The Role

of
Religion
in Ethics
Group 7
 TABLE OF
CONTENTS

01 Religion
and Ethics
Ethics

03
Religion’s
02 Role in
Theistic
Ethics
 INTRODUCTI
O
N
Religious Ethics - concerns belief
and practices of what is good or
bad, right or wrong,
virtuous or vicious from a
religious point of
view. The moral principles that
guide religions and that set
the standard for what is and
 isn't acceptable behavior.

- Marianne Joyce Turla

 All religions develop ethical rules, ethical
standards, and ethical values that guide
conduct in the everyday, ordinary situations
and circumstances of personal and
social life.
In the history of religions, systems of
religious ethics have not merely addressed
specific actions. They have not merely
prohibited some actions, such as lying, theft,
or murder, and prescribed others. Rather,
religious ethics has addressed what might be
called dispositions of desire.
 In nearly all the world’s
religions, personal morality
begins with this simple concept:
Treat others as you
would like to be treated.
 Religio
n

0
and E

thics
 Religion and Ethics
Ethics – may defined as system of
moral principles which affect how
people make decisions and lead
their lives.

Religion – is defined as “people’s

beliefs and opinions concerning
the existence, nature, and
worship of deity or deities and
divine involvement in
the universe. - Edrish Mae Edrosolan
Some submit that the
difference between religion
and ethics is about the
disparity between revelation and
reason
•
Religion is based on the idea
that God reveals insights
about life and its meaning.
•
Ethics is based on the tenets of
reason.
- Edrish Mae Edrosolan
 DIFFERENT
RELIGIONS

- Edrish Mae Edrosolan

HINDUISM
• Is by many accounts
the oldest religion in
the world
• This has no founder and is a
synthesis of many
different Indian
religion tradition.
- Edrish Mae Edrosolan
A religious tradition
founded
by
Siddharth
a
Gautama
.
 BUDDHIS
M
- Edrish Mae Edrosolan
 I
A stric tl
S y

L
m o
A not
M heistic
faith founded by the
prophecy Muhammad
in the year 607 in
present-day Saudi
Arabia.
- Edrish Mae Edrosolan
CHRISTIANIT
Y • A monotheistic
religion cantered
around the
parsonage of Jesus
of
Nazareth or
Jesus
 Christ.

- Edrish Mae Edrosolan

 A is
strictly
monotheistic
religion practiced
by the Jewish
people.
 JUDAISM
- Edrish Mae Edrosolan
Religion’s

Role
0 in
Ethics
 Religion’s Role in
Ethics
Ethicist believe that religion is necessary
for the continued survival of morality as
an integral part of human life.
Philosophy professor Glenn C. Graber calls
this apologetic claim the “Cut-Flowers
Thesis”
“Morality cannot survive, in the long run,
if its ties to religion are cut”

- Gladys Kaye Yalung

 Leo Tolstoy made the following
statement of the thesis:
• Without religion there can be no real, sincere
morality, just as without roots there can be no
real flower
•
Basil Willey, a religionist, holds that there has
been a progressive de-Christianization during the
last three or four centuries, the outcome of
which “is what we see around us in the world
today.
- Gladys Kaye Yalung
 Leo Tolstoy made the following
statement of the thesis:
•
The chaotic and bewildered state of the modern
world is due to man’s loss of faith, his
abandonment of God and religion
•
Certainly sensuality, drunkenness, coarseness,
greed, dishonesty, robbery and violence existed in
the Middle Ages, war, economic devastation,
and political disorganization would have been
much worse without the moderating effect of
the Christian ethic.
- Mikaella Mandap
 All these statements call
attention to the prediction of
the cut-flowers thesis which,
by way of summary, suggests
that morality cannot survive
without religion.
- Mikaella Mandap
Theisti
0c
Ethics
 Theistic Ethics

Theism- is the believe in God

Theistic Ethics – is God-based morality (also
known as moral supernaturalism)

“THEISTIC ETHICS believes that a

supernatural being called God is the
foundation of morality.”
- Kathline Transfiguracion
 Moral supernaturalism can satisfactorily
explain the existence of objective ethical
values and the moral law

Can Justify Moral 01

Values 02 Can Explain Moral
Accountability

No Real Accountability
04 The Euthyphro
Dilemma
03
in Non-theism
- Kathline Transfiguracion
 1. Can Justify Moral Values
While other ethical views can just postulate
good moral principles, only a theistic view can
justify them. At least four reasons are given for
this:

a) Unless morality is grounded on the

unchangeable nature of morally perfect
being (God), there is no basis for believing
in moral absolutes
b) If everything is relative, then there is no
good reason why anyone ought to abstain
from doing anything he wishes to do
- Kathline Transfiguracion
 1. Can Justify Moral Values

c) Only in theism are all persons held

morally accountable for their actions in
the real sense

d) Only the ethics rooted in a Moral Law-Giver

can be truly prescriptive in any objective
sense of the word.
- Kathline Transfiguracion
 2. Can Explain Moral
Ethical supernatAuraclicsmo,
cuomnptaaredbtioliitts ynon-theist
counterparts, is said to be better as an ethical system
in terms of explaining moral accountability.

Theist believe that all people have this moral

experience of feeling morally obligated and that this
sense of moral responsibility is connected to God.

Morality is believed to be “something above and

beyond the ordinary facts of men’s behavior, and yet
quite definitely real – a real law, which none of us
made, but which we find pressing on us”.
- Kathline Transfiguracion
2. Can Explain Moral
Accountability
Theist thus believe that Someone made the moral law
so that moral rule is not just a disembodied principle
but a rule of Somebody

Furthermore, theistic ethics maintains that man’s life

does not end at the grave and that all persons are
truly held morally accountable for all their actions

Non-theist Professor Taylor agrees that

supernaturalism provides a sound basis for
morality in justifying moral obligation and
accountability.
- Kathline Transfiguracion
3. No Real Accountability in Non-
•
t h e is
Absent in non-the is m is c
malled “life
after” of theism where the final reward of
punishment – that which accounts for
ultimate justice will be given.
•
Even if we grant that there were objective moral
values under naturalism or secularism, they
would be ultimately immaterial and
meaningless because there is no moral
accountability.
•
Some secularists argue that the idea of life ending
at
 the grave still makes a difference whether you
live as saints or as devil.

- Ana Joy De Guzman

 4. The Euthyphro Dilemma
The most common attack against moral
theism is the famous philosophical
argument called “Euthyphro Dilemma”

Greek philosopher Socrates asked an insightful

question:
“is a good thing good because God desires
it? Or does God desire it because it is
already good?”
- Ana Joy De Guzman
THANKS!
Group 7
•
Ana Joy De Guzman
•
Edrish Mae Edrosolan
•
Mikaella Mandap
•
Kathline Transfiguracion
•
Marianne Joyce Turla
•
Gladys Kaye Yalung