by Thomas Dixon
So, the secular humanist can argue, we do not need to be religious, nor to believe in an afterlife, in order to be good; we simply need to follow nature. Believers may warn us that accepting a scientific view of human nature will mean that we behave like animals. But since behaving like animals, in certain cases, means sacrificing yourself for the good of others or collaborating in pursuit of a shared communal goal, then perhaps we should all behave like animals more often.
Dealing with deviance
The moral and legal codes of the monotheistic traditions reveal preoccupations with all sorts of different social problems, including how to get on with neighbouring tribes, how to deal with religious dissent, how to enforce regulations relating to many details of everyday life including diet, dress, and domestic arrangements, and how to punish those who break the rules. A theme that recurs frequently among these other subjects is sex. Sexual desire has produced as much conflict and anxiety as it has pleasure for as long as human civilizations have existed. And religions have tried to provide rules and regulations to cope with this very powerful human drive. Generally speaking, sex between men and women, within marriage, to produce children, has been approved of (although St Paul thought it was better to remain celibate), while virtually any other kind of sex, most notably sex with oneself, or with someone of the same sex, or with someone in one’s own family, has normally been condemned (and sometimes considered punishable by death).
In modern societies where science and medicine have gradually taken over from traditional religious beliefs as the most acceptable sources of publicly agreed divisions between the normal and the deviant, two parallel trends can be discerned: a de-moralization of previously moral issues, but also a concomitant medical and scientific reinforcement and naturalization of existing social divisions and inequalities. Modern science has proved just as ideologically malleable as the Bible when it comes to arguing either for or against such divisions. Two examples relating to sexual ethics will offer a brief illustration of these trends.
The late 19th century saw the emergence of new ideas about homosexuality (and the very coining of the term ‘homosexual’). One prevailing view until that time had been that sex between two men was an unnatural and sinful act which revealed a moral failing or a perversion of character – and one which could be identified with the suitably biblical name of ‘sodomy’, named after the sinful people of the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah described in the Book of Genesis. Sex between two men was not only a sin but also a crime (one that was punishable by death in Britain until 1861). The sensational conviction of Oscar Wilde for acts of gross indecency in 1895, and his sentencing to two years in prison with hard labour, drew a great deal of public attention to the question, and gradually what we might consider a more liberal and scientific approach to the question started to gain a hearing. A key figure in this movement was the sexologist Havelock Ellis, who used psychological studies of homosexual men to argue that homosexuality was natural. We should not, he argued, imprison people for acting on a natural instinct. Many decades later, in 1967, this view finally came to prevail and sex between two consenting adult men was decriminalized in Britain.
A very similar pattern can be discerned in the case of masturbation. Again, this was a practice known by a biblically inspired name – onanism. The name in this case was an allusion to the sin of Onan, who, according to the Book of Genesis, ‘spilled his semen on the ground’ rather than impregnating his brother’s wife, as he had been told to do by his father. Genesis records that what Onan did was ‘wicked in the Lord’s sight; so he put him to death’. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this religious condemnation transmuted into a medical diagnosis. A widely distributed treatise entitled Onania denounced the ‘heinous sin of self-pollution’ (also known as ‘self-abuse’) and ‘all its frightful consequences (in both sexes)’. This work combined sexual titillation with moralism and medical advice. More respectable versions of this kind of writing were produced throughout the 19th century, when it became an article of medical orthodoxy that masturbation was both a symptom and a cause of insanity and of physical debility. Unpleasant medical remedies and ingeniously punitive mechanical devices were devised to counteract this physical and moral evil. As with homosexuality, medical ideas and practices seemed to have taken over from religious and moral ones as ways of dealing with sexual deviance. The same pattern was also repeated in the context of debates about the differences between men and women, and the relationship between white colonizers and the indigenous peoples they displaced. Scientific theories about sex and race were on hand to provide new rationalizations of inequalities previously justified in religious and political terms.
19. A mid-18th-century edition of the anonymous pamphlet Onania, first distributed in London in 1716
The naturalistic fallacy
Science and religion have both been used in pursuit of all sorts of different political goals. Neither is inherently liberal or conservative, racist or egalitarian, repressive or permissive. Each provides a way of understanding the world which might be made consilient with almost any ideological vision. But while we are used to the idea that religious believers will look at ethical and political questions through the lenses of their particular faith commitments, we have not yet learned to be quite so attentive in the case of those who claim to speak for science. On the face of it, a scientific approach to ethics promises to be a balanced and objective one – and one which takes its lead from nature rather than from human prejudices. Does nature not speak with a clear and impartial voice?
Some philosophers, driven by the desire to develop a more scientific approach to morality, have constructed whole systems of ‘evolutionary ethics’. For such thinkers, the fact that humanity’s conscience and moral feelings are the product of evolution requires that ethics should be pursued from an evolutionary rather than a religious or even a philosophical point of view. The problem that all such schemes encounter is that there is more to ethics than following nature. Even if it can be shown that we are endowed with a particular ‘natural’ instinct by our evolutionary history, that observation does not get us any closer to answering the ethical question of whether it is right to follow that instinct. Presumably the instincts that incline people towards violence, theft, and adultery have evolutionary origins too. Whichever interpretation of evolutionary biology we care to endorse, it is perfectly clear (as it has been to moral philosophers through the ages) that human beings are born with the propensity both to seek their own good and also the good of (at least some) others.
The question of whether the altruistic instinct, for instance, is a natural one is completely separate from the question of whether it is one that we should follow, and to what extent. That question will be answered only by thinking about the rules and goals according to which we, individually and communally, wish to live our lives.
The mistake of supposing that something is ethically desirable just because it can be shown to be natural, or evolved, is sometimes referred to as the ‘naturalistic fallacy’. This strange phrase is taken from the English philosopher G. E. Moore’s 1903 book Principia Ethica. Here Moore stated that any system of ethics which tried, misguidedly he thought, to define the ethical predicate ‘good’ in terms of a naturalistic predicate such as ‘pleasurable’ or ‘useful’ or ‘for the good of the species’ was guilty of committing the ‘naturalistic fallacy’.
Some religious thinkers have invoked the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ as a reason to resist all secular and scientific approaches to ethics. However, it should be pointed out that Moore’s ban on translating the word ‘good’ into any non-ethical term was applied by him to metaphysical and philosophical systems of ethics too. In fact, Moore’s view really amounted to complete moral mysticism. A system of ethics which identifies ‘good’ with ‘in accordance with God’s will’ or ‘for the greatest good of the greatest number’, or anything else at all (apart from Moore’s own favoured sense of goodness as an intuited quality of beauty) is equally guilty of commi
tting the ‘naturalistic fallacy’. From this point of view, religious and scientific approaches to ethics are each in an equally bad position.
Beyond nature
The cases of altruism and sexuality considered in this chapter both give us some sense of why we should be suspicious of any ethical or political argument that is based on what is natural. We can be drawn into these kinds of arguments from all sorts of laudable motives. For instance, campaigners against anti-homosexual laws will often cite evidence of homosexual behaviour among various species of birds and mammals in support of the view that homosexuality is natural. Modern medical orthodoxy now holds that masturbation should be not only allowed, but positively encouraged, because it is natural. Religious critics of interpretations of evolutionary biology that suggest we must resign ourselves to a society ruled by selfishness have been led to insist that, on the contrary, human altruism is not only desirable but natural. But ‘natural’ in these contexts really means fixed, given, determined. It denotes not the act of a free individual, but the playing out of an unalterable physical law. Political questions about what sexual behaviour should be allowed, or how the interests of different groups within society are to be balanced and regulated, are decided by human laws, not by laws of nature.
Think again about the case of homosexuality. We might take the change of the law in Britain in the 1960s as evidence of how a scientific approach to a question could replace old-fashioned religious bigotry with a more enlightened and rational policy. However, that would be to overlook several other aspects of what we might call the modern medicalization of morals. To take homosexuality out of the moral and criminal realms and place it in the realm of medicine was in several ways a repressive as much as a liberating transition. Homosexual sex was now to be considered an activity that was the preserve of a particular aberrant type of person rather than simply as something that might be indulged in by anyone. In this sense, the medical view strengthened the division between normality and deviance. Secondly, the medical model was a more strictly deterministic one. Sexuality was to be considered something unalterably given by one’s biological nature rather than as an expression of individuality. Finally, this new conceptualization of homosexuality categorized it as a medical disorder. It was a natural condition towards which people should show sympathy rather than condemnation, but a disorder nonetheless. This idea was still prevalent in Britain in the 1960s when the law was changed. The continuity between religious and medical attempts to define and enforce distinctions between normality and deviance is also indicated by the fact that the few organizations today that still support the idea that homosexuality is a disease from which people need to be cured are religious groups.
In the case of altruism, religious responses to evolutionary ideas about competition and ‘selfish genes’ have given an exaggerated sense of the value of self-sacrifice. Recent debates about science and ethics have often proceeded as if moral goodness and altruism were synonymous. Some claim that altruism is natural and so we should follow nature. Others insist that we have evolved to be essentially selfish and so we need to struggle against nature. But both views are based on a very limited understanding of what it is to live a good life. Individualism and self-development have traditionally been valued by both secular and religious moralists. As several commentators have pointed out, when Jesus told the rich young man to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor so that he might have ‘treasure in heaven’, that advice was given for the good of the young man, not for the good of the poor. There are political connotations too. The ideology of altruism is one that is open to manipulation by ruling elites. The idea of living for others sounds like a noble one. But it can be used both by totalitarian governments seeking to persuade their subjects that the interests of the whole must come before their own individual rights, and also by those politicians whose objectives can only be achieved through thousands of military personnel being prepared to give up their lives in pursuit of them. I suppose that suicide bombers too might see their acts as heroically altruistic. Again, the value of altruism is something to be decided by political and moral discussion, not by an appeal to nature.
As I have already pointed out, religious ethics is in just as bad (and therefore just as good) a position as scientific ethics when it comes to justifying its attempts to derive moral guidance from facts about nature, society, humanity, or authoritative texts. Religion and science both provide resources with which people can try to make sense of the situation they find themselves in. From within a particular world view or ideology, certain maxims will seem fundamental and unalterable: for a Muslim, the truth of the Quran; for a Christian, the fact of the resurrection; for an atheist, the purely human nature of all moral codes. Neither science nor religion can determine, for some mythical neutral observer, which foundational maxims we should adopt. But they can provide concepts, beliefs, practices, rituals, and stories that can be used to piece together moral meanings.
In the modern world, it seems as though science, technology, and medicine are increasingly dominating the attempts to make such moral meanings. Instead of being warned by the great religious prophets of the past that we must mend our wicked ways or face the wrath of God and cosmic cataclysms, we are now warned that our sexual immorality, gluttony, and greed will lead to venereal disease, obesity, and the flooding, burning, and destruction of our planet as a result of catastrophic levels of global warming. The details have changed, but the essential structure is the same. Science and medicine provide us with frightening new visions of the future which policy-makers and political leaders use to try to persuade us, as did the prophets of old, to repent and change our ways before it is too late.
Looking to that future, there is every reason to believe that science and religion will both continue to flourish, to enlighten, to inspire; as well as to frustrate, to obfuscate, and to oppress.
Some people may wish that one half of this essentially modern pairing could be disposed of, or could be persuaded to relinquish its troublesome claims to authority in some or other sphere of knowledge, morality, or politics. But such people should be careful what they wish for. Would they really prefer to live in a society where everyone agreed about the questions that this book has been about? What sort of place would that be?
References and further reading
Abbreviations for websites cited more than once:
CCEL
Christian Classics Ethereal Library: http://www.ccel.org/
CWCD
The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/
DCP
The Darwin Correspondence Project: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/
FT
Douglas O. Linder’s Famous Trials site at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law: http://www.umkc.edu/famoustrials/
HF
The Huxley File at Clark University: http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/
NP
The Newton Project at Sussex University: http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/
PG
Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/
RJLR
Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion: http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/
TP
Thomas Paine National Historical Association: http://www.thomaspaine.org/
References
This section gives references for material directly quoted in the text above. The further reading section below gives suggested background reading and additional sources.
Where reputable online editions of works are available, these have been cited in addition to the original published source. Different English translations of biblical passages can be compared online at The Bible Gateway: http://www.biblegateway.com/
Chapter 1
Galileo’s condemnation: Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago, 1994), quotation at pp. 330–1. Documents relating to Galileo’s trial and condemnat
ion can be found online at FT. ♦ Psalm 102:25. ♦ Thomas Huxley’s review of On the Origin of Species was originally published in 1860 in the Westminster Review and was reprinted in Volume 2 of his Collected Essays (9 volumes, London, 1893–4), pp. 22–79, quotation at p. 52; available online at HF. ♦ John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge, 1991), quotation at p. 5. ♦ Quotation from Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), in William Shea, ‘Galileo’s Copernicanism: The Science and the Rhetoric’, in The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, ed. Peter Machamer (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 211–43, quotation at p. 238. ♦ Psalm 19:1. ♦ Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part I (1794), in Thomas Paine: Political Writings, ed. Bruce Kuklick (Cambridge, 1989), quotations from Chapters 7, 11, and 16; available online at TP. ♦ Altruism research: Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Research that Proves the Link between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life (New York, 2007). ♦ The medieval Islamic motto is quoted in Emilie Savage-Smith, ‘The Universality and Neutrality of Science’, in Universality in Islamic Thought, ed. Leonard Binder (forthcoming).
