Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe (Erik Wielenberg)
OVERVIEW
In “Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe,” Erik J. Wielenberg sets out to assess the plausibility that meaning and morality can exist without God, and then to muse on what the character of meaning and morality might be in a naturalistic universe. If God doesn’t exist, are our lives devoid of meaning? Are our lives pointless? And what of good and evil? Is it irrational to be charitable? What reason is there to choose others over self-interest?
Can there be meaning in a Godless universe?
Without God there can be no supernatural meaning, but is that the only kind of meaning that exists? Wielenberg proposes two additional types: external and internal meaning. External meaning is discovered when we bring something good into the universe, when the world is better off for our having lived. Internal meaning is discovered when we feel our life has a point, some worthwhile goal that we enjoy working towards. Neither external nor internal meaning are contingent upon a creator God or a divine plan.
Nevertheless, the claim is often made that without God, human life is meaningless. Wielenberg describes the three most common arguments in support of this view:
· The final outcome argument: because the last outcome to which any human life contributes is a dead, frozen universe, nothing we do really matters in the end. Nothing can be truly meaningful if it doesn’t culminate in some ultimate, positive endpoint (like the absolution of mankind, or even a redeeming afterlife).
· The pointless existence argument: without a divine mission or some higher cause you have been assigned to serve, there are no criteria for evaluating whether your life was a success or a failure (so it can’t ever be a success). There’s no point to your existing without some divine goal.
· The nobody of significance cares argument: your life only matters if someone more valuable than yourself (like God) cares about it and takes interest in it. It’s not enough that you care about it; without an omnipotent, morally perfect being that cares, it doesn’t matter.
Wielenberg rebukes all three, pulling from the works and essays of Richard Taylor, Paul Edwards, Peter Singer, and Aristotle. For Richard Taylor, a meaningful life was one spent doing what you want to be doing. For Aristotle, it was a life devoted to virtuous activity. For Peter Singer, a meaningful life was the pursuit of an ethical life. And for Paul Edwards, it was pursuing positive goals with enthusiasm and passion.
To the final outcome argument, then, it’s easily noted that there doesn’t have to be any ultimate goal – the point of living could be living itself. Richard Taylor said that living the way you want to be living is to find meaning, and Aristotle too believed that some activities were intrinsically good (like virtuous activity), whether or not they accomplished anything. Peter Singer was all for goals, but saw no reason why there needed to be an undue amount of importance placed on the final goal, that it was enough to make the world a better place in one particular place, at one particular time. Paul Edwards also felt it was totally arbitrary to preference the very distant future over the present, that it was unreasonable to assert that the end of time (or the final outcome) matters the most… more than the present, or the near future. The pointless existence argument can be dismissed on the basis of intrinsic value. If you believe that there are some activities that have intrinsic value, or that it’s just enough to plain like the activities you’re doing, then there need not be any point to life. Life could be its own point. But again, even if you prefer to have goals, it’s enough that the goals are worthwhile to you. You are qualified to assign purpose to your own life, you don’t need God to hand down a purpose to you. Finally, the nobody of significance cares argument, which is totally arbitrary. We are sufficiently significant to discover meaning and choose purpose. What matters is that you care about your life, not whether God cares. And, to circle back to activities of intrinsic value, something like working to prevent the suffering of others is worthwhile regardless of whether there’s a God around to pay attention. All three arguments that a Godless universe is a meaningless one fall apart if life is its own point, if there are activities that have intrinsic value, and/or if you simply do away with arbitrary qualifications.
But the above rebuttals speak mostly to internal meaning, which is about what you want to do and accomplish. To make the case that external meaning exists in a Godless universe, that it’s possible to bring goodness into the world (or to live an ethical life, like Peter Singer recommended), we first have to demonstrate that goodness can exist without God.
Can moral norms exist if not established by some supreme being? In a Godless universe, is everything permitted?
Can there be morality without divinity?
Similar to the three arguments against meaning in a naturalistic universe, there’s an argument that’s often levied against naturalism in regard to morality:
· The God as the source of ethics argument: “God must be the ultimate source of good and evil and of all right and wrong in the universe. If God does not exist, then nothing can be good or evil and nothing can be right or wrong.”
To start, a wry observation: to claim that without God there would be nothing considered evil… why should that trouble you? If it were true, there couldn’t be anything bad for you, because badness wouldn’t exist. Problem solved! Too easy? This simple evasion doesn’t feel quite right, and that’s because God isn’t really the source of all ethical truths and moral obligations. First off, can God decide what is moral? If God showed up tomorrow and declared that genocide and torture were morally good, would that change our morals? Would it change how we feel innately about what is right and wrong? No, it wouldn’t. Wielenberg thinks that some ethical truths are necessary truths and exist as the furniture of our universe, because even God could not make them untrue. One such claim, Wielenberg argues, is that suffering is an intrinsic evil. Not only is this an ethical claim, it’s a necessary truth. “Suffering is bad in virtue of its intrinsic nature.” Peter Singer also believed intrinsic evil existed (e.g., pain and suffering), and so the goal of reducing it “takes the place of a supernatural commander as the thing that renders our lives meaningful.”
To emphasize why pain and suffering are intrinsically evil: neither God nor man could declare “suffering is good” or “pain is good” and have it be true, have it become our reality. Because we couldn’t all collectively decide that suffering or pain is good and we want it, and because God couldn’t do this either, the claim “suffering is intrinsically evil” is unchallengeable, it forms the bedrock of our reality. And because it forms the bedrock, it serves as unshakeable scaffolding for our moral framework, independent of God.
But why should we behave morally?
Establishing that ethics and moral norms can exist without God is not the same thing as establishing that we have any reason to behave according to these norms. Without some threat of eternal punishment or reward, why behave ethically? There are two reasons Wielenberg explores: 1) because morality and self-interest coincide, and 2) because you ought to.
Aristotle believed that virtuous activity was its own good, so moral action and self-interest were aligned. Robert Frank and David Hume agreed, but also noted that virtuous activity was the most likely way to secure positive outcomes for yourself (in that it could bring you a good reputation and honour, both desirable things). Because virtuous activity inspires feelings of benevolence, humanity, and kindness – all agreeable feelings – because virtuous activity brings desirable outcomes, and/or because virtuous activity is intrinsically good, it makes sense to behave ethically for your own sake.
To the second reason, Immanuel Kant believed that a moral obligation was just that, an obligation. Moral action was a categorical imperative, non-contingent. Duty is more important than desire, and we should behave morally because that’s what we ought to do. For what reason? The moral obligation is itself the reason, the most powerful kind of reason. If asked “why be moral?” an acceptable answer is “because it is moral.” If this feels like a cop-out, consider that to the question “why do what is in one’s interest?” we accept the answer “because it is in one’s interest.” Wielenberg says no further explanation is required for either.
Rational virtue (actions for mortal atheists)
Now we have reached the end of the trajectory. Wielenberg has shown that meaning and morality can and do exist without God, and that we have reason to behave virtuously regardless of whether we will be rewarded or punished for our behaviour. We turn at last to what virtuous behaviour looks like in a Godless universe.
The most obvious (and important) rational virtue is humility, which leads to charity. If there’s no God in charge, no divine plan, no reason beyond happenstance that someone is born into wealth and someone else into poverty, then that’s even more reason to help one another. Why? Because no one else will, and because you could easily have been in their place, born into war, into poverty, or into corruption. If the winds of chance had blown slightly differently, your roles could have been reversed (and could always be reversed). Truly, when you take stock of the good fortune in your life, you will come to realize that most of it is due to luck and factors entirely outside of your control. This is naturalistic humility. It’s not to be humbled before an omnipotent creator, but to be humbled by the luck of your situation. And this creates an impetus to kindness, to charity and benevolence. Naturalism – a rational view of the universe – does not lead to egoism and hedonism, but rather to humanism. We’re inspired to help our fellow man because we know no one else will. We’re inspired to create just societies because we know there is no divine justice. The only heaven we will ever realize is the one we create here on earth, nowhere else. Strip away God and religion and we have only each other, all of us the same, the universe equally indifferent to each, and that is sufficient to produce the obligation we have to be kindhearted and good to one another.
IN SUM:
Is this book entirely secular? Yes.
If I had to describe the book in one sentence? How meaning and morality can and do exist in a Godless universe.
Who should read this book? Those looking for an introduction to secular morality.