ethics in religion essay

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Does ethics require religion.

There is a spectrum of views about how religion and ethics are related—from the view that religion is the absolute bedrock of ethics to one that holds that ethics is based on humanistic assumptions justified mainly, and sometimes only, by appeals to reason. These two extremes tend to be argued in a way that offers little room for compromise or pragmatic solutions to real issues we face everyday.

The relationship between religion and ethics is about the relationship between revelation and reason. Religion is based in some measure on the idea that God (or some deity) reveals insights about life and its true meaning. These insights are collected in texts (the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, etc.) and presented as “revelation.” Ethics, from a strictly humanistic perspective, is based on the tenets of reason: Anything that is not rationally verifiable cannot be considered justifiable. From this perspective, ethical principles need not derive their authority from religious doctrine. Instead, these principles are upheld for their value in promoting independent and responsible individuals—people who are capable of making decisions that maximize their own well-being while respecting the well-being of others.

Even though religious and secular ethics don’t derive their authority from the same source, we still must find a way to establish common ground between them; otherwise we’re condemning ourselves to live amidst social discord and division.

I believe we can accommodate the requirements of reason and religion by developing certain qualities that we would bring to our everyday ethical discussions. Aristotle said that cultivating qualities (he called them “virtues”) like prudence, reason, accommodation, compromise, moderation, wisdom, honesty, and truthfulness, among others, would enable us all to enter the discussions and conflicts between religion and ethics—where differences exist—with a measure of moderation and agreement. When ethics and religion collide, nobody wins; when religion and ethics find room for robust discussion and agreement, we maximize the prospects for constructive choices in our society.

About the Author

James a. donahue.

James A. Donahue, Ph.D., is the president and a professor of ethics at the Graduate Theological Union.

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Home — Essay Samples — Religion — Religious Pluralism — The Relation of Ethics to Religion

The Relation of Ethics to Religion

Categories: Ethics Religious Beliefs Religious Pluralism

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Published: Oct 4, 2018

Words: 990 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958). Modern moral philosophy. Philosophy, 33(124), 1-19.
Asbury, H. (2012). The anatomy of Abraham's test: Sacrifice as justice and sacrifice as mercy. Theology Today, 69(3), 231-239.
Bennett, D. W. (2017). The man who would be father of nations: Abraham in the political imagination of John Adams. Journal of Church and State, 59(1), 5-24.
Greenawalt, K. (2016). Incest and the ethics of sexual relationships. Philosophical Studies, 173(2), 519-542.
Harris, M. (2006). The rise of anthropological theory: A history of theories of culture. Rowman Altamira.
Hutson, M., Rubin, D. C., & May, J. (2014). Can meditation really slow aging? Cognitive and affective mechanisms mediate the effects of meditation practice on psychological well-being and physical health. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 38(1), 1-12.
Spurgeon, C. H. (1859). The preacher's power, and the conditions of obtaining it: A sermon. Passmore and Alabaster.
Wierenga, E. R. (1983). Divine command morality and the theological foundations of ethics. Faith and Philosophy, 2(2), 111-130.

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Religion and Morality

From the beginning of the Abrahamic faiths and of Greek philosophy, religion and morality have been closely intertwined. This is true whether we go back within Greek philosophy or within Christianity and Judaism and Islam. The present entry will not try to step beyond these confines, since there are other entries on Eastern thought (see, for example, the entries on Ethics in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism and Chinese Ethics ). The entry proceeds chronologically, giving greatest length to the contemporary period. It cannot, within the present compass, aspire to be comprehensive. But it will be able to describe the main options as they have occurred historically. The purpose of proceeding historically is to substantiate the claim that morality and religion have been inseparable until very recently, and that our moral vocabulary is still deeply infused with this history. Since there are historically so many different ways to see the relation, a purely schematic or typological account is not likely to succeed as well. The entry will not try to enter deeply into the ethical theories of the individual philosophers mentioned, since this encyclopedia already contains individual entries about them; it will focus on what they say about the relation between morality and religion.

The term ‘morality’ as used in this entry will not be distinguished from ‘ethics.’ Philosophers have drawn various contrasts between the two at various times (Kant for example, and Hegel, and more recently R.M. Hare and Bernard Williams). But etymologically, the term ‘moral’ comes from the Latin mos , which means custom or habit, and it is a translation of the Greek ethos , which means roughly the same thing, and is the origin of the term ‘ethics’. In contemporary non-technical use, the two terms are more or less interchangeable, though ‘ethics’ has slightly more flavor of theory, and has been associated with the prescribed practice of various professions (e.g., medical ethics, etc.). In any case, this entry will assume that morality is a set of customs and habits that shape how we think about how we should live or about what is a good human life. The term ‘religion’ is much disputed. Again, we can learn from the etymology. The origin of the word is probably the Latin religare , to bind back. Not all uses of the term require reference to a divinity or divinities. But this entry will use the term so that there is such a reference, and a religion is a system of belief and practice that accepting a ‘binding’ relation to such a being or beings. This does not, however, give us a single essence of religion, since the conceptions of divinity are so various, and human relations with divinity are conceived so variously that no such essence is apparent even within Western thought. The ancient Greeks, for example, had many intermediate categories between full gods or goddesses and human beings. There were spirits (in Greek daimones ) and spiritual beings like Socrates's mysterious voice ( daimonion ) ( Apology , 31d1–4, 40a2–c3). There were heroes who were offspring of one divine and one human parent. There were humans who were deified, like the kings of Sparta. This is just within the culture of ancient Greece. If we included Eastern religions in the scope of the discussion, the hope for finding a single essence of religion would recede further. Probably it is best to understand ‘religion’ as a term for a group of belief/practice amalgams with a family resemblance to each other, but no set of necessary and sufficient conditions tying them together (see Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations , 65–7).

1. Ancient Greek Philosophy

2. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament

3. The Middle Ages

4. modern philosophy, 5. contemporary philosophy, other internet resources, related entries.

We can start with the Greeks, and this means starting with Homer, a body of texts transmitted first orally and then written down in the seventh century BCE. So what does the relation between morality and religion look like in Homer? The first thing to say is that the gods and goddesses of the Homeric poems behave remarkably like the noble humans described in the same poems, even though the humans are mortal and the gods and goddesses immortal. Both groups are motivated by the desire for honor and glory, and are accordingly jealous when they receive less than they think they should while others receive more, and work ceaselessly to rectify this. The two groups are not however symmetrical, because the noble humans have the same kind of client relation to the divinities as subordinate humans do to them. There is a complex pattern that we might call ‘an honor-loop’ (see Mikalson, Honor Thy Gods ). The divinities have their functions (in Greek, the word is the same as ‘honors’), such as Poseidon's oversight of the sea, and humans seek their favor with ‘honor’, which we might here translate as ‘worship’. This includes, for example, sanctuaries devoted to them, dedications, hymns, dances, libations, rituals, prayers, festivals and sacrifices. In all of these the gods take pleasure, and in return they give ‘honor’ to mortals in the form of help or assistance, especially in the areas of their own expertise. There is a clear analogy with purely human client-relations, which are validated in the Homeric narrative, since the poems were probably originally sung at the courts of the princes who claimed descent from the heroes whose exploits make up the story. The gods and goddesses are not, however, completely at liberty. They too are accountable to fate or justice, as in the scene in the Iliad , where Zeus wants to save Hector, but he cannot because ‘his doom has long been sealed’ ( Iliad , 22: 179).

It is sometimes said that the Presocratic philosophers come out of Homer by rejecting religion in favor of science. There is a grain of truth in this, for when Thales (who flourished around 580) is reported as saying ‘Water is the origin (or principle) of all things,’ this is different from saying, for example, that Tethys is mother of all the rivers, because it deletes the character of narrative or story (Aristotle's Metaphysics , 983b20–8). When Anaximenes (around 545) talks of air as the primary element differing in respect of thinness and thickness, or Heraclitus explains all change as a pattern in the turnings of fire igniting in measures and going out in measures, they are not giving stories with plot-lines involving quasi-human intentions and frustrations (DK 13, A 5, DK 22, B 30). But it is wrong to say that they have left religion behind. Heraclitus puts this enigmatically by saying that the one and only wisdom does and does not consent to be called Zeus (DK 22, B 14). He is affirming the divinity of this wisdom, but denying the anthropomorphic character of much Greek religion. ‘To god all things are beautiful and good and just but humans suppose some things to be just and others unjust’ (DK 22, B 102). He ties this divine wisdom to the laws of a city, ‘for all human laws are nourished by the one divine law’ (DK 22, B 114), though he does not have confidence that ‘the many’ are capable of making law. The sophists, to whom Socrates responded, rejected this tie between human law and divine law and this was in part because of their expertise in rhetoric, by which they taught their students how to manipulate the deliberations of popular assemblies, and so change the laws to their own advantage. The most famous case is Protagoras (c. 490–21), who stated in the first sentence of his book Truth that ‘A human being is the measure of all things, of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not’ (Plato's Theaetetus , 152a). Protagoras is not correctly seen here as skeptical about morality or religion. It is true that he claimed he was not in a position to know either the manner in which the gods are or are not (another translation is ‘that they are or are not’) or what they are like in appearance (DK 80, B 4). But as Plato (c. 430–347) presents him, he told the story that all humans have been given by the gods the gifts of shame and justice, so as to make possible the founding of cities; this is why each human is the measure. Even Thrasymachus, in the first book of Plato's Republic , thinks of justice as the same thing amongst gods and humans ( Republic , 388c). His view of what this justice is, namely the interest of the stronger, is disputed by Plato. But the claim that justice operates at both the divine and human levels is common ground.

Socrates (c. 470–399) in one of the early dialogues debates the nature of the holy with Euthyphro, who is a religious professional. Euthyphro is taking his own father to court for murder, and though ordinary Greek morality would condemn such an action as impiety, Euthyphro defends it on the basis that the gods behave in the same sort of way, according to the traditional stories. Socrates makes it clear that he does not believe these stories, because they attribute immorality to the gods. This does not mean, however, that he does not believe in the gods. He was observant in his religious practices, and he objects to the charge of not believing in the city's gods that was one of the bases of the prosecution at his own trial. He points to the spirit who gives him commands about what not to do ( Apology , 31d), and we learn later that he found it significant that this voice never told him to stop conducting his trial in the way that in fact led to his death ( Ibid ., 40a-c). Socrates interpreted this as an invitation from the gods to die, thus refuting the charge that, by conducting his trial in the way he did, he was guilty of theft – i.e., depriving the gods of his life that properly belonged to them ( Phaedo , 62b). His life in particular was a service to god, he thought, because his testing of the wisdom of others was carrying out Apollo's charge given by the oracle at Delphi, implicit in the startling pronouncement that he was the wisest man in Greece ( Apology , 21a-d).

Socrates's problem with the traditional stories about the gods gives rise to what is sometimes called ‘the Euthyphro dilemma’. If we try to define the holy as what is loved by all the gods (and goddesses), we will be faced with the question ‘Is the holy holy because it is loved by the gods, or do they love it because it is holy?’ ( Euthyphro , 10a). Socrates makes it clear that his view is the second (though he does not argue for this conclusion in addressing this question, and he is probably relying on the earlier premise, at Euthyphro , 7c10f, that we love things because of the properties they have). (See Hare, Plato's Euthyphro , on this passage.) But his view is not an objection to tying morality and religion together. He hints at the end of the dialogue ( Euthyphro , 13de) that the right way to link them is to see that when we do good we are serving the gods well. Plato probably does not intend for us to construe the dialogues together as a single philosophical system, and we must not erase the differences between them. But it is significant that in the Theaetetus (176b), Socrates says again that our goal is to be as like the god as possible, and since the god is in no way and in no manner unjust, but as just as it is possible to be, nothing is more like the god than the one among us who becomes correspondingly as just as possible. In several dialogues this thought is connected with a belief in the immortality of the soul; we become like the god by paying attention to the immortal and best part of ourselves (e.g., Symposium , 210A-212B). The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is also tied to the doctrine of the Forms, whereby things with characteristics that we experience in this life (e.g., beauty) are copies or imitations of the Forms (e.g., The Beautiful-Itself) that we see without the distraction of the body when our souls are separated at death. The Form of the Good, according to the Republic , is above all the other Forms and gives them their intelligibility (as, by analogy, the sun gives visibility), and is (in a pregnant phrase) ‘on the other side of being’ ( Republic , 509b). Finally, in the Laws (716b), perhaps Plato's last work, the character called ‘the Athenian’ says that the god can serve for us in the highest degree as a measure of all things, and much more than any human can, whatever some people say; so people who are going to be friends with such a god must, as far as their powers allow, be like the gods themselves.

This train of thought sees the god or gods as like a magnet, drawing us to be like them by the power of their goodness or excellence. In Plato's Ion (533d), the divine is compared to a magnet to which is attached a chain of rings, through which the attraction is passed. This conception is also pervasive in Aristotle (384–22), Plato's student for twenty years. In the Nicomachean Ethics , for example, the words ‘god’ and ‘divine’ occur roughly twice as often as the words ‘happiness’ and ‘happy’. This is significant, given that Aristotle's ethical theory is (like Plato's) ‘eudaimonist’ (meaning that our morality aims at our happiness). Mention of the divine is not merely conventional for Aristotle, but does important philosophical work. In the Eudemian Ethics (1249b5–22) he tells us that the goal of our lives is service and contemplation of the god. He thinks that we become like what we contemplate, and so we become most like the god by contemplating the god. Incidentally, this is why the god does not contemplate us; for this would mean becoming less than the god, which is impossible. As in Plato, the well-being of the city takes precedence over the individual, and this, too, is justified theologically. It is nobler and more divine to achieve an end for a city than for an individual ( NE 1094b9–10). Aristotle draws a distinction between what we honor and what we merely commend ( NE , 1101b10–35). There are six states for a human life, on a normative scale from best to worst: divine (which exceeds the merely human on the one extreme), virtuous (without wrongful desire), strong-willed (able to overcome wrongful desire), weak-willed (unable to do so), vicious and bestial (which exceeds the merely human on the other extreme, and which Aristotle says is mostly found among barbarians) ( NE , 1145a15–22). The highest form of happiness, which he calls blessedness, is something we honor as we honor gods, whereas virtue we merely commend. It would be as wrong to commend blessedness as it would be to commend gods ( NE , 1096a10–1097a15). Sometimes Aristotle uses the phrase ‘God or understanding’ (in Greek, nous ) (e.g., Politics , 1287a27–32). The activity of the god, he says in the Metaphysics , is nous thinking itself (1074b34). The best human activity is the most god-like, namely thinking about the god and about things that do not change. Aristotle's virtue ethics, then, needs to be understood against the background of these theological premises. He is thinking of the divine, to use Plato's metaphor, as magnetic, drawing us, by its attractive power, to live the best kind of life possible for us. This gives him a defense against the charge sometimes made against virtue theories that they simply embed the prevailing social consensus into an account of human nature. Aristotle defines ethical virtue as lying in a mean between excess and defect, and the mean is determined by the person of practical wisdom (actually the male, since Aristotle is sexist on this point). He then gives a conventional account of the virtues such a person displays (such as courage, literally manliness, which requires the right amount of fear and confidence, between cowardice and rashness). But the virtuous person in each case acts ‘for the sake of the noble (or beautiful)’, and Aristotle continually associates the noble with the divine (e.g., NE , 1115b12).

There are tensions in Aristotle's account of virtue and happiness. It is not clear whether the Nicomachean Ethics has a consistent view of the relation between the activity of contemplation and the other activities of a virtuous life (see Hare, God and Morality , chapter 1, and Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle , chapter 7). But the connection of the highest human state with the divine is pervasive in the text. One result of this connection is the eudaimonism mentioned earlier. If the god does not care about what is not divine (for this would be to become like what is not divine), the highest and most god-like human also does not care about other human beings except to the degree they contribute to his own best state. This degree is not negligible, since humans are social animals, and their well-being depends on the well-being of the families and cities of which they are members. Aristotle is not preaching self-sufficiency in any sense that implies we could be happy on our own, isolated from other human beings. But our concern for the well-being of other people is always, for him, contingent on our special relation to them. Within the highest kind of friendship ‘a friend is another self’, he says, and within such friendship we care about friends for their own sake, but if the friend becomes divine and we do not, then the friendship is over ( NE , 1159a7). We therefore do not want our friends to become gods, even though that would be the best thing for them. Finally, Aristotle ties our happiness to our end (in Greek, telos ); for humans, as for all living things, the best state is its own activity in accordance with the natural function that is unique to each species. For humans the best state is happiness, and the best activity within this state is contemplation ( NE , 1178b17–23).

The Epicureans and Stoics who followed Aristotle differed with each other and with him in many ways, but they agreed in tying morality and religion together. For the Epicureans, the gods do not care about us, though they are entertained by looking at our tragicomic lives (rather as we look at soap operas on television). We can be released from a good deal of anxiety, the Epicureans thought, by realizing that the gods are not going to punish us. Our goal should be to be as like the gods as we can, enjoying ourselves without interruption, but for us this means limiting our desires to what we can obtain without frustration. They did not mean that our happiness is self-interested in any narrow sense, because they held that we can include others in our happiness by means of our sympathetic pleasures. The Stoics likewise tied the best kind of human life, for them the life of the sage, to being like the divine. The sage follows nature in all his desires and actions, and is thus the closest to the divine. One of the virtues he will have is ‘apathy’ (in Greek apatheia ), which does not mean listlessness, but detachment from wanting anything other than what nature, or the god, is already providing. Like the Epicureans, the Stoics had an argument against any narrow self-interest, but this time based on their conception of right reason which is directed by the law common to all, ‘which pervades everything and is the same as Zeus, lord of the ordering of all that exists’ (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers , VII 88. For the views of the Epicureans and Stoics about morality and religion, see Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness , chapters 5 and 7.)

2. The Hebrew Bible And The New Testament

The second line of thought to be traced in this entry starts with the Hebrew Bible and continues with the Greek scriptures called by Christians ‘The New Testament’. Morality and religion are connected in the Hebrew Bible primarily by the category of God's command. Such commands come already in the first chapter of Genesis . God created by command, for example ‘Let there be light’ ( Gen . 1:3). Then, after the creation of animals, God gives the command, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’, and repeats the command to the humans he creates in the divine image ( Gen . 1:22). In the second chapter God tells Adam that he is free to eat from any tree in the garden, but he must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Eve and Adam disobey and eat of that fruit, they are expelled from the garden. There is a family of concepts here that is different from what we met in Greek philosophy. God is setting up a kind of covenant by which humans will be blessed if they obey the commands God gives them. Human disobedience is not explained in the text, except that the serpent says to Eve that they will not die if they eat the fruit, but will be like God, knowing good and evil, and Eve sees the fruit as good for food and pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom. After they eat, Adam and Eve know that they are naked, and are ashamed, and hide from God. There is a turning away from God and from obedience to God that characterizes this as a ‘fall into sin’. As the story goes on, and Cain kills Abel, evil spreads to all the people of the earth, and Genesis describes the basic state as a corruption of the heart (6:9). This idea of a basic orientation away from or towards God and God's commands becomes in the Patristic period of early Christianity the idea of a will. There is no such idea in Plato or Aristotle, and no Greek word that the English word ‘will’ properly translates.

In the Pentateuch, the story continues with Abraham, and God's command to leave his ancestral land and go to the land God promised to give him and his offspring ( Gen . 17:7–8). Then there is the command to Abraham to kill his son, a deed prevented at the last minute by the provision of a ram instead ( Gen . 22:11–14). Abraham's great grandchildren end up in Egypt, because of famine, and the people of Israel suffer for generations under Pharaoh's yoke. Under Moses the people are finally liberated, and during their wanderings in the desert, Moses receives from God the Ten Commandments, in two tables or tablets ( Exod . 20:1–17, 31:18). The first table concerns our obligations to God directly, to worship God alone and keep God's name holy, and keep the Sabbath. The second table concerns our obligations to other human beings, and all of the commands are negative (do not kill, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet) except for the first, which tells us to honor our fathers and mothers. God's commands taken together give us the law (on some lists there are 613 mitzvot , Hebrew for ‘commands’.) One more term belongs here, namely ‘kingdom’. The Greeks had the notion of a kingdom, under a human king (though the Athenians were in the classical period suspicious of such an arrangement). But they did not have the idea of a kingdom of God, though there is something approaching this in some of the Stoics. This idea is explicable in terms of law, and is introduced as such in Exodus in connection with the covenant on Mt. Sinai. The kingdom is the realm in which the laws obtain.

This raises a question about the extent of this realm. The Ten Commandments are given in the context of a covenant with the people of Israel, though there are references to God's intention to bless the whole world through this covenant. The surrounding laws in the Pentateuch include prescriptions and proscriptions about ritual purity and sacrifice and the use of the land that seem to apply to this particular people in this particular place. But the covenant that God makes with Noah after the flood is applicable to the whole human race, and universal scope is explicit in the Wisdom books, which make a continual connection between how we should live and how we were created as human beings. For example, in Proverbs 8 Wisdom raises her voice to all humankind, and says that she detests wickedness, which she goes on to describe in considerable detail. She says that she was the artisan at God's side when God created the world and its inhabitants. Judaism distinguishes seven ‘Noahide’ laws given to Noah before the covenant with Abraham.

In the writings which Christians call ‘The New Testament’ the theme of God's commands is recapitulated. Jesus sums up the commandments under two, the command to love God with all one's heart and soul and mind (see Deuteronomy 6:5), and the command to love the neighbor as the self (see Leviticus 19:18). The first of these probably sums up the first ‘table’ of the Ten Commandments to Moses, and the second sums up the second. The New Testament is unlike the Hebrew Bible, however, in presenting a narrative about a man who is the perfect exemplification of obedience and who has a life without sin. New Testament scholars disagree about the extent to which Jesus actually claimed to be God, but the traditional interpretation is that he did make this claim; in any case the Christian doctrine is that we can see in his life the clearest possible revelation in human terms both of what God is like and at the same time of what our lives ought to be like. In the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ ( Matthew 5–7) Jesus issues a number of radical injunctions. He takes the commandments inside the heart; for example, we are required not merely not to murder, but not to be angry, and not merely not to commit adultery, but not to lust (see Ezekiel 11:19, ‘I will give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes.’) We are told, if someone strikes us on the right cheek, to turn to him also the left. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and those who hate and persecute us, and in this way he makes it clear that the love commandment is not based on reciprocity ( Matt 5:43–48; Luke 6:27–36). Finally, when he is asked ‘Who is my neighbor?’, he tells the story ( Luke 10) of a Samaritan (traditional enemies of the Jews) who met a wounded Jew he did not know by the side of the road, was moved with compassion, and went out of his way to meet his needs; Jesus commends the Samaritan for being ‘neighbor’ to the wounded traveler.

The theme of self-sacrifice is clearest in the part of the narrative that deals with Jesus' death. This event is understood in many different ways in the New Testament, but one central theme is that Jesus died on our behalf, an innocent man on behalf of the guilty. Jesus describes the paradigm of loving our neighbors as the willingness to die for them. This theme is connected with our relationship to God, which we violate by disobedience, but which is restored by God's forgiveness through redemption. In Paul's letters especially we are given a three-fold temporal location for the relation of morality to God's work on our behalf. We are forgiven for our past failures on the basis of Jesus' sacrifice ( Rom . 3:21–26). We are reconciled now with God through God's adoption of us in Christ ( Rom . 8:14–19). And we are given the hope of future progress in holiness by the work of the Holy Spirit ( Rom . 5:3–5). All of this theology requires more detailed analysis, but this is not the place for it.

There is a contrast between the two traditions I have so far described, namely the Greek and the Judeo-Christian. The idea of God that is central in Greek philosophy is the idea of God attracting us, like a kind of magnet, so that we desire to become more like God, though there is a minority account by Socrates of receiving divine commands. In the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the notion of God commanding us is central. It is tempting to simplify this contrast by saying that the Greeks favor the good , in their account of the relation of morality and religion, and the Judeo-Christian account favors the right or obligation. It is true that the notion of obligation makes most sense against the background of command. But the picture is over-simple because the Greeks had room in their account for the constraint of desire; thus the temperate or brave person in Aristotle's picture has desires for food or sex or safety that have to be disciplined by the love of the noble. On the other side, the Judeo-Christian account adds God's love to the notion of God's command, so that the covenant in which the commands are embedded is a covenant by which God blesses us, and we are given a route towards our highest good which is union with God.

The rest of the history to be described in this entry is a cross-fertilization of these two traditions or lines of thought. In the patristic period, or the period of the early Fathers, it was predominantly Plato and the Stoics amongst the Greek philosophers whose influence was felt. The Eastern and Western parts of the Christian church split during the period, and the Eastern church remained more comfortable than the Western with language about humans being deified (in Greek theosis ). In the Western church, Augustine (354–430) emphasized the gap between the world we are in as resident aliens and our citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem, and even in our next life the distance between ourselves and God. He describes in the Confessions the route by which his heart or will, together with his understanding, moved from paganism through Neo-Platonism to Christianity. The Neo-Platonists (such as Plotinus, 205-270) taught a world-system of emanation, whereby the One (like Plato's Form of the Good) flowed into Intellect (the realm of the Forms) and from there into the World-Soul and individual souls, where it encountered the realm of bodies, from where it returned to itself (‘the flight of the alone to the alone’). Augustine accepted that the Platonists taught, like the beginning of the prologue of John , that the Word (in Greek, logos ) is with God and is God, since the Intellect is the mediating principle between the One and the Many ( John 1:1–5). Augustine held that Plato had asserted that the supreme good, possession of which alone gives us blessedness, is God, ‘and therefore (Plato) thought that to be a philosopher is to be a lover of God.’ ( De Civ. Dei VIII.8). But the Platonists did not teach, like the end of John's prologue, that the Word is made flesh in Jesus Christ, and so they did not have access to the way to salvation revealed in Christ or God's grace to us through Christ's death. Nonetheless, it is surprising how far Augustine can go in rapprochement. The Forms, he says, are in the mind of God and God uses them in the creation of the world. Human beings were created for union with God, but they have the freedom to turn towards themselves instead of God. If they turn to God, they can receive divine illumination through a personal intuition of the eternal standards (the Forms). If they turn towards themselves, they will lose the sense of the order of creation, which the order of their own loves should reflect. Augustine gives primacy to the virtue of loving what ought to be loved, especially God. In his homily on I John 4:8, he says, ‘Love and do what you will.’ But this is not a denial of the moral law. He held that humans who truly love God will also act in accord with the other precepts of divine and moral law; though love not merely fulfills the cardinal virtues (wisdom, justice, courage and temperance) but transforms them by supernatural grace.

The influence of Augustine in the subsequent history of ethics resulted from the fact that it was his synthesis of Christianity (the official religion of the Roman Empire after 325) and Greek philosophy that survived the destruction of the Western Roman Empire, especially in the monasteries where the texts were still read. Boethius (c. 480–524) gave us the definition of the concept of ‘person’ that has been fundamental to ethical theory. To understand this, we need to go back into the history of the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. The church had to explain how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit could be distinct and yet not three different gods. They used, in Latin, the term persona , which means ‘role’ but which was also used by the grammarians to distinguish what we call ‘first person, second person and third person’ pronouns and verb-forms. The same human being can be first person ‘I’, second person ‘you’, and third person ‘he’ or ‘she’, depending on the relations in which he or she stands. The doctrine of the Trinity comes to be understood in terms of three persons, one God, with the persons standing in different relations to each other. But then this term ‘person’ is also used to understand the relation of the second person's divinity to his humanity. The church came to talk about one person with two natures, the person standing under the natures. This had the merit of not making either the humanity or the divinity less essential to who Jesus was. Plato and Aristotle did not have any term that we can translate ‘person’ in the modern sense, as some one (as opposed to some thing ) that stands under all his or her attributes. Boethius, however, defines ‘person’ as ‘individual substance of rational nature,’ a key step in the introduction of our present concept.

In the West knowledge of most of Aristotle's texts was lost, but not in the East. They were translated into Syriac, and Arabic, and eventually (in Muslim Spain) into Latin, and re-entered Christian Europe in the twelfth century accompanied by translations of the great Arabic commentaries. In the initial prophetic period of Islam (CE 610–32) the Qur'an was given to Mohammad, who explained it and reinforced it through his own teachings and practices. The notion of God's (Allah's) commands is again central, and our obedience to these commands is the basis of our eventual resurrection. Disputes about political authority in the period after Mohammad's death led to the split between Sunnis and Shiites. Within Sunni Muslim ethical theory in the Middle Ages two major alternative ways developed of thinking about the relation between morality and religion. The first, the Mu'tazilite, was given its most developed statement by ‘Abd al-Jabbar from Basra (d. 1025). ‘Abd al-Jabbar defines a wrongful act as one that deserves blame, and holds that the right and wrong character of acts is known immediately to human reason, independently of revelation. These standards that we learn from reason apply also to God, so that we can use them to judge what God is and is not commanding us to do. He also teaches that humans have freedom, in the sense of a power to perform both an act and its opposite, though not at the same time. (For Mu'tazilite ethical theory, see Sophia Vasalou, Moral Agents and Their Deserts: The Character of Mu'tazilite Ethics and George Hourani, Islamic Rationalism: The Ethics of ‘Abd al-Jabbar .) The second alternative was taught by al-Ashari (d. 935), who started off as a Mu'tazilite, but came to reject their view. He insists that God is subject to none and to no standard that can fix bounds for Him. Nothing can be wrong for God, who sets the standard of right and wrong. This means that ‘if God declared lying to be right, it would be right, and if He commanded it, none could gainsay Him’ ( The Theology of al-Ash'ari , 169-70). With respect to our freedom, he holds that God gives us only the power to do the act (not its opposite) and this power is simultaneous to the act and does not precede it. A figure contemporary with al-Ashari, but in some ways intermediate between Mu'tazilites and Asharites, is al-Maturidi of Samarqand (d. 944). He holds that because humans have the tendency in their nature towards ugly or harmful actions as well as beautiful or beneficial ones, God has to reveal to us by command what to pursue and what to avoid. He also teaches that God gives us two different kinds of power, both the power simultaneous with the act (which is simply to do the act) and the power preceding the act (to choose either the act or its opposite). (For the work of al-Maturidi, see Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Maturidi and Sunni Theology in Samarkand .)

Medieval reflection within Judaism about morality and religion has, as its most significant figure, Maimonides (d. 1204) who was born in Muslim Spain, and was familiar with much of the Muslim discussion of these questions. The Guide of the Perplexed was written for young men who had read Aristotle and were worried about the tension between the views of the philosopher and their faith. Maimonides teaches that we do indeed have some access just as human beings to the rightness and wrongness of acts; but what renders conforming to these standards obligatory is that God reveals them in special revelation. The laws are obligatory whether we understand the reasons for them or not, but sometimes we do see how it is beneficial to obey, and Maimonides is remarkably fertile in providing such reasons.

The reentry of Aristotle into Europe caused a rebirth (a ‘renaissance’), but it also gave rise to a crisis, because it threatened to undermine the harmony established from the time of Augustine between the authority of reason, as represented by Greek philosophy, and the authority of faith, as represented by the doctrines of the Christian church. There were especially three ‘errors of Aristotle’ that seemed threatening: his teaching that the world was eternal, his apparent denial of personal immortality, and his denial of God's active agency in the world. (See, for example, Bonaventure, In Hexaemeron , VI.5 and In II Sent ., lib. II, d.1, pars 1, a.1, q.2.) These three issues (‘the world, the soul, and God’) become in one form or another the focus of philosophical thought for the next six centuries.

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224–74) undertook the project of synthesis between Aristotle and Christianity, though his version of Christianity was already deeply influenced by Augustine, and so by Neo-Platonism. Aquinas, like Aristotle, emphasized the ends (vegetative, animal and typically human) given to humans in the natural order. He described both the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, but he did not feel the tension that current virtue ethicists sometimes feel between virtue and the following of rules or principles. The rules governing how we ought to live are known, some of them by revelation, some of them by ordinary natural experience and rational reflection. But Aquinas thought these rules consistent in the determination of our good, since God only requires us to do what is consistent with our own good. Aquinas's theory is eudaimonist; ‘And so the will naturally tends towards its own last end, for every man naturally wills beatitude. And from this natural willing are caused all other willings, since whatever a man wills, he wills on account of the end.’ ( Summa Theologiae I, q.60. a.2) God's will is not exercised by arbitrary fiat; but what is good for some human being can be understood as fitting for this kind of agent, in relation to the purpose this agent intends to accomplish, in the real environment of the action, including other persons individually and collectively. The principles of natural moral law are the universal judgments made by right reasoning about the kinds of actions that are morally appropriate and inappropriate for human agents. They are thus, at least in principle and at a highly general level, deducible from human nature. Aquinas held that reason, in knowing these principles, is participating in the eternal law, which is in the mind of God ( Summa Theologiae I, q.91. a.2). Aquinas was not initially successful in persuading the church to embrace Aristotle. In 1277 the Bishop of Paris condemned 219 propositions (not all Thomist), including the thesis that a person virtuous in Aristotle's terms ‘is sufficiently disposed for eternal happiness.’ But in the Counter-Reformation, the synthesis which Aquinas achieved became authoritative in Roman Catholic education.

Aquinas was a Dominican friar. The other major order of friars, the Franciscan, had its own school of philosophy, starting with Bonaventure (c. 1217–74), who held that while we can learn from both Plato and Aristotle, and both are also in error, the greater error is Aristotle's. One other major figure from this tradition is John Duns Scotus (literally John from Duns, the Scot, c. 1266–1308), and there are three significant differences between him and Aquinas on the relation between morality and religion. First, Scotus is not a eudaimonist. He takes a double account of motivation from Anselm (1033–1109), who made the distinction between two affections of the will, the affection for advantage (an inclination towards one's own happiness and perfection) and the affection for justice (an inclination towards what is good in itself independent of advantage) (Anselm, De Concordia 3.11, 281:7–10; De Casu Diaboli 12, 255:8–11). Original sin is a ranking of advantage over justice, which needs to be reversed by God's assistance before we can be pleasing to God. Scotus says that we should be willing to sacrifice our own happiness for God if God were to require this. Second, he does not think that the moral law is self-evident or necessary. He takes the first table to be necessary, since it derives (except for the ‘every seventh day’ provision of the command about the Sabbath) from the necessary principle that God is to be loved. But the second table is contingent, though fitting our nature, and God could prescribe different commands even for human beings ( Ord . I, dist. 44). One of his examples is the proscription on theft, which applies only to beings with property, and so not necessarily to human beings (since they are not necessarily propertied). God also gives dispensation from the commands, according to Scotus, for example the command to Abraham to kill Isaac ( Ord III, suppl. Dist. 37). Third, Scotus denied the application of teleology to non-intentional nature, and thus departed from the Aristotelian and Thomist view. This does not mean that we have no natural end or telos , but that this end is related to the intention of God in the same way a human artisan intends his or her products to have a certain purpose (see Hare 2006, chapter 2).

Europe experienced a second Renaissance when scholars fled Constantinople after its capture by the Muslims in 1453, and brought with them Greek manuscripts that were previously inaccessible. In Florence Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) identified Plato as the primary ancient teacher of wisdom, and (like Bonaventure) cited Augustine as his guide in elevating Plato in this way. His choice of Plato was determined by the harmony he believed to exist between Plato's thought and the Christian faith, and he set about making Latin translations of all the Platonic texts so that this wisdom could be available for his contemporaries who did not know Greek. He was also the first Latin translator of Plotinus, the Neo-Platonist.

Many of the central figures in the Reformation were humanists in the Renaissance sense (where there is no implication of atheism). But there is also a fundamental similarity in the way the relation between morality and religion is conceived between Scotus and the two Reformers Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–64), though neither of them make the distinctions about natural law that Scotus (the ‘subtle doctor’) does. Luther says ‘What God wills is not right because he ought or was bound so to will; on the contrary, what takes place must be right, because he so wills.’ ( Bondage of the Will , Works , pp. 195–6). Calvin says ‘God's will is so much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever he wills, by the very fact that he wills it, must be considered righteous’ ( Institutes 3. 23. 2). The historical connection between Scotus and the Reformers can be traced through William of Ockham (d. 1349) and Gabriel Biel (1410–95). The Counter-Reformation in Roman Catholic Europe, on the other hand, took the work of Aquinas as authoritative for education. Francisco de Suarez (1548–1617) claimed that the precepts of natural law can be distinguished into those (like ‘Do good and avoid evil’) which are known immediately and intuitively by all normal human beings, those (like ‘Do no injury to anyone’) which require experience and thought to know them, but which are then self-evident, and those (like ‘Lying is always immoral’) which are not self-evident but can be derived from the more basic precepts ( De Legibus , 2. 7. 5). However, Suarez accepted Scotus's double account of motivation.

The next two centuries in European philosophy can be described in terms of two lines of development, rationalism and empiricism, both of which led, in different ways, to the possibility of a greater detachment of ethics from theology. The history of rationalism from René Descartes (1596–1650) to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is a history of re-establishing human knowledge on the foundation of rational principles that could not be doubted, after modern science started to shake the traditional foundations supported by the authority of Greek philosophy and the church. Descartes was not primarily an ethicist, but he located the source of moral law (surprisingly for a rationalist) in God's will. The most important rationalist in ethics was Benedict de Spinoza (1623–77). He was a Jew, but was condemned by his contemporary faith community as unorthodox. Like Descartes, he attempted to duplicate the methods of geometry in philosophy. Substance, according to Spinoza, exists in itself and is conceived through itself ( Ethics , I, def. 3); it is consequently one, infinite, and identical with God ( Ethics , I, prop. 15). There is no such thing as natural law, since all events in nature (‘God or Nature’) are equally natural. Everything in the universe is necessary, and there is no free will, except in as far as Spinoza is in favor of calling someone free who is led by reason ( Ethics , I, prop. 32). Each human mind is a limited aspect of the divine intellect. On this view (which has its antecedent in Stoicism) the human task is to move towards the greatest possible rational control of human life. Leibniz was, like Descartes, not primarily an ethicist. He said, however, that ‘the highest perfection of any thinking being lies in careful and constant pursuit of true happiness’ ( New Essays on Human Understanding , XXI, 51). The rationalists were not denying the centrality of God in human moral life, but their emphasis was on the access we have through the light of reason rather than through sacred text or ecclesiastical authority.

After Leibniz there was in Germany a long-running battle between the rationalists and the pietists, who tried to remain true to the goals of the Lutheran Reformation. Examples of the two schools are Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and Christian August Crusius (1715–75), and we can understand Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), like his teacher Martin Knutzen (1713–51), as trying to mediate between the two. Wolff was a very successful popularizer of the thought of Leibniz, but fuller in his ethical system. He took from Leibniz the principle that we will always select what pleases us most, and the principle that pleasure is the apprehension of perfection, so that the amount of pleasure we feel is proportional to the amount of perfection we intuit ( New Essays on Human Understanding , XXI, 41). He thought we are obligated to do what will make us and our condition, or that of others, more perfect, and this is the law of nature that would be binding on us even if ( per impossible ) God did not exist. He saw no problem about the connection between virtue and happiness, since both of them result directly from our perfection, and no problem about the connection between virtue and duty, since a duty is simply an act in accordance with law, which prescribes the pursuit of perfection. His views were offensive to the pietists, because he claimed that Confucius already knew (by reason) all that mattered about morality, even though he did not know anything about Christ. Crusius by contrast accepted Scotus's double theory of motivation, and held that there are actions that we ought to do regardless of any ends we have, even the end of our own perfection and happiness. It is plausible to see here the origin of Kant's categorical imperative. But he also added a third motivation, what he called ‘the drive of conscience’ which is ‘the natural drive to recognize a divine moral law’ (“A Guide to Rational Living,” Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant , §132, 574). His idea was that we have within us this separate capacity to recognize divine command and to be drawn towards it out of a sense of dependence on the God who prescribes the command to us, and will punish us if we disobey (though our motive should not be to avoid punishment) (Ibid., §135).

The history of empiricism in Britain from Hobbes to Hume is also the history of the attempt to re-establish human knowledge, but not from above (from indubitable principles of reason) but from below (from experience and especially the experience of the senses). Thomas Hobbes (1588–1649) said that all reality is bodily (including God), and all events are motions in space. Willing, then, is a motion, and is merely the last act of desire or aversion in any process of deliberation. His view is that it is natural, and so reasonable, for each of us to aim solely at our own preservation or pleasure. In the state of nature, humans are selfish, and their lives are ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’, a war of all against all ( Leviathan , Ch. 13). The first precept of the law of nature is then for each of us, pursuing our own interest, ‘to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of attaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war.’ ( Ibid ., Ch. 14). The second precept is that each of us should be willing to lay down our natural rights to everything to the extent that others are also willing, and Hobbes concludes with the need to subordinate ourselves to a sovereign who alone will be able to secure peace. The second and longest portion of Leviathan is devoted to religion, where Hobbes argues for the authority of Scripture (‘God's word’), which he thinks is needed for the authority of law. He argues for the authority in the interpretation of Scripture to be given to that same earthly sovereign, and not to competing ecclesiastical authorities (whose competition had been seen to exacerbate the miseries of war both in Britain and on the continent) ( Ibid ., Ch. 33).

John Locke (1632–1704) followed Hobbes in deriving morality from our need to live together in peace given our natural discord, but he denied that we are mechanically moved by our desires. He agreed with Hobbes in saying that moral laws are God's imposition, but disagreed by making God's power and benevolence both necessary conditions for God's authority in this respect ( Treatises , IV. XIII. 3). He also held that our reason can work out counsels or advice about moral matters; but only God's imposition makes law (and hence obligation), and we only know about God's imposition from revelation ( The Reasonableness of Christianity , 62–5). He therefore devoted considerable attention to justifying our belief in the reliability of revelation.

The deists (e.g., William Wollaston, 1659–1724) believed that humans can reason from their experience of nature to the existence and some of the attributes of God, that special revelation is accordingly unnecessary, that God does not intervene in human affairs (after creation) and that the good life for humans finds adequate guidance in philosophical ethics. Frances Hutcheson (1694–1746) was not a deist, but does give a reading of the sort of guidance involved here. He distinguished between objects that are naturally good, which excite personal or selfish pleasure, and those that are morally good, which are advantageous to all persons affected. He took himself to be giving a reading of moral goodness as agape , the Greek word for the love of our neighbor that Jesus prescribes. This love is benevolence, Hutcheson said, and it is formulated in the principle ‘That Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers’ ( Inquiry II, III, VIII). Because these definitions of natural and moral good produce a possible gap between the two, we need some way to believe that morality and happiness are coincident. Hutcheson thought that God has given us a moral sense for this purpose ( Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions , II). This moral sense responds to examples of benevolence with approbation and a unique kind of pleasure, and benevolence is the only thing it responds to, as it were the only signal it picks up. It is, like Scotus's affection for justice, not confined to our perception of advantage. The result of our having moral sense is that when intending the good of others, we ‘undesignedly’ end up promoting our own greatest good as well because we end up gratifying ourselves along with others. God shows benevolence by first making us benevolent and then giving us this moral sense that gets joy from the approbation of our benevolence. To contemporary British opponents of moral sense theory, this seemed too rosy or benign a picture; our joy in approving benevolence is not enough to make morality and happiness coincident. We need also obligation and divine sanction.

Joseph Butler (1692–1752, Bishop of Bristol and then of Durham) held that God's goodness consists in benevolence, in wanting us to be happy, and that we should want the same for each other. He made the important point that something can be good for an agent because it is what he wants without this meaning that the content of what he wants has anything to do with himself ( Fifteen Sermons , 126–27).

David Hume (1711–76) is the first figure in this narrative who can properly be attached to the Enlightenment, though this term means very different things in Scotland, in France and in Germany. Hume held that reason cannot command or move the human will. Since morals clearly do have an influence on actions and affections, ‘it follows that they cannot be derived from reason; and that because reason alone, as we have already proved, can never have any such influence’ ( Treatise III.1). For Hume an action, or sentiment, or character, is virtuous or vicious ‘because its view causes a pleasure or uneasiness of a particular kind’ ( Ibid ., III.2). The denial of motive power to reason is part of his general skepticism. He accepted from Locke the principle that our knowledge is restricted to sense impressions from experience and logically necessary relations of ideas in advance of experience (in Latin, a priori ). From this principle he derived more radical conclusions than Locke had done. For example, we cannot know about causation or the soul. The only thing we can know about morals is that we get pleasure from the thought of some things and pain from the thought of others. Since the idea of morality implies something universal, there must be some sentiment of sympathy or (he later says) humanity, which is common to all human beings, and which ‘recommends the same object to general approbation’ ( Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals , IX. I. 221). Hume thought we could get conventional moral conclusions from these moral sentiments, which nature has fortunately given us. He was also skeptical about any attempt to derive conclusions containing ‘ought’ from premises containing only ‘is’, though scholars debate about the scope of the premises he is talking about here. Probably he included premises about God's will or nature or action. This does not mean he was arguing against the existence of God. He thought (like Calvin) that we cannot rely on rational proofs of God's existence, even though humans have what Calvin called a sense of the divine and Human called ‘true religion’. But Hume never identified himself as an atheist, though he had opportunity in the atheist circles he frequented in Paris, and his Dialogues on Natural Religion end with the sentiment that ‘to be a philosophical skeptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian’ ( Dialogues , part XII, penultimate paragraph). Some scholars take this remark (like similar statements in Hobbes) as purely ironic, but this goes beyond the evidence.

The Enlightenment in France had a more anti-clerical flavor (in part because of the history of Jansenism, unique to France), and for the first time in this narrative we meet genuine atheists, such as Baron d'Holbach (1723–89) who held not only that morality did not need religion, but that religion, and especially Christianity, was its major impediment. François-Marie Voltaire (1694-1778) was, especially towards the end of his life, opposed to Christianity, but not to religion in general ( Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great , letter 156). He accepted from the English deists the idea that what is true in Christian teachings is the core of human values that are universally true in all religions, and (like the German rationalists) he admired Confucius. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) said, famously, that mankind is born free, but everywhere he is in chains ( The Social Contract , Ch. 1). This supposes a disjunction between nature and contemporary society, and Rousseau held that the life of primitive human beings was happy inasmuch as they knew how to live in accordance with their own innate needs; now we need some kind of social contract to protect us from the corrupting effects of society upon the proper love of self. Nature is understood as the whole realm of being created by God, who guarantees its goodness, unity, and order. Rousseau held that we do not need any intermediary between us and God, and we can attain salvation by returning to nature in this high sense and by developing all our faculties harmoniously. Our ultimate happiness is to feel ourselves at one with the system that God created.

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is the most important figure of the Enlightenment in Germany, but his project is different in many ways from those of his French contemporaries. He was brought up in a pietist Lutheran family, and his system retains many features from, for example, Crusius. But he was also indebted through Wolff to Leibniz. Moreover, he was ‘awoken from his dogmatic slumbers’ by reading Hume, though Kant is referring here to Hume's attack on causation, not his ethical theory ( Prolegomena , 4:260). Kant's mature project was to limit human knowledge ‘in order to make room for faith’ ( KrV , B xxx). He accepted from Hume that our knowledge is confined within the limits of possible sense experience, but he did not accept skeptical conclusions about causation or the soul. Reason is not confined, in his view, to the same limits as knowledge, and we are rationally required to hold beliefs about things as they are in themselves, not merely things as they appear to us. In particular, we are required to believe in God, freedom and immortality. These are three ‘postulates of practical reason’, required to make rational sense of the fact of moral obligation, the fact that we are under the moral law (the ‘categorical imperative’) that requires us to will the maxim of an action (the prescription of the action together with the reason for it) as a universal law (removing any self-preference) and to treat humanity in any person as always at the same time an end and never merely as a means ( Groundwork , 4.421, 429). Kant thought that humans have to be able to believe that morality in this demanding form is consistent in the long run with happiness (both their own and that of the people they affect by their actions), if they are going to be able to persevere in the moral life without rational instability. He did not accept the three traditional theoretical arguments for the existence of God (though he was sympathetic to a modest version of the teleological argument). But the practical argument was decisive for him, though he held that it was possible to be morally good without being a theist, despite such a position being rationally unstable.

In Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason he undertook the project of using moral language in order to translate the four main themes of Biblical revelation (accessible only to particular people at particular times) into the revelation to Reason (accessible to all people at all times). This does not mean that he intended to reduce Biblical faith to morality, though some scholars have taken him this way. The translated versions of Creation, Fall, Redemption and Second Coming are as follows (see Hare 1996): Humans have an initial predisposition to the good, which is essential to them, but is overlaid with a propensity to evil, which is not essential to them. Since they are born under ‘the Evil Maxim’ that subordinates duty to happiness, they are unable by their own devices to reverse this ranking, and require ‘an effect of grace’ ( Religion , 6.53). Providence ushers in progress (though not continuous) towards an ‘ethical commonwealth’ in which we together make the moral law our own law, by appropriating it as authoritative for our own lives (this is what Kant means by ‘autonomy’) ( Religion , 6.98–99; Groundwork , 4.433–34).

A whole succession of Kant's followers tried to ‘go beyond’ Kant by showing that there was finally no need to make the separation between our knowledge and the thing-in-itself beyond our knowledge. One key step in departing from the surviving influence in Kant of Lutheran pietism was taken by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), who identified (as Kant did not) the will of the individual with the infinite Ego which is ordering the universe morally. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) accomplished a somewhat similar end by proposing that we should make the truth of ideas relative to their original historical context against the background of a history that is progressing towards a final stage of ‘absolute knowledge’, in which Spirit (in German Geist , which means also ‘mind’) understands that reality is its own creation and there is no ‘beyond’ for it to know. Hegel is giving a philosophical account of the Biblical notion of all things returning to God, ‘so that God may be all in all.’ ( I Cor . 15:28) In this world-history, Hegel located the Reformation as ‘the all-enlightening sun’ of the bright day that is our modern time ( The Philosophy of History , 412). He thought that Geist moves immanently through human history, and that the various stages of knowledge are also stages of freedom, each stage producing first its own internal contradiction, and then a radical transition into a new stage. The stage of absolute freedom will be one in which all members freely by reason endorse the organic community and the concrete institutions in which they actually live ( Phenomenology , BB, VI, B, III).

One of Hegel's opponents was Arthur Schopenhauer (1799–1860), the philosopher of pessimism. Schopenhauer thought that Hegel had strayed from the Kantian truth that there is a thing-in-itself beyond appearance, and that the Will is such a thing. He differed from Kant, however, in seeing the Will as the source of all our endless suffering, a blind striving power without ultimate purpose or design ( The World as Will and Representation , §56 p. 310 and §57 p. 311). It is, moreover, one universal Will that underlies the wills of all separate individuals. The intellect and its ideas are simply the Will's servant. On this view, there is no happiness for us, and our only consolation is a (quasi-Buddhist) release from the Will to the limited extent we can attain it, especially through aesthetic enjoyment.

Hegel's followers split into what are sometimes called ‘Right Hegelians’ and ‘Left Hegelians’ (or ‘Young Hegelians’). Right Hegelians promoted the generally positive view of the Prussian state that Hegel expressed in the Philosophy of Right . Left Hegelians rejected it, and with it the Protestant Christianity which they saw as its vehicle. In this way Hegel's peculiar way of promoting Christianity ended up causing its vehement rejection by thinkers who shared many of his social ideals. David Friedrich Strauss (1808–74) wrote The Life of Jesus Critically Examined , launching the historical-critical method of Biblical scholarship with the suggestion that much of the Biblical account is myth or ‘unconscious invention’ that needs to be separated out from the historical account. Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–72) wrote The Essence of Christianity in which he pictured all religion as the means by which ‘man projects his being into objectivity, and then again makes himself an object to this projected image of himself’ ( The Essence of Christianity , 30). Feuerbach thought religion resulted from humanity's alienation from itself, and philosophy needed to destroy the religious illusion so that we could learn to love humankind and not divert this love onto an imaginary object. Karl Marx (1818–83) followed Feuerbach in this diagnosis of religion, but he was interested primarily in social and political relations rather than psychology. He became suspicious of theory (for example Hegel's), on the grounds that theory is itself a symptom of the power structures in the societies that produce it. “Theory,” Marx writes, “is realized in a people only in so far as it is a realization of the people's needs” (“Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right,” Early Writings , 252). And ‘ideologies’ and ‘religion,’ he believes, arise from “conditions that require [these] illusions” (Ibid., 244). Marx returned to Hegel's thoughts about work revealing to the worker his value through what the worker produces, but Marx argues that under capitalism the worker was alienated from this product because other people owned both the product and the means of producing it. Marx urged that the only way to prevent this was to destroy the institution of private property (“Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts,” Early Writings , 348). Thus he believed, like Hegel, in progress through history towards freedom, but he thought it would take Communist revolution to bring this about.

A very different response to Hegel (and Kant) is found in the work of Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55), a religious thinker who started, like Hegel and Kant, from Lutheranism. Kierkegaard mocked Hegel constantly for presuming to understand the whole system in which human history is embedded, while still being located in a particular small part of it. On the other hand, he used Hegelian categories of thought himself, especially in his idea of the aesthetic life, the ethical life and the religious life as stages through which human beings develop by means of first internal contradiction and then radical transition. Kierkegaard's relation with Kant was problematic as well. In Either/Or he caricatured Kant's ethical thought (as well as Hegel's) in the person of Judge William, who is stuck within the ethical life and has not been able to reach the life of faith. On the other hand, his own description of the religious life is full of echoes of Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason . Kierkegaard wrote most of his work pseudonymously, taking on the names of characters who lived the lives he describes. In the aesthetic life the goal is to keep at bay the boredom that is constantly threatening, and this requires enough distance from one's projects that one is not stuck with them but can flit from engagement to engagement without pain ( Either/Or , II. 77). This life deconstructs, because it requires (in order to sustain interest) the very commitment that it also rejects. The transition is accomplished by making a choice for one's life as a whole from a position that is not attached to any particular project, a radical choice that requires admitting the aesthetic life has been a failure. In this choice one discovers freedom, and thus the ethical life ( Either/Or , II. 188). But this life too deconstructs, because it sets up the goal of living by a demand, the moral law, that is higher than we can live by our own human devices. Kierkegaard thought we have to realize that God is (contrary to Fichte) ‘another’ ( Sickness unto Death xi 128), with whom we have to relate, and whose assistance is necessary even for the kind of repentance that is the transition into the religious life. He also suggested that within the religious life, there is a ‘repetition’ of the aesthetic life and the ethical life, though in a transformed version.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was the son of a Lutheran pastor in Prussia. He was trained as a classical philologist, and his first book, The Birth of Tragedy , was an account of the origin and death of ancient Greek tragedy. Nietzsche was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer, especially his view of the will (which Nietzsche called ‘the Will to Power’), and was first attracted and then repelled by Wagner, who was also one of Schopenhauer's disciples. The breaking point seems to have been Wagner's Parsifal . Nietzsche by this time was opposed to orthodox Christianity and was promoting Ancient Greece instead, and he thought that Wagner was betraying his integrity by using an ‘anti-Greek’ Christian story for the opera. Nietzsche saw clearly the intimate link between Christianity and the ethical theories of his predecessors in Europe, especially Kant. In On the Genealogy of Morals , he says, ‘The advent of the Christian God, as the maximum god attained so far, was therefore accompanied by the maximum feeling of guilty indebtedness on earth. Presuming we have gradually entered upon the reverse course, there is no small probability that with the irresistible decline of faith in the Christian God, there is now also a considerable decline in mankind's feeling of guilt’ ( On the Genealogy of Morals , 90–1). This is the ‘death of God’ which Nietzsche announced, and which he predicted would also be the end of Kantian ethics ( The Gay Science , §108, 125, 343). It is harder to know what Nietzsche was for, than what he was against. This is partly an inheritance from Schopenhauer, who thought any system of constructive ethical thought a delusion. But Nietzsche clearly admired the Ancient Greeks, and thought we would be better off with a ‘master’ morality like theirs, rather than a ‘slave’ morality like Christianity. ‘Mastery over himself also necessarily gives him mastery over circumstances, over nature, and over all more short-willed and unreliable creatures’ ( Genealogy , 59-60). By this last clause, he meant mastery over other people, and the model of this mastery is the ‘overman’ who is free of the resentment by the weak of the strong that Nietzsche thought lay at the basis of Christian ethics.

To return to Britain, Hume had a number of successors who accepted the view (which Hume took from Hutcheson) that our fundamental obligation is to work for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Four are especially significant. William Paley (1743–1805) thought he could demonstrate that morality derived from the will of God and required promoting the happiness of all, that happiness was the sum of pleasures, and that we need to believe that God is the final granter of happiness if we are to sustain motivation to do what we know we ought to do ( The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy , II. 4). Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) rejected this theological context. His grounds were radically empiricist, that the only ‘real’ entities are publicly observable, and so do not include God (or, for that matter, right or time or relations or qualities). He thought he could provide a scientific calculus of pleasures, where the unit that stays constant is the minimum state of sensibility that can be distinguished from indifference. He thought we could then separate different ‘dimensions’ in which these units vary, such as intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity (how soon the pleasures will come), fecundity (how many other pleasures this pleasure will produce) and purity. Discarding the theological context made moral motivation problematic, for why should we expect (without God) more units of pleasure for ourselves by contributing to the greater pleasure of others? Bentham's solution was to hope that law and social custom could provide individuals with adequate motives through the threat of social sanctions, and that what he called ‘deontology’ (which is personal or private morality) could mobilize hidden or long-range interests that were already present but obscure.

John Stuart Mill (1806–73) was raised on strict utilitarian principles by his father, a follower of Bentham. Unlike Bentham, however, Mill accepted that there are qualitative differences in pleasures simply as pleasures, and he thought that the higher pleasures were those of the intellect, the feelings and imagination, and the moral sentiments. He observed that those who have experienced both these and the lower pleasures, tend to prefer the former. At the age of twenty he had a collapse and a prolonged period of ‘melancholy’. He realized that his education had neglected the culture or cultivation of feelings , of which hope is a primary instance ( Autobiography , 1. 84). In his Three Essays on Religion (published posthumously in 1874) he returned to the idea of hope, saying that ‘the indulgence of hope with regard to the government of the universe and the destiny of man after death, while we recognize as a clear truth that we have no ground for more than a hope, is legitimate and philosophically defensible’; without such hope, we are kept down by ‘the disastrous feeling of “not worth while”’ ( Three Essays 249–50). Mill did not believe, however, that God was omnipotent, given all the evil in the world, and he insisted, like Kant, that we have to be God's co-workers, not merely passive recipients of God's assistance.

Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) in Methods of Ethics distinguished three methods: Intuitionism (which is, roughly, the common sense morality that some things, like deliberate ingratitude to a benefactor, are self-evidently wrong in themselves independently of their consequences), Egoistic Hedonism (the view that self-evidently an individual ought to aim at a maximum balance of happiness for herself, where this is understood as the greatest balance of pleasure over pain), and Utilitarianism or Universalistic Hedonism, (the view that self-evidently she ought to aim at the maximum balance of happiness for all sentient beings present and future, whatever the cost to herself). Of these three, he rejected the first, on the grounds that no concrete ethical principles are self-evident, and that when they conflict (as they do) we have to take consequences into account in order to decide how to act. But Sidgwick found the relation between the other two methods much more problematic. Each principle separately seemed to him self-evident, but when taken together they seems to be mutually inconsistent. He considered two solutions, psychological and metaphysical. The psychological solution was to bring in the pleasures and pains of sympathy, so that if we do good to all we end up (because of these pleasures) making ourselves happiest. Sidgwick rejected this on the basis that sympathy is inevitably limited in its range, and we feel it most towards those closest to us, so that even if we include sympathetic pleasures and pains under Egoism, it will tend to increase the divergence between Egoistic and Utilitarian conduct, rather than bring them closer together. The metaphysical solution was to bring in a god who desires the greatest total good of all living things, and who will reward and punish in accordance with this desire. Sidgwick recognized this as a return to the utilitarianism of Paley (Compare Methods of Ethics , II. 1, 2 and IV. 4, 5). He thought this solution was both necessary and sufficient to remove the contradiction in ethics. But this was only a reason to accept it, if in general it is reasonable to accept certain principles (such as the Uniformity of Nature) which are not self-evident and which cannot be proved, but which bring order and coherence into a central part of our thought. Sidgwick did not commit himself to an answer to this, one way or the other.

In the twentieth century professional philosophy in the West divided up into two streams, sometimes called ‘Analytic’ and ‘Continental’, and there were periods during which the two schools lost contact with each other. Towards the end of the century, however, there were more philosophers who could speak the languages of both traditions. The beginning of the analytic school is sometimes located with the rejection of a neo-Hegelian idealism by G.E. Moore (1873-1958). One way to characterize the two schools is that the Continental school continued to read and be influenced by Hegel, and the Analytic school (with some exceptions) did not. Another way to make the distinction is geographical; the analytic school is located primarily in Britain, Scandinavia and N. America, and the continental school in the rest of Europe, in Latin America and in certain schools in N. America.

We will start with some figures from the Continental school, and then move to the analytic (which is this writer's own). Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was initially trained as a theologian, and wrote his dissertation on what he took to be a work of Duns Scotus. He took an appointment under Edmund Husserl (1855–1938) at Freiburg, and was then appointed to succeed him in his chair. Husserl's program of ‘phenomenology’ was to recover a sense of certainty about the world by studying in exhaustive detail the cognitive structure of appearance. Heidegger departed from Husserl in approaching Being through a focus on ‘Human Being’ (in German Dasein ) concerned above all for its fate in an alien world, or as ‘anxiety’ ( Angst ) towards death (see Being and Time I. 6). In this sense he is the first existentialist, though he did not use the term. Heidegger emphasized that we are ‘thrown’ into a world that is not ‘home’, and we have a radical choice about what possibilities for ourselves we will make actual. Heidegger drew here from Kierkegaard, and he is also similar in describing the danger of falling back into mere conventionality, what Heidegger calls ‘the They’ ( das Man ). On the other hand he is unlike Kierkegaard in thinking of traditional Christianity as just one more convention making authentic existence more difficult. In Heidegger, as in Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, it is hard to find a positive or constructive ethics. Heidegger's position is somewhat compromised, moreover, by his initial embrace of the Nazi party. In his later work he moved increasingly towards a kind of quasi-religious mysticism. His Romantic hatred of the modern world and his distrust of system-building led to the espousal of either silence or poetry as the best way to be open to the ‘something’ (sometimes he says ‘the earth’) which reveals itself only as ‘self-secluding’ or hiding itself away from our various conceptualizations. He held the hope that through poetry, and in particular the poetry of Hölderlin, we might be able to still sense something of the unknown god who appears ‘as the one who remains unknown,’ who is quite different from the object of theology or piety, but who can bring us back to the Being we have long lost sight of ( Poetry, Language, Thought , 222).

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) did use the label ‘existentialist’, and said that ‘Existentialism is nothing else than an attempt to draw all the consequences of a coherent atheist position’ ( Existentialism and Human Emotions , 51). He denied (like Scotus) that the moral law could be deduced from human nature, but this was because (unlike Scotus) he thought that we give ourselves our own essences by the choices we make. His slogan was, ‘Existence precedes essence’ (Ibid., 13). ‘Essence’ is here the defining property of a thing, and Sartre gave the example of a paper cutter, which is given its definition by the artisan who makes it. Sartre said that when people believed God made human beings, they could believe humans had a God-given essence; but now that we do not believe this, we have realized that humans give themselves their own essences (‘First of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself.’ Ibid., 15). On this view there are no outside commands to appeal to for legitimation, and we are condemned to our own freedom. Sartre thought of human beings as trying to be God (on a Hegelian account of what God is), even though there is no God. This is an inevitably fruitless undertaking, which he called ‘anguish’. Moreover, we inevitably desire to choose not just for ourselves, but for the world. We want, like God, to create humankind in our own image, ‘If I want to marry, to have children, even if this marriage depends solely on my own circumstances or passion or wish, I am involving all humanity in monogamy and not merely myself. Therefore, I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am creating a certain image of man of my own choosing. In choosing myself, I choose man’ (Ibid., 18). To recognize that this project does not make sense is required by honesty, and to hide this from ourselves is ‘bad faith’. One form of bad faith is to pretend that there is a God who is giving us our tasks. Another is to pretend that there is a ‘human nature’ that is doing the same thing. To live authentically is to realize both that we create these tasks for ourselves, and that they are futile.

The twentieth century also saw, within Roman Catholicism, forms of Christian Existentialism and new adaptations of the system of Thomas Aquinas. Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), like Heidegger, was concerned with the nature of Being as it appears to human being, but he tried to show that there are experiences of love, joy, hope and faith which, as understood from within , give us reason to believe in an inexhaustible Presence, which is God. Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) developed a form of Thomism that retained the natural law, but regarded ethical judgment as not purely cognitive but guided by pre-conceptual affective inclinations. He gave more place to history than traditional Thomism did, allowing for development in the human knowledge of natural law, and he defended democracy as the appropriate way for human persons to attain freedom and dignity. The notion of the value of the person and the capacities given to persons by their creator was at the center of the ‘personalism’ of Pope John Paul II's The Acting Person (1979), influenced by Max Scheler (1874–1928).

Natural law theory has been taken up and modified more recently by three philosophers who write in a style closer to the analytic tradition, John Finnis, Alastair MacIntyre and Jean Porter. Finnis holds that our knowledge of the fundamental moral truths is self-evident, and so is not deduced from human nature. His Natural Law and Natural Rights (1980) was a landmark in integrating the modern vocabulary and grammar of rights into the tradition of Natural Law. MacIntyre, who has been on a long journey back from Marxism to Thomism, holds that we can know what kind of life we ought to live on the basis of knowing our natural end, which he now identifies in theological terms. In After Virtue (1981) he is still influenced by a Hegelian historicism, and holds that the only way to settle rival knowledge claims is to see how successfully each can account for the shape taken by its rivals. A different account of natural law is found in Porter, who in Nature as Reason (2005) retains the view that our final motivation is our own happiness and perfection, but rejects the view that we can deduce absolute action-guiding moral principles from human nature. Another contemporary school is virtue ethics, for example Philippa Foot in Natural Goodness (2001) and Rosalind Hursthouse in On Virtue Ethics (1999). They are not Roman Catholic but they are strongly influenced by Aristotle and Aquinas. They emphasize the notion of virtue which belongs to human nature just as bees have stings. Hursthouse ends her book by saying that we have to hold onto the hope that we can live together, not at each other's expense, a hope which she says used to be called belief in (God's) Providence ( On Virtue Ethics , 265). One final contribution to be mentioned here is Linda Zagzebski's Divine Motivation Theory (2004) which proposes, as an alternative to divine command theory, that we can understand all moral normatively in terms of the notion of a good emotion, and that God's emotions are the best exemplar. We will return to the rebirth of divine command theory at the end of this entry.

Michel Foucault (1926–84) followed Nietzsche in aspiring to uncover the ‘genealogy’ of various contemporary forms of thought and practice (he was concerned, for example, with our treatment of sexuality and mental illness), and how relations of power and domination have produced ‘discourses of truth’ (“Truth and Power,” Power , 131). In his later work he described four different aspects of the ‘practice of the self’: We select the desires, acts, and thoughts that we attend to morally, we recognize ourselves as morally bound by some particular ground, e.g., divine commands, or rationality, or human nature, we transform ourselves into ethical subjects by some set of techniques, e.g., meditation or mortification or consciousness-raising, and finally, we propose a ‘ telos ’ or goal, the way of life or mode of being that the subject is aiming at, e.g., self-mastery, tranquility or purification. Foucault criticized Christian conventions that tend to take morality as a juristic and often universal code of laws, and to ignore the creative practice of self-making. Even if Christian and post-Christian moralists turn their attention to self-expression, he thought they tend to focus on the confession of truth about oneself, a mode of expression which is historically linked to the church and the modern psycho-sciences. Foucault preferred stressing our freedom to form ourselves as ethical subjects, and develop ‘a new form of right’ and a ‘non-disciplinary form of power’ (“Disciplinary Power and Subjection,” Power , 242). He did not, however, tell us much more about what these new forms would be like.

Jürgen Habermas (1929-) proposed a ‘communicative ethics’ that develops the Kantian element in Marxism ( The Theory of Communicative Action , Vols. I and II). By analyzing the structure of communication (using speech-act theory developed in analytic philosophy) he lays out a procedure that will rationally justify norms, though he does not claim to know what norms a society will adopt by using this procedure. The two ideas behind this procedure are that norms are valid if they receive the consent of all the affected parties in unconstrained practical communication, and if the consequences of the general observance of the norms (in terms of how each person's interests are affected) are acceptable to all. Habermas thinks he fulfills in this way Hegel's aim of reconciling the individual and society, because the communication process extends individuals beyond their private perspectives in the process of reaching agreement. Religious convictions need to be left behind when entering the public square, on this scheme, because they are not communicable in the way the procedure requires. In recent work he has modified this position, by recognizing that certain religious forms require their adherents to speak in an explicitly religious way when advancing their prescriptions for public life, and it is discriminatory to try to prevent their doing so.

Within contemporary Jewish ethics mention should be made of Martin Buber (1878–1965) and Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95). Buber's form of existentialism emphasized the I-You relationship, which exists not only between human beings but (out of that) between human beings and God. When we reject I-You relationship, we return to I-It relations, governed by our impositions of our own conceptualizations on objects. Buber said these two relations are exhaustive. ‘There is no I as such but only the I of the basic word I-You and the I of the basic word I-It.’ ( I and Thou , 54). Levinas studied under Husserl, and knew Heidegger, whose work he first embraced and then rejected. His focus, like Buber's, was on the ‘ethics of the Other’, and he held that the face of the Other makes a demand on us even before we recognize our freedom to accept it or reject it. To meet the Other is to have the idea of Infinity ( Ethics and Infinity , 90–1).

We are sometimes said to live now in a ‘post-modern’ age. This term is problematic in various ways. As used within architectural theory in the 1960's and 1970's it had a relatively clear sense. There was a recognizable style that either borrowed bits and pieces from styles of the past, or mocked the very idea (in modernist architecture) of essential functionality. In philosophy, the term is less clearly definable. It combines a distaste for ‘meta-narratives’ and a rejection of any form of foundationalism. The effect on philosophical thinking about the relation between morality and religion is two-fold. On the one hand, the modernist rejection of religion on the basis of a foundationalist empiricism is itself rejected. This makes the current climate more hospitable to religious language than it was for most of the twentieth century. But on the other hand, the distaste for over-arching theory means that religious meta-narratives are suspect to the same degree as any other, and the hospitality is more likely to be towards bits and pieces of traditional theology than to any theological system as a whole. Habermas uses the term ‘post-secular age’ to describe our current condition, in which the secularization hypothesis (that religion was destined to wither away under the impact of science and education) has apparently failed.

Mention should be made of some movements that are not philosophical in a professional sense, but are important in understanding the relation between morality and religion. Liberation theology, of which a leading spokesman from Latin America is Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928-), has attempted to reconcile the Christian gospel with a commitment (influenced by Marxist categories) to revolution to relieve the condition of the oppressed. The civil rights movement (drawing heavily on Exodus ), feminist ethics, animal liberation, environmental ethics, and the gay rights and children's rights movements have shown special sensitivity to the moral status of some particular oppressed class. The leadership of some of these movements has been religiously committed, while the leadership of others has not. At the same time, the notion of human rights, or justified claims by every human being, has grown in global reach, partly through the various instrumentalities of the United Nations. There has, however, been less consensus on the question of how to justify human rights. There are theological justifications, deriving from the image of God in every human being, or the command to love the neighbor, or the covenant between God and humanity (see Wolterstorff, Justice : Rights and Wrongs , chapter 16). Whether there is a non-theological justification is not yet clear. Finally, there has also been a burst of activity in professional ethics, such as medical ethics, engineering ethics, and business ethics. This has not been associated with any one school of philosophy rather than another. The connection of religion with these developments has been variable. In some cases (e.g., medical ethics) the initial impetus for the new sub-discipline was strongly influenced by theology, and in other cases not.

The origin of analytic philosophy can be associated with G.E. Moore. His Principia Ethica (1903) can be regarded as the first major ethical document of the school. He was strongly influenced by Sidgwick at Cambridge, but rejected Sidgwick's negative views about intuitionism. He thought that intrinsic goodness was a real property of things, even though (like the number two) it does not exist in time and is not the object of sense experience. He explicitly aligned himself here with Plato and against the class of empiricist philosophers, ‘to which most Englishmen have belonged’ ( Principia Ethica , 162). His predecessors, Moore thought, had almost all committed the error, which he called ‘the naturalistic fallacy,’ of trying to define this value property by identifying it with a non-evaluative property. For example, they proposed that goodness is pleasure, or what produces pleasure. But whatever non-evaluative property we try to say goodness is identical to, we will find that it remains an open question whether that property is in fact good. For example, it makes sense to ask whether pleasure or the production of pleasure is good. This is true also if we propose a supernatural property to identify with goodness, for example the property of being commanded by God. It still makes sense to ask whether what God commands is good. This question cannot be the same as the question ‘Is what God commands what God commands?’ which is not still an open question. Moore thought that if these questions are different, then the two properties, goodness and being commanded by God, cannot be the same, and to say (by way of a definition) that they are the same is to commit the fallacy. Intrinsic goodness, Moore said, is a simple non-natural property (i.e., neither natural nor supernatural) and indefinable. He thought we had a special form of cognition that he called ‘intuition,’ which gives us access to such properties. By this he meant that the access was not based on inference or argument, but was self-evident (though we could still get it wrong, just as we can with sense-perception). He thought the way to determine what things had positive value intrinsically was to consider what things were such that, if they existed by themselves in isolation, we would yet judge their existence to be good.

At Cambridge Moore was a colleague of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). Russell was not primarily a moral philosopher, but he expressed radically different views at different times about ethics. In 1910 he agreed with Moore that goodness (like roundness) is a quality that belongs to objects independently of our opinions, and that when two people differ about whether a thing is good, only one of them can be right. By 1922 he was holding an error theory (like that of John Mackie, 1917–81) that although we mean by ‘good’ an objective property in this way, there is in fact no such thing, and hence all our value judgments are strictly speaking false (“The Element of Ethics,” Philosophical Essays ). Then by 1935 he had dropped also the claim about meaning, holding that value judgments are expressions of desire or wish, and not assertions at all. Wittgenstein's views on ethics are enigmatic and subject to wildly different interpretations. In the Tractatus (which is about logic) he says at the end, ‘It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)’ ( Tractatus , 6.421). Perhaps he means that the world we occupy is good or bad (and happy or unhappy) as a whole, and not piece-by-piece. Wittgenstein (like Nietzsche) was strongly influenced by Schopenhauer's notion of will, and by his disdain for ethical theories that purport to be able to tell one what to do and what not to do. The Tractatus was taken up by the Logical Positivists, though Wittgenstein himself was never a Logical Positivist. The Logical Positivists held a ‘verificationist’ theory of meaning, that assertions can be meaningful only if they can in principle be verified by sense experience or if they are tautologies (for example, ‘All bachelors are unmarried men.’) This seems to leave ethical statements (and statements about God) meaningless, and indeed that was the deliberately provocative position taken by A.J. Ayer (1910–89). Ayer accepted Moore's arguments about the naturalistic fallacy, and since Moore's talk of ‘non-natural properties’ seemed to Ayer just nonsense, he was led to emphasize and analyze further the non-cognitive ingredient in evaluation which Moore had identified. Suppose I say to a cannibal, ‘You acted wrongly in eating your prisoner.’ Ayer thought I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, ‘You ate your prisoner.’ I am, rather, evincing my moral disapproval of it. It is as if I had said, ‘You ate your prisoner’ in a peculiar tone of horror, or written it with the addition of some special exclamation marks ( Language, Truth and Logic , 107–8).

The emotivist theory of ethics had its most articulate treatment in Ethics and Language by Charles Stevenson (1908–79). Stevenson was a positivist, but also the heir of John Dewey (1859–1952) and the American pragmatist tradition. Dewey had rejected the idea of fixed ends for human beings, and stressed that moral deliberation occurs in the context of competition within a person between different ends, none of which can be assumed permanent. He criticized theories that tried to derive moral principles from self-certifying reason, or intuition, or cosmic forms, or divine commands, both because he thought there are no self-certifying faculties or self-evident norms, and because the alleged derivation disguises the actual function of the principles as devices for social action. Stevenson applied this emphasis to the competition between people with different ends, and stressed the role of moral language as a social instrument for persuasion ( Ethics and Language , Ch. 5). On his account, normative judgments express attitudes and invite others to share these attitudes, but they are not strictly speaking true or false.

Wittgenstein did not publish any book after the Tractatus , but he wrote and taught; and after his death Philosophical Investigations was published in 1953. The later thought of Wittgenstein bears a similar relation to the Tractatus as Heidegger bears to Husserl. In both cases the quest for a kind of scientific certainty was replaced by the recognition that science is itself just one language, and not in many cases prior by right. The later Wittgenstein employed the notion of different ‘forms of life’ in which different ‘language games’ including those of religion are at home ( Philosophical Investigation , §7, 19, 373). In Oxford there was a parallel though distinct development centering round the work of John Austin (1911–60). Austin did not suppose that ordinary language was infallible, but he did think that it preserved a great deal of wisdom that had passed the test of centuries of experience, and that traditional philosophical discussion had ignored this primary material. In How to do Things with Words (published posthumously) Austin labeled ‘the descriptive fallacy’ the mistake of thinking that all language is used to perform the act of describing or reporting, and he attributed the discovery of this fallacy to Kant ( How to do Things with Words , 3).

R.M. Hare (1919–2002) took up the diagnosis of this fallacy, and proposed a ‘universal prescriptivism’ which attributed three characteristics to the language of morality. First, it is prescriptive, which is to say that moral judgments express the will in a way analogous to commands. This preserves the emotivist insight that moral judgment is different from assertion, but does not deny the role of rationality in such judgment. Second, moral judgment is universalizable. This is similar to the formula of Kant's categorical imperative that requires that we be able to will the maxims of our actions as universal laws. Third, moral judgment is overriding. This means that moral prescriptions legitimately take precedence over any other normative prescriptions. In Moral Thinking (1981) Hare claimed to demonstrate that utilitarianism followed from these three features of morality, though he excluded ideals (in the sense of preferences for how the world should be independently of the agent's concurrent desires or experience) from the scope of this argument. God enters in two ways into this picture. First, Hare proposed a figure he calls ‘the archangel’ who is the model for fully critical (as opposed to intuitive) moral thinking, having full access to all the relevant information and complete impartiality between the affected parties. Hare acknowledge that since archangels (e.g., Lucifer) are not reliably impartial in this way, it is really God who is the model. Second, we have to be able to believe (as Kant argued) that the universe sustains morality in the sense that it is worthwhile trying to be morally good. Hare thought that this requires something like a belief (he called it a ‘blik’) in the operation of Providence (“The Simple Believer,” Essays on Religion and Education , appendix, 37–9).

The most important opponent of utilitarianism in the twentieth century was John Rawls (1921–2005). In his Theory of Justice (1971) he gave, like Hare, an account of ethics heavily indebted to Kant. But he insisted that utilitarianism does not capture the Kantian insight that each person is an end in himself or herself, because it ‘does not take seriously the distinction between persons’ ( Theory of Justice , 22). He constructed the thought experiment of the ‘Original Position’ in which individuals imagine themselves not knowing what role in society they are going to play or what endowments of talent or material wealth they possess, and agree together on what principles of justice they will accept. Rawls thought it important that substantive conceptions of the good life were left behind in moving to the Original Position, because he was attempting to provide an account of justice that people with competing visions of the good could agree to in a pluralist society. Like early Habermas he included religions under this prohibition. In Political Liberalism (1993) he conceded that the procedure of the Original Position is itself ideologically constrained, and he moved to the idea of an overlapping consensus: Kantians can accept the idea of justice as fairness (which the procedure describes) because it realizes autonomy, utilitarians because it promotes overall utility, Christians because it is part of divine law, etc. But even here Rawls wanted to insist that adherents of the competing visions of the good leave their particular conceptions behind in public discourse and justify the policies they endorse on grounds that are publicly accessible. He described this as the citizen's duty of civility ( Political Liberalism , iv).

The section of this entry on the continental school discussed briefly the topic of postmodernism. Within analytic philosophy the term is less prevalent. But both schools live in the same increasingly global cultural context. In this context we can reflect on the two main disqualifiers of the project of relating morality intimately to religion that seemed to emerge in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first disqualifier was the prestige of natural science, and the attempt to make it foundational for all human knowledge. The various empiricist, verificationist, and reductionist forms of foundationalism have not yet succeeded, and even within modern philosophy there has been a continuous resistance to them. This is not to say they will not succeed in the future (for example we may discover a foundation for ethics in the theory of evolution), but the confidence in their future success has waned. Moreover, the secularization hypothesis seems to have been false, as mentioned earlier. Certainly parts of Western Europe are less attached to traditional institutional forms of religion. But taking the world as a whole, religion seems to be increasing in influence rather than declining as the world's educational standards improve. The second main disqualifier was the liberal idea (present in the narrative of this entry from the time of the religious wars in Europe) that we need a moral discourse based on reason and not religion in order to avoid the hatred and bloodshed that religion seems to bring with it. Here the response to Rawls has been telling. It seems false that we can respect persons and at the same time tell them to leave their fundamental commitments behind in public discourse, and it seems false also that some purely rational but still action-guiding component can be separated off from these competing substantive conceptions of the good (see Wolterstorff, “An Engagement with Rorty”.) It is true that religious commitment can produce the deliberate targeting of civilians in a skyscraper. But the history of the twentieth century suggests that non-religious totalitarian regimes have at least as much blood on their hands. Perhaps the truth is, as Kant saw, that people under the Evil Maxim will use any available ideology for their purposes. Progress towards civility is more likely if Muslims, Christians, Jews, (and Buddhists and Hindus) are encouraged to enter ‘the public square’ with their commitments explicit, and see how much common ethical ground there in fact is. This writer has done some of this discussion, and found the common ground surprisingly extensive, though sometime common language disguises significant differences. Progress seems more likely in this way than by trying to construct a neutral philosophical ground that very few people actually accept.

One recent development in analytic ethical theory has been a revival of divine command theory parallel to the revival of natural law theory that I have already described. A pioneer in this revival was Philip Quinn's Divine Command and Moral Requirements (1978). He defended the theory against the usual objections (one, deriving from Plato's Euthyprho , that it makes morality arbitrary, and the second, deriving from a misunderstanding of Kant, that it is inconsistent with human autonomy), and proposed that we understand the relation between God and moral rightness causally, rather than analyzing the terms of moral obligation as meaning ‘commanded by God’. Though we could stipulate such a definition, it would make it obscure how theists and non-theists could have genuine moral discussion, as they certainly seem to do. Robert M. Adams, in a series of articles and then in Finite and Infinite Goods (1999), first separates off the good (which he analyzes Platonically in terms of imitating the ultimate good, which is God) and the right. He then defends a divine command theory of the right by arguing that obligation is always obligation to someone, and God is the most appropriate person, given human limitations. John Hare, In God and Morality (2007) and Divine Command (2015), defends a version of the theory that derives from God's sovereignty and defends the theory against the objection that obedience to divine command itself requires justification. He also compares Christian, Jewish and Muslim accounts of divine command. Thomas L. Carson's Value and the Good Life (2000) argues that normative theory needs to be based on an account of rationality, and then proposes that a divine-preference account of rationality is superior to all the available alternatives. An objection to divine command theory is mounted by Mark Murphy's An Essay on Divine Authority (2002) and God and Moral Law (2012) on the grounds that divine command only has authority over those persons that have submitted themselves to divine authority, but moral obligation has authority more broadly. William Wainwright's Religion and Morality defends the claim that divine command theory provides a more convincing account of moral obligation than any virtue-based theory, including Zagzebski's divine motivation theory, discussed earlier. Finally, C. Stephen Evans, in Kierkegaard's Ethics of Love : Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (2004) and God and Moral Obligation (2013) articulates both in Kierkegaard and in its own right a divine command theory that is argued to be superior to all the main alternative non-theist accounts of the nature and basis of moral obligation.

To conclude this entry, the revival of interest in divine command theory, when combined with the revival of natural law theory I already discussed, shows evidence that the attempt to connect morality closely to religion is undergoing a robust recovery within professional philosophy.

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Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

The Role of Religion in Ethics: A Comprehensive Examination

The relationship between religion and ethics has been a topic of profound philosophical, theological, and societal interest for centuries. Throughout human history, various religions have played a significant role in shaping moral values, guiding ethical conduct, and influencing the moral decision-making of individuals and communities. This complex interplay between religion and ethics has sparked extensive debates and investigations, making it a crucial subject of study.

A. Significance of the Topic:

Understanding the role of religion in ethics is essential as it provides insights into how belief systems and values impact human behavior and societal norms. By exploring the connections between religious teachings and ethical frameworks, we can gain a deeper appreciation for the diverse range of moral perspectives in the world and how they shape human interactions, laws, and cultural practices.

B. Purpose of the Research:

The primary purpose of this research is to comprehensively examine the multifaceted relationship between religion and ethics. By delving into historical perspectives, philosophical theories, psychological and sociological studies, as well as contemporary debates, we aim to shed light on the various ways in which religion influences ethical decision-making and moral behavior.

C. Thesis Statement:

This research article aims to explore the role of religion in ethics by investigating its historical significance, theological and philosophical underpinnings, empirical evidence, and contemporary implications. Through a rigorous analysis of diverse perspectives and case studies, we seek to provide a nuanced understanding of how religion shapes ethical principles and contributes to the complex landscape of morality in the modern world.

I. Understanding Ethics and Religion

A. definitions and concepts of ethics:.

Ethics refers to the philosophical study of moral principles and values that guide human behavior and decision-making. It involves the examination of what is right or wrong, good or bad, and just or unjust. Ethical theories provide frameworks for analyzing moral dilemmas, and they often focus on concepts such as virtue, duty, consequences, and moral character. Ethical systems attempt to address fundamental questions about how individuals should live, treat others, and make choices in various contexts.

B. Definitions and Concepts of Religion:

Religion encompasses a broad spectrum of belief systems and practices centered around the existence of a higher power or powers that influence and govern the universe and human life. It includes various rituals, traditions, doctrines, scriptures, and teachings that guide the spiritual and moral aspects of believers’ lives. Religions often involve shared values, moral codes, and ethical teachings that shape the ethical outlook of their followers.

C. Overview of the Relationship Between Ethics and Religion:

The relationship between ethics and religion has been a topic of ongoing discussion and contention. There are various perspectives on how religion and ethics intersect and influence each other:

Religious Ethics : Many religions provide their adherents with explicit moral guidelines and ethical principles derived from sacred texts or the teachings of revered figures. These religious ethical systems often offer absolute moral truths and a sense of duty grounded in divine authority. Examples include the Ten Commandments in Judaism and Christianity or the Five Pillars of Islam.
Theological Approaches : Theological perspectives on ethics, such as divine command theory and natural law theory, propose that moral obligations are derived from God or a higher cosmic order. These views suggest that ethical principles are intrinsic to religious belief and that ethical conduct aligns with the will of a divine entity.
Secular Ethics and Religious Influence : While some ethical theories are independent of religious beliefs, it is undeniable that religion has historically played a crucial role in shaping moral values and cultural norms. Religious teachings often contribute to the ethical framework of societies, even for individuals who do not identify as religious.
Diverse Ethical Perspectives : Different religions hold distinct ethical perspectives, which can sometimes lead to conflicting moral viewpoints. Additionally, the presence of multiple religions in a society may lead to ethical pluralism, where different religious communities coexist with diverse moral codes.
Challenges and Critiques : The role of religion in ethics has faced criticism, particularly when religious teachings conflict with evolving social values or when they are used to justify harmful actions or discrimination. Overall, the relationship between ethics and religion is multifaceted and varies across different cultures, religions, and historical periods. Understanding this complex interplay is essential for comprehending the foundations of moral values and ethical decision-making in diverse societies.

II. Historical Perspectives on the Relationship Between Ethics and Religion

A. ancient religious ethics:.

Mesopotamia: In ancient Mesopotamia, ethical principles were often intertwined with religious beliefs. The Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest known legal codes, included moral precepts and laws inspired by the Babylonian god Marduk. The concept of divine justice and social order influenced ethical norms and punishment for wrongdoing.
Egypt: Ancient Egyptian ethics were deeply rooted in religious practices, rituals, and beliefs in the afterlife. Ma’at, the concept of cosmic order and justice, played a central role in guiding ethical conduct. Individuals were expected to adhere to Ma’at’s principles of truth, justice, and harmony to maintain social order.
Greece: Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, explored ethical questions independently of religious doctrines. However, religious beliefs in Greek society still influenced moral values. For instance, concepts like the Golden Rule and the idea of virtues were found in both religious and philosophical teachings.

B. Influence of Major World Religions on Ethical Frameworks:

Christianity: Christian ethics are heavily based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Bible’s New Testament. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, emphasizes love, compassion, forgiveness, and the golden rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Christian ethical frameworks also include moral absolutes derived from divine command, such as the Ten Commandments.
Islam: Islamic ethics are shaped by the teachings of the Quran and the Hadith, which provide guidance on personal conduct and social responsibility. Key ethical principles in Islam include the Five Pillars, which encompass acts of worship, charity, and ethical behavior towards others. Islam also emphasizes the importance of justice, mercy, and ethical treatment of fellow human beings.
Buddhism: Buddhist ethics are founded on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, which outline the path to enlightenment and liberation from suffering. Ethical principles in Buddhism include non-harming, compassion, right action, and mindfulness. Buddhists strive to cultivate positive virtues and abandon harmful behaviors.
Hinduism: Hindu ethics are intertwined with the concepts of dharma (righteousness) and karma (the law of cause and effect). The ethical teachings of Hinduism promote selflessness, compassion, non-violence, and respect for all living beings. Ethical conduct is also guided by different stages of life (ashramas) and social duties (varnas).

C. Critiques and Debates on Religious Ethics:

Ethical Relativism: Critics argue that religious ethics can lead to moral relativism, where ethical principles are contingent on subjective beliefs rather than objective truths. This relativism can result in conflicting moral codes among different religious groups.
Moral Inflexibility: Some critiques argue that strict adherence to religious doctrines can lead to moral inflexibility, preventing adaptation to changing societal norms and ethical challenges.
Interpretation and Selective Application: Debates arise over the interpretation of religious texts and the selective application of ethical teachings, which can lead to differing moral judgments even within the same religious tradition.
Ethical Dilemmas: In certain cases, religious ethics may clash with secular ethical principles, leading to ethical dilemmas where individuals must reconcile conflicting moral imperatives.

Despite these critiques and debates, religious ethics continue to be influential in shaping the ethical landscape of societies worldwide. Understanding the historical development and impact of religious ethics provides valuable insights into the complexities of moral frameworks across cultures and belief systems.

III. Theological Approaches to the Role of Religion in Ethics

A. divine command theory:.

Divine command theory is a theological approach to ethics that posits that ethical principles and moral obligations are derived from the commands of a higher power, usually seen as a deity or God. According to this theory, what is morally right or wrong is determined solely by the divine will. Actions are deemed morally good if they align with God’s commands, and they are morally wrong if they go against God’s will. This view often emphasizes the importance of obedience to religious teachings and the belief that moral duties are grounded in the authority of the divine. However, critics argue that this approach raises questions about the arbitrariness of morality and the potential for ethical dilemmas when different interpretations of divine commands arise.

B. Natural Law Theory:

Natural law theory is another theological approach that asserts that ethical principles are inherent in the natural order of the universe. It proposes that human beings can discern moral truths through reason and observation of the natural world. According to this view, there is a set of universal moral principles that guide human behavior and are applicable to all individuals, regardless of religious beliefs. Natural law theorists argue that ethical principles are objective and independent of specific religious doctrines. While religious beliefs may inform one’s understanding of natural law, the theory posits that ethical truths can be discovered through rational reflection on the nature of humanity and the world. Critics, however, question the extent to which natural law can provide concrete ethical guidance and the potential for different interpretations of what constitutes natural law.

C. Virtue Ethics and Religious Character:

Virtue ethics is a philosophical and theological approach that emphasizes the development of virtuous character as the foundation for ethical decision-making. In a religious context, this approach involves striving to embody the virtues espoused by the faith. Religious traditions often promote the cultivation of virtues such as compassion, humility, patience, and integrity as essential elements of ethical living. The focus on character development is seen as vital for guiding moral behavior rather than merely adhering to rules or commands. Virtue ethics also emphasizes the importance of moral exemplars, often revered figures in religious traditions, whose lives serve as models of ethical conduct. This approach encourages individuals to emulate these exemplars and aspire to their level of moral excellence.

D. Ethical Relativism and Pluralism in Religious Contexts:

Ethical relativism is a perspective that suggests ethical principles and moral judgments are contingent on cultural, societal, or individual beliefs and vary across different contexts. In religious contexts, ethical relativism recognizes that diverse religious traditions may hold distinct ethical frameworks, leading to ethical pluralism. This pluralistic view acknowledges the coexistence of multiple moral perspectives within and among religious traditions. It recognizes that different religious groups may have contrasting moral codes, and there might not be a single absolute ethical truth. Ethical relativism allows for a more inclusive understanding of moral diversity, but it also raises questions about the possibility of finding common ground and resolving ethical conflicts when moral perspectives diverge.

These theological approaches to the role of religion in ethics provide diverse lenses through which religious traditions shape and inform ethical beliefs and practices. Each approach offers unique insights into the relationship between religious beliefs and moral values, contributing to the ongoing dialogue about the interplay of religion and ethics in various cultural and philosophical contexts.

IV. Secular Philosophical Perspectives on the Role of Religion in Ethics

A. atheism and ethical systems:.

Atheism is the absence of belief in any deities or higher powers. Despite lacking religious foundations, atheism can still offer ethical systems based on secular principles. Ethical atheism often centers on human reason, empathy, and compassion as the basis for moral decision-making. Without the guidance of religious teachings, atheists may adopt various ethical theories and philosophies to inform their moral principles. Some atheists embrace utilitarianism, virtue ethics, or other secular ethical frameworks as a means to navigate moral dilemmas and promote ethical behavior. Atheistic ethics emphasizes the importance of human well-being, social responsibility, and moral autonomy, independent of religious beliefs.

B. Secular Humanism and Ethical Principles:

Secular humanism is a philosophical worldview that emphasizes the value and dignity of human beings and their ability to determine their own destinies through reason, science, and critical thinking. Secular humanists derive their ethical principles from human reason and empirical evidence rather than religious revelations. Ethical considerations in secular humanism focus on promoting human flourishing, individual autonomy, and the well-being of all people. Secular humanists often advocate for principles such as human rights, social justice, equality, and compassion, grounded in a commitment to the welfare of humanity and the broader ecosystem .

C. Ethical Theories without Religious Foundations (e.g., Utilitarianism, Deontology):

Several ethical theories do not rely on religious foundations and provide secular approaches to moral decision-making:

Utilitarianism : Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory that emphasizes maximizing overall happiness or well-being for the greatest number of individuals. Actions are considered morally right if they produce the greatest amount of happiness or utility and wrong if they lead to more suffering. Utilitarianism is often associated with secular ethical reasoning and empirical measurements to assess the outcomes of actions.
Deontology : Deontology, formulated by philosophers like Immanuel Kant, is a non-consequentialist ethical theory that emphasizes the importance of moral principles and duties. According to deontology, certain actions are intrinsically right or wrong, regardless of their consequences. Ethical decisions are guided by universal moral principles and categorical imperatives, which serve as a foundation for ethical obligations. Deontology provides a secular framework for understanding ethical duties without relying on religious beliefs.
Contractualism : Contractualist theories propose that moral principles are derived from hypothetical social contracts or agreements. These theories do not necessitate religious beliefs but instead focus on the rational self-interest of individuals forming a social contract for mutual benefit and cooperation. Ethical obligations arise from the terms of the social contract, ensuring cooperation and harmonious living.

These secular ethical perspectives offer alternatives to religiously grounded moral frameworks and contribute to the ongoing discourse on the role of religion in ethics. While some individuals may derive their ethical principles from religious beliefs, others find moral guidance and ethical insights through secular philosophical perspectives that emphasize human reason, empathy, and the pursuit of human welfare and flourishing.

V. Contemporary Debates on Religion’s Influence on Ethical Decisions

A. religion and moral behavior:.

One of the significant debates centers around the relationship between religion and moral behavior. Some argue that religious beliefs and practices positively influence individuals to act morally and ethically. They contend that religious teachings often promote virtues, empathy, and compassion, which guide adherents to make ethical decisions and lead morally upright lives. However, others question this correlation, pointing to instances where religious individuals may engage in immoral behavior or use their beliefs to justify harmful actions. This debate raises questions about the extent to which religion genuinely impacts moral behavior and whether moral behavior is solely dependent on religious affiliations.

B. Religious Fundamentalism and Moral Absolutism:

Religious fundamentalism refers to a strict, literal interpretation of religious texts and dogmas, often leading to moral absolutism—the belief in objective, unchanging moral truths. Critics argue that religious fundamentalism can lead to rigid moral frameworks that do not account for changing social contexts and ethical complexities. Moral absolutism may also lead to intolerance towards differing perspectives and a lack of flexibility in adapting to diverse moral challenges. On the other hand, proponents of religious fundamentalism argue that adhering to absolute moral truths is necessary for upholding the integrity of religious teachings and preserving moral consistency.

C. The Intersection of Religious Freedom and Ethical Obligations:

The debate on religious freedom and ethical obligations arises when religious beliefs or practices come into conflict with broader societal norms or laws. While religious freedom is a fundamental human right, it can intersect with ethical obligations when certain religious practices are seen as discriminatory, harmful, or infringing on the rights of others. This debate poses complex questions about how to balance individual religious freedoms with the ethical responsibility to ensure equality, inclusivity, and protection of human rights for all members of society.

D. The Role of Religious Institutions in Shaping Ethical Values:

Religious institutions, such as churches, mosques, temples, and synagogues, have historically played a significant role in shaping the ethical values of their communities. These institutions often act as moral authorities, providing guidance on ethical conduct and influencing the moral outlook of their followers. However, contemporary debates surround the accountability of religious institutions and their leaders concerning ethical misconduct or abuses of power. Some argue that religious institutions must uphold high ethical standards to maintain credibility as moral influencers, while others emphasize the need for transparency, accountability, and checks and balances within religious organizations.

These contemporary debates highlight the complexity of religion’s role in shaping ethical decisions and the diverse perspectives on how religious beliefs intersect with ethical values in the modern world. The ongoing discussions contribute to a deeper understanding of the nuances involved in navigating the relationship between religion and ethics in diverse cultural, social, and legal contexts.

VI. Psychological and Sociological Studies on the Link Between Religion and Ethics

A. psychological aspects of religious influences on moral development:.

Psychological research explores how religious beliefs, practices, and experiences can influence an individual’s moral development. Studies suggest that religious upbringing and exposure to religious teachings during childhood can shape moral reasoning and values. For example, children raised in religious environments may exhibit greater empathy, prosocial behavior, and adherence to moral rules compared to their non-religious counterparts. Additionally, religious communities may provide moral guidance, moral exemplars, and reinforcement of ethical behavior through religious rituals and practices. Psychological studies delve into the cognitive and emotional aspects of how religion influences moral development and how moral identity may be intertwined with religious identity.

B. Societal Impact of Religious Norms and Values on Ethical Conduct:

Sociological research explores the broader impact of religious norms and values on ethical conduct within societies. Religious communities often establish moral norms and social expectations that influence the behavior of their members. These norms may extend beyond individual behavior to shape societal attitudes toward various ethical issues, such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice. Sociologists investigate how religious institutions and religious leaders influence public opinion and policy decisions on ethical matters. They also examine how religious pluralism can lead to debates and conflicts over ethical values within diverse societies.

C. Comparative Studies on Ethical Behavior Between Religious and Non-Religious Individuals:

Comparative studies compare the ethical behavior and moral decision-making of religious individuals and those who identify as non-religious or atheist. Research in this area aims to explore whether religious beliefs and practices have a significant impact on ethical conduct compared to secular or non-religious perspectives. These studies often examine various ethical dimensions, such as honesty, empathy, altruism, and cooperation, to determine if there are notable differences in ethical behavior between religious and non-religious individuals. Comparative studies contribute to the ongoing discussion about whether religious adherence is a crucial factor in promoting ethical behavior or if secular ethics can produce similar moral outcomes.

These psychological and sociological studies provide valuable insights into the complex relationship between religion and ethics at individual and societal levels. By examining the psychological mechanisms of moral development, the societal impact of religious values, and the differences in ethical behavior between religious and non-religious individuals, researchers contribute to a deeper understanding of the multifaceted role that religion plays in shaping ethical conduct and moral reasoning. Such studies help inform discussions on the integration of religious and secular perspectives in ethical debates and the promotion of ethical behavior in diverse cultural and religious contexts.

VII. Critiques and Challenges to Religion’s Role in Ethics

A. secular criticisms of religious ethics:.

Secular critics raise several concerns regarding the role of religion in ethics. One major critique is the potential for religiously driven ethics to be exclusionary and discriminatory. Some argue that religious ethical frameworks may promote a sense of moral superiority among believers and lead to the marginalization of individuals with differing beliefs or non-believers. Moreover, secular critics argue that religious ethics can be resistant to change, hindering progress in addressing contemporary ethical challenges. They emphasize the need for a more inclusive and universal ethical approach that accommodates diverse perspectives and is adaptable to evolving societal norms.

B. Ethical Dilemmas Arising from Religious Teachings:

Certain religious teachings and dogmas can give rise to ethical dilemmas when they conflict with modern ethical principles or human rights. For instance, debates may arise over issues like reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, euthanasia, or gender equality, where religious beliefs may clash with secular ethical frameworks. Ethical dilemmas can emerge when individuals must navigate between adhering to their religious teachings and upholding broader societal ethical norms. These dilemmas can be emotionally and morally challenging, prompting individuals to question the ethical validity of certain religious doctrines.

C. Potential Biases and Limitations in Religiously Driven Ethics:

Critics also highlight potential biases and limitations in religiously driven ethics. Some argue that religious ethical frameworks may be based on texts or interpretations that are historically and culturally contingent, leading to anachronistic moral judgments. Moreover, religious ethics may rely heavily on religious authorities or doctrines, which can stifle individual moral autonomy and critical thinking. Additionally, the diversity of religious perspectives can result in conflicting ethical views within and among religious communities, leading to disputes over the interpretation and application of religious teachings.

Overall, these critiques and challenges demonstrate the complexities of religion’s role in ethics and the need for ongoing dialogue and critical reflection. While religion has undoubtedly played a pivotal role in shaping ethical values and guiding moral behavior throughout history, it is essential to address these critiques and challenges to foster a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of the interplay between religion and ethics in contemporary societies. By acknowledging potential biases, ethical dilemmas, and limitations in religiously driven ethics, individuals and societies can work toward a more informed and constructive approach to addressing moral questions and promoting ethical conduct.

VIII. Case Studies and Examples

A. the role of religion in social justice and human rights:.

Case Study: Civil Rights Movement in the United States During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, religion played a crucial role in advocating for social justice and human rights. Religious leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr., drew upon the teachings of Christianity to promote nonviolent resistance, racial equality, and the end of segregation and discrimination. The concept of human dignity and the belief in the intrinsic value of all individuals, derived from religious teachings, served as a moral foundation for the fight against racial injustice. The involvement of religious communities and their ethical principles significantly contributed to the success of the civil rights movement and influenced the broader human rights discourse worldwide.

B. Ethical Implications of Religious Rituals and Practices:

Case Study: Animal Sacrifice in Religious Traditions Animal sacrifice is a practice found in several religious traditions worldwide. For example, in ancient cultures like those in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Greece, animals were sacrificed as part of religious rituals to appease deities or seek blessings. In contemporary times, this practice remains in some religious contexts. The ethical implications of animal sacrifice have sparked debates regarding animal rights, cruelty, and the clash between religious freedom and ethical concerns. Critics argue that animal sacrifice raises ethical dilemmas related to the treatment of sentient beings and the necessity of such practices in modern societies that prioritize animal welfare.

C. Religious Ethics in the Context of Environmental Issues:

Case Study: Indigenous Spiritual Practices and Environmental Conservation In many indigenous cultures, religious and spiritual practices are closely tied to the natural world. Indigenous communities often possess a deep sense of environmental ethics, believing that the Earth and its ecosystems are sacred and must be protected and preserved. For example, the beliefs of the Maasai people in East Africa or the Native American tribes in North America emphasize the interconnectedness between humans, nature, and the spiritual realm. Such religious ethics have informed indigenous efforts to conserve biodiversity, preserve traditional lands, and sustainably manage natural resources. The inclusion of these perspectives in environmental conservation efforts showcases how religious beliefs can positively impact the ecological well-being of the planet.

These case studies and examples demonstrate the diverse ways in which religion intersects with ethics in real-world contexts. They illustrate how religious beliefs and practices can both contribute to social justice and human rights advocacy and raise complex ethical questions related to rituals, practices, and environmental issues. By examining these case studies, researchers and policymakers can gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted role of religion in shaping ethical values and influencing ethical decision-making in various cultural and environmental settings.

IX. Contemporary Perspectives and Future Outlook

A. emerging trends in the role of religion in ethics:.

Interfaith Dialogue: Increasing globalization and interconnectedness have facilitated interfaith dialogue, allowing diverse religious communities to engage in conversations about shared ethical values and common goals. Interfaith initiatives seek to promote understanding, respect, and cooperation among different religious traditions, fostering a more inclusive approach to addressing ethical challenges on a global scale.
Environmental Ethics and Religion: With growing concerns about climate change and environmental degradation, there is a rising recognition of the importance of religious ethics in promoting environmental stewardship. Many religious traditions are reexamining their teachings to emphasize the sacredness of nature and the ethical responsibility to protect the environment.
Social Justice Movements: Religious communities continue to play an active role in social justice movements, advocating for equality, human rights, and social reforms. The integration of religious ethics with broader social justice issues is likely to shape the discourse on ethical conduct and public policies.

B. Relevance of Religious Ethics in a Globalized and Diverse World:

Moral Pluralism: In an increasingly diverse world, religious ethics offer unique perspectives and cultural insights that contribute to the rich tapestry of moral pluralism. Embracing and understanding different religious ethical systems can foster a more tolerant and inclusive society that respects diverse ethical perspectives.
Ethical Reflection and Meaning-Making: Religion often provides individuals with a framework for reflecting on life’s meaning, purpose, and ethical dilemmas. In a globalized and fast-paced world, religious ethics can offer a sense of stability and guidance in navigating complex moral choices.
Addressing Global Challenges: In the face of global challenges, such as poverty , conflict, and environmental crises, religious ethics can offer principles and motivations to address these issues collectively. The shared values found in various religious traditions can serve as a unifying force in tackling global challenges and promoting ethical behavior.

C. Possibilities for Integrating Religious and Secular Ethical Principles:

Dialogical Approaches: Encouraging dialogue between religious and secular ethical perspectives can foster mutual understanding and pave the way for finding common ground on ethical issues. Engaging in respectful conversations about shared values can lead to collaborative efforts in promoting ethical conduct.
Ethical Pragmatism: Integrating religious and secular ethical principles pragmatically may involve finding practical solutions that respect diverse perspectives while upholding universal ethical principles, such as human dignity, justice, and compassion.
Bridging Divides: Emphasizing the similarities and complementarities between religious and secular ethical frameworks can bridge divides and create a more cohesive ethical discourse that transcends cultural and religious boundaries.

As the world continues to evolve, the role of religion in ethics will likely remain a dynamic and evolving field of study. By recognizing emerging trends, embracing diversity, and fostering constructive dialogue between religious and secular perspectives, societies can harness the potential of religious ethics to address ethical challenges and build a more harmonious and ethically aware global community.

A. Summary of Key Findings: Throughout this exploration of the role of religion in ethics, several key findings have emerged:

Religion has historically played a significant role in shaping ethical values, moral behavior, and societal norms across diverse cultures and belief systems.
The relationship between religion and ethics is complex and multifaceted, involving theological, philosophical, psychological, and sociological dimensions.
Various theological approaches, such as divine command theory, natural law theory, and virtue ethics, provide frameworks for understanding the connection between religion and ethics.
Secular perspectives, including atheism, secular humanism, and non-religious ethical theories, contribute alternative ethical foundations that do not rely on religious beliefs.
Contemporary debates highlight the influence of religion on moral behavior, the challenges of religious fundamentalism, and the balance between religious freedom and ethical obligations.
Psychological and sociological studies reveal how religion impacts moral development, ethical conduct, and societal values.
Case studies illustrate how religion intersects with social justice, rituals, and environmental ethics in practical contexts.

B. Reiteration of the Significance of Religion in Ethics:

Religion continues to hold significant relevance in shaping ethical values and influencing moral decision-making for individuals and societies worldwide. The ethical teachings, rituals, and spiritual practices found in religious traditions provide valuable guidance and meaning for individuals as they navigate moral dilemmas and seek to live ethically meaningful lives. Moreover, religion’s impact on social justice, environmental ethics, and broader societal values demonstrates its profound role in addressing pressing ethical challenges.

C. Future Directions for Research and Dialogue:

As our understanding of religion’s role in ethics continues to evolve, several directions for future research and dialogue can be explored:

Inclusivity and Pluralism: Emphasizing interfaith dialogue and embracing moral pluralism can promote greater understanding and cooperation among diverse religious and ethical perspectives.
Ethics in a Globalized World: As societies become more interconnected, research should focus on the relevance and challenges of religious ethics in a globalized and multicultural world.
Environmental Ethics: Studying the ecological implications of religious beliefs and practices can contribute to the conservation of the environment and sustainable development efforts.
Ethical Education: Exploring how religious ethics can be integrated into ethical education curricula can foster moral development and critical thinking in students.
Ethical Leadership: Investigating the impact of religious ethics on ethical leadership and the responsibilities of religious institutions in promoting ethical conduct can enhance societal well-being.

In conclusion, the role of religion in ethics is a multifaceted and dynamic field of study that encompasses a wide range of perspectives, debates, and implications. Understanding the interplay between religion and ethics is essential for appreciating the diverse ethical frameworks that guide individuals and societies. By acknowledging the significance of religious ethics, embracing pluralism, and promoting constructive dialogue, we can foster a more inclusive and morally engaged global community.

The Great Rupture in American Jewish Life

Credit... Daniel Benneworth-Gray

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By Peter Beinart

Mr. Beinart is the editor at large of Jewish Currents and a journalist and writer who has written extensively on the Middle East, Jewish life and American foreign policy.

March 22, 2024

F or the last decade or so, an ideological tremor has been unsettling American Jewish life. Since Oct. 7, it has become an earthquake. It concerns the relationship between liberalism and Zionism, two creeds that for more than half a century have defined American Jewish identity. In the years to come, American Jews will face growing pressure to choose between them.

They will face that pressure because Israel’s war in Gaza has supercharged a transformation on the American left. Solidarity with Palestinians is becoming as essential to leftist politics as support for abortion rights or opposition to fossil fuels. And as happened during the Vietnam War and the struggle against South African apartheid, leftist fervor is reshaping the liberal mainstream. In December, the United Automobile Workers demanded a cease-fire and formed a divestment working group to consider the union’s “economic ties to the conflict.” In January, the National L.G.B.T.Q. Task Force called for a cease-fire as well. In February, the leadership of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the nation’s oldest Black Protestant denomination, called on the United States to halt aid to the Jewish state. Across blue America, many liberals who once supported Israel or avoided the subject are making the Palestinian cause their own.

This transformation remains in its early stages. In many prominent liberal institutions — most significantly, the Democratic Party — supporters of Israel remain not only welcome but also dominant. But the leaders of those institutions no longer represent much of their base. The Democratic majority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, acknowledged this divide in a speech on Israel on the Senate floor last week. He reiterated his longstanding commitment to the Jewish state, though not its prime minister. But he also conceded, in the speech’s most remarkable line, that he “can understand the idealism that inspires so many young people in particular to support a one-state solution” — a solution that does not involve a Jewish state. Those are the words of a politician who understands that his party is undergoing profound change.

The American Jews most committed to Zionism, the ones who run establishment institutions, understand that liberal America is becoming less ideologically hospitable. And they are responding by forging common cause with the American right. It’s no surprise that the Anti-Defamation League, which only a few years ago harshly criticized Donald Trump’s immigration policies, recently honored his son-in-law and former senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

Mr. Trump himself recognizes the emerging political split. “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” he said in an interview published on Monday. “They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.” It’s typical Trumpian indecency and hyperbole, but it’s rooted in a political reality. For American Jews who want to preserve their country’s unconditional support for Israel for another generation, there is only one reliable political partner: a Republican Party that views standing for Palestinian rights as part of the “woke” agenda.

The American Jews who are making a different choice — jettisoning Zionism because they can’t reconcile it with the liberal principle of equality under the law — garner less attention because they remain further from power. But their numbers are larger than many recognize, especially among millennials and Gen Z. And they face their own dilemmas. They are joining a Palestine solidarity movement that is growing larger, but also more radical, in response to Israel’s destruction of Gaza. That growing radicalism has produced a paradox: A movement that welcomes more and more American Jews finds it harder to explain where Israeli Jews fit into its vision of Palestinian liberation.

The emerging rupture between American liberalism and American Zionism constitutes the greatest transformation in American Jewish politics in half a century. It will redefine American Jewish life for decades to come.

A photograph of a group of people in front of the Capitol building. One woman holds a sign that says “Jews say: Ceasefire Now.” Another person holds a sign that says “No to war, no to apartheid.”

“A merican Jews,” writes Marc Dollinger in his book “Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America,” have long depicted themselves as “guardians of liberal America.” Since they came to the United States in large numbers around the turn of the 20th century, Jews have been wildly overrepresented in movements for civil, women’s, labor and gay rights. Since the 1930s, despite their rising prosperity, they have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. For generations of American Jews, the icons of American liberalism — Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Gloria Steinem — have been secular saints.

The American Jewish love affair with Zionism dates from the early 20th century as well. But it came to dominate communal life only after Israel’s dramatic victory in the 1967 war exhilarated American Jews eager for an antidote to Jewish powerlessness during the Holocaust. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which was nearly bankrupt on the eve of the 1967 war, had become American Jewry’s most powerful institution by the 1980s. American Jews, wrote Albert Vorspan, a leader of Reform Judaism, in 1988, “have made of Israel an icon — a surrogate faith, surrogate synagogue, surrogate God.”

Given the depth of these twin commitments, it’s no surprise that American Jews have long sought to fuse them by describing Zionism as a liberal cause. It has always been a strange pairing. American liberals generally consider themselves advocates of equal citizenship irrespective of ethnicity, religion and race. Zionism — or at the least the version that has guided Israel since its founding — requires Jewish dominance. From 1948 to 1966, Israel held most of its Palestinian citizens under military law; since 1967 it has ruled millions of Palestinians who hold no citizenship at all. Even so, American Jews could until recently assert their Zionism without having their liberal credentials challenged.

The primary reason was the absence from American public discourse of Palestinians, the people whose testimony would cast those credentials into greatest doubt. In 1984, the Palestinian American literary critic Edward Said argued that in the West, Palestinians lack “permission to narrate” their own experience. For decades after he wrote those words, they remained true. A study by the University of Arizona’s Maha Nassar found that of the opinion articles about Palestinians published in The New York Times and The Washington Post between 2000 and 2009, Palestinians themselves wrote roughly 1 percent.

But in recent years, Palestinian voices, while still embattled and even censored , have begun to carry. Palestinians have turned to social media to combat their exclusion from the press. In an era of youth-led activism, they have joined intersectional movements forged by parallel experiences of discrimination and injustice. Meanwhile, Israel — under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu for most of the past two decades — has lurched to the right, producing politicians so openly racist that their behavior cannot be defended in liberal terms.

Many Palestine solidarity activists identify as leftists, not liberals. But like the activists of the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements, they have helped change liberal opinion with their radical critiques. In 2002, according to Gallup , Democrats sympathized with Israel over the Palestinians by a margin of 34 points. By early 2023, they favored the Palestinians by 11 points. And because opinion about Israel cleaves along generational lines, that pro-Palestinian skew is much greater among the young. According to a Quinnipiac University poll in November, Democrats under the age of 35 sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israelis by 58 points.

Given this generational gulf, universities offer a preview of the way many liberals — or “progressives,” a term that straddles liberalism and leftism and enjoys more currency among young Americans — may view Zionism in the years to come. Supporting Palestine has become a core feature of progressive politics on many campuses. At Columbia, for example, 94 campus organizations — including the Vietnamese Students Association, the Reproductive Justice Collective and Poetry Slam, Columbia’s “only recreational spoken word club” — announced in November that they “see Palestine as the vanguard for our collective liberation.” As a result, Zionist Jewish students find themselves at odds with most of their politically active peers.

Accompanying this shift, on campus and beyond, has been a rise in Israel-related antisemitism. It follows a pattern in American history. From the hostility toward German Americans during World War I to violence against American Muslims after Sept. 11 and assaults on Asian Americans during the Covid pandemic, Americans have a long and ugly tradition of expressing their hostility toward foreign governments or movements by targeting compatriots who share a religion, ethnicity or nationality with those overseas adversaries. Today, tragically, some Americans who loathe Israel are taking it out on American Jews. (Palestinian Americans, who have endured multiple violent hate crimes since Oct. 7, are experiencing their own version of this phenomenon.) The spike in antisemitism since Oct. 7 follows a pattern. Five years ago, the political scientist Ayal Feinberg, using data from 2001 and 2014, found that reported antisemitic incidents in the United States spike when the Israeli military conducts a substantial military operation.

Attributing the growing discomfort of pro-Israel Jewish students entirely to antisemitism, however, misses something fundamental. Unlike establishment Jewish organizations, Jewish students often distinguish between bigotry and ideological antagonism. In a 2022 study , the political scientist Eitan Hersh found that more than 50 percent of Jewish college students felt “they pay a social cost for supporting the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.” And yet, in general, Dr. Hersh reported, “the students do not fear antisemitism.”

Surveys since Oct. 7 find something similar. Asked in November in a Hillel International poll to describe the climate on campus since the start of the war, 20 percent of Jewish students answered “unsafe” and 23 percent answered “scary.” By contrast, 45 percent answered “uncomfortable” and 53 percent answered “tense.” A survey that same month by the Jewish Electorate Institute found that only 37 percent of American Jewish voters ages 18 to 35 consider campus antisemitism a “very serious problem,” compared with nearly 80 percent of American Jewish voters over the age of 35.

While some young pro-Israel American Jews experience antisemitism, they more frequently report ideological exclusion. As Zionism becomes associated with the political right, their experiences on progressive campuses are coming to resemble the experiences of young Republicans. The difference is that unlike young Republicans, most young American Zionists were raised to believe that theirs was a liberal creed. When their parents attended college, that assertion was rarely challenged. On the same campuses where their parents felt at home, Jewish students who view Zionism as central to their identity now often feel like outsiders.

In 1979, Mr. Said observed that in the West, “to be a Palestinian is in political terms to be an outlaw.” In much of America — including Washington — that remains true. But within progressive institutions one can glimpse the beginning of a historic inversion. Often, it’s now the Zionists who feel like outlaws.

G iven the organized American Jewish community’s professed devotion to liberal principles, which include free speech, one might imagine that Jewish institutions would greet this ideological shift by urging pro-Israel students to tolerate and even learn from their pro-Palestinian peers. Such a stance would flow naturally from the statements establishment Jewish groups have made in the past. A few years ago, the Anti-Defamation League declared that “our country’s universities serve as laboratories for the exchange of differing viewpoints and beliefs. Offensive, hateful speech is protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment.”

But as pro-Palestinian sentiment has grown in progressive America, pro-Israel Jewish leaders have apparently made an exception for anti-Zionism. While still claiming to support free speech on campus, the ADL last October asked college presidents to investigate local chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine to determine whether they violated university regulations or state or federal laws, a demand that the American Civil Liberties Union warned could “chill speech” and “betray the spirit of free inquiry.” After the University of Pennsylvania hosted a Palestinian literature festival last fall, Marc Rowan, chair of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York and chair of the board of advisers of Penn’s Wharton business school, condemned the university’s president for giving the festival Penn’s “imprimatur.” In December, he encouraged trustees to alter university policies in ways that Penn’s branch of the American Association of University Professors warn ed could “silence and punish speech with which trustees disagree.”

In this effort to limit pro-Palestinian speech, establishment Jewish leaders are finding their strongest allies on the authoritarian right. Pro-Trump Republicans have their own censorship agenda: They want to stop schools and universities from emphasizing America’s history of racial and other oppression. Calling that pedagogy antisemitic makes it easier to ban or defund. At a much discussed congressional hearing in December featuring the presidents of Harvard, Penn and M.I.T., the Republican representative Virginia Foxx noted that Harvard teaches courses like “Race and Racism in the Making of the United States as a Global Power” and hosts seminars such as “Scientific Racism and Anti-Racism: History and Recent Perspectives” before declaring that “Harvard also, not coincidentally but causally, was ground zero for antisemitism following Oct. 7.”

Ms. Foxx’s view is typical. While some Democrats also equate anti-Zionism and antisemitism, the politicians and business leaders most eager to suppress pro-Palestinian speech are conservatives who link such speech to the diversity, equity and inclusion agenda they despise. Elise Stefanik, a Trump acolyte who has accused Harvard of “caving to the woke left,” became the star of that congressional hearing by demanding that Harvard’s president , Claudine Gay, punish students who chant slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” (Ms. Gay was subsequently forced to resign following charges of plagiarism.) Elon Musk, who in November said that the phrase “from the river to the sea” was banned from his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the following month declared , “D.E.I. must die.” The first governor to ban Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at his state’s public universities was Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who has also signed legislation that limits what those universities can teach about race and gender.

This alignment between the American Jewish organizational establishment and the Trumpist right is not limited to universities. If the ADL has aligned with Republicans who want to silence “woke” activists on campus, AIPAC has joined forces with Republicans who want to disenfranchise “woke” voters. In the 2022 midterm elections, AIPAC endorsed at least 109 Republicans who opposed certifying the 2020 election. For an organization single-mindedly focused on sustaining unconditional U.S. support for Israel, that constituted a rational decision. Since Republican members of Congress don’t have to mollify pro-Palestinian voters, they’re AIPAC’s most dependable allies. And if many of those Republicans used specious claims of Black voter fraud to oppose the democratic transfer of power in 2020 — and may do so again — that’s a price AIPAC seems to be prepared to pay.

F or the many American Jews who still consider themselves both progressives and Zionists, this growing alliance between leading Zionist institutions and a Trumpist Republican Party is uncomfortable. But in the short term, they have an answer: politicians like President Biden, whose views about both Israel and American democracy roughly reflect their own. In his speech last week, Mr. Schumer called these liberal Zionists American Jewry’s “silent majority.”

For the moment he may be right. In the years to come, however, as generational currents pull the Democratic Party in a more pro-Palestinian direction and push America’s pro-Israel establishment to the right, liberal Zionists will likely find it harder to reconcile their two faiths. Young American Jews offer a glimpse into that future, in which a sizable wing of American Jewry decides that to hold fast to its progressive principles it must jettison Zionism and embrace equal citizenship in Israel and Palestine, as well as in the United States.

For an American Jewish establishment that equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, these anti-Zionist Jews are inconvenient. Sometimes, pro-Israel Jewish organizations pretend they don’t exist. In November, after Columbia suspended two anti-Zionist campus groups, the ADL thanked university leaders for acting “to protect Jewish students” — even though one of the suspended groups was Jewish Voice for Peace. At other times, pro-Israel leaders describe anti-Zionist Jews as a negligible fringe. If American Jews are divided over the war in Gaza, Andrés Spokoiny, the president and chief executive of the Jewish Funders Network, an organization for Jewish philanthropists, declared in December, “the split is 98 percent/2 percent.”

Among older American Jews, this assertion of a Zionist consensus contains some truth. But among younger American Jews, it’s false. In 2021, even before Israel’s current far-right government took power, the Jewish Electorate Institute found that 38 percent of American Jewish voters under the age of 40 viewed Israel as an apartheid state, compared with 47 percent who said it’s not. In November, it revealed that 49 percent of American Jewish voters ages 18 to 35 opposed Mr. Biden’s request for additional military aid to Israel. On many campuses, Jewish students are at the forefront of protests for a cease-fire and divestment from Israel. They don’t speak for all — and maybe not even most — of their Jewish peers. But they represent far more than 2 percent.

These progressive Jews are, as the U.S. editor of The London Review of Books, Adam Shatz, noted to me, a double minority. Their anti-Zionism makes them a minority among American Jews, while their Jewishness makes them a minority in the Palestine solidarity movement. Fifteen years ago, when the liberal Zionist group J Street was intent on being the “ blocking back ” for President Barack Obama’s push for a two-state solution, some liberal Jews imagined themselves leading the push to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Today, the prospect of partition has diminished, and Palestinians increasingly set the terms of activist criticism of Israel. That discourse, which is peppered with terms like “apartheid” and “decolonization," is generally hostile to a Jewish state within any borders.

There’s nothing antisemitic about envisioning a future in which Palestinians and Jews coexist on the basis of legal equality rather than Jewish supremacy. But in pro-Palestine activist circles in the United States, coexistence has receded as a theme. In 1999, Mr. Said argued for “a binational Israeli-Palestinian state” that offered “self-determination for both peoples.” In his 2007 book, “One Country,” Ali Abunimah, a co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, an influential source of pro-Palestine news and opinion, imagined one state whose name reflected the identities of both major communities that inhabit it. The terms “‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’ are dear to those who use them and they should not be abandoned,” he argued. “The country could be called Yisrael-Falastin in Hebrew and Filastin-Isra’il in Arabic.”

In recent years, however, as Israel has moved to the right, pro-Palestinian discourse in the United States has hardened. The phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which dates from the 1960s but has gained new prominence since Oct. 7, does not acknowledge Palestine and Israel’s binational character. To many American Jews, in fact, the phrase suggests a Palestine free of Jews. It sounds expulsionist, if not genocidal. It’s an ironic charge, given that it is Israel that today controls the land between the river and the sea, whose leaders openly advocate the mass exodus of Palestinians and that the International Court of Justice says could plausibly be committing genocide in Gaza.

Palestinian scholars like Maha Nassar and Ahmad Khalidi argue that “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” does not imply the subjugation of Jews. It instead reflects the longstanding Palestinian belief that Palestine should have become an independent country when released from European colonial control, a vision that does not preclude Jews from living freely alongside their Muslim and Christian neighbors. The Jewish groups closest to the Palestine solidarity movement agree: Jewish Voice for Peace’s Los Angeles chapter has argued that the slogan is no more anti-Jewish than the phrase “Black lives matter” is anti-white. And if the Palestine solidarity movement in the United States calls for the genocide of Jews, it’s hard to explain why so many Jews have joined its ranks. Rabbi Alissa Wise, an organizer of Rabbis for Cease-Fire, estimates that other than Palestinians, no other group has been as prominent in the protests against the war as Jews.

Still, imagining a “free Palestine” from the river to the sea requires imagining that Israeli Jews will become Palestinians, which erases their collective identity. That’s a departure from the more inclusive vision that Mr. Said and Mr. Abunimah outlined years ago. It’s harder for Palestinian activists to offer that more inclusive vision when they are watching Israel bomb and starve Gaza. But the rise of Hamas makes it even more essential.

Jews who identify with the Palestinian struggle may find it difficult to offer this critique. Many have defected from the Zionist milieu in which they were raised. Having made that painful transition, which can rupture relations with friends and family, they may be disinclined to question their new ideological home. It’s frightening to risk alienating one community when you’ve already alienated another. Questioning the Palestine solidarity movement also violates the notion, prevalent in some quarters of the American left, that members of an oppressor group should not second-guess representatives of the oppressed.

But these identity hierarchies suppress critical thought. Palestinians aren’t a monolith, and progressive Jews aren’t merely allies. They are members of a small and long-persecuted people who have not only the right but also the obligation to care about Jews in Israel, and to push the Palestine solidarity movement to more explicitly include them in its vision of liberation, in the spirit of the Freedom Charter adopted during apartheid by the African National Congress and its allies, which declared in its second sentence that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and white.”

For many American Jews, it is painful to watch their children’s or grandchildren’s generation question Zionism. It is infuriating to watch students at liberal institutions with which they once felt aligned treat Zionism as a racist creed. It is tempting to attribute all this to antisemitism, even if that requires defining many young American Jews as antisemites themselves.

But the American Jews who insist that Zionism and liberalism remain compatible should ask themselves why Israel now attracts the fervent support of Representative Stefanik but repels the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the United Automobile Workers. Why it enjoys the admiration of Elon Musk and Viktor Orban but is labeled a perpetrator of apartheid by Human Rights Watch and likened to the Jim Crow South by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Why it is more likely to retain unconditional American support if Mr. Trump succeeds in turning the United States into a white Christian supremacist state than if he fails.

For many decades, American Jews have built our political identity on a contradiction: Pursue equal citizenship here; defend group supremacy there. Now here and there are converging. In the years to come, we will have to choose.

Peter Beinart ( @PeterBeinart ) is a professor of journalism and political science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is also the editor at large of Jewish Currents and writes The Beinart Notebook , a weekly newsletter.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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ICJ orders Israel to act on aid crisis in Gaza; Palestinian Authority names new cabinet

The International Court of Justice issued additional measures Thursday amending and strengthening its January order that Israel do more to prevent the deaths of civilians in Gaza.

In its new order, the judges called on Israel to “take all necessary and effective measures” to ensure the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in the enclave. Earlier Thursday, the Palestinian Authority named a new cabinet Thursday, amid discontent in the West Bank and international pressure to reform.

International Court of Justice issues new order for Israel to ensure aid reaches Gaza
Palestinian Authority announces new cabinet amid U.S. pressure
Netanyahu will reschedule meeting with U.S. on Rafah, White House says

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Here's what to know, live coverage contributors 8.

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Republicans hug Netanyahu tighter as Democratic tensions with Israel war strategy boil March 20, 2024 Republicans hug Netanyahu tighter as Democratic tensions with Israel war strategy boil March 20, 2024
Blinken begins new round of Gaza talks in Saudi Arabia March 20, 2024 Blinken begins new round of Gaza talks in Saudi Arabia March 20, 2024
Blinken to visit Israel amid tensions over plan to invade Rafah March 20, 2024 Blinken to visit Israel amid tensions over plan to invade Rafah March 20, 2024

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Israel-Gaza war

Israel-Gaza war: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to make a quick stop in Israel as tensions are rising between the United States and Israel over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to invade Rafah . The Israeli military said Wednesday that it was continuing its raid on al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where people said they were trapped in dire conditions.

Middle East conflict: Tensions in the region continue to rise. As Israeli troops aim to take control of the Gaza-Egypt border crossing, officials in Cairo warn that the move would undermine the 1979 peace treaty. Meanwhile, there’s a diplomatic scramble to avert full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon .

U.S. involvement: U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria killed dozens of Iranian-linked militants , according to Iraqi officials. The strikes were the first round of retaliatory action by the Biden administration for an attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members .

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