Abstract
I offer a new deductive formulation of the Moral Argument for the
existence of God which shows how one might argue for the conclusion
that, if one affirms moral realism (traditionally understood as a
metaethical view which acknowledges the existence of objective moral
truths), one should affirm theism. The new formulation shows that these
objective moral truths are either brute facts, or they are
metaphysically grounded in an impersonal entity, a non-divine personal
entity, or a divine personal entity i.e., God. I illustrate how the
alternatives to God can in principle be excluded based on the essential
characteristics of those alternative hypotheses and of certain objective
moral truths. I demonstrate that my deductive formulation is better
than other formulations, and that it is helpful for future work on the
Moral Argument.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 25–38 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | International Journal for Philosophy of Religion |
Volume | 93 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 23 Aug 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Feb 2023 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Philosophy
User-Defined Keywords
- Euthyphro dilemma
- Moral argument
- Moral obligation
- Moral ontology
- Theistic metaethics