Appeal to consequences.
The basic form is:
If x is true, then y (positive consequence) will happen. X must be true.
or
If x is true, then y (negative consequence) will happen. X is not true.
Clearly, this type of argument is erroneous. It is akin to saying “It would make me happy if I were the King of France. I am the King of France.” Or, more commonly, “If there is a God, then people will behave morally. There is a God.” Besides the fact that people who believe in a god clearly do not always make better moral choices, the positive outcome of more moral behavior does not prove the truth value of the statement “There is a God.” Just because it would be nice if it were true does not mean that it’s true.
What is often most concerning about this line of thinking is that it shows a cynical disregard for the value of truth, in favor of positive outcomes. A consequentialist ”ends justify the means” type of argument. Now, if the name of the game is just picking what will get the job done, then let’s at least not pretend that we’re talking about truth. Otherwise, your arguments amount to lying in order to get what you want.
I find that though your debunking of argumentum ad consequentiam is true, namely that “appeal to emotion” is fallacious, it is overly simplistic. In short, it is a straw man. I have met no theist, even of minimal intelligence (many Christians), who would, after a few minutes’ reflection upon it, intellectually assent to the validity of such an argument. If you think they would, then you either A) haven’t talked to many, if any, theists or B) have met some pretty dumb ones.
If you really want to put the common theistic Morality Argument for God’s existence into a syllogism, it would be a simple modus ponens:
A: If God does not exist, then absolute morality does not exist
B: Absolute morality exists.
C: Therefore God exists.
But even this argument could be false. I found that Line A is challenged by many Naturalistic philosophers. There are, in fact, atheistic explanations for an Objective Morality. The Evolutional Argument for Morality is animalistic but functional, albeit primitively. For example, a social order with laws preserving the life of individual constituents works for the protection and propagation of the species’ greater good – a sort of utilitarianism. However, this does not explain the a priori urge to praise of altruism; yet, I will ignore this point for now. The main point I want to highlight is that this argument misses Moral Obligation. This flaw is where I find that theists should focus.
Suppose the theist concedes the existence of a Objective Moral Law. The atheist is still hard-pressed to find a REASON to adhere to that law. For, it is a completely different sort of law than any to which humans are subject. Consider the Law of Gravity. We have no choice but to keep our feet on the ground. So long as our planet’s physical condition does not change, i.e. its rotation and atmospheric composition, we cannot float away, no matter how great our determination. Or consider again the Law of Thermodynamics; “conservation of energy” is a fact that we cannot escape. However, we can escape the law of morality. Though it is immoral to murder, I can decide to murder. As such, subjectivity to Morality’s Laws are a matter of the will. A theist will claim that the jump they can make from Moral Law that an atheist cannot is that we OUGHT to follow the mandates of Morality.
And so, I would encourage you to focus your attention not on the clearly erroneous argument from consequence, or the uneducated argument of Morality’s dependence upon deity’s existence, but to the informed thesis that moral obligation is dependent upon a higher power.
Jon W
Hi, Jon!
Thanks so much for writing in to our little blog. I’ll try to give a response to your comments.
I’ll focus my thoughts on two points. One, I have to say that I disagree with you that argumentum ad consequentiam is rarely used as a justification for belief. And, secondly, the argument stated above is still an example of argumentum ad consequentiam. I’ll also try to talk a little about the morality in a more general sense.
I can assure you that I have met many theists, as I was one for over twenty years. It’s certainly true that within the context of certain Evangelical circles where apologetics are taken seriously that argumentum ad consequentiam would not be considered a strong argument (Please notice that I posted the most common argument of the “unskeptical.”). The most common argument I hear from folks with that background is the argument from design. I think that before the last century, and the mounds of evidence pointing toward evolution as a convincing explanation (a separate discussion), that the argument from design would have gone a long way toward convincing me! I’d guess this is one reason why Evangelicals fight so hard against evolution.
I can understand how, as a thinking theist, it’s hard to hear the same lame arguments refuted, ad infinitum. I can assure you that I was not attempting to disprove theism by attacking a weak argument, merely speaking to an argument that I often hear. It’s equally frustrating to listen to my fellow nonbelievers make weak arguments, and to realize that some don’t think at all about their beliefs.
Of course, we can’t prove the reaons that each theist has for belief and create a pie chart stating which justifications are most common. I only have anecdotal evidence, both from being a believer and a non-believer, to lend credence to my statement that argumentum ad consequentiam is a common, if not the most common, justification I hear for belief. I rarely hear a well stated ontological argument or a defense of the argument from design when I question people (And, again, we’re talking about the average person who considers themselve a theist. Christians who have thought long and hard about apologetics are a rarity; I think you’d have to confess that.).
What I find I’m most likely to hear is a variation of either Pascal’s wager, the argument from experience, the argument from faith (faith is beyond reason and you can’t THINK about it), or argumentum ad consequentiam, taking one of many forms, e.g., “There must be a god. If there isn’t, then life is meaningless. There must be something.”, or “Atheists don’t have hope.”, etc. Some other examples are more about for why one would attend church than why one would believe in god: “Going to church is good for the kids.”, “It makes my mother happy.”, “I want to be a good person.”, “I like how I feel when I’m there.”, “The church does a lot of good for the community.” Though, of course, I’ve heard the argument a million times that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes you a car… always makes me chuckle.
I think the two most common arguments appealing to consequence that I hear are “There must be something, otherwise life is meaningless.” and “The must be a god, otherwise nothing would be right or wrong and we’d all kill each other.” Neither of these prove the existence of anything, nor are they practically very useful. Christians struggle with depression, just like atheists. And I hardly think I need to argue the point that theists have no problem killing if they decide it’s the right thing to do and that plenty of atheists and agnostic are very kind people with well thought-through moral codes. But, I don’t want to jump on the whole Christopher Hitchens, religion is evil, kick – right now.
Let’s stop off on the first point for now, if we may. I’ll summarize by saying that:
1) I do not think that by attacking a straw man argument I’ve disproven theism.
2) I still think that argumentum ad consequentiam is a very common argument.
3) However, I fully recognize that thoughtful, educated theists have other arguments, even arguments from morality, that are more sophisticated.
Now, on to the second point. And, I actually have two sub-points. One, I think you’re presuming that there must be an objective morality. I think that B is the weak point in that argument, but I’ll get back to that. Secondly, I think that you’re still eventually going to fall back to argumentum ad consequentiam. In this case it’s “If there is no external, extra-human enforcement of morality, then there is no reason for us to be moral. And being moral is good. Therefore, there must be a god.” You’ve proven nothing about the existence of a god with that argument; you’ve just argued that the fear of external punishment increases adherence to moral codes. You’re still arguing to consequences.
Now, a little about morality. This is a huge topic, about which many people smarter than I have disagreed eloquently. But, it is also the favorite punching bag of the educated theist when talking to a skeptic. I don’t have time at the moment, unfortunately, to write a 10,000 word screed on my personal morality. But, I’ll throw out a few thoughts.
First, prove constant, objective morality to me. I think that most theists are throwing up their hands here: “Ah, hah! He admits it! He thinks all morality is subjective, so what about Hitler, what about killing infants, what about…” Hold on!! There are more than two options – objective or subjective. I think it makes a lot more sense to think about morality as intersubjective. Think about language in that way. Language is incredibly subjective and flexible. It changes over time. We have different words for different things from culture to culture. And yet, we can understand each other and even learn each other’s languages. It’s still grounded in experience, so we’re all talking about, in general, similar sets of ideas and experience. There are agreed upon rules and meanings, but all have our subjective associations with words. That’s intersubjectivity. I think morality is like that. It’s relational. I say all of that to say that, first of all, we can have a morality that is godless, and secondly that I think morality practically and historically functions a lot like language (don’t take this analogy too far; I’m not arguing that they’re identical, merely that thinking of language can be useful to explain my point).
I just don’t see constant, universal, objective morality. First of all, I don’t see theists agreeing on what that morality is. Secondly, even within same-groups of theists, those moral codes have changed over time. Third, I don’t see morality as consistent even within scripture. Thou shalt not kill, but it’s OK for Jehovah to kill entire tribes simply to make room for Israel.
OK. Clearly we’ve just danced upon the tip of the iceberg here and I feel bad dropping off in the middle of such a huge topic. I have a lot more to say and if you feel inspired to discuss certain points, let’s focus in on those. But… this is a blog and not the place for huge documents, so I’ll keep things relatively brief.
Thanks again for your thoughts. And anyone else can feel free to chime it.
- In this case it’s “If there is no external, extra-human enforcement of morality, then there is no reason for us to be moral. And being moral is good. Therefore, there must be a god.” You’ve proven nothing about the existence of a god with that argument; you’ve just argued that the fear of external punishment increases adherence to moral codes. You’re still arguing to consequences. –
So let’s take out the consequence; let’s restructure the argument altogether.
It’s recognized as absurd to argue that atheists are horrible and immoral people just because they are atheists; I know the opposite to frequently be true. However, I’ve yet to see much interaction over the point of why we ought not to be horrible and immoral. What impetus is there for me to reward or punish anything? I don’t think I’m stretching here with this line of questioning and since I’m just asking a question, I’m not appealing to any consequence of the answer.
Consider Daniel Miessler:
1. There is no free will, as the seemingly complex goings-on of our lives are little more than pseudo-deterministic patterns being woven into time.
2. There is, therefore, no objective good and evil. Heroes deserve no praise, and criminals deserve no punishment.
3. Any meaning we create in life is just that–created. Meaning is not native to our material world; it must be conjured and subscribed to in order for it to take shape.
4. The subsequent embrace of our manifested meaning is a willful engagement in delusion, and this engagement is necessary only due to the frailty of our human psyche.
(http://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-highest-stage-of-human-awareness)
Is Miessler incorrect in his conclusion that even rational discourse is comparatively similar to shaking two bottles of coke and seeing which fizzes more? ( “Our brains are nothing but a collection of chemicals sloshing back and forth.” – http://tinyurl.com/yhyjopt) Or that since the world unfolds according to the dynamics of a nearly infinite number of variables interacting with each other, there is nothing that cannot be predicted if all the variables are known? (ibid.) According to consistent naturalism?
It would seem that there’s some argumentation from evidence and the logical end (predictable, of course, both rationally and empirically) of the stance of a pure naturalism.
Sure, there are plenty who’ll say “I don’t like this so I won’t believe it”, but that hasn’t been said here. And while I may end up on paper with the same conclusions as those who approach it from that perspective, even you admit that you don’t always care for the methodology of those you agree with.
I’m proposing the acceptance that, from a naturalistic perspective, there is no ultimate reason for why we have a problem with an appeal to consequence in the first place, but I’d love to read your interaction with Miessler if you find him to be flawed.
Hi, Other Jon. Thanks for your post. Sorry it’s taken me a few days to respond.
You touched on a few things that we could talk about extensively. I’ve been wicked busy lately, but I want to keep the ball rolling and give you a response.
The issues you brought up, as I seem them, are:
Is there such a thing as a moral imperative if there isn’t a God?
In a naturalistic universe, is there free will?
What is the nature of consciousness?
Whew. That’s a lot. I gave a response to the first question as a response to JD’s post. Can we continue the discussion there?
As to Miessler’s assertions, I think I’m pretty much in agreement. I’d disagree with the statement that Heroes deserve no praise, and criminals deserve no punishment. I think that’s kind of a knee-jerk reaction to questioning objective morality. After all, we can say that the heroes in Greek mythology were heroes, but, in our society they might be considered evil. One man’s hero is another man’s villain. That doesn’t make it meaningless. Does something have to be considered true by everyone for it to have meaning? I’m not talking about whether or not it is “true.” But, whether it has meaning. I heard someone once describe meaning as either raining down on us or bubbling up. For theists, meaning rains down from heaven. For non-believers, meaning is something that bubbles up from the earth; our own creation.
As for consciousness (the fizzy-bottle idea) – wow, that’s a huge topic. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this recently, as I’m doing an independent study on the philosophy of psychoanalysis. One idea that I think is interesting is the irreducibility of consciousness due to fantasy. Even you are able to take a phenomenological approach to consciousness I think you still run into the issue of the internal psychic life. Fantasy has almost as strong a sway in creating identity as exposure to external phenomena.
Finally, as to whether or not the appeal to consequences is wrong… now, that’s an interesting and difficult thing. It boils down to the Matrix. Red pill, blue pill. If you can sit an enjoy a steak in the Matrix does it really matter? Honestly, I still don’t know. My impulse is to say that it matters more than anything else. But, I can understand that steak is really, really good. Maybe, though, the choice isn’t between steak and gruel, but between steak that’s handed to you and steak you have to work for and which, ultimately, may be more satisfying. Because now you’re a rancher!!! Does that make sense? I like to bring in cattle-rearing wherever I can.
This is not a coherent post. But, I wanted to throw out a few ideas… where should we go next?
How does x=’Evolution is true’, y=’because I like a world that makes sense to me.’ work on the flow chart?
It means that the argument from design is going to not be that convincing for you. I’d say it’s also a type of consequentialist thinking. Evolution is only a valid theory as long as there is evidence enough to show that it’s the most likely explanation. So far, that does seem to be the case.
The argument that believing in God is the only good reason for people to behave morally is clearly an argument ad consequentiam. It is also untrue. The idea of morality working like language is extremely important and on target.
If we take Wittgenstein’s arguments on how language and philosophy work (from the Investigations) we see an explanation of language as essentially culturally agreed upon rule following. It works because we have all agreed on the rules. At the same time, those rules are allowed to evolve. We judge from context and other clues and signals what another person means by the things they say and we adapt our understanding of the rules accordingly.
Morality works in much the same way. We can easily see fairly radical differences in moral belief structures both over time and between cultures. In one culture non-marital sex may not be seen as immoral while in another culture non-marital sex is so immoral as to justify the murder of the offending party: an act which many cultures would see as immoral in the extreme. As often as appeals to God are used as a bulwark for moral behavior they are used to justify behaviors that would seem utterly unjustifiable.
The idea then of Objective Morality cannot be seen as a knowable thing if it in fact exists at all. Rather, as moral actors we work toward understanding what morality is or should be and we do that in concert with one another.
The idea that god serves as the great motivator for moral action seems to boil down to this: I understand what is right and wrong. I believe that if I do right I will be rewarded and if I do wrong I will be punished. I know that there are many times when doing right will obviously lead to bad consequences for me so the reward must be coming later probably after I am dead and will be bestowed upon me some great universal umpire/score keeper. Similarly, there are times when I have the opportunity to do wrong and I know no one is watching so in order to not do wrong I need to believe that the great umpire/score keeper is watching and will punish me if I do wrong. This has always struck me as the moral reasoning of a fourth grader.
It’s late and these thoughts are related but somewhat disjointed and for that I apologize.
Good stuff Fitzie.
I think that part of the reason that people fight for the idea of a “great universal umpire/score keeper” is that it relieves one of the responsibility that goes with choice. There is a freedom from existential dread that comes with assigning the responsibility for moral reasoning to an external authority. But, I think that it’s only through taking responsibility for those choices that live authentically and make progress, both culturally and individually, toward a more humane existence.
Here is kind of an off the wall question. Why is there such an innate fear of not being humane or “good”? I mean why do I want everyone to be humane or think of a Utopian society? Oviously we aren’t there yet and maybe need to evolve a lot more. Why do I even have ideals? I know that if I abide by the evolutionary template of kill or be killed/ the strong will survive, etc. that there is someone “stronger” than me and possibly more evolved, and that could be part of the evolutionary process on to the next step towards Utopia. Is the higher standard, the evolution of Evolution?
I don’t think that the idea of “strong will survive” necessarily implies that getting stronger is the end goal. Evolution isn’t a teleological theory. It provides a description of what has happened and what naturally occurs, not what “ought” to happen. What ought to happen is a matter of choice, which is what makes us moral agents and gives us responsibility for our actions.
Your question is a very good one, though. Why should I be “good”. Of course what is “good” is largely determined by the culture I’m in. So, why should I be good within my culture. If I’m thinking of it in an entirely selfish way, I think that there are consequences for not being good. I will have a less fulfilled and happy life if I’m not kind to people. There are also well documented physiological and psychological benefits to being kind to other people. The very fabric of our psyche is relational and we’re happiest when our relationships are functioning well. It makes my life better to make other people’s lives better. And people working together is definitely good for society as a whole. We didn’t get to be top dog on the evolutionary pile by being the strongest. A large part of our success has been to be able to cooperate with each other.
There is the question of, well, if I had a lot of power and could have people who loved me because I rewarded them, personally, why shouldn’t I go maim and kill? Or, why should I care at all about future generations? That’s hard. And, I think that’s why, for example, even people who consider themselves very moral have a hard time doing much about the environment – the pain of not being kind and generous is less tangible. So, the question is, do we have a responsibility to figure out what is “good” and try to do it if there isn’t any cosmic cop who is telling us what to do and who is going to judge us at the end of it all? (As an aside, I think that Evangelical Christians have some of the same struggles. Consider that justification is at the time of salvation. The question is often, well, if I know I’m going to Heaven, then what is my motivation for continuing to do good?)
Ultimately, I’m not sure that there is such a thing as a categorical imperative. There isn’t any abstract “good” THING existing metaphysically outside of us, any abstract notion of what is “good.” It is defined by us, just as language is defined by us. We could choose to stop being moral and the universe would continue on. We could also choose to stop speaking, stop using language. Showing that a world can exist without something doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t exist. Morality isn’t necessary, but then again, neither is the existence of humanity. But, we exist and we can observe that there are actions that we make moral judgments about. The nature of those actions and the validity of our moral judgments are, I think, something worth spending a lot of time thinking about and discussing.
I think that questions about “why would I want that?” Often ignore our own human experience. Personally, I like being nice to people. I generally speaking do care about others. I don’t consider myself in any way unique on this point. I would not be happier if I behaved more badly toward my fellow human beings. In fact, I would be demonstrably less happy.
How many ties have any of us thought the following: “Dude, don’t be an A-hole!”
So on the one hand when I am not an A-hole I am happier and when I am not an A-hole people around me are happier. Not really sure we need some kind of deep philosophy or belief in God to counter the argument that self interested people would behave badly if there were no utopian guiding principle keeping ua all in line.
At the same time, societies recognizing the destructive effects of the human impulse to do bad stuff to each other and it clearly serves everyone’s interest to establish enforceable guidelines. I think there is no need to re-litigate teh issue of why social Darwinism is/was a completely intellectually bankrupt idea.
Good stuff Fitzie.
I think that part of the reason that people fight for the idea of a “great universal umpire/score keeper” is that it relieves one of the responsibility that goes with choice. There is a freedom from existential dread that comes with assigning the responsibility for moral reasoning to an external authority. But, I think that it’s only through taking responsibility for those choices that live authentically and make progress, both culturally and individually, toward a more humane existence.