In a previous post, Divine Commands and Pyschopathic Tendancies, I said I would look in more detail at Sam Harris’ charge that Divine Command Theories (“DCT”) of meta-ethics are psychopathic. In this, and in several forthcoming posts, I will attempt to deliver on that promise.
In Harris’ debate with William Lane Craig at Notre Dame, transcript here, Harris offered three direct lines of argument against a DCT. (I say direct lines because many of Harris’ rebuttals did not address DCT at all; rather he engaged popular objections to Christian doctrines about exclusivism and hell.) The first direct argument was as follows:
“According to Dr Craig’s Divine Command theory, God is not bound by moral duties; God doesn’t have to be good. Whatever he commands is good, so when he commands that the Israelites slaughter the Amalekites, that behavior becomes intrinsically good because he commanded it.”
Here Harris makes three claims. First he argues that according to a DCT God does not “have to be good”. Second, he infers from this that God can therefore make any action at all intrinsically good. Third, he alludes to an incident in the book of Samuel where, on the face of it, God commands the killing of the Amalekites.
Turning to Harris’s first claim, according to DCT a person has a duty to a person to do some action only if that person is commanded by God to do it. As God does not issue commands to himself he is not bound by moral duties. Harris infers from this that “God doesn’t have to be good”.
Whether this is inference is sound depends on what Harris means by “have to be good”. There are at least two possible things he could mean by this.
Sometimes when we say someone does or does not “have” to do something, we mean they are not morally obligated to do it. When I tell my children they have to tell the truth, for example, I am saying they have a duty to tell the truth. In other contexts however, when we say that someone does or does not “have” to do something we mean it is possible for them to do it.
If Harris, in saying “God does not have to be good”, means God is not under an obligation to be good then his inference is sound; if God is not bound by duties then he obviously does not have an obligation to be good. This, however, does not entail that it is logically possible for God to lack goodness.
If, on the other hand, Harris’ claim that “God does not have to be good” carries the implication that it is possible for God to do evil then it is a a flat out straw man.
Craig’s position is that [Read more →]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural? · Sam Harris · William Lane Craig5 Comments
Yet Another Lawyer Agrees: Marriage Amendment Act Bill is an Affront to Freedom of Religion and Belief
March 13th, 2013 by Madeleine
Respond
Barrister Ian Bassett has given another opinion describing the risks to freedom of religion and belief of Louisa Wall’s Marriage Amendment Act Bill if it is enacted in its presently proposed form, which would include this amendment:
It is clear that any marriage celebrant exercising their public function who is not covered by the amendment risks being in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993 if they refuse to perform their public function as marriage celebrants because it is a same sex couple seeking to be married.
Church ministers, marriage celebrants, court registrars, church elders, leaders, photographers and caterers and any other person or entity supplying services to the public risks being in breach of the Human Rights Act 1993 if they refuse to supply services to a couple seeking to be married because the couple are same sex. For some this could also mean risking their employment.
Service providers to the public risk being in breach of the Human Rights Act 1993 if they refuse to supply services to a married couple because the couple are same sex.
The New Zealand Law Society’s Law Reform Committee headed by Professor Paul Rishworth LLB (Hons) M Jur highlighted the risk to freedom of religion and belief in the Bill in its submission to Parliament:
The only thing that the amended Bill puts beyond doubt is that the critics of those raising fears about the Bill’s threat to freedom of religion and belief were wrong. By recommending an amendment the Select Committee are agreeing that a risk existed, as the likes of Ian Bassett, Grant Illingworth have argued, contra to The Human Rights Commission’s claim that all “…religious officials and leaders are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.”
Bassett, Illingworth and Rishworth are not alone with their concerns among the legal fraternity.
Graeme Edgeler, a Wellington Barrister has been quoted in the Herald saying:
Auckland Barrister Rachel Wong has raised issues against the Bill.
This blog’s Madeleine Flannagan LLB, Associate Barrister and Solicitor at Coast Legal, adds her voice:
Ian Bassett’s latest opinion thoroughly analyses the legal effects of the amended Bill, a summary as to whose freedom of religion and belief it protects and whose it does not follows: [Read more →]
Tags: Freedom of Religion · Gay Marriage · Grant Illingworth · Ian Bassett · Louisa Wall · Marriage Amendment Act Bill · Marriage Equality · Paul Rishworth · Rachael Wong · Same Sex Marriage22 Comments