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Is the divine command theory defensible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John Chandler
John Chandler
Affiliation:
The University of Adelaide
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Extract

Recent defences of the Divine Command Theory have ranged from those which attempt to meet objections half-way, and in the process transform the theory, to restatements and defences of the theory in its full rigour. Philip Quinn's Divine Commands and Moral Requirements is one of the latter. Quinn's purpose is to show that the theory, in its several variants, can be stated precisely within several current systems of deontic logic, and that contrary to a common belief, there are no logically decisive objections to the theory. In accordance with this limited aim, there is little positive argument for the theory, little attempt to exhibit it as a plausible or attractive position, and this gives the book a rather narrow formalist aspect.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 443 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

page 443 note 1 Adams, Robert Merrihew, ‘A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness’, in Outka, Gene and Reeder, John P. (eds.), Religion and Morality (Anchor Books, 1973).Google Scholar

page 443 note 2 Quinn, Philip L., Divine Commandments and Moral Requirements (O.U.P., 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (Hereafter Quinn.)

page 443 note 3 Quinn, Philip L., ‘Religious Obedience and Moral Autonomy’, Religious Studies, XI (1975)Google Scholar. Rachels' article, ‘God and Human Attitudes’, first appeared in Religious Studies, VII (1971). Both articles are reprinted in Helm, Paul (ed.), Divine Commands and Morality (O.U.P. 1981).Google Scholar

page 445 note 1 Adams, , op. cit. p. 331.Google Scholar

page 445 note 2 This is not to say that without a background of notions like human good and harm ascriptions of moral rightness and goodness are literally unintelligible, as Philippa Foot holds (Foot, Philippa, ‘Moral Beliefs’, in Foot, P. (ed.), Theories of Ethics).Google Scholar

page 446 note 1 The Euthyphro Objection is not usually put in the form of a simple denial of the Divine Command theory. Often it is used to make clear just what that theory commits its holders to, in the expectation that once distinguished from the other horn of the dilemma (‘Does God will the right because it's right or is it right because he wills it?’), most of those who think they hold the theory will realise that they don't. H. J. McCloskey, for example, uses it in this manner: McCloskey, H. J. ‘Morality Without Religion’ Question 7, 1974.Google Scholar

page 448 note 1 J. Rachels, ‘God and Human Attitudes’, in Helm, P., op. cit., p. 44.Google Scholar

page 448 note 2 Rachels, , op. cit., p. 44.Google Scholar

page 449 note 1 Quinn, , Divine Commands and Moral Autonomy, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 449 note 2 Quinn, , p. 12.Google Scholar

page 451 note 1 Quinn, , p. II.Google Scholar

page 451 note 2 Quinn, , p. 9.Google Scholar