morality?

I thought that this was a terrible opinion piece in The Guardian today regarding the debate in parliament this week. I guess that’s what it is though – opinion. At the end of the article she writes with a depressing, sweeping brush implying that “religious teaching” is against science, is not progressive, does not care about relieving suffering, and that it abuses minority groups... such a misrepresentation of faith. I find it interesting that the morality argument has been taken up by both sides of the argument with Gordon Brown saying that the research was an “inherently moral endeavor”.

With the passing of the “saviour siblings” part of the bill today, somehow I can’t help but think about a book I read a few years ago called Never Let Me Go - a very far-fetched strange book by Kazuo Ishiguro which presents a hypothetical world with cloning for the purpose of providing organs. But somehow there may be echos of the same issues in relation to the ethics of someone being created for a specific purpose of the health of another person. But again in the debate today, the moral argument was used with Labour ex-minister George Howarth saying: "There is a powerful moral argument in support of the measures contained in the Bill.”

It has got me thinking about the relationship between morality and religion. Coming from my psychology background and having Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene as a core text for one of my classes has introduced me to the evolutionary perspective that generally people are dominated by ruthless selfishness (with the possible altruistic action if it benefits the individual). The question is, as I read about these politicians giving their moral arguments for these laws, it makes me wonder if it really possible to be moral without being religious or having some basis for that sense of objective morality?

In trying to think through the issues, I came across this article asking whether we can be good without God – here’s an excerpt:
“I want to argue that if God exists, then the objectivity of moral values, moral duties, and moral accountability is secured, but that in the absence of God, that is, if God does not exist, then morality is just a human convention, that is to say, morality is wholly subjective and non-binding. We might act in precisely the same ways that we do in fact act, but in the absence of God, such actions would no longer count as good (or evil), since if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.”

I guess would rather have a politician who is still has some sense of moral objectivity rather than moral relativism but somehow is the debate today, both sides are claiming the moral high ground.