The Pros And Cons Of The Devine Command Theory

Throughout human history, humans have been arguing on what basis we should base our morality. There are many theories that have influence people’s view on morality, but one theory influences almost all people, the Devine Command theory (DCT). This has been the basis of morality for most humans. This can be proven by looking at the fact, that the Mexica people use their god to justify human sacrificing, also during the Spanish conquest, they use their god to justify their action to conquer other people’s land, and spread their religion. Both of these cultures believe what they are doing was morally right because of the belief that their god approves of such action. In this paper I will go in depth about the DCT, explain how it works, its motivation and its dilemma. DCT is a type of normative ethics, and this means that this theory is supposed to help people to answer the question what action is right and which one is wrong. DCT tells us that an action is right if god approves of that action, and an action is wrong if god disapproves of that action. This means that morality is based on god, and is independent from human thoughts. Hence, god is the only one that can say what action is right or wrong. Murder is wrong no matter what anyone says, right? Especially the …show more content…
The dilemma that Plato brought up is an act right because god says it is or does god command that act because it is right. This creates a problem for DCT because if this true an act right because god says it is, then moral law will be subjective to god which makes moral law arbitrary. If this part is true, does god command that act because it is right, then moral laws are independent from god (Professor R. Farley, personal communication, September 9, 2015). It becomes a dilemma because now DCT gets to choose which one is right to follow and thus creates a crack on the