What It Means to Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life by Phil Zuckerman (Berkeley, California: Counterpoint Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-64009-274-7). 360 pp. Hardcover, $28.00.
Where does contemporary morality, with its historical emphasis on anything connected to sex, come from? Peter Heather, renowned English scholar, tells us in his marvelous book The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (2005), that at least with Christianity it almost single-handedly came from the high-octane writings of Augustine of Hippo, who wrote his magnum opus, The City of God, about 425 CE.
In Augustine’s theology, Christianity provided the salvation of humankind from all the perversions that he believed largely originated in pagan (Greco-Roman) immorality—sexual lusts. In Augustine’s lap lay all the moralizing and especially the anti-sexual teachings of Christianity over the millennia to our time, along with its probable influence on Islam. For Augustine, sex was the root of all evil, all immorality. We are all born in Adam and Eve’s “original sin,” thus we are innately immoral, which before one’s death only faith in Jesus can counter the flames of punishment in hell and save a person’s “soul.” Countless writers have condemned Augustine for largely setting the view of medieval, Reformation and modern Christianity on morality.
Phil Zuckerman, in this magisterial and extensively detailed examination of contemporary morality, presents a thesis with a compelling blow to those who hold that being moral absolutely means being religious. He unshackles us from religious baggage! While not drilling into the teeth of Augustine per se, Zuckerman holds up for the general reader’s censure the morality espoused by the damaging trifecta of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He argues morality comes not from God, gods, or goddesses. Where does it come from, then? Zuckerman states it comes from every one of us: our brains, humanity’s evolutionary past, our continuing cultural development, what we experience socially, and our ability to use critical thinking in our reasoning, reflection, and sensitivity to our fellow human beings. Lack of sensitivity to our fellow humans, basically wars, mostly has roots in religion throughout time.
Through rigorous research and study, especially in Denmark, Zuckerman – a distinguished professor of sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont, California – has learned that societies in the world today “with the lowest rates of belief in God and church attendance—Sweden, Japan and the Netherlands—are among the best-functioning and most humane societies on Earth.” Peoples such as these largely possess a secular-humanist and naturalistic worldview. A particularly helpful part of the book is “The Fundamentals of Secular Morality.” It is helpful because it examines what it means to be moral: from what is “behind us” (as “in our distant past”), from “below us” (our infant and early childhood lives), from “beside and around us” (in the other members of humanity who compose our “surrounding culture and society”), and from “within us” (through our “thoughtful reflection and reasoning”).
Zuckerman critically deconstructs a wide spectrum of religious arguments for theistic-based morality with care, while guiding readers through the provisions and promises of secular morality in major challenges to our world today, all of which he argues are best approached through an ethical structure of nonreligion. Zuckerman’s weaving together of convincing arguments based on clear suppositions that morality is not dependent on any kind of religion despite the most “widespread, popularly held notions” that it is are fascinating. The bottom line: We need to look closely to our fellow human beings and into our own selves for moral guidance and an ethical response to the multitude of issues that confront us. A critically thinking reader finds that Zuckerman provides an important set of arguments for and examples of a morality without theism.
This book is a significant contribution to the contemporary dialogue about morality. What is noteworthy is its persuasive writing: effective and convincing to the reader who takes the time to ponder over even more difficult aspects of the subject matter: the challenges to secular morality itself. Zuckerman makes it easy to understand, appreciate, and acknowledge the issues at hand.
Zuckerman concludes with an exemplary chapter on why secular morality is necessary in today’s world, particularly in issues dealing with human sexuality, climate change, Christian nationalism with its attendant ignorance of our nation’s founding, and domestic violence—not to forget the over-reaching problems of continued racial inequality, poverty, and gender oppression in our world. He provides a special focus on gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues throughout the book. So much damage and suffering has been meted out to persons in these categories by religion over the centuries. Still even in our own country there is so much work to do.
Zuckerman is clear that secularism will not solve every problem but is a good foundation on which to build. Given today’s world, we “need ethics and morality devoid of religious faith—now more than ever. We need secular morality, and we need it fast.” The “Godless Good News” will give us “even more positive outcomes for humanity.” The time for religions of the Book is over!
Zuckerman’s subtle Oregonian wit and kind words give the reader an unqualified sense of comfort and encouragement without the albatross of religion. This is truly a definitive tome, a work that covers every nook and cranny of the subject in depth using great skill in critical thinking and logic. The only disappointment was that there is no index to assist in finding particular subjects or names that are so widely dispersed in the text. Regardless, if you only read one book on humanism or morality this year, read this book!