Moral Reasoning 54: "If There Is No God, All is Permitted: Theism and Moral Reasoning

Jay Harris, 6 Divinity Ave. 495-

0829

For centuries Jewish and Christian (among other) thinkers have asserted that moral judgment is
impossible without some concept of the deity. So convincing were they that one important
Russian author of the nineteenth century was led to exclaim, "if there is no God, all is
permitted." In more recent times some thinkers have challenged this assumption, and insisted
that removing (or reducing) the role of God is indispensable to proper moral discourse. This
course will examine the ways in which a concept of God has informed Western moral discourse,
trying to help students engage the literature as they confront the basic question, why might one
think "if there is no God, all is permitted?" and why might one think if there is a God human
moral achievement is impossible.

Belief in God and denial of God's existence have each figured prominently in Western moral
discourse. Arguments have been advanced that: autonomous human reasoning is incapable of
arriving at moral truths without a supreme principle to ground the system (which is sometimes
invested with "personality" and called God); that autonomous human reasoning can have no
impact on moral behavior due to human failure that only God can "correct"; that autonomous
moral reasoning is impossible, and morality can only be understood as the submission to the
will of a superior moral being; that a concept of God is necessary to direct and regulate moral
reasoning, but the actual confessional versions of theism are metaphysically implausible or
impossible; that autonomous human moral reasoning is impossible with God, and thus only a-
theism can lead to moral conclusions. This course will engage all these different themes.

The following books should be available at the Coop:

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor

Plato, Five Dialogues
Plato, The Republic
Augustine, Confessions
Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will
Isadore Twersky, ed., A Maimonides Reader
Thomas Aquinas, On Law, Morality and Politics
David Hume, The Natural History of Religion
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone
Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
Lucretius, The Nature of Things
Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity
Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals
Martin Buber, I and Thou

Topics and Assignments:

Feb. 1 Introduction--The historical manifestations of theism

Topic: The Problem

Feb. 3 FRIDAY Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor (= The Brothers Karamazov, book 5, chapters 3-
5, book 6)

Feb. 6 Plato, Euthyphro in Five Dialogues pp. 6-22.

Topic: Can God be beyond morality? or, God as the morally inscrutable.

Feb. 8 Bible, Genesis, chapters 18-22,

Feb. 13 Bible, Job, chapters 1-10, 32-42

Topic: God as the creator of the conditions necessary to translate moral reasoning into
practice

Feb. 15 Bible, Genesis 3-11, Exodus 20-23, Deuteronomy 4-6, 8, Psalm 119

Feb. 22 Bible, I Thessalonians, I Corinthians, Romans (New Testament)

Topic: God as the ground of moral reasoning

Feb. 27 and March 1 Plato, The Republic books 1, skim 2-4 (for 2/27), read 6-9 (for 3/1)

March 6 Augustine, Confessions, books 1, 7, 10 for class, book 2 for section

March 8 Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will

March 13 A Maimonides Reader, pp. 361-386.

March 15 A Maimonides Reader, pp. 246-274; 291-296; 299-310; 349-358.

March 20 Aquinas, Aquinas on Law, Morality and Politics, pp. 1-55

March 22 Aquinas, pp. 56-114

Topic: The irrelevance of God to autonomous moral reasoning

April 3 Hume, The Natural History of Religion

April 5 Hume, A Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, pp. 13-51 (chapters 1-5)

Topic: God as regulative idea

April 10 Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, chapters 1 & 2

April 12 Kant, Grounding, chapter 3
Critique of Practical Reason, pp. vii-xix, 113-140 (on reserve)

April 17 Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone 15-39, 50-72, 79-105

Topic: Is God Compatible With Kantian Ethics?

April 19–no class

April 21-FRIDAY Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling pp. 5-81

Topic: A-theistic moral reasoning

April 24 Lucretius, The Nature of Things, books 1 and 3.

April 26 Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, pp. 1-49, 185-203, 247-269

April 28 FRIDAY Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, first two essays

May l Nietzsche, Genealogy, third essay

Topic: The recovery of God

May 3 Buber, I and Thou (focus especially on part 3)

Conclusion
May 5 FRIDAY No reading assigned

Students will be asked to write three short papers (6-8 pp., due March 3, April 10, and May 5)
designed to be critical evaluations of specific works, focusing on their strengths and
weaknesses as moral arguments, and take a final exam. The final will be 30% of the final grade,
and each paper 20%. Section performance will account for the remaining 10%.

There will be weekly sections; they will be sometimes be devoted to a selected short text that
will lead to discussion of the specific theme being addressed in a given segment of the course,
or that provides important challenges to such positions. More often, there will be extra reading
for section; the section will focus on discussion of the material covered in that week’s readings
and lectures.

My office hours are M,W 10:30-11:30. I am available by appointment on Tuesdays as well. Bev
Foulks will be the Head Teaching Fellow for the course; she can be reached at foulks@fas.