[vinnomot] Humanism and Ethics: (Basic 1): Sacred V Secular Ethics

 

Sacred vs. Secular Ethics: Comparative study of religious, secular, and humanist theories of morality

 

Basic Module
The Two Paths Some Basics Judging Moral Theories
Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the study of how we should live our lives. For at least five thousand years, issues in ethics have been studied and debated by the ancient Greek anf Romsn philosophers, Jewish, Christian Islamic theologians, modern day liberal enlightened scientists, physicians, artists, and people just like you and me. But, then, not thinking about moral issues is pretty hard to do. In fact, whether you want the job or not, you are an forced to be amateur ethicist, someone who spends a lot of time thinking about moral issues. What's more, you have a moral theory -- a view of what morality is and is not, what actions are right or wrong, and what things are good or bad. Even if you think that there is no such thing as right and wrong, even that is a theory of morality, however absurd. If you believe that all moral theories and moral theorizing are bogus, that is also a theory of morality, however irresponsible. So the question of whether you should have a moral theory is irrelevant -- you already have one. The really important question is: Which one should you have? You take this question lightly at your peril because your theory of morality -- whatever it is -- helps you plot the course of your life. Whether valid or invalid, ideas about morality influence what you do and don't do. A poor moral theory leads to poor moral judgments. A good moral theory helps you make good moral judgments. And the difference between the two paths can be vast. Moral theories come in all shapes and sizes, and most of them have their own devotees who may insist that their view is the one that the rest of the world should adopt. So moral conflicts continually arise not only over specific moral judgments, but between rival conceptions of morality itself -- between moral theories. Such rivalries seem especially intense between moral theories that grow out of religious traditions and those that do not. Religious moral theories depend substantially on ideas about theistic or supernatural states of affairs. Humanist/Secular moral theories leave out such ideas. Humanist moral theories are also secular but emphasize a respect or concern for the welfare and the rights/duties of human individuals. The differences between religious and secular theories can be stark and often show up vividly in debates about abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, women's rights, teen violence, cloning humans, and more. In some cases, though, the differences are minimal, with references to the supernatural being almost the only contrasting element. In any case, what we really need to know about both religious and nonreligious moral theories is whether they are worthy of our commitment and how we can tell that they are. This module will help you get your bearings so you can begin to answer these questions for yourself. We will get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible.
The Two Paths
When people try to think of a religious theory of morality, they often come up with a moral code (set of rules) consisting of the Ten Commandments, for example in Christianity, or Islamic Shariah iamong Muslims. (Some foolish Christians even think that morality just is the Ten Commandments as many ignorant and narrow-minded Muslims take Shariah as absolute.) This view assumes that the 10 rules set down in the Old Testament of Moses and other Jewish prophets or rules of Islamic Shariah can constitute a complete theory of morality. This theory -- what we will call the Ten Commandments theory of morality (TCT) -- says that right actions are those that conform to the 10 Old Testament rules. The rules. Like those od Islamic Shariah, are absolute, allowing no exceptions, no "wiggle room" for transgressors, and the consequences of your actions are irrelevant. Now, if people want to cite a Humanist/Scular theory of morality, there's a good chance they'll think of act-utilitarianism, the view that right actions are those that maximize happiness, everyone considered. That is, an action is right if it results in more happiness than any other action, taking everyone into account. In act-utilitarianism, being moral is a matter of making sure that your actions maximize happiness. Absolutist rules don't matter; the consequences of your actions are everything. The differences between these two systems are clear enough. But they also share some common ground. Both theories assume that moral knowledge is possible; that moral principles can be applied universally; and that there are important reasons for acting morally. Both theories also assume that moral knowledge (such as whether an action is right, or whether a person is good) is objective -- that it does not depend on any one person's state of mind. The TCT is thought to make objective moral judgments possible, and utilitarianism is an objective theory because determining the consequences of actions is a matter of objective observation. These common elements run through many other theories of morality, both religious and secular. All of the preceding points may have tipped you off to a key fact that will become even clearer as we proceed: Generalizations about the worth of all religious theories compared to that of all humanist/secular ones are likely to be very iffy. There are faulty secular theories and faulty religious theories. This means that every moral theory must stand on its own merits, and every moral theory must be judged on its own merits. Simply lumping a theory into the secular or sacred category won't help much. Some theists (people who believe in Allah or God) dismiss Humanist/Secular theories of morality because they are "godless (as if therer is any proof that Allah or Go dis real and provable and not just a fiction or illusion)." In other words, the problem with secular theories is that they are secular. Likewise, nontheists may dismiss religious moral systems because the theories assume the existence of a presumed Allah or God. That is, the problem with religious theories is that they are religious. Such criticisms do have their place. It is certainly legitimate to criticize a theory by pointing out that some of its underlying assumptions are false. But in many cases, moral theories are vulnerable to several compelling criticisms in addition to whatever arguments there are about the existence or nonexistence of Allah or God.
Some Basics
Theories of morality are theories of right action -- that is, theories about what makes an action right. The two major types of theories are consequentialist (or teleological) and formalist (or deontological). Consequentialist moral theories claim that the rightness of an action depends on its consequences. Act-utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory because right actions are supposed to result in more happiness than other possible actions. To put the point crudely, the basic idea behind such theories is that the end justifies the means. Formalist moral theories claim that the rightness of an action depends on the action's form. Here the consequences of an action don't matter (or matter very little), but the form, or nature, of the action does. Such a theory might claim, for example, that killing an innocent person is always wrong because of the nature of that action, and this would be so whether or not the killing resulted in a great deal of good such as saving the lives of a hundred people. By this definition the Ten Commandments theory (TCT) is a formalist theory. Consequentialist theories may be either religious or nonreligious. A religious person might say that an action is right if it results in the greatest amount of respect for sacred texts or artifacts. A nonreligious person might claim that an action is right if it results in the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number of people. Formalist theories can also be religous or nonreligious. Christian theories of ethics have traditionally been formalist, often maintaining that a certain kind of action is right or wrong no matter what the results. Nonreligious formalist theories are common too. Some of them claim, for example, that an action is right if it constitutes the performance of a certain duty, as in the ethical systems of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and W.D. Ross. All humanist theories are nonreligious, and they too can be either consequentialist or formalist. Not all nonreligious theories, however, can be plausibly considered humanist. Humanism as a world view has traditionally incorporated a respect or concern for the welfare and the rights/duties of human individuals. So utilitarianism is one of the theories that earns the label of humanist because the crux of the theory is maximizing the happiness or pleasure of other human beings. But the secular theory known as ethical egoism can't plausibly be called humanist. It's the view that right actions are those that promote one's own self interest -- a kind of moral self-absorption that is alien to humanist views of humanity. Ethical egoism also permits all manner of heinous acts as long as they are in the best interests of one's self or one's community/country, acts that humanism would not condone. Some moral theories are naturalistic and some nonnaturalistic, an important distinction that philosophers have debated for centuries. Naturalistic theories assert that morality can be derived from, or defined in terms of, natural phenomena. That is, people can know moral facts in the same way that a scientist can know physical or material facts. A naturalistic theory, for example, might maintain that ethical terms such as "morally right" can be equated with empirical phenomena like "producing more pleasure than pain." Or the a theory might say that being moral means meeting certain common human needs. Utilitarianism is a naturalistic moral theory. Nonnaturalistic theories reject the idea that moral facts are somehow empirical facts. Proponents of these theories claim that moral terms cannot be reduced to empirical terms. The most famous nonnaturalistic slogan is that you "can't get an 'ought' from an 'is.'" The idea that morality cannot be extracted from facts about the world was made most forcefully by the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume -- even though his own moral theory was naturalistic. The most famous nonnaturalistic moral theory is that of Immanuel Kant, who asserted that people have certain absolute moral duties that are derived not from empirical facts but from logical considerations. Some modern-day philosophers hold the nonnaturalistic (and nonreligious) view that there are universal moral principles that are logically self-evident. Some people use the term "naturalistic" as a synonym for nonreligious. This way of using the word is perfectly acceptable, as long as the intended meaning is clear. We just need to keep in mind that in the field of ethics, most philosophers define "naturalistic" as we did above, using the term to emphasize the critical distinction between morality based on, and not based on, natural phenomena. (They may also sometimes use the term "naturalized" to mean much the same thing.) They would therefore want to say that religious moral theories can be naturalistic (empirical facts may define morality) or nonnaturalistic (morality comes from Allah or God) and that secular theories can also fall into either category. Note: Philosophers also apply "naturalistic" or "naturalized" to theories in epistemology (the study of knowledge) and to some areas of metaphysics (the study of the nature of reality), such as the mind-body problem and free will versus determinism.
Judging Moral Theories
Theories of morality are like theories in science. Scientific theories try to explain the causes of events, such as a chemical reaction, the orbit of a planet, or the growth of a tumor. A plausible scientific theory is one that's consistent with all the relevant data. Moral theories try to explain what makes an action right or what makes a person good. A plausible moral theory must also be consistent with all the relevant data. The data that moral theories must explain are what philosophers call our "considered moral judgments" -- moral judgments that we accept after thinking critically about them. Any worthy moral theory will be consistent with those judgments. If it is not -- if, for example, it approves of obviously immoral acts -- the theory is flawed and must be discarded. If our moral theory sanctions, say, the inflicting of undeserved and unnecessary suffering on innocent children, we must conclude that something is very wrong with our theory. Plausible scientific theories must also be consistent with all relevant background information. A theory about the explosion of a star, for example, must not only be consistent with data regarding the explosion itself, but with facts we already know about gravity, space, heat, light, and scientific measuring instruments. Likewise, plausible moral theories must be consistent with the relevant background information -- that is, with our experience of the moral life. Whatever else our moral experience entails, it certainly involves 1.  making moral judgments 2.  occasionally getting into moral disagreements 3.  sometimes acting immorally. Any theory that suggests that we do not have these fundamental experiences must be deemed suspect. It is logically possible that our experience of the moral life is a relative, only seeming to involve moral judgments, disputes, and mistakes. It is also possible that our considered moral judgments do not have the objective character that we normally attribute to them. But unless we have good reason to dismiss our experience as relative, we are justified in accepting it at face value. Many, if not most, thinkers in ethics tend to give our considered moral judgments, or moral intuitions, a considerable amount of weight as evidence for or against proposed theories. Any moral theory, if it is to be at all plausible, must explain how it relates to our moral intuitions. The point of having a moral theory is that it gives guidance in choosing the right actions. And the most important guidance is the kind that helps us resolve moral dilemmas-situations when moral principles or judgments are in conflict. Any moral theory that gives us no help with these problems is said to be unworkable, and any unworkable theory is a poor theory. So all good moral theories must... be consistent with our considered moral judgments be consistent with our experience of the moral life be workable. These criteria enable us to undertake a fair assessment of all types of moral theories-religious, secular, and humanist.

 

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