Essay reveals secular ethics in atheist populations may promote healthier societies, indicating evolution shapes morality.
This essay is a response to James Sterba’s “An Ethics without God That Is Compatible with Darwinian Evolution.” As an atheist philosopher I show that atheist morality is essentially and thoroughly a secular morality, and that the most reasonable ethics are secular systems in that they do not require a God, gods, or goddesses. I go on to defend an atheist morality based on polls showing that countries with atheist populations are healthier than religious ones. Then I point out the sources of human morality, arguing that there is a common neighborly morality that matters, based on facts about who we are as a species, which includes the pre-human sources in the animal world. Finally, I mention how that Sterbaian Ethics, as it should henceforth be called, can succeed.
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John W. Loftus (2025) studied this question.
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