The transcript:
Justin Brierley: When you make a value judgement don't you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good. And you don't have any way to stand on that statement.
Richard Dawkins: My value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.
Justin Brierley: So therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, it doesn't in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.
Justin Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.
The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. Michael Ruse, The Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics, in the Darwinian Paradigm (pp. 262-269. Emphasis in blue added.)
Or naturalist and philosopher of biology Alex Rosenberg: "One source of meaning on which many have relied is the intrinsic value, in particular the moral value, of human life. People have also sought moral rules, codes, principles which are supposed to distinguish us from merely biological critters whose lives lack (as much) meaning or value (as ours)... Scientism must reject all of these straws that people have grasped, and it’s not hard to show why. Science has to be nihilistic about ethics and morality. Alex Rosenberg, in his article "The Disenchanted Naturalistic Guide to Reality". Emphasis in blue added.
Richard Dawkins: My value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.
Justin Brierley: So therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, it doesn't in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.
Justin Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six.
Richard Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.
End of the transcript.
Compare with naturalist and philosopher of biology Michael Ruse:
The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. Michael Ruse, The Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics, in the Darwinian Paradigm (pp. 262-269. Emphasis in blue added.)
Or naturalist and philosopher of biology Alex Rosenberg: "One source of meaning on which many have relied is the intrinsic value, in particular the moral value, of human life. People have also sought moral rules, codes, principles which are supposed to distinguish us from merely biological critters whose lives lack (as much) meaning or value (as ours)... Scientism must reject all of these straws that people have grasped, and it’s not hard to show why. Science has to be nihilistic about ethics and morality. Alex Rosenberg, in his article "The Disenchanted Naturalistic Guide to Reality". Emphasis in blue added.
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