objectiveethics

Divine Command Ethics

from: APPLYING MORAL THEORIES, by C. E. Harris, Jr.

Study Questions:

1. The author distinguishes between the psychological sense and the logical sense in which ethics might be understood to be based on the commands of God. Explain these different notions in a way that makes the differences beween them clear.

2. The author describes three different logical senses in which ethics can be understood to be based on the commands of God. Explain these three senses, making the differences clear.

3. In the context of explaining the first of the three logical senses in which ethics is based on God’s commands, the author mentions two questions that must be addressed. What are these two questions? Why must these questions be addressed?

4. Explain the objections that are raised against each of the versions of the Divine command theory.
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THE DIVINE COMMAND THEORY

For many people, religion is the basis of ethics. When panels of experts are formed in hospitals or by governmental agencies to render opinions on ethical questions, religious figures are almost always included and are often dominant. Showing that moral judgments have their foundations in the commands of God would, for many people, provide a sufficient answer to our quest for objectivity in ethics. What could be more objective than the commands of God? Not surprisingly, this idea has been elaborated into a theory of the objectivity of ethics known as the divine command theory.

We must be careful to distinguish several different senses in which ethics can be based on the commands of God. One sense is psychological: the fact that God commands something could motivate either positively or negatively. As a positive motivation, the hope of reward in the afterlife or some other manifestation of divine favor can lead to morally praiseworthy action. As a negative motivation, the fear of punishment in the afterlife or some other manifestation of divine disfavor can be powerful deterrents to certain types of behavior.

It would be hard to deny that the use of religious motivation to produce ethical conduct is an important influence in many people's lives. But the psychological account of religious motivation does not answer the question about the objectivity of morality. After all, people can be motivated to do what is wrong as well as what is right. A tyrant can motivate his subjects to act in accordance with his will, but this capability would not convince us that his commands are objectively right. Or a father who is a harsh disciplinarian may be able to bend his children to his will, even if his will is often morally perverse. Children may be motivated to many actions by the desire for parental approval, but this does not show that the actions carrying parental approval are objectively right.

To find the possible religious basis of moral objectivism, we must turn to the logical sense in which ethics is based on religion. Here three positions are possible. First, one can say that God, being omniscient, always knows what is right and wrong and, being perfectly good, always commands us to do what is right and not to do what is wrong. God commands us not to commit rape and murder because they are wrong and to love others because it is right.

Now it is certainly true that knowing the commands of God would be enormously helpful to an ethically concerned person in determining what is right. If God's knowledge in other areas is infallible, His knowledge of moral truth should also be infallible. But two questions must be asked: (1) How do we know God's commands, and (2) where does God get his ethical knowledge?

Let us consider the first question. In learning about God's commands, do we look to the Bible, the Koran, or some other religious document? The religions of the world differ significantly on some moral issues, such as the legitimacy of the use of violence and the proper treatment of animals. After we decide on a source of revelation about God's commands, how do we decide on its proper interpretation? Consider how even Christian authorities disagree over the morality of such issues as war, abortion, sterilization, and birth control. If religious authorities cannot agree on what God's commands are, how much confidence can we have in them as a guide for moral conduc

The second question serves to point out that, according to the first version of the divine command theory, God serves only as a reliable conveyor of ethical truth but not the ultimate source of ethical truth. This view shows that the version of the divine command theory cannot provide a satisfactory answer to the question about the justification of moral truth. Appealing to God as an omniscient knower of ethical truth is not the same thing as appealing to God as the ultimate ground of moral truth.

A second version of the divine command theory addresses the issue of the ultimate ground of moral truth by holding that God's commands make certain actions right and others wrong. What makes right actions right is that God has commanded them, and what makes wrong actions wrong is that God has prohibited them. It is, in other words, God's commands that justify our moral beliefs. On this account, we do not need to ask about the ultimate origin of ethical truth, for God's command is the ultimate origin. Though this version of the divine command theory may answer the objection to the first version, it has serious problems of its own.

One objection that is sometimes made to this version is that, if we derive our moral beliefs from divine commands, we give up moral autonomy or independence. We base our morality on superior power rather than on moral conviction. Acting as a genuine moral agent involves being self-directed; a person behaves in a certain way because he or she believes that way is right. Subservience to divine commands requires replacing autonomy with mere obedience, which is morally wrong.'

At this point, a defender of the divine command theory could reply that we often think it is reasonable to take things on authority. When we go to the physician, we usually accept his or her directions. The scientist accepts the authority of reports of experimental work that she has not verified. Yet we do not think the patient and the scientist have surrendered their autonomy in an unacceptable way. But there is an important difference between accepting an authority on a truth that is independent of that authority and accepting an authority that establishes the truth. The second version of the divine command theory holds that God establishes moral truth, and so the analogy does not apply.

A more serious problem is that the claim that divine commands justify moral judgments seems to lead to moral arbitrariness. If God's command is sufficient to justify any action as good, then God could command me to make it my chief end in life to inflict suffering on other human beings. And it would be morally proper for me to do this. If no moral criterion is independent of God's will, He could command us to commit rape or murder, and it would be right for us to do so.

We could reply, "But God would never do this, for He is a loving God." This response is the basis of the modification of the divine command theory proposed by philosopher Robert M. Adams. The fact that something is contrary to God's commands means that it is wrong, Adams maintains, only if we assume that God has the character of a loving being. If God were really to command us to make cruelty our goal, then He would not have that character of loving us, and I would not say it would be wrong to disobey Him.' However, if a divine command must be consistent with love to be ethically binding, then love is the most important moral criterion, or at least equally as important as the fact that something is commanded by God. The criterion of love is then independent of God, and the second position becomes equivalent to the first one. Therefore, many philosophers have concluded that the second version of the divine command theory must also be rejected.

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It is important to see that the rejection of the divine command theory is not the same as the rejection of belief in God. Many believers are willing to recognize that logic and mathematics are valid independently of God's commands. The fact that one and one are two does not depend on God's commands. Why should the situation be any different with morality? Many major figures in the Jewish and Christian traditions would agree in rejecting the position that the validity of ethical beliefs depends on the commands of God. The Jewish scholars who wrote the Talmud did not take divine commands as the reason for action; if God commanded them to steal and murder, they would not be obligated to do so. By their nature, humans know what is right and wrong, and revelation is needed only to avoid all uncertainty over the application of moral precepts. Similarly, Moses Maimonides and other medieval Jewish thinkers refused to identify the good with the will of God.' The Roman Catholic tradition generally takes a similar, though more qualified, stand. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, to say that morality is determined simply by God's will is to suggest that God's will may sometimes not follow order and wisdom, and that stance would be blasphemous.'

The divine command theory may not be the best version of moral objectivism. Even the religious believer may find reason to hold that moral truth is independent of God's commands, just as it is independent of human beings' beliefs and wishes.

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