Michael Gerson has an article in the WaPo which argues that atheists are unable to explain how someone is moral without their being some theistic intervention in the natural world; acknowledged by the individual or not. Gerson discredits Kantian morality and Bentham's utilitarianism in coming to the conclusion that without understanding that the moral qualities of "love, harmony and sympathy" flow through God as creator then morality becomes a cruel joke of nature and is deprived of goodness or moral quality.

The core question Gerson asks is:

So the dilemma is this: How do we choose between good and bad instincts? Theism, for several millennia, has given one answer: We should cultivate the better angels of our nature because the God we love and respect requires it. While many of us fall tragically short, the ideal remains.

Atheism provides no answer to this dilemma. It cannot reply: "Obey your evolutionary instincts" because those instincts are conflicted. "Respect your brain chemistry" or "follow your mental wiring" don't seem very compelling either. It would be perfectly rational for someone to respond: "To hell with my wiring and your socialization, I'm going to do whatever I please." C.S. Lewis put the argument this way: "When all that says 'it is good' has been debunked, what says 'I want' remains."

Because atheism does not recognise a god, creator or an omniprescient entity, then it cannot understand good, only want. Gerson is arguing that atheists understand only selfishness, and not selflessness. For Gerson this does not stop atheists acting morally, but the consequence is:

Atheists can be good people; they just have no objective way to judge the conduct of those who are not.

Kantian morality and Benthem's utilitarianism both cover that aspect. Kant argues that reason makes an individual capable of seeing and understanding the 'supreme good'. Kant writes:

For reason recognizes the establishment of a good will as its highest practical destination.

Reason does not prohibit the understanding of moral attitudes and actions of others. According to Kant, the better developed an individuals reason, then the better capable they are of judging moral acts; and not necessarily their own.

So Gerson's argument is that an atheists ability to reason is absolutely selfish and only knowledge of god enables selflessness. Kant's morality disproves this, as it only requires one atheist to reason whether another has acted morally or immorally to make Gerson's conclusion false.

As an example, South Sea Republic focuses heavily on the morality of republicanism and the morality of democracy. Which Avocadia described in the past as having to serve the 'morality of liberty'. We spend a lot of time discussing what are immoral acts toward republican governance, of which tyranny is the most immoral.

This is not unique to South Sea Republic, Australian Republicans such as Dan Deniehy and Charles Harpur rooted their republicanism in the morality of liberty. In this environment if an atheist is capable of recognising tyranny and reasoning its destructive conclusion, then an atheist is just as capable of moral understanding in a social, cultural, economic and political environment as a theist is.

Gerson's other argument for atheism's inherent limited moral faculties is that:

In a world without God, however, this desire for love and purpose is a cruel joke of nature -- imprinted by evolution, but destined for disappointment, just as we are destined for oblivion, on a planet that will be consumed by fire before the sun grows dim and cold.

Gerson is arguing that materialism equates to immorality, and that theism's faith in God and presumably the infinite space of heaven, allows the theist to understand the immorality of materialism and atheism; where an atheist who has reasoned there is no valid proof for a supernatural being cannot.

Theism undeniably has a blind spot for reason. The thesis that atheists cannot recognise immorality in others must necessarily skip past the capability of atheists to reason.

More: Discussion at HuSi and x-posted to Gary Sauer-Thompson's website. Interesting discussion at Rebecca Hartong's site too.

Update: It appears Gerson was trolling. Hitchens has replied with polemics.

Ricky Gervais has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about atheism and asks;

But what are atheists really being accused of?

Atheism isn't an issue in Australia. Very few people are religious and most people speak openly derisively of religion. This is true of most industrial nations - other than the US. In the United States religiousness is very strong, particularly on the East Coast.

The main issue with religion in America is that people assume that morality flows from your relationship with god. The more devout, the greater the morality. Atheism poses a problem in this rationality as no faith in god means the absence of morality. Forget intellectual fancies like nihilism; atheists are amoral, incapable of being moral and hence subhuman.

It isn't pleasant for moderate atheists and as a consequence they tend to palm things off as "not being religious" rather than stating they are atheists. The simple fact is that atheists are moral as well and knowledge of god or a close relationship with god is not the determinant for an individual's morality.