In my Beginning Ethics class, this week is dedicated to exploring the "divine command theory." This is the view that we identify right and wrong by observing rules delivered (somehow) by God (or other religious authorities). Many people regard this as the only acceptable moral theory, usually because (they say) you can't do any better than obeying what God orders you to do. The fundamental challenge for following this theory (which I present boldly to the students, both positively and critically) is knowing "which" commands to obey, when there are so many of them, when there are so many moral situations where there don't seem to be any commands to follow, and when there are commands whose applications point in conflicting directions. I chose to wear my "Creation of Adam" tie to remind us all of the story of God's activity in giving life to humans and in giving them some strange rules to obey.
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