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Kai Nielsen Ethics Without Religion

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Kai Nielsen Ethics Without Religion When these points are conceded, theologians are in a position KAI NIELSEN to press home a powerful apologetic point. When we become keenly aware, they argue, of the true nature of such ETHICS WITHOUT RELIGION conventionalism and when we become aware that there is no overarching purpose that men were destined to fulfill, the (Ohio University Review 6, 1964, 48-51, 57-62.) myriad purposes, the aims and goals humans create for themselves, will be seen not to be enough. When we realize There certainly are fundamental difficulties and perhaps even that life does not have a meaning—that is, a significance— elements of incoherence in Christian ethics, but what can a which is there to be found, but that we human beings must by secular moralist offer in its stead? Religious morality—and our deliberate decisions give it whatever meaning it has, we Christian morality in particular—may have its difficulties, but will (as Sartre so well understood) undergo estrangement and secular morality, religious apologists argue, has still greater despair. We will drain our cup to its last bitter drop and feel our difficulties. It leads they claim, to ethical scepticism, nihilism, alienation to the full. Perhaps there are human purposes, or, at best, to a pure conventionalism. Such apologists could purposes to be found in life, and we can and do have them even point out that if we look at morality with the cold eye of an in a Godless world, but without God there can be no one anthropologist we will—assuming we are clear-headed—find overarching purpose, no one basic scheme of human existence, morality to be nothing more than the often conflicting mores of in virtue of which we could find a meaning for our grubby the various tribes spread around the globe. If we eschew the lives. It is this overall sense of meaning that man so ardently kind of insight that religion can give us, we will have no strives for, but it is not to be found in a purely secular Archimedean point in accordance with which we can decide worldview. You secularists, a new Pascal might argue, must how it is that we ought to live and die. If we look at ethics from realize, if you really want to be clear-headed, that no purely such a purely secular point of view, we will discover that it is human purposes are ultimately worth striving for. What you constituted by tribal conventions, conventions which we are humanists can give us by way of a scheme of human existence free to reject if we are sufficiently free from ethnocentrism. We will always be a poor second-best and not what the human can continue to act in accordance with them or we can reject heart most ardently longs for. them and adopt a different set of conventions; but whether we The considerations for and against an ethics not rooted in a act in accordance with the old conventions or forge “new religion are complex and involuted; a fruitful discussion of tablets,” we are still acting in accordance with certain them is difficult, for in considering the matter our passions, our conventions. Relative to them certain acts are right or wrong, anxieties, our (if you will) ultimate concerns are involved, and reasonable or unreasonable, but we cannot justify these they tend to blur our vision, enfeeble our understanding, of fundamental moral conventions themselves or the ways of life what exactly is at stake. But we must not forget that what is at which they partially codify. stake here is just what kind of ultimate commitments or obligations a man could have without evading any issue, 1 without self-deception or without delusion. I shall be concerned it for the great majority of our words. Yet there is no greater to display and assess, to make plain but also to weigh, some of loss here. Modern philosophical analysis has taught us that the most crucial considerations for and against a purely secular such an essentially Platonic conception of definition is ethic. While I shall in an objective fashion try to make clear unrealistic and unnecessary.1 I may not be able to define what the central issues are, I shall also give voice to my “chair” in the way that I can define “bachelor,” but I reflective convictions on this matter. I shall try to make evident understand the meaning of “chair” perfectly well. In normal my reasons for believing that we do not need God or any circumstances, at least, I know what to sit on when someone religious conception to support our moral convictions. I shall tells me to take a chair. I may not be able to define “pain,” but I do this, as I think one should in philosophy, by making know what it is like to be in pain, and sometimes I can know apparent the dialectic of the problem (by bringing to the fore when others are in pain. Similarly, though I cannot define the conflicting and evolving considerations for and against) and “happiness” in the same way that I can define “bachelor,” I by arguing for what I take to be their proper resolution. know what it is like to be happy, and I sometimes can judge I am aware that Crisis Theologians would claim that I with considerable reliability whether others are happy or sad, am being naive, but I do not see why purposes of purely human “Happiness” is a slippery word, but it is not so slippery that we devising are not ultimately worth striving for. There is much are justified in saying that nobody knows what happiness is. that we humans prize and would continue to prize even in a A man could be said to have lived a happy life if he had Godless world. Many things would remain to give our lives found lasting sources of satisfaction in his life and if he had meaning and point even after “the death of God.” been able to find certain goals worthwhile and to achieve at Take a simple example. All of us want to be happy. least some of them. He could indeed have suffered some pain But in certain bitter or sceptical moods we question what and anxiety, but his life must, for the most part, have been free happiness is or we despairingly ask ourselves whether anyone from pain, estrangement, and despair, and must, on balance, can really be happy. Is this, however, a sober, sane view of the have been a life which he has liked and found worthwhile. But situation? I do not think that it is, indeed we cannot adequately surely we have no good grounds for saying that no one define “happiness” in the way that we can “bachelor,” but achieves such a balance or that no one is ever happy even for a neither can we in that way define “chair,” “wind,” “pain,” and time. We all have some idea of what would make us happy and the vast majority of words in everyday discourse. For words of what would make us unhappy; many people, at least, can like “bachelor,” “triangle,” or “father” we can specify a remain happy even after “the death of God.” At any rate, we consistent set of properties that all the things and only the need not strike Pascalian attitudes, for even in a purely secular things denoted by these words have, but we cannot do this for world there are permanent sources of human happiness for “happiness,” “chair,” “pain,” and the like. In fact, we cannot do anyone to avail himself of. 1 This is convincingly argued in Michael Scriven’s essay “Definitions, Maxwell, eds., Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, III Explanations, and Theories,” in Herbert Feigl, Michael Scriven and Grover (Minneapolis, 1958), pp. 99-195. 2 What are they? What are these relatively permanent without God. And poetry, music, and art retain their beauty and sources of human happiness that we all want or need? What is enrich our lives even in the complete absence of God or the it which, if we have it, will give us the basis for a life that could gods. properly be said to be happy? We all desire to be free from pain We want and need art, music, and the dance. We find and want. Even masochists do not seek pain for its own sake; pleasure in travel and conversation and in a rich variety of they endure pain because this is the only psychologically experiences. The sources of human enjoyment are obviously acceptable way of achieving something else (usually sexual too numerous to detail. But all of them are achievable in a satisfaction) that is so gratifying to them that they will put up Godless universe. If some can be ours, we can attain a with the pain to achieve it. We all want a life in which reasonable measure of happiness. Only a Steppenwolfish sometimes we can enjoy ourselves, in which we can attain our personality beguiled by impossible expectations and warped by fair share of some of the simple pleasures that we all desire. irrational guilts and fears can fail to find happiness in the They are not everything in life, but they are important, and our realization of such ends. But to be free of impossible lives would be impoverished without them. expectations people must clearly recognize that there is no “one We also need security and emotional peace. We need big thing” or, for that matter, “small thing” which would make and want a life in which we will not be constantly threatened them permanently happy; almost anything permanently and with physical or emotional harassment.
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