Tutorial # 8.Meta - Ethics. God and Morality. Discussion Questions

In light of the readings you have done (especially Philip L. Quinn, ‘God and Morality’, in Reasons and Responsibility), think about these questions.

• Are there any objective moral facts?
• Or are moral statements true or false only relative to particular cultural standards or personal attitudes of approval and disapproval?
• Can divine commands provide an objective basis for morality?
• Does Christian Ethics amount to the divine command theory?
• What is theological voluntarism?
• What are the main reasons why – according to Quinn – if one is a theist, he should consider the divine command theory as a sound theory?
• In which sense ethics depends on God?
• What is the sense of Dostoevskij’s proclaim that “everything is permitted if there is no God”? Read the passage below from The Brothers Karamazov
• Do you think that there is any “natural moral law”’ Why? Or why not? Try not to focus on cultural differences, but rather on analogies across societies and cultures?
• Accoring to Sartre, in which sense there is no human nature? And how is this related to the death of God? Think about the reading below by Sartre.
• What is the best reason to adopt divine command morality if one is monotheist?
• According to Kierkegaard - quoted in Quinn, what is the difference between erotic love and love of the neighbor?
• What relation, if any, do you find between Kantian categorical imperatives and the Christian “commandment of love”?
• How do we know the will of God?
• If from the Bible, should we take the Bible literally, or give it an interpretation?
• Do you agree that if God commanded homicide, adultery, and theft, then homicide, adultery, and theft would be morally right? Why? Or why not?
• An action is good because God wants it, or God wants a certain action because it is good? This is the Euthyphro Objection. How would you tackle this problem? Think about te episode in the Genesis of the Binding of Isaac
• God as perfectly good is “constrained” to want the good? In which sense? Does this imply that God is not almighty?