Does ethics transcend the realm of religion?

On September 10, 2012 the Dalai Lama posted on his Facebook page that

All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.

This way of thinking seems to enter into the realm of humanism. Do you think morality and the practice of ethics goes beyond the scope of the traditional world religions? And why.

[innerlight]

Originally Posted by BuekerC1

On September 10, 2012 the Dalai Lama posted on his Facebook page that

All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.

This way of thinking seems to enter into the realm of humanism. Do you think morality and the practice of ethics goes beyond the scope of the traditional world religions? And why.

You mean the group that runs the Dalai llama's page posted it on his Facebook. I'm sure it more then likely was not the Dalai Llama.

Does ethics transcend the realm of religion? Well to have ethics one needs a system of morality of some sort. Whether that is found in religion or not could be debatable. Something that would be the setting stage of what is and is not correct thing to do.

The tricky part would be in what is right and what is wrong, and then in some cases their will be a gray area to such a decision. Such as saying it is not right to kill someone, but what if they were trying to kill you or your family?

The downside to have ones ethics based from religion is that only sets the standard for those that follow it. So if you say God says this is wrong, then if one does not believe in God they are not going to accept anything God says to be wrong.

The thing that ends up causing the most problems with an ethics system from religion is that some of the religions mark certain sects, or individuals as evil and teach that it is ok to hate these people or in some cases that is taken to the extremes. So in those cases the ethics became a standard that only affects a certain sect and not everyone. So you get to the point where you are nice to group a but rude to group b.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by BuekerC1

On September 10, 2012 the Dalai Lama posted on his Facebook page that

All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.

This way of thinking seems to enter into the realm of humanism. Do you think morality and the practice of ethics goes beyond the scope of the traditional world religions? And why.

There's a grey area where morals and ethics merge, because it just isn't feasible to make individual personal moral values seperate from holistic ethical ones.

The way I think ethics is best made, is, look at the words used in what you quoted. 'love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness'. These virtues trancend the various religious sects and are virtues all humans can harness. So... 'humanism'.

Sectarian morals sound more like 'Jesus is the way to heaven' or 'Gotama is the enlightened one'... and all religions splinter into several sectarian groups each with their own angle.

Each individual also has their particular moral code like to drink or not to drink to swear or not to etc... and there's tons of these issues like marriage equality and vegitarianism.

As an example lets just use the vegitarian. They have reasons for being vegitarian, say, cruelty to animals... and can justify their ethical stance, thus jusyifying their personal morals, by refeerencing a virtue which trancends ther personal code. Then they can say 'compassion' inspires me to a moral code of vegitarianizm because cruelty to animals is not compassionate.

It's an interestinf web, but just because the core of ethics trancends religious and personal ethics, it doesn't solve ethical dilemmas, as the trancedental virtues are what justifies them.

[Chrysaetos]

Originally Posted by BuekerC1

This way of thinking seems to enter into the realm of humanism. Do you think morality and the practice of ethics goes beyond the scope of the traditional world religions? And why.

Of course, one doesn't need religion to have ethics. Time to visit Europe and you guys will see the light.

If I look honestly at morality and say, personal ethics, I can see that my motives are self serving. Even if we take on the ethics of a religion it will have to do with betterment of the self first and foremost.
If I have an ethic that anyone who works for me is paid well and treated fair, it is mindful of the fact that the thst person will do well by me and stay loyal.
If I choose not to eat meat out of respect for other life forms, some aspect of that will feed my ego from the very sacrifice.
I am simply trying to see outside of the belief that ethics are divine by nature. The illusion that we hold to an ethic outside of our own benefit can always be seen as false. However our best interests and that of the world outside of us can meet.
I am never mindful of the ethics of a group or religion. How can that possibly speak for the individual ethics of those involved. A certain percentage will merely give lip service in order to hitch their wagon.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Buzz

If I look honestly at morality and say, personal ethics, I can see that my motives are self serving. Even if we take on the ethics of a religion it will have to do with betterment of the self first and foremost.
If I have an ethic that anyone who works for me is paid well and treated fair, it is mindful of the fact that the thst person will do well by me and stay loyal.
If I choose not to eat meat out of respect for other life forms, some aspect of that will feed my ego from the very sacrifice.

These happen to be your personal moral code. Why pay well and treat fair? Not really because you benefit as much as you would consider it 'good' or 'the right thing to do'. Of course you can see how you benefit, but there is some degree of mutual kindness being promoted too. Dignity perhaps.

I am simply trying to see outside of the belief that ethics are divine by nature. The illusion that we hold to an ethic outside of our own benefit can always be seen as false. However our best interests and that of the world outside of us can meet.
I am never mindful of the ethics of a group or religion. How can that possibly speak for the individual ethics of those involved. A certain percentage will merely give lip service in order to hitch their wagon.

Divine is one of those words that distracts from what is by insinuating that a personable God has deemed rules upon humanity, but maybe these are integral componants that arize from human conscience.

Originally Posted by Gem

These happen to be your personal moral code. Why pay well and treat fair? Not really because you benefit as much as you would consider it 'good' or 'the right thing to do'. Of course you can see how you benefit, but there is some degree of mutual kindness being promoted too. Dignity perhaps.



Divine is one of those words that distracts from what is by insinuating that a personable God has deemed rules upon humanity, but maybe these are integral componants that arize from human conscience.

Yep. Ethics arising naturally and unforced strike me as working across the boards. It kinda is a rule of thumb for stuff of this nature, if it works for one it works for all. Integral to human conscience....darn good possibility.

[H:O:R:A:C:E]

It is my understanding that "religion" is a systematized belief system which is generally shared by some number of people (otherwise we might consider it a 'personal code of conduct' or somesuch). Ethics is said to be: "a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong ...", according to WIKI-P. They seem nearly identical to me; the one emphasizes 'divinity', and the other 'reason'.
The problem that arises from each is that they are predominately concerned with RULES. Guidelines and such are fine for helping us to find our way when we are uncertain, but the dogmatic belief that 'transgression' of the rules is damnable and "bad" tends to enslave us rather than enrich
our experience of life. We are not meant to be enslaved to the dictates of 'rules'. The purpose of rules is to SERVE. We are alive, and my allegiance is with Life, not some words on a paper. We must transend the limitations of the rules; not in order to break them, but to better express the "love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness" that we are capable of. IMHO

[knightofalbion]

Ethics do indeed go beyond religion because these are qualities of humanity.

Religion should seek to inspire these high qualities in people (No point following any religion that doesn't), but the qualities themselves transcend religion.

Humanism? No, his realm of thinking is implying, in my judgement, that there is a big difference between spirituality and organised religion. I perceive the implication is that organised religion, regardless of its positive effects, also contributes to division and discord. You don't need to subscribe to any religion to acquire and hold the high ethical values every human being should aspire to, those of love, service, compassion and brotherhood.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by H:O:R:A:C:E

It is my understanding that "religion" is a systematized belief system which is generally shared by some number of people (otherwise we might consider it a 'personal code of conduct' or somesuch). Ethics is said to be: "a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong ...", according to WIKI-P. They seem nearly identical to me; the one emphasizes 'divinity', and the other 'reason'.

People do have their personal codes of conduct which are driven by their particular morality, I'll just call them 'personal values'. Ethics needs to have a basis in virtues which trancend individual's values, otherwize people have no foundation for their convictions. In that sense we might be able to say that virtues such as compassion are intrinsic to human nature and personal values are founded upon such virtues.

I met a philosopher once, who asked me, do you know that philosophy only has one reasonable discussion? I said, no I didn't, what discussion is that? Ethics, he said (well, I say 'he' but he wore womens clothing). I asked, what makes it so reasoned? And 'she said, it applies to everyone regardless of their personal values.

The problem that arises from each is that they are predominately concerned with RULES. Guidelines and such are fine for helping us to find our way when we are uncertain, but the dogmatic belief that 'transgression' of the rules is damnable and "bad" tends to enslave us rather than enrich
our experience of life. We are not meant to be enslaved to the dictates of 'rules'. The purpose of rules is to SERVE. We are alive, and my allegiance is with Life, not some words on a paper. We must transend the limitations of the rules; not in order to break them, but to better express the "love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness" that we are capable of. IMHO

I'm glad you can express your personal values in this way. I believe that to live by virtuous convictions requires a person to have their own personal values.

Sometimes, personal values are not virtuous though... and thats where we need to consider if our personal values are actually congruent with the transcendental virtues like love kindness and compassion... but people sometimes turn to their texts or politics or religions instead.