Simon Blackburn: Being Good
Seven threats to ethics
Chapter 1 – The Death of God
For many people, ethics is not only tied up with religion, but is completely settled by it.
Dostoevsky – if God is dead, everything is permitted? – it might seem to be true: without a law-giver,
how can there be a law?
Old Testament : slave-owning society, birth control is a capital crime, keen on child abuse, approves
of fool abuse.
New Testament : emphasis on love, forgiveness, and meekness.
The bible encourages harsh attitudes towards other and ourselves; as fallen creatures endlessly
polluted by sin, and hatred of ourselves inevitably brings hatred of others.
The philosopher who mounted the most famous and sustained attack against the moral climate
fostered by Christianity was Friedrich Nietzsche.
The classic challenge to the idea that ethics can have a religious foundation is provided by Plato, in
the dialogue known as the Euthyphro. The point is that God, or the gods, are not to be thought of as
arbitrary. They have to be regarded as selecting the right things to allow and to forbid.
Bernard Williams – ‘one thought too many’.
Immanuel Kant – it encourages us to act in accordance with a rule, but only because of fear of
punishment or some other incentive; whereas what we really want is for people to act out of respect
for a rule.
The death of God is far from being a threat to ethics.
When ethics is tied up to a religion, the do’s and don’ts are overruled by obedience and
disobedience,
which might be totally unethical (see biblical references). This distorts the very idea of a standard of
conduct: it encourages us to act in accordance with a rule, because of fear of punishment.
Plato: religion gives a mythical clothing and mythical authority to a morality that is just there to begin
with.
Death of God is a necessary cleaning of the ground, revealing ethics for what it really is.
Ethical laws cannot be the arbitrary whims of personalized gods: we can make our own laws.
Chapter 2: Relativism
- So, when there is no supernatural authority, we are faced simply with rules of our own
making. The thought arises that the rules may be made in different ways by different people
at different times. Then it follows, that there is no one truth (relativism). Attractive side of
relativism is the toleration of different ways of living.
- Comes from scare for colonial certainty (just our way of doing things is right).
- There must be limitations to relativism: if a society deems slavery normal, it really isn’t.
problem is that the ‘truth’ for society is made by society’s suppressors.
o Norms and standards that are transcultural
Seven threats to ethics
Chapter 1 – The Death of God
For many people, ethics is not only tied up with religion, but is completely settled by it.
Dostoevsky – if God is dead, everything is permitted? – it might seem to be true: without a law-giver,
how can there be a law?
Old Testament : slave-owning society, birth control is a capital crime, keen on child abuse, approves
of fool abuse.
New Testament : emphasis on love, forgiveness, and meekness.
The bible encourages harsh attitudes towards other and ourselves; as fallen creatures endlessly
polluted by sin, and hatred of ourselves inevitably brings hatred of others.
The philosopher who mounted the most famous and sustained attack against the moral climate
fostered by Christianity was Friedrich Nietzsche.
The classic challenge to the idea that ethics can have a religious foundation is provided by Plato, in
the dialogue known as the Euthyphro. The point is that God, or the gods, are not to be thought of as
arbitrary. They have to be regarded as selecting the right things to allow and to forbid.
Bernard Williams – ‘one thought too many’.
Immanuel Kant – it encourages us to act in accordance with a rule, but only because of fear of
punishment or some other incentive; whereas what we really want is for people to act out of respect
for a rule.
The death of God is far from being a threat to ethics.
When ethics is tied up to a religion, the do’s and don’ts are overruled by obedience and
disobedience,
which might be totally unethical (see biblical references). This distorts the very idea of a standard of
conduct: it encourages us to act in accordance with a rule, because of fear of punishment.
Plato: religion gives a mythical clothing and mythical authority to a morality that is just there to begin
with.
Death of God is a necessary cleaning of the ground, revealing ethics for what it really is.
Ethical laws cannot be the arbitrary whims of personalized gods: we can make our own laws.
Chapter 2: Relativism
- So, when there is no supernatural authority, we are faced simply with rules of our own
making. The thought arises that the rules may be made in different ways by different people
at different times. Then it follows, that there is no one truth (relativism). Attractive side of
relativism is the toleration of different ways of living.
- Comes from scare for colonial certainty (just our way of doing things is right).
- There must be limitations to relativism: if a society deems slavery normal, it really isn’t.
problem is that the ‘truth’ for society is made by society’s suppressors.
o Norms and standards that are transcultural
