Dialogue: Religion, Morality, and Egoism

Priest: Without religion there can be no morality. You atheists are trying to lead humanity along a dark path.

Professor: Nonsense! Atheism is perfectly compatible with morality! Most atheists I know have a strong sense of morality.

Priest: But if you do not believe in God or in the afterlife, than what is backing up your atheist morality? What are the rewards for being moral, or the sanctions for being immoral?

Professor: Atheists don’t need imaginary rewards or sanctions in order to be moral; we act morally because we are good people.

Priest: Good people? Without God to define them, there is no good or evil.

Professor: Nonsense!

Brian: I believe that the priest is correct on this point, professor.

Professor: What? Whose side are you on? I thought you were an atheist!

Brian: I am.

Professor: Well then how can you say that atheism is incompatible with morality?

Brian: How can you not? Without a divine being dealing out rewards and punishments, what possible reason would anyone have for following a universal code of morality, if doing so clashed with their individual self-interest?

Professor: Because the universal code of morality that I espouse is both true and valid.

Brian: How so?

Professor: Well, the fact that you are debating with me in the way that you are means that you have accepted certain rules of morality. You have accepted that truth is preferable to falsehood. You have accepted that certain words mean certain, objective things. You have accepted that the words that come out of my mouth are my words, and hence you have accepted my self-ownership over my own body. You have accepted that persuasion, not brute force, is the way to prevail in a debate. Thus, you have already accepted many, significant rules of morality, rules which, if elaborated upon, could become the foundation for a universal code of morality.

Brian: Actually, I have only temporarily accepted those rules for the purposes of this debate, because doing so is currently in my individual self-interest. When I want to play Monopoly, I agree to abide by the rules of Monopoly, until the game is over or I want to stop playing. After that, I am no longer bound by the rules of Monopoly; just as I am no longer bound by the rules of debating when I want to stop debating. Thus, your supposedly ‘universal’ code of morality would only apply to me when I want to debate. It only applies when I let it, which I do only for the sake of my individual self-interest.      

Professor: Ah, but when you make statements about ethics and morality or the lack thereof, you are speaking in the context of a debate, and thus while you are making your statements, all of the accepted rules of debating apply. Your statements are only possible and comprehensible given the acceptance of relevant moral rules; hence to deny the existence of such moral rules in those statements involves you in an illogical performative contradiction. Thus, your statements must be false.

Brian: That’s not right. I do not deny the existence of the rules of debating or of any other sets of contextual rules that can be adopted by actors when doing so is in their individual self-interest. I deny the existence of a universal code of morality, that applies and is binding in all situations, whether following this code is in the individual self-interest of the actor in question or not. This is the kind of code of morality that moralists speak of and which I deny; not the rules of debating.    

Professor: You are splitting hairs. There is only one class of moral rules, and the rules accepted by debaters are a part of this class. By denying the existence of universal morality, you thereby also deny the existence of the rules of debating, which is false.

Brian: I’m not going to continue along this line of argument with you, professor, because I don’t think we will get anywhere. All I will say is that if you think that these kinds of logic games are going to be able change the behavior of real people, you are in for a rude awakening.

Professor: Logic games?! Logic is humanity’s foremost intellectual tool in its quest to distinguish truth from falsehood! How can you trivialize it like that?!

Brian: Logic is wonderful when it enables us to discover useful truths about the world. So please tell me, professor, of what use to anyone is your supposedly ‘true’ code of morality?

Professor: It is irrelevant, when it comes to determining the truth of a proposition, how useful that proposition would be if accepted. It doesn’t matter how useful the statement: ‘there are no square circles’ is; it’s true regardless.

Brian: I’m not currently challenging the truth of your code of morality though. I’m just asking why anyone should care about it or follow it, even if it is ‘true’?

Professor: Everyone cares about the truth!

Brian: Well personally, I only care about truths that are useful to me when known. Truths that are not useful for me to know I couldn’t care less about. I’m not sure why anyone else would take a different attitude towards it, unless they were fanatically devoted to ‘The Truth’ as a kind of religious idol.

Professor: But that’s such a sordid attitude!

Brian: Appending negative adjectives to it does nothing to persuade me to change that attitude.

Priest: Enough! This argument has revealed to me that Brian is a lost soul, and the professor is an idolater. Come out of the darkness my sons! Return to God and the light!

Brian: I would be happy to believe in God if you could just prove to me that he actually exists.

Priest: One cannot ‘prove’ that God exists because God is incorporeal spirit, undetectable by normal human senses. God can only be approached through faith.

Brian: Then if God does exist, he must not want us to think that he exists. Otherwise, why would he have given humans the senses that cannot detect him and the eminently useful rational faculty that demands proof before accepting something as true?

Priest: That is not correct. God has spoken to several prophets over the years, and the Bible is the Word of God. Through these means, God has provided guidance to humanity; guidance that we must follow if we are to save our immortal souls.

Brian: Seems like a clumsy way for an all-powerful and all-knowing God to proceed. If he really wanted humans to act a certain way, why wouldn’t he just implant deep psychological urges into all humans impelling them to act in that way? Then humanity’s natural egoism and God’s plans would be in harmony. Seems like a more elegant solution than prophets, Bibles, and preachers.

Priest: Let egoism run wild?! Let voracious human appetites operate unchecked?! Nothing but evil and misery would result!

Professor: Finally something that the priest and I agree on!

Brian: It doesn’t really matter what you two think the results of humans following their natural egoistic impulses would be. Unless humans are brainwashed into foolishly subordinating their interests to the commands of intangible divine beings and external codes of morality, egoism is what they will naturally follow. Only the gullible will allow themselves to be brainwashed in this manner; sharp, vigorous people will remain egoists, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Professor: Well, sounds like we should ‘brainwash’ as many people as possible then!

Brian: You have an overly pessimistic view of human nature. Sympathy, reciprocity, the desire to preserve society by following suitable general rules of civilized life; these natural human tendencies, complemented by suitable systems of man-made law, operate to significantly reduce the incidence of egoistic actions causing direct harm to others. I would venture to say that dogmatic systems of religion and morality have caused far more harm to humanity than natural egoism ever has.

Professor: That haphazard approach is nowhere near as good as if humanity decided to follow a scientific, rational code of morality.

Brian: Perhaps, but since there is no reason for individual humans to consistently follow such a code of morality, only the gullible will end up following it consistently, while the sharp and the vigorous will not. I would prefer to help level the playing-field by showing everyone the groundlessness of all systems of morality. Only once this is done will we be able to see the results of general egoism, and compare them with what was achieved under religious or moralistic systems. Though I do not know for sure, my money would be on general egoism producing better results.