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Thursday July 9, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST
Jason Thibodeau has recently developed a revised version of the Horrendous Deeds Objection against Modified Divine Command Theory (MDCT). On his formulation, if God has “moral grounding power”—the capacity for a being’s commands to constitute moral obligations—then any omnipotent being would possess the same power. This purportedly allows for a possible world in which a non‑omnibenevolent deity renders horrendous acts morally obligatory. I argue that this objection fails once the nature of moral grounding power is correctly understood. On standard versions of MDCT, moral obligation is identical to being commanded by God. When grounding is construed as identity rather than causal production, Thibodeau’s key premise collapses: identity is not transferable, and it is therefore logically impossible for the property of being morally required to be identical to the commands of any distinct agent, regardless of omnipotence. I further respond to two recent attempts to rehabilitate the objection, concerning alleged cases of type‑identical commands constituting the same normative phenomenon and the purported arbitrariness of restricting moral grounding power to God alone. I conclude that the revised Horrendous Deeds Objection does not undermine MDCT.
Thursday July 9, 2026 2:00pm - 2:55pm NZST
MSB1.15

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