God, Reason, and Morality: Is There a Difference - Essay Example

God, Reason, and Morality: Is There a Difference Great thinkers from Plato to the modern day philosophers have wanted for a base for ethics thatwould serve as a basis for morality. Due to the fact that the beliefs of the gods or God was not based upon reason and the story of the gods or God had a number of irrational fundamentals, philosophers have sought for a more rational and secure basis for morality. What is needed is a foundation for morality that is rational, universal and eternal. Philosophers have developed a number of ethical traditions (Pecorino). What these ethical traditions have in common is that each has a basic principle which is used to develop moral rules and which serves as the basis for moral judgments. Each has a principle of the GOOD. None of the traditions is without faults and none has become the basis for human conduct (Pecorino). In the postmodern period some (maybe most) philosophers have abandoned the attempt to find universal principles and have argued for relativity of values. There are a number of ethical theories that hold for one form of relativity or another. These movements include Existentialism, Pragmatism, Feminism (Pecorino). Abortion, surrogacy, euthanasia, the death penalty, racism, sexism, homosexuality, welfare, world hunger, animal rights, and environmental issues-all are areas characterized by fundamental disagreements, often intense, sometimes bitter and acrimonious (Introduction). This situation is made even more perplexing by the fact that in all of these debates, each side has good arguments in support of its position. Some part of moral disagreement however, can be attributed to ignorance or ill will, but the troubling part is the moral disagreement among informed and benevolent people (Introduction). The issues about morality are often inter-related to the issues about God and reason. God Common traits that best describes God are absoluteness and other superlative qualities. However, many other definitions of the God subsist. Other concepts of God may comprise anthropomorphic attributes, gender, particular names, and ethnic exclusivity, while others are purely transcendent or philosophic concepts (God). However, not all systems hold that God is necessarily morally good. Some hold that God is the very definition of moral goodness. Others maintain that God is beyond morality. This God cannot also be "good", from the point of view of all humans - just as not all humans are "good" from his point of view. Of course, this idea fails to take into account God's respect of His creations' Free Will; He wants humankind to come to Him because they want to. As a Good and Loving God He would not force anyone to Him (God). Reason Reason refers to the higher cognitive faculties of the human mind. It describes a type of thought or aspect of thought, especially abstract thought, and the ability to think abstractly, which is felt to be especially human(Reason). Reason comprises conception, judgment, reasoning, and the intuitional faculty. Specifically, it is the intuitional faculty, or the faculty of first truths, as distinguished from the understanding, which is called the discursive or ratiocinative faculty (Reason). However, there are plenty of variance between philosophical schools about the nature and purpose of reason, as well as about the extent to which it is unique to human beings, and the above definition is not universally accepted (Reason). The debate about the relationship of reason to logic extends back to the time of Plato and Aristotle. Plato made a peculiarity between reason and logic, whereas for Aristotle, the terms were fundamentally synonymous (Reason). Morality Morality deals with that which is innately regarded as right or wrong. The term is often used to refer to a system of principles and judgments shared by cultural, religious, and philosophical concepts and beliefs, by which humans subjectively determine whether given actions are right or wrong (Morality). These concepts and values are often embraced by a culture or group, and it serve to control the conduct of its members. Conformity to such codification may also be called morality, and the group may depend on widespread conformity to such codes for its continued existence (Morality). In any society, there is a variation between the belief of what each person ought to conduct himself; so there is a difference between hypothetical punditry and real morality. He whom we call "moral" is moral only after he behaves in accordance with either culture perception of "morality", or in accordance with self-interest (Morality). God and Morality For most believers of God, what is in agreement with God's rule is moral, and what is against to that rule is morally wrong (God and Morality). Nevertheless, this principle raises a famous question in the history of Western theology and moral philosophy (God and Morality). The ancient-Greek philosopher Plato first asked it. In his tale, Euthyphro the character Socrates (who had also been a real-life philosopher and former tutor of Plato) asks: Is something moral because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is moral This is referred to as the 'Euthyphro dilemma', because either interpretation apparently raises serious theological problems (God and Morality). The theory that God commands something because it is moral is problematic because it means that his command is dictated by morality, which is contrary to the theological doctrine of the supreme authority of God (God and Morality). Within this interpretation, something is moral because it has some defining quality. God first establishes what does, and does not, possess this moral quality, and then commands accordingly. Therefore, contrary to the theological conception of morality, what is moral and immoral is independent of God's will (God and Morality). It may be the case that only God is intellectually capable of establishing what has this moral quality; but he has no more control over what is moral than we have over the correct answer to an arithmetical problem (God and Morality). Also, it is true that God's commanding of what is moral is dependent on his will to command what is moral; but it is simply the possession of some quality, and not God's commanding, that determines what is moral (God and Morality). According to the Divine Command Theory (DCT) nothing is intrinsically moral or immoral; it is only God is forbidding of killing that makes killing immoral, for example (God and Morality). Another problem with the DCT is that it means that we can never act morally as an end in itself, but only ever as a means to simply comply with God's commands. We might say that we obey God's commands in order to act morally (God and Morality). The philosopher James Rachels (1941-2003) wrote that if God's commands are not determined by morality, then they are, 'from a moral point of view, arbitrary' (Rachels). It is true that, within the DCT, the process, which produces conclusions about what, is moral and immoral does not involve moral considerations. However, this is not because God's commands ignore morality, but because morality is defined by those commands. Therefore, God's arbitrary commands cannot be arbitrary 'from a moral point of view' because, within this theory, there is simply no independent moral point of view from which those commands can be assessed (God and Morality). God and Reason Faith in God and reason seem to be in conflict with each other. When the study of scripture is at the same time a teaching that addresses the texture of our lives, reasoning becomes wisdom and scripture becomes reasoned (Elkins). Traditionally academics have sought to resolve the tension between faith and reason in one of two ways (Elkins). Man has to face with obvious conflicts between what the Bible about the origin about the source and advance of life, and what modern science seems to explain (Elkins). The Bible teaches that God created the world about 6,000 years ago, that He created life through several stages of creation, He created an original human pair, Adam and Eve, and that these our original parents disobeyed God, thereby bringing ruinous calamity on themselves, their posterity and the rest of creation (Plantinga). Modern science, on the other hand, teaches that the universe is 15 or 16 billion years or so, gives or takes a billion or two. The earth is much younger, maybe 4 1/2 billion years old, but still hardly a spring chicken. Primitive life arose on earth perhaps 3 1/2 billion years ago, by virtue of processes that are completely natural if so far not well understood; and subsequent forms of life developed from these aboriginal forms by way of natural processes, the most popular candidates being perhaps random genetic mutation and natural selection (Plantinga). The interplay between reason and faith is an essential topic in the philosophy of religion. It is closely connected to, but separate from, more than a few other issues in the philosophy of religion: the existence of God, divine attributes, the problem of evil, divine action in the world, religion and ethics, religious experience and religious language, and the problem of religious pluralism (Swindal). Moreover, an analysis of the interplay between faith and reason also provides resources for philosophical arguments in other areas such as metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology (Swindal). While the issues the interplay between faith and reason addresses are endemic to almost any religious faith, this article will focus primarily on the faith claims found in the three great monotheistic world religions: Judaism, Islam, and particularly Christianity (Swindal). Reason and Morality For most people the consequence of an action defines whether the action is moral or not. The right action is the one that produces good consequences.On the other hand, wrong action produces bad consequences (Introduction). If a person give money to Oxfam to help starving people, and if Oxfam saves the lives of starving people and helps them develop a self-sustaining economy, then that person have done something good. For this reason, it is the right thing to do. Those who subscribe to this position are called consequentialists (Introduction).Some consequentialists, called ethical egoists, maintain that each person should look only at the consequences that affect us (Introduction). The political expression of ethical egoism occurs most clearly in libertarianism, and the best-known advocate of this position was probably Ayn Rand (Introduction). At its core, utilitarianism believes that we ought to do what produces the greatest overall good consequences for everyone, not just for me. Each of these standards of utility has its strengths and weaknesses (Introduction).The other principal disagreement that has plagued utilitarianism centers around the question of whether we look at the consequences of each individual act-this is called act utilitarianism-or the consequences that would result from everyone following a particular rule-this is called rule utilitarianism (Introduction). One could imagine a situation in which punishing an innocent person-while concealing his innocence, of course-would have the greatest overall good consequences. If doing so would result in the greatest overall amount of pleasure or happiness, then it would not only be permitted by act utilitarianism, it would be morally required (Introduction). Similar difficulties arise about an issue such as euthanasia. It is conceivable that overall utility might justify active euthanasia of the elderly and infirm, even involuntary euthanasia, especially of those who leave no one behind to mourn their passing (Introduction). During the last few decades, plenty motivating and essential work has been done in the area of feminist ethics. It would be deceptive to think of feminist approaches to ethics as falling into a single camp, but surely some feminist moral philosophers have planned out consequentialist accounts of the moral life in at least two distinct ways(Introduction). First, some feminists have believe that morality is all about its of , but that consequences are not best comprehended or evaluated in the traditional computational model offered by utilitarianism (Introduction). Instead, they focus foremost on the traditions in which a certain action has consequences for relationships and feelings. Negative consequences are those that destroy relationships and that hurt others, especially those that hurt others emotionally (Introduction). Within this tradition, the morally good course of action is that one that preserves the greatest degree of connectedness among all those affected by it (Introduction). Carol Gilligan has described this moral voice in her book In a Different Voice (Introduction). Second, other feminists have acknowledged a nearly utilitarian account of consequences, but have paid special attention to-and often given special importance to-the consequences that affect women (Introduction). Such consequences, feminists believe, have often been unnoticed by traditional utilitarian calculators, allegedly neutral but often insensitive to problems to women. Unlike the work of Gilligan and others, man in this custom do not question the leading utilitarian standard, but somewhat ask whether it has in fact been applied neutrally (Introduction). Despite these disagreements about the exact principles of utilitarianism, majority would believe that utilitarianism contains essential principles into the moral life. Part of the validation for morality, and one of the reasons people accept the burdens of morality, is that it promises to create an enhanced society (Introduction). Man does not need Religion to know what is wrong or right. The ability to distinguish right from wrong is inherent in each person, each culture, each tribe or nation as a whole. Ever since the dawn of humankind up to the present, humans have some common instinct such as, love for family, caring for other people, and the ability to discern good from bad. Cultures from all occupations, regardless of their beliefs or religion have the same concept of good and bad. Moreover, Religion does not change a person's ability to resist the temptation of doing bad. Many so-called religious people have proven to be prey to temptations such as fornication, corruption, and the like. Man therefore has to turn to God himself for guidance and protection against temptations. Great men of God such as Moses and Elijah were not religious people. Rather, they discovered God in the wilderness while they are alone. Works Cited Elkins, William Wesley. "A Word on Wisdoms." 2005. Drew University. 15 Nov. 2005. . "God." Wikipedia. 2005. Wikimedia. 13 November 2005. . "God and Morality." Chains of Reason. 2005. Chains of Reason. 15 Nov., 2005.. "Introduction A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory." 1994. University of San Diego. 13 November 2005.. "Morality." Wikipedia. 2005. Wikimedia. 13 November 2005.. Pecorino,Philip A. "Philosophy of Religion." 2001.Queensborough Community College, CUNY. http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/ pecorip/SCCCWEB/ETEXTS/PHIL_of_RELIGION_TEXT/default.htm>. Plantinga, Alvin. When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible. Christian Scholar's Review XXI:1. IN: University of Notre Dame, 1991, p. 8-33 Rachels, J."The Elements of Moral Philosophy." New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.fourth edition, 2003, p. 52 "Reason." Wikipedia. 2004. Wikimedia. 13 November 2005. . Swindal, James. "Faith and Reason." 2005. Internet encyclopedia of Philisophy. 15, Nov, 2005.. Read More