CS Lewis: Proof of God through universal morality?

[QED]

While debating chapter 7 of the "The God Delusion" seventil posted a quote concerning C.S.Lewis and his attempt at proving the existence of God through the existence of universal morality:

In Mere Christianity, Lewis wrote:

1. There is a universal moral law.
2. If there is a universal moral law, then there must be a universal moral lawgiver.
Therefore,
3. There must be God.

That was his basic proposal and spent a good deal of time trying to prove this.

Now, I won't do the man justice here (I suggest reading through it, he explains it much better than I can) but I'll try to summarize:

(taken from http://apologetics.johndepoe.com/morality.html)

There is a Universal Moral Law

The first step in Lewis's moral argument is to establish that there is a universal moral law. One reason to accept this premise is that without it, all moral disagreements would make no sense. Lewis points out that we appeal to a universal moral standard all the time. If someone cuts in line at an amusement park, we say, "that's not fair." When a psychotic murderer tortures, rapes, and brutally kills his victims, we say, "that's evil." Whenever we appeal to these standards, Lewis notes that we do not have to explain why these things are considered morally bad or evil. They are morally wrong, and everyone knows it. If a complete stranger walked into your house and picked up your television and started walking out, more than likely you will get up and say something like, "Hey, stop that! That is my tv." What you are doing in that scenario is appealing to a universal moral law. You assume it is an understood standard for all people to follow a principle of not taking things that are not theirs. If this person responded by saying, "So what?", you would probably think that person was very strange or perhaps crazy. When people do not understand certain moral values (for example, sociopaths who feel there is nothing morally wrong with any actions, including killing innocent people for no reason), we think there is something is seriously wrong with them. Lewis believes that this is best explained because we (correctly) assume there is a universal moral law.

Another reason Lewis explains for why there must be a universal moral law is that all moral judgments would be meaningless. For example, when we say, "The Nazis were wrong to murder the Jews," what do we mean? Does it mean it is just my personal opinion that the Nazis were wrong? If that is so, it does not seem to make much difference what the Nazis do. It would be on par with my difference of opinion regarding chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Or consider the claims against countries who repress women or mistreat women. If there is no universal moral law, on what grounds can we judge these countries to be committing a moral evil? Without a universal moral law, all of these claims amount to mere differences of opinion, but there cannot be a right or wrong view. In other words, without a universal moral law, the Nazis happen to prefer Nazi morality, and you happen to prefer anti-Nazi morality, but there is no real standard by which we can judge which of the two views is correct. Without a universal moral law, this judgment is a matter of opinion. However, it seems clear that the moral status of certain actions (e.g., the Nazis) is not a matter of subjective opinion, and this is because we presume there is a universal moral law.

So, C. S. Lewis, if he is right thus far, has established that there is a universal moral law. At this point he hasn't appealed to God or made claims that even most atheists would find contentious. In fact, Lewis believes that the moral law is something that all humans are bound to follow, no matter how hard they try to escape from it. So, Lewis believes that this first premise is well-founded.

If There is a Universal Moral Law, then There is a Universal Moral Law Giver

After establishing the existence of a universal moral law, Lewis wonders at the explanation of the existence of this universal moral law. Lewis arrives at the conclusion that a universal moral law implies a moral law Giver. Moral laws, unlike physical laws, are obligations or rules that one is responsible to follow. Without a person who makes these laws, it seems utterly inexplicable that they should exist. We can imagine a molecule by molecule physical duplication of our universe existing without any moral rules, so it seems that moral laws are not entailed by any physical, natural features of the universe. If the universal moral law is not entailed by the natural, physical aspects of the universe, how do we explain the universal moral law? Lewis believes that the best answer to this question maintains that the universal moral law implies that there is a universal moral law Giver. This law Giver could not be any arbitrary being. The kind of being to which the universal moral law points would be supremely powerful (in order to create the universal moral law), perfectly good (in order to be the objective standard for the moral law), and a being who is interested in our behavior (in order to explain why he makes us subject to the moral law). In other words, the moral law Giver would have to be like the personal God of the Christian tradition.

Even though this second premise is much more controversial than the first one, Lewis has put forward a plausible explanation for the moral law. Moreover, since better explanations do not seem forthcoming, it seems that Lewis has given a substantial defense of the second premise.

Therefore, God Must Exist

If one accepts the first two premises, then the conclusion follows logically. So, to resist Lewis's argument, one must show that one of the two premises is false. Below I will consider some of the most often cited ways to deny one of the two premises.

Is the Moral Law "Herd Instinct?"

One way to deny the second premise of Lewis's argument suggests that the universal moral law can be explained by herd instinct. By "herd instinct," I mean something developed by our physical nature like evolution or survival of the fittest. This means that we find ourselves obligated to follow our strongest impulse, which can be explained by naturalistic processes. The problem with this rejoinder is that our our strongest impulse is not always the right thing to do. For example, there are times when self-sacrifice is the right thing to do, yet it is not something that could be explained by herd instinct. Furthermore, this tries to get something more from something less. We would expect to be able to explain features of our physical features by appealing to physical processes, but we've seen that the universal moral law is not the sort of thing that would be entailed by any combination of physical material and laws.

Is the Moral Law Just a Social Convention?

Another way to resist Lewis's argument suggests that the moral law is merely a learned social convention. (This could be seen as a way to challenge the first premise by denying that the moral law is universal, or it might be a way to deny the second premise by offering an alternative explanation for the universal moral law.) Even though we often learn morality through social conventions, that does not prove that morality is reducible to social conventions. We also learn things like mathematics and logic through social institutions, but we know that math and logic are not reducible to society. This objection confuses how we learn moral laws with the nature of moral laws.

It is also worth noting that, on this view, we can accept groups of people as the source of morality but not individuals. But it is not clear why this distinction should be made. Of course, if we acknowledged that morality is completely subjective (i.e., up to each individual to decide for himself) this would also lead to obvious problems. So, the alleged solution is to hold that morality is determined by societies or other social conventions. But this suggestion also leads to obvious problems. For example, how could we ever say a society has morally improved, if the moral standard is set by that society? This would also lead to the absurd conclusion that advocates of social change, like Martin Luther King Jr., are morally evil, since they oppose what is established according to their societies conventions. Moreover, this would make any social convention that establishes moral laws infallible, but we know that these societies can be judged as to whether they are meeting objective moral standards (e.g., the Nazis; any society that violates human rights). Clearly, morality cannot come from social convention.

Is the Moral Law My Will Itself?

Some suppose that the moral law is something we must impose upon ourself. Many believe Immanuel Kant proposed morality in this function. Yet, this too cannot fully account for the nature of morality. This would make the one being held responsible to the rules as the same person giving the rules. It seems rather pointless to have morality on one's own terms. Why even bother with morality at all? Even if one puts tough restrictions on oneself, one can change them as it becomes convenient. It is like a jailor who locks himself in a cell, but keeps the key. The appearance of being confined to his jail cell is illusive. He is not really bound to his cell because at any time he can unlock it and leave. Therefore, our own will cannot account for the moral law.

Could There Be No Moral Law?

Another way to reject Lewis's argument is to deny the first premise. If there is no universal moral law, then there is nothing that needs to be explained. Perhaps, the critic might claim, we have these moral intuitions, but they are all false illusions of a law that doesn't really exist. In other words, there is no moral law. The problem with this view is that the moral law is not a mere description of human behavior but a prescription for human behavior. If the moral law were something we could cast off and live without, this could be a plausible solution, but living without the moral law is simply impossible. Since we did not create it, we cannot cast it off. We cannot escape the moral law because it is impressed upon us. We cannot escape the moral law any more than we can escape the laws of logic or mathematics. Denying the universal moral law would ultimately lapse into moral relativism leaving all moral statements and actions meaningless, thus making Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa equally good and evil. Such a view of morality is not only impossible to live in practice, but obviously wrong when comparing saints and villains (like Hitler and Mother Theresa).

The case sketched above summarizes C. S. Lewis's moral argument for the existence of God. Lewis's argument contains some features that are common to most versions of the moral argument for the existence of God, but there are some subtle differences in some of the other arguments that are worth exploring.

I have argued before that there are reasonable scientific explanations for the apparent existence of the universal morality perceived by Lewis. In brief, while he may indeed be able to establish that there are what we might identify as universal moral laws, he rejects the notion that they are generated and impressed upon us through our genetic inheritance.

The question for debate is then as follows: are the objections stated under the heading Is the Moral Law "Herd Instinct?" an effective dismissal of the notion that morality could be innate behaviour conditioned by our evolution?

[Murraythedemonicskull]

I reject the idea of universal morality. If it were true, then we could have no moral disagreements as everyone would know the right answer. The debate on abortion, euthanasia, etc, would not occur. The racism and misogyny which held sway in conventional thinking in previous generations now looks absurd.

The herd argument is pretty poorly presented, and poorly attacked. A wikisearch on Kin selection or reciprocal altruism should provide a clearer idea of how "morality" could have evolved.

This line

"the problem with this rejoinder is that our our strongest impulse is not always the right thing to do"

doesn't refute the possibilty that morality could have evolved, as the strongest impulse is will be the one which increases the survival of the genes of the organism.

I also hope I misunderstand this next line.

"We've seen that the universal moral law is not the sort of thing that would be entailed by any combination of physical material and laws"

We have? You couldn't mean that behaviour couldn't be a result of the purely physical (eg genetic) could you?

[Furrowed Brow]

I don’t think evolution is the last word on morality. However to address the OP.

The problem with this rejoinder is that our strongest impulse is not always the right thing to do. For example, there are times when self-sacrifice is the right thing to do, yet it is not something that could be explained by herd instinct.

But heard instinct is not for the benefit of the heard, or the individual, it is a group behaviour that ultimately benefit’s the gene. Self-sacrifice, altruism, and pro-social behaviours in general can be explained in terms of strategies that benefit the unit of evolution which is the gene. The benefit felt on a statistical basis. In fact the gene would probably benefit if some members of a population were self sacrificing, whilst others looked out after themselves. Which seems to be a good description of the society I observe.

Furthermore, this tries to get something more from something less. We would expect to be able to explain features of our physical features by appealing to physical processes, but we've seen that the universal moral law is not the sort of thing that would be entailed by any combination of physical material and laws.

But what is this universal moral law?

If someone cuts in line at an amusement park, we say, "that's not fair."

But some cultures have no concept of queuing. It’s only not fair if one belongs to a society that agrees queuing is the fair thing to do. Someone who cuts in is then breaking the rules. But if the rules don’t exist, then it ain’t not fair.

When a psychotic murderer tortures, rapes, and brutally kills his victims, we say, "that's evil."

And I’d say there were evil too. But the fact we can arrive at a general ageement, and that the such actions cut deep and are horrifying - does not make an argument for there being a universal moral law. It works the other way around. The fact that we can get to an easy agreement on such matters, means that we can define our moral laws. Some other matters like abortion are more problematic because we cannot find a general consensus.

Lewis notes that we do not have to explain why these things are considered morally bad or evil. They are morally wrong, and everyone knows it.

And everyone knows it because….of a universal moral law or some behaviours are plain anti social and signal the perpetuator is operating outside of all agreed social norms. Norms that we arrive at because they are universal or because they benefit the gene?

I think we can pick away at the rest of the argument in the same way. The appeal to a near universal rejection of some behaviours as immoral does not mean it is valid to conclude that there is a universal moral law. That is a fallacy.

[Fisherking]

But heard instinct is not for the benefit of the heard, or the individual, it is a group behaviour that ultimately benefit’s the gene. Self-sacrifice, altruism, and pro-social behaviours in general can be explained in terms of strategies that benefit the unit of evolution which is the gene. The benefit felt on a statistical basis. In fact the gene would probably benefit if some members of a population were self sacrificing, whilst others looked out after themselves. Which seems to be a good description of the society I observe.

Does that really explain how this 'moral law' came to be though?

If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature’s mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. … You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning: but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same. And surely it often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger than it naturally is? I mean, we often feel it our duty to stimulate the herd instinct, by waking up our imaginations and arousing our pity and so on, so as to get up enough steam for doing the right thing. But clearly we are not acting from instinct when we set about making an instinct stronger than it is. The thing that says to you, ‘Your herd instinct is asleep. Wake it up,’ cannot itself be the herd instinct instinct.From Mere Christianity (1952)
Book 1, Chapter 2

But what is this universal moral law?

I think Lewis is arguing the moral law is in the same class as mathematical or physical laws.

Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires — one desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys. (Ibid)

If someone cuts in line at an amusement park, we say, "that's not fair."

But some cultures have no concept of queuing. It’s only not fair if one belongs to a society that agrees queuing is the fair thing to do. Someone who cuts in is then breaking the rules. But if the rules don’t exist, then it ain’t not fair.

When a psychotic murderer tortures, rapes, and brutally kills his victims, we say, "that's evil."

And I’d say there were evil too. But the fact we can arrive at a general ageement, and that the such actions cut deep and are horrifying - does not make an argument for there being a universal moral law. It works the other way around. The fact that we can get to an easy agreement on such matters, means that we can define our moral laws. Some other matters like abortion are more problematic because we cannot find a general consensus.

Lewis notes that we do not have to explain why these things are considered morally bad or evil. They are morally wrong, and everyone knows it.

And everyone knows it because….of a universal moral law or some behaviours are plain anti social and signal the perpetuator is operating outside of all agreed social norms. Norms that we arrive at because they are universal or because they benefit the gene?

I believe Lewis answers most of the questions you raise here:

Other people wrote to me saying 'Isn't what you call the Moral Law just a social convention, something that is put into us by education?' I think there is a misunderstanding here. The people who ask that question are usually taking it for granted that if we have learned a thing from parents and teachers, then that thing must be merely a human invention. But, of course, that is not so. We all learned the multiplication table at school. A child who grew up alone on a desert island would not know it. But surely it does not follow that the multiplication table is simply a human convention, something human beings made up for themselves and might have made different if they had liked? I fully agree that we learn the Rule of Decent Behaviour from parents and teachers, and friends and books, as we learn everything else. But some of the things we learn are mere conventions which might have been different — we learn to keep to the left of the road, but it might just as well have been the rule to keep to the right — and others of them, like mathematics, are real truths. The questions is to which class the Law of Human Nature belongs.

There are two reasons for saying it belongs to the same class as mathematics. The first is, as I said in the first chapter, that though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very great — not nearly so great as most people imagine — and you can recognize the same lay running through them all: whereas mere conventions, like the rule of the road of the kinds or clothes people wear, may differ to any extent. The other reason is this. When you think about these differences between the morality of one people and another, do you think that the morality of one people is ever better or worse than that of another? Have any of the changes been improvements? If not, then of course there could never be any moral progress. Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others. We do believe that some of the people who tried to change the moral ideas of their own age were what we would call Reformers of Pioneers — people who understood morality better than their neighbors did. Very well then. The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people thing, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something — some Real Morality — for them to be true about. The reason why your idea of New York can be truer of less true than mine is that New York is a real place, existing quite apart from what either of us thinks. If when each of us said 'New York' each means merely 'The town I am imagining in my own head', how could one of us have truer ideas than the other? There would be no question of truth or falsehood at all. In the same way, if the Rule of Decent Behaviour meant simply 'whatever each nation happens to approve', there would be no sense in saying that any one nation had even been more correct in its approval than any other; no sense in saying that the world would ever grow morally better or morally worse.

I conclude then, that though the difference between people's ideas of Decent Behaviour often make you suspect that there is no real natural Law of Behaviour at all, yet the things we are bound to think about these differences really prove just the opposite. But one word before I end. I have met people who exaggerate the differences, because they have not distinguished between difference of morality and differences of belief about facts. For example, one man said to me, 'Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?' But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did — if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbors or drive them mad or bring bad weather — surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simple about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believes there were no mice in the house. (Ibid)

[k-nug]

Admittedly I'm not a scholar on the subject, but it seems to me there is no universally accepted moral code.

If stealing is wrong, but yet tons of people do it and have no objections with it, how is that universal?

If killing is wrong, yet billions of people are killed, (including by God according to a certain book), how is that universal?

If worshiping idols is wrong, how is it that billions of us worship _____ as idols? (Mary included.).

I think there are morals projected on society by society itself, which change over time to fit the needs of that society.

Am I missing the point?

[QED]

I don’t think evolution is the last word on morality.

I disagree. In the final analysis I think you'll find it is. I constantly find myself using the phrase "unit of inheritance" which amounts to more than just biological genes. We can inherit ideas through various means, but ultimately I would argue, it's evolution that shapes our susceptibilities to those ideas.

If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature’s mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. … You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning: but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same. And surely it often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger than it naturally is? I mean, we often feel it our duty to stimulate the herd instinct, by waking up our imaginations and arousing our pity and so on, so as to get up enough steam for doing the right thing. But clearly we are not acting from instinct when we set about making an instinct stronger than it is. The thing that says to you, ‘Your herd instinct is asleep. Wake it up,’ cannot itself be the herd instinct instinct.

This kind of argument strikes me as being based on an over-simplistic interpretation of the deeper inter-dependencies that inform human nature. Take Valour for example: Heroism in the face of danger. There is nearly always a chance that the hero will live to reap the rewards of such behavior. The smaller the chance, the greater the rewards (from an appreciative society). How can we stop short of this kind of analysis and claim that we would expect selection effects to favour the coward? Only by assuming that cowards and hero's were equally valued in society. Society in this sense would be the cooperative framework within which populations expand though the selection of individuals on their perceived merits. Who sets these standards? I suggest we look at sexual selection in the animal world for clues.

To think that we have identified "universals" and are unable to account for their apparent existence -- and then go on to argue that this must be due to some external supernaturally derived standard seems fanciful when we can see that herding instincts really do exist. All we lack is a proper appreciation of how they evolve and interplay with cultural inheritance. While a complete description of this framework is probably beyond our abilities to construct, no instances of apparent universal morality that I know of can't be adequately explained using the principles already identified.

[Murraythedemonicskull]

The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people thing, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than others.

I think the standard one measures other morality by is one's own, not some universal law. I can see no reason other than Lewis's assertion that it is universal law.

[Furrowed Brow]

I don’t think evolution is the last word on morality.

I disagree. In the final analysis I think you'll find it is. I constantly find myself using the phrase "unit of inheritance" which amounts to more than just biological genes. We can inherit ideas through various means, but ultimately I would argue, it's evolution that shapes our susceptibilities to those ideas.

Ah. I do subscribe to nearly all of our behaviour being shaped by evolution. However I also subscribe to free will and that there is a subjective feely quality to being alive. I also do not subscribe to the view that the feely quality of human existence supervenes ineffectively upon material/causal mechanisms. So here I let slip my 1% non materialist bias.

I certainly do not subscribe to any universal moral code. I hated Kant’s categorical imperative. And take the exact opposite stance. Kant did not think you could possible derive morality from feely emotions.

Well neither do I if one means moral laws. But I do think what it means to be human, in the sense one is conscious of ones existence, is very much to do with the feeliness of consciousness. I align what some call morality with an aesthetic response. I do not find a murder revolting because of some moral law or even a genetic predisposition, I find it revolting because I find it aesthetically abhorrent.

I’ll stop there before I start rambling incoherently. But I guess the evolutionary last word ends where philosophy starts.

[QED]

Ah. I do subscribe to nearly all of our behaviour being shaped by evolution. However I also subscribe to free will and that there is a subjective feely quality to being alive. I also do not subscribe to the view that the feely quality of human existence supervenes ineffectively upon material/causal mechanisms. So here I let slip my 1% non materialist bias.

I certainly do not subscribe to any universal moral code. I hated Kant’s categorical imperative. And take the exact opposite stance. Kant did not think you could possible derive morality from feely emotions.

Well neither do I if one means moral laws. But I do think what it means to be human, in the sense one is conscious of ones existence, is very much to do with the feeliness of consciousness. I align what some call morality with an aesthetic response. I do not find a murder revolting because of some moral law or even a genetic predisposition, I find it revolting because I find it aesthetically abhorrent.

I’ll stop there before I start rambling incoherently. But I guess the evolutionary last word ends where philosophy starts.

There are many things which are not a product of evolution. John Barrow conducts an excellent survey in "Barrow & Tipler: The Anthropic Cosmological Principle". For example: the relative sizes of atoms, bacteria, animals, planets, stars and galaxies are all determined by the relative strengths of opposing physical force constants. But a surprising number of unexpected things equally do have forceful arguments for them being the product of evolution. Again, John Barrow in "The Artful Universe" points to many things that people might first imagine can only be "touchy-feely" things -- paintings, for example, of landscapes and the reasons that we appreciate them. Music too can be mathematically located in "a band of interest". Maybe I'm misreading you on "touchy feely", but I have great confidence that many others come to these arguments with an inappropriate sense of mystique in these areas.

[Confused]

Correct me if I am wrong here, but the geography of the planet used to be very different in early life periods. If we run on the assumption that the majority of the planet was uninhabited by humans early on (re: lack of fossil remains), we could reasonably assume that as we moved from a nomadic society to the hunter/gather tribes, the tribes would form in close proximity because it would provide the most amount of protection as well as trading. If, as the tribes grew, the landscape drastically changed (as we already know it did), then the tribes getting separated would still carry the same "laws" as they did when they were all in close proximity. As the tribes grow and become societies, why would we not expect to see similar "laws"?

Hence: Social evolution.