Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:26:11.675Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Divine will/divine command moral theories and the problem of arbitrariness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2012

THOMAS L. CARSON
THOMAS L. CARSON*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60626, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A well-known objection to divine will/divine command moral theories is that they commit us to the view that God's will is arbitrary. I argue that several versions of divine will/divine command moral theories, including two of Robert Adams's versions of the DCT and my own divine preference theory, can be successfully defended against this objection. I argue that, even if God's preferences are somewhat arbitrary, we have reasons to conform our wills to them. It is not a fatal objection to divine will/divine command moral theories if they imply that God's will/God's commands is/are arbitrary, to some extent.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 445 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Robert (1973) ‘A modified divine command theory of ethical wrongness’, in Adams (1987a), 97–122.Google Scholar
Adams, Robert (1979) ‘Divine command metaethics modified again’, in Adams (1987a), 128–143.Google Scholar
Adams, Robert (1987a) The Virtue of Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Adams, Robert (1987b) ‘Moral arguments for theistic belief’, in Adams (1987a), 144–163.Google Scholar
Adams, Robert (1999) Finite and Infinite Goods (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Arrington, Robert (1989) Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle (1962) Nicomachean Ethics, Martin Ostwald (tr.) (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill).Google Scholar
Brink, David (1989) Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Robert (1987) Analyzing Love (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carson, Thomas (2000) Value and the Good Life (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press).Google Scholar
Frankena, William (1973) Ethics, 2nd edn (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall).Google Scholar
Hamlyn, David (1989) ‘The phenomena of love and hate’, in Soble, Alan (ed.) Eros, Agape, and Philia (New York: Paragon House), 218–234.Google Scholar
Hare, John (2007) God and Morality (Oxford: Blackwell).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, R. M. (1989) ‘Ethics and ontology’, in Hare, Essays in Ethical Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 82–98.Google Scholar
Mann, William (1998) ‘Piety: lending a hand to Euthyphro’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 58, 123–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis (1927) The Nature of Existence, II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Outka, Gene (1972) Agape: An Ethical Analysis (New Haven: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Pinker, Steven (2008) ‘The moral instinct’, New York Times Magazine, 13 January.Google Scholar
Plato (2000) Euthyphro, in The Trail and Death of Socrates, 3rd edn, G. M. A. Grube (tr.) (Indianapolis: Hackett).Google Scholar
Rachels, James & Rachels, Stuart (2007) Elements of Ethics, 5th edn (New York: McGraw Hill).Google Scholar
Shafer-Landau, Russ (2010) The Fundamentals of Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry (1966) The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn (New York: Dover).Google Scholar
Soble, Alan (1990) The Structure of Love (New Haven: Yale University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, Stephen (1993) ‘Arbitrariness, divine commands, and morality’, International Journal of Philosophy of Religion, 33, 33–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, Stephen (1994) ‘Why Adams needs to modify his divine-command theory one more time’, Faith and Philosophy, 11, 72–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Gabriele (1975–1976) ‘Love’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 86, 153–54.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, Linda (2004) Divine Motivation Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar