Summary - H573/01 Philosophy of Religion - Moral Argument
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Course
H573/01 Philosophy of Religion
Institution
OCR
Notes covering the H573/01 Philosophy of Religion topic of the moral Argument, with explanation and notes covering all the necessary content for the exams.
Thomas Aquinas:
o Aquinas’s fourth way can be taken as an argument for the existence of God that
takes morality as the starting point.
o Everything in the world that exists is more or less good.
o There are varying degrees of excellence.
o There cannot be an infinite scale of good.
o Therefore, there must be something that is perfection, and this is what everyone
understands to be God.
o Aquinas was not arguing for the existence of God from the existence of reality.
He was arguing that we experience things that are good, true, and noble.
These things must take their goodness, truth, and nobility from something
that is more good, true, and noble.
o There cannot be an infinite regression of goodness.
There must be something that is ultimate good. This is what we know as
God.
o The idea derives from ideas about Causation – something must be the cause of the
noble things that we experience.
The goal (or telos) that humanity strives to is this ultimate good.
Common themes:
All moral arguments work on the principle that most people have some experience of
morality. Or do they?
o Most people feel that they have certain obligations about how they should / should
not behave.
o And most people also have a similar understanding of what is right and wrong,
despite cultural differences.
Three possible solutions:
Morality stems from God, either through our conscience or an objective set of rules that He
has built into us (H.P Owen and Cardinal Newman).
o Morality as derived from God – H.P Owen’s argued that the existence of moral
objective laws suggests that there is a divine lawgiver who “wrote” those laws.
“A command suggests a commander” – assumes that there is a command in
the first place. “Either moral claims are self-explanatory modes of
impersonal existence, or we explain then in terms of a personal God.”
Owen’s point was that since commands and laws do not write themselves,
they must be either brute facts, requiring no explanation or have put there
by God – Dom Trethowen supports this idea.
Morality stems from objective approval of the word, which reveals that there are certain
goals and aims to be aimed for and upheld. This leads us to endorse some actions as good
and others as bad (Dom Trethowan and Kant).
Morality stems from demands placed upon the humans by living in societies. Rules meet the
needs of a particular situation and facilitate human developments in that context. This
explains morality without God and can change as necessary.
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