William Lane Craig Takes on Traeger here at ATP
Jeremiah Traeger wrote a piece some time back about evolution and morality entitled: "Evolution Is A Descriptive Model, Not A Prescriptive One". The crux of what Traeger is getting at is as follows:
Within a creationist worldview, our conscience, our culture, our family, our upbringing, and our moral code is part and parcel with the origin of our existence: a divine creator. It comes as no surprise, then, that one objection to evolution from creationists is a moral one. By taking away their perceived origin of existence, you also take away their moral source, and replace it with a system that appears cruel and merciless. To a creationist, it’s internally coherent to believe that an atheist’s moral code is simply whatever behavior evolution produces.
To be clear, evolution has given us a sense of moral intuition*. Evolution isn’t as simple as the strong beating out the weak; it selects fit populations within specific environments. Many fit populations include social species of animals (including us), and it is beneficial for those populations to select against antisocial behaviors. These include behaviors like cheating, stealing from, and killing other members of the population. By producing a social species, evolution has selected for behaviors that are predisposed towards helping other members of the species, strengthening the population as a whole.
Those, however, are instinctual behaviors. We can recognize that most humans have no drive to harm or kill each other on a regular basis. However, even as I strive to be the best person possible, I recognize that my impulses can easily lead me astray. It occurs to me more often than I’d like to lie to my advisor, cheat my coworkers, and walk away anonymously if I accidentally scratch a stranger’s car. Actions that harm fellow members of my species are well within the range of expected human behavior.
William Lane Craig and his "interviewer" at A Reasonable Faith have taken issue with the piece and discussed it in their piece "Darwinian Evolution and Morality". There are large areas of agreement in the rebuttal because WLC sees JT as building up a straw man of what theists think.
For example: KEVIN HARRIS: He says, “Among nonbelievers, there does appear to be a wide range of disagreement on moral issues.” He says, “I frequently find myself in the minority when I promote moral realism among fellow nonbelievers.” DR. CRAIG: I do think in the infidel community on the Internet there is a kind of widespread moral nihilism that is expressed by some of the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and others that there really are no objective moral values and duties and therefore you just bite the bullet and say that moral realism is false. Although that may be the minority view among this Internet subculture, among philosophers the majority view would be moral realism – they recognize that certain atrocities, for example, are clearly wrong, objectively wrong, and that certain things are morally good in an objective way. There I think Sam Harris is absolutely right that the objectivity of moral values and duties is starkly apparent, and that any defeaters for that belief fail. KEVIN HARRIS: He says, “Despite us [non-believers] disagreeing on ultimate moral foundations . . .” DR. CRAIG: And that’s the key there: what are the foundations? Go ahead. KEVIN HARRIS: “. . . many of us end up finding value in some very important moral concepts.” DR. CRAIG: Of course. Of course they do. How else could you live? KEVIN HARRIS:
We recognize that humans as a species wish to avoid suffering and death, and we have ways of eschewing both through naturalistic means. These have been developed through centuries of philosophical and ethical thought from religious and nonreligious thinkers alike.”
DR. CRAIG: Of course you figure out ways to avoid suffering and death. You wear your seat belt. You take medicines when you get sick. You try to eat healthy. You avoid taking unnecessary risks, and so forth. All of these would be naturalistic means by which you can avoid suffering and death. KEVIN HARRIS: He says, “I have never met an atheist who openly promoted appealing to evolution to make moral decisions.” DR. CRAIG: Exactly! So why is he arguing against this thesis that nobody holds to? KEVIN HARRIS: Is he misinterpreting what many say when they quote Michael Ruse or something? DR. CRAIG: I don’t think so, because Michael Ruse would be a prime example of an atheist who says you cannot take evolution to be prescriptive of what we ought to do. It would lead to barbarity and cruelty. So Ruse is very explicit about that. I suspect that here’s where Traeger gets it wrong. He thinks Christian apologists are arguing that atheists have to derive their values from evolution, and that therefore atheistic value systems are based on evolution. And that’s just not true. Nobody’s making that argument. I can’t think of anybody who’s made such a silly claim. KEVIN HARRIS: He goes on to say, “Biological evolution is a terrible model for how we should approach day-to-day behavior.” DR. CRAIG: Of course. KEVIN HARRIS: He says, “Developing a world where we minimize suffering remains a challenge for our species, but we might get there one day.” DR. CRAIG: Right. Now that’s a very practical question, but the question he still hasn’t addressed is: how does the atheist ground the moral values and duties that he wants to affirm? How is moral realism to be grounded on an atheistic view of reality? KEVIN HARRIS: We hear so often: anything that minimizes harm. “Harm” is the word. We don’t want to harm anyone. I don’t want to be harmed. You don’t want to be harmed. None of us want to be harmed. So our moral values are derived from whatever minimizes harm and suffering. DR. CRAIG: Yes, and again the question there is, obviously: why think that that does constitute the objective moral good? In fact, animals harm each other all the time, and on naturalism we’re just relatively evolved primates. So if harming others can help you get ahead, why is this objectively wrong? KEVIN HARRIS: And then what do you mean by harm? DR. CRAIG: Yes, and that’s inadequate as a moral theory in any case because it doesn’t give any positive value to doing things. Just avoiding harm doesn’t do anything to establish, for example, the moral value of love or sacrifice or giving. Avoiding harm is a pretty minimal ethic when you think about it. I do want to hit one more point. He says,
Most readers of this blog can recognize easily that religions are robust only in the sense that they have found a social niche and have firmly grown roots. This says nothing about their truth value . . .
Now, obviously, he’s speaking here to his own atheistic in-crowd because it’s far from obvious that the only sense in which religions are robust is that they fill a social niche and are firmly entrenched. They have good arguments and evidence in support of their theism. I would say that they are robust in precisely the sense that atheism is not – namely theism provides a sound foundation for the objectivity of moral values and duties where nothing in this blog has said anything about how the atheist is going to meet the challenge of grounding the objectivity of the moral values and duties that we all want to affirm. KEVIN HARRIS: The last paragraph, “Fortunately, when it comes to morality, most atheists appeal to something beyond evolved behavior.” DR. CRAIG: That is indeed fortunate! KEVIN HARRIS: “Whether it’s a deontological set of moral rights or an appeal to positive or negative consequences, we don’t need to consult chaotic natural predation to have a firm moral foundation.” DR. CRAIG: We certainly don’t need to consult chaotic natural predation for such a foundation; indeed that would be a fool’s mission. But he has yet to show us that the naturalist can establish deontological set of moral rights or some sort of justification in terms of positive and negative consequences.[3] [JP] Take a look at the source materials and let me know what you think.