Hitchens and Turek

I've been listening to Christopher Hitchens debating with Frank Turek, firstly on the existence of God and then on which of theism or atheism provides a better explanation of reality. (For now we'll leave aside that atheism explains nothing, and nor is it intended to, for it is simply an absence of belief in a deity.)

Turek used the same opening speech, with the same jokes, in both debates. He advanced the same set of arguments on each occasion. I hesitate to use the term arguments, as I feel it dignifies what he was saying beyond its merit, but never mind.

One of his recurrent themes is the so-called argument from morality. He states that there is an objective difference between good and bad, and that such a difference can be explained only by a divine creator. This is clearly a favourite point of Turek's because he returns to it again and again during questions and refutations. Let's take a close look at it.

Firstly, is there an objective difference between good and bad, discernible to us all and universally agreed? I don't think there is. From my student days I recall a discussion between two students - a medical student and a historian - about a landlady's plans to have her adopted pet cat neutered. The historian was all for the operation, carried out humanely under general anaesthetic, to prevent future suffering by averting the potential births of hundreds of stray kittens, most of whom would die young and horribly amid the garbage bins of Liverpool. The medical student was aghast, considering such mutilation an immoral act against an animal that had no choice in the matter. Who was morally right? I agreed with the historian and I still do, but I could and can see the future doctor's point. Can objective morality rescue us and settle the matter?

What about assisted suicide? A patient in extreme pain, with no prospect of recovery, may wish to end their life artificially before their condition does it for them. Many thinking people would agree that a person should be allowed to choose when to end their own life, claiming that it would be immoral to interfere. Others are just as convinced that suicide is morally wrong. Again, where is this clear-cut objective morality that can decide the matter for us?

Objective morality is a myth. Some things are obviously right and others are obviously wrong, but that has nothing to do with objective morality. It has more to do with empathy. A questioner put exactly this issue to Turek during questions, and Turek rather embarrassingly demonstrated that he didn't know what empathy means. His voice rising in pitch and volume, he cried, "And what makes empathy right?" Dr Turek, the questioner's whole point was that it does not need to be right in order to become widespread practice. Empathy means feeling the things another person or creature is feeling. Obviously we have to use imagination in order to do this as we can't wire directly into their feelings, but if we are asked whether it's right or wrong to commit rape we are likely to consider the potential experience of the victim before giving a response. It is wrong to commit rape because the effect on the victim would be horrible. Moreover, someone contemplating rape might imagine his feelings after the event, when he would know he had inflicted terrible harm on another person. Wishing to avoid those feelings might be a factor in his decision not to be a rapist. We don't need a celestial dictator to help us see those things for ourselves.

Christopher Hitchens made the point that a society in which rape and murder were considered normal would be unlikely to persist and become stable, as its members would be at constant risk from one another, and groups with more self-preserving behavioural codes would likely fare better. It's a good point, although it raises the controversial issue of group selection.

Back to objective morality. Is there a difference between right and wrong which is a hard-wired feature of the world, external to us all? I don't believe there is, but I think Bertrand Russell dealt neatly with those who do in Why I am not a Christian. I'll paraphrase his argument rather than pasting verbatim. Someone like Turek, who says there is a clear difference between good and bad, must face this question: is that difference due to God's fiat or not? If it is, then for God there is no good or bad, and it means nothing to say that God is good, a claim that most theists make. If the difference is not due to God's fiat, then we do not need God in order for good and bad to exist, and the distinction between good and bad is logically anterior to God.

Russell snookers completely those who keep insisting that God is good. God is just as bad as he is good, because in creating the distinction between good and evil he created evil as well as creating good. Turek is similarly snookered because, if God is (as he claims) a good and loving creator, then logically the separation of good and evil must be external to God.

From the back foot, against the intellectual ropes, Turek is wont to claim that even logic itself is evidence for God, because without a creative mind behind the universe their can be no logic. That this is utter piffle might not be immediately obvious, but think on. Turek loves to shout out that God must be personal, because deciding to create the universe was an act of choice, and a choice requires a personal, conscious being. But isn't Turek assuming that a choice involves at least two alternatives (do create or don't create), and that these are logical alternatives? So we have logic existing before the initial creative act, and again that logic is exterior to God. God's creative decision appears to make sense only in the light of logic, so it's silly to say that God created logic when he created the universe.