(This is pretty sloppily thrown together and has some strange pacing issues. I apologise if it feels like it jumps around too much, but because it has been so long since the last time I had written anything, I felt obligated to get this out as soon as I could.)

Why Talk About It?

For my entire life, I have had two major problems. One of those problems is being overly empathetic. That is, no matter how small an effect I may have actually had on someone, if I feel like I hurt them, I will feel terrible about it and, as a result, myself. The second problem is my apparent inability to predict when something I do or say will have a negative effect on somebody. This, regrettably, does not mix well with the first problem.

Thinking of this recently has made me consider what exactly makes people feel bad in the first place. After all, that is where the entire concept of morality stems from.

Morality and Guilt

The first question I will raise is whether there is a separation between morality and guilt, or if they are merely consequences of one another. One of the most well-known arguments for a separation is the divine command theory. In this view, morality is defined by God rather than by human emotions, as he is regarded as the ultimate authority on moral law. This theory posits that actions are morally “right” only if they align with divine will and “wrong” only if they contradict it.

The Euthyphro Dilemma

What exactly, then, gives this divine command any authority at all? Sure, God may be a much more powerful entity than you or I, but does that give him any more power to say what is right or wrong? We can explore this in a question raised by Socrates, known as the Euthyphro dilemma. It asks: Is what is good loved by God because it is good, or is it good because it is loved by God?

The first of the two possibilities assumes that there is some sort of objective morality that exists outside of God. The second assumes that God creates objective morality, making anything that is loved by him good. If God did not create morality, who did? That is a question that I, sadly, cannot answer. Because of this, we will focus on the second point.

Divine Command Theory

Assuming morality is a construct created entirely by God, why should we take it at face value instead of forming our own human beliefs? One argument is that God is simply so far beyond us that it would make no sense to question his authority. Although an annoying argument, it is undoubtedly quite strong. At the end of the day, God is a being outside of our comprehension and would likely know much better about what is “right” or “wrong.”

In either scenario, God is still responsible in some capacity for determining morality, but it is possible that divine command simply informs us of what is or is not moral rather than itself deciding what is moral. This, however, is a weak form of divine command theory and is not a widely held view. Edward Wierenga put forward an interpretation of the divine command argument that God is responsible for determining what is moral, and that moral obligations are derived from God’s divine command, where his commands are understood as representative of his divine will. This is the interpretation of divine command theory that I will be assuming for the rest of this post.

Divine command theory provides a nice metaphysical ground for the existence of morality to stand on. If you consider the insight ex nihilo, nihil fit (nothing comes from nothing), then it becomes apparent why having God to lean on as the source of morality is quite convenient. If we were to assume that morality came from a non-moral source, it would introduce a rather difficult problem in which we have to defend the existence of moral properties seemingly out of nowhere.

Divine command theory also provides a very convincing reason for people to act morally, even when they don’t want to. If you are under threat of eternal damnation, it may be worth it to forego whatever immoral deed you may otherwise have wanted to commit to avoid it.

Morality Without God

It has become especially apparent in the modern day, however, that God is not needed for people to act morally. With the rise of atheism in the past few hundred years, it has been made clear that, despite not acting under threat of hell, people still choose to act morally. This raises a new question: Is this morality still in some way a result of God, even despite having no method of enforcing his divine will?

It is reasonable to assume that if people are acting morally despite being under no threat of punishment, it must be that acting morally is fundamentally human. That does not mean, however, that God did not play a part in morality. After all, man was supposedly made in his image, making morality (even if it’s now a human trait) rooted in divine will after all.

We can also look at the idea that during the evolution of humanity, it was much more likely for an individual to survive if they acted in accordance with the rest of their tribe. Because of this, humans likely evolved naturally to act kindly toward other humans, as doing so makes them more likeable, which was of great importance in the Stone Age.

Conclusion

The origins of morality aren’t exactly concrete, but the divine command theory offers one possibility. Contrasting divine command theory is evolution, which suggests that it is as simple as the niceness of its members being beneficial for the survival of a tribe. I don’t necessarily agree with either of these points, but I found both of them interesting, so I decided to write about them here.