Secular Reasons

The other day I saw an interesting opinion piece on the NY Times website entitled "Are There Secular Reasons?" (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/are-there-secular-reasons/). For those who can't be bothered to click on the link (or in case the link goes dead), I'll try to summarize the argument made by the writer, Stanley Fish, who is in turn summarizing arguments made by professor of law Steven Smith in his book The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse. To begin with, Fish talks about the effort of secular thinkers to separate religiously-based reasoning from purely secular reasoning, and to establish the latter as the sole basis for organizing a society. He then goes on to talk about Smith's thesis that in fact it is impossible to make any sort of value judgments on the basis of secular reasoning alone, as secular thought is only capable of collecting and analyzing data, but not of deciding what to do with it, without importing non-secular concepts and value judgments. Smith asks how "could one squeeze moral values or judgments about justice . . . out of brute empirical facts?" As Smith and Fish in turn point out, a number of people have made similar arguments in the past. In addition to the thinkers they mention, the arguments made by C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man fall along the same lines. For that matter, even my own first post on this blog acknowledges the fact that it is impossible to make wholly objective judgments about anything, a point which is related to the one being made here.

Though I think Smith and Fish, like others before them, make some very good points, ultimately I don't agree that it is impossible to make any moral judgments based on secular reasoning alone, or at least, it is only necessary to include one concept that is arguably from "the suspect realm of contested substantive values". That concept is that it is better to be happy than it is to be unhappy. Even this can be said to have an empirical basis, at least in that if you did a study in which you asked people to give their own (admittedly subjective) answer to this question, the answers would be overwhelmingly positive, and all sorts of studies have already shown that happy people are healthier and live longer. In any case, if we, to use Smith's terminology, "smuggle in" this one concept, virtually everything else on which modern liberal philosophy is based can be argued from this basis without resorting to much vaguer ideas like "freedom" or "equality" (though these can also be supported by arguments starting from the concept that "happiness is good").

If we accept that it is better to be happy than unhappy, then the next question we have to ask is what kind of society is most conducive to individual happiness? It might seem at first glance that one in which everyone is completely free to pursue whatever makes them as individuals happy would be ideal. But if everyone is free to pursue their own happiness at the expense of others, many conflicts will result, and so everyone will in the end not be happy, except possibly those few who through great fortune or skill always end up on top. Even these individuals will always be under threat from others if their luck takes a bad turn, so it is questionable whether their happiness will be that secure. So if complete unfettered individualism isn't the ideal basis for a society, than what is?

A simple answer is a society that follows what we call the golden rule, i.e., we should treat others as we want to be treated. If everyone is pleasant to everyone else, ultimately everyone will be happier. It might be added that it is in the end to the advantage of those who are more fortunate to give up a little to ensure the happiness of those less fortunate, as again it has been demonstrated by all sorts of studies as well as by much of human history that societies with too large a gap between the advantaged and the disadvantage are at risk for all sorts of problems and conflicts, which again will result in less happiness for all. Furthermore, it can also be argued that restrictions on behavior beyond those necessary to prevent people from strongly hindering the happiness of others (as in the golden rule) reduce happiness for many and create further conflicts. So both equality and freedom, at least in a general sense, can be argued to be good simply from our starting proposition.

Admittedly the above is extremely simplified, and the fact that no one can be completely objective will complicate any detailed arguments. But my point is one can argue the good of a modern liberal society from secular reasoning alone, assisted by at most one "imported" value judgment. Furthermore, it's worth pointing out that the argument of Smith et al gives rise to the question of what they think value judgments and society's rules in general should be based on. If values from religion, then what religion? On what basis is that particular value judgment to be made? Ultimately this argument simply leads us in circles. If, on the other hand, we simply start from the goal of trying to maximize happiness for the greatest number of people, then we can argue all the other details from there, using purely secular reasoning. While this does not necessarily mean that there is no truth in religion or that religion might not be meaningful for the soul (assuming we have them, which is another argument altogether), it does mean that society can and indeed should be founded on a secular basis.