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Abstract

This paper gives attention to the argument for divine command theory (DCT) of ethics, the 
notion that morality depends upon God's command. Philosophers have discussed this 
theory in relations to the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Among 
them are those who argue against this theory and those who prolifically defend it. Some 
Jewish scholars, like Immanuel Jakobovits, argue that Jewish tradition supports DCT, 
while others, like Aharon Lichtenstein, object the argument on the ground that tradition 
denies this view. According to the common law, the opposite of all evil fall under a divine 
command. Thus, it is not possible that anyone rightly engage in evil acts, because they are 
not performed meritoriously. And if they should be done by any meritoriously, then they 
would not be called evil. Therefore, some philosophers understand that any evil act is not 
commanded by the divine. Then, do we conceptualise ethics from theological 
perspective? The paper attempts answering this by analytic method, considering the idea 
of DCT on virtue, an ethical conducts to which the Sokoto Caliphate scholars give a 
divine command theory explanation. The paper questions how virtue is theorised by 
philosophers, especially in the utilitarian view, and how it relate to the ideas of the Sokoto 
Caliphate scholars. The outcome shows that morality, according to those scholars, has its 
riots in religious instruction, and that a society can chose to apply the divine command 
ethical theory for the moral setting of its people to achieve political, social and economic 
development.

Keywords: Islam, Ethics, Divine, Virtue, Utilitarian.

Introduction

We have attempted a critique of the divine command theory (DTC) of ethics (Ibrahim, 
2021). The DTC is a theory of ethics that grounds the nature of ethical demands in the fact 
that they represent the command of God (Blackburn, 2008:103). Also called theological 
voluntarism, divine command is a position which claims that God's command is the 
ultimate source of moral obligation or that God's will is the basis of moral laws. Grabber 
claims to be convinced that a DCT of ethics has more going for it than has been generally 
acknowledged (1975:62). However, one factor responsible for obscuring the merits of a 
DCT is the heavy-handedness with which philosophers have been led to deal with it as a 
result of trying to handle too much at once. For philosophical analysis, we must 
distinguish between divine to engage in acts of worship, ritual, prayer, and other 
“specifically religious” and those divine commands that give rise to moral obligation. The 

VIRTUE IN THE DIVINE COMMAND THEORY OF ETHICS 
FROM THE SOKOTO CALIPHATE SCHOLARS

Abubakar Zaria IBRAHIM, Ph.D



63

criterion for distinguishing moral commands from such non-moral directives as religious 
commands can be provided by philosophical analysis of the concept of morality. This 
topic has been the subject of a good deal of discussion in philosophical circles, but no 
general consensus has been reached (Frankena, 1965). It would take us away from the 
focus of this paper if we attempt to deal with this issue here, so we shall keep it for another 
discussion.

Numerous philosophers have argued that the idea, for example, that God's command is a 
necessary and sufficient condition of the moral rightness of an act fails to effectively 
convey the dependence of the act's moral rightness on God's command (Sagi and Statman 
1995:20). However, most versions of the DCT involve both conveying this dependence 
and explaining its nature (Sagi and Statman 1995). For Leibowitz, Judaism, at the level of 
the individual religious life who takes his or her faith seriously, is essentially co-extensive 
with the observance of Torah and the commandments. He acknowledges that, on a more 
abstract plane, Torah study and observance of the practical commandments do not 
exhaust the entire content of Judaism. But so far as the individual's Jewish life is 
concerned, he remains immovable that observance of Torah and the commandments is the 
fundamental relevant characteristic (Ibrahim, 2021). On the part of Christianity, the 
perspective of the DCT is reflected in certain passages in the Reformation writings of 
Luther and Calvin (Idziak, 1979:95). In Islam, there are ethical presuppositions of the 
Qur'an and Hadith. The Qur'an is the book revealed by God to the Prophet of Islam, 
Muhammad (peace be upon him). It has within it laws that guide the entire conduct of 
human life. Another source of ethics in Islam is the Hadith. This is the compilation of the 
words and deeds of the Prophet which broadly explain the teachings of the Qur'an.

The ontological problem of the nature of ethical value concepts and the epistemological 
problem of the source of knowledge of ethical values in Islam have been elaborately 
treated by George Hourani (1985). He explains why, we can infer, the Sokoto Caliphate 
scholars have relied principally on religion, basing their actions on the DCT, to guide the 
moral character of the society. Their arguments for using and defending the theory to 
shape moral character are replete in their treatises. However, we shall take a look at the 
root from which they tapped this method, which is the early Islamic ethics.

Early Islamic Ethics

To support the argument that God's command is a necessary condition for moral 
rightness, let us present a logical formulation before looking at ethics in the Islamic point 
of view. In a renowned passage in Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates poses the following 
question: 'Is what is holy holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it 
is holy?' (Plato, Euthyphro 10a). The contemporary philosophical literature inclines to 
reorganize Socrates's query, which it terms 'the Euthyphro dilemma', in monotheistic and 
more modern vocabulary. The horns of the dilemma are then modified in the following 
style: is it the case that (1) an act is right because God commanded (or wanted or willed or 
approved) it, or alternatively, is it the case that (2) God commanded (or wanted or willed 
or approved) this act because the act it is right? (Meynell, 1972:223; Burch, 1980:279; 
Helm, 1981:2; Sagi and Statman, 1995:11)

According to horn According to (1), God, or more precisely His command or will, etc., 

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determines morality; morality depends upon God. On (2), by contrast, morality is 
independent of God; He commands or wills certain things because of moral 
considerations that are not contingent upon Him. DCT, therefore, can be understood as 
the idea that if there had been no divine commands, there would have been no morality. 
On this view, there is simply no such thing as morality without God's commands. Thus, 
the very existence of moral values and moral obligations depends upon those commands. 
We can express this stronger interpretation of DCT in the following formulation:

If action A is right, then God has commanded us to do A. (= If God had not 
commanded us to do A, then A would not be right).

Another way of expressing this formulation is to say that God's command is a 
necessary condition of morality, or of the moral rightness of an act. A formal expression of 
this idea is as follows:

(x) (Rx  ? Cx) where x = an action, R = 'morally right' and C = 'commanded by God'.

Therefore, our terminology for ease of reference later on is: God's command is a 
necessary condition of the moral rightness of an act.

Ethics, understood in a broad sense as the study of practical justification, has no particular 
equivalent in Islam. Instead we find a variety of literary and intellectual genres within 
which Muslims consider questions of the shape and nature of the good life. Among these 
genres, fiqh, or as many have been accustomed to say, Islamic jurisprudence, stands out as 
a particularly important discipline, the special interest of which is the discernment of 
guidance for life through the interpretation of divinely approved sources. To treat Islamic 
legal thought in the classifications of ethics, as done by the Sokoto caliphate scholars, is 
not a new notion. In an earlier focus on Islam, Kevin Reinhart suggested that students of 
ethics might find in the texts and arguments associated with Islamic law a rich source for 
their interests (Reinhart 1983). He argued that careful study of legal materials would 
contribute more to an understanding of Islamic ethics than would the study of Islamic 
philosophy or theology. 

In maintenance of the ontological objective position of ethical values in the Islamic point 
of view, there are three points worthy of note. First, the Qur'an used an established 
language in illuminating the divine message, the Arabic language. It used the specific 
concepts with their unambiguous meanings and implications, and addressed many ethical 
terms to pagans, such concepts, for instance, are ?adl (justice), zulm (transgression), khayr 
(goodness), sharr (evil). It used ethical terms, therefore, in a way that people could 
understand. Good and evil deeds mentioned in such verses as Q.16:90, “Surely Allah 
enjoins the doing of justice and the doing of good (to others) and the giving to the kindred, 
and He forbids indecency and evil and rebellion; He admonishes you that you may be 
mindful.”

The second point is that many ethical attributes are predicated of God. As such these are 
difficult to interpret in terms of obedience to His own commands, which were made for 
man. Certainly, ethical attributes are distinct from ethical command. Like the statement in 
Q.10:4: “He may with justice recompense those who believe and do good” and the 
continuous assertion in the Qur'an that He is never unjust to his servants; as in Q.8:51: 
“Allah is not in the least unjust to the servants” and that “Allah is Benignant to His 

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servants” as in Q.42:19.

The third point is that if God is not good and just in a human common sense, but in another 
supernatural sense, then those divine attributes will be made meaningless and unpleasant 
to human moral feeling and religious piety. All that will be left for humanity is fear of an 
unknown mystic power, and a blind submission to subjective commands. This is 
definitely not the message of the Qur'an regarding human being's relation to God. The 
purpose of believing in and doing good deeds and avoiding bad is not only chastisement 
and remuneration in the hereafter but also God's pleasure and love. This is clearly stated, 
for instance, in the Qur'an. It says in Q.5:13, “surely Allah loves those who do good (to 
others).” And in Q.3:159, “place your trust in Allah; surely Allah loves those who trust.” 
As such, the Sokoto caliphate scholars ontologically explore the Qur'an and Hadith in 
moral issues of the society.

The Sokoto Caliphate Scholars

In the attempt to achieve moral development of the state, one of the ethical behaviours that 
the Sokoto Caliphate scholars give a divine command theory explanation is virtue. These 
scholars, popularly known as the triumvirate, are Sheikh Uthman bin Fodiye, Abdullahi 
bin Fodiye and Muhammad Bello. They sought for a virtuous society and political order 
whose guiding principle is the realization of human excellence. In philosophy, virtue was 
not only human quality or moral virtue, but also the quality of anything in the 
performance of its needed function.  Human virtues are generally thought to include 
courage, temperance, piety, justice, and wisdom, but there were conflicting beliefs 
about them. Socrates devoted all of his life to clarifying the meaning of these virtues, 
claiming crucially that virtue is knowledge (Bunnin and Yu, 2004:727). One foremost 
aspect of Plato's theory of ideas was to launch the metaphysical foundation for moral 
virtues and to determine how a man should live.  As such, in the ancient world ethical 
theory was more or less co-extensive with the doctrine of virtue, that is to say of qualities 
of individual character. It is not particularly of place to consider the influence of the 
Platonic habit of thought upon the conception of the virtuous life, particularly of a 
developing young person. The general characteristic of a developing person is that of 
acquiring the virtues, so that the virtuous life appears to him at first as something outside 
himself, something that has to be grasped and brought into his own possession. 

The virtuous is the one who lives by senses rather than by the interior grace within. Such a 
person is first moved by authority or admonished by a teacher; to accept the good where it 
is found, and it always found in what others say and do. So the person begins by being 
obedient and by imitating the ways of others. By degrees, in subduing self-inclinations to 
dissipate self through senses and sense life, begins to acquire virtues, a fact which is 
revealed by the delight eventually discovered in exercising self in the ways of others 
(Pepler, 1952:1). In this way God's word is dictated from outside; which the Muslim must 
hear and accept it. So the Sokoto caliphate scholars moved the society in this manner to 
promote virtuous acts.

The ethical principles of the caliphate were founded on the shari'a laws which is the 
divine legislation, moral guide and source of philosophic ideas and principles in Islam. 
While Bentham argues that in most nations “thefoundations of a useful morality” were 

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obscured by religious doctrines and false morality (1823:179). These foundations 
consisted of sensations of pleasure and pain, and self-love was closely related to them: 
men … are neither good nor bad, but ready to be either, according as a common interest 
unites or divides them; that self-love, a sensation necessary to the preservation of the 
species, is engraved by nature in a manner not to be erased; that a physical sensibility has 
produced in us a love of pleasure and a hatred of pain; that pleasure and pain have at length 
produced and opened in all hearts the buds of self-love, which by unfolding themselves 
give birth to the passions, whence spring all our virtues and vices. (Bentham, 1823:185-
6). To Abdullahi, however, the various societies can be define as societies in which human 
beings come together to cooperate with the aim of becoming virtuous, performing 
dignified actions and attaining happiness. Such society is distinguished by the presence of 
knowledge of man's ultimate perfection. This knowledge has to be revelation from God 
through the Prophets who are morally sound through God's guidance (Abdullahi, Vol. II, 
2013:115).

Mill admitted that the same passion that led to the love and practice of virtue in one age or 
society might produce vice in another. The link between the passions and public utility 
was not straight-forward. Murderers as well as geniuses might have strong passions (Mill, 
1863:286). Mill fully accepted this problem, though he insisted that the route to public 
utility did not rest with the sacrifice of pleasure and strong passions. He argued instead 
that the passions, and especially the strong ones, must be made to conform to the public 
interest without losing their strength, and this was the task of the legislator. His means 
were the laws and his immediate tools, reward and punishment. “The virtues and vices of 
a nation”, he confirmed, “are always necessary effects of its legislation” (Mill, 1863:317). 
Despite giving what appears to be great power to the legislator, it did not follow that Mill 
intended the legislator to be a despot, either enlightened or not. And between republics 
and despotisms, he clearly favoured republics, where no one was above the law (Mill, 
1861:208). He also praised the right of the people to possess freedom of expression and 
criticism, including freedom of the press (Mill, 1861:301-2). He praised the separation of 
powers in England, and in his discussion of government, he seemed indebted to 
Montesquieu. But he rejected Montesquieu's emphasis on the importance of climate to 
explain differences between states (placing greater emphasis on the laws and legislator), 
and, unlike Montesquieu, he seemed to praise republics as the repositories of virtue and 
greatness (Mill, 1965:358).

Similarly, the attempt by the Sokoto scholars was no doubt an attempt to address the 
menace of oppression and exploitation of the masses, which the first objective of the 
reform movement set out to achieve. They desired a virtuous society by pinning down the 
principles of leadership. These principles included the foundations and qualities of 
leadership, good governance, management of public affairs and struggle against 
corruption (Bobboyi, 2011:1-13). On the diseases of a society, Mill did not believe that 
the legislator could simply enact a new set of laws and initiate the reign of virtue, much as 
Lycurgus supposedly did at Sparta. He criticized sovereigns who acted too hastily: 
Sovereigns are apt to think, that by a word, or by a law, they can suddenly change the spirit 
of a nation, and, for instance, render a cowardly and indolent people, courageous and 
active. They are ignorant that diseases in the state, which are long contracting, require 
much time in curing; and that in the body politic, as well as in the human, the impatience 

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of the prince and the sick persons often oppose the cure (Mill, 1965: 356).

In Masa'il Muhimma Yahtaju ila Ma'rifatiha Ah1 al-Sudan [Important Questions that 
need to be Known by the People of the Sudan] in 1802-3 and Wathiqat Ahl al-Sudan 
[Letter to the People of Sudan Area] in 1804, Sheikh Uthman ibn Fodiye spell out the 
revolutionary ideas which informed the change and shows that it was not an affair that can 
be achieved in a short period of time. He points to the diseases of a society in 'The Letter...' 
and cautions his followers not to be eager in rebelling from the Hausa kings (Othman Vol. 
III, 2013:34-35). The Sheikh, therefore, believes that changing the attitude of a state from 
vicious to a virtuous society can only be possible in a gradual process.

The question of how we become virtuous or good by acting according human nature finds 
no explicit answer in the texts of the Sokoto scholars. To further explore this topic, we 
make reference to Abdullahi's view on the foundation of morality alongside the view of 
utilitarianism. This offers some evidence that the views of Sokoto scholars and the 
utilitarians are not as dissimilar as they may usually thought to be. While the social and 
ethical ideal for Abdullahi is the peaceful unification of the state under a just and 
benevolent ruler (Abdullahi Vol. I, 2013:136), the utilitarians assert that the rightness or 
wrongness of a unit of behaviour is a quite different function of circumstances (Bentham, 
1781:125). That is to say the social and ethical ideal for the utilitarians entails having 
individuals performing the right action to produce optimistic results. However, this does 
not exclude the possibility that the two philosophic schools of thought share some very 
similar views on moral psychology, for they are only disagreeing on the content of what is 
actually good for human beings in a particular society. Abdullahi's paradoxical remarks 
on virtue suggest that acting virtuously is not primarily a contrived attempt to fulfil certain 
goals. This idea finds expression in a famous passage from the Diya'al Hukkam, which 
forms the core of his views on morality and virtue:

It is said in the Prophetic tradition: “There should be neither 
hurt nor hurting.” Al-Matity said: “Hurt is when one of the two 
neighbours hurt his neighbour (that is, hurt the other), and 
hurting is when they injure each other.” ... there are many 
ways to hurt... those ways include the smoke of public 
bathrooms and ovens (chimneys), as well as the dust of crop 
stacks and the smell of tanners... it is not allowed for a person 
to initiate a stable of animals near his neighbours house 
because of their urine and waste as well as their movement at 
night and during the day because they disturb (the 
neighbour's) sleep.(Abdullahi Vol. III, 2013:227)

Abdullahi invites us to imagine a simple, ordinary situation, uncomplicated by unusual 
customs or conventions. He appeals to our intuition and attempts to show that the basis of 
refraining from doing harm or offering help to others in need is basically one's feeling and 
emotional response to one's surroundings, a kind of primitive reaction. One may ask, 
“What is the reason for not hurting one's neighbour?' In reply, Abdullahi would point out 
that one should have compassion for the neighbour who is about to get hurt. However, 
there seems to be little room for asking the question “What is the reason for having such 
compassion?” For, to grasp the meaning and significance of the notion of compassion 

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implies taking seriously the harm that may affect beings sufficiently similar to us. To put 
the point here differently, we may say that taking for granted the need to attend to the 
suffering of the neighbour in this instance itself constitutes the perspective or the attitude 
of the moral person here: it is not the case that one is left with the question of whether one 
should care about the well-being of other people after one has already acquired the virtue 
of compassion.

From this perspective, the very act of asking the question above signals a kind of 
disagreement that implies deep divergence in ethical attitudes and values: an adequate 
level of agreement in attitude is lacking in order for the discussion to proceed. We might 
compare this picture of morality in Abdullahi's writing with certain trends in 
contemporary thought. Ludwig Wittgenstein states: Giving grounds, however, justifying 
the evidence comes to an end - but the end is not certain propositions striking us 
immediately as true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at 
the bottom of the language-game (Wittgenstein, 1969:204). Abdullahi here seems to hold 
the view that the justification of morality, as a form of human practice, in the end lies in 
certain forms of reactions and related attitudes. Human beings, their needs, and reactions 
in the context of human relationships, give sense to morality. True propositions and 
beliefs by themselves, isolated from human beings and their activities, have no bearing on 
moral practices and human conduct. To highlight the importance of attitude and action in 
comparison with belief, Wittgenstein states that:

I believe that he is not an automaton just like that, so far makes no 
sense. My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am 
not of the opinion that he has a soul (Wittgenstein, 1953:178.).

From the perspective of human activities and the interactions between human beings, 
holding the belief that a person is not an automaton is compatible with a variety of 
attitudes that may have very different practical and ethical consequence. For example, 
viewing a human being as having a soul can lead to many different kinds of moral 
attitudes: one may think that the salvation of the soul of a human being depends on the 
grace of God; or that a human being, having a soul, deserves un-conditional respect. Since 
such beliefs remain lifeless if disconnected from people's actual ways of living, this 
suggests that it is attitude or action that gives meaning and significance to human 
practices. In this sense, attitude and action are important conditions that belong to our 
complex practices. For Abdullahi, what distinguishes human beings from brutes is 
morality understood in terms of different kinds, namely certain basic ethical attitudes and 
reactions. Now if morality is taken to be an expression of some complex combination of 
attitudes or primitive reactions, the absence of such attitudes or primitive reactions has 
ethical significance.

For Abdullahi, in an ordinary case where a person is about to get hurt, not being able to 
respond in any appropriate way casts doubt on the possibility of an ethical discourse. 
What this implies is that some kind of agreement in attitude is necessary for ethical 
discussion to go on. The message from Abdullahi's writing can be seen as the claim that 
virtue is not simply isolated piece of true propositions unrelated to human life. It remains 
true that how ethical differences can be reconciled will depend on a variety of 
philosophical and cultural factors. With the absence of some basic agreement and 

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consensus, a consequence is that virtue can deform into certain self-interested or 
prudential concerns as in the case when behaviour can only be checked by means of 
remuneration or chastisement. The perspective been sketched here may provide a means 
for us to clarify our notion of moral disagreement. Imagine a person who 
characteristically acts without regard to the suffering or welfare of others - an amoralist, 
or a Thrasymachus if preferred. It can be misleading to say that the amoralist and a moral 
person disagree over whether a particular act is right or wrong for the reason that the 
difference in their moral background and outlook can be so great that it precludes a 
common morality or a moral language. To say that they disagree over a moral issue 
ignores the significant possibility that what could constitute a right action for an amoralist 
can be radically different from that for the moral person. 

The worry about a reductive theory of morality and virtue should disappear if we extend 
our focus to the whole argument that Abdullahi is putting forward. Although primitive 
reaction plays a fundamental role in moral development, to Abdullahi other factors such 
as reasoning and cultural understanding are also crucial. Primitive reaction in this sense is 
at most necessary rather than sufficient for our full moral development. Abdullahi's model 
of morality and virtue is not a purely intuitionist one that totally excludes the role of 
thinking and reasoning. He does emphasize that rationality can be used to improve one's 
moral character, for example in a kind of “extension” where one's concern toward one's 
family and relatives is extended to other human beings on the ground that they are not 
significantly different (Abdullahi Vol. III, 2013:250-251). The emphasis on cultural 
understanding in Abdullahi's work deserves more careful and complete attention.

To a non-philosophical reader of Abdullahi, a large part of the work consists of seemingly 
unimportant discussion about the question a person operating a mortar or grinding mills at 
night. For example:

In Islamic jurisdiction, “it is prescribed by the laws that, in 
giving and receiving, man and woman should not touch each 
other?” …“When one's sister-in-law is drowning, does one 
stretch out a hand to help her?” “Not to help a sister-in-law 
who is drowning is to be a brute. … but in stretching out a 
helping hand to the drowning sister-in-law one uses one's 
discretion”

(Abdullahi Vol. III, 2013:250-251)

Bearing in mind such example, which emphasizes the importance of the context and the 
surrounding circumstances of an action, it should become clear that being moral or 
virtuous for Abdullahi is a complex phenomenon that involves the ability to make fine, 
sensitive judgments: virtue consists in acting and reacting to particular circumstances in a 
perceptive way. In this sense, it is possible to say that virtue and the virtuous person are 
one - the person acts virtuously from virtue by responding to the needs and suffering of 
other human beings in an appropriate way relative to the surrounding circumstances. In 
doing so, a virtuous person can be seen as acting spontaneously in an important sense.

Morality, as understood by Abdullahi and the Utilitarian philosophers, is seen as firmly 
rooted in human and social relationships, and both recognize that actions and attitudes are 

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important aspects of moral practice. In practical ethics, once actions and attitudes are 
understood as taking an essential role, it would seem clear that the relationship between 
actions or attitudes and morality is different from the relationship between belief and 
morality. Since it is the case that attitudes or actions play an important role in giving sense 
to our ethical practices, beliefs about virtue and morality by themselves are only part of 
the complete picture of virtuous or moral behaviour. One might even say that the notion of 
moral or virtuous behaviour is like a by-product of moral or virtuous behaviour itself: a 
person can act virtuously and morally by responding appropriately toward the 
surrounding circumstances, but the conscious belief that one is acting virtuously or 
morally is neither necessary nor sufficient for the virtuous behaviour itself.

Between three British Classic utilitarian scholars; Bentham, Mill and Sidgwick, only the 
latter is inclined towards practical ethics like the Sokoto Caliphate scholars. Though 
Sidgwick has not established a state or empire, he has shown that academic debates by 
philosophers may not produce proper understanding even within the philosophers, not to 
talk of the society. To him, changing the morals of any group of people has to go hand in 
hand with education and practice. This is what Sheikh Uthman ibn Fodiye was able to 
achieve with the able assistance of his brother Abdullahi and his son Muhammad Bello. 

Considering the above perspective on virtue from the scholars of the Sokoto Caliphate, it 
is clear that their combination of divine and insightful principles demonstrate that moral 
theory can effectively guide actions. The ethical ideas emphasize the political importance 
of sound belief about the divine and about the principles of the world. It was by this 
conviction that they changed the political and socio-economic setting of Hausaland to 
establish the Sokoto caliphate. An administrative entity which flourished for over a 
century.

Conclusion

Divine command theory of ethics has more supporters among philosophers than has been 
generally acknowledged. We are made to understand, however, one factor responsible for 
obscuring its merits is the heavy-handedness with which philosophers have been led to 
deal with it as a result of trying to handle too much at once. As a theory of ethics, it can 
stand for a guiding principle in the law of a given society. According to the common law, 
the opposite of all evil fall under a divine command. And, with a divine command in effect 
it is not possible that anyone meritoriously or rightly engage in evil acts, because they are 
not performed meritoriously. And if they should be done by an earthly pilgrim 
meritoriously, then they would not be called or named evil. In regard to this, some 
philosophers understand that any act linked with evil is not commanded by the divine. 
The paper, therefore, concludes that a society can chose to apply the divine command 
ethical theory for the moral setting and standard of its people and achieve political, social 
and economic development.

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