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Believers Need Moral Reasoning

It is difficult—perhaps impossible—for most people to avoid using moral
reasoning. Religious people are no exception. One reason is that religious
moral codes (such as the Ten Commandments) and other major religious
rules of conduct are usually vague, laying out general principles that may
be difficult to apply to specific cases. (Secular moral codes, such as the
―Golden Rule,‖ often have the same disadvantage.) For example, we may be
commanded to love our neighbor, but who are our neighbors? Do they
include people of a different religion? People who denounce our religion?
the gay or lesbian couple? those who steal from us? the convicted child
molester next door? the drug dealers on the corner? the woman who got
an abortion? Also, what does loving our neighbor demand of us? How does
love require us to behave toward the drug dealers, the gay couple, or the
person who denounces our religion? If our terminally ill neighbor asks us in
the name of love to help him kill himself, what should we do? Does love
require us to kill him—or to refrain from killing him? And, of course,
commandments can conflict—as when, for example, the only way to avoid
killing an innocent person is to tell a lie, or the only way to save the life of
one person is to kill another. All of these situations force the believer to
interpret religious directives, to try to apply general rules to specific cases,
and to draw out the implications of particular views—in other words, to do
ethics.

When Conflicts Arise, Ethics Steps In

Very often moral contradictions or inconsistencies confront the religious

believer, and only moral reasoning can help resolve them. Believers
sometimes disagree with their religious leaders on moral issues. Adherents
of one religious tradition may disagree with those from another tradition
on whether an act is right or wrong. Sincere devotees in a religious tradition
may wonder if its moral teachings make sense. In all such cases, intelligent
resolution of the conflict of moral claims can be achieved only by applying

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a neutral standard that helps sort out the competing viewpoints. Moral
philosophy supplies the neutral standard in the form of critical thinking,
well-made arguments, and careful analysis. No wonder then that many
great religious minds—Aquinas, Leibniz, Descartes, Kant, Maimonides,
Averroës, and others—have relied on reason to examine the nature of
morality. In fact, countless theists have regarded reason as a gift from God
that enables human beings to grasp the truths of science, life, and morality.

Moral Philosophy Enables Productive Discourse

Any fruitful discussions about morality undertaken between people from
different religious traditions or between believers and nonbelievers will
require a common set of ethical concepts and a shared procedure for
deciding issues and making judgments. Ethics provides these tools.

Without them, conversations will resolve nothing, and participants will learn
little. Without them, people will talk past each other, appealing only to their
own religious views. Furthermore, in a pluralistic society, most of the public
discussions about important moral issues take place in a context of shared
values such as justice, fairness, equality, and tolerance. Just as important,
they also occur according to an unwritten understanding that (1) moral
positions should be explained, (2) claims should be supported by reasons,
and (3) reasoning should be judged by common rational standards. These
skills, of course, are at the heart of ethics.

Now consider the second question from above: What is the relationship
between religion and morality? For many people, the most interesting
query about the relationship between religion and morality is this: Is God
the maker of morality? That is, is God the author of the moral law? Those
who answer yes are endorsing a theory of morality known as the divine
command theory. It says that right actions are those that are willed by
God, that God literally defines right and wrong. Something is right or good
only because God makes it so. In the simplest version of the theory, God

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can determine right and wrong because he is omnipotent. He is all-

powerful—powerful enough even to create moral norms. In this view, God
is a divine lawgiver, and his laws constitute morality.

In general, believers are divided on whether the divine command theory

gives an accurate account of the source of morality. Notable among the
theory’s detractors are the great theistic philosophers Gottfried Leibniz
(1646–1716) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). And conversely, as odd as it
may sound, some nonbelievers have subscribed to it. In Fyodor
Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov (1879–80), the character Ivan
Karamazov declares, ―If God doesn’t exist, everything is permissible.‖ This
very sentiment was espoused by, among others, the famous atheist
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

Both religious and secular critics of the divine command theory believe that
it poses a serious dilemma, one first articulated by Socrates two and a half
millennia ago. In the dialogue Euthyphro, Socrates asks, Is an action morally
right because God wills it to be so, or does God will it to be so because it is
morally right? Critics say that if an action is right only because God wills it
(that is, if right and wrong are dependent on God), then many heinous
crimes and evil actions would be right if God willed them. If God willed
murder, theft, or torture, these deeds would be morally right. If God has
unlimited power, he could easily will such actions. If the rightness of an
action depended on God’s will alone, he could not have reasons for willing
what he wills. No reasons would be available and none required. Therefore,
if God commanded an action, the command would be without reason,
completely arbitrary.

Neither the believer nor the nonbeliever would think this state of affairs
plausible. On the other hand, if God wills an action because it is morally
right (if moral norms are independent of God), then the divine command
theory must be false. God does not create rightness; he simply knows what
is right and wrong and is subject to the moral law just as humans are.

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For some theists, this charge of arbitrariness is especially worrisome.

Leibniz, for example, rejects the divine command theory, declaring that it
implies that God is unworthy of worship:

In saying, therefore, that things are not good according to any standard of
goodness, but simply by the will of God, it seems to me that one destroys,
without realizing it, all the love of God and all his glory; for why praise him
for what he has done, if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing the
contrary? Where will be his justice and his wisdom if he has only a certain
despotic power, if arbitrary will takes the place of reasonableness, and if in
accord with the definition of tyrants, justice consists in that which is
pleasing to the most powerful?

Defenders of the divine command theory may reply to the arbitrariness

argument by contending that God would never command us to commit
heinous acts, because God is all good. Because of his supreme goodness,
he would will only what is good. Some thinkers, however, believe that such
reasoning renders the very idea of God’s goodness meaningless. As one
philosopher says,

[O]n this view, the doctrine of the goodness of God is reduced to nonsense.
It is important to religious believers that God is not only all-powerful and
all-knowing, but that he is also good; yet if we accept the idea that good
and bad are defined by reference to God’s will, this notion is deprived of
any meaning. What could it mean to say that God’s commands are good? If
―X is good‖ means ―X is commanded by God,‖ then ―God’s commands are
good‖ would mean only ―God’s commands are commanded by God,‖ an
empty truism.

In any case, it seems that through critical reasoning we can indeed learn
much about morality and the moral life. After all, there are complete moral
systems (some of which are examined in this book) that are not based on
religion, that contain genuine moral norms indistinguishable from those
embraced by religion, and that are justified not by reference to religious
precepts but by careful thinking and moral arguments. Moreover, if we can

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do ethics—if we can use critical reasoning to discern moral norms certified

by the best reasons and evidence—then critical reasoning is sufficient to
guide us to moral standards and values. Because we obviously can do
ethics (as the following chapters demonstrate), morality is both accessible
and meaningful to us whether we are religious or not.

KEY WORDS

applied ethics—The application of moral norms to specific moral issues or

cases, particularly those in a profession such as medicine or law.

descriptive ethics—The scientific study of moral beliefs and practices.

divine command theory—A theory asserting that the morally right action
is the one that God commands.

ethics (or moral philosophy)—The philosophical study of morality.

extrinsically valuable—Valuable as a means to something else, such as

the pen that can be used to write a letter.

intrinsically valuable—Valuable in itself, for its own sake, such as

happiness or beauty.

metaethics—The study of the meaning and logical structure of moral

beliefs.

morality—Beliefs concerning right and wrong, good and bad; they can
include judgments, rules, principles, and theories.

normative ethics—The study of the principles, rules, or theories that guide

our actions and judgments.

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 EXERCISES

Essay Questions
1. Give an example of how you or someone you know has used reasons to
support a moral judgment.

2. Provide examples of moral beliefs that you have absorbed or adopted

without question.

3. Identify at least two important normative ethical questions that you have
wondered about in the past year.

4. Cite an example of how the principle of universalizability has entered into

your moral deliberations.

5. How does racial discrimination violate the principle of impartiality?

6. Do you think that morality ultimately depends on God (that God is the
author of the moral law)? Why or why not?

7. How could the divine command theory undermine any reasons we might
have for respecting God?

8. Explain how some believers respond to the arbitrariness problem in the

divine command theory. Is their response plausible? Why or why not?

ETHICAL DILEMMAS

1. You are the mayor of a major city, and you want to keep the streets as
clean as possible. You send the city’s street sweepers to the more affluent
neighborhoods, but you ignore the poorer neighborhoods because the
poor residents pay less in taxes than the rich people do. Is this practice a
violation of the impartiality principle? Why or why not?

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2. You try to live strictly by the moral rules contained in your religion’s
moral code. The two most important rules are ―Be merciful‖ (don’t give
people what they deserve) and ―Be just‖ (give people exactly what they
deserve). Now suppose a man is arrested for stealing food from your house,
and the police leave it up to you whether he should be prosecuted for his
crime or set free. Should you be merciful and set him free, or be just and
make sure he is appropriately punished? How do you resolve this conflict of
rules? Can your moral code resolve it? To what moral principles or theories
do you appeal?

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