Our last post says that the materialists’ explanation of morality is that morality helps human species to survive.
Allow me to make a subjective statement without elaborating any rational justification: It does not sound right to reduce compassion, love, and even hate to just means to increase our chances of survival!
Rationally, I think there are two aspects that the materialists need to include in their explanation to morality.
Firstly, they need to explain who gives humans the desire to keep the whole human species to survive. Please notice that I am not asking about the desire to keep the individual to survive, but the individuals’ desire to help the whole human species to survive! If everything can be reduced to materials only and nothing else, then what kind of energy, waves, or exotic material can create an individual’s desire to contribute to the whole species’ survival?
It seems to me that there is a logical problem. Morality is there to help the human species to survive. However, an individual’s desire to help the human species to survive is already a virtue, that fits perfectly into the category that we call “Morality”! How do we explain this kind of a priori “Morality”? Does an atom “born” to help the neighboring atoms to survive so that some atoms can exist? I think the answer is obvious.
I think it sounds more reasonable that each individual only cares about his or her own survival, at best, according to materialism. There is just no reason for any individuals to care about the others, not to mention the whole human race, if materialism is true.
My second objection to materialists’ explanation to morality is simpler than my first objection from above: there is simply nothing to support their argument. Instead of just telling or asserting that morality is there to help human species to survive, can materialists provide some support for their claim?
Can we proof experimentally that morality exists “in order to” help human species to survive? I do not believe so. Honestly, I have to admit that there cannot be any experimental proof for any religious explanation to morality either. The point that I want to make is that there is no reason to hold the materialists’ explanation to be superior to religious reasons. There is no proof.
We cannot prove experimentally materialists’ claim that morality is simply there to help human survive. Can we prove it from other perspectives or other branches of philosophy? I do not find any so far. It seems to me that materialists just have no other ways to explain morality. If their explanation is not right, then it poses a challenge to materialism.
