RELIGION AND MORALITY 339God as considered above. If God creates a world in which the initial
conditions come from God’s hand and everything that comes afterward is
in fact inevitable, it is hard to see why the fact that a causal chain passes
through Tricia, or that in a world with different initial conditions different
behavior by Tricia would have been causally inevitable, provides any reason
to think that Tricia possesses any sort of freedom that makes her
responsible for anything. What Tricia’s possessing compatibilist freedom
comes down to is simply that a causal chain runs through Tricia’s cognitive
makeup and that in a world with different initial conditions different
behavior by Tricia would have been causally inevitable. The libertarian
seems right in thinking that this is not enough to make Tricia a free and
responsible agent. If determinism and monotheism are both true, it is
dubious that there can be more than one agent. If this is correct, consistent
monotheists will be libertarians.
Questions for reflection
1 How can one tell whether moral values are fundamental within a
particular religious tradition?
2 Does it make any difference to morality whether God exists or not?
Why, or why not?
3 Explain determinism, compatibilism, and libertarianism.
4 Suppose that God exists, determinism is true, and compatibilism is
true. Does anything different follow regarding morality that would
not follow if God didn’t exist?
5 Suppose that God exists, determinism is true, and compatibilism is
false. Does anything different follow regarding morality than would
follow if compatibilism were true?
6 Sometimes religious believers claim that if there were no God, there
would be no morality. Sometimes critics of religion claim that all
religion perverts morality. Are either right?
Annotated reading
Frankfurt, H. G. (1988) The Importance of What We Care About, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. A very influential contemporary defense of
compatibilism.
Honderich, T. (1993) How Free Are You?, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Another
defense of compatibilism.