God’s Commands as the Foundation for Morality: Robert Adams (Pre-read)

This extract, by the distinguished American metaphysician and philosopher of religion Robert Adams, takes the form of an argument for God’s existence based on the nature of right and wrong. Adams’s first premise is that there are certain truths about moral rightness and wrongness that we accept without hesitation — for example that wanton cruelty is wrong. Second, such truths are objective facts (they are not just a function of personal preference or inclination); and, third, they are non-natural facts (that is, they are not reducible to empirical truths of the kind that could be established by physics, or biology, or psychology).

The best explanation for the existence of facts of this kind, Adams argues, is the existence of God — or more specifically, the theory that "moral rightness and wrongness consist in agreement and disagreement, respectively, with the will or commands of a loving God."

Please read the extract in advance (4 pages): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/c6kniushf548sn02b1r9p/R.-Adams-on-command-ethics.pdf?rlkey=aepcx8gf9ckz16ul7z7kwmmz4&dl=0

People who have not read the text are welcome to join and participate, but priority in the discussion will be given to people who have read the assigned text.