(Intro music)
My name is Stephen Darwall[br]and I teach philosophy
at Yale University in[br]New Haven, Connecticut.
And today I want to[br]discuss morality and God.
Is God necessary for morality?
Would anything be right or wrong
if God did not command or prohibit it?
In Dostoyevsky's "Brothers Karamazov,"
the character Ivan says,
"If God doesn't exist, then[br]anything is permitted."
This is a version of the[br]view that is sometimes
called the "divine command theory."
The divine command theory[br]holds that morality
just is God's commandments[br]and prohibitions.
If there were no God who commands us
to act in certain ways, then nothing
would be morally right or wrong.
Actually, strictly speaking,
nothing would be permitted either,
despite what Ivan says.
The categories of moral right,
wrong, and permissibility[br]simply wouldn't apply.
This is the view I want to consider.
I'll be trying to illustrate how
the truth of two assumptions,
(1) that God exists and
(2) that it's morally wrong to[br]violate God's commands,
do not imply (3) that[br]moral right and wrong
just consist in God's[br]commands and prohibitions.
And to make this especially vivid,
I will show how if one believes (2),
that is, that it's morally wrong to
violate God's commands[br]for certain reasons,
then far from that implying the
divine command theory, it actually implies
that the divine command theory is false,
because it implies that[br]there must be truths
about moral right and wrong that are
independent of God's commands.
First, however, let's notice some reasons
that one might be attracted to
holding the divine command theory.
One is that it explains[br]the close connection
between the idea of morality and that
of law or requirement.
What is morally wrong to do is not
just what there are[br]good reasons not to do.
It is what one is morally[br]obligated not to do.
That suggests that[br]morality is a kind of law.
And the divine command theory can
explain why that's so:
God's commands create the moral law.
Secondly, the theory also explains the
contrast between any earthly law,
or any society's mores or morality
and what we might call "morality itself,"
or "morality with a capital 'M,'"
that is, genuinely obligating moral norms
or the truths of moral right and wrong.
Consider for example Huck Finn's quandary
in Mark Twain's novel "Huckleberry Finn,"
which is set in Missouri[br]before the Civil War.
Huck has become close to[br]Jim, who is a runaway slave.
Under the Fugitive Slave Act, Huck is
legally required to turn Jim in.
And Huck believes also that according
to the moral convictions[br]of his time and place
he's morally required to do so as well.
Indeed, he thinks that[br]God's commands require
him to do so and that, as he says,
he'll go to hell if[br]he doesn't turn Jim in.
But feeling a profound bond with Jim
as a fellow human being,
Huck simply can't bring himself to do so.
Now obviously Twain is assuming that
his readers will agree[br]with Huck's expression
of common humanity and disagree with
Huck's belief that it would actually be
morally wrong not to turn Jim in.
even if they also agree that this would
be contrary to the morality of the
Antebellum South and Missouri.
What makes the novel so powerful
is that despite himself Huck seems to
sense that morality[br]doesn't actually prohibit,
in fact that it may actually require,
or at least recommend, that someone in
his situation violate[br]the Fugitive Slave Law
and oppose slavery, since slavery's
a morally evil institution.
The divine command theory could explain
this distinction between morality
and any society's laws or mores.
Although Huck thinks that God commands us
to return a runaway slave[br]or always to obey the law,
we may think that God does[br]not actually command that.
God commands that people oppose slavery.
The divine command theory is an attractive
view precisely because it can explain
our sense that morality transcends any
earthly law or social understanding.
Still, that doesn't show that morality
is the same thing as God's commands,
in the sense that if there[br]were no divine commands,
then nothing would be right or wrong.
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