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Guest
One of the common apologetics talking points I’ve heard is that God is necessary for a universal set of ethics. “How does an atheist know that slaughtering people is wrong?” the argument typically goes. “Only through a universal set of right and wrong to which we all have access – natural law that we receive from God.”
To me, this argument always seemed simplistic. I studied philosophy in college, and studied enough ethics to know that many ethical systems that have been put forth in western thought since the Renaissance do not rely on God directly.
Immanual Kant was a German philosopher, who is probably best known for his notion that ethnics should only be based on a “categorical imperative.” To Kant, that imperative is based on the notion that a person should only act according to a maxim that would apply to anyone. Here’s a quote from his “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,”
"There is, therefore, only a single categorical imperative and it is this: act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”
To Kant, the ethics of a situation cannot be defined by one’s experience of pleasure or pain (or expectation of reward or fear of punishment), which is the basis of the Aristotelian system of ethics that are also reflected in Thomism. To Kant, the rightness of one’s actions are only based on one’s respect for the “moral law” that comes from the categorical imperative. Much of Kantian ethics focuses on a respect for one’s reason, and accordingly, a respect for the reason of others (as filtered through the categorical imperative). So for example, my killing a random person on the street would be wrong, according to Kant, because I would not apply the universal maxim that it’s OK to kill random people.
Due to Kant’s strict respect for human reason, philosophers and ethicists who embrace his philosophy sometimes express a preference for fully-conscious people over less-than-conscious entities, such as unborn fetuses and people in persistent vegetative states.
On first blush, Kant’s ethics would seem to be an example of an absolute morality that makes no reference to God. However, I would raise a few (possible) objections, and I’m wondering if any other apologists might help.
Since the categorical imperative demands that people only act according to maxims that they would be willing to apply to everyone, Kant requires that people make moral judgments about what ethnical norms are applicable universally. A rational person, in making this determination, would therefore examine her own self-interest and make a judgment about the risk to herself of various choices available to her. She might say that killing strangers is bad because she might be killed by a stranger, or that stealing is bad because a stranger might steal something from her. In making allowing consideration into the “categorical imperative,” Kant seems to build into his ethics something that he considers to be unethical: a reliance on pleasure and pain, or the hope/fear of pleasure or pain.
In that regard, under Kant’s ethics, humans make an assessment of rational self-interest in determining what’s allowed under their own categorical imperatives. But if that’s the case, Kant doesn’t get past what he rejects in Aristotle: that is, the notion that the good is what leads one to greater happiness.
To me, this argument always seemed simplistic. I studied philosophy in college, and studied enough ethics to know that many ethical systems that have been put forth in western thought since the Renaissance do not rely on God directly.
Immanual Kant was a German philosopher, who is probably best known for his notion that ethnics should only be based on a “categorical imperative.” To Kant, that imperative is based on the notion that a person should only act according to a maxim that would apply to anyone. Here’s a quote from his “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,”
"There is, therefore, only a single categorical imperative and it is this: act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”
To Kant, the ethics of a situation cannot be defined by one’s experience of pleasure or pain (or expectation of reward or fear of punishment), which is the basis of the Aristotelian system of ethics that are also reflected in Thomism. To Kant, the rightness of one’s actions are only based on one’s respect for the “moral law” that comes from the categorical imperative. Much of Kantian ethics focuses on a respect for one’s reason, and accordingly, a respect for the reason of others (as filtered through the categorical imperative). So for example, my killing a random person on the street would be wrong, according to Kant, because I would not apply the universal maxim that it’s OK to kill random people.
Due to Kant’s strict respect for human reason, philosophers and ethicists who embrace his philosophy sometimes express a preference for fully-conscious people over less-than-conscious entities, such as unborn fetuses and people in persistent vegetative states.
On first blush, Kant’s ethics would seem to be an example of an absolute morality that makes no reference to God. However, I would raise a few (possible) objections, and I’m wondering if any other apologists might help.
Since the categorical imperative demands that people only act according to maxims that they would be willing to apply to everyone, Kant requires that people make moral judgments about what ethnical norms are applicable universally. A rational person, in making this determination, would therefore examine her own self-interest and make a judgment about the risk to herself of various choices available to her. She might say that killing strangers is bad because she might be killed by a stranger, or that stealing is bad because a stranger might steal something from her. In making allowing consideration into the “categorical imperative,” Kant seems to build into his ethics something that he considers to be unethical: a reliance on pleasure and pain, or the hope/fear of pleasure or pain.
In that regard, under Kant’s ethics, humans make an assessment of rational self-interest in determining what’s allowed under their own categorical imperatives. But if that’s the case, Kant doesn’t get past what he rejects in Aristotle: that is, the notion that the good is what leads one to greater happiness.
