Atheism and Morality

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In the strict sense atheism only entails disbelief in God, so in principle atheists can hold a range of ethical beliefs from various forms of secular moral objectivism to moral nihilism. New Atheists such as Dawkins, Dennett and Harris are vigorous in their denial that atheism must lead to moral nihilism and lend their support to the Enlightenment project of a secular autonomous ethics. However, the suspicion endures that atheism must lead to immorality, and public atheists past and present must devote a significant amount of their time to addressing this charge.

“A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion.”
Francis Bacon

The issue turns fundamentally on whether it is plausible to believe that the Enlightenment humanist project of establishing a fully secular autonomous morality can be justified. According to defenders of the project of Enlightenment humanism, there are perfectly good nontheistic grounds for being moral; according to detractors, there are finally no such grounds, and the views of figures such as De Sade and Nietzsche are held to illustrate the failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethics. In the opinion of these detractors (atheists as well as theists), theism is the necessary and the only foundation of ethics, and undermining the Abrahamic faith in a personal God inevitably leads to the corrosion of anything resembling traditional morality. To understand why such a charge should be made it is important to examine the history of atheist views on morality.

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