Demonstrations of the existence of the spirit (Part 5):

The argument of moral judgments

1. It is observed in the man the ability to perform moral judgments, ie the ability to distinguish between
good and evil: All men, in all times and places, have done some way or another such assessments. In fact
there is no society in which there has been, in some form, certain moral codes. Whether in the Tables of the
Law of the Jews, the Code of Hammurabi of the Chaldees-Assyrians or “ama llulla, ama quella and ama sua”
of the Incas, men have always done distinctions in terms of good-bad. And the most curious thing is that
they do such distinctions seeing them as having some objectivity and transcendence. As Chesterton said,
“the morality don’t begin with a man telling another man: “I will not hit you if you do not hit me”, there is
no vestiges of such transaction. Rather, there are vestiges of that the two men said: “In the sacred place, we
should not beat each other”” (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Ed Porrua, Mexico, 1998, p. 40).

2. But if man were nothing but matter could not in no way perform such distinctions, let alone perceiving
them as objective because the natural world is just purely and simply amoral: If man were merely a
material would be absurd to think of him as a moral agent. Indeed, in nature there is no such thing as should
be, it just is. In other words, nature is amoral. As William Lane Craig says: “When a lion kills a zebra, it kills
the zebra, but it doesn’t murder the zebra. When a great white shark forcibly copulates with a female, it
forcibly copulates with her but it doesn’t rape her for none of these actions is forbidden or obligatory. There
is no moral dimension to these actions” (William Lane Craig, “Is the moral foundation of natural or
supernatural?”, debate against Sam Harris, held at the University of Notre Dame on April 7, 2011, opening
speech). The man, however, they can murder and rape. He himself is constituted as a moral agent.

3. Consequently, it should be immaterial ontological substrate that allows him to do it: Since the single-
subject can not sustain the ability of man to make moral judgments (independently of whether they are
correct or arbitrary) will be necessary to postulate the existence of an ontological substrate or intangible
quality in man that enables him to do this.

4. This immaterial ontological substrate is which we all know by the name of spirit: It is because of the
powers of intellect and will that the spirit can judge and deliberate. But those are precisely the elements of the
capacity of moral agency. It is therefore plausible to think that the ontological substrate or intangible quality
to which we have referred is what we call “spirit”.

5. Therefore, the spirit exists: Well established premises, this is the conclusion.