ADAMS’S
DEMORALIZATION ARGUMENT
Immanuel Kant’s Moral Argument for the Existence of God (p. 121):
(A) We ought (morally) to promote the realization of the
highest good.
(B) What we ought to do must be possible for us to do.
(“Ought implies can.”)
(C) It is not possible for us to promote the realization of
the highest good unless there exits a God who makes the realization possible.
Therefore:
(D) There exists such a God.
According to Kant, (C) is true because the happiness of moral agents in proportion
to their virtue cannot be expected to be realized by the laws of nature –
a Divine Agent is required to mete out justice in the end.
Adams’s Objection: A reasonable morality will only require of us
that we promote the best possible approximation to the highest good: (A) is
therefore probably not true.
Adams’s Demoralization Argument (Intended to be only inductively strong).
(page 121).
(E) It would be demoralizing not to believe there is a moral
order of the universe, for then would have to regard it as very likely that the
history of the universe will not be good on the whole, no matter what we do.
(F) Demoralization is morally undesirable.
(G) Therefore, there is a moral advantage in believing that
there is a moral order of the universe.
(H) Theism provides the most adequate theory of a moral order
of the universe.
(J) Therefore, there is a moral advantage to accepting
theism.