The Morality Delusion

 

Dorothy considers
the scarecrow

In Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion, Dawkins poses the question "If there is no God why be good?" [p226].

This sounds like Karlund's comment to my post "On Atheism and Morality". But, unlike Karlund, when Dawkins poses the question he sets out to expose the 'positively ignoble' outlook of the religious. He says:

my immediate temptation is to issue the challenge: 'Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval [...] to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up

But is this really how religious people reason? Do religious people actually seek God's approval?

On Atheism and Morality

Full disclosure: I am an atheist.

Awais Aftab asks "Why be moral?".

This is a question that has hounded me since I started seriously reading philosophy some four or five years ago. What reason do I have to be moral?

Aftab asserts that the question must remain unanswered because it is flawed. It suggests that one must have some self-interested reason to be moral. But to be moral is to act (or refuse to act) regardless of our self-interest. The acts we recognise as most moral are those in which we go against our self-interest, those that involve self-sacrifice. (Typically, such acts are labelled altruistic.) Aftab summarises this neatly:

Morality has nothing to offer to a selfish soul.

He goes on to say that morality must be its own reason for being moral. That's to say, if we are moral it's because it's the right thing to do. This sounds like circular logic, but I also can't disagree with it. Not yet anyway. Mainly because I'm not sure this is a circle that can be squared.