Is there a solid foundation for Secular ethics?

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In his book “The reason for God”, Timothy Keller makes the point that everyone lives their lives according to certain basic values and beliefs. We each possess a “world-view”, on which we base our actions and decisions. No one can possibly escape the fact that their views about the world and human existence are based on what Keller calls “a set of faith-assumptions about the nature of things”, including Secularists.

Secularists claim that all religious views ought to be kept out of political discourse and public policy proposals. However, this, Keller claims, is a faith-assumption. What right do Secularists have to demand that other world-views be silenced in the political sphere?

One of the principles of Secularism outlined by Holyoake in “English Secularism” is that “It is good to do good”. Inasmuch as this is “an article of faith”, how does it have any more validity than other moral claims made by other religions?

Keller continues to point out that because there are no “neutral and objective” arguments, which would support such moral claims, Secularism is at bottom another “religion”, without any firm grounding for its moral claims and value judgement's.

Can there be a foundation for Secular ethics?

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@existential potential,

interesting idea..I have think about that.

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I have faith that people (in the US)n will (mostly) drive on the right and stop at stoplights. Does that mean it's a religious view or like a religious view because in some sense I can't know they will but I have faith they will. I don't think so. As far as I know there is no Holy Church of Driving on the Right.

I also have faith the sun will rise tomorrow. Is that like a religious view?

When religious people talk about ethics and morals, the argument often starts something like "God says in the Bible you must/must not do this." but then they give a secular reason for why it's a good or bad thing to do on its own terms. Just cut out the Jesus bit and they're talking secular ethics.

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@existential potential,

Can there be a foundation for Secular ethics? I would rather phrase the question: Can there be a foundation for ethics? To phrase the question in terms of Secularism is to specify an unnecessary new "ism." If you ask me, I appreciate ethical behavior and depreciate unethical behavior on something akin to aesthetic grounds. I respond to a good deed as something "Beautiful" and an evil deed as something "Ugly". The beauty and ugliness I refer to are ANALAGOUS to the values in art, not the same. But an important factor here is that aesthetic values are not, or should not, follow from logically derived rules, such as Kant's Categorical Imperative. They follow from our inherent nature, pretty much like Kant's notion of Man's aprori assumptions of time and space.

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@JLNobody,

What counts as a "beautiful" or "ugly" act in your terms? To use terms such as "beautiful" and "ugly" when trying to determine good and bad deeds seems inappropriate when trying to establish a set of ethical principles. We might as well say that "morality is in the eye of the beholder". Beauty is a subjective experience, beauty is not established as being in the world, you cannot prove something to be "beautiful", or indeed "ugly".

Couldn't we not somehow use our ability to understand others as a basis for ethical principles? The fact that we have the capacity to understand another's situation, and appreciate them as another human being, who is much like us, give us the ability to forgive them; so rather than responding to anger with anger for example, we can use our capacity to understand a persons anger, and rather than respond with anger an potentially worsen the situation, we can respond more calmly, and be of a sound mind to rectify the situation, because we understand the position that they are coming from.

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@existential potential,

I do not think that terms such as morality or ethics serve any practical purpose.

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@existential potential,

Quote:

Keller continues to point out that because there are no “neutral and objective” arguments, which would support such moral claims,

He is making an assertion in which his premise and concluions are wrong.
"We report, you decide"

I like Geoffret Sayre-McCords work. He doesnt jump to predigested conclusions.

Quote:

Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey. 1988. “Introduction: The Many Moral Realisms.” In Sayre-McCord, ed., Essays on Moral Realism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1988a, pp. 1-23.

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@revogirl,

On the contrary...the only purpose they serve is "practical" insofar as they are used to justify action decisions, within particular contexts. And it is because such contexts vary (war versus peace for example) that there are no moral or ethical absolutes. The implication that such a lack of "firm foundation" constitutes "secularism" merely highlights the the nebulous stance taken by religions with a vested interest in "the Absolute", rather than indicating any weakness.

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@existential potential,

existential potential wrote:

Secularists claim that all religious views ought to be kept out of political discourse and public policy proposals. However, this, Keller claims, is a faith-assumption. What right do Secularists have to demand that other world-views be silenced in the political sphere?

This is rather like the evangelicals who say "evolution is a theory that must be taken on faith, and so a belief in evolution is just as much faith-based as a belief in divine creation." Well sure, if that's how one defines "faith," I suppose any belief would be faith-based, no matter how well or poorly established by the evidence. But then nobody defines "faith" that way except for some chuckleheads on the religious right.

existential potential wrote:

One of the principles of Secularism outlined by Holyoake in “English Secularism” is that “It is good to do good”. Inasmuch as this is “an article of faith”, how does it have any more validity than other moral claims made by other religions?

If that is all that is behind one's claims for morality, then it doesn't have any validity at all, and it doesn't gain validity because it was spoken by a secularist, any more than an invalid claim by a theist gains validity because it is ostensibly backed by the authority of god.

existential potential wrote:

Keller continues to point out that because there are no “neutral and objective” arguments, which would support such moral claims, Secularism is at bottom another “religion”, without any firm grounding for its moral claims and value judgement's.

So Keller must conclude that there's no such thing as morality, right?

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Is there a solid foundation for Secular ethics?

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