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Divine Commands and Intuitions: A Response to Ken Perrott

Matt — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:12:00 +0000

Ken Perrott from Open Parachute has asked me some questions about my views on morality and divine commands. Views I have repeatedly expressed on this blog. Given that others have from time to time asked me similar questions, and given the length of my response, I have decided to turn my answers into a post. [Ken's questions are copied and pasted from the comments section of With God Anything can be Permitted: Another Bad Argument against Theistic Morality, numbered and italicised below]

1. I think a key issue, one which should really be spelt out in detail, is the concept of “grounding moral duties in divine commands”. What does this mean?

Basically, I think the relationship between the moral properties of being wrong and the property of being contrary to God commands is analogous to the relationship between water and H2O. Just as we explain the existence and nature of water by identifying it with H2O. I would explain the existence and nature of wrongness by identifying it with the property of being contrary to Gods commands.

2. So what do you mean by “divine commands”? How do you get them? Do you hear voices?

No I don’t hear voices. God is an immaterial being and hence has no vocal chords. I think it is possible for God to create an audible voice issuing a command but I think that this would be fairly atypical. In any event, I do not think that an auditory voice is necessary for issuing a command. I can communicate a command orally but I can also do it via e-mail, text, sign language, waving a flag, etc.

In the normal and typical cases, I think divine commands are usually discerned via a person’s conscience. One intuitively sees that certain actions are right and others wrong and hence intuitively perceives certain imperatives such as “do not torture children for fun,” etc. Moreover, I think anyone whose faculties are functioning properly perceives God’s commands this way whether they believe in his existence or not.

The H2O analogy may illuminate this. We know that the property of being water is the property of being H2O. However, people can know something is water immediately via perception even if they do not have any beliefs about molecules, atoms or contemporary science. Pre-European Maori, for example, knew about the existence of water and competently used water for centuries before they knew about the existence of hydrogen and oxygen.

I think something analogous holds with divine commands. The property of being wrong is the property of being contrary to divine commands; however, people can immediately perceive via intuition what is wrong even if they do not believe in divine commands.

Hence, on my view, atheists can know what is right and wrong. The real question is whether atheism can adequately explain the existence of right and wrong or whether, given atheism, it is likely that moral properties such as right and wrong exist. These are separate questions.

A person can believe in the existence of something and yet be committed to beliefs, which if true, entail that what they believe is a fantasy. I suspect this is precisely the way Atheists view Christians.

3. And if such a command tells you commit an act which conflicts with your moral intuitions and logic – which one do you follow?

If I understand Ken correctly here, he is asking me what I would do if I believed that God had commanded an action that I intuitively considered to be wrong. This is actually a big topic, worthy of a post in and of itself, I do plan to post something more substantial on this in the future, here I can only summarise my current position.

As I noted above, I agree with Ken that people can intuitively recognise certain principles of right and wrong. I would, however, point out that these intuitions are fallible. So, in contrast to what Ken appears to think, I would not assume that every time there was a clash between what I believed God’s commands are and my intuitions that the latter are correct. At the same time I also think our interpretations about what God commands are also fallible and so I would not assume that my interpretations of what God commanded were always correct either. In fact, given that I have already argued that one knows God’s commands intuitively through one’s conscience, intuitively perceiving an action is wrong is some evidence that God forbids it and that claims to the contrary are mistaken.

My answer then to Ken’s question, what do you do if one’s interpretation of God’s commands conflicts with one’s moral intuitions? is that it depends on one’s epistemic situation. If the belief that God has commanded a particular action is something that, after critical reflection, seemed to me well established by the evidence and by contrast, the contrary intuition that the action was wrong was fairly weak, peripheral and less plausible then I would go against the intuition. If, on the other hand, the intuition was very clear and seemed extremely plausible while the rival interpretation of God’s commands was, by comparison, fairly weak and tentative then I would follow the intuition.

To turn to one example Ken mentions, the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2000, I think the intuition that it is wrong to kill innocent human beings is a very strong one. Whereas I do not believe that the case from, say, scripture or theological tradition for killing innocent people in this way is very strong at all (in fact both scripture and tradition are fairly unanimously opposed to terrorism of this sort).

On other issues my thinking is different. For example some people appear to find it self-evident that there is nothing wrong with homosexual conduct. I myself do not have this intuition, nor do most people I know, in fact, many defenders of homosexual conduct I have spoken to admit that they personally find the idea of two men having sex disgusting but defend the “liberal” view in spite of this. Moreover, for I do not think it is implausible to conclude that much of the contemporary acceptance of homosexual conduct is due to cultural conditioning rather than a sudden direct insight gained in the mid 20th century. The arguments typically given for the permissibility of homosexual sex are fairly weak and frequently consist of no more than castigating others as bigots. On the other hand, I think the theological case against homosexual conduct from scripture and tradition is fairly strong.

I have posted a bit more about my thoughts on this in my post Brink on Dialetical Equilibrium.

4. After all, I keep hearing of people who have committed murder as a result of “divine commands” and society usually locks them up.

I am not sure what Ken intends to prove with this point. Ken is correct that some people who suffer from a mental disorder believe that God has commanded them to kill. I don’t think this proves much. I know of people who suffer from dementia who have had hallucinations that there is a river running through their lounge. Does it follow then that referring to the existence of rivers is somehow dubious? In fact, mental patients can also have faulty “moral intuitions” and moral logic quite independently of any theological beliefs they have.

Despite this, Ken maintains, correctly, that people whose cognitive faculties are functioning properly can intuitively discern the presence of right and wrong. I agree with him, the difference is that I believe that what they discern is in fact the property of being in accord with or contrary to divine commands. Ken clearly does not. The question that some theistic critics of secular morality poses is not whether atheists can discern right and wrong, they can; the question is whether, if atheism is true, right and wrong actually exist.

With God Anything can be Permitted: Another Bad Argument against Theistic Morality

Matt — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:15:00 +0000

Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov’s famously contended that if God does not exist then anything is permissible. Ken over at Open Parachute disagrees and goes one step further and argues that the shoe is on the other foot. Ken maintains that theistic accounts of obligation lead to an “extreme form of moral relativism” and in fact, Dostoevsky’s contention should be rephrased as “with God anything can be permitted.” Ken claims,

But when secular morality is abandoned, and religious appeals to what God wants, or what God ordains, this opens the gates wide to the worst sort of moral relativism. It enables any despot to sanction any form of inhumanity by claiming that their god supports it.

“if Ken’s argument is sound then he has offered, not just an argument against theism, but an argument against the existence of morality itself.”Now regular readers of this blog will know that I have written several defences of theistic accounts of moral obligation. I have also argued that moral relativism is a mistaken theory of ethics. Hence, if what Ken says is true then my own position is incoherent. I defend a thesis and at the same time I critique and reject a position that is a logical implication of that thesis or at least follows from the thesis when it is conjoined with some uncontroversial facts.

For this reason, it is worth asking whether Ken’s claim is true, or at best, whether the arguments he gives for this claim are sound. I contend that they are not. Ken’s main argument for his thesis is found in the following quote,

This seems crazy to most people but is not at all unusual. Consider the civil rights struggles in the USA. Christian beliefs were used to justify both segregation and the opposition to it. The same in South Africa. Most members of the Dutch reform Church thought apartheid was sanctified by God, whereas many anti-apartheid activists opposed apartheid on religious grounds. Consider slavery. Consider just about any struggle over human rights in human history and we can see examples of a god being used to justify both opposition to, and support of, human rights.

This suggests to me that religion does allow for an extreme form of moral relativism. Truly anything can be justified by claiming support from your god.

I think Ken’s argument is flawed. Let me offer two lines of response to demonstrate why.

First, if Ken’s argument is sound then he has offered, not just an argument against theism, but an argument against the existence of morality itself. Consider the structure of his argument; he notes that one group of theists oppose P and claim, as the basis for their opposition, that P has the property of being contrary to God’s commands. Ken then notes that another group of theists oppose not-P and claim, as the basis for their opposition, that not-P has the property of being contrary to God’s commands. Ken infers from these examples that belief in God entails “an extreme form of moral relativism” and that it follows from this that “with God anything can be permitted.”

The problem is that an exactly analogous line of argument applies to the existence of right and wrong per se whether it has a theistic grounding or not. Consider any paradigmatic moral debate on an issue. Whether it is capital punishment, affirmative action, war or whatever, one group of believers in the existence of right and wrong will oppose P and claim, as the basis for their opposition, that P has the property of being wrong. Another group who also believe in right and wrong will oppose not-P and claim, as the basis for their opposition, that not-P has the property of being wrong. Hence, if Ken’s argument is valid then it must be the case that the existence of right and wrong entails “extreme moral relativism,” and, that if right and wrong exist then anything can be permitted.

So we have, then, two arguments, Ken’s own argument that God’s existence entails extreme moral relativism and an analogous argument that the existence of right and wrong entails extreme moral relativism. Both have true premises. Ken’s premise is that some believers in God disagree over whether to support a given action. The analogous argument has as its premise the contention that people who believe in the existence of right and wrong sometimes disagree over whether to support a given action.

Given this, it follows that either both arguments are sound or neither one of them is. Ken must either embrace extreme moral relativism and the kind of nihilistic tendencies he criticises “religion” for having or he must retract his argument.

The second line response I will make to Ken’s argument is to note that it clearly is not a valid argument at all. In fact, it conceals a subtle fallacy. Ken notes that,

[1] Different religious believers appeal to God to justify mutually incompatible practises.

From this he infers that,

[2] Anything can be justified by appealing to God.

The problem here is that [1] is ambiguous. When we say that a person appeals to a belief to justify a conclusion, we can mean

[1a] He or she actually does show that the position is actually justified by appealing to this belief;

or we can mean,

[1b] That he or she attempts to show that the position is justified by appealing to this belief.

Which, then, does Ken mean?

Ken could mean [1a]. If he does mean this his argument is unsound. This is because the examples he shows do not substantiate this premise, they do not support the claim that theists have actually justified mutually incompatible positions with appeals to God.

Noting that theists have disagreed over what policy is in accord with the will of God does not show that all parties to the dispute have actually justified their claim that these policies are in fact in accord with God’s will. Merely noting the existence of an argument does not demonstrate that the argument is sound.

Perhaps then Ken means [1b], he is simply noting that different theists have attempted to justify their beliefs by appealing to God. This claim certainly is supported by the evidence he cites; however, the problem is that the conclusion Ken draws does not follow.

The fact that people have attempted to offer justifications for mutually inconsistent positions does not entail that all these positions can in fact be justified. It only tells us that people have attempted to justify mutually incompatible positions by appealing to God.

I grant that people can use theological premises in an attempt to justify different and inconsistent positions but this is a fairly innocuous claim. Take any premise you like, secular or theological, it is true that a person could to appeal to this premise in an attempt to justify something. Such a person’s argument may be stupid, unsound or unsuccessful but that does not mean that it is impossible for that person to try to mount it. I am sure Ken would agree that people offer stupid arguments for things all the time.

Consider Darwinian Evolution. People can and have appealed to this theory to justify Marxism, Nazism, racism, colonialism, atheism, scepticism, ethical nihilism, infanticide and a whole host of other positions, many of which are mutually incompatible. Of course, the fact people have tried to use Darwinism for this purpose does not, in and of itself, entail that Darwinism actually justifies any of these theories. It only tells us that some people appealed to it to try to show this.

Ken, I am sure, would object to being told that his beliefs commit him to social Darwinist views of race relations purely because someone once appealed to Darwinism in the past to justify such claims. Similarly, he would object if I suggested that the mere existence of these arguments by others in the past commits him to extreme relativism and the view that any action, including rape and torturing of little children, could be justified.

Ken would rightly point out that the issue is not whether Darwinian arguments have been offered for all sorts of crazy positions; rather, it is whether these arguments are correct. Here I would simply note that what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, William Lane Craig and the Argument from Harm Part I

Matt — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 09:51:00 +0000

This is the first of a two-part series where I examine a recent argument criticising religious ethics by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.

In many of his publications and debates William Lane Craig has defended the contention that if theism is true then there exists a sound foundation for moral duties. In a recent article, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has criticised this contention. Armstrong has claimed that his criticisms do not just call into question Craig’s argument for a theistic based system of ethics, he contends that his arguments are conclusive against any theistic account of ethics which is compatible with Christianity. He states, “Other theists might try to give better arguments for a religious view of morality. I don’t see how they could avoid all the problems in Craig’s account without leaving traditional Christianity far behind.”[1]

Before discussing Armstrong’s critique it is important to define a few key terms; this will become important later on. First, by theism, Craig means, belief in a necessarily existent, all powerful, all knowing, perfectly virtuous, immaterial person who created the universe. By foundation, he means, an ontological or meta-physical foundation. The ontological grounding he has in mind is that of “informative identification;”[2] an example of this is the way “we explain the nature of water by identifying it with H20 or explain the nature of heat by identifying it with molecular motion.”[3] Craig argues that if theism is true then one can informatively identify moral obligations with divine commands; hence, providing a plausible and defensible foundation for moral obligations.

“his arguments display a conflation of epistemic and ontological questions”Armstrong’s critique begins by noting that Craig defends “traditional divine command theory.” Armstrong contends that such a position is “incredible”[4] and subject to a “cavalcade of devastating objections.”[5]

Two initial points are worth making. First, the position Craig defends is not a “traditional divine command theory” but rather a version of the modified divine command theory defended by Robert Adams,[6] more recently by William Alston[7] and Stephen Evans[8], also I have defended it here.

This theory affirms that the property of being wrong is identical with the property of being contrary to God’s commands in much the same way that water is identical with H20. Second, many of the “devastating objections” consist simply of a repetition of the tired old lines always used against divine command theories; most of these objections have been subjected to rigorous criticism in the literature on divine commands over the last 30 years by people such as Philip Quinn,[9] Edward Weirenga,[10] Robert Adams,[11] William Wrainwright[12] and again by me[13]. Armstrong does not address any of these criticisms; he merely repeats the standard arguments without even mentioning, much less, addressing the problems noted by these authors. In fact, in several places, his arguments display a conflation of epistemic and ontological questions which is a common error as I have argued here.

Armstrong’s Argument from Harm
Putting these niggles to one side, however, Armstrong’s main line of argument is fairly novel.[14] He states,

There is a much more plausible foundation for morality. It seems obvious to me, and to everyone who does not start with peculiarly religious assumptions, that what makes rape morally wrong is the extreme harm that rape causes to rape victims.[15]

Armstrong suggests that Craig’s conditional, if theism is true then there exists a sound foundation for moral duties, is mistaken because a more plausible foundation exists for our duties, one that is independent of God’s commands. The wrongness of actions can be founded in the harm caused by immoral actions such as rape. Armstrong provides two arguments as to why this harm-based or secular account of the nature of wrongness is superior to a divine command theory.

(a) The harm account is more economical than a divine command theory;
(b) The harm account makes moral obligations more objective than a divine command theory does.

In my next post I will address arguments (a) and (b). I will leave you with the thought that it is worth noting that Armstrong’s conclusion misses the point. He contends that everyone who does not start with peculiarly religious assumptions will see that the harm-based foundation is more plausible than a divine command theory. Nothing in Craig’s contention contradicts this. Craig’s contention is that if God exists then there is a sound basis for moral obligations. The sound basis he identifies is divine commands. Craig, then, was not arguing that a divine command theory was the most plausible theory in the absence of religious assumptions, Craig argues that in the absence of religious assumptions it is Nihilism, not divine command theory, which is the most plausible account of moral obligation. Craig’s contention is that a divine command theory is plausible if one grants such assumptions. Armstrong’s conclusion actually has no bearing on the contention he is attempting to refute.

[1] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 114.
[2] Mark C Murphy “Theism, Atheism and the Explanation of Moral Value” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 127.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” 106.
[5]Ibid, 108.
[6] Robert Adams Finite and Infinite Goods (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979) 66-79; “Divine Commands and the Social Nature of Obligation” Faith and Philosophy 4 (1987) 262-275. [7] William Alston “Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy ed. Michael Beaty ( Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990) 303-26.
[8] C. Stephen Evans Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
[9] Philip L Quinn Divine Commands and Moral Requirements (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978); “Divine Command Theory” in The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory ed Hugh LaFollette (Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing Co, 1999) 53-73; “Theological Voluntarism” in The Oxford Handbook to Ethical Theory Ed David Copp (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) 63-90.
[10] Edward Weirenga, The Nature of God: An Inquiry into the Divine Attributes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989) 215-27. See also, “Utilitarianism and the Divine Command Theory,” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984) 311-318; and “A Defensible Divine Command Theory” Nous 17 (1983) 387-408.
[11] Robert Adams “A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness” in Divine Commands and Morality ed Paul Helm (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981) 83-108; “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979) 66-79; Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief” in Rationality and Religious Belief ed C F Delaney (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979) 116-140.
[12] William Wrainwright Religion and Morality (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2005).
[13] Matthew Flannagan “The Premature Dismissal of Voluntarism” in Colloquium: The Australasian Theological Review (forthcoming).
[14] I say “fairly novel” because a very similar objection was raised in Don Marquis’s seminal essay, “Why Abortion is Immoral” The Abortion Controversy: 25 Years after Roe v Wade, A Reader eds Louis Pojman and Francis Beckwith (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998) 345.
[15] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” 106.

Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism I

Matt — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:08:00 +0000

Suppose you asked me what today’s date was and I answered that the Maori Electorate seats in Parliament should be scrapped. You would quite rightly wonder what I was on. The question of what the date is is a completely different question as to whether a particular social policy is just.

Oddly enough, however, when it comes to many questions on social policy or on ethics in general, people offer the date as a justification for their stance. I often hear people justify some ‘progressive’ policy by informing me that is the 21st century or that we no longer live in the dark ages.

Recently in there has been controversy over whether women should be allowed to ride motorbikes down our main street topless to promote a pornography erotica festival. There were predominantly two responses articulated by supporters in the media reports on the controversy: “it’s the 21st century” and “we live in a liberal society.”

Let’s unpack both slogans. The first claims that being topless in public is acceptable because in the 21st century the fashions trends are for acceptance of such activities. In the past people opposed such actions but they shouldn’t anymore because society’s attitudes have changed. Note the implicit assumption here, that right and wrong is determined by what society currently accepts. The same assumption is even more evident in the second slogan. The assertion here is that New Zealand is a liberal society, that is, kiwis today have liberal attitudes towards pornography and public nudity. Suppose this is true; this entails that pornography and public nudity are permissible only if right and wrong are determined by societal attitudes.

This is not an isolated incident. When I was studying the abortion issue for my PhD research I often found people who stated they were personally opposed to abortion but would not condemn others who did it. This, of course, suggests that one can accept a principle opposing abortion, apply it to oneself and yet think it inappropriate to apply it to others.

Similarly, we often hear slogans such as “who are you to judge,” “don’t force your morality onto me,” Both suggest that one person cannot make moral judgments about another and that their moral scruples only apply to those who also hold them.

It is not uncommon to hear people say things like, “if you don’t like abortion don’t have one” or “if you don’t agree with what’s on TV turn it off.” Both responses assume that a person should not apply their moral standards to other people’s actions. They should follow these standards themselves if that is their belief but other people who disagree with them are not required to.

Behind these responses is a position known as ethical relativism. In a series of three posts I want to explore what relativism is, the common arguments for it and provide some reasons for rejecting it.

[This series was developed from my talk on the topic for Thinking Matters]

What is Ethical Relativism?
Frances Howard-Snyder[1] suggests that relativism comes in two forms, cultural ethical relativism and individual ethical relativism. These views can be formulated as follows:

Cultural Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person’s society or cultural group condemns that action.

Individual Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person believes that the action is wrong.[2]

Two things follow from this view of ethics; first, humans create right and wrong, either by societal consensus of some sort or by an individual choosing to adopt and/or believe in, certain principles of action. Second, moral principles only apply to people or cultures who accept them. A few of examples will illustrate this.

Consider first cultural ethical relativism. Suppose two cultures have differing positions on the morality of pre-marital sex. In one culture it is seen as a serious sin, in the other it’s a normal courting ritual. Cultural ethical relativism entails that pre-marital sex is wrong for members of the first culture but not wrong for the second. Consequently, if a person in the second culture mocks a member of the first culture for holding repressed ideas about sex or conversely if a person in the first culture criticises someone in the second culture for engaging in pre-marital sex each is making a serious mistake. Premarital sex is only wrong for people in the first culture and denying your sexual urges is only wrong for people in the second.

A similar result follows from adopting individual ethical relativism. If a person believes that pre-marital sex is wrong then it is wrong for him and he should refrain from engaging in it and can be condemned if he does not. However, he cannot apply his own standard of sexual conduct to the behaviour of others who do not accept his views. If a person does not accept his view then pre-marital sex is not wrong for them.

This suggests a corollary that hypocrisy will be seen as the worst kind of evil (indeed the only evil) and sincerity will be highly praised. The hypocrite violates his own views and the sincere person embraces them. (Of course the problem is that an individual or culture might believe there is nothing wrong with hypocrisy and despise sincerity, this would lead to the conclusion that hypocrisy is ok and sincerity is evil.)

A final implication is that as cultures and individuals often disagree on moral questions there is no set of moral precepts which bind all people, regardless of their culture, at all times. Given this, it is not surprising that people commonly respond to ethical and social policy questions by providing the date.

Before looking at the arguments for relativism I want to contrast it with objectivism. In this context objectivism is not a form of Libertarianism expounded by Ayn Rand, it is the view that actions are right or wrong independent of whether anyone believes them to be so.

Robert Adams defends the thesis that ethical wrongness is (i.e. is identical with) the property of being contrary to the commands of a loving God.”[3] [Emphasis original] I have defended divine command theories in various places on this blog, in this post, however, I want to simply note that a divine command theory, like other meta-ethical theories, grounds right and wrong in in facts that hold independently of human volition or cognition.

If God exists, he existed before I came into existence and will continue to exist after I die. He does not depend on me in any way for his existence rather I depend upon him for my existence. The same is true for the commands he issues; if right and wrong are constituted by divine commands then, it follows, right and wrong are objective properties of actions and do not depend upon us for their instantiation.

Two implications of objectivism are noteworthy. First, ethical rules are not created by human beings but rather discovered by them. Second, whether an action is right or wrong is a factual question in much the same way as the question is the earth round? The shape of the earth is something human beings have discovered. If some people, such as the 4th century Theologian Lactantius or some culture, such as the ancient Babylonians, believe the world is flat then they are mistaken. Despite what they think Lactantius and the Babylonians lived on a spherical globe; no matter how sincerely they believed otherwise, there was no change to the shape of the earth. Objectivism sees moral properties such as right and wrong as being on par with factual claims about the shape of the earth this is respect.

As the slogans above suggest, objectivist views of ethics are widely disparaged in popular culture in favour of relativism. Of course, the fact that a position is widely disparaged does not mean it is mistaken. To determine this we need to ask whether the arguments in favour of relativism are compelling. It is to this task I will turn in my next post.

[1] Frances Howard-Snyder, “Christianity and Ethics” in Reason for the Hope Within, ed Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing co, 1999) 376-377.
[2] The same basic distinction is found in Pojman who distinguishes between what he calls conventionalism and subjectivism
[3] Robert Adams, “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again,” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979) 76.

RELATED POSTS:
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism III
Video of Matthew Flannagan Speaking on Moral Relativism
With God Anything can be Permitted: Another Bad Argument against Theistic Morality
On a Common Equivocation
Sunday Study: The Virtue of Judging – Jesus was not a Relativist