Religious moralities built on reward and punishment merely reinstall a divine sovereign

Evidence

A non-egoistic macro-motivation will characteristically be found in some moral or ethical disposition, such as the recognition of a general duty of fidelity, or a duty to a state which requires cooperation. It could lie in the agent’s relations to religious norms; though some crude religious moralities, couched purely in terms of reward and punishment, would return us to the egoistic option -— the Hobbesian system with a divine sovereign. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 196

Categorization

• CANDY: The sly punchline that crude religious ethics is ‘Hobbes with a divine sovereign’ is a compact, tweetable inversion.