Atheism and morality

There is a common belief amongst theists that its all very well not believing in that there is god, but that the consequences of not doing so somehow undermines the basis of morality. Humanity has no reason to be moral, and – by extension – feels free to commit acts of ‘immorality’. God acts as an overseer of morality.

This argument was more intelligently put forward again in the Washington Post a couple of years back. The author, Michael Gerson, in arguing for a theistic morality, accepts that atheists can do good (he doesn’t, for example, use the tired argument of fundamentalists that attributes (falsely) Nazism and Stalinism to “atheism”); and that people – atheist or not – are capable of both acts of kindness and cruelty. However, he does go on to say:

So the dilemma is this: How do we choose between good and bad instincts? Theism, for several millennia, has given one answer: We should cultivate the better angels of our nature because the God we love and respect requires it. While many of us fall tragically short, the ideal remains.

Atheism provides no answer to this dilemma.[...] In a purely material universe, what possible moral basis could exist to condemn them? Atheists can be good people; they just have no objective way to judge the conduct of those who are not.

There are two problems with this argument.

The first relates to the definition of atheism. Atheism is properly defined as an absence of belief in a god. One of the problems is that, unusally and purely for historical reasons, we have a label for this particular kind of absence of belief. One normally labels ideologies and followers of particular schools of thought, that is, positively about claims and people who make them. So one is a fascist, socialist, Jewish, Hindu, logical positivist, neo-realist, Cartesian, etc. But in this case, it’s actually an absence of belief that is labelled. It’s used negatively to describe something not believed in. I cannot think of any other example where this occurs.

There’s no problem inherent with that, except that it can lead people to assume that if you are an atheist, you must therefore you must hold particular views. The use of such a lable implies a world-view, school of thought or some kind of acceptance of basic principles to which the term (“atheist”) is also assumed to refer. There’s no reason, actually, for an atheist to subscribe to the principles of evolutionary biology or “Big Bang” theory, and all the other things that atheists are supposedly believe in, based on his or her disbelief in a god. In fact it’s not what they believe in that makes them an atheist, but rather what they don’t believe in – gods, such as the ones posited by ancient and modern religions, whether it be the Ancient Greek religion, or Christianity. Given this, it is of no surprise that “atheism” (the absence of belief in a god) does not offer moral guidance. It offers absolutely nothing, and is not supposed to, over and above a convenient label for people who follow a particular faith to describe thouse who happen not to share that faith.

The second is point is more prosaic – that is, religious people and religious societies have done, and continue to do, ‘bad’ things: it’s an old argument, but no the less valid for it. One doesn’t have to cite the Crusades or the witch burning and hanging, or the inquisition, etc., etc. The point is that with theism, people are in fact not noticeably morally better than without – so why subscribe to theistic morality?

Rather than put forward an argument for theistic morality, Gerson rather examines what he appears to believe to be an “atheist” response, his previous claim about atheism lacking any moral answer notwithstanding: ‘Some argue that a careful determination of our long-term interests — a fear of bad consequences — will constrain our selfishness.’ He dismisses this, partly because ‘Some people are very good at the self-centered exploitation of others’, and without any ‘moral basis’, there is no way for atheists to ‘judge the conduct’ of other people.

It’s a naive caricature of what a so-called “atheistic” (ie secular) morality might look like, to begin with (if indeed that’s what it is supposed to be). And of course there are atheists and who are able, objectively, to decide that person x is morally wrong in a given action, based on their own secular moral framework: objectivity is not the issue. But the idea that morality needs something akin to a divine seal of approval (which presumably is what ‘moral basis’ refers to) is particularly odd: is it really the case that murder is wrong for the theist because – and only because – God said so? Is this the only thing that is stopping theists from killing each other? And does it actually stop theists from committing murder? In Gerson words, how effective is it actually at stopping the ‘bad instincts’ of human nature, such as ‘cruel exploitation, uncontrollable rage, icy selfishness and a range of other less desirable traits’?

Of course it’s not as simple as that, which is precisely the point: the other factors are as likely to be social, secular, factors or individual human failings; not theological. All of which begs the question, what is it that a theistic morality actually provides that a secular morality does not? After all, why is slavery wrong, a practice the Bible appears not just to condone (in both Testaments), but more obviously fails to condemn as an immoral practice? Why is it right – as most people believe – that people should have religious freedom to worship in their own way, if they choose to? From a moral point of view, humans are in fact no better off with religious-inspired, theistic morality than they are without it.

Finally, what is the theistic answer that Gerson promotes? It’s that ‘We should cultivate the better angels of our nature because the God we love and respect requires it’. It’s genuinely difficult to see how this differs from a secular version, which might be: “cultivate our better nature because all we have on this planet is each other”.

Atheism and the Archbishop

In 2004, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, gave a lecture in which he began with an examination of “atheism”. It is his conception of what “atheism” is that is at issue. At one level, the analysis of atheism by Williams is insightful. He identifies two distinctive strands of modern atheism:

1) Protest atheism, characterised as a moral repugnance at the concept of an all-loving God who allows evil to exist in the world, or repugnance at the vindictive Old Testament tyrant (the name Dawkins springs to mind here).

2) The atheism that views religion as some sort of force for social control, as in Marxism. Here, religion is seen as diverting attention from an imagined “real” state of affairs.

Williams is identifies what might be seen as a sub-division of the first definition, one that says, without any empirical evidence, there is no justification for belief in a God. Stemming from the philosophical school of logical positivism, the intellect is merely consigned to checking that which can be checked, and dismissing all else as ‘emotive noise’.

Taken together, these three elements do give us an insight into atheist thinking – but I’m not sure that he has captured what it means to be an atheist entirely.

To take issue with the way in which he deals with what he sees as the minor strand in modern atheism, firstly. It is depicted as an apparently inexplicable “left-over” from the logical positivist project, when the system itself ‘no longer has much credibility’. Whether or not this account of the origin of this form of atheism is correct, the fact that the logical postivist school of thought lack credibility is in no way detrimental to the insight either proffered by positivism, or supported by positivism – that if there is no empirical evidence, no rational reason for believing in God, then there is equally no rational reaon for doing so. That seems to me the basis of any rational enquiry, and the conclusion one is forced to draw is critical to a significant point that the Archbishop appears to have missed.

For if the existence of God is not subject to empirical study and rational enquiry, and logic and evidence cannot be meaningfully deployed on either of the debate, then belief in God becomes a matter of faith. And at that point, a distinctive, third-type of atheism emerges: the one who simply lacks the faith in any particular version of God brought to his/her attention.

As it falls outside of that realm of rational debate, no reason is necessary or required to justify a lack of faith. When I say that it falls outside of the scope of rational debate, I mean to say that faith is non-rational, rather than irrational – the latter implying a belief – or action – that is utterly inexplicable or contrary to reason. When I say it is non-rational, it is not to preclude sincerely felt intuitions or reasons that may be offered to justify, either the act of faith, or indeed non-faith. But the argument as to whether god exists is ultimately not one that can be settled by rational discourse.

This is a key point, because a number of people of faith tend to believe that there should be reasons for not believing in their particular brand of God, and that these should be produced. I cannot emphasise how erroneous such a contention is. Non-belief does not require any more rational justification than the simple observation this simple observation – that belief in a deity is a matter of personal faith, and personal faith alone. That may not be a satisfactory response for the believer, but the problem lies with the person of faith, not the non-believer. The history of human intellectual endeavours overwhelmingly supports the contention that it belief in anything beyond that which can be rationally proven or reasonably hypothesised (in therefore falsified) is simply not an obligation or necessary to function in society. Three hundred years of modern science is testimony to that.

The idea that a belief in God is a matter of faith, and that non-belief simply arises from a lack of faith, should not come as any surprise. Yet it continually astounds me how quickly it is overlooked. The Archbishop appears to have done so. I’ve heard Christian fundamentalists (in the UK) base their key argument on this simple misunderstanding: humanity (‘mankind’ as they invariably call it) is in rebellion against God through choice – choosing to ignore the Word of God or Jesus, or whatever. The act of choosing is one that assumes a rational can in fact be made – although doesn’t guarantee this as an outcome, of course. Choosing between to Coke and Pepsi assumes that it is possible to do so; and that at least requires that both Coke and Pepsi actually exist. But in the case of God, we’ve already said that it’s an act of faith to believe he exists. The “choice framework” collapses, and it simply becomes a matter of faith or non-faith.

The Archbishop goes on that: ‘In the background is the pervasive assumption of modernity that the intellectual default position is non-religious; but what this fails to see is that non-religiousness is historically and culturally a complex of refusals directed at specific religious doctrines, rather than a pure and primitive vision invaded by religious fictions.’ This is indeed how non-belief has manifested itself in the past. Historically, non-believers – those who thought about such things at any length – were in a minority, dominated by a culture of believers. They were therefore forced to justify their lack of faith, and their ‘refusals directed at specific doctrines’ can, and perhaps should, be seen as coming from a lack of faith in the first place on top of a cultural demand that they should justify themselves. It has little or nothing to do with the ‘assumption of modernity’, which is simply the observation that if one were to grow up in a society without religion, one would not have any specific religious views: Christian or Islamic or Hindu, etc. This assumption recognises the culturally specific nature of religious beliefs, in that respect.

On a final point, Williams observes that atheism should not be seen as a system of belief, to be taught alongside religions in RE lessons in (UK) schools. (Humanism, also mentioned by Williams, is a different case, beyond this post). In this, I agree with him, but for a different reason: a simple rejection of a faith-based belief does not constitute a belief system. Oddly, this is likewise a point that trips up many a believer.

Of sterile debates

This is an editted version in the light of comments received – 16 Sep 2008

There has been an apparent upsurge in anti-atheist websites which try to argue against atheism in ways which are, frankly, baffling. Atheism-Analyzed is one such website: it’s fault lies in the mistaken assumption that “atheism” is a philosohpy or world-view, like a religious world-view. It’s possible to knock down the key arguments individually, but it is largely a thankless task – and an unnecessary one.

It has the hallmarks of the so-called Hitchens v. McGrath debate – a recent pro-Christian critique of which was cheered on from the sidelines over at the intriguingly entitled blog, Atheism is Dead: another blog that claims to use logic and reason in the (very much mistaken) that these are used to prop up a belief system. Mistaken because atheism does not purport do be anything of the sort.

It represents an attempt by religious apologists to move use the methods – namely that of logic and reason – of people they perceive to be as their opponents and attempt to win the argument; a “rationalist turn”, so to speak. It may well be that McGrath got the better of Hitchens; this is to be seen as some sort of victory.

Yet the debate is utterly superfluous, because whether or not religion is a “poison” or not, it has no bearing on any kind of claim religion has to truth: the debate is a red herring.

This is because – contrary to the claims (pdf) of Glenn Peoples – the truth does matter. Peoples states that: “For Hitchens, it should really make no long term difference whether our beliefs about religion are true or not. If we die happy (even if deluded), we have done as best we can.” (point 4) And that “If atheism is true, what exactly is wrong with harmless but false wishful thinking?” (point 18).

Personally, I believe Dawkins to be right to point out in the God Delusion that it insults us – indeed, degrades us – as human beings to believe in things merely for the purposes of comfort. It’s not so much that people believe in things without reason, however, that is central problem (and in which case, may be Peoples may have a point). It is not so much what an individual believes. It’s when they make demands on others who don’t share their beliefs that is the problem; when those people do at least one of two things – either persuade others, or indoctrinate their children, to do or believe those things; or when they try to persuade politicians to do something or not do something because it offends these beliefs – profound beliefs that may be sincerely held, but which disregard rationality and demand that those who don’t share their beliefs should respect and abide by them. And religious people, with their unprovable and untestable claims about holy texts and gods, are in the habit of doing that now.

For that reason alone, the truth of what people believe should matter to both the non-religious and non-believers.

That aside, the heart of the matter of these kinds of “debates”, such as the Hitchen-McGrath debate, is surely this: whatever people have done or not done in the name of religion, it does not amount to evidence of the existence of any particular god or goddess, as required in a rational argument that utilises logic, evidence and reason. And if that’s the case, then there can be no reason to worship or believe in any particular god or goddess; and no reason for the frankly banal debates such as the Hitchens-McGrath debate.