The Source
This blog post, which includes a clip from 20/20 about a girl who was ostracized, harassed, and falsely accused of all sorts of things just for publicly being an atheist, helped me articulate something I’ve been trying to put into words for a while now.
A comment by shalimar says “I, for one, do not know how atheists are not sad, depressed horrible people.” This comes back to what I mentioned before about how the idea that some Christians can’t conceive of morality without religion scares the hell out of me.
The second formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative says: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.” Human morality is based on the idea that human beings have an inherent value, and as a human being I have no problem agreeing with that statement. If enough people act this way, everyone benefits. This principle exists independent of god, and works from one god to the next. (Except for the ones with which it doesn’t work at all, but those are best avoided).
In Buddhism, the Eightfold Path includes “Right Action” and “Right Intention.” In the Buddhist view, virtuous behavior is a means to becoming a better person — part of the path of self-refinement that leads to enlightenment and cessation of suffering. (Buddhism has a specific meaning for “suffering,” which is a very rough translation of a term from Pali). However, the Buddha was clear that it wasn’t enough to merely act in a moral fashion. Being good just because it would provide you with some reward in your next reincarnation (he was also critical of the Hindu notion of reincarnation, but didn’t discard reincarnation outright) is not enough.
So, my views on morality in the absence of divinity:
- Moral behavior is inherently beneficial to mankind.
- Virtuous behavior is an end in itself, both for oneself and others.
What constitutes moral behavior is probably going to be the hard part.
