In his book, Finite and Infinite Goods, The prominent Christian philosopher, Robert Adams, defends a weak version of divine command theory. According to this view, the nature of moral obligations is identical with being commanded by God. His argument for view has two stages. In the first stage he tries to show that the notion of moral obligation is essentially social in its nature. That is, moral obligations are constituted by social notions such as demands or commands of a third party such as a third person or the moral community. In the second stage he argues that this third party cannot be anything but God. In this paper I will try to criticize his argument in its first stage. I will show that his reasons and arguments for the claim that moral obligations have a social nature are inconclusive.
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Bell M (2008). Forgiving someone for who they are (And Not Just What They've Done). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 77(3):625-658. [Link] [DOI:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2008.00213.x]
Duggan AP (2018). Moral responsibility as guiltworthiness. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. 21(2):291-309. [Link] [DOI:10.1007/s10677-018-9863-0]
MacNamara C (2013). Taking demands out of blame. In DJ Coates, N Tognazzini (eds.). Blame: Its nature and norms. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 141-161. [Link] [DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199860821.003.0008]
Morris H (1987). Nonmoral guilt. In responsibility, character, and the emotions. F Schoeman (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 220-40. [Link] [DOI:10.1017/CBO9780511625411.009]
Murphy MC (2019). Theological Voluntarism. NE Zalta (ed.). Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/voluntarism-theological/ [Link]
Warmke B (2016). The Normative Significance of Forgiveness. Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 94(4):687-703. [Link] [DOI:10.1080/00048402.2015.1126850]
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