In my last post, I expounded the Psychopath objection to divine command meta-ethics (DCM) that has recently been defended by Erik Wielenberg. To recap. Wielenberg suggests that my response to his earlier “reasonable unbeliever’s objection” relies on the following principle:

R) God commands person S to do act A only if S is capable of recognising the requirement to do A as being extremely authoritative and as having imperative force.

Wielenberg’ summarises his argument as follows:

The Psychopath Objection to Divine Command Theory

[1] There are some psychopaths who are incapable of grasping the authority and force of moral demands. (empirical premise) 

[2] So, there are some psychopaths to whom God has issued no divine commands. (from 1 and R) .

[3] So, if DCT is true, then there are some psychopaths who have no moral obligations. (from 2 and DCT). 

[4] But there are no psychopaths who have no moral obligations. 

[5.] Therefore, DCT is false. (from 3 and 4)

I think this argument is unsound. However, before I can elaborate as to why I believe this, a couple of ambiguities in the argument need to be addressed.

Let’s look first at R.

R) God commands a person S to do act A only if S is capable of recognising the requirement to do A as being extremely authoritative and as having imperative force.

As this is worded R lays condition, under which commands can exist. It entails that if someone does not recognise God’s commandments as authoritative or having imperative force, then God has not issued a command. It is unclear, however, that the counterexamples I offered suggest something this strong.  Consider, in particular, the context of my replies. Morrison’s had stated: “Even if he is aware of a “sign” that he somehow manages to interpret as a “command” not to steal, how can he [a reasonable non-believer] be subject to that command if he doesn’t know who issued it, or that it was issued by a competent authority?” (Morriston (2009), 5)

 The situation Morriston envisaged is one where someone is aware of the existence of the command but is unaware of its source.  What is being contested is not the existence of the command but whether unbelievers are “subject to it”. Morriston elaborates what he means by “subject to it” it later in the same paragraph. “[I[f the note is unsigned, the handwriting is unfamiliar, and you have no idea who the author might be, then it is as clear as day that you have no such obligation.” He adds “even if our reasonable non-believer gets as far as to interpret one of Adams’s “signs” as conveying the message, “Do not steal,” he will be under no obligation to comply with this instruction unless and until he discovers the divine source of the message.”

Consequently, Morriston is not envisaging a situation where no one issues the command. He is instead suggesting that a command has been issued but that it fails to impose an obligation upon the hearer. It was in response to this argument that I offered my counterexamples. Consequently, these replies were not trying to provide situations under which a command exists. They were suggesting conditions under which an existing command can generate an obligation.

Something similar is true of the other counterexamples consider Evan’s example of the person hiking on the Iran/Iraq Border. Before offering this example, Evan’s describes the argument he is responding to as follows;

Wielenberg admits that if God exists he would be authorised to impose obligations on human beings… However, the problem is that for this to happen, the recipients of the command must know that the commands come from God, otherwise no obligation is generated.

Evan’s takes himself to be addressing the situation under which God’s commands impose obligations. Not circumstances under which commands exist.

Consequently, as R is worded, it is far too strong.   Wielenberg appears to be aware of this point. Early in the discussion, he states:

Is shall henceforth use command to mean obligation-bestowing command. On this usage, no divine command is issued unless it imposes some moral obligation on those to whom it is issued. It is important to see that this usage may differ somewhat from the ordinary sense of command (Wielenberg (2018), 2)

If this is correct, then R should be understood as follows:

R1) If God commands a person S to do act A, this command imposes an obligation on S to do A, only if S is capable of recognising the requirement to do A as being extremely authoritative and as having imperative force.

To avoid potential unclarity, I will use R1 instead of R throughout the rest of the discussion.

This brings us to a second and more crucial ambiguity. R1 refers to an “obligation-bestowing” command. However,  the word “obligation” admits of different senses. Historically medieval theologians distinguished between a material and formal sense of obligation. More recent literature has used the words “objective” and “subjective” instead to describe this distinction.  Smith explains: “Objective obligatoriness (or rightness or wrongness) is the deontic status that an action has in virtue of its actual circumstances and consequences” By contrast, “Subjective obligatoriness (or rightness or wrongness) is the deontic status an action has in virtue of the agent’s beliefs about its morally relevant circumstances and consequences” (Smith (2010), 4)

As an illustration, consider the case of David Cerven, an unarmed man who was shot dead by the New Zealand police in March of 2015. After committing several of armed robberies, Cerven had arranged with the police to meet at a public park where he would turn himself in. When the police arrived, he informed them he was armed and reached into his jacket pulling out what looked like a gun. CCTV footage showed Cerven “putting his right hand into his right-hand pocket, taking his hand out of the pocket and then appearing to clasp both hands together as if to make it look like he had a firearm in his hands”.  Cerven was shot and killed. Subsequent investigation revealed Cerven was unarmed.  (New Zealand Herald, 2018)

In Smith’s terminology, the shooting of Cerven was objectively wrong. If we look at the actual circumstances and consequences, the police were shooting dead an unarmed man, who was not threatening either them or the public. To kill an unarmed man is morally wrong, and police officers have an obligation not to shoot unarmed people. At the same time, the shooting of Cerven was subjectively permissible. Given what the police knew; that Cerven had stated he was armed, was reaching for what looked like a gun, and the speed in which they had to make a decision, their decision to fire was permissible.

Donagan (1977) points out that objective and subjective obligations play different roles in moral thinking. “When an agent and his moral counsellors are considering the moral permissibility of a proposed action, the first question to arise is, Is it materially (objectively) permissible?”. The agent is to attempt to discern his objective duties as accurately possible and to perform them.  By contrast, subjective obligations are utilised when a person has acted on what they believe to be their objective obligations, and we are raising questions about culpability and blameworthiness. If the agent act with non-culpable ignorance, even if the act is objectively wrong, he is excused and not subject to blame for performing it. Whereas he does wrong knowingly and intentionally, he is blameworthy. (Donagan (1977), 137)

There are important connections between objective and subjective senses of the word obligations and significant discussion and debate about how to formulate them and their relationship to each other. These details do not concern us here.  What is pertinent is that the distinction between objective and subjective obligations provides us with two  possible interpretations of R :

(R1. Subjective) If God’s commands a person S to do act A, this command imposes a subjective obligation on S to do A, only if S is capable of recognising the requirement to do A as being extremely authoritative and as having imperative force.

(R1. Objective) If God’s commands a person S to do act A, this command imposes an objective obligation on S to do A, only if S is capable of recognising the requirement to do A as being extremely authoritative and as having imperative force.

The same ambiguity effects premise [4] as well. [4] could mean either:

[4S] But there are no psychopaths who have no subjective moral obligations. 

Or

[4O] But there are no psychopaths who have no objective moral obligations.

Having clarified some ambiguities in the Psychopathy argument. We can no turn to offering a response. I is my contention that the common distinction between objective and subjective obligation makes trouble for the Psychopath Objection.  In my next post, I will explain why this ambiguity makes Wielenberg’s objection unsound.

Morriston Wes The Moral Obligations of Reasonable Non-Believers: A special problem for divine command meta-ethics [Journal] // International Journal of Philosophy of Religion. – 2009 . – Vol. 65

Donagan Alan The Theory of Morality [Book]. – Chicago : Chicago University Press, 1977.

Evans C Stephen God and Moral Obligation [Book]. – Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013.

New Zealand Herald Big Read: The life and death of David Cerven [Online] // nzherald.co.nz. – July 24, 2018. – 8 10, 2019. – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12094183.

Smith Holly The Moral Clout of Reasonable Beliefs [Book Section] // Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics / book auth. Timmons Mark. – Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2010. – Vol. 1.

Wielenberg Erik Divine command theory and psychopathy [Journal] // Religious Studies. – 2018. – pp. 1-16.

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