Is Religion Always Ethical?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I have been reading Kierkegaard a bit lately, and I was fascinated by this nagging question:

Is fullfilling one’s religious requirement(s) allways truly ethical?

Kierkegaard gave the example of Abraham and Isaac in his book, Fear and Trembling. By intending to sacrifice his son, it could be said that Abraham was an incredibly righteously-upright person. But, on the otherhand, if viewed from a ethics standpoint, he was commiting murdur against his own child.

I’ve have heard many atheists say, “I don’t believe that God exists, but I don’t mind people following a religion. Even if their religion is not true, it still makes them ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ people in our world”

And then you get religions who are notoriously unethical. Muslims “fullfill their religious duty” by blowing up themselves a many innocent people. Ironically, many Muslims claim that such pratices are not permitted by true Islamic teacings. So, either the peacefull Muslims are going to hell, or their terrorist-couterparts are going to hell. Somebody has to be wrong…I sure hope they are not just another form of not-so-religious religoius zealots… :wink:

At anyrate,


My Question:
So, what defines something as being truly ethical? Is ethical allways derived from some religious teaching? I’m sure many of you will respond with, “Our culture creates our values”. This answer is fine, but a little more creativity would be nice, too.

just my humble thoughts anyways… :wink:

2

the ethical is not always defined by religious teaching…

ethical egoism is a perfectly fine ethical system…

and if the religious is ethical, jihad is ethical and satanic/demonic ritual murder is ethical… or do you mean only christian religion is ethical? that is obviously incorrect…

-Imp

3

So, since you ruled-out religion as the source of true ethics, what exactly do you propose as the true source of Ethics? :wink:

And, what is ethical egoism? And why do you think that it is a legitamate system? :confused:

And, I never even mentioned the word, “Christianity” in my post, so I have no idea as to why you bring it up. That is, unless of course you were trying to make subtle, but rather cheap insult against my religious beliefs… :unamused:

4

Firstly, I believe that wise people can see the benefit of ethical behavior and just want to behave that way. Meanwhile, a lot of stupid people are skeptics and need every type of convincing, or they are simply too short-sighted to see the benefits of cooperative behavior.

Those are a few of the reasons that bright people made up religion. You have to have a superhero story backing the ethics and that’s all the explanation you need. The dumb person only behaves while watched.

So, I would conclude that ethics created religion.

Even if that’s not true there are many forms of ethics that are pretty far from religious. For instance, this site has ethics about posting, such “don’t delete your posts,” and that’s not exactly, thou shall not kill.

5

Hehe, you’re talking about the holy grail of Moral Philosophy, there’s no reason derived ethical system which anyone is 100% happy with yet. Ethical Egoism, while it has plenty of supporters, is still flawed in several areas, as is utilitiarianism or the Kantian Categorical Imperative, to name a couple of the other non-religious ethic systems.

All religion based ethical systems are flawed when put next to the reason derived ones, if not abhorrent, Catholilicism’s hate of birth control and the misery it has inflicted on Africa because of this is a perfect example.

However there is a beauty of religious ethical systems which modern philosphers, atheists and even scientists would be wise to learn from if they want to free the world from religious zealots. It is that they are simple and easy to understand, certainly in the case of Christianity with the 10 commandments. Obviously there’s lot more in the Bible about what is wrong and right, but a well defined set of rules is a good starting point.

6

You could actually say it’s implied in “Thou shalt not bear false witness”.

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“It is that they are simple and easy to understand, certainly in the case of Christianity with the 10 commandments.”

No they are impossible to understand and that’s why they work on certain types of people.

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So, are you defining ethics as “cooperative behavior”. Is that it? If I am put into prison for a crime I did not commit, is it unethical to resist the prosecution’s accusations while in court — simply because I’m not being copperative with the way that my accusers would like me to? :confused:

I can understand your point about “how ethics created religion (no visa-versa)”, but I don’t understand the “proof” behind this statement:

Please explain furthur if you can. Thanks. :confused:

Good responses so far. :slight_smile:

9

No I think that deleted posts are just the removal of a thing that you published.

That’s not my point though.

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Why would you want to cooperate with injustice? The stoics used to say that it would be better to die than do that.

Ethics are almost communist in nature.

11

Uh, actually I was trying to ask you that question, but I see now that I must have misunderstood your point in your earlier post(s).

On a slightly un-related topic:

Please ponder this truly important ethical-dilemma:

“Is is more ethical to use the “EDIT” button, or to double-post?” :wink:

…Sorry, but I could not help myself on that one… :smiley:

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It’s ethical to post a second thought, because an edit might be missed by you, and that would cheat you out of my high-quality thought process.

13

Darn you…

I’m out of witty retorts…

you win. :evilfun:

14

Of course…

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true ethos are almost communist in nature.

My definition of ethics is that we should act to ensure that we are not harming others. At the same time, we shouldn’t act in a way that will cause others harm.

bring on the challenges to that rule.

16

Sounds like commie stuff to me.

17

the same as the true source of aesthetics… protagoras

Ethical egoism is the normative theory that the promotion of one’s own good is in accordance with morality. In the strong version, it is held that it is always moral to promote one’s own good, and it is never moral not to promote it. In the weak version, it is said that although it is always moral to promote one’s own good, it is not necessarily never moral to not.

iep.utm.edu/e/egoism.htm#SH2b

nothing insulting at all my “christian platonist”… it is just that any knight of faith must start somewhere and they aren’t necessarily christian…

-Imp

18

That ethical egoism stuff is quite fascinating, if not a tad exhaustive (I’m reffering to the link you provided me with).

I see now we have a plausible “challenger” to compete with the others’ claims of what the source of ethics is, if you catch my drift…

very fascinating indeed. :wink:

19

That’s also called enlightened self-interest.

Epicures was one of the first people to set down such ideas.

20

About Abraham and Isaac.

Mucius: “Think it like this. Those where different times- different in the sense that the relation between man and God was very tight and intimate. Also think that morality and imorality were not defined then, for not even so much as the ten commandments had been given to man.”

Other: “Yes, there was no written law. But what about the moral feel in one, telling that it is wrong to steal from your kin, or kill someone without any reason ? Was it no as active as today ? I deem that killing a son would have been much of a sin then as it is now.”

Mucius: “Ay, yes, ofcourse. You are write. But do not let yourself fooled. People had very specific notions about righteousness and sin back then… and also, punishment. A profe to that is the institution of sacrifice, which was a highly vehiculated practice back in that time. Its function was to gain Lord’s forgiveness for one of your transgressions, by sacrificing an innocent being, usually a dove, a calf, or a lamb. It is clear that the presence of sacrifice ensued also the presence of the feeling of guilt.”

Other:“Go on, but try not to speak off topic.”

Mucius:"Very well. We now come to Abraham and his son.As we all know, Abraham was commanded by God to bring his own son as sacrifice. As I said before, this naturally implied some kind of sense of guilt. Guilt comes from sin. Sin is bad. Thus, Isaac’s sacrifice was seen as an expiation for one of his iniquities.

Now the only thing that remains to be questioned is whether this could have been a tenable thing, at least for those times. In other words, was it fair from God to make such a demand ? "

Other: “Well, was it ?”

Mucius:" At least for Abraham, it must have seemed this way. Let us remember that there was no written law back then, so you had no other standard of justice than God himself. God was supreme justice, and He couldn’t be wrong. God was seen as the supreme moral concept, whose decisions are not only definitive and irrevocable, but indelibly fair. God was something like the categorical imperative.
In this sense, not only did Abraham not sin, but he did what was, well, morally corect. From Kant’s point of view, at least. Abraham was a kantian moral man.

In the end, I guess, God reveals that He is not so unsportive as we might have the impression and stops the whole thing and praises Abraham for his faith. I guess it is a happy-ending, and everybody leaves with a smile on his face. Even Kant.

Kierkegaard must have left before the ending, so he didn’t catch the consolation in the end.

Are you pleased now ?"

Other:“Not really. I’d love to chat with you some more, but I have to go and buy a pack of cigarrettes. I’ll be seing you some other time.”

Mucius:“Very well, then. Take care.”

Other:“You too.”