NOTE: In this episode I call it episode 40. It’s not. It’s episode 39.
The podcast is back. Actually, episode 39 was going to be on another topic, but then someone suggested this one to me, so as I already had a document called “episode 039” I called this “document 040.” And then when I started recording it I thought – “Hey, this is the 40th episode. Cool!” and I made a big deal of it in the recording. And then after I uploaded it I realised that since I skipped over the episode 39 that I’m writing, this isn’t really 40 at all, it’s episode 39! So that was an epic fail.
So no sooner do I release another podcast episode, I am making excuses for it! This episode is based on a lecture on divine command ethics that I gave a few years ago at the University of Otago. Enjoy!
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Ron
I see you’ve finally gotten around to the elephant in the room. đ
Samson
I see youâve finally gotten around to the elephant in the room. đ
Yes, best podcast yet (and some have been very good!). I can’t believe you haven’t been hired yet, Glenn. Prayers for your wife.
Kyle
You say, for example
1) That it hurts someone is the reason why God commands us not to torture.
2) That God commanded us not to torture is the reason we have a moral duty not to.
3) Therefore, that it hurts someone is the reason why we have a moral duty not to torture.
You point out that “is the reason” is not transitive and “reason” in (1) is epistemic while “reason” in (2) is causal. So here’s what I’m wondering. Let’s say I take this view of DCT and someone asks me “Why do you think torture is wrong?” When I think about it, I’m going to say “Because it hurts someone.” I am not going to say “Because God commands it.” It may well be that God does command it, and I may believe it, but I admit that I’m going to appeal to the fact that it hurts someone, not God’s command. It seems like your view is saying that MY reason for thinking torture is wrong should not be because it hurts someone (though it may be God’s), but because God tells me not to do it. This seems counterintuitive to me. How would you respond? Did I explain myself well enough or make a mistake on your view somewhere?
Glenn
Kyle, I find that people are often not clear when they ask “why” questions. If someone asks âWhy do you think torture is wrong?â and they mean “what is it that makes you think that torture is wrong?” Then it’s perfectly legitimate to say that you think torture is wrong because it hurts people AND ALSO because you think that God forbids us to hurt people (as a general rule!). If you didn’t think the latter, the former wouldn’t do the job. In other words, it’s actually fine to say “because it hurts people” only because of the antecedent belief that God forbids us from hurting each other.
Of course, if they mean “what do you think makes torture wrong,” then “God forbids it” will do
Scott Terry
Hey Dr. Peoples,
I’m a farm boy from North Carolina who noses around in matters above his ability from time to time – as a result, I’ve raised the ire of a particularly nasty atheist who argues from a “moral anti-realist” position, and I’m scheduled to formally debate him on ethics.
Apparently, he doesn’t think moral propositions either exist, or have truth values. (Isn’t it Mackie who says moral propositions exist and have truth values, but they’re all false?)
I have half a notion to try defending the “family” of moral-realist positions over and against moral anti-realism, by trying to show that moral-realism is necessary for speech acts, judgments, and logical operations (all of which we’d want to utilize during the debate).
But, honestly, I’m winging it and the arguments I’m coming up with don’t seem very strong.
Do you know any good arguments against moral anti-realism? Any advice for how to counter the arguments my atheist opponent will likely present on these matters? Any help would be greatly appreciated. (I know you don’t exist to help out anonymous people on the internet, so if it helps – I’ve been an on-again, off-again listener / fan ever since you did that podcast on “Presuppositionalism” – I’m a Van Tillian, but hopefully not one of the overly-zealous types with a herd mentality).
James Hill
The problem with the DCT is that it bases our moral obligations purely on what someoneâs preferences are (that theyâre Godâs preferences, and not someone elseâs, makes no difference). Our moral obligationsâif we have any at allâarenât supposed to be something thatâs based purely on preferences. Preferences are, by their very nature, arbitrary, and moral obligations arenât supposed to be something based purely on whatâs arbitrary (they’re supposed to be based on reasons that are preference-independent: the preferences are supposed to follow the reasons, at least that’s what we strive for: for them to be lining up). We have as much moral reason to do what God prefers us to do, as we do to do what Fred prefers us to do (whoever Fred isâwhether heâs got some godlike properties, some humanlike properties, or bothâdoesnât matter): and thatâs zilch! The fact that Godâs stronger than me doesnât give me a moral reason to do what he prefers (it might give me a practical reasonâif he threatens to beat me up for not doing what he says, then YESâthat would give me a practical reason to obey: but thatâs just bullying!). The fact that Godâs smarter than me also doesnât give me a moral reason to do what he prefers, either. But, gosh, what if Godâs morally perfect, though (heâs âall goodâ)? WellâŚwhat does âmorally perfectâ mean here? It doesnât mean much of anything at all, if we take the DCT to be true. Because to be moral is to just do what God prefers. Therefore: God is morally perfect just in case he always does what he prefers. So, âGod is morally perfectâ just means âGod always does what he prefersâ. So, howâs that gonna ground my moral obligations? How does that give me a moral reason to do whatever God prefers? The fact that God always does what he prefer doesnât give me a moral reason to do whatever he prefersâjust like the fact that Fred always does what he prefer doesnât give me a moral reason to do whatever he prefers.
Glenn
“Preferences are, by their very nature, arbitrary”
James, can you think of a reason for believing that? Arbitrary means willed for no reason. How are preferences willed at all? I could understand the claim that God’s commands are arbitrary (i.e. God wills that we do X, but he has no reason), but this claim could simply be denied by a Divine Command theorist. God has reasons. he commands based on what he loves. And if you then say that what God loves / God’s preferences are arbitrary, it doesn’t make sense, at least using the word “arbitrary” in a normal sense.
Do you just mean that God’s preferences (i.e. God’s nature) is accidental? it looks like that’s probably what you want to say. But if that’s so, then a classical theist can simply deny your claim and maintain that God’s nature is necessary. So a classical theist who holds to Divine Command theory has no motivation to accept this critique.
“Our moral obligationsâif we have any at allâarenât supposed to be something thatâs based purely on preferences.”
OK, but a Divine Command theory doesn’t claim that our moral obligations are based purely on preferences. Can you give an example of a proponent of a divine command theorist saying that?
James Hill
Well, weâre gonna have to look at paradigm cases of preferences that are arbitraryâthat we can all pretty much agree that they are arbitrary. My preference for vanilla ice cream right now is an example. I couldâve preferred some other flavor right now, but I just happen to prefer vanilla. Thatâs just where my whims are taking me. But what if I had always preferred vanillaâif any time I had a taste for ice cream, I preferred vanilla? I was just built that way (nature and nurture happened to come together to build me that way). Well, nature and nurture couldâve come together differently to build me differently, so I didnât always prefer vanilla. So, itâs still arbitrary. That a feature is arbitrary doesnât require that the feature be uncausedâall features are caused, given the truth of the principle of sufficient reason; so, even my occasional preference for vanilla is caused. What makes it arbitrary is that its causal history is centered uniquely on me, and itâs normally not the result of my planning, my intentions. Itâs just something that happens to me, and I go with it.
Now, what about God, and Godâs preferences? We canât even begin to make intelligent sense of that. Is there are a causal history to Godâs preferences? Is God part of the network of cause and effect? At least with my preferences (and other human beingsâ preferences), I can come up with some decent hypotheses about how they came about, what causally explains them. We all go the same basic motivational structure, which we share with all animals (pursue pleasure, for example, food and sex; avoid pain; and conserve energy: use the least amount to get the most). Now, how about Godâan immaterial being? Whatâs his basic motivational structure? Beats me! With Godâs preferences, weâre completely in the dark about themâweâre abysmally ignorant about what could be causally explaining them. Now, the specter of fickleness, of mercurialness, with respect to Godâs preferences comes into sharp relief. What gives a lot of our preferences constancy, regularity, is how they are causally related to the world. Odds are: Iâm not going to wake up tomorrow with a desire to have sex with women, or to not have a desire to drink coffee. How about God? This just further adds to the arbitrariness objectionâGodâs preferences would be arbitrary in a very special way.
Now: God could have reasons for his preferences (âreasonsâ in the sense of something other than a cause; a reason could be a cause, it could function as a cause for doing something, but itâs not the same thing as a cause). And those reasons could keep Godâs preferences in checkâthey can make them be unchanging. Okay, thatâs all fine and good. But then weâre going to be talking about his reasonsâhis reasons for preferring something. Thatâs whatâs going to matter. His preferences are going to follow his reasons. And whatâs going to matter to whatâs moral is what his reasons are. And the DCT would be…
Glenn
“I couldâve preferred some other flavor right now, but I just happen to prefer vanilla”
I said that the ordinary meaning of arbitrary is willed for no reason. You haven’t objected to this (and I would hope not, because this is the standard meaning), so this example surely fails. You can’t just will, right now, to like another flavour of ice-cream can you? I would think not. Indeed, we don’t will our preferences at all. We just find ourselves with them. So – far from being a “paradigm case” where preferences are arbitrary, this seems to be an example that reinforces my observation. The notion of “arbitrary” doesn’t really apply to preferences.
This is why I said that you probably want to say something like “accidental.” And I really think you do mean accidental: God’s preferences weren’t deliberately picked out, they just happened to be. I think that’s what you mean to get at here, right?
I did anticipate this, explaining that you would need to give a classical theist some reason to abandon his conception of God’s nature as necessary. But the remainder of your comment doesn’t seem to interact with this, so perhaps I should wait. To indicate where I’m going with this, however: A divine command theorist can say that God’s commands are not arbitrary because they are grounded in what God loves / wants. And you might dismiss that nature as accidental, but you would have to argue for this, because that is not what a classical theist believes about God’s nature.
So you’ll have to move from the arbitrariness objection and start giving reasons for believing that God’s nature is accidental and not necessary.
Kenneth
“Okay, thatâs all fine and good. But then weâre going to be talking about his reasonsâhis reasons for preferring something. Thatâs whatâs going to matter. His preferences are going to follow his reasons. And whatâs going to matter to whatâs moral is what his reasons are.”
This is a fairly common mistake in criticising divine command ethics, I think. Just the other day I was reading an old thread where Glenn responded to this. This line of thought assumes that If God has reasons for commanding as he does, then those reasons are what makes something wrong or right – not God’s commands.
This isn’t correct, though (or at least it’s certainly not obvious). Imagine that we are not talking about morality, but law. Use that analogy: Actions become illegal because Parliament passes legislation against them. Parliament might have reasons for doing so, but those reasons do not make something illegal. Legislation is what makes something illegal.
In other words, If A brings B about, and A has a reason, R, for bringing B about, it doesn’t follow that really R brings B about.
Glenn commented on this a bit more fully here:
https://www.rightreason.org/2007/divine-commands-and-reasons/
and here:
https://www.rightreason.org/2011/brief-thoughts-about-godâs-freedom-to-command/
James Hill
Sorry, I didn’t read your full response. I only read your response that was emailed to me, which I assumed was your full response–but for some reason it’s not, it’s cut short. Will read your full response on this webpage, and respond.
James Hill
Well, what we agree on is: we donât will our preferences. You donât want to call preferences âarbitraryâ because we donât will them, and for you âarbitraryâ means âwilled for no reasonâ. Fine. I can go with your usage. I donât lose anything there. (How about, âMy race is an arbitrary feature that I haveâ? Just a sidenote that the standard usage might also accommodate that which is not willed). Preferences still donât ground moral obligations, even though theyâre not willed. How does it make a difference if the preferences donât ever change, or canât ever change? What if my preferences never changed? Or could never change? They still wouldnât ground any of your moral obligations. Why does adding power to me (lots and lots of power) and adding lots of smarts to me (lots and lots of smarts) make a difference there? It doesnât.
Now: Are Godâs preferences unchanging and necessary? This doesnât make a difference to the issueâbut itâs an interesting question to entertain. Are they unchanging and necessary? Well, gosh, I donât know anyone whose preferences have never undergone a change: there were times when one never had a preference, then adopted it, or lost it.
So, the general principle is:
Whoeverâs capable of having a preference is subject to changes in the preferences they have.
Godâs someone capable of having preference. (BY HYPOTHESIS)
Therefore, heâs probably subject to changes in the preferences he has.
This is a good inductive preference. Now: the DC theorist has got to make an argument as to why the general principle doesnât applyâeven though itâs not gonna help him with the argument I made against the DCT.
As for whether the DC theorist claims that moral obligations are based “purely” on preferences. The “purely” there was just for emphatic purposes. Moral obligations are based on preferences, or not. And if they’re not, then–assuming we got them–they’re gonna be based on reasons (preference-independent reasons for action). Of course, we’re still gonna have preferences, right? We don’t cease having preferences, just because we have reasons for action. What we want to do is: line up our preferences with our reasons for action. And that’s a lifelong struggle.
Now: suppose God prefers that we act kindly. And suppose you want to add: God prefers that because acting kindly promotes cooperation. That’s his reason for preferring it, and it’s (by hypothesis) a good reason. If acting kindly didn’t do that (but it promoted conflict) then he wouldn’t have that preference. Well, it looks to me that: the reason I have for acting kindly is that it promotes cooperation–not that God prefers it. God’s preferences follow what the good reasons are for action–on the assumption that he’s a morally enlightened guy. We’ve abandoned the DC theory here.
Glenn
“This doesnât make a difference to the issue”
On the contrary. If the issue is that God’s nature is just accidental in the sense that it could have been anything, so there’s nothing significant about what desires, then the issue becomes whether or not this claim is true. So by using the type of argument that you’ve used, you have placed this issue at the centre. If God’s nature is accidental and the classical theists are wrong, then you should show that they are wrong and your argument can be considered further. But unless you offer argument for this claim, then this is where your argument comes to a halt and should be rejected.
“Whoeverâs capable of having a preference is subject to changes in the preferences they have.”
I’m afraid you’ll have to do a lot better than that. Since God is presumably a “whoever” on your analysis, this just begs the question. So you’re going to have to offer an argument, using premises that that classical theist already accepts, that produce the conclusion that God’s nature is accidental, rather than necessary.
You say you’ve got an objection to a DCT (divine command theory). Fine, but that means your objection must hold against those who actually hold to a DCT. You’ve got to show them that their view is susceptible tot he objection. They really don’t have to prove that that their view in order to show that your objection applies.
What I’m seeing here suggests the following: Your objection does not apply to a view wherein God’s nature is necessary rather than accidental. Agreed? (It might fail for other reasons, but it would at least fail for this reason.)
James Hill
Kenneth:
Godâs preferences for what we do are going to follow good reasons for action, or not. By âfollowâ here, I mean theyâre going to be based on them, such that if X is a good reason for us to do Y, Godâs gonna prefer that we do Y; otherwise (i.e. if there were a better reason not to do Y) God wouldnât prefer that we do Y.
Laws are an institutional realityâlike all institutional realities (marriage, money, government, property), theyâre the result of our collective actions and collective agreements (our âcollective intentionalityâ). Moral obligations arenât supposed to be an institutional reality. (If moral relativism is true, then they really are an institutional reality).
The reason why moral obligations are based on reasons for action is because thereâs nothing more to having a moral obligation than having a particular kind of reason for actionâa âmoral reasonâ for action, and that reason is desire-independent (and since itâs desire-independent, itâs also preference-independent). To be under a moral obligation is to have a moral reason for doing something. Theyâre the same thing! Different words, same meaning.
Kenneth
James, the structural differences between a modern democracy and God really isn’t the point of the analogy.
The point is just this: You appeared to be claiming that if God has reasons for commanding as he does, then really it’s those reasons doing the moral work. Those reasons are the reasons that actions are right or wrong – not God’s commands.
The Parliament analogy simply shows that this claim is untrue. Regardless of Parliaments actual reasons. Something becomes law because of Parliamentary action, and parliament has reasons – and yet those reasons are not what makes legislation. And so the general principle to which you appeal is false.
In the other thread I linked to this is explained more fully, but on the face of it it seems quite clear that you’re appealing to a principle about how reasons transfer that is simply untrue.
James Hill
Well, I already accepted your assumption that âGodâs nature is necessaryââjust for the sake of argument. So, Godâs preferences are the same in all possible worlds, and they never change. So, what? My preferences could be the same in all possible worlds, and never change, and they still wouldnât ground any of your moral obligations. Well, whatâs the difference between me and God? Well, Godâs got more powers and more smarts. Well, thatâs not relevant. To see that: just keep adding powers and smarts to me, until Iâm godlike, and it still would be the case that my preferences wouldnât ground your moral obligations. Same with God. This is a very simple argument.
Glenn
“My preferences could be the same in all possible worlds, and never change, and they still wouldnât ground any of your moral obligations”
Firstly, ensure that we’re talking about natures. Remember: The classical theist will maintain that any necessity of God’s preferences is a consequence of God’s nature being necessary. You can’t just say that your own nature might be the same. Really? You believe that about yourself? That all your attributes are necessary? You’re a necessary being?
Secondly, you seem to be begging the question without realising it. You’re now saying that if you were a necessary being, your preferences wouldn’t ground morality. Well actually, if you were a necessary being (i.e. the classical conception of God), you’d be God and your commands would indeed ground moral duty. But you’re not God.
Thirdly, and as I already said in my first reply, “a Divine Command theory doesnât claim that our moral obligations are based purely on preferences.” Indeed, this is the point Kenneth is making, and which I have made elsewhere. The type of DCT that you’re talking about here maintains that God’s commands ground our moral obligations. Not God’s preferences.
It’s true that your particular argument is simple, but it’s not even a serious candidate for an objection. Moreover, the way you talk about God is simply not in keeping with classical theism at all. You don’t just add more and more powers to a human being and eventually end up with God. God is not just a really powerful version of you.
James Hill
Kenneth:
Well, if Godâs got perfect moral knowledge, then all his preferences are going to be based on moral reasons for action. So, if Godâs got perfect moral knowledge, and there is a moral reason for us to act kindly, and that reason is that it promotes cooperation, then Godâs going to be preferring that we act kindly, and heâs going to have a reason for preferring it, and that reason is going to be that acting kindly promotes cooperation. Theists generally assume that Godâs got perfect moral knowledgeâthat this is supposed to follow from the assumption that heâs all knowing.
I agree that laws are institutional realitiesâtheyâre the result of our collective intentionality. I honestly still donât understand the argument that youâre making. Let me try to state my position again, using the specific example of the moral obligation to act kindly.
Godâs preference that I act kindly is the ground of my moral obligation to act kindly, or itâs not, and itâs a moral reason for action (letâs assume that moral reason for action is that acting kindly promotes cooperation).
Itâs not Godâs preference.
So, itâs a moral reason for action.
Now, letâs go further with this.
Suppose God prefers that I act kindly. But suppose there is no moral reason for acting kindly. In other words: acting kindly does not promote cooperationâin fact, it promotes conflict.
Therefore: I donât have a moral obligation to act kindly.
Now, letâs imagine another case.
Suppose God prefers that I act kindly. But this time there is a moral reason for acting kindly: acting kindly promotes cooperation.
Therefore: I have a moral obligation to act kindly.
Now: in this case, God could prefer that I act kindly BECAUSE there is a moral reason for acting kindly. In other words: he could prefer it for that reasonâthat could be his reason for preferring it. And if God has perfect moral knowledge (he knows what all the moral reasons for action are under all circumstances) then he would know that there is a moral reason for acting kindly. Now, we need a few more assumptions to get to the view that Godâs preferences line up perfectly with his perfect moral knowledge. (The philosopher Richard Swinburne thinks he can get there).
Glenn
I think Kenneth’s point is fairly obvious.
On another note, James, given a divine command theory of morality, what are you referring to when you talk about God’s moral knowledge? Surely not God’s knowledge of morality prior to his commands, for that would be begging the question against a divine command theory.
James Hill
Listen: if you can imagine a god (with all the mind-boggling features God is supposed to have, according to classical theism), you can imagine me having preferences that never change, and that are the same in all possible worlds. And you can imagine me having godlike smarts and powers (powers to make things happen). Iâd be like the Q from Star Trek: TNG. This is all logically possible, and easily imaginable (the imagined character of Q is proof of that!). If you say you canât imagine this, then youâre just not trying hard enough. My argument doesnât depend on me having ALL of Godâs features (so Iâm one and the same person as God), and it doesnât depend on me having features that are ALL necessary. So, this is just a misunderstanding of the argument. If my preferences never changed, and were the same in all possible worlds, they wouldnât ground your moral obligations. Adding smarts and powers wouldnât make a differenceâthereâs no magical point where youâd say: âWell, Jimmy, NOW you got enough smarts and powers, so that now we got a moral obligation to do whatever it is that you prefer!â Itâs completely ridiculous to think otherwise. (Iâm still not the same person as God here, because I still lack some feature that God has. For example, we can suppose that God created everything, and I didnât. ButâŚso what? Thatâs not gonna help you with the DC theory. Just imagine that I created everythingâwould that make a difference? Would that be the tip the scales, so that now my preferences are the ground for you moral obligations? Nope. And if youâre worried that now it looks like Iâm the same person as God, then you need to keep in mind that there are still some features that God has that I lackâfor example, we can suppose he is deeply concerned about people, but Iâm not. Or we can imagine that I created everything BUT one atomâand that would be enough of a difference-maker, to individuate me from God.)
As for you wanting to say that the DCT maintains that Godâs commands ground our moral obligations, not Godâs preferences. Now, weâre gonna have to go back to the philosophy of language. Godâs commands express his preferencesâbecause commands, as a type of speech act, express preferences of the speakers making them. Thatâs how we individuate them from other speech acts (for example: apologies, promises, assertions, and so on). Youâre not able to pick out a speech act as a command without attending to the type of psychological state that is supposed to be expressed by the performer of the speech act. So, if Godâs commands ground our moral obligations, then itâs his preferences expressed by those commands that would ground our moral obligations. God is just using his commands to express his preferencesâjust like the rest of us, when we make commands. We use them to express our preferences.
I agree that âGod is not just a really powerful versionâ of me. That just misses the whole point of the argument I made.
JMH
Wow ! We have a commenter here who disagrees with DCT and maintains civility ?! Surely, this is a dream.
Nathaniel Blaney
If I may step in here, James, you say:
“if Godâs got perfect moral knowledge, and there is a moral reason for us to act kindly, and that reason is that it promotes cooperation, then Godâs going to be preferring that we act kindly, and heâs going to have a reason for preferring it, and that reason is going to be that acting kindly promotes cooperation”
Here’s one way of seeing the problem with your objection: In the antecedent of the above conditional, you’ve smuggled in theses that the DCTist won’t accept.
Earlier you say, “To be under a moral obligation is to have a moral reason for doing something. Theyâre the same thing!” Very well, let’s grant that. In that case, then, if we have a moral reason to act kindly, then that reason will not be that it promotes cooperation. It will instead be that God has commanded that we act kindly, since, as you have said, moral reasons are the same as moral obligations, and our obligations are, on DCT, constituted by God’s commands to us.
Also, keep in mind that the DCTist will find your phrase “perfect moral knowledge” quite strange. What can this mean? The DCTist will think (or ought to think) that God has no moral duties, since morality is about God’s commands and he presumably doesn’t issue commands to himself. God’s “moral knowledge,” then, God’s knowledge about the contents of morality, will have to be knowledge about commands he has issued to his creatures. So it isn’t clear what work God’s having perfect moral knowledge is supposed to be doing in this conditional.
Are you supposing that if God has perfect moral knowledge, then he will know of a set of moral reasons that he has? Recall that, according to your assumption, one’s moral reasons are the same things as one’s moral duties. You can see why the DCTist will find that idea problematic, for she believes there is no such set to be known.
James Hill
Glenn:
Thanks for the question. I was trying to help Kenneth better understand my view. Not all Christian philosophers accept the DC theoryâin fact, many of them (contemporary ones) donât. Swinburne is of this view–and so is, I think, Plantinga (Swinburne thinks moral truths are necessary truths–they’re true in all possible worlds. Because of that, God’s preferences couldn’t have made a difference to what propositions were morally true. That’s even if God’s preferences were always the same, and the same in all possible worlds). They still think God issues commandsâbut if he commands that we do X, and doing X is a moral obligation we have, then the basis for his command (the reason for him commanding it) is a moral reason for action. Not all Godâs commands are such that anytime he commands that we do X, doing X is a moral obligation we have. That doesnât mean we shouldnât do them: it just means we donât have a moral obligation to them. We could have some other obligation to do them. For example: Swinburne says we have an obligation to please our benefactors (within limits; what limits?; so long as pleasing them doesnât violate a moral obligation that we have). So, sometimes when God commands us to do X (for example, it might be saying grace before eating a meal), and there is no moral reason to do X, we could still have an obligation to do X, as long as there is no moral reason not to do Xâbecause we have an obligation to please God, because Godâs our benefactor. Swinburne makes a very interesting argument for why God is morally perfect (whenever thereâs a moral reason for God to do something, he does it; and he never does anything if thereâs a moral reason not to do it), and why heâs got perfect moral knowledge. I donât think it works, but itâs very interesting.
J.M.H: Thanks for the compliment!
Glenn
James, youâre effectively telling me that I should change my concept of God â That I should just accept that if we just took James Hill and added more and more power and âsmarts,â youâd eventually be the same as God.
The way that Iâve approached your argument, James, is to get off the train at the first stop. As soon as the argument gets into trouble that means the argument cannot be allowed to proceed, I stop, point it out, and donât consider the argument further until this is resolved. First you said that preferences are arbitrary and so Godâs preferences must also be arbitrary. I pointed out that this gets categories a bit muddled. Decisions are arbitrary or not. Preferences arenât (because to be arbitrary is to be willed for no reason). According to a Christian who holds a classical conception of God and a divine command theory of morality, Godâs commands are not arbitrary because they are grounded in what God loves / wants. So really your argument was that what God wants / loves is just accidental. It could change, just as our preferences can change.
But this, I have pointed out, is simply to reject the classical conception of God altogether. This is not what the classical conception of God is like. God is a necessary being. His nature is necessary, not accidental. As such his preferences are not just accidental.
More recently youâve effectively been saying â so what? James Hill could have his preferences necessarily too! And this wouldnât make James Hillâs preferences the basis of morality.
Iâve made two responses to this. The first â and Iâve said this a couple of times â is that this misconstrues a divine command theory of morality. A divine command theory is not that Godâs preferences are the basis of morality. Rather, Godâs commands are the basis of morality. I asked for an example of a divine command theorist who says that Godâs preferences alone are the basis of morality. You havenât offered one, and Iâm inferring from this that you donât know of any.
The second response I offered was to say that this simply misconstrues a classical conception of God. God is not a being like you or I, but much, much, much, much, much (etc) smarter or more powerful. Godâs being and attributes, on classical theism. In other words, if you actually had the relevant attributes, then you would be God – the only God. And it is evidently begging the question just to assert that if you were God, then your commands wouldnât serve as the basis of morality. That is the very thing in question.
There are other things to consider in a critique of divine command ethics, of course, but I am getting off the train at the first stop. Your argument must work against the beliefs that divine command theorists actually hold, and by insisting that Christians with a classical conception of God modify their view of God so that your critique stands a better chance is an indicator that the argument has failed. If you have a new argument to use, Iâd be interested in hearing it, but Iâm not going to continue responding to this one.
I also think youâve significantly misunderstood or underestimated the argument Kenneth raises, which Iâve raised elsewhere. That argument a separate reason why I think that youâre not in a good position with this critique.
I don’t say any of this to offend, but I’ve learned that it’s important to be able to discern when you really think there’s nothing promising about a line of argument and not to invest further time in it. And that’s what I’ve decided. A new argument would be required to re-ignite my interest.
PS: On your more recent comment: “That doesnât mean we shouldnât do them: it just means we donât have a moral obligation to them.” – You’d be hard pressed to find a Christian philosopher who maintains that this is true, whether a divine command theorist or not. Also, I asked my question because it’s important to realise that from the perspective that you’re criticising (namely a divine command theory of morality), there is no moral knowledge prior to a divine command. To speak as though there is, therefore, is just to assume that a divine command theory is false.
Nathaniel Blaney
Glenn,
In Edward Wierenga’s article,”A Defensible Divine Command Theory,” he says
“I think that the theory is best formulated in terms of God’s will and wants or His
approval and disapproval. Thus, what makes an act obligatory is that
God wants it to be performed.”
In your view, is God’s approval or disapproval of an act distinct from his “preferences,” as the term has been used here?
Forgive me if my question is confused, I’m new to the literature.
Glenn
Yes that’s right Nathaniel. Wierenga, as I understand him, by “approval” and “disapproval” is talking about more than preference. This is because, for example, God might command different things, all of which would result in God’s preference being met. Clearly we cannot be required to do all of them if some of those acts exclude others. By approve or disapprove Wierenga means something more like will that we do it. Sometimes a divine command theory makes reference to the divine will, other times to the divine speech act.
To see that Wierenga means more than just preference, here’s the section of that article where Wierenga tightly describes his theory in two propositions:
“(P1 ) For all acts a, a is obligatory iff God commands a; and if a is obligatory then by commanding a God makes it the case that a is obligatory.
(P2) For all acts a, a is wrong iff God forbids a; and if a is wrong then by forbidding a God makes it the case that a is wrong.”
and:
“I should also note that although I speak of God’s commands and prohibitions and I call the theory a divine command theory, this is really a convenient shorthand and a courtesy to tradition. I think that the theory is best formulated in terms of God’s will and wants or His approval and disapproval. Thus, what makes an act obligatory is that God wants it to be performed.”
So for example, God can prefer that we express love for each other, but on an occasion he might express his will that I do one thing rather than another, even though there are a lot of ways to express love.
Wierenga was not writing, of course, to make it clear what he does and doesn’t mean by “want,” so he makes little effort
to avoid being misunderstood in this way. I would have preferred him to be clearer, but certainly longer works on divine command ethics are clearer here (his article is relatively short).
James Hill
First on the history of the give and take of arguments. Essentially, the way itâs been developing has been like this: Iâve presented an argument, youâve made what I think is an objection that fails to work, and then what Iâve ended up doing is, âacceptingâ your objection, and showing that I can still get my conclusion, despite that. First, you redefined âarbitraryâ, so it comes out false that âpreferences are arbitraryâ, because, now, âarbitraryâ means âwilled for no reasonâ, and preferences arenât willed. And this is despite the counterexample, âMy race is an arbitrary feature that I haveâ (I guess all the scholarship on John Rawls, where this is the customary usage, is mistaken). Well, fine, then, objection accepted. Youâre not getting anything substantiveâany substantive conclusionsâby merely redefining a word. Because Godâs preferences still canât ground moral obligations because theyâre subject to change (they might ACTUALLY change, or they COULDâVE been different). Youâre next objection is to say: No, Godâs preferences arenât subject to change (in either of the aforementioned senses), because Godâs a necessary being; thatâs the classical conception of God. WellâŚGod could be a necessary being, and have preferences that are subject to change. To be a necessary being is just to exist in all possible worlds. God could exist in all possible worlds and have preferences that change in some of those worlds. So, to get your point across, you need to come up with a different claim. How about: Godâs preferences are necessaryâtheyâre all the same in all possible worlds. Well, that doesnât rule out that his preferences are subject to change. His preferences could be necessarily subject to change: they change in all worlds in exactly the same ways. Your last shot is to say: Well, itâs a necessary feature of God that none of his preferences change. OkayâŚ.But then we have the inductive argument I made.
Every person weâve come across has had preferences that are subject to change.
Therefore: itâs a general rule that persons have preferences that are subject to change. (The Inductive Generalization)
God, by hypothesis, is a person (someone capable of acting rationally and morally)
Therefore: God is going to have preferences that are subject to change.
You claim that the inductive generalization is âquestion beggingâ. Well, what does that mean here? The inductive generalization is based on what our best observations tell us. So, yes, the belief (the hypothesisâitâs a hypothesis because itâs supposed to explain why we got moral obligations, at all, and why we got the particular moral obligations that we do in fact have)âthe hypothesis that Godâs got preferences that never change flies in the face of what our best observations tell us. The problem isnât with our observations! The problem is with the hypothesis! Now, unless you got some better argument for the hypothesis, we ought to chuck the hypothesis……
Glenn
“You claim that the inductive generalization is âquestion beggingâ. Well, what does that mean here? The inductive generalization is based on what our best observations tell us.”
James, that’s painfully bad. Effectively now, your argument is the claim: Your God doesn’t exist, because nothing else like your God exists. If that’s the argument, we don’t even get to first base in discussing DCT.
James Hill
We rely on inductive reasoning to reasonably form our beliefs all the time. If you claim that a particular raven (âyour ravenâ, letâs say) is orange, then weâre entitled to reasonably reject your claim, on the ground of our shared inductive generalization that all the ravens weâve come across have been black. You need to provide us with some evidence, some argument for why your raven is in fact orange. You canât just effectively say: Well, inductive reasoning is all fine and good, unless it challenges the reasonableness of my belief that my raven is orangeâthen, I throw it out! Itâs intellectually dishonest, and itâs a prime example of acting out of a confirmation bias. And deleting the other arguments I made against what you said, allegedly because I made âback to back commentsâ (one wonders if you wouldâve done that if I had been arguing in support of your position, and singing your accolades)âthis is probably also another example of acting out of a confirmation bias. Religious beliefs encourage this. And that’s why we ought not to have them.
Glenn
James, hereâs where we are now: I noted that in your claims about divine command ethics, you were effectively just assuming that a classical Christian concept of God was wrong. To your credit, youâve now taken the bull by the horns and are marshalling an argument for the falsehood of the classical Christian belief in God.
In particular youâre arguing that no changeless and necessary being exists. When you first presented this argument, your first premise was very clearly question begging: âWhoeverâs capable of having a preference is subject to changes in the preferences they have.â Of course this premise could only be true if classical Christian theism is false. This is why I called it begging the question.
Your wording of this premise has toned down a little. Youâre now saying that every person that âweâve come acrossâ is subject to change, and so as a rule, persons are subject to change. Induction, of course, is where were observe a sample of set X, and then we make a generalisation about every member of set X on that basis. For this reason, it matters crucially whether or not God and the persons we observe are both in set X. And here is where your inductive argument starts to get into trouble. Itâs evident that by âevery person weâve come acrossâ you mean every human person who is part of the physical world,â since you â or so it appears â do not believe that we know of anybody who isnât part of the physical world. And given that this is so, you would, I assume, agree with all of the following:
âEvery person who is part of the physical world is not the creator of the physical world.
Therefore: itâs a general rule that persons are not creators of the physical world. (The Inductive Generalization)â
âEvery person who is part of the physical world is not a timeless being.
Therefore: itâs a general rule that persons are not timeless beings. (The Inductive Generalization)â
âEvery person who is part of the physical world is not the ground of the existence of everything in the world.
Therefore: itâs a general rule that persons are not the ground of the existence of everything in the world. (The Inductive Generalization)â
And so on. But using your form of argument, youâd conclude that therefore God is not the creator of the physical world, is not a timeless being and is not the ground of the existence of everything in the world.
In short, your claim boils down to the claim that thereâs no person who isnât considerably like created persons. Can you appreciate why this may amount to begging the question, James?
JMH
Perhaps I spoke with a bit of haste. While certainly speaking at first in a civil manner, it seems James is heading down a rather disappointing path. Intellectual dishonesty is quite a serious accusation, and as Glenn has pointed out, there is a good reason he’s abandoned inductive reasoning when it comes to the classical understanding of God.
Perhaps if we were talking about Greco-Roman gods, we would be able to apply inductive reasoning since they have virtually nothing in common with the Judeo-Christian god and much more in common with hypothetical super men.