248 mind
Religious Concepts Are Parasitic upon Moral Intuitions
A consideration of cognitive process involved in representing religious agents
can help us discard a widespread but misleading account of religious morality.
In this account, people are for some reason convinced of the reality of some
supernatural agents; these are described as particularly anxious that people
should follow particular moral rules; so people follow these precepts, often
against their inclination. Against this, it seems that moral intuitions and un-
derstandings develop in all human beings because of specialized, early devel-
oped mental capacities connected with social interaction. This in turn creates
all sorts of intuitions about possible courses of action. The intuitions do not
require concepts of supernatural agents, but if there are such concepts around,
moral intuitions will be associated with them. In other words, religious con-
cepts are in part parasitic upon moral understandings.
To understand why this is the case, we must first examine the various ways
in which people establish a link between their supernatural concepts and their
moral understandings. I will call these three connections the “legislator,” “ex-
emplar,” and “interested party” models.
In the “gods as legislators” model, there are moral principles because the
gods or ancestors themselves decided what these norms would be. Several
world religions include lists of prohibitions and prescriptions of varying length
attributed to some direct communication from the supernatural legislature.
In the “exemplar” model, some supernatural agents provide a model to
follow. Saints or holy people are both different enough from common folk that
they approach an ideal and close enough so their behavior can serve as a model.
This is the way people conceive of individuals with supernatural qualities like
Gautama, Muhammad, or the many Christian and Muslim saints, as well as
the miraculous rabbis of Judaism.
Supernatural agents are also represented as “interested parties” in moral
choices. This means that the gods or the ancestors are not indifferent to what
we do, and this is why we must act in particular ways or refrain from certain
courses of action. Interaction with the Kwaio ancestors is of this kind. But the
interested-party model is much more general than that. We find it in many
world religions, whether or not the theologians find it acceptable. Most Chris-
tians entertain this notion that every single one of their moral choices is rel-
evant to their personal connection to God. That is, God not only gave laws and
principles, but also pays attention to what people do. For obvious reasons, the
notion that supernatural agents are interested parties is generally associated
with the idea that the gods or spirits are powerful and that it is within their
capacities to inflict all sorts of calamities upon people—or help them prosper—
depending on their behavior.
In people’s reasoning about particular situations, in the practical business