The Moral Argument

The Moral Argument for God's existence reasons from the existence of morality — objective moral values, the sense of moral obligation, and the voice of conscience — to the existence of God as the best explanation for these phenomena. Unlike the cosmological and design arguments, which argue from features of the physical world, the moral argument argues from features of human moral experience. This lesson examines the major formulations by Kant and Newman, the challenges from Freud and social conditioning, the Euthyphro dilemma, and the philosophical evaluation of whether morality truly requires God.

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Kant's Moral Argument

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy. Having demolished the ontological, cosmological, and design arguments in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant went on to develop his own moral argument for God's existence in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788).

The Moral Law