nontheistic metaethics

Wes Morriston’s The Moral Obligations of Reasonable Non-Believers: A special problem for divine command metaethics

The fact that many people do not believe that there is a God creates an obvious problem for divine command metaethics. They have moral obligations, and are often enough aware of having them. Yet it is not easy to think of such persons as “hearing” divine commands. This makes it hard to see how a Wes Morriston’s The Moral Obligations of Reasonable Non-Believers: A special problem for divine command metaethics

Theism, Atheism, and Metaethics

In response to my comments on “Atheist Ethicist: Theism, Atheism, and Blame,” Keith Parsons rightfully pointed out an error and an inconsistency in my comments where I had denied that theism has metaethical implications. As is often (if not always) the case in philosophy, a lot of this depends on terminology. And although I responded Theism, Atheism, and Metaethics

The Poverty of Theistic Morality

In an effort to increase visibility of an article that has been largely ignored by theists, I thought it would be interesting to discuss what Adolf Grünbaum has to say about the theistic implications of morality in his excellent essay, “The Poverty of Theistic Morality.” He writes: One vital lesson of that analysis will be The Poverty of Theistic Morality

Can Theists Be Moral?

That’s a pretty silly question, isn’t it? I would argue that it is about as silly as the question, “Can Atheists Be Moral?” Even fundamentalist Christian philosophers grant that atheists can know moral principles and behave according to those principles. If someone wishes to deny that theists or atheists can have morals, it seems the Can Theists Be Moral?

LINKS: Ethics without God

(Another item from the backlog in my Drafts folder, with some more recent links added in.) Here are some very interesting links related to ethics without God. 1. From Daniel Dennett: Robert Wright interviewed Daniel Dennett on being good without God. Video of the interview is available here; a transcript is available here.2. From Tom LINKS: Ethics without God