While I was having a discussion in the comments here it dawned on me that I might’ve stumbled upon a novel Divine Command Theory (DCT). Before I get there I should probably give a brief description of what a DCT is. DCT is a meta-ethical theory that seeks to ground our moral duties in the commands of God. To ground our duties involves giving a basis for them. So when asked, “why ought I be loving to my neighbour” the divine command theorist will answer, “because God has commanded that you ought be loving to your neighbour”.

This isn’t just a silly case of “because God said so”, for it properly applies how we see duties arise elsewhere to our moral duties: duties arise from commands from qualified authorities. To ground this intuition for you take an example of legal duties. If you’re driving your car down the road and a random person tells you to pull over to the side, you have no obligation to do so. In this case, you have a command, but no authority. Now if a policeman tells you to pull your car over, then you have a legal obligation to do so. This is because the policeman is a legal authority, so in this case you have a command and an authority.

Euthyphro and Essentialism

Now the divine command theorist will say that God is a qualified moral authority (reasons for are discussed later) and so his commands issue moral duties binding on us. Almost certainly, when one starts talking about DCT someone in the discussion is going to bring up the Euthyphro Dilemma. This dilemma arises from one of the Socratic Dialogues written by Plato (it’s called “Euthyphro”, if you were interested), in which Socrates asks Euthyphro, “Is something right because God commands it, or does God command it because it is right?”[1]

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