Talk:Divine command theory

I altered this because I personally saw a flaw, but according to wikipedia, personal opinions are not allowed, so I removed my paradox flaw in divine command theory.

I also removed because it is my idea, and I don't want others stealing it.

I also added, and kept, the part about God being the creator off all, because it is a point I have heard many times, and seems valid, to a degree.

David Gray, born may 8, 1985 -usa

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The impression I got from my philosophy schooling was that the Euthyphro dilemma had settled the matter, however, Google search for pages on the DCT without the term "Euthyphro" shows that, actually, the bulk of pages don't mention Euthyphro. Hmm... Evercat 23:32 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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When I saw that review of Alive, I thought, wow, what a great example of the problems of the DCT. Hence, I include it here. But perhaps that's a bit self indulgent of me - comments? Should it stay? I think it is a nice (and genuine) example... Evercat 13:11, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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I unwittingly added an entry for Euthyphro Dilemma. I feel strongly that DCT and the Euthyphro Dilemma are two separate things; merely because one refutes the other does not mean the one should be redirected to the other.

Doubtless I erred in adding the (capital D Euthyphro Dilemma, nevertheless I strongly urge that someone more clueful than I remove the redirection that is currently in place for Euthyphro dilemma. --Tagishsimon 10:32, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Redirect fixed. Linked from here now too. Evercat 12:16, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've just expanded the Euthyphro dilemma stub, and in the process removed the claim that the dilemma refutes DCT. Leaving aside the distinction between refuting and arguing against a position, DCT is one horn of the dilemma. I've just discovered the same mistake here (together with the surprising (and completely false) claim that the dilemma is generally considered to have refuted DCT!). I don't have time to correct the Divine command theory article, but it certainly needs it. It's a widely debated and defended theory, and needs a very different article. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:45, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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The part that was at the end of "The problems" confused metaethics and normative ethics. Divine command theory is a metaethical theory, while utilitarianism is a normative theory. Utilitarians can hold, indeed many have held, divine command theory. For example, according to Encyclopædia Britannica's entry on utilitarianism "Another strand of Utilitarian thought took the form of a theological ethics. John Gay, a biblical scholar and philosopher, held the will of God to be the criterion of virtue; but from God's goodness he inferred that God willed that men promote human happiness." I decided to leave "The Problems" how I had edited it, but get rid of the normative section I created. If someone wants to include a normative argument, make sure that it is identified as such, and does not suggest that utilitarianism or Kantianism is inconsistent with divine command theory. --Catquas 01:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Reading your comment above, before the edit itself, I was optimistic — but I can't believe that you gave the Euthyphro dilemma as a (in fact the prime) criticism of Divine command theory... not only completely fallaciously, but in direct contradiction with the summary. I've returned the article to its previous state, and added a section based on your comment. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:55, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I've again had to revert your edits, I'm afraid. Leaving aside matters of style, etc., you're simply wrong on multiple counts (for example, the naturalistic fallacy isn't Moore's; he talked about it, and accused Mill of it, but what does that have to do with this article?), and (perhaps more importantly as regards Wikipedia policy) what you've added is "original research". --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well you might want to change the naturalistic fallacy page then because it says it was Moore. What do you mean by naturalistic fallacy? Do you mean it is a fallacy to attempt to define good. Or do you mean that it is a fallacy to go from is to ought? If the latter, you are talking about the is-ought problem, not the naturalistic fallacy. Some people use "naturalistic fallacy" to refer to the is-ought problem, but they are different.

Neither. First, the fallacy had been both made and pointed out before Moore; I shouldn't rely on Wikipedia articles for philosophical matters. Secondly, the naturalistic fallacy isn't just about the definition of "good". --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Mel, the term "naturalistic fallacy" was coined by G. E. Moore in his Principia Ethica, and it was used in a discussion of the definability of the term 'good' (and the property goodness). You might think that the fallacy itself (as opposed to the term) and its pointing out goes back further than Moore, or that the essence of the fallacy extends to issues besides the issues discussed by Moore. But that would be a substantive philosophical position going well beyond the scope of how the term "naturalistic fallacy" is primarily used. You shouldn't assert this position with the sort of authoritative tone befitting straightfoward claims like "Plato wrote the Euthyphro" or "Bentham was a hedonist", or make misleading claims like "the naturalistic fallacy isn't Moore's". --4.240.72.98 22:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, there were numerous problems with your "the problems" section. First of all, it is definately not NPOV, so I tried to remove some of that language. I have no idea what part was "personal research". I definately am keeping the modified person of the last paragraph in "the problems". It is completely rediculous to day that few religions have God's word on every subject. Maybe their texts do not, but this is not the only way relgions claim to know about God. I think you also have to recognise that the real problem is how we can know anything about God, so that is why I added the reference to the existence of God.--Catquas 18:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I don't follow this, but your edits are unclear and inaccurate. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I really would like to know what part you do not understand. I would also like to know the logic behind your paragraph "Few if any...changed his mind." It doesn't make much sense to me either. There is no way to resolve this issue without discussion. You can't just keep reverting.--Catquas 19:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, for example: "I definately am keeping the modified person of the last paragraph in "the problems". It is completely rediculous to day that few religions have God's word on every subject." makes little sense to me. Moreover "few religions claim to have god's word" id not refuted by a vague gesture at non-textual means to knowledge; if you know of a religion that claims to have god's word on every subject, then that would be a counter. As for reverting, what exactly do you think that you've been doing? And is your claim that something you've written has to be discussed before being removed, though not before being added?

Incidentally, it's not "my" paragraph; I didn't write it, and even if I had it wouldn't be mine That's not how Wikipedia works. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hm you are right it is an empirical question whether they claim it. I'm not sure what most religions would say on that. But there is no way to support the part that says "and if they do claim it, they are in error". How would we know if they were in error if we were not talking about a book or some sort of text? Furthermore, the reference to "rule book" seems to imply book. I just wanted to carify that what was being talked about was a book. I think I've got an acceptable solution, you can look at it. I just wish you would explain what was wrong with what I put instead of saying vague things like they are "unclear and innacurate". I hold by my version of the last paragraph-

"Finally, there is the question of how one comes to know what the will of God is. Many point to religious texts as answers, but it is still possible to question whether these really state the will of God. Furthermore, few if any religions claim to have texts detailing God's word concerning every possible situation. These gaps in the rule books often concern situations that the writers of ancient religious scriptures couldn't have foreseen, such as those involving advanced technologies, especially biological and medical ones. Because of these problems, critics claim that one can never be sure if a person, including one's self, who claims to know the desires of God actually does know, or if he is lying, mistaken, or crazy, or if God has subsequently changed his mind. This particualar problem is part of the wider problem of divine revelation, or the question of how we know anything about God. This issue is discussed extensively in regards to the very existence of God."

What specifically is wrong with it? If you have a specific problem, please state it, and I would be happy edit it in order to accomodate your concerns. --Catquas 23:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

After edit conflicts:

The trouble is that one can only say precisely what is wrong in a case like this if one knows both what was said and what was meant. Only knowing what was said, I can only say that I don't understand it.

The reference to "rule book" doesn't meant that we're taking about religious texts; it's an English expression meaning a set of rules, whether written down or not.

Could you place your suggested new text here first, so that we can discuss it? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

You probably can see the paragraph above. I would also like to add something about how although people agree that religious texts do not directly touch on, say, cloning, many believe that the answer to the problem can be found in the text because of general guidelines, analogous situations, principles derived from examples, etc.--Catquas 23:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's my cleaned up version of your suggested text:

"Finally, there is the question of how one comes to know the will of god. Most religions point to their scriptures for answers, but it is still possible to question whether these really state the will of god. Furthermore, few if any religions claim to have texts detailing their gods' will concerning every possible situation. These gaps often concern situations that the writers of ancient religious scriptures couldn't have foreseen, such as those involving advanced technologies, especially biological and medical ones. Because of these problems, critics claim that one can never be sure if a person, including oneself, who claims to know god's will actually does know, or is lying, mistaken, or mad (or indeed if god has subsequently changed his mind, though this possibility is ruled out by many notions of god)."

I omitted the last couple of sentence because they weren't very informative, merely gesturing rather vaguely at another discussion. I've added the text to the article, and tried to clarify another problem.

With regard to your other recent edit (and incidentally, don't mark your edits as minor unless they genuinely are), it isn't only critics of the theory that point out that it runs into philosophical problems; its defenders do too, and then either try to solve those problems or decide to put up with them. Also, the reference to the "is–ought" fallacy isn't very helpful. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

This article seems like it might suffer from some NPOV issues. It certainly has the feel of being written by critics. The article on utilitarianism and the part of the article on Kantianism on Kantian ethics do not seem to have the tone found here at this less respected ethical theory's page. I am not putting up an NPOV warning but I am changing the title of "The problems" to "Criticisms of divine command theory" and hoping that future edits might provide more balanced information. Notthe9 15:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above. This page as it currently stands is purely criticism. It needs a section on supporters and their reasons for supporting it. This page doesn't cover the topic in an encyclopedic manner. Xelgaex (talk) 23:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Mel, a few points.

1. What grammatical problems are there in my edit? If you see any, then please list them for me or just go ahead and correct them.
2. Your preferred version has obvious and pervasive POV problems--e.g., flatly claiming that "[i]t implies that what is good is arbitrary, based merely upon god's whim" as though this were as uncontroversial as "it holds that morality in some way depends on God". The same goes for nearly all the criticisms provided. My edit is (so far as I can tell) free from these problems. Or see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voluntarism-theological/ for a discussion that recognizes the standard criticisms without treating them as plainly correct.
3. Your preferred version references the naturalistic fallacy without explaining what it is, and indeed in a way that seems to rely on a highly heterodox understanding of it, where it involves "argu[ing] from a putative fact to a value". After all, Moore's discussion is typically taken to concern matters of semantic equivalence and property-identity (moving from "F is what makes things good" to "the terms 'F' and 'good' have the same meaning and denote the same property") rather than entailment. My edit explains Moore in an orthodox way (see, e.g., http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore-moral/) and gives a straightforward application to divine command theory; moreover, I preserve the points concerning entailment and put them under the heading of the is-ought gap (again on an orthodox understanding: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/).
4. Where your preferred version is too compressed (especially the "calling god good" paragraph), I have filled it out for the reader. I suppose this is largely a matter of judgment, but I can't see how expanding on a one-sentence paragraph can fail to be a good thing.
5. The use of lowercase-g "god" (without an article, no less) is extremely unusual in English. Here I simply cannot see why anyone would prefer this. It is certainly not found in other Wikipedia articles (besides Euthyphro dilemma) or SEP articles on philosophy of religion.
6. Finally, a style point: The phrase "if god had created the world to include the values that rape, murder, and torture were virtues" seems very poorly written. "If God had created the world in such a way that rape was a virtue..." seems better to me, because it avoids the unusual 'the value that x is F' construction. (In fact, it's probably wrong to think of actions as virtues (virtues typically being understood as states of character), so I should correct that part of my edit.)

--4.240.72.175 23:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Style, etc.; just a couple of examples from the beginning:
   1. Why do you think that "morality (e.g., whether some action is right or wrong)" is preferable to the straightforward "moral values"? Aside from being considerably more cumbersome, many if not most discussions of Divine Command Theory are not centrally concerned with the rightness or wrongness of specific actions, but with the very existence of moral values.
   2. "Divine command theory takes the second horn" why takes? It is the second horn.
2. I can see no advantage to the reader in bringing in Moore (who merely supplied a name for what was already widely seen as a fallacy). Moreover the whole point of an internal link is that the reader is able to find the required information; giving the link and then explaining the fallacy in detail seems pointless.
3. As there are two sections – one on criticisms and one on responses – it seems to me unnecessary to labour the point that the criticisms are not simple facts but philosophical objections. I'm fairly neutral on that, though.
4. Much of your edit merely reworded what was there according to your stylistic preferences; in many cases I'm neutral between them, and including them in the revert was easier than going through your extensive rewrite leaving in the bits that were OK. If any had been a clear and genuine improvement, I'd have left it. (But see final point, below.)
5. The custom regarding the capitalisation of the word "god" is that when articles use the capital one doesn't remove it, and where they don't one doesn't add it. As "god" isn't a name, and I see no reason for it to be considered a proper noun, I can see no NPoV grounds for capitalising it, but I don't remove the capital when I find it, unless it's clearly being used to refer to a non-monotheistic notion. As the first sentence of this article makes clear that that is how it's being used, I can't see the grounds for changing the capitalisation.
6. Yes, this is the exception to what I say at 4. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Normativity of morality

Reading the passage on the normativity of God's morality, I can but wonder whether that hypothetical question could simply be answered with "Because God could ascribe to his own moral code traits we usually find in physical laws." That is, God would set those laws in stone and humans would have, no matter what, to follow them. The laws of thermodynamics, the laws of motion...and the laws of moral conduct. Of course, in terms of contents it wouldn't matter what those laws actually were. So, has anyone thought of this before, some philosopher, I mean? -- Ishikawa Minoru 21:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Insulting

"In developing what he calls a Modified Divine Command Theory, R.M. Adams distinguishes between two meanings of ethical terms like "right" and "wrong": the meaning that atheists can grasp (which in fact Adams explains in roughly emotivist terms), and the meaning that has its place in religious discourse (that is, commanded or forbidden by god)."

Either I am a stupid atheist and misreading the intent of the writer, or that is insulting.

213.141.89.53 (talk) 15:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this really a theory?

It seems more like a hypothesis. A theory can be tested. Klosterdev (talk) 00:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

First, the string "divine command theory," in point of fact, refers to the proposition that an action is morally obligatory if and only if (and because) God commands that it be done. (Just FYI in case your asking whether it is a theory is a prelude to your recommending that the entry be renamed; the Nation of Islam is not a nation, but plainly the Wikipedia entry on it should not be retitled.) Second, even if we assume that you're right and a theory must be testable, it doesn't follow that DCT isn't a theory -- there are a number of ways in which DCT can be tested. It can be shown to have implausible implications (e.g. that there is a possible world in which murder is not morally impermissible) or to explain phenomena (for instance, why it is that one must not do what one ought not to do). WilliamPitts (talk) 03:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Medieval References

Just a small quibble: none of the medieval philosophers (William of Ockham, Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas) have any references. It might be useful for anyone interested in DCT to be able to find where exactly these philosophers make their claims.

It may be that there is no single place a reader might turn for the summations this article has listed. In that case, some general readings under "Sources & reading" might be in order. For example, a source listing for Thomas Aquinas' position in this article might include the Summa Theologiae: Prima pars, Question 6 and the Summa Contra Gentiles: Book 1, Chapter 95. (Of course there may be more appropriate references; these are merely examples.)

It seems to me that a simple link to a philosopher's Wikipedia page is not sufficient to justify such broad summations and generalizations as are found in this article. Khyleth (talk) 09:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Definition bad, fails to distinguish from Moral realism

The only difference between Wikipedia's definition of Divine command theory and Moral realism are proposition 3.

• Moral realism says, "Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion."
• Divine command theory says, "Those propositions are about the attitudes of God."

The trouble is that it then says that Divine command theory "stands in opposition to...moral realism..."

The trouble with this is that the stated definition of "Divine command theory" does not distinguish itself as incompatible with the stated definition of moral realism. I hold both these stances, as they are stated by Wikipedia, to be correct stances. I believe that ethical propositions are both about the attitudes of God and are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion as I hold that the attitudes of God are objective facts which have been embedded into the Universe.

However, I also agree, especially after having heard Euthyphro that either the chicken or the egg must come first. I believe that what is good is objectively, universally good and God could not say otherwise without lying, and thus ceasing to be God. This makes me a moral realist rather than one who adheres to all that is involved in "divine command theory."

Because Wikipedia describes two ideas I hold true as being at odds, and since I believe they are not at odds, and since I believe that the stated definition of moral realism is excellent, I conclude that the stated definition of divine command theory is broken.

I suggest we reword proposition 3 in this article to read, "Those propositions are defined by the attitudes and decrees of God or the gods and would be different if those attitudes or decrees were different." I would then hold what Wikipedia describes as "divine command theory" to be false and this inconsistency would be reconciled. I will go ahead and make the edit based on Wikipedia:Be Bold but thought it needed more explanation than could be offered in an edit summary. --Nerd42 (talk) 19:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Divine command theory is a semantic theory; that is, it is a theory about what certain words mean. Divine command theory says that saying "such-and-such is good" means the same as saying "God wants/commands/expects/etc such-and-such". Moral realism says that saying "such-and-such is good" means something about some feature of the world other than what someone wants/commands/expects/etc. It might be a fact, as you believe, that God always wants/commands/expects things which are good in some sense independent of anyone's attitudes, and would cease to be God if he did otherwise, and from knowing that you can infer from "God command such-and-such" straight to "such-and-such is objectively good", but that doesn't mean that the two mean the same.

For an analogy (blatantly stolen from my old metaethics class), lets pretend for a moment that comic book superheroes like Batman, and their supporting cast of character, are real. Commissioner Gordon knows that Bruce Wayne threw a gala at Wayne Manor last night, but he doesn't know that Batman threw a gala at Wayne manor last night, even though Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person. This is because the names "Batman" and "Bruce Wayne", though they turn out to have the same man as their referent, don't mean the same thing.

Batman is a guy who dresses up in a scary black costume and fights crime by night, while Bruce Wayne is a rich young playboy who throws lots of wild parties. It turns out that Batman is also a rich young playboy who throws lots of wild parties, and Bruce Wayne also dresses up in a scary black costume and fights crime by night, because they're the same person. But if you told Commissioner Gordon "Bruce Wayne dresses up in a scary black costume and fights crime by night" he would be surprised to learn that, whereas if you told him "Batman dresses up in a scary black costume and fights crime by night" he would be unsurprised, after all, that's just what Batman does. So evidently the two sentences don't mean the same thing. The distinction here is between sense and reference.

Likewise, "stealing is against God's commands" and "stealing makes people unhappy" don't mean the same thing, even though it may turn out that God always commands us to do things that make people happy and not to do otherwise, and might even cease to be God if he did otherwise. Divine Command Theory says that "stealing is wrong" means the first thing, whereas Moral Realism says "stealing is wrong" means something more like the second thing (Ethical naturalism, some forms of which would say something like that, is a form of Moral Realism). Since those two sentences don't mean the same thing, then Divine Command Theory and Moral Realism, being theories about what ethical sentences mean, are incompatible with each other, even though the things referred to by both interpretations may be the same (if, as you believe, God qua God necessarily commands all and only those things which are good by some objective standard, such as what makes people happy).

So, I'm going to revert your edits, since it just makes the lede a little more verbose and awkward and out of phase with other metaethics articles, but maybe we should work on something to make it more clear, for all these metaethical articles, what exactly is under discussion here, in a way more succinct than all these paragraphs I just wrote :-)

--Pfhorrest (talk) 04:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

OK. First, my claim wasn't that the two are the same but that the bad wording in this article has made them appear the same. You bring up a good point, though of course ethical naturalism is by no means the only form of moral realism. As I am both a Christian and at the same time, a firm believer in the claims of reason as coming absolutely before anything else, the standard which necessarily binds God's behavior involves (though not exclusively) both Agape and the three classic laws of thought without which any statement or action on the part of God would be either unrighteous or untrue.

As I understand it, they are really more than semantic theories but are also theories of ethical justification as is shown by their relation to the Euthyphro dilemma which clearly is about more than semantics. If it were nothing more than semantics, Socrates would not press for a real definition of piety as he does but would instead criticize the words. --Nerd42 (talk) 15:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)