Divine command theory
Divine command theory (also known as theological voluntarism)[1][2] is a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God. The theory asserts that what is moral is determined by God's commands and that for a person to be moral he is to follow God's commands. Followers of both monotheistic and polytheistic religions in ancient and modern times have often accepted the importance of God's commands in establishing morality.
"Theological voluntarism" redirects here. For the medieval theological movement, see Medieval theological voluntarism.
Numerous variants of the theory have been presented: historically, figures including Saint Augustine, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Søren Kierkegaard have presented various versions of divine command theory; more recently, Robert Merrihew Adams has proposed a "modified divine command theory" based on the omnibenevolence of God in which morality is linked to human conceptions of right and wrong. Paul Copan has argued in favour of the theory from a Christian viewpoint, and Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski's divine motivation theory proposes that God's motivations, rather than commands, are the source of morality.
Semantic challenges to divine command theory have been proposed; the philosopher William Wainwright argued that to be commanded by God and to be morally obligatory do not have an identical meaning, which he believed would make defining obligation difficult. He also contended that, as knowledge of God is required for morality by divine command theory, atheists and agnostics could not be moral; he saw this as a weakness of the theory. Others have challenged the theory on modal grounds by arguing that, even if God's command and morality correlate in this world, they may not do so in other possible worlds. In addition, the Euthyphro dilemma, first proposed by Plato (in the context of polytheistic Greek religion), presented a dilemma which threatened either to result in the moral arbitrariness of morality itself, or to result in the irrelevance of God to morality. Divine command theory has also been criticised for its apparent incompatibility with the omnibenevolence of God, moral autonomy and religious pluralism, although some scholars have defended the theory from these challenges.
Objections[edit]
Semantic objections[edit]
Philosopher William Wainwright considered a challenge to the theory on semantic grounds, arguing that "being commanded by God" and "being obligatory" do not mean the same thing, contrary to what the theory suggests. He used the example of water not having an identical meaning to H
2O to propose that "being commanded by God" does not have an identical meaning to "being obligatory". This was not an objection to the truth of divine command theory, but Wainwright believed it demonstrated that the theory should not be used to formulate assertions about the meaning of obligation.[28] Wainwright also noted that divine command theory might imply that one can only have moral knowledge if one has knowledge of God; Edward Wierenga argued that, if this is the case, the theory seems to deny atheists and agnostics moral knowledge.[29] Hugh Storer Chandler has challenged the theory based on modal ideas of what might exist in different worlds. He suggested that, even if one accepts that being commanded by God and being morally right are the same, they may not be synonyms because they might be different in other possible worlds.[30]
Moral motivation[edit]
Michael Austin has noted that divine command theory could be criticised for prompting people to be moral with impure motivations. He writes of the objection that a moral life should be sought because morality is valued, rather than to avoid punishment or receive a reward. This punishment and reward system of motivation could be seen as inadequate.[6]