“God, say the religious fundamentalists, is the source of all morality; there can be no morality without a Judge who rewards and punishes.”
I suppose this may be a true position for some southern baptists or the like, I won’t claim to know the normal religious arguments of every sect or region, but I’ve never heard it stated from anyone religious, only the “formerly religious” or the non-religious. So it seems like a bit of a strawman argument to me.
From my own “religious fundamentalist” position, a contrasting argument would be:
1. God is all knowing.
2. God loves us.
From which follows:
3. God knows what moral rules are best for us to follow in order to benefit ourselves and wants us to follow those rules.
As a result:
4. In order to maximise our collective benefit, we should follow god’s commandments.
This does not negate the proposition that divine command theory is false.
By your argument, what is good is not because God decreed it; God decreed it because it was good. That is the opposite of divine command theory. Rather than a contrasting argument, you are actually supporting Eliezer’s conclusion—albeit by a different argument.
“God, say the religious fundamentalists, is the source of all morality; there can be no morality without a Judge who rewards and punishes.”
I suppose this may be a true position for some southern baptists or the like, I won’t claim to know the normal religious arguments of every sect or region, but I’ve never heard it stated from anyone religious, only the “formerly religious” or the non-religious. So it seems like a bit of a strawman argument to me.
From my own “religious fundamentalist” position, a contrasting argument would be:
1. God is all knowing.
2. God loves us.
From which follows:
3. God knows what moral rules are best for us to follow in order to benefit ourselves and wants us to follow those rules.
As a result:
4. In order to maximise our collective benefit, we should follow god’s commandments.
This does not negate the proposition that divine command theory is false.
By your argument, what is good is not because God decreed it; God decreed it because it was good. That is the opposite of divine command theory. Rather than a contrasting argument, you are actually supporting Eliezer’s conclusion—albeit by a different argument.