Atheism and Theism 31necessary. Similar questions will be taken up in the next section, on the
cosmological argument for the existence of God, the argument from the con-
tingency of the world.
How could it be that ‘It is good that the universe is as it is’explains‘The
universe is as it is’? The latter statement does not follow from the first, and so
there must be a hidden auxiliary premiss. Such a premiss could be ‘Because
there is an omnipotent being who desires that the world be good’. (On a non-
cognitivist theory of ethical language according to which ultimate ethical
principles are expressions of desire or attitude the extra premiss would reduce
to ‘Because there is an omnipotent being who desires that it is as it is’.) Such
explanations bring us back to a more familiar type of theism.
Leslie’s axiarchism presupposes an objectivist theory of ethics. If one is (as
I am with inessential qualifications) some sort of non-cognitivist about ethical
language, so that ultimate ethical principles are the expressions of an overrid-
ing attitude, then of course extreme axiarchism falls to the ground. So also
with some contemporary objectivist theories according to which ultimate ethical
properties are natural ones, though they are, as David Wiggins put it, ‘lit up’
by our emotive attitudes.^54 Certainly our innate attitudes may lead us to
notice certain natural properties or combinations of properties. Thus it may
perhaps be (I do not know whether it is) that we are innately programmed to
notice snakes. It is, however, true that this sort of predisposition often leads
to error, as when we take a stick or piece of rope to be a snake. In any case it
seems to me that such a theory of ethics has at least some of the difficulties of
both naturalism and emotivism. I doubt whether there is anyplausible theory
of ethics that will support Leslie’s extreme axiarchism. For example, ethical
subjectivism clearly will not do, nor does a theory based on what an impartial
spectator would feel, or perhaps a view that the correct ethical principles are
those on which impartial spectators would converge in attitude if they knew
enough facts. (I myself am sceptical of the possibility of such convergence –
consider the lack of rapport between, say, utilitarians and Kantian ‘respect for
persons’ moralists.)
In any case it seems to me that considerations of sociobiology and of
anthropology suggest the plausibility of some sort of subjectivist or non-
cognitivist theory of the nature of ethics. There does seem to be a genetic
basis for a limited altruism. There must be cultural influences too, and cultures
also undergo a sort of natural selection which would favour a limited altruism.
For example, tribes of people who looked after one another would do well
against less altruistic ones. In addition we must not forget the activities of
moral reformers with wider sympathies and universalistic bent who push
ethics further into what Peter Singer has called ‘the expanding circle’.^55 This
anthropological and sociobiological way of looking at ethics seems to remove
its transcendent appearance and makes less plausible the idea of a creative