Divine Commands or Divine Attitudes?

Abstract

In this essay, I present three arguments for the claim that theists should reject divine command theory (DCT) in favor of divine attitude theory (DAT). First, DCT (but not DAT) implies that some cognitively normal human persons are exempt from the dictates of morality. Second, it is incumbent upon us to cultivate the skill of moral judgment, a skill that fits nicely with the claims of DAT but which is superfluous if DCT is true. Third, an attractive and widely shared conception of Jewish/Christian religious devotion leads us naturally to an attitude-based conception of morality rather than a com mand-based one. Many philosophers who believe that morality requires a theistic foundation have embraced divine command theory (DCT). By my lights, this is a mistake. There is an alternative account—divine attitude theory (DAT)—that can lay claim to many of the advantages of DCT but which is not liable to the same objections. The central claim of DAT is that (moral) deontic facts are constituted by facts about divine attitudes, such that it is morally wrong for S to φ in C iff God would be displeased by S’s φ-ing in C, it is morally obligatory for S to φ in C iff God would be displeased by S’s failure to φ in C, it is morally optional for S to φ in C if God would be neither pleased nor displeased by S’s φ-ing (or failing to φ) in C, and it would be supererogatory for S to φ in C iff God would be pleased by S’s φ-ing in C but not displeased by S’s failure to φ in C. Elsewhere, I have contrasted DAT and DCT in some detail and argued that DAT is preferable because of its ability to accommodate the modal status of fundamental deontic principles. 1 In the present essay, I will offer three further arguments for the superiority of DAT vis-a-vis DCT. The first argument appeals to a general feature of commands: they must be recognized as commands in order to function as commands. This leaves the divine command theorist in the awkward position of maintaining that some cognitively normal human persons (namely, atheists) are exempt from the dictates of morality. DAT is immune from this challenge because the relevant conceptual constraints on commands do not apply to attitudes. The second argument is based on the uncodifiability of moral principles. It is plausible to maintain that the complexities of the