Dawkins quest for a secular morality - is there hope?

The following thoughts are concerned with the second part of Dawkins' TV-series 'The root of all Evil?' You will find the video beneath. The thoughs are also presented in random order, maybe I will have time to systematize all of this some day.

A large part of this second TV-program consists of criticism of the Old Testament, some of it rather anachronistic, but some of it justified since there are people who still take all parts of the Old Testament very seriously and literally. I have no beef with Dawkins on most of these issues.

I will go straight to what Dawkins rather dishonestly presents as the only alternative.

Dawkins makes some good points. For example he stresses that freely chosen moral acts are superior to 'moral acts' made out of prudence or fear of a punishing God. Unfortunately, this theme is not very much further explored.

I would be interested in knowing how the mechanical materialism of Dawkins could leave room for these choices to be freely made?

I do not realize whether Dawkins is aware of it or not, but one interviewed person that Dawkins agrees with provides a philosophical transcendent argument for morality. This happens toward the end of episode two where Ian McEwan points out that moral can come out of the logic of extending the knowledge of self-existence to other individuals.

This, of course, echoes Kant's Categorical Imperative, but also shows the value of evolved cultural institutions like Christianity, because the simple principle is found in the Golden Rule many, many hundreds of years before Kant showed the logic of it philosophically.

Dawkins does not seem to be aware of the value of culturally evolved institutions which is odd since Dawkins, in general, knows a lot about evolution. Why is he so positively hostile to evolved cultural institutions? It seems quite idiosyncratic.

So basically a secular morality can take two forms, transcendentalist (here Ian McEwan) or naturalist (here Oliver Curry).

Naturalist morality is not real morality though. It is simply a set of moral sentiments, but there is no guarantee that just because we feel something is right then it actually is right.

McEwan also talks about responsibility, but the concept of responsibility is vacuous in science because if everything is just the effect of a preceding cause, how can anybody be held accountable for a wrong or given credit for a right?

Since Dawkins seems to deny the existence of anything, but that which can be proven by science, he has a serious problem with value – there is then only value in physical objects and transient feelings. So he ends up with a Peter Singer style theory of moral and value, namely a hedonistic kind of utilitarianism. Following this will lead to some absurd conclusions.

This leads to a moral that can only urge us to avoid pain and gain pleasure. So pain and unease becomes the bad which should be avoided and pleasure that which we should live to get.

How very poor indeed.

Dawkins does not take on any serious thinkers who oppose his views.

Richard Dawkins (both part 1 and part 2) does not seem to take serious the comment by two different opponents on 'everything being permissible if there is no God / Value.'

Dawkins also espouses a naïve moral progressivism you would not expect from an evolutionist. For example he says there is great progress in the way we see gay people today compared to earlier.

Well, there is. (But what has this got to do with morals. Morals are about the actions we carry into the World.)

Let us try though to have a look at things from a child's eyes. Growing up with two mothers and no father, or two fathers with no mother compared to one of each, how is this moral progress?

It is not of course, because there is not moral progress. There are just changing attitudes and groups who are shown consideration.

So this 'moral stance' is now well suited to the welfare state where constellations that would never be found in nature can be held a live. To call this moral progress is simply being intellectually dishonest.

To protect individuals and not just privilege whatever group is currently fashioned by the Zeitgeist, we need a set of rights and principles.

Dawkins evolving morality cannot provide these because it simply tracks the environment (currently consisting of a welfare state.) Principles last a lot longer than attitudes, and what Dawkins refers to as the advanced morals of our time are simply that – attitudes.

There is a lot of knowledge in science, but very little wisdom.

What is my own take on all this?

Well, I think secular morals can be a good thing, but only in a pluralist context including religious morals.

Why do we need all these different kinds o morals?

Simple.

They need to work as checks on each other, as fail safes. If one fails the we have another to rely on. Historically it has been shown that to completely remove other kinds of value than science is a bad idea. See my other piece on Dawkins' TV-series for more on this.

There is another reason we need them. To avoid inconsistencies and end up in paradoxes all the time. Hopefully I will get time to write more specifically on this later, as I would also like to elaborate on my criticism of secular moral progressivism.

Anyway, enjoy the program: