Real-World Morality
Secular Right’s readers have been raising the hoary “without God, no morality” topos again:
The problem with creating a notion of “secular authority” is that you run into . . . the “great sez who?” Eventually, without a belief in a transcendent moral order . . . appeals to authority eventually are futile. . . . Maybe two or three generations can feed off of the inherited patrimony of the civilization without embracing its underlying ethos, but eventually that patrimony gets exhausted and the “grand sez who?” phenomenon sets in.
Would someone please provide an actual example of such endless moral regress without the God trump card? If I may borrow a phrase from my misspent youth, it seems to me that we are “always already” embedded in a moral environment far more complex and sophisticated than the blunt pronouncements of the Ten Commandments (i.e., those not commanding obsequiousness before God). The question of some original source beyond human law and custom for our most basic principles, in my experience, never comes up.
Would someone please provide an example of
a. someone actually claiming that murder, say, (or theft) is fine at all times and places, or
b. someone claiming that murder (or theft) is fine at all times and places because there is no God, or
c. someone claiming that murder (or theft) is fine at all times and places because there is no God, and then being recalled to sanity by an invocation of the Sixth (or Eighth) Commandment?
I have simply never witnessed the need to reference to God to establish the validity of our laws against extortion, say. Real-world moral disputes are more complicated: Is health care a right? Who should pay for it and how much should one group pay for another’s health care? Is economic regulation theft? Is theft admissible to stave off starvation? We answer these questions by drawing on our innate and developed moral intuitions and our society’s legal framework.
Does anyone really believe that Denmark and Copenhagen are going to stop enforcing contract law because they have “exhausted the patrimony” of Leviticus and are uncomfortable invoking God as the source of their commercial code?
During large swathes of European history when religious belief was at its pinnacle, burning heretics at the stake and bludgeoning to death members of opposing sects were considered perfectly compatible with the Ten Commandments. Today, we would disagree, not because we have suddenly discovered that murder is wrong, but because that inevitable human taboo has been fleshed out differently, under pressure from Enlightenment values. In 1608, Pope Paul V ordered that Rafael’s Deposition, painted to honor a mother’s fallen son, be spirited in the dark of night away from its home in Perugia’s church of S. Francesco al Prato. Paul V bestowed it on his nephew, Scipione Borghese, for his art collection. Today, a pope would not secretly purloin an altarpiece painting, not because he has suddenly discovered the Eighth Commandment, but because our conception of the proper scope of papal power has changed.
Even if we stipulate that God is the source of morality, it really doesn’t solve the problem of determining what is moral because we’re still faced with the question: who is authorized to speak for God? Consequently, we still have to rely on human authority to determine what is moral.
Actually you, Ms. Mac Donald, are the one who’s evading the challenge presented by Nietzsche and others. You’re right that society doesn’t say all murder is OK after it stops believing in God. But once society stops believing in Christianity, it might possibly say that it’s OK to kill 6-month-old fetuses, or sick old people, or “useless eaters”, or unwanted newborn babies. Or is this inconceivable to you as well?
Society won’t stop enforcing all contract law, as you say, once it stops believing in Leviticus. But it might radically change some of the most basic contract law once the society ceases being traditionally Christian. For instance, it might stop considering marriage to be a status contract, and start considering it to be dissoluble at the will of either party. And this might sound crazy, but when a society stops believing in traditional Christianity it might even consider marriages between two members of the same sex to be valid! Did your predecessors, those Enlightenment moral philosophers, foresee this?
You say we’ve advanced so much since the days when heretics were burned. But how would medieval men and women view the horrors that we enlightened moderns have carried out, and justified – the infernos in Dresden and Hiroshima, for instance, where we intentionally incinerated thousands and thousands of innocent noncombatants? You cite the reduction of papal power as a sign of our advance, but at the same time the secular state has usurped power to a degree that the worst tyrants couldn’t have imagined. We’re better off now in a lot of ways but we’re worse off in a lot of ways too. We shouldn’t be so smug.
Aaron:
Morality does depend on God, if there is no Creator the world cannot have a telos as it were and therefore there is no ideal world that the one we live in can fail to resemble i.e. nothing in it, including men, can judged to be bad or wanting, it is what it is what it is. That the Creator is the Christian God is not necessary though.
@Aaron
I’m open to correction on this, but didn’t Nietzsche present the challenge of avoiding nihilism following the jettisoning of Christianity? Your examples suggest that Christian morality is being incrementally displaced, but wouldn’t you agree that it is being displaced for another moral system? Whether that system is desirable or not, surely it isn’t nihilism.
Look at Japan. They don’t worship a “God” per se but base their morality on what’s good for the Japanese. They also place importance on ancestor worship and honor. Morality should be based on what’s good for the in group, without intruding on the property rights of the out-group (unless the survival of the in-group is at stake). The Jewish people are probably the most moral by these standards. I doubt most Jewish people actually believe in the old testament?
Of course, moral systems needs mythology and symbolism. Luckily for the West we have all of this ranging from Homer, to Norse mythology, to Lord of the Rings. Christianity shouldn’t be forgotten, but the emphasis should be on the Christianity of the Middle Ages (King Arthur Christianity).
If at anytime your nation’s leaders tell you that morality is based universal principles or on placing the out group before your own, you can be sure that your leadership is immoral.
Per Ms. Macdonald’s a,b, and c, as listed above Stalin fits a and b perfectly, though his response to an arguement hurled his way that wasn’t c, but like c, wasn’t led to ’sanity’ but to enumerate the divisions at the command of the guy who made the arguement, and arriving at the number of zero, ignoring him. I’d say Ms. Macdonald is preferable company to Stalin, though, even if her grasp of atheism is somewhat less firm that his was.
@Aaron
Looks like somebody is saying only Christians, or Christian societies, can be moral. I don’t believe a retort to this point needs elaboration.
“That the Creator is the Christian God is not necessary though.”
Sure it is, insofar as all of the Christian readers of this fine blog would contend that it is so. To do otherwise is to move the goalposts.
For even if the only God above is the God of Abraham, you’ve got three very different– and often, completely exclusive– ways of worshiping Him. What if all the Christians got it wrong, and God is really Allah? Or heck, simply Jehovah? Oops, bad call, Ripley.
Morality does not require God, just as much as evil does not require atheism.
Man is a fallen creature. Either we fail to follow God’s morality, or we fail to follow our own, but either way, humanity has the ability to either be moral or immoral, regardless of who– or what– commands it. If we have free will, we make our own choices, without a God telling us what to do, for God commanding us would be irrelevant– it’s *our* choice, one way or the other.
That’s a good point. Frankly, I don’t really understand Nietzsche’s idea(s) of nihilism. A lot of what I read seems contradictory to me, and I haven’t even read all of Nietzsche’s major works. He did refer I think to “Christians and other nihilists”, and I think the secular humanism of this blog would fit pretty comfortably in that “other” category. I’m mostly looking at a very specific, negative point that Nietzsche made: secular humanists are just expressing their faith in the prevalent morality of their time, social class, country, etc. They’re willfully ignorant of how much this so-called morality of theirs is a specifically Christian morality. As I’ve said before, I think Beyond Good and Evil §186 is a good reference for that.
Nietzsche’s positive attempts to find value in the affirmation of life (eternal return, etc.) were directed against what you and I would probably call nihilism, whether or not Nietzsche called it that. I totally agree with you there. And you’re absolutely right, as far as I know, that Nietzsche didn’t suggest any gradual falling-away from the morality espoused by secular humanists, as I’m doing here. I’m sure it’s not my own idea, but I don’t know where it comes from. I just credited Nietzsche because he’s the strongest influence I can think of in this particular criticism of secular humanism.
Whatever advances the revolution is moral, whatever impedes it is not.
- Vladimir Lenin
No God. Check
Theft. Check.
Murder. Check.
Ms. MacDonald,
You are a lawyer. However, I take it from your comments you never practiced criminal law. I have, and I clerked for a trial court after law school. I worked on a several homicide sentencings in my clerkship, and in two of them, at sentencing mind you, the convicted murderer stated just your first point. In one of those cases — where the murderer was a 19 year old who had randomly killed a tourist at a motel — the defendant stated that killing anyone, anywhere, anytime, was just fine. During sentencing!
BTW, Laff — who was an atheist — is the one who formulated the “grand sez who” problem. I would like to claim that a believer came up with it, but it was an atheist legal scholar who did. Just makin’ sure to give proper respect to the other side!
This article in The Sunday Times should give some idea of the flexibility of human morality acting in denial of a “transcendent moral order”:
Darwin also taught that morality has no essential authority, but is something that itself evolved — a set of sentiments or intuitions that developed from adaptive responses to environmental pressures tens of thousands of years ago. This does not merely explain the origin of morals, it totally explains them away.
It seems to me to boil down to civilization versus barbarity. Religions can fall into either camp, but it’s not clear to me that civilization can do without religion of any kind. The Japanese are a strange people that seem to be in a strange place in their history right now, but at least not too long ago the people had a common transcendent understanding in the form of Zen Buddhism. All the evidence I’ve seen seems to suggest that this kind of common religion is a crucial foundation for any civilization. Perhaps a case could be made that in the West a more sophisticated spiritual understanding could form among the common folk, but this does not seem forthcoming. Though many people are abandoning Christianity, nothing seems to be filling this spiritual vacuum but sexdrugsrocknroll and a patchwork of newage ideas.
Attacking Christianity without offering a realistic path for the common people seems rather dangerous for those who believe in civilization qua civilization – all conservatives should.
The problem with believe in God in order to avoid the, “grand sez who,” is that you eventually run into the, “grand who cares?”
If morality comes from God, His little disappearing act has made that fact quite irrelevant.
Of all of the myriad punishments associated with violating any given moral tenet, getting The Big Guy on your case is one that can quite safely be ruled out.
…The problem with BELIEF in God…
Honestly, I am not ESL.
(Not that there would be anything wrong with that.)
Let me point out that a lot of smart philosophers talked about morality before Christianity even arose. Morality needs Christianity? Tell that to Socrates, Plato, and Confucius.
The other problem with the idea that morality comes from God is that it begs the question. Can anyone prove that God is moral?
You guys are missing the point, I think. What about the common man? All your posturings are quite logical, but the common man is irrational and in need of a transcendent ideal. Does anyone dispute that some form of religion is necessary for survival?
John,
Why are you conflating religion or a belief in a transcendent moral order with Christianity. It is possible for Christianity to be false and for religion or for a transcendent moral order to be true. Socrates was quite religious by modern standards; both Plato’s record of Socrates and Xenophon’s testify to this.
Can anyone prove that God is moral? You might want to try reading some Aquinas on this point. If Aquinas is too esoteric for you, try Mortimer Adler’s How to Think About God: A Guide for Modern Pagans.
@Mark in Spokane You’re quoting a proven sociopath as the response to the post? Seriously? Do you think he ended up where he did because he didn’t believe in God?
Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that he’s a sociopath?
Boy, did you misunderstand my remark! I’m saying pretty much the opposite. Every society has a morality, or moralities, but Heather Mac Donald ignores the radical difference between moralities and uses the word “morality” without qualification. The “morality” she espouses is in fact a very specific, bourgeois, Christian morality. So just to be clear, I’m saying that probably only a Christian society can continue for long to be moral in terms of the specific Christian morality espoused by Heather Mac Donald.
Would someone please provide an example of
b. someone claiming that murder (or theft) is fine at all times and places because there is no God
The Comte (mistakenly known as the Marquis) de Sade was a professed atheist and author of several novels who explicitly stated that becuase there is no god all desires are equally good and should be satisifed as far as possible without being detected and punished.
>>> The Comte (mistakenly known as the Marquis) de Sade was a professed atheist and author of several novels who explicitly stated that becuase there is no god all desires are equally good and should be satisifed as far as possible without being detected and punished.
When did God punish him?
Or even rebuke him, or explain to him, or anyone else, the error of his ways?
Maybe it’s on His list of things to do?
There is of course also the counter example of those who believe fervently in God causing quite a bit more suffering than Mr. de Sade ever did.
What was their punishment, and when is God going to set the record strait?
And why have so many Atheists been right about morality in the face of Christian opposition, to, say, slavery?
Or, were the atheists who opposed Christian-supported slavery wrong?
How do we know?
The Bible never condemns slavery.
Maybe God wants us to practice slavery and is very angry that we abolished it.
Since God never deigns to interfere in what we mortals call “The Real World,” maybe abolitionists will be in for a REALLY big surprise on Judgment Day.
j mct,
“Morality does depend on God, if there is no Creator the world cannot have a telos as it were and therefore there is no ideal world that the one we live in can fail to resemble i.e. nothing in it, including men, can judged to be bad or wanting, it is what it is what it is.”
If you claim that God has an idea of what an ideal world looks like, than surely you’d agree that God has reasons for viewing the ideal world as such. In my studies of morality, I have concluded that whenever somebody talks about reasons for viewing something as moral, they are talking about values (like valuing honesty, life, fairness, etc).
So, if God views an ideal world a certain way, there must be moral values that cause Him to prefer that world. Assuming that these values pertain to humans, (like valuing peace or civil rights) nothing prevents us non-believers from using those same values in a universe without God.
Personally, I’d rather take an ideal world constructed based on ideas agreed upon by rational human beings than an ideal world constructed based on the ideas of God (especially since many Christians say we can’t know the mind of God).
Derek,
I was simply replying to Ms. MacDonald’s challenge. She simply asked if anyone had ever claimed the right to murder people. I responded that I had at a sentencing of a murderer. My reply was tailored to her request.
Ms. MacDonald, I believe you are conflating public morality with formal morality. We do not subject our laws to the rigors of formal philosophy and morality and epistemology. We have to accept certain fundamental truths as given in order to go on with political and legal life. But that is not to say that such formal inquiries are without value. Though we plod ahead from the place of our intellectual beginnings, from time to time it is important to have a look behind us. As Tocqueville put it:
“If man were forced to prove to himself all the truths he makes use of every day, he would never finish; he would exhaust himself in preliminary demonstrations without advancing; as he does not have the time because of the short span of life, nor the ability because of the limits of his mind, to act that way, he is reduced to accepting as given a host of facts and opinions that he has neither the leisure nor the power to examine and verify by himself, but that the more able have found or the crowd adopts. It is on this first foundation the he himself builds the edifice of his own thoughts. It is not his will that brings him to proceed in this manner; the inflexible law of his condition constrains him to do it.”
I would argue that a transcendent moral order IS necessary for there to be morality, not a belief in that order. Belief is besides the point.
Belief in religion does not make people moral — obviously — nor does disbelief make one immoral. It’s the moral order that exists in the universe that makes people moral — and this moral order exists whether or not you believe in it.
What matters is whether or not you are in-touch with it, attuned to it, and that can happen whether you believe in God or not. Really what does it matter what we think the origins of this is. You might not believe in the weather, but you’re still going to feel the cold.
Regardless of the origin of one’s sense of morality, why should a person choose to behave morally if they think they can get away with immoral behavior? The only answer is that a person chooses to behave morally in such a situation because they believe that this behavior supports something that they value that transcends their self interest. Such a belief in the value of something transcendent beyond the self is the essence of religious ethics. In this sense, “secular morality” is as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc.
When secular humanists deride the orthodox religious for “believing” in something transcendent they are being terribly myopic. It’s one thing to debate the specifics in which we should believe. But atheists and other secular humanists should recognize that they, too, are “believers”, and so should approach the orthodox religious with at least a basic level of humility and respect.
“When did God punish him?
Or even rebuke him, or explain to him, or anyone else, the error of his ways?
Maybe it’s on His list of things to do?”
So, because God’s ways are incomprehensible to YOU…that means He’s not real? I mean, there are plenty of intelligent arguments against the existence of an omnipotent being who created all reality…but that such a being does not act like a small town sheriff would not seem to be one of them.
Mike
God is not an answer to the Great Sez Who problem either, for even invoking a god is a fallacious appeal to authority. As has already been pointed out, the god of the Bible and OT supported many deeply immoral things. Genocide and slavery being the most obvious. Has owning other human beings magically become moral behavior simply because a proposed being of great power sez so?
No, of course not. And I doubt that you would find even many practicing Christians who would agree that it was, despite the fact that puts them at odds with their scriptures.
Every society conceives a morality that best fits their time and place. There is generally some major overlap of values, such as prohibitions against theft, murder, incest, lying, etc, but that is because these things are almost always harmful to the smooth functioning of any society, not because a bloodthirsty sky daddy said they were bad.
Follow this logic: Since there is no god, all of humankind’s various flavors of morality (past & present) have been evolved by us in the absence of a god, so therefore we have perfect examples of systems of morality existing without ultimate moral authority being decided by some ultimate supernatural authority
It seems clear that God is in no way a requirement for morality as civilizations with vastly different conceptions of God have similar moral codes, morality is a human concept that exists to grease the wheels of our existence as it were. However it seems equally clear that the belief in BELIEVING is a requirement for humans to be prodded to our better selves. its perhaps the ultimate irony of existence. God does not exist, we have indeed invented Him, but to acknowledge that makes the whole thing go poof……
@MBunge
True, but it isn’t an argument against any old omnipotent being, it is a pretty good argument against an ethical omnipotent being who gives a rat’s hindquarters about humanity.
God’s ways are not simply incomprehensible, they are completely absent. That too is a pretty good argument against him.
Fascinating conversation. I confess to siding with Socrates via Plato and Xenophon, as Christian “morality” has always seemed rather fluid. Inevitably, someone would answer Ms. MacDonald’s challenge with Stalin. Seldom, however, does anyone mention the inconvenient fact that the young Ioseb Jughashvili was a seminarian. It could be argued that the future Stalin learned far too many points of statecraft from a close reading of the New Testament. For, as much as fervent Jews and Christians may balk, neither Stalin nor Hitler committed any crime that isn’t celebrated in the Book of Joshua.
Apologies….for “New” Testament please read “Old.”
Calling it hoary does not make the issue go away. And whether or not a credo of “do as you wish” has never been espoused by an atheist, or the fact that plenty of religious figures were unethical, also does not make the issue disappear.
If you have a strictly mechanical universe, notions of proper ethics or proper morals boil down to simple individual preferences combined with group decisions of a swathe of the ecosystem deemed best for its swathe (and what it deems best for the rest of the ecosystem). Murder, theft, and rudeness– big offenses to small– are all essentially meaningless (and arguably predetermined anyway, it being a mechanical universe lorded over by cause and effect billions of years in the making).
So, to say something is wrong separate from any sort of eternal truth defines ethics as a preference of the individual and the group. There is no “right” and no “wrong” conceivable. Mechanically, both represent the habit of the species to control itself– just another taboo. “Thou shalt not steal” is just as important for the propagation of the species as laws enforcing the pasteurization of milk– but neither are based on “goodness” in any way. No violation of property exists in the first, nor does any protection of a loved one exists in the second, for what is a loved one? A mechanical attachment bred years in the making by cause and effect.
I’m not saying your comment is not a worthwhile question, I am just saying it needs more fleshing out than the word “hoary” and a shifty Pope example plucked from the couch cushions of history to be convincing. Because, I believe, “ethics” without God or any eternal idea of Right and Wrong then, by necessity, do not exist. Good things and Bad things are actually neither, just valueless things– a murder or a theft no different than a wave crashing against a beach, and our anger or sorrow or our demand for justice no different than that wave ebbing away.
And that may be the case! I sure hope not, but if you want to make the case that ethics exist in a mechanical universe, you need to do better than what you have posted above.
With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. —Steven Weinberg
These arguments that we need God in order to have morality are ridiculous. observe the following three facts:
a) I am an independent thinking being with a material body.
b) My material body is capable of feeling discomfort, and when people or outside objects cause discomfort to my material body, it causes me suffering.
c) I am likely, therefore, to voluntarily agree to social contracts (laws, regulations, cultural mores and taboos, etc) that prevent such discomfort from occurring.
Where does God need to be injected here? all morality springs from these three premises. It is still rational to do things and to enter into relationships and agreements which reduce our suffering regardless of whether or not we believe God exists. even animals, with no apparent religious beliefs to speak of, organize themselves into social units in nature for precisely this purpose of reducing material suffering (i.e. making their lives easier). They band together and rely on one another for protection, pooled resources and happiness. and if you rely on others for those three things, you would also support rules that would prevent discomfort and suffering from afflicting them as well, because their discomfort and suffering would indirectly cause discomfort and suffering to you. None of this has anything to do with God. I fail to see the correlation between believing in God and being able to acknowledge whether social rules benefit me or do not benefit me.
there are secular, rational reasons why attributes like honesty, fidelity, selflessness and hard work are good things. they have obvious benefits. we can be good people without God, and we can justify good laws without God. The Constitution of the U.S. does not even have the word God in it. It is unnecessary to invoke a creator to establish morality, laws, or civil society. In fact, Divinity has historically been used as a justification to establish absolute authority over others. the Divine right of Kings? The Mandate of Heaven? Were these people correct in their interpretations of morality and of God’s supposed will? and where does the morality of the Buddhist come from? Where did Confucius’ concepts of Filial Piety originate, since they did not use a Higher Power power as their justification? No, we do not need God for morality. In fact, I’d be very afraid if we did, because every power-hungry fool with the courage of his delusional convictions would be trying to impose his version of religious morality on me at every turn. the benefits of living in a society of laws are self-evident. we do not need to believe in a Creator being for those benefits to be logical.
We have 3 examples of nations without a God in the last 100 yrs. The USSR murdered 50 million of it’s own for the ‘Greater Good’ and China murdered a minimum of 70 million of it’s own with credible estimates as high as 150 million. And Cambodia murdered 1 third, 6 million, of it’s own. All in the name of the ‘Greater Good’. Tell me again how the absence of God isn’t a problem.
I suppose the question is whether our common definitions of morality comes from religion (as in before religion laid down the laws, the world existed in a state of moral free for all, with people at perfect liberty to do whatever they wanted at all times with no consequences), or if religion was just a natural outgrowth of various societies adopting a conventional set of moral laws.
A religious person would argue the former, and therefore create an imperative that whatever particular religion they practice, which is clearly the moral ideal, be foisted upon the rest of the world to achieve a common morality and save people from themselves. Since it is a tall order to ask all people to convert to the same religion they at least settle for asking people to have some sort of religion.
I would probably argue that considering the history of religion and the world’s natural evolution towards a universal morality (or attempt to, at least) in regards to things such as murder, slavery, women’s rights, etc., religion is merely a useful tool for espousing certain ideals, ideals that change with the times. Tomes like the bible, the koran, are variously interpretated to support the social standards of the times.
Being religious doesn’t make a person moral. A casual look at jail statistics supports that. Being an atheist doesn’t make a person amoral. Both are merely concepts, ways that people define themselves and their mindsets.
Perhaps the question is moot, and people are just naturally inclined towards violence and evil (as some religious and nonreligious maintain). This suggests there are greater powers in the universe at play that force us to coexist with one another. A religious person is thinking, “God, obviously!”
Personally, I’m thinking that human beings benefit from living in societies for very basic reasons, and that societies must maintain a rule of law to exist. As education becomes more common in the world, more people desire a better place in society and question social hierarchies, and the laws must be finessed to accommodate these people after much struggle. Social evolution. Any concept of a god is an afterthought, a tool to be used, and use it they will.
Moral behavior requires the introjection of Morals… that is, they have to be felt as a part of one’s being. God is a good tool for introjecting morals. It isn’t necessary for “God” in this usage to have a physical existence; his indubitable existence as an intersubjective object will do nicely. To take advantage of the introjectivity of God’s Morals, it is only necessary to have the same kind of suspension of disbelief that is used for watching Star Wars.. you can watch/enjoy/participate in a lot of movies and still navigate in the Real World.
What Gregor said about “the common people”… If you have the money/time/opportunity, you can introject a Liberal Arts education instead… it will probably work as well… but for one thing we aren’t sending everybody to college, and for another it isn’t clear that colleges are handing out what used to be called a Liberal Education these days.
It seems to me that an ethical framework that does not appeal to or require a redemptive deity is actually more rigorous and strict than one which does. After all, if one ‘knows’ that one has the access to redemption and forgiveness after one does wrong, it seems to me that it is easier to lapse by reference or appeal to ‘all are sinners and fallen short of the glory of God’ than one who lives in a system where wrong is simply wrong without appeal or recourse to forgiveness by a deity.
To me, it is enough to say that I will strive to do what is right because it is right, not because I can expect the bribe of reward (everlasting life, heaven, prosperity, etc.) or the coercion of threat (prison, hell, etc.). I live in a world of described rights and wrongs rather than a prescribed set of rights and wrongs. To me, an appeal to authority is more valid if that authority is acceptable and examinable by those submitting to it, rather than less.
ATHEIST ETHICS IN 500 WORDS. John B. Hodges, Dec. 21, 2007.
How can you have any ethics if you don’t believe in God?
The question must BE questioned. How can you have any ethics if you DO believe in a god?
Religious folk misunderstand morality at its roots. Religion teaches a child’s view of ethics, that “being good” means “obeying your parent”. Just as religious faith is believing what you are told, so religious morality is doing what you are told. Religious morality consists of obeying the alleged will of God, an invisible “Cosmic Parent”, as reported by your chosen authority. But obedience is not morality, and morality is not obedience. We can all think of famous people who did good things while rebelling against authority, and others who did evil things while obeying authority.
Religious folk may be Good Samaritans or suicide bombers, it depends entirely on what their chosen authority orders them to do. If a believer, or a community of same, wishes to make war or keep slaves or oppress women, all they have to do is persuade themselves that their god approves. This seems not to be hard, and no god has ever popped up to tell believers that they were wrong. They do not have a code of morality except by the convenience of the priesthood. What they have is a code of obedience, which is not the same thing.
Atheism means looking at ethical questions as an adult among other adults. Civic morality is a means of maintaining peace and cooperation among equals, so that all may pursue happiness within the limits that ethics defines. This civic morality is objective. If you want to maintain peaceful relations, don’t kill, steal, lie, or break agreements. As Shakespeare wrote: “It needs no ghost, Milord, come from the grave, to tell us this.”
Because we are biological beings evolved by natural selection, most of us value the health of our families, where “health” is the ABILITY to survive, and “family” is “all who share your genes, to the extent that they share your genes.” This is also called “inclusive fitness” by biologists. Essentially all living beings are going to seek this, because their desires are shaped by natural selection, and inclusive fitness is what natural selection selects for.
Because humans are social animals, who survive by cooperating in groups, we have a “natural” standard of ethics: The Good is that which leads to health, The Right is that which leads to peace. A “good person” is a desirable neighbor, from the point of view of people who seek to live in peace and raise families. Most people understand this intuitively. Understanding the logic of it is better. “If you want peace, work for justice.”
There is a long history of philosophical thinking about ethics. Morality is not based on authority, but on reason and compassion. If I had to recommend just one book on ethics, it would be GOOD AND EVIL: A NEW DIRECTION by Richard Taylor.
I have a longer essay at http://civic.bev.net/atheistsnrv/articles/definition.html
By and large people agree on what is fair whether they believe in a holy book or not. But one thing is clear that holy books are not much use in courts of law – they are far too simplistic.
I am puzzled that Christians think that the Bible provides a basis for morality – there is a lot of immorality in there condoned or instigated by God e.g. he killed the first born in Egypt.
There are no supernatural beings, there never has been. We’ve made up everything.
(Though often reflecting empirical experience.) Why are we so scared to admit this? Once we do we’ll be in a much better position to create, refine our ethic.
PS: Check this out: Bush talked to god, drove us to war and torture. Thank you god!.
Aaron: You’re right that society doesn’t say all murder is OK after it stops believing in God. But once society stops believing in Christianity, it might possibly say that it’s OK to kill 6-month-old fetuses, or sick old people, or “useless eaters”, or unwanted newborn babies. Or is this inconceivable to you as well?
This seems an odd claim to make since of course Christians have been willing to make such claims for quite some time. Say the nuclear bombing of Japan or the fire bombing of Germany or Japan. But before that the way Christians were willing to treat slaves or heathens wasn’t much better. So while I understand your point about a slippery slope, I think it ends up being a bit trickier than you suggest. Certainly ones metaphysical presuppositions will affect questions of violence and death. But is that the real question here?
Part of why Nietzsche was wrong, by the way, is that I don’t think he really grappled well with Mill or Utilitiarianism. Perhaps understandable. I say that while not in the least being persuaded by the Utilitarians. But I think the claims about the death of God don’t adequately deal with Utilitarianism as a ground for morality.
To add, anticipating your reply. Yes I’m familiar with Nietzsche’s attack on both Christianity and Utilitarianism as presupposing a kind of equality. But to appeal to Nietzsche here misses the point since even if people were unequal one could simply adjust the calculus in ones consequentialism. But more to the point, God’s death wouldn’t invalidate Utilitarianism.
It seems to me, Steve, that your parable is one of the best pieces of evidence for the absence of god, period. How can anyone believe that there is a benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent creator when he allows such atrocities? If you saw a kid on a playground repeatedly kicking another kid in the face, would you worry for a moment about whether either of them was your kid before you pulled the kicker away? If your answer is no, then your ethics are stronger than this purported god. S/He/It does nothing to stop unethical or immoral behavior and never has.
Having read the Bible, I am regularly puzzled by arguments made by those who consider it a holy book. For example, Steve, your citation of the millions killed by the Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China, and the Khmer Rouge seems to imply that because these numbers are larger than the number of protestants killed by catholics (and vice versa), ‘heretics’ killed by christians, Axis soldiers and civilians killed by christian Allied soldiers, free and enslaved blacks killed by christian caucasians, etc., that somehow makes the ‘godless’ countries worse. Two of the teachings of Jesus show this to be a fallacy to christian morality: (1) “That which you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me;” and (2) when asked how often one should forgive, Jesus replied “not seven times, but seventy times seven.” This does not sound like the morality of a bean-counter.
What about this:
Someone claiming that murder (or theft) is fine at all times and places for God.
@Clark
Clark, yes of course some Christians are willing to kill fetuses, infants, “useless eaters”, etc. But traditional Christian authorities (I guess I should have specified “traditional”) tend not to legitimize these practices, as far as I know. The practices are opposed on explicitly Christian grounds (also on natural law arguments, which are weak); they tend to be supported on non-Christian grounds. The news for Heather Mac Donald is that what has traditionally called murder is being legitimized, against Christian opposition.
My point wasn’t that one’s metaphysical beliefs influence one’s behavior. My point was that, contra Ms. Mac Donald, you can’t count on what she calls “morality” surviving the loss of traditional Christianity. A morality, yes – there will always be a morality. But probably not Heather Mac Donald’s morality.
Re Dresden, Hiroshima, etc., that was separate from my earlier point. I was replying to HMD’s cheerleading for modernity. But since you mention it, my guess (just a guess) is that these mass murders were opposed on Christian grounds more than they were supported on Christian grounds. Either way, if your point is that it was always thus, then fine. I’m not saying that everything has changed or is liable to change – only some of the most basic things.
You may be right about God’s death not invalidating utilitarianism. Still, I think you could argue against utilitarianism on Nietzschean grounds. You could argue that in practice it’s often (not always) been just an expression of faith in (essentially) the prevailing morality. More generally, I think Nietzsche’s whole morality of individualism (for noble souls) is an argument against any kind of utilitarianism, even a “utilitarianism of the noble”. I don’t think he’d be much against utilitarianism for the “herd”, if it weren’t for it dragging down those noble souls.
The way I see it, Hell is full of Christians, right? I’ve read my Dante. So, clearly, professed membership in a faith is no guarantee of ethical behavior. A person’s professed faith tells you nothing about their proclivity towards ethical or unethical behavior.
(In fact, if someone brings up religion out of context, it may be an attempt to win undeserved trust, perhaps as a kind of affiliation scam.)
“It seems to me, Steve, that your parable is one of the best pieces of evidence for the absence of god, period. How can anyone believe that there is a benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent creator when he allows such atrocities?”
What’s the alternative? That whenever somebody does something bad, God sends down an angel to beat the crap out of them? Seriously, if we’re going to argue the existence or plausability of any sort of supreme being, one of the first things that has to be acknowledged is that such an entity IS NOT GOING TO NECESSARILY BEHAVE LIKE A HUMAN BEING. The argument that “If I were god, I’d do X, Y and Z. X, Y and Z have not been done. Therefore, there is no god” doesn’t demonstrate anything of the kind. It just proves that any such god is not like you.
Mike
“Seriously, if we’re going to argue the existence or plausability of any sort of supreme being, one of the first things that has to be acknowledged is that such an entity IS NOT GOING TO NECESSARILY BEHAVE LIKE A HUMAN BEING. ”
So why pay any attention at all to what it supposedly wants us to do?
No, it just proves that the “God idea” is meaningless since you cant spit out ANY CRAP about God without the slightest bit of reason or evidence.
Not only He hates shrimps and shrimp eaters but he could positively despise anyone called Mike and send all Mikes to hell without further consideration.
How could you know?
This blog entry is either disingenuous, or else the author has misunderstood the point being made. It is not necessarily true that people will jettison morality if they jettison the idea of God, but it is certainly true that any attempt to establishing an objective morality becomes completely irrational. This doesn’t mean people won’t still behave in mostly upright ways, at least for the foreseeable future (an important caveat), it just means it won’t really be logical for them to in many instances.
But Aaron, that seems an odd critique. Morality isn’t static. The morality of people in 1820 isn’t our morality today. (And, I’d argue, we’re largely more moral) So of course morality would change if there wasn’t Christianity. But so what? If the criteria is stasis of morality it’s already a lost cause.
I think the claim that Utilitarianism has always just been a way to support the prevailing morality demonstrably false. After all J. S. Mill, whatever you may think of him, really radically changed prevailing morality. And most of the more interesting writings by Utilitarians are those arguing against the status quo. So N. could make that argument, but it’d be an easy one to refute.
The answer to the tired old argument about the deadly purges carried out by “atheists” Stalin and Mao is that those killings were performed with the intention of securing power, just as has been true of every mass atrocity since the beginning of time, whatever “ism” is trotted out as its excuse.
Jon H. I think the argument is that God has to allow freedom for humans but will either inspire people towards morality – which they are free to reject – or else gives a modicum of intervention to let people know what is moral. One can argue against that line, but the simple appeal to the existence of freely chosen evil really isn’t that compelling when one gets down to the nitty gritty. Now one can ask why on earth God would value freedom. And that’s fair. But I think just neglecting that as a doctrine for the believer is problematic.
Now one can salvage the problem of evil and ask about evils due to nature or ask why, given a baseline of “hiddenness” why God couldn’t do more. And that’s the typical fruitful line to take when debating the problem of evil. Just be aware that various answers are possible. (Although they usually vary according to the doctrinal commitments of the person you are arguing against)
@Chris
I protest here… You don’t make a morality “objective” by preceding it with “God says”.
If some god kept an office on Earth where anyone could make an appointment and go in to ask “Did you really say THIS?” then we could make the minimal claim that this ethic is objectively the one that this god decrees. But even that wouldn’t make the ethic “objective”, any more than an ethic made up and decreed by anyone else.
An “objective” ethic is one that is “in the realm of the senses”, observable by multiple independent observers. NO ethic that depends on faith is “objective”. On the contrary, all “hearsay” reports that some man claims he heard from some really big ghost who claimed to be the Creator of the Universe and who decreed ethic Z, have no apparent objective basis whatsoever.
I suggest, if you want an “objective” ethic, construct a consequentialist ethic, made entirely of statements of the form “If you want X, then you ought to do Y”, with an ultimate goal that is objectively measurable. Then it becomes an objective question, testable by scientific methods, whether following that ethic does or does not lead to the goal being achieved. Such as: If you want to maintain peaceful and cooperative relations with your neighbors, don’t kill, steal, lie, or break agreements.” There are many possible “objective” ethical systems, one for each coherent strategy toward each objectively measurable goal. Religious ethical systems typically have some supernatural goal that is not observable, so they are not objective.
Adding Marquis de Sade to the growing list that answers your question – I suggest the author do some research.
Now one can ask why on earth God would value freedom. And that’s fair. But I think just neglecting that as a doctrine for the believer is problematic.
I don’t think nonbelievers ignore the “free will” argument, it’s just that, well, we don’t believe it. I can very easily imagine a world where free will exists and there is no evil. All you have to do is give everyone the same moral views as me (Or if you don’t agree with my moral views, substitute your own).
God, all you have to do is make sure everyone knows and agrees with what is right and wrong. People will still be free to choose, and they will choose the right thing. Problem solved. If you need more advise, I’ll be in tomorrow.
Having lost the science wars, digging in their heels on morality is just religion’s last stand. There’s nothing to take seriously about, intellectually speaking – it’s just an emoting of religion’s desperation to remain relevant.
Well one can imagine such a world, I’m not sure one can imagine such a world with most senses of “free.” Of course many Christians have trouble here too. The Calvinists try to treat “freedom” such that only one possibility will occur. I think under most definitions of free the point is that people and not God control things. Once again though there are lots of complex issues here. I can certainly respect those who don’t believe the free will defense. But I think the arguments are actually stronger than some assume. Although as I noted they do play havoc with some theologies within theism. (Once again Calvinism being the obvious example)
I think the problem comparing ethics and science is that science is about patterns in the physical world around us. Ethics, on the other hand, is quite different. It’s not at all clear what The Good is. Further it’s much more open to philosophical and not scientific inquiry.