The End(s) of Religion

A History of How the Study of Religion Makes Religion Irrelevant

Eric Bain-Selbo

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781350045279
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Eric Bain-Selbo argues that the study of religion-from philosophers to psychologists, and historians of religion to sociologists-has separated out the "ends" or goals of religion and thus created the conditions by which institutional religion is increasingly irrelevant in contemporary Western culture.
There is ample evidence that institutional religion is in trouble, and little evidence that it will strengthen in the future, giving some reason to believe that we are in the process of seeing the end of religion. At the same time, various cultural practices have met in the past and continue to meet today certain fundamental human needs-needs that we might identify as religious that now are being fulfilled through what Bain-Selbo calls the "religion of culture."
The End(s) of Religion traces the way that the very study of religion has led to institutional religion being viewed as just one human institution that can address our particular "religious" needs rather than the sole institution to do so. In turn, ultimately we can begin to see how other institutions or forms of culture can function to serve these same needs or "ends."

1

The Ethical/Philosophical Function of Religion: Kant, Hegel, and So Forth

For millennia, religion has been intertwined with ethical rules and moral behavior. The relationship has not been an uncomplicated one. As far back (at least) as Plato’s Euthyphro, philosophers, theologians, and others have grappled with the nature of this relationship. Does morality arise from religion? Or is it a mere addendum to religion? Can we have morality without religion or vice versa?

For most of Western history, the relationship of religion and morality was so close that one hardly could separate them. Living a moral life was part of what it meant to be religious. Living a moral life was pleasing to God, and one’s eternal life might depend on how morally good one was in this life (a belief held at the popular level, even if not always theologically or doctrinally). Something changed, however, in the eighteenth century during the Enlightenment. Instead of seeing morality as founded or grounded on religion, many philosophers and theologians (often these were one and the same, since the sharp divide between philosophy and theology was a later development) sought to discover and explicate the rational basis for morality. By doing so, however, they also had to account for the historical relationship of morality to religion and explain why religion still was relevant to morality. In other words, if morality was based on rationality, and all human beings have a rational capacity, then do we really need religion to enable us to be morally good creatures?

In this chapter we examine one line of development related to these issues. We begin with Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), the Enlightenment philosopher, and then shift our focus to subsequent critical figures in German philosophy. Through such an examination we will find that the effort to justify the moral relevance of religion failed, and that in fact the work of these philosophers implicitly or explicitly made religion less relevant in the Western world. These philosophers, then, are the first characters in the story I want to tell.

Kant and Rational Religion

In “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?”, published in 1784, Kant defines his particular historical moment. But his essay also expresses sentiments and motivations that would form the basis of philosophical, cultural, religious, and political movements for centuries to come. He begins that famous essay by immediately answering the question: “Enlightenment is the human being’s emancipation from its self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to make use of one’s intellect without the direction of another.”¹ There are at least four important aspects or implications to this statement. First, there is the emphasis on the use of one’s intellect or our ability to think. Second, there is the claim that we ought to use our intellect (and, we are all capable of doing so) free from the direction or manipulation of others. Third, the use of the idea of immaturity signals some kind of temporal development or growth. In short, to be Enlightened is to be able to freely use one’s intellect—it is to be a mature rational creature as opposed to a child. Simply put, to be Enlightened is to think for yourself. By analogy, then, the Enlightenment period is one of liberation and maturity for the Western world. The Western world was immature but was becoming mature during the Enlightenment period.² Fourth, rational maturity is inevitable. Just as an individual develops from a child to a more rational adult, so society will develop from a childish state and become more rational as well.

Immediately we see the potential conflict with institutional religion. Certainly in the eighteenth century but even today in many religions, the veracity of the authority figure or leadership or at least the authority of a text or set of texts is accepted without question. For example, think about certain pronouncements from the Vatican or a powerful Imam. Such pronouncements are deemed to be true by virtue of the authority that expresses them, not as a consequence of rational assessment of the pronouncement. The latter at least is subordinate to the former and often seems like a post hoc justification. Such is the case as well with sacred scripture, which many religious adherents accept as true with little rational scrutiny. For example, think about beliefs in the existence of God or the Christian idea of the Trinity (the idea that God has three aspects or beings—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in one ultimate being). There are a lot of theological arguments or justifications for these beliefs, but most people still accept them (and often are asked to accept them) on faith alone.

So, if religion often asks us to accept certain truths with little or no reflection on our part, what are we to do with Kant’s insistence that we be more mature and enlightened? Should religion simply be rejected? Kant answers this question negatively. He wants to defend and preserve religion and does so via his moral theory. Kant’s moral theory represents one of the three major approaches to ethics (the other two being utilitarianism and virtue theory). While his moral argument can rationally stand on its own, separate from any religious assumptions or claims, Kant nevertheless finds room for religion in his overall theory.

Kant begins the first chapter of his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, a canonical text in college ethics courses, with the famous claim: “It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will.”³ By “good without qualification,” Kant means that the good will is “good in itself,” and that its “usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add to, nor subtract from, this value.”⁴ For example, imagine someone (we will call this person Bob) is about to be trampled by a rhinoceros. I have a gun, however, that can kill the rhinoceros and save Bob’s life. But, when I try to shoot the rhinoceros, I accidentally shoot and kill Bob instead (actually, a pretty likely scenario, since I do not own a gun nor have I shot one very often). My desire to save Bob is an expression of my good will, and my will (that which leads to the action) remains good even though the consequences of the action were quite bad. Indeed, Kant’s moral theory is radically non-consequentialist, which separates it from utilitarianism (generally, an action is good or better to the extent that it creates happiness) and virtue theory (generally, an action is good or better to the extent that it contributes to the goal of human flourishing, of which being a virtuous person is the central part). For Kant, an action is judged to be good or bad not by the outcome of the action but by the intention or motivation of the agent. Using the same example, imagine that I really want to kill Bob and I take aim at him. But, I accidentally shoot and kill a rhinoceros that suddenly has appeared and was just about to trample Bob to death. In this case, the consequence of my action is good but my intention or motivation was bad. Nobody would say that I somehow had a good will in this scenario.

So, if what really matters is intention or motivation, are there ways to determine whether someone is acting from a good will or not? For Kant, we can never really know the true intentions or motivations of our own actions, let alone others. But reason can provide us with criteria for figuring out what moral acts look like. Reason is what separates us from animals. Reason allows us to transcend our instincts—for example, “I want that doughnut because I’m hungry” or “I want to kill Bob because he made me angry.” Reason is not about producing happiness or the achievement of any particular goal. So many other instincts or human capacities are better in that regard (e.g., sexual intercourse, which generally can be accomplished without our rational capacity, can make us happy or at least bring us pleasure). But if the only good without qualification is the good will, then perhaps that is what reason is for. Indeed, Kant asserts that reason’s “true function must be to produce a will which is good, not as a means to some further end [such as pleasure or happiness], but in itself.”⁵ So how does reason accomplish this function?

Reason performs this function in part by providing us with the ability to act freely. Of course, for Kant reason allows us to be free, to be autonomous, in part because it allows us to question authority and to think for ourselves. But it also liberates us psychologically, by helping us to overcome our desires and inclinations. When we act out of our desires or inclinations, we act in ways that animals act. Like an animal, I act to eat food when I am hungry. If I acted only from that desire or inclination, however, I likely would act in very non-human ways. For example, I might just wander into a restaurant and start eating off of other people’s plates (much like our cat, Rocky, does on a regular basis at home). As a rational creature, though, I know I should not act in such a way. I know that the moral law requires me to respect the property or belongings (in this case, their dinner!) of others. But I am not following the moral law because society tells me to do so or because I will be arrested for not doing so; I follow the moral law because it is my law—it springs from my reason. I am not bound or compelled to follow the moral law. I do so freely as a consequence of the fact that it is rational and thus a product of my reason (which, of course, I share with all other human beings). Thus, for Kant, I am autonomous when following the moral law, but I am in a heteronomous condition when I am driven by desire or inclination or simply follow some sort of external authority.⁶ He concludes that autonomy “is the property the will has of being a law to itself.”⁷ As a rational creature, I produce the law that I freely follow.

But what is the moral law? Kant’s term for the moral law is categorical imperative. The categorical imperative is contrasted with the hypothetical imperative.⁸ The latter are calls or reasons for action (an imperative) that generally follow an if/then pattern. For example, if I am hungry then I should eat dinner. In other words, the action is chosen in order to achieve a particular end or goal. A more morally relevant example might be: If it makes me feel happy to help others, then I should provide funding to organizations that feed the hungry. Providing such funding is a morally good thing to do, but in this particular example Kant would claim that I am not acting ethically. I am not acting unethically either. My action simply is not moral or immoral because the intention or motivation is not moral or immoral. So, it is not the act that is a problem (again, the focus is not on consequences), but the reason (intention or motivation) for the act. Kant certainly could see two people providing funding to organizations that feed the hungry—with one of them not acting morally or immorally at all and the other acting morally. The former is acting out of inclination (the desire to be happy) while the latter would be acting out of duty.⁹ The former is acting out of passion (I want to be happy) while the latter would be acting through reason alone. The former is an act of prudence (doing something to achieve a particular individual good) while the latter would be acting morally. The latter, in fact, would be acting in accordance with the categorical imperative.

Kant famously provided three formulations of the categorical imperative, the first two generally being more prominent than the third. These are not three different moral laws, but just three different ways of expressing the single moral law. The first formulation is “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”¹⁰ Take lying as an example. Imagine I am at a restaurant and discover that the restaurant gives patrons a free dessert on their birthdays. Though it is not my wife’s birthday, I tell the waiter that it is her birthday so that she can get the free dessert (which, I am hoping, she will share with me). In this case, the consequence is great (free dessert, pleasure, etc.). But could we will that the maxim of my action (the reason for it, the justification) could be a universal law? The maxim in this case is that I should lie when it serves my interests. But if everyone did that (if that maxim was followed universally) then we never could trust anyone. The world would be a chaotic mess. But it is not that mess as a consequence that is the crux of the issue for Kant. What is the crux of the issue is that I cannot universalize this maxim because it contradicts the very notion of speaking truthfully—it destroys the rational purpose of speech (to communicate clearly, to share legitimate and truthful information, etc.). That contradiction makes lying contrary to reason and thus immoral.

The second formulation goes “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.”¹¹ Take the example of lying again. In the case above, I use the waiter as a mere means to the achievement of my goal or end (free dessert, happiness, etc.). But I should respect the waiter enough as a rational creature to not use him merely as a means to my ends. Again, this is the flip side of the universalization formulation. If we universalized lying to achieve one’s ends, then we would do nothing but treat others as mere means. Such universalization would lead to terrible consequences, and few of us would want to live in such a world. But beyond the consequences, such universalization violates the fundamental dignity of human beings—a dignity that they have by virtue of their rationality, which separates them from all other creatures.¹²

While this brief description of Kant’s moral theory hardly does it justice, the key point to note here is that there is no need for religious concepts. No God is needed to understand our moral obligations. Human beings, using their reason, can determine what is morally correct. Indeed, Kant does not view the moral law as something that he creates and then shares with the world through his account of the categorical imperative. His account is simply a philosophical description of how our mind naturally works morally. But Kant was a philosopher in Christian Europe during a time when religion was a very large part of cultural life. While religious concepts do not seem to be needed in his moral theory, he nevertheless seems compelled to work them in. So, he brings Go...