Introduction
Recently, there has been quite a lot of discussion online (specifically, Twitter and YouTube) about morality and god. This has been spurred on by a conversation between Alex O’Connor and William Lane Craig in which Craig supposedly defends the Canaanite slaughter in the Bible as moral and good by making use of Divine Command Theory. I also watched this discussion and saw other people defending and agreeing with Craig’s view. I, like many others, find his position to be morally bankrupt and without proper foundation. But simply saying this does not do much, especially since the seemingly first response anyone gives to someone who disagrees is that the theory is internally consistent. So, in this essay, I want to explain why I disagree with Craig and his Divine Command Theory (DCT).
I will explain myself by focusing on how moral principles are supposed to motivate us and what the whole point of morality is in the first place. It seems, to me, that DCT is internally consistent and able to give an account of human-transcending laws, but that it completely misses the point of ethics and completely divorces it from everything we hold dear. On DCT, the virtues are demoted from the highest and greatest good a human can achieve to ways of behaving that someone else approves of. I will argue that if morality is to be something non-arbitrary that will actually appropriately motivate people to do good, then it cannot simply be the commands of some external authority.
My response will be presented in two phases: first, I will explain the problem with DCT by arguing that it relies on an arbitrary standard of good, second, I will focus on the virtues and show how they, on DCT, are but a shadow of what they can be on a properly justified ethical theory.
Either God’s Commands Are Arbitrary Or Subject To An External Standard
So, first things first. It seems like one of the most important features of an ethical theory is that it grounds its normative claims in non-arbitrary and non-trivial reasons or features. To help understand this, consider the following scenarios:
Scenario 1) Jenny is busy getting lunch and has to decide what she is going to eat today. Part of her lunch is a dessert item, something sweet. There is more than one option for her to choose from, and she can take a more decadent piece of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit.
Jenny is not sure which to take and she cannot find a good reason to prefer the one over the other. As a result, Jenny just closes her eyes and waves her hand around in the air. When she opens her eyes, she selects the treat that is closest to her current hand position.
Scenario 2) Jane is busy getting lunch and has to decide what she is going to eat today. Part of her lunch is a dessert item, something sweet. There is more than one option for her to choose from, and she can take a more decadent piece of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit.
Jane wants to make the right decision, so she considers all the different reasons for the one and against the other. Jane keeps in mind that she is busy training for a marathon, and she is aiming to develop a more athletic build. Chocolate cake, although being more delicious and decadent, is the option with far more calories and much less healthy nutritional content. As a result, Jane chooses the bowl of fruit as her dessert.
In our two examples, Jenny is the one who makes an arbitrary decision, while Jane makes an informed, appropriate decision. A person’s hand randomly landing on one option rather than the other is hardly a good reason to choose the one. It is a reason, but not a non-arbitrary one. Jane, on the other hand, clearly has some goal or standard which she can use to evaluate the two options. The fact that Jane is trying to remain healthy and fit is what allows her to pick out the relevant features of the situation and make a decision based on these relevant factors. Importantly, other people cannot appreciate the reasons Jenny had for making her decision, but the reasons Jane had are perfectly understandable and we can see how they are relevant to the particular choice.
Now, deciding which dessert is the right one to take is itself a pretty trivial decision, but it nonetheless illustrates the point. The same thing is going to be true for moral claims and principles. If they are based on arbitrary standards, then it is difficult to see how they are supposed to appropriately motivate other people and us, never mind using them to judge and reward/punish people. What we need are true and appropriately sensitive reasons if we are going to ground our ethical theory in any meaningful way.
To understand how this is a problem for DCT and its proponents, we can take a look at an age-old question (one that I have discussed before): the Euthyphro Dilemma.
The Euthyphro dilemma comes from one of Plato’s dialogues in which Socrates and someone named Euthyphro discuss the nature of piety. The important part here is that Socrates asks the following questions: Do the gods love the pious because it is pious, or is the pious pious only because the gods love it? The original question’s context is that of ancient Greece and the polytheism of the time. So for it to be relevant to our discussion, we need to modify it slightly: Does God will what is good and just because it is good and just, or is it good and just because God wills it? This question gets to the heart of “goodness” and asks if it is something arbitrary or whether goodness is something in itself and part of the nature of things. The question does present the argument as though these are the only two options available for the theist.
This is all considered a dilemma for the theist because it leaves them with two unsatisfactory options: either what is good and bad are arbitrary and can therefore change based on the whims of some god (things are good because wills them), or goodness and morality are separate from god and that god himself is subject to this goodness (god wills things because they are good). The first is bad because right and wrong become meaningless, and anything can be considered good given the right command, and the second is bad because now the perfect and eternal creator of everything has something outside themself and to which they are subject.
Some have responded to this and claimed that it is a false dilemma. They argue that a third option exists, and that is god’s character. God’s commands are not arbitrary because, so they argue, they are based on and subject to his divine character. This way, the moral standard is not outside god while it is also true that god would not just arbitrarily command something as he is limited by his own nature.
The problem with this response is that it does not actually provide a new option. To see why, consider the new revised “Euthyphro dilemma”: Is God’s character the way it is because it is good and just, or is it good and just because it is god’s character? Once again, we are left with two problematic options. Either what is good is arbitrary as nothing makes god’s character good other than it being his character, and, therefore, if god’s character had been different, other things would be good. Or god himself is subject to an external goodness that limits his character; a good that we should be able to appreciate in itself, even if god did not exist.
So what is my point? The point is, if goodness is a result of god’s commands or his character, then morality is arbitrary and solely based on authority. If the authority changes, then goodness changes. More importantly, if the authority commands something that we would usually consider bad or wrong, it simply would be good or right regardless, as there is no moral foundation – only an authoritative foundation. The good is then subject and subordinate to the will.
Notice, I have not said anything about any sort of internal inconsistence or contradiction. My problem with DCT is not that it leads to contradictory beliefs or positions, but rather that it, right from the start, understands morality as a list of laws that requires some divine dictator. It fails to recognise that laws and commands, not themselves based on a moral foundation, are bound to lead us astray and justify just about anything. And this is exactly what we see; Christians and Christian apologists justifying the most disgusting beliefs and commands so that they can salvage their god’s ultimate sovereignty. But to me, all they have done is justify an amoral being, one without any actual moral core or set of principles, that is allowed to do anything and everything without limit and still be called good because the good simply is what they do. There are no moral values to be found here; only duty and obedience.
What all of this is supposed to do is explain why, if morality is based simply on god’s commands or character, then it is arbitrary. Of course, I don’t actually think the alternative is that bad. Having the moral code as separate from god seems to me to ground god’s goodness much better. And I don’t think it limits his sovereignty in any meaningful way. But some theists do have a problem with this, and so they end up biting the bullet and accepting that morality is arbitrary. Next, I want to explain why this is a problem, other than just being arbitrary.
What A Theory Grounded In Goodness Should Look Like
In the previous section I argued that DCT does not explain anything that can be called moral. It is arbitrary. It is baseless except in so far as it provides us with an explanation for duties given we have accepted some authority figure. Next, I want to argue that DCT does not foster or even aim at moral character, an indispensable part of ethical theorising, but rather at submissive character. It completely misses all the good that make up the “goodness” of the virtues.
But why do this in the first place? Because, the sort of person that usually ascribes to DCT is not, at least from what I have seen, concerned with the arbitrary claim. These are exactly the sorts of people who have already accepted that authority is justification enough. They think god can do whatever he wants with creation because he is the one who gave us life. They might say that they would, if god commanded them to, sacrifice their child just like Abraham was going to. They also usually think children are somehow the property of their parents and that parents have some unique authority over a child. If I am going to convince this sort of person, I think I will have to do a little more than just explain why god’s moral commands would be arbitrary. So, I will try to use the moral virtues to help explain the biggest problem with DCT – it being completely detached from anything good.
When I say that justice is good, I mean to say that being just (acting fairly) is a character trait and principle that, when it serves as a reason for action, leads to a better world and better lives for the people involved. Goodness, then, is a property of something that is conducive toward or a constituent of our aims or goals. Something being good therefore means it is good as something or for something. Moral goodness is a subset of goodness that is specifically concerned with our highest or greatest goals/aims: those aims that supersede all others.
What are our highest or greatest goals/aims? I am in agreement with the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome. They are, although pretty diverse, all generally considered to be eudaimonist. Eudaimonia is generally translated as “happiness”, but this is notoriously misleading and I prefer “flourishing” or “self-actualisation”. What this means is that every action we take, every decision we make, and everything we aim for, are all in service of living a life where we flourish as the sort of being we are or attain personal self-actualisation. This just is, by nature, something we want, and it is specifically the thing we want above all other things or is the reason why we want other things in the first place.
The next question is, how do we reach eudaimonia? Again, the answer from the ancient philosophers is Virtue. Virtue can be translated as “excellence”. Virtues are admirable and praiseworthy qualities of a thing that lead to its flourishing. We can use the example of a knife: a good knife is one that cuts, it is one that is sharp enough to slice and yet strong enough to last a desired period. If a knife becomes dull, it is no longer a good knife. Sharpness, then, can be considered a virtue of knives. The same, arguably, is true of human beings. Although, of course, we are far more complicated and are able to reflect, deliberate, and decide – all things knives are not capable of doing.
The above is what allows us to understand why we generally consider virtuous character traits to be moral goods of people. We are, fundamentally, creatures with affective and cognitive states that live in social communities. We therefore have particular ends like pleasure, equanimity, understanding, knowledge, and relationships (to name a few). That means we can live in certain ways that are conducive to these ends, and these “ways of living” are the developed and appropriately trained dispositions and traits we can have. It should now be clear why things like justice and compassion are good. They are good because they are the ways we can live and orientate our actions such that we live lives worth living; lives in which we flourish. The same is true of prudence, temperance, courage, conscientiousness, honesty, etc.
I can go into a lot more detail, and, in fact, I plan on doing so for a future essay, but for now, this should be enough to serve as a comparison of how DCT understands “virtue” if you can even call it that.
In my outlined view, it is our nature as human beings and persons, along with the particular features and relevant aims of a situation, that ground what is right and wrong; and what we should do. This is not the case at all for DCT. For, no matter what the particulars of the situation are, or what we consider as good or bad, the people involved, or the consequences of our actions, as long as the relevant authority has issued a command, it is the right thing to do.
The above is a striking feature of DCT once we try to use it to explain why some action is right or wrong. Consider the following case: James is walking along the road when he comes across a homeless and starving child. Upon inspection, James sees that the child is unwell and can be helped by being provided with some food and clean water. As it so happens, James does have food and water on his person and certainly does not need them himself (at least, not at this moment). The question is, should James give the child the water and food? And if James does, was the action right, and if so, why?
Given my virtue ethical framework explained above, I think I can provide a rather robust answer that not only explains our intuitions but can even serve as good reasons for other people to act in the same way (specifically, because they can appreciate the reasons).
But the answer that a DCT advocate would give seems completely mistaken. In this example, nothing about the child’s current state, the different ways the world could be, the motivations or dispositions of James, or anything else explains why we should do one thing rather than another. In fact, if god commands it, it would be appropriate and good to kick or kill the child. Just think about that! DCT is so detached from our world, our values, and human beings, that it can give any and every answer to what is “right”.
Furthermore, think about what it is that we are praising in this situation. If James is an ideal virtue ethicist, then he would have been appropriately sensitive to the factors of the situation, the needs of others, and his own abilities. When he decides to help the child, it is because the child needs help and he is able to provide it. That is what makes him a good person; that is what justifies our attribution of kindness. But if James is the ideal Divine Command Theorist, then he would be appropriately submissive to god. That is it. What we are praising, at best, is a sense of duty. In fact, all virtue effectively collapses to duty. People aren’t good because of their characters, or their dispositions, because of the decisions they make or the types of lives they try to live; they are good because they obey.
These problems are only concerned with evaluating moral agents. There are even more problems when it comes to moral deliberation. Virtue ethicists advise that agents study the ethical teachings of others, reflect on their own natures, and try to cultivate good dispositions. They do this so that agents can better navigate the world and its many intricacies. This is how we become “good people”. But the DCT proponent is completely at a loss here. They cannot provide any action-guiding principles other than “listen to god”.
Is this really what we expect from good people? Detachment from all our appreciable and realisable goods and blind obedience to authority. How can any person look at this view and say it is moral? How is listening to an authority “just because” a good motivation? I certainly do not know.
Conclusion
As briefly mentioned, one thing I have noticed when DCT proponents try to defend their view is that they are prone to asking where the logical contradiction in their position is. But as I have explained, this is not the issue. Rather, they simply start off with implausible assumptions about moral laws and then extrapolate from there. The problem, then, is that they are not talking about morality, but something entirely different (or, at best, only a tiny subset of morality).
Let me put it this way. If someone were to come up to me and make the following argument:
P1: Apples are blue
P2: This is an apple
C: Therefore, this is blue
I would not have any problem with the logical inference or respond by claiming their position entails a contradiction. Rather, I would explain that they are simply mistaken about the colour of apples. They have started with a false premise.
Similarly, I think DCT advocates are making the same mistake. There is more to say here and expand on, but basically, it seems like they are so concerned with justifying god as the moral arbiter that they end up ignoring or missing the full range of things we call moral and how we typically evaluate and prescribe principles and deliberative strategies. They want to be right SO BADLY that they settle for “because god told me so” as a good reason.
Again, to reiterate a point I made earlier, I don’t see any problem with saying that because god is a perfect being, and because the world and people are constituted in a certain way, god would know what is right and wrong. In fact, this seems necessary for god to be called “morally perfect”. The point is that this god would still not ground or justify moral claims. These things are still grounded in our constitution and aims. If this is really such a massive problem for you, then the conclusion is going to be that god or morality, as we know them, don’t exist, not that moral claims must be grounded in god’s authority.
Perhaps a final thing worth adding is that, at least according to my own estimation, morality and ethical principles are not objective. They are firmly subjective. This would be the case whether we are the origin of morality or if god determines it. We are subjects, and so any normative force will be generated by our internal deliberative faculties. Even if god was the foundation of morality, he still remains a subject, and so morality will depend on his mind and preferences. If morality, in this case, is meant to motivate us, then it will again be based on the fact that we accept the reasons as good ones when using our deliberative faculties. At the end of the day, we will never be able to escape the fact that our moral values remain our own. My point is just that we should be focusing on what we actually value, and not on what other things tell us we should.
All of this is to say that Divine Command Theory, to me, is totally mistaken because it has a fundamental misunderstanding of morality and goodness. It makes slaves out of us all and divorces our reasons for action from the considerations that should usually motivate us. In an attempt to be justified, DCT wants to understand all moral goods and all moral principles as commands; eternal laws we are subject to, and this ultimately results in a shallow ethical theory. On DCT, kindness is not good because you recognise a need in others, justice is not good because everyone deserves equal consideration, prudence is not good because you have an accurate understanding of a situation and decided on the best course of action; all of these things are only good because god said so. I cannot help but think that this view completely misses the point of ethics and turns god into an amoral dictator.
My advice to everyone is to try and see what makes a thing good or bad, what values ground it, rather than merely listening to what someone else tells you. Even if god himself says to do a thing, I’m sure, were you to ask why, if he truly were god and it was the right thing to do, he would be able to give you a good reason.
Casual Philosophy 
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