Abstract

In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan is said to have held the view, at least at one time, that there is no God, and that, as a result, morality as it existed before this knowledge was achieved no longer has any force or authority. Ivan believed that God or the belief in God was the source of authority for the “old morality” and that the man who recognizes that there is no God “may lightheartedly overstep all the barriers” of that morality and construct a new one. The question in which I am interested is concerned with the sense or senses in which God might be considered to be the source of the authority of morality. In considering this question, I will consider three related views: the view that God is the criterion of moral goodness and makes certain character traits and qualities good by being himself the exemplar of goodness and by esteeming certain character traits and qualities; and that God is the criterion of moral rightness and makes certain actions right by commanding or desiring us to do them, and others wrong by commanding us not to do them; or, alternatively, that the criterion of moral rightness is what God would command or desire us to do; the view that God’s existence is necessary for moral utterances to make proper sense; and the view that the assumption of God’s existence is necessary for moral arguments to have any power to move those to whom they are addressed. I will argue that each of these is incorrect.