Divine Command Theory

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Contents 1 Definition 1.1 Origins 1.2 Quotations 2 Discussion 2.1 Moral Motivation 3 Objections to Divine Command Theory 3.1 Euthyphro's Dilemma 3.2 Irresolvable Divine Commands 3.3 Divine Command Theory is Amoral 4 Related Topics 5 References and Sources 6 Comments

[edit] Definition

Divine Command Theory is a significant part of moral discussion in the world today. This philosophical theory is based on the idea that notions of a moral "good" and "bad" stem from God's will, that only through God's will can people come to know morality in the first place, and finally that only belief in God can serve to motivate people to behave morally.

[edit] Origins

The belief that morality depends on the will of the gods is very ancient, going back as far as anyone has ever believed that such gods exist.

[edit] Quotations

[edit] Discussion

The simplest theistic interpretation of ethics is: if God created everything in the universe - absolutely everything - then he created goodness. This would lead to the conclusion that goodness would not exist were it not for God, and that everything concerned with goodness would depend on God for its very existence. While this description sounds attractive at first, some philosophers, such as William Frankena, have argued that this is kind of dependence is trivial, as it could be argued that the whole of mathematics, science, and philosophy are dependent on God for the same reasons. However, it would seem as if all of these sciences, despite being dependent on God for their existence, could be studied without ever having to refer to any gods in the first place, with no exception given to morality.

To avoid the conclusion that morality is only trivially dependent on God, divine command theorists have redefined the meaning of a moral good; they argue that, assuming God's infallibility, moral goodness is equivalent to God's will or God's command. This very strong form of Divine Command Theory, known as Linguistic Divine Command Theory, implies that moral goodness and God's will do not simply coincide, but rather they are two sides of the same coin. In other words, to be good is to be what God commands. However, this is open to several objections (see the Euthyphro's dilemma below), most notably it appears that if "good" and "God's will" are the same thing, then it becomes a seemingly empty tautology to say "God is good". It would also appear to make assertions of God's infinite goodness no more remarkable or significant than, perhaps, the assertion that circles are round.

The Linguistic interpretation of Divine Command Theory has a serious problem, in that many people, such as atheists and agnostics have ideas about what is morally good without corresponding beliefs about what god has willed. (There are some ludicrous attempts to rebut this problem, such as suggestions that atheists do not actually exist or that atheists do not seriously hold beliefs about what is morally good.) It would appear that the Linguistic interpretation cannot be true, as evident in the millions of atheists and agnostics who don't appear to be suffering from a lack of morals (and likewise, the belief in gods is not a guarantee that people will behave morally).

Faced with the evidence of moral-minded atheists, Divine Command Theorists have two broad reactions:

1. the first is to redefine a weaker form of the Linguistic interpretation: it is not to say that moral goodness and god's will literally are the same thing, but that they amount to the same thing. This weakened form of Divine Command Theory appears to avoid the objections above, but in the context of mainstream religion, it appears that god commands many things that have no moral relevance (such as rituals to observe the Sabbath). This interpretation is also open to more serious objections, such as the Euthyphro's Dilemma.
2. a second reaction is to respond that, while there may be some genuinely morally motivated atheists and agnostics, that the morals of these atheists and agnostics is not justified. However, to dismiss all non-theistic forms of ethics as smoke and mirrors would require a truly compelling argument. It would appear that a wholesale rejection of every single non-theistic system of ethics would be a miraculous feat or philosophy, or would require a refutation of arguments of so many philosophers, like Kant, who have argued that morality can be attained by reason alone.

[edit] Moral Motivation

One variant of Divine Command Theory is the belief that god is not required for anyone to believe certain actions are good or bad, but that the only reason why anyone would feel compelled to behave morally is due to expectation of divine reward or punishment later on. The clear implication would be that atheists might concede that actions like theft are wrong, but they would feel no compulsion to refrain from it.

However, the claim of moral motivation seems to suffer from a serious empirical problem: atheists don't appear to behave any better or worse than theists. Contrary to the prediction, many atheists are living morally virtuous lives, and there are many theists who do not - these empirical facts seem to fully refute the claim that god is necessary to be morally motivated.

Of course, empirical facts aside, many theists still ask "Why be moral?". There are several interpretations to this:

1. The simple egoist interpretation: it could be said that just as theists behave morally to seek reward and avoid punishment from god, atheists behave morally to seek reward and avoid punishment from their own societies.
2. The psychological interpretation: prominent moral development theories, such as those put forward by Piaget and Kohlberg, expand the egoist interpretation slightly further. They argue that most people are egoists for the first few years of life, but as they grow they begin to mature morally going through the various stages of moral development. According to Kohlberg, many young children behave according to social norms because it is reinforced with approval of authority figures; further development yields to behavior being determined according to a kind of social contract; and the latter stages of moral development put forward that adults are self-motivated to be moral, for no other reason than that moral actions are the right thing to do. The psychological interpretation has very strong empirical support.
3. The "redundant" interpretation: this is more subtle, but very persuasive interpretation of the question. It essentially holds that the question "Why be moral" is not a meaningful question to ask in the first place, because it essentially asks "what reasons should people perform certain behaviors". However, when people justify a moral principle, giving reasons to follow that moral principle is exactly what they do. This clearly implies that the moment a moral principle is justified, the motivation to follow the principle is satisfied as well. Therefore, the original question "why be moral" is redundant. (This may be compared to the redundant nature of the question "why be rational", where one is expected to provide rational reasons for being rational.)
4. The semantical interpretation: and finally, there is a school of thought that moral behavior is essentially no different than producing the most desirable behaviors (utilitarianism falls into this category). This would easily lead to the conclusion that "why be moral" is a meaningless question, as it is essentially asking why people would want to produce desirable behaviors in the first place. This is likened to asking "why do people enjoy food that tastes delicious". Motivation to behave morally would be deduced from the desirableness of the behavior itself.

[edit] Objections to Divine Command Theory

[edit] Euthyphro's Dilemma

One of the earliest, and still most influential, objections to Divine Command Theory is put forward by Plato in his Euthyphro's Dilemma. The dilemma, stated a number of ways, follows:

• "Do the Gods love holiness because it is holy, or is it holy because they love it"
• "Does God disapprove of sin because it is wrong, or is sin wrong because God disapproves of it"
• "Does God command the good because it is good, or is it good because God command it"

Using the convenient example of rape, a quick examination of both interpretations reveals the following:

1. if god disapproves of rape because rape is bad, then theists can provide objective reasons for not raping - but so could atheists, which would seem to suggest that morality is not dependent on the will of god. On this interpretation, goodness is a standard that exists apart from the will of god.
2. if rape is bad because god disapproves of it, it implies that theists can provide no objective reasons for not raping so that if atheists cannot, they are no worse off than theists. It would also imply that "good actions" can have no further rational justification behind them beyond obeying god in expectation of reward and avoiding punishment (but this rationale has no moral component at all).

This would seem to imply that goodness is quite arbitrary, and that things like cruelty, theft, and hatred of god would become good if god willed it. Anything, in principle, could be willed good by god. (Some theists have objected to this interpretation, suggesting that god could never will cruel things as it would contradict the fact that god is good or that he loves us, but on making this remark it appears as a concession that gods actions are judged on a standard of goodness apart from himself - this essentially embraces the first interpretation of the dilemma.)

[edit] Irresolvable Divine Commands

Divine Command Theory requires faith from its subscribers. Consider that some subscribers have faith that god condemns homosexuality, and another group of subscribers has just as much faith that god approves of homosexuality. Who is correct?

It appears that, on faith alone, it is not possible in principle to show that any interpretation should be preferred over any other competing interpretation. Furthermore, Divine Command Theory denies that reasons outside of the will of God can be provided to defend any moral claim, then any competing beliefs about what God has willed cannot be resolved by rational discourse, implying Divine Command Theory breaks down at the rational level. As it is a dubious claim that anyone on the planet has direct access the moral laws as God has willed them, it is doubtful that anyone can justify a claim to know what God has willed (if perhaps an appeal to holy texts is made, then obviously one can ask why one holy text should be preferred over another, or why one interpretation of a holy text should be preferred over a competing interpretation of the same holy text).

Presumably, if moral theories are intended to do anything, they are intended to provide instructions about the ways to behave. As Divine Command Theory appears incapable of resolving the truth of any two or more competing moral claims, then Divine Command Theory fails to accomplish the most the basic task of any moral theory. This would seem to imply that Divine Command theory is not a moral theory at all, or at least an inadequate basis for any existing moral theory.

To effectively resolve these irresolvable moral claims, reasons outside of the will of God (or really, what one believes God wills) must be made to justify them. Consequently, this implies that moral commands can be defended apart from the will of God, and that the dismissal of God's will is the only way to make sense of morality at all. This would imply that Divine Command Theory is false.

[edit] Divine Command Theory is Amoral

A persuasive argument can be made that Divine Command Morality is arbitrary, because it does not provide non-tautologous reasons for its moral prescriptions.

Loosely summed up, if the basis for obeying god is summed up as "because god said so" (the second horn of the Euthyphro's Dilemma), then anyone would be hardpressed to disagree with disobeying god on the basis "because I don't want to". This is because in the absence of further enumerated reasons for why one should behave one way, there is literally nothing to weigh against the claim that one should disobey. Unless reasons are provided for why one should obey god rather than disobey him, then god's moral prescriptions carry no binding moral weight. On the other hand, if reasons can be provided to prefer one claim over its competing claim, then this implies the claim is justified for reasons apart from the will of god.

It can be very easily argued that if god's prescriptions have no explained rationale, then they are arbitrary. As morality concerns itself with the distinction between good and bad behavior, if no reasons are provided to explain why God considers actions such as murder to be bad rather than good, then essentially there is no more reason to prefer the claim "murder is bad" over the competing claim "murder is good". If neither claim should be preferred, then what else should you call it but arbitrary?

[edit] Related Topics

• Religion and Philosophy
  • "Atheism Provides No Basis for Ethics"

[edit] References and Sources

• Michael Martin. "Atheism, Theism, and Rape". Internet Infidels. 1997. [1]
• Jonathan Berg. "How Could Ethics Depend on Religion". Blackwell Publishing, copyright © 1993.
• Studies in Moral Development and Education: An Overview. [2]

[edit] Comments

For all contributors:

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