Conversation with Hitler on Morality
June 30th, 2009 | 
Author: Interesting discussion on morality from a youtube vlogger. Most memorable quote is at the very end of the video,
The problem is not that people don’t believe in objective morality, the problem is… that they do.
That is, the problem is that so many people THINK they know what objective morality is and are unwilling to rethink their position because they think it is from God.
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Posted in Christianity, God, Morality, Philosophy, Videos | 
Tags: atheism, bible, God, hitler, Morality, objective moral values, youtube
5 Responses to “Conversation with Hitler on Morality”
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Meh – this guy is kind of off-base. It’s pretty easy to see that God is not on Hitler’s side. It’s less easy to see whether God is on the Pope’s side or on the Saddleback guy’s side – but I think it is possible either way.
I think he is confused about what objective morality means; objective morality means that there is an objective morality we can know. It doesn’t mean that “because I believe in an objective morality, my morals are correct.”
It’s difficult to say if Hitler really believed in everything he said but even if he did believe in an objective morality it is clear that he was wrong about what it was. I believe that more appropriately he justified his very subjective beliefs – like lots of folks do.
The problem is not that people believe in an objective morality. It’s that they believe in the wrong one. If there is an objective morality, there’s only one. The world gets a lot scarier when you give up on an objective morality and start letting groups of people define their own morals. That sounds like an exercise in tolerance, but excuse me while I remain completely intolerant of genocide and religious oppression.
I think the biggest thing that the guy in the video is pointing out is not even that people believe in objective morality. I think that he believes in objective morality himself if I hear him correctly. What he is saying is that the biggest problem is that people believe that their view of objective morality is prescribed by God and that they know this for a fact. What it really comes down to is a question of epistemology and how we know what we know about morality. For the person who argues that God has definitively spoken and told us what is objectively moral, the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate this to be the case. So for the Christian, it all comes down to “how do you KNOW the Bible is true”. But it goes farther than that. How do you know that your view of the Bible is true and that you are correctly interpreting it? The Catholics would say that you need an infallible interpreter of the text and that is the Church. Protestants believe that any regular joe can just pick it up and read it for themselves and yet we have over 38,000 different protestant denominations who all think they have it right. many of them may agree on some main points of doctrine but HUGE portions of them do not agree even on the apostles creed.
Hey man, thanks for responding.
Maybe a question would illustrate better what I’m talking about:
1) Jim says that God, the absolute author of morality, told him he should murder a bunch of people, so he does.
2) Joe says that personal pleasure is the determiner of morality (personal utilitarian), and killing folks makes him feel good, so he does.
Given these two options, which is worse?
Rhetorical of course, because both of them are equally wrong (Even to a Christian, as they are both idolaters as well as murderers).
Everyone believes that morality is prescribed by X and they know it for a fact, regardless of what they claim – X is dependent on their view of the universe. It might duty, personal happiness, collective happiness, Buddha, whatever, but in order to take action you have to have a belief about what action is right and what is wrong.
What I want to know is, how is this guy’s view of morality any better than an unsubstantiated belief in God? I’d be willing to bet it’s either at least as inconsistent as your average believer’s when it comes down to it, and he’ll be just as unwilling to change it (unless it’s what pleases him).
Note: I do not argue that it’s good to hold an inconsistent belief, just that it’s pretty silly to say “my inconsistent belief system is better than your inconsistent belief system.”
More plainly spoken maybe:
Everyone holds beliefs – claiming not to have one is inconsistent because everyone just make value judgments, and in order to do so we must place value on something. The burden of proof is on everyone who has beliefs, not just those who believe in God.
Saying “I don’t believe in God” still begs the question, “What do you believe in?” because the argument is not about whether there is a God.
It’s about answering the question, “What should we do?”
sorry for not responding sooner.
I agree it is all about beliefs and we all bear the burden of proof for what our beliefs are. But the person who makes a truth claim about God (who we cannot see or talk to or hear our touch) bears a stronger burden of proof than the person making a truth claim about there being crackers in the pantry. Both are truth claims but each requires a different level of proof. And if the person making the truth claim about God says that not only does this God exist but that God has told them X or Y, they they requirement for proof goes up even higher since we are all not experiencing that same thing. This is especially important when the truth claim about God is followed up by actions like flying a 747 into a building.
The naturalist needs to account for an explain their morality as well but a appeal to natural causes is much easier to demonstrate and prove than an appeal to a deity that nobody can see. Not to say that the deity does not exist, just that demonstrating that seems to be pretty difficult.