Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-fxdwj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-11T23:50:51.547Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in the Problems of God

God and Value Judgments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2023

Kevin Kinghorn
Kevin Kinghorn
Affiliation:
Asbury Theological Seminary

Summary

Humans continually make judgments that some things have more value than others. Plausibly, it is largely through our value judgments that God intends to guide us in setting priorities and goals. This Element surveys leading accounts of what value judgments are exactly. It then explores the particular values we are apparently sensitive to when making two judgments endemic to human life: about what makes a life good, and about who deserves a good life. Connections are made between differing analyses of human value judgments and views about God's character and the goals God is prompting us to pursue.
Get access

Keywords

valuingintuitionsseemingsgoodnessdesert
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in the Problems of God
Online ISBN: 9781009296137
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 01 February 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, M. M. (1975). Hell and the God of justice. Religious Studies, 11(4), 433–47.Google Scholar
Adams, M. M. (1993). The problem of hell: A problem of evil for Christians. In Stump, E. and Kretzmann, N., eds., Reasoned Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 301–27.Google Scholar
Adams, R. M. (1999). Finite and Infinite Goods, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Alfano, M. (2012). Expanding the situationist challenge to responsibilist virtue epistemology. Philosophical Quarterly, 62(247), 223–49.Google Scholar
Alfano, M., Machery, E., Plakias, A., and Loeb, D. (2018). Experimental moral philosophy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. Zalta, ed., plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/experimental-moral.Google Scholar
Anderson, S. W., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., and Damasio, A. R. (1999). Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 2(11), 1032–7.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. (1947). Summa Theologica, Fathers of the English Dominican Province, trans., New York: Benziger Brothers.Google Scholar
Aristotle (2016). Nicomachean Ethics, Ross, W. D., trans., Digireads.com.Google Scholar
Aristotle (2017). Politics, Jowett, B., trans., Digireads.com.Google Scholar
Augustine, (1887). On the Trinity, Haddan, A., trans. In Schaff, P., ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature.Google Scholar
Augustine, (2009). On Christian Doctrine, Shaw, J., ed., Mineola, NY: Dover.Google Scholar
Augustine, (2015). Confessions, Pusey, E. B., trans., Digireads.com.Google Scholar
Baggett, D., and Walls, J. (2011). Good God, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barth, K. (1938). The Knowledge of God and the Service of God according to Teaching of the Reformation (Gifford Lectures), Haire, J. and Henderson, I., trans., London: Hodder and Stoughton.Google Scholar
Barth, K. (2004). Church Dogmatics, vol. I, pt. I: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Bromiley, G., trans., Bromiley, G. and Torrance, T., eds., London: T & T Clark.Google Scholar
Bechara, A. (2004). The role of emotion in decision-making: Evidence from neurological patients with orbitofrontal damage. Brain and Cognition, 55(1), 30–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berman, M. (2013). Rehabilitating retributivism. Law and Philosophy, 32(1), 83–108.Google Scholar
Budziszewki, J. (2011). What We Can’t Know: A Guide, rev. ed., San Francisco: Ignatius Press.Google Scholar
Butler, J. (2017). Fifteen Sermons and Other Writings on Ethics, McNaughton, D., ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chapman, H., and Anderson, A. (2013). Things rank and gross in nature: A review and synthesis of moral disgust. Psychological Bulletin, 139(2), 300–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cottingham, J. (2011). The source of goodness. In Harris, H., ed., God, Goodness, and Philosophy, New York: Routledge, pp. 49–62.Google Scholar
Craig, W. L. (2020). Atonement and the Death of Christ, Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.Google Scholar
Cushman, F. (2013). Action, outcome, and value: A dual-system framework for morality. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17(3), 273–92.Google Scholar
Dancy, J. (1993). Moral Reasons, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Darwall, S. (2002). Welfare and Rational Care, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Doris, J. (2002). Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, J. (1835). The eternity of hell torments. In Rogers, H., ed., The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1, New York: Daniel Appleton & Company, pp. 83–9.Google Scholar
Erasmus, D. (1969). On the freedom of the will. In Rupp, E. and Marlow, A., eds., Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, Rupp, E., trans., Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press.Google Scholar
Evans, J. (2012). Questions and challenges for the new psychology of reasoning. Thinking and Reasoning, 18(1), 5–31.Google Scholar
Feinberg, J. (1970). Justice and personal desert. In Doing and Deserving, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, F. (1995). Adjusting utility for justice: A consequentialist reply to the objection from justice. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 55(3), 567–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finlay, S. (2014). Confusion of Tongues: A Theory of Normative Language, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Freiman, C., and Nichols, S. (2011). Is desert in the details? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82(1), 121–33.Google Scholar
Geach, P. (1956). Good and evil. Analysis, 17(2), 33–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, M., and Nichols, S. (2008). Sentimentalist pluralism: Moral psychology and philosophical ethics. Philosophical Issues, 18(1), 143–63.Google Scholar
Goldie, P. (2000). The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration, Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Green, J., ed. (2011). Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.Google Scholar
Greene, J., and Haidt, J. (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(12), 517–23.Google Scholar
Greene, J., Sommerville, R., Nystrom, L., Darley, J., and Cohen, J. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293(5537), 2105–8.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. (1996). Value Judgment: Improving Our Ethical Beliefs, Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108(4), 814–34.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind, New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Hannah, N. (2019). Hitting retributivism where it hurts. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 3(1), 109–27.Google Scholar
Hill, D. (2005). Divinity and Maximal Greatness, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Horgan, T., and Tienson, J. (2002). The intentionality of phenomenology and the phenomenology of intentionality. In Chalmers, D., ed., Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 520–33.Google Scholar
Huemer, M. (2005). Ethical Intuitionism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Humberstone, L. (1992). Direction of fit. Mind, 101(401), 59–83.Google Scholar
Hurka, T. (2001). The common structure of virtue and desert. Ethics, 112(1), 6–31.Google Scholar
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9, 188–205.Google Scholar
Kagan, S. (2012). The Geometry of Desert, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kahane, G. (2012). On the wrong track: Process and content in moral psychology. Mind & Language, 27(5), 519–45.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking Fast and Slow, New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1899). Critique of Pure Reason, Meiklejohn, J. M. D., trans., New York: Colonial Press.Google Scholar
Kauppinen, A. (2013). A Humean theory of moral intuition. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 43(3),360–81.Google Scholar
Kauppinen, A. (2015). Intuition and belief in moral motivation. In Björnsson, G., Strandberg, C., Olinder, R. F., Eriksson, J., and Björklund, F., eds., Moral Internalism, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 237–59.Google Scholar
Kauppinen, A. (2018). Moral sentimentalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. Zalta, ed., plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/moral-sentimentalism.Google Scholar
Kenny, A. (1963). Action, Emotion and Will, New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Kershnar, S. (2010). Desert and Virtue: A Theory of Intrinsic Value, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Kinghorn, K. (2005). The Decision of Faith, London: T & T Clark.Google Scholar
Kinghorn, K. (2016). A Framework for the Good, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Kinghorn, K. (2019). But What about God’s Wrath? Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.Google Scholar
Kinghorn, K. (2021). The Nature of Desert Claims, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kleinig, J. (1973). Punishment and Desert, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., et al. (2007). Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature, 446(7138), 908–11.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, C. (1983). Two distinctions in goodness. Philosophical Review, 92(2), 169–95.Google Scholar
Kriegel, U. (2013). The phenomenal intentionality research program. In Kriegel, U., ed., Phenomenal Intentionality, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kriegel, U. (2015). The Varieties of Consciousness, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristjánsson, K. (2006). Justice and Desert-Based Emotions, Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Lamont, J. (2011). The justice and goodness of hell. Faith and Philosophy, 28(2), 152–73.Google Scholar
Lange, C. (1885/1912). The mechanism of the emotions. In Rand, B., trans., The Classical Psychologists. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, pp. 672–84.Google Scholar
Lerner, M. (1981). The justice motive in human relations: Some thoughts on what we know and need to know about justice. In Lerner, M. and Lerner, S., eds., The Justice Motive in Social Behavior: Adapting to Times of Scarcity and Change, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 11–35.Google Scholar
Locke, J. (1975). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Nidditch, P., ed., Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Luther, M. (2012). The Bondage of the Will, Packer, J. and Johnston, O, trans., Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. (1998). A Short History of Ethics, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (1979). Virtue and reason. The Monist, 62(3), 331–50.Google Scholar
McMahan, J. (2009). Killing in War, Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
McNaughton, D. (1988). Moral Vision, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Miller, D. (1999). Principles of Social Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, G. E. (1993). Principia Ethica, rev. ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nagasawa, Y. (2017). Maximal God: A New Defence of Perfect Being Theism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, T. (1970). The Possibility of Altruism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435–50.Google Scholar
O’Donovan, O. (2021). “Good, goods, and doing good.” Lecture at the Henry Centre, April 15, 2021, https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/videos/#video-26695.Google Scholar
Piller, C. (2014). What is goodness good for? In Timmons, M., ed., Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics: Vol. 4, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 179–209.Google Scholar
Plantinga, A. (2000). Warranted Christian Belief, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platts, M. (1979). Ways of Meaning, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Pojman, L. (1997). Equality and desert. Philosophy, 72(282), 549–70.Google Scholar
Pojman, L. (1999). Does equality trump desert? In Pojman, L. and McLeod, O., eds., What Do We Deserve? Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Prinz, J. (2007). The Emotional Construction of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Railton, P. (2014). The affective dog and its rational tale: Intuition and attunement. Ethics, 124(4), 813–59.Google Scholar
Raz, J. (1999). Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, L. (1995). Expository Dictionary of Bible Words, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.Google Scholar
Roberts, R. C. (2003). Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, W. D. (2002). The Good and the Right, Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Scarantino, A., and de Sousa, R. (2021). Emotion. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. Zalta, ed., plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/emotion.Google Scholar
Schmidtz, D. (2006). The Elements of Justice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G., and Jordan, A. (2008). Disgust as embodied moral judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(8), 1096–1109.Google Scholar
Schroeder, M. (2008). What is the Frege–Geach problem? Philosophy Compass, 3(4), 703–20.Google Scholar
Shafer-Landau, R. (2003). Moral Realism: A Defence, Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Sher, G. (1987). Desert, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, H. (1981). The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed., Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Sinhababu, N. (2017). Humean Nature, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stocker, M. (1979). Desiring the bad: An essay in moral psychology. Journal of Philosophy, 76(12), 738–53.Google Scholar
Sumner, L. W. (1996). Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2007). Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2016). The Coherence of Theism, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Tappolet, C. (2018). Précis of emotions, values, and agency. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 97(2), 494–9.Google Scholar
Thagard, P., and Finn, T. (2011). Conscience: What is a moral intuition? In Bagnoli, C., ed., Moral Motivation and the Emotions, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 150–69.Google Scholar
Thomson, J. (2008). Normativity, Chicago, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Valdesolo, P., and DeSteno, D. (2006). Manipulations of emotional context shape moral judgment. Psychological Science, 17(6): 476–7.Google Scholar
Vargas, M. (2013). Situationism and moral responsibility: Free will in fragments. In Vierkant, T., Kiverstein, J. and Clark, A., eds.,Decomposing the Will, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walls, J., and Baggett, D. (2011). Good God, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walton, J. (2009). The Lost World of Genesis One, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.Google Scholar
Wedgwood, R. (2007). The Nature of Normativity, Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Weinandy, T. (2000). Does God Suffer? Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Wesley, J. (2022). Sermon 106 on faith. In T. Jackson, ed., The Works of John Wesley, WordsOfWesley.com.Google Scholar
Williams, B. (1985). Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and Its Limits, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wolterstorff, N. (1995). Divine Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Young, L., and Koenigs, M. (2007). Investigation emotion in moral cognition: A review of evidence from functional neuroimaging and neuropsychology. British Medical Bulletin, 84(1), 69–79.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. (2003). Emotion and moral judgment. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 66(1), 104–24.Google Scholar
Zaibert, L. (2017). On the matter of suffering: Derek Parfit and the possibility of deserved punishment. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 11(1), 1–18.Google Scholar
Ziff, P. (1960). Semantic Analysis, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

God and Value Judgments
  • Kevin Kinghorn, Asbury Theological Seminary
  • Online ISBN: 9781009296137
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

God and Value Judgments
  • Kevin Kinghorn, Asbury Theological Seminary
  • Online ISBN: 9781009296137
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

God and Value Judgments
  • Kevin Kinghorn, Asbury Theological Seminary
  • Online ISBN: 9781009296137
Available formats
×