Is Divine Law Indispensable to Moral Obligation? A Reply to Elizabeth Anscombe

Datos Bibliográficos

ID16901468
AutoresJeffery Jay Lowder (Bellevue College, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen16
Número11
Páginas1331
Fecha de publicación2025-10-22
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaReligions (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
EditorialMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel16111331
OpenAlexW4415420921
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas47

This paper assesses Elizabeth Anscombe’s influential argument in her 1958 essay “Modern Moral Philosophy,” which holds that secular moral obligation is metaphysically incoherent without a divine law framework. This paper reconstructs her argument—dubbed the “divine indispensability argument”—in standard form and then presents eight targeted objections that fall under three general types—challenges to its intelligibility, internal and external inconsistency, and substantive improbabilities—demonstrating that each strand refutes her thesis. Finally, it shows that her proposed remedy inherits the very defects she attributes to secular ethics and concludes that moral obligation remains fully coherent within nontheistic frameworks

Free will · Metaphysics · Moral obligation · Natural law · Obligation · Legal principles and applications · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Theology and Philosophy of Evil