Author: Ophelia Benson

Just in case anyone runs away with the idea that I’m being too kind to religion here – let’s take a quick look at some of its recent cavortings.

There are the nice people who burn down new schools in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Militants in southern Afghanistan are reported to have burned down three schools in their latest move against the government’s education system. Officials blamed the former ruling Taleban for burning down the newly-built schools in Helmand province which serve some 1,000 boys and girls.

There are the fun guys who want to prevent women from running in races.

Some 500 women took part in three races in Lahore, although 2,000 due to run had backed out over fears of violence. Islamic protesters had demanded women be barred from taking part, arguing their presence ran counter to Islam…The six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance had opposed the mixing of men and women in such public events and had urged protesters to disrupt the race. They insisted that women runners should race separately, and indoors.

And that women should be confined and prevented and deprived in every way possible. Of course they did. Men and women mustn’t mix, therefore women must have their lives made as small and empty as possible. Naturally.

And there are the lovable fellas who line up to call women foul names for the crime of – learning to drive a car.

“I’m a broad-minded person,” declared the Afghan driving instructor. “But I was shocked by her behaviour.” “Really?” I asked. His female student had laughed. Was that really so bad? “It was shameful and embarrassing,” he replied. “Her character is no better than that of an animal.”…One of the women who was learning to drive had been beaten by the Taleban for removing her burqa in a shop, even though the only male present at the time was a twelve-year-old boy…I watched as Roya walked towards the test car. A long line of men had gathered by the side of the road. As she walked slowly along the line, her head bowed down, she heard the whispers of invective and abuse. She refused to tell me exactly what they had said, but I later found out she had been called a “prostitute”, a “bitch” and an “un-Islamic whore.” She failed the test. “We have freedom now,” she said. “But we are not free to enjoy it.”

There are the heroic enthusiasts who threaten Scandinavians because a Danish newspaper published cartoons mocking a guy they admire.

And so on and so on. People with mistaken ideas about reality and disgusting ideas about morality, bullying and punishing and tormenting people for the sake of those very mistaken or disgusting ideas. If religion is not the root of all evil, a lot of people spend an awful lot of energy trying to convince the rest of us that that’s exactly what it is.

I hope I don’t get seven years for saying that.

We (a couple of us anyway) agreed in comments yesterday that motivation is an interesting subject. That’s a big part of what has kept me chipping away at this discussion – the subject of what motivates us to do things, good things and bad things, interests me a lot. It’s important, and it’s hard to figure out – it matters and it’s inevitably somewhat obscure. It matters because it (obviously) influences what we do – without it we wouldn’t do anything. (Which is also another reason it’s interesting – it hooks up with why the mind is adaptive, with what role it plays that makes it worth all the calories it burns.) And it’s obscure because we don’t fully understand even our own motivations (I think), let alone other people’s. And we don’t fully understand them (I think) because they are so complex – they rely on so many different threads, some of which stretch back into childhood – but we’re not aware of all of them when we think about why we do things. I don’t mean warmed-over Freud, I just mean items like things people say when we are eight or ten or thirteen that help to form our beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, likes and dislikes – and then become more or less lost to view.

Oh get on with it. Sorry. The point is, that’s why I resisted Norm’s example of our Polish Catholic friend (she does seem like a friend now) who risks her life to save an endangered Jew because she was taught from childhood that we’re all God’s children. I resisted it not because I resist on principle admitting that there is any good in religion, but because I was unconvinced, and I was unconvinced because it seems to me there are myriad potential and likely reasons one would strongly believe it’s wrong to murder people. It seems to me terribly unlikely that religion would be the only source of such a belief – though it could be the strongest. But I don’t have any trouble believing that religion could operate to motivate our Polish Catholic at another level. I think at the primary level, of beliefs about basic moral commitments, there is a big ol’ web, but at the secondary level, of willingness and determination to act on those beliefs, I can believe things are simpler. When things get difficult, when the Nazis start publicly executing people who save Jews, when the rescuer is called in for questioning – then it becomes a matter of will, courage, determination, resistance to fear – it becomes overpoweringly difficult. That is, perhaps, when the irrational comes into its own. And not necessarily in a bad or contemptible way – not necessarily through fear of hell or the like. No, not at all. It can be through belief that God wants people to be good and will be pained if you fail – irrational belief, if you like, that your tiny (comparatively) and understandable failure to sacrifice yourself will pain God just as much as the outright monstrousness of the Nazis. That kind of belief is a good thing. That’s what people are gesturing at when they talk about abolitionists, and in that way they have a point. Abolitionism was damn dangerous, it got people killed, it took courage to be one; and religion can be a source of courage when more rational reasons don’t quite do the job.

It worries me to admit that, of course, because it plays into the whole ‘religion is the source of morality and without it we’re all shits’ line that we hear so much of. But I think there’s some truth to it, so there you go.

This was touched on in a TPM forum last year – it’s in the archive, but I give the link in case any of you have archive access. Anthony O’Hear said something that I wanted to disagree with but couldn’t; it’s stuck in my mind ever since. (That’s worth noting since hardly anything ever does stick in my sieve-like mind.)

Is that what morality is? Deciding what it means to treat other people well? Why does that give me a reason for treating you well? It’s not a very profound point. I might know what you, Anthony Grayling, tell me it is to treat other people well. But I want to know why I should treat others well.

Simon Blackburn says he would appeal to moral sympathies, O’Hear says that’s a long way from the Kantian moral law, Blackburn says that’s fine, and O’Hear says –

I don’t agree, actually. I do think that people who stand out against tyrants with no hope of reward, the sort of people that Phillipa Foot discusses in Natural Goodness, are admirable people, and I don’t think their actions are necessarily supererogatory. If morality can’t encompass that or tell people that’s what they should do, then it’s rather weak. You’ve said that the only reason for morality is to produce accommodations, but you’re also telling people that you’ve got to produce more than accommodations. What worries me about the language in which you put it is that anybody who reads you is going to think, “Well I don’t aspire to be a hero. I’ll leave that to other people.”

Yes. We leave being a hero to other people. I know I do! Which is why it struck me. I think that’s an interesting and pretty undeniable point.

On the other hand, of course, the outcome of that is only as good as the initial judgment is. All too often the initial judgment is all wrong, is monstrous, is cruel and oppressive and tyrannical. The Vatican goes on obstinately telling ‘the faithful’ not to use condoms, thus condemning tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people to a horrible early death, a great many of them sexually faithful spouses and asexual infants, and more tens or hundreds of thousands of children to orphanhood and destitution – all to uphold a ridiculous and trivial piece of pseudo-morality. What a price for what a reason! So commitment and will are not enough. But – sometimes they are needed, and religion does seem to be one thing that can shore them up, or supply them entirely.

So, as long as I get to alter the wording of Norm’s example slightly, I agree with him. And that’s that.