Do you have any purely logical objections to Divine Command Theory?

Phaedrus said:

I am going to trust man over god on morality.

"Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right." ~ H.L. Mencken

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poor choice of quote

I have a coworker.....
They pay me to do stupid things
they will pay me to do stupider things
and as long as they pay me
I will do what I am told

I got a floor boss who has told me to do stupid things
I ratted him out to HR

he leaves me alone now

9-10ths_Penguin said:

They always seem to gloss over the most important step.

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such as?.....

manipulation
deception
information withheld

in the hope of a greater good

Anti-Climacus said:

You haven't shown why it's circular, and the discussion here isn't about the existence of God. It's simply about the implications and why, taking into account DCT, ethical critiques of religion are meaningless.

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How do you figure? Even if we assumed that DCT was correct for argument's sake, "religion" is not necessarily "what God commands."

In fact, if DCT were true, we could use ethical critiques to disprove religions: if morality and God's commands are equivalent to each other, then we can conclude that if a purported religious revelation is obviously immoral, then it must be false.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

How do you figure? Even if we assumed that DCT was correct for argument's sake, "religion" is not necessarily "what God commands."

In fact, if DCT were true, we could use ethical critiques to disprove religions: if morality and God's commands are equivalent to each other, then we can conclude that if a purported religious revelation is obviously immoral, then it must be false.

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I might tip your way …..to a point

after all....Moses was given dictation
Thou shall not kill

and no sooner was he down from the Mount
he commanded the execution of 3000 of his own people

Anti-Climacus said:

It seems most of the objections people make to Divine Command Theory (DCT) rest completely on its uncomfortable implications. For example, Sam Harris argues that if DCT is true, then if Muslim terrorists have the right god, what they're doing is good, but this is just an appeal to emotion and so obviously doesn't refute what DCT asserts. It doesn't matter how you feel about reality, after all; it's still reality. To actually refute DCT one has to do so on purely logical grounds, and by this, I mean to actually demonstrate logical flaws in the theory itself, not to simply say that it's logical implications are uncomfortable. If you say, "well, if DCT is true, then God's commands are arbitrary," how exactly is that a refutation? Obviously, God is beyond causality and so does not act on reasons or justifications, which would necessitate causality within his essence—that fact is already implied when you're talking about the god of classical theism—but he is obviously not arbitrary in the same way as us. Our being arbitrary is a contrast to our acting upon justification, which we are obliged to do. God, on the other hand, is free from obligation. He does not act arbitrarily in any real sense, that is to say, in the human sense, because if something has no obligation to act upon justifications, or is such that it does not act upon justifications at all, then what does it even mean to be arbitrary? In short, we act arbitrarily out of our human weakness; God acts 'arbitrarily' out of his divine freedom, his divine power, etc. Any objections, I've seen, to DCT end up completely missing the point about what God is. The questions/objections springing from the Euthyphro dilemma work fine, I suppose, when you're talking about the pagan gods of Ancient Greece, but they don't work so well when you're talking about a completely different kind of god.

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well, there is the argument that if a person is only behaving in a moral way because they think their god said it was moral, they perhaps are not really a moral person

Anti-Climacus said:

It seems most of the objections people make to Divine Command Theory (DCT) rest completely on its uncomfortable implications. For example, Sam Harris argues that if DCT is true, then if Muslim terrorists have the right god, what they're doing is good, but this is just an appeal to emotion and so obviously doesn't refute what DCT asserts. It doesn't matter how you feel about reality, after all; it's still reality. To actually refute DCT one has to do so on purely logical grounds, and by this, I mean to actually demonstrate logical flaws in the theory itself, not to simply say that it's logical implications are uncomfortable. If you say, "well, if DCT is true, then God's commands are arbitrary," how exactly is that a refutation? Obviously, God is beyond causality and so does not act on reasons or justifications, which would necessitate causality within his essence—that fact is already implied when you're talking about the god of classical theism—but he is obviously not arbitrary in the same way as us. Our being arbitrary is a contrast to our acting upon justification, which we are obliged to do. God, on the other hand, is free from obligation. He does not act arbitrarily in any real sense, that is to say, in the human sense, because if something has no obligation to act upon justifications, or is such that it does not act upon justifications at all, then what does it even mean to be arbitrary? In short, we act arbitrarily out of our human weakness; God acts 'arbitrarily' out of his divine freedom, his divine power, etc. Any objections, I've seen, to DCT end up completely missing the point about what God is. The questions/objections springing from the Euthyphro dilemma work fine, I suppose, when you're talking about the pagan gods of Ancient Greece, but they don't work so well when you're talking about a completely different kind of god.

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It's the same old very simple story.

We need an objective test that will tell us (or any other onlooker) whether any particular command (in the precise form we see it) originates from God or not.

Before we can do that we need an objective test that will tell us (or any other onlooker) whether any particular real thing or being is God is not.

I've been on the trail of that second one for a while now, but so far, no luck at all.

Anti-Climacus said:

How do they know?

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The vast majority of people determine morality based upon empathy. If you know that you wouldn't want someone to steal from you, then you probably shouldn't steal from anyone else. If you wouldn't want someone to rape you, then you probably shouldn't rape anyone else. If you wouldn't want someone to murder you, then you probably shouldn't murder anyone else.

Are you suggesting that YOU wouldn't think that murder is immoral if you hadn't read that God said so?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

How do you figure? Even if we assumed that DCT was correct for argument's sake, "religion" is not necessarily "what God commands."

In fact, if DCT were true, we could use ethical critiques to disprove religions: if morality and God's commands are equivalent to each other, then we can conclude that if a purported religious revelation is obviously immoral, then it must be false.

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That is a very good idea, as a matter of fact.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

no real explanation is ever given for how those divine commands could define morality.

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A perfect being would naturally be able to perfectly define morality.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

In fact, if DCT were true, we could use ethical critiques to disprove religions: if morality and God's commands are equivalent to each other, then we can conclude that if a purported religious revelation is obviously immoral, then it must be false.

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How would you know that your own criteria for evaluating what's moral/immoral is correct, though?

Milton Platt said:

well, there is the argument that if a person is only behaving in a moral way because they think their god said it was moral, they perhaps are not really a moral person

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Sure, if you define being moral as being instinctively moral according to empathy. I see absolutely no reason to hold to that definition. Then it's impossible to be moral in any situation which requires conscious moral decisions that involve complex ethical reasoning. Also, think about this. Who is really the more rational actor? The person who only acts "morally" because he/she personally feels that he/she should, or the person who only acts "morally" because someone's given him/her a good reason to? I'll go with the latter.

QuestioningMind said:

The vast majority of people determine morality based upon empathy. If you know that you wouldn't want someone to steal from you, then you probably shouldn't steal from anyone else. If you wouldn't want someone to rape you, then you probably shouldn't rape anyone else. If you wouldn't want someone to murder you, then you probably shouldn't murder anyone else.

Are you suggesting that YOU wouldn't think that murder is immoral if you hadn't read that God said so?

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Empathy is subjective, and it's not universal or the same for everyone. Moreover, the 'do unto others as you would like them to do unto you' thing isn't empathy; that's just the golden rule and is more of a matter of self-interest than anything else. It's a questionable moral standard at best. If I have no regard for my own life, why should I care about anyone else's under this criteria? Also, there are plenty of situations which call for one to set aside their empathy in favour of the greater good.

Anti-Climacus said:

A perfect being would naturally be able to perfectly define morality.

How would you know that your own criteria for evaluating what's moral/immoral is correct, though?

Sure, if you define being moral as being instinctively moral according to empathy. I see absolutely no reason to hold to that definition. Then it's impossible to be moral in any situation which requires conscious moral decisions that involve complex ethical reasoning. Also, think about this. Who is really the more rational actor? The person who only acts "morally" because he/she personally feels that he/she should, or the person who only acts "morally" because someone's given him/her a good reason to? I'll go with the latter.

Empathy is subjective, and it's not universal or the same for everyone. Moreover, the 'do unto others as you would like them to do unto you' thing isn't empathy; that's just the golden rule and is more of a matter of self-interest than anything else. It's a questionable moral standard at best. If I have no regard for my own life, why should I care about anyone else's under this criteria? Also, there are plenty of situations which call for one to set aside their empathy in favour of the greater good.

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I have absolutely no problem with morality being tied to self-interest. Humans are social animals and when it is in societies best interest to behave in a moral manner it is in my self interest as well. I challenge you to provide me with a less questionable moral standard. Human beings enacting human laws have provided a far more moral society than any religion's claims of god's morality ever have.

And you never answered my question: Are you suggesting that YOU wouldn't think that murder is immoral if you hadn't read that God said so?

Anti-Climacus said:

The questions/objections springing from the Euthyphro dilemma work fine, I suppose, when you're talking about the pagan gods of Ancient Greece, but they don't work so well when you're talking about a completely different kind of god.

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Yes my objection attacks the soundness. I left quoted here your dismissal of euthyphro dilemma because you really don't address that.

If God is free to arbitrarily command, then what is good cannot be good simply by virtue of his command. It is entirely possible that it is good, but it also is possible that it is morally bad. You cannot dismiss this dilemma without destroying divine command theory in part.

We can imagine for instance a god who commands bad things despite morality stemming from that god. Thus we could have morality that goes contrary to gods commands. We can offer absurd reasons for this such as perhaps that god actually wants us to disobey immoral commands so does this to test us (if free will exists), but we needn't do that because we have already set up god as "beyond reason."

So my objection in short is that while one can pronounce that morality is dependent upon god, it does not follow that that god will command what is moral.

Anti-Climacus said:

It's a philosophical theory, not a scientific theory—that's what it's known as in the literature—and this is not a discussion about the existence of God; it's about the philosophical implications of the concept of the god of classical theism.

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I appreciate all that. The problem I have is that “the god of classical theism” isn’t anything like as well defined as some people would like to imagine and that lack of definition renders the wider question somewhat empty. Wider questions of what morality is and where it comes from can be asked but the moment you’re thinking about it being decided upon by any kind of conscious intelligence, I’d suggest you can’t avoid talking about the specific characteristics of that intelligence because those characteristics would determine the answers to the overall question.

The viability of such an intelligence existing and the fundamental differences to the nature of the universe as we currently understand it if we’re assuming such an intelligence did exist impact this and many other philosophical questions too.

I also think there is an obvious blocker just because many theists will naturally resits philosophical (or scientific) assessments of the nature or existence of a god because they fear (which good reason) that the conclusions won’t necessarily be consistent with their faith. That is not a valid reason to avoid the questions though (if anything, all the more reason they should be asked).

Anti-Climacus said:

A perfect being would naturally be able to perfectly define morality.

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... you assert without justification. I'm not willing to just assume your conclusion. Make an actual argument.

How would you know that your own criteria for evaluating what's moral/immoral is correct, though?

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While it's important to know right from wrong, this isn't really relevant to what I'm talking about.

Think of two questions we can ask about morality:

1. What is moral and immoral?
2. Why are those particular things moral and immoral as opposed to some other set of things?

DCT really only deals with the second question. In and of itself, it has absolutely nothing to say about the first question. Just saying "things are moral and immoral because God decreed them so" tells us nothing about what's moral or immoral.

With or without DCT, you still need some other way to figure out what morality actually is. The only difference is that with DCT, once you establish whether something is moral, you can use your answers about whether it's moral to deduce whether it's in line with God's decrees.

Now... if you want to assert that you reliably know what God's decrees actually are, that's a whole separate discussion that goes well beyond DCT.

Anti-Climacus said:

It seems most of the objections people make to Divine Command Theory (DCT) rest completely on its uncomfortable implications. For example, Sam Harris argues that if DCT is true, then if Muslim terrorists have the right god, what they're doing is good, but this is just an appeal to emotion and so obviously doesn't refute what DCT asserts. It doesn't matter how you feel about reality, after all; it's still reality. To actually refute DCT one has to do so on purely logical grounds, and by this, I mean to actually demonstrate logical flaws in the theory itself, not to simply say that it's logical implications are uncomfortable. If you say, "well, if DCT is true, then God's commands are arbitrary," how exactly is that a refutation? Obviously, God is beyond causality and so does not act on reasons or justifications, which would necessitate causality within his essence—that fact is already implied when you're talking about the god of classical theism—but he is obviously not arbitrary in the same way as us. Our being arbitrary is a contrast to our acting upon justification, which we are obliged to do. God, on the other hand, is free from obligation. He does not act arbitrarily in any real sense, that is to say, in the human sense, because if something has no obligation to act upon justifications, or is such that it does not act upon justifications at all, then what does it even mean to be arbitrary? In short, we act arbitrarily out of our human weakness; God acts 'arbitrarily' out of his divine freedom, his divine power, etc. Any objections, I've seen, to DCT end up completely missing the point about what God is. The questions/objections springing from the Euthyphro dilemma work fine, I suppose, when you're talking about the pagan gods of Ancient Greece, but they don't work so well when you're talking about a completely different kind of god.

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There are plenty of objections based on logic.

Read: https://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/

Anti-Climacus said:

And a proponent of DCT would reply that it's meaningless to talk about 'moral validity' unless you presuppose the existence of a God who issues moral injunctions.

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If they did that, I think they'd be missing the point, IMO.

DCT is an attempt to argue (or possibly just assert) one side of the Euthyphro dilemma.

... but in Euthyphro, both sides just take as given that:

- the gods exist and make decrees to humanity
- humanity knows what those decrees are
- human beings - or at least the particular human beings considering the Euthyphro dilemma - can tell morality from immorality
- the decrees of the gods have been found to be moral.

The Euthyphro dilemma then asks "why?"

Because the Euthyphro dilemma - and things that flow from it, like DCT - assume all these things, using Euthyphro or DCT to argue for any of those assumptions is just begging the question.

Anti-Climacus said:

Classical theism - Wikipedia

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From what I read, it is still nearly worthless as a definition. Quotes like this from the very source you gave me:

Among modern day theologians and philosophers of religion classical theism has appeared in a number of variants.

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indicate that it is still a mutable idea, within which a range of "meaning" can be gleaned. There goes any hope of adherence to reality - and all you can say in defense is that ideas within the category "theism" don't depend on reality to be formulated - and I would wholeheartedly agree with you.

And therein lies the ultimate problem - anyone can impose/dream-up/attribute "God" with any properties one chooses - which indeed happens all the time. Literally - ALL THE TIME. To the point that even if we abstract "Divine Command Theory" from any specific God or gods, and try to look at it as a stand-alone entity, we still have the problem on our hands of WHAT a "divine command" even might look like. So - we can't even know whether to be frightened if "god" is "always right" or relieved, or emboldened - we can't know what to think about the idea at all from a human perspective.

QuestioningMind said:

I challenge you to provide me with a less questionable moral standard. Human beings enacting human laws have provided a far more moral society than any religion's claims of god's morality ever have.

And you never answered my question: Are you suggesting that YOU wouldn't think that murder is immoral if you hadn't read that God said so?

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The problem is that you're judging your own meta-ethical theory as "more moral" according to its own standards of what's moral without providing any justification for your own argument. Note that I have never claimed that DCT offers a "more moral" standard, just that it provides a more rational one. As for your question, I would hold to an ethical agnosticism in lieu of divine revelation, yes, but that doesn't mean I'd murder people.

Curious George said:

If God is free to arbitrarily command, then what is good cannot be good simply by virtue of his command. It is entirely possible that it is good, but it also is possible that it is morally bad.

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The presumption of divine command theory is that it makes no sense to talk about what is good and what is bad apart from what God has judged to be so, that these are our only reliable determiners. Moreover, you seem to imply that moral facts exist in some radically different way from other facts. Just as God would determine the laws of gravity, which are so by his command, so has he determined moral facts.

Curious George said:

So my objection in short is that while one can pronounce that morality is dependent upon god, it does not follow that that god will command what is moral.

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Yet in either case, we are obliged to obey his command, if only for our own sake.

HonestJoe said:

Wider questions of what morality is and where it comes from can be asked but the moment you’re thinking about it being decided upon by any kind of conscious intelligence, I’d suggest you can’t avoid talking about the specific characteristics of that intelligence because those characteristics would determine the answers to the overall question.

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Whether the characteristics we assign to God will have any possible determinable effect on the nature of his commands is only the case if we assume those characteristics are just like ours, that God is just a being like us, just a lot better, in which case, we're not talking about the god of classical theism. He would not be "good" like we are good. Being such lowly beings, our definition of good and bad is skewed.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

... you assert without justification. I'm not willing to just assume your conclusion. Make an actual argument.

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Do you not know the definition of 'perfect?' If you don't understand how a perfect being by definition does not make errors, then I'm not sure what to say to you.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Think of two questions we can ask about morality:

1. What is moral and immoral?
2. Why are those particular things moral and immoral as opposed to some other set of things?

DCT really only deals with the second question.

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No, DCT actually deals with both questions. (1) What is moral is what has been commanded by God; what is immoral is what has been forbidden by God. (2) They are moral/immoral because he has decreed so. That doesn't tell us the particulars, like whether slavery is moral, but that's not what we're talking about.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

With or without DCT, you still need some other way to figure out what morality actually is. The only difference is that with DCT, once you establish whether something is moral, you can use your answers about whether it's moral to deduce whether it's in line with God's decrees.

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This is a nonsense statement according to DCT. What's moral is by definition what's in line with God's decrees. How are you going to judge them by any external, fallible standard?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

The Euthyphro dilemma then asks "why?"

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That's not what it asks at all. It's not arguing that these presuppositions are unwarranted.

Anti-Climacus said:

It seems most of the objections people make to Divine Command Theory (DCT) rest completely on its uncomfortable implications. For example, Sam Harris argues that if DCT is true, then if Muslim terrorists have the right god, what they're doing is good, but this is just an appeal to emotion and so obviously doesn't refute what DCT asserts. It doesn't matter how you feel about reality, after all; it's still reality. To actually refute DCT one has to do so on purely logical grounds, and by this, I mean to actually demonstrate logical flaws in the theory itself, not to simply say that it's logical implications are uncomfortable. If you say, "well, if DCT is true, then God's commands are arbitrary," how exactly is that a refutation? Obviously, God is beyond causality and so does not act on reasons or justifications, which would necessitate causality within his essence—that fact is already implied when you're talking about the god of classical theism—but he is obviously not arbitrary in the same way as us. Our being arbitrary is a contrast to our acting upon justification, which we are obliged to do. God, on the other hand, is free from obligation. He does not act arbitrarily in any real sense, that is to say, in the human sense, because if something has no obligation to act upon justifications, or is such that it does not act upon justifications at all, then what does it even mean to be arbitrary? In short, we act arbitrarily out of our human weakness; God acts 'arbitrarily' out of his divine freedom, his divine power, etc. Any objections, I've seen, to DCT end up completely missing the point about what God is. The questions/objections springing from the Euthyphro dilemma work fine, I suppose, when you're talking about the pagan gods of Ancient Greece, but they don't work so well when you're talking about a completely different kind of god.

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The only objection, albeit not logical, is that calling god benevolent is a meaningless tautology. Even the gods who command to hate your neighbor.

They are all necessarily benevolent, and who disobey them, for instance by loving their neighbor, are malevolent.

Ciao

- viole

Anti-Climacus said:

It seems most of the objections people make to Divine Command Theory (DCT) rest completely on its uncomfortable implications. For example, Sam Harris argues that if DCT is true, then if Muslim terrorists have the right god, what they're doing is good, but this is just an appeal to emotion and so obviously doesn't refute what DCT asserts. It doesn't matter how you feel about reality, after all; it's still reality. To actually refute DCT one has to do so on purely logical grounds, and by this, I mean to actually demonstrate logical flaws in the theory itself, not to simply say that it's logical implications are uncomfortable. If you say, "well, if DCT is true, then God's commands are arbitrary," how exactly is that a refutation? Obviously, God is beyond causality and so does not act on reasons or justifications, which would necessitate causality within his essence—that fact is already implied when you're talking about the god of classical theism—but he is obviously not arbitrary in the same way as us. Our being arbitrary is a contrast to our acting upon justification, which we are obliged to do. God, on the other hand, is free from obligation. He does not act arbitrarily in any real sense, that is to say, in the human sense, because if something has no obligation to act upon justifications, or is such that it does not act upon justifications at all, then what does it even mean to be arbitrary? In short, we act arbitrarily out of our human weakness; God acts 'arbitrarily' out of his divine freedom, his divine power, etc. Any objections, I've seen, to DCT end up completely missing the point about what God is. The questions/objections springing from the Euthyphro dilemma work fine, I suppose, when you're talking about the pagan gods of Ancient Greece, but they don't work so well when you're talking about a completely different kind of god.

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Prove a god exists to issue commands and we will be getting somewhere.

Unapolegically barging in.

Anti-Climacus said:

Yet in either case, we are obliged to obey his command, if only for our own sake.

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If that's all that it comes to, then why would it matter what is moral and what is not ?

In practice, even if we were to assume that God is malevolent, and if self-interest is our top priority, wouldn't we still obey ?

Whether the characteristics we assign to God will have any possible determinable effect on the nature of his commands is only the case if we assume those characteristics are just like ours, that God is just a being like us, just a lot better, in which case, we're not talking about the god of classical theism. He would not be "good" like we are good. Being such lowly beings, our definition of good and bad is skewed.

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I don't quite get what you mean here. In classical theism, in many senses, God is just like us but a lot better. Where have you read otherwise ?