• Question: do you think morals have been installed into people through the use of religion, or do you think without any religion people would still have sense of moral judgement?

    Asked by strongbow dark fruit to Sam, Ben on 15 Jun 2017. This question was also asked by Lana.
    • Photo: Ben Kenward

      Ben Kenward answered on 15 Jun 2017:

      Generally speaking, psychologists don’t do as much introspection as they once did – in other words, trying to understand the mind by looking inside their own heads. But in this case, I think a bit of introspection is pretty useful. I’m not at all religious, but I do have a sense of morality. I’m far from the only person like this. People sometimes argue that without God, there is no reason not to treat other people badly. I actually agree that without God there is no rule that comes from outside ourselves, and that therefore we are free to make up our own rules. But the thing is, most of us understand that treating other people badly will make us feel bad, as will seeing people suffer through our own inaction, and we also understand that we will feel good and prosper when we treat each other well. So behaving morally seems like a good idea even without God. And if we just look at how morally people behave, there is little connection with how religious they are.

    • Photo: Sam Carr

      Sam Carr answered on 18 Jun 2017:

      I think morals have certainly been shaped by religion – for sure. It’s difficult to deny that different religions have different ideas about what it means to be a “good” and “bad” person – and people internalize these ideas and abide by them. They become a sort of moral code. In this sense, yes, morals have been instilled through religion.

      However, I do not believe that morals wouldn’t exist if religion didn’t exist. There are numerous examples of non-religious people who appear to have a moral code of conduct. Even animals, some philosophers argue, exhibit what might be deemed to be “moral” behaviours. Animals obviously don’t reason explicitly about right and wrong, but they do exhibit some aspects of human morality. Rather than being caught in an eternal fight of all-against-all, many animals show tendencies that we humans really value – they cooperate, they help one another, they share resources, they love their young. Some (like Darwin) argue that morality has partially “evolved” – and the existence of these sorts of traits in other non-human animals is a fascinating issue.

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