Argument On Divine Command Theory

Divine Command Theory is based on whether God will approve of the actions or not, this leads people to believe that they know something about what their God will approve of (Holmgren and Geirsson, 2010). There is no recorded founder of Divine Command Theory, but people who follow it usually follow a God or Gods. If a person decides that an act is wrong without taking into account the rules or laws they should be following they will be going against Divine Command Theory. Divine command theory is a Deontological approach. Deontological systems of ethics are duty based, it is based mostly on the principle that decisions relating to a person’s ethics should be made based on rules. If a decision is deontological it is based on whether the action

The divine command theory is an ethical theory in which God defines morality. This is largely ascertained by interpreting religious texts. Divine command theory varies from religion to religion as well as within different sects or schools of thought within the religion. (Austin) This ethical theory aligns to my way of thinking because, like Augustine of Hippo, I have found that I gain the most happiness by following God’s commands.

The meaning of this theory is if A.) is God just saying these commands are right and telling us what should be good? Or B.) is God saying these commands are right because he knows they are right? One would have to choose one of these positions, but some may not

The Divine Command Theory is the idea that morality is ingrained in the nature and command of God, and the Euthyphro Dilemma is one of the most common arguments refuting the Divine Command Theory. The argument was inspired by Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue, which contains the question “Are morally good acts willed by god because they are morally good? Or are morally good acts, morally good because they are willed by god?” (Euthyphro, 10a). This question raises large problems for the Divine Command Theory as each of these two possibilities leads to conclusions that the Divine Command Theorist cannot accept. This essay will explore the arguments against the Divine Command Theory and attempt to explain how morals are able to exist without God. ADD MORE WORDS

Before I can argue against the divine command theory, it is important to first understand the belief. According to Russ Shafer-Landau in his book, The Fundamentals of Ethics, the divine command theory states that an action is right simply because God says so, and an action is wrong simply because God says so (Shafer-Landau). For example, rape is wrong only because God said it was wrong, and being kind to people is good only because God said it was good. Many religious people are proponents of the divine command theory, even though few religions today actually support the view (“Divine”). Although the divine command theory and the ideal observer theory are often thought to be interchangeable, they are different in many important ways. The ideal observer theory states that an action is morally right or wrong if a morally perfect and unbiased person would judge that action to be morally right or wrong (Brandt). One example of an ideal observer theory is the divine judgement theory. The divine judgement theory states that an action is morally right or wrong only if God would judge that action to be morally right or wrong (Robbins). Although both the divine judgement theory and divine

Multiple cultures that hold strong beliefs towards a specific God(s) may view all commands as morally right due to God’s holy goodness but, does being morally right necessarily make the command ethically right. Without a belief in God(s), it is plausible for an individual to be ethically right, therefore, not be punished without the guidance of a God(s). Divine Command Theory demands dependent reasoning to obey God and all his commands. Traditionally, this objective would be seen a justifiable but in regards to legitimacy, an authority can only be achieved to a certain extent before authority is breached. Authority over society can only be attained if there is an independent reason in place otherwise, commands of a superior are impractical

The first option would be the Devine Command Theory. In other words, it is doing what god constitutes as morally correct and what god would decide to be the correct option. Now saying what god says is morally correct is extremely vague because god could “say” many things that would not be something society agrees with but could very well be god’s word. For example, if god willed murder, rape, or theft then these actions would constitute as morally correct under god’s word. There are a lot of examples of people doing unconstitutional things and saying god told me to do this said action. God’s word is so unbelievably vague just like Vaughn goes over in the book “Moral codes (such as the Ten Commandments) and other major religious rules of conduct are usually vague, laying out general principles that may be difficult to specific cases” (Vaughn 9). He goes on explaining how god says to “love your neighbor” and how impossible it is to do that when we are surrounded by people we all do not believe in and could not love. Such as the child molester down the road, I would assume not everyone would choose to love a man such as that. But regardless, if I were to apply the Devine Command Theory to the situation at hand I would first off remove all people

Devine Command theory was established based on Christian values from the biblical perspective that we are created to live according to God’s commands. God created mankind in his image. In which this means we were created in love and of his character and He commands us to do the right thing. We were created for His glory, to please Him. He also created the heaven, the earth and all of which it inhabited. When God completed His creation of man, He declared His work as good. God is good and all He created is good; so He desires for us to obey His word. “So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you.”(Deut. 5:32)

The Divine Command Theory is an ancient philosophy theory made by Socrates that states that God’s will is equivalent to the principle of what determines right and wrong actions or morality. Therefore, this leads to the statement that an action is only seen as right if and when God likes or commands it to be right; which means that morality is parallel to God’s will. This theory brought about much questioning and the dilemma many people recognize as the Euthyphro problem.

Moral Nihilism states that the world contains no moral features and under this theory are two theories which are error theory and expressivism. The reason that both of these theories are under Moral Nihilism is because they both believe the statement that there are no moral features in the world and that no moral judgements are true. The defining point of Error Theory is that it believes that our moral judgements try and always fail to describe the moral features of things. Although expressivism is a little different, they believe that morality doesn’t exist, but they don’t think there is anything is wrong with it. They believe that at the core of our moral believes that there is no true

The name “divine command theory” is a ethical theory to believe on God and God’s existence. According to, divine command theory our good decisions and directions are made by God. Every religion have some kind of directional books which is provided by God or his assistance/phropets such as The Bible in Christian, Quran in Islam, and Bhagat Gita in Hindu. These books gives directions or guides to people about what is morally right or wrong. However, there are some questions comes with divine command theory. If God say doing a particular thing is good, but in reality it may seems wrong to do that things and it happens in many times. For example, in Islam they sacrifice cow in a specific day of the year name Eid Ul Azha. They sacrifice the animal and share the beef among family, neighbors, and to the poor people. These things are commanded by Allah/God in islam. On the other hand, in Hindu religion, eating beef is prohibited. Hindu respect cow as their mother according to their religious guide. However, some people also does not support to kill animal and they fell sorry for them. Moreover, in Hindu religion, husband is God for the wife and they have to follow everything according too their husband. This thing is so wrong in other religious people and also many hindu women do not accept it. However, some of the hindu comes strongly follow this. So, if a person strongly follow religion, religion can

The Divine Command Theory seeks to explain what makes an act ethically right or wrong in accordance to God’s will. This concept asserts that a morally right action was commanded by God. Conversely, an act is reflected as morally wrong if it goes against the will of God. Criticism begs the questions that if God commanded us to commit an act of cruelty and inflict suffering onto other human beings just for the sake of His will, would that act still be considered morally right to perform? Moreover, would it be morally wrong for us to deny the participation in said cruelty? With these questions in mind, Robert Adams offered an amendment to the Divine Command Theory by clarifying some aspects of the original philosophy and pointing out some conditions

Psychological Egoism states that everyone, in fact, acts for his or her own advantage. That everyone deep down is motivated out of their own interest. Personally I disagree but it may be true that humans are naturally selfish. There are many great examples but in fact stating that everyone acts purely in his or her own advantage is weak. There are many examples that break this thesis. This is why I prefer to agree altruism and the golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. The perfect example of altruism and countering psychological egoism is jumping on a live grenade in which a solider debility uses his or her own body to take the blow and ultimately shielding others from the explosion radius. Now most cases of this

One of the oldest philosophical arguments has to do with morality depending on religion. Some believe the Divine Command Theory dictates we need to believe in God to produce our morality. Others, like myself believe that our morality does not depend solely on our religion which reflects the Natural Law Theory.

The Divine Command Theory states that something is morally good because God commands or has commanded it to be done or is morally evil because God forbids it from being done. So, saying that it is good to love our neighbors as yourself is basically the equivalent of saying that God commands us to love our neighbors. It is the same with saying that it is evil to commit murder because God forbids murder. From that, immediately someone can object to Divine Command Theory by saying that good and evil become subjective to the notion of God. If good and evil are solely based on the notion of God, then morality is merely a will to power. Since God is mightier than any of us, all of morality boils down to it is either His way or nothing.