[vinnomot] Humanism and Ethics: (Comp 1): Comparative study of Religious and Secular theories

 

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

 

Comprehensive Module
Morality from above and below Fundamentals Challenges to morality
Is religion a good or bad basis for morality -- that is, for our ideas about right, wrong, good, and bad? Are different warring religions, with so many differebt sects, trustwirthy for a universdal morality? Is the parochial, narrow-minded religions with thousands years history of « Religious wars »,  the only basis of morality? Can we trust, religioins of blood-thirsty Crusades, terrorist Jihadis, Christan, Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists and extremists, on matters of ethics ? Are the religions, responsible for « Clashes of Religions and Sects », be trusted for Morality ?  Are the responsible Humanist and secular systems of morality -- those that deal with issues of right and wrong, with human responsibility, wisdom and experience  without reference to religion -- possible? If they're not founded on fictional Allah or God, what are they founded on – on a universal truth? Solid and rarional foundations? Would the world be better off if everyone adopted a universal humanist and secular approach to morality? And how can we hope to evaluate answers to such questions fairly -- that is, without assuming at the start that the religious way is irrational and often unbelieveable if not obsolete or the humanist and the secular way is the best? These can be very troubling questions because they strike at something fundamental to the way we live our lives: our assumptions about what is right, wrong, good, and bad-ideas that we may have been taking for granted from the day we started making deliberative choices. At the same time, morality is hard to avoid because moral issues are hard to avoid. We all spend an enormous amount of our time thinking about them, reacting to them, and making decisions because of them. In fact, we all have what philosophers call 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, that is a theory of morality- even though this is an absurd attitude. If you believe that all moral theories and moral theories are bogus, that is also a theory of morality, though of irresponsible people. If you are sure that all religious moral theories are inferior to humanist/secular ones, you are leaning on a specific view of morality. Whether you think that moral judgments are objective, subjective, universal, relative, or meaningless, you have some definite ideas about what morality is all about. For a variety of reasons, questions regarding the role of religion and humanism/secularism in morality seem to be especially vexing to many people. But they need not be, thanks to work done by scholars in the field of ethics over the centuries. Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the philosophical study of how we should live our lives. At its core is the creation and evaluation of moral theories -- tasks that philosophers have been able to illuminate far more than most people realize. This module will help you understand the basic principles s of this work and to apply what you learn to this module's core question: What religious or humanist/secular moral theories are worthy of your commitment and how you can tell that they are?
Morality from above and below
Religious moral theories depend substantially on ideas about theistic or supernatural states of affairs. Humanist/Secular moral theories leave out such fictional ideas. Humanist moral theories are also secular but emphasize a respect or concern for the welfare and the rights/duties of human individuals, and Humanists consider all religious books as common spiritual and literary inheritence of humanity. Humanists do not discard religious literature but do not take the religious ordinances, supernatural stories and literature as final authority. (Holy Quran: 13.7. "...You are only a warner, and for every people is a guide (a different guide fir every nation and people ; i twas in past, i ris at present, i twill be in future).  Quran "13.38: "... For every age there is a book (in pasr, at present, in future)").          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, stem cell research, cloning humans, and more. In some cases, though, the differences are minimal, in other cases these are maximal : with references to the supernatural being for exmple. 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 or outline of an Islamic Shariah. (Some people think that morality just is the Ten Commandments or Islamic Shariah.) This view assumes that the ten rules of Bible or Sharia-outline set down in the Old Testament or Koran/Hadith can constitute a complete theory of morality. This theory -- what we will call the Ten Commandments/Islamic Shariah Theory of morality (TCT) -- says that right actions are those that conform to the ten Old Testament/Koran and Hadith rules. The rules are absolute, allowing no exceptions, no "wiggle room" for transgressors, and the consequences of your actions are irrelevant, and good or bad is judged through narrow-minded and strict religious rules. (Read: What is Islamic Shariah : <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanist_international/message/25> Now, if people want to cite a Humanist/Secular 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 and all other humanist principles into account. In act-utilitarianism, being moral is a matter of making sure that your actions maximize happiness, do justice and treat others fairly. Absolutist rules don't matter in a religious-fundamentalist-fashion; your intention, act and the consequences of your actions, all are important. 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 under a non-religious perspective; and that there are important reasons for acting ethically and morally. Both theories also assume that moral knowledge (such as whether an action is right, or whether a person is good) is objective -- that ordinarily it does not depend on any one person's state of mind. The TCT is thought to make objective moral judgments possible through a rather subjectine and fundamentalist religious point of view, and utilitarianism is an objective theory because determining the consequences of actions as a matter of objective observation through the prism of ethical principles. 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 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.
Fundamentals
Theories of morality are theories of right action -- that is, theories about what makes an action right. The two major types of theories are 1. consequentialist (or teleological) and 2. formalist (or deontological). 1. 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. 2. 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 moral code/Islamic Shariah is a formalist theory. Looking from another angle, 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 text or artifacts. A nonreligious person might claim that an action is right if it results in the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Formalist theories can also be religious 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 centred around human beings and so are nonreligious (while the religious theories are more concerned to obeying some fictional Allah concieved by ignorant and superstitious Bedouins or obeying a God or Son of God - Jesus as presumed by the ancient and ignorant Romans and equally superstitious Romanized Jews); 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, dignity and the rights/duties of human individuals. So utilitarianism 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 and favoured by the rich imperialists and modern Western and American political leaders like George Bush, 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, like mass-murder and invasions on false pretexts as long as they are in the best interests of one's self or one's community or country, acts that humanism would not condone.
Looking from a different angle, Moral theories can be naturalistic or nonnaturalistic, an important distinction that philosophers have debated for centuries. Naturalistic theories assert that morality can be reduced to, 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 theory might say that being moral means meeting certain common human needs. Utilitarianism is a naturalistic moral theory. Humanist theories can be either naturalistic or nonnaturalistic. 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 you "can't get an 'ought' from an 'is,'" a point made by the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume. 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. 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. The two most famous responses to the ethic questions come from Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) (photo) and the philosopher G.E. Moore (1873-1958). Hume says that there is a huge gap between facts and values -- and that you cannot derive values from any set of facts. That is, logically you cannot derive a statement about what should be from a statement about what actually exists. For example, you cannot derive the statement "one ought not to cause pain in others" from the statement "this action causes pain in others." reject the distinction. Moore says that no one can plausibly equate concepts such as "right" or "good" with natural properties such as "reduces pain" or "increases happiness	ARE NATURALISTIC THEORIES PLAUSIBLE? Naturalistic ethical theories say that moral properties can be defined in non-moral, natural terms, or that moral properties just are natural properties. In other words, morality can be naturalized. If this is so, then moral properties can be investigated or recognized in the same way that science investigates or recognizes any empirical, natural fact. But critics of naturalistic theories ask, "Does it really make sense to claim that morality is identical to, or defined in terms of, natural facts about the world?" One answer has come from the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). He argues that there is a clear distinction between facts and values. To put it another way, you cannot simply derive an ought from an is. For example, from the fact that an action would increase the amount of pleasure in the world you cannot infer that you should try to enhance pleasure in the world. Another answer has come from philosopher G.E. Moore (1873-1958). He claims that no one can plausibly equate concepts like "good" or "right" with some natural property such as "happiness" or "survival value." To support this claim he offers his famous open-question argument. The ethical naturalist, he says, may stipulate that "good" (or "right") is identical to "pleasant," but you could still legitimately ask, "But is 'pleasant' good?" His point is that you could substitute any natural property in this equation -- and it would still be an open question as to whether that property was truly good (or right). Since this open question can arise in any naturalistic moral theory, it must be the case that natural properties cannot be identical to good or right. Moore's open-question argument, however, has been criticized on several grounds, so it does not have the force that it used to. A few points seem clear, though. Even if we dismiss the arguments of Hume and Moore, we still are confronted with the fact that naturalistic definitions of "good" or "right" seem to conflict with our experience of the moral life. Most of the time, we tend to separate natural properties from moral properties. We think that our factual assertions do not hide some recommendation or prescription or approval or disapproval. They are neutral. But our ethical judgments are a different matter: they carry all kinds of evaluative elements. It would seem odd if we thought something was good but were completely neutral about anyone pursuing it or doing it. Even if we accepted some naturalistic definition of moral terms, we would still be left with the task of justifying those definitions. Simply offering a definition is not enough. If "good" is identical to "happiness," we might then be able to direct our actions accordingly. But what are the reasons for accepting such an equation in the first place? Such an equation amounts to a moral theory, and moral theories demand justification.
Challenges to morality
Before discussing how philosophers evaluate the worth of moral theories, we need to mention some influential challenges to the very idea of morality as most people conceive it -- challenges to both religious and nonreligious theories. You should be aware that thinkers have put forth several different arguments that seem to undermine key assumptions about the moral life: 1.  there really is no such thing as moral knowledge; 2.  moral choice is a myth; and 3.  morality is entirely subjective Subjective Theories Some people argue that what makes an action right is that it is approved by someone. In other words, if I believe that an action is right, then it is right -- absolutely right. If you approve of an action, then that action is objectively right. Morality is whatever someone says it is. This view is known as subjective absolutism, it is however, is false. It involves a logical contradiction. According to this view, if person A believes p (a statement about reality), then p is true. If person B believes not-p, then p is not true. But one and the same state-of-affairs cannot both obtain and not obtain at the same time. That would be a logical impossibility. Just as we know that there can be no square circles (circles that both have and do not have the property of circularity), we know that there can be no state-of-affairs that both is and is not. Personal absolutism, therefore, cannot be true. Religious moral theroies (Both ten Commandments and Islamic Shariah) have many examples of such Subjective absolutism Subjective relativism, however, avoids this logical absurdity. It's the view that truth is relative to what an individual believes. Truth is not absolute; it's relative. If you believe that something is true, then it is true for you. If someone else believes something else, then it is true for her. Subjective relativists can thus avoid obvious contradictions by saying, in effect, "This is my truth, and that's your truth." The first great relativist was the ancient philosopher Protagoras. He said that a thing "is to me such as it appears to me, and is to you such as it appears to you." Subjective relativism can be very comforting (since you can make something right just by believing it right), but it has some implications that undermine it completely. First, the theory implies that each person, each religion, each sect, each communita is morally infallible. If we believe that an action is right, it is right, and we cannot be mistaken. So if convicted murderer Timothy McVeigh believed that bombing a federal building and killing hundreds of innocent people was right, then it was right. If subjective relativism is true, we could never make a moral mistake. This is implausible. Also, if each person, each religion, each sect, each community  made his or her own truth, disagreement among persons would not only be pointless, i twill be chaotic. You disagree with someone when you think that he is mistaken, but subjective relativism says that no one can be mistaken. Trying to persuade someone that she is wrong would be useless because she could never be wrong. It would be like disagreeing about the taste of peaches. If you say that peaches taste good to you, and your friend says that peaches taste awful to him, there is obvious disagreement. How something tastes, is relative to each individual. The biggest problem with subjective relativism is that it is self-defeating. If subjective relativism is true, then the belief that it is false would be just as true as the belief that it is true. Plato points out this weird consequence of Protagoras' view: "Protagoras for his part, admitting as he does that everybody's opinion is true, must acknowledge the truth of his opponents' belief about his own belief, where they think he is wrong." So if subjective relativism were true, proponents couldn't claim that their theory is any more true than any other. One view would be as good as the next one. Emotivism Some people have claimed that there are no moral facts or moral knowledge. Moral judgments or statements don't express facts; they are just not the type of thing that can be true or false. Moral statements are, instead, expressions of emotion, such as "capital punishment--boo!" "euthanasia--hooray!" This view is known as emotivism, and it has some serious problems. Emotivism implies that nothing is good or bad, right or wrong, because terms like "good" or "wrong" do not refer to anything. This is a bizarre consequence. In addition, if emotivism is true, then moral disagreement is impossible. When we have a moral disagreement with someone, we have a sense that something is at issue -- there is an assertion or view that we think is faulty, false, irrelevant, or in some other way conceptually inadequate. We do not think that we are merely making noises at our opponent or wallowing in feelings. When we say that the murder of six million Jews by the Roman catholic Nazis and their Roman Protestant Christians  supporters in World War II was wrong, we surely are not just venting our emotions. Hard Determinism Hard Determinism is the view that we have no free will -- that there are no free actions -- because everything has a cause. If every event has a cause, then every event is preceded by a long chain of causes stretching back indefinitely in time. This means that any action you perform has been the result of causes over which you have no control. Thus your actions are not really free. But it seems clear that if we are not free to make our own choices, then we cannot be held morally responsible for what we do. Morality is dead, or at least irrelevant. Philosophers have responded to this view of freedom and morality in several ways. Probably the most widely held view is what is called soft determinism, the notion that even if all our actions are determined, we can still be free in some sense. Here's how: Determinism is true -- everything has a cause, including our will to act (or our desires, inclinations, etc.). But as long as our actions are in accordance with our will, and not externally constrained, then our actions are free. And we can be held morally responsible for those actions. Another view, libertarianism, says that every event does have a cause, but not all events are caused by other events. Some events, such as our actions, can be caused by agents (selves, persons). And free actions are those caused by agents. So we are sometimes free to cause our own actions -- and therefore can be held morally responsible for them.

 

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