In his article, “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality”, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argued that a “Divine command theory makes morality childish.”[1] In my response to Armstrong, “Is Ethical Naturalism more Plausible than Supernaturalism?”[2] I made two points. First, I addressed a tangential point: that Armstrong’s argument caricatures divine command theory (“DCT”) by tacitly assuming that […]
Entries Tagged as 'Ethical Theory'
Richard Carrier and the “Infantile” objection to God’s command’s
October 27th, 2015 1 Comment
Tags: Autonomy · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Hell · Richard Carrier · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Did God Really Command Genocide? Summarised at Moral Apologetics
October 24th, 2015 Comments Off on Did God Really Command Genocide? Summarised at Moral Apologetics
Over at Moral Apologetics, David Baggett and Mark Foreman, are undertaking the task of writing chapter summaries of Paul Copan’s and my book, “Did God Really Command Genocide?” The chapter summaries are available here.
Tags: Canaanites · David Baggett · Did God Really Command Genocide? · Paul Copan
The Arbitrariness Objection (once more): A brief reply to Jason Thibodeau
November 7th, 2014 6 Comments
Jason Thibodeau over at The Secular Outpost has written a thoughtful discussion and response to the critique I made of Walter Sinnott Armstrong’s arbitrariness objection in my article, “Is Ethical Naturalism more Plausible than Supernaturalism: A Reply to Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.” Jason suggests that when you disambiguate the premises of Armstrong’s argument, it is formulated as follows: […]
Tags: Arbitrariness Objection · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Jason Thibodeau · Walter Sinno
“Do as I say, not as I do.” Is God a cosmic hypocrite?
October 23rd, 2014 8 Comments
In, my article “Tooley Plantinga and the Deontological Argument from Evil”, I argued that Tooley’s specifically deontological version of the argument from evil fails. To summarise very briefly, Tooley’s version of the argument assumes that God has moral obligations. However, according to a fairly mainstream theistic position on the relationship between God and morality, the […]
Tags: God and Morality · Hypocrisy · Problem of Evil
Richard Carrier and the Abhorrent Commands Objection
October 5th, 2014 4 Comments
In my last post, Richard Carrier and the Arbitrariness Objection, I argued that Richard Carrier’s attempt to defend Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s arbitrariness objection failed. I also argued his defence of this argument is incoherent and engages in special pleading because the arguments he defends apply with equal cogency to his own version of ethical naturalism. When […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Richard Carrier
Richard Carrier and the Arbitrariness Objection
September 5th, 2014 5 Comments
In, “Is ethical naturalism more plausible than Supernaturalism“, I criticised Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s objection that a divine command theory (DCT) makes morality arbitrary. Armstrong argued: “Let’s assume that God commanded us not to rape. Did God have any reason to command this? If not, his command was arbitrary, and then it can’t make anything morally wrong. On […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Publication · Richard Carrier
Video: “Discussing Divine Command Theory” Special Guest: Matthew Flannagan
September 1st, 2014 7 Comments
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.
Tags: Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · MandM on Video
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
