RELIGION

ETHICS - 101
RELIGION

CLAIRE GONZAGA CANDAME
Love the Lord, Your God,
therefore , and always
heed his charge: his
statutes, decrees, and
commandments.” ( new
American Bible)
As a foundation for ethical values, this is
referred to as the divine command theory .
the divinity called God, Allah, or Supreme
Being commands and one is obliged to
obey her creator.
We are presented with a more-or-less clear code of prohibitions and many
of this prohibitions given by religion

•
Thou shall not kill
• Thou shall not steal
• Thou shall not commit adultery
•
and so on......

seem to intuitively coincide with our sense of what ethics should rightly
demand.
 The Divine can command absulote obedience on one’s part as
the implications of her actions involve her ultimate destiny. Thus,
we would not be surprised if we were to hear someone say

“Ethics? It is simple. Just follow whatever your religion says”

 Each faith demands differently from its adherents, which would

apparently result in conflicting ethical standards.

Certain religions have
prohibitions concerning what
food may be consumed, while
others do not share the same

constraints.
 Are we then compelled to judge others

negativity given their dfferent morality?
 Are we called upon to convert them towards
our own faith?
 How about the problem of realizing that not
everyone is devout or maintains a religion

faith?
EUTHYPHRO
Plato
EUTHYPRO: But i would certainly say that holy is what all the gods love, and that the opposite, what all the gods hate,

is unholy.

SOCRATES: Well, Euthypro, should we examine this in turn to see if it is true? or should we let it go, accept it from
ourselves or anyone else without more ado, and agree that thing is so if only someone says it is? or should we
examine what a person means when he says something?

EUTHYPRO: Of course, i believe, though, that this time what i say is true.

SOCRATES: Perhaps we shall learn better, my friend. For consider: Is holy loved by the gods because it is holy? or it is
holy because it is loved by the gods?”
 In the exchange between Socrates and Euthyphro, the question is raised as to how one is supposed to define
“Holiness.

 Euthyphro puts forward the idea that what is holy is loved by gods.

 Socrates called this into question by asking the following clarification: Is it holy only because it is loved by gods,
or is it holy in itself and that is why it isl oved by gods?

 The relevance of these questions to our discussion becomes clear if rephrased this way: Is it the case that
something is right only because God commanded it, or is it right case because that something is right in itself
abd that is why God commanded it?
DILEMMA

1. Are right actions right because God command
them?

2.Are right actions commanded by God because

they are right?
DILEMMA #1
 Are right actions right because God command them?

• Basically, according to the Divine Command Theory, If you believed in
this phase then it means that you’re accepting that God’s command
alone is simply what makes something right.

• If God determines the rightness and wrongness of everything, just by
saying so, then the entire concept of goodness and value becomes
vacuous.
Example for
DELIMMA 1:
1. The Crusades in the middle age

 The purpose of the crusades in the middle age were to stop the
expansion of Muslim states, to reclaim for christianity the Holy Land in
the Middle East, and to recapture territories that had formerly been
Christian.
 Many writers communicated that crusading was holy warfare, meaning
that it was a just war that was not only authorized by God himself. In
theological terms, then, God was the one taking action; God was the one
waging war.
DILEMMA #2
 Are right actions commanded by God because they are right?

• In this phase, if there’s some standard of goodness that God has to stick
to when making commands, then that means there must be things that
God can’t command.
• If the ethucal rules of the universe come from some source other than
God, then why can’t we just go straight to that source, too, and figure out
morality for ourselves in the same way God did?

• Either God is bound by a standard outside of
himself, or God’s goodness doesn’t really mean
anything.

• So if God just follow the those commandments
then it means that those commandments are
higher than God.
CONCLUSION
 Generally speaking, it is a good thing for a person of faith to abide by the teachings
of her perticular religion. But the Divine Command Theory demands more than this
as it requires us to identify the entire sense of right and wrong with what religion
dictates.

 Our calling into question of the divine command theory is not a calling into a
question of one’s belief in God; it is not intended to be a challenge to one’s faith.
Instead, it is an invitation to consider wether there may be more creative and less
problematic ways of seeing the connection between faith and ethics, rather than
simply equating what is ethical with whatever one takes to be commanded by God.

END OF SLIDE
THANK YOU

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ETHICS - 101

 Are we then compelled to judge others

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