Moral Development

1. Moral Development

2. Morality and Religion • Is something good because God says it is good or does God say it is good because it is good?

3. Research • Boss: “According to a 2006 Pew Research Center poll, 32 percent of Americans believe that religion and the Bible should be more important than the will of the people in government and political decisions, especially decisions concerning moral issues such as abortion, war, homosexuality, stem cell research, and the death penalty.”

4. Research • Boss: “In addition, while 49 percent believe that ‘conservative Christians have gone too far in trying to impose their religious values on the country,’ even more Americans - 69 percent - believe that ‘liberals have gone too far in trying to keep religion out of the schools and the government’.”

5. Two Theories • Boss: “Divine command theory claims that morality is dependent on or relative to God’s commands and, therefore, can change from time to time and person to person. Natural law theory, on the other hand, maintains that morality is based on universal, unchanging principles and that God commands or approves something because it is right prior to the command.”

6. Question • Can God command you to do something bad, in which case (because God commanded it) it becomes good?

7. Divine Command Theory • Boss: “Just as morality for the cultural relativist is relative to cultural norms and commands, for the divine command theorist, morality is relative to what God commands or wills. There are no independent, universal moral standards by which to judge God’s commands. No other justification is necessary for an action to be right other than that God commanded it.”

8. Holiness? • If someone truly believes they are acting on God’s behalf, then what can we do to persuade them that they need to think again about basic morality?

9. Critique • Boss: “The primary concern with divine command theory is its apparent arbitrariness since there are no objective criteria for us to use to determine whether a particular claim or action was actually based on God’s command.”

10. How Can We Verify? • Boss: “There are no criteria for determining whether God actually issued a particular command. Because divine commands are issued to particular individuals or groups rather than being grounded in universal principles, we are left with no rational or objective means of determining if a person or group actually was commanded by God or if they were mistaken or delusional.”

11. Relativistic Theories • Boss: “Relativistic theories do not allow for rational discussion of what is the right thing to do, thus contributing to a rigid ‘either you’re with us or against us’ mentality. The only way left to resolve differences regarding what God commands is through apathy or violence.”

12. Argument From Ignorance • Fallacy: If you can’t prove someone is wrong so that then makes him or her even more sure that they are right. Atheists will sometimes say that the fact that you can’t prove there is a God means that there is no God. Religious people will argue just the opposite way. But ignorance does not prove anything except that we don’t know.

13. Natural Law Ethics • Boss: “Natural law ethicists disagree with the divine command theories. Instead of an action being right because God commands it, natural law theorists maintain that God commands an action because it is moral beforehand and independently of God’s commanding it at that moment.”

14. Natural Law Theory • Boss: “According to natural law theory, morality is universal and grounded in rational nature rather than being particular and relative to God’s commands. Natural law does not mean laws of physics, but laws of rational human nature, which, unlike the fixed laws of physical nature, are free and autonomous.”

15. The Divine Spark • Boss: “Reason constitutes the divine spark within humans; it is our essence. Natural or moral law is unchanging and eternal. Natural law is universally knowable to humans through reason. It is also universally binding on all humans.”

16. General Guidelines • Boss: “The guidelines contained in natural law are very general, unlike normative moral rules that contain specific content and guidelines for actions such as ‘do not steal.’ According to Thomas Aquinas, the basic principle of natural law is ‘do good and avoid evil’.”

17. Applying Natural Law • Boss: “The Golden Rule of Judeo-Christian religion is another example of one of the principles of natural law. Because the moral guidelines contained in natural law are very general, we need to use our reason in deriving normative rules from natural law and in applying natural law to real-life situations.”

18. Hardwired For Goodness? • We can learn a language when we are babies, whether English, Chinese, or any other language, because we are “hardwired,” so to speak, to learn language. The specific language is simply the software program that is used by our brain (computer). In a similar way, natural law states that we are hardwired to look for the good and to do what is right. It may not be perfect, but it is there as part of our basic working gear in human beings.

19. Critique #1 • Boss: “1. Not all people agree on what is morally required. Because the basic principles of natural law are so general, it is open to divergent interpretations. This problem is further compounded by the fact that humans are not perfectly rational. Because we have imperfect reason and are subject to error, different people may interpret natural law and its application differently. Consequently, reason alone is insufficient to determine what is moral.”

20. Critique #2 • Boss: “2. Natural law theory is based on a dualistic worldview. Natural law assumes that humans are a special creation who have incorporeal souls and, hence, are free and autonomous. As such, humans are qualitatively different from other purely physical animals. However, not only is human reason imperfect, reason is found throughout the animal kingdom to various degrees. In addition, reason can also be programmed into artificial intelligence.”

21. Critique #3 • Boss: “3. Because natural law theory is teleological, the end or fundamental good toward which it is aimed can sometimes become more important than respect for individual rights and dignity.”

22. Critique #4 • Boss: “4. There is disagreement among natural law theorists on the list of fundamental goods. It is simply assumed that we intuitively know what the fundamental goods are. However, not everyone agrees about what these fundamental goods or goals are.”

23. Civil Religion • Boss: “French sociologist and philosopher Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) argued, in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, that God stands in the same relationship to worshippers as society does to its individual members. God is the symbol of society, and each society creates God in its own image.”

24. Sacralizing Cultural Norms • Boss: “By sacralizing cultural norms and values, religion gives these cultural norms a transcendent authority that they would otherwise lack.”

25. A Warning • Religious people want to think religious values and practices are good for a country, but Karl Marx is one among many writers who want to caution us about the problems of mixing church and state. Many of the founders of the United States were equally worried. Patriotism and religion are powerful sources of motivation for both good and bad things. History is clear about that!

26. Civil Religion in America • Boss: “Bellah suggests that the primary role of civil religion is the creation of a sense of cultural or national identity and purpose. He defines civil religion as an institutionalized set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals that provide a religious dimension to a nation’s collective life.”

27. One Nation Under God • Boss: “Today, the belief that the United States was established as a special nation under God exerts a powerful influence on Americans’ beliefs regarding their role in world affairs.”

28. A National Mission? • Bellah says it is not the traditional religion of Christianity or Judaism that tells the U.S. that we should spread democracy. If anything the scriptures advocate for a monarchy. So what happens when you combine basic Christian principles with democracy, capitalism, and patriotism? You get American civil religion.

29. A Divine Plan? • Boss: “This new democratic social order is identified with God’s divine plan for human progression toward moral perfection.” Notice how it mentions “Providence,” but not Jesus or Allah or Krishna. This is not advocating for a specific religion, but for basic religious values that then are combined with basic American values into a new unity that can be called civil religion.

30. Expressions • Boss: “American civil religion expresses itself in symbols such as the American flag, the national anthem, war memorials, national holidays (holy days), and documents that outline our special status and mission as a ‘chosen’ nation, such as the U.S. Constitution. In addition, references to God appear in the Pledge of Allegiance, on our money, and in oaths for public office.”

31. Punishment? • When our country suffers problems such as national disasters, people often look to the moral life of our nation as an explanation. Some ministers have been known to go on national T.V. and explain certain disasters as a response to specific sins.

32. Civil Religion: A Higher Law? • Boss: “In American democracy, although sovereignty officially resides in the people, it is implicitly understood that the ultimate sovereignty rests with God and that our country’s actions are judged by a higher law. The president’s ultimate obligation is to this higher law.”

33. Democracy and Civil Religion • Boss: “In this capacity, if the majority of citizens or elected officials make a decision that the president, as ‘head’ of American civil religion, deems to be at odds with God’s plan, then he can refuse to go along with the majority. This happened when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation (1863).”

34. The Good Side • When Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech part of its effectiveness was that he was appealing to Americans to find this higher calling and higher law. This is the good side of civil religion.

35. The Bad Side • Boss: “By sacralizing cultural norms and values, civil religion gives them a transcendent authority that they would otherwise lack. Rather than looking to natural law to judge a nation, the nation itself becomes the object of worship, and any dissent or moral criticism is oppressed in the name of patriotic duty.”

36. The Need for Ideals • Boss: “The moral ideals of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution have never been fully realized in this country. While these documents may not be sacred and are certainly not perfect, to their credit, the founders of this country sought to discern natural laws and incorporate them into our nation’s thinking.”

37. Moral Development • Boss: “Immanuel Kant once said that the basic questions of philosophy - including the question “What ought I to do?” - are all fundamentally related to anthropology, or “What is man?” The study of moral development takes place at this juncture of philosophical theory and the social sciences. Any adequate theory of morality must take into consideration the relevant facts about human nature and human behavior.”

38. Self-Knowledge • Boss: “Self-knowledge can help us toward this goal. By learning about the psychological mechanisms that govern our moral development, we can actually advance our moral growth.” This is important because it means that the striving for self-knowledge actually helps us to grow into morally mature persons.

39. Finding Happiness • People who do not mature morally sometimes think that moral behavior simply seems to require too much effort. But in the long run, if happiness is your goal, it seems that practicing goodness is an important skill to learn.

40. Conscience • Boss: “The English word conscience comes from the Latin words com (‘with’) and scire (‘to know’). Conscience, in other words, provides us with knowledge about what is right and wrong. However, it is more than just a passive source of knowledge. Conscience involves reason and critical thinking; it also involves feelings. Conscience not only motivates us; it demands that we act in accord with it.”

41. Definitions of Conscience 1 • Boss: “Philosopher George Hegel defined ‘true conscience [as] the disposition to will what is absolutely good.’ Many religious people view the conscience as divine guidance or the voice of God speaking through our hearts. In Judaism, worshipping and following one’s conscience are inseparable: ‘When our conscience is not at one with the actions of our body, then our worship of our Creator is imperfect’.”

42. Definitions of Conscience 2 • Boss: “The Ethiopian Book of the Philosophers compares conscience to an inner light in the soul that not only bears the fruit of love for one another but also gives us the ‘wisdom that distinguishes what should be.’ The comparison of conscience with light or energy is found in many other philosophers.”

43. Definitions of Conscience 3 • Conscience is also described as a seed. It is a seed that can grow into a source of nourishment and beauty, but because it is alive and needs care, it can also wither away and die.

44. Sources of Conscience • Boss: “There are three main forces that contribute to the shaping of our conscience: (1) heredity or biological factors; (2) learning or environmental factors, and (3) conscious moral direction.”

45. Biological Factors • Boss: “There is strong evidence that the frontal lobe cortex in the brain plays a key role in moral decision making. Most of the work in this area has been with sociopaths - people who apparently lack a conscience or moral sense. A study of prisoners found that, when sociopaths were compared to nonsociopathic criminals, the former had specific deficits associated with frontal lobe functioning.”

46. Community and Nurture • Boss: “Although natural moral dispositions are apparently present at the time of birth in most people, this is not enough to ensure the development of moral character. Without community and nurture, a moral capacity cannot develop.”

47. Our Brain and Chemistry • The growing understanding of our brain and chemistry is making it ever more difficult to know how to assess whether people are fully in control of themselves or not.

48. Cultural Relativists • Cultural relativists tend to think our conscience is totally formed by our surroundings, but this is now in serious doubt. Studies have shown that even very young children seem to have an inbuilt system for gauging whether things are good and bad. That is not to deny the also well-established fact that our culture plays a huge role in influencing how this inner sense of right or wrong is understood and then applied in real life situations.

49. Exercising the Conscience • Boss: “Although innate and external forces can influence our conscience, the exercise of the conscience demands active participation on our part through the use of conscious and responsible deliberation.”

50. Aristotle and Confucius • Boss: “Aristotle emphasized the importance of habituation - practicing virtuous behavior. Confucian philosophy also teaches that, although inborn moral sentiments are important, only through conscious reflection can we achieve perfect goodness.”