Religion, Morality, and Kitty Wells

A redated post/ 

Country music, as most of us know, is  the most theology-laden form of popular music. The lyrics of this song, sung by Kitty Wells in the early 60s, illustrates, I believe, something interesting about the effect of religion on morality. It is a song of a woman who supposes herself to have been a wrongly deserted wife whose husband has given her divorce papers, all legal and proper. However, she asks whether "God is satisfied" with his actions, telling him that he will be called to account for what he has done by God, and implies that his lawyer won't do him any good when he stands before God and must be held accountable for his actions.

Your lawyer called and said he had the papers all prepared
To sign my name was all I had to do
He saw the judge, now he seen me, there's only one thing left
Will your lawyer talk to God for you?
Will your lawyer talk to God and plead your case up on high
And defend the way you broke my heart in two?
Manmade laws to set you free on earth but is God satisfied
Will your lawyer talk to God for you?
We all face that final judgment and it's very strict they say
When your time comes, I wonder what you'll do
Will you bow your head in shame or will you turn your head away
Or will your lawyer talk to God for you?
Will your lawyer talk to God and plead your case up on high
And defend the way you broke my heart in two?
Manmade laws to set you free on earth but is God satisfied
Will your lawyer talk to God for you?

I am not saying anything about the morality of divorce in general. Clearly, it is evident that at least some people desert marriages without adequate moral justification, and the law, as we currently conceive it, cannot prevent them from doing so. I bring these lyrics up because it seems to make nonsense of the popular idea that somehow religious belief, or lack of same, isn't a game-changer when it comes to morality. Assuming atheism, this appeal would be plain nonsense. Again, I am not arguing that no one can follow a moral code without a belief in God. But I think we must admit the force of this sort of consideration, and face that fact that many people, over the centuries, have turned away from a wrongful act because they believed that God would hold them accountable if they performed that action. I am thinking primarily here of the accountability and shame for these actions, as opposed, say punishment in hell. If someone can't see the moral force of this sort of thing, then I would have to say there is a screw loose somewhere.

Linville's The Moral Poverty of Evolutionary Naturalism

Here. 

Nonreligious bases for morality: Is this all there is?

In an important sense, there are two moral motivations that seem to me to be independent of religion. One is our desire to function socially. We want others to treat us well, so we do the same to others. The other is our sympathy and empathy for others. Atheists, like everyone else, have social interests, and natural sympathy for others. But the question then arises, is that all there is to morality?

Ethics without God, or ethics without metaphysics

I am redating this old post.

One interesting point about many ethical philosophies is that while they make no reference to a theistic God, they do seem to be grounded in metaphysics, and the kind of metaphysics at work is one that a modern naturalist would have trouble accepting. Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics are prime examples. Plato's moral philosophy is based on the Form of the Good, which shares certain characteristics with the theistic God, and which can be known through a process of recollection where we recollect what we were aware of in a pre-existence. Aristotle is based on the idea of an inherent purpose for human life, and Stoic ethics is a response to Stoic metaphysics. No one seems to be suggesting that ethics will be all just the same regardless of metaphysics. Even if a personal God isn't required for ethics, doesn't it seem plausible that at the very least some sort of metaphysics is required that most naturalists today would have a hard time accepting. Is it reasonable to reject what Kant called a metaphysics of morals?

When the secular foundation for morality wears thin

People who believe in a secular basis for morality usually look to our social needs and interactions to give us a reason to be moral. These motivations are legitimate, but may not hold up too well under the following circumstances.

1) People become convinced that appearing moral is all that is needed, as opposed to being moral.
2) People are in a position of control over others, and therefore do not consider their behavior toward those they control governed by ethics.
3) People just do not feel any need for social approval. Socially isolated persons often end up being serial killers, for example.

In these three situations, I do think the ordinary "social" reasons for leading an ethical life wear thin.

God, Ethics, and Weariness in Well-Doing.

One might imagine getting tired of being moral, if you keep seeing immoral people getting advantages and honest people doing badly. (CEOs who crap out their companies get golden parachutes, honest workers get laid off). Does a theist have a better answer to the thought "why bother being moral, it clearly doesn't work."

John Hare on the evolutionary foundations of morality

John Hare is a Christian philosopher and the son of R. M. Hare.

How does religion, or the lack of it, affect values?

Reply to Larry Arnhart

Larry Arnhart: The Bible endorses slavery. As Mark Noll and Eugene Genovese have indicated in their recent books on the subject, the proslavery folks were able to cite the Bible as supporting their position. But we know this can't be right, because we know that slavery is wrong, and therefore we know that we need to correct the Bible. Doesn't this illustrate how we have to appeal to a natural morality to correct the Bible and other sources of revelation? Similarly, we know that when Abraham was commanded by God to kill Isaac, this was wrong. Otherwise, we would have to agree with Kiekegaard that Revelation teaches "the suspension of the ethical."

VR: I had overlooked this comment from Larry Arnhart. I appreciate someone of his influence commenting here. However, he seems to assume that the only way that Scripture can influence morality is by specific statements or proof texts. The case against slavery, for me at least, doesn't stem from "natural morality" but rather from the extension and development of biblical concepts. If we believe that every human being was created by God for eternal fellowship with God yet while on earth they are the property of others in virtue of the color of their skin, is this coherent? Without endorsing Newman's use of it as an apologetic for Catholic doctrines like the Immaculate conception, I do think the idea of doctrinal development is a useful and valuable idea for understanding theological (and other) concepts. You might want to complain that this is a poor way for God to reveal things--why not save the world a lot of trouble by adding a slavery ban to the Ten Commandments? But, as a Christian I believe that God has, for whatever reason, chosen to do it this way. There are other ethical systems that might provide a basis for the rights and dignity of human beings, (Aristotelian natural purpose, Plato's forms) but these seem to be just as unacceptable from the point of view of philosophical naturalism.

Of course, if it could be proven that traditional theism provides an inadequate support for traditional ethics doesn't mean that that support has to come from some other source. Maybe that support just doesn't exist.

Wiker on Evolutionary ethics

Does Darwinian naturalism undermine (broadly speaking) traditional morality? Benjamin Wiker, pace Larry Arnhart, thinks that indeed it does. HT: Jim Pourchot

Carson Holloway on Darwinian natural right

Can morality be imbedded in a Darwinian world view? Carson Holloway, of Princeton University, has some doubts. HT: J. D. Walters

Defenders of “Darwinian natural right” are convincing when they argue that our moral inclinations are not arbitrary social constructs, but instead our biological nature. But a Darwinian approach equally demonstrates that many other passions are rooted in our nature, passions that can hardly be called moral and that might well be considered immoral. No doubt a tendency toward cooperation would have been useful in the evolutionary environment. So too would a tendency to exploit the vulnerabilities of others. Darwinians all admit this, and they accordingly admit that human nature is made up of both moral and amoral passions. Once that is conceded, their teaching can only provide an equivocal support for morality. The man inclined by sympathy to help his neighbor may be apt, in other circumstances, to enslave him if the man thinks he and his kin can benefit from such injustice.[1]
[1] Holloway, Carson. “Losing our religion” 21 August 2006

Platonistic Metaphysics and morality

XA: A non-theist need not be a naturalist in such a crude sense that all entities are physical or reducible to the physical in some sense or another (e.g., in terms of logical supervenience). One could hold a gazillion different views here. Here's the one I hold at the moment: all *contingent* being is reducible to the physical, but since abstracta exist (including moral properties), and exist of metaphysical necessity, then they need no causal or explanatory ground in terms of the physical; nor, for the same reason, need they be caused or explained in terms of a god (being the necessary beings they are). If this is plausible -- and I think it obviously is -- then (2) is implausible. On the other hand, if you're just dead set on characterizing physicalism so that it requires the reducible of everything to the physical, then since the alternative view I mention is plausible, then (1) is implausible (well, it's implausible anyway; this is just an extra reason for thinking so).

Here's the problem I have with all of this. You have the physical world, which is a closed system of physical causes. I take it that all contingent states, on this view, can be explained from the stand point of the closed and mechanistic physical order, and by whatever supervenience relations obtain. And there are the necessary moral truths, which do not rely on anything, God or the physical, for their existence. The trouble is that for Plato himself, we have a soul, which had a previous existence, and had a direct awareness of the Forms, but now that we are encased in fleshly bodies, we forgot all that knowledge of the Forms, unless it is somehow brought out of us through midwifery of some kind. In other words, Plato postulated some kind of interconnection between the world of forms and how our thoughts get caused in the real world. The Augustinian doctrine of divine illumination is the Christian replacement for the Platonistic doctrine of recollection. But this view you're propounding doesn't have any conduits from the truths of morality to the real world of our experience. If our duties are determined by the abstracta, then we may be able to act in accordance with duty, but we certainly can't act from duty, as Kant would say. If we act morally, the morality of our actions is at best epiphenomenal. Our state of acting rightly would be determined by whatever state the physical was in, and would not be determined by the state of what is morally true. I think this makes the position thus sketched wildly implausible.

The future of godless ethics

Is atheism demoralizing? Does it undermine morality? Of course, there are plenty of atheists with robust ethical codes who try their best to live up to them. But is this enough? Layman at Christian Cadre thinks not.

A quote from Gary DeMar's essay "Why Atheists are Theocrats"

Quoted in Christopher's Price's post on CADRE

If atheists get their way, they will be running the world in terms of some ultimate principle. At the moment, atheists have the benefit of a vibrant Christian worldview where they can borrow moral plugs like compassion and kindness to keep their hole-filled materialist boat afloat. Given time, future generations of atheists will logically throw off these moral precepts that at one time had been mined from "ancient literature." Consistency will lead these newly empowered atheists to conclude that "kindness" is a superstitious remnant of an ancient book-led religion that once proposed that immaterial entities exist. Science will show that there is no way to account for these religion-defined virtues given naturalistic assumptions.... When atheists no longer have Christianity to borrow from, from what bank will they draw their moral capital?

Are moral atheists borrowing their moral capital from Christianity?

Ethics with and without God II

I'm redating this post.

I think there are two cases of atheistic morality that would have to be considered. Some world-views are not theistic per se but believe that there is a given purpose for human existence. If you accept something like Aristotle's inherent purposes (Aristotle had the unmoved mover but the UMM is not a personal God), then what is right fulfils that purpose and what is wrong fails to do so. I'm not sure that the idea of inherent purpose makes sense without the idea of intended purpose, but if you bought that it looks like you can get an objective moral standard out of it.

A theistic account of morality would, I think, combine the idea that as creatures of God we are created in such a way that our intended purposes and our inherent purposes are identical: we fulfill our purpose as human beings by doing what we were made to do. (How that solves particular problems like abortion, for example, may be more difficult, but right now I'm just working on the general idea of a moral life).

If you're going without God and without inherent purpose, then I think Hume is about the best source. He pointed out that a lot of ethical behavior can be justified by enlightened self-interest or social utility, and that we have feeling of sympathy for one another. But with his system, I have trouble seeing why we should do the right thing when it isn't in our enlightened self-interest and when we are feeling a lot of other feelings a lot more strongly than we feel sympathy. Why should sympathy trump other, stronger, feelings?