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Can the Secular Define Evil?
I’m a fan of Dennis Prager, though I split my listening between him and Rush, as they’re both on at the same time. Dennis is an unabashed advocate for religion, and the notion that goodness flows from it. He frequently challenges secular people or atheists — like me — to contradict his claim that “[w]thout God there is no good and evil.”
It’s a good challenge, and I’ve been contemplating it for a long time. Not only do I think we should always confront our opponent’s best arguments directly but I really do think its important to ask myself — as secular person — how I draw the distinction between what is good and evil if I am not going to trust religion to define it for me?
First, how does religion define good and evil? Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland defined evil thus:
Evil is a lack of goodness. It is goodness spoiled. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good.
I think this is gibberish. First, it assumes that these are measurable quantities in any meaningful sense. Second, there’s a pseudoscientific feeling to it as well which mimics the notion that cold is the absence of heat and darkness is the absence of light. I don’t think this is a very good definition of evil at all. Evil is supposed to be the antithesis of good, not its absence; further, it implies that the mere act of not doing good is itself evil. It seems to negate the possibility of benign neglect.
From my outsider’s perspective, the Judeo-Christian tradition defines evil:
- As either against other people or against God;
- As acting in a fashion which is morally reprehensible, sinful or wicked;
- As violations of the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments; and
- As violations of the Golden Rule.
Being as I am secular, I’m going to write off the evils against God right off the bat. Each person who isn’t a a Jew or a Christian in the world commits these “evils” either passively or actively on a daily basis. I don’t think I or anybody else is committing a sin or acting evilly when we don’t observe the proper obeisances to God. Why? Because none of us is harming anybody by not doing so.
So, what about the rest of those commandments? I can’t imagine another morally normal person who would assert that murder, theft, rape, perjury or adultery are acceptable or not evil. The secular generally agree on these. So where do I draw the distinction?
The things that all of us — secular and religious — seem to agree on as being evil is when someone acts maliciously in one’s own self interest without regard to the harm that those actions cause others. Compare this to enlightened self interest or the Harm Principle. Violating these is an outrage to the conscience of morally normal people. The Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) is generally a good thing; violating it may not be explicitly evil, but to do so wantonly most likely is.
So let’s talk about some examples and see which of these responses are either good or evil:
- You come across a person on the side of the road who is unconscious and bleeding. Do you a) keep on walking, b) render aid and call 911 or c) rape, rob and kill them because they don’t know any different?
- You pull up to a red light. Standing in the intersection is a bum who is disheveled and inebriated. The bum has a sign with something cute like “Not going to lie, I just need a beer.” You have $20 in your pocket which you do not need. Do you a) Give them the $20, or b) keep on driving.
- A person who is a perfect stranger to you approaches. The stranger asks for a gun with which they can kill themselves. You have a gun. Do you a) hand them the gun and plug your ears or b) insist that this person get assistance?
Why or why not you do any of the options is just as important.
There are right and wrong answers. I’ll reveal mine in the comments.
Published in General, Religion & Philosophy
I was an atheist for a brief period during college, after having been raised Catholic and falling out of faith for years. So I asked myself this question many times: “What is morality without God?”
My conclusion was that morality without God’s existence would be a combination of evolutionary instincts to promote one’s own species and of norms established by history to similarly promote a particular society or civilization. In such a world, some absolute truths would exist. As starving leads an animal to death, some failures of social activity or regulation might lead a society to ruin simply because the world is what it is.
Fortunately, most atheists and agnostics stop there. They are unable or unwilling to reject, or even to identify, these instincts and norms which guide and limit them. Consequently, they generally live by the same modes of behavior as faithful citizens in a society established under religiously informed norms.
This isn’t an insult of atheists and agnostics. Rather, it recognizes that most people, religious or not, tend to go with the flow of their own cultures until moments when desires, fears, or other motives conflict with the host culture. Most American Christians are more American than Christian, as most Russian atheists are more Russian than atheist, and so on.
Danger arises when one becomes willing, either by logic or by emotion (or lack thereof), to reject these norms. When instincts conflict with desires, why obey instincts? Why prioritize a fleeting species, society, or even a family before one’s own pleasures and ambitions?
A Christian believer — thankful and obedient or not — inherits both a fixed moral compass (“to know and love God”) and fear of God’s inescapable power. Fear acts as a safety net when good will fails. An atheist inherits a more temporal and flexible compass (a particular society’s norms) and fear of much weaker powers (legal authorities, the affection of friends and families, the respect of colleagues, etc). The God of Israel is omniscient. Governments and associates can be fooled, even manipulated. What they don’t know can’t hurt them, right?
Being an atheist certainly doesn’t make one immoral, as merely believing in God doesn’t make one a saint. But it’s easier, in either case. Christianity offers a more powerful, more timeless, more concerted influence.
Also, if the Christian perception is correct, then there are other influences like grace and angels.
The phrase itself, “morally normal”, seems problematic to me. Once we depart from Western societies and consider other cultures what defines “morally normal”? Or is this a statement, a declaration that many non-Western societies are immoral ones?
I will confess that my perspective as a member of a more or less enlightened western nation colors my perception of what is considered to be morally normal. The questions that I asked were basically asked in the service of establishing moral normalcy, i.e., what would people do in those situations when nobody is looking?
And yes, I think there are a lot of societies that have values which are inimical to ours and are fundamentally immoral as a result. Those same societies also have no prospect of change as it is right now as they are by-and-large under the control of one form of fundamentalism or another.
That’s not what I meant by positive (although in your three hypothetical questions, you imply that it may sometimes be a moral imperative to act).
I was asking, really, for an elaboration on what you stated in the bolded sentence. How does “morally normal”, which is a descriptive statement, become a prescriptive statement about what humans ought to do? How do we build those boundaries in a non-arbitrary way?
I feel like this is an excellent non-answer answer. This seems to indicate that pacifism unto the point of suicide is preferable – which I know is not true, as Israel is not afraid to kill either aggressors or people whom they stand behind in defense of third parties. They don’t do it joyously, but they do it out of recognition that to not do so would be suicidal.
But it is not at all obvious if we look at real world evidence. In fact people ignore the injured all the time. For example, drivers so commonly passed by car wrecks that many states felt compelled to enact “Good Samaritan Laws” that require that drivers stop and render aid when they come upon a wreck. However, these statutes are virtually unenforceable since a driver who ignores the law is unlikely to get caught. Moreover, there are perfectly rational reasons not to stop. There is the fear of having to see the carnage, fear that whatever the aid rendered it will make matters worse, or not wanting the kids to see it. Is there any inherently wrong in any of these cases? The guy who passes by does not violate any human moral principles.
How, then, to judge him? Laws reflect moral sentiments, but they cannot, absent some guiding principle, create moral rules. This seems to suggest that the law in GS Statutes is grounded in something else than benign neglect or human fellow feeling. The very fact that these laws are called “Good Samaritan” implies that a standard beyond fellow feeling or the harm principle is at work.
Maj,
As representative of Planet Kant I must put my 2 cents in here.
The most sophisticated secular interpretation of good and evil ever produced in western civilization would be Kant’s “Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone”. The title is confusing as Kant does not believe that religion is limited to reason alone. However, the premise of the book is ‘what if’ we were to limit ourselves to reason alone and look at religion strictly through the eyes of non-mystical reasoning.
Kant would define evil as the human will disposed 100% to a maxim other than the categorical imperative (a very sophisticated version of the golden rule). All evil behavior is a resultant of this.
Just for a little historical color I would add that “Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone” is the book that got Kant in trouble. Kant was censured for it (neither allowed to publish nor lecture). It was a combination of the paranoia that the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution had engendered and that the academic theologians of the era thought Kant was invading their turf.
The censure lasted for 5 years. The Reign of Terror was over and Kant had enough allies in the academic bureaucracy to overcome it. Unfortunately, the strain had been great and he had become very ill. He died not long after.
Regards,
Jim
I don’t think that’s how human beings work. As a result, the best we can do is a series of approximations like The Golden Rule – which applies in the vast majority of cases.
But now we are getting to John Wilson’s question (no relation). What is the value of a human life? Why should we follow the Golden Rule except that it makes us feel good? Why is that moral?
If I wasn’t Catholic, I’d be Jewish. ;) By the way, I’m Jewish on my wife’s side. My wife is Jewish, not Orthodox obviously.
I want to be very careful when I say this as well, but I must ask: Is this not the reason that many European Jews went into the gas chambers willingly, knowing they marched to their doom?
I have a brief story. At my first job I worked with a woman who was a Jehovah’s Witness. I tried to draw her out a bit with some moral questions, including where and when she would consider resisting attempts at things like robbery, violence against her person or coercion by governmental authorities. I couldn’t find a situation where she would make a peep either for herself or in defense of another.
I found that sort of ovine passivity to be reprehensible and the willingness to accept evil to be among the worst of what religion can bring. The only thing worse than committing evil is the willingness to stand idly by and do nothing; to do so is to become a party to that evil.
I had not heard this before. Does this apply to a situation like a home invasion? You can’t kill a violent intruder in order to protect members of your family? Or am I missing details or misapplying the concept?
I think actually that the source of morality is God, not religion. That isn’t a pedantic distinction. Our lives have sacred value because God created them and is jealous of any claims made on our lives by others. From that justification all morality stems. Religion is simply an attempt to codify and guide adherents to follow morality. Morality begets religion, religion doesn’t beget morality.
As to the commonality of religious morality, I think you are taking a very narrow and short view. Human sacrifice, salvery and all manor of other moral abominations have been championed by different religious systems throughout history. So I don’t accept that all religions eventually lead to a basically uniform brand of morality which yields the most utility.
However, to the extent that there is commonality among the moral systems of different religions, one could argue, and the Catholic church does, that this is due to the response by all humans to the moral call that God is constantly making and which he has given us the innate ability to hear. Various evils in the world and in our fallen natures make the call difficult to discern clearly, but we all have the ability to hear it to some extent and this is why we find common moral beliefs throughout the world.
The Christian answer is the gift of conscience. All human beings are created “in the likeness of God” and bear a soul with a natural orientation toward God/love. This is basically like instinct, except it belongs to the soul rather than to the body.
But the soul must be nurtured, as the body and mind are nurtured. Nature, nurture, and will are all factors. Sin (which necessarily involves the will) blinds the conscience and deforms it. Love opens it to God’s active guidance.
Cultures can be corrupted as individuals and small groups are corrupted, so the deck can be stacked against many persons. The supernatural gift of grace can spare them the full weight of their circumstances.
Well, whose word do you take about what a human’s life is worth?
If I tell you that your life is worth $2.3 Million per the Social Security administration would you be willing to off yourself in exchange for your family becoming wealthy? (Full disclosure: Number selected at random.)
There are a variety of ways to evaluate human life and they aren’t agreed upon by all parties and vary based upon circumstance.
How about this: You are on a boat. The boat is sinking. You can choose to save either your pet dog or an infant. Which do you choose? Dennis Prager likes to make the case that people in college would choose their dog and that this is evidence of their moral shallowness. I think it’s merely evidence of their love of the familiar, which is totally human. People are selfish and impulsive, but given a chance to reflect Dennis concedes that these people are frequently willing to reconsider their responses.
Now let’s change the scenario a little bit. You’re on a boat. It’s sinking. You can choose to save your dog or Terry Schiavo.
Or how about choosing to save an infant or Terry Schiavo?
No, I don’t think that’s what being discussed. The question in the title of this post is, “Can the secular define evil.” The implication being, can people who don’t believe in God come up with a coherent “moral” code. For the believer, the question does not necessitate arguing for one’s particular religious doctrine. As one of our secularists complained about Prager’s challenge, it’s really an argument about the existence of God — or, for the purposes of this discussion, The Moral Yardstick.
The commonality between moral systems of various cultures isn’t a problem for the believer. If you believe in the Creator God, He is likely to have left an imprint of His goodness on His creatures. Even secularists in this thread have called it “conscience.”
I think the challenge secularists have is to explain the differences between cultures. Why and how did the West advance to such lofty heights of reason, order, and material well-being? Science is a phenomenon which originated only in the West. It requires one to believe (heh) in an ordered, intelligible universe which makes science a worthwhile pursuit. This philosophical foundation didn’t (doesn’t) exist in Islam, in Asia, or in aboriginal cultures across the globe. Any technical advancements these peoples made were more a matter of trial and error, not methods of science.
Secularists ultimately must answer how their morality isn’t entirely subjective. I’d say it is, not that many secularists can’t be fine and decent people. I, personally, have been touched by Majestyk’s compassion and decency. But without an external source imposing the measure, a society-wide moral code is unlikely to arise — and, worse, it is often subject to the most ruthless, power-mad totalitarian setting the standards. Brutality is easy. Maybe even “natural.”
Exactly. That is the whole point.
If you don’t believe in God and/or you don’t believe that only God has the right to harm or take human life, then any morality that doesn’t make purely utilitarian arguments for the value of human life is making arbitrary choices.
I don’t mean this to be a dodge, but I don’t think my answer to that question is relevant (if you are really interested in my answer I will ponder it and provide you one).
There are many ways to talk about the value of a human life; dollars equivalent is one of them. I don’t think there’s one morally correct value, but maybe you and I can agree it would be immoral to place a bounty on an innocent man’s life. Why would it be immoral? Religious people generally say because that person’s life has value in the eyes of God, or because God tells us to follow the Golden Rule, and his word is final on issues of morality. But if you’re not religious, why should you follow the Golden Rule? Why does it hold any moral weight at all, rather than mere practical advantage?
I think the discussion we are really having is about the question: Whichever you choose, the dog or Terry Schiavo, what makes it moral?
Like so many of Jesus’s parables, the Good Samaritan is not simply an ethical tale. It is an allegory for Adam/mankind, Christ, and his Church.
I actually don’t think this is true.
Most Asian societies (including India, China, and others) accept lying as a matter of course – acceptable expediency or for reasons of pride.
Human life is not equally valued in societies that routinely practice infanticide – Korea and China.
In India, the caste system led to vastly different values placed on human life.
Islam only extends the law to believers.
If someone tries to kill YOU, then you are commanded to kill them first. Self-Defense is absolutely a principle in response to the threat of murder. But you cannot kill a third party when someone threatens your life to force you to do so.
Is the implication that people simply won’t do the good thing for its own sake? I believe that there can be practical advantage in that very thing: that doing the right thing for its own sake provides us with satisfaction which is otherwise unfulfilled.
I pulled a fast one on you with Terry Schiavo: That isn’t a choice between good and evil, but a choice of evils. However, I think choosing one of them is clearly less morally defensible than the other.
Choosing to save the infant is far more defensible than saving Terry Schiavo in such a life-or-death scenario for what seem to me to be obvious reasons. Under no circumstances should you save your dog – he can swim for himself.
Most people are clearly decent to each other when times are good.
It is during times of crisis and stress that people are tested. When hungry or scared or desperate, in extremis, we learn whether people truly fear G-d or ultimately just do whatever they feel like they need to do. Without a foundational text, morality inevitably becomes very squirrelly during those times. And even with that touchstone available, it is very hard to force oneself to make good choices.
I think the confusion is that the way you worded your previous response, it could be interpreted to mean that if you saw someone about to kill a ten year old girl, you wouldn’t have the moral justification to shoot that predator. I don’t believe that is what you mean. Surely it is moral to protect the innocent lives of others by taking another’s life if it is the only way to save them and you are in a position to do so.
Some are; many of us aren’t.
And of course it seems fairly demonstrable that those societies were hindered by these beliefs. After all, how does institutionalized distrust help people to build better societies? It doesn’t. As a result, these societies were at a competitive disadvantage to ours.
The western tradition of law and individual rights stretches back as far as the Tables of Hammurabi. It was these that ultimately inspired a great deal of Hebrew culture.
Each of the bolded items in the quoted comment above assumes we have a definition of good and evil. I thought this thread was about how one can define good and evil in the first place without resorting to “it makes me feel good to help people” — which is what I assume you mean by “doing the right thing for its own sake provides us with satisfaction”.
Not exactly. Jews often suffer from what we call a “ghetto mentality”. My name for it is “Jewish Intellectual Disease” which is a form of indecision that asserts that if one just collects enough data and things about something for enough time, the right answer will become apparent.
Up until the end, the Jews were never QUITE sure – sure enough to overcome herd mentality and assurances that they were just being moved, that there was nothing else to do, that resisting was counterproductive, that killing loyal hardworking people was simply irrational, etc.
In other words, Jews did not generally fight back NOT because of Jewish Law, but because thousands of years of living in other peoples’ countries taught us to roll with the punches, to outstmart the enemy instead of trying to outfight them.
We agree on this. Indeed, evil exists in my theology because WE have not eradicated it. We are personally and collectively responsible for all that ails the world.
You assume that people in those societies agree that our society is better. People in those societies on the whole probably believe that our society is worse off than they are, or at the very least not any better. You’re taking a chauvinistic view about the superiority of our society, but what is the basis of your claim? Material weath? Why is that the most important measure of whether your morality is working?