Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Some Americans are atheists. When a society is made up of people with different
religious beliefs, the society's moral guidelines should emerge from a secular au-
thority, not a religious authority.
3.
Some moral problems are not addressed directly in scripture.
For example, there are no verses in the Bible mentioning the Internet. When we
discuss moral problems arising from information technology, a proponent of the
divine command theory must resort to analogy. At this point the conclusion is based
not simply on what appears in the sacred text but also on the insight of the person
who invented the analogy. The holy book alone is not sufficient to solve the moral
problem.
4.
It is fallacious to equate “the good” with “God.”
Religious people are likely to agree with the statement “God is good.” That does
not mean, however, that God and “the good” are exactly the same thing. Trying to
equate two related but distinct things is called the
equivalence fallacy
. Instead, the
statement “God is good” means there is an objective standard of goodness that God
meets perfectly.
Here's another way to put the question. Is an action good because God com-
mands it, or does God command it because it's good? This is an ancient question:
Plato raised it about 2,400 years ago in the Socratic dialogue
Euthyphro
. In this di-
alogue, Socrates concludes, “The gods love piety because it is pious, and it is not
pious because they love it” [10]. In other words, “the good” is something that exists
outside of God and was not created by God.
We can reason our way to the same conclusion. If good means “commanded by
God,” then good is arbitrary. Why should we praise God for being good if good is
whatever God wills? According to this view of the good, it doesn't matter whether
God commanded, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” or “Thou shalt commit adul-
tery.” Either way, the command would have been good by definition. If you object
that there is no way God would command us to commit adultery because mari-
tal fidelity is good and adultery is bad, then you are proving our point: there is an
objective standard of right and wrong separate from God. That means we can talk
about the good without talking about God; we can have a nontheological discussion
of the good.
5.
The divine command theory is based on obedience, not reason.
If good means “willed by God,” and if religious texts contain everything we need
to know about what God wills, then there is no room left for collecting and an-
alyzing facts. Hence the divine command theory is not based on reaching sound
conclusions from premises through logical reasoning. There is no need for a person
to question a commandment. The instruction is right because it's commanded by
God, period.
Consider the story of Abraham in the topic of Genesis. God commands Abra-
ham to take his only son, Isaac, up on a mountain, kill him, and make of him a
burnt offering. Abraham obeys God's command and is ready to kill Isaac with his
knife when an angel calls down and tells him not to harm the boy. Because he does
