The Moral Argument - 1723 Words

THE MORAL ARGUMENT How do we explain the fact that people often refrain from immoral acts even when there is no risk of their being caught? There are many formulations of the moral argument but they all have as their starting point the phenomenon (fact) of moral conscience. In essence the moral argument poses the question: where does our conscience, our sense of morality come from if not from God? It also asserts that if we accept the existence of objective moral laws we must accept the existence of a divine law-giver. It is an argument therefore which infers the existence of God from the empirical evidence of a psychological phenomenon. This is the observable fact that human beings sometimes appear to act from a sense of moral duty in†¦show more content†¦What do we implicitly believe about the world when we agree to be bound by objective moral laws such as the categorical imperative? When we make a moral choice between two or more possible courses of action without taking into account the benefit to us in this world of our moral behaviour, what does this imply about the way we believe the world to be? For Kant it makes no sense to talk about making moral choices unless we are free. Secondly, if there is to be no reward in this life then we must believe that by acting morally we will be rewarded in the next life. Thirdly, If our moral behaviour is to be rewarded after death there must be an agent who is responsible for guaranteeing that reward. By this line of argument Kant arrives at his three postulates of morality: 1. Freedom 2. Immortality 3. God †¢ For a moral choice to be real we must be free to choose otherwise †¢ If there is no guarantee of reward for moral behaviour in this life there must be a future life in which the exact coincidence of happiness and morality can be brought about. †¢ The existence of these laws presupposes the existence of a law-giver and an agent to help us achieve what we cannot achieve on our own in this world : the exact coincidence of happiness and morality, How convincing are these arguments? As far as the argument from conscience is concerned modern critics argue that Freud’s explanation of the phenomenon of conscienceShow MoreRelatedAbortion : An Argument Of Moral Idealism1650 Words   |  7 Pagesdetermine what position Mill would been most likely to support on the topic of abortion. Joh Stuart Mill was a strong proponent, and indeed considered to be the father of, Utilitarianism. 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