Thursday, September 02, 2004

TOM AND SOCIAL MORALITY
Tom doesn't really dispute my claim that "all morality is social" is consistent with the prohibition of suicide because all action has social implications. He merely says:

A person keeps their body in good working order for the benefit of the person chiefly, and society collaterally.


Fine, then the "collateral" harm to suicide is sufficient basis for the suicide prohibition. But in any case, it is not necessarily true that a person "keeps their body in good working order" mainly for their own sake. This depends on the person. If I'm a soldier in a desperate war to save my country, I may view my body as nothing but an instrument for my country's defense, and even the act of eating, let alone exercising, may be devoted to the service of my country. And in a way, that's the whole point. If we live our lives in service to our fellow men, our efforts to strengthen or educate ourselves are an effort to render ourselves of more use to others. This is not a complete moral theory (it suggests, for example, that we should try to benefit others, but others should be indifferent to their own benefit and try only to maximize ours-- a paradox) but I think it is part of a good moral theory, and must be internalized before we can go further.

But Tom's most flagrantly false claim is this:

However, institutionalized religion limits freedom considerably, and is in conflict with itself and everything else around it.


Religion (never mind the "institutionalized," which is a red herring) does nothing of the kind. On the contrary, it emphatically recognizes-- Christianity in particular recognizes-- mankind's freedom. It is government which "limits freedom considerably" (sometimes, as in the case of the Spanish Inquisition, in the name of religion.) Jesus abjured violence completely, and invited only freely given belief and love. Freedom as an aspect of the Christian religion eventually fermented into, among other things, the idea of political freedom, of which Tom writes:

Some people claim that our nation is great because of its religious foundations, but most people believe, and even the founding fathers believed, that its because of its foundations on freedom.


But it is because of our country's religious foundations that it is free. Freedom emerged in Christian countries, motivated by Christian arguments, and not only were Christian countries the only once to practice political freedom for many generations, but even now Christianity is a critical element underlying freedom-- though Hinduism seems to do pretty well too, even if institutional imitation of Christian England made Indian democracy possible at first. The atheist Soviet Union became the world's worst tyranny, as did the regime of the post-Christian Nazis. Hail freedom, to be sure! but you also have to look a little deeper, and ask "where did it come from?" and "what sustains it?" (I welcome the counter-arguments which these controversial claims provoke...)

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