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Appeal to Nature and Fantasy Projection?

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Original Question

 


I think the following is an Appeal to Nature as well as possibly Fantasy Projection:


 



The Moral Law Argument 



  1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values (moral values that are true, regardless of the circumstance or the person uttering it)  do not exist.

  2. Intrinsic Objective moral values do exist. (Murder, Rape, Child Abuse.)

  3. Therefore, God exists.



What do you think?

Comments on Question

I agree with Dr. Bo that the real problem is soundness. P1 is not demonstratively true. P2 may  be false as well if viewed through the lens of "cultural relativism."

I don't see those fallacies. Perhaps you can explain how you are seeing those here?


The problem most people have with this argument (who have a problem with this argument) is with the soundness due to rejecting either or both premises.

That's an obvious fallacy, though I'm not sure what the best (most familiar) name of it is.


This article calls it an Argument from Moral Authority -- https://atheism.wikia.org/wiki/Argument_fom_Absolute_Morality


I think naturalistic fallacy might be either an alias or a related fallacy.


Here's where a page where some Wikipedians are thrashing it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AArgument_from_morality


One of the biggest debates in philosophy regards the existence of God. Is she real, or is she just a figment of people's imagination?


At the same time, philosophers ask WHAT is God? Some people believe the entire universe is God. We're all a part of God.


If I'm not mistaken, this is called naturalism. In philosophy, a person who doesn't believe in the Christian/Muslim/Jewish god but instead looks to Nature as a source of morality is called a naturalist (I think).


Deists (religious folks), naturalists and atheists have been creating all kinds of clever arguments to make their case forever.


Consider the argument you posted, beginning with the first premise:


What it basically says is that only God can give us "objective" moral values (whatever that means). Thus, if God doesn't exist, objective moral values cannot exist.


The second premise says objective moral values DO exist, proving that God exists. It cites murder, rape and child abuse as intrinsic moral values.


3. Therefore, God exists.


These kinds of arguments can be really complex and confusing and tend to go over my head a bit. But I think the problem with this argument lies in its focus on objective moral values.


When it calls murder an "intrinsic moral value," it appears to be saying that murder is so obviously wrong that every person instinctively knows it. Therefore, it must be an instinct we were given by God.


Reality check: People have been killing each other for thousands of years. Thousands of years ago, they killed each other over natural resources. If someone was encroaching on your hunting grounds, you killed him.


You can see the same thing play out in countless videos on YouTube which show a variety of predators (lions, hyenas, crocodiles, etc.) killing competitors. Humans, believe it or not, are predators.


Today, we're more civilized - which is why we drop atomic bombs on people. One of the big ironies is that Christian conservatives are the very people who cheer loudest for war.


Rape and child abuse? I don't condone them - but the U.S. military sure does. Blowing up hospitals, schools and ambulances and raping people is a great way to terrorize people and cow them into submission. Do some research on the U.S. military's sexcapades in the Middle East. It's pretty disgusting.


So, going back to square one, we might start by asking if objective moral values exist. Actually, we should first define the term: What IS an objective moral value?


If we understand what an objective moral value is and agree that it exists, then we can proceed to ask where it came from. Is it something that simply evolved, or is it possible that it came from some invisible creature who lives in the sky?


Keep in mind that humans are very social animals, and a variety of social customs and morals are indeed a part of our evolutionary heritage. Thus, most people do have an instinctive aversion to murder...but that applies primarily to their families, neighbors, etc. Killing the competition is another story.

No fallacies here. The question is how to define morality and if it is objective or subjective. You would need to prove either one first.

Answers

2

  • If the argument was like:

    "We know God exist because God is the one that gives us the ability to make moral decisions"

    then it would be almost identical with the Example #2 of fantasy projection 

    "We know Narggles exist because Narggles are the ones that give us the confidence to make decisions."
    So, if we say that Narggles are fantasy because of that argument, then we should say that also God is fantasy because of that same argument.
    1. If Narggles don't exist, then we could not have the confidence to make decisions.
    2. We have the confidence to make decisions.
    3. Therefore, Narggles exist.

    That's also a non-fallacious argument (although highly questionable) but in the Logically Fallacious book it is characterized as a fallacy. So how is it different from the god argument? The existence of God and Narggles is equally questionable. The only difference between the two arguments is their popularity.

    If we characterize Narggles existence (justified through such an argument) as Fantasy Projection, then using the exact same justification would characterise God's existence as fantasy projection, as well.

  • I don't see how the appeal to nature , would apply to such an argument.


So my question is, should we remove the Narggles example from the Fantasy Projection, or should we ADD the God argument in the fantasy projection, in order to be consistent?

This argument is valid, represents a denying the consequent and has this structure:


¬p ⇒¬q 

-------------------
p


Therefore, 1 and 2 together actually imply 3, so no logical fallacies is present here.
The only question is whether 1 and 2 are true and how we came to them.

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