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Lecture 18 Notes

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Divine Command Theory

    1. Divine Command Theory is an attempt to ground morality through theological considerations.
    2. Definitions:
      1. An act is right if and only if God permits it.
      2. An act is wrong if and only if God forbids it.

 

Problems with Divine Command Theory

    1. Practical Problem
      1. The Problem--Whose interpretation of God?
      2. Reply--The defining feature of morality need not be easy to discern.  Just because it is hard to figure out whose interpretation of God is correct, it doesn't mean that God's commands aren't in fact what define morality.
    2. Plato's Dilemma
      1. Is an act right (wrong) because God allows (forbids) it, or does God allow (forbid) it because it is right (wrong)?
      2. Note--The divine command theorist would agree with the former.
      3. If the former, then...
        • Arbitrariness--God could have commanded anything and it would have been good (e.g., God could have commanded us to torture innocent children, in which case it would have been good to torture innocent children.)
        • God's own Goodness is Uninteresting--(1) God is good = God commands what is morally good.  (2) Morally good = what God commands.  (3) Therefore, God is good = God commands what God commands.  This is an uninteresting analysis of God's goodness.  Consider a tyrant analogy: Suppose that we define legal as doing what the tyrant says.  It would be a weak defense of the tyrant's actions to say that he always does what is legal.  Likewise, it is not too impressive to say that God is good if goodness is doing what God says.
      4. If the latter, then...
        • Morality is not based upon God's commands (i.e., Divine Command Theory is false).
        • Note: Other Properties of God Also Admit Independent Analyses (e.g., omnipotence is not being able to do what God can do).
    3. Quinn's Rebuttal
      1. God's commands are not fully arbitrary.  He is contrained by divine goodness which is a part of his nature.
        • Reply: Does This Fully Remove Arbitrariness?  It looks like God's nature is now arbitrary.
      2. Divine command theorists should allow counter-intuitive cases.  (Historical Examples--God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son.  God commands Hosea to take a harlot for his wife.)
Copyright 2009, by the Contributing Authors. Cite/attribute Resource. Ramsey, W. (2006, September 19). Lecture 18 Notes. Retrieved November 23, 2009, from Notre Dame OpenCourseWare Web site: http://ocw.nd.edu/philosophy/introduction-to-philosophy-1/lectures/lecture-18-notes. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Creative Commons License