God or moral nihilism? Most interesting philosophical essay

From Brussels Journal, Richard Cocks writes:

The Meno addresses the origins and nature of moral knowledge. Contemporary moral theories offer advice concerning how to act in difficult situations, but they typically do not address why one should be motivated to be good in the first place, sometimes described as the elephant in the room. They also do not adopt a moral realist position. Moral realism is the notion that moral right and wrong identify real properties of the world about which one can be correct and incorrect. This requires the existence of objective value in the world.

The common student belief is that morality is a purely human invention, rather than discovery. They tend to suppose that there is no objective fact of the matter concerning morality and that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are socially constructed. If you cannot be right or wrong concerning moral matters then this means there is no truth of the matter, morality is a mere fiction and moral nihilism is implied. What is important about this common student belief is their belief is a reflection of their social milieu. Their parents, teachers and friends hold similar beliefs.

As far as I can tell, the notion that morality is a social construction is held even by most professional moral philosophers. Rather than being coy, I am claiming to know why. The professors know that to posit objective value in a universe described by the scientific materialism that they are professionally required to endorse is impossible without appeal to the divine. The other smaller group of philosophers are post-modern relativists and they claim not to think that anything is objectively true. The scientific materialists and the relativists do not want to face the nullity of their moral position and they definitely do not want anything to do with the divine.

Many of my students claimed to enjoy reading the Meno, but that they were disappointed by the ending. They felt that all their hard work had gone unrewarded. Claiming that the right opinion that contributes to virtue is from the divine is a cheat and a cop out, as though Socrates is merely hoping to hide the fact that he has no real explanation.

My reaction to this is to write what follows. Partly, I wanted to prove that Socrates’ answer, far from being a cop out, is simply the truth and partly I wanted to confront the students with the consequences of the beliefs they have absorbed from their social milieu. I wanted to make it clear, in as stark a way as possible, that the only choice they have is between a recognition of the divine foundation of morality or moral nihilism. The complacent belief that atheism and morality are consistent is not true. You can be a moral atheist, but only at the expense of rational consistency and hypocrisy.

There's a lot more. Read it all. Excellent.