Morality and Religion - Shafer-Landau

Morality and Religion - Shafer-Landau
An overview of "Morality and Religion," Chapter 5 of The Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau. (Link to book: amzn.to/3mq97sp )
Some topics discussed include Divine Command Theory and Euthyphro's Dilemma.
Philosophy of Religion, Ethics
0:00 Introduction
0:53 Three Assumptions: (of the view that morality depends on religion)
2:09 First Assumption: Religious Belief is Needed for Moral Motivation
6:48 Second Assumption: God is the creator of Morality
8:24 Divine Command Theory
9:18 Objection 1
15:23 The Divine Perfection Argument
18:08 God does not need to be the author of morality
19:26 Third Assumption: Religion is an
20:27 Some Worries for the Third Assumption
22:47 Shafer-Landau's Conclusions

[@spencermccormick2959]

I think we have the ability to decide what is right or wrong without an organized religion. I think that ability to ask questions is the foundation of religion.

[@itoldyouso6622]

I read this chapter and I enjoyed it very much.
Consider looking into Eastern Orthodox Christian Theology.
I think this answers many of these questions, and in fact an Orthodox Deacon - Father Deacon Ananias (Erik) Sorem, PhD (a professor in Philosophy) -
he's actually who recommended this book. You can find his TH-cam channel under the name "The Norwegian Nous"

[@PhilosopherGames]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll have to add him to my reading list

[@ytpanda398]

Thank you, this is extremely useful for a student doing some A level research :)

[@PhilosopherGames]

Glad it was helpful!

[@vanderwaalshaystack9039]

Great video! I love how the presentation was detailed but still fairly easy to understand. I think the most convincing account of argument in support of religion I've heard comes from Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor (this is somewhat related to #3, I think?) that the rise of secularity causes deep moral confusion simply due to the long history of religious-based moral practice that has been around for much of human history. It'd be great to see videos revolving around that point of the argument. Something related I've also heard is that in general, most religious traditions have encouraged humanity to ask some of the most fundamental question (much like philosophers do, I guess they would say the two traditions are necessarily entangled) throughout history, which led to many intellectual developments (for example the many catholic scholars that made contributions to progress of science, and protestantism and the development of enlightenment etc). And beyond that, the ritualistic elements of religious practices encourage honest reflective thinking, which is necessary for moral growth. And there are also some points made about the emphasis on living in community and learning through a communal lifestyle. I should mention that the people who have made this argument to me also admit that specific religious traditions are not the only ways to access moral knowledge or behavior, but rather that that those traditions and teachings encourage human flourishing and that the accompanying sacred text has a lot of value and wisdom. So in a sense, religious practices and teachings helps one develop dispositions that will likely encourage more moral behavior. I suspect that from there, one could make the argument that even the secular moral reasoning and practices that we experience today are necessarily shaped and molded by centuries of religious practices. And in that historical sense, morality is impossible without religion.

[@PhilosopherGames]

Thanks for the insightful comment! Do you have the titles of the articles you mention? I'll save them to a file for potential future videos.
Also, I am happy to hear that it is "detailed but still fairly easy to understand" as this is one of my goals for presenting material in my courses! :)

[@vanderwaalshaystack9039]

@@PhilosopherGames No specific paper comes to mind unfortunately. Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue is probably the best writing on this though! It's a whole book but here are some good chapter guides [www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20120203_AfterVirtuechaptersummary.pdf] [www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/documents/AfterVirtueOutlineandCommentary.pdf] . Charles Taylor's A Secular Age is also frequently mentioned in the same vein. I'm not super familiar but I believe Robert Adams has explored the topics although from a more theological approach.

[@TheologyUnleashed]

Great talk!

[@PhilosopherGames]

Thanks!

[@MarzioSalamina]

Or... it's the other way around: morality is needed to build a religion, which can be taken as a primeval encoding of ethical concepts for a community to refer to as a guide.
Human beings show the capacity to roughly distinguish good from evil from an early age, and mature a finer sense of it the further they experience the aftermath of their actions on the others. And then they decide if to apply what they know. What people may lack is a common opinion on specific issues, but the fear of God is gone as soon as you sin and nothing happens.
The "inborn" ability to develop decent behavior may in fact be bypassed through religion! All kinds of carnages take place fully blessed by beliefs. Organizing on a vast scale inhuman acts of mass murder requires a strong ideology (political or religious) to support the conflict of conscience in a large number of mentally sane individuals.
It is true that a single human cannot create a moral law, yet, as a whole, society has indeed the authority to do so. No God is necessary, the majority is. And it actually happens: the constitutions are based on the most shared ideas of a correct way of living among the others. They are periodically adapted to social changes (no dogmas) and differ depending on cultural contexts.
This relegates Gods to the role of boogeymen, especially needed in times when there were no effective ways to keep antisocial activities under control. And its dictates were soon manipulated to serve as a tool for those who wanted to impose their authority on others. In such a scenario, the Euthyphro dilemma is pleonastic.
The remaining difference between religion and legislation (not coincidentally non-existent in some countries) is that the first one goes deeper into the intimacy of a person, whilst the second keeps more distance from one's freedom of choice.
The hideous aspect is that believers place themselves on the "right side" by default, within that safer area injustices are often permitted for "higher" purposes. Religion in this case is used to hack the consciences and alter your sensitivity to overcome the normal perception of right and wrong.

[@reallifefaith]

I think RSL's dependence upon the Euthyphro Dilemma is really shallow - he misses an obvious solution.

[@colinreynolds01]

Hey Jake :D I'm the guy who runs the discord

[@PhilosopherGames]

I haven't been able to check out the discord yet. How is it?

[@colinreynolds01]

​@@PhilosopherGames Of course I am biased, but I think it is great. There are about 60 members. We have a mixture of science nerds, philosophy nerds, and even a stand up comedian or two. Mild roasting of each other is pretty common.
There is more memeing and text chat than either voice or video chat, but those do occur as well.
We do semi-regular film viewings for film study (philosophy of film) which are streamed and discussed in-channel.
The up-to-date channel invite is discord.gg/TYHjvm but these expire within 24 hours.
I imagine you have a lot on in general with the FB page and other things, but it's worth opening and putting on idle, to catch the odd meme even if you're too busy to engage much with the interactions.

[@ytpanda398]

@@colinreynolds01 hit me up with an invite if this is still active pl

[@Aguijon1982]

If perents take their childrens lives they are immoral monsters.
But If God takes the lives of his children he is good?. Wtf. Christianity is seriously fucked up

[@Aguijon1982]

@@lumina5
Why

[@Aguijon1982]

@@lumina5
Other than your meaningless comment. Why is it ok when god takes a life, floods the planet, tortures in hell, endorses slavery and plays hide and seek like an idiot but all that is bad when a human does the same.
He has free pass to be a dick or what?