Journey after middle ages
After the Renaissance, the knowledge of the Greek texts became readily available for the Europe. For Marsilio Ficino Plato was the first teacher of wisdom. But, there could be a role for the harmoney existed between platonian thoughts and Christianity at that time, which we had already discussed. There the translation of Greek texts into Latin had begun.
The two reformers that existed in that period were Martin Luther and John Calvin. They had their idea about the connection between morality and religion. Luther stated that ‘What God wills is not right because he ought or was bound so to will; on the contrary, what takes place must be right because he so wills.’ This is much similar to the old Christian view or the al-Ashari view, where God is not bounded by the standards of justice in the human world. Where Calvin stated that ‘God’s will is so much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever he wills, by the very fact that he wills it, must be considered righteous’, where the definition of righteousness itself is dependent on God. There is no wonder to see the similarity between Luther and Calvin. But, for our discussion it is important to see that God is again occupying the center of the concept. The supporters of counter-reform had a view that the notion of good and evil is understandable for normal human beings and they claimed that it is self-evident. But, if one is telling like that may lead to much confusion in a system. That is unlike the reformers there is no universal measure for ethics or justice in this view, so it depends on each person, and decision making would differ from person to person. But, it allows one to take rational or logical decision and to excecute that.
After that European philosophy could be described in terms of rationalism and empiricism. In the rationalist thought reasoning became the chief source and test of knowledge. It denied the all-powerful throne for God. But, assume that everything in nature has an inherent character that could be explained logically. Empiricism on the other hand gives much more priority to experiences. For them all knowledge comes from our experiences. Here man became very important in the production of knowledge than God. So Empiricism not only denies the throne to God but gives it to mortals. Here one could expect a detachment of ethics from theology, ethics centered on humans. Rationalism restructured available knowledge based on rational thoughts, which could not be doubted. The scientific view was already questioning the foundations of knowledge based on Greek philosophy and Christian thoughts. So both the line of thoughts about which we had discussed until now are being questioned, even the authority of the concept of God itself. We had seen that the middle ages are marked by the interaction and evolution of the two-line of thoughts which led to an evolution through which they could end up in a state where both could agree with each other. But, it’s the beginning of a new line of thoughts.
Leibnitz simply said that ‘the highest perfection of any thinking lying in careful and constant pursuit of true happiness’. That is the more perfect our thoughts are the more is the pleasure we are getting from them. But, one could also say that the rationalists are not actually denying the role of God in ethics, but they had given more importance to reasoning than the holy texts. But for Lebenitz our will is to do the deeds which would make our conditions better, which would exist irrespective of the existence of God. That is for him the connection between virtue and happiness was perfection, and virtue when follows the laws satisfies our duty in the society. At the same time there was also another view that religion and philosophy may contradict each other without detriment to each other. Crusius supported this view and argued that there could be instances where one would have to do things irrespective of perfection or happiness. Kant later added ‘drive of conscience’ to this line of thoughts, which is explained as the natural drive to recognize the divine moral law. But, there also there is a God to punish for disobedience.
If we are discussing empiricism, where things including God, are based on bodily experiences, knowledge is based on human senses. For example, Thomas Hobble had stated that ‘all reality is bodily (including God), and all events are motions in space’, which means everything is related to the physical reality in which we are living and everything could be explained through our experiences.This view assumes that all humans are selfish by nature. This is against the view that any other ideology, which was giving more importance to society. This gives more importance to the survival of an individual. Everyone is working for their needs, and rules are there to resolve the conflicts. But, it is interesting to notice here that empiricism does say about the truth or something close to the truth despite telling lies about the idealistic human character and the heavens. It is the acceptance of one of the key aspects of each individual, which makes it different.
Someone could say that empiricism is much more appropriate to any society, as it resembles modern legal systems. In this line of thought, everyone has to give up some of their freedom, as much as others to live in a society. This could be said in another way as the right of a person in a society is fulfilled by his duties to society. But Hobbes does believe that the authority of scripture is important in the establishment of law in society. Then we are getting back to the good old ideas in which humans inherently have some negetive aspects and it is the God who is preventing the society from going into a state of chaos. John Locke argued that morality is derived from our need to live in groups. But, it is also interesting to see that he denied the fact that the motive behind any of our action is our desires. He does agree with Hobble, except on the authority of God’s power in this aspect. Even though laws are imposed by God, our reasoning can decide this aspect.
For deists the God will not intervene in human life after creation and one have to guide a good life according to phylosophical ethics. For Hutcheson the action which causes the happiness of the greatest number is the best, which does sounds like a democratic view. But, it is worthy to see here that the concept of law is now based on happiness of the majority, irrespective of the possible suffering of a minority. This is a big issue in today’s world in which a state is unable to satisfy or provide justice for each individual. Hutcheson believed that God has given us the moral sense to get this pleasure by doing a good act. The advantage of having moral sense is that, whenever we are intending to do something good, then the impression of that person in the society would incline towards more and more good, that is a person would be able to get more happiness by his action. That is a person is building an image of his good aspects in the society by his good deeds, which would be rewarded in the form of honor and respect. This argument seems to be more logical.
(Will be continued in the next page)
abstract thoughts 