Ethics Take Home Test

Cassie Tagert

PHIL 308

Dr. Lukas

March 12, 2016

Ethics Take Home Test

In Metaethics, one attempts to understand what makes an action either moral or immoral. One theory that responds to this question is cultural relativism, which is a subfield of ethical relativism. With ethical relativism, there are not any universally objective moral truths. Instead, making a moral claim is considered “subjective,” which means that some moral rules are considered correct, and these rules determine whether or not a particular more claim is true or relatively correct based on some other concept.

Cultural relativism addresses this idea of relative correctness. In this theory, an action is considered morally acceptable if it is deemed morally acceptable by the society in which it occurs. The reverse is also true; an act is immoral depending on the beliefs of the society of members of where it is performed. Based on this theory, if an action is deemed morally right within a society then, it is actually morally right, but only within societies that consider it to be morally right. For example, if a particular society, society X, believes that it is morally right to steal jewelry from jewelry stores, and a person steals a piece of jewelry from a jewelry store while in society X, then the act they committed (i.e. stealing jewelry) is morally right. However, if someone else who belonged to society Y, a society that believes it is morally wrong to steal jewelry from jewelry stores, commits the same act, the act they committed is morally wrong. This is because different societies have different moral codes, and within each individual societies, their moral codes are correct. So, if two different societies disagree on whether an act is moral or immoral, that particular act can be either one, depending in which society it is performed.

Between multiple different societies, it is impossible to say which is correct about morality because each is accurate in their beliefs in their own right, and there is not a standard to judge the moral code of one society against another. Additionally, cultural relativists believe that it is not only wrong to judge the acts of people from other societies, it is arrogant as well. They believe in absolute tolerance of the ideas of other cultures, and there is not any society that is considered better or more morally right than any other, including that of the cultural relativists themselves. The way that is considered “right” is just a perception that is passed down from ancestors in a society, and because of this theory’s subjective nature, there are not any moral beliefs that universally correct, even if multiple cultures believe in them; they are only correct within their individual societies.

Belief in this theory comes with a problem called the Reformer’s Dilemma. This dilemma states that

1) If Cultural Relativism is really true, then it would be impossible to judge the act of an individual to be immoral if it is considered moral within their society.

2) It is possible to judge the act of an individual to be immoral even if it is considered to be moral within their society.

3) Therefore, Cultural Relativism is false.

What this premise one means is that if the theory is correct, an individual literally would be unable to judge the morality of the actions of another individual in a different society. In addition to this, a society would be unable to have moral reformers within their society. Moral reformers are people who can look at their society’s code and realize that there are flaws in the way that something is deemed right or wrong. Based on premise two, it is possible for moral reformers to exist and make judgements about the accurateness of their society and other societies’ moral codes. A famous example of moral reformer is Martin Luther King Jr, who fought to for civil rights in the United States, and if people like him exist, then Cultural Relativism is false, which is the conclusion.

Some reformers confront this issue by believing that moral reformers are not actually questioning the validity of their society’s code. Instead, they are just pointing out ideas that are already a part of the code but are being ignored. In the case of Martin Luther King Jr, they would say that he was not trying to “reform” the moral code of the United States, but rather, he was trying to remind people that according to the US constitution, all persons are created equal, and the treatment African Americans were receiving at the time was not equal. In accordance to this idea, moral reformers are really just moral enforcers who make sure that people in a society follow their code without overlooking any aspects. However, this is not actually the case. In a lot of instances moral reformers do actually want to change the moral code of their society. In the case of civil rights, Jim Crow laws were passed to make certain aspects of life difficult for African Americans, and those who fought against that, like Martin Luther King Jr, truly did want these laws and generally accepted rules about the treatment of non-Caucasian people to be changed.

Another theory that attempts to answer the question of what makes something moral or immoral is Divine Command Theory, or DCT. DCT states that an act is morally right if God approves of it, morally wrong if God disapproves of it, and morally obligatory is God commands it to be so. What this means is any act committed is only considered morally wrong or right if God decides it is; regular people cannot be the judge of morality. An example of this is when Christians believe that murdering others is wrong because the bible, which is considered to be the word of God, says it is wrong. A Divine Command Theorist would agree that it is wrong because God disapproves of it. Christians believe that certain actions will cause one to be sent to Hell and others will allow them to go to Heaven after they die. The actions that send them to Hell are disapproved of by God and are therefore morally wrong. The actions that will allow them to go to Heaven are approved of by God and are therefore morally right, and these are the actions that one should commit.

This theory is comes with two problems known as the Euthyphro Dilemma, which asks the question, “Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?” This question addresses the reasoning behind God’s decision that something is good. The first part of the question is basically asking, “Does God consider something to be morally good because it just is morally good?” If this part of the question is true, then that means an action is morally good because that action has the characteristic of being good, and God agrees with that. It also means that the action is morally good independent of God’s command, which blatantly disagrees with the theory. If a Divine Command Theorist agrees with this side of the argument, they are contradicting themselves as an action’s morality cannot be both independent and dependent on God’s command. So, with the acceptance of this side of the argument, DCT is not sound.

The second part of the question is asking, “Does God’s commandment that something is good make it good?” One consequence of accepting this belief is that people do not know for sure an exact reason that God commanded something to be right or wrong, and because of that, anything that is considered morally right does not have the inherent quality of rightness, which means that anything could be right or wrong and is contingent on God’s decision on whether or not it is right. This causes problems because if this is true, then acts that are considered wrong do not have a quality that makes them wrong, they just are. So, if someone is drowning puppies, according to DCT, there is nothing inherently wrong with drowning puppies, God just says it is, so it is. Though, God could just as easily say that it is right to drown puppies, which most people do not agree with. This leads to another problem. If God can just as easily decide any act is wrong or right, then not only is there no reason that the act is good or bad, but there is no reason for God to say it is either. This implies that God’s approval is random, which is hard to theorists to accept. The third problem that comes with this side of the dilemma is the idea that if everything God prefers is the best, then God’s preference is trivialized because not everything that is good can be the best. Additionally, if he only prefers the best, then he is not praiseworthy because his standard is always perfection, and he can never like something that is not perfect. People have a tendency to find praiseworthiness within beings that are fallible, and if someone (God) is infallible all the time, there is nothing to praise because they will never exceed expectations. This concept is hard for believers in God to accept because many believe that God is praiseworthy, and if he is, then he cannot be the moral standard since that would make him infallible.

The argument looks like this:

1) If Divine Command Theory is true, then morality is contingent on God’s approval, His approval is arbitrary, and He is not praiseworthy.

2) If morality is contingent on God’s approval, His approval is arbitrary, and He is not praiseworthy, then God is imperfect.

3) God is not imperfect.

4) Therefore, Divine Command Theory is false.

One way that a Divine Command Theorist might combat this argument is with the idea that the dilemma is not a dilemma to begin with, it is false. This idea says that God neither conforms to a moral code like with the first part of the question, nor does he create the moral code as with the second part of the question. Instead, God’s own nature is the standard for the moral code. He is perfect, and his perfection is the standard for which everyone should follow. So, if God does not drown puppies and God is perfect, one should also strive to avoid drowning puppies because his action (or inaction) is the standard for which to behave. This argument against the Euthyphro Dilemma is sound because it proves that premise one is false, and a combination of false premises cannot lead to a true conclusion. Therefore, the Euthyphro Dilemma is not sound.

Works Cited

Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by J. P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, pages 409-412 (cultural relativism), 531-532 (divine command theory)