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Nielsen, Ethics and God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Osmond G. Ramberan
Osmond G. Ramberan
Affiliation:
Department of Religious Studies, McMaster University
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Extract

One of the central claims of most religious people (especially those in the Judeo-Christian tradition) is that morality is based upon religion or, more specifically, on a belief in God. A morality which is not God-centred not only cannot provide a genuine basis for moral beliefs but is really and truly groundless. For without a belief in the sovereignty of God, there can be no genuine adequate foundation for moral beliefs. In his recent book, Ethics Without God, Kai Nielsen claims that this view is grossly mistaken. According to Nielsen, morality cannot be based on religion because moral claims cannot be derived from religious (non-moral) cosmological claims such as ‘God is Creator’, or ‘God exists’. ‘God wills X’, ‘God commands X’, do not entail ‘X ought to be done’, or ‘I ought to do X’. It is perfectly in order for someone to say that God wills (commands) X, but is X good? It is also perfectly in order for someone to say that God commands me to do X, but why should I obey God? Surely it cannot be because God is powerful and, if I do not obey his commands, he will punish me. It may be prudent and expedient to obey God because I am afraid of punishment, but this is surely not a morally good reason for obeying him. Moral obligations follow God's commands only if it is assumed that God is morally perfect or that he is good or that his commands are right (p. 5). But I cannot know that God is good without an understanding of what it is for something to be good. To be sure, ‘God is good’, is a truth of language, but in order to understand it we must have a prior understanding of goodness- an understanding which is ‘logically prior to, and independent of, any understanding or acknowledgement of God’ (p. 11). Moreover, Nielsen argues, the religious quest is a quest to find a being that is ‘worthy of worship’, but it is by our own moral insight that we decide that any being, any Z, is ‘worthy of worship’. The decision that there is a Z such that Z is worthy of worship is a moral judgment which is in no way dependent upon the will of God. But more than this, ‘God’, in ‘God is worthy of worship’, is, in most cases, used analytically so that anyone who is brought to say ‘My God’, or ‘My Lord and my God’, is using ‘God’ evaluatively and by implication making a moral judgment - a moral judgment which is logically prior to the will or command of God. This leads Nielsen to conclude:

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 1978 , pp. 205 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

page 205 note 1 London: Pemberton Publishing Co. Ltd, 1973. References in parentheses are to this book.Google Scholar

page 207 note 1 On this point see Smart, Ninian, The Concept of Worship (London: Macmillan, 1972), p. 24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 207 note 2 At the lower level, Advaita Vedanta allows for a view of Brahman as creator and focus of worship, but here as creator he shares in the illusioriness of the world he creates. (See Smart, N., op. cit. p. 26.)Google Scholar

page 209 note 1 See Adams, R. M., ‘A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness’, in Religion and Morality, ed. Outka, G. and Reeder, J. P. Jr,. (New York: Anchor Press, 1973), pp. 330 f.Google Scholar

page 210 note 1 This argument is influenced by and indebted to Bernard Williams' treatment of the subject in Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1972), pp. 68–78.Google Scholar

page 211 note 1 Ibid. p. 74.

page 211 note 2 Ibid. p. 75.

page 211 note 3 Ibid. p. 75.

page 212 note 1 Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy, tr. Harvey, John W. (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), P. 7.Google Scholar

page 212 note 2 Ibid. p. 114.

page 213 note 1 This concept is expressed by Job when he says: ‘If he (God) should take back his spirit to himself, and gather to himself his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust’ (34: 14).

page 213 note 2 Bultmann, Rudolf, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), p. 69.Google Scholar

page 213 note 3 Evans, Donald, The Logic of Self-Involvement (London: SCM Press, 1963), p. 158.Google Scholar

page 214 note 1 Adams, R. M., op. cit. pp. 338 ff.Google Scholar

page 215 note 1 See Mackenzie, P. T., ‘Fact and Value’, in Philosophy Today, No. 3, ed. Gill, Jerry H. (London: Macmillan, 1970), for a very interesting argument in support of this assumption.Google Scholar

page 215 note 2 Ibid. p. 114.