To what extent have philosophers maintained their legitimacy by recreating god (religion), through universalizing moral principals?

Rowan J-P

To what extent have philosophers maintained their legitimacy by recreating god (religion), through universalizing moral principals? 

Religion has always been a conjoining force, throughout every civilisation. Giving peoples a moral code to live by, and a reason to follow the moral code. But what happens when as Nietzsche famously states, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”? How do we, as he suggests, recreate god? Philosophers have always tried to do so through moral philosophy, but to what extent have they been successful?

The problem with moral philosophy, compared to god, is that with god there is a definite reason why we should follow the code and this can be a bit blurry with non-religious philosophy. As Ivan Dostoevsky states, “if god does not exist, everything is permissible”.  Religion creates obedience in people of faith because god is all seeing. There is nothing you can get away with unnoticed because god sees all. Because of this and as Dostoevsky would believe, moral philosophy does not and cannot truly define what is moral and what is not. Leaving us believing that there is no way that philosophers could have recreated god and religion, but surely, with so many people today with no faith in god there must be an alternative. As the faith in god and religion diminished, moral philosophers have developed many moral codes to replace it. The likes of Plato and other modern philosophers center their code on the self, making morality subjective. The challenge with this is that we lose a social center that religion provided. Two ways in which moral phiolosophers have answered these questions are Kant’s absolutism and Mill’s utilitarianism.

Kant turns to human nature and reason to answer this. He believes that humans are by nature rational beings and that through our rationality we have created rules for ourselves, following his theory of how we organize ourselves. He tackles the question left unanswered with the death of god, why should one be moral, by saying that as we are all rational beings so we have the same moral laws. For Kant, when acting upon our morals our rationality will let us see whether the moral is universal or simply our desire. He argues that if we do not do this then the moral code will fall apart completely and that again, being rational beings we will all follow this code. Here he provides a reason why.

Unlike Kant, utilitarianism does not view humans as rational beings but passionate and fueled by desires. The first writer on the subject of utilitarianism goes as far as to say that we look for pleasure in everything. This ties into the philosophy in that, to be moral is to do what makes the most people happy. The outcome is what makes something moral. Humans, striving for happiness, have good reason to be moral if being moral makes you happy. This view goes further into Nietzsche’s believes in that it creates us into gods, making ourselves and everyone around us the reason to be moral.

These two philosophies answers Nietzsche’s question that follows his first statement. “How shall we comfort ourselves” and are an example of philosophers successfully replacing god and religion. They provide a moral law and a reason to follow that many find more grounded in themselves than religion today. God is dead but we have replaced him.                                                           ````````````````````````````````````````````````