Is everything permitted?: Moral values in a world without God

by Mark D. Linville

What about moral values in a world without God?

Genres: Philosophy

64 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Wayne Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there is no God, can anything really be right or wrong? For that matter, if there is no God, do we even have the grounds for saying that something is immoral or wicked? In this small book, part of the RZIM Critical Questions Series, Mark Linville, who received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently Professor of Philosophy at Atlanta Christian College, explores these questions. Some atheists, such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre would agree that without God, everything is permitted. But others, like Kai Nielsen, assert that we can have ethics without God.

Linville offers a crash course in the subject by looking at how some very influential ethicists have tried to posit a moral law apart from God's existence. He examines Thomas Hobbes’s conventionalism and its offspring, Ayn Rand’s egoism, Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, Immanuel Kant’s human dignity, and Charles Darwin’s evolutionary ethics. His conclusion is that no inherently sound theory of ethics seems compatible with naturalism, saying, “The moral point of view itself reflects the very nature of God and is therefore transcendent and objective rather than merely subjective and an instrument of survival.” Much of the argumentation may be a little over some folk’s heads, but people grappling with these issues will find this book beneficial.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very deep thought provoking book...liked it it's just very VERY heavy and hard to get through...