Morality’s independence from religion
Via the Labour Humanists comes a great piece by Sam Harris on the question of morality outside of religion. I don't hear that so much in the UK, but in the US there seem to be large numbers of people who think that orders from ghosts are all that stand between any individual and complete moral bankruptcy. Sam shows why this is crap in many ways; here's one:
It is important to point out that we decide what is good in the Good Book. We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses; we read that a woman found not to be a virgin on her wedding night should be stoned to death, and we (if we are civilized) decide that this is the most vile lunacy imaginable. Our own ethical intuitions are, therefore, primary. So the choice before us is simple: we can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about ethics—availing ourselves of all the arguments and scientific insights that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse—or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible.
I'd add that blind adherence to doctrine is actually a far less desirable form of morality than something you've thought through yourself. That's not to say that many, if not most, religious people don't analyse the morality of scripture - it's only really the complete nuts who are happy to turn their brains off - but when you start from the basis of 'god exists and says this' you have to ignore or rationalise away large amounts of barbarism, because who wants to think their deity is any less than perfect? When your premise is invalid, chaos follows. A perfectly acceptable morality can be achieved through reason and compassion, and it doesn't require jumping through mental hoops to avoid the clearly repulsive.
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July 7th, 2006 - 08:01
I agree with you that morality is certainly seperate from the religious doctrine – no question. The problem arises from the religious rhetoric used by politicians such as Bush and Blair in justifying their political decisions. When Blair was asked by the inimitable Michael Parkinson how he coped with the responsibility, how he woke up each morning and justified the decisions he had made regarding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he put it down to faith…’
In the end, there is a judgement that, I think if you have faith about these things, you realise that judgement is made by other people… and if you believe in God, it’s made by God as well’.
This single comment deals great damage to the current position of ‘neo-cons’ and other advocates of the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq who continually attempt to ‘rationalize’ the current political climate. Oddly enough Blair states shortly after that ‘The only way you can take a decision like that is to do the right thing according to your conscience’, which seems contradictory but necessary in light of the grilling he would receive as a result of his previous stupidity.
I’m interested to know how you reconcile your politics; being a supporter of Labour and a general move towards occupation under ‘moral’ obligation, with Blair’s comments. I apologise if you have covered this topic in a previous post as the interview was carried out quite a while back. However, I’m sure you can think of a number of other examples of Bush and Blair’s extolling of faith with regard to politics.
July 8th, 2006 - 00:58
How are you interpreting the comment? I don’t see how it’s contradictory with the following sentence, or a major problem with supporting Labour…I interpreted it as a statement that he, as a religious person, thinks he’ll be judged by god as well as the people. Obviously I’d rather the prime minister didn’t believe in sky-fairies, but this is a long way from religion interfering with politics, imho. Unlike the situation in the US, of course.
July 8th, 2006 - 08:36
I would say that while Labour have not attempted to apply their ethics as readily as the U.S. (not saying that they haven’t at all) but the overall logic of a God being there to ‘make the decision with/for you’ (paraphrased) in any measure whatsoever is a dangerous one. I interpreted Blair justifying his actions to himself partially or wholly based upon his faith and that is quite terrible news for some people. That means that faith manifests it’s ugly head at an applied level through Blair’s overall logic. Yes the next comment goes some way towards repairing this but surely it is bordering on contradictory. He’s now arguing that God doesn’t play a hand in decision making, your conscience does. I believe he’s either very confused or very silly. I believe its something all politicians desire in order to acquire public support, it’s called ‘having your bread buttered on both sides’.
I would like to add that I myself do not have much of a problem with ‘faith’ per say. I believe faith is interesting from an anthropological viewpoint and often binds people together as well as breaking them apart. I also believe that having faith in something may well be a perfectly human thing to do, to protect oneself, heal oneself etc. albeit delusional from a purely logical point of view. It’s the appropriation of faith to cater for seperate ‘religions’ that I think where the danger lies. Blair’s comments didn’t bother me that much because i attributed them to, well, almost hope. However, considering people like Dawkins, whom I know you admire, insist ‘faith’ is the problem I was interesting to hear your opinion.
July 8th, 2006 - 11:58
I can see how you\’d get to that interpretation. I did interpret it the one way originally, but looking again it\’s rather ambiguous. Hard to say whether he just thinks that he\’ll be judged, or whether he thinks some deity has helped him along. I\’d need to hear other things from him before going with any particular interpretation.
July 8th, 2006 - 20:00
paroxysm talks of Labour’s “ethics” but in the context of this post does anyone know what are Labour’s ethics? I dare say officially/semi-officially we are a secular party which develops its policies and values from rational debate about how to achieve our social democratic aims…but….but…it is clear that for some within Labour’s elite, none more so than the PM himself, promotion of religion is a policy goal in itself. Now, how did that come about! I don’t know of any debates or policy docs where the party openly debated values and ethics in this context.
July 8th, 2006 - 22:01
Just wanting to be clear Lab. Hum. Are you arguing that Blair is indeed wrong but goes against the general consensus of his party as there are no documents wherein religious advocatism is applied at, shall we say, “ground level”?
July 9th, 2006 - 18:36
…like the government’s attempts to push through an anti-religious hatred bill:
http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume119issue5.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4664398.stm
July 10th, 2006 - 11:38
6 – paroxysm – I’m saying – I think – that I don’t know of any policy debate, forum, consultation….anything within the party where the issue of the promotion of religion in relation to the party’s values has been discussed. I’ve always assumed the default position was secular, which is probably why stuff like the expansion in the number of faith schools has largely been done by stealth – if you study most party docs on education faith schools are hardly ever mentioned, yet their expansion is a key feature of recent reforms. It’s all very wrong!