Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Taylor Carr republished on The Secular Outpost with permission. The original post may be found on his blog, The Godless Skeptic. In a recent episode of the Reasonable Faith podcast, William Lane Craig offers his thoughts on a 2012 paper by Jeremy Koons, Can God's Goodness Save the Divine Command Theory from Euthyphro? Koons' paper is another in a growing number of critiques aimed at the divine command meta-ethics advocated by figures like Craig, Robert Adam … [Read more...]
Craig, Koons, and Divine Command Theory
Filed Under: metaethics, moral argument, nontheistic metaethics, theistic metaethics Tagged With: divine command theory, Ethics, Jeremy Koons, metaethics, moral argument, moral values, morality, objective morality, Robert Adams, Stephen Maitzen, Taylor Carr, theistic morality, William Alston, William Lane Craig Leave a Comment
A Moral Argument for God which Begs the Question against Theists
Reposting a comment I left on fellow Patheos blogger Bob Seidensticker's blog, Cross Examined. Bob was writing about Geisler's and Turek's book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Bob quoted this passage from their book: If the atheists are right, then we might as well lie, cheat, and steal to get what we want because this life is all there is, and there are no consequences in eternity. (p. 68) Bob's response:Wow—what planet are these guys from? How many atheists think that it’s f … [Read more...]
Filed Under: metaethics, moral argument, nontheistic metaethics, theistic metaethics Tagged With: atheism, Darwinism, Frank Turek, nihilism, Norman Geisler Leave a Comment
Kai Nielsen on Natural Law and Divine Command Theory
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Taylor Carr republished on The Secular Outpost with permission. The original post may be found on his blog, The Godless Skeptic. It's common to hear theists make the claim that there cannot be a moral law without a moral law-giver. C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, and several other prominent defenders of the Christian faith have given voice to this position in their writings and lectures. The association of religion with morality goes back a long ways in histo … [Read more...]
Filed Under: metaethics, nontheistic metaethics, theistic metaethics Tagged With: atheism, divine command theory, divine law, Ethics, G.E. Moore, Kai Nielsen, moral argument, moral values, morality, natural law, Taylor Carr Leave a Comment
Charles Pidgen on the So-Called “Naturalistic Fallacy” in Meta-Ethics
A common objection to reductive moral naturalism (aka 'ethical naturalism') is the so-called "naturalistic fallacy." This fallacy comes into flavors: logical and semantical.The Logical FormThis version of the naturalistic fallacy is normally referred to as the is-ought fallacy, the fact-value fallacy, or, in honor of its author, Hume’s Law. The source of this form of the naturalistic fallacy is the following passage by Hume. In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I … [Read more...]
Jonathan MS Pearce on Christianity and Inter-Testamental Moral Relativism
Jonathan MS Pearce recently posted a very interesting argument. Pearce starts with the fact that there are important differences between Old Testament ethics and New Testament ethics. If Divine Command Theory were true, however, he argues that this would be an example of "inter-testamental moral relativism."LINK … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Christianity, theistic metaethics Tagged With: divine command theory, inter-testamental moral relativism, Jonathan_MS_Pearce Leave a Comment
Interesting Book On an Argument for Moral Realism
I haven't read this book, which was published last year. I'm posting this based solely on the description provided here.As someone interested in metaethics generally, I think the book looks very interesting. I'm skeptical, however, of the claim that "were it not for the existence of moral facts, we would not be able to perform ordinary speech acts such as promising." I guess I'll have to read the book to find out how Terence Cuneo defends that claim. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: books of interest, metaethics Tagged With: moral facts, moral realism, Terence Cuneo Leave a Comment
Christian Philosopher Richard Swinburne on One Type of Moral Argument for God’s Existence
“Now if the basic moral principles are analytic, the existence of what they describe cannot provide an argument for the existence of God. An argument could only take off from the truth of some or all synthetic moral truths (e.g., from the fact that it is wrong to drop atomb bombs on Japan rather than from the fact that it is wrong to kill people who will not certainly come to life again). Now the fact that certain moral truths hold can only confirm, add to the probability of, the existence of G … [Read more...]
Filed Under: metaethics, moral argument Tagged With: analytic moral truths, Richard Swinburne, synthethic moral truths, William Lane Craig Leave a Comment
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