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Do you think naturalism holds an adequate basis for ethical values? Explain.
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No, I do not think naturalism holds an adequate basis for ethical values because a naturalist generally believes that a person’s purpose in life to continually create progress and advancement for the benefit of humanity. Within the naturalist worldview and framework, a naturalist could likely believe that making certain decisions could have a greater benefit on humanity.
For example, a naturalist may believe that the act of aborting children with disabilities (i.e., murdering children) could be justifiable, and even beneficial for mankind, in order to have only the strongest and most intelligent survive; this action could be justified in progressing the human race.
Ultimately, humanity needs to find there value system outside of themselves, otherwise, people will always create their own personal standard of ethical values, even those these beliefs could be evil and harmful toward self and others. Monotheistic belief, at the very least, provides a starting point for identifying transcendent, ethical values.
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Naturalist people believe in evolution. Their theory is that everything evolves in and out of existence and there is no God pulling the strings. I would have to disagree because we are still down here living and breathing in spite of man’s intend to control, oppress, and ruin all natural resources including mankind. Another point is the beautiful way the planets move around the Sun nothing falls or totter. The Earth spins from day to day perfectly each and every day and it revolve around the Sun perfectly each and every year, the point is, no one has to go out there and adjust or restart things ever. This is how I see divine.
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No, there is not absolute truth
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Without absolutes there is no way to define right from wrong. Moral and immoral. There must be an absolute to actually live a moral ethical life.
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For the naturalist, ethics is determined by what is good for the whole. The idea is that this world and this life is all that we have, so we must make it the best that we can. The problem is that we may have differing opinions on what makes this world and this life the best it can be. Because there is no objective ethical value, it is not adequate.