Humanism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Stephen Law

Author:Stephen Law [Law, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2011-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

7. Moses bringing God’s Commandments down from Mount Sinai. According to some religious people, morality must come from God

This chapter begins by taking a closer look at these three challenges.

Can there be good without God?

One of the most popular arguments that, without God, morality is impossible, runs as follows.

Morality cannot come from us. It cannot be our own creation. If it were, that would make morality both arbitrary and relative –which it is not.

Why arbitrary? Because, if prior to our decreeing that anything is right or wrong, there is no right or wrong, our decrees cannot be based on moral reasons. Whatever judgement we make must be, morally speaking, an entirely arbitrary one.

Why relative? Well, if what is morally right or wrong is determined by what we say, then, had we said that torturing the innocent is right, it would have been. Indeed, for those of us who say it is right, it is right. What is right or wrong is entirely relative to whatever we decree.

But surely morality is not arbitrary and relative in this way? We can’t make torturing innocent people right just by saying so. Such torture is wrong period, not just wrong-because-we-happen-to-say-so.

But, concludes the argument, if things are not right or wrong because we say so, then they must be right or wrong because God says so. Why is torturing the innocent wrong whatever we might happen to say or think about it? Because God says it is wrong.

The theory that things are morally right or wrong, good or bad, only because God says so is known as the divine command theory. According to the divine command theory, the wrongness of murder simply consists in the fact that God commands us not to do it.

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