Kant’s argument can be broken down quite simply. As human we ‘ought’ to work for the greatest good; this greatest good is virtue and happiness. Kant claimed that ‘ought to’ means ‘can’ and therefore the greatest good is achievable. However virtue and happiness cannot be obtained unaided and therefore God is needed to help man achieve the Greatest Good. Although it is important to note that Kant is not offering an argument to prove God but instead a practical argument of the moral person which leads to postulate a moral God.
However Kant’s argument cannot go without criticism. To begin with, ideas such as the ruling of moral law may be accepted by the believer, but the unbeliever may not follow. To understand this criticism it is important to note the historical and cultural context of Kant’s ideas. In the 18th Century, while people were not always religious, they still had a strong moral sense from the strong religious influences and culture at the time. However this may not necessarily follow for those with a different morality, e.g. Nazi Germany in 1940’s, or in much of Western culture. Such argument as the First Form may also be strongly rejected by the atheist who would resist the conclusion that existence of Morality suggests existence of God.
Most importantly though, whilst the moral argument points to the God of the Judaic-Christian tradition, it certainly does not consider all of God’s attributes, e.g. omnipotence, eternal, personal etc. many would argue that just because morality exists, this is not sufficient evidence to make further assumptions and prove the existence of God. Morality certainly does not give a full picture of God.
However the moral argument is still a strong one which holds value and is respected by many philosophers. For example numerous of writers believe that the existence of moral laws strongly suggests the existence of a moral law-giver. As H P Owen writes, ‘It is impossible to think of a command without also thinking of a commander… A clear choice faces us. Either we take moral claims to be self explanatory modes of impersonal existence of we can explain them in terms of a personal God’. Continuing on this point of a personal God, it could be argued that moral laws inspire guilt and responsibility because there is a personal basis in the will of God. John Henry Newman supports this idea by claiming that feelings of shame and responsibility imply that there is someone we are responsible to.
A further argument is that morality is included in religion, i.e. being moral is part of what being religious means. There are two versions of such view; firstly it proposes that God always wills what is morally obligatory, but just because God wills something does not make anything morally obligatory. According to the second version, this is not the case. In fact, an action is morally obligatory by righteousness of being willed by God, i.e. something is morally right just because God wills it. This second approach suggests that God’s will creates moral standards.
In conclusion, the moral argument for the existence of God seems very valid and logical. To support the argument it does seem bizarre how millions of people, including atheists, hold such strong, intrinsic moral values. If there is no God, it could be argued that there is no need to live a moral life, there is no reward, no immortality, nothing except keeping the world ‘alive’ for the following generation. However, without a God, maybe all that exists is evolution and survival of the ‘fittest’, in which case morality is an instinct which to a certain extent ensures the survival of the next generation. Both ideas give possible conclusions to a trivial topic, whilst one can explain morality with no reference to God at all. Whilst this definitely weakens the Moral Argument, many still believe that it most definitely does not destroy it.
Analyse and Discuss at Least One Critique of the Link
Between Religion and Morality (10 marks)
Claudia Bicen
R.A Sharpe uses the existence of morality within religion as a case against the existence of God. He is a moral atheist who was brought up in a strict Christian family. Ironically though, Sharpe’s attack is predominantly on Christianity. He believes that people should not be surprised that humanity can be moral without being religious, and that one can argue that religion actually corrupts morality.
Sharpe maintained that many people find such ideas unacceptable because they base their religious lives upon several fundamental underlying assumptions about religion. He proposed that there is a very deep presumption within our culture that Christianity has understood morality correctly. Indication of this can be found in the fact that the Victorians who rebelled the metaphysical claims of religion, i.e. resurrection, immortality, existence of God, etc. but still held on Christian morality because they thought it was a good pattern for living life.
A second assumption is that the Christian God is a moral God, i.e. that his character is just and loving. Sharpe is arguing here that religion is based upon assumptions that lack any proof and evidence and that without such assumptions man would be free to create his own morality.
Also Sharpe recognises how often religious leaders are consulted as a source of authority of morality. However their expertise and qualifications to be given such responsibilities are further assumptions made by religion and man not God himself. However, on the contrary, religious believers may argue that the Pope for example, was chosen by God as a messenger etc. Further more, religion has the power to legitimise practices which might otherwise be prohibited. Examples of this are male infant circumcision without anaesthetic and halal slaughter of animals, acts which are solely permitted on the grounds that they are preserved in religious ritual.
It can also be disputed that religion promotes moral practices which may otherwise be considered immoral; for example the papal ban on contraception. Numerous people would believe that a ban on contraception was far from moral, no protection can lead to thousands of problems, unwanted pregnancies, STD’s, etc. Therefore Sharpe would argue that examples like these weaken the link between religion and morality immensely because they highlight the ways in which religion can be cruel and in some areas immoral.
Another supposition of religion is that being a believer necessarily makes one more moral; however in some cases this is definitely not the case. In his book, ‘Religion and Morality’ Sharpe writes about an incident in Northern Ireland where protestants emerging from a church service were throwing stones at the police who were preventing them from a march, intending to assert their dominance. Clearly this example is contradictory to the frequent claim that ‘loss of religion is responsible for the growth in crime, divorce and immorality in our society’.
It is important to recognise here that Sharpe does not deny that many religious people are morally good, or that much good has been done in the world by people who would not have done what they have done without religion. However, Sharpe does not believe that people have necessarily acted morally in bringing about good. To understand this idea more clearly Sharpe proposes a parable about a beggar lying in the streets with undressed sores. A man approaches him and asks himself, ‘what would Jesus do?’ In a parallel situation Jesus would have helped the beggar, therefore so does the man. Here Sharpe argues that this man did not necessarily act morally because his reaction was meditated by a theological consideration, i.e. the man acted because he has an overarching belief system which tells him how to act in such a situation.
Therefore, while there may be a link between morality and religion, religion overrides our own ability to be able to decide what is moral in a given situation. Instead the answers are given to us in a book and we blindly follow, for Sharpe this is not the act of a truly moral person. On the other hand though Sharpe writes of how he has heard before on behalf of religion that, ‘no matter how bad a man may be, without his religion he would be worse’. While this may be true, it would be very difficult to be shown. However in the case of many converts, religion seems to have had a detrimental effect on their behaviour, e.g. St Bernard.
Also, Christianity tends to be a deontological system, i.e. rule based, e.g. the Ten Commandments. Sharpe maintains that such rules have been set by sacred texts/tradition or religious authority, which can lead to black and white thinking, and lack of personal interference and judgement. Such rules, like the Ten Commandments are inadequate to determine rightness of an act in any given situation, and so often a personal decision is needed to decide what is right for the individual.
Sharpe goes on to argue that God is embodiment of our own ideal moral values and that God’s moral character is only our transferred ideal values. Therefore one could argue that God does not exist at all but an idea from our imagination to give us something to aim for, i.e. the Greatest Good.
Most importantly though, there are incredible limitations and inadequacy of the language which is used to convey meaning. Therefore it is so easy for religion to be misused and misinterpreted by the individual and my man. This could explain a lot of the examples that Sharpe used as his attack on the moral argument for the existence of God. We could use the analogy of gun to explain this. A gun alone as an object is not destructive or harmful, however when it is in the wrong hands its use can be mistreated and abused resulting in great suffering. The same is for religion, alone it can be a wonderful thing, but when it has been interpreted wrongly you can use it to argue any point. The truth is that no man, even religious leaders are able to fully interpret sacred texts completing correct, because every man sees what he wants to see.
Therefore in conclusion, whilst Sharpe has highlighted many occasions where religion has corrupted morality and led to inflict pain and suffering, all examples can be explained in terms of misinterpretation. So, it can be suggested that we are no further in a quest to prove or disprove the existence of God by using the existence of morality as support.
