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Lesson 5

 Ethics and Religion in a Globalized World

Learning Outcomes:

1. Differentiate ethics from religion

2. Appreciate the role of religion in a globalized world

Religious ethics concerns belief and practices of what is good or bad,

right or wrong, virtuous or vicious, from a religious point of view. A
Christian ethic, for instance, may be based on radical teachings of the
religious leader Jesus Christ about loving one’s neighbor, being a Good
Samaritan, loving one’s enemies, being guided by the Father’s Will, and the
like. For some, the religious response is what is really needed concerning
the challenges posed by globalization and other contemporary issues.

Religion and Ethics

Ethics- may be defined as a system of moral principles which affect

how people make decisions and lead their lives. Ethics is concerned with
what is good and right for persons and society.

Religion- is defined as “people’s beliefs and opinions concerning the

existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement
in the universe and human life. Religion denotes the belief in. or the
worship of a god and the worship or service to God or the supernatural. The
term supernatural means “whatever transcends the powers of nature or
human agency”. The term religion is sometimes used interchangeably with
faith, creed, belief system, or conviction.

Religion is also viewed as an organized collection of belief, cultural

systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to an order of existence.
Many religions possess Holy Scriptures, narratives, or sacred accounts that
aim to explain the origin and meaning of life and the universe.

Some submit that the difference between religion and ethics is about
the disparity between revelation and reason. In some measure religion is
based on the idea that God reveals insights about life and its meaning.
These divine insights are compiled in texts such as the Bible, Torah, Koran,
etc., and introduced as revelation.
From strictly humanistic perspective, ethics is based on the tenets of
reason. That is, anything that is not rationally provable cannot be deemed
justifiable. This definition of ethics, however, does not necessarily exclude
religion or a belief in God, for it is also a common belief that human reason,
designed also for ethical discernment, is a gift from a natural God. Indeed

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many ethicists emphasize the relationship, not the difference, between

ethics and religion.

Religion’s Role in Ethics

Religion is necessary for the continued survival of morality as an

integral part of human life, especially, in a globalized world.

“Morality cannot survive, in the long run, if its ties to religion are
cut.” (Glenn C. Graber)

“The attempts to found a morality apart from religion are like the
attempts of children who, wishing to transplant a flower that please them,
pluck it from the roots that seem to them unpleasing and superfluous, and
stick it rootless into the ground. Without religion, there can be no real,
sincere morality, just as without roots there can be no real flower. (Leo
Tolstoy)

Cut-flowers thesis implies that those who believe that morality is a

valuable human institution, and those who wish to avoid moral disaster,
should therefore make every effort to preserve its connection with the true
religion and the sound religious belief that forms its roots. As morality is
currently in a withering stage in this globalized era, its decline can be
identified with the exorbitant secularization of many things.

Basil Willey calls for urgent action to reunite religion and ethics. The
outcome of de-Christianization during the last three or four centuries “is
what we see around us in the world today- the moral and spiritual nihilism
of the modern world, particularly of the totalitarian creeds”.

“The chaotic and bewildered state of the modern world is due to

man’s loss of faith, his abandonment of god and religion. I agree with this
statement (cut-flower thesis), along with the ruin of the religious vision
there went the ruin of moral principles and indeed all values.” (W.T. Stace)

All these statements call attention to the prediction of the cut-

flowers thesis which suggests that morality cannot survive without religion.
Some words of caution are need though: the cut-flowers thesis does not say
that a consequence of abandoning religion leads immediately to murder,
rape, robbery, drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, and the like. Nor does it
say that the morality per se will soon cease to exist if it ties to religion are
cut. However, it does argue that to have a real ground or reason for moral
action, one must admit a religious or theological foundation.

THEISTIC ETHICS

Religions fundamentally endorse theism and theistic ethics or God-

based morality. Theistic ethics believes that a supernatural being called God
is the foundation of morality. God is viewed as the true source of moral

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laws, and as the only plausible cause of moral obligations which possess
overriding and binding character.

The theory holds that the truth of moral judgments depends on God’s
will. In theism, “X is moral” means “God wants us or a particular agent to
do X”. As to how we can know God’s will, proponents admit sources like
revelation (Holy Scriptures), divinely guided by human reason, and God’s
laws written in man’s heart (conscience). The theory views ethics as
necessarily linked to true religion and unlike other ethical theories, theism
considers faith in and obedience to God as necessary part o being truly
moral.

1. Theistic Ethics Can Justify Moral Values

While other ethical views can just postulate good moral principles,
only a theistic view can justify them.

a. Unless morality is grounded on the unchangeable nature of a morally

perfect being, there is no basis for believing in moral substitute.

b. If everything is relative, then there is no good reason why anyone ought

to abstain from doing anything he wishes to do.

c. Only in theism are all persons held morally accountable for their actions
in the real sense.

d. Only the ethics rooted in Moral Law-Giver can be truly prescriptive in any
objective sense of the word.

2. Theistic Ethics Can Explain Moral Accountability

Theists believe that all people have this moral experience of feeling
morally obligated and that this sense of moral responsibility is connected to
God. This idea is consistent with the meaning of religion itself—religion
being a compound of the Latin re and ligare meaning to bind back. The bond
involves the feeling of being morally obligated to live up to some moral laws
that press down on everyone which express God’s will and nature.

Morality is believed to be something above and beyond the ordinary

facts of men’s behavior, and yet quite definitely real, a real law, which
none of us made, but which we find pressing on us. when we admit moral
law, we also affirm a moral lawgiver, for otherwise, it looks impossible to
think of a moral law that has moral force on our behavior.

Theists believe that Someone made the moral law so that moral rule
is not just a disembodied principle but a rule of Somebody. It accounts for
the moral force of the moral law on our behavior, whenever we break
ethical rules, we offend Someone who himself created the law.
Furthermore, theistic ethics maintained that man’s life does not end at the
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grave and that all persons are truly held accountable for all their actions. Its
belief in an afterlife entails that evil and wrong will be expelled;
righteousness and virtue will surely be vindicated.

3. Theistic Ethics Has no Real Accountability in non-Theism

With reference to theism, we can reasonably say that there is no real

moral accountability for one’s actions in non-theistic ideologies. In
naturalism or secularism, human life just finds its end in grave. Absent in
non- theism is the so-called life after death of theism where the final
reward and punishment- that which accounts for the ultimate justice- will
be given. In this aspect, theism is extensively plausible and better than its
non-theistic counterparts.

The absence of moral accountability in the philosophy of secularism

reduces virtues, like those of compassion and self-sacrifice, to hollow
abstractions. Secularism fails to match theism in supplying this necessary
element for a sound moral foundation

4. The Euthyphro Dilemma

The most common attack against moral theism is this famous

philosophical argument. In Plato’s writing, the ancient Greek philosopher
Socrates asked an insightful question:

“Is a good thing good because God desires it? Or does God desire it
because it is already good?”

If theists go with the latter view, which says God desires moral things
because they are already good, then good and bad are independent of God’s
will- and thus moral theism is incorrect.

On the other hand, if theists answer that moral acts are good just
because God desires them, then cruelty, torture, and maltreatment would
be good if God desires them.

(For proposed solutions for this dilemma, look for the article, “Countering
Euthyphro Dilemma”)

GECC 104 - ETHICS Module 4