PHI210RS Module 8 AVP Transcript Title: Ethics and Religion Title Slide Narrator: Welcome to this presentation on ethics and religion. Slide 2 Title:The Relation between Non-Religious Ethics and Christian Ethics Slide content: Photo of three sets of hands in front of a cross on a wall Text: · Multiple relations between non-religious and Christian ethics · Best metaphors for this relation: cross-breeding or assimilation Narrator: In this module, we’ve briefly looked at the claim that morality finds its source and authority in God’s commands. For believers in a creator God, this view can provide an answer to the question of why moral commands have authority over what we do. Here we will briefly look at whether the various approaches to ethics that were surveyed in this course have any direct bearing on Christian faith in a divine creator. The final message of this section of the course is that there is no simple answer to the question of what is the relation between non-religious and religious ethics. By now, the interactions and influences between the two are multiple and varied. The best analogies would be cross-breeding or assimilation. Even what we take to be characteristically religious views have non-religious antecedents; and conversely, non-religious ethics did not develop in a religious vacuum. Slide 3 Title:Virtue Ethics and Natural Law Slide Content: Image of the word “ETHICS” in 3-D block letters Text: · Christian ethics has incorporated Aristotelian and Stoic virtue ethics · Christian ethics has incorporated Greek and Roman conceptions of natural law Narrator: Aristotelian and Stoic virtue ethics, not to mention Platonic ideals about the good, have been incorporated into Christian ethics. Indeed, ideas concerning what virtues are and how they are conducive to the good and to right action have been synthesized with Christian ideals most extensively by Aquinas in the 13th century. Contemporary discussions of the virtues in a Christian outlook have been conducted by Catholic philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre. Thus, non-Christian virtue ethics is not only compatible with Christian ethics, it has, in part, endured by being folded into Christian thinking about the moral life. Something similar can be said about the conception of a natural law. Its source is pre-Christian, yet it too has been synthesized with Christianity. The idea that a just law must be in conformity with natural law, well- known to the American civil rights movement through the impact of Martin Luther King, Jr., had already been asserted by Augustine in the 5th century CE. Augustine has exercised a tremendous influence, not only on Catholic thought, but also on Protestant thought. Yet Augustine did not invent the ideas of just law and natural law. They were part of the legacy of Greek thought and Ancient Rome. While the notion of a natural law is pre-Christian, it does presume that the universe is ordered by some cosmic purpose. Thus the notion of ...

1. PHI210RS Module 8 AVP Transcript
Title: Ethics and Religion
Title Slide
Narrator: Welcome to this presentation on ethics and religion.
Slide 2
Title:The Relation between Non-Religious Ethics and Christian
Ethics
Slide content: Photo of three sets of hands in front of a cross on
a wall
Text:
· Multiple relations between non-religious and Christian ethics
· Best metaphors for this relation: cross-breeding or
assimilation
Narrator: In this module, we’ve briefly looked at the claim that
morality finds its source and authority in God’s commands. For
believers in a creator God, this view can provide an answer to
the question of why moral commands have authority over what
we do. Here we will briefly look at whether the various
approaches to ethics that were surveyed in this course have any
direct bearing on Christian faith in a divine creator.
The final message of this section of the course is that there is
no simple answer to the question of what is the relation between
non-religious and religious ethics. By now, the interactions and
influences between the two are multiple and varied. The best
analogies would be cross-breeding or assimilation. Even what
we take to be characteristically religious views have non-
religious antecedents; and conversely, non-religious ethics did
not develop in a religious vacuum.

2. Slide 3
Title:Virtue Ethics and Natural Law
Slide Content: Image of the word “ETHICS” in 3-D block
letters
Text:
· Christian ethics has incorporated Aristotelian and Stoic virtue
ethics
· Christian ethics has incorporated Greek and Roman
conceptions of natural law
Narrator: Aristotelian and Stoic virtue ethics, not to mention
Platonic ideals about the good, have been incorporated into
Christian ethics. Indeed, ideas concerning what virtues are and
how they are conducive to the good and to right action have
been synthesized with Christian ideals most extensively by
Aquinas in the 13th century. Contemporary discussions of the
virtues in a Christian outlook have been conducted by Catholic
philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre. Thus, non-Christian
virtue ethics is not only compatible with Christian ethics, it has,
in part, endured by being folded into Christian thinking about
the moral life.
Something similar can be said about the conception of a natural
law. Its source is pre-Christian, yet it too has been synthesized
with Christianity. The idea that a just law must be in conformity
with natural law, well- known to the American civil rights
movement through the impact of Martin Luther King, Jr., had
already been asserted by Augustine in the 5th century CE.
Augustine has exercised a tremendous influence, not only on
Catholic thought, but also on Protestant thought. Yet Augustine
did not invent the ideas of just law and natural law. They were
part of the legacy of Greek thought and Ancient Rome. While
the notion of a natural law is pre-Christian, it does presume that
the universe is ordered by some cosmic purpose. Thus the
notion of a natural law requires more assumptions than
contemporary secular conceptions of nature would allow. But it

3. does not strictly require belief in the existence of a creator God.
Slide 4
Title:Rights
Slide Content: Photo of a scale and gavel
Text:
· The interaction between Christian and non-Christian ideas
especially complex in the matter of rights
· Passive rights developed from
non-religious sources
· Active rights developed under the influence of theological
ideas and combined with natural law
Narrator: The relation between the notion of rights and
religious ethics is a complex one. In the 20th century, one of the
significant figures who contributed to the ideas that found their
way in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is Catholic
theologian Jacques Maritain. In this respect, the notion of rights
must be thought to be at least compatible with religious ethics.
As we have seen in a previous module, the earliest conception
of rights, developed in the 12th century, is of rights as passive
rights or claim rights. It was developed by individuals who were
in some way connected with the Church and the notion served to
support the charitable functions of the Church. Yet the notion of
a claim right is derived from commentaries on Roman law
involving agreements among individuals or between individuals
and the State. So the source of the notion of a claim right
cannot straightforwardly be said to be of religious inspiration.
The later notion of liberty rights, or active rights, developed
beginning the 13th century, did find its inspiration in a religious
doctrine concerning the relation of God to Earth. This is the
notion that was later combined with a conception of natural law
and used in a formulation of a doctrine of natural rights, as we
find it in John Locke, notable for its influence on the US
Declaration of Independence. The development of the notion of
rights illustrates just how intricate is the relation between

4. nonreligious and religious conceptions of morality.
Slide 5
Title:Duty
Slide content: Printed image of Immanuel Kant
Text:
· Kantian duties are the duties of Christian moral life
· The justification of duties is what is specific to Kantian ethics
· Kantian theory of duty intended to support the compatibility
of secular and Christian ethics
Narrator: The duty theory of morality as articulated by Kant is
often presented as an example of the independence between
nonreligious theories of ethics and religious ethics.
Nevertheless, the actual duties that Kantian ethics recommends
were actually meant to conform to the expectations of Christian
ethics. Indeed, Kant himself was deeply religious. As a thinker,
his concern was with the issue of how the duties of Christian
life are to be justified. He was deeply unsatisfied with the view
according to which moral duties find their authority in the fear
of being punished by God. If this is what makes a moral duty a
moral duty, morality is a kind of childish egoism. Surely, he
thought, fear of punishment is not intrinsically morally worthy.
One must formulate moral motivation in such a way that it is
intrinsically worthy of moral approval. Beings who are
autonomous, who are capable of living in accordance with rules
of action that hold for any autonomous being, are beings that
act in a way that is morally praiseworthy and for motives that
are morally praiseworthy. Nevertheless, he did believe that we
should recognize the force of ideals, such as the ideal of an
immortal life, or of a supreme being that gives order and
meaning to the universe. He did not think these ideals give us
knowledge that we can develop into science. He thought
instead, that these ideals find their confirmation in our capacity
to act freely. In a nutshell, Kant’s duty theory is intended to

5. support the compatibility of secular and Christian ethics.
Slide 6
Title:Utility
Slide Content: 18th century caricature drawing of judges on the
bench
Text:
· The theory of utility was historically developed to counter the
effects of Christian customs and doctrines on laws and social
practices
· Today, the theory is accepted and widely implemented even by
individuals who are religious
Narrator: Like utilitarianism, some forms of religious ethics,
such as ethics in the natural law tradition, do consider the
consequences of actions in order to assess their morality. But
utilitarianism is entirely forward-looking and does not consider
intention, contrary to religious ethics. The motivation for the
theory of utility, in the hands of Bentham and the British legal
reformers, was to articulate a coherent policy that would enable
them to offset what they saw as irrational and inhuman
practices, many of which found their source in social and
religious belief. For instance, utilitarian reformers, including
the 18th century Italian reformer Cesare Beccaria, took a strong
stand against blasphemy laws. As recently as the 18th century,
people were still being tortured and put to death on grounds of
blasphemy. It is indeed thanks to utilitarian reasoning about
what promotes social welfare that laws punishing blasphemy
have been largely purged from the constitutions of most liberal
democracies. At the same time, many American politicians who
are widely considered to be religious have publicly espoused
utilitarian doctrines. For instance, in 1981, President Ronald
Reagan mandated by executive order that all regulations be
assessed in terms of their costs and benefits to society. The
upshot is that, while utilitarianism is not a religious moral
doctrine, it is now so deeply embedded in social and

6. governmental policies that even very conservative, religious
politicians find themselves advocating utilitarianism.
Slide 7
Title:Care
Slide Content: Close-up photo of a woman who appears
emotionless and has red circles around her eyes
Text:
· The ethics of care was developed to convey the distinctive
experience of women
· Care ethicists believe experience of care is not dependent on
religious experience
Narrator: Many might see strong affinities between the
doctrine of Christian love and the ethics of care. Yet, although
in the United States, more women than men are religious,
throughout the centuries religious organizations have not always
been hospitable to women. The ethics of care, which advocates
attention to the needs of others, is suspicious of religious
outlooks that mandate relations of dominance and submission.
The harshest commands of submissiveness have regularly fallen
on women. Care ethicists, such as Nel Noddings, have stated
that the ethics of care is founded on human caring. Caring
belongs to this world. Care is also not a matter of following
commands; it requires putting ourselves quietly in the presence
of those who are cared. It draws on human memories and
experiences of being cared for by other humans. Its source is
not in religious experience. For all that, there is no
incompatibility in being a care ethicist and being religious. But
one does not require the other.