Religion And Morality: A Comparative Analysis

The questions surrounding religion and morality make up much of all the great philosophical debate. There is constant discussion on the nature of the relationship between religion and morality and what role religion plays in morality. A large component of the argument can be seen through the idea of human rights and the different thoughts on the subject. Two philosophers that have strong beliefs on human rights are Richard Rorty and Michael Perry. While Rorty brings to light many aspects of his interpretation of human rights, there are so many tensions within his argument that it has to be rejected. He brings up what he believes to be the main problem of human rights, that people do not respect human rights. He then goes on to present an answer …show more content…
Rorty explains all of this in his book Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality. Alternatively, in Perry’s book The Idea of Human Rights, he argues that human rights must involve religion to be intelligible. Rorty definitely has some valid ideas on the topic of human rights, but they seem to be good in theory and not necessarily in reality. Rorty identifies the biggest problem in our world to be that people do not respect human rights. The reasons for that being that people tend to identify others as not fully human, even subhuman, through tribalism, racism, and sexism. Also, the fact that people in the world still have financial and sociopolitical insecurity adds to the disrespect of human rights. Traditionally, the answer to the problem is to find a rational foundation for human rights, grounded in human nature. The human nature being the human dignity based on rationality and the love of God. But Rorty does not …show more content…
It seems that he is trying to gain legitimacy through the rational article, but does not exactly do it in the way that he preaches so it is hard for reader to believe in his word. If he believes that sentimentality can change people then he should have written a sentimental story. But on the other hand, he could just be trying to plant the seed of sentimentality in the readers mind and make them think of the usefulness of sentimentality and how it had previously worked to change their minds. Yet again, that is another tension with Rorty, not only in what he says, but how he goes about saying it. A tension in the argument where Perry comes in is Rorty’s assertion of sentiment, security, and moral progress. Those components, specifically sentiment, definitely help progress humanity, but they cannot bring about total respect for human rights. Perry believes Rorty’s argument is very Eurocentric in nature. Rorty’s ideas can be interpreted that poor people cannot be moral and that there must be financial security to have morality. People who have more are more moral, like the West and Europe, and that makes them better than everyone else. Muslims actually claim that the thought is originally theirs and not European. And also it is factually inaccurate that the most developed countries are the only moral ones because all countries decided the