Michael "Axis of Evil" Gerson wrote an interesting editorial today that I believe bears addressing. He attempts to designate morality as a purely religious idea, one that exists outside the confines of religion (and let there be no doubt about which faith he assumes in his arguments) only as a fluke, a "cruel joke of nature -- imprinted by evolution, but destined for disappointment." He pretends to give ground by saying he can't prove the existence of God, but then asserts that atheists have no objective way to judge the goodness of other people. What? Yeah, seriously. He is actually saying that without religion, human beings would have no impetus to behave in an ethical manner. Let's examine this claim.
I wrote him a brief note informing him of the existence and writings of one Immanuel Kant, who similarly, if more effectively, pitted his own intellect against this very quandary. Kant, as I'm sure you (as a high school graduate) are aware, articulated a sort of Golden Rule that formed the basis of deontological ethics, known as the categorical imperative. It attempts to transcend situational or hypothetical ethics by stating: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." In practice, it encourages respect for the rights of others, equal treatment in matters of law, and a general acknowledgement of the dignity of man. Not bad, right?
Well, what if you don't believe in ethical behavior? What if you have no interest in morality, but are driven by and given over to personal lusts and covetings? Is there any external force that can compel you to observe and respect the rights of others? Not really. And this is the elephant in the room, because while Gerson says that a person who is religiously motivated to be a moral actor does so out of a desire for "love, harmony and sympathy because [he or she is] intended by a Creator to find them," note that he does not invoke the threat or fear of punishment. He indicates that love, harmony, and sympathy are not inherently good or pleasurable, but are designated as being good by God, and therefore the pleasure that one feels from those states is actually the joy of pleasing God. He is pasting the veneer of religion over love, harmony and sympathy, and then using that as a springboard to give religion credit for the pleasures that anyone else would recognize as inherent in those things. Clever. Because the alternative to declaring that goodness is the desire to please God (which is, in the mind, in no way different from the desire to please oneself) is to admit that religiously-motivated goodness is the desire to avoid God's wrath, which is NOT a moral code, but a response to the threat of reprisal, the old knee-jerk self-preservation impulse.
So let's parse this out. If one desires to be a moral person, and one chooses to base one's moral code on, for instance, a Christian sect, let's say evangelical protestantism, can one justify the repression of outward expressions of homosexuality in one's fellow man or woman, whether by law, violence, or any other means of compulsion, if those expressions cause no manifest harm to other people? What about under Kant's version of ethical behavior? I would contend that the answers to those two questions are different and contradictory, because one code is beholden to the subjective determinations of its inceptors, while the other one is self-contained.
How about a second example: does Christian morality prevent the seizing of occupied territory and the enslavement of the indigenous peoples? Not if that land is granted you by God. And what is the difference, to the conquered and enslaved people, between an aggressor who attacks for God and an aggressor who attacks for his own personal enrichment? Not a whole hell of a lot, right? And on the other hand, what is the difference to a poor and bedraggled beggar if he is given soup and a warm bed by a Christian or by a morally upright atheist? Not a whole hell of a lot, right? Because kindness is objectively good and cruelty objectively bad for the recipient, no matter the motivation.
So if you come across a moral actor and he tells you he has no religion, you can be sure that he is a moral person. But if you come across a moral actor and he tells you that he has a God who tells him to do right, you cannot be sure if he is a moral person or a profoundly immoral person who is deathly afraid of being burnt by the everlasting fires of Hell or smitten by the angry right hand of the Lord and cast into penury for twenty moons. Which means, of course, that religion is a crutch for the immoral. It is the goad that keeps those who are not inherently righteous on a socially acceptable path (or a reasonable facsimile). It promotes, to quote another of Mr. Gerson's speechwriting gems, "the soft bigotry of low expectations" insofar as it encourages immoral behavior by not holding human beings to the standard of ethically defensible behavior in the absence of the sword of Damocles.
Now factor in confession and absolution, and tell me which one you would rather hire as a babysitter. Right. Checkmate, Mike. Please stop assisting those who run religious sects in their quest to expand their power and influence via taking undeserved credit for the good and noble qualities of man. It's unseemly and it restrains the potential of the human race for the enrichment of an over-reaching few. Like, for instance, certain other employers of yours.
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3 comments:
Amen.
So Fiery Sword, in your view are the majority of christians in the preconventional level of moral development? According to Kohlberg's theory of moral development this stage lasts from childhood to adolescence and is characterized by behaviors linked to punishments and rewards. Since the Bible and many other religious texts for that matter have stipulations such as "women should not wear their hair in braids" that we ignore, I would argue that it is not fear of punishment but the need for social validation that drives religious and secular moral codes.
In the conventional moral stage our sense of right comes from those around us and the degree to which conformity to the majority is valued. Since the levels of moral development were developed by Kohlberg without reference to religion, I would agree that Gerson's asserstion is ridiculous. However, I think the appeal of evangelical christianity is that it is reigned by a social moral code created by the leading members and followed by the faithful out of a desire to fit in rather than avoid punishment.
That explains why morality can be selective within religion. If your group is fighting for God it doesn't matter that the other group is too because your surroundings are telling you that you are right and they are wrong. Kohlberg never claimed morality lacked bias which Gerson masterfully proved in his editorial.
I don't think it's fair to say that all Christians are on the low end of Kohlberg's scale, but my point is that post-conventional moral development is necessary for atheists to be moral actors, whereas preconventional moral development is all that's necessary for theists to be moral actors, because they have arbitrarily instituted an omniscient authority where none (provably or observably) exists and postponed punishment till just past that bourne from which no traveler returns. Since moral development isn't necessary to ensure moral action within the Christian framework, and the fear of reprisal is ever-present and unpredictable, moral development is most likely not an outgrowth of the Christian framework, because there is no need for it, no catalyst for its formation. Yes, I am using evolutionary reasoning, and that is kind of funny. So if Gerson wanted to make the argument that without God, the insufficiently moral elements of society would be exposed and unchecked (internally, at least), I can accept that, but to say what he is saying, which is that moral development would not be recognizable or even extant, is hogwash. The trouble with pointing that out is that I don't think he's writing for people who know that, he's writing to both those who are too ignorant or intellectually lazy to figure that out and those who are deliberately ignorant and need regular and subtle reinforcement to remain so. He's providing a pretext for the continued failure of his compatriots to address their cognitive dissonance, just as he used to do for Bush. He's powdering the asses of the ostriches, so they don't feel compelled to lift their heads and scratch.
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