Divine command theory essay example

Ultimately, DCT is unconvincing because it is arbitrary, redundant and lacks explanatory power.

Subjectivism says that the moral values are dependent on a human or divine will, that they can change from one situation to another. If there is no moral standard other than God's will, then God's commands are arbitrary i.

Moral relativism maintains that all moral judgments have their origins either in societal or in individual standards, and that no single objective standard exists by which one can assess the truth of a moral proposition.

If we identify the ultimate standard for goodness with God's nature, then it seems we are identifying it with certain properties of God e. Now, the immediate reaction of divine command theorists is to say that God would never will that we do such acts.

Many moral skeptics also make the stronger, modalclaim that moral knowledge is impossible. It can be as simple as believing that a little white lie is occasionally okay Do you really want to tell your mother her new dress looks hideous.

If there are moral standards independent of God, then morality would retain its authority even if God did not exist.

God is also considered sovereign, which means he is able to tell us exactly how we should live our lives. Lets suppose that God really did forbid us from torturing others. This view was criticized by Plato in the Euthyphro see the Euthyphro problem but retains some modern defenders Robert AdamsPhilip Quinn, and others.

Emotivismdefended by A. Is the word of the Pope then the moral guide for the divine command theory. A value pluralist might, for example, contend that both a life as a nun and a life as a mother realize genuine values in a universalist senseyet they are incompatible nuns may not have childrenand there is no purely rational way to measure which is preferable.

This would mean that morality is ultimately not based on reasons: As Rogers puts it, "Anselm, like Augustine before him and Aquinas later, rejects both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. Error theoryanother form of moral anti-realism, holds that although ethical claims do express propositions, all such propositions are false.

Roughly, it is the view that there are no moral standards other than God's will: The Euthyphro dilemma starts with Socrates posing one of the most famous questions in the history of philosophy, " Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God.

It does not offer any guidance on issues that were not conceived of when the Bible or other scriptures were written. That is, centralists argue that one must understand words like "right" and "ought" before understanding words like "just" and "unkind. For the Ethical Relativist, moral authority comes from cultural consensus; for the Divine Command Theorist, moral authority comes from God.

Thus God's omnipotence remains intact. The second option, that God commands something because it is right and that is obvious to Him in His infinite wisdom, avoids the arbitrariness of the previous option, but introduces a new problem which takes us back to the beginning: Socrates also asks Euthyphro for evidence that the gods agree that he should punish his father.

Or if he makes these laws because what they teach is good, it implies there is an external standard of goodness therefore challenging his omnipotence Arbitrariness: This is the reason that the American legal system recognizes mitigating factors, those excuses for why it was okay to do the wrong thing.

Instead, moral principles are thought to be local, conventional, subjective and self-justified. Divine Command Theory Essay 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 holds that morality is all about doing God’s will.

God, divine command theorists hold, has issued certain commands to his creatures. We can find these commands in the Bible, or by asking religious authorities, or perhaps even just by consulting our moral intuition.

Divine Command theory says that an action is morally good if God commands it. I personally do not think that this goes far enough.

Semantically it gets tied into what's called Euthyphro's Dilemma. However, the divine command theorist is committed to accepting this claim because divine command theory just is the theory that all moral truths are dependent on God’s will.

Though critics of divine command theory disbelieve this premise, then, they can still use it against the divine command. The challenges against Divine Command Theory means that it is difficult to apply to modern life. The incompatibility with our understanding of the world makes it difficult to justify wide-spread acceptance of it.

Divine Command Theory is an ethical theory which claims that God’s will is the foundation of ethics. Based on Divine Command Theory, things are morally right or wrong, compulsory, allowed or disallowed if God or deities commands it.

In Divine Command Theory, what makes an act moral or immoral is that God commands or prohibited it.

Divine command theory essay example