Why be moral? That is a question that philosophers and theologians have pondered from time immemorial. Within Christian circles, some have used the terrors of hell to motivate people to live moral lives while others have appealed to the prospect of heavenly rewards. But either of these two options fails to grasp the nature of God and our relationship to Him.
The former view, which uses fear to move people to moral actions, conceives of God as a divine judge. God here is a monstrous ogre who delights in casting people into burning lakes of fire for any breach of His laws (as these laws are (mis-)understood by believers in this fearsome God). According to some who hold this view God will send you to hell for having a glass of wine with a meal or for dancing a waltz with your spouse.
The other view, which uses rewards as motivation for morality sees God as a divine carnival booth attendant: if you get it right three times, you win the overstuffed Panda bear. Keep doing the right thing and you win heaven in the end.
What both viewpoints misunderstand is that our moral action is to be a response motivated by love. In a relationship of love there is neither the fear of judgment nor the hope of reward; one does what is right out of love and respect for the other. So for example in the marriage relationship, each partner is faithful to the other, not because either is afraid of being beaten by the other, nor because each hopes that the other will get him/her a nice piece of jewelry. Instead each does the right thing (fidelity) because each loves the other and so wants to honor and respect him or her. Or take the parent/child relationship. The ideal is that a child obeys his father not because he is terrified of a “whippin'” nor because he hopes his obedience will get him another toy, but because he truly loves and respects his father.
There is a famous poem (which I only know in Spanish) attributed to St. Francis Xavier, which says something like this: “It is not the promised heaven that moves me to love you, O God; neither is it the fearsome hell. It is You who moves me, O God, You and You alone.” God wants us to do the right thing simply out of love for Him; not because we are terrified of being punished, nor because we think we can manipulate Him. Any other motivation traps us in a psychological game that does not enable us to find real joy and fulfillment in our relationship with God and others. Love must be the motivation of all morality.
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ReplyDeleteI like this idea of moral actions being motivated by love. It seems to be what is missing from Kant’s 2nd Formulation of the Categorical Imperative.
ReplyDelete"So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means" (Kant 4:429 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals).
When I read Kant's ethical theories, there always seems to be something missing. It's sort of like, "what's the reason behind treating people as an end in themselves and thus treating them with dignity?" Love as "the motivation of all morality" seems to work.