Sense and Goodness without God

Richard Carrier in his book “Sense and Goodness without God; a defense of Metaphysical Naturalism” makes the claim that “we do not need God to have objective morality”. Carrier defines his view as Secular Humanism and it holds to two basic doctrines, that the progress and welfare of all human beings is the greatest good. Now this sound good but what is “Good” and what brings the greatest good to all people?

For carrier it comes down to not harming people and also what is good is clearly objectively obvious to those whose faculties are working properly. It is strange that this new Atheist moment of late seems to believe that the good is obvious. So why has the history of ethical philosophy been debating the issue for centuries. For the record atheist haven’t shown very good examples of being good without God. It has been Christianity that has dogmatically held that there are absolute fixed morals against others that have held to a pragmatic view. I mean if Christianity’s ethics are lived out to the words and deeds of Jesus, life would be a great place. So its interesting that Atheist now think that objective morality is obvious to any rational person who’s thinking faculties are working properly.

It seems that all that the atheist is doing is snatching Christianity’s morality and throwing away God. I mean just stating moral principles doesn’t imply God does not exist. . The problem with Carriers view is just stating his theory does not make it objective for all people.
Carriers defends his system,

“The Goal Theory does not root moral value in popular sentiment or majority vote, or even in current beliefs or attitudes, but in the actual facts, particularly in the sentiments that every person would have if they were both (1) fully informed of all the true facts about themselves and the universe and (2) cognitively accurate in their analysis of these facts. In other words, when we know what is true, and logically deduce from this what is actually valuable to us, we will all find ourselves in agreement about a certain set of objects of value. And this entails a certain set of behavioral principles, and by virtue of this universal agreement, those objects would have objective value, and those behaviors would be objectively right and wrong. Hence, values are objective because every person who is informed of all the facts and whose reasoning abilities are functioning properly would agree to them. (Note: When we call something "objective," we mean that it is true regardless of people’s opinions, and that they would agree with it if they knew all the details and were thinking clearly.”

Carrier argues that values are objective because everyone would agree with them if they knew all the facts and were thinking clearly. This is equivalent to saying, "Values are objective because they are objective." Thus, Richard hasn’t offered an argument for the objectivity of moral values. He has simply restated the meaning of "objective.") Richard applies a similar argument in favor of the value of life itself, for he says that "life has objective value to the degree that every sane and informed person would value it if informed of all the facts, and their cognitive faculties were functioning without error.

David Wood makes a good point when he says,

“There are several problems with this view. First, it suggests that in order to reach this state of agreement, we will have to be "fully informed of all the true facts." But how can we ever know that we are in full possession of the facts? Until we reach such a state of knowledge, Richard’s moral theory is useless. (I also find it difficult to believe that it would be helpful for Richard to simply walk up to a Nazi and "tell" him that his views are factually false. Would this strategy ever work?) Second, it is difficult to believe that people will agree on moral issues as soon as they are in possession of all the facts. No matter how many facts we learn, people still disagree about things like abortion and homosexuality. Will a few more facts change this disagreement? Third, Richard says that there will be moral agreement as long as everyone’s cognitive faculties are working. But who is to decide whose faculties are functioning properly? That is, if I say that abortion is wrong, and Richard says that it is right, we will be at a standoff. He will say that my faculties are malfunctioning, and I will argue the same about him. In other words, determining proper mental function when it comes to moral values seems like it would be an extremely subjective science, and Richard is arguing for objective values”

We are still left in his atheistic worldview with the question “What objective standard do we use to define ‘what is proper functioning faculties”
Carrier also thinks that something is immoral only if it interferes with another person’s happiness and he uses this principle to test moral claims:
Since homosexual sex hinders no one’s happiness, while suppression of homosexual emotions has been empirically proven to be destructive of human life and happiness, it is actually immoral to denounce or repress them.

David Wood replies again with an interesting point,

“Suppose America adopted Richard’s position into law. Only acts that interfere with the happiness of others would be classified as immoral. Now let’s try a test case. Bob is caught with a great deal of child pornography. What should the government do? We might reasonably conclude that taking pictures of naked children could interfere with their happiness, since being child porn-stars may give rise to psychological problems. So Bob should go to jail. But let’s modify the scenario. Bob took the pictures with a hidden camera while the children were having their bath. This wouldn’t affect the children, since they wouldn’t know about the pictures. However, we may argue that the children may one day find out about the pictures (by seeing them on the internet, for instance), so this could still cause problems. Hence, Bob should still go to jail. But let’s modify the situation a little more. Using a hidden camera, Bob took pictures of naked children while they were having a bath, and the children were wearing masks. There is now no conceivable way for the children to be affected by the pictures, so according to Richard, we couldn’t call this pornography immoral. One may respond by arguing that child pornography may trigger thoughts that lead pedophiles to prey on children, but this could also be applied to any sort of pornography. Richard would never agree that all pornography should be banned, so why ban child porn? The answer, of course, is that it should be banned because it’s immoral. It doesn’t matter whose happiness it affects; it’s still wrong, as are many other things. Even if a man and his horse are completely happy as lovers, it is still an immoral relationship. This is why Richard’s moral theory is utterly impractical. It’s also why he admits that he can’t think of a single fixed moral law:”

The major problem with Richard Carriers claims is that it is not objective, and where does one go to seek an objective standard that can judge who has proper functioning faculties. The next problem is, is it that easy to see what is the greatest good for humanity. I mean Jesus did, because of his perfection and hand in creating us, he has given us perfect rules that fit with how we are created to sense happiness and peace and fulfillment, that don’t harm people. Some people opinions are wrong, some peoples desires might be good for them but not for all. But to think humans can just come along and do the same thing, with trail and error killing and hurting millions along the way to find the good, I don’t think is the greatest good. And I don’t think human are any where close to writing an objective moral rule book for the world, that is different than Jesus’. And if it is the same then what a waste of time of rejecting it all along. It is also a bad example of carrier’s statement that “what is good” is obvious to all atheists who have proper functioning brains.
Is it that easy to see what is objectively good and well being for all people? I mean well being or success can be very subjective and easy to bend standards. I mean large groups have killed millions of Jews to gain success and happiness, to rid the world of inferior races that threaten the race with problems and unhappiness. What about abortions and euthanasia, it may seem to help people engage in more happiness, but is it moral? Do contradictory points of view that help deferent kinds of large groups make well being easy to define. What if an abortionist believes he’s helping “unexpectedly “expecting” women to uphold their right to control their own bodies and their freedom of choice? And what if the abortionist claims he finds the killing of unborn babies satisfying and useful for the upward mobility of women in society. But then what about volunteers at a pro-life counseling center who are richly rewarded and gratified by counseling women considering abortion to keep their babies. These volunteers are also aware of post abortion trauma and the psychological havoc that abortion wreak’s on women. So to say what ever works for you leads to deep conflict. Both cannot be true can they?
What we think is useful or promotes well being is for some is person relative or culture relative, and there are many different options out there. But something’s can be true even if it’s detrimental to a this-worldly sense of well being or success.
All atheist attempts to ground objective morality seem to fail,
The idea that non-moral properties just evolved into moral properties, and we just have to define what we think is good out of the options, then live them. The idea that humans are not created morally good to do good, but some how we have just over time evolved with abstract thoughts from non-conscious matter, that goodness is real and useful. The ideas that objective morals and values exist independently out side human thoughts in matter some where in an impersonal universe (moral realism). The idea that are actions are hardwired to irrational chemical reactions in our heads that in the end rob us of free will and responsibility. That morality because it has evolved and at times humans have had to fight to survive in the process of evolution, make morality subjective and rape can be a virtue to promote the survival of the species.