The argument from moral agency (given by Paul Draper) is the combination of the fine-tuning argument with the existence of moral agents: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20010171 Fine-tuning is generally talking about life. What life should we be talking about? Simple life like bacteria? Conscious life? Animals may possess consciousness and intelligence. Paul Draper thinks we should talk about moral agents (life with moral responsibilities) as opposed to moral patients (life that has moral concern and consideration).
I think Theistic Platonism is attractive. It seems to avoids the Euthyphro’s dilemma. Why is God good? There's an external standard that shows that God is good. Why can't an omniscient, omnipotent God be maximally bad? I think that a being that is omniscient and omnipotent would know all the moral facts perfectly such that it always acts accordingly to its knowledge. If a person claims to know that smoking is bad but smoke anyway, do they really know it is bad? Not so according to Wang Yangming's "Unity of Knowing and Acting": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wang-yangming/#UnitKnowActi
But is Theistic Platonism a better solution to the reliability challenge than atheistic Platonism? Dan Baras doesn't think so: https://philpapers.org/rec/BARARC-5
Yeah I think the argument from moral agency is a pretty good one. I think theistic platonism is a good solution because God is omniscient, on this account, though I haven't read the Baras paper.
> Theism only has explanatory power if we start with a conception of what’s good, and then argue that God explains why there is so much good stuff.
People have different conceptions of what's good, including being drawn to things that many call bad. The idea of theism is that it is God's conception of what is Good that is correct, and not whatever humans may conceive. This does run into the Euthyphro dilemma (how did God arrive at this conception of Good), and into perennialist issues (the different spiritual traditions often say contradictory things), but eh, both of these can be dismissed as humans trying to know the mind of God, which anyone spiritual would say is impossible. It's really not for nothing that Camus coined the term 'philosophical suicide' to refer to the act of believing in a religion. He is correct actually: spirituality is not philosophy, and you do in the end need to die to truly get it.
The special ability God has to ground morality is that you can't argue against God, but any and all philosophical conceptions can be argued against and dismissed.
I’ve also heard another reply to the “morality is God’s nature” view in response to Euthyphro. It seems that part of what I means to be good is to be given the option (the freedom) to act wrongly, but choosing to act rightly. But if what is good is just synonymous with God’s nature and thus whatever God must do, it’s not clear how God could have this good quality if he isn’t free to act wrongly.
I’m not sure how successful this is, but it strikes me as at least somewhat plausible.
My only doubt (so far) is that, this might technically be true for other conceptions of God, even one’s that seperate him from morality. For instance, there is a sense of which God could not act wrongly since he is by definition, all good. But I can’t shake the intuition that this is importantly different.
Have you read Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind? I strongly recommend it - especially for you. Among other things he argues, I think successfully, for God being invented to unite tribes. In ancient times when governments were weaker, belief in God helped keep people honest and in line with societal expectations. God is an arbiter of morality. He creates it, so it's not you or I, it's Him. And God is all knowing and powerful so if you're afraid of him I trust that you'll be ethical.
I think he's right. But perhaps you won't be convinced. At least give it a shot though. I'm sure they have the book at your University library. Haidt has done studies in other cultures that might make you see religion and philosophy differently.
The argument from moral knowledge looks similar to the evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism (in the style of Sharon Street) conjoined with naturalism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-arguments-god/#ArgMorKnoAwa
The argument from moral agency (given by Paul Draper) is the combination of the fine-tuning argument with the existence of moral agents: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20010171 Fine-tuning is generally talking about life. What life should we be talking about? Simple life like bacteria? Conscious life? Animals may possess consciousness and intelligence. Paul Draper thinks we should talk about moral agents (life with moral responsibilities) as opposed to moral patients (life that has moral concern and consideration).
I think Theistic Platonism is attractive. It seems to avoids the Euthyphro’s dilemma. Why is God good? There's an external standard that shows that God is good. Why can't an omniscient, omnipotent God be maximally bad? I think that a being that is omniscient and omnipotent would know all the moral facts perfectly such that it always acts accordingly to its knowledge. If a person claims to know that smoking is bad but smoke anyway, do they really know it is bad? Not so according to Wang Yangming's "Unity of Knowing and Acting": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wang-yangming/#UnitKnowActi
But is Theistic Platonism a better solution to the reliability challenge than atheistic Platonism? Dan Baras doesn't think so: https://philpapers.org/rec/BARARC-5
Yeah I think the argument from moral agency is a pretty good one. I think theistic platonism is a good solution because God is omniscient, on this account, though I haven't read the Baras paper.
I too think omniscience is a good solution to the reliability challenge. Here is Andrew Brenner's paper "How does God know that 2+2=4" in response to Dan Baras: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332907906_How_does_God_know_that_2_2_4
> Theism only has explanatory power if we start with a conception of what’s good, and then argue that God explains why there is so much good stuff.
People have different conceptions of what's good, including being drawn to things that many call bad. The idea of theism is that it is God's conception of what is Good that is correct, and not whatever humans may conceive. This does run into the Euthyphro dilemma (how did God arrive at this conception of Good), and into perennialist issues (the different spiritual traditions often say contradictory things), but eh, both of these can be dismissed as humans trying to know the mind of God, which anyone spiritual would say is impossible. It's really not for nothing that Camus coined the term 'philosophical suicide' to refer to the act of believing in a religion. He is correct actually: spirituality is not philosophy, and you do in the end need to die to truly get it.
The special ability God has to ground morality is that you can't argue against God, but any and all philosophical conceptions can be argued against and dismissed.
I’ve also heard another reply to the “morality is God’s nature” view in response to Euthyphro. It seems that part of what I means to be good is to be given the option (the freedom) to act wrongly, but choosing to act rightly. But if what is good is just synonymous with God’s nature and thus whatever God must do, it’s not clear how God could have this good quality if he isn’t free to act wrongly.
I’m not sure how successful this is, but it strikes me as at least somewhat plausible.
My only doubt (so far) is that, this might technically be true for other conceptions of God, even one’s that seperate him from morality. For instance, there is a sense of which God could not act wrongly since he is by definition, all good. But I can’t shake the intuition that this is importantly different.
Have you read Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind? I strongly recommend it - especially for you. Among other things he argues, I think successfully, for God being invented to unite tribes. In ancient times when governments were weaker, belief in God helped keep people honest and in line with societal expectations. God is an arbiter of morality. He creates it, so it's not you or I, it's Him. And God is all knowing and powerful so if you're afraid of him I trust that you'll be ethical.
Seems way too speculative.
I think he's right. But perhaps you won't be convinced. At least give it a shot though. I'm sure they have the book at your University library. Haidt has done studies in other cultures that might make you see religion and philosophy differently.
Also, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Joshua Greene's work. Not really God related, but also on moral psychology and a bit similar to Haidt. See what you think of this essay: https://static.squarespace.com/static/54763f79e4b0c4e55ffb000c/t/5484abb5e4b0213f74375bce/1417980853923/the-secret-joke-of-kants-soul.pdf
I like Greene's work. I think he makes a good case for utilitarianism in many of his articles.