The moral argument purports to show that evidence from our moral experience supports the existence of God. From the 1970s onward, various forms of the moral argument have been developed by many philosophers. While defenders argue with increased sophistication, they also tend to make more modest claims about the force of the moral argument.

Moral Arguments as Abductive and Cumulative Arguments

If the moral argument is construed as a deductive argument that moves from, say, the objectivity of moral values to the existence of God, then to rebut the argument, the critic needs to show only that the objectivity of moral values and the nonexistence of God are logically compatible. This is a relatively easy task. However, developments in epistemology and philosophy of science since the 1960s lead many to think that it is...