Do Objective Unchanging Moral Facts Exist?

I have difficulty applying the word "fact" to morals. Morality is clearly not a fact in the same sense that a rock is a fact. A fact is something that exists for everyone. If, for instance, some people with good vision can see a rock directly in front of them and others with good vision cannot see it, then whatever is in front of them is not a fact. If morality is a fact then where does it exist? Presumably the theist will say it exists in the mind of God, their God. But clearly God does not abide by the same standard of morality he demands of human beings. For instance, God can kill people, whereas if we did, it would be murder. God can send people to hell, whereas if any judge punished any criminal for any crime like this, it wouldn't be considered just. God can sit by and do nothing while people drown, but if we did the same thing it would be considered criminal, especially if all we had to do was press a button to save them. So we have two moralities, one for God and one for everyone else. Is morality a fact if there can be two of them?

The theist will say morality is a fact for us, that God doesn't have to abide by the same morality he commands of us. This forces us to consider the divine command theory of morality and the euthyphro dilemma: "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?" Theists will say God's commands are based on his nature, which they say is benevolent. But if he has a different nature then how can he command us to abide by a different morality than the one based on his nature? God would have to make stuff up as he goes, by commanding us to do what he would consider immoral if he did the same things. He would have to command us to do what is immoral by his own standards. Since this must be the case if he commands us to do differently than he does, he could therefore command us to do anything, even reprehensibly evil acts. Now I know theists will reject this second horn of the dilemma, but I don't think they can. On a theistic account there are no moral facts, there are only arbitrary divine commands. God could have created a different morality.

But there is more to consider. If morality is an objective unchanging fact then it cannot change with time. The morality of yesterday is supposed to be the same as today, and should be the same as tomorrow. If morality does change with time then morality is not an objective unchanging fact. However, we do see morality change with time. It evolves within each different culture. If anything is a fact, then what people once considered to be a moral fact is no longer considered a moral fact, leading us to think people in the future will consider moral facts to be different than they are today.

What is also a fact is that people within different cultures in every era have disagreed about what they consider a moral fact. Since a fact is something that exists for everyone then clearly morality is not an objective unchanging fact.

Theists will respond that they're talking about ontology, not epistemology, that is, morality is based on the ontological foundation of God's commands whether or not human beings can know what he commands, or agree about them. However, a reasonable person questions why such a divine moral lawgiver didn't effectively communicate his commands. How can he judge us fairly if we don't know them? If nothing else, he could write them on our hearts, as Paul claimed in Romans 2:14-15:
Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.
Well, is Paul correct or not? The fact of moral diversity within each culture and the fact that morality evolves in each culture say no, most emphatically. These are the real empirical facts not based on mere assertions.

Objective unchanging moral facts do not exist.

Can we have an objective morality even though morality evolves, even though objective morality is not an unchanging fact? Can we have one even though people disagree? I think so, or at least I'm hopeful. I think human beings who have evolved to this point can have an objective morality for our particular era in time. First we must get rid of religious diversity which is one of the main reasons why moral diversity exists. There are other reasons for moral diversity, like greed, the thirst for power, gender and racial differences, but religious diversity is one of those reasons.

I've defended an objective morality in chapter five of my book, Why I Became an Atheist.I argue for a godless (or secular) ethic based upon some solid evidence about who we are as human beings today. This still leaves plenty of room for disagreement, of course, but there are some basic moral duties I think reasonable people should agree on. That is, I think we can come to some kind of consensus about some moral duties, basic morality. It is however, not a consensus view of morality, that whatever we just happen to agree on is to be considered a moral duty. It's based instead on who we are as human beings.

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