Do people really think like this?

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, EV asks his "irreligious" readers a question: Many of your beliefs might flow logically (perhaps not syllogistically, but using logical argument) from other beliefs. But at some point, you must reach what one might call a moral axiom that you can’t logically demonstrate. You doubtless find this axiom appealing. Yet why do you accept it?

There's more, by way of background:

Now if you believed that there was a God who created the world, who was concerned with human affairs, who in some measure controlled access to a happy afterlife, and who made his will known by delivering a book that chronicled both his prescriptions and a list of miracles that he himself had performed, you might choose as an axiom “Do what God tells me to do.” This itself wouldn’t be an open and shut argument; but I think that, if the factual assertions behind it were accurate, it would have substantial plausibility.

But you don’t believe this. Why then do you order your life around some particular moral axiom that you can’t logically support, especially when disregarding this axiom could save you a lot of hassle? Or do you think that you can indeed logically support your choice of axiom, without calling on some other axioms that you can’t logically support — and, if so, how?

The Volokh post is here, if you want to read more.

Now, if I were a "religious" person, I think I'd be offended by Volokh's post's question. Do people really cling to the infantile belief that the Good is defined by God's orders?

Now, before I'm accused of being ultra-something-or-other, let me pose the question in a less provocative way. If right and wrong are defined by God's orders, merely, then God could change right and wrong tomorrow. God could tell us (setting aside the transmission mechanism) that no, indeed, theft is perfectly fine. Or that killing should not receive a stigma. Or that truthfulness is a vice. Given Volokh's premise, if God did this, then right and wrong would flip-flop.

Now, I don't think that most people these days, and certainly not most Christians, believe that God is this capricious and arbitrary. (There is an argument from the Old Testament, but let's stick with the New Testament for the time being.)

But does that mean that God's "orders" are right because they conform to some extra-deity source, "the Good" or "the Right" or somesuch idea? That would mean that God is not omnipotent. Because God can't just change the definition of right and wrong, there are limits to his power.

The problem, then, is once you posit an omnipotent God, which orthodox versions of Christianity do, you run into all kinds of paradoxes (or "mysteries"). I think that the source of right and wrong/good and evil is less confounding than others (the Trinity is a tough one, but the problem of evil is the worst of all). But it's a confounding question, nonetheless.

Now, one can rest assured with God's clear commands, if you want a really simple explanation for right and wrong, good and evil, for, say, four-year-olds. But even Catholic natural-law theorists try to explain God's rules in terms of God's purposes. The commands are not just arbitrary commands (although their solution just pushes the problem on step later in the chain, because God's purposes are either arbitrary or beyond his control, neither of which, again, is a satisfying result).

Where is this post going? My response to Volokh is that one can't ask the "irreligious" to answer a question that the "religious" really can't answer satisfactorily, either. No one has a good answer for the "why be good?" question.

Indeed, I'm with Richard Rorty here in thinking that moral and ethical philosophy went astray when Plato decided that it was essential to answer the amoral ramblings of a fictional sociopath, Thrasymachus. Do you ever sit around and ponder, "Hmm. Why do I follow the rules, treat other people with respect, avoid stealing, killing, try to be honest with others and myself?" "Why do I try to pull my fair share of the weight?" (If you do, I want to rethink my association with you, so let me know in the comments that you are a sociopath.)

Probably not, and certainly not at a high level of generality. (In other words, you might justify a particular misdeed to yourself, but you don't make a general practice of immoral behavior, even when you could get away with it. And I bet that you worry yourself over certain immoral acts you've committed, even if they have had minimal impact on others' lives.)

Now, of course, there are two things at issue here. One is moral psychology, which is concerned with why we behave morally. Moral psychology takes in socialization and other factors. So most of the time I behave morally because I was trained to do so. The other thing here is straightforward moral philosophy, why we should behave morally. My sense is that moral philosophy doesn't offer any knockdown, final answers to the question, "why be good?" But my sense is that that is not that big of a problem. I think that moral psychology can do most of the work and things can go on, well enough.

Many, many people disagree (and will disagree) with me on this question. But my basic point is that just believing in God, alone, doesn't smooth the road here. "Because God says so" may work for third graders, but it is as unsatisfying an answer as those you'll find if you read the comments of the irreligious trying to answer Volokh's question.

The leading explanation seems to be self-interest. I agree that, from a naturalistic point of view, self-interest will often dictate what we understand as moral behavior. But self-interest can't really answer some questions (why do men sometimes willingly sacrifice themselves in war, and how is doing so self-interested? in other words, why is running away from shared danger viewed as immoral?). It's not a universal answer to the question posed. But I don't think that there is one.