I meant to do one of these a day this week, but I didn’t get a chance to do one yesterday. Instead, I’m doing two today. Tomorrow I’ll try to post some concluding thoughts.
This one is hard for me, because I’m not religious (though I always add that I would prefer to live in a religious society). On the other hand, I think the issue of religion best makes my point.
It’s no secret that religion has changed in recent decades.
Any person from 1800 would likely be appalled by the modern lack of religion (I’m not sure we lack religion, I think we’ve replaced Christianity with belief in other religions, like worship of "the environment").
For someone in the 1800s, "moral life" was basically defined as life lived in accordance with religion. Ancients would have defined moral life as life lived in accordance with virtue.
Today, those are dead.
So, in order to show "progress," we’ve redefined morality. In most cases, people now simply consider living to be moral. A person may not be religious, he may not be virtuous, but he lives to be 90 years old. This process of life extension is now generally considered "moral." The type of life being extended is considered irrelevant.
Perhaps all a person does is wonder the streets in an aimless parody of a meaningful existence. However, by modern standards, the fact that a person does so is irrelevant to morality. Existence is more moral than at any previous time because today’s aimless-wanderer wanders with a fully belly until a ripe old age.
1. I don’t follow your thrust.
Are you saying that folks today are less good at following Gaiaistic religion than folks used to be at following Christian religion?
Are you saying that now folks twist their Gaiaism into whatever form suits them best, but in 1700, they didn’t do that with Christianity?
I understand that normal Christian religion from 1600 looks a lot like Fundamentalist Islam today. Are you saying that following the Gaiaistic religion is worse than following Christian religion from 1600?
2. I don’t know anyone who holds the position you snarked at above:
“In most cases, people now simply consider living to be moral.”
3. I think that you’d do well to get an actual intelligent liberal to present the case for the evolution of morality, rather than using a straw man. Jon Haidt, one of the most eminent researchers on the topic might be a good place to start…and my email conversations with him have been very cordial, though I admit to starting out gushing about how good his book was (because it was that good).
Lots of time when I’ve discussed morality and I say that people who lived in the past would be appalled by modernity, they respond with something about increases in life spans, or other technological developments. I’m not sure whether they don’t understand the moral aspect of my position or whether they are willfully ignoring it.
My overarching point is that we are constantly re-defining morality to make our society (i.e. the current society) the most moral.
Thus, the fact that our society has abandoned religion would be viewed by most people who have long since died as an unforgivable sin. They would see modern society as completely immoral.
We see people in the 1800s (or the 1950s) as unforgivably unconcerned about the environment. They would see us in the same manner but as unconcerned about the things that really matter to them (praise of God, etc.).
Perhaps I’ll check out his book, though I haven’t read much modern philosophy that doesn’t turn me off. I have read and enjoyed MacIntyre, whom you might enjoy.
[...] The evolution of morality: marriage edition, The evolution of morality: religion edition, and Concluding thoughts on [...]
[...] Defense of Conservatism“, “The Evolution of Morality: Marriage Edition“, “The Evolution of Morality: Religion Edition“, “Concluding Thoughts on Moral [...]