Jordan Vosicky
Richter
Religion 1100
Essay 2
Moral Commands and Authority
Ethics is not easy to understand and some people dedicate their whole lives to
understanding their own ethics and the ethics of others. I am answering question number two
because it is interesting how people support their ethics. Ethics is usually explained by religion
but some may argue that religion is not needed for ethics. I am not claiming such explanations
without religion false, but they have a harder time logically demonstrating how their ethics
emerge. There were three types of ethics mentioned in chapter eight. This included deontology,
teleology, and virtue. An easy way to describe these ethical views, is through examples such as
Christianity and Hinduism. Christianity is a form of deontology and Hinduism is a form of
teleology. Religion strengthens ethics because the Ultimate Being gives authority to the moral
commands and offers a motivation in return, such as salvation or oneness with the Ultimate
Being.
To begin, morality is not something that humans can measure. Science is not a place for
proving morality because morality is metaphysical and beyond the naked eye. The purpose of
this paper is to demonstrate how religion attempts to explain moral commands through an
Ultimate Being as the authority. We must remember that moral commands come from
different aspects of a religion but in the end it always links back to the Ultimate Being. This has
a fine line though because a person must be known as an authority figure in the religion to
relay accurate moral commands. A laity can’t claim moral commands and expect people to take
them seriously.
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Christianity is deontological because it has the Ten Commandments that rule how a
Christian should live. God wrote these Commandments and gave it to Moses to bring back to
humanity. This gives the Commandments their authority. If a Christian is asked a question
about their ethics, they can say that it is a rule by God. This logically makes sense because the
God of Christianity demonstrates the qualities that he enforces. A Christian recognizes these
rules and ethics emerge. The Commandments are just the preliminary rules and the Bible
explains in more depth of how a person should live. If a Christian has a hard time figuring out
what is right and what is wrong, they can also look to Jesus as a prime example. In our Beauty,
Truth, and Goodness text, the author says, “For Jesus, to the Christians, is not merely “a man of
practical wisdom,” but the Son of God, and thus is an example of moral behavior above others”
(78). The founder of a religion is usually looked to for moral authority. In the case of
Christianity, the founder is also the Son of God, so he is a direct example of moral authority.
Deontology is used to describe morality but there are other forms of ethics that can do the
same.
Hinduism is teleological because it demonstrates that moral behavior is rationalized by
the ideal goal of merging into the Ultimate Being or Oneness. The religion stresses that one
must renounce their normal life to become one with the Ultimate Being. Hinduism enforces
their morality by the idea of karma. In our Beauty, Truth, and Goodness text, the author says,
“For it is well known that, from these same world-renouncing religions come important
constructs of morality emphasizing karma” (77). Karma is the authority and its idea is that you
must be good or else you will end up paying for it in a future rebirth. This morality is not as
straightforward as a deontology but it still can be used to guide those to live.
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I stressed earlier that a religion is important for ethics because it gives authority to
moral commands. However, religion is not always successful with its ethics. We see the idea
that one can disobey moral law for religious reasons, such as a Christian being sinful because
they need only appeal that Jesus is our savior. This is called antinomian and I think that this isn’t
the only problem with religion and ethics. Some religions have violent gods or somewhat
violent prophets. If an authority figure demonstrates qualities other than ones that protect
morality, confusion can emerge. With saying these things, I still stress that religion strengthens
ethics because they have a type of authority that can back up the moral commands. An atheist
does not have this same type of authority and struggles for reasons to enforce their morality.
The main motivation for morality is salvation or an ideal goal. In Christianity, the
followers want to go to heaven and in Hinduism, the followers want to avoid bad karma to
ultimately become one with the Ultimate Being. A human may not need religion in order to be
a good person but they are still influenced by religion. Religion is a part of everyone’s life
whether they practice religion or not because people around them do. This is where the third
type of ethics comes into understanding. Whether someone is religious or not, they still have
virtues. If they do not have a religion, they can obtain virtues by observing people that they
think are good.
In conclusion, ethics is hard to understand and I did my best to explain how the Ultimate
Being helps guide us to salvation or an ideal goal. Different cultures have different norms in
society, so we must be open-minded when discussing ethics. However, there are universal
values that almost all people would agree on, whether they are religious or not. As of now,
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religion is the best explanation for morality and the Ultimate Being is the best authority for
moral commands.
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