Godless Morality

The book is quite different from what I was expecting. There are a lot of interesting points of view about the most debated issue in ethics, but there is very little about godless morality. No philosophical construction. Still, I found it interesting. Holloway shows a fine prose and the book is short enough to forgive some repetitions and excursions.

Rationally and succinctly expressed. A interesting look at the world, as we enter an age of morality without authority.

Thoughtful, engaging intelligent writing. All the more so because the author is a Bishop (ex-Bishop now). I was ready to be irritated and expecting to argue with the author, but the unsupportable viewpoint and comical statements never arrived from this impressive author. A must read for souls considering moral theory in a contemporary pluralist society. The early chapters discuss the broader
problems of humanity's limited understanding in the area of ethics and the development from a morality of command to a morality of consent. These chapters, insightful, memorable and eminently quotable, are where the books greatness lies. The book concludes with chapters regarding modern issues or dilemmas in a variety of specific cases.

It created a stir when first published. Of course, most rational people know that it is entirely possible to lead a good moral life without having to believe in religion, any deity or defined set of dogmas or superstitions brought from on high by people who wear funny clothes and consider themselves beyond criticism, but when the idea is being expounded by a former Anglican Bishop, it was bound to ruffle a few feathers. Richard Holloway was the Bishop of Edinburgh until his retirement and today makes a career as a political and social writer. It is also suspected, yet he has never stated such, that part of his reason for retiring was because he had abandoned his faith altogether.

But I'm not here to debate the man or what he might now think of the core concepts of Christian belief but whether the book achieves what it sets out to do, and that is to demonstrate that it is perfectly possible to reject religious dogmas on morality and lead a good life. It also attempts to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that many of our religious traditions on sex and relationships, drugs, alcohol, cloning, stem cell research and even abortion are rarely as clear cut as they would like to portray. Most interesting for me is how he attempts to distinguish the difference between a moral sin (one that causes harm to others) and ritual sin (one that is a breaking of a covenant with God) has been distinctly blurred in Christianity. For example, homosexuality ought to be considered a sin only to one who takes a Christian oath because of the scriptural sanctions against it; yet it should not be considered sinful for those who do not choose a Christian lifestyle. He hints at a degree of conceitedness in the way that Christianity blurs this line between this ritual sin and moral sin and that it is not something that Jews and Muslims are generally guilty of, that true morals ought to be about observable consequences, not the quoting of superstitions.

If he is not an atheist, then he is perhaps the only Christian who truly understands the atheist position and why we consider many of their arguments to be empty rhetoric, near valueless and absurd at best and downright dangerous ideology desperately clinging to a bygone age of pre-Enlightenment totalitarianism and willing to bribe, threaten and kill to maintain that at worst. He also discusses the modern knee-jerk reactionary attitudes of morality from churches who are becoming more and more entrenched against the 'democratisation' of morality, the idea that things become unethical through consent and that despite claims from certain churches that they have driven liberation and social reform, the opposite is often usually true as church institutions sometimes find they have no choice but to change their attitude in line with the public outcry.

Does it set out to do what it professes? In my mind most certainly, it is a very powerful piece of writing that will make you look at social issues in a different light, whether that be sex and relationships, drugs or cloning there is bound to be something to challenge even the most liberal of us.

My only criticisms are to do with flow. Holloway seemingly hops around from time to time and I wish it had been more structured and given a thorough going over by an experienced editor. But this is a minor criticism and the content doesn't suffer for it.


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A brilliant and courageous book. Goes to the heart of the 'ethical dilemma" that arises when religion and ethics are allowed to interact.

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]

The start of this book is excellent. The author discusses difference between human morals and institutional morals. The later chapters where he discusses ethical approaches to reproductive sciences seemed a bit unfocused.

Worth reading for the ideas presented though.

A consider, thoughtful and above all intensely reasonable exploration of why we should not rely on religion as a source of morality, and how a secular alternative should be constructed. For a Humanist like myself, there was a bit too much focus on Christianity in places, but the chapters covering drugs, abortion and voluntary euthanasia were excellent. As with his book 'Looking in the Distance', this is an ideal work for anyone drifting away from religion towards un-belief, and even for the confirmed non-believer there is much to be learned from Holloway's approach.