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Evil, limited, and Indifferent deities: The Horrendous Deeds Objection Redivivus?

November 22nd, 2021 by Matt

Last week, I was scheduled to present the above paper at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society at Fort Worth, Texas. Unfortunately, Auckland’s lockdown prevented this, and the paper had to be cancelled due to the logistics involved. I did, however, pre-record the talk, so it is available below:

Abstract: A common objection to divine command meta-ethics (‘DCM’) is the horrendous deeds objection. Critics object that if DCM is true, anything at all could be right, no matter how abhorrent or horrendous. Defenders of DCM have responded by contending that God is essentially good: God has certain character traits essentially, such as being loving and just. A person with these character traits cannot command just anything. 

Recently, Jason Thibodeau[1] has offered a new version of the horrendous deed’s objection. Thibodeau, asks us to imagine the existence of Yod, a being just like God, who lacks omnibenevolence. Thibodeau argues that if God’s commands can ground morality so can Yod’s and Yod can command horrendous deeds. In this paper I examine and refute Thibodeau’s argument. I look at three interpretations of Thibodeau’s of objection (a) the objection from God’s moral grounding power, (b) the objection from evil and indifferent deities, and (c) the objection from lesser deities. I will maintain all of them fail.

Appeals to moral-grounding power, malevolent, indifferent, or lesser benevolent deities, do not salvage the horrendous deeds objection.

 



[1] Thibodeau, J. (2019). God’s love is irrelevant to the Euthyphro problem. Sophia, 58(3), 437–453.

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2 responses so far ↓

  • I’m commenting here because comments are closed on your piece “Henry Sidgwick’s Dualism of Practical Reason” which I appreciated for making clear how he arrived at this duality problem. I was searching your site for instances of Peter Singer’s input. And I got to your piece after hearing Singer reference Sidgwick quite often.

    To be brief, I listened to a YouTube interview where Singer said and I quote “…𝙨𝙤 𝙄 𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙗𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙖 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚’𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙩’𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙗𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙧 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙨”. -Peter Singer https://youtu.be/yTWSWunDD9Y at 9:43mins.

    That would be a cosmic shift in his thinking wouldn’t it? Pity it has come this late in the piece after his legacy in the world, but still very interesting.

    Thoughts?

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