Law and Ethics: Lecture
Answers to refer to the material from the class. Behavior of Judge Skinner for example against material relating to the code of judicial conduct.
Coping with political theology – essay by Mark Lilla
“contemporary American debates over religion and politics are astonishingly provincial. Whether our arguments take place in the press, in seminar rooms, or on the stump, we keep coming back to the same basic themes: toleration, church-state separation, freedom of assembly, conscience, values, community, and a few others.”
On differences between Europe and U.S
“there were no religious shrines to fight over, no holy cities, no temples, no sacred burial grounds (except those of the Native Americans, which were shamefully ignored). There also was a complete absence of what we would today call diversity”
What is political theology?
“Virtually every civilization known to us began with an image of itself as set within a divine nexus of God, man, and world, and based its understanding of legitimate authority on that theological picture. This is true of all the civilizations of the ancient Near East, and of many in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Political theology seems to be the default condition of civilizations as they try to articulate how their political order relates to the natural order, and how both stand under a divine order”
The Enduring Difference
“in American thinking about religion and politics, a hidden separation that makes possible all the institutional separations we enjoy. On the one hand, religious Americans believe in the absolute truth of their faiths, even (among fundamentalist Protestants) in the literal truth of scripture. On the other, due to the humanistic turn of modern political thought, they believe that those revealed truths should not affect the rules of the democratic game”
On challenges in the Islamic world
“This is not because they do not want good government, or decent societies, or that they are utterly intolerant of other faiths. It is because the political theology of the shari’a is still intact and commands the respect of all pious Muslim.”
“Muslim political theology derives them from the revelation of the Qur’an, the traditions of the hadith, and the decisions of the community of legal scholars who look to these sources; modern political philosophy derives them from a reading of human nature alone.”
Seven Threats to Ethics
- The Death of God
- Relativism
- Egoism – using religion as a smoke scare. Hypocrisy.
- Evolutionary Theory
- Determinism and Futility vs. Free Will
- Unreasonable Demands v. Reasonable Demands
- False Consciousness – Ethics as an institution
Secular Humanism – Religion as the foundation of ethics or as a symbolic expression of ethics. Religion used to assert authority for various reasons.
Relationship with Religion:
- What is the origin of religion?
- What is the (secular) humanist narrative?
- What is the meaning of life?
- Do we need a good to be good?
- Are we any more than animals are?
- Is science a religion?
- Is death the end of it all?
- What is the relation of religion and current global conflict?
- Should nations be officially atheist?
- Is religion dying out?
Why is there religion? Secular humanists believe that religion was created to deal with the question of death since human beings know that they’re going to die. Does it all just end? Religion invented to help with the fear of the unknown after death – to provide a form of justice that might not be present on earth but present in some form of after-life.
Religion was the opium of the people, according to Karl Marx. One of the talking heads on the video claims that religion has the same sort of stimulating power as heroin or opium or other drugs. Marx was talking of it more in a metaphorical sense, not literal sense, but secular humanists believe that he was more accurate than he knew at the time.
Video: What is True? An Introduction to Secular Humanism
1. What is the origin of religion? Religion tries to answer the age old question of death in a way that gives comfort, provides support to suggest the possibility of justice and eliminate some fear.
2. What is the secular humanist narrative? Every religion has a narrative – Genesis offers the narrative for the creation of the Earth, Abraham and Issac and God, about justice and God’s commands. Narrative of Prometheus (ancient God) who brought fire to man. Secular Humanism replaces the religious narrative with that of good works and great heroes.
3. What is the meaning of life? Life has no meaning per se, it provides us with opportunities. There is no secret message, it’s what you discover, it’s what you do, your goals and aspirations. If its the only life we have (as secular humanists believe) then its even more important to live it the right way. No one know what happens when we die, but as individuals grown out of an evolutionary process and lived for a while on this planet and the best we can hope for is that our fellow humans will think well of us and preserve our memory for a few generations.
4. Do we need a God to be good? The notion that immorality and Godlessness are connected is foolish. Billions of people have lived full lives without believing in God. Confucius in China (natural, virtuous way of life), Buddhists, hundred of millions of secular people in Western Europe. Religious leaders who have insisted that you can not be moral without a God have a problem in explaining all the immorality in the name of God. In southern U.S. slavery was once considered moral, desirable and well defended with biblical text, with preachers on the leading front of defending the institution of slavery.
Some believe that without the promise of after-life or threat of eternal damnation, you can not be good or virtuous. Morality is something you develop, empathy, altruism, a conscience. According to Kant, in order to be moral requires more than just behavior, it requires intention. If you’re being good only because God tells you to do it, then who says you’re being moral if those are not your own intentions. The fear of punishment by God or hope for eternal life are not moral reasons, instead they’re very selfish reasons.
Once humanity can look at themselves carefully and critically, we began at an egalitarian level where all human being are seen as equal, and no one being treated with privilege because of the God we believe in.
What if God had let Abraham sacrifice his son? Would that be right because God told him to do that? Or would that be wrong of God to let that proceed? Did God have to stop Abraham from committing a moral wrong? When people believe that God would’ve never let that proceed, they are in effect morally judging their own God.
5. Are we any more than animals are? Humans have more conscientiousness than animals and are hardwired for empathy. Peter Singer argues that Chimpanzees have more rights than newborns because newborns don’t have the sense of person hood. (more on Singer in next lecture)
6. Is science a religion? Religion is based on faith, hopes and ends, but Science is based on the understanding of what is true, on facts, on evidence. Science does not start with the answers and does not treat answers as immutable. Scientific answers are also verifiable, religious answers are not. Science is self correcting way to look at the world – religion arguments non-empirical. For example, the ancient theory of creation v. the modern theory of evolution. Religion often in conflict with one another (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc) and no way to verify which one is right and which one is wrong. Science is the bridge between cultures. Moral truths are not discovered in nature, instead they are decided as community to determine what is important to us. Can science help us to live a moral life? Science is in essence common sense, based on facts, analyzing the best means available to achieve the ends and consequences of our behavior. In order make ethical judgment we need to have access to the truth about what our behaviors do. Science depends on congnition, reason, evidence and experiment.
7. Is death the end of it all? Yes, death is just the return to the earth. The talk of after-life is wishful fantasy.
8. What is the relation of religion and current global conflict? Most major conflicts in the last 50 years related to ethnic and religious differences. Religion divides people. Jihad, Crusades, the idea that the architect of the entire universe has plans only for you is a great way to isolate all of moral thinking and moral decision making from any real world affects. George W. Bush claiming ‘God Bless America’ single handedly divided the East from the West. A true belief in religion and a passion for religion results in intolerance. Bush probably believed that apocalypse is coming and he might be facilitating it. After 9/11 many people went to Churches, Temples and Mosques to pray, when in fact those who hijacked the planes were manipulated to do that in the name of God.
9. Should nations be officially atheist? No, because a country can be religous in its essence but be secular in giving religious freedom and religious liberty. Officially atheists countries were tyrannical at the same time, so being atheist is not the answer.
10. Is religion dying out? Science is increasingly important in many ways and as a result since reasoning is the basis for science and science can be tested, there seems to be some diminution in God. But religion is not dying out.
Harvard Crimson Article – The Divinity School letter comparing the Quran and the New Testament – there is a place for broader interfaith dialog.
Both religion and science are sources of morality and ethical values.
Difference between political theology and secularism (religious freedom for everyone) and nations being officially atheist. Secular Humanists don’t believe that nations should be atheist because that would prevent religious liberty, instead they are against having a religion imposed on those that don’t believe it. In other words, having it as a basis for policy, or basis for law. They are not opposed to religion as the guiding principle as long as its not imposed on others.