4.2.3 Non-Religious Foundations for Morality
Non-religious foundations for moral values include philosophy, compassion, and rational arguments based on enlightened self-interest.
Although religion remains strong overall, there are many people who not see themselves as religious. They wouldn’t refer to religious teachings when making decisions about moral questions. According to humanism.co.uk:
“Throughout recorded history there have been non-religious people who have believed that this life is the only life we have, that the universe is a natural phenomenon with no supernatural side, and that we can live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity”.
Nick Spencer’s article, The search for the secular Jesus, describes efforts to extract the moral teachings of Christianity from the mystical elements. He argues that these are unsuccessful because, without a religious context, they fail to explain Jesus’s authority. As described in the previous section (4.2.2), religious language, belief, and authority depend upon a concept of the divine. To that extent his argument is valid, as regards the nature of the authority. It is nonetheless possible to provide a rational justification for many Christian teachings, which have intrinsic value.
For non-religious foundations for moral values, the arguments must be self-supporting. If obedience to God is not accepted as a basis for a moral code, and if people believe that they only have earthly lives, there are other ways of demonstrating why good behaviour is desirable. The Golden Rule is a sound basis for moral behaviour:
don’t treat others in ways that you wouldn’t want to be treated.
The following sub-sections describe different types of argument to demonstrate this:
● Many philosophers have endorsed the Golden Rule in their writings (4.2.3.1).
● It has been shown that humans evolved with a sense of compassion that prompts people to avoid harming others (4.2.3.2).
● There is also a rational argument based upon ‘enlightened self-interest’: everyone benefits if people don’t normally hurt each other (4.2.3.3).
This page is intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. An archived copy of it is held at https://www.patternsofpower.org/edition04/423b.htm