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From Humanism to Nihilism: the Eclipse of Secular Ethics

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From Humanism to Nihilism: the Eclipse of Secular Ethics ‘The question is no longer as Dostoyevsky put it ‘‘can civilized man believe?’’ Rather: can unbelieving man be civilized?1 Philip Rieff1 n order to deepen our understanding of the Iplace of Islam in the contemporary world, it is useful to contrast Islamic2 and secular ethics. The latter is today closely associated with the perspective of secular humanism, ‘the rejection of religion in favour of a belief in the advancement of humanity by its own efforts’.3 Whilst Muslims see moral authority as ultimately deriving from God, secular humanists see morality as intrinsic to humanity. Our innate moral authority, it is argued, provides a sufficient basis for making our own laws. Although Islam may grant that the spiritual and rational faculties of humanity provide an intrinsic moral sense, it From Humanism is also clear that humanity is greatly in need of moral direction and is indeed capable – to Nihilism: both individually and collectively – of going dangerously and destructively astray without The Eclipse of the light of faith and the submission to divine guidance that flows from it. As for unbelief, Secular Ethics the Qur’an makes it clear that it is a state of ignorance and spiritual darkness, the moral Magnus Bradshaw and social implications of which are apparent in the corruption and injustice of pre-Islamic Arabia. There is evidently at least a partial analogy between that time and our own, in so far as it is identified with secular humanism and thus atheism. In what follows, I take account of the widespread concern about moral decline so evident today and consider criticisms of a number of widely shared secular humanist values. Rather than presenting a specifically Islamic perspective on the issues at hand, the focus here is on the very different foundations of religious and secular ethics, and the fact that non-Islamic scholars have reached conclusions about the contemporary ethical CMC PAPERS NO.6 predicament that many Muslims would share. FROM HUMANISM TO NIHILISM: THE ECLIPSE OF SECULAR ETHICS CMC PAPERS NO.6 SYMPTOMS OF DECLINE the reduction of truth to utility, taboo to Critics of secularism usually perceive a function, conviction to mere preference; all connection between the secularization of provisional, all exchangeable….sacredness society and moral decline. It was in 1948 is conspicuous in its absence’.7 These that the American essayist Richard Weaver developments take place in the context of observed that ‘There is good reason for the rise of moral individualism, the decline declaring that modern man has become of institutions sustaining morality, and a a moral idiot…we approach a condition disparagement of self-restraint in which in which we shall be amoral without the notions of guilt and moral judgment become capacity to perceive it and degraded without taboo. means to measure our descent’.4 For Weaver, THE AMBIGUITIES OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT this predicament is linked to the denial of the transcendent, which he equates to a denial For secular humanism, reason is the most of truth itself. If, he argues, the humanist fundamental human faculty and thus the notion that ‘man is the measure of all things’ necessary basis for any approach to ethics. Yet is to be our moral benchmark, there can traditionally, and in the Islamic perspective, only ultimately ensue from this a morally reason is seen as a tool rather than an entirely corrosive relativism, amongst the symptoms self-sufficient means of reaching indisputable of which he perceived to be the weakening moral conclusions, for as Weaver observes, of normal human sentiment and relationships, ‘Reason alone fails to justify itself. Not the loss of the ability to recognize obscenity, without cause has the devil been called the as well as the egoism, narcissism and impiety prince of lawyers, and not by accident are of contemporary man. More recently, in Shakespeare’s villains good reasoners. If After Virtue (1981), his celebrated study the disposition is wrong, reason increases maleficence; if it is right, reason orders and of the contemporary ethical predicament, 8 Alasdair MacIntyre suggests that the West furthers the good’. Nonetheless, the quest has suffered a sort of ‘moral catastrophe’: for a rational principle of morality that can ‘We have - very largely, if not entirely – lost be applied universally is central to modern our comprehension, both theoretical and secular ethics. Both Immanuel Kant and the practical, of morality’.5 utilitarians Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill sought just such a principle, one whose Indeed, the moral continuity of Western authority no rational person could deny. cultures appears to have been interrupted and Paradoxically, reason led them to radically there is no longer the consensus that existed conflicting conclusions, and proved powerless until quite recently. MacIntyre suggests to provide a ‘neutral’ point of view from that contemporary Western societies lack which to decide between their competing agreed moral criteria: ‘the question of what moral perspectives and claims. Kant’s it is in virtue of which a particular moral deontological theory and the teleological judgment is true or false has come to lack approach of utilitarianism are both deeply any clear answer’.6 The sociologist James flawed – apart from their intrinsic weaknesses Davison Hunter observes that truths have - by their reliance on Enlightenment been replaced by values, that is, ‘truths that assumptions about the role of reason in have been deprived of their commanding ethics that are now seen, by MacIntyre and character. They are substitutes for revelation, John Gray amongst others, as obsolete. They imperatives that have dissolved into a range of suggest that attempts to provide a purely possibilities…The very word ‘value’ signifies rational basis for an objective morality are - 2 - FROM HUMANISM TO NIHILISM: THE ECLIPSE OF SECULAR ETHICS CMC PAPERS NO.6 inevitably built on non-rational foundations project of seeking an independent rational that are ultimately no more than shared sets of justification for morality and shared rational preferences and assumptions. Many secularists progress through liberal values has failed,11 now acknowledge that reason alone has been resulting in relativism and what Gray refers unable to provide a self-justifying basis for to as the ‘post-modern condition of fractured morality, and that there is no reason to be perspectives and groundless practices’,12 moral that any rational person is compelled to which rejects the Enlightenment concept of acknowledge.9 reason. Postmodernism, rooted in Friedrich Nietzsche’s criticism of the Enlightenment, A further problem for the universal claims of emphasizes the multiplicity of perspectives reason-based theories has always been that lacking unity or any objective basis, for all not all secular thinkers see reason as capable values are a matter of perspective and there of fulfilling such a role. For David Hume, is no neutral ‘moral point of view’. From for example, reason should be the servant a post-modern perspective, liberalism, far of the passions rather than their master, from providing a set of universal moral whilst rationalism ignores the fact - religion principles, turns out to be just another and modern psychology here being in historically-conditioned worldview, one agreement - that there is an aspect of human equally vulnerable to the dissolving vortex nature that is not and never will be rational, of moral relativism. The Enlightenment was this irrationality playing a very significant thus ultimately self-undermining because role in human life. Thus, when the pursuit its rational method of enquiry inexorably of abstract principles such as duty or the exposed its own fundamental principles to happiness of the majority come into conflict a withering scrutiny that they could not with our egoistic desires, the latter will often withstand in the long run. This termination prevail, for in practice such abstractions have of the Enlightenment project, Gray suggests, little hold on the human will and will be undermines much of what is foundational unlikely to inspire much loyalty or fear. The in the Western tradition,13 which may in appeal to place reason above self-interest also fact not be renewable, but doomed to an ignores the fact that we cannot treat people irreversible decline. By privileging reason to impartially, and that it may be more rational, the exclusion of other values, he argues, the from a purely secular perspective, to satisfy Enlightenment ultimately bequeathed us a our desires as efficiently as possible; as Roger world which is ‘humanly unintelligible and Scruton observes, ‘it is piety, and not reason, destructively purposeless…it has not issued in that implants in us the respect for the world, anything resembling a new civilization… but for its past and its future, and which impedes instead in nihilism.’14 us from pillaging all we can before the light of consciousness fails in us’.10 PROGRESS IN DECLINE Many of the original moral values of the ‘Progress is not an accident, but necessity. Enlightenment had in fact been inherited Surely must evil and immorality disappear; surely must men become perfect’ Herbert in transposed form from Christianity. In 15 spite of this, many modern liberal societies Spencer subsequently sought to free themselves from According to Robert Nisbet in his History of moral traditions perceived to be tyrannical the Idea of Progress, ‘no single idea has been and outdated by appealing to agreed universal more important than, perhaps as important principles available to all. However, as, the idea of progress in Western civilization MacIntyre argues that the Enlightenment for nearly three thousand years.’16 Despite - 3 - FROM HUMANISM TO NIHILISM: THE ECLIPSE OF SECULAR ETHICS CMC PAPERS NO.6 the catastrophes of the twentieth century, fully rational, nor does it improve morally, which suggest a sobering corrective to as the violent history of the 20th century such hopes, the tendency to see history as demonstrates.
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