Divine Command Theory Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

One method of justifying laws is to show that they have tangible benefits that improve the lives of citizens governed by those laws. However, many people believe that God commanded them to obey a certain set of laws, and the legal system is just if and only if its laws are based on the laws God commanded. Divine command theory is the theory that God commands what is morally right and forbids what is morally wrong. If this is correct, whether a law is just or not is a simple matter—one must only consult God’s commandments.

The Greek philosopher Plato was the first to distinguish between two interpretations of the claim that “God commands what is right and forbids what is wrong.” In Plato’s dialogue the Euthyphro, Socrates, Plato’s teacher, asks Euthyphro, a prosecutor, whether what is right is right because God commands it, or whether God commands what is right because it is right. The first interpretation, known as the author interpretation, is a metaethical theory, a theory about the meaning of moral terminology like “right,” “wrong,” “good,” and “bad.” According to this view morality is dependent upon the existence of God. The appeal of the author interpretation is that God serves as an ultimate arbiter of morality that is guaranteed to punish the wicked and reward the just. In contrast, the second interpretation, known as the reporter interpretation, is far weaker—it is a claim about the reasons God commanded what he did. Although this interpretation doesn’t provide insight into the nature of morality, it asserts that God acted for reasons and thus God’s commandments are not arbitrary or capricious.

The Euthyphro Dilemma

Advocates of divine command theory are committed to either the author interpretation or the reporter interpretation. The dilemma raised in the Euthyphro is that both of these interpretations have problematic implications. If what is right is so only because God commanded it, then God’s commands are arbitrary and not based on reasons. If there is no right or wrong until God makes it so, God cannot have a good reason to command what he commands. According to the author interpretation had God commanded theft and child abuse, then theft and child abuse would be morally obligatory. To hold the author view is to believe that it is possible for things people find morally reprehensible to be morally obligatory.

However, if God commands what is right because it is right, then God is no longer the author of morality and cannot serve as the foundation of normative ethics. Instead God merely recognizes an external moral authority and relates this information to those he commands. This also presents a problem for religions that contend that God is the creator of everything, because if God is not the author of morality, then there exists an independent set of moral laws God did not create, but that he must act in accordance with to be good.

Responses to the Euthyphro Dilemma

A common response to the Euthyphro dilemma is to bite the bullet on the author interpretation while maintaining that God’s character is inconsistent with his commanding morally reprehensible things. Had God had a different character his commandments could have been morally reprehensible (to individuals) but no less obligatory. However, in the actual world God is loving and thus people do not need to fear that God will issue vicious commands. One problem with this response is that it accepts that God’s commandments are arbitrary and that it is merely a matter of luck that God commanded people to act as he did and not in some other way.

A second problem with this response is that it is rather easy to offer commonsense reasons for many of the laws commanded by the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim God that would still be compelling even if God had not given those commands. It makes sense to say that killing an innocent person is wrong (independent of God’s commanding individuals not to do so) because doing so deprives that person of one of her most important goods—her life. Furthermore, killing innocent people causes fear, pain, and suffering in others—all of which are undesirable. Thus, advocates of the author interpretation hold not only that God’s commands are arbitrary, but also that it is merely a matter of luck that people find God’s commands so appealing. According to this view, what makes killing innocent people morally wrong is that God forbade humans from doing so; any other rationale or justification of why it is wrong to kill innocent people is a mistake and irrelevant to explaining the wrongness of killing.

Another response to criticism of the author interpretation is that God created human beings with a certain nature and this nature is what makes actions right or wrong for them. Thus, God’s commands are not arbitrary; they are justified insofar as they promote human flourishing. The problem with this response is that it offers an alternative definition of moral terms; something is right if and only if it promotes human flourishing, and wrong if it does not.

If God had commanded something that did not promote human flourishing, then he would have commanded what is wrong. Rather than being a defense of the author interpretation, this is merely a variation of the reporter interpretation. This response also fails to avoid charges of arbitrariness completely; although God’s commands are not arbitrary if they’re designed to promote human flourishing, the question becomes why God created human beings with the nature that they have? If God had a reason for doing so, then there is some external authority that determined moral truth; if he did not, then human nature is arbitrary and God could just as easily have chosen to create beings that flourished only when acting cruelly toward one another.

Other Objections to the Author Interpretation

Several objections to the author interpretation turn on semantic concerns; for example, why would it make sense to praise God if he would be equally praiseworthy if he had done the exact opposite?

Another objection is that many atheists, agnostics, and polytheists seem capable of competently using moral terminology despite not believing in the existence of a single god who is the author of morality. Robert Merrihew Adams responds that not every competent user of the moral terminology must know the nature or origin of the terminology they are using. However, if these speakers are competent when citing reasons and justifications apart from divine commands, then either the author interpretation is false and God is not the author of morality, or these speakers are using homonyms whose meanings are almost interchangeable with their author interpretation counterparts. If the latter, then advocates of the author interpretation not only have to make a special point of distinguishing moral terminology from its sound-alikes, but also explain why people should focus on divine commands rather than tangible reasons.

Another worry with grounding moral terminology in God’s commands is that if God hadn’t existed nothing would have been morally unacceptable; child abuse, theft, and killing innocent people would have been morally acceptable. A related problem is that it seems as though God gave unequal access to his commandments; this is to say that God did not make his commandments immediately, and did not give them to everyone. According to some religions, God may have even issued inconsistent commandments. This raises a number of questions: Can one be held morally responsible for an obligation she didn’t know she had? Can things that were once morally acceptable become unacceptable? Are God’s commandments retroactive?

Modified Divine Command Theory

Robert Merrihew Adams advocated a modified divine command theory in which something is wrong if and only if it is contrary to the commandments of a loving God. The virtue of this view is that even if God did not exist, the things that a loving God would forbid would still be morally unacceptable, and the things a loving God would command would still be morally obligatory.

The problem with this view is that, much as with the reporter interpretation, God is no longer the author of morality; right and wrong are determined by an external moral authority—what a loving God would command—independent of whether God exists, God is loving, or God makes those commandments. This view is no less arbitrary than the author interpretation; why would the hypothetical commandments of a loving God better serve as the foundation of morality than the commands of the actual God, or those of a vengeful God, or a frugal God?

Bibliography:

Adams, Robert Merrihew. “Divine Command Metaethics Modified Again.” Journal of Religious Ethics, v.7/1 (1979).
Adams, Robert Merrihew. The Virtue of Faith.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Evans, C. Stephen. God and Moral Obligation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Joyce, Richard. “Theistic Ethics and the Euthyphro Dilemma.” Journal of Religious Ethics, v.30/1 (2002).
Quinn, Philip. Divine Commands and Moral Requirements. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
Rachels, James. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.

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