Are You There God? It's Me, Immanuel Kant.

Since this is my third post, I'm actually going to start linking this in a few places now. There might be real readers looking at this, which is good. The Google spiderbots don't like my jokes. I was quite dedicated to having my third post being less geeky and more humanist, but ultimately I'm not sure I've got quite the right attitude nailed down for my pontifications, since they always feel pretentious or holier-than-thou in my head. I need to get angry and do these rather than wait until midnight. Humanism, in particular, is not a belief system that really lends itself well to ideological screeds. I'll work on the screeds. In the meantime, I went back to my first post for inspiration and noticed that I'd offered a rundown of ethics. While writing this post, I decided it was too much to offer a full rundown, so today's lecture is a beginning primer on the kind of ethics a humanist generally can't embrace.

Ethics, for those who didn't know, is the branch of philosophy that deals with questions of right and wrong. It is also the only branch of philosophy I can talk about without pulling things out of my ass, thanks to a long and semi-distinguished career in high school debate. Actually, despite my insistence that I couldn't think of a humanist topic, ethics is hugely important to a humanist. You see, most organized religion tends towards "divine command ethics." Divine command ethics posits that morality is on the same plane as everything else in the universe--that is, (a) god(s) wills it into being and it darn well better stay that way. Killing folks is wrong because God told us not to kill folks.

You've definitely heard this on the Internet before: "Without God, atheists have no morality." That attitude comes straight from divine command ethics. To a divine command ethicist, nontheism removes the only standard by which an action could be judged. You've also probably heard an atheist respond something like this: "Theists only do what's right because they're scared of punishment" or something similar. Someone needs to alert Lieutenant Commander Strawman that the captain wants him on the bridge, right away. Divine command ethics isn't about punishment, it's about right and wrong. Just like God says "the speed of light in a vacuum is 3.00 x 10^8 m/s. Ish." he says "murder is wrong" and both statements become real, objective truth. Omnipotence, as you can plainly see, rocks.

So a humanist cares about ethics precisely because of the point that first strawman makes in the last paragraph. Let's assume you're not running on divine command theory. How do you determine what's right and wrong? Isn't there a way to figure that out without mucking about in ancient texts or starving yourself until you get a vision? Well...maybe. Lots of philosophers have tried, at least, which is why someone needs to blog about it. Luckily, I have passed the many hurdles needed to start a blog on the Internet, and I come bearing truth.

Before we start, let's get one thing straight: many of these philosophers don't qualify as nontheist, despite what I may have implied. Many are not humanist. So why would they turn to ethical philosophy at all? I mean, shouldn't they be happy with divine command theory? Well. No. Identifying nontheism with ethics was just a lead-in to trick you into being interested. Many philosophers feel that ethics is still necessary due to what's called the Euthyphro dilemma. Essentially, it boils down to whether actions are good because of God's will, or whether God's will gives them goodness. Imagine God had said "thou shalt commit adultery", as some allege he did. Now, to avoid a debate on polyamory, imagine he said "thou shalt murder." The question is: does that make murder a good thing to do? While divine command ethics would seem to suggest yes, many feel that this renders moral standards arbitrary and meaningless, as anything could be right or wrong. On the other hand, if the divine command doesn't make murder right, then we never really needed the command in the first place. Hence, dilemma. Hence, ethics.(Many philosophers, Immanuel Kant being one of them, have pointed out that we don't have direct knowledge of the divine will anyway, so divine command theory can't help us even if the dilemma were resolved.)

Earlier I referred to humanists being unable to embrace divine command ethics. Yet, in the future, I will definitely refer to humanism being compatible with some forms of theism. However, the humanism I think of holds as its central tenet the respectability of the human mind and soul. It considers reason a gift to be used, and it believes firmly in the potential of every person to understand. I say humanism results in a shunning of divine command ethics not simply on practical grounds, such as the ones Kant cited, but because divine command ethics takes right and wrong entirely out of the hands and out of the minds of those who much act right or wrong. A doctrine so contrary to human dignity isn't one I can respect.

The next time we visit ethics will be an exploration of the schism between consequentialism and deontology. We will also discuss whether or not it is moral to throw people in front of buses. Stay tuned!