Philosophy 361 Ethics Darwall Fall 1997 META-ETHICS II: THEOLOGICAL VOLUNTARISM I Theological Voluntarism or the Divine Command Theory holds that an act's being right or wrong just is its being commanded or proscribed by God. And something's being good is the same as its being loved by God. This is a metaethical position. It is different from the normative view that we ought to do what God commands. It holds that the property of being what we ought to do is the very same property as being commanded by God. It follows that if there is no God, then there is no such thing as right or wrong. II This position has certain philosophical attractions. A. It explains the contrast many feel between ethics and science. Science is about the natural realm, but ethics is not; it is about the supernatural realm--it is about what God commands. B. It explains the close connection between the idea of morality and the idea of law. When we speak of what we are morally obligated to do, what it would be wrong not to do, it looks as though we are presupposing the idea of law [Cf. here what Mill says about 'wrong' is Ch. V of Utilitarianism]. But can we sensibly speak of law without a legislator? And since morality (as opposed to a given group's moral code) is different from the legal code or customs of any particular group, then morality apparently requires a legislator distinct from any "local authority". Morality apparently requires the notion of a Supreme Legislator. C. It explains the contrast many feel between ethical conviction and mere taste or preference, and our commitment to the former as embodying objectivity and truth. D. Despite these attractions, there are also problems. The most obvious is that there have been many, and there still are many, cultures that have ethical views without basing them on the idea of divine command, e.g. Greek and Confucian ethics. IV To focus on the metaethical issues, let's assume: (a) there is a God who commands us to do various things, and (b) We ought to do what he commands. N.B. (b) is a normative assumption. What I hope to show is that various sorts of reasons one might have for thinking (b) true are actually incompatible with theological voluntarism. V A. Suppose that a person thinks he ought to do what God commands because God is omniscient, and so He must know what we ought to do. If, however, this is one's reason for thinking one ought to do what God commands, then one must think there are facts, like people ought not to murder, bear false witness, covet, etc., which are there for God to know. If God's omniscience is the reason we should do what He commands, this suggests that He has access to these independent truths that provide a rationale for His commands. But that is incompatible with theological voluntarism. B. Or suppose a person thinks we ought to do what God commands because of God's authority over us. Authority here presumably means a right to be obeyed which implies a correlative obligation we have to obey. But again, if this right explains why we ought to obey, then this presupposes the existence of an ethical fact that is not created by God's command. On this picture, God's command could not obligate us in the first place unless He had authority, a right to be obeyed. Therefore, if a person's reason for thinking we should do wht God commands is this, then she must reject theological voluntarism. C. Or suppose a person thinks we should do what God commands out of gratitude for His having given us the gift of life, etc. Again, this reason presupposes an ethical fact that it is not itself created by God's command, viz., that obedience is an appropriate response to God's beneficence. So having this reason for thinking one ought to obey God seems to require the rejection of theological voluntarism also. D. A more subtle possibility is that while there is no independent ethical reality for God to know, nonetheless there is a reason why we ought to do what He commands, and that is that he is omnibenevolent and omniscient. The point is not that, as omniscient he knows what we ought to do; that would reduce to A above. Rather, the part of God's omniscience invoked here is simply His knowledge of the natural order--of what sorts of things are likely to happen if human beings act in certain ways, and so on. And the thought is that we ought to do what God commands because these will be guided by full knowledge of the natural order together with His wish for the welfare of all his creatures. But note that if this is the idea, then the underlying premise is something like we should do whatever an omniscient and omnibenevolent being would want us to do. And there could be a truth about what such a being would want us to do, should such a being exist, even if, in fact, there is no such being. Thus this position is also incompatible with theological voluntarism. According to the latter, if there is no God, then there is no morality. According to the former, the ideal of an omniscient, omnibenevolent being is what constitutes ethical facts. If there is a truth about what such a being would want, then this is sufficient to constitute a fact about what we should do, whether or not such a being exists. VI A theological voluntarist can consistently hold that we ought to do what God commands because of His superiority, if he means by this, not an independent right to be obeyed, but rather something like God's superior power, e.g., to reward and punish by consigning subjects to heaven or hell. This is consistent because it does not entail the existence of an independent ethical reality. But it faces problems of a different sort. By reducing morality to power it reduces moral motivation to the desire to avoid punishment or to win reward. But isn't there a difference between the person who pays taxes because it is right, and the person who does so to escape punishment? Finally, it may be objected to theological voluntarism that it makes value and obligation something which can be arbitarily annexed to something--tacked on from the outside, as it were. But are we not inclined to think that if something is good, it must be in virtue of what it is?--value seems to arise out of what a thing is intrinsically like. Or, if an action is wrong, isn't that because of its nature? How can value or obligation be something that can simply be attached to things, from the outside, utterly independently of those things intrinsic nature?