Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: This article relates and compares some important features of Western religious and secular morality by way of surveying the debate over different answers to the question whether morality depends on religion in some significant way. The three main ways examined are whether morality depends on religion for an objective foundation, whether morality depends on religion for its content, and whether morality depends on religion for motivation. What emerges is that while religion can provide an objective foundation, a worthy content, and an admirable motivation for those who accept its distinctive theological claims, secularists can provide plausible, if debatable, alternatives to a theological foundation, as well as a moral content and motivation that can have interesting overlaps with those of religious ethics.
Source: Religions
DOI: 10.3390/rel13100971
Author: Edward Langerak
Institution: St. Olaf College
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,256
OpenAlex ID: W4306399456