Table of Content

1.  Introduction  2

2.  Religion and morality.  3

3.  Immanuel Kant  5

3.1.  Morality  6

3.2.  Religion  7

4.  Nietzsche's understanding of religion and morality  9

4.1.  Morality  9

4.1.1.  Historical Genealogy  9

4.1.2.  Psychological Genealogy  11

4.2.  Religion  11

4.2.1.  Nietzsche's connection between religion and resentment.  11

4.2.2.  Max Weber's term of resentment  12

5.  Conclusion  13

6.  Literature  16

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1. Introduction

Religion and Morality is a widely discussed and analyst issue within the realm of philosophy and adjoined science areas. Since the Ancient Greek philosopher ask whether there is a connection between religion and morality and if there is one, how much do they affect each other? For my examination of this top I will concentrate on Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, which both considered details the relation between morality and religion in their works. First I will consider shortly the history of the discourse, as well as I try to give some definition about these terms and exemplify various position, which has developed through the time. The following chapter describes Immanuel Kant's point of view of morality and religion. What is his approach, what role are duty and reasoning playing in morality and where does he see the connection between morality and religion?

I will consider then Friedrich Nietzsche's 'On the Geneology of Morality ', in which he analysis the term of morality, in particular with the help of the dichotomy between the noble and the slave morality, before he links in to the idea of religion.

In a final step I will give a summarizing conclusion and a very short and generalizing connection to movements and development in our world in the last few decades.

Main literature has been Richard Norman's 'The Moral Philosophers. An Introduction to Ethics', as well as the Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Michael L. Morgan's collection of philosophical lyrics. Here I appraise mainly Nietzsche's 'On the Geneology of Morality' and Immanuel Kant's 'Grounding for the Metaphysics of Moral'.

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2.  Religion and morality  

Since  Plato questioned if the gods themselves must honour the standards of the 'pious of the holy', a  

widely  debate about about the interconnection between religion and morality has been spread out.  

Religion  , which is still problematic and contentious in it's definition, has its origin in the Latin word  

religio.  But this term evokes in itself a misunderstanding. It suggests, that the idea of a religious act  

is  a term, which is also used in other languages and cultures, so the theological real encyclopedia.  

But  this in fact not the case, especially if we consider the diversity of different types of religion,  

defined  as monotheistic, to be seen for example in Christianity, where there is only one God , or  

henotheistic  , like in Buddhisms, which knows various, partly also in competition standing Gods  

  (Preul 1997)  

In  order to border this definition problem of religion, religious scientists make a division into two  

categories  of the term. First religion as a substancialistic term, which refers mainly to the  

substantive  characteristic of religion and sees religion as something, which refers to the holy, the  

transcendental  and the absolute. Refindable in works of Rudolf Otto, Nathan Söderblom and  Max

Weber.  Secondly , the functional term, assuming, that religion plays a significant role for the  

individual  and the society and has to be defined through social functions, which means in  

accordance  to socially and individually connections. Emile Durkheim or Thomas Luckmann are  

only  a few of its representatives (Preul 1997)  

Morality  instead, which comes also from Latin, moralities, is distinct into mainly two categories.  

First  , in a normative sense, this connects morality with right and wrong, and secondly in a  

descriptive  sense, which is accepted as a guide to behavior by the society. Furthermore it should be  

mentioned  here, that morality can also stand for the term of ethic (Preul 1997) Ethic or moral  

philosophy  , how Richard Norman use both term interchangeable, is the aspiration to achieve an  

understanding  of natural human beings values, of how we ought to live and of what constitutes right  

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conduct (Norman 1998).

Moreover it has to be said, that the realm of morality and religion are overlapping and try to describe how people order their lives. So we have to ask if there is a God how do we have to understand the moral status of his commands? Preul (1997) describes in the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy various perspective about the issue concerning the interconnection between religion and morality.

First there is the position of thinkers, which represents the idea of ethic as an autonomous realm. According to them, moral standards are independent of God's will and therefore God's authority is not supreme. The opposite perspective calls God's will arbitrary and the ethic absolute. Morality is created by the worship of power.

Religious theorists claim, that divine moral directives have to be seen in accordance to God's complexity and excellence and the idea of morality is linked to a larger worldview of one person. This worldview is build up by information, which we received from God. But they also stress out, that there is a big among of diversities within religious communities and therefore different moral ideas exist throughout the world, as well as in single religions, like the Christianity. Secularist theorists assuming, that there is no direct connection between the area of religion and morality at all.

But many religious thinkers have stopped that kind of understanding of this situation, so Preul. Generally, it can be seen two strategies of alternative thinking. First, while defending a compatibilist perspective, thinkers argue, that religious based ethical directives are connected with a accepted philosophical perspective. Representative of this direction, are for example Jeremy

Bentham, which defines the principle of utility ¹ as a universal one, accepted by all human beings, or John Stuart Mill, who is the opinion, that by submitting to God’s, will the fulfillment of the

1 Utilitarianism can be defined as the theory, „(...) which states that actions are right in so far as they produce

happiness or prevent suffering, wrong in so far as they produce suffering or prevent happiness.“ (Norman 1998:57).

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