Anonymous asked: Perhaps, there is a better way pof organizing society, but for all its flaws, the religious (though not necessarily institutionalized religion) impulse has done a great deal of good in organizing society. Without the external measuring stick of a deity, how can humans really assert we are equal? Science and changes to human biology (trans-humanism) could make this an ever more salient issue. If we're not equal in a deity's eyes, why is anything really wrong from a moral or ethical standpoint?
Dear Anonymous:
Thanks for your most interesting questions.
Please note that I did not say that secularization would yield a better organization of society; I have only suggested that this would constitute a very different organization of society than the theological organization of society which has prevailed throughout human history. It seems to me that, if human civilization continues in its development, that it is nearly inevitable that, at some point in time, human society will move on to another paradigm of organization and the Theological Age will have passed.
You asked, “Without the external measuring stick of a deity, how can humans really assert we are equal?”
How do we know that this is an external measure? The tradition that runs from Feuerbach through Durkheim to Joseph Campbell understands manifestations of religious beliefs to be projections of the human psyche. If this is the case, this is no external measuring stick, but simply measuring ourselves against an image of ourselves. And in so far as we do not know what we are doing when we do this (i.e., when we mistake projections of the human psyche for something external to ourselves), we profoundly misunderstand ourselves. I do not think that much good can come from failed self-understanding.
You also asked, “If we’re not equal in a deity’s eyes, why is anything really wrong from a moral or ethical standpoint?”
This goes all the way back to Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue, in which Socrates, in trying to answer the question — “What is piety?” — asks his interlocutors, “Is that which is pious (τὸ ὅσιον) pious because it is loved by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is pious?” The nature of your question (because it so closely resembles Dostoyevsky’s claim that, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted”) suggests that you prefer the second horn of the dilemma (correct me if I am wrong) such that the pious is pious because it is loved by the gods. This is generally known as “divine command theory,” though I prefer F. H. Bradley’s colorful term, since he called it the “do it or be damned theory of morals.” Bradley moreover when on to comment that, “We are not concerned with this opinion as a theological doctrine, and will merely remark that, as such, it appears to us to contain the essence of irreligion…” (Ethical Studies, p. 57)
To my unsympathetic eye, then, the upshot of this is that any morality supposedly raised on theological foundations is no morality at all. On the contrary, the very fact that theological foundations for morality are asserted demonstrates the inability of the claimant to understand what he is talking about.
And now please allow me to ask one question of you in turn: both of your questions presuppose that human equality is central to morality. Throughout most of human history no one even imagined human equality, much less that this would be a good thing. Almost all advocates of theologically founded morality have argued for the inequality of human beings (although others have argued for this as well, as in Aristotle’s famous claim that some men are slaves by nature). So here is my question: why should we assume that human (moral) equality is a good thing, or a necessary prerequisite for morality?
I could easily write a treatise in response to your questions, so I will call the above good enough for now, although I may return in the future to your very interesting perspective on transhumanism.
Best wishes,
Nick
