On Religion, Categorical Imperative and Morality
By Syed Manzoor Alam, New Age Islam
This is in response to Mr Naseer Ahmed’s article ‘Religion as a Civilizing Influence’.
There are so many ideas running in Mr Ahmed’s thought-provoking article. It seems to me that Immanuel Kant has had a great influence on his mind. Let me begin from the beginning.
1. Religion is a civilizing influence- first of all, I think that Mr Ahmed should have defined ‘religion’. Without defining it, one cannot pin point the ideas in it. Anyways I suppose that ‘religion’ according to him is ‘a system of belief in God(s) demanding attention and reverence’ (if Mr Ahmed disagrees then please define what he means by religion).
‘Religion as a civilizing influence’, I can’t say for sure if it has civilized the macrocosm and microcosm. It depends on what one means by ‘religion’. Let me take a few examples, Julius Caesar considered himself a god, he painted his face red to become and feel like Jupiter- a god. His soldiers were his followers, so that is also religion and in this case I don’t think religion has had any civilizing influence, in fact, the case was such that once Rome was totally abandoned, lest the ire of Caesar falls on the Romans.
We all know about the ‘divine rights of kings’. The king is the shadow of God, he is in direct communion with Him. To follow and revere the king is to follow and revere the God(s). He is not subject to any question or any authority. He is never to be doubted, he is to be blindly followed. This too is religion!
There are many examples: Egyptian Pharaohs, Naram Sin, Qin Shi Huang etc.
2. I seriously doubt the “myth”. (O Rousseau, thou art mistaken, or is he? - I don’t think so). Mr Ahmed, I have not read the book, so my whole idea of this point is based on your idea given to us in this article. Anyways, I think that I don’t agree with the theory given in the book because had it been the case, that pre civilized men were more barbaric than modern, “civilized” men, then there would hardly be many men. In those days, there were only 2 or 3 places where pre-civilization civilization occurred: Turkey, North-east Africa, area around Peru and a few other places. As we can notice that these are distant places so there is no chance that these tribes could have fought among themselves, but I know there is a chance that intra-tribal warfare could have happened, and it had happened; but not as much as the book presumes. This is because in those days cooperation was essential to live, if you did not cooperate then you and your tribe would get killed by beasts. Let us keep in mind that agriculture was still a few thousand years away, so they ate only hunted animals and fruits. They all had each others’ back; if this was not the case then they would not have survived.
3. Mr Naseer Ahmed has glanced over Locke, Hume, Mill and forced them to come under one umbrella, because he thinks that their ideas were pretty much the same, which I disagree. Since he has left them out of his focus, let me also leave them out of my focus.
4. But he has given ample time in Kant. I seriously doubt his definition of categorical imperative. Categorical imperative is “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” But I don’t think it is a good idea. Why? Because many deviants think that their action is the best and if we apply the Kant’s idea of CI then it will be much trouble for the world. For example, many Muslim fanatics think that imposing their version of Sharia is the best thing and they act according to it and they want the same act to be applied to them, but we all see what happens. We don’t want it. Hence CI is limited in its approach to answer morality.
5. He says “Immanuel Kant in his principle of supreme morality admits that without the concept of an immortal soul and a life in the hereafter, morality based on the categorical imperative (beyond consideration of utility or consequences or likes and dislikes or responding instinctively) may not be possible.” But, if anyone thinks about it analytically then CI does not hold good. What I mean by this is that if morality is based on the end of life in the hereafter then it ceases to be CI (categorical imperative- CI).
For example, Kant said that if God tells you ‘Do this’ and you do it, then it is no morality, if God tells you ‘don’t do it’ and you don’t do it then also it is not morality. Morality, according to Kant comes from doing things, not because someone has told you to do it or you will get profit by it, you do it because it is the right thing to do. This is Kant’s idea of morality, all of it.
6. Mr Naseer Ahmed has given the example of an incestual relationship between a brother and sister and then he goes on to say “The relativity of values has led to vulgarity and obscenity, to the widespread use of alcohol and of drug addiction, to making homosexual relations common, and to the breaking down of barriers for incest.” Terms like “vulgarity”, “obscenity” etc are themselves relative, that is, they are subjective so we cannot say for sure what is “vulgar” and what is “obscene”. It depends on the context. By the way in earlier times, it was because of incest that we are all born. Shocked? Well don’t be, since the first generation of children of Adam and Eve, incest was the only way to procreate. Later on, due to social constructionist approach the idea of incest got manifested and we abhor it. Please don’t conclude that I approve of incest, as I am also a part of the social constructionist process!
7. Finally he says “Religion besides giving us transcendental moral values has inspired great art, literature, music and architecture and has undoubtedly been a great civilizing influence.” Let me take this idea and deal with it according to Freud. Freud said that all these, the items he mentioned, are the process and the end result of a defense mechanism to protect our ego, called Sublimation. Suppose we want to beat somebody, but due to the societal norms I can’t do it, my Id troubles me, hence I become a batsman and I “hit” balls and derive pleasure from it. And according to Freud religion is the most enduring form of sublimation, we take our anger and sexual lust and make it “sublime” to become a saint, a mullah, a pundit (by the way these have the highest Id!)
8. He concludes by saying “Religion has undeniably had a civilizing influence on society and without it, we would have remained barbarians”. Sir there is no such thing as “undeniably”. Everything is subject to doubt. Descartes even doubted his own existence! So we cannot conclude anything for sure. Even my saying that, “there is no such thing “undeniably”, should be taken with a pinch of salt.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-tolerance/on-religion,-categorical-imperative-morality/d/10732