1) The standard "arbitrariness objection"
Divine Command Theory (henceforth DCT) is the theory that morality results from God's commands: roughly, what makes action X right is the fact that God commands us to do X. A common objection to DCT is that it makes morality "arbitrary". Now, the term "arbitrary" is somewhat ambiguous. However, the arbitrariness objection is often spelled out as follows: if DCT is true, then there might have been a different set of moral laws. Russ Shafer-Landau (2004, 81) puts the point as follows:
If there are no moral rules or reasons prior to God's commands, then there is nothing God could rely on to justify the divine commands. So any choice is arbitrary. Had God woken up on the other side of the bed on that fateful morning, we'd be saddled with a morality that encourages torture, pederasty, perjury, and all sorts of other things we now recognize to be evil.
The problem with this objection is that many theists don't think that God's decisions are arbitrary in this way. Many theists think that God's commands flow from God's nature and that God's nature is unchanging. In fact, some theists think that the existence of a being with God's nature is necessary—that a being with God's nature couldn't have failed to exist. If they're right about that, then DCT doesn't entail that there might have been a different set of moral laws. On the contrary, if God's commands flow from God's nature, God's nature is necessary, and DCT is true, then there could not have been a different set of moral laws.
2) DCT and objective morality
Recall, DCT claims that moral laws result from God's commands. These moral laws are generally taken to be objective. Indeed, many theists appeal to DCT precisely in order to defend the idea of objective moral laws. Now, what objective morality amounts to is a somewhat thorny question. Here I can offer only a cursory treatment of this question. However, I will say the following.
First of all, what is it for an entity to be subjective? Let's use tastiness an example of a subjective entity—specifically, a subjective property. Here we must distinguish between mental properties and subjective properties. The pleasure that I experience when eating chocolate is a mental property, a property of my mind. But that mental property is not itself the property of tastiness. Tastiness isn't a property of my mind; it's a property of the chocolate. However, that extra-mental property exists only relative to my mind and the minds of others who enjoy eating chocolate. Relative to the minds of those who dislike chocolate, the tastiness of chocolate simply doesn't exist. We can define a subjective entity as follows: X is a subjective entity if and only if X exists only relative to minds. (Notice that the tastiness of chocolate would remain subjective even if everyone liked chocolate: it would still be true that the tastiness exists only relative to people's minds.)
For our purposes, we can define an objective moral law as a moral law that is not a subjective entity. If DCT is true, then we seem to have an obvious way of explaining how moral laws could be objective: moral laws don't exist only relative to minds; they have been created by God! How might this work? Here's one (though certainly not the only) way:
Suppose that moral properties (rightness, wrongness, goodness, badness, etc.) are natural properties that belong to certain objects (e.g. persons and actions). Furthermore, suppose that it's a matter of natural laws which kinds of objects have which moral properties, just as it's a matter of natural laws which particles have negative charge. Let's call this picture of morality "strong moral realism". Jason Kawall (2009, 13) describes (but does not endorse) one possible version of strong moral realism:
Badness is a natural property that supervenes on various natural base properties (such as suffering), while goodness is a natural property that supervenes on other base properties (such as happiness). Assume further that rightness supervenes on actions that maximize utility (where we can treat this simply as a matter of the net balance of goodness over badness produced) […] Why do these moral properties supervene on the base properties that they do? The [strong moral realist] need not provide an explanation here, anymore than she needs to explain why the laws of physics or biology are as they are. This would simply be part of the nature of the world we live in.
If strong moral realism is true, then it's obvious how God could have created objective moral laws. In creating the universe, God created the laws of nature. According to strong moral realism, these laws include the laws that determine which objects have which moral properties. In other words, they include moral laws.
However, there's a serious intuitive problem with trying to base objective moral laws on God's commands. I will explain that difficulty in section 4.
3) Intrinsic and extrinsic necessity
Before I continue, I must distinguish between two kinds of necessity.
One of the best illustrations of this distinction appears in the cosmology of the medieval Persian philosopher Ibn Sina (known as "Avicenna" by Latin writers). Ibn Sina believed in a series of superhuman Intelligences emanating from the First Cause, i.e. God. Only the First Cause is necessary in itself. The other Intelligences are necessary "by reason of the First Cause"; however, they are not necessary in themselves: if the First Cause didn't exist, then they wouldn't either (Davidson 1992, 75).
I'll use the expression "intrinsic necessity" to refer to the kind of necessity that belongs to the First Cause. I'll use the expression "extrinsic necessity" to refer to the kind of necessity that belongs to the emanated Intelligences. X is intrinsically necessary if and only if (1) X's existence doesn't depend on the existence of anything else and (2) X exists necessarily. X is extrinsically necessary if and only if (1) X's existence results necessarily from some entity Y distinct from X and (2) Y exists necessarily.
4) The real arbitrariness problem
As we saw in section 1, DCT doesn't entail that there could have been a different set of moral laws. Perhaps God's commands flow from God's nature and God's nature is necessary. If that's true, and moral laws result from God's commands, then whatever moral laws exist must exist. We can put this point in terms of extrinsic necessity: even if DCT is true, moral laws may be extrinsically necessary; that is, moral laws may result necessarily from something else that's necessary, namely God's nature.
At the same time, if DCT is true, then moral laws can't be intrinsically necessary. Why? If moral laws are intrinsically necessary, then they exist independently of God. This, of course, is precisely what DCT denies. According to DCT, moral laws result from God's commands.
Here, I think, is the real arbitrariness problem with DCT.
Those who believe in objective moral laws are generally inclined to think of them as necessary. There may be another universe in which the speed of light is different, but it seems odd to say that there could be another universe in which beings exactly like us exist and yet are subject to different objective moral principles. (Of course, I'm talking about our commonsense intuitions here. There's no logical inconsistency in the idea that objective moral principles vary from universe to universe—or even from society to society—as I pointed out in an earlier post.) In short, we tend to think of an objective moral law as a necessary moral law; intuitively, it seems problematic to say that a moral law is objective but not necessary.
Of course, a divine command theorist can point out that, on his view, moral laws are necessary—extrinsically necessary—because they result from God's necessary nature. But that reply doesn't remove the intuitive discomfort. For that reply doesn't address the metaphysical status of the moral law; it simply addresses the metaphysical status of God's nature. Intuitively, an objective moral law should be a bit more metaphysically elevated than Ibn Sina's extrinsically necessary Intelligences. Those who believe in objective moral laws want moral laws that are intrinsically necessary, necessary in themselves, not necessary because they result from something else that's necessary. And if an objective moral law must be intrinsically necessary, then DCT is false. For reasons that we've seen, DCT claims that moral laws are objective, but it cannot claim that moral laws are intrinsically necessary.
5) Conclusion
Ultimately, I can speak only for my own intuitions. Perhaps others have no problem with an objective moral law that isn't intrinsically necessary. As I've noted elsewhere, there's no logical absurdity in the idea that (1) different moral principles apply in different places (and thus moral principles are not intrinsically necessary) and yet (2) moral principles are objective. Nonetheless, I believe that I speak for a fairly widespread intuition when I link objective moral laws with intrinsically necessary moral laws. Insofar as DCT is supposed to be about objective moral laws, DCT conflicts with this intuition, because DCT cannot be true if moral laws are intrinsically necessary.
References:
Davidson, Herbert Alan. 1992. Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect, & Theories of Human Intellect. NY: Oxford UP.
Kawall, Jason. 2009. "In Defense of the Primacy of the Virtues". Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 3.2.
Shafer-Landau, Russ. 2004. Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? NY: Oxford UP.
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