A listener, Lee, forwarded me this piece by Dennis Prager today. Excellent thoughts on the disappearance of morality in American life. We now base everything either on "feelings" or on "rights."
In other words, the average young person, reared and rooted in secularism, can find no moral compass other than whether something "feels good or right." There is no moral thought process or reasoning. And in that view, no one has any standing to suggest that what you feel might be wrong.
And as I have discovered in hosting a mainstream radio show about our moral compass, the average American now assumes that something is an acceptable dhoice as long as you have the right to do it. We are free, so your choices are your choices. There is no right and wrong.
And here is a perfectly good example. Anonymous sperm donor. Picks up extra money by donating genetic material. Spawns at least 70 kids. In most American minds, this is OK because he has a right to do this.
The long-term impact on our culture of being rooted solely in rights rather than right and wrong is beginning to emerge. WIth over 40% of kids being born out of wedlock (after all, you have the right to have sex with whomever you want so it must be OK), we are creating long-term social chaos by producing a generation of kids without complementing parents, without role models for healthy relationship, and with the related higher likelihood of not completing school, participating in substance abuse, and landing in our criminal justice system. The secular answer? Abort the kids so they do not make it here in the first place. After all, you have the right to an abortion so it must be OK.
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It is evidently very American and very human to have a very shallow faith.
Dennis Prager is a fascinating individual. Quite smart, yet one of the least intellectually honest commentators out there. One of the reasons I say this is that he often engages in special pleading, as in this case. If moral reasoning is not based on a particular set of religious traditions it can't be moral reasoning at all, and thus ipso facto young people can't reason morally if they don't reason morally in the same way Dennis Prager does. Never mind that if, as Dennis Prager would want it, morality were a matter that was merely "revealed, inherited and shared" there is no need for moral reasoning, just for obedience to authorities, such as parents, clerics or kings. Moral reasoning only enters the picture when the matter of morals and ethics is acknowledged to be be complex one that requires deep thought and discourse.
In the end, Dennis Prager ends up, as so often, with a shallow column that can be summed up with "secularism bad, religion good", just like about half of his columns. The other half, of course, following the pattern of "liberalism bad, conservatism good" ...
That is abjectly wrong. When religion is the sole determiner of morality, what's the need for moral reasoning? You do what your religious authority tells you to, or you do it because "it is written" etc. Moral reasoning is only necessary if morality and ethics are products of human minds and not some eternal truth revealed from on high.
What is here called "feelings" is merely a pejorative way to refer to moral instincts. And there is nothing wrong with those, they serve as an important reality check. But they should not be relied on solely either, without reasoning.
Ultimately though, Prager is wrong in his assertion, shared by many religionists, that "moral standards are not rooted in God, they do not objectively exist". That is wrong on both a theoretical and practical level. Trying to root moral standards in God runs into the Euthyphro dilemma - is what God commands good because He commands it or does he command it because it is good. If the former, then divine moral standards cannot be said to be objective as they hinge on subjective fiat and "might makes right". If the latter, then objective moral standards cannot be divine as they exist apart and independent of Him.
On a practical level, religions and their leaders and practitioners cannot agree exactly what moral standards are rooted in God, and usually end up in direct contradiction to each other. So rather than having a clear set of moral standards that is both absolute and objective we rather end up with a myriad of standards that are very much subjective but whose partisans insist are not, because their God endorses them.
Rights-based theory of morality would be an example of a perfectly legitimate, perfectly secular and also objective theory of morality. Note that objective does not necessarily imply absolute, no matter how often people like Dennis Prager or William Lane Craig try to muddle the distinction.
I fail to see what the big problem with this is.
And what do you suggest as a solution? Why don't you light a candle instead of not just cursing the darkness but also cursing any light-giving devices that actually work (i.e. real sex ed, access to birth control, and yes, even access to abortion as a last resort) and that the reality based community suggests?
Another secular answer: use protection when you screw. But of course, you are against that as well, being a good obedient Catholic and all.