I am disturbed by the fact that, upon discovering my disbelief in things like sin and hell, people are compelled to ask what motivates me to do the right thing and strive to be moral. Contemporary American culture assumes a strict connection between religion and ethical conduct, but this connection is not always a healthy one, and it is worth exploring in a bit more detail.
Our title question is whether religion has a place in ethics. We are properly referring to what role, if any, our religious beliefs ought to have in our ethical decision-making. Possible replies are obvious. Either religion should have no role at all, or some role with varying significance that is to be determined. The first question to consider is whether religion ought to play any role in ethics whatsoever.
The simplest reply to this question is to say “no”, that religion ought not have any role in our moral decision-making. After all, religion has great power over some people, such that they might be influenced into making choices that are decidedly immoral, like killing abortion doctors or committing suicide bombings, in the name of religion. It would be false to claim that the connection between religion and ethics ought to be a strong one, and many examples lead us to the conclusion that there is not a necessary connection between these institutions.
However, we must also consider the fact that most people, especially here in America where I am writing, identify themselves as somewhat religious. For many individuals, their religion is a centrally defining characteristic of who they are, such that they would be nearly incapable of making ethical decisions independently of their religious beliefs. This cannot be disregarded on the grounds that it can be dysfunctional. The role of religion must be accounted for in some way.
Further, some of our most basic moral sentiments are directly connected to religious ideology. For example, most people agree that things like murder and adultery are always wrong, regardless of circumstances. Most major world religions echo these sentiments, and it can be argued that the ancient codes of conduct these traditions embody are actually the original source of our social intuitions. At a minimum, we do seem to regard religion as a good source of basic moral guidance, making it unwise to argue that there ought to be no connection between religion and ethics.
At this point, we have been able to eliminate one possible reply to the question of whether religion has a place in ethics. It seems clear that whatever the relationship between the two might properly be, there is certainly some relationship that exists. Pragmatism requires us to somewhat set aside the question of whether this ought to be the case, because this relationship does exist, and we must account for it in our own ethical choice making, as well as our theorizing about what kinds of choices are the right ones.
I fear this is as far as we can come in the space available. Our conclusion is significant, for it seems clear that the relationship between ethics and religion is historically and culturally relevant, and that many of our basic moral intuitions are connected to religious doctrines of right conduct. We have also discovered that religion is potentially harmful to ethical conduct, as it has the power to usurp our good moral sense in the name of some allegedly higher purpose. We are left to walk the line between “just enough” and “way too much” interaction between religious and ethical beliefs. However, our awareness of this connection is perhaps enough to allow us to draw from religion that which is useful, while disregarding that which leads to immoral actions.
About the Author
Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman University. He currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife Laura, his son Brandon, and two cats.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Randy Wilson // Jan 1, 2012 at 7:35 pm
You said,…”religion has great power over some people, such that they might be influenced into making choices that are decidedly immoral, like killing abortion doctors or committing suicide bombings, in the name of religion.” I don’t think it’s a fair conclusion to attribute this directly to “religion” as you call it. Religion doesn’t hold to the same practices as a whole, such as “Christianity”, “Islam”, “Mormonism”, etc. Yes there are bad apples within. I am a Christian, and strongly disagree with anyone killing abortion doctors even though I strongly disagree with abortion. I also just as strongly disagree with suicide bombings as well. Thank God for our rights that we do have in America, and I am particularly grateful to be able to practice my faith without having to go through what our forefathers did in that realm. I study the scriptures and yet every action I commit comes in line with my own personal choice. The scriptures teach that one shouldn’t commit adultery, or even in it’s cradled stage lust, or murder, and again even teaches that the cradle stage of murder is hate and should not be committed. But yet, like our own judicial laws, people make choices to either abide them or deny them. If they abide or deny them, should we attribute that to America as a whole or each individual? Thus to attribute those negatives to religion as a whole, and not the individuals is wrong. Have we not learned from the past? If you see five different African-American men at different times and days robbing someone, are we to conclude that all African-American males are thieves? Of course not.
2 Bill // Mar 27, 2013 at 10:55 am
This is a question that Plato deals with in his Euthephyro and which Kierkegaard discusses in “Fear and Trembling”. What I would like to make clear first is that there is a huge difference between the place of religion and ethics in the Western perspectives, and those in the Easter traditions. In many of the Dharmic schools, an action is morally wrong depending on the circumsances. For example, it is wrong in most circumstances to kill one’s relatives. However, as in the case of the Battle of Kurushetra, Krishna urged Arjuna that, if he didn’t kill his relatives in combat, then he would be commited several wrongs. First, by not killing his family members, his dependants would be enslaved and die miserably. Second, he would be playing the role of an ascetic monk, which is antithetical to that of a warrior/prince. Notice that this case applies only to practical matters such as combat. It is inexcusable to kill one’s family members for any type of ritual sacrifice (see Genesis). So basically the injunction not to kill is void in and only in extreame circumstances such as war etc. Another case would be stealing. There no injunction against taking a few grains from a person’s field if one has gone without food for several days. I mention this because this type of detail is lacking in the texts of many of the Western traditions, thus making important ethical decisions more complicated than they otherwise should be. To be brief: The Dharmic traditions stress that the moral injunctions are relative to place and circumstance, only such injunctions as “Do not rape” and the like will hold absolutely. On the question of capital punishment, the texts specifically state that a person who makes a living by pillaging, unjustified murder (such as killing a person in order to deprive him of the fruits of his labor) should be put to death by the king or state leader. The idea of making prisoners pray in prison until they repent is absent in the Dharma Shashtras. So on to the next question: Should the texts authority override science and common sense? The answer is most certainly no. The Dalai Lama himself has stated “If science shows that any of the metaphysical or ethical teachings of Buddhism are false, then we must change our views”. This is the polar opposite of both the Catholic Pope and most Protestant Evangelicals, who maintain that “God’s Word” overrides not only science, but also what most would consider “common sense and good judgement” (consider the case of abortion and overpopulation, in the time before the (Anglican )British Raj, many Gujarati Hindu parents would drown their children in milk if they could not take care of them). So we have the Dharmic traditions, which are certainly Pragmatic and willing to change positions, if and when their moral attitutes are proven wrong by either science or natural reason. This is in direct contrast with both Catholicism and many Evangelical groups who maintain that such actions as abortion can rarely, if ever, be justified. They base this view exclusively on the conviction that their scripture can only be interpreted in one way, especially in regards to ethical decision making. The adherants to the Dharmic traditions use scripture only as a cross reference, not as the first and final authority when making ethical decisions. While I personally believe that religious texts of any kind should not occupy the position of decision maker, we can and should try to learn from the one’s that speak more about what to do in a given circumstance, though we may without contradiction or fault reject the position of the text upon discovery that the advice contained in the text would be counter-productive to the change we want to inact. So when the Jaina Sutras say that we should not pluck flowers unessesarily, we should listen to the ethical and not the metaphysical reasons for such an injunction. It is this distinction which separates the Dharmic from the Abrahamic: One is open to interpretation without rejecting the core message, the other, according to its most vocal advocates, must be taken “as it is”. Hope this clarifies things.
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