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[[File:Richard Dawkins Stockholm.JPG|thumbnail|250px|right|[[Richard Dawkins]] ]]

[[File:Richard Dawkins Stockholm.JPG|thumbnail|250px|right|[[Richard Dawkins]] ]]

The author and poet Michael Robbins declares about the morality of [[New Atheism|new atheist]] [[Richard Dawkins]]:

The author and poet Michael Robbins declares about the morality of [[New Atheism|new atheist]] [[Richard Dawkins]]:

{{Cquote|[[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]]’s [[atheism]] is far from exultant—he is not crowing about the death of God, much as he despises [[Christianity]]. He understands how much has been lost, how much there is to lose.

{{Cquote|[[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]]’s [[atheism]] is far from exultant—he is not crowing about the death of [[God]], much as he despises [[Christianity]]. He understands how much has been lost, how much there is to lose.

. . . Nietzsche realized that the [[Enlightenment]] project to reconstruct morality from rational principles simply retained the character of Christian ethics without providing the foundational authority if the latter. Dispensing with his fantasy of the Übermensch, we are left with his dark diagnosis. To paraphrase the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, our moral vocabulary has lost the contexts from which its significance derived, and no amount of Dawkins-style hand-waving about altruistic genes will make the problem go away. (Indeed, the ridiculous belief that our genes determine everything about human behavior and culture is a symptom of this very problem.)

. . . Nietzsche realized that the [[Enlightenment]] project to reconstruct morality from rational principles simply retained the character of Christian ethics without providing the foundational authority if the latter. Dispensing with his fantasy of the Übermensch, we are left with his dark diagnosis. To paraphrase the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, our moral vocabulary has lost the contexts from which its significance derived, and no amount of Dawkins-style hand-waving about altruistic genes will make the problem go away. (Indeed, the ridiculous belief that our genes determine everything about human behavior and culture is a symptom of this very problem.)

The [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologetic]] article ''New Atheism’s Moral Meltdown'' indicates:  

The [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologetic]] article ''New Atheism’s Moral Meltdown'' indicates:  

{{Cquote|A little while ago, Jerry Coyne  replied to our critique of his approach to ethics. We’re not at all convinced by Coyne’s response, which essentially reduces to a rant about religious fundamentalism. Let us restate our case for the sake of clarity. Moral values seem quite at home in a theistic world-view; moral values do not fit in the New Atheist’s world-view. Therefore, any theist -be they merely a philosophical theist, or Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or Christian – has a better explanation for morality than Jerry Coyne, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins or their acolytes...

{{Cquote|A little while ago, Jerry Coyne  replied to our critique of his approach to ethics. We’re not at all convinced by Coyne’s response, which essentially reduces to a rant about religious fundamentalism. Let us restate our case for the sake of clarity. Moral values seem quite at home in a theistic world-view; moral values do not fit in the New Atheist’s world-view. Therefore, any theist -be they merely a philosophical theist, or Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or Christian – has a better explanation for morality than Jerry Coyne, [[Sam Harris]], Richard Dawkins or their acolytes...

To explain morality is to explain principles of value and conduct. There is a wide consensus that moral principles have at least five traits. They are obligatory– they tell us what we ought to do in a given situation; they guide our actions. Such obligations are overriding – they take precedence over other considerations, be they aesthetic, legal, or political. They are also universalizable –they apply to all who are in relevantly similar situations; if it is immoral for Coyne to “kick an innocent dog” then it is immoral for everyone “to kick an innocent dog.” If there is an exception to that rule – perhaps we might be allowed to kick an innocent dog to save its life – then the exception counts for everyone in a relevantly similar situation.

To explain morality is to explain principles of value and conduct. There is a wide consensus that moral principles have at least five traits. They are obligatory– they tell us what we ought to do in a given situation; they guide our actions. Such obligations are overriding – they take precedence over other considerations, be they aesthetic, legal, or political. They are also universalizable –they apply to all who are in relevantly similar situations; if it is immoral for Coyne to “kick an innocent dog” then it is immoral for everyone “to kick an innocent dog.” If there is an exception to that rule – perhaps we might be allowed to kick an innocent dog to save its life – then the exception counts for everyone in a relevantly similar situation.