Religious folk are morally worse? Says who ? LRB review of two books by Mark Johnston

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n11/galen-strawson/religion-is-a-sin

Mass lightning bolts light up night skies by the Daggett airport from monsoon storms passing over the high deserts early Wednesday, north of Barstow, California July 1, 2015. Picture taken using long exposure. REUTERS/Gene Blevins - RTX1ILBY
California July 1, 2015. Picture taken using long exposure. REUTERS/Gene Blevins – RTX1ILBY

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A bit of extra  reading below]

Issues

The second article is a fascinating interview with Strawson in which he compares Hitler to an earthquake]

“If we take the term ‘morally worse’ as purely descriptive, denoting people whose characters generally appear to be morally worse than average, and if we restrict our attention to those who have had some non-negligible degree of education, we find that people who have religious convictions are on the whole morally worse than people who lack the

Galen Strawson …his life and work with some radio discussions

St Paul and St Augustine are monstrous egoists..quote

You may find this letter interesting

Letters

Vol. 33 No. 13 · 30 June 2011

‘We find that people who have religious convictions are on the whole morally worse than people who lack them,’ Galen Strawson writes in the LRB of 2 June. I thought this was fairly startling and looked forward to seeing letters in the next issue challenging Strawson and asking for some evidence. But no: for readers of the LRB, Professor Strawson’s view must be fairly uncontroversial, because there were no letters on the subject in the following issue. By a happy coincidence, I have been sent a complimentary copy of the New Statesman in which Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi, quotes some American research which seems to show that religious people – defined as those who regularly attend a place of worship – are more likely to behave in virtuous ways than non-religious people. What, I wonder, would constitute evidence one way or the other? Some parts of Galen Strawson’s review seem to suggest that religious belief on the part of educated people is in itself evidence of moral deficiency. That looks suspiciously like rigging the scales.

Anthony Buckley
City College Coventry

7 thoughts on “Religious folk are morally worse? Says who ? LRB review of two books by Mark Johnston

  1. I’ve only skimmed but the study methodology looks very uncontrolled: “For three days, [the 1,752] participants received five text messages a day that included a link to the study’s mobile website, where they could record any moral phenomena that they had experienced in the past hour via their smartphones. On average, participants reported one moral experience per day”

    The only bit of the report I found slightly interesting was the observation that ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ appeared to have different views of what constituted ‘moral phenomena’. I feel that his classification may be more significant than whether people are ‘religious’ or not

    I observe that the people around me have different priorities and manage their lives by selecting to respond in accordance with these priorities.

    1. That was not supplied by Strawson.. I found it and it is very dubious.I find his writing very good but am puzzled why he gave no evidence for that particular point of view.I suppose he may look at the evils done by Christians for example like most Nazis, the Crusaders etc but somehow it’s not that,in my view.He must have some basis for his assertion.He places a high value on “Good will” and there I will agree with him.The book by Mark Johnson is very good

    1. There is no way we can tell but his partner or children might tell us how he behaves.Even if it’s true,why is no evidence given? It is not obvious..

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