2.

3 Religion Based Ethics

2.3.2 The Theory of Natural Law

2.3 Ethics and Religion

What is religion?
Religion is a set believes and practices generally agreed by a group of people. The believes and practices can
be varied according to the religion. The believes and practices which are followed by a group of people can
be criticized by another group of people. These practices can be influenced by the living environment too.

What is ethics?
Ethics is a set of principles which controls the human behavior. It tells what good and bad is. The central
aspect of ethics is good life.

The relationship between ethics and the religion

Christianity – Love your enemy

Buddhism – be kind to others always

Islam – Treat everyone equally

Hinduism – always treat others generously

These principles can be seen in ethical acceptances also where leads to an equal society. But there are some
problems in this relationship. Most of the scholars have a question that the religion and ethics go in same
path. According to them religion is a supreme power but ethics based on the human feelings, needs and
choices. Socrates has questioned that whether an act becomes right or wrong because god approves it and
also whether an act becomes wrong because god disapproved it. As an example telling lies is a sin in every
religion. But is telling lies becoming a sin all the times?

Because of these reasons there are number of arguments on this topic.

2.3.1 The Divine Command Theory

Those who accept that an action is becoming wrong because God prohibit is coming under the divine
command theory which states that “morally right” means commanded by God, and “morally wrong” means
forbidden by God. According to this theory what the God says to do become right and what he says not to do
become bad. The people who accept the divine command theory say that divine command theory provides
an objective assessment of what is ethical or moral. John Locke, William Paley, John Duns Scotus, Martin
Luther, William of Ockham, John Calvin are some of the figures who advocated the divine command
theory.

Good Points

 God’s commands can apply at anytime and anyplace because basically those commands are moral
and ethical.
 Most of the people have a strong believe on God. They will follow the God’s command and it will
lead to an ethical society eventually.

Bad Points

 Divine Command theory is not practical always. It says about a set of ethical rules and all these
ethical rules cannot implement in all the situations.
Ex: soldiers
 There are many religions in the world, with each possessing different prescriptions for morality.
Religions have different gods from one another that are worshipped. Is the ethical background
change according to the God?

 Science has no evidence of the existence of God. Divine command theory loses its authority among a
large portion of the population who base their lives on science and empiricism.

 According to the divine command theory, the God is almighty and fair always. The God’s will is
always correct. If it is so, we have a reasonable question regarding the innocent children who are
suffering from war.

2.3.2. The Theory of Natural Law

This is the opposite of the Divine Command theory. Theory of Natural Law says that the human behavior
should define by the morality not an authority like God or government. According to this theory human
morality comes from the nature. The good and bad depend on the nature of the world and nature of human
begins. It is giving an equal chance to every society and every culture. Humanity is the major thing in the
natural law. So the good and bad are same to everyone. It does not change according to the religion and
society. This means that people are guided by their own human nature to determine what laws should be
created, in accordance with what they know to be “right” and “wrong.

Ex: the natural law rejects violence and killing people because it discriminates the chance of having good
and innocent life that everyone should like to have.

Good Points

 Natural Law based on the nature of the people and the majority acceptance. Therefore they are
rational.
 The Natural Law is universal, so everyone can follow it without any disturbance.
 Humans are the centre of this approach, not rules. So it gives more space to the humanity.
 It is giving an equal chance to everyone including all the religions, societies and cultures.

Bad Points

 There is no any common human nature that presents equally throughout the whole world.
  It is too much based on the human nature. The human nature is always changing according to the
situation. It can be corrupted also.
 According to Aquinas the human nature is too simple to decide morality.

2.4 Consequentialist Theories

2.4.2. Utilitarianism

What is consequentialist?

This ethical theory emphasizes that the moral values are completely depend on the goodness of their
consequences. Everything that a person might do at any time, the morally right action is the one with best
consequences. According to this theory the right and wrong depends only on the results of that act. The act
which produces more good consequences would be the more right act.

Ex: telling lies has accepted as morally wrong but telling a lie to save one’s life is good according to the
consequnalist, because it produced a good consequence.

2.4.1. Ethical Egoism

This is one of the ideas on consequentialist. Egoism says that good and bad depends on the pursuit of
self – interest. It means that we should act in our self interest exclusively. As an example we should help
others only it benefits to us. Hedonism,Benedict de Spinoza,Thomas Hobbes are the key figures of this
concept. According to them self happiness is the most important thing.

Good Points

 It makes the best choices. Of all us know the best choices of us. So this would make the best choices
with moral values.
 It makes a good personality to take the best actions, which makes us free.

Objections to ethical egoism

 Ethical egoism has no solutions to offer when a problem arises involving conflicts of interest. The
self interest of another would become great social problems. Such as violence and corruptions.
 Ethical egoism goes against the principle of Humanity that we should not discriminate against people
on arbitrary grounds such as race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or ethnic origin. But in egoism
does not give any chance to others.
 It goes against some 0f the moral rules on treating everyone kindly. The “golden rule,” versions of
which appear in Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, says we should treat
others as we would like to be treated. Egoism always satisfies the individual.
2.4.2. Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism, at its most basic, states that something is moral or good when it produces the greatest amount
of good for the greatest number of people. Good are the actions that more people can make happy. This is
called utility. An action that maximizes utility is one that maximizes total benefits while reducing negative
consequences for the largest number of people. In utilitarianism, this is called the greatest happiness
principle, which states that a moral action is one that increases the total utility in the world. In other words,
if an action is moral, it increases the amount of happiness in the world. This allows actions to be ranked by
morality. If an action makes one person happy, it is moral. However, if another action would make many
people happy, it is more moral.

As an example the story of Robin hood. He steals money from the rich. Usually stealing is a bad moral
according to the social acceptance but Robin Hood is giving the stolen money for the betterment of the poor.
So according to the Utilitarianism the action of Robin Hood is correct because it makes majority of people
happy.

The most important classical utilitarians are Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-
1873). Bentham and Mill were both important theorists and social reformers.

Good Points

 It gives a real meaning for the happiness. It says that happiness is always correct because it satisfy
majority.
 It does not give chance to harm people. It always concerns the betterment of the majority.
 It gives new meaning to the morals, right action leads to the happiness.
 The fairest way to run a country is to balance everyone’s differing interests. We see this happening in
all modern democracies – governments use the principles of Utilitarianism to determine what is
right.
 Utilitarianism does not mention any religion, race, ethnicity or sex. It makes an equal and peacefull
society.

Objections to Utilitarianism

 People can’t be trusted – If you get rid of rules and allow people to choose to act in the greater good,
they will actually act selfishly, then try to justify their actions by claiming they were in the greater
good.
 Always popularity is not the right. For example, if most people feel strongly against homosexuality,
this would justify laws against practicing homosexuality. This is confusing what is popular with what
is right.

 Immeasurable – You can’t assign a value to an amount of pleasure. It is impossible to compare the
pleasure of getting a new job with the joy of washing your car.
 Happiness is not the only thing that makes the human life valuable. There are more other things such
as love, freedom, affection, money etc.