The Philochistos 1973 commemorative debate

Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. We are commemorating the birth of Philochristos, and a worthy opponent has stepped up to help us commemorate. Debates on morality tend to be mired in ambiguity, and communication frequently breaks down over the meaning of words. After all, the usual words we're familiar with (e.g. objective, subjective, ought, good, bad, etc.) are all equivocal, and if we are not careful, we can easily misunderstand each other. In spite of the best efforts of those who debate these issues to be as clear as they possibly can, misunderstandings (and often hurt feelings) seem to be inevitable. I preface my remarks with this warning so that the reader will be encouraged to thoughtfully consider our arguments and how we are using our words so as to have the best hope of understanding what each of us is saying. After all, even definitions can contain ambiguities, but we cannot possibly define every word and phrase we use or else there'll be no room for debate. I want to begin by clarifying what is meant by "mind-dependent" and "mind-independent" in the context of morality. After all, there is a sense in which I could agree that morality is mind-dependent. I believe that morality is mind-dependent in the sense that morals are the product of a mind, namely the mind of the God of Abraham. And many things which we ordinarily consider to be mind-independent can be said to be mind-dependent in this sense. Take automobiles, for example. Automobiles are mind-dependent in the sense that some engineer had to use his/her mind to design it. However, they are mind-independent in another sense. Automobiles are mind-independent in the sense that they do not merely exist in the mind. They also exist in the external world, and if everybody suddenly ceased to exist, those cars would still be there. Contrast that with anger. Anger exists purely in the mind, and if there were no minds around, there could be no anger. Yet even anger can be said to be mind-independent in some sense. If you are angry, then your anger depends on your mind, but your anger is nevertheless real. From my point of view, your anger is mind-independent in the sense that it exists independently of my mind. I can rightly say that your anger is a real and objectively existing feature of the external world, i.e. the world external to me. So, what do we mean when we say that morals are mind-independent (in my case) or mind-dependent (in phantom's case)? Well, I guess the best analogy to explain my view might be a grade school classroom. When I was in elementary school, each year on the first day of class, the teacher would go over the classroom rules of conduct which often included the punishment for violating the rules. [1] These rules were products of the teacher's mind, so they were mind-dependent in that sense. However, they did not merely come down to the imagination of each of the students. They were real objective rules the students had to follow or else face punishment. These rules were imposed on the students whether the students liked them or not, whether the students were concerned with them or not, and whether the students believed them or not. So they were mind-independent as far as the students were concerned. I think moral imperatives are the same way. They originate from the mind of God, but they are imposed on us. Moral imperatives exist independently of the individual human mind, and they are incumbent upon us whether we acknowledge them or not. Morality includes more than imperatives, though. It also includes values, virtues, vices, and rights. But because space is limited, I am going to limit my arguments to moral imperatives. In grade school, we all learned the four different kinds of statements--declarative, interrogatory, exclamatory, and imperative. Imperatives are statements of command, e.g. "Do not pass go." Commands always involve at least two minds--the one issuing the command, and the one being commanded. We have various sources of imperatives in our world, and there are hierarchies among them. The authority of the store owner is higher than the authority of the manager, and the authority of the Admiral is higher than the authority of the Captain. The commands of lower authorities can sometimes be trumped by the commands of higher authorities. In America, for example, the Constitution trumps state law. Morality is what people frequently appeal to in order to trump the highest authorities instituted among men. Morality is the law above the civil law by which the civil law can be judged, assuming the moral law exists. After all that explaining, I finally come to my argument. The argument is that we have two independently converging lines of evidence for the existence of real moral imperatives. The first line of evidence is that morality was revealed to us by God through Jesus Christ. Jesus taught, for example, that we should love our neighbor and that we should not commit adultery. Jesus claimed to be a prophet, sent by God. Jesus is a credible authority because he did what no mere moral can do--he rose from the dead. We can take it on Jesus' authority that God imposed moral obligations on us. The second line of evidence is the obvious nature of morality. Moral knowledge is built into us, which is what we would expect if God created us and required good behavior. The capacity for moral reasoning emerges at an early age. Young children instinctively know how to justify their actions by making excuses. As we gain experience, and our brains develop, this awareness becomes more expansive and refined. All people have moral awareness, but it isn't until people become philosophers that they begin to deny the obvious. But even those who deny morality perceive it just as plainly as everybody else does. Belief in morality only requires that one affirm the obvious rather than deny it. That is all for now. NOTES 1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXQR-