Religion and Morality

Overview

Recall questions on autonomy, theonomy and heteronomy, divine command ethics and the Euthyphro dilemma, Dawkins and Sharpe on morality without God, the moral arguments for and against God, religious terror, and biblical parenting.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What are the three basic positions on how religion and morality are related?

   Model answer

   Dependence, that morality derives from God and could not stand without divine authority. Independence, that morality has its own foundation in reason, sympathy or social life, and religion at most reinforces it. And a third position holding that they conflict, so religious commitment actually distorts moral judgement.

2. 2

   Distinguish autonomy, theonomy and heteronomy.

   Model answer

   Autonomy is self-legislation: the moral law is one the rational agent gives to itself, which is Kant's view. Heteronomy is law imposed from outside, so the agent obeys another's will and is not fully self-governing. Theonomy, in Tillich's usage, is the position that the moral law is neither externally imposed nor merely self-made but is grounded in the divine depth of our own being, so obeying God is not obeying a stranger.

3. 3

   What is divine command ethics?

   Model answer

   The view that an act is right because God commands it and wrong because God forbids it, so the divine will constitutes morality rather than merely reporting it. It is strongly voluntarist in Ockham, who held that God could have commanded otherwise, and appears in Kierkegaard's account of Abraham, where obedience to God suspends what ethics would ordinarily demand.

4. 4

   State the Euthyphro dilemma and one reply to it.

   Model answer

   Is an act good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? On the first horn, morality is arbitrary, since God could have commanded cruelty and it would then be right. On the second, goodness is independent of God, so God is not its source. Robert Adams replies with a modified version tying rightness to the commands of a God who is by nature loving, which blocks arbitrary commands without making goodness independent.

5. 5

   How does R Dawkins argue that morality does not need God?

   Model answer

   Dawkins argues that the roots of altruism are Darwinian: kin selection favours helping relatives who share our genes, reciprocal altruism favours cooperation with those who may return it, and both are reinforced by the value of a reputation for generosity. These evolved dispositions misfire benignly in modern conditions to produce broad kindness to strangers. He adds that a shifting moral consensus, which he calls the moral Zeitgeist, has improved across the centuries independently of scripture, that believers in practice select which biblical commands to follow using a standard from outside the text, and that anyone who says only fear of God stops them behaving appallingly is describing themselves unflatteringly.

6. 6

   What is R A Sharpe's case?

   Model answer

   In The Moral Case Against Religious Belief Sharpe goes further than saying morality is possible without God and argues that religion damages it. He contends that qualities religion counts as virtues, such as obedience, unquestioning faith and self-abasement, are closer to vices; that referring moral questions to an authority arrests moral maturity; that a religion focused on personal salvation makes goodness a matter of self-interest; and that the atheist who acts well without expecting reward or fearing punishment acts on better motives. He treats religious morality as heteronomous by nature.

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