The divine command theory dictates that whatever god says is morally correct is morally correct and whatever god says is morally wrong is morally wrong. This makes moral dilemmas as easy as looking it up in an instruction manual. This in theory completely resolves the issue of subjectivity in morality. On the other hand the first problem is that this theory presupposes a belief in god and if you don’t believe in god, you certainly won’t be willing to accept an imaginary deities’ codes of conduct because obviously if he isn’t real these rules were not made by a deity but instead by a very manipulative liar.
Other criticisms are if morality is as objective as a science then god’s commandments are redundant. This becomes clearer in Plato’s Euthyphro, in which Socrates is discussion with Euthyphro the nature of piety. Euthyphro basically says that piety is what all gods love but do the gods love something because it is pious or is something pious because gods love it?
In other words is something good because god commands it or is it just good so god commands it. Is god actually defining what is good and we’re just going along with what he says because he god or is good something separate from god and he/she is simply directing/guiding us to it?
Because obviously if the first is true god telling everyone to wear bowler hats and clogs becomes morally correct, which makes no sense. For example god sets out that killing is wrong in the Ten Commandments written in stone but then tells Abraham to kill just to see if he would, so basically god’s word in that situation directly from his mouth overrides his previous decision set in stone. So if god can change his mind if we believe morality is defined by what he says and what he says is not consistent and in this case completely contradictory that must mean that morality is just as inconsistent. Can we be sure what he actually said is even interpreted correctly? What if god is misunderstood?
However in the other perspective morality becomes something independent of god and god just tells us about it, so we don’t really need god to be objectively moral at all, because he’s served his purpose, we don’t need god to be moral because we already have his basic schema we just need to follow it.
In the Genealogy of morals Nietzsche’s goal is that of denouncing our entire system of morality as it is based on religious superstitious rather than rational thought. His point is that every modern theorist excluding anarchists are actively trying to justify punishment, their morality to them justifies punishment but Nietzsche turns this on it’s head and says punishment in fact justifies morality.
The fact of what Nietzsche is saying is that morality is not based on religion instead it is reliant solely on punishment; morality itself is an act of punishment. So although religion is a form of punishment a form of mental punishment and the basis for the modern punishment system we don’t necessarily need it in conjunction with punishment, it still functions without religion. Religious morality is the weak punishing the strong, making the rich and the successful feel guilty, when we look at punishment we say ‘all punishment is suffering’ whereas the religious among us say ‘all suffering is punishment’.
If you get a headache Christianity would attribute that to punishment from God, you deserve that headache, that headache is from God and it is because you have angered him in some way. This is ridiculous you can’t attribute a headache to anything else than what’s going on in your head to put purpose behind a headache is insanity. Punishment on the other hand can be rationalized. Nietzsche claims suffering and punishment are core to our existence, acceptance of this fact is liberating. The point is that lending meaning to it is pointless. He denounces the religious ideal of pity because if you accept that pain and suffering are part of life then you see they are inevitable so pitying is pointless.
Pity increases the suffering of the world, it doesn’t relieve suffering it just mirrors it. Pitying someone is an expression of superiority, giving money to beggars not only makes you feel good about yourself in the Christian sense of doing a good deed but also you feel superior to this beggar, so this idea of morality is flawed (Nietzsche 1887).
He then puts forward that punishment will never die as it is literally everywhere, it is entrenched in every part of social life from the bottom up; Your essay is late you lose marks, your car is illegally parked you get a ticket, you say a naughty word your mother scolds you, you don’t pay attention in class you receive a detention. Punishment exists everywhere in an infinite amount of application, so to remove punishment is impossible as you would literally have to change every system in our society, so it doesn’t matter in the slightest if punishment isn’t justified our entire world is based on it so it isn’t going anywhere and as long as we have these systems of punishment we don’t need God, punishment will survive long after religion is dead.
Bibliography;
Mosser, K. (2011) An Introduction to Logic
Nietzsche, F. (1887). The Genealogy of Morals. translated by Samuel, H. B. New York: Courier
Dover Publications.
Plato (424/423 BC) Euthyphro
