Abstract
This paper explains and defends a divine command account of moral obligations. A divine command account of moral obligations is distinguished from a general theological voluntarism which grounds all moral truth in the divine will. God’s commands ground moral duties, but truths about the good are grounded in the nature of God and God’s creation. Such an account does not see a divine command account as a rival to a natural law view of the good or as a rival to virtue ethics. The three types of account are complementary. A divine command account of moral obligation is attractive for both theological and philosophical reasons, and those strengths are made clear. In conclusion the paper considers and responds to a number of objections often raised against such an account, including the so-called Euthyphro objection—an objection that stems from Cudworth, and an objection that hinges on the way God’s commands are promulgated.
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Notes
- 1.
In this chapter, I shall treat “morality” and “ethics” as synonyms, unlike many philosophers, especially those in the Hegelian tradition.
- 2.
The defenders of this view often qualify it by speaking of a particular kind of will; for example, morality is determined by God’s “antecedent will” rather than his “consequent will.”
- 3.
For a more developed argument for this claim, see Evans (2013, 53–87).
- 4.
In Evans (2004), I argue that Kierkegaard holds a view similar to Adams and defend the plausibility of the view against secular rivals.
- 5.
Other divine command theorists think of moral obligations as produced by God’s commands or as supervening on God’s commands, rather than being identical to those commands. For the sake of simplicity of exposition, I will assume in what follows an Adams type view, in which moral obligations and divine commands are identical.
- 6.
The rest of this section of the paper, as well as some of the next section, are taken with some modifications from Evans (2013, 26–32). Used by permission of Oxford University Press. This book was published subsequent to the conference for which this paper was written, but prior to the publication of the volume in which this paper is appearing.
- 7.
The argument that follows parallels the one Adams himself gives for his view. See Adams (1999, 252–258).
- 8.
- 9.
For a fuller account of this objection and several others as well, along with more fully developed replies, see Evans (2013, 88–117).
- 10.
See Scotus (1986), Ordinatio III, suppl. Dist. 37, 268–87. Wolter also provides a useful summary and discussion of this section of Scotus on pp. 60–64 of the same volume.
- 11.
- 12.
The rest of this section as well as the next section of this paper is taken with modifications from Evans (2013, 111–117). Used by permission of Oxford University Press.
- 13.
Morriston’s argument similarly presupposes the existence of reasonable non-believers—an assumption that could be challenged, and has been in Henry (2001, 75–92).
- 14.
For a defense of the claim that emotions can be perceptions of moral value, see Pelser (2011).
- 15.
I owe this last point to a paper of Travis Dumsday. See Dumsday (2010, 357–371).
- 16.
This advice is offered in Anscombe’s famous article, “Modern Moral Philosophy.” Actually, I think Anscombe has a more complex reason than this for her advice. She thinks her secular colleagues would be better off dropping the concept of moral obligation, not just because they cannot make sense of it, but because in their attempts to make sense of it they transform the concept in ways that are morally corrupting. For example, she argues that contemporary moral philosophy must seriously inquire as to whether it might be morally right judicially to punish a person known to be innocent. See Anscombe (1981, 26–42).
References
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Evans, C.S. (2018). Divine Commands as the Basis for Moral Obligations. In: Buijs, G., Mosher, A. (eds) The Future of Creation Order. New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion , vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92147-1_7
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