God and The Authority of Morality
In his article, "A Short Introduction to Kantian Ethics", David Velleman reports a Kantian argument for the conclusion that the authority of our moral obligations cannot derive from their being instituted by God. I am dubious.
Velleman writes:
According to Kant, the force of moral requirements does not even depend on the authority of God. There is a simple argument for denying this dependence. If we were subject to moral requirements because they were imposed on us by God, the reason would have to be that we are subject to a requirement to do what God requires of us; and the force of this latter requirement, of obedience to God, could not itself depend on God's authority. (To require obedience to God on the grounds that God requires it would be viciously circular.) The requirement to obey God's requirements would therefore have to constitute a fundamental duty, on which all other duties depended; and so God's authority would not account for the force of our duties, after all.
Idris Responds:
According to Kant, if it were true that the authority of morality derived from God's creative act, then there would have to be a requirement that we do what God commands, and only because of this requirement would the particular commandments of God – refrain from lying, take care of your children – apply to us. Kant then causes trouble by asking where the authority of this requirement comes from. Kant is portrayed as supposing that a general requirement to do as God commands is prior to the particular requirements of morality. It is prior in the sense that the authority of the particular requirements of morality derives from it.
However, I don’t see why anyone would be committed to the idea that it is only because of a general requirement to do as God commands that God’s creation of particular moral requirements succeeds. God’s particular commands could have basic authority. Question: Why avoid stealing? Answer: Because God has ruled out stealing (and this is the end of the story). Thus Kant’s supposition that God’s particular commands have authority over us only if there is a general requirement to do as God commands seems to be gratuitous. If so, we needn’t conclude that there is one requirement that has authority over us independent of God’s making it authoritative. Kant needs to give us an argument that God’s creation of morality must involve a general requirement to do as God requires.
I suspect that part of the dispute will come down to questions about what sorts of requirements might turn out to be basic requirements (requirements deriving their authority from no other requirements).
Velleman writes:
According to Kant, the force of moral requirements does not even depend on the authority of God. There is a simple argument for denying this dependence. If we were subject to moral requirements because they were imposed on us by God, the reason would have to be that we are subject to a requirement to do what God requires of us; and the force of this latter requirement, of obedience to God, could not itself depend on God's authority. (To require obedience to God on the grounds that God requires it would be viciously circular.) The requirement to obey God's requirements would therefore have to constitute a fundamental duty, on which all other duties depended; and so God's authority would not account for the force of our duties, after all.
Idris Responds:
According to Kant, if it were true that the authority of morality derived from God's creative act, then there would have to be a requirement that we do what God commands, and only because of this requirement would the particular commandments of God – refrain from lying, take care of your children – apply to us. Kant then causes trouble by asking where the authority of this requirement comes from. Kant is portrayed as supposing that a general requirement to do as God commands is prior to the particular requirements of morality. It is prior in the sense that the authority of the particular requirements of morality derives from it.
However, I don’t see why anyone would be committed to the idea that it is only because of a general requirement to do as God commands that God’s creation of particular moral requirements succeeds. God’s particular commands could have basic authority. Question: Why avoid stealing? Answer: Because God has ruled out stealing (and this is the end of the story). Thus Kant’s supposition that God’s particular commands have authority over us only if there is a general requirement to do as God commands seems to be gratuitous. If so, we needn’t conclude that there is one requirement that has authority over us independent of God’s making it authoritative. Kant needs to give us an argument that God’s creation of morality must involve a general requirement to do as God requires.
I suspect that part of the dispute will come down to questions about what sorts of requirements might turn out to be basic requirements (requirements deriving their authority from no other requirements).
posted by Idris at 11:33 AM
12 Comments:
In “Mere Christianity”, C.S. Lewis points out that morality is cross-cultural. A man abandoning his brothers on the field of battle is considered immoral in all cultures, even without God. God is not necessary for morality. Even logic can be used to create a quite responsible morality. Murder can by very immoral just because one does not want to be murdered and can put two and two together.
Keith:
Thanks for the interesting comment. Let me try to respond in a useful way.
There are many senses in which one might say "morality comes from __". C.S. Lewis is probably right that biologically normal humans share sets of moral beliefs with considerable overlap. Thus, in one sense morality comes from our biological constitution. The sense in which this is so is just this: our beliefs about what is morally right and morally wrong come from our biological constitution.
The question Kant addresses is roughly this: what, if anything, makes these beliefs (beliefs that biologically normal humans probably all share) true?
So you are probably right about there being a universal morality(a set of beliefs biologically normal humans share), but this is only tangentially related to Kant's main question.
What? You're blogging again?!
Anyway, I'm not sure I understand your argument.
Imagine any moral proposition: 'X is wrong'.
Are you saying that the truth of 'X is wrong' is somehow 'just true', end of story, and that it also happens to be something that God tells us?
Then the authority of morality has nothing to do with God (although He may be a good guide in helping us to find out what morality requires).
If so, then you've ditched divine command theory altogether, and the still question remains: in virtue of what are certain propositions 'X is wrong' true while others false?
Welcome back to the blogosphere btw. :)
Akratic:
Of course, since I am an atheist and also someone who accepts that some things are right/wrong, I oppose Divine Command Theory. On the other hand, I think Velle-Kant's argument is not great.
You say:
"Are you saying that the truth of 'X is wrong' is somehow 'just true', end of story, and that it also happens to be something that God tells us?
Then the authority of morality has nothing to do with God (although He may be a good guide in helping us to find out what morality requires)."
I say: 'sort of' and 'no'.
A defender of DCE might say:
1)'X is wrong' is true of some X only because God makes it true.
2) The truth of(1)does not require that we should refrain from X-ing because we are subject to a general requirement to do as God commands. This is what I meant by "X is wrong, end of story".
[Though it might be true we are subject to a general requirement -- the requirement would be a generalization of the particular requirements of God. The order of explanation matters here.]
3) Presumably God has indicated this fact to us (though this is not a necessary part of the view). Anyway, we can imagine delightful variations on DCE according to which God has made our moral duty hard discernable to different degrees and in different ways.
TAKE HOME MESSAGE: 1 and 2 are consistent set. So I am not, in effect, recommending that the defender of DCE give up his theory.
You might ask: OK, God has made it true that 'X is wrong' is primitively true, but _why_ refrain from X-ing? To which the defender responds: because X-ing would be wrong. And there is no more to be said about that... it is, after all, primitively true. ["Primitively true" in the sense that though its truth has a cause [God], its truth is not caused by the truth of any other created truth.]
Matt:
What an interesting comment! I like your point at the end and I thought your criticism of me was quite a challenge, but I think maybe I can explain myself in a way that will lead you to cease your hobbity impertinance.
You write: "Since God's 'making it true' is sufficient for the obtainment of some morally normative fact, God's 'making it true' gives me a moral reason for acting." It seems to me that this is the heart of your criticism.
Notice that (1) 'You ought to refrain from murder' and (2) 'God has made it true that you ought to refrain from murder' are normative in rather different kinds of ways. (2) entails (1) as a matter of presupposition. Thus 2 is normative only insofar as it presupposes a normative fact.
Note that (2) communicates the same kind of fact as (2*) 'God has made it true that Africa has such-and-such shape'.
In neither case, need we see God's truth making activity as an expression of authority. We are required to X not because God has required us to X, but (rather) because God has made it true that X-ing is wrong. "Divine Command Ethics" is a misleading name for the theory. It misleads us by conveying the idea that God institutes moral facts in an exercise of authority.
Let me get at the same point from another direction:
Consider the facts that murder is wrong and lying is wrong. Call these "simple facts".
For every simple normative fact there corresponds a family of facts similar to "God has chosen to actualize a world in which X-ing is wrong". Call these latter kinds of facts "facts of truth making".
The claim is this: Vellekant wrongly assumes that the facts of truth making possess a normativity independent of the normativity of the simple facts. The facts of truth making explain how we come to be required, but not by themselves expressing an independent normative fact. The facts of truth making are normative -- tell us what we ought to do -- but only insofar as they contain reference to the simple facts.
Eh?
Matt:
Your point about supervenience is a right. Maybe we should take on the dreaded VelleKant... Let the foul beast stalk these corridors no more!
Hey guys,
I haven't read any of your comments yet--I will--but first I should say:
Kant was a kind of divine command theorist.
"Huh?" you ask.
"Read the sentence above," I angrily retort. And then I storm off.
Okay, I've cooled off a little bit. Allow me to elaborate upon my counterintuitive claim that Kant was "a kind" of divine command theorist.
First bit of evidence: the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. In Part Four of the Religion (I know, I know; we give this part to our undergrads all the time), "Concerning service and counterfeit service under the dominion of the good principle, or, Of religion and priestcraft", Kant includes a section 4, "Concerning the Guiding Thread of Conscience in Matters of Faith". In this section, he discusses an inquisitor who wants to condemn somenoe to death for not believing the right religious propositions (e.g., that faith, rather than works, gets you to heaven, or that the eucharist is really Christ's body and blood). Kant says that such a theoretical, speculative proposition is one about which we cannot have nearly as much certainty as the proposition, "killing an innocent person is wrong."
Fair enough; so far, so Kant.
But look what Kant writes:
"But was he [i.e., the inquisitor] really as strongly convinced of such a revealed doctrine, and also of its meaning, as is required for daring to destroy a human being on its basis? That to take a human being's life because of his religious faith is wrong is certain, unless (to allow the most extreme possibility) a divine will, made known to the inquisitor in some extraordinary way, has decreed otherwise. But that God has ever manifested this awful will is a matter of historical documentation and never apodictically certain" (Religion, 6:186-187).
It seems, then, that if God had decreed otherwise, the infinitive proposition, "to take a human being's life because of his religious faith is wrong", would have failed to hold. Or, perhaps more carefully, the proposition
"to take a human being's life because of his religiou faith is wrong is certain, unless a divine will has decreed otherwise."
Now, one could say that God's will does not make the above proposition true. Perhaps the above proposition is eternally true, regardless of what God decrees; but in any case, the proposition has a content relating to the moral importance of God's decrees. And that content is: if God decrees so, taking an innocent person's life is morally permissible.
Another comment follows this already over-long one.
So my view is pretty counterintuitive, no? Let me muster up some more evidence, both of a textual and of a non-textual, but philosophical, nature.
Some more textual evidence.
Let me ask you a question: what is a holy being? A holy being, Kant repeatedly says, is one who has a holy will; and what's a holy will? Well, read how Kant describes a holy will in the Groundwork:
"A perfectly good will would ... equally stand under objective laws (of the good) [as well as under subjective precepts of agreeableness], but it could not on this account be represented as necessitated to actions in conformity with law since of itself, by its subjective constitution, it can be determined only through the representation of the good. Hence no imperatives hold for the divine will and in general for a holy will: the 'ought' is out of place here, because volition is of itself necessarily in accord with the law" (G, 4:414, italics Kant's).
"A will whose maxims necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy, absolutely good will" (G, 4:439, italics Kant's).
See also the Critique of Practical Reason:
"In the ... case [of finite, rational beings], however, the [moral] law has the form of an imperative, because in them, as rational beings, one can presuppose a pure will but, insofar as they are beings affected by needs and sensible motives, not a holy will, that is, such a will as would not be capable of any maxim conflicting with the moral law" (C2, 5:32).
Finally, see The Metaphysics of Morals:
"Virtue signifies a moral strength of the will. But this does not exhaust the concept; for such strength could also belong to a holy (superhuman) being, in whom no hindering impulses would impede the law of its will and who would thus gladly do everything in conformity with the law" (MM, 6:405).
Okay, you get what holiness is: any being with a holy will necessarily acts in accordance with morality.
But why?
Here are two explanations.
(E1) Because a holy being has no sensible desires, it cannot want anything else than to act in accordance with the moral law; consequently, it necessarily acts in accordance with the moral law.
(E2) Because a holy being has what Kant calls "intellectual intuition", the ability to create whatever it thinks of (see the Critique of Pure Reason), as well as having no sensible desires, it follows that whatever it wants is is the moral law; consequently, it must act of necessity in accordance with the moral law.
(E1), I submit, is true of angels; (E2) is true of God, the "sovereign" of the kingdom of ends.
That (E2) is true of God, by the way, is supported once again by the Religion:
"whether, if and when, or how much, grace has effect on us -- this remains totally hidden to us, and in this matter, as in general in all things supernatural (to which morality, as holiness belongs), reason is bereft of any information of the laws according to which it might occur" (R, 6:191, italics Kant's, boldfacing mine).
Morality-as-holiness is something supernatural, and so totally hidden to us. We don't know God's reasons for wanting some things rather than another, for reasons I'll explain in the next comment.
Kant thinks that there are only two sources of reasons for action (i.e., practical reasons) for us rational humans:
(R1) I want to do so-and-so because it will give me sensible pleasure, and so I think it is good.
(R2) I want to do so-and-so because I approve of it, and so I think it is good.
(In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant claims that "We desire nothing except under the form of the good; nothing is avoided except under the form of the bad" (C2, 5:59).)
Now, note something that (R1) and (R2) have in common: in both cases, the person wants to do so-and-so. But what is this so-and-so? This so-and-so is action to bring about a certain state of affairs because the person thinks it will make him happy.
Here's how morality works: the person first of all wants to do something; then he tests what he wants to do according to its universalizability. If what he wants is universalizable, then it is morally permissible, and he approves of it. If it is not universalizable, then it is morally forbidden, and he disapproves of it. But in order to approve or disapprove of something, the person has to want first of all to do something; and he can only want to do something if he has a sensible desire to that end.
(In "On the Common Saying: That May be Correct in Theory, but It is of no Use in Practice", Kant writes "the human being is not ... required to renounce his natural end, happiness, when it is a matter of complying with his duty; for that he cannot do, just as no finite rational being whatever can; instead, he must abstract altogether from this consideration when the command of duty arises; he must on no account make it the condition of his compliance with the law prescribed to him by reason" (OCS, 8:278-279, italics Kant's, boldfacing mine).)
So in order for us to act, we have to have a sensible incentive first operating on us. (See also Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics, the Metaphysik Vigilantius (K3), 29:1014-1015).)
But what about God? He, after all, has no sensible incentives. So how can he act? He can't just approve of nothing at all; instead, it has to be the case that he creates his wants, and his wants, whatever they are, are morally necessary.
Okay, I'm done for now.
Oops. My comments were completely unrelated to your discussion, which I have now read.
Bobcat:
Thanks for the extensive Kantian discussion of God's holiness etc. How did you end up not reading the post, you silly duck, you?
-idris
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