Since the 1980s there has been a growing division between private morality and public policy. While people may be scrupulous about their conduct in their private capacity, they are embarrassed to use the vocabulary of morals when it comes to public life. This has come about largely because of the repeated insistence on the virtue of tolerance. Tolerance is indeed a virtue, but its value can be overrated. We live, we are told, in a multi-cultural society, and all cultures must be equally respected and live side by side. Each culture it is supposed has its own system of morality, therefore each must be treated as equally valid, and respected as such. To suppose that there is a shared morality is a form of imperialism. So in politics and legislation the criterion against which to decide for or against a measure cannot be the common good (for who would decide what was good?) but must be expediency, economic value or what is perceived as likely to be popular. In the fevered atmosphere before an election, this absence of a moral dimension is especially damaging: each political party simply tries to devise policies that will win votes, whether they are fair or in accordance with earlier promises or sustainable. And the erosion of morality tends to spill over into the region of private conduct: the goal of increasing the vote for one's own party becomes tangled with the goal of personal advancement and the avoidance of personal economic loss. To make or keep one's own salary is the motive that trumps all other.
The premise on which this political philosophy is based is mistaken. That there are many cultures in our society does not entail that there are many moralities, or that there is no such thing as a shared or common good. Such values as justice, honesty, respect for human lives, compassion, the love of learning - these are not culture-relative. They are recognised as essentially human, and arise out of the aspiration of human beings whatever their particular history or traditions. It is in pursuit of such values as these that public policy can and should be formed. Openly to embrace such aspirations inevitably involves the use of a moral vocabulary, of which we should cease to be ashamed. However there is one important caveat: though many people derive their morality from their religious beliefs, holding that moral principles are a reflection of divine commands, and that without such access to God's will there could be no religion, the morality that should guide political decision-making must be separated from any idea of divine origin. For many people, for one reason or another, the idea of God is meaningless. For them, the appeal to God's laws makes no sense. If they are led to suppose that morality without religion is an impossibility, they will reject morality along with theism. We must be careful to allow that morality can be based on purely human values, derived from our common human needs, and without any necessary appeal to the supernatural. But in a country steeped in a judaeo-Christian religion, the outcome will not be so different.
Mary Warnock will be delivering one of our secular 'sermons' on Political Ethics this Sunday 28 March.
Morality has evolved with humans - it is the basis for society - allowing ppl to be able to live together, to trust, to cooperate. Religious ppl are no more moral than atheists, IMHO.
Posted by: Raisinbred | March 29, 2010 at 06:03 PM
I completely agree.
In my school in Germany in the 80's kids were streamed into either Catholic or Protestant streams for RE. If you weren't a Christian, whether because you had a different faith or were an atheist, then you weren't expected to attend RE lessons. Instead we had Ethics lessons.
These were some of the best lessons I attended at school. We got taught to think and act within an ethical framework, we debated the nature of morality, and were given the tools to make our own conclusions about how we fit into a multi-faith society. I always felt these lessons should have been available to everyone, because they felt more relevant than being taught, in school, about a world-view based on a single religion.
As a result of my Ethics lessons I have always found it odd that people bind ethical behaviour to religion. It seems to be the act of binding that allows that morality to be applied questionably or zealously. An ethical framework can be informed by many things; I know while mine is influenced by having been raised by Christian parents within a predominately Judeo-Christian culture, I also know that it has been influenced by the sum of my life experiences, including the travels I have made, the other faiths I have come into contact with, and my own internal sense of justice over those things I am and am not prepared to tolerate about myself and therefore others. As such I firmly feel that to tie morality to only faith, or even faith, is to reduce it and its ability to bind people together.
Posted by: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=550148178 | March 22, 2010 at 05:31 PM
Incisive, apposite and timely IMO. Thank you :-)
Posted by: Al | March 22, 2010 at 02:05 PM