Jerry Muller’s excellent Public Interest article, linked by Hume, references the ubiquitous “social utility” argument for religion: “belief in ultimate reward and punishment leads men to act morally.” The disappearance of religious belief, religion advocates argue, will produce individual and collective moral decay. “Where atheism and agnosticism flourish,” writes Michael Novak in his latest book, “one may expect to find a certain . . . slacking off, a certain habit of getting away with things” (268). It has even been suggested that the subprime crisis was brought on by the “secularizing” of the United States, as epitomized by Americans’ alleged unwillingness to say “Merry Christmas.”
Secular conservatives take most such charges seriously. They appreciate the fragility of social order and understand how complex are the myriad norms that maintain respect for common decencies and the rule of law.
That having been said, it seems to me that a rough survey of the evidence does not necessarily bear out the warnings that waning religiosity encourages moral decadence. Northern European countries are among the most secular in the world. Here’s a thought experiment: Where would a contract to build a highway, say, stand a better chance of fulfillment free from corruption and bribes: Sweden or Mexico? Where is the risk higher that the construction firm’s CEO will be kidnapped and held for ransom: in Sweden or Mexico? Where is the CEO more likely to pay his taxes?
The incidence of secular humanists in Sub-Saharan Africa is undoubtedly a fraction of that in Scandinavia. If you want to run a business or raise a family free from the fear of violence, you’re better off in Scandinavia.
Religion advocates point to the much higher religiosity of the United States compared to Europe as proof of America’s moral superiority. Belief in the divine origin of the 6th Commandment apparently does not do much to restrain behavior, however, since American murder rates are magnitudes higher than Europe’s. Denmark, Sweden and Norway have among the lowest murder rates in the world, despite their populations’ infrequent church attendance. Within the United States, violent crime is highest in red states, with their higher degrees of religiosity, than in blue states.
Religious belief does not reliably inoculate against other social pathologies. The black illegitimacy rate in the U.S. is nearly 70%, despite blacks’ Biblically-inspired social conservatism. Catching up quickly are the country’s heavily Catholic Hispanics, who now have a 50% illegitimacy rate. Unwed teen pregnancy in Europe is a fraction of what it is in the United States. Bible Belt states such as Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi have the highest divorce rates in the country, Massachusetts the lowest. Sub-Saharan Africa’s religious zeal—whether Christian, Muslim, or pantheistic—has not inhibited rampant AIDS transmission there.
But perhaps Oslo or Newton, Mass., are simply living off of the legacy of religious culture. Michael Novak asserts that “widespread public atheism” takes three to four generations to show its full effects (how he arrived at that interval is unclear) (52). But even if the “full” effects of atheism are not apparent until “three to four generations,” some moral decay should show up before that. The main signs of European moral decline that conservative religion proponents have come up with are the unpopularity of the Iraq War and the continent’s low birth rate. This first piece of evidence is a curious one, since the Holy See itself was no war enthusiast. The Vatican’s foreign minister declared in March 2003 that a unilateral military strike by the U.S. would be a “crime against peace.” As for low birth rates, it is debatable that a patriarchal Palestinian family with eight children occupies a higher moral plane than an Italian or English family with one child. Affluence and women’s liberation ineluctably push birth rates down. This is a demographic issue, not a moral one.
Now it is undoubtedly the case that the influences on violence and other social dysfunction in highly religious countries are enormously complicated. At the very least, more complicated than the assertion that religious belief is the sine qua non of moral behavior.
One quick comment.
I wonder if Novak has thought much on how one of his religion’s own tenants might work to undermine what he supposes is a downside of secularism, the “habit getting away with things”? How about the sacrement of Confession? How about “death bed conversions”? How about “no sin is so great that God cannot forgive”? Sounds like a blank check, or get-out-of-jail-free card to me. 1. You do the deed. 2. You express sincere remorse. 3. God forgives. How does that work to increase moral behavior?
I recently heard a lady call in to a TV pastor, because she was distraught to imagine that, after living pious and moral her whole life, she would be no better off than a complete scoundrel who lived a life of debauchery, but none-the-less confessed and repented one minute before the Rapture. She wanted the pastor to assure her that they would not both get the same reward. But alas, they best he could do was specualate that perhaps he would have to stand before God naked, while she was dressed in the finest of garments. She left the call, less than satisfied, I’m afraid.
“…since American murder rates are magnitudes higher than Europe’s. Denmark, Sweden and Norway have among the lowest murder rates in the world, despite their populations’ infrequent church attendance. Within the United States, violent crime is highest in red states, with their higher degrees of religiosity, than in blue states.”
Demographics determine crime more than religion does. When you account for race and IQ, then yes, you do find that religion (and the social structure it provides a framework for) does seem to constrain people. Hell, it even seems to make people happy.
The “secular right” should exist to constrain the religious right from letting their particular lunacy do more harm than good (it does a lot of good), but it shouldn’t be evangelical in form and outlook. We’ve already got the secular left for that.
Heather, thanks for your writing – I’ve learned a lot from it, and imagine that I have read a solid majority of your stuff.
Human capital is not discussed nearly enough by libertarians or religious conservatives (and certainly not by the left). Unfortunately, with our PC-blinders, it’s not hard to understand why.
the ubiquitous “social utility” argument for religion: “belief in ultimate reward and punishment leads men to act morally.” The disappearance of religious belief, religion advocates argue, will produce individual and collective moral decay.
There is a quite simple explanation of this “ubiquitous” old saw from religionists in George Ainslie’s book Breakdown of Will, Chapter 9, “The downside of willpower”.
Trying to summarize the core idea, some people experience motivation and control of motivation (willpower) as something outside their mind, a force of nature, a god or a devil, therefore in order to have a modicum of self-control they have to embody their own morality into an external entity and cannot fathom that not everyone need this trick.
This is clearly visible in the Alcoholic Anonymous “twelve steps”:
1 – We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2 – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4-12 – Etc…
Well guys, not everybody is an acoholic (of sorts…) in need of “god’s care”!
“[T]he evidence does not necessarily bear out the warnings that waning religiosity encourages moral decadence.”
Absolutely correct. In fact, it is psychosis that encourages moral degeneracy, not any lack of religiousity. Sick people, whether religious or atheistic, do sick things.
The argument that religiousity always and exclusively encourages morality is disproved by the conditions found by various child protective services agencies during raids on religious compounds.
FarRightDemocrat.blogspot.com
It seems that rather than causing across-the-board “moral decay”, irreligiosity is instead associated with increased concern over “harm” and “fairness” at the expense of “loyalty”, “authority”, and “purity” (Jonathan Haidt, http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/articles/haidt.graham.2007.when-morality-opposes-justice.pdf, http://www.yourmorals.org).
Haidt, of course, seems to take religious conservatives as representative of conservatives in general; it would be interesting to see whether secular conservatives differ significantly on this scale. One would expect significantly less concern with the purity/sanctity dimension, but rather more concern with ingroup/loyalty and authority/respect than liberals profess. Thoughts?
While I’m not a religious person, Heather’s argument strikes as very weak here.
It’s not meaningful to say Norway is better off than Mexico, therefore religion does no good in society. To see if religion does good, you would want to look at the same society with and without religion. Of course, this is impossible, so instead you would have to compare societies along many dimensions, and control for all variables except religion. In this way you could see if religion actually does make a difference within a given society.
My opinion is that religion was created by man as means of getting people to work together towards a common goal (sustaining the community) and to filter out people that are detrimental to the community. Heather mentions several instances of different communities where higher degrees of religiosity correlates to worse societies (e.g., Norway (least religious/best) –> Red U.S. (moderately religious/worse) –> Sub-Saharan Africa (religious zeal/worst), and her implication seems to be that there is a causal relationship between increasing levels of religiosity and decreasing levels of prosperity.
However, my opinion is that the causal relationship goes in the other direction. The worse things are in a society the more people turn to religion as a way of improving their lives. You can sneer at the zeal of sub-Saharan Africa, but do we know how much worse life would be without religion there? Although many aspects of religion seem silly to us, it can also do many things to help people. In America and Western Europe society has evolved to the point that many people think religion is unnecessary. In general, I think this is a good thing and a natural consequence of societal improvement. However, I think it’s incorrect to sneer at religiosity in other societies, and to deny that religion can do no good. It seems to me that if religion actually did no good it would have died out long ago, instead we find it every society known to man.
In fact, it is psychosis that encourages moral degeneracy, not any lack of religiousity. Sick people, whether religious or atheistic, do sick things.
Your claim then that all “bad things” come from people who cannot help themselves?
“The devil made me do it” morphs into “Not my fault, I’m sick.”
I guess the concept of “evil” is just whisked away with such old-fashioned things like personal responsibility.
I encourage everyone who expresses an interest in moral theory to carefully read Marc Hauser’s Moral Minds. If morality is a hardwired human trait, and I am convinced that this is the best theory that fits the facts, then it probably occurs in different quantities/qualities between different individuals, and, probably, groups. The current argument between conservatives and liberals, regarding a vast array of social phenomena, seems to be mostly about whether economics or values are the most important environmental factors affecting human behavioral patterns.
They never stop to consider the possibility that humanity has a naturally-occurring function that is genetic and that helps our species live in large groups not tied to direct, personal relationships. Is it that people are scared of the “my genes made me do it” excuse? The obvious response to that is to refocus “justice” on social order, rather than on people “getting what they deserve”.
Within the United States, violent crime is highest in red states, with their higher degrees of religiosity, than in blue states.
Is this true for red state/religious whites vs. blue state whites? One must factor out the impact of diversity here. I wouldn’t be surprised if the trend remains at the individual level but its strength is attenuated.
[copy from a linked article on this blog]
Of course, you could look at the (rather well-known) work of Patrick Fagan, Diane Brown, Lawrence Gary, and Sun Joon Jang (and dozens of others)who did comprehensive analyses of religiosity, religious practice, and their interactions with race, wealth, and population density – all last decade, as I recall. Their work has been continued and updated by Kaufman, Weaver, Knoester, and others in the 10+ years since the famous “Why Religion Matters” paper of 1996.
There are dozens of multivariate studies of just the impact of faith-based counseling as opposed to secular counseling!
Doing a quick dip in the GSS is not the way to determine the effect of religion upon civics.
“But perhaps Oslo or Newton, Mass., are simply living off of the legacy of religious culture” – that’s my impression; certainly here in London UKthere seems to be a lot more moral degeneracy than 50 years ago, and that’s as true among the post-Christian natives as among the religious immigrants.
Overall it may be true that good and bad societies may both be either religious or atheistic, but it seems that religion helps retain social cohesion and the persistence of a society; us atheists have trouble summoning the will to reproduce.
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