Divine Command Theory
For Next Time
From Mill’s Utilitarianism read:
Chapter 1 and Chapter 2-1 through 2-10 (pages
49-59)
Augi’s office hours cancelled today.
Religion and Morality
• 50% of Americans would not vote for a qualified atheist for
President
• 47% would disapprove of their child marrying an atheist
• 7 states ban atheists from holding public office (Arkansas,
Maryland, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tenessee,
Texas)
• There are currently no openly atheistic members of
Congress. (Compare: 15 Mormons, 2 Muslims, 3 Buddhists.
10 members refused to disclose their religion. One
Congresswoman is “unaffiliated”)
• 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. describe themselves as atheistic,
agnostic or “nothing in particular.”
Religion and Morality
“If God is dead, then everything is permitted.”
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Religion and Morality
Three Claims about the Role of Religion
1. Moral Motivation: Religious belief is required in
order for us to do our moral duty.
2. Moral Knowledge: Religious teachings are the
only (or the best) way in which we come to
know what is right and wrong.
3. Divine Command Theory: An act is morally
required just because it is commanded by God,
and immoral just because God forbids it.
Divine Command Theory
Divine Command Theory: An act is morally
required just because it is commanded by God,
and immoral just because God forbids it.
Divine Command Theory
What if God doesn’t exist or doesn’t care about
how we act?
• Atheists believe that God does not exist.
• Deists believe that God exists, and created the
universe, but does not involve himself in its
governing.
Divine Command Theory
Our question:
Does God create morality? Can there be
morality if God does not exist?
Divine Command Theory
In a godless universe: “Where would the moral
norms come from? If we are wholly material
beings, governed by physical laws, then there are
many ways that we will behave. But there seems to
be no way that we ought to behave. If we are just
very complex bundles of matter, without any
externally imposed aims or purposes to live up to,
then it is difficult to see how there can be moral
duties at all. To get moral requirements into the
picture, we must have someone with the authority
to impose those duties on. Only God could possibly
qualify.” (13)
Socrates’ Question
Does God command us to do actions because
they are morally right, or are actions morally
right because God commands them?
Dilemmas
A dilemma is an objection of the following form:
• Either A or B must be true.
• If A is true, then view X is false.
• If B is true, then view X is false.
• Therefore, view X is false.
The two options are called the horns of the
dilemma.
The Euthyphro Dilemma
Plato’s question poses a dilemma for the divine
command theorist:
Horn #1: God commands us to act a certain way
because it is moral.
Horn #2: Acting a certain way is moral because
God commands it.
Horn #1: DCT is False
Suppose God commands us to refrain from
killing each other because it is moral:
– Then God’s command didn’t make it moral it was
already moral to avoid murder, and God just told
us to do the right thing.
– Since DCT claims that it is God’s commands that
make things moral, they cannot take this horn.
For Next Time
Continue reading Utilitarianism. Finish Ch. 2.
Horn #2 Arbitrariness
Suppose God’s commands are what make murder immoral
(i.e. DCT is true):
– Either God had morally sufficient reasons to make murder
immoral, or he didn’t.
– If God had morally sufficient reasons to make murder immoral,
then it seems those are the reasons it is immoral, not God’s
commands.
– If God has no morally sufficient reasons to make murder
immoral, then its immorality is entirely arbitrary. He could have
just as easily chose to make it morally acceptable to commit
murder.
– But God is perfect and does not deliver arbitrary commands.
– Therefore DCT is false.
Horn #2 Arbitrariness
Another way to get at the problem:
• If God has no reasons for his commands, then
his commands are arbitrary.
• This means he could have, just as easily made
murder morally permissible.
• But murder could not have been morally
permissible.
• Therefore, the impermissibility of murder
does not depend on God’s commands.
Necessary Truths
A necessary truth is something that would have
been true no matter what the world was like.
– 2+2=4
– All bachelors are unmarried
– Red things are red.
– Something cannot be a book and not a book
simultaneously.
Necessary Truths
The most general moral truths seem to have this
same feature:
• Causing suffering to people without sufficient
cause is wrong.
• Preventing the happiness of others without
sufficient cause is wrong.
• Harming someone without sufficient cause is
wrong.
The Euthyphro Argument
The Euthyphro Argument:
1. Either God has reasons that support his commands or He lacks reasons
for His commands.
2. Horn 1: If God has reasons that support His commands, then these
reasons, rather than the commands themselves, are what make actions
right or wrong.
3. So if God has reasons for His commands, then DCT is false.
4. Horn 2 (DCT): If God lacks reasons for His commands, then God’s
commands are arbitrary.
5. If God commands are arbitrary then things like rape, genocide and
murder could have been morally permissible.
6. Rape, genocide and murder could not have been morally permissible.
7. Therefore, God’s commands cannot be arbitrary, and DCT is false.
8. Therefore, regardless of which horn we take, DCT is false.
What the Argument Doesn’t Show
• It doesn’t show that God doesn’t exist
• It doesn’t show that we shouldn’t follow God’s
commands (provided we know what they are).
• It doesn’t show that religion is a bad moral
motivator
• It doesn’t show that religion is a bad source of
moral knowledge
What it Does Show
What the argument does show is that even if
you believe in God, you should reject divine
command theory.
God does not create morality.