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    If God guided the evolutionary process with the goal of c... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    If God guided the evolutionary process with the goal of creating morally significant creatures capable of relation with God, it would not be accidental that humans have largely correct moral beliefs

    Natural Theology
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.God would have as one of his goals the creation of morally significant human creatures capable of enjoying a relation with God
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    • 2.A God with that goal would ensure that humans have value beliefs that are largely correct
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    • 3.Under divine guidance, the alignment between human moral beliefs and objective moral truths would not be a matter of luck
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Evolutionary pressures select for fitness-enhancing beliefs, not truth-tracking ones, making moral belief accuracy compatible with purely naturalistic processes.
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    • 2.Sharon Street's 'Darwinian Dilemma' shows that if evolution shaped evaluative attitudes, those attitudes track reproductive fitness rather than mind-independent moral facts.
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    • 3.A divine guidance hypothesis is therefore not required to explain moral belief accuracy, rendering the theistic inference to best explanation redundant.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Persistent, cross-cultural moral disagreement on foundational questions—slavery, torture, obligations to outsiders—undermines the claim that humans have 'largely correct' moral beliefs.
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    • 2.A perfectly competent designer intending moral truth-tracking creatures would not produce populations with systematically incompatible foundational moral commitments across history.
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    • 3.The observed distribution of moral error and disagreement better fits unguided variation than a providentially calibrated epistemic endowment.
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    Topics

    Divine AttributesNatural Theology

    Key Terms

    Accidental (in philosophy)(as used in metaphysics and philosophy of religion)
    Something that happens by chance or coincidence, not because it was planned or designed to happen that way.
    Evolutionary process(as used in biology and philosophy of religion)
    The scientific explanation for how life on Earth has changed and developed over millions of years, with organisms adapting and new species arising from earlier ones.
    God(Classical theism; used to fix the referent of 'G' in the Bayesian formulation)
    An eternal, personal being of maximal power, knowledge, and goodness who created the universe
    Moral beliefs(in ethics)
    Your personal convictions about what is right and wrong, good and bad.
    Morally significant(in ethics)
    Having real meaning and importance in terms of what is right and wrong; actions that matter ethically.
    Theistic evolution(as an alternative to pure naturalism)
    The view that God exists and that evolution is the process through which God created life on Earth, rather than God creating species all at once.

    Connections

    1 topic

    Moral Responsibility1 linked

    Related

    A God with that goal would ensure that humans have value beliefs that are largel...A divine guidance hypothesis is therefore not required to explain moral belief a...A perfectly competent designer intending moral truth-tracking creatures would no...Evolutionary pressures select for fitness-enhancing beliefs, not truth-tracking ...

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: moral-arguments-god
    View source passageHide passage
    Street’s argument has also been challenged by such critics as Russ Shafer-Landau (2012). However, her argument, and similar arguments, have been acknowledged by some moral realists, such as David Enoch (2011) and Erik Wielenberg (2014) to pose a significant problem for their view. Enoch, for example, even though he offers a response to Street’s argument, evidently has some worries about the strength of his reply. Wielenberg, to avoid the criticism that in a non-theistic universe it would be extr
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    +5 moreShow less
    God would have as one of his goals the creation of morally significant human cre...Persistent, cross-cultural moral disagreement on foundational questions—slavery,...Sharon Street's 'Darwinian Dilemma' shows that if evolution shaped evaluative at...The observed distribution of moral error and disagreement better fits unguided v...Under divine guidance, the alignment between human moral beliefs and objective m...

    Similar

    A being with such intentions toward humans would have reason to create...83%God would have as one of his goals the creation of morally significant...82%Belief that the causal structure of nature is conducive to moral means...78%Under divine guidance, the alignment between human moral beliefs and o...78%
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit