Strength's and Weaknesses of Craig's Moral Argument: An Interview with Jeff Lowder

William Lane Craig's Moral Argument for God's existence is a standard argument widely used by many apologists. In this video, Jeff Lowder (an atheist) shares his take on both its the strengths and weaknesses. Jeff is a strong defender of "steelmanning" arguments and objections and trying to understand them in the best possible light. Atheists and theists alike have a lot to learn, and this conversation is a great start!
If you are interested in a formal course in apologetics or even getting a full blown theological education and a fraction of the cost of a traditional seminary, check out onlinebibletraining.com (still in beta a launch as of the date of this recording)
Jeff's KZbin channel: / @secular_outpost
Philosophy of Religion Stock Issues, Part 1: • "Stock Issues" for PoR...
Philosophy of Religion Stock Issues, Part 2: • "Stock Issues" for PoR...
Blog: naturalisticatheism.blogspot....
Twitter: / secularoutpost
Chapter times:
0:00 - Introduction / Jeff's Background
10:45 - Progress in the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology
17:25 - On honesty in discourse
19:10 - WLC's Moral Argument: Overview and initial thoughts
25:50 - Objective moral values and God's nature
28:54 - Platonism, abstract objects, and objective moral values
36:10 - Ontological foundations/grounding of moral values | notions of "objective"
41:01 - The Euthyphro Dilemma and brute facts
44:41 - "Values require a valuer" vs. Craig's Divine Nature Theory
54:41 - Lowder's live options to DNT to ground moral theories (Platonism and ethical naturalism)
1:07:32 - Two types of subjectivity and moral realism v. antirealism
1:12:09 - Summary of the argument's strengths and a possible reinterpretation
1:18:55 - Lowder's PoR+ taxonomy of arguments and concluding thoughts
Erik Wielenberg's paper, Dawkins’s Gambit, Hume’s Aroma, and God’s Simplicity: philarchive.org/rec/WIEDGH
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Moderation policy: We try to approve all comments, even those that disagree with our arguments, as I think that spurs honest discussion. Posts containing profanity or unsolicited sales, however, whether for or against the positions presented in the videos will be immediately removed.

[@lanceindependent]

This is a great discussion. You are both very charitable and careful. The focus of the discussion was also excellent. However, speaking for myself, my biggest issue with the argument is the second premise, that objective moral values exist. I'm a moral antirealist. I am not a moral antirealist due to any particular secular ontological commitments, since my skepticism towards moral realist accounts doesn't turn on any such views and I'm not even sure I endorse any such views. I suspect theism is consistent with moral antirealism, and I suspect were I to become a theist I’d continue to be a moral antirealist. Part of my concern with moral realism is simply that I see no good reason to think it’s true in the first place. Why would I endorse a view that strikes me as profoundly implausible, and in some cases even seems unintelligible? Lowder suggested beginning around 1:07 is that it is impossible to live without objective morality. However, I didn’t hear an argument for this. Why would it be impossible to live without objective morality? Are there good arguments for believing this? I work in philosophy/psychology of metaethics and focus on the moral realism/antirealism debate, so I'd be happy to discuss these topics with either of you.

[@GulfsideMinistries]

Hey Lance! Thanks for checking in and commenting. I [Chris] watched most of your initial livestreams (but sadly not live), but life got in the way and haven't stayed up to date with your other videos. I remember you critiquing misconceptions of relativism, but I don't recall if you had laid out (in video format) your beliefs beyond being an antirealist. I do think most of the arguments around WLC's argument, in practice, center on the second premise. Jeff and I obviously focused on the first. I suspect you'd have a much more nuanced conversation around the objective morality than most people do. I also think I agree with you that theism is compatible with antirealism. That's a minority view, as you know. I think most people, atheists included, follow Oppy and say that theism entails moral realism. Some theists want to say that, too. I'm not persuaded. Are you familiar with Lambert's paper arguing that theism is consistent with error theory? It's been in my documents folder unread for a little bit now! As to your specific question/challenge: why would it be impossible to live without objective morality? Definitions would matter a lot, of course, but to cut right to the chase, I think at bottom the argument from the moral realist is just that people don't actually talk, much less behave, as if morality isn't real. The prima facie case for moral realism stands on the fact that we attribute rightness and wrongness to acts themselves and couch our arguments in the language of agreement/disagreement. If that prima facie case is coherent, and I think it is, then the antirealist has to not merely account for the language but argue that antirealist language would naturally produce realist language and behavior and after all that still come up with independent reasons for supporting antirealism (so you allude to a an incoherency argument, which is the sort of thing you'd need). I think that's just a really tall order. That said, I strongly suspect that most people are moral realists on strongly intuitive grounds. If you take intuitions seriously, that's something else for antirealism to account for. I don't think you can't. You probably can. But it's surely more difficult than just affirming the intuition. That said, I'm not much of an intuitionist, so I'm not persuaded by intuitionist arguments for moral realism. Sorry for the book here! Maybe @Secular_Outpost has a contribution? I'd be open to trying to arrange for further conversation. We got a chance to work through issues with the first premise. It wouldn't be a bad thing to work through issues with the second. But in the meantime, what are your initial thoughts on these? I've not said anything here you're not already aware of.

[@lanceindependent]

​@@GulfsideMinistries Thanks for all the kind words. It's always great to see positivity and enthusiasm when I engage people on these topics, since they can sometimes descend into hostility and snarky remarks. The Lambert paper sounds familiar. The past year has been a blur so I may have seen it in passing. It's not something I have a conscious memory of reading, but it's interesting we're on the same page on that. However, where I think we may have the strongest disagreement is on the claim that most people are moral realists on strongly intuitive grounds. That's an empirical claim. I recently completed my PhD in psychology, and the focus of my dissertation was a comprehensive assessment of empirical research specifically exploring the question of whether most people are moral realists or not. The empirical evidence does not support this claim. At present, the best designed studies find very high rates of antirealism, with Polzler and Wright's paper finding that participants consistently chose antirealist responses about 75% of the time. See here: Pölzler, T., & Wright, J. C. (2020). Anti-realist pluralism: A new approach to folk metaethics. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11, 53-82. I have critiqued this study in my own work, and I believe it has distinctive methodological problems, but overall, there simply isn't any good evidence that most people are intuitive moral realists. I explicitly argue against this conclusion in my dissertation. //If you take intuitions seriously, that's something else for antirealism to account for.// That's just it: antirealists don't have to account for why most people are intuitive moral realists if it's simply not true that most people are intuitive moral realists. Since I don't think they are, my explanatory burden is greatly lessened. I still have to explain why some people are moral realists, though, but I find that to be more manageable. // But it's surely more difficult than just affirming the intuition. // I don't have realist intuitions. It's very easy for me to deny what I take to be an intuition that isn't widely held. I find it likely more people have theistic intuitions than moral realist intuitions. That is one of the reasons why I think theism has a better case than moral realism.

[@GulfsideMinistries]

@@lanceindependent Thank you for the reference to the paper. Very good. I've downloaded it and will look at it probably Sunday (I have other papers I have to read and one to write tomorrow). Two points of agreement: 1. People get way too snarky and angry about this. As a moral realist, you can imagine WHY I think that's just the case! ;-) But I also want to be a small part of the solution, or at a bare minimum not be a part of the problem. We need to model what good and honest communication looks like. So thank you for your contribution to that as well. 2. The presumption of popular moral realism is, in fact, an empirical claim. I'm looking forward to reading the linked paper. I'm very skeptical about the whole endeavor (given my decade in healthcare chaplaincy). But I think I can set aside my biases and look at the evidence straightforwardly. Let me read that first before I get back to you. As an aside, on more personal level, my arguments for moral realism are rooted in my broader ontology. As I said to Jeff, the premodern view of ethics was much broader than we think about it today. On a classical/Aristotelian ontology, moral antirealism is very near a self-contradiction. So my personal beliefs on this aren't tied to an intuition. Still, I think the empirical claim is important, and I'm looking forward to seeing the actual data.

[@Secular_Outpost]

Hi Lance -- I think I may have been sloppy. It might be literally "impossible" (in a pragmatic or performative sense) to live consistently as a moral anti-realist, but I don't think I would want to defend that strong of a claim. Instead, I will make a weaker claim. I think it is difficult for many (most?) people to live consistently as a moral anti-realist. Why? Most people aren't philosophers and so haven't thought through the implications; when you press them on certain "hot" social issues, they end up deciding they think a particular position is either objectively true or objectively false. But I wouldn't want to extend that generalization to all moral anti-realists and certainly not a philosopher who specializes in metaethics. I think I disagree with the claim that theism is consistent with moral antirealism, at least if it defined a certain way. I rather like Graham Oppy's paper on this issue: infidels.org/library/modern/graham-oppy-god/ Also, for what it is worth, I have recently started to question the claim that most people have a metaethical intuition in favor of moral realism or objective moral values. I see that claim (about people's intuitions) a lot but it is rarely defended. I have been entertaining the idea that people might be mistaken about their own intuitions on the subject, precisely because they don't know how to make the relevant distinctions. Jeff

[@GulfsideMinistries]

@@Secular_Outpost I have the study Lance recommended that challenges (apparently - I haven't read it yet) the claim that most people have realist intuitions. I'll send it to you.

[@markfullbrighton5070]

Jeffery Jay Lowder is truly the GOAT in terms of atheist debaters. After watching his debates with Phil Fernandes, Frank Turek, and Kevin Vandergriff, I can see why William Lane Craig has been shitting his pants at the thought of debating Lowder since the late 1990s. After watching Lowder destroy each of the previous individuals I can see why Craig is still hiding under his Talbot desk afraid of Lowder.