The Secular Moral Project and the Moral Argument for God: A Brief Synopsis History

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the history of what is termed the secular moral project by providing a synopsis of the history of the moral argument for God’s existence and the various historical processes that have contributed to the secularization of ethics. I argue that three key thinkers propel the secular moral project forward from the middle of the 19th century into the 20th century: John Stuart Mill, whose ethical thinking in Utilitarianism serves as the background to all late 19th century secular ethical thinking, Henry Sidgwick, who, in the Methods, indisputably establishes the secular autonomy of ethics as a distinctive discipline (metaethics), and finally, G.E. Moore, whose work, the Principia Ethica, stands at the forefront of virtually all secular metaethical debates concerning naturalism and non-naturalism in the first half of the 20th century. Although secular metaethics continues to be the dominant ethical view of the academy, it is shown that theistic metaethics is a strong reemerging position in the early 21st century.