Notes 9: Immanuel Kant's Deontological Ethics

Li e your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.
Source: Divine Grace Ocay, 'Kant's Categorical Imperative and His Theory of Right," General
Ethics: An Introduction(Bulacan, Philippines: Subverso Publishing House, 2018), 139-163.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the most influential German philosophers in the Age of
Enlightenment where Reason challenges Faith in all its assumptions. He argued that the
supreme principle of morality is a standard of rationality he called the "Categorical Imperative"
(CI).
All specific moral requirements, according to Kant, are justified by this principle, which means
that all immoral actions are irrational because they violate the CI

1. HUMAN PERSON'S Two-FOLD NATURE

❑ Human person has two-fold nature namely: Homo noumenon and Homo phenomenon.
The term noumenon refers to the essence of things or "thing-in-itself".
❖ The phenomenon refers to the thing as it appears to us/observer as properties of the thing.
❖ Thus, everything that exists has two natures namely, the noumenon or essence (non-
empirical) and the phenomenon (empirical) part of the thing.
❑ Applied to humans, homo noumenon is the "god-like self" of the human person, while homo
phenomenon is the merely human self.
❖ The noumenon is the idealized person who must be perfected to actualize its "god-like"
nature.
• We can actualize our god-like self by developing ourselves into moral persons through
obeying the command of the categorical imperative.
❖ But can we actualize our god-like self if in the first place we cannot know it? The phenomenal
self or human self can provide us the key.
❑ The only way to perfect our god-like self is through its counter-part the human self
❑ The human self is the springboard for the actualization of our god-like self The problem: the
human self always appeals to "desires", the source of errors.
❖ The human self must be guided by moral principle based on reason.
❖ The only way for the god-like self to actualize its nature is through obedience to reason
following the categorical imperative.

II. CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

❑ 1. Act only on the maxim (principle of action) whereby you can at the same Will that it
should become a universal law.
The human person determines a principle of action (maxim) in which he/she must ask herself
whether it is possible for everyone to act in accordance with that maxim.
❖ This means that the act is never morally acceptable if it fails to satisfy the principle of
universality.
❑ 2. Act as to treat humanity... never as a means but always as an end.
❖ This maxim is based on the principle of humanity which dictates that rational beings must
treat each other as ends and never as a means to one's interest or some further end.
• Treating the others as means reduces the person to a thing/object.
4" This means that human person's perfection lies on how reason guides us in our moral
decision to act universally and to treat the other as human person.
❑ The god-like self's attainment of moral perfection is impeded when the human self
constantly disobey reason and value more one's desires or inclination.
• Ex: Cheating in school (p. 141-742)
❑ The moment human person yields to the inclination of the human self's desire that person
fails his/her duty to attain moral perfection. But if the person thinks and behaves rationally
following the categorical imperative moral perfection is attained.
❑ Thus, morality entails absolute commitment /obedience to the law which is all
encompassing, devoid of any exceptions, applies to every human person in all walks of life, and
binding to all rational beings.

Ill. PRACTICAL REASON & GOOD WILL

❑ For morality to be binding to all, such morality should not be based on experience but on
practical reason.
4. While different persons experience things in different ways, that what is moral for one might
not be the same with another, practical reason does not vary from the perspectives of a woman
or a man, or a white man or a black man, a poor man or a rich man.
The basis of practical reason which recognizes the act to be universally valid is rooted on one's
"good will" or good intention.
The moral worth of an action is determined only by the motive or the will or the reason behind
the action.
How do we know that person's act is coming from a good will or intention?

IV. DEONTOLOGICAL /DUTY-BASED ETHICS

The human person is said to be acting out of good will only when the sole impetus of his/her
action is that of moral obligation or moral duty.
For Kant, duty is the motive behind a moral act.
The moral worth of an action is possible only when the human person acts for the sake of duty
and not just because of the potential of the good results of the doer's action.
This is why Kant's ethics is called deontological, meaning, duty-based ethics.
There are, however, distinction between acting for duty sake and acting in accordance with
duty.
Acting for duty sake means acting for the sake of the law or absolute reverence to the moral
law.
Acting in accordance with duty means acting simply to conform to the moral law in which the
motive may be influenced by certain inclination, reward of recognition, or fear of something.
Hence, an action can only have a moral worth when it is performed out of something good
without qualification, that is, out of a good will.
CONCLUSION
❑ Thus, Kant concludes that the god-like self becomes morally perfect when all the human
self's action are done with the good intention express in absolute fulfillment of one's duty.
Moral law should prevail over the inclination of the human self to act according to selfish
reasons.
If one would always act for the sake of duty then any human person could attain the autonomy
to prescribe moral laws for him/herself.
That any human person with good will can freely choose which laws to adopt and impose in
his/her life.
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign master: Pain and pleasure
It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do as well as to determine what we shall do.

Notes 10: Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism

Source: Jay Cordero and Ryan Calica, "Utilitarianism: Consequences and Happiness as the Bases
of Morality," General Ethics: An Introduction (Bulacan, Philippines: Subverso Publishing House,
2018), 165-192.

I. Short Biography
Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, lawyer, and political radical.
Known as the founder of Utilitarianism, which evaluates actions as moral or immoral based
upon their good or bad consequences.
Influenced by many enlightenment thinkers, he developed an ethical theory grounded on the
account of human nature that values pleasure that causes happiness in the individual and
despises pain as it lessens or removes one's happiness.
Thus, happiness, for him, is what determines the morality of the act.

II. Basis of Bentham's Utilitarian Ethics

• In his 1970 Introduction of the Principles of Moral and Legislation, Bentham speaks of the
primacy of pains and pleasures in utilitarian theory:
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.
It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall
do... the standard of right and wrong.... They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we
think.... (1970, 11).
• Two forms of motives for act:
(1) psychological, in which we are motivated to do things when there is element of pleasure or
activities are avoided when it bring some feeling of pain; and
(2) ethical, in which actions are considered right or moral when they tend to produce pleasure
and bad or immoral when it results to some pain or harm to the individual, as Bentham
expresses: "...pleasure is "the only good", and pain "without exception, the only evil" (1970,
100).
Hence, in Bentham's utilitarian theory, the morality of an act -goodness or badness - lies not on
the intention of the doer (Kant) or the circumstances of the situation (Aquinas) but determined
solely by its consequences.
• Bentham's ethical theory is called utilitarian since the act must necessarily produce benefit,
advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness while avoiding the occurrence of injury, pain, evil, or
unhappiness.
• It is clear that for Bentham, happiness should be the ultimate criterion of morality.
■ He gained such idea from the ancient Greece philosophical belief (Epicurus, Aristotle,
Socrates) that a good and meaningful life is achieved through a life of pleasure or happiness
free from any form of physical and bodily pain.
Even when people commit evil things such act was done not because it is bad but because one
believes that it would cause happiness or pleasure.
III. Maximiution of Ones Happiness
• Bentham ethical theory is also advocating acts that produce greater forms of
pleasure/happiness. It we are confronted with more than one alternative acts, we have to
select that which will makes us happier
• Bentham argues that that value of pleasure and pain will be according to its "intensity",
"duration", "certainty or uncertainty", and its "extent".
o Intensity: Some acts bring more intense pleasure than others: playing computer games vs.
bonding with friends; reading your favorite books vs. browsing your facebook. Although both
acts produce happiness, one ad could produce a more intense pleasure than the other.
o Duration: Some ads produce happiness that is fleeting, while some are long lasting: having
relationship with someone only for "affection" sake vs. someone you truly love; working on a
job with high salary but stressful vs. doing something that your heart truly desires. The longer
one feels happy, the better it is. Thus, how long does one gains happiness from doing an act is
what matters most.
o Certainty: Some ads will certainly produce the expected happiness, while some may not:
doing one's assignment or project on time vs. procrastination; prioritizing your study vs.
prioritizing the love of your life. The more we are certain that our ad will produce happiness,
the better it is.
o Extent: Some ads produce happiness at the extent that more people also become happy:
coastal clean-up vs. community immersion; waste management information vs. waste-
livelihood program. Any act that produces happiness to greater number of people must be
preferred.
• When confronted with two or more alternative ads or conflicting moral principles, it is
obviously right and moral to choose an act that brings greater happiness and lesser pain or
harm.
o To lie or be honest: If one lies in order to save someone's life or not to hurt someone's
feelings may be acceptable compared to lying in order to take advantage of someone.
o Bentham recognizes that the unhappiness created by absolute following of one's duty "not to
lie" will have greater harm on the person than the happiness it brings.

IV. Universal Interest of the Greater Majority

• Bentham is aware that when the members of the society gave more attention on their own
specific happiness, it will surely bring chaos and conflict.
• Thus, when society is divided into which happiness matters most "Is it the minority or the
majority? he proposes a utilitarian ethics in which the "greatest happiness of the greatest
number" should be the basis.
• For it is only logical that the happiness of the society is ensured when more members of the
community are happy rather than the happiness of the few. This is the point of universal
interest which guarantees the life of the whole society.
• Bentham was emphatic on this score:
"If it is a good thing to sacrifice the fortune of one individual to augment that of others, it will
be yet better to sacrifice a second, a third, a hundred, a thousand...; for whatever may be the
number of those you have sacrificed, you will always have the same reason to add one more. In
one word, the interest of everybody is sacred, or the interest of nobody" (1840, I, 144).
• To justify the sacrifice of the few, Bentham argued that the pain/harm experienced by the
few/minority is reduced to the minimum.
• Only on this basis may pleasures be summed up and pains subtracted in order to produce the
rationale to justify the utilitarian Ethics.
V. A Confrontation between Kant's Deontological and Bentham's Utilitarian Ethics
1. Collateral Damage Case: U.S. red 9/11 military operation against Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan,
and Yemen
2. Medical Therapeutics trials on the victims of Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria

Notes 11: John Stuart Mill Utilitarian Version

Source: Jay Cordero and Ryan Calica, "Utilitarianism: Consequences and Happiness as the Bases
of Morality," General Ethics: An Introduction (Bulacan, Philippines: Subverso Publishing House,

I. A Modification of Bentham's Utilitarian Theory

• John Stuart Mill (1806-73) was the most influential English language philosopher of the
nineteenth century. He was a naturalist, a utilitarian, and a liberal.
• He had internalized the radical and utilitarian creed of Bentham during his education but did
some modification when he realized its limitation as an ethical theory that ensure the life of the
people.
• For Mill, Bentham's utilitarianism failed to distinguish the notion of happiness with mere
sensual pleasure ignoring the emotional or spiritual aspects of human nature.
• Thus, Mill, instead of focusing on the pleasure gain by human body, he gave more attention to
the excellence of human character and, as a result, gave more value to human dignity and
individual rights.

II. Hierarchy of Pleasures

• Mill redefines Bentham's notion of happiness saying: "a being [human] of higher faculties
requires more than pleasure to make him happy."
• He distinguishes two types of pleasures:
o Lower Pleasure is associated with physical desires such as eating, drinking, sex, resting. etc.
• Here, the happiness that one gains is temporary.
o Higher Pleasure is associated with intellectual, moral, culture, scientific knowledge,
aesthetics, and social enjoyment.
• Here, the happiness is more enduring, continuous, and long-lasting.
• Mill famously says: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied."
• But how do we determine the morality of an act or what is the basis for our moral action? III.
The Greatest Happiness Principle
• Mill argues that actions are right as they tend to promote authentic happiness or wrong if
they promote the opposite, that is, inauthentic happiness.
• Authentic happiness, for Mill, does not mean mere physical enjoyment or contentment but
that which promote a sense of dignity for the individual or a genuine character that is impartial
and self-disinterested.
• Mill's utilitarian version is focused on altruistic attitude In which the welfare of others is given
more value than oneself.
• He argues that the act of self-sacrifice as an expression of renunciation of one's own
happiness is the measurement of one's perfect character.
o Such is the behavior of heroes and martyrs that their personal sacrifices enliven the life of the
others in a way that people now enjoys living in a more humane world.
■ While Bentham sacrifices the few for the sake of the majority, Mill sees the few willingly
sacrificing their life so that the majority will have a better future.
o Ex: The Elders of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Act Utilitarianism vs. Rule Utilitarianism
Bentham and Mill's theory of utilitarianism resulted to the emergence of two types of utilitarian
ethics: rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism.
o Rule utilitarianism is the belief that the moral correctness of an action depends on the
correctness of the rules that allows it to achieve the greatest good.
o Act utilitarianism is the belief that an action becomes morally right when it produces the
greatest good for the greatest number of people.
o Making Distinction:
• The "Torture Strategy"; The "Robinhood Case"; The DOH Dengue Vaccine Case
■ Mill's rule utilitarianism requires an evaluation of the consequences of the ad as if it is to be
regarded as a "general practice/principle" to be followed consistently.
■ Mill's rule utilitarianism does not simply aim for the maximization of happiness but the long-
term effects and consequences of the act to the greater majority and by doing so avoids the
problem of violating individual human rights.
• The Case of Cheating: The Atlanta Schools' Scandal based on Rachel Aviv article entitled,
"Wrong answer: In an era of high-stakes testing, a struggling school made a shocking choice,"
that appeared in The New Yorker on July 21, 2014.
Parks Middle School and other Atlanta Schools whose students did not make appropriate
progress toward the standardized test goals will receive sanctions such as stopping the financial
assistance, replacement of the faculty and staff, and restructuring or dosing of the school
unless 58 percent of students passed the math portion of the standardized test and 67 percent
passed the language arts portion. Losing the school also means losing the community that
developed within it, so to avoid such thing to occur faculty and staff manipulated together the
result of the standardized test. As a result the school continues to function. A former student at
Parks at the time, recalled, "Everyone was jumping up and down," after a teacher announced
the school had met the goals of No Child Left Behind for the first time. Jackson continued, We
had heard what everyone was saying: 'Y'all aren't good enough' Now we could finally go to
school with our heads held high." From 2006 - 2010, they continued such form of cheating until
in October 2010, 50 agents of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation visited Parks and other
Atlanta schools. The investigators concluded that teachers and administrators at 44 schools had
cheated and in July of 2012, 110 teachers who had confessed or been accused of cheating were
placed on administrative leave.
• For the act utilitarianism, such cheating is acceptable as it brings happiness for many people -
the students, parents, faculty, staff, and local community.
• For the rule utilitarianism, however, such cheating is immoral as it will result to the
breakdown of quality education and, instead, promote the proliferation of a dishonest people
in the society. Thus, in the long run, such cheating will bring more harm than benefits to the
society.
Notes 11: John's Rawls' Theory of Justice
Source: Gerry F. Arambala & Rhiza Mac Arambala, "John Rawl's Theory of Justice," General
Ethics: An Introduction (Bulacan, Philippines: Subverso Publishing House, 2018), 215-231.
I. The Importance
• American moral and political philosopher, John Rawls (1921-2002) constructed his Theory of
Justice in terms of an ideal social contract among members of a domestic society.
▪ His theory of justice as fairness describes a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights
and cooperating within an egalitarian economic system.
▪ Such theory is created as an alternative to Utilitarianism, which had been dominant among
philosophers and political thinkers since the mid-18th century.
• Utilitarianism asserts the principle of welfare maximization, which claims that it may be
appropriate to let someone suffer if necessary to promote the overall welfare.
▪ Rawls rejected this on the grounds that each individual has certain rights that cannot be
sacrificed simply for others' benefits.
• Rawls' Justice as fairness' became the basis in organizing a liberal society.

II. The Veil of Ignorance

• Understanding that a society is a composite of individuals who are practically different from
each other, to come out of one common conception of justice will be difficult to achieve.
• Thus, Rawls has to operate under the 'veil of ignorance' in which individuals, in a democratic
and well-ordered society, set aside their own political and socio-economic status in order to
establish a justice system free from biases.
o Rawls writes: "no one knows his place in the society, his class position or social status, nor
does anyone knows his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his
intelligence, strength and the like" (Rawls: 1971, 12).
• The 'veil of ignorance' as well as the assumption that all individuals are equally 'rational and
reasonable' enabled Rawls to define his domestic justice based on broad principles of fairness
and equality.
• Rawls argues that from this 'original position', it would be logically consistent to construct
principles of justice that would ensure those necessary "basic goods".

III. Liberal Equality

• In a society where mutual cooperation exists between free and equal persons, Liberal Equality
consists in the equal sharing of the social advantages and the actual distribution of the social
resources.
o This implies that no individual person is sacrificed even if it would mean that the community
will benefit from such sacrifice or maximize the society's well-being; and that
o Inequality is only permitted as long as it is for the benefit of the least advantaged.
• By virtue of the principle of Liberal Equality, no one is entitled to the greater share of the
society's goods even if one may claim that he/she worked hard for them.
▪ Justice would insist on the moral obligation to help those who are less advantaged.
• In giving the poor a sort of power over inequality is due to natural lottery in which some
individuals were born with a "poor condition" or find themselves living in a "poor
environment".
o Rawls argues: "Natural talents and social circumstances are both matters of brute luck, and
people's moral dal171 should not depend on brute luck".
• Rawls believes that no one deserves to suffer simply because of unfortunate circumstances.

IV. Two Principles of Equal Justice

■ With the Liberal Equality, Rawls was able to come out of two important principles, which are
in hierarchical order.
o Equality of Liberty promotes each member of the society's equal political right
• Liberty of conscience and thought;
o Ex: The Unfortunate Incident
o Here, religious freedom is also an important aspect of liberal right. In a liberal society, no one
is forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs. Nor is anyone to be restrained from
acting in accordance with his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in
association with others. The right to religious freedom is, therefore, part and parcel of the
person's equal political right.
• Freedom to hold (persona!) property;
o Ex: The DAR Program for farmers in Hacienda Luicita
• Freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the rule of law.
o Ex: A Warrant of Arrest Law vs PNP Tokhang Issue and LTO Checkpoint System
o Equality of Opportunity and Resources upholds that the social and economic inequalities of
the members must be organized in such a way that:
• First, wealth and income must be distributed for everyone's advantage especially for the least
well-off member of the society — known as the 'difference principle'; and that, • Second,
everyone is given 'equal opportunity' to take a role in any position and offices (government or
private) for the benefit of the society.
• Between the two principles, Rawls prioritizes political over socio-economic equality and
argues that deviations from political right "cannot be justified by, or compensated for, by
greater social and economic advantages".
■ These principles look at the problem of inequality from principles that are arbitrary from a
moral point of view such as those who are talented, or those who are wise are given more
attention and higher remuneration. Such people by virtue of "luck" must not be treated higher
than others who are not gifted. Thus, economic and political resources are to be distributed
equally to everyone under the principle of fair-share.
• Thus, in a liberal society, justice is best expressed when citizens are free, equal, and living
together on a fair system of cooperation.
Notes 12: Jurgen Habermas' Ethics in the Globalized World: A Medical Issue
Source: Jurgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (UK, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003).

I. The Context
• In 1973, scientists succeeded in separating and redesigning elementary components of a
genome, an organism's complete set of DNA. Each genome contains all of the information
needed to build and maintain that organism.
▪ Genetic Engineering in 1978 started In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in which woman's egg
"encounters" a man's sperm through a laboratory dish. Such success brought the emergence of
Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD).
• PGD is a procedure of genetic screening used prior to implantation to help identify genetic
defects within embryos.
• This serves as a help to parents/mothers to prevent certain genetic diseases or disorders from
being passed on to the child. If found to be deficient, the embryo screened in the test-tube will
not be implanted in the mother, thus sparing her an abortion at a later stage as a result of
prenatal diagnosis.
• Thus, PGD has introduced the most effective way of curing human diseases through
preventive system.
• When this technology was introduced to the public sphere, medical scientific research group,
pharma business investors, and even industrial policy hypothesize on further developments of
bio-technological equipment for the benefits of the society.
o First, PGD could be used to prevent unhealthy babies to occur rather than abort it later when
mother's life is endangered.
o Second, PGD could be used for gender selection.
o Third, it could also 'breed' organ tissue from embryonic stem cells by correcting the genome
through manipulation.
o And, lastly and more importantly, PGD can ensure physically healthier and mentally intelligent
productive citizens for society's needs.
■ Thus, from preventing the proliferation of diseases in human body, PGD could later shift to
the manipulation of genes with the view of securing the future of the society by having 'better
humans' possessing high skills and intellectual capacity.

II. The Ethical Issues

• The President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Johannes Rau, spoke his mind to utter a
warning: "Once you start to instrumentalize human life, once you start to distinguish between
life worth living and life not worth living, you embark on a course where there is no stopping
point".
• Habermas argues that there are implication in PGD's direction o In terms of Decision-Making,
who decides the technician, the mother, or the medical experts?
• Are we free to dispose human life for the purpose of selection?
• Are we free to "play God" in choosing who is worthy or not?
■ Does parent/mother's autonomy absolute in making decisions for what kind of child she will
have?
o In terms of the life of the "future individuals"
• Since PGD molds the 'not-yet person' to a specific life-project restricting his/her freedom to
choose a life of his own, is it right to deprive the future individuals their inherent right to be the
sole author of their own life?
• in terms of choice in what career they wanted to have in the future;
• in terms of free dispositions in decision-making;
• In the aspect of socialization, in terms of acting, relating, and living with others guided by
one's authentic moral judgement.
• How can a 'manufactured' person say that every decision he/she makes is a result of his own
rational decisions and willful choice? Though the programmed person cannot see the
programmer's intention yet it is definitely possible that he/she could be acting according to the
programmer's design even long before his birth.

III. Habermas' Ethical Principle: The We-perspective

■ Habermas argues that 'Higher ends (for the good of the society) can never justify
instrumentalizing a person even for society's benefits.
■ In dealing with 'future citizens', Habermas argues that the people of today should give up the
"I-perspective"; "my body or my baby = my right" view and disregard the autonomy of the
"future individuals".
• Fetuses are still human beings since it shares with us our species-being as humans.
o By the mean fact that as normal person, we all give due respect to a dead fetus by giving it a
decent burial; or in some country (state of Bremen) they even have a law that recognizes the
fetus' as a human person.
• We, instead, embrace an intersubjectively shared "we-perspective" with the people of
tomorrow by recognizing their feeling and thinking when they realized that they are not natural
but "manufactured".
o When the adolescent learns about the design drawn up by another person for intervening in
his/her genetic features in order to modify certain traits, the perspective of being a grown body
may be superseded by the perspective of being something made.
• Using Kant's idea, Habermas argues for respecting the "humanity" of every single person by
treating him/her as an end in itself and not as a means.
• The concept of humanity obliges us to take up the "we"- perspective from which we perceive
one another as members of an inclusive community in which no person is excluded from.
■ For the 'we-perspective to occur, Habermas believes that communicative discourse should be
implemented in which every moral persons act and judge as "voice of the voiceless".
o The Case of Baby Jane Doe: (One Indian baby died due to his parents simply following the
doctor's assessment that babies suffering from extreme health condition should not be given
any major treatment since it would have no chance to recover and have a meaningful life in the
process. And so letting the natural process to occur for the child is the most moral thing to do.
The group of Atty. Lawrence Washburn who advocates the sanctity of life fears that more
babies will die in the future if such mentality will not stop. Thus, he petitioned the courts to set
aside the parents' wishes and order that surgery be performed.)
Notes 14: Ethics and Religion
In this last topic, we focus on the relation between Ethics and Religion.

In this last topic, we focus on the relation between Ethics and Religion. Since the beginning of
written history, morality has persistently been linked with religion. Morality has been identified
with adherence to godliness, immorality with sin, and the moral law with the command of God
so that the moral life is seen as a personal relationship with a heavenly parent. To act immorally
is essentially to disobey God. Whether it is the Shiite Muslim fighting a holy war in the name of
Allah, the Jew circumspectly striving to keep kosher, or the Christian giving to charity in the
name of Christ, religion has so dominated the moral landscape as to be virtually
indistinguishable from it. There have been exceptions: Confucianism in China is essentially a
secular system, there are non-theist versions of Buddhism, and the philosophers of Greece
contemplated morality independent of religion such as Aristotle's theory that we have
discussed in which the ethical principle is rooted in the nature of man. But throughout most of
our history, most people have identified morality with religion, with the commands of God. But
the question remains: Is moralty essentially tied to religion so that the term secular ethic is a
contradiction in terms? Can morality survive without religion or even vice versa? Here we try to
address the connection between religion and morality by focusing on three questions:
(1) Does morality depend on religion? (2) Is religion irrelevant or even contrary to morality? (3)
Does religion enhance the moral life?

I. DOES MORALITY DEPEND ON RELIGION? The first question is whether moral standards
themselves depend on God for their validity or whether there is an independence of ethics so
that even God is subject to the moral order. This question first arises in Plato's dialogue the
Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks a religiously devout young man named Euthyphro, "Do the
gods love holiness because it is holy, or is it holy because the gods love it?" Changing the terms
but still preserving the meaning, we want to know whether God commands what is good
because it is good or whether the good is good because God commands it.

The Divine Command Theory

According to this view, ethical principles are simply the commands of God. They derive their
validity from God's commanding them, and they mean "commanded by God." Without God,
there would be no at universally valid morality. Here is how theologian Carl F. H. Henry states
this view:
Biblical ethics discredits an autonomous morality. It gives the identification of the moral law
with the Divine will. In Hebrew-Christian revelation, distinctions in ethics reduce to what is
good or what is pleasing, and to what is wicked or displeasing to the Creator-God alone. The
biblical view maintains always a dynamic statement of values, refusing to sever the elements of
morality from the... will of God. The good is what the Creator-Lord does and commands. He is
the creator of the moral law, and defines its very nature.

We can analyze the DCT into three separate theses:

1. Morality (that is, rightness and wrongness) originates with God.
2. Moral rightness simply means "willed by God," and moral wrongness means "being against
the will of God.”
3. Because morality essentially is based on divine will, not on independently existing reasons
further reasons for action are necessary.

The theses argue that an act is right in virtue of being permitted by the will of God, against His
will. Because morality essentially is based on divine will, not on independently e reasons for
action, no further reasons for action are necessary.

The Issue: The problem with the Da is that it seems to make morality into something arbitrary.
if God's decree is the sole arbiter of right and wrong, it would seem to be logically possible for
such heinous acts as rape, killing of the innocent for the fun of it, and gratuitous cruelty to
become morally Pad actions , God suddenly decided to command us to do these things. This is
actually true in the Biblical account or if the Old Testament in which God is leader of violence
making i other Christian sects to give more importance to the New Testament. Pojman recalled
that when he was a teenager, he read in the newspaper of a missionary in Africa in which the
father killed his wife and five children claiming that God commanded him to kill his family and
that he was only obeying God. The missionary might further argue, "Didn't God command
Abraham to kill his son Isaac in Genesis 22?" How do we know that God didn't command him to
do this horrible deed? He would only be .sending his family to heaven a bit sooner than normal.
Insane asylums are filled with people who heard the voice of God commanding them to do
what we normally regard as immoral: rape, steal, embezzle, and kill. If the DCT is correct, we
could be treating these people as insane simply for obeying God.

The Independence Theses

The opponent of the DCT, which are the proponent of the Independence Theses (IT), denies
that God's omnipotence includes his being able to make evil actions good. God cannot make
rape, injustice, cruelty, and the torturing or killing of innocents a form of good deeds. The
objective moral law, which may be internal to God's nature, is a law that even God must follow
if he is to be a good God. Thus, the independence thesis opposes the DCT theses through the
following:
1. Morality does not originate with God (although the way God created us may affect the
specific nature of morality).
2. Rightness and wrongness are not based simply on God's will.
3. Essentially, there are reasons for acting one way or the other, which may be known
independent of God's will.

In other words, IT argues that ethics exists independent of God, and even God must obey the
moral law as he couldn't contradict himself. Just as even God cannot make a three-sided square
or a rectangle circle, so even God cannot make what is intrinsically evil good or make what is
good evil. Theists who espouse the independence thesis may well admit some epistemological
advantage to God: God knows what is right—better than we do. And because he is good, we
can always learn from consulting him. But, in principle, we act morally for the same reasons
that God does: We both follow moral reasons that are independent of God. We are against
torturing the innocent because it is cruel and unjust, just as God is against torturing the
innocent because it is cruel and unjust. By this account, if there is no God, then nothing is
changed; morality is left intact, and both theists and non-theists have the very same moral
duties.

II. IS RELIGION IRRELEVANT OR EVEN CONTRARY TO MORALITY?

Russell: Religion Irrelevant to Morality
British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was one of the twentieth century's most vocal
critics of religion.
In a famous essay, he stated that religion as a whole has made virtually no useful contributions
to civilization and in fact has been the cause of incalculable suffering. He argued that morality
has no need of God and that one can be moral and even happy. The world may well be a
product of blind evolutionary striving, ultimately absurd, but this doesn't remove our duty to fill
our lives with meaning and goodness. He writes: Nature, omnipotent but blind, in the
revolutions of her secular hurryings... has brought forth at last a child, subject still to her power,
but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity of judging all the works
of his unthinking Mother.
It is this conscious power of moral evaluation that makes the child superior to his all-powerful
Mother. He is free to think, to evaluate, to create, and to live committed to ideals. So, despite
suffering, despair, and death, humans are free. Life has the meaning that we give it, and
morality will be part of any meaningful life.
Hume: The Immorality of God and Religion Skeptical philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) goes
even further than Russell, claiming that not only religious and secular morality are dissimilar but
also religious morality is an inferior brand of morality that actually prevents deep moral
development. Hume argues that the very conception of God as popularly depicted in religions is
that of an immoral tyrant who acts out with vengeance, severity, cruelty, and malice. He writes,
"No idea of perverse wickedness can be framed, which those terrified devotees [that is,
religious believers] do not readily, without scruple, apply to their deity." This is true even of the
most sophisticated conceptions of God: "as men farther exalt their idea of their divinity, it is
their notion of his power and knowledge only, not of his goodness, which is improved." Hume
further argues that religious practices themselves are typically contrary to morality. The reason
is that, as believers attempt to please God, they do so by performing absurd religious rituals
and not through moral behavior: It is certain, that, in every religion, however sublime the verbal
definition which it gives of its divinity, many of the votaries that is, religious believersl, perhaps
the greatest number, will still seek the divine favor, not by virtue and good morals, which alone
can be acceptable to a perfect being, but either by frivolous observances, by intemperate zeal,
by rapturous ecstasies, or by the belief of mysterious and absurd opinions.
True morality, according to Hume, is a very natural and agreeable part of human life; by
contrast, bizarre superstitious practices are difficult and tedious. Thus, when attempting to
appease their finicky believers latch onto the more difficult approach, rather than the more
natural one. The more extreme their superstition, the more they abandon morality. In his
personal life, Hume was so distrustful of the conduct mod 118 Philosophy Department / College
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of religious believers that, as one of litime's friends reported, "When he heard a man was
religious, he concluded he was a rascal."
III. DOES RELIGION ENHANCE THE MORAL LIFE? The Case for Religion Theists argue that there
are at least some ways in which morality may be enriched by religion. First, if there is a God,
good will win out over evil. We're not fighting alone—God is on our side in the battle. Neither
are we fighting in vain—we'll win eventually. As William James (1842-1910) said, U religion be
true and the evidence for it be still insufficient, I do not wish, by putting your extinguisher upon
my nature, to forfeit my sole dunce in life of getting upon the winning side—that chance
depending, of course, on my willingness to run the risk of acting as if my passional need of
taking the world religiously might be prophetic and right.
This thought of the ultimate Victory of Goodness gives us confidence to go on in the fight
against injustice and cruelty when others calculate that the odds against righteousness are too
great to oppose. While the secularist may embrace a noble stoicism, resigned to fate, as Russell
asserts, the believer lives in faith, confident of the final triumph of the kingdom of God on earth
Second, if God exists then cosmic justice reigns in the universe. The scales are perfectly
balanced so that everyone will eventually get what he or she deserves, according to their moral
merit. It is true that in most religious traditions God forgives the repentant sinner his or her
sins—in which case divine grace goes beyond what is strictly deserved. It's as though a merciful
God will never give us less reward than we deserve, but if we have a good will, God will give us
more than we deserve.
Third, if there is a God who created us in his image, all persons are of equal worth. Theism
claims that God values us all equally. If we are all his children, then we are all brothers and
sisters; we are family and ought to treat one another benevolently as we would family
members of equal worth. Indeed, modem secular moral and political systems often assume the
equal worth of the individual without justifying it. But without the parenthood of God, it makes
no sense to say that all persons are innately of positive equal value. And Fourth, if there is God
then moral perfection is possible. Kant argues that religion completes morality by directly
linking morality with the immortality of the soul and God's existence. Immortality, he argues, is
a necessary postulate for morality in this way: We are commanded by the moral law to be
morally perfect. Because "ought" implies "can," we must be able to reach moral perfection. But
we cannot attain perfection in this life because the task is an infinite one. Thus, there must be
an afterlife in which we continue to make progress toward this ideal. Similarly, God is a
necessary postulate because there must be someone to enforce the moral law. That is, to be
completely justified, the moral law must end in a just recompense of happiness in accordance
to virtue—what Kant refers to as the "complete good." From the standpoint of eternity, the
complete good requires that happiness should be proportioned to virtue in such a way that
those who deserve happiness receive it in proportion to their moral merit. Likewise, evil people
must be punished with unhappiness in proportion to their vice. This harmonious correlation of
virtue and happiness does not happen in this life, so it must happen in the next 11111 mad GE
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