A crowd of questioners and lecturers gathered Monday night in McCool Hall’s Taylor Auditorium to discuss the sources and concepts of morality.
The Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers Student Association and the Christian Faculty Forum jointly sponsored the discussion.
Physics and astronomy professor John Lestrade, adviser to the AAFSA, said the purpose of the discussion was to have an open dialogue so people could see different points of view.
“In all the pre-discussions, we talked about this being not a debate, but a discussion,” he said. “We didn’t want to argue, because you can’t have a winner and a loser when you talk about people’s viewpoints, their worldviews of how things are. Nobody loses in that.”
Robert Allen, a research associate for the College of Veterinary Medicine, represented the CFF and Yolanda Estes, associate professor of philosophy and religion, represented the AAFSA. Philosophy and religion instructor Albert Bisson moderated the discussion.
Both sides agreed to define morality as one’s concept of right and wrong and good and bad. Allen said the concept of good and bad are defined according to the Judeo-Christian God.
“Right and good are what they are because God designed the universe to somehow have those moral features,” he said. “God tells us that it is impossible for him to lie, or to commit any kind of sin, so we have the double assurance that the moral code he gave us is true, absolute, objective and totally reliable.”
Estes said there are many different general concepts, principles or laws that can be used to determine moral rules.
“Any of these might be conceived as articulations of the divine will,” she said. “Some of these include the concept of the good, of the good life, the principle of utility or the general happiness principle, the moral law or the categorical imperative, all moral principles that are taken as fundamental to various influential moral theories.”
She said none of these simply dictates specific content of moral action.
“Determining the content of moral action – what specifically we ought to do – requires reflection on the meaning, on the implications of our moral concepts, principles or laws,” she said. “The end point of this reflection must be determined by conscience, and these moral rules themselves provide more motive for morality.”
Professor and director of chemical engineering Mark White, adviser to the CFF, said the arguments were well conceived and developed.
“It’s clear that when they go off their prepared text, things are a little less polished,” he said. “I am not making that comment in a negative or derogatory way, I just felt like that was the real challenge is to respond extemporaneously, and I felt both of the people prepared well and I felt like they both did a good job of responding extemporaneously.”
In the question and answer session after the main discussion, veterinary science graduate student Simon Ledouble asked Allen how people could trust their interpretations of the Bible if humans are fallible.
“There have been more than 300 Christian sects; each think they are right,” he said. “Christians range from Martin Luther King to Adolf Hitler, so obviously you have a lot of different interpretations.”
He said the time allowed for answers, one minute, was too short.
“I think that was a bit overoptimistic, really,” Ledouble said. “I would have given more time for each individual answer.”
Mechanical engineering sophomore Tom Stockman asked Estes what is the difference between an entirely relative view of morality that is subject to change, and her view of morality, which is based on internal reflections.
“I think my question was a little too loaded to answer in a minute,” he said. “I think she did her best, and I think she may have forgotten the second part because she referenced my question later and it was misquoted.”
Stockman said as a Christian, his views were not changed, but he was somewhat disappointed in Allen’s presentation of the Christian perspective.
“I felt like he was perhaps more abrasive than I would have been, and I thought the PowerPoint was cheesy,” he said. “I felt like Dr. Estes did a fair job of explaining her point well and she did it humbly, which is something that I really appreciated.”