moral "house," or insist that the moral "house" into which we have been born is the right one.
This might be more a question of human psychology rather than philosophy, but in fact, I think there’s a lot of philosophical support for the idea that morality is a step towards metaphysics rather than the reverse.
As I say,
developmentally, that would be correct: however,
rationally, it would be reversed.
I’ve read that Kant definitely felt this way, that the ‘duty within’ points us toward the recognition of the existence of a greater being. And certainly also Kierkegaard, whose ‘Stages on Life’s Way’ – the Aesthetic, followed by the Moral, finally leading to the Religious – each stage points to the next.
Christians believe that conscience is actually a universal possession: all of us have one, and if it's functioning rightly, it points us to the universal moral truth -- unfortunately, it's also now a vulnerable detector, and can be distorted by immoral training, obstinacy, callousness through abuse, and other such things, so it cannot be universally trusted. Hence, the need for recourse to fixed and stable codes of morals and ethics, since they, at least, do not change merely on our whims or impulses.
So all this is part of why I struggle with the question you ask several times: what makes the secularist obligated to assume these moral principles? I think that the sense of right and wrong is so deeply imbedded, and connected to daily human experience in all of our interactions with our community, that it is always first and foremost – this is why I say it is ‘self-evident’ for most people and forms a stronger foundation or first principle than does any other component of metaphysical worldview which is more readily changed or revised if found wanting. Morality is connected to people we have to live and get along with every day - metaphysics is something more abstract and intellectual and doesn't demand our attention as much (unless you're a philosopher
).
Yes, I agree. The sense of right and wrong is deeply embedded, thought conscience. But it's not always trustworthy, because that sense, that intuition, is corruptible and misleadable, at least in individual human beings.
Your quote here stands out:
I'm concerned that, for the secularist, no rationale connects their present actions with their first principles. It seems obvious to me that when they really start to believe their own first principles, they will find there is no reason at all for them to feel obligated to persist in believing in any particular morality, rights or responsibilities; and when incentives are big enough, they will have no reason not to abandon such beliefs immediately. And I don't think that bodes well for the future.
I think that I do understand your point here, the ‘incentives’ that you mention – we might also call them ‘temptations’ – do compete with our moral directives and a person needs to be well equipped to recognize them as such in order to properly resist them. But isn’t this an issue for everyone, not just secularists? Haven’t we seen just as many people through history who profess a religious faith also compromise it and rationalize some of the worst kinds of immoral behavior? Why did their worldview fail to rescue them?
Well, I would suggest that the cause is not hard to find:
knowing the right thing, and
choosing to do it...those are quite different things, aren't they?
Knowing the reasons, the premises of one's moral convictions is one thing. Caring, obeying, following through...those things require more than knowledge. Christianity has a unique solution for that problem, actually, and if we end up discussing that, we can go there. But for now, let me just say that one of most clearly-established claims in Scripture is that not everybody who says "I love God" or "I am a good person" is telling the truth when they say it. Some are just looking for an angle.
In spite of all the wrongdoings that get so much air play in the news, I think there are many more who would hold fast to their principles than the ones who don’t. In fact, I believe that many people who might call themselves ‘secular’ lead a more morally upright life than I myself do, so can only ask ‘who am I to judge?’ if I do not happen to share their worldview.
"Hold fast to their principles," you say? But is that enough?
What are those "principles"? Does that not matter to ask? What if my "principle" is that if I meet infidels on the battlefield, I should kill them? What if my principle is that I should not deny myself any pleasure I desire, no matter what the cost to anybody else? What if my principle is that the most powerful, merciless and cruel should prevail and rule in any given situation? All these things have been suggested as "principles" by various people and cultures: so how is the mere having of a "principle" a good indicator of a person being in proper moral order?
So the content matters. One needs not just "
a principle," but "a
right principle." To discern that, we're again going to have to have criteria, and the metaphysics return as a serious consideration.
Aquinas, in the opening of the Summa, shares the insight that “the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors…. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation.” I interpret this as saying that although reason has its place, it may not be the best tool for most people. And similar, I tend to see the moral sentiment that reaches and is shared by so many as a hopeful sign that God is at work in, and revealing Himself, to everyone, even those who don’t profess a faith or who are not able to produce carefully reasoned arguments for how they live.
Ah, very good.
This is the necessity of revelation. Let us be perfectly humble and honest, if we can: if God has not revealed anything about morality to us, how would we ever know it? By conscience? But then, that conscience also has to be instilled in us by our Creator, or how would we know to trust it? Some assumption about the revelation of universal morality is going to have to be taken here, because as I said earlier, we cannot put off action. Life goes on. So we're going to have to make a step of faith. For even to do nothing is, in many cases, a moral position: for example, to do nothing for my neighbour is still (arguably) to harm him, seeing as I have a duty to my neighbour -- do I not? So I can't sit on this decision: I'm going to have to assume the essential moral revelation comes from somewhere and something, and shape my life around that kind of assumptive paradigm...even if I have no conscious grasp of it. My life will not wait for me to be willing to think.
So either I can make it conscious now, by doing philosophy, and thereby reassure myself that my beliefs are well-founded, or I can persist in guessing -- and error, perhaps. And my suggestion is that it's better to make it all conscious.
I’ll wrap up by mentioning an additional area that I'm questioning. I see your point that adopting the belief that God exists (the metaphysical question) may help tell us why I should take morality seriously, but it doesn’t immediately answer the question of how we should live our life or act in a given situation (the moral/ethical question). That gap leads in turn a lot of other questions and assumptions that must be made in order to move forward from there.
That is true: we have not yet discussed the particulars of any possible objective or universal moral code. But that's not really a problem, if we're prepared to do so later.
For the moment, the urgency is merely to establish that SOME sort of metaphysical grounding is essential to moral knowledge, and that we're better to know what it is, rather than to stumble forward in blindness.
Even if we believe that there is an objective right and wrong that is given to us by a higher power and that we have a duty to consider in making my choices of how to act and live, I still rely on some form of guidance to inform help inform that choice. So to what authority do we turn to for that answer, e.g. to which scriptures, or to whose interpretations of those scriptures, to which church or authority within the church, and to what extent can we rely on our own conscience even when the authority seems to tell us that our conscience is in error, etc.? I think these are moral challenges faced by both secularists and theists alike. In short, how do you think we can traverse that gap from a metaphysical principle to specific moral precepts that are universal?
Aquinas says, "by revelation," of course. That is, we'll have to make a faith commitment about which moral code potentially is harmonious with the divine intention.
In Judaism, the answer is the same. There are 10 big commandments, plus, according to the rabbis, 613 others. I don't know if the numbering is right, but let's go with that. That's a fair bit of moral guidance to work with, of course. In mystical, gnostic, Hindu or Buddhist terms, "enlightenment" of some kind, proceeding from some divine initiator is substituted. Among pagans, the deliverances of the witch-doctor or shaman is taken to offer the same sort of information. And I have a lot more to say about all that, but we've gone on long enough. For now, let's just stop at the point that we accept the necessity of some communication from God to man on that point, or we'll all be up a creek without a paddle.
You’ve said quite beautifully that “conscience, when it's functioning aright, is the faculty God has given all of us to sense the requirements of the universal moral law.” So I ask, in light of what I’ve just said about discerning moral principles, what do you understand the ‘universal moral law’ to be? Is it something we can articulate in words, or is it something ineffable that dwells within us? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
Is it an either-or? Or a both-and?
We've already said there's some faculty with in us, which we call "conscience" that has at least a rough sensitivity to the moral law. But that sense has to be corrected sometimes, by reference to something more stable. So I think we're still going to need some kind of a fixed code, to start with: Subjectivism won't give it to us. But beyond the fixed code, is there more? I think there is.
Behind every law there is a spirit of that law. What I mean is that if we have a precept like, "Thou shalt not murder," we can justifiably ask a question like, "Why not?" And there should be an answer, one that fills out the attitude that would induce us to recognize murder as universally wrong, and perhaps to recognize other, related actions as equally wrong.
John Locke suggested that this principle is the inherent God-ownership of every man. That each person is created by God, and intended for God's purposes, and must give an account of his life to God, means that those who deprive others of the opportunity to do so are acting against God, said Locke.
That's not bad. But I think it's less complete than it should be. I would ground the precept, "Thou shalt not commit murder" in the fact that, as Genesis says, man was made "in the image of God." That is, the human purpose is to reflect the moral glory of his Creator, and eventually to enter into harmonious relationship with God -- a goal toward which a moral code is an indicator, if only a partial one. Murder is wrong because, as Locke suggested, it interferes with the divine purposes for that individual, and also interferes with His purposes for me, since it makes me into an "ungodly" person when I murder. Thus, murder is unharmonious with the nature and purposes of God.
But all this is to open up a big can of worms, and we've gone on long enough. Thanks for your feedback: most interesting.
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