Full summary of Ronald Dworkin's Religion Without God including seminar notes and case analysis.
Taken as part of the UCL Laws Jurisprudence and Legal Theory module (LAWS0011).
1. Religious Atheism
Materials
1. First of Einstein’s lectures
Outline
The distinction between naturalism (science) and non-naturalism (value)
o Personal responsibility to live a good, meaningful life
Hume's principle and the distinction between ought and is
The distinction between the 'science part' and the 'value part' of religions.
The distinction between a 'personal' and an 'impersonal' God.
Starting point / perspective
- Dworkin comes from an American experience
o Country is deeply religious, see US constitution
o Law is politically relevant
- Religious wars are now cultural
o Does it matter that there is an American perspective?
The distinction between naturalism and non-naturalism (value)
Naturalism
Idea/Doctrine
o Nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences, including
psychology
o Nothing exists that is neither matter nor mind
, o No such thing as a good life or justice or cruelty or beauty
o Dworkin rejects: Value judgments can be reduced to naturalist, evolutionary
origins—e.g. fear derived from fear of being eaten by animals, etc.
Other type of naturalists
o Nihilist—Values are only illusions
o Accept that some values exist but they don’t have independent existence
E.g. describing someone’s behaviour as good/bad only means that the
lives of more people will be pleasant if everyone behaves in that way
E.g. to say a painting is beautiful = in general, people take pleasure in
looking at it
Religious attitude rejects all forms of naturalisms
o Values are real and fundamental, not just manifestations of something else
o As real as trees and pain
Grounded realism
Idea/Doctrine
o Values are real, objective
o Value judgments can be objectively true (only on the assumption, which might be
wrong, that we have good reason, apart from our own confidence in our value
judgments, to think that we have the capacity to discover truths about value.
o NB: Religion is better explained through values, not necessarily tied to a God
E.g. “football is my religion”—note, what this is conveying is the
commitment to a set of values
Theists assume that their value realism is grounded realism.
o God provides and certifies their perception of value
o Their faith is defensible because their realism is undergrounded and radically
independent from history.
Forms
o Theism—traces our capacity for value judgment to a god
, If value judgment can ever be sound, there must be some independent
reason to think that people have a capacity for sound judgment
Status of value will be hostage to biology/metaphysics
o E.g. if proven with undeniable evidence that we hold moral
convictions we do only because of evolutionary adaptive,
then cruelty cannot be wrong.
o If we think it is wrong, then we must have capacity to be
“in touch with” moral truth
Is everyone responsible to live a meaningful life?
Dworkin: Our existence cannot make sense if we reject this notion that everyone is
responsible to live a meaningful life
o If a random stranger’s life is lost, it is still an objectively bad/sad thing
o Objective value: each human life matters, and they matter equally.
Concept of dignity
“Rights are inalienable”
Verification of truth
We know we have an innate capacity for logic and mathematical truth because we form
beliefs in domains that we simply cannot disown
E.g. cannot disprove/prove mathematics outside of mathematics.
Convictions of value need to “feel right” in an emotional way as they are emotional
convictions
Religious atheists
- Do not believe in a god
- Reject the science of conventional religions and the godly commitments, like a duty of
ritual worship, that are dependent on that part
- Accept that it matters objectively how an innate, inalienable ethical responsibility to try
to live as well as possible in his circumstances
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