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Video: “Discussing Divine Command Theory” Special Guest: Matthew Flannagan

September 1st, 2014 by Matt

Last week I was invited to be part of a discussion on divine command ethics in Google hangouts. The full discussion is now on-line as episode 22 of Ode to Dialogue: “Discussing Divine Command Theory.” Enjoy.

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7 responses so far ↓

  • Can you give an example of choosing the lesser of two evils?
    I’m guessing you mean choosing the least bad outcome and that you wouldn’t condone choosing to do evil to avoid a greater evil.

    [Funny: I use always use “walking to the dairy” as my non moral act example.]

  • Reed
    I can think of a couple,
    1. You’re the pilot of a plane that has had engine failure above an urban and is in the process of crashing. It’s own course to crash into a stadium packed with people watching the all blacks thrash the wallabies in rugby. If you steer the plane to the left, then, it will crash into the residential area nearby, destroying property and probably killing several people. It seems to me that in a situation like this you are required to steer it to the right and kill less people.
    2. three civilian airlinears have been highjacked, one has been flown into a major building killing thousands, a second has been flown into a shopping centre killing hundreds, a third one is inbound towards a major urban centre, can you shoot it down over the nearby rural community before it gets above the city. I think arguably the right thing to do here is to shoot it down, even though this is in fact the shooting down of a civilian airliner and will kill civilians.

    In both cases its seems to me you have to choose between actions which are evil, but I also think you are required to do the one that is the lesser evil.

  • Matt
    I’d say that whether you are doing evil in these situations depends on your intent.
    In case 1 the intent is not *to kill* the people in the residential area but *to avoid killing* the people at the stadium.
    In case 2 the intent is not *to kill* the people on the plane but *to save* the hijacker’s potential victims.
    I don’t think these examples are doing evil.

    Consider this variation to case 2:
    If instead of shooting down the plane you convinced the hijacker to land the plane by killing some members of his family and threatening to kill more.
    Killing the hijacker’s family would be to do evil even if fewer people were to die as a consequence.

    You wouldn’t condone the lesser evil of choosing to kill some of the hijackers family to prevent the hijacker from killing thousands would you?

  • Reed

    I have considerable sympathy with you claims about intent, however, even if in those cases one does not intend to do the evil, it’s still the case that one does do an action which foreseeably causes some evils to occur and you are choosing to do that action because the evils of not doing it are greater.

    “You wouldn’t condone the lesser evil of choosing to kill some of the hijackers family to prevent the hijacker from killing thousands would you?”

    No, but those kind of act consquentialist cases are not the only kind of cases where one has to choose between evils. These sorts of cases involve simply a quantitative weighing up of consquences.

    There are non utilitarian cases where evils have to be choosen between. One might for example have simple deontological cases such to tell a murderer a lie to save his victims life, or killing an assailant in self defence, in both cases I think its plausible to say that lying and killing are still evil’s though justified ones. A person is still deceived and killed and that’s a bad thing even though its perfectly justified and justified because of some good thing which allowing the evil secures.

  • Matt

    To do evil is to act against God’s will – God’s will is what defines what evil is.

    “One might for example have simple deontological cases such to tell a murderer a lie to save his victims life…”
    Does God allow us to lie in this situation?
    If yes then lying is not evil in this situation.
    If no then the act of not lying is not evil in this situation.

    “… or killing an assailant in self defence…”
    Does God allow us to kill in this situation?
    If yes then killing is not evil in this situation.
    If no then the act of not killing is not evil in this situation.

    “… in both cases I think its plausible to say that lying and killing are still evil’s though justified ones.”
    If an act is truly justified it is not evil.
    If an act is truly evil it is not justified.
    To say an act is both truly justified and truly evil would be a contradiction.

  • Reed,
    It seems to me you are conflating two different senses of the word evil. In Augustine’s On the free choice of the will, Augustine distinguishes two senses of the word Evil. The first sense is the sense of “doing evil”. The second is the sense of “suffering evil”. To illustrate the distinction Augustine gives the example of punishment.
    Suppose God is morally perfect, then God will never do evil, that is he will never engage in wrongdoing. However, part of God’s goodness is his possessing the attribute of justice, and justice involves rewarding the innocent and punishing the guilty as their deeds merit. Augustine notes however that “punishments are an evil to him who suffers them” in fact this is something of the point of punishment, is supposed to inflict an evil or deprive a good on the person punished.
    The implication, Augustine draws is that while God as morally perfect can never do evil, in the first sense I above. He also as morally perfect can inflict evil in the second sense upon people. This second use of the word evil is well attested in latin and in old English, and is the central use in the philosophical problem of evil. Where the question “why does God allow evil” is often posed in the context of an earth quake, natural disaster, or sickness.
    Now turning to the examples I gave, of the plane crash, in this situation we do not “do evil” in the sense of doing wrong. However we do choose to do something we know will inflict evil upon other people. We know the plane will damage property injure and kill and these are evils suffered by the people who are harmed by them. Hence, in that sense we must choose between evils, and may be morally required to choose the lesser of two evils.
    Turning to the lying example,

    “Does God allow us to lie in this situation?
    If yes then lying is not evil in this situation.
    If no then the act of not lying is not evil in this situation.”

    If you use the word, “evil” in the first sense where its synonymous with wrong doing, then I agree with your reasoning. However it still seems to me that one is choosing between evils in the second sense Augustine mentioned. The situation involves a choice between one a person who is hiding is exposed to a murder and suffers the evil of being killed. Or inflicting on another the evil of a deception, goods such as trust, truth, and so on are deprived from them. And in that sense therefore the case involves choosing the lesser of two evils.

    “… or killing an assailant in self defence…”
    Does God allow us to kill in this situation?
    If yes then killing is not evil in this situation.
    If no then the act of not killing is not evil in this situation.

    Again, I agree if your using the word evil in the first of Augustine’s senses, where by doing evil you mean doing wrong. But in the second sense it’s a choice between evils, either one inflicts death and loss of life on the assailant or one refrains from preventing death and loss of life being inflicted on the victim. The point is that, what we are morally required to do involve a choice between evils.
    I think this is important because I have dialogued with Christian leaders who sometimes get bamboozled by the fact that an action involves inflicting evil on someone. They see this as a reason to not do the action and then end up endorsing some other action which inflicts something worse. For example, people see the anguish a women suffers with an unwanted pregnancy and to avoid this support abortion and hence kill an innocent human being. Or see the evils inflicted in a war and so advocate appeasement in the face of a serious threat which leads to even more carnage and so on. Once you realize that morality sometimes involves a choice between evils then that forces one to accurately assess these situations and see there are evils inflicted in both choices and God requires us to choose between them.

  • I don’t think I conflated doing evil with bad outcomes – look at my first comment.

    Thanks for the explanation of how the word evil is used generally. I wouldn’t use evil in the second sense because it adds confusion.

    Woe to those who call good evil and evil good.

    I can see how calling just punishments evil, as Augustine did, would lead to “woe” (evil sense 2).