RELIGION and DIVINE COMMAND ETHICS

Ethics and Religion:

Moral issues and religious belief are related in several positive ways.

•  First, they are shaped over time from the central moral values of major world religions.

•  Second, religious  views often support moral responsibility by providing  additional motivation for being moral.

• Third, sometimes religions set a higher moral standard than is conventional.

• Societies often benefit from a variety of religions that make  prominent particular virtues, inspiring their members to pursue them beyond what is ordinarily seen as morally obligatory.

Divine Command Ethic:

•  This says that an act which is right is commanded by god and the one which is wrong is forbidden by God.

•    The difficulty in this is to know precisely what God’s commands are and in knowing whether God exists.

We can view that moral reasons are not reducible to religious matters, although religious belief may provide an added inspiration for responding to them.