Religion and morality
Many people see a close connection
Many ethical terms have religious
connotations or origins
Religious institutions can often endorse
certain ethical positions or doctrines
Philosophers and others disagree about
what the connection is and whether there is
one or not.
Start by
Assuming God exists
God is morally Good
Divine Command Theory
Something is morally good if and
only if God approves of it.
An action performed by a person is
morally right if and only if the action is
what God commands or desires a
person to do at that time
Example
I just whacked myself on the head
with a book. Was that the right thing
to do?
If God wished me to do it at that
time then yes!
If God didn’t want me to do it at
that time it wasn’t.
How helpful is DCT?
Lets use the 10 commandments as an example
The 10 C’s would
suggest that
something is morally
right if and only if the
action does not
violate the 10 C’s
Are there acts which violate the 10
C’s but are morally right?
Are there acts that don’t violate the
10 C’s but are still morally wrong?
Cases of wrong acts that do not
violate the 10 C’s
Don the lucky drunk Driver
What of cases of child pornography, internet
spamming, public urination, vandalism?
Acts that do violate the 10 C’s but
are morally right
Working on the Sabbath to feed your family?
Stealing from the rich to give to the poor?
Another example :The Golden Rule
“in everything do unto others what you
would have them do unto you,” Matthew
7:12
Acts which violate the GR but seem wrong
Consider Pete the pervert who loves groping
strangers and being groped by strangers
If the GR is true/right /good Commanded
by God
then
Pete’s act of groping grandma Betty at
Asda in the Avenue was morally right.
Acts which violate the GR but seem right
A doctor who is allergic to penicillin but uses
penicillin to treat her patients
A hair stylist who gives a customer a haircut
that the customer asks for, but the hairstylist
himself would not want.
The Euthyphro Dilemma
Plato (427-347 BCE)
This issue is a very old one in
philosophy.
In the western tradition it
dates back to Plato’s
Euthyphro from the 4th
century BCE
In it the characters Socrates
and Euthyphro discuss the
nature of the pious or
piety.
Socrates asks:
Is the pious loved by the God’s
because it is pious, or is it pious
because it is loved by the Gods?
Euthyphro believes that the Gods
love things because they are pious
Socrates concludes that then piety
must be something different from
being loved by Gods
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