The Incoherence of Ockham’s Ethics

Ockham thinks that God can command creatures to hate him. He also thinks that it is right to obey any divine command. This paper investigates what it is, for Ockham, to obey divine commands, and what makes it right to do so. The most plausible explanations of what makes it right to obey divine commands are God’s goodness and God’s power. The textual evidence in Ockham points towards both, but I judge the preponderance of the evidence to lean in favour of grounding our obligations to obey God on God’s goodness. But whichever of the two we pick, we end up with an incoherent view. Given some things Ockham says, it should not be possible for Ockham’s God to make it right to hate God, yet Ockham also says that this is possible. I see no way to rescue Ockham’s ethics from incoherence.