Secular Morality Does Not Depend on Faith
Here, then, we have a secular ethics connected not to 'nothing,' but to a preference for justice, fairness, and impartiality.
In his piece âValues: Even Secular Ones, Depend on Faith: A Reply to Jerry Coyne,â John Staddon denies he ever claimed that secular humanism is a religion. Yet in Staddonâs original article, âIs Secular Humanism a Religion?,â which I criticized in my response, âSecular Humanism Is Not A Religion,â his very first sentence is this: âIt is now a rather old story: secular humanism is a religion.â Has he already forgotten this?
But forget Staddonâs rewriting of history. In his new piece, he concentrates on one similarity he finds between religious and secular moralityâboth, he says, are based on faith:
. . . in no case are secular commandments derivable from reason. Like religious âoughtsâ they are also matters of faith. Secular morals are as unprovable as the morals of religion.
Nevertheless, he sees religious morals as superior because they rest on religious stories, stories that he admits are myths:
The fact that religious morals are derived from religious storiesâmyths in Mr. Coyneâs bookâdoes not make them any more dismissible than Mr. Coyneâs morals, which are connected to nothing at all. In his own agnostic terms, all are matters of faith.
What a thicket we must chop through here! While the grounding of moral systems in both religion and humanism is indeed based on preference (in religion for a particular sect, in humanism for a particular social outcome), this does not mean that the rules in both cases stem from faith, i.e., strong belief without strong evidence.
John Staddon
This is because, as we all know, not all preferences are equal. Religious morals based on faith, scripture and authority are not subject to examination or reason; they are dictates from on high. In fact, their connection to myths has promoted values many see as repugnant. The scriptures of Christianity and Islam, for instance, have been used to justify the oppression of women, gays, and unbelieversânot to mention various rules about sex that are oppressive and ridiculous. And insofar as religious morals are subject to scrutiny and revision as society changes, then, as Plato recognized in the Euthphryo Dilemma, they become secular. Thereâs simply no reason why morality should be improved by connecting it to mythology.
But is secular morality really connected to nothing? Hardly! One example is John Rawlsâs ethics as outlined in A Theory of Justice. Rawls sees morality as promoting justice, and presents a thought experiment about how to achieve justice. Imagine, he said, that we choose our ethics from behind a âveil of ignorance,â in which we do not know what position in society weâll assumeâmale or female, black or white, rich or poor, straight or gay. We then choose our principles based on this ignorance. This scenario produces a liberal and ethical society without any faith, as well as a rational way to decide moral questions.
Here, then, we have a secular ethics connected not to ânothing,â but to a preference for justice, fairness, and impartiality. The ethical principles are objective in the sense that theyâre what people would agree on behind the veil of ignorance, but of course we cannot prove a priori that a preference for fairness, justice, and impartiality is better than a preference for inequality, bias and injustice. Nevertheless, I submit that Rawlsâs method produces societies far better than those derived from the dictates of any religious faith.
There are many other forms of secular ethics based on ideas similar to Rawlsâs. By claiming that humanistic morality is connected to ânothing at all,â Staddon dismisses the entire history of secular ethics from philosophers like Spinoza, Kant, Mill, Hume, Rawls, and Singer.
