Probably not completely – but I suspect it’s peaked this time round. (These things tend to go in cycles).
Why? Well, to start with, the odds are stacked against it. A few posts back I wrote about some of the things that atheists like to forget. Most people are not aware of the details, of course. Even so, there is some suspicion of atheists as simply killjoys. Atheism starts from a built-in disadvantage.
Another reason is that although a lot of people have no time for organised religion, most believe in something – a force behind the universe or whatever. So they cannot really call themselves atheists, often sheltering behind the title ‘agnostic’. But agnosticism doesn’t have much of a cutting edge compared to the dogmatism of Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett.
Most of all, though, I think we are entering one of those periods of moral seriousness that happens now and again. It is fairly obvious that the various cultural groups that we lump together as ‘Western Civilisation’ have some issues to square up to. Social and economic problems make the headlines very day.
It cannot be long before the idea gets around that such problems are largely connected with the lack of a convincing moral framework within which people feel they should live. Such a framework has never arisen from atheism, quite the opposite. Atheism has mostly been used to justify abandoning moral frameworks. David Hume (who would qualify as a saint if atheists believed in sainthood) famously claimed that you can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’.
As the idea of morality makes a come back, it will grow more and more obvious that although we may not want fanaticism, nor perhaps many of the structures of conventional religion, we do need a faith that puts a few oughts back into life.
Mark Silversides 
The is to an ought conundrum (or the naturalistic fallacy) is actually a fallacy. There are two clear reasons as to why:
If God tell you what you OUGHT to do, this IS merely God’s claim. Why OUGHT you follow it? How do you get from this IS God’s command to I OUGHT to do this?
(A similar, although more nebulous, contention lies with the deist: how do you get from promises of eternal life, or a consciousness behind the universe as an IS to any sort of an OUGHT?)
The second reason is that an OUGHT is a way to get from any actual IS to any preferred IS. By analogy; if an IS is a dot, then an OUGHT is a line that joins that actual IS to a potential IS.
“As the idea of morality makes a come back”
Morality does not need a comeback. It’s here. It doesn’t match up with bronze-age morality that is seen in the Bible, but it’s here. And we’re better for it.
As far as I can see the morality expressed in the Bible develops. What do you mean by the ‘bronze-age morality that is seen in the Bible’?
I agree that saying “God is…” or “God says…” does not logically lead on to “Therefore I ought…” and I also agree about the shortcoming of deism that you point out. It’s perfectly consistent to say there is no God AND no objective morality. Or to say that there is a God and a morality but it need not apply to me. What I find difficult is the claim that there is an objective morality apart from a belief in God, which appears to be the claim of most atheists.
I’m not convinced of the assumption that a belief in God necessarily allows for objective morality.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that belief in God in itself allows an objective morality but does not demand it – after all, God could be capricious. To say that he is not capricious would need other evidence in support (and I believe there is such evidence).
That does not, however, cancel out my basic point, that if we say there is no God then we cannot say there is an objective morality.
Thanks for making your point!
In all seriousness, why not? I can entertain the idea that if there isn’t a God, an objective morality doesn’t exist that we are attempting to figure out – we won’t find the “holy grail” of a list of rules that define exactly what we are supposed to do every moment. However, in practical terms, theists just don’t agree on morality at all. That avenue for attempting the find an absolute morality has failed. It ironically tend to lead to conflict over what that morality is supposed to be and actions by religious groups that secular ethicists almost unanimously condemn on no other basis than that they are counter to a natural tendency toward a healthy development of empathy, socialization, and identifying with other people and sometimes animals (to avoid extreme “othering” that allows the psyche to disengage empathy). I mean, arguably much of the morality that is found in the bible is some-what based on Confucianism which was non-theistic (or at least the fundamentals are consistent).
I have no doubt that there is a natural morality, though I don’t see the evidence that people by nature follow that, quite the opposite. I don’t see how we could claim that they should without also claiming that there is a God who is the ultimate authority on the matter.
Why can’t we simply claim that they “should” in order to realize shared goals – such as peace, increased knowledge, happiness, etc? Why do we need a God to punish them when there are tangible benefits to a society to follow certain ethical standards (such as honesty, cooperation, caring, respect for property, autonomy, husbandry etc)? We can discuss what standards are good for the individual and good for society, are psychologically sound as well as practical – we can have all those discussions, but if all we discuss is what our preferred book says, it seems that the real discussions of balance, realism and idealism, all those discussion are completely short-circuited and never actually take place. How many parents tell their children how to behave with no other explanation than – because I said so. That type of avenue toward a system of ethics and of morality leaves us in our infancy – and is a hollow monolithic foundation that easily disintegrates when exposed to open questioning and examination. “Because I said so” – is not a reason.
Any method by which you can define what the preferred potential IS (ppIS) is can give you an objective OUGHT.
And you can define the ppIS any which way, but each one gets a different name, observe:
If the ppIS is to get into heaven we’re talking about a theodicy.
If the ppIS is to control people we’re talking about leadership.
If the ppIS is to safeguard the wellbeing wellbeing of consciousnesses we’re talking about morality.
Each of these can get you an OUGHT from an IS and a ppIS, and it’s objective. Obviously we can have a philosophical argument about which ppIS is best, but there is a ppIS that is morality.
So we can play defining games all we like, but each ppIS has an objective and non-dependent truth about them. That is how we get morality (and even theodicy) without ever having to call on a god.
So how do we objectively decide what the preferred potential for a human life is to be? You’re just pushing hte problem back a stage.
That bit is not objective. But it doesn’t need to be.
We can call methods of aiming towards the ppIS with maximum conscious wellbeing morality (and this is not a definition dissimilar from what people tend to mean when they say morality) and *poof* morality is objective.
If you think we require objective reasoning to value it as well then I have to ask what the objective cause for valuing morality on the theistic stance is.
I’m not calling a stalemate on the point, I literally think that asking for an objective reasoning for a valued preference is silly.
Surely we are, as a whole, just aiming for the happier society and individuals and that is what morality is.
I’m not just pushing the problem back a stage. Morality is objective (that’s my point) whether you chose it is a values call. But you can, by the model I’ve offered, definitely call a decision morally good or bad objectively.
This is why I included theodicy. There are religious commands that fit into the theodicy ppIS that do not fit into the morality ppIS.
It’s no different from reading a map. You chose where to go. The directions (and whether or not they get you to the destination) are entirely objective.
The point is that one destination is morality, and its route objective. The other destination is theodicy, and its route too is objective. The fact of the matter is that en route they share a lot of the same streets too, but the destination is not identical.
My blog (allalltor.wordpress.com) does deal with issues like this a lot. If you’re interested come and have a look.