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Many of us internalized the ethical norms that guide our lives via our childhood religious training. We were taught the Ten Commandments for example. This early training far from being the that and other militant atheists think it is had a very positive effect on us in forming our consciences and making of us the basically decent human beings we are. I am not saying that moral formation is possible only within a religion; I am saying that some religions do an excellent job of transmitting and inculcating life-guiding and life-enhancing ethical standards. (By the way. I use 'ethical' and 'moral' interchangeably as I explain.)
Religion is worse than an irrelevance as regards the inculcation of morality for the following reasons: in an individualistic society where personal wealth is the chief if not the sole measure of achievement a morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor that says it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for the rich to enter heaven and preaches selflessness towards one's neighbour and complete obedience to a deity — such a morality wholly opposed to the norms and practices not just accepted but extolled in our society has little to offer. Most people ignore the contrast between such views and the universal instruction to go forth and multiply one's income and possessions; and obey the latter.
And when religious fundamentalists add a preparedness to incarcerate women mutilate genitals amputate hands murder bomb and terrorise — all in the name of faith — then religious morality becomes not just irrelevant but dangerous. With such examples and contrasts it has less than nothing to offer proper moral debate. (. Oxford UP. 2003 p. 8)
The first premise is true and so is the second if the religion in question is Christianity which is quite obviously what Grayling has in mind. The conclusion however does not follow from the premises. Indeed,it is hard to see how the conclusion is so much as relevant to the premises. From two unexceptionable facts. Grayling leaps to the conclusion that religion is useless for the promotion of moral behavior. Now that is a non sequitur of mind-numbing propertions. It is like arguing:
The two arguments have the same form so they are either both valid or both invalid. Obviously they are both invalid. Surely Grayling a liberal would reject the parody argument as invalid. So if he can for a moment rein in his hatred of religion he should be able to see that the original argument is also invalid.
The conclusions of both arguments are plainly false. What the Islamic world needs is precisely a good dose of classical liberalism with its Enlightenment values. The fact that these values go against the grain of the accepted norms in these benighted societies is obviously no argument against Enlightenment values! To think otherwise is to fall into an obvious fact/value confusion. You cannot discredit the value of toleration by pointing to the fact that people are intolerant. Similarly you cannot show that Christian values are untenable or irrelelvant or useless by pointing to the fact that they go against such modes of behavior as piling up loot to the exclusion of all higher pursuits.
Grayling is sloppy here again but I would put his first argument like this:1. Any morality that is wholly opposed to the norms and practices not just accepted but extolled in a society has little to offer (to the members of that society).2. Our society extols personal wealth as a (the?) norm.3. Any morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc. is wholly opposed to personal wealth.4. Therefore any morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc. is wholly opposed to the norms and practices of our society.5. Hence any morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc. has little to offer (to the members of our society). A few minor problems might need to be fixed but this is very close to being a valid argument. The question is whether the premises are all true. (1) strikes me as dubious. For instance suppose there is an anti-Semitic society. Does a morality which opposes such discrimination have nothing to offer to that society? Surely so.
Grayling's "second argument" (if we want to think of it as an argument rather than merely an assertion) should look like this it seems to me:9. If some religious fundamentalists supplement standard religious morality in such a way that it promotes incarcerating women mutilating genitals etc. then this enriched religious morality "has less than nothing to offer proper moral debate."10. Some religious fundamentalists supplement standard religious morality in such a way that it promotes incarcerating women mutilating genitals etc. Therefore11. This enriched religious morality "has less than nothing to offer proper moral debate."This seems to me to be the closest thing we've seen yet to a sound argument from Grayling.
Bill. I notice that Grayling switches between relative and absolute conceptions of morality as it suits his immediate purpose. In trying to argue that (Christian) religious moral teaching is irrelevant to morality in Western society he points out that wealth is the primary measure of achievement within that society an argument that implicitly assumes a culturally relativist view of morality. But then when he wants to argue that religious teaching is immoral he condemns the norms of another society as inculcated by that society's religious teaching whereas if he were consistent he would say that those norms are moral for that society.
Spur,We agree that in the first paragraph quoted above. Grayling is giving an argument. For he is trying to support one assertion by adducing others. Not all discourse is argumentative but this piece of discourse obviously is. But it seems to me that you misidentify the argument by misidentifying the conclusion. The conclusion of his first argument is given in his first sentence: "Religion is worse than an irrelevance as regards the inculcation of morality. ." What comes after are his reasons (his premises) in support of this assertion. You however take his conclusion to be. "any morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc. has little to offer (to the members of our society)." The argument you present doesn't capture what Grayling is getting at. He wants to show that religion has no positive role to play in inculcating moral behavior in people. What I have presented as his argment is what he actually says. The fact that it is a worthless argument does not show that it is not the argument he gives. Of course there is a principle of charity that we ought to employ when we interpret others. But exegetical charity does not extend to ascribing valid arguments to a person who is plainly giving an invalid argument.
Deuce,Thanks for the comment. Your point has merit. Grayling clearly thinks that clitorectomy is objectively and nonrelatively wrong but he also seems to assume that what is the accepted norm in the USA and UK namely the pursuit of personal wealth above all else is a genuine norm just because it is accepted as such -- which suggests moral relativism on his part. But as you clearly see a moral relativist is obviously in no position to criticize any other society and its practices. Actually. I think Grayling's mistake is even more idiotic. He seems to think that a morality that goes against what is actually done cannot be a valid morality -- which is a blatant fact/value confusion. Christianity preaches love of God and neighbor over love of. How is that morality refuted or rendered irrelevant by the mere fact that in Western societies the love of Mammon is paramount?
Bill,I think that to some degree both of our attempts to reconstruct Grayling's "arguments" exhibit a lack of fit with the text. As you correctly point out the conclusion of my version ("any morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc. has little to offer (to the members of our society)") is weaker than Grayling's claim at the beginning of the passage ("Religion is worse than an irrelevance as regards the inculcation of morality"). But at the same time your version leaves something out: namely the idea "such a morality wholly opposed to the norms and practices not just accepted but extolled in our society has little to offer." As long as your reconstruction fails to account for this statement it's hasty to conclude that Grayling's reasoning is invalid. In your reconstruction of the second "argument" you interpret Grayling as claiming that "Religious fundamentalists are prepared to incarcerate women mutilate genitals etc." It is clear from your reaction to this that what you mean to be imputing to Grayling is the claim that "All religious people are prepared to incarcerate women mutilate genitals etc." (After all you say that "To tar all religionists with the excesses of some Islamic fundamentalists is too primitive a mistake to warrant further commentary.") But clearly Grayling says nothing of the sort. His claim was that when fundamentalists are prepared to do such-and-such then religious morality becomes worse that irrelevant. Suppose I were to say that when certain greedy politicians take bribes the whole political process becomes a sham and you replied to this by saying. "To tar all politicians with the excesses of some immoral politicians is too primitive a mistake to warrant further commentary." I could justifiably reply that I only claimed that certain politicians take bribes not that all politicians (or even all greedy politicians) take bribes. By the same token. Grayling implies only that certain religious fundamentalists go to extremes not all religionists. I think my reconstructions would fit the text better if combined and refined in the following way:1. Any morality that is wholly opposed to the norms and practices not just accepted but extolled in a society has little to offer (to the members of that society).2. Our society extols personal wealth as a (the?) norm.3. Any morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc. is wholly opposed to personal wealth.4. Therefore any morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc. is wholly opposed to the norms and practices of our society.5. Hence any morality that enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc. has little to offer (to the members of our society).6. Religious morality enjoins you to give your all to the poor etc.7. Therefore religious morality has little to offer (to the members of our society); that is religious morality is irrelevant as regards the inculcation of morality.8. Further if some religious fundamentalists supplement standard religious morality in such a way that it promotes incarcerating women mutilating genitals etc. then religious morality is "not just irrelevant but dangerous" and "has less than nothing to offer proper moral debate."9. Some religious fundamentalists supplement standard religious morality in such a way that it promotes incarcerating women mutilating genitals etc.10. Hence religious morality is "not just irrelevant but dangerous" and "has less than nothing to offer proper moral debate."11. Thus religious morality is irrelevant as regards the inculcation of morality and is "not just irrelevant but dangerous," having "less than nothing to offer proper moral debate."This way of interpreting Grayling is immune to your criticism that I have gotten the conclusion wrong. It is true that I am being very charitable but I think this is appropriate. As far as I can tell there is nothing in this most recent interpretation that does violence to the text and this way at least I don't have to suppose that a really smart philosopher is guilty of a "howling non sequitur" which he "cannot be so dumb as not to realize" is a non sequitur. The appealing thing about my reading is that at least we have Graying making a valid argument--something an intelligent philosopher could be viewed as accepting--even though it is far from sound and is even dubious.
Note that in my new reconstruction the premises are (1). (2). (3). (6). (8) and (9). The other statements are inferred from these. (1). (2) and (8) come almost verbatim from Grayling's text. (3) very nearly comes from the text verbatim. So (6) and (9) are the only premises I'm imputing to Grayling that aren't explicitly present in his argument and a good case can be made that he is implicitly relying upon them. I suspect that if Grayling were asked to clarify himself and to bring his argument up to proper philosophical standards it would end up looking something like what I've suggested.
Jesus as depicted in the NT advocated a morality which "enjoins you to give your all to the poor that says it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for the rich to enter heaven and preaches selflessness towards one's neighbour and complete obedience to a deity"?
Nor. I believe do any other major Christian sects. I suppose this isn't the place for detailed doctrine nor am I qualified to explain the doctrines other than those I was taught in a pretty middle-of-the-road evangelical church but here are some points:1. Jesus did tell one young man that in order to enter the Kingdom of God he had to sell everything and give it to the poor. However this was not a generic prescription it was a story with a point:
a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked. "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" .. he said. "Go sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:17-22)
Jesus was offering to trade the man eternal riches for a bit of transitory fluff and the man was sad! That is the point of this passage not that we should all give everything we own to the poor but that if we value transitory things more than eternal things then we are not ready for eternal life.2. The passage about the camel through the eye of the needle follows this story --Jesus is teaching about what just happened. He isn't teaching that there is something wrong with being rich but that the rich by way of their material comfort in this world are too unconcerned with matters of the soul. He also adds that with God all things are possible: that the rich can be saved.3. The word "selflessness" is ambiguous and is wrong or right depending on how you take it. Jesus says to love your neighbor "as yourself" not "more than yourself".
Spur writes:In your reconstruction of the second "argument" you interpret Grayling as claiming that "Religious fundamentalists are prepared to incarcerate women mutilate genitals etc." It is clear from your reaction to this that what you mean to be imputing to Grayling is the claim that "All religious people are prepared to incarcerate women mutilate genitals etc." (After all you say that "To tar all religionists with the excesses of some Islamic fundamentalists is too primitive a mistake to warrant further commentary.") But clearly Grayling says nothing of the sort. His claim was that when fundamentalists are prepared to do such-and-such then religious morality becomes worse that irrelevant. Not so. You are failing to perceive that G is making a point about religion as such. Religion as such has nothing positive to contribute to moral formation. The problem is that you have not properly identified his conclusion which is stated at the beginning of the first para. You also fail to see the connection between the two paras. The first gives his first reason for his conclusion while his second para gives his second reason. Note that in the first para he speaks of 'reasons.' The plural means that there are at least two reasons. Two reasons for the same thesis. I captured those reasons in my reconstructions. The fact that you can cobble together a valid argument using his words proves nothing except perhaps an excess of exegetical charity. But there is little point in discussing this further since there is no algorithm for extracting an explicit argument from a specimen of (sloppy) OL argumentative discourse. Plus you don't have the full context. I have his five-page essay. "Moral Education," in front of me. And I have read most of the book in which the essay is embedded. I am sure you will agree that understanding of context is crucial to the understanding of any stretch of discourse.
Related article:
http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1194909503.shtml
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