Moral Theology II: Natural Law Theory

Readings

Texts

Emil Brunner, "The Divine Imperative" (from last time)
John Arthur, "Morality Without God" (from last time)
Aquinas, "Ethics and Natural Law"

Notes

Cases

Synopsis

I began today by returning your first exam and first extra credit pop quiz. As to the exam, I was quite pleased with how the class did. With a minimum of 38/100, maximum of 95/100, and mean of 69.1/100, the exam lined up quite well with where I find the class during our discussions. To be sure, there were some disappointments. In general, I'm not worried about your success in the course if you came in at or above 70/100. Those not meeting that threshold should come see me to go over your exam for additional feedback and recommendations on how to study.

Next today we revisited the first of our examples of Moral Theology, Divine Command Theory, sketching the arguments for it and the arguments against it, but narrowing our focus to the Standards of Coherence and Reflective Equilibrium.

As for Coherence, the Euthyphro Dilemma proves devastating. DCT, it turns out, implies a contradiction. This contradiction comes from holding that morality depends on God's will and asking the question, is an action right because God commands it or does God command it because it is right? This is the Euthyphro Question, so named because it is first asked by Plato in his "Euthyphro" dialogue.

Spelling out the argument in detail is somewhat complicated. What it comes down to is this: If an action is morally right just because God commands it then there is nothing else which makes the action morally right. In particular, there are no reasons God might have for so commanding, since in that case the action would presumably be morally right not because God commanded it but because of the reasons God has for commanding it. On the other hand, if God commands an action because it is morally right, then it must be the case that there are facts or reasons which make the action morally right independent of God's will.

So either God has reasons for His/Her/It's commands, or God doesn't. If God has no reasons, then morality is arbitrary, which is an intolerable implication. If one responds by insisting that, being perfectly good, God never would have commanded otherwise, we must then ask what sense can be made of God's goodness: On this alternative, the concept of God's goodness evaporates to meaninglessness because it amounts to God doing (willing) what God does (saying). It must be the case that God has reasons for so commanding. But then morality does not depend on God's will, which contradicts the basic presupposition of DCT that morality depends on God's will. Thus DCT implies a contradiction. Any theory which implies a contradiction must be false.

A further problem for DCT is, of course, that there may not be a God. If there is no God then DCT is inconsistent with the facts. But whether or not there is a God is another issue which could easily take up the entire semester and we still would not be able to come to a conclusion. So instead I think we should put the point this way: For those who do not think there is a God, DCT is at odds with the facts as they believe them to be.

We uncover a deeper problem still when we reflect that there is no way to decide which of the many religions we should take as determining the facts assumed by DCT. Generally speaking, religious people endorse their particular religion because it is part of their cultural or familial heritage. But mere cultural or familial tradition cannot determine whether, for example, Islam or Buddhism are false while Christianity is true. Yet religions vary greatly in the facts they presuppose about the world. Thus the facts we need to check to see if DCT is consistent with known facts change depending on which religion is employing the theory, which makes it impossible to determine whether DCT is consistent with known facts.

Since DCT implies a contradiction and is inconsistent with known facts insofar as no single consistent set of facts are presupposed by DCT, we conclude that the theory fails the Standard of Coherence.

As for Reflective Equilibrium, DCT as it is commonly understood in the Christian tradition implies that homosexuality is morally wrong, slavery is morally permissible, women have fewer rights than men, and those who do not believe in God or do not believe in the same God have no rights. These implications are objectionable by argument-backed intuition. Unfortunately,there are many people who are willing to argue, for example, that women should have fewer rights than men and homosexuality is morally wrong. While I conclude that these people are seriously mistaken on the basis of many entirely cogent arguments, we leave off by simply saying that DCT arguably fails to pass Reflective Equilibrium.

We relent, if that is the right word to use, on Reflective Equilibrium since no theory that fails Coherence can be true. The Euthyphro Argument is decisive, in other words.

That said, perhaps the final nail in the coffin of Divine Command Theory are the impeccable religious credentials, outstanding philosophical acumen, and authority St. Thomas Aquinas brings to bear in abandoning it. Aquinas, of course, 'got' the Euthyphro Argument and understood that moral theology requires much more subtley and sophistication than Divine Command Theory's naively childish "do it because I said so!" approach.

Indeed, Natural Law Theory is a fascinating alternative to Divine Command Theory. It assumes the Teleological World View, which is the view that the world and each thing in the world has a purpose or function. A teleological explanation necessarily mentions the purpose or function of whatever is being explained. I find it is easiest to understand the concept of a teleological explanation if we use human artifacts as examples.

What is a watch? It is a device for keeping track of time. If you want an explanation of what a watch is, you refer to its purpose or function. Of course human artifacts have functions or purposes; these are the functions or purposes we humans give them.

According to the Teleological World View, every object in the world has a function or purpose. Thus a tree, a rock, a river, and each granule of sand on the river's bank has a purpose or function.

To modern ears this is a peculiar World View. It just seems odd to say that the rock in the field has a purpose. Certainly we might put it to some purpose or other. But that is not to say that the rock itself has a purpose. The rock itself is just the result of perfectly impersonal geological forces which have nothing to do with intentions or purposes. Similarly, Darwin has taught us that flora and fauna, ourselves included, are the result of environmental factors which have nothing whatsoever to do with purposes. They are purely mechanistic processes.

On the other hand, the teleological world view can be appealing, particularly when we are confronted with tragedy or discomfort which we have a difficult time rationalizing or understanding. For example, one frequently hears phrases like

There's always a reason...

It happened for a reason...

Who knows why it happened, but someday we'll understand...

There's a purpose to this, we just may not know what as yet...

To be sure, these and proclamations like them are most often heard in our hours of desperation. Somehow it is supposed to comfort us in the midst of tragedy that there is a purpose in our pain and suffering. Taking the Teleological World View seriously thus presents the framework for a serious alternative to Divine Command Theory.

As we will spell out in greater detail next time, Natural Law Theory holds that actions are morally right just in case they are consistent with all relevant proper purposes. If an action somehow violates a relevant proper purpose, the action is morally wrong. The best examples of this come from the Catholic Church's interpretation of Natural Law Theory. (Perhaps there are other interpretations? Clearly, we've more work to do fleshing out this alternative to Divine Command Theory!)