Philosopher Troy Jollimore comments. Discuss.
My former colleagues at another university in Middle East have also been moved to online teaching indefinitely, with the students…
7 responses to “Secular ethics”
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The subtitle (presumably added by an editor) seems rather misleading to me: "There's something in religious tradition that helps people to be ethical. But it isn't actually their belief in God." As a statement about religious people and their beliefs, that would be rather an odd thing to say (whatever you think about religious ethics, actually believing in God is – at least for many – a pretty important part of it) but it's not really the claim that Jollimore argues for. His claim, as I understand it, is that secular ethics ought to to incorporate certain aspects of religious ethics (for example "the deep connection between the ethical and the personal"), but that one thing it does not need is the belief in God. That seems reasonable enough, and given the continuing cultural prejudices against atheists that he cites in the article, something that's worth saying.
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Seems to me that these kinds of things usually boil down to a [purposely?] vague understanding of "religion"–as if such a thing could exist in the abstract. I appreciate that you went out of your way to avoid that in your book, Prof. Leiter (even if I don't think your definition tracks what goes on in theology depts well at all). Defining religion in the abstract is akin to the all-too-unfortunate public habit of defining philosophy in the abstract–relying on common sense assumptions that are usually terrible.
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Jollimore presents Kant in a very small nutshell, indeed. We should neither overlook the crucial component of Gesinnung in Kantian ethics nor ignore the importance of the notion of radical evil to his moral theory. Kant, in fact, had a highly developed conception of moral personality. Of course, many contemporary ethicists reduce Kant's moral theory to an "ism" either consonant with a preferred principles-approach or conveniently opposed to a preferred Aristotelian or virtue-ethical one. As for the claim that you cannot have morality without God, well…ironically it could be argued that Kant himself held some version of this view (I'm referring to the postulates, of course, not the very unKantian version of this view in which fear of divine punishment compels a moral attitude).
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"Many religious believers feel skeptical about modern secular ethics because they cannot see any possibility for this sort of integration between theory and experience, between moral principles and how life is actually lived."
Many religious believers also feel skeptical about modern evolutionary biology for similar reasons. Given that half the country still denies natural selection, I'm not holding out for a mass conversion to particularism any time soon. (Not that I wouldn't enjoy it!)
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The arguments philosophers give in response to claims to the effect that morality and religion are inseparable in one sense or another are beginning to sound very rehearsed. In a medium-sized bowl, mix the Euthyphro dilemma, the suggestion that acting from fear of divine retribution is incompatible with acting from respect or compassion, and the point that scarcely any prominent ethical theories presuppose the existence of God; bake at 375 until golden brown, and you have a conclusive case for the view that ethics and religion don't necessarily go together. The ideas may well be sound, but I can't recall the last time I heard anyone cite any other good reasons for the same conclusion, or give a serious hearing to the various counter-objections defenders of theological voluntarism have given in reply.
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I've recently come across three other arguments for separating morality and religion. They're not new, but they're not part of the typical spiel, either.
Gideon Rosen argues that it is immoral to devote oneself to the Christian God, who allows the needless suffering of innocent children. I heard this one in a debate between Gideon and Noah Lennox from 2012. (This isn't metaethical, but it's relevant.)
Second, Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688) has the following argument:
(1) Whatever is right is so because God commands it.
(2) It is right to do whatever God commands.
(3) Why? It must be because God commands us to do what is right.
(4) But this is circular; God can't command that he has authority unless he already has it.
(5) So, we ought to reject (1).The idea is that one can't legislate oneself into a position of legislative authority. I rather like this argument, which I first heard at a talk last year by Jonathan Dancy (which was all about arguments for separating religion and ethics).
The last argument is from Kai Neilson's 1991 debate with William Lane Craig:
"Suppose that you believe in God and that you have children; you recognize that your children depend on you, and there are certain things that you owe them–protection, care, and love. You love your children; you want to protect them and care for them. But you’re also a believer. Suppose that–for good or bad reasons–you lose your faith. Have you the slightest reason to stop loving your children, to stop caring for your children, to stop protecting your children? Not in the slightest. If you had reason to care for and love your children before, you’re going to have as much reason after you’ve lost your faith."
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If I may: Some have recently argued that morality and religion (morality and theism, anyway) are not only separable but are in fact flatly incompatible, because theism rules out some core moral obligations that we ordinarily take ourselves to have. Here are links:
"Ordinary Morality Implies Atheism": http://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_OMIA.pdf
"Does God Destroy Our Duty of Compassion?": http://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_DGDDC.pdf
"Atheism and the Basis of Morality": http://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_ABM.pdfI do give theological voluntarists at least a serious hearing.
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