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Early Arguments - the First Atheists
The first avowed atheists in modern Europe - the anonymous writers of the 'clandestina' - brought forward a series of arguments for the inadequacy of traditional religious morality and the viability of an autonomous secular ethics.
Firstly, they argued that scripture (particularly the Old Testament) contained some plainly immoral passages which many theists themselves felt obliged to allegorise in the light of natural reason and the dictates of their conscience. However, if it was from the outset evident by external standards such as natural reason and conscience which parts of the Bible should be interpreted in their literal moral sense and which should be allegorised, they reasoned that scripture arguably became superfluous for purposes of moral decision making, since natural reason and conscience alone seemed sufficient for the task. Appealing to arguments essentially inspired by Plato's Euthyphro dilemma, early atheists argued that if there were a God, actions are not good because God commanded them, but rather God commanded them because they were good. This implies the possibility that a moral society could exist independently of whether God exists or not, since moral knowledge does not depend essentially on God's commanding something but rather human beings can know that something is good independently of God revealing it to them.
Secondly, if in addition to belief in God the conviction that human beings were essentially fallen and sinful were also abandoned (and the early atheists disputed the historical veracity of the doctrine of original sin), there would be no particularly good reason to assume that human beings would fail to obey their naturally sociable urges. In that case they could be relied upon to act morally without believing in God.
Thirdly, they argued that the recent religious wars (especially the Thirty Years War) proved that any form of Divine Command ethic was dangerous to the peace of nations: appeal to God's commands to live the good life led to war, because the different religious factions (Protestant and Catholic) could not agree on what these were. Therefore a universal natural morality based on reason or natural sentiment stood a better chance of helping establish a stable social peace.
Fourthly, the first atheists argued that religious morality was less moral than its atheist equivalent. Because theists constantly have to take into consideration the possibility of divine punishment or reward for their actions, they are driven by strictly non-moral - namely, merely prudential - motives in acting. The theist cannot make moral decisions merely out of a love of what is right but must be constantly striving to please God in order to be rewarded or to avoid punishment; the atheist, on the other hand, not having this motive to act, can behave solely in accordance with what they believe to be right rather than adopting the prudential attitude. The early atheists sought a 'moral epuree'[1] or purified morality which they only believed was possible when what they considered the low (religious) motivations for moral behaviour were left behind.
References
Moralischer Nihilismus: Radikale Moralkritik von den Sophisten bis Nietzsche. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2005.
Footnotes
[1]↑ See, for example, Winfried Schroeder, Moralischer Nihilismus: Radikale Moralkritik von den Sophisten bis Nietzsche (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2005), 154.