The Proper Basicality of Moral Values - Paul Copan文档.pdf

7  God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality Paul Copan French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain helped draft the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which recognizes “the inherent dignity” and “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” Further, it affirms: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” What is missing, though, is any foundation or basis for human dignity and rights. In light of the philosophical discussion behind the drafting of the Declara- tion, Maritain wrote: “We agree on these rights, providing we are not asked why. With the ‘why,’ the dispute begins.”1 The dispute about morality involves a host of questions about whether objective/universal moral values exist and whether humans have dignity and rights—and if so, what their source is. Are moral values emergent properties, supervening upon natural processes and social configurations, or are beliefs about moral values an adaptation hard-wired into human beings who, like other organisms, fight, feed, flee, and reproduce? Does God offer any metaphysical foundation for moral values and human dig- nity, or can a Platonic, Aristotelian, categorical imperative (Kantian), or Ideal Observer ethic adequately account for them? This essay argues, first , that objective moral values are an inescapable, properly basic bedrock. Moral subjectivism is inadequate to account for our fundamental intuitions, including ones about evil. Second, certain 141 142 the future of atheism naturalistic moral realists commonly confuse the order of knowing with the order of being. Since all humans are God’s image-bearers, it isn’t surprising t