Evaluating the Basis for Equating Atheism with Immorality

Katherine Hughes, Philosophy Department

6 April 2020

Thesis Advisor:

Professor Garret Bredeson, Department of Philosophy

Committee Members:

Professor Iskra Fileva, Department of Philosophy

Professor Rachael Deagman Simonetta, Department of English

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Abstract: Evaluating the Basis for Equating Atheism with Immorality

On numerous occasions I have come across people who genuinely believe that it is impossible for an atheist to act virtuously or even have any morals at all. I wanted to explore whether this was a common viewpoint in the United States and whether there was any philosophical basis for such a belief. I begin with an examination of prejudice against atheists in the United States and the stereotype of atheists as immoral. I then consider various philosophical theories that contemplate whether religion is a necessity in the conception of and adherence to a system of morality. I appraise more strict renditions such as the Divine Command Theory as well as more complex interpretations like those of Immanuel Kant in Critique of Practical Reason and the

Third Earl of Shaftesbury in An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit. I found that there appears to be a greater general agreement today that there exists a standard of right and wrong independent of the word of God. Furthermore, it is entirely possible through different conceptions of the nature of humanity and happiness to act virtuously without religion.

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Evaluating the Basis for Equating Atheism with Immorality

by Katherine Hughes

Religion and morality have long been linked in conversation across the ages. However, given the increasing role of secularism and atheism in modern society, it is surprising that there remains a widespread belief that one must believe in God to be a moral or virtuous person. To this day, atheists, although a growing minority in our population, continue to be stereotyped as immoral. So, is it true that God, or a god, is necessary for one to have, know, or act morally?

Where exactly lies the divide, if any, between religion and virtue?

Throughout the ages, atheists have been viewed as immoral, and even criminal. Even being perceived as an atheist or secular intellectual could be dangerous. This is likely one reason why a lot of early philosophers tried to find a link between religion and morality no matter how small. However, even their attempts to illustrate a more underlying necessity of religion in order for someone to consistently act morally were inadequate in creating a necessitating link between these two separate domains of life.

Atheism is often simply defined as a lack of belief in gods (Zindler, Frank). Only relatively recently have Americans been willing to identify publicly as atheists. Their numbers were miniscule and speaking out against the majority’s spiritual views resulted in doubt about the atheist’s morality. Skeptics towards certain religious sects grew in over the centuries but a full-fledged atheist, admitting to their lack of belief in a Supreme Being, was practically unheard of until the late nineteenth century. Even then, those who self-identified as atheists often had to deal with harsh stereotypes that led to them being ostracized, persecuted and discriminated against. Therefore, when freedom of religion was written into the United States Constitution, the nonreligious were not even considered a religious sect in need of protection from persecution. Hughes 4

Despite the increasing numbers of the non-religious in our society, to this day the non-religious are not treated as entitled to the right to freedom of religion. Indeed, some of our laws, procedures, and practices of public life still incorporate a belief in religion and God.

There are still countries today where atheists or those who switch religions are subject to capital punishment for their lack of adherence to the national religion. According to the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all human beings should be treated equally and have freedom of expression, thought and religion. However, the 2019 annual “The Freedom of

Thought Report” conducted by Humanists International has found that there is still a devastating majority of United Nations’ member states that either discriminate against non-religious citizens or even go so far as to jail their citizens for acts that are regarded as “blasphemous”. Even the

United States, who in this report ranks 32nd in protecting freedom of thought and yet is generally perceived around the globe as committed to the protection of freedom of religion and expression, continues to have systemic discrimination against the non-religious in both general society and government at all levels. Theoretically and legally, the nonreligious should be protected against persecution and given all the same rights and freedoms as all other citizens. Yet when Americans are asked whether they would vote for an atheist president, the answer has always been a loud and resounding “no”. Why are the secular still written off by our society, regarded as unable to give truthful testimony and excluded from numerous activities purely on the basis that they lack the belief in a higher being? These practices and legal prejudices show that many people tend to equate being American with being religious. Why is there such a distinction? It is likely due to the common stereotype that underlies a lot of the discrimination against and persecution of secular citizens to this day -- that all atheists are immoral and un-American. Hughes 5

Despite the fact that now only half the world’s population is religious, and the population of atheists and non-religious has grown to thirty-six percent, atheists largely remain at worst endlessly persecuted and at best completely ignored in their protests for religious freedom

(Humanists International). Since the twentieth century, many scholars and activists who gained prominence for their generous humanitarian, political, or other notable works and then later announced publicly their lack of belief in religion, have either been outcast, like Elizabeth Cady

Stanton, or their religious views intentionally excluded from history books such as Jane Addams who founded the Hull House (Moore, R. Laurence, and Isaac Kramnick). This blatant disregard towards atheists has persisted throughout history and the complete lack of mention of the nonreligious or atheists in history textbooks today, is just one example where this can be seen.

Exclusion of the non-religious continues to be an ongoing reality in politics and in everyday lives. The ostracization of atheists is likely a result of their minority number within the

United States. According to a recent research survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in

December of 2017, only one in ten Americans said they didn’t believe in God or a higher power

(Fahmy, Dalia). Though this growing minority class experiences less lawful discrimination today, atheists are still a publicly persecuted minority due to the still festering stigma from the

Red Scare Era. Even young boys and girls face this ongoing war against atheists. Recently, the

Boy Scouts of America opened its doors to all religions, races, and, as of 2019, all genders. But it is still holding firm to its prohibition of atheist members. The association’s refusal to accept the nonreligious is partly attributed to their adherence to their long-standing Scout Promise that mentions a “duty to God” (Mehta, Hemant). Those words, “duty to God,” instilled in the Boy

Scouts of America Oath and Law, as well as the inclusion of the words, “under God” in the U.S.

Pledge of Allegiance, only serve to perpetuate the negative public opinion of atheists that Hughes 6 skyrocketed after the Red Scare. This refusal to relinquish the use of God in social and political mandates continues the ostracization of the nonreligious American demographic. Most judges and other public figures have cited these words as representing the American ideal, yet God is notably and entirely absent from the United States Constitution. Moreover, the mention of God in American societal settings is contrary to the First Amendment’s establishment of the right to freedom of religion. However, many people still believe that atheists cannot be considered true

Americans (Farah, Joseph). This line of thought results in barriers to the nonreligious’ complete inclusion in American society, such as being elected to public office.

To this day, many people won’t vote for a well-qualified candidate for any political office if the candidate is a professed atheist. Though separation of church and state is a founding principle of our country, people often consider a candidate’s religious views when casting a vote.

In a survey done by the Pew Research Center in 2016, U.S. adults were asked whether they would be more or less likely to support a particular candidate based on certain traits. The results found that atheism is perceived as one of the biggest shortcomings when it comes to a presidential candidate [see Figure 1 below]. The disbelief in God was seen as a greater liability to potential presidential candidates than even a candidate with previous financial troubles or a

Muslim candidate, which is a religious class that has been viewed in a highly negative light in the United States for the last eighteen years (Mitchell, Travis). Even in Congress the lack of nonreligious members is striking. According to another Pew Research Center survey, the religiously unaffiliated were the most severely underrepresented in Congress (Sandstrom,

Aleksandra). Furthermore, eight state constitutions in the United States still prohibit atheists from holding public office (Moore, R. Laurence, and Isaac Kramnick). Though these constitutional mandates are unenforceable due to their conflict with the First Amendment, their Hughes 7 continued inclusion in these state constitutions serve to perpetuate the political and social stigma of atheists as untrustworthy and un-American.

Figure 1 Figure 2

The public’s disdain and general distrust of atheists may likely be linked to the stereotype that atheists are immoral. In a recent research study published in the Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology, researchers at the University of Cambridge found that this prejudice against atheists may be a result of a distrust of nonreligious people to make morally sound decisions. In one of the studies conducted surveying a hundred and five undergraduates at the University of

British Columbia, participants were asked to read the following descriptions of an untrustworthy man who behaved immorally when no one was looking:

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“Richard is 31 years old. On his way to work one day, he accidentally backed his car into a

parked van. Because pedestrians were watching, he got out of his car. He pretended to write down

his insurance information. He then tucked the blank note into the van’s window before getting

back into his car and driving away.

Later the same day, Richard found a wallet on the sidewalk. Nobody was looking, so he took all

of the money out of the wallet. He then threw the wallet in a trash can.”

After reading this vignette, the participants were then asked to choose what was more probable: that Richard, the man in question, was either a teacher or a teacher and something else. The varied choices for the “something else” were a Christian, a Muslim, a rapist, or an atheist (as defined as someone who does not believe in God) (Gervais, Will M., et al). The idea behind these possible answers was that if participants chose teacher and something else, then they were committing conjunction fallacy, meaning the participants were assuming more then the information given in the vignette, based on preconceived notions, or stereotypes. The odds ratio for how often people committed this conjunction fallacy with the four subject groups was 4% for

Teacher & Christian, 15% for Teacher & Muslim, 46% for Teacher & Rapist, and 48% for

Teacher and Atheist (Cline, Austin, and Council for Secular Humanism). This means that the participants were more likely to stereotype atheists as morally questionable, even more than rapists. It also shows that the probability of people believing in the stereotype that atheists are immoral is almost fifty percent.

This study shows that people are often likely to have a preconceived notion that atheists of atheists. There have been many other studies and first-hand accounts by atheists of similar stereotyping as well as opinion articles written questioning the morality of atheists. One such Hughes 9 study shows that atheists are the one group of people that parents predominantly do not want their children to marry (Pond, Jamie L). Clearly, atheists are not held in the highest regard in the

United States and many atheists are able to speak to this reality from their own experience. The distrust of atheists typically stems from these two stereotypes regarding atheists’ morality: 1) that atheists lack a moral compass, i.e., they don’t know right from wrong, and 2) that atheists lack the motivation to do the right thing, especially when no one is watching. But is there any truth to these stereotypes? This is a philosophical problem about what exactly is the relation between religion and morality.

Morality and religion have long been linked in philosophical discussions and writings over time. However, the current debate as to whether religion is a necessary condition of virtue and morality is relatively new with respect to the substantial rise of a secular, non-religious population since the late nineteenth century, so it has not yet been fully examined in modern time. The first question that has arisen, in the discussion of these two concepts, is whether God or a Supreme Being is necessary for there to be moral facts or a moral right and wrong in the first place. A specific metaphysical theory of morality that was once quite common, especially among traditional monotheistic religions, was the Divine Command Theory (DCT). This moral theory is based on the traditional monotheistic conception of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. There are many different versions of the Divine Command Theory but they all essentially claim that morality and moral obligation depend on God. An action is morally wrong because God prohibits it, or an action is morally right because God commands it.

Therefore, the moral status of any action is determined by what is demanded by God. A moral person, then, is one who follows His commands, and an immoral person is one who disobeys

God’s commands. Since this theory was first presented, many philosophers, such as St. Thomas Hughes 10

Aquinas, have added to it, e.g., that to be a virtuous person requires more than merely blindly adhering to the rules of morality but to do so because one believes them to be the right thing as well. Regardless, according to this theory, it would be impossible for the non-religious to know or have a moral sense of right and wrong without a belief in God. The DCT presupposes that

God chooses the standard of rightness and wrongness rather than be subject to an independent standard. The Divine Command Theory was appealing in that it provided a motivation for and an enforcer of morality, a way to explain moral truths independent of human beings’ attitudes, and, since God is seen as eternal, omniscient and omnipotent, these moral truths could be held universally as God’s commands would theoretically apply to everyone at all times and everywhere. If this theory is an accurate account of morality, then an atheist would be unable to live virtuously, except, perhaps, by accident. However, this metaphysical theory of morality is often disregarded today because it has one huge fatal flaw: the arbitrariness problem.

The arbitrariness problem is also commonly known as the Euthyphro Problem because it was most notably first recognized in one of Plato’s Socratic Dialogues, specifically the one in conversation with a man named Euthyphro. In Socrates’s discussion with Euthyphro on justice and the nature of piety, Euthyphro defines what is pious and holy as all that which is beloved by the gods, while the opposite, all that the gods hate, as impious. Socrates, unsatisfied with this definition, poses the problem, “The point which I should first understand is whether the pious and holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved by the gods”

(Plato). This is the dilemma that leads to the Arbitrariness Problem, and the same dilemma can be posed for the Divine Command Theory as it does here for Euthyphro’s definition of piety. Are morally right actions right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right? Hughes 11

Both answers to this question pose a problem for the Divine Command Theory. On the one hand, one could say that God commands these actions because they are right. However, if this is the case, then the DCT no longer holds true because we are admitting that there exists some standard of rightness prior to, and independent of, Gods commands. This would mean that

God is merely an enforcer of morality, so we wouldn’t necessarily need God to define morality.

Some argue that this does not pose a problem for the Divine Command Theory because God is subject to basic moral principles in the same way that He is subject to basic logical principles and this subjugation in no way compromises his sovereignty. However, logical principles, as it is generally agreed upon, are known and understood by humans without the assistance of God’s commands. Similarly, then, if moral principles are their own independent standard, then they should surely be known by humans without God’s commands. Therefore, if there is an independent standard of morality, then it is false that God would be the sole sovereign in our ability to understand said morality.

This leads to another problem of the Divine Command Theory. If this first horn of the dilemma is to be accepted, then it reduces the doctrine of the goodness of God to nonsense. God should not be worshiped as omnibenevolent if he is also the one that decides the good. If what is good is commanded by God, then God’s goodness would be the result of God commanding himself to be such a way. This is not only incoherent but also a bit ridiculous. As Louise Antony points out in her New York Times article, “Good Minus God”, religious worship of God as a morally perfect and all good being only makes coherent sense if morality and goodness are first independent of God. You cannot worship someone for being a certain way if they are also the one who defines that characteristic. Hughes 12

On the other hand of the Euthyphro Dilemma, if you take the former claim, as the DCT does, and assert that certain actions are considered right because God commands them, then this presents a problem of arbitrariness. This view of rightness, as determined solely by God’s commands, presents God’s commands as arbitrary, or without reason or justification. If rightness is simply by God’s say-so and not by some independent criterion of rightness or goodness that

He uses to justify his commands, then he could have just as easily chosen the opposite action as if flipping a coin. God could just as easily command us to kill an innocent person and then it would be the “right” thing to do.

Another way of stating this is that when we assume the Divine Command Theory to be true, then from this theory it follows that there are no moral facts prior to God’s commands or prohibitions of things (and which would ground such commands or prohibitions. And since the only way to have justification for actions or thoughts is by appealing to a prior fact, God’s commands and prohibitions are arbitrary. From this it can be said that we have no justifiable reason to follow the commands and prohibitions of God other than his position of authority. Thus we have no reason to really care about morality. However, the fact that we create justice systems and dedicate so much of our time contemplating morality and what we ought to do is evidence that we do, in fact, have reasons to care about and act in moral ways. Therefore, the Divine

Command Theory is not true. There must be a standard of right and wrong that is independent of

God’s commands.

Some may argue that the fact that God is a powerful authority gives us some justification for adhering to His commands. But because morality is something of great importance to us, an authority figure delivering arbitrary commands is not enough for us to internalize this morality.

This is a matter of what Christine Korsgaard calls the “normative question” in her book, The Hughes 13

Sources of Normativity. Morality is something so powerful that in extreme cases we should want to do the right thing even if it could cost us our lives. Because of this, Korsgaard thinks that any theory of morality should include a convincing answer to the first-person point of view question,

“why should I be moral?” or that which justifies the claims that morality makes on us. When it comes down to it for Korsgaard, she thinks most people will find that an authoritative command with arbitrary justification does not appeal to our sense of who we are enough for it to be a convincing answer.

There are many who reply to this arbitrariness objection by appealing to some quality of

God as justification and proof that God would not arbitrarily command us to do some cruel action making morally obligatory. One instance of such reply is given by Robert Adams in his

Modified Divine Command Theory. In his modified version of the DCT, Adams inserts the characteristic of God as loving to explain why God could never command cruelty for its own sake, simply because it is not in His loving nature. However, this defense of relying on God’s characteristics of a “loving” nature and inherent “goodness” to try to provide justification for his actions, still assumes these are “good,” or at least “lovable,” qualities which in turn assumes an antecedent and independent standard of good. If “good” is merely equated to love, then once again this is a standard in itself. Being loving must have its own independent standard; otherwise, our praise of God as loving is once again incoherent. And if this is the case, then the fact that Adams is using God’s loving nature as justification makes God’s commands not the sole definitional characteristic of “rightness” or “wrongness.” This objection just leads to a circular argument. If God’s commands are merely justified by his characteristics, and those characteristics are defined by God’s commands, then we end up in a circle. The worship of God for all that he is, pious, omnibenevolent, etc., is only logically coherent and morally justifiable if Hughes 14 there are independent standards of morality to which we hold God to as being morally perfect.

And if there are independent standards for such cases, then, similarly, there must be one for goodness, making morality not dependent upon God’s commands.

Although there could be more debate on this topic, it is generally seen as more plausible that there can be some moral right and wrong without God. Therefore, this leaves open the possibility for a secularist to act morally. However, the question that appears most often in regard to the stereotype of an immoral atheist is not, how can they know how to act morally, but rather, what motivation does an atheist have to act morally? This leads to the question of whether moral motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic.

Many philosophers, upon contemplating a moral theory, determine that acting morally should be its own motivation. However, they avoid the stigmatization surrounding atheists by finding a place for religion in the coherence of morality as a whole. For example, both Anthony

Ashely Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, in his An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, and

Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Practical Reason, place religion as a foothold for consistency in virtuous action and for a coherent system of morality.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, was an English politician, writer, and philosopher. Shaftesbury, as he was known, focused his work predominantly on aesthetics, religion, and ethics. In his treatise entitled An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, Shaftesbury set out to determine the true relationship between virtue and religion.

In this work, Shaftesbury first establishes that all sensible creatures, including animals, can be considered good or evil (ill as he calls it). However, the goodness of a sensible creature is dependent on its motivations, the passion or affection that moves it. If a creature’s natural temper or affections, at its bottommost layer, is “primarily and immediately” aimed at promoting the Hughes 15 good of the species, then that creature can be considered good (35). According to Shaftesbury, this is because in contributing to the well-being of its species, the creature is also always contributing to the well-being of the universe as a whole. Shaftesbury sees a species as merely one of the systems that contribute to larger systems, with this progression ending with the consideration of the universe as one whole system containing, and thus affected by, the many small systems of its parts (29-31). Therefore, all sensible creatures (i.e. animals) have the capacity to be valued as good.

However, Shaftesbury goes on to make the clear distinction that it is only man who has the capacity for virtue and to be valued for merit (36). The reason for this is because only humans possess a special, second-order kind of affection, one that is directed at other affections rather than simply objects. Shaftesbury attributes these second-order affections to our ability to self-reflect on our actions and our subsequent knowledge of judging such actions as right or wrong in an effort for self-improvement or improvement of the species.

“So that if a creature be generous, kind, constant, compassionate, yet if

he cannot reflect on what he himself does, or sees others do, so as to take notice

of what is worthy and honesty to be am object of his affection, he has not the

character of being virtuous; for thus, and no otherwise, he is capable of having a

sense of right and wrong, a sentiment or judgement of what is done through just,

equal, and good affection, or the contrary” (39).

Just as he believes all creatures are capable of good, Shaftesbury also states that all men, by nature, have the capacity to act virtuously. Acting virtuously is an inherent ability we possess by nature. That is not to say necessarily that this capacity cannot be corrupted in some manner.

At their highest level, virtue and morality reside in our motivations for our actions more than our actions themselves. Therefore, the quality of virtue lies not in the action itself, or in the first- Hughes 16 order affection of the agent, but in the second-order affection of the latter. Similarly, as

Shaftesbury believes that the good is in actions towards the species as a system of the whole universe, he believes virtue is, at its core, the concern for humanity that drives us to act for the benefit of our species. By self-reflecting on our actions, in such a way that we feel shame when they are bad or pride when they are good, we are then moved to actions because they are good and are moved to avoid them because they are bad. So, virtue is our ability to be driven to orientate our actions towards those that benefit humanity. He thinks that every person’s innate capacity for self-reflection and concern for humanity is what instills in her and constitutes her natural sense of right and wrong.

So, what, then, can cause us to lose our principles of virtue or cause us to become less than virtuous? Shaftesbury considers three possibilities of what must happen in such cases. He claims that either our natural and correct sense of right and wrong is taken away, or something creates in us a false sense of right and wrong, or there is opposition to our natural sense of right and wrong made by our other affections. He then analyzes whether religion, or the lack thereof, can cause one of these corruptions to our natural sense of morality.

This first question as to whether a religion or lack of it could cause us to lose our natural sense of morality is just another way of asking whether morality and virtue is even possible with or without religion. Many have argued that religion is necessary to know or to have a sense of right and wrong, as seen above with the Divine Command Theory. However, for Shaftesbury, this is clearly not the case. He reiterates how it is by our nature as human beings and our ability to self-reflect that we are able to and do, in fact, come to know a sense of right and wrong. We naturally have a concern for how our actions affect others, and it is in self-reflection that we come to judge ourselves and others as good or not and generate the affections concerned with Hughes 17 virtue or vice. Therefore, Shaftesbury concludes that no “religious or irreligious belief of any kind” can directly destroy this natural sense of right and wrong in us (49). According to

Shaftesbury, this concern for others of our species is so inherent in us that no belief could ever cause us to completely lose our sense of morality.

Shaftesbury thinks that religion, as opposed to its absence, plays a larger role in the possibility of the latter two corruptions. He argues that while atheism cannot directly cause us to gain an incorrect sense of right and wrong, religion could sway us either way. Shaftesbury argues that religion could impair someone’s morality, that is their natural sense of right and wrong, if their religion involves worshiping an evil deity, one who could motivate them to perform actions in tension with what benefits the species as a whole. However, he conversely asserts that

“nothing can more highly contribute to the fixing of right apprehensions, and a sound judgement or sense of right and wrong, than to believe a God who is ever and on all accounts represented such as to be actually a true model and example of the most exact justice and highest goodness and worth” (53). Though a false or evil God could cause someone to gain a false sense of right and wrong, a benevolent God could help prevent this from happening as He would serve as a role model for a just sense of morality. As Shaftesbury says, “therefore, religion (according as the kind may prove) is capable of doing great good or harm, and atheism nothing positive in either way” (54). Thus, so far according to Shaftesbury, being an atheist presents no direct threat to morality nor does it ensure a person to be amoral or immoral. He merely asserts there is a possible gain from religion that he does not see can be provided by atheism.

Finally, Shaftesbury discusses the role that religion or atheism plays in the possibility of our motivations/affection being corrupted by opposing affections. Here is where Shaftesbury finds a need for religion. He argues that a Deity is beneficial to the virtue of man not only by Hughes 18 serving as a role model but also by serving as a judge. The argument is that a constant belief in some greater being who is watching and judging our every action only serves to amplify our feelings of self-reflection, namely that of shame for wrong actions or pride/honor for just ones. It is this belief of almost constant surveillance by a higher being that motivates a person to act virtuously more consistently. According to Shaftesbury, this is what atheists lack in terms of motivation to act virtuously.

It is important to note that Shaftesbury is not arguing that it is necessarily the threat of punishment or hope of rewards per se that is essential here. In fact, Shaftesbury is very clear that acting purely for those motives is actually not virtuous at all. An emphasis on punishment and reward take away from the intrinsic concern or affection to act for the good of humanity that is essential for virtue. In this way, religion can pose an obstacle to pure moral motivation.

However, at the same time for Shaftesbury, it is the belief of this divine judgement that provides an advantage or security to virtue.

Shaftesbury argues that although a sense of right and wrong and a concern for humanity is naturally in everyone’s heart, there are often in life many other passions that frequently could alter or overcome these inherent qualities of humans. He argues that if one does not have something in their mind that they can lean on to suppress or overcome these ill passions, then one will start to lose their good temper and their virtuous character will diminish by degrees over time (61). The argument here is that people are more likely to struggle to do the right thing after experiencing ill fortune or seeing some other kind of evil in the world, and this can cause people to waver in their concern for humanity or sense of right and wrong. Therefore, Shaftesbury argues it is a belief in God and a desire to please him that aids in withstanding hardship and misfortunes. Hughes 19

This is why Shaftesbury argues that though atheism does not directly cause someone to act immorally, it is often severely deficient in terms of an atheist being able to determine that virtue leads to happiness, which is an essential aid to virtue. In order to preserve our virtue and not let other ill passions diminish it, Shaftesbury argues that it is necessary that we hold a high opinion of virtue and believe in the advantage of virtue, namely, that it is in our best interest and that we will be happier if we are virtuous. However, atheism, unlike religion, has no safeguard in place that helps us preserve this view of virtue’s advantage. He argues that it is possible for someone who is not a theist to regard virtue highly; however, that is not often the case because they are less likely to be able to see the beauty of virtue.

“Such a belief must tend rather to the weaning the affections from anything

amiable or self-worthy, and to the suppressing the very habit and familiar

custom of admiring natural beauties, or whatever in the order of things is

according to just design, harmony and proposition” (66).

Shaftesbury sees an atheist’s inability to see the wonder of virtue and hold it in high regard in that it will lead to happiness as their biggest detriment, however, his reasoning behind this claim is highly dependent on the way in which he defines atheism. He defines the atheist as someone who sees the world in a state of disorder rather than harmony. It is because of this depiction that Shaftesbury rests his case as to why an atheist is unlikely, if not incapable, of seeing the consistency necessary for retaining a virtuous disposition.

“For how little disposed must a person be to love or admire anything as

orderly in the universe who thinks the universe itself a pattern of disorder?”

(66). Hughes 20

So, Shaftesbury wants to believe that no one can maintain a belief in the advantage of virtue or maintain a love of virtue when the going gets tough unless one possesses a strong belief in a benevolent God, because at the end of the day He will reward or punish them accordingly.

For Shaftesbury, this view of God, where our souls’ final resting place is to be judged ultimately by Him, is not to motivate us to act virtuously in every action, but as insurance that virtue will lead us to happiness in the end because of the order implied by God’s existence. Shaftesbury claims the problem is that one cannot believe in virtue being in one’s own best interest unless one believes in the order of the universe. Therefore, conveniently for Shaftesbury, he defines atheism as believing there is no order.

On the relationship between virtue and piety, virtue is not complete without piety because

“where the latter is wanting, there can neither be the same benignity or constancy, the same good composure of the affections or uniformity of the mind” (69).

Kant more decidedly makes the move to include God within morality but only so far as

God represents a necessity in order to act coherently according to the moral law. Immanuel Kant got himself into hot water in his first critique, Critique of Pure Reason, by invalidating three of the prominent metaphysical approaches for proving the existence of God that were generally common and well received at the time. These were the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, and the physio-theological proofs. Kant even went so far as to conclude that pure reason alone in its speculative usage could not be employed in proving the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, or the existence of free will. This pessimistic and almost atheistic- looking conclusion places Kant on dangerous grounds. So Kant makes the move (or at least this is how the story is often told) to console his manservant, Lampe, and give him a bit of hope by providing a rather feeble proof of the need for faith in his account of morality as given through Hughes 21 the practical use of reason in the “Canon of Pure Reason”, at the end of his first critique.

However, it isn’t until Kant comes out with his second critique, The Critique of Practical

Reason, that he more fully flushes out his moral theory and, with it, the place of religion in morality.

At the end of his first critique, Kant claims to have established “moral certainty” for the existence of God, rather than “logical certainty.” Kant establishes the place for religion as a presumptive motivation for rational beings who only seek the aim of the highest good, which he defines as happiness. Religion is what gives people the opportunity for hope that acting in accordance with the moral law will lead them to such happiness.

However, in the Second Critique, Kant argues for the moral law as itself being the source of our motivation to follow it and places religion as a sort of necessity for the coherence of our actions according to the moral law, more similar to Shaftesbury’s conclusion. Just like the essential feature of Shaftesbury’s morality was affections from self-reflection, Kant places a great importance on the role of the free will in morality. At once, Kant in book one of “The

Analytic of Pure Practical Reason” makes the argument that we have free will and establishes the moral law as something inherent that we are immediately aware of. He writes, “It is therefore the moral law, of which we become immediately conscious (as soon as we draw up maxims of the will for ourselves) that first offers itself to us and, insomuch as reason presents it as a determining ground not to be outweighed by any sensible conditions and indeed quite independent of them, leads directly to the concept of freedom” (5:30). According to Kant, the mere existence of the moral law immediately apparent to us as duties that we ought to do implies that we can fulfill them, we have the ability to act accordingly, so we thus have a free will. Kant gives a great concrete example of this process of cognizing the moral law: if you went out and Hughes 22 asked a man on the street that if he were demanded by a prince to give false testimony against an honorable man or be immediately executed whether he would be able to give up his life for such a cause, the man would likely admit that it would be possible for him to do such. “He judges, therefore, that he can do something because he is aware that he ought to do it and cognizes freedom within him, which, without the moral law, would have remained unknown to him”

(5:30). In this argument Kant is saying that even in the most wearisome of circumstances we are immediately aware of the unconditional demands of moral choices that we have to make and at the same time we must all admit that it would be possible for us to act morally in such cases.

These moral demands are immediately conscious to us and are unconditional. Kant is using this example to show that by this mere thought that we have the possibility to act in the manner in which we immediately feel we ought to means that we have the free ability to act rationally regardless of our sensible inclinations, though that doesn’t mean we will not give in to our sensitive inclinations in the end. From our mere consciousness of thought that we ought to do something, by moral obligation, it follows that it is possible for us to do such. This, Kant believes, is the process of us cognizing freedom within ourselves. He even goes so far as to say in the subsequent section that consciousness of the moral law is a “fact of reason” because it cannot be reasoned out of antecedent logic and because it “forces itself upon us of itself as synthetic a priori proposition that is not based on any intuition, either pure or empirical” (5:31).

This is a bold move Kant makes in establishing the moral law as practically inherent in us, therefore making our obligation to it and the creation of its laws themselves, only attributed to us and not given by anyone or anything else. Therefore, at this stage in Kant’s analysis, no religion or God is needed for there to be moral facts, for us to come to know the moral law, or for us to Hughes 23 be motivated to act in accordance with the moral law; all this is characteristic for rational beings.

By this point in his analysis, Kant believes an atheist can act in accordance with the moral law.

Furthermore, this idea of our capacity to act rationally and will our actions to be in accordance with the moral law underlies Kant’s conception of our rational motivation to act from duty rather than simply with duty. For Kant, acting from duty means that simply acting morally is our motivation for acting in such a way. Kant argues that the moral law is itself both a formal determining ground of action through pure practical reason as well as a subjective motivation of action because it influences the sensibility of the acting subject by provoking a moral feeling such as respect. However, Kant makes it explicitly clear that this invoked feeling is not an antecedent one but is determined by our pure practical reason. As Kant states, “respect for the law is not the incentive to morality; instead it is morality itself subjectively considered as an incentive insomuch as pure practical reason, by rejecting all the claims of self-love in opposition with its own, supplies authority to the law, which now alone has influence” (5:76). Respect is only the moral feeling which serves in our grounding the moral law as its own maxim, or our ultimate desired goal. Therefore, the moral law, according to Kant, is in itself its own moral motivation. We act morally and should act morally according to the moral law because it is morally sound. We are not commanded to act morally by some external force such as God; rather, the moral law becomes immediately conscious to us as something we ought to do in these circumstances. And through our conception of the moral law and pure practical reason we come to respect the objective moral law and are practically affected with respect for it in such a way that allows for us take the moral law as our motivation and desired goal of us acting morally.

Kant argues that the moral law is also its own subjective determining ground of action, or its own incentive. Respect, or any subsequent feeling, is not a cause or explanation for what constitutes a Hughes 24 moral action but merely the effect of morality, but the moral law itself is an immediate determination of will. This argument is different and altogether absent from the first critique where Kant argues that the existence of God as a necessity for the motivation of moral law and there is no mention of this “fact” of the moral law. According to Kant, the moral law is something we must will into ourselves and that we must will ourselves to do such because we desire to according to the moral law. This intrinsic motivation of morality rooted in the cognition of the moral law does not appear to require religion in any context. In fact, it even seems to imply that an appeal to religion for any motivational purposes would mean to fail to act out of pure moral motivations, that is, to act from duty.

This conception of morality, how we gain knowledge of it and what true moral motivation entails, appears to be a pretty complete picture of morality. Yet in the second critique’s “Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason” Kant still somehow finds a place for religion. In this section, Kant introduces two postulates that he concludes are required for us as rational human beings to assume for the purely practical purposes: that of the immortality of our souls and of the existence of God. These practical postulates, according to Kant, fulfill a subjective need for us to reach the highest good, namely happiness. Kant writes, “only from a will that is morally perfect (holy and beneficent) and at the same time all-powerful, and so through harmony with this will, we can hope to attain the highest good, which the moral law makes it our duty to take as the object of our endeavors” (5:129). Despite Kant arguing that the moral law determines our will and provides incentive in and of itself, he still argues for the necessity of religion and the additive necessity for the goal of the highest good. This is because Kant claims happiness as the

“unavoidable determining ground of its faculty of desire” that is demanded by all rational and finite beings (5:25). Because of this inescapable importance Kant places upon happiness, and Hughes 25 because it is possible according to Kant for a moral world to be a miserable world, he claims there is an additional need for faith that our acting morally will bring about our happiness. Kant says that not only is there within us a need to presuppose the possibility of the highest good but that this presupposition is only made possible under the conditions of the aforementioned postulates. Therefore, making it “morally necessary” in a practical sense for finite beings to adhere to the two postulates. This necessity steers Kant’s idea of the connection of happiness and morality away from the extremely austere interpretation by the Stoics with which up until this point he had come suspiciously close to agreement. Unlike in his previous thought, Kant in the second Critique doesn’t argue that religion is necessary to be moral in a direct motivational sense, but that religion is necessary for coherence of the moral law. The moral law is its own motivation and morality can be achieved on its own objectively, but a faith in the existence of

God and the immortality of the soul allow for rational finite beings to make sense of their moral law being in coherence with their own unavoidable highest aim at happiness. There could still be some motivational aspect to religion in a more indirect way, similar to how Shaftesbury included it. For if one’s life isn’t a coherent whole, because one does not have religion, then it can likely be argued, as Shaftesbury does, that this lack of coherence will eventually lead to the deterioration of one’s motivation to act morally.

Arguing that the rational motivation for acting morally is the moral law itself rather than some sensible inclination, but at the same time arguing that all rational beings desire happiness and accordingly need to believe that their actions will lead to this outcome presents a sticky situation for Kant. Despite the fact that Immanuel Kant claims that happiness is our inevitable, general object of our faculty of desire, similar to Aristotle’s view in his Nicomachean Ethics, he Hughes 26 denies that this implies each particular action one takes must also be motivated by such.

However, it seems implausible

So, what does Kant’s view of morality mean for the atheist? With his emphasis on the motivating factor of morality, it seems Kant is saying that an atheist would theoretically be able to act in accordance with moral law and be motivated to do such, purely on the basis of it being morally correct to do such duties. The caveat for the atheist, in his second Critique’s interpretation, is that an atheist would lack the ultimate organizing principles (the aforementioned two postulates of the existence of god and immortality of the soul) that allow for the moral agent to conceive of himself as leading a life that is organized in a unified way under the ultimate object of his desire: happiness. These postulates, Kant claims, are necessary conditions for the coherence of the system of principles of finite rational beings that aim at happiness. So, on this account what atheists are lacking is sort of an organizational system or central aim for understanding and fully reasoning moral actions. If religion is the coherence of moral action, then theoretically an atheist can act morally but not in a coherent manner integrated fully into their lives. So an atheist would either be neglecting their real sensible needs, or they could think they are aiming for happiness as the highest good but are lacking the understanding that the moral life will lead to happiness by the refusal of their recognition for superior moral being, or they aren’t acting morally. In the first case, Kant would likely say the atheist is acting merely ascetically which for him is too “Puritanical.” In the second case the atheist would just be living an incoherently, as there would be a practical inconsistency in their understanding of the moral law and its inability to lead to attaining their inescapable desire for happiness. The third option would be how many feel atheists must be living, by just flat out ignoring or not caring Hughes 27 about the moral law. In no case can the atheist, according to Kant, fully actualize herself as a thoroughly rational agent.

Since, for Kant, aiming at the highest good, happiness, while acting according to the moral law necessitates the belief in the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, then atheists don’t have a rational ground to hope for happiness. However, it is important that we clarify how Kant defines happiness as there have been many different variations that could mean drastically different things for Kant’s theory of morality. For example, the Stoics traditionally believe that happiness is the just the tranquility of the intellect achieved through virtue. They don’t think you need anything further, such as being free from physical pain. In fact, sometimes they go even further and suggest that happiness entails freedom from physical pain, therefore, physical pain for the Stoics is not judged to be a bad thing. Kant, conversely, argues that happiness is not that simply connected with virtue, but that the highest good is virtue in addition to happiness as in a pleasure or satisfaction of a sensible desire (5:25). With this, Kant is incorporating a more Epicurean view of happiness of pleasure into his argumentation as well, mixing the two schools of thought. While I would say that Kant’s argument for the definition of happiness and virtue as connected as the highest good is certainly plausible, it does not seem like it is absolutely certain by any means. The problem here lies in how happiness is defined, whether it be as peace of mind or as a state of pleasure of body and soul. As is shown from the various philosophical debates on the nature of happiness, for some people pleasure is a necessary condition for its attainment, while for others it is not. Happiness could be a rather subjective goal that it seems possible that many could define differently, and in which religion is not necessary for its fulfillment. Hughes 28

Another possibility is that Kant is wrong in claiming that happiness is the ultimate goal of human beings as practical actors in a moral world. An atheist could believe in the inherent good or rationality of people and from this infer that all human beings as rational individuals would desire to adhere to the moral law. In this case they could easily believe that acting morally is not only their duty, but also the best action as part of a larger system that everyone desires to adhere to for the good of the whole. Also, an atheist’s belief in the inherent good of humanity could also promote adherence to the moral law for truly selfless purposes derived from empathy. The ultimate goal is, therefore, not happiness in the individualistic sense but happiness of the communal whole or an aim at creating an ideally moral world. This is not too far off from human secularism where morality is based upon a belief and concern for humanity. This view implies a more inherently good view of rational human beings acting practically in accordance with the moral law. Many have an issue with this approach as it directly opposes the long-held view, especially amongst traditional religions, of people as being inherently evil. This assumption of the innate selfishness of human beings can be traced back to the concept of the “original sin.”

The idea that people are not inherently selfish and instead might instinctively act for the good of a community would stand to discredit those that believe in the purely animalistic, instinctive side of nature that is a more self-serving survival instinct. However, it can be said that there are many aspects to animalistic instincts that are entirely altruistic. For example, familial or especially maternal instincts are extremely strong and prevalent among some animals. Mother octopi are known to nest their eggs for protection even at the expense of their own hunger to the point where they have gone so far as to consume their own limbs for sustenance. Therefore, it is not so farfetched to conceive of it as both an animalistic as well as intellectual desire for rational human beings to act morally for the sake of their community and/or well-being of others or future Hughes 29 generations. On the assumption that people act inherently for the benefit of others it could easily be assumed that, unlike with a selfish postulation of human nature that correlates with the assumption that happiness has to be connected to an individual self-gain, happiness could be attained by one’s role or contribution to a society. If this were the case, then the mother octopus would not just be acting ascetically but her knowledge that she has helped her babies survive or that they have survived is what brings her happiness of mind and soul.

Therefore, despite the popular stereotype of atheists as either amoral or immoral, it seems that religion is not a necessary condition for one to act morally. If it is the case that there is some independent standard of good, not reliant on a conception of God, that can also be known without a belief in a Supreme Being, then the only place left for the necessity of religion in virtue is as a motivation factor for an adherence to a known system of morality. Though some proponents of the Divine Command Theory remain, it has lost its popularity because of the many objections and problems that it faces, such as that of arbitrariness. As for the motivation of moral action, a general consensus seems to be that the purest moral motivation is doing what is right because it is right. By this standard it does not seem that religion is a necessary component.

However, with the concept of innate selfishness and inherent evil that often coincides with religious teachings, religion becomes necessary in a world that otherwise lets one down through others’ misdeeds. According to philosophers like Shaftesbury and Kant, the world will eventually deter people from consistently acting virtuously because they will lose faith that acting in such a way will eventually lead to their own happiness. However, there is reason to doubt whether their definition of happiness as based on individualistic pleasure or happiness as our ultimate goal is correct. As the nonreligious grow in population so do new theories of morality based on empathy and the good of the community, such as secular humanism. Even if Hughes 30 acting virtuously does require the omniscient presence of being watched, this is actually very well provided for in today’s digital age of surveillance where people consistently have to worry about their actions ending up within the public’s gaze. So, there is plenty of room for an atheist to act morally, to do so out of pure moral motivation, or if needed, for external motivation to ensure one acts morally even when it appears like no one is watching. This topic is in no way fully exhausted. There is much more to be examined as to whether any such motivations prove strong enough for the religious or nonreligious to maintain virtuous lives, as well as, a deeper discussion of the innate characteristics of human beings as rational and/or good creatures.

However, for now, I think it has been proven that there is reason to allow for the genuine possibility for an atheist to be virtuous. Therefore, religion is not absolutely necessary for someone to be virtuous. At best, it provides an additional incentive that allows for the religious person to hold virtue in high esteem despite personal misfortune. However, at the same time, it prompts the question as to whether a religious person can truly act from a place of pure moral motivation. It seems there are caveats to both a religious view of virtue as well as an atheistic one that may never fully be resolved.

Hughes 31

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