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date: 06 December 2019

Abstract and Keywords

This article examines morality and divine authority in the context of the question of whether God – that is, God's existence, nature, or activity – explains morality. It begins with some clarifying remarks about the meaning of ‘God’, ‘morality’, and ‘explains’. The article then evaluates the Theistic Explanation of Morality: for every moral fact, there is some fact (or facts) about God that explains it. Defences of this thesis might appeal to rather different sorts of relationship between moral and theistic facts, and some of those differences are discussed.

Keywords: morality, divine authority, God, Theistic Explanation

Mark C. Murphy

Mark C. Murphy is McDevitt Professor of Religious Philosophy at Georgetown University. He works in moral, political, and legal philosophy and is the author of Natural Law and Practical Rationality (Cambridge, 2001), An Essay on Divine Authority (Cornell, 2002), Philosophy of Law (Blackwell, 2006), Natural Law in Jurisprudence and Politics (Cambridge, 2006), and God and Moral Law (Oxford, 2011).

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