Time to scratch the old noggin.
You can also what this video on Dr. William Lane Craig’s website: here
No need to scratch my noggin seeing as Dr. Lane Craig has provided us with a transcript of his opening speech:
IS THE FOUNDATION OF MORALITY
NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL?Copyright William Lane Craig
Good evening! I want to begin by thanking the Center for Philosophy of Religion for inviting me to participate in this important debate. The question of the correct foundation for morality is one that is not only of academic interest but one which has enormous practical application for how we live our lives.
(read more @ The Text of my opening speech in the Harris debate)
Just in case the youtube video disappears, you can always listen to the audio @ Reasonable Faith
or directly here.Interesting little exchange between Peter Byron and William Lane Craig on facebook, reads as follows:
Peter Byron said:
“I hope it is clear that when I speak about “objective” moral truths, or about the “objective” causes of human well-being, I am not denying the necessarily subjective (i.e., experiential) component of the facts under discussion. I am certainly not claiming that moral truths exist independent of the experience of conscious beings—like the Platonic Form of the Good —or that certain actions are intrinsically wrong.
I am simply saying that, given that there are facts— real facts—to be known about how conscious creatures can experience the worst possible misery and the greatest possible well-being, it is objectively true to say that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, whether or not we can always answer these questions in practice.”
…what the? This is INSANE! Harris denies that objective moral facts exists… so he just redefines “the good” to be a thing science can study! This is BONKERS! He’s totally smoke-screening over the question of whether or not certain things are really good or evil. Sure, we can objectively claim that people have subjective moral experiences, but that just re-iterates the whole debate… are these subjective experiences ONLY subjective, or do they relate to the apprehension of something which is, ultimately, objective?
Oh Harris, oh my dear fellow (!!)
To which William Lane Craig replied:
Thank you for posting that key passage, Peter! The difficulty in interpreting Harris is that he seems to affirm contradictory positions, so one has to try to discern his intentions. Here’s how I interpret him: his clear intention is to affirm objective moral values and duties. Recall how he castigates the nihilists and relativists. He doesn’t want to be in their camp. So a charitable interpretation of the passage cited by Peter is that he rejects that values exist as platonic objects. Moreover, he rejects that actions are absolutely right/wrong independent of context. Plunging a knife into someone may be wrong if it’s done by an assailant but right if done by a surgeon. As an objectivist I would agree with him on both counts. So I take his position to be that objective moral values and duties do exist. I was interested to see if in the debate he would repudiate my interpretation of him. He clearly did not. So I take him to be a moral objectivist who defines “good” as “the well-being of conscious creatures.” Then my objections kick in at that point.
As well as an earlier comment by Jurgen Deck:
Dr.Craig, in your opening speech you concede that ” Dr. Harris and I agree that there are objective moral values and duties”. But in Harris’ book, he explicitly denies the objective existence of moral values. I haven’t read Harris’ book, but the author of this blog quotes Harris’s book in which he denies the existence of ontologically objective moral values and only argues for the epistemological objectivity of the explanation of subjective moral values ( Sam Harris and Moral Landscape @ Subversive Thinking )
My question to Dr.Craig is why did you concede Harris’ putative moral (ontological) realism, when actually he didn’t accept or believe in such a position at all? Even though you clearly won the debate, I think your concession helped Harris to affect a position that he doesn’t accept nor defend. A better strategy would have been to expose Harris’ moral (ontological) subjectivism in your opening speech and forcing him to accept the relativistic implications of that position.To which Dr. Lane Craig replied:
Jurgen, precisely because Harris in an objectivist one can challenge him to account for the existence of objective moral values and duties on atheism. If he were a subjectivist, I would have no objection to raise against him. We would then agree that if God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. My challenge to him as an atheist is to justify and explain the reality of objective values and duties in a naturalistic, deterministic universe.
(Now that should have ye all scratching you heads)
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