1A Divine Command Theory

DCT

Religious traditions that see morality as part of divine revelation

Who establishes moral order

God as an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being for the good of humanity

What do DCT associate the sense of right and wrong

Given by god and related to teaching in the scripture

Strong DCT

See scripture as detailing behaviour

Weak DCT

God gives commands that determine the boundaries and content of one’s decision making

What is an example of weak DCT

General moral duties extracted from teachings such as the Sermon on the Mount

What is the traditional challenge to the DCT

Euthyphro Dilemma

What character raises important question for the character of Euthyphro about the foundation of ‘goodness’

Plato’s historical character Socrates

What is the question that is proposed in the Euthyphro Dilemma

Is it Holy(ethical goodness) approved by the Gods because it is holy or is it holy because it is approved by the Gods?

What are the 2 important implications for the omnipotence and omnibenevolence of God

1. God commands something because it is morally right then this means morality is independent of God and is something God neither created nor controls. Therefore God is not omnipotent

2. If something is good because God says it is then this means that the ‘objectivity’ of morality is dependent upon God. This means that it is arbitrary in theory since God could will genocide to be good. Arbitrariness problem begs the question of God’s omnibenevolence

Other challenges: Hint 3

• Variation between religions to take DCT seriously

• DCT promotes injustices against women, homosexuality and accepts the existence of slavery

• Jesus demonstrated the internal conflict between the old laws and the new kingdom he was establishing suggesting that some DCT rules can be dispensed with or at best reinterpreted ( link with Fletcher)

Robert Adams modified DCT

To meet the Euthyphro challenge

What did Adams propose

Goodness is part of God’s being and as such cannot be arbitrary since goodness dictates that God would never command anything beyond this

Julian Baggini

Responded to Adams by pointing out that this just raises another question: is God’s nature good because it is God’s or because it is good?

Exodus 19:5

“If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples”

Augustine

“There are some whose killing God orders, either by law, or by an express command to a particular person at a particular time”

A. McIntyre

“If I am liable to be sent to hell for not doing what God commands, I am thereby provided with a corrupting…motive for serving the good.”

J. Baggini

“God, if he exists, is the greatest relativists of them all”