Morality, religion, spirituality—the value of saintliness

Abstract

This article discusses William James's notion, propounded in his Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), that authentic religious experience should be evidenced in mature moral functioning—“the value of saintliness”. Support for this and his other ideas relevant to the intersection of morality and religion was adduced from a review of current research, which examined the following topics: the faith commitments of actual moral exemplars; the religious reasoning of people in handling moral problems; the personality profiles ascribed to moral, religious and spiritual exemplars; the asymmetrical relationships evidenced across the moral, religious and spiritual domains; and the different dimensions evident in people's typologies of these domains. This analysis led to the conclusion that James has made a significant contribution to the psychology of moral development by arguing for the importance of religious experience in moral functioning.