Moral Obligation - Part 6

I appreciate this debate between Hitchens and Wilson. Of course, I agree with Wilson, but I'm trying to understand Hitchens' position.

If I'm understanding him correctly, Hitchens is saying that morality has evolved over time and, like creatures, evolution - over time - has taken "nature" to higher levels; for example, from amoebae to homo sapiens. Similarly, morality is evolving, providing human beings with higher perspectives on what is right and wrong. We've moved on from cannibalism and slavery and one day we'll move on from genital mutilation and abortion. It's interesting, though, that regarding abortion, Hitchens mentions that it was condemned by Hippocrates long before Christianity came on the scene. But wait, Hitchens seems to suggest that abortion is wrong, but somehow - thousands of years later - the debate continues and most of the people in the US (at least among certain political persuasions) don't believe it violates human morality. How long will it take for everyone to agree? And while abortion seems to be wrong according to Hitchens' "innate human solidarity," that solidarity doesn't seem to have been impressed upon others. Why can't humans achieve moral solidarity? I think Hitchens died believing that one day our morality would evolve to achieve a universal understanding of the good.

In one sense, Wilson does agree with Hitchens. All humans - according to Romans 1 - do have an innate sense of God and morality, but they suppress it. It is suppressed because humans are dead in their sins and we are futile in our thoughts when we do not acknowledge God as Lord. And we will never achieve "innate human solidarity" when we are all following our own "gods": "...who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator...." To Wilson's point, without a transcendent standard, which innate morality is the right one? Has anyone experienced the solidarity in morality that Hitchens claims?

I do not want to dismiss Hitchens. He was a brilliant man and 10 time smarter than I am. I think he would say that morality is evolving and that morality is whatever is best for the preservation of the species. But how long will it take for humans to figure out if abortion is better or worse for the preservation of the species?

I think he painted himself in a corner by taking God out of the moral equation. "Innate human solidarity" was the best he could do. RIP.