andrewcriddle

IMHO I think you may be blurring two separate questions.

a/ How far would a genuine supernatural command justify what would otherwise be morally forbidden ?

b/ How far should secular human courts admit defenses which are easy to make and almost impossible to refute ?

It would be quite possible to hold that a person is morally entitled to commit certain acts if they honestly consider themselves in receipt of a command from God to do so, but that a court should not legally recognise such a defence.

Andrew Criddle

John A. Broussard

That's an intriguing concept. This would imply that intent is what morality applies to, and not the actual act.

Is that what you are saying, or am I misinterpreting?

andrewcriddle

I think it is probable that if one wrongly but sincerely holds a belief that if true would justify an action then one is not morally censurable for performing that action. (although one may be legally culpable)

One may be morally censurable for having negligently come to hold an erroneous view on a very serious issue but that is another matter.

Andrew Criddle

Charles Bailey

Personally, I don't see where the question of obedience to a command--from any source--ought to be considered a moral issue. It hardly seems possible to me that anyone could justify an atrocity by claiming as their defense that they were merely following orders.
I also don't see where this is in question. Defenses which rest on non-falsifiable premises cannot even be evaluated by a court of law. I am under the impression that a legal defense must answer the charges in question with verifiable and relevant information.
I have a bit of a problem with this position. For example, just how do we determine cases where a person honestly considers themselves to have received a command from God from cases where a person does not honestly consider themselves to have received a command from God? Given the high probability of psychological disorders being present in such a person, should we rely on polygraph print-outs to decide such issues?

Charles Bailey

Withouth giving it a whole lot of thought, intuition tells me that morality should apply to both equally, and not just one or the other. This is why I find the Christian moral construct of reward and punishment so absurd: it seperates actions from intentions. How can any act--no matter how pious or impious--be truly considered moral or immoral if one is compelled to undertake said action by threats of punishment for disobedience or promises of reward for compliance? Seems more like a case of bribery and/or blackmale to me.

Where is the free will?

John A. Broussard

Let me be the devil's advocate here. Man is threatened with punishment by god. Man has free will. He weighs the alternatives--the punishment against the pleasure of defiance. He exercises his free will, one way or the other.

I guess I was really the god's advocate in this instance.

Charles Bailey

It seems to me that there can be no free will in the scenario you present either, since we've been put into the middle of a dilemma which is not of our own choosing. Wouldn't free will imply that we have a choice to accept neither punishment nor reward but total freedom to act as we choose and avoid any type of eternal consequences?

In the words of the great Robert Ingersoll, "To the extent that we have wants, we are not free. To the extent that we do not have wants, we do not act."

I don't know about you, but I don't "want" to have any part of the eternal barbeque.

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It is insisted that man is free, and is responsible, because he knows right from wrong. But the compass does not navigate the ship; neither does it, in any way, of itself, determine the direction that is taken. When winds and waves are too powerful, the compass is of no importance. The pilot may read it correctly, and may know the direction the ship ought to take, but the compass is not a force. So men, blown by the tempests of passion, may have the intellectual conviction that they should go another way; but, of what use, of what force, is the conviction?

...But, in my supposed case, the people, after all, are not free. They have wants. They are under the necessity of feeding, clothing, and sheltering themselves. To the extent of their actual wants, they are not free. Every limitation is a master. Every finite being is a prisoner, and no man has ever yet looked above or beyond the prison walls. Our highest conception of liberty is to be free from the dictation of fellow prisoners.

...To the extent that we have wants, we are not free. To the extent that we do not have wants, we do not act.

If we are responsible for our thoughts, we ought not only to know how they are formed, but we ought to form them. If we are the masters of our own minds, we ought to be able to tell what we are going to think at any future time. Evidently, the food of thought -- its very warp and woof -- is furnished through the medium of the senses. If we open our eyes, we cannot help seeing. If we do not stop our ears, we cannot help hearing. If anything touches us, we feel it. The heart beats in spite of us. The lungs supply themselves with air without our knowledge. The blood pursues its old accustomed rounds, and all our senses act without our leave. As the heart beats, so the brain thinks. The will is not its king. As the blood flows, as the lungs expand, as the eyes see, as the ears hear, as the flesh is sensitive to touch, so the brain thinks.--Robert Ingersoll, The Brain and the Bible (1881)

Thomas II

I would like to recommend a book called "Moses:a life" by Jonathan Kirsh.
I don't know if any of you have read it but it was an eye opener to me,
actually both eyes...

Toto

Moses: A Life by Jonathan Kirsch. Kirsch is a book editor at the LA Times.

John A. Broussard

That's known as the "Eichman defense." For what it's worth, I've heard the claim that his attorneys went further than that. They insisted that he was doing what was morally correct (I doubt they used that exact wording) in carrying out the orders of a legitimate authority.

I would guess that most theists would claim that god was the most legitimate of all authorities, so if the argument was a sound one for Eichman it should be certainly sound for someone who carries out god's commands. Can Abraham be faulted for being willing to kill his son when told to do so by the great lawgiver in the sky?