Austin Dacey has written a blogpost, "Putting God out of the Ethics Business," at Psychology Today on the "good without God" posters up in New York City. For the secularists, skeptics, and Unitarians among us, this is a no brainer in most ways. Dacey Writes,
By now you may have heard about or seen the "good without God" posters in the subways of New York City and elsewhere. Media outlets from the New York Times to Fox News have characterized them as ads promoting atheism. Yet while the campaign aims to reach out to nonbelievers, it also raises a broader issue--something most people seem to have missed.
The obvious meaning of "good without God" is that atheists can be good people. But a closer look reveals a more universal message: people can be good regardless of their beliefs about God. From this perspective, the ad was not about atheism, but about the nature of morality. (I'm writing this blog post along with Michael De Dora, Jr., a spokesperson for the New York City campaign.)
When we act ethically, our reasons are usually nothing transcendental, just simple respect and compassion for others.
This is a strong point to keep in mind. In our proverbial hearts and minds we consider other people because we are social animals and rational animals. Obviously, some of us more social and/or rational than others. Our moral notions rest in our consideration of others. No single principle exists outside of human action and experiences that dictates whether or not an action is good or bad. We humans are the arbiters of our own actions.
Some will say that we need to look outside of ourselves when we act. We do. We look to and at one another and weigh consequences to ourselves and others in relation to ourselves. What occurs is both a deeply selfish act in many cases and an act of compassion - suffering with. It can result, and we might say should result, in placing one's self to the best of one's ability in another's position. But we can't help but escape that our understanding of others' positions rests in the theater of our own brains and experiences. And yet, this evolved capacity creates much of our richest experiences.
No God or transcendental experiences need enter there to show us that we make decisions based on our understandings of our social interactions in a natural environment. Consequences show us justice. Angels do not. Pain and joy teach us about mercy and generosity. Spirits do not. We do this together. This is plainly naturalist phenomena in a natural world.
God(s) and its/their commandments muddle the picture with dogma. As Dacey writes, "No set of commandments is self-authorizing. It cannot tell us why we should follow it, rather than some other set. Of course, it would be no help to add an Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Follow Commandments since the same question would arise about that commandment."
Commandments fail because they are overly rigid. In our fluid social, cultural, and ecological milieu, morality must also be somewhat fluid. But our evolved capacities at any time are not sieves through which anything can or ought to simply cascade and run empty. Rather, it is like a a slowly changing stream bed down which we and our morality travels.
We can and should be "good without God."
