Yesterday one of my readers, Mark, raised the following objection to divine command theories of ethics:
“It’s certainly conceivable that there is an omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe who orders us to kill each other for fun. Correct me if I’m wrong, but philosophers generally take such things as pretty good evidence for possibility. It’s not conceivable in the same way that, say, utilitarian ethics might demand us to kill each other for fun ceteris paribus, given that it maintains that moral facts supervene on suffering facts.”
Much depends — indeed everything depends — on what we understand the word “God” to mean. (I take it that Mark’s description of “an omnipotent, omniscient creator…” is understood by him to equate “God”. If it didn’t it would be completely irrelevant to a discussion of divine command theories of ethics.) Mark thinks it is conceivable that God could order people to kill one another for fun. But when we understand the definition of God assumed by divine command theorists it will become clear that this isn’t possible. That which Mark believes is conceivable is based on a confused understanding of the definition.
So what is that definition? To answer that question we turn to perfect being theology: God is that being who exemplifies the maximal set of compossible great-making properties. Among that set of properties are things like “maximal love” and “maximal justice” and maximal goodness”.
With that in mind switch now to the command that has been described: killing people for fun. This idea that one would derive pleasure from the killing of others is the perfect example of sadism, the act of deriving pleasure from inflicting pain on others. So is it possible that God, as defined above, might make sadistic commands?
Before we get to God, let’s start with a more modest definition, viz. “a good person.” Now ask yourself whether these two descriptions could describe the same agent:
(1) “is a good person”
(2) “is a sadist and/or one who advocates sadism for others”
The answer, most certainly, is no: the same agent could not simultaneously be a good person and a sadist or one who advocates sadism for others. That much is clear. (Let me put this another way: if you think (1) and (2) are compatible then there’s something wrong with you.)
Now let’s switch from a mere good person to God as defined above:
(2) “is a sadist and/or one who advocates sadism for others”
(3) “is that being who exemplifies the maximal set of compossible great-making properties”
The relationship between (1), (2) and (3) can be described as follows: if the fridge is too big to fit in my backpack and Jupiter is much bigger than the fridge then Jupiter is too big to fit in my backpack. Similarly, if a good person can’t be a sadist or one who advocate sadism for others and God is far gooder (if you’ll forgive the grammatical infelicity) than the good person, then it follows that God could not be a sadist or one who advocates for sadism.
And that reveals that the very thing Mark believes is conceivable only appears so because he’s not thinking of the relevant concept of “God” at all. Rather, he’s thinking of some very powerful creator demiurge which simply has no relevance whatsoever for divine command theories of ethics.
