The question that many generations have carried on in the moral philosophy is whether ethics should be based upon religious teachings and worship of the divine. The relationship between morality and religion is a longstanding and complex philosophical issue. However, throughout humankind’s history, religions have been the ones that formulate the leading sets of moral ideas in societies. In Plato’s dialogue ”Euthyphro,” Socrates develops a critical challenge to the information that morality comes from the gods or divine command. Plato and David Brink, for instance, have presented significant problems with the idea that morality can only be derived from religious doctrines or divine commands.
The idea that emerges with the effects of the Socratic dialogue in the Euthyphro ends up with the problem of understanding the meaning of righteousness or holiness. Euthyphro defines pious as “what is dear to the gods.” First, Socrates points out a conflict, which results from Euthyphro’s definition of pious because people like it or they do like it because it is a righteous act. Its text presents the main problem, morality, according to the will of God(Plato 66). If ethics is only about pleasing gods, accountability becomes radically conditioned and other people’s specific. Socrates argued that the gods have the power to license their activities. The activities include both acts of violence and cruelty. Absolute moral values, by which my judgment could be carried, would lack – might for right. This might be contrary to the idea that asserts that morality is a section where values, rights, and justice all exist.
On the other hand, the problem is even more severe for people who try to establish ethics on this philosophical point. Should there exist separate moral truths? All truths the gods must comply with either their appreciation or approval of the acts, then the truth of morality is beyond these gods. There will be a moral existence that will not respect the divine decrees but instead find a rational justification. The project of issuing morality with religious dogmas faces collapse. Ethics growing as a standalone realm of the normative investigation can also envisage other issues. The “Euthyphro problem” by Plato reveals an influential philosophical challenge against the field theories that represent goodness as merely an aspect of religious dogma or pure decree. In the “Autonomy of Ethics ‘, David Brink argues that everyone has the opinion that once moral philosophy and ethical deliberation are given a chance to be detached from any religious authority. He argues that religious value systems have emerged through a complex historical process of “substantive ethical reflection and critique” over centuries. By so doing, we will have a space to question and discuss some of the most critical issues, such as values, rights, justice, and our way of life (Brink 149).
According to Seyfert’s discussion, many societies got away with morally offensive inhuman behaviors and beliefs because religion authorized it to be sexist, to be a slave-holder, homophobe, xenophobe, or persecutor. Judgment is divine conduct and cannot be a sufficient source for descriptive ethical frameworks to claim justice and human rights. Descent to points wherein reasonable argument is directed at moral inquiry to which all teaching falls short of scrutiny and therefore rejected irrespective of its religious origin or appeal. The author, Brink, also argues that a religious tradition cannot stop the formation of the moral value system as the result of revelation alone over hundreds or even thousands of years(Brink 150).
However, it is mainly the processes of “substantive ethical reflection and critique” when believers re-evaluate moral teachings by considering them in moral reasoning and changing social situations that transform religious ethics. This shows that morality assumes some autonomy and independence from faith traditions, although they are preciously housed with them.
A wide array of ethical issues, diverse dilemmas, and different types of human moral intuitions and value systems that humans of various cultural groups hold testify to the need to advance the methods of ethics with rational introspection and examination. Though religions provide essentially moral approaches and perspectives, relying on the authority of religion that is unchecked by reason ultimately may either end up in a situation of incoherent relativism or make religion be understood as an unreasonable source of moral education.
Having autonomy of ethics amassed using argument, debate, and careful examination of ethical principles is vital as this will result in rational and justifiable ethical theories to organize our societies. The moral philosopher’s task is to keep himself awake to free movement through the issues of right, duty, and justice based on rational accountability and not just obedience to authority or any divine decree.
To sum up, philosophers argue that religious laws must be treated attentively, but what I think is proper for moral justice and completeness cannot be found in spiritual teachings. This needs to ensure that ethics, as a domain that provides criticism and reason analysis, maintains its sacred identity without being associated with obsolete religious authority. Whatever concept they have constructed, moral codes and value systems. In case they are to be retained, they are justified by reason, argument, and coherence with ethical first principles. Morality strictly convenes autonomy to properly wrap up the highly complex issues of how we ought to live. One cannot be self-sufficient with obedience to authorities, however revered they may be, to battle the maze of moral choosing and experiences alone.
As religions drastically continue to shape moral visions, philosophers suggest that causing morality to be controlled by religion with no sustained rational checkups hinders the cultivation of the influential, defensible ethics that multicultural societies need. Moral autonomy from authoritarian religious doctrine is indispensable for doing justice to the sublime complexities of how we ought to live. Religious thinkers re-develop teachings in light of ethical reasons and changing social realities. This is because ethics retains autonomy and independence even within religious traditions. It is true that Morality and Religion interrelate because they both preach and uphold ethics that can be followed without any questioning by persons.
Works Cited
Brink, David O. “The Autonomy of Ethics.” Cambridge University Press, edited by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 149–65, www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-atheism/autonomy-of-ethics/850DBDF90DFEFB28A145E8ED1154CEB1. Accessed 1 May 2024.
Plato. “Platonis Euthyphro.” Google Books, University Press, 2019, www.google.co.ke/books/edition/Platonis_Euthyphro/1nf8zG60LmcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover. Accessed 1 May 2024.
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