Philosophy Is Not Religion

The purpose of philosophy is increasing our understanding of reality. The purpose of religion is making a prescription about the best way to live our lives. Admittedly, one could argue that ethics is the branch of philosophy whose purpose is precisely increasing understanding about the best way to live our lives. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between a philosophical moral system and religion. The main difference between the two is that religion appeals to faith as a source of truth.

By a moral system, I understand a system of values that arise from a common principle or set of principles. The purpose of a moral system is to provide a set of norms or regulative prescriptions. Prescriptions are guidelines to follow in order to attain whatever is deemed most valuable by the system. In a dogmatic moral system, the truth of the basic principle or set of principles does not need to be logically justified in order to be accepted as true. A belief whose truth is based upon faith i.e. needs no logical justification, is a dogma.

Religions are dogmatic moral systems because they appeal to faith; philosophical systems are not. For example, the principle or doctrine of the Trinity is a commonly accepted dogma of Christianity. Hindus have faith in Karma, and the unity of the soul with God. Similar appeals to faith in other Abrahamic religions are evident. In contrast, philosophers do not take for granted the validity of any argument. The principles underlying a philosophical moral system are not dogmatic because they obtain their justification from the validity of a logical analysis. For example, hedonism, stoicism or utilitarianism. Moreover, this validity is itself always open to a future revision.

Even though religion and philosophy both create systems in order to deal with similar questions, e.g. about morality, God, or the soul, the justification of the respective systems is different. Religion has made faith a central part of the justification of beliefs. In philosophy, faith is not an acceptable justification. Rather, a philosopher tries to increase the understanding of the world using logical argumentation.

RAUL H. CARRILLO
first published: April 2017

Source: https://trepanar.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/philosophy-is-not-religion/