Introduction to Philosophy

Achieve Test Prep: Philosophy

Religion and Universal Values The relationship between religion and morality is a natural one for multiple reasons, such as the core purpose of many religions is to serve as a means to achieve ultimate spiritual transformation and the way we live our lives becomes as vehicle for achieving ultimate spiritual transformation, and our religion provides us with the ethical roadmap. Religion provides a metaphysical grounding for morality if an ethical system is grounded in a supernatural creator or what is thought to be a fundamental principle of the universe, then the ethical system speaks with authority. God endorses these principles and removes moral values from the level of human-to-human debate and raises it to a spiritual level. Divine Command Theory The Divine Command Theory is the view that we act morally when we do what God commands of us. In Plato’s dialogue, the Euthyphro , he poses the question “Is a moral value good or right because God commands it to be so, or is the moral value good or right independently of God’s commands?” In the Divine Command Theory, what is morally right and good (or wrong and evil), is defined simply by God’s will. Our independent moral sense of right and wrong, good and bad, is irrelevant. Divine commands are not intended to be questioned, critically evaluated, or negotiated by the audience for whom they are intended. The commands are intended to be obeyed. Some examples of divine commands is the Old Testament from the Bible and the Qur’an. Once critical judgment is suspended, there is danger of individuals becoming vulnerable to manipulative leaders claiming to be following God’s commands, as we see in the case of cults in which people lose their autonomy and sometimes their lives. On a social level, the belief that it is our spiritual responsibility to suspend out intellectual independence and follow those who claim to interpret divine commands can lead to bloody and destructive wars and persecutions. Many individuals and groups set their moral and ethical compass by a specific religious doctrine, in what is known as the Divine Command Theory. Such people believe that what is morally right or wrong is determined by whatever god(s) they worship. Natural Law Theory The natural law theory is based on the view that universal moral values can be discovered in nature by using the faculty of reason which contends that there are universal moral values that people can discover by using their rational, intellectual, and emotional capabilities. The effect of this view is that whatever is morally good and right exist independently of God’s commands and can be discovered by people using their gift of reason. There have been centuries of efforts to provide a foundation for moral principles, a grounding that will remove it from the grip of divine command theory, social conditioning, and the shadow land of inscrutable mystery. The social conventions of a society are the beliefs, laws, and tastes that are peculiar to that society. Nature embodies the vast realm of truth that exists on a deeper level than social conventions that exist of the surface and these natural truths are not relative to society. They are constant from culture to culture and age to age and are rooted in the

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