Ethics and Religion: A Guide to Choosing Good
How You Orient Religion
The desire for immortality and the search for ultimate meaning that goes beyond all pain and any limitation are two constants in human history, both individually and collectively. The answer is religious. The authentic response is the invitation to happiness and consolation. In religions, there are some rules, but that is not their main feature: they are the best initial level of religiosity. When the legal aspect of religion is exceeded, humans conceive of and accept the world as a single whole, endowed with meaning and open to the liberation of overcoming all confusions and limitations. The human being is a hopeful being.
The Fact Argument
People are argumentative beings. We are able to give reasons, justifications, motives, etc. When we seriously argue, we are accepting a moral standard that is fundamental to our argument. For full meaning, we must recognize that others are interlocutors. In other words, others are also able to argue on equal terms and that their reasons may be as valid and real as our own.
Theories of Ethics and Religion
Religions agree with morals in that both are intended to guide the lives of people. Ethical theories raise several requirements to live fully as human beings, while religions offer a transcendent meaning to human existence. Religious traditions have contributed to enhancing, expanding, and deepening aspects of ethical theories. In some cases, a religion has adopted ethical content as its own. In other cases, religions have contributed to the ethical treatment of human beings. Everyone must be treated humanely because they have an inviolable dignity. Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.
Happiness in Buddhist Thought
Happiness is reached in the state of nirvana. No one is happier than those who want less stuff.
Happiness in Christian Thought
The fundamental component of happiness is the loving encounter with God and with others. The selfish being is unhappy. Whoever is open to God and other people reaches a happiness that lasts beyond death because God is love.
Learning to Choose Good
Innate qualities can be developed, and those that cannot be acquired can be developed with some effort: We greatly choose what kind of person we want to be. When choosing a profession, we take into account our capacities and the possibilities for personal fulfillment. With respect to relationships, friends, and hobbies, more common ideals are more successful. Leisure should allow us to rest while we enrich our personality. It is essential to take some political ideas consistent with the values we believe in and to put them into practice. It is inescapable that we have some attitude toward religion. The religious option must always be a personal decision.
Happiness and Welfare
These are not really synonyms. A minimum of physical and psychological well-being is absolutely necessary to be happy, but people may have available to them all the conditions that constitute welfare and yet not feel happy. There are multiple causes for this:
- Fear of boredom or boredom
- Being too competitive
- Stress
- Envy
- Guilt
- Fear of persecution mania
The Test of Speech
Discourse ethics proposes to introduce a dialogue between those affected by the rule, which will be called discourse. Discourse is not a talk, conversation, discussion, or debate but a special dialogue in which minimal rules must be respected, such as the following:
- Any subject capable of using language and action may participate in the discourse.
- Any party can problematize or question any assertion that has been made by themselves or another.
- Anyone can enter any address in the relevant assertion, which implies freedom to argue.
- Anyone can express their positions, desires, needs, or relationship with the active interest that is addressed by the speech.
- You cannot prevent any participant in the discourse from exercising their rights through any form of coercion.
No Communication Strategy
A rule is only correct if all those affected by it agree to give consent because it satisfies not the interests of the majority or an individual but a universalizable pact. In strategic interests, each must yield in some ways to win in others where it has greater interest, and the result is better the more positive the balance between what is a loan and what is to win: instrumental rationality.
A Concessive or Communicative Agreement
This is the result of a dialogue in which participants can appreciate each other as partners and equally qualified to try to reach an agreement that meets the interests of all. The main interest of the participants in a speech is to reach an agreement that is valid for all. We apply a communicative or consensual rationality that takes into account the interests of all who act morally. Only by trying to do so in the future will society consider everyone a valid entity.
Types of Duties
There are those that require you to perform a certain action (positive duties) and those that are formulated as a prohibition ordering that something should not be done (negative duties). Negative duties are also called perfect duties because they are only allowed to be absolute and do not allow for nuances or exceptions. Positive duties are considered imperfect duties, more dependent on the circumstances and possibilities of each individual. Perfect or negative duties are the most basic and prioritize avoiding evil. Positive or imperfect duties are no less demanding because they can do good to varying degrees.
d to varying degrees.