Before answering: this is one of those questions where, even here on stackexchange, the answerers throw logic out the window, and where the upvotes/downvotes are reflections of ideological desires.
The (current) top two comments are examples of bad answers: one of them contains a logical fallacy called the appeal to hypocrisy, which is irrelevant to the question, and the other distastefully defines belief in God as "imaginative" and any non-naturalistic explanation for morality as "superstition." Such claims are obvously without justification, and no attempt to justify such claims is made either. These two answers have (currently) received the most upvotes because they're favorable to atheism.
As you see in my answer below, an exploration of atheistic beliefs yields that atheists can't morally condemn anything. Such a conclusion is very undesirable to atheists, so I expected that my answer would be downvoted despite being correct and unchallenged.
The answer: answering is difficult because of cakeism, the desire to hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time. Under atheism, there can be no such thing as objective moral good or evil, but only moral neutrality, moral absence, or subjective moral good and evil. The reason for this is that atheists themselves, in the attempt to adhere to the law of non-contradiction, are logically compelled to claim that morality is subjective instead of objective. So, atheists argue that morality is subjective, but as you've probably experienced, they also argue as if morality is objective (like when they ask why objective evil exists in the world), which is why I drew attention to cakeism.
When someone claims that X or Y is good/evil, they're asserting that moral good and evil transcend human opinion (i.e., they imply that standards of good and evil are out there somewhere written into the universe as absolutes, so to speak, and those standards are supposedly universal). A person who says that X or Y is good/evil is thus asserting that the world is providential, that humankind has a special and recognized place in reality, and that standards of good and evil were set with intent.
As you can gather from the above as well as from the link I've shared, atheism requires the denial of a transcendental foundation for morality, which is probably why atheists, when asked whence their moral standards originate, are logically compelled to ground their morality in the following two mundane concepts instead: evolution or society. Both of these concepts, however, don't justify morality in the objective sense. Evolution doesn't justify the appeal to moral absolutes because it's meant to be a chance-based explanation for (a part of) reality, and absolutes can't exist in a chance-based reality. In addition, evolution-based thinking implies that there's neither good nor evil but only nature as it is (in which "evil" is only everyday animal behavior that thus doesn't warrant the classification of evil), so this too imposes moral neutrality, or moral absence, at least in the objective sense. And the appeal to society is likewise unable to justify moral absolutes: society's moral standards aren't static but they differ in different geographical locations and have differed at different times in the same geographical locations, which raises the question of whose moral standards are "correct." Are the standards of "evil" societies from the past or present correct? Or are the standards of "good" societies of the past or present correct? And who defines (again objectively) which society deserves to be placed in which category? People who point out this problem will often provide something like the following example: modern moral standards could have been radically different if Nazi Germany had won the Second World War. Societal morality is ever-changing and thus it can't serve as a foundation against which to weigh moral actions in terms of correctness (i.e., whats wrong in society today might be right in society in the future, and vice versa).
So, before answering the problem of goodness (or raising the "problem" of evilness that is assumed to have been laid to rest), atheists must wonder whether they can discuss and define good or evil, and they must ponder on whether it's possible to believe in moral absolutes while rejecting moral absolutism.
The "you too" accusation: people often misinterpret the above ramifications as a theistic claim for moral superiority, which is understandable but it only serves to point out that atheistic moral judgments lack persuasive power, and it does so without making any assertions about theistic moral judgments. Many people unfortunately interpret it as follows: theistic morality is objective, whereas atheistic morality is merely subjective. For this reason, they often respond like the first two people that have responded to this answer--I've presented relevant parts of their responses below:
- "When I’m talking about theists I’m saying their morality is based on their subjective interpretation of what they believe to be objective."
- "as soon as you group more than one theist together - there is no 'objective morality' (as rigorously defined as implied here) for them either. ... you have to suppose the ... 'subjective view of objective X is objective', which, to put it succinctly, is BS."
Both of the persons who responded are asserting the same thing with different words: they're asserting that not just atheistic morality is subjective, but that theistic morality is subjective as well, hence the "you too" accusation.
It appears that people often respond in this manner because of their belief that the argument against subjective moral judgments hinges on whether other moral frameworks (particularly that of the person raising this argument) are objective or subjective, but that's not the case. The argument is valid regardless of the moral foundation of the person who raises it because the subject isn't whence morality originates but rather the ramifications of personally believing that it isn't transcendent and universal, which is what atheists tend to believe about morality. The atheistic moral framework suffers from an internal contradiction, so the argument would be valid even if the atheistic moral framework had been the only moral framework in existence.
The argument is a response to atheists who judge on moral grounds (e.g., by criticizing theistic beliefs as immoral, or by raising the problem of evil). It only serves to point out that the mere rejection of objective morality (which atheists tend to do) has ramifications that are incompatible with moral judgments (which atheists tend to make). If morality is merely subjective, then it's no more than a collection of opinions, so if subjective morality is normalized, then it's no more than a collection of opinions that shouldn't have been normalized. The argument serves to point out that people shouldn't participate in discussions that presuppose objective morality if they believe that morality isn't objective enough to be universally imposable, so atheists, who tend to reject objective morality, can't participate in discussions that presuppose objective morality.
The argument against subjective moral judgments doesn't serve to establish moral superiority, but it serves to point out that whoever rejects objective morality (regardless of whether or not that rejection is justified) has to suffer the consequence that their moral judgments are mere opinions that can't justifiably be imposed upon other people's preferences, and by which nothing can justifiably be judged. This is the primary thing that the argument serves to point out. It's not about whose morality is superior, but it's about the fact that atheists can't judge anything on moral grounds because they logically contradict themselves whenever they assert that X or Y is moral or immoral. It's more of a defense of theistic morality than it is an attack on atheistic morality, although it effectively presents atheistic morality as no more than a collection of opinions. Even if an atheist assumes that theistic morality is also a collection of opinions, it won't change the fact that atheistic morality is a collection of opinions. This is why the "you too" accusation is considered a fallacy, and it's why, in a response to one critic, I stated the following:
If morality is subjective under both theism and atheism, as you claim, then you haven't objectivized morality under atheism so my ... argumentation still stands.
To conclude, objective morality is required to claim that an action by another person is morally wrong, or that a religious practice or a part of its history is morally wrong. If morality is subjective (as atheists tend to claim), then moral judgments are the impositions of opinions onto others, as if those opinions are objective moral facts instead. This isn't an issue of whose morality is subjective and whose morality is objective; rather, the issue is that there's a contradiction in thinking that one's moral judgments are worth something in the objective sense if objective morality is simultaneously being rejected. I'm pointing out that it's contradictory to judge on moral grounds if objective morality is rejected at the same time. I hope this is understood, and I believe that this additional information is necessary because this argument is difficult to understand and perhaps more often misunderstood than understood.
