Jeune Street

The debate between theists and athiests is charged with emotion to the point where one doubts whether it is a more of a shouting match than a dialogue. It's refreshing to see Dissent magazine publish a fascinating article that represents a more mature approach to the very serious philosophical questions raised by the debate.

Andrew Koppleman tackles Charles Taylor's excellent recent book (still working my way through it), A Secular Age, in which Taylor argues that secularism is a product of changes in Christian theology. As Christianity attempted to ground itself in this-worldly concerns, the shift from transcendence to immanence produced a more general 'disenchantment' of the world. While Taylor's book is an intellectual history of secularism, its premises reflect his Catholic convictions -- and Koppleman critiques what Taylor sees as a clear weakness of secularism, its shaky ground for moral reasoning:

Taylor has noted that a central element of ordinary moral reasoning is "strong evaluation": the "discriminations of right or wrong, better or worse, higher or lower, which are not rendered valid by our own desires, inclinations, or choices, but rather stand independent of these and offer standards by which they can be judged."

It is doubtless true that for many people strong evaluation is inseparable from religion. On the other hand, there are secularists for whom the rejection of what they regard as religion's superstitions and fanaticisms is as much a matter of strong evaluation as their commitment to human rights (a term I'll use to represent not just the right to be free from torture and indefinite detention without trial, but more generally the claim to decent treatment for all human beings). Their commitment to human rights lacks any further grounding. It certainly doesn't follow from their secularism. As Friedrich Nietzsche showed, the rejection of religion can easily be accompanied by the rejection of human rights.

What secularists are committed to might be called "Naked Strong Evaluation": the idea, unsupported by any particular metaphysical claims, that the commitment to decent treatment for all human beings is a mandatory criterion for judging our desires and actions.

Koppleman's argument is a sophisticated version of the trite atheist humanists line: You don't have to be religious to be moral. Of course you don't, on an individual level. We each have a remarkable capacity to discern what is right and good, and history is replete with examples of people who triumphed over evil on their own moral steam.

I think that religion offers more than just independent standards to judge moral behaviour, though. On a social level it provides a shared source of moral authority -- a common point of reference to which people submit themselves. At an individual level, religion also provides a deep emotional/spiritual connection that reaches to the roots of human motivation. I'm not talking about fear of hell or hope of heaven... something more akin to aligning oneself with a higher goodness and a divine pattern of living.

Individual moral reasoning is a gift of being human, and 'naked strong evaluation' is a moral posture that atheists should aspire to adopt. But respect for human rights, along with other shared moral goals, requires more than just an individual stance; it needs a social pattern designed to fulfill a higher purpose, with individuals who not only know what is right but are motivated to act uprightly. I'm not convinced that the humanist atheism espoused by Koppleman will take us there.