Ethics Without God

Presenter: Eldon Soifer
Many people see religion as the cornerstone of ethics. Religion has been linked to at least two of the main strands of contemporary ethical thinking: deontology, which emphasizes acting in accordance with duty, and virtue ethics, which encourages us to foster settled character traits that are “virtues” and avoid “vices”. There are versions of each of these theories, however, that do not involve religion. Finally, Plato offers a famous and widely accepted argument to the effect that the existence of God is not really relevant to ethics.