Only God can be the source of moral awareness Essay

Moral aw arness is sometimes referred to as the human conscience, it purportedly separates us from other animals and allows us to function as a society. A example is a value that we live our lives by and each unitary contri thates to a incorrupt mandate of conduct which then becomes a res publicas laws. This essay focuses on the ideas of Kant and Newman, who believed the source of lesson sense could potentially be perfection, and Freud and Russell whose views oppose religious wholenesss. Some key ideas use atomic number 18 the Moral Argument, Psychoanalytic theory of personality, and the Euthyphro Dilemma.Kants understanding of moral ken was that it consisted of universal moral laws that everyone knows of and are obligated to follow these laws do not vary between cultures or throughout time. An example of an objective moral law would be that we shouldnt commit pip. A moral movement might be to help an elderly person across a busy road. We would perform this moral didd leion- or others- out of duty, obligation and reasoning. To attain the correct action to perform in a situation we adjudge moral reasoning- otherwise known as the categorical imperative. This is like a test that enables us to identify our moral duty. When deciding whether to lie or tell the truth, for instance, we consult the categorical imperative. These ideas helped Kant to formulate his Moral Argument for the earthly concern of God.Humans, he tell, stick out a sense of innate moral sentiency that burdens us with the obligation to be virtuous. True faithfulness is logically rewarded with happiness, exactly were incapable of rewarding ourselves. He called the state in which virtue and happiness coincide the summum bonum, and the only way to ensure this state is reached is by the existence of a God. Summum Bonum can then be reached in a form of afterlife, explaining why we pure tone the constant pressure from our conscience to do the right subject, even when it wont direct ly benefit us. significantly though, Kant didnt explicitly say that God was the source of moral ken, but that human reason was and that this reason was provided by God. Cardinal John atomic number 1 Newman (1801-1890) had similar views on the source of moral awareness, he said We feel responsibility, are ashamed,are frightened at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is one to whom we are responsible. By this he means that the existence of conscience implies that we are answerable to someone who provided moral laws, and that the law-giver is in all probability God.On the other hand, Freud would disagree with Kant and Newman, because morals arent objective and consistent as they claim them to be. Freud noticed the differences in ethical values and actions, and attributed them to neighborly conditioning. He said that the area of our mind- the superego contains the reasoning ability to make decisions, its our conscience. Freud said our conscience is shaped b y people involved in our earlyish developed- parents and teachers. These people pass on their moral values to us through socialisation, which is the process where we acquire a personal identity and learn values, social skills and behaviour from other in society. This version of the source of our conscience accounts for the inborn values seen in the people of the world and can be used as evidence against God as the source of moral awareness. other who felt God was an unsatisfactory explanation for the origin of moral awareness was Bertrand Russell. He reformulated Platos Euthyphro Dilemma, wherein Euthyphro is unable to solve the question of whether a thing is good because God commands it, or if God says something is good due to a quality it has? Euthyphro didnt know what that quality could be. Russell presents the argument that either God isnt good, or Hes not the most stiff being. God isnt good if reverent Command Theory (morality is the revealed willing and commands of God) i s correct, as this would demean Gods goodness by making His most important quality power.Also, by this logic, any immoral act could become moral if God was to say so- for example, murder would be congenial if God said so, yet we would still know from our conscience that murder is wrong. The second problem is even worse for Christians to accept, as by definition God is the most powerful being. However, if He acknowledges a moral code superior to Him, that we must abide by, God wouldnt be the Divine Being at all. This argument suggests that God is not the source of moral awareness and instead implies that either there is something superior to God where the moral code originated, or thatconscience simply exists without an outside beings intervention.In conclusion, God is not necessarily the source of moral awareness, as theres no solid evidence that this is the case. Other proposals have been made by people such as Freud- conscience could be the result of our upbringing or just someth ing that is naturally occurring in humans. The narrative only God can be the source of moral awareness is therefore incorrect.