Civilization and Morals

‘’In every advanced civilization, as men become critical of the dominant religion, they tend to elaborate systems of philosophy, new interpretations of reality and corresponding codes of ethics. In every case, the metaphysic and the ethic are inseparably connected, and in theory it is the metaphysic which is the foundation of the ethic. In reality, however, it may be questioned whether the reverse is not often the case, whether the ethical attitude is not taken over from the formerly dominant religion, and then justified by a philosophical construction.

Thus I believe Kant's ethic may be explained as a direct survival of the intensive moral culture of Protestantism, and many similar instances could be adduced. But apart from these cases of direct inspiration, it is only to be expected there should be some relation between the dominant religion and the characteristic philosophies in the case of each particular culture.

The situation with regard to ethical codes, in a society in which religion is no longer completely dominant, is somewhat as follows:

A. There is a minority which still adheres completely to the old faith and corresponding ethical system.
B. There is a still smaller minority which adheres consciously to a new rational interpretation of reality, and adopts new ideals of conduct and standards of moral behaviour.
C. The great majority follow a mixed ''pragmatic" code of morality made up of the striving for individual wealth and enjoyment, an "actual" social ethic of group-egotism or "tribal" patriotism, certain taboos left over from the old religion-culture. These are usually the great precepts of social morality, e.g., against murder, theft, adultery, etc., but they may be purely ritual restrictions (e.g., the survival of the Scotch Sunday* in spite of the disappearance of the religious substructure); to a slight extent a top-dressing of the new moral ideals from B. This situation is to a great extent characteristic of the modern world, but we must also take account of a great movement, neither a religion nor a philosophy in the ordinary sense of the words, which may be regarded as a kind of reflection of the old religion-culture or else as the first stage of a new one. 

This is the Democratic or Liberal movement, which grew up in England and France in the eighteenth century, and which found classic expression in the Declaration of Independence, 1776, and the Declaration of the Rights of Men, 1789. It was based on the new naturalist philosophy and theology of the English Deists and the French philosophers, and it owed much to the political and economic teaching of the Physiocrats and Adam Smith, but its great prophet and true founder was Rousseau. This movement continued to grow with the expansion of European civilization in the nineteenth century. It is at present the established religion of the U.S.A. and Latin America, any deviation from it being regarded as heretical, and it is by no means a negligible force in Europe. It is doubtful, however, whether it can be regarded as a new culture-religion, since it seems simply to carry on, in a generalized and abstract form, the religious and ethical teaching of the previously dominant religion.’’ 

– Extracted from "Civilization and Morals" (1925), Christopher Dawson

*Scotch Sunday refers to the severe, strict Scottish Sabbath of Puritanism