A Meaningless Distinction

I recall listening to an interview of William Lane Craig recently, where he explained how divine command theory really was an objective morality.  Critics have objected to this by pointing out that divine command theory is based on the opinion of a single individual, God, and thus cannot be said to be objective.

Dr.Craig responded that the morality came from the nature of God and not His opinion.  This doesn't seem to be a valid response.  Suppose I wanted to come up with an alternate form of morality and call it Bradley's command theory.  No one would consider it to be objective since it would all spring from my opinion.  However, I could simply refute this by pointing out that the moral and ethical values I was advocating came not from my opinion, but from my nature.

It seems to me that atheists could have something that has a better claim to being objective.  I say "could" because atheism does not require the acceptance of any particular moral code.  Atheism is compatible with certain moral and ethical values, and I believe that if you reject supernatural claims there will still be powerful arguments for considering certain actions to be blameworthy.

The property of being worthy of blame is something that we could say is as objective as many other claims that we consider objective, such as what constitutes good medicine or health.  In any case it doesn't depend on the opinion or nature of a single individual.

William Lane Craig acknowledged that the phenomenon that all humans have similar ideas about right and wrong could be explained by evolution, but that that would give us no reason why we should follow the code.  First, this has no bearing on the question.  He was arguing that the existence of common moral and ethical values shared by many different people in many different cultures provides evidence that there is an objective morality which would imply the existence of a lawgiver.  The fact that evolution accounts for the same phenomenon is not contradicted by evolution failing to give us a reason to follow that moral code.  It doesn't need to do this in order to convince us that it is a valid explanation of known facts.  The atheists have successfully provided an alternative explanation.

Second, the fact that large numbers of people are likely to find certain things wrong does give us a reason to follow the code.  We can easily provide reasons why people should find certain things wrong.  We will want to deter people from actions that are harmful to others and encourage them to act in ways that are helpful to others.  If we think of a moral or ethical code as a way of altering reputations, then there will be some codes that are objectively better than others.