Divine Commands at the Foundations of Morality

Abstract

In this paper I wish to consider one aspect of the role that divine commands seem to play in religious ethics, their role when considered in relation to the foundations of morality. If, as seems to be taken for granted in traditional religious ethics, divine commands have moral force in and of themselves, then at least some obligations are derived from commands. This being so, might not all be? If they were, then divine commands would be what the rest of morality derived from and was founded upon.