180133 PS Ethics of Philosophy - Ethics of Religion (2017S)

PS. SS 2017
Ethics of Philosophy
Ethics of Religion
The phenomenon of violence and terrorism, particularly when carried out by young persons, is perhaps the greatest challenge of our time. The fact that “religious” impulses contribute to the destructive “energy” that young men and women need to bring about far-reaching political and social upheaval makes it vital to take a comprehensive approach to consideration of the elements underlying the individual and social character of these young persons.
Short-term political, military or economic measures on their own have not proved to be successful.
Ethics is a practical philosophy that argues with reference to the autonomy of human reason and that distinguishes the rational motivation for human actions (free will, self-awareness, values, conscience, responsibility, etc.) from other behavioural motivations, such as desire and aversion.
To start with, I should like to explain some of the terminology.
Philosophy today normally makes a distinction between ethics and morality. Morality is an area of human life different from art, science, law and religion. It is the totality of moral judgements, norms and ideas, and is actively experienced. Before they are capable of making their own distinctions, children are brought up with a certain heteronomous “authoritarian” morality. Whether they later grow up to have a critical and autonomous faculty for differentiating moral values and judgements is an important aspect of the interdisciplinary study of psychoanalysis, ethics, sociology and school education. Ethics as a philosophical discipline investigates the legitimacy and validity of moral propositions. This is what distinguishes it from other disciplines, including theology.

The lectures, discussions and seminars in my course will focus on the subject of ethics as a philosophical discipline, in contrast to morality as an active mode of behaviour and religion as a system of orientation and object of devotion.
Because practically all acts of violence and terrorism today are directly associated with a particular religion, I should like to start out in this course from a very widespread notion of “religion” and to infer particular “conventional” religions from it. Religion is not only a system that operates of necessity with a concept of god or with idols, and not only a system (institution) that is recognised as a religion, but also every system of thinking and acting shared by a group and offering the individual an orienting framework and an object of devotion. Within this broad definition, it is impossible to imagine a society – in the past, present or even the future – that has no “religion”. Objects of devotion can be animals, idols, a holy man or diabolical leader, a nation, class or party, money or success. Religion can foster a disposition to destructiveness or to love and peace, a lust for power, or solidarity; and it can encourage or hinder the development of spiritual forces.