Abstract

Since the 1970s, contemporary ethical theories metaphysically grounded in the activities of God have enjoyed a resurgence of philosophical interest. These so-called "divine command" theories can be divided into two major formulations: command and will. Today, most of the notable "divine command" ethicists embrace the will formulation in preference to the command formulation. ;In this work I will defend the command formulation from some important attacks and argue that the will formulation suffers from such a fundamental and, I believe, serious problem that it should be rejected in favor of the command formulation. I will also develop solutions to some of the "puzzles" that have caused some ethicists to think that the will formulation is superior to the command formulation, demonstrating that the latter is actually superior to the former in solving these "puzzles". In so doing, I will argue that the "axiological" or "goods-priority" approach employed by almost all current divine command theorists is a mistake, and I will argue for a much more formalistic, somewhat Kantian sort of divine command theorizing. I will conclude that future efforts in the development of divine command ethics would be made much more plausible by employing a quite austere version of the command formulation