At the heart of ethical theory are issues that seem inescapable, and that no other field of inquiry promises to answer. How ought we to act? What kinds of things are worth wanting? What type of person should you aspire to be? Many religious people suppose that there is an authoritative source of answers to these questions. They are not moved by Plato’s cogent proof that the will of a being, however powerful, could not ground any moral duty. Nor are they persuaded by Kant’s further development of the same theme: moral reliance on the commands of another presupposes that the commander is not only powerful but also good; hence those who obey must already have standards of goodness and be able to apply them to the commander. After the twentieth century, and the many who attempted to absolve themselves on the grounds that they were only following the Leader’s orders, this Kantian point would seem especially forceful. Still, even those who continue to rely on religious authority should at the very least concede that their preferred manual of ethical instruction is profoundly incomplete. They, too, need ways of guiding their conduct when their decisions lie beyond the scope of the commandments. They might benefit, as generations of religious scholars and teachers before them have done, from the insights of philosophy.
In the first place, it's not "Plato's cogent proof." It's the proof of a character named Socrates, whose purposes within the larger framework of the Platonic dialogues is left open to question. It is probably also worth noting that the 'cogent proof' was unpersuasive to the person it was directed at (I presume the Euthyphro is being referenced), and perhaps philosophy could learn something from this.
In the second place, this claim is left open to a particularly obvious rejoinder. Speculate that it is in fact the case that one is a religious believer of the kind who believes that the Bible (or other appropriate religious text) serves as a compendium of the rules for proper living--a point which, it must be noted, is far out of fashion in religious studies and popular religion.* But assume it anyway. On the one hand one has a text that is written by God, or approved by God, which enumerates at least some of the principles of how to live an ethical life. With what material does one fill in the gaps? It would seem preferable to attempt to discern the factors that drive those principles and apply them to uncertain cases. What it would not make sense to do is turn to authorities considerably less qualified to speak on ethics than the Divine is, who inter alia cannot agree on very basic facts like, e.g., how to best construct a system measuring utility, or which principles ought to function as moral absolutes. This is rather like saying that the best way to ensure my scholarly work is cogent and persuasive is to run it by a child of 10 or 11, who may after all be possessed of insights I am missing. In other words: just because a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in awhile does not mean one should outsource the finding of acorns to blind squirrels.
To be clear: I have no problem with moral philosophy, and find it quite useful in thinking through some problems of political and social life. But if we're going to insist religion keep to its sphere, philosophy should keep to its sphere, too.
*In my own particular slice of Christianity, the popular view is of the Bible as narrative, which functions to explicit list of moral rules in exactly the same way that all narratives do: not very well.
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