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Module 4: Deontology I
Divine Command and Natural Law

Lesson 1: Divine Command Theory

Lesson 1.1: Basic Views

God’s Will as the Basis of Moral Law

Does God command what is good because it is good or it is good because God
commands it? (Plato’s Euthyphro: “Do the gods love what is holy because it is holy
or it is holy because the gods love it?”)

Divine Command Theory (DCT): Whatever is good is good only because God wills
it to be good. DCT has two versions:

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 1.) Strong Version: God’s will is the sole basis of morality.

DCT - Strong Version

The sole basis of morality is God’s will. As such, as Dostoevsky remarked, ”If
there is no God, everything is permissible.” Moral decisions should thus be
made on the basis of what God commands, not on what reason tells us.DCT-
Strong Version consists of three theses (Pojma 1999):

1.) Morality (i.e., rightness or wrongness) originates with God.

2.) Moral rightness simply means “willed by God,” and moral wrongfulness
means“being against the will of God.”
3.) Since morality is essentially based on divine will, not on independently existing
reasons for action, no further reasons for action are necessary.

2.) Weak Version: Morality can be based on God’s will or some independent standard
(usually reason), but if a conflict arises between God’s will and some other standard,
God’s will overrides the other standard.

DCT - Weak Version

Omits or qualifies one of two of the three theses (listed above).

Best represented by Soren Kierkegaard’s theory of the teleological suspension

of the ethical.

Morality has an independent foundation in reason (and so even if there is no God,

morality will still stand by itself--contra Dostoevsky’s previous remark). But if one
believes in God and His commands conflict with the dictates of reason, God’s
commands should override the dictates of reason.

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 Illustrated in the Biblical story where Abraham was asked by God to make his
son,Isaac, as a sacrificial offering.

Elaborated in Kierkegaard’s three stages of life: (1) aesthetic stage (life of

pleasure);(2) ethical stage (life of reason); and (3) religious stage (life of faith).

Lesson 1.2: Some Challenges

Criticisms of the DCT

1.) How can we know for sure what God wills?

Sacred texts of different religions are usually stated in very general terms; and human
conscience, religious leaders, and self-proclaimed messengers of God sometimes give
different, if not conflicting, accounts of what God wills.

2.) If God can will anything and it would be good, the theory may lead to moral
arbitrariness.
But if God can only will what is good or those in conformity with His divine qualities
(such as goodness and justice), then these qualities would have value independent of
God. Furthermore, this would mean that there is a higher standard of good which God
must conform to, which contradicts DCT.

3.) The theory undermines our autonomy as rational beings.

What is our reason for if we are bound to just conform to whatever God commands
us to do?

There are times in which what religion teaches as God’s will may or should be put
into question (e.g., some religions prohibit their members from undergoing blood

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 transfusion even when that is the only way to cure their sickness or save their lives.)

Importance of the Concept of God in Morality

1.) God’s existence ensures that ultimate justice exists.• God guarantees that the just
will be duly rewarded, and the unjust will be duly punished.Morality would not make
sense if there is no justice.

2.) God’s existence provides hope that the good will eventually prevail over the evil.

3.) Religion provides a strong motivation for why we should be moral.

The existence of a perfectly just God and an immortal soul, along with the fear of
eternal damnation and the yearning for an eternal life of happiness, provide a strong
motivation to be moral.

4.) Religion provides practices and structures that support its values.

There is usually a church of some kind and a community of faithful who provide
mutual support to one another.

Lesson 2: Natural Law Theory

Lesson 2.1: Basic Claims

Basis of Right Action

Morality is part of the natural order of things. Actions are right by nature apart from
the opinions or practices of humans.

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 Reason can discover valid moral principles by looking at the nature of humanity and
society. If something is “unnatural,” it is also immoral.

Natural Law and God

Older versions of the theory share similarities with DCT in that they point to God as
the source of the natural law. Modern and recent versions, however, claim that
natural law is inherent in the universe and in humanity, and hence does not need a
supernatural force.

Major Proponents

1.) The Stoics (1st Century BC)

They were one of the first thinkers who conceived of the idea of natural law as the basis
of morality. They believe that God is immanent in or even identical with
nature(pantheism). Nature, for the Stoics, refers to the natural order as a whole
—”cosmicnature.” To live a good life, humans have to align themselves to a kind of
“cosmic”nature.

Fundamental cosmic principles govern and unify everything in the world.Natural

order is thus rational.

To reason and act rationally is to be in harmony with nature. Thus, rationality isa key
to pursing a moral life. Subsequently, violence and vice are consequences of
irrationality and not being in harmony with nature’s universal laws.

2.) Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)

He synthesized the Stoics’ sense of cosmic natural law with Aristotle’s view that human
beings have a specific nature, purpose, and function. (If the function of a knife is to cut
sharply, a pencil’s function is to make marks on a paper, and a “good”knife or pencil
then is one that performs its function well.)

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 Humanity’s function is to exhibit rationality in all its forms. Fundamental precept of
the natural law: good is to be done and evil avoided.

What is the good or evil? All those things to which man has a natural inclination are
naturally apprehended by reason as good, and consequently as objects of pursuit,
and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance.

Good is acting in accordance with our natural inclinations, fundamental of which

include our desires for life and procreation, knowledge, and sociability.

Lesson 2.2: Some Challenges

Moral Absolutism and the Qualifying Principles

Natural Law Theory (NLT) subscribes to the view of moral absolutism which claims that
certain kinds of actions are always wrong or always obligatory regardless of the
consequences.

When basic values conflict (or when forced to choose between two actions which both
violate some value), NLT appeals to the following principles:

Principle of Forfeiture: a person who threatens the life of an innocent person

forfeits his/her own right to life.

Principle of Double Effect: It is always wrong to do a bad act intentionally in order

to bring about good consequences, but that it is sometimes permissible to do a
good act despite knowing that it will bring about bad consequences.

Principle of Double Effect Elaborated

When an act has a good and bad effect, the act is good if:

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 1.) The act, considered in itself and apart from its consequences, is good. (TheNature-
of-the-Act Condition)

2.) The bad effect must not be the means by which one achieves the good effect.(The
Means-End Condition)

3.) The intention must be the achieving of only the good effect, with the bad effect being
only an unintended side effect. If the bad effect is a means to the achieve the good
effect, the act is bad. The bad effect may be foreseen but must not be intended. (The
Right-Intention Condition)

4.) The good effect must be at least equivalent to the importance of the bad effect.(The
Proportionality Condition)

How the principle of double effect works

Case 1: A pregnant woman was diagnosed with a cancerous uterus, and

subsequently has to undergo hysterectomy to save her life, but such procedure will
lead to the termination of pregnancy.

Case 2: Nita’s father has planted a bomb that will detonate in half an hour. Nita is
the only person who knows he hid it, and she has promised him that she will not
reveal the location to anyone, being a devoted daughter. However, if the authorities
fail to locate the bomb, and dismantle it within the next half hour, it will blow up a
building and kill thousands of people. Suppose we can torture Nita in order to get
this information form her. Given this situation, is it morally permissible to torture
Nita?

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 Some Criticisms

Regarding the principle of double effect, how do we distinguish unforeseen from

unintended consequences?

Hume’s challenge: how can we derive an ”ought” from an “is”? How can what is
natural be obligatory?

The assumption of NLT that moral laws are written in natural laws is challenged by
the Darwinian evolutionary theory which claims that nature has no inherent design.

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