Divine Command Theory: Ethics and God's Commands, Slides of Philosophy

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• It will terrify and/or infuriate your parents.
• Because you find it interesting. Contrary to popular opinion, this is an excellent reason for choosing a major, especially if you do not think of universities as very expensive vocational schools.
• But there are also some reasons which many would consider more “practical.” For example, suppose you want to become a lawyer: philosophy majors do better on the LSAT than students from any other major in the humanities, social sciences, or business (only physicists do better).
• Because you want to go to graduate school in philosophy, or some other subject; philosophy majors score higher on the GRE than students from any other humanities, social science, or business major.
• Because you want to get an MBA. Philosophy majors score higher on the GMAT than students from any major (including economics) other than physicists -- and way, way higher than business majors.
• Philosophy majors also do extremely well on the MCAT, the admission test for medical schools -- though in that case (of course) philosophy courses would have to be integrated into a course of study which covered the relevant scientific material. Today we will be discussing divine command theory. But first I will give a (very) brief overview of the discipline of philosophy. Why do this? One of the functions of an introductory class is to introduce you to the subject matter in such a way that you will be in a position to decide whether it is something you might like to pursue. This in turn raises the question: why in the world would I want to be a philosophy major? There are a number of answers to this question, which I list in order of descending importance:

We now turn to our third answer to this question, which is the one given by the divine command theorist. The divine command theorist answers this question by saying It contradicts the commands of God. So far we have discussed two different answers to the question, What makes an act morally wrong? The Kantian answers this question by saying: It violates the categorical imperative. The consequentialist answers this question by saying It leads to consequences which are, overall, worse than the consequences of some other action available to you. Obviously, this is not a view of ethics which someone who does not believe in God (or a God who issues commands) is likely to endorse. It is also not a view of ethics which someone who believes that God exists, but does not issue commands, can believe in. But it is a view of ethics to which many believers in a personal God -- including Christians, Jews, and Muslims -- have been attracted. Why would someone belonging to such a religion be attracted to this sort of view of ethical requirements? It is worth noting that there is one sense in which divine command theory is an alternative to Kantianism and consequentialism. A divine command theorist might say that the commands of God are the ones laid out in such- and-such book - where these diverge from the moral requirements that the Kantian or the consequentialist endorses; the divine command theorist would then be defending a rival view of our moral requirements. But the divine command theorist could also say that, for example, God’s command is that we follow the categorical imperative. Then the divine command theorist would be, in one sense, agreeing with the Kantian - she would be agreeing about what our moral requirements are. But she would be going beyond the Kantian in offering an explanation of why the categorical imperative is the moral law. (Analogous remarks apply to consequentialism.)

Actions are right or wrong because they accord or conflict with the commands of God. Why would someone belonging to such a religion be attracted to this sort of view of ethical requirements?

1. Many people teach and discuss ethical questions primarily in a religious context. One might ask: why do they do this? The divine command theorist has an answer: the subject of ethics is partly religious, since when we are talking about moral requirements we are really talking about the will of God. But divine command theory also faces some significant challenges. Perhaps the most important such challenge arises in the Platonic dialogue which we read for class today.
2. Many think that the idea of moral obligations, considered apart from the will of God, simply makes no sense. What could it mean to say that I must (for example) help someone in need in cases in which this is not in my long-term interest? What in the world could give rise to facts of this sort about moral obligations?
3. Many religious believers find it hard to see how else they could think of the relationship between morality and the commands of God. The only option seems to be that the moral law is prior to and independent of the will of God; but it is hard to see how this might be so. If God is the source of everything, one wants to ask, how could the moral law be independent of God?

But Socrates also raises a more fundamental objection to Euthyphro, which is perhaps the most serious challenge to divine command theory. Euthyphro states his position as follows: Socrates responds by raising the following dilemma for this position: Actions are right or wrong because they accord or conflict with the commands of God. At first, Euthyphro is confused by the question. Socrates responds to his confusion with a series of examples, one of which uses the example of vision. Given that for any thing x, Someone sees x if and only if x is seen. we can still ask: is x seen because someone sees x, or does someone see x because x is seen? The answer seems clear: it is the first. Something is seen because someone sees it, and not the other way around.

Socrates responds by raising the following dilemma for this position: But then we can ask a parallel question about the moral law and what God commands. Socrates and Euthyphro agree that, for any action x, God commands us to do x if and only if x is morally right. But, even if we agree about this, we can still ask: does God command us to do x because x is morally right, or is x morally right because God commands us to do it? Actions are right or wrong because they accord or conflict with the commands of God. At first, Euthyphro is confused by the question. Socrates responds to his confusion with a series of examples, one of which uses the example of vision. Given that for any thing x, Someone sees x if and only if x is seen. we can still ask: is x seen because someone sees x, or does someone see x because x is seen? The answer seems clear: it is the first. Something is seen because someone sees it, and not the other way around.

But, even if we agree about this, we can still ask: does God command us to do x because x is morally right, or is x morally right because God commands us to do it? It seems that there are two possible answers to this question: (1) God commands us to do x because x is morally right. (2) x is morally right because God commands us to do x. Two things are pretty clear: the divine command theorist is committed to answer (2), and (1) and (2) are exclusive : they can’t both be correct. Socrates’ problem for the divine command theorist takes the shape of an argument for (1): One can think of the argument as beginning with the thought that God must have some reason for issuing the commands that he does; otherwise, those commands would be completely arbitrary. But what could those reasons be, other than that those commands are the moral law? But if God does issue those commands because they are the moral law, it looks like explanation (1) above is correct, and divine command theory is false. Actions are right or wrong because they accord or conflict with the commands of God.

Two things are pretty clear: the divine command theorist is committed to answer (2), and (1) and (2) are exclusive : they can’t both be correct. To maintain the truth of divine command theory, it seems that one must resist Socrates’ argument, and deny his claim that the Gods choose to command things because they are morally right. But then one still faces the question posed by Socrates: Why does God choose to command what he does? One might suggest something like this: Because the rules which he commands us to follow would lead to people living in harmony, happily, etc. But this merely delays the problem. We can still ask: why does God choose to command us to follow rules which would lead to us living happily? One might be inclined to reply as follows: But God knows that it is better for us to be happy and in harmony than unhappy and in conflict. Actions are right or wrong because they accord or conflict with the commands of God. It seems that there are two possible answers to this question: (1) God commands us to do x because x is morally right. (2) x is morally right because God commands us to do x.

This seems to show that, even if divine command theory can explain why some actions are right and others wrong, it cannot explain all the facts having to do with moral value; in particular, it cannot explain facts about what is better for us, or what is good. This undercuts one of the motivations for divine command theory. That was that it is hard to see what could give rise to moral obligations, and other moral facts, other than the commands of God. But, as we have seen, the divine command theorist is committed to saying that facts about what is good cannot be explained in terms of the commands of God. One thing that the divine command theorist can say is that goodness can be explained in terms of the nature, or essence, of God. Perhaps what is good and bad can be explained by reference to how God essentially is, rather than by what commands God issues: goodness is, in some sense, resemblance to God. Actions are right or wrong because they accord or conflict with the commands of God. This is also related to another sort of objection to divine command theory, which was pressed by the 17th century English philosopher Ralph Cudworth. According to Cudworth, the following is a consequence of divine command theory:

Cudworth is saying that, if divine command theory is true, then, if God had commanded us to murder, cheat, and steal, then murdering, cheating, and stealing would be morally permissible. But surely even if God had commanded us to do these things, they would not be morally permissible! Actions are right or wrong because they accord or conflict with the commands of God. This is also related to another sort of objection to divine command theory, which was pressed by the 17th century English philosopher Ralph Cudworth. According to Cudworth, the following is a consequence of divine command theory: One might express this with the following argument:

1. Possibly, God commands that we murder, cheat and steal.
2. Necessarily, if God commands that we do x, then we are morally required to do x. C. Possibly, we are morally required to murder, cheat, and steal.