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    A Divine Command Theory that does not ground God's comman... — Carmelics
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    A Divine Command Theory that does not ground God's commands in God's essential goodness faces the Euthyphro dilemma

    Divine AttributesProblem of Evil
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Robert Adams' modified DCT grounds moral obligations in commands of a essentially loving God, making arbitrary divine cruelty conceptually impossible.
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    • 2.If God's essential nature just is the standard of goodness, then 'why is God good?' is a category error, not a genuine regress.
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    • 3.This collapses the Euthyphro horns: rightness is neither independent of God nor arbitrary, but constituted by God's necessary nature.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Leibniz argued that God's goodness is not measured by an external standard but is itself the archetype from which goodness is derived.
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    • 2.A being whose nature is necessarily and essentially good cannot issue commands that are genuinely arbitrary, since arbitrariness requires contingency.
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    • 3.Therefore, DCT grounded in divine essential goodness avoids both horns without conceding that moral facts are ontologically prior to God.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.If God commands what is right because it is right, rightness is independent of God's commands and DCT is undermined
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    • 2.If God does not command what is right because it is right, then God's commands appear arbitrary
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    Divine AttributesProblem of Evil

    Related

    A being whose nature is necessarily and essentially good cannot issue commands t...If God commands what is right because it is right, rightness is independent of G...If God does not command what is right because it is right, then God's commands a...If God's essential nature just is the standard of goodness, then 'why is God goo...
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    Leibniz argued that God's goodness is not measured by an external standard but i...Robert Adams' modified DCT grounds moral obligations in commands of a essentiall...Therefore, DCT grounded in divine essential goodness avoids both horns without c...This collapses the Euthyphro horns: rightness is neither independent of God nor ...

    Similar

    If God's commands are not grounded in antecedent rightness, then God's...75%Because God's commands constitute moral obligation, rightness does not...75%Adams holds that God is essentially good and that God's commands are n...75%If God commands the good because it is good, then God's willing is sub...73%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: moral-arguments-god
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    Obviously, those who do not find a DCT convincing will not think this argument from moral obligation has force. However, Adams anticipates and gives a forceful answer to one common criticism of a DCT. It is often argued that a DCT must fail because of a dilemma parallel to one derived from Plato’s Euthyphro. The dilemma for a DCT can be derived from the following question: Assuming that God commands what is right, does he command what is right because it is right (assuming that “right” here mean
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit