Chapter 2: Religion and Global Ethics

In general, the Enlightenment period embraced the concept that liberty rests on human reason and knowledge, resulting in Immanuel Kant's famous claim that the motto of the Enlightenment is:

Sapere Aude! (Latin for "Dare to know!")

Locke's argument forms the basis of the United States constitutional doctrine known as:

Separation of church and state

Most contemporary philosophers believe that ethicsdoes not require a religious grounding. Rather than relying on holy books or religious revelations, philosophical ethics attempts to usereason and experience to determine what is good and bad, right and wrong, or better and worse.

Does not require reason and experience

Although toleration and freedom are not uniquely Western values, the usual historical account emphasizes the development of these values during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe. This time period is known as the----

Enlightenment

In this illustration, the sun (the source of light) corresponds togoodness , and the shadow corresponds toevil . Just as there are degrees of light and shadow, Augustine holds that there are degrees of goodness and the absence of goodness. According to this view, God is the source of supreme goodness and everything else is good to various lesser degrees.

goodness evil

Like Socrates, Immanuel Kant advocated

gradual Public argument about morality, religion, and politics

The Enlightenment period is often characterized by the view that freedom is ____ human reason

grounded in

This passage expresses the view that the people's right to self-government, and their unalienable rights, are "self-evident," or clearly understood and comprehended by human reason. Drawing on the "natural rights" tradition of John Locke, the Declaration of Independence enshrines individual liberties at the core of American society. Subsequently, the Bill of Rights (as part of the Constitution of the United States) served to ______ basic rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of religious expression (a cosmopolitan view), freedom of the press, and so on.

guarantee

According to the free will solution, God did not create evil in the world directly. Instead, God created human beings whohave the power to choose to do evil. Therefore,human beings are responsible for creating the evil in the world, notGod .

have human beings are God

Unlike the previous theodicy, the least of all evils solution does recognize the existence of evil. This solution to the problem of evil involves the claim that the present universe, although it contains evil, is the best possible universe that God could have created. If God is the only perfect and omnibenevolent being (as Abrahamic religions have held), then by definition any other (created) beings must beimperfect andnot omnibenevolent . Therefore, evil must exist in the physical universe by necessity.

imperfect not omnibenevolent

Given this observation, political efforts to establish conformity of belief by the use of coercion will ultimately beineffective . Locke argues that spiritual and civil authorities must operate indifferent spheres . For example, spiritual authorities should operate throughpersuasion and conversion , while civil (governmental) authorities should operate throughlaws backed by coercive force . Religions are to beleft alone by the state so the religious figures may focus onspiritual issues. The state is supposed to focus only onissues related to public order .

ineffective different spheres persuasion and conversion laws backed by coercive force left alone spiritual issues related to public order

For Locke, religious belief must be a matter ofinward persuasion, whichis not amenable to the use of force. Locke's basic point is that forceis not effective at producing genuine religious belief.

inward is not is not

Religious pluralists claim that there is a common core of ideas found among the world's religious traditions, as if the different religious traditions are facets of the same ethical truth. The usual candidate for this common core among religious traditions is something like the Golden Rule, which is defined as follows:

is a

According to Rawls, the rules thatmaximize these principles should be implemented and embodied in the institutions, agencies, and structures that make up civil society as a whole

maximize

The most well-known philosopher who held this view is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). According to Leibniz, God (being omnipotent) could have created and organized the universe in any way God wanted. Being omniscient and omnibenevolent, however, God chose to create a universe in which the amount of necessary evil is at aminimum . In other words, the world in which we live is the "least of all possible evils."

minimum

European philosophers of the Enlightenment era argued that public toleration of religious diversity isnecessary . Hallmarks of secularism are the ideas of freedom of religion and toleration of religious diversity.

necessary

Later thinkers and activists, such as Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), and Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), called for civil disobedience, which isnonviolent refusal to obeyunjust laws , with the intention ofaccepting the penalty for breaking the laws and with the intention of arousing the conscience of the community as a whole.

nonviolent unjust laws accepting

A cosmopolitan worldview seeks to achieve a single moral community---- by national, cultural, or in many cases, religious traditions. It----many things we take for granted (for example, saluting superiors or adopting a particular set of beliefs and practices over others).

not bound Questions

According to Rawls, societies should work to developoverlapping consensus among people who adhere to divergent religious and moral worldviews. Rawls holds that societies should focus on:

overlapping consensus Trying to achieve agreement about issues of justice and fairness in the political realm

One attempt to resolve the problem of diversity is to find a common ground among the world's cultural and religious traditions. This general idea is known as religious faith .

religious pluralism

This overlapping consensus about political issues would lead to something like asecular system, or a system of values and fair rules that can be agreed upon by people who come from quite different religious traditions or who have no religion at all.

secular

John Locke (1632-1704) is one of the most important philosophical sources for thinking about secularism. Locke argues that the stateshould tolerate religious dissenters.

should

Rawls's account of political liberalism emphasizes basic human rights andtoleration for religious diversity. Rawls's point is that there can be areas of "overlapping consensus," and a means of peaceful coexistence among people who disagree about the highest good (in some religious or moral sense).

toleration

According to the Euthyphro objection, this question results in a dilemma with two possible answers, each of which is claimed to be problematic for divine command theory:

two

Notice that the characters in this animationwould not be likely to advocate for the proposed rules shown here once the veil of ignorance is lifted. According to Rawls, the most just rules for society are those that you would agree to regardless of which station in life you end up occupying once the veil of ignorance is lifted.

would not

What is the meaning of the adjective "secular"?

Based in this world or age

Recall that deontological ethical theories in general hold that some actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of the circumstances or consequences. One form of deontological ethics is divine command theory, which holds that morally right actions are those actions that are declared by

God

During this period, many important Western philosophers were active, including John Locke (1632-1704), David Hume (1711-1776), Immanuel Kant (1704-1824), Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), and others. Philosophers from this period tended to think along similar lines, despite the differences in their overall philosophical and ethical views: They held that liberty and tolerance were ___ Values They were optimistic that history was developing in a ___ direction They thought that progress would occur through the employment of ____ They were interested in discovering ____ values and learning from other cultures.

Important progressive human reason common

This cosmopolitan approach to ethics emphasizes--over--. It also emphasizes -- over ---

Individual freedoms , traditional hierarchies universal morality, local customs and traditions

What does it mean to say that an ethical idea or theory is secular?

It is divorced from any source in religion.

King and other advocates of civil disobedience demonstrated that oneneed not reject existing traditions and institutions in order to scrutinize or critique them. King, in particular, saw ethical critique as a means of:

Need not Helping America realize the full promise of its founding documents

In this anecdote, Diogenes is ---of traditional authority and:

Skeptical Claims his freedom from any particular nation or culture

Although there are a variety of differences across the globe, including vast religious differences, the cosmopolitan perspective tends to hold that--- ethical principles (such as respect for life and for liberty) are universally valuable.

Some

For many thinkers, the progress of secularization isa central aspect of modernization: As cultures and societies modernize, they also often becomemore secular.

a central more

he denial of evil solution attempts to show that God is not responsible for evil by denying the existence of evil. After all, if evil does not really exist, then clearly God is not responsible for causing or preventing evil. An example comes from Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE). Augustine argues that evil does not exist as a distinct being with its own nature. Instead, evil is merely a privation, or a lack, of goodness, just as a shadow is merely thepresence of light:

abscence

Because anyone in the original position may end up occupying any station in life, this thought experiment forces you to think about what would be most fair forall members of society, including the least fortunate ones (those with the fewest resources, with the most burdens, the most underprivileged, and so on).

all

Religious pluralists usually argue that all of the great world religions include something like the Golden Rule. According to this view, every religion has, to some extent,

all the same viewpoint and goal

The traditional Western conception of God often involves the view that God has the following attributes: Omniscience:God isall knowing .Omnipotence:God isall powerful .Omnibenevolence:God isall good .

all knowing all powerful all good

People who are attracted to divine command theory as a theory of ethics are generally theists whobelieve in the existence of a God as a divine being. Some atheists, however, argue that there can be no such thing as objective morality because of theirdisbelief in the existence of a divine being. Atheists who hold this view accept divine command theory, to some extent, insofar as they hold that objective morality must be grounded in divinity (even though they reject the notion of divinity altogether).

believe disbelief

Although the Euthyphro objection is usually presented in terms of a dilemma (a choice between two options), you can also think of the Euthyphro objection as claiming that divine command theory usescircular reasoning, as shown in the following diagram:

circular

The idea of religious pluralism is a friendly and optimistic one: it hopes to be able to reconcile the world's religions around a common ethical core. Unfortunately, this hopeful reconciliation ignores the very deep differences that also exist among religions.

differences

For example, different religions often have very different things to say about the nature of God or divinity and about God's relationship to the world or humankind.

different

While different religions might be similar in many ethical respects (for example, different religions can agree that murder is morally wrong), they almost always have different metaphysical views about the nature of God or reality in general.

different

The aesthetic totality solution attempts to account for evil by elaborating on the nature of God as a creator and author of the universe. According to this view, God is the supreme author of a divinely createddrama , the universe in which we live.

drama