Plato 's The Divine Command Theory

In Plato’s Euthyphro, we read about how Socrates is asking Euthyphro of piety and about the situation he is in. Euthyphro must judge a murder, and to the surprise of the audience, the murder was his father. As the scene goes on, Socrates keeps asking what Euthyphro means by piety. In the end, Euthyphro finally answers that piety is what the God’s love or demand. In The Ethical Life, they modify the question asked by Socrates to “Is an action morally right because God commands it, or does God command an action because it is right?”. This question brings up many other questions.

First, I will explain what Divine Command Theory is in more detail, and why someone would believe this theory because of its claims to morality. Robert Mortimer is the creator of this theory and he makes many claims as to why God is the sole reason that morality exists. First, it must be known that people reject the idea

At the core of Socrates’ argument is the need to break down the definition of holiness into smaller coherent characteristics. Socrates uses a series of question that are consistent with Euthyphro’s argument to ensure that he [Euthyphro] offers a consistent flow of definitions of the word holy.

Divine Command Theory theorizes that God it is the author of moral law and the right actions are those willed by God and that God clearly defines right and wrong. This allows the concept that sometimes situations are only right or good because God deems it so. In the simplest terms, God can determine right and wrong since he is omnipotent. Since God is all powerful, he can establish moral norms. Critics of Divine Command Theory believe that if a specific action is only right because God wills it so then evil acts would also be right since God willed them into existence. For example, if God wills murder or torture than these actions would be considered morally right.

In this interaction, Socrates considers Euthyphro to help in explaining all there is to be known about piety and the related impiety. Euthyphro confirms that he is indeed an expert in the matter relating to religious issues and can thus assist Socrates in the charges that face him. In their argument in the efforts to define the true meaning of piety, Socrates and Euthyphro engage in the analysis of issues that threaten to confuse human understanding about the whole issue of holiness and impiety in the society, (Plato & Gallop, 2008). To understand the true meaning of piety, it is of great importance to take a holistic analysis of the beliefs of the people about

The Divine and Command Theory states that an action is right or wrong if God commands it. Divine Command Theorists would say that anything God commands is morally correct, but do not like the fact that cruelty or suffering could be morally right. They believe that any command God gives, He is commanding it because it is morally correct. Meaning that this is the better option for us, but this is where I

The divine command theory states that “An act is morally required just because it is commanded by God and immoral just because God forbids it” (Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics, p.67). In interviewing an Elder of a local Jehovah’s Witness congregation on the ethics involved in religion, he agreed that the divine command theory is correct, and that there are many commands and things that are forbidden in the bible that are considered to be God’s standards for the way we live our lives. But, when asked the modified version of the Euthyphro Question: is an action morally right because God commands it, or does God command an action because it is morally right, (Shafer-Landau, The Ethical Life, p.57) he picked the latter. Despite agreeing with the statement that the divine command theory makes, picking the latter is not uncommon even if the first affirms the theory. The statement that God commands an action because it is morally right, “implies that God did not invent morality, but rather recognized an existing moral law and then commanded us to obey it” (Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics, p.67-68). This does not make the Elder’s message wrong, in fact most theists don’t follow the divine command theory. This is based on the fact that if the theory were true, whatever God says is a command, and therefore morally right, but God could have said that rape, murder, and stealing is morally right if that was the line of thinking.

The divine command theory is put forth for people who believe in God. The theory implies that good actions are morally worthy as a result of their being commanded by God. God, for these individuals, include people from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith. Individuals, because of these propositions, believe that it is their moral obligation to abide to God 's commands; which is, what is morally right is what God desires. This theory states the idea of objectivity between what’s right and wrong. If God makes

Socrates and Euthyphro cross paths one day at the courts of Athens. At the time, Euthyphro was there to prosecute his father for murder. Socrates takes the opportunity to ask Euthyphro what the meaning of piety is. In this paper, I exam the issue at hand, how Socrates uses his question to doubt Euthyphro’s thesis, and give an explanation as to what this question means for someone who maintains that God is the origin or foundation of morality.

Divine command theory is a theory that believes that what is willed by God is morally right. Another portion of this is that in order for a belief to be morally right a knowledge of God is required. This knowledge of God being required can be seen as a weakness due to atheists and agnostics not being able to be morally right. Some of the more notable philosophers that brought about various forms of divine commandment Theory have been Saint Augustine, John Calvin, and William of ockham. A prime example of divine command theory in modern practice is The Ten Commandments among Christians. The Ten Commandments are from the Old Testament in the Bible and are a basic set of rules to follow. This basic set of rules that was set forth by the divine is commonly what this theory is based on.

The Divine Command Theory is the assertion in ethics that an action is morally right if, and only if, it conforms to God’s will. This premise ties together morality and religion in a manner that seems expected, since it provides a solution to arguments about moral relativism and the objectivity of ethics. On the other hand, in Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates questions whether something is right because God commands it, or whether God commands it because it is right. The ethical implications of the Euthyphro problem suggest that the relationship between morality and religion might not be as straightforward as suggested by the Divine Command Theory.

The conflict between the Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro objection come with questions about who sets the rules of morality, and how it can be assumed that these rules are justifiable. On one hand, the Divine Command Theory defends the idea that an act is morally right because God commands it and wrong because He commands against it. This sets God’s will as the foundation of ethics, making morally good actions those that comply with His commandments. This religion-based concept becomes problematic when it runs into the Euthyphro dilemma, founded from Plato’s Euthyphro dating back to 395 BC. The argument centralizes on why it is that God commands rightful actions, bringing in the question of, “Are moral acts commanded by God because they are morally good, or does God command things to be right because He has good reasons for them?” The Euthyphro argument creates its foundation on the idea that either God has reasons for His commands, or that He lacks reasons for them. This divides up the Divine Command Theory in two ways, either making the theory wrong or portraying God as an imperfect being. If God does have reasons for His commands, then these reasons are what would make the actions right or wrong. God’s reasons would stand as the basis of morality, instead of God’s commandment itself. God having reasons would insinuate that goodness existed before any direction from God because otherwise, there wouldn’t be any commandment. Morality would have to stand independent

Divine Command Theory is defined as “ethical principles are simple the commands of God” (Pojman p.356). Basically, this theory states that “morally right” means “commanded by God” and “morally wrong” means “forbidden by God” (Rachels p.53). The positive feature of the Divine Command Theory is that it solves the old problem about the objectivity of ethics by providing an answer as to why anyone should bother with morality (Rachels p.53). According to this theory, if nature of what is right and what is wrong depends on God’s command, then we have to wait until judgment day to deal with the consequences of our actions due to them begin immortal (Rachels p.53). But there is

The Euthyphro Dilemma proposes the question of whether something is good because God desires it, or God desires those things because they are good. This in turn challenges the Theism which believes that God is both morally virtuous and antecedent to good. In this essay, I will first examine the dilemma and argue that it is ultimately weak; that the two options presented are not exhaustive like the dilemma assumes. Thus, Theists do not have to make a decision between these choices. This leads to the discussion of other possible models which Theists could consider, concentrating on the one endorsed by Thomas Aquinas, namely that the belief that goodness is determined by God’s command, yet the nature of God is essentially good, thus God can never will anything other than what is good.

Throughout the history of the world, people have been concerned with what it is to live a moral life. Many answers have been put forth for this question, but the best by far is found in the Christian Bible. This is because the Bible is a revelation from the Creator. While people can grope in the dark to find answers to moral questions by looking at natural law, they are always frustrated because the real nature of the world we live in is fallen and corrupt. We have an adversary who tries to deceive us and minds that are easily deceived. Even at our most rational, we make mistakes in logical inference, and need to be corrected. In this paper, we will look at biblical ethics in terms of meta-ethics, deontology, virtue theory, and