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Topic: Divine command theory

	Divine Command Theory [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
		Divine Command Theory includes the claim that morality is ultimately based on the commands or character of God, and that the morally right action is the one that God commands or requires.
		Hence, the advocate of a Divine Command Theory of ethics faces a dilemma: morality either rests on arbitrary foundations, or God is not the source of ethics and is subject to an external moral law, both of which allegedly compromise his supreme moral and metaphysical status.
		A divine command theorist must decide for herself, based on the available evidence, which understanding of the divine to adopt and which understanding of divine commands within her particular tradition she finds to be the most compelling.
	www.iep.utm.edu /d/divine-c.htm (7168 words)

	Divine Command Theory
		The name “divine command theory” can be used to refer to any one of a family of related ethical theories.
		The emptiness problem is that on the divine command analysis of moral goodness, statements like “God is good” and “God’s commands are good” are rendered empty tautologies: “God acts in accordance with his commands” and “God’s commands are in accordance with his commands”.
		Divine command theory is by no means the only ethical theory in the Christian tradition, so the theist need not be overly concerned even if these objections were thought to be successful.
	www.spiritofchennai.com /religion/re/divinecommandtheory.htm (433 words)

	Divine Command Theory
		The divine command theory (DCT) of ethics holds that an act is either moral or immoral solely because God either commands us to do it or prohibits us from doing it, respectively.
		On DCT the only thing that makes an act morally wrong is that God prohibits doing it, and all that it means to say that torture is wrong is that God prohibits torture.
		DCT is wildly implausible for reasons best illustrated by the Euthyphro dilemma, which is based on a discussion of what it means for an act to be holy in Plato's Euthyphro.
	www.infidels.org /library/modern/theism/divine.html (859 words)

	MORALITY WITHOUT GOD john Arthur
		Another tenet of the divine command theory, besides the belief that God is the author of morality, is that only the divine command theory is able to explain the objective difference between right and wrong.
		It would seem that according to the divine command theory it is possible that tomorrow God will decree that virtues such as kindness and courage have become vices while actions which show cruelty and cowardice are the right actions.
		To adopt the divine command theory commits its advocate to the seemingly absurd position that even the greatest atrocities might be not only acceptable but morally required if God were to command them.
	falcon.tamucc.edu /~sencerz/Morality_Without_God.htm (3827 words)

	Divine command theory Summary
		Divine command accounts of obligation and wrongness deserve to be regarded as respectable options in ethical theory if the larger theistic worldviews of which they are components are themselves philosophically defensible.
		The divine command theory is the metaethical theory that moral values are whatever is commanded by a god or gods.
		Divine command theory is the second horn of what has come to be known as the Euthyphro dilemma (after its first appearance in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro): "Is the morally good whatever is commanded by god, or does god command what is in fact morally good?"
	www.bookrags.com /Divine_command_theory (2381 words)

	Philosophy of Religion .info - Christian Ethics - Divine Command Theory
		Divine command theory is often thought to be refuted by an argument known as the Euthyphro dilemma.
		The arbitrariness problem is the problem that divine command theory appears to base morality on mere whims of God.
		The problem of abhorrent commands is that divine command theory appears to entail that if God were to command abhorrent acts—malicious deception, wanton cruelty, etc.—those acts would become morally good.
	www.philosophyofreligion.info /divinecommandtheory.html (501 words)

	DIVINE COMMANDS
		According to weak versions of the divine command theory God issues the commands that he does because of his independent knowledge of the nature of right and wrong.
		The strategy in what follows is to take very seriously the similarity between the strong divine command theory's model of moral rules as commands from God, and the classical positivist's model of law as commands from the sovereign.
		Divine authority to articulate these rules and principles bridges the is/out gap and allows the existence of a moral reality designed in light of, and in response to, natural reality.
	www.eou.edu /~jjohnson/divinecommands.htm (6258 words)

	Divine command theory - Definition, explanation
		The divine command theory (hereafter: DCT) is the metaethical theory that moral values are whatever is commanded by a god or gods.
		DCT is the first horn of what has come to be known as the Euthyphro dilemma (after its first appearance in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro): “Is the morally good whatever is commanded by god, or does god command what is in fact morally good?”
		Thus Ockham embraces divine command theory wholeheartedly; his view has been characterised as being that ‘god's command is good’ is analytically true.
	www.calsky.com /lexikon/en/txt/d/di/divine_command_theory.php (1078 words)

	Theological Voluntarism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		But the name ‘divine command theory’ is a bit misleading: what these views have in common is their appeal to the divine will; while many of these views hold that the relevant act of divine will is that of commanding, some deny it.
		Those who do not grasp that it is of the essence of obligations to be divinely commanded — whether theists or nontheists — fail to be masterful users of the language of moral obligation.
		In the possible world in which God issues a command to φ, there is a moral state of affairs — its being obligatory to φ — which lacks a justification (for the action is subsumed under no other divine command) and is not necessary (for God might have failed to command the action).
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/voluntarism-theological (11080 words)

	Divine command theory (Site not responding. Last check: )
		The divine command theory is the metaethical theory that moral values are whatever is commanded by a god or gods.
		Divine command theory is the second horn of what has come to be known as the Euthyphro dilemma (after its first appearance in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro): "Does god command what is in fact morally good, or is the morally good whatever is commanded by god?"
		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).
	nba.servegame.org /en/Divine_command_theory.htm (1170 words)

	Spartanburg SC \| GoUpstate.com \| Spartanburg Herald-Journal (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Advocates of divine command theory argue that justice, and indeed the whole of morality, is the authoritative command of a deity or deities, for instance, the Christian God.
		Divine command advocates have the option of responding by pointing out that the dilemma is false: goodness is the very nature of God and is necessarily expressed in his commands.
		So, for instance, egalitarianism is a theory of distributive justice which says that the proper distribution of wealth (and perhaps other goods) is an equal distribution: no-one in the relevant group should have more or less than anyone else in that group.
	www.goupstate.com /apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=NEWS&template=wiki&text=justice (3061 words)

	Does Morality Require God?
		The fact that Leibniz rejects the Divine Command Theory is significant, for he is one of the most committed theists in the Western intellectual tradition.
		The Divine Command Theory is a theory of the nature of morality.
		Thus the Divine Command Theory faces a dilemma: if goodness is a defining attribute of God, the theory is circular, but if it is not a defining attribute, the theory is false.
	www.secularhumanism.org /library/fi/schick_17_3.html (1766 words)

	Divine Command Theory
		The first is Divine Command theory that is not used anywhere in the world by the major organized religions.
		People hear the DIVINE COMMAND in 1205 1and 1776 and 1848 and on May 10, 2003 and on December 23, 2005 and so on and they follow it thinking the command makes the act that is commanded the morally correct thing to do.
		DIVINE COMMAND THEORY has so many problems that there are very few people on earth that use it and they tend to be fanatics, and mentally unstable people.
	www2.sunysuffolk.edu /pecorip/SCCCWEB/ETEXTS/ETHICS/Chapter_7_Deontological_Theories_Natural_Law/Divine_Command_theory.htm (1340 words)

	index112DIV
		It would appear, then, that the divine command theory fails to conform to our moral datum: according to the datum, inflicting pain on a child cannot possibly be morally permissible in the absence of overriding moral considerations, and yet the divine command theory evidently accommodates this possibility.
		To claim, therefore that God would not command Al to inflict pain on the child because God is a perfectly moral being presupposes the existence of moral standards that are independent of God’s commands; and this presupposition directly contradicts the divine command theory.
		The divine command theory’s second component is concerned with the moral status of particular actions: it states that this moral status is determined by justified rules.
	www.ac.wwu.edu /~montague/index112DIVCOM.html (5642 words)

	divine command theory, Philosophy, Free Essays @ ChuckIII College Resources
		The divine command theory is the idea that moral actions are those which correspond to God's will.
		A slightly more sophisticated form of the Divine Command Theory would be that "something is right if and only if God commands it", and this form However, if goodness is not an essential property of God, then there is no guarantee that what he wills will be good.
		Thus, the Divine Command Theory faces a dilemma: if goodness is a defining attribute of God, the theory is circular, but if it is not a defining distinction, the theory is false.
	www.chuckiii.com /Reports/Philosophy/divine_command_theory.shtml (686 words)

	PlanetPapers - Euthyphro: Conflicts in the Divine Command Theory
		Divine command theorists give a clear and unequivocal answer to this question in the area of ethics: they maintain whatever is good is good only because God wills it to be good.
		Consequently, these no longer seem to be divine command theories, that is, they no longer maintain that actions are good solely because God commands them.
		Either a good action simply is whatever God commands, in which case there is the possibility that God might command us to kill or pillage; or there are some limits on what God can legitimately command, in which case they aren’t genuine divine commands any longer since there are independent limits on God’s commands.
	www.planetpapers.com /Assets/4361.php (902 words)

	What Makes Morality Moral?
		Even when such commands are not rooted in God's character we are still morally obligated to obey the command because of the source of the command.
		The divine command theory is to be applauded for recognizing that some commands are rooted in God's power, but is deficient in that it roots the binding force of all commands in the power of God to declare them as such.
		The Divine Command theory is adequate to explain the nature of some of God's commands, but not all.
	www.apostolic.net /biblicalstudies/divinecommand.htm (894 words)

	Divine Command Theory: I Can't Make You Worship Me :: Ephilosopher :: Philosophy News, Research and Philosophical ... (Site not responding. Last check: )
		For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.
		The abstract reads: "This paper argues that Divine Command Theory is inconsistent with the veiw, held by many theists, that we have a moral obligation to worship God." The full article is here: divine command theory.
		On the other hand, many theists endorse the Divine Command Theory, according to which the difference between moral rightness and wrongness is simply that the former is that which is commanded by God, while the latter is that which is prohibited by God.
	www.ephilosopher.com /modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=724 (611 words)

	Divine command theory
		The Divine command theory (hereafter: DCT) is a theory of ethics.
		It states that the difference between right and wrong is simply that the former is that which has been commanded by God (or the gods), while the latter is that which has been prohibited by God.
		Secondly, if God commands an act because it is good, this again undermines the DCT, as it means that the act was good independently of God's commanding it, and therefore being commanded by God isn't the only reason the act is good.
	www.fastload.org /di/Divine_command_theory.html (355 words)

	News \| Gainesville.com \| The Gainesville Sun \| Gainesville, Fla. (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Divine command theory is widely criticized by what is known as the Euthyphro dilemma (after its first appearance in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro): "Is an action morally good because god commands it, or does god command it because it is morally good?"
		In responding to these criticisms, many proponents of divine command theory "bite the bullet", agreeing with the point the critic is making but arguing that it is not a problem with the theory.
		Thus Ockham embraces divine command theory wholeheartedly; his view has been characterized as being that "God's command is good" is analytically true.
	www.gainesville.com /apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=NEWS&template=wiki&text=Divine_Command_Theory (1147 words)

	BCSikhYouth » Blog Archive » Request for Sevadaars
		The Divine command is the universal and thus the most desirable as for as the globalization and or universalizing of anything is concerned.
		All knows the Divine command, as St Paul said in his letter to the Romans that when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what the law (Jewish religious commands) required; they were law into themselves, even though they did not have the law.
		This also expresses that the standards of morality that are without Divine command cannot be absolutely justified or satisfied and in such cases morality goes nearer to religion and thus the Divine command instead of human understanding for peace.
	www.bcsikhyouth.com /2007/request-for-sevadaars (1979 words)

	Viewpoint: The failure of divine command ethics
		Ethicists often call this view the “divine command theory of ethics.” According to the divine command theory, ethics comes from God or gods in that God or the gods decree or have decreed certain ethical principles or rules.
		Those divine commands are known through revelation, or by things written in sacred scriptures, or found in the rites and rituals and traditions of the given religion, or from the pronouncements of the religion's prophets, preachers, priests, or teachers.
		Many people who hold to the divine command theory of ethics also hold that all other ethical theories or principles are deficient because they do not have any ultimate sanction or force behind them.
	www.wpherald.com /articles/62/1/Viewpoint-The-failure-of-divine-command-ethics/Right-or-wrong-decreed-by-God.html (569 words)

	The Euthyphro Dilemma Vs. The Divine Command Theory Two theories explaining moral behavior explored. - CheatHouse.com
		The divine command theory is the idea that moral actions are those that conform to God's will.
		Using this theory, there is a test for determining whether any action is right or wrong: if it conforms to God's will, it is morally permissible, but if it does not, then it is impermissible.
		This is the reason for theists to reject the divine command theory.
	www.cheathouse.com /essay/essay_view.php?p_essay_id=11660 (366 words)

	Divine command theory - Education - Information - Educational Resources - Encyclopedia - Music
		The Divine command theory (hereafter: DCT) is a theory of ethics.
		Secondly, if God commands an act because it is good, this again undermines the DCT, as it means that the act was good independently of God's commanding it, and therefore being commanded by God is not the only reason the act is good.
		This line of attack on the DCT is well-enough known that it is referred to as the Euthyphro dilemma.
	www.music.us /education/D/Divine-command-theory.htm (675 words)

	Divine Command Theory and Meta-Ethics - AutoBlender Car Forums
		The Divine Command Theory is a meta-ethical theory that suggests moral values are what is commanded by God, or gods (to each his own).
		With the theory now explained quiet easily, I will now like to tackle the issue of the relevance of the theory to meta-ethics, and then try to see both sides of the coin in dealing with the debate over the truth or fallacy of the theory.
		Plato is saying that if a Divine Command Theory supporter were to take the infant sacrifice example to heart and believe in the theory fully, then they will undoubtedly agree that the infant sacrifice will be morally right because God simply commanded us to do it.
	www.autoblender.com /forum/index.php?showtopic=4638 (1707 words)

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