Ethics Without Religion

We all know that to steal or to murder is wrong but how do you defend those as universal values and not just as assertions of common sense?

Peter Singer is the author of several books on non-religious ethics and is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and he suggests, “an intellectually coherent ethic has to be independent of religion and that’s an argument that goes right back to Socrates and Plato.”

“I would say one of the keys is putting yourself in the position of others and seeing how you would feel if this were done to you,” he continues, “of course, that is something that is in The Bible but that’s just an example of the fact that the Judeo-Christian scriptures, like other traditions, have come up with things that are pretty basic.”

He chats further with thoughts on the concepts of The Golden Rule, empathy, utilitarianism, and ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’.

via Ethics Without Religion – Peter Singer.

via Ethics Without Religion.