Godless Morality: Keeping Religion Out of Ethics

Thought-provoking. Wide-ranging discussions of several moral topics, including homosexuality, drugs, abortion and cloning, with the overall position that "command morality" no longer works. Instead, the author offers the metaphor of an improvised jazz composition as the modern approach to defining morality.

Holloway, the Bishop of Edinburgh, is not renouncing god in this book. Rather, he is arguing that the Bible does not make a very good authority in matters of modern morality. Written at the end of the 1990s, during a rising tide of fundamentalism in the English speaking world, Holloway argues why the fundamentalists are wrong and that a better option for dealing with contemporary issues is a moderate relativistic utilitarianism (though he does not use the word utilitarianism), informed by but not strictly adherent to religious ideals. The structure of the book goes thus: The introduction and chapter 1 set what one might call the theoretical concerns of the book. This is the part that corresponds most closely to the title. In these chapters, Holloway lays out why scripture and church doctrine do not work as guides for modern ethics. Basically, the argument here is that those "laws" were made by people at particular times in particular cultural circumstances in which they made some kind of sense. However, time moves on, and when these laws no longer make sense, insistence upon strict conformity to those laws causes more harm than good. Chapters 2-6 take up specific ethical hot issues of the late 1990s: feminism, sexuality, drug legalization, abortion, informed suicide, and reproductive technologies. By the end of chapter 2, one becomes aware that Holloway's target audience is not fundamentalists, or the nonreligious, but rather the Scottish Episcopal Church in which he serves. Even so, his discussion of the various issues usually takes the same trajectory - explain why religion has little useful to say about the matter, and then advocate for a liberal-minded piecemeal approach to resolving the issues. The arguments on these issues, pro and con, may strike a contemporary (2024) reader as ground already built upon, nothing really all that new. The one point where the book is still part of the controversy (since none of these issues has yet left us) is his continued statements that religion has little relevant to say on these matters, and that those who look upon them through strict religious ideology view these matters incorrectly. It is an eminently readable book, a quick review of major social controversies, and a refreshing statement of purpose from a perspective that too often remains silent on these issues: the liberal church perspective.

I think I bought this book because it was 99p in a Kindle sale... it didn't really tell me anything new, although it was refreshing to see common sense and wisdom coming out of a former Bishop, and I have no doubt it will be a revelation to some readers, which is a very good thing indeed. Sadly though, the crazies who really need to learn from this book will probably never read it, so its positive effect will be limited to those who already have a brain.

richard Holloway seems like a super cool dude. what a compassionate book

An amazing Book for open minder truth seekers.

(3.5) A clear, convincing and compassionate case for why the Bible should not be the basis of societal morality. You might assume this would come from one of the New Atheists, but nope – Holloway was the Bishop of Edinburgh at the time he wrote this. His arguments are along the lines of: Christians have been too quick to codify context-specific rituals and traditions into blanket law; we have a tendency to pick and choose what we want the Bible to say (emphasizing the parts about sex and ignoring the bits about the poor and social justice); we’ve gotten it wrong before when it comes to morality (slavery is just the beginning); and, in general, we try to oversimplify the diversity and mystery of human life. This was written in 1999. The most helpful chapter is about homosexuality, while those about the legalization of marijuana, abortion and bio-ethics feel rather dated. There are many brilliant statements, but the practical application part isn’t as successful.

Some favorite lines:

“mature people try to learn to live with contradictions rather than insisting on neat resolutions.”

“this is the origin of morality, this need to find some kind of balance between instinctive and intentional life, between the drive of the species and the consciousness of the individual.”

“scripture was made for humanity and not humanity for scripture. We should not, therefore, have to torture [contort] scripture into self-contradictory positions, when it no longer conforms to our experience of truth and value. It is much more honest to abandon it”

“Morality is more an art than a science and it calls for a certain versatility from us”

“most human disagreement is between opposing goods rather than between right and wrong.”

“We assume that our pleasures, because they are ours, are more benign and less problematic than the pleasures of strangers.”

“Human nature has a tendency to hedonistic inflation, to turn good or neutral things into bad by using them excessively.”

The wielding of God’s alleged opinions in the particulars of moral debate is almost universally unhelpful and hinders rather than helps us negotiate ourselves round awkward corners. [p161]

The Bible’s exhortations to act justly and defend the weak against the predations of the strong have enduring value – because human nature, sadly, never changes in this respect – but its precise instructions for managing the institution of slavery or protecting men from ritually polluting themselves by contact with menstruating women clearly come from a social system that is light years away from our own and should be ignored. [p162]

Jews and Muslims are aware of the difference between a ritual and a moral prohibition but certain parts of the Christian tradition seem to have lost the distinction and have fallen into a major intellectual confusion in the process… It is important, therefore, to distinguish between particular ritual pieties and universally applicable moral principles. [p13]… Christians have too easily transposed ritual into moral sin in their interpretation of the Bible. [p14] That is why debating with religious people about the morality or immorality of certain activities can be frustrating… they move from the realm of moral to religious discourse. [P15]

Cupid’s arrows strike us with desires that are blind not only to the actuality of the beloved, whom we observe through a haze of delight and longing, but to the consequences for our own peace of mind. Cupid cares for none of these things; he does his work and flies away. [P42]

The distinctive thing about the Christian ethic of sexuality is that, in one of its dominant forms, it sees the sex drive itself as uniquely constitutive of human sinfulness, as the very vehicle that transmits the virus of sin through history. [P43]

If we listen to John Harris’s test of moral verifiability this becomes clearer. “For a moral judgement to be respectable it must have something to say about just why a supposed wrong action is wrongful. If it fails to meet this test it is a preference and not a moral judgement at all.” [P62]

We either have to deny the evidence of history and our own experience, which shows that women are just as likely to be good leaders as men, or we deny the infallibility of Paul. The sane and obvious thing to do is to say the Paul got it wrong, or, more appropriately, that what might have been wrong for Paul’s day is wrong for ours. [P70]

It is the identification of God with transient social attitudes that is religion’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. It is this supreme confidence that gives religion its power, but at the price of building into it the cause of its own destruction. [P73]

Priests create a place of power for themselves by getting into position between nature and God, or humanity and political ideology… All priesthoods or official systems are in constant danger of living parasitically on the anguish we experience in searching for honest ways to live in a world of competing claims…. The saying, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him, is a warning against all traditions that claim to have an exclusive patent on the mind of God. [P76, 77]

This unfettering of the market has been paralleled by a number of cultural and social movements that question traditional approaches to human relations and human freedom. The result has been described as the political triumph of the Right and the cultural triumph of the Left, creating a revolutionary situation in human affairs that some people find exhilarating and many find distressing. [p89 ]

…the drama and tragedy of the moral life lies in the fact that most human disagreements are between opposing goods rather than between right and wrong. [P93]

That is why there is more than an element of farce in the current debate about sex and drugs in society. Mother and father are tucked up in bed in the attic reading their prohibitionist tracts while their children in the basement are experimenting with stuff their parents have not even heard of. [P106]

…the philosopher John Harris … writes: Many people have supposed the answer to the question “when does life begin to matter morally?” is the same as the answer to the question “when does life begin?” The moment of conception may seem to be the obvious answer to their question of when life begins, but of course the egg is alive well before conception … the sperm too is alive and wriggling. Life is a continuous process that proceeds from generation to generation continuously evolving. It is not, then, that life begins at conception. [p116]

We have recognised that moral struggles are frequently between competing goods, rather than between a straight good and a straight evil. But that does not mean that anything goes, that there are no forms of conduct which, as rational human beings, we could condemn. The principle of harm is a very broad one, and it calls for subtle elucidation in particular situations, but it is a useful guide in steering our way through the currents of debate about what is or is not allowable or moral behaviour. [P160]

Interesting concept, but after 35 pages and two chapters, I had no idea what the author actually wanted to say, or even what he had said. There was no scaffolding to hold up the argument, which in itself faint like an indistinct echo of an idea.