And here it is:
Morriston, Wes. "God and the Ontological Foundation of Morality." Religious Studies 48 (2012): 15-34. page 19:
"Either God has good reasons for his commands or he does not. If he does, then those reasons (and not God’s commands) are the ultimate ground of moral obligation. If he does not have good reasons, then his commands are completely arbitrary and may be disregarded. Either way, the divine command theory is false (19).
[...]
Why are love and justice and generosity and kindness and faithfulness good? What is there in the depths of reality to make them good? My own preferred answer is: Nothing further. If you like, you may say that they are the ultimate standard of goodness. What makes them the standard? Nothing further. Possessing these characteristics just is good-making. Full stop. Is there some problem with this? Some reason to press on, looking for a ‘deeper’ answer that only theism can provide?
It’s not obvious that there is. No matter what story you tell about the ontological ground of moral value, you must at some point come to your own full stop. If you say that love is necessarily good because God necessarily exists and loves and because God’s moral nature is the ultimate standard of goodness, then we can ask what makes God’s moral nature the ultimate standard. It would be unwise to respond, ‘because it includes love and justice and the rest’, since that would confine us to a small and entirely unenlightening circle of ‘explanations’. At some point, you are simply going to have to bite the bullet and say, ‘That’s just how it is’.
So which is the correct stopping point? The non-theological one, according to which goodness supervenes directly on love and justice and the rest, rendering the detour through theology entirely unnecessary, has at least the virtue of simplicity (29-30)."
[...]
Why are love and justice and generosity and kindness and faithfulness good? What is there in the depths of reality to make them good? My own preferred answer is: Nothing further. If you like, you may say that they are the ultimate standard of goodness. What makes them the standard? Nothing further. Possessing these characteristics just is good-making. Full stop. Is there some problem with this? Some reason to press on, looking for a ‘deeper’ answer that only theism can provide?
It’s not obvious that there is. No matter what story you tell about the ontological ground of moral value, you must at some point come to your own full stop. If you say that love is necessarily good because God necessarily exists and loves and because God’s moral nature is the ultimate standard of goodness, then we can ask what makes God’s moral nature the ultimate standard. It would be unwise to respond, ‘because it includes love and justice and the rest’, since that would confine us to a small and entirely unenlightening circle of ‘explanations’. At some point, you are simply going to have to bite the bullet and say, ‘That’s just how it is’.
So which is the correct stopping point? The non-theological one, according to which goodness supervenes directly on love and justice and the rest, rendering the detour through theology entirely unnecessary, has at least the virtue of simplicity (29-30)."
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