Do We Really Need Bad Reasons To Be Good?

[Freedom_from_Chains]

Do We Really Need Bad Reasons To Be Good?

The Boston Globe
By Sam Harris | October 22, 2006

THE MIDTERM elections are fast approaching, and their outcome could well be determined by the "moral values” of conservative Christians. While this possibility is regularly bemoaned by liberals, the link between religion and morality in our public life is almost never questioned. One of the most common justifications one hears for religious faith, from all points on the political spectrum, is that it provides a necessary framework for moral behavior. Most Americans appear to believe that without faith in God, we would have no durable reasons to treat one another well. The political version of this morality claim is that our country was founded on "Judeo-Christian principles,” the implication being that without these principles we would have no way to write just laws.

It is, of course, taboo to criticize a person’s religious beliefs. The problem, however, is that much of what people believe in the name of religion is intrinsically divisive, unreasonable, and incompatible with genuine morality. The truth is that the only rational basis for morality is a concern for the happiness and suffering of other conscious beings. This emphasis on the happiness and suffering of others explains why we don’t have moral obligations toward rocks. It also explains why (generally speaking) people deserve greater moral concern than animals, and why certain animals concern us more than others. If we show more sensitivity to the experience of chimpanzees than to the experience of crickets, we do so because there is a relationship between the size and complexity of a creature’s brain and its experience of the world.

Unfortunately, religion tends to separate questions of morality from the living reality of human and animal suffering. Consequently, religious people often devote immense energy to so-called "moral” questions—such as gay marriage—where no real suffering is at issue, and they will inflict terrible suffering in the service of their religious beliefs.

Consider the suffering of the millions of unfortunate people who happen to live in sub-Saharan Africa. The wars in this part of the world are interminable. AIDS is epidemic there, killing around 3 million people each year. It is almost impossible to exaggerate how bad your luck is if you are born today in a country like Sudan. The question is, how does religion affect this problem?

Many pious Christians go to countries like Sudan to help alleviate human suffering, and such behavior is regularly put forward as a defense of Christianity. But in this case, religion gives people bad reasons for acting morally, where good reasons are actually available. We don’t have to believe that a deity wrote one of our books, or that Jesus was born of a virgin, to be moved to help people in need. In those same desperate places, one finds secular volunteers working with organizations like Doctors Without Borders and helping people for secular reasons. Helping people purely out of concern for their happiness and suffering seems rather more noble than helping them because you think the Creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it, or will punish you for not doing it.

But the worst problem with religious morality is that it often causes good people to act immorally, even while they attempt to alleviate the suffering of others. In Africa, for instance, certain Christians preach against condom use in villages where AIDS is epidemic, and where the only information about condoms comes from the ministry. They also preach the necessity of believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ in places where religious conflict between Christians and Muslims has led to the deaths of millions. Secular volunteers don’t spread ignorance and death in this way. A person need not be evil to preach against condom use in a village decimated by AIDS; he or she need only believe a specific faith-based moral dogma. In such cases we can see that religion can cause good people to be much less good than they might otherwise be.

We have to realize that we decide what is good in our religious doctrines. We read the Golden Rule, for instance, and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: If a man discovers that his bride is not a virgin on their wedding night, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22: 13-21). If we are civilized, we will reject this as utter lunacy. Doing so requires that we exercise our own moral intuitions, keeping the real issue of human happiness in view. The belief that the Bible is the word of God is of no help to us whatsoever.

As we consider how to run our own society and how to help people in need, the choice before us is simple: Either we can have a 21st-century conversation about morality and human happiness—availing ourselves of all the scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last 2,000 years of human discourse—or we can confine ourselves to an Iron Age conversation as it is preserved in our holy books.

Wherever the issue of “moral values” surfaces in our national conversation in the coming weeks, ask yourself which approach to morality is operating. Are we talking about how to best alleviate human suffering? Or are we talking about the whims of an invisible God?

Sam Harris is the author of Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith. He can be reached through his website, www.samharris.org.

email: [email protected]
web: http://www.samharris.org/

[struggle4progress]

1. Another condescending attack piece, populated by the usual strawmen

Harris apparently has no definite ideas about the manner in which people form their views, about the social forces that limit the expression of views, nor about actual process by which people change their views. Nor does Harris apparently have any definite ideas about how some view expressed by an individual might conflict with other views expressed by the individual or about the significance of such contradictions, which might originate either in the individual or in the social groups to which the individual belongs. Nor does Harris apparently have definite ideas about the relations between the social formation of ideological views, about how these views affect action, and about the criticisms of ideological thinking required to change social structures.

Lacking such scientific content, his comments remain largely vacuous: he invokes stereotypes and sweeping generalizations (".... much of what people believe in the name of religion .... religion tends to .... religious people often .... Many pious Christians .... it often causes ....") that would not pass muster in a serious discussion of art and literature and that would merit scorn in any scientific investigation.

Instead, he offers low-content ideological assertions.

Harris argues, for example, "Helping .. purely out of concern .. seems .. more noble than helping .. because .. the Creator .. wants .. it, will reward .. it, or will punish .. not doing it." I have no problem with that assertion, as far as it goes, but of course the assertion really doesn't go very far, for several reasons. Arguing, that it would be better if those who worked against AIDS were nobly motivated, might produce a certain sneering self-satisfaction, but it actually does nothing whatsoever to address the problem of AIDS. Harris' argument also intentionally misrepresents the religious views of many people, of whom we might representatively cite Hillel who, asked by a prankster to teach the entire Jewish law while standing on one foot, responded with the Golden Rule and the remark that the rest was merely commentary.

Harris calls the Golden Rule "a brilliant distillation of .. ethical impulses" but immediately cites Deuteronomy 22 as an offset. Yet it escapes his official attention that, in the Jewish and Christian traditions based on a scripture collection including Deuteronomy, essentially no one today would support stoning nonvirgin brides -- perhaps because Hillel's style of interpretation eventually won. I say that this escapes Harris' OFFICIAL attention, but it cannot have escaped his ACTUAL attention and his use of Deuteronomy is disingenuous.

There will always dangerous crazy folk who claim the Almighty told them to drown their children in the bathtub. There will always be self-righteous bubbleheads who insist that they alone know the truth and that anyone who disputes their assertions is a dangerous menace. There will always be people who argue dishonestly, using sweeping generalizations and strawmen and outright misrepresentations of other peoples' views. Then, there's the rest of humanity, trying to muddle through.

[Unvanguard]

2. Yes and no.

The author of this piece is absolutely right to argue that religion is not necessary to provide a "framework for moral behavior"; in and of itself, in fact, mere acceptance of the existence of God, or of the divine authorship of the Bible, does not generate a system of moral obligations. To do so, we must add the notion that people ought to obey the divine will, which has no more proof behind it than any secular moral theory.

He goes wrong, however, when he asserts that religious morality is less valid than secular morality. There is nothing particularly "rational" about caring for the welfare of others; a perfectly rational person could insist that the welfare of others are irrelevant to her, except as far as they serve her self-interest, and there is no purely rational argument one can advance against that notion. Nor does he acknowledge that there are plenty of other bases for explicitly religious morality than fear of divine punishment; natural law, for instance.

[struggle4progress]

3. Welcome to DU

:toast:

[cyborg_jim]

4. It is entirely rational

There is nothing particularly "rational" about caring for the welfare of others;

Humans are a social speices. This is an entirely rational behaviour to engage in.

Why people seem to have such issues regarding human social structures as entirely naturally occuring things that do not require more extraordinary lengths than any other animal society is beyond me.

[Unvanguard]

5. "Natural" and "rational" are two different things.

Altruism is unquestionably natural for humans. It is not, however, rational - no more than any other value system is.

It is perfectly conceivable, for instance, that a rational non-human species would not possess the sort of caring for others that humans do.

[neebob]

6. Harris always delights and disappoints me.

"This ... explains why we don’t have moral obligations toward rocks" - squeal, snort! That's right up there with the hair dryer line. Then he turns around and says people deserve greater moral concern than animals - hrmph. And there's no real suffering associated with the issue of gay marriage. Then he sez being born in the Sudan is a matter of luck.

Sometimes I think he doesn't think hard enough. His ego definitely does get in the way of his message.

[Finder]

7. As usual, he is right on the mark...n/t

[beam me up scottie]

8. "religion can cause good people to be much less good"

But the worst problem with religious morality is that it often causes good people to act immorally, even while they attempt to alleviate the suffering of others. In Africa, for instance, certain Christians preach against condom use in villages where AIDS is epidemic, and where the only information about condoms comes from the ministry. They also preach the necessity of believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ in places where religious conflict between Christians and Muslims has led to the deaths of millions. Secular volunteers don’t spread ignorance and death in this way. A person need not be evil to preach against condom use in a village decimated by AIDS; he or she need only believe a specific faith-based moral dogma. In such cases we can see that religion can cause good people to be much less good than they might otherwise be.

Perfect example of how the religious beliefs of some are costing millions of others their very lives.

It's akin to murder.

WWJK?