Christopher Hitchens says that since he published God is Not Great,
[t]he case that keeps coming up against me is this: If the heavens are empty (as I maintain in my little book God Is Not Great), then why should anyone behave ethically?
[Link: Search Magazine - Finding Morals Under Empty Heavens]
The question has seemed absurd to him, he says. Now, though, he has heard it so often he feels he has to respond. Watch what happens when he starts to answer:
Yet, I keep being asked, by good and anxious people, how we would teach morality in the absence of God. This question has two minor implications. It first shows a lack of confidence among believers, as if they half know that faith is weak, and suspect that morality might also be so. Second, it insults unbelievers, as if we infidels might at any moment give ourselves over to slaughter and rapine. Beyond this, it suggests a sort of arid pragmatism. So, faith has given people strength?
He took an interesting turn at right about that point, which invalidates his ensuing answer to the question he opened with. I’m not talking about his dismissiveness toward “good and anxious people.” That’s just his typical smugness. The problem is not (just) in his attitude but in his reasoning.
Rather than telling you what I’m seeing, I’m going to let you puzzle it out. Here’s a hint: you might not even need to read the article to see it—it shows up in just these quotes. I would still encourage you to read the article anyway. It’s not long, and none of us would want to misrepresent Mr. Hitchens by taking quotes out of context.
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Possibly related posts (automatically generated):
The “lack of confidence” business is unsupportable, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that dear Mr. Hitchens is unwilling or incapable of recognizing two important distinctions in this debate.
The first is between “God doesn’t exist” and “someone doesn’t believe that God exists”. The argument put to him is NOT “there is no ground for morals if people disavow God.” The argument IS “there is no ground for morals when God does not exist.” And Mr. Hitchens often appears to deliberately substitute the former as a strawman for the latter.
While folks can disavow God, they cannot change their fundamental nature (made in God’s image) — and, as a result, they need morality and they know it. They just cannot provide warrant for their chosen morality viz-a-viz the morality next door. This brings us to the second important distinction: between “following a certain morality” and “being able to justify that morality”.
The argument that Mr. Hitchens must address (but side-steps continually) is that “when God does not exist, it is impossible to justify one’s chosen morality” rather than his preferred (but clawlessly false) “when folks disallow God, they are unable to follow a chosen morality”
Thanks for that, Doug. That is the problem I saw.
Phrased differently, Hitchens begins with, “If the heavens are empty, why should anyone behave ethically?” but then with no explanation, shifts to, “Why should we think that people who believe in God behave better than those who do not?” There’s hardly any connection between the two questions.
That second question deserves some attention, as long as we’re not confusing it with the first. I’m preparing a blog post on that now.
Just a tiny quibble: Hitchens “why should anyone behave ethically?” is a slippery way of presenting the real argument. The real argument is not concerned with behavior (relative to a given morality), but with warrant.
That post is up now.
I agree with Doug. Belief in God has nothing to do with moral grounding.