Divine Command Theory
Key Words Strengths Weaknesses Qualities of God
● Deontological ● Emphasises the virtue of obedience ● The arbitrariness problem Omnibenevolent - All-loving
● Absolutist ● Fits in the idea of God’s omnipotence and ● The emptiness problem Omnipotent - All-powerful
● Moral omniscience ● The problem of abhorrent commands Omniscient - All-knowing
● Commandment ● An objective moral system, not based on ● The pluralism objection Omnipresent - All-present
● Deontological human emotions or consequences ● The Euthyphro Dilemma
● Tautology ● Universalisable
Story of Abraham and Isaac Euthyphro Dilemma (Plato) Adams’ Modified Divine Command
“Is the holy approved by the Gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is approved” - Plato Theory
The philosopher Kierkegaard,
struggled with this story of Abraham. Option 1 - (God’s commands make things good), it would mean that if God commanded that ‘rape is not He defines DCT as:
He asked if it was ever reasonable for a wrong, then there would be nothing morally wrong with rape. Problem: God is seen here as a divine “The theory that the wrongness of an
man to be asked to abandon what he dictator because whatever God commands is the law. action is contrary to God’s commands
understands to be intrinsically good to or that the word ‘wrong’ means
fulfil the demands of faith? Option 2 - It suggests that God only commands what is good. Problem: goodness does not originate contrary to God’s commands”.
Kierkegaard concluded that it was from God. Instead, goodness is some sort of independent standard and God is the enforcer of this
since faith is the highest virtue. standard. This view is not supported in the Christian tradition, which states that goodness originates 1. God wouldn’t command
Kierkegaard argued that we should not from God and no other source. If something is good because God loves it, then why should we agree cruelty because he is
confuse either ethics or morality with with God’s judgement? E.g. if God suddenly decided that murder was a good thing would we have to all-loving
doing the will of God, since Abraham accept this?
was being called to a level of “Goodness is an essential
obedience that went beyond human Arbitrariness Problem characteristic of God, it is grounded in
understanding of morality. The arbitrariness problem is the problem that divine command theory appears to base morality on the the character of God”- Gray and
mere whims of God. If divine command theory is true, it seems, then God’s commands can neither be Lawson
informed nor sanctioned by morality. How, though, can such morally arbitrary commands be the
foundation of morality?
Quotes
● “Slaves to Christ” - Ephesians 6:6
● “No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine” - A.J. Ayer
● “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth” - The Apostles Creed
● “The good consists in always doing what God wills at any moment” - Brunner
● “The statement that something is wrong says something about the will of God, but not about his love” - Robert Adams
● “The modified DCT believes it is logically possible that God should command cruelty for its own sake, but that it is unthinkable that God should do so” - Adams
● “God sets the moral rules and these rules apply to all, irrespective of time and place” - Bagginni
● “Any action is ethically wrong if and only if it is contrary to the commands of a loving God” - Adams
● “What ultimately makes an action right of wrong is its being commanded or forgiven by God and nothing else”- Frankena
● “For by grace are ye saved through faith” - Ephesians
● “A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” - Romans
, ● “God, if he exists, is the greatest relativist of them all” - Bagginni
● Morality, for the modified divine command theorist, is ultimately grounded in the perfect nature of God” - Austin
● “Morality points to God” - Kant
● If God were to order the exact opposite of what we generally take him to have ordered or of what we take to be right, then, by the hypothesis in question, this would be what we
ought to do” - Frankena
Ethical Egoism
Key Words Strengths Weaknesses
● NormativeNihilism ● Encourages self-awareness ● Destruction of community ethos
● Existentialism ● More opportunities for personal development ● A form of bigotry
● Altruism ● Everyone would have an opportunity to provide for themselves ● Social injustices can occur
● Anarchism ● No one can manipulate you when practising ethical egoism ● Immoral acts
● Individualist anarchism ● It eliminates the autopilot approach that people take in life ● Encourages selfishness
● Consequences ● Productivity would rise in society when ethical egoism is in control.
● Psychological Egoism
Ethical Egoism is a normative based ethic that attempts to guide moral agents in how they ought to act. It is an agent-focused ethic based on self-interest. Actions that have consequences
that benefit the moral agent can be deemed morally good. The consequences of our actions for other moral agents do not have to be not considered even though they may be detrimental.
Max Stirner (1806-1856)
Max Stirner was an early philosophical proponent of Ethical Egoism. He believed that self-interest is the root cause of every human action even if it appears altruistic. Even love is an
example of selfishness because love makes the moral agent happy. We are all unique and the only way to realise that uniqueness is to concentrate on our own self-interest. "For me, you
are nothing but my food, even as I am fed upon and turned to use by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of usableness, of utility, of use” - Stirner
However, Stirner rejects that an egoist should just aim for material gain; this is only one part of egoism and therefore will result in the denial of all the other parts of egoism. Union of
egoists: Stirner argues that Ethical Egoism is not just an individualistic pursuit but impermanent partnerships could be formed, called unions of egoists. The central feature of a ‘union of
egoists’ is that it does not involve the subordination of the individual. The union purely exists to help each individual in the union to achieve their own goals.
Quotes
● “...Self-centred, inconsiderate, unfeeling, unprincipled, ruthless, self-aggrandizers, pursuers of the good things in life whatever the cost to others, people who only think about
themselves or, if about others, then merely as a means to their own ends…” Kate Baier (1997)
● “Whoever will be free must make themselves free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man’s lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for oneself” - Stirner
● "I am everything to myself and I do everything on my account." - Stirner
● “I decide whether it is right for me, there is no right outside me” - Stirner
● "For me, you are nothing but my food, even as I am fed upon and turned to use by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of usableness, of utility, of use” - Stirner
● "I am my own only when I am master of myself” - Stirner
● “If a man accepts the ethics of altruism, his first concern is not how to live his life, but how to sacrifice it” - Ayn Rand
● “The achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose” - Ayn Rand
● "Because love makes me happy, I love because loving is natural to me because it pleases me” - Stirner
● "To be looked upon as a mere part, part of society, the individual cannot bear -- because he is more; his uniqueness puts from it this limited conception” - Stirner
