Can we differentiate between “Atheists ought logically to be moral nihilists” and “If you are an atheist, you are necessarily a moral nihilist” ? I take you to mean the second of these, which is indeed plainly false.
The first of these statements is not obviously false. It is (epistemically) possible that there are no good non-religious grounds for moral realism (which is not to say that there are good religious grounds for it either). That said, I do wonder if Robertson actually believes it. If he ceased to believe in God, would he really start behaving “immorally” whenever it turned out to be in his self-interest?
I agree, but so far as I can see the strongest arguments against moral realism actually work just as well if there is a god as if there isn’t—unless you cheat by defining your god in a way that presupposes moral realism. That’s a common move, of course, and I’m sure it’s not generally intended as any kind of cheating, but none of that makes the argument “I have defined ‘God’ in a way that presupposes moral realism. It turns out that there aren’t good non-theistic arguments for moral realism, but if you define ‘God’ my way then it’s easy to deduce moral realism from his existence. Since we all know that moral realism is correct, this is evidence for God.” a good argument.
Can we differentiate between “Atheists ought logically to be moral nihilists” and “If you are an atheist, you are necessarily a moral nihilist” ? I take you to mean the second of these, which is indeed plainly false.
The first of these statements is not obviously false. It is (epistemically) possible that there are no good non-religious grounds for moral realism (which is not to say that there are good religious grounds for it either). That said, I do wonder if Robertson actually believes it. If he ceased to believe in God, would he really start behaving “immorally” whenever it turned out to be in his self-interest?
I agree, but so far as I can see the strongest arguments against moral realism actually work just as well if there is a god as if there isn’t—unless you cheat by defining your god in a way that presupposes moral realism. That’s a common move, of course, and I’m sure it’s not generally intended as any kind of cheating, but none of that makes the argument “I have defined ‘God’ in a way that presupposes moral realism. It turns out that there aren’t good non-theistic arguments for moral realism, but if you define ‘God’ my way then it’s easy to deduce moral realism from his existence. Since we all know that moral realism is correct, this is evidence for God.” a good argument.