Three Views on Ethics, Religion, and Suicide in Modernity: Revealed Religion, Natural Religion, and Skepticism

Abstract

This article outlines three philosophical approaches to religion in modernity, which, at the time,  was in a major crisis due to the abandonment of Aristotelian metaphysics. These approaches (revealed religion, natural religion, and skepticism) are defined on an epistemological basis, including considerations concerning the power of reason. In ethics, the vision of religion influenced the way of justifying moral judgments, since the Laws of conduct were thought to depend on the nature of God and His will. In this sense, three representative authors of these approaches are considered (Locke, Hume and Kant), and the aim is to sketch the epistemological and metaphysical background to the specific problem of suicide and the relationship with the way of thinking God in these authors.