Moral Argument

Moral Argument

1. Kant

   • Argument set out clearly in his book "Critique of Practical Reason"
   • He has to solve the following problem:
     • 1. Kant claims that human beings are rational, autonomous, moral decision makers.
     • 2. Morality is a matter of doing one's moral duty. However:
     • 3. Kant rejects the idea that God's will or commands are the basis of morality; Reason is the basis of morality
     • 4. How does God fit into Kant's system?

2. The actual moral argument of Kant

   • Moral action is about one's duty
   • The highest good must be achievable, otherwise moral goodness is pointless
     • what could make the highest good achievable?
       • God
         • We should postulate the existence of God
   • The reason to do one's duty is to achieve the Summum Bonum

3. Kant and Morality

   • Moral duty is something you should do
   • the Summum Bonum is the achievement of moral goodness and happiness together
   • Through reason we can work out what is the right thing to do because the right thing to do has to be applicable universally

4. Weaknesses of Kant's Argument

   • Is Kant's argument teleological?
   • Is the Summum Bonum achievable?
     • Just because you ought to aim at achieving the Summum Bonum, it does not mean that the highest good has to be achievable.
     • Kant's argument suggests that there is a choice between:
       • the SB being unachievable in reality and therefore moral behaviour is meaningless
       • The SB being achievable in reality and therefore moral behaviour is meaningful and
   • Confusing
   • Kant + happiness
   • Kant + moral awareness
   • Does postulating the existence of God help people to be moral?
     • No, we are autonomous, rational decision makers

5. Freud's model of the Mind

   • the id
     • part of the mind in which human instincts are based
       • e.g. desire and appetite
   • The superego
     • Part of the ego with which humans reason and make decisions
       • parental influence moulds the superego
   • The ego
     • Part of the mind which is shaped by 'external influences'
       • e.g. traumas, bereavements, education + upbringing

6. Religion and Morality

   • Religion
     • Religion is an obsessional neurosis (according to Freud)
       • Neurosis = fears/worry/anxiety can become obssessions and inhibit one's life.
       • If true, refutes Kant's moral argument
     • Religion provides a way for people to satisy their desires; like the world being ordered + life being meaningful
     • the Summum Bonum being achievable is a very persuasive human desire, but this in no way makes it or God real.
   • Morality
     • Freud said - moral values are the results of our experiences through upbringing and their interaction with the subconscious .
       • Parents preserve their influence in their kids by the education + values they give them.
     • considerable evidence to support the point that experience and upbringing shape our moral ideas.
     • Kant claims that morality is objective and can be discovered through reason
       • Freud would argue against this, saying morality is the product of society + upbringing - there is nothing to discover.
         • If Feud is right, Kant's argument for God's existence as a postulate of pure reason fails.

7. H.P.Owen

   • You can’t have a moral command without a commander.
     • Owen argues this way and says that objective morality is either brute fact of experience – which he considers unconvincing – or it requires explanation – and God is the sufficient and necessary explanation.

8. Cardinal Newman

   • "We feel responsibility, are ashamed are frightened at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is one to whom we are responsible"
   • Our sense of guilt, moral responsibility & obligation is a sense of God.