Paul Kurtz's article ‘Morality is natural’ in THINK 15 was most stimulating. It left me, however, somewhat dissatisfied. Whilst he is clearly right that that there is a fund of moral wisdom that has been developed by humankind, I question whether distancing morality from religion is the important priority for us today.
I am not arguing against the proposition that morality is natural, for at least five fairly obvious reasons present themselves for leaving belief in God out of consideration.
a. Everyone can come together on the basis of their humanity – what they have in common. As Kurtz notes, almost everyone, religious or not, agrees with the moral decencies he outlines as ideals. The integrity of none is damaged by voicing them and practising them.
b. It is indisputable that goodness can be practised by people who appeal to no religious motivation.
c. Religion is a very dangerous area in that it can promote extremism and attempts to push its own ideology on to everyone else, hence offending against autonomy. The modern world is full of examples.
d. Full lives can be lived without explicit reference to God – could, for example, Shakespeare appeal so widely if a clear religious message came across in his plays?
e. The concept of natural law developed over centuries indicates clearly that theists also can see that morality is natural. A sense of good and evil, right and wrong, appears to be innate. It wells up from deep within people, and is beyond notions of obedience, fear of punishment or desire for personal reward.
Nevertheless, the arguments Kurtz presents are challengeable.
1. He claims to offer empirical justification but does it amount to any more than general observations of the kind I have just made in a)-e)? He states that ‘general moral principles have evolved in human culture over a long period of time and there is a broad consensus concerning their viability’. He gives no evidence however that that this development has nothing to do with religion. There is indeed strong empirical evidence to the contrary. Historically the powerful and integrating presence of religion in every society is well-known. This includes ancient Greece and our own Western civilisation which before the arrival of atheism had long exposure to religion – in the latter case, well over 1000 years of Christian teaching proclaimed even if not lived. How can we be so sure that the moral principles associated with Christianity are irrelevant, and, related to that, that their source is irrelevant? As Nietzsche over a century ago clearly saw, a value such as equality is precariously based. Christian belief in a God of love who cares for all people gave rise to this value, so if the belief becomes doubted the question is raised why we should accept the equality of all people everywhere? Kurtz does not offer anything to rebut the possible allegation, right or wrong, that secularists in our civilisation are living off the moral capital accumulated over centuries of immersion in Christian ideals.
2. Can Kurtz ground the naturalness of morality in rational discussion? Arguments from consensus and longevity appear to be appealed to in the quotation given above, yet neither of these are free from the possibility of fallacious interpretation if much weight is placed on them. Truth cannot be established on the basis of consensus – until the 17th century there was broad consensus that the sun moved round the earth. Similarly, length of time alone is a weak criterion for truth because it is easy for misconceptions to be handed on from generation to generation such as, for example, the validity of slavery or the inequality of the sexes.
Moreover, Kurtz seems too optimistic regarding the use of reason to establish moral principles. It appears to be right to say ‘The most reliable guide to moral action is moral intelligence able to weigh alternatives and make choices after a process of deliberation’. Specific issues such as rights to abortion, management of sexual mores, appropriateness of using nuclear power, human organ development etc. can and should be pursued by these means, for they are matters of the application of accepted principles. Yet can intelligence alone establish these principles?
Reliance on reasoning by itself will not do as the basis for a moral civilisation. Philosophers have proved unable to agree any understanding of morality which can command the uncontested respect even of a majority of intellectuals, never-alone of the whole of society. Intellectuals typically do not show themselves capable of arriving at agreement about much if anything. Taught to question in the name of reason, there are always more reasons waiting in the wings to challenge any presumed consensus reached. Meanwhile, theories such as subjectivism, emotivism and cultural relativism have served to question whether ‘moral’ means any more than ‘what I/we feel now’.
The problem is that reasoning processes have to start somewhere and that produces different outcomes. Richard Taylor, following what he described as a ‘very civil debate’ on the question ‘Who shall live and who shall die?’ between Peter Singer and Fr. Richard Neuhaus, took up Singer's analogy likening reasoning to going up an escalator. But he noted that there are many escalators one can go up, not one, and that choosing which one to go up cannot be based on empirical reasoning alone, however plausible, nor on what is self-evident. ‘Your reasoning, however flawless, will take you nowhere until you take your first step, that is, set forth your basic premise, and that, however fondly held and seemingly obvious to you, will be neither self-evident nor empirically verifiable. Some ethical systems are clearly better than others, but all of them elude proof, and will thus remain, for ever, ideologies.’ (Is a philosophical ethics possible? Philosophy Now, issue 39 December 2002 - January 2003, on p. 28)
3. Kurtz says that he is concerned not just with theory but with praxis, yet does he not fail to weigh the problem here? He is encouragingly optimistic about the future in which science and technology have opened up whole new vistas enabling all people everywhere to enjoy a good life. But he fails to notice the chasm between fine intentions on the one hand and the actual reality of living the vision on the other. David Benatar's article ‘The optimistic delusion’ (Think Winter 2008 p. 20) appears to emanate from a different world from Kurtz's. As he says, ‘Optimists tend to forget how much pain and suffering there is in the world.’ Benatar exposes the need for those like Richard Dawkins who preach the ‘gospel of secular optimism…to engage seriously with philosophical pessimism – the ultimate delusion buster’.
4. My fourth point of concern is that Kurtz expresses such negative understanding of the religion to which he opposes his ‘naturalist’ case. He appears to assume an identity between religion and its manifold abuse. His delineation of religion ignores theological thinking of any intellectual or spiritual depth. No religious figure of moral stature is mentioned. There is no hint of the immense intellectual debate that has gone on among theologians and philosophers of religion.
An argument is not won until it engages with its opponent at its strongest point. The fact that there are millions of selfish superstitious people who claim to be religious does not eliminate the teaching and example of the saints and scholars of the great world religions, most of whom themselves strongly disapproved of the selfishness and superstition of their fellow religionists as vigorously as does any agnostic or atheist – and on religious grounds.
This unwillingness to engage with religion at its best has some fascinating outcomes. When on p.14 Kurtz speaks of ‘a new moral obligation’ of extending respect to every person on the planet, has he forgotten that this has been taught by many saints and seers in the major world religions? Specifically, this is in the teaching of Jesus 2000 years ago. Christianity may have failed time and time again to exemplify this teaching, but it remains, as Kurtz says, ‘at least a realistic goal’. Indeed all moral principles are more like stars to guide our path rather than what can be easily achieved and assessed.
Perhaps, taking a hint from the article by Richard Creel ‘The wisest essay I ever read’ (THINK 15) concrete rather than abstract thinking might help here. Let me give an example regarding Kurtz's ideal of ‘the achievement of the exuberant life’. The abiding memory I have of a recent holiday in South Africa was of a Presbyterian church service in one of the townships in Cape Town in which such ‘exuberant life’ was palpably exemplified. A mixed party of secularists and religious believers were unanimous in being moved by the intoxicating singing and welcome we received from these people living in such poverty and deprivation. We were welcomed, as they said, in the name of Jesus Christ. To try to detach the exuberance from anything to do with the acknowledged purpose of it in the worship of God is to go against the empirical evidence provided by their use of the religious terminology as an appropriate vehicle for what they were doing.
These four considerations prompt me to ask whether it is not time to move on beyond the old secularism versus religion dispute which now wears something of a déjà-vu quality about it? Since the Enlightenment, what was once justified protest against constraining ecclesiastical control has metamorphosed into blanket dismissal of all religion as irrational nonsense. This has effectively created a secularist/religious apartheid which is in the interests neither of liberal democracy nor of religion.
As I was thinking about this article, The Independent (Jan 31 2008 p. 1f.; p. 19) carried two news items reflecting dangerously unenlightened thinking leading to the possible deaths of innocent people. An Afghan journalist, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, was sentenced to death for downloading a report stating that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Qur'an justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Muhammad. ‘Ah’ says the secularist ‘That's what religion does’. But the other item concerned the intended deportation back to Kenya of the Kariuki family who had been in Britain 10 years having fled torture and rape for supporting the human rights movement. This action is equivalent to feeding victims to tyrannical dictatorship in a country torn by violent civil unrest. But religion has nothing to do with this decision of the Home Office. They are representatives of a self-proclaimed liberal democracy.
The problem in both cases is unenlightened human nature. In the one case it uses religion conveniently, in the other the ideology of national self-interest defending its territory against invading foreigners. Such an attitude bears a close resemblance to the ‘survival of the fittest’ understanding of Darwinism which markedly is not religious at all.
Liberal democracies need to demonstrate the moral high ground they implicitly claim. Should we not primarily be concerned with seeking to establish a just society? To do this we need to use the insights and resources of both former camps in this secularist/religious tug of war. A stable harmonious society is not set up without utilising the goodwill of the maximum number of its members. Yet the insights patiently accumulated over centuries within religion have been allowed less and less public voice.
Furthermore, the safety of society is threatened by such continuing apartheid. Privatisation of religion helps neither the minority of religious people who are dangerous nor the majority who are in the frontline of any effective challenging of such dangerous interpretations of their religion. This is because moderates are not encouraged to be open about their deepest concerns. They do not feel taken seriously by the dominant culture and so a ghetto mentality tends to take hold among the religious. This is the antithesis of a vibrant community where ideas, including especially differences in attitude, should be shared and publicly argued over in a civilised and courteous manner.
A final plea for moving beyond this state of apartheid is because we speak in the name of reason. Debate must not rest content indulging in logical fallacies of the kind that, for example, Richard Dawkins readily indulges in his onslaught on religion, such as proof by selected instances, invalid generalisations implying ‘all’ when ‘some’ is true, ad hominem remarks, and begging the question. Discussion worthy of a liberal democracy needs to be based on empathetic understanding not on emotionally-charged bias.
Can we not work towards a more open and respectful environment in which the four anxieties I had over his article may be addressed?
1. Citizenship of a liberal democracy should be on the basis of willingness to abide by the kind of moral decencies outlined by Kurtz: integrity, trustworthiness, benevolence and fairness (pp. 11f). The question of the source of this fundamental sense of right and wrong should be allowed to remain an open, controversial issue with neither secularists nor religious people claiming victory. What we can have is consensus concerning moral ideals, not implied agreement concerning their source.
2. The rational search for establishing what exactly is meant by this moral imperative, and which of the possible escalators it is most reasonable and helpful to choose, could be aided and enlivened by the contribution of religious considerations properly understood, without them being ruled out from the start as invalid.
3. The weight of religious motivation can be an enormous help in overcoming the chasm between intention and practice. Here is where religion, if it is soundly understood by those who believe in it, can be helpful. To take just one example, the kind of calm and balanced discussion in Richard Harries' recent book The Re-enchantment of Morality (SPCK, 2008) indicates the possibility of significant meeting-points between autonomous ethics and Christian ethics.
4. Basic respect for religion enabling a proper discernment of insight, as well as of abuse, would replace blanket suspicion. This would encourage religious people themselves to be less fearful of open dialogue with secularism. This would in turn help them to become better educated in understanding of their religion and of how to guard against its dangers.
To achieve this open and respectful environment much would depend on a renewal of what we mean by education. I offer the following suggestions as to what that might involve:
a. strong emphasis on teaching how to think and reflect about values and beliefs and not just about problem-solving;
b. energetic sharing with the young of what a liberal democracy should be like, considering such questions as: what is freedom? how do/can/ought individuals to relate to community? what constitutes a healthy society? how can human nature become enlightened? what indeed is education as opposed to indoctrination?
c. high-quality teaching concerning religion to help dispel the huge ignorance which the West typically displays;
d. as against post-modernist suspicion concerning truth-claims, actively promote the search for truth in awareness of the provisional and partial nature of all truth-claims, including claims concerning the existence or non-existence of God.
