The following was prompted by my reading this.
There are many natural laws that scientists have discovered over the past few centuries: Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Newton’s laws of motion and gravity, the four laws of thermodynamics, Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism, and so on. These laws describe forces that exist completely independently of humans; they are true whether or not we humans understand them, or whether we even think about them at all. This kind of law is referred to as natural law.
In contrast to this natural type of law, Alan Dershowitz says in Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights:
It is we who create morality, for better or worse, because there is no morality “out there” waiting to be discovered or handed down from some mountaintop. It is because I am a skeptic that I am a moralist. It is because there is no morality beyond human invention that we must devote so much energy to the task of building morality, law, and rights. We cannot endure without morality, law, and rights, yet they do not exist unless we bring them into existence.
I am not so sure about that. Scientists have had to devote a lot of energy to making their discoveries, and that certainly isn’t any indication that without humans, gravity or electromagnetic forces would cease to exist.
As I mentioned in “Is Religion Good or Bad?“, there are many people at the other end of the spectrum from Dershowitz. These are people who believe that all morality comes from God and our only means for knowing what is moral is divine revelation. It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog that I fall in the middle.
I think it’s clear to most people that science can be used either morally (think polio vaccine) or immorally (think chemical weapons). But, religion can likewise be used either morally (think housing the homeless) or immorally (think Inquisition, World Trade Center attacks).
Now, in order for us to even be able to speak of a religion (or a government, or any other system that humans use to impose morality) being used immorally, there must be some objective standard, outside of these things, to compare them to. In other words, I think there must be a natural law of morality – a standard by which we can judge whether a religion, a legal system, or any other human construct is moral. There are people in all religions, or no religion at all - and people who believe in God, or who believe there is no God - who are moral, and others in each one of those categories who are immoral. It is not their religion or belief which determines whether they are moral; it is this universal, natural law of morality, to which anything else must be compared to determine whether it is moral or immoral.
The problem is, discovery of these natural moral laws cannot be reliably obtained from divine revelation. It happens too sporadically and to too few people. Even after receiving divine revelations, people have been killing each other for thousands of years over what any given revelation actually means, so this method has not resulted in a sufficient understanding of the natural laws of morality.
This is what we ought to be pursuing: rational discovery of what the natural laws of morality are, using observations the way science does. Here is where I agree with Dershowitz. His method for establishing what rights ought to be protected by law – in other words, determining morality - seems very promising. As Dershowitz shows in his book, a methodical observation of the different societies throughout history makes clear the consequences of failing to define and enforce various rights. Knowing in which cases the lack of a given right has led to harm, tells us which rights must be included in a moral, just society.
Another avenue to discovery may be comparative religion. Any one religion by itself does not lead to complete discovery of the natural laws of morality, because as already stated, we must be able to distinguish moral religion from immoral religion. As I alluded to in Bonding, Bridging and Religious Appreciation, and as The Charter for Compassion is based on, real morality can be found in what all the religions have in common rather than in the differences between religions. The things religions differ on, in general, do not concern how we treat other people. The differences concern how humans relate to God, which need not be more than a personal/private matter. Where other people are concerned, religions all agree: do not murder, do not steal, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, etc. Studying all the religions and compiling that which they all have in common would produce at least a bare minimum set of requirements. It would also be based in actual human experience, which I think gives it an advantage over ethical philosophy. Of course, if people actually followed even just this much of what we already know to be universally moral, the world would be incredibly more peaceful, but that’s a post for a different day. The point here is, the discovery of natural laws of morality needs to be observation-based, just as discoveries of natural laws of science are.
Just to be clear: throughout this post I have argued only for the existence of a natural law of morality, and a practical means for furthering our understanding of what it is. I have not been speaking about it in terms of its having some ultimate source, such as God, at all. The source of moral laws is no more and no less divine (however you want to look at it) than the source of scientific laws, but what that source is (or even whether there is a source at all) is really of far less importance, in my opinion, than figuring out what the laws are, and then living by them. This is what will bring about real peace.
Jacob Bronowski said, “Man masters nature not by force but by understanding.” Our understanding of science has allowed us to do amazing things like master gravity by building airplanes. Understanding the natural laws of morality will allow us to do amazing things like achieve world peace, by mastering human nature through understanding rather than force.

…to listen to his son whine about being bored.
….to keep a straight face when people complain about potholes.
to be tolerant of people who complain about the hassle of getting ready for work.
…to be understanding when a co-worker complains about a bad night’s sleep.
…to be silent when people pray to God for a new car.
…to control his panic when his wife tells him he needs to drive slower.
…to be compassionate when a businessman expresses a fear of flying.
….to keep from laughing when anxious parents say they’re afraid to send their kids off to summer camp.
….to keep from ridiculing someone who complains about hot weather.
….to control his frustration when a colleague gripes about his coffee being cold.
….to remain calm when his daughter complains about having to walk the dog.
…to be civil to people who complain about their jobs.
…to just walk away when someone says they only get two weeks of vacation a year.
…to be forgiving when someone says how hard it is to have a new baby in the house.



This post is a response to the following quotation, from the article 