Can ethics survive the death of religion?

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 609 Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the first time, fewer than half of people in England and Wales describe themselves as Christian. For centuries in the West, Judeo-Christian values have underpinned moral reasoning and grounded our ethics. While ticking “no religion” on the census doesn’t necessarily mean having no religious belief, should it concern us that this central story of our culture is fragmenting?

Implicit in utilitarianism is the idea that we can do ethics without metaphysics. The Enlightenment hailed the triumph of scientific rationality over sacred revelation. Whereas, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim argued that in any society in a state of ‘anomie’ – that is, lacking a shared moral code – there would be a rise in suicide.

Secularists argue that the greatest examples of social progress of the last century have come about as a result of a loss of deference to religious moral authority. Religious leaders believe that it is precisely this moral authority that makes a society cohesive. Others think it doesn’t matter where you get your moral guide from as long as you’re looking for it.

We live in an era of rapid social change, facing a new technological revolution, and all the ethical questions it poses. Does a religious-based ethics have the answers?

Can ethics survive the death of religion?

Producer: Dan Tierney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:05.1	Good evening, for the first time since the dark ages, only a minority of people in this country now call themselves Christian.
0:11.7	The latest census puts the proportion of those identifying as such at 46%, a collapse in professed belief.
0:18.9	It's nearly halved in my lifetime and seems to be accelerating.
0:22.9	Ever since Augustine converted King Ethelbert at the beginning of the 7th century,
0:27.0	the sacred revelation of the Christian God has formed the basis of our moral reasoning and shaped our values.
0:33.1	There are those who say that shared belief is essential to an objective moral code and a coherent society.
0:40.8	Secularists, though, argue we are intrinsically moral beings, that we can work out how to behave
0:46.1	without recourse to the supernatural, and it's often contradictory, supposed universal truths,
0:51.4	and be more relevant, inclusive and humane into the bargain.
0:55.3	Religionists say this is the road to relativism, reducing good and bad to matters of opinion
1:00.1	that you can't do ethics without the metaphysics. Do we need God to be good? Can ethics
1:06.6	survive the death of religion? That's our moral maze tonight. The panel, and McCElvoy, executive editor at The Economist, the former Chief Crown Prosecutor, Nazia Afzal, Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, and the priest and polemicist, Giles Fraser. Jiles, you're a vicar of Q. You've got a dog in this fight. Dog's not called Nietzsche.
1:27.2	Look, to answer your question, can you be good without God?
1:30.3	Yes, yes, yes, and yes, again, obviously.
1:32.5	It's so obvious it doesn't almost need to be said.
1:35.5	The other thing to be said is that Christianity is not really about ethics.
1:38.8	It's about salvation.
1:40.6	But Ron Williams said this morning in the Ruth lectures,
1:43.8	this is very important, is that Christians do believe that ethics needs to be rooted in something beyond consensus.
1:50.4	Matthew.
1:52.0	Yeah, I'm an atheist.
	...

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