Morality and Religion: What are the true moral prescriptions?

First off, these are obviously enormous topics, so I will give only cursory thoughts here. Blog posts are not the ideal medium for discussions about these kinds of things, but I am hoping that the blog itself will be. That is, I am optimistic that an insightful and comprehensive examination of these issues and others like them will unfold over time as more and more posts are added. Also keep in mind that my ultimate concern here is not merely to discuss abstractly these issues. It is to raise my daughter to be a moral person.

Given that I work on political philosophy and have a background in ethics, I know a fair amount about morality. Or to be more precise, I know a fair amount about what human beings in Western Civilization have thought about morality. Note the difference here. Being educated about the philosophical inquiry into morality does not necessarily mean that one actually knows anything about the true nature of morality. This connection depends on whether philosophy has actually gotten anything right about moral questions.

Many, if not most, people in the U.S. consider morality and religion to be inextricably connected, and as a matter of historical fact, this is most definitely the case - at least in Western Civilization. I do think, however, that it is possible to separate religion and morality conceptually if not historically. Explaining why I believe this will take some time and multiple posts to accomplish.

To begin, it will be helpful to distinguish between several fundamental questions that arise from thinking about morality and to deal with them one at a time. There are at least four of these that, while intimately connected, are none-the-less distinct. What are the true moral prescriptions? How do we know that these prescriptions are true? Why should we act in accordance with them? And how should we educate our children if we want to maximize the chances that they will act in accordance with these prescriptions.

I will focus today on the first question. Most major contemporary philosophical theories of normative ethics more or less agree on the set of moral prescriptions. There are the standard prohibitions against lying, stealing, murdering, etc, and the standard norms about acting benevolently, charitably, impartially with respect to morally irrelevant characterictics (race, gender, etc.) and so on.

Before discussing how religion bears on this question, it is helpful to get clear about our terms. Consider that any given religious tradition (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.) grounds numerous interpretations of their primary religious texts. Different interpretations vary somewhat with respect to the set of moral prescriptions that they hold to be true and operative in human life. For example, the Bible has been interpreted historically in such a way that it was thought to justify the enslavement of people of African descent in the U.S., but it has also been interpreted in a way that condemns slavery. Let us call the set of moral prescriptions that are supported by a particular interpretation of a religious text a relevatory theory of morality. So, the Christian Bible provides the ground for multiple relevatory theories of morality.

It is probably safe to say that most contempory relevatory theories of morality agree for the most part on the list of prescriptions of the philosophical theories. Noteworthy areas of disagreement can be seen in the Dominionist Christian prohibition until very recently (May 2000) of interracial dating on their university campuses and of course in the conservative Christian and Islamic opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. These are substantive disagreements, and for reasons that will become apparent in subsequent posts, they are relevant to my ultimate conclusions about how to raise Abby.

The bottom line is this. With respect to the question of what set of moral prescriptions are true, most contemporary philosophical theories of morality mostly agree with most contemporary relevatory theories. There is an overlapping consensus among many different theories of morality as to the basic list of moral rules. We should not lie, steal, or murder, and we should treat ourselves and others with respect and benevolence. Let us call this the basic list. In the big picture, this should give us confidence that these prescriptions are true. So regardless of how I answer the other three questions, I will, at the very least, teach Abby to live in accordance with the basic list. Obviously.

As always comments are welcome.