Matthew Flannagan fails to show child torture is objectively immoral

At another blog, Christian philosopher and apologist Matthew Flannagan and I are having an argument about whether any actions of humans are objectively moral or immoral.

I am an atheist, and deny that any moral can be "objective" (i.e., good or bad for reasons transcending the human mind).

As predicted, Flannagan has cited to the popular example of "don't torture children purely for entertainment", in his effort to convince me that some actions of humans are objectively immoral.

For unknown reasons, Flannagan has asked me whether I think societies that approve of child torture solely for entertainment, have made a morally mistaken judgment.  He seems to think that he is going to prove something significant whether I say "yes" or "no", despite the fact that the moral opinion held by an atheist is clearly insufficient to demonstrate that the hypothetical wrong is objectively wrong.

My shorter answer (as posted to Matt's blog) is given below, followed by my more point-by-point answer

barry jones

Nov 9, 2017 at 2:22 pm

Matt,

My point by point response to you will be at my blog tomorrow, but for now, answering your most critical point is perhaps best.

You ask “so you think that a society which endorses the torture of children is making a mistaken moral judgment?”

Yes, I believe a society which endorses the torture of children is making a mistaken moral judgment.

First, unlike other atheists, I admit that my personal basis for finding such torture of children immoral, is entirely subjective. If my genetics had predisposed me toward a sociopath mentality, and had I been raised by sociopaths, I could easily have come to believe that where I am entertained by it, torturing children is morally good. I really don’t see how you think my agreement with the consensus of humanity (i.e., that torturing children solely for entertainment is unacceptable) does anything toward your goal of demonstrating the existence of objective morals.

Second, I notice that while you had asked me whether I think America’s former endorsement of race-based chattel slavery or that Europe’s death penalty for atheism were morally mistaken notions, you DIDN’T ask me whether I thought burning a woman to death for practicing prostitution in her fathers house, was morally mistaken.

Leviticus 21:9 is God’s command to burn such a female to death.

If you believed my agreement with most people that slavery and killing atheists is morally wrong, somehow did something to support your belief in objective morality, then, to be consistent, shouldn’t you think my agreement with most people that it is wrong to burn a prostitute to death for working out of her father’s house, can also somehow do something to support your belief in objective morality?

Or does your trust in the objective goodness of the god of Leviticus 21:9 forbid you from asking why the vast majority of humans in history eschewed burning people to death?

If under your logic, the world’s majority view eschewing of child-torture spells “because God himself doesn’t like it either”,

…then the world’s majority view eschewing burning prostitutes to death would necessarily also scream just as loudly “because God himself doesn’t like it either”.

Which would then mean your logic could be used to “argue” that Leviticus 21:9 was not something God commanded.

I don’t see where you have left to run: You can avoid the above criticism by saying you infer god from something other than human majority moral opinion, but if so, what was your point in asking me to give my moral opinion in child-torture?

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Here is my more in-depth answer.  I usually avoid this because the sheer quantity of material gives apologists more opportunity to transfer focus off of real problem areas and give the false impression from their focus on less essential areas that they've adequately answered:

Nov 8, 2017 at 9:55 am
Barry you write:
 I can truthfully say that I constantly hear Christian apologists raising “don’t torture children purely for entertainment” as if the proof that it was objectively true was the fact that they happened to make the statement.
And I can just as truthfully say that I’ve never seen a Christian apologist explain exactly why they believe torturing children purely for entertainment is objectively immoral, except of course in the question-begging manner of “the bible tells me so”, which hardly conduces to beneficial dialogue with atheists who do not espouse the divine inspiration of the bible.
The example of torturing children for fun actually comes from an atheist, writers not “Christian Apologists” it is standardly used in the Euthyphro objection to divine command ethics.

But I wasn't wrong to assert that it is standard fare among apologists too.  When I challenged you to establish the existence of any absolute or objective moral, you too appealed to "do not torture children solely for entertainment".

As an example of an action which cant be made right or wrong by someones willing it to be so.

I'd say such debates are convoluted, since logically there is no such thing as an objective good or bad.  My advice is that atheists simply point out that because the evidence that God exists is unspeakably weak, that debate needs to be resolved, before you plunge into the abyss of conveniently unfalsifiable trifles, such as whether an act can be morally good merely because god requires that the act be done.

Second, Despite your prefacing those comments with the word “truthful” I am skeptical what you say is correct. I am reasonably familiar with the literature on God and Morality, and I don’t know of any defender of objectivism who defends it simply by asserting it, nor do I know any who argue that “the bible tells them so.”

Well I said that about "Christian apologists", I didn't say every defender of objectivism believe their merely asserting their theories proved them true.

On the contrary, many of the standard texts on God and Morality explicitly spell out why they think moral obligations are objective
For example, Robert Adams cites several reasons why it’s plausible to think that our concept of a moral obligation involves a presupposition such things are objective. for example such this as that “‘wrong’ has the syntax of an ordinary predicate, and we worry we may be mistaken in our moral judgments”,

Most people would agree that the disobedient child who doesn't go to bed when ordered to do so by their parent, is making a mistake in moral judgment.  But what time children must go to bed is hardly subject to objective verfiication.  The employee can later believe that he was morally mistaken to insult his boss.  But his sense of moral mistakenness is clearly limited to the circumstance.  So our sense of making moral "mistakes" does precisely nothing to justify the inference that there are morals which are objective.

that neither we, nor society, can “eliminate all moral requirements just by not making any demands”

That presupposes that moral requirements exist.  I deny the assumption.  Civilized society obviously couldn't be what it is without some people making moral demands and other people obeying those demands.  Again, the fact that such a thing would conduce toward civilized society doesn't argue, at all, that any moral requirements involved in the matter were objective.  I don't obey my employer out of any sense that such a thing is objectively good.  I obey solely to earn a paycheck so I can keep a roof over my head.  Nothing more is required, and this motive of mine is not capable of being shown objectively immoral.  And it would be foolish to assert that some objective moral requires one to obey one's employer.  There would have to be qualifications that become so numerous that the relativity of the entire business would be assured.

and that “what the Nazi’s did to the Jews was horribly wrong whether or not the Nazi’s thought so

But all they are doing is asserting the wrongness and dogmatizing that it be so whether the Nazis thought so or not.  This hardly establishes that Nazi treatment of the Jews was objectively immoral.

and it would have been more horribly wrong if they had managed to persuade the Jews that it was not wrong” [I cite all this in my original article which Carrier responded to]

Same answer:  assuring the reader that the Nazis were wrong, not matter what, hardly suffices to establish that their treatment of the Jews violated some objective moral.

Stephen Evan’s similarly stresses that we assume or presuppose that moral judgments are the “kind of thing we can be mistaken about”

Already answered:  we clearly also feel mistaken often when disobeying requirements or mandates that aren't objective, such as parentally imposed bedtimes, or jaywalking.  Our sense of our own mistakenness is absolutely fused to the culture.  And room need to be made to significantly deal with those in society who feel no sense of mistakenness when they engage in acts others find immoral, such as vigilante justice, or stealing from the corrupted rich to help the unfairly treated poor.

and we criticise societies and other people for making mistaken moral judgments, all of which presupposes objectivity.

No, we might believe our criticism of Hitler's treatment of the Jews goes back to some type of objective moral, but it doesn't.  If we had been born in Germany in 1910, we could just as easily have believed our country got it right in mistreating the Jews. But no, we act as if the American way is god's way, we just cannot imagine that America is also a mere culture.

Nor is this unique to Christian writers the idea that objectivity is presupposed by our concept of moral obligations is actually common in secular ethics and there are textbooks such as James Rachels, Loius Pojman, or Shafer Landau which note things like the fact societies have made moral mistakes or the existence of moral reformers,

that proves nothing.  Protestants and Catholics disagree on whether Luther's reforms were morally good or bad.

or the fact we think some cultural mores or moral systems are worse than others and so on, all of which presuppose objectivity.

They do not presuppose objectivity, they presuppose that we THINK they presuppose objectivity.  The truth is most people feel their own peculiar set of morals are objective, and they are in fact mistaken.

Or the fact we engage in debate with other people over what is the right thing to do.

The fact that Christians disagree with each other about moral issues makes plausible the inference that there are no objective standards, or if there are, they are mooted by our apparent inability to recognize them.  

In fact, in the quote, you cite from an earlier post I went on offer an argument for my conclusion. In other words, I put forward a hypothetical situation where a community endorsed the torture of children and asked whether you think a society which judged it was ok to do this was mistaken in doing so, or whether you thought there judgment it was permissible to torture children was correct.

No, you didn't present that as a question, you simply declared, in several different ways, why you think a) the moral holds true in all situations, and b) how I'd be "biting the bullet" if I tried to differ with you on it.

In fact, I put the challenge to you in the post? Most people judge that such a society does make a mistake, which shows that they presuppose that moral judgements are objective.

Already answered.

So seeing you missed this argument

I didn't miss it, you failed to specify what your moral yardstick was, for saying that torture of children purely for entertainment, was objectively immoral.  Assuring me that you think such act is always immoral, isn't that yardstick.

I’ll put it to you again, do you think that a society which endorses the torture of children is making a mistaken moral judgment?.

Yes.  But only because of my genetic predispositions and my environmental conditioning.  Had I been raised by sociopaths, I could very well take the position that i don't really care what other people do to their kids.

You don’t need a hypothetical example there are lots of concrete historical ones, for example in the US not long ago it was accepted culturally that race-based chattel slavery was permissible?

Why are you asking me whether I agree with the current US law that race based chattel slavery is immoral?  Yes, I reflect the beliefs and customs of the culture I was born and raised in.  This does precisely nothing to help you establish that this moral belief of mine derives from an objective moral.

It was accepted that atheism was a capital crime that warranted death in 18th century England?

Same answer:  My belief that the death penalty for atheism is immoral, is entirely subjective and relative.  Had I been born in 18th century England, I could well have been one of the legislators that enacted such law.  Depends on culture.

In your view were these judgements mistaken or were they entirely correct?

In your view, was the judgment of Moses mistaken or entirely correct when he required the burning to death of any prostitutes who work out of their priest father's house (Lev. 21:9)?

If you believed my agreement with most people (that slavery and killing atheists is morally wrong), somehow did something to support your belief in objective morality, then, to be consistent, shouldn’t you think my agreement with most people that it is wrong to burn a prostitute to death for working out of her father’s house, can also somehow do something to support your belief in objective morality?

Or does your trust in the objective goodness of the god of Leviticus 21:9 forbid you from asking why the vast majority of humans in history eschewed burning people to death?

If under your logic, the world’s majority view eschewing of child-torture spells “because God himself doesn’t like it either”,

…then the world’s majority view eschewing burning prostitutes to death would necessarily also scream just as loudly “because God himself doesn’t like it either”.

Which would then mean your logic could be used to “argue” that Leviticus 21:9 was not something God commanded.

Now if you say burning prostitutes to death used to be morally good but is no longer morally good, then you just said one of God's own morals was relative (i.e., burning prostitutes to death for working out of their father's houses isn't always good or always bad, but depends on the culture).

If you say no, it only depends on whether God tells us to do it, then you are still making one of God's morals subjective, since you'd then have to say that burning prostitutes to death for working out of their father's houses is good when God tells us to do it, and bad when god tells us not to do it.

That is, the objectivity of God's own morals can be turned on and off like a light switch.

No, Dr. Flannagan, I am NOT changing the subject by showing that the Christian position runs into significant problems in the area of objective morals, anymore than YOU were changing the subject by pointing out what secular writers on morality had to say.  

And so what?  Are you willing to defend the idea that your god's morality is objective, yes or no?

If yes, then where can we debate that?