April 27th, 2007 moral philosophy
In this week’s issue of The Phoenix, Swarthmore College’s weekly newspaper, the editorial writer Nathaiel Peters responded to the Virginia Tech tragedies by claiming that if we are to condemn such atrocities and have a rational ground to stand on in declaring what is right and wrong, an absolute system of morality is needed. In other words, culturally determined morality is not strong enough. Peters has been sort-of an evangelist, writing about how great Christianity is in his columns for the past semester. My criticisms at his arguments have been printed in The Pheonix twice in the past. If you have read those, you know that I find Peters’s arguments to be entirely wrong.
The reason the massacre at Virigina Tech is morally wrong is because it killed people. Killing people brings harm and suffering to not only the killed but their loved ones. What firmer rational stance do you need to judge whether certain actions are moral or not? At best, biblical morality is superfluous.
The most striking part about this conversation is that many people, even those who who are agnostic, seem to believe that without religion, morality could not exist. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, religion has been commiting some of the most atrocious violations when it comes to moral standards. Consider, for example, preaching that contraceptions are immoral to use in Sub-Saharan Africa when millions are dying of AIDS and other STDs. Condoms have been proven to be effective in preventing STDs. By preaching that these are wrong to use, Christians are in essence allowing people to die when they can be saved. What could be more immoral than that?
Moral philosophy have existed for millenia before the rise of religion. One only has to look to the Greeks for such moral systems. And morality have been evolving for decades, independent of what the Bible says. If the only source of morality was the Bible, morality would be the same now as it was thousands of years ago. But we know better now. We know that slavery is bad and that interractial marriage is ok. And we are still making progress on other issues like sexual orientation.
Of course there are those that claim that although parts of the Bible advocate slavery, genocide, and almost every other agregious crimes against humanity you can think of, other parts advocate love and harmony. But then I would say, how do you know which parts of the Bible are good and which parts are bad? Clearly, that sense of moral judgement comes from our society -something that is available to any rational person. So in that sense, Biblical morality is superfluous. We ALL know what is right and wrong. You don’t need God to tell you that muder is a bad thing.
It is time for our society to move beyond superstition. Religion not only advocates false-hope and irrationality, but also legitimizes immoral acts in the name of God. Why are the religious Right associated in politics with “values” anyway? They seem to have the least sophisticated idea about what morality is. We need to claim ethics back to the side of rationality and reason.