The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso in 2007
Why ought to I be ethical? One reply is that if we’re ethical, the gods will reward us; and if not, the gods will punish us. That is known as “the divine command concept.” (DCT) Based on DCT, issues are proper or mistaken merely as a result of the gods command or forbid them, there isn’t a different motive. (This is sort of a mum or dad’s who says to a baby: it’s proper as a result of I mentioned so!)
To reply the query of whether or not morality could be based mostly on a god we must know issues like: 1) if there are gods; 2) if the god we consider in is sweet; 3) if the gods challenge instructions; 4) tips on how to know the gods’ instructions; 5) if we discovered the instructions—say in a ebook—how would we all know the instructions are good ones; 6) in the event that they had been good instructions how would we perceive or interpret them; 7) if the got here from a ebook which translation of the ebook; 8) how might you already know if the interpretation is correct; 9) can any translation be correct; and 10) even when the interpretation was correct how would you interpret the phrases you learn. That is only a partial listing of the issues you encounter attempting to base ethics on a god or faith.
Difficulties additionally come up if we hear voices commanding us, or we settle for an establishments’ authority. Why belief the voices or authorities? And which establishment? Which revelation? Clearly, there are monumental philosophical difficulties with basing ethics on faith.
However let’s say that there are gods, that you’ve got discovered the fitting one, that the fitting one issued instructions, that the instructions are good, that you’ve got entry to the fitting instructions (since you discovered the fitting ebook, church, or had the fitting imaginative and prescient), that you just perceive the instructions, that you just interpret the instructions appropriately although they got here from a ebook that has been translated from one language to a different over 1000’s of years? (Anybody who has ever translated is aware of you can’t translate phrase for phrase between languages.) However let’s simply say that one way or the other you might be proper about all the things. Are you able to then base ethics on faith?
Greater than 2,000 years in the past Plato answered this query within the damaging. In Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, Socrates requested a well-known query: “Are issues proper as a result of the gods command them, or do they command them as a result of they’re proper?” If issues are proper just because the gods command them, then their instructions are arbitrary—with out motive. There are not any good causes for his or her instructions. The gods then are like petty tyrants who simply command issues as a result of they’ve the facility.
However, if the gods command issues as a result of they’re proper, then there are causes for his or her instructions. The gods command issues as a result of they see or acknowledge that sure instructions are actually good for us. But when that’s the case, then there’s some customary or norm or standards by which good or dangerous is to be measured. And this customary is unbiased of the gods.
So both the god’s instructions are with out motive, and subsequently arbitrary, or they’re with motive, and thus are commanded in line with some customary. This customary—say that we’d all be higher off—is thus the explanation we must be ethical. And that motive, not a god’s authority—is what makes one thing proper or mistaken. And the identical is true for an authoritative ebook. One thing shouldn’t be mistaken just because the ebook says so. There have to be a motive for this and if there’s not, then the ebook is just mistaken.
After all one might argue that even when the gods are petty tyrants who command us with out motive—aside from their very own amusement—we should always nonetheless comply with the instructions in order to not endure—for the reason that gods are probably highly effective and imply sufficient to take action. If they’ll inflict everlasting torture—if they’re the final word sadists—then we do have a motive to comply with their instructions—to keep away from torture!
The response to that is that we don’t know that the gods will reward us for following their non-rational instructions. Perhaps the gods reward individuals who use their motive and don’t settle for such instructions and punish those that are so frightened as to simply accept non-rational instructions. This appears to make some sense if the gods are petty, tyrannical bullies, they could prefer it in the event you stood as much as them. Who is aware of?
The foregoing dialogue ought to suffice to point out how tough it’s to base ethics on faith. Once more, even when one might overcome all the sensible difficulties concerned in philosophically justifying faith, it appears that evidently both a) the god’s instructions are arbitrary and there’s thus no motive to comply with them; or b) the god’s instructions will not be arbitrary and there are causes for them. But when the latter is the case, then we’re doing philosophical, not theological, ethics. We’re in search of the explanation why issues are ethical or immoral.
Lastly, you would possibly object that the gods have causes for his or her instructions, and we simply can’t know them. However if that is so, if we actually can’t know something in regards to the gods’ causes, if the methods of the gods “are mysterious to people,” then what’s the purpose of faith? For those who can’t know something why the gods command issues, then why comply with their instructions, why have faith in any respect, why take heed to the preacher? If it’s all a thriller, then no individual or ebook or church has something coherent to say about God, ethics, or the rest. and in that case, it’s best to simply be a skeptic.
If we need to rationally justify morality, then we must do it in an ethical concept unbiased of hypothetical gods. We must have interaction in philosophical ethics.
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