Aderleth
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The following is a quote from the Aug. 15 & 22 issue of the New Yorker, and specifically from an article by James Wood, which is a review/analysis of a book entitled The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now:
"Many people... believe that morality is a deliverance of God, and that without God there is no morality - that in a secular world 'everything is permitted.' You can hear this on Fox news; it is behind the drive to have the Ten Commandments displayed in courtrooms. But philosophers like Kitcher [one of the essayists in the book] remember what Socrates tells Euthryphro, who supposed that the good could be defined by what the gods had willed: if what the gods will is based on some other criterion of goodness, divine will isn't what makes something good; but if goodness is simply determined by divine will there's no way for us to assess that judgment. In other words if you believe that God ordains morality - constitutes it through his will - you still have to decide where God gets morality from. If you are inclined to reply, "Well, God is goodness; He invents it," you threaten to turn morality into God's plaything, and you deprive yourself of any capacity to judge that morality."
Thoughts? Comments?
(As a side note, I'd rather like to hear what religious people think about this issue, and was tempted to put this in the religion forum for that reason. This is why I don't like the fact that we've split religion and philosophy into two separate forums. This topic is about both, and there are many others like it.)
"Many people... believe that morality is a deliverance of God, and that without God there is no morality - that in a secular world 'everything is permitted.' You can hear this on Fox news; it is behind the drive to have the Ten Commandments displayed in courtrooms. But philosophers like Kitcher [one of the essayists in the book] remember what Socrates tells Euthryphro, who supposed that the good could be defined by what the gods had willed: if what the gods will is based on some other criterion of goodness, divine will isn't what makes something good; but if goodness is simply determined by divine will there's no way for us to assess that judgment. In other words if you believe that God ordains morality - constitutes it through his will - you still have to decide where God gets morality from. If you are inclined to reply, "Well, God is goodness; He invents it," you threaten to turn morality into God's plaything, and you deprive yourself of any capacity to judge that morality."
Thoughts? Comments?
(As a side note, I'd rather like to hear what religious people think about this issue, and was tempted to put this in the religion forum for that reason. This is why I don't like the fact that we've split religion and philosophy into two separate forums. This topic is about both, and there are many others like it.)