Euthyphro dilemma: Difference between revisions

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m (Edited the description of the Euthyphro dilemma)
(Rearranged a bit. Added "God as a standard to emulate")
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{{quote-source|The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.|''[[Why I Am Not a Christian]]''}}
{{quote-source|The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.|''[[Why I Am Not a Christian]]''}}


==Apologetics==
==Counter-apologetics==


===False dilemma===
There are several responses possible against the Euthyphro dilemma, but the sharpest criticism it falls under is that it is a false dilemma (i.e., commits the Bifurcation fallacy by presenting only two alternatives when there are actually more than two). The two cases presented are that (i) God commands something because it is good, and that (ii) something is good because God commands it. In the first instance, moral order is grounded ''outside'' God; in the second instance, moral order is grounded in God's ''arbitrary'' fiat.
There are several responses possible against the Euthyphro dilemma, but the sharpest criticism it falls under is that it is a false dilemma (i.e., commits the Bifurcation fallacy by presenting only two alternatives when there are actually more than two). The two cases presented are that (i) God commands something because it is good, and that (ii) something is good because God commands it. In the first instance, moral order is grounded ''outside'' God; in the second instance, moral order is grounded in God's ''arbitrary'' fiat.


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This supplies the reason behind why "an all-loving God would never command evil." Under the Euthyphro bifurcation, the Christian theist has no reason to believe that God would never command evil on the one horn, or that God will not change his mind about what is evil on the other. However, under the third alternative the Christian theist does have good reason for his belief, that God commanding evil would amount to a logical contradiction: God wills what he does not will, an empty nonsense statement.
This supplies the reason behind why "an all-loving God would never command evil." Under the Euthyphro bifurcation, the Christian theist has no reason to believe that God would never command evil on the one horn, or that God will not change his mind about what is evil on the other. However, under the third alternative the Christian theist does have good reason for his belief, that God commanding evil would amount to a logical contradiction: God wills what he does not will, an empty nonsense statement.
==Counter-apologetics==


===God would never command immoral acts===
===God would never command immoral acts===
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If we identify the ultimate standard for goodness with God's nature, then it seems we are identifying it with certain of God's properties (e.g., being loving, being just). If so, then the dilemma resurfaces: is God good because he has those properties, or are those properties good because God has them?
If we identify the ultimate standard for goodness with God's nature, then it seems we are identifying it with certain of God's properties (e.g., being loving, being just). If so, then the dilemma resurfaces: is God good because he has those properties, or are those properties good because God has them?
===God provides a standard to emulate===
In ''[http://www.nishma.org/articles/commentary/euthyphro.html The Euthyphro Argument: A Philosophical Dinosaur]'', Rabbi Moshe Averick argues that God represents the ideal of goodness, and that the more we emulate him, the closer our relationship with him.
This does not solve the problem: he proposes a variant on the Euthyphro dilemma:
{{Quote|Does The Incredible Hulk command us because it is good, or is it good because The Incredible Hulk commands it?}}
but does not give a reason to prefer God over the Hulk. In other words, we must use some criterion to decide that God is good, but the Hulk is not. If that criterion is "God says so", then God arbitrarily decides what is good; if the criterion is something else, then we do not need God to decide what is good.


===Can you be good without God?===
===Can you be good without God?===
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* [http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html Full text of the ''Euthyphro'' dialogue] by Plato
* [http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html Full text of the ''Euthyphro'' dialogue] by Plato
* [http://www.beretta-online.com/articles/philosophy/new_euthyphro.pdf Apologetic essay entitled "A New Euthyphro"] by New Zealand Christian philosopher Glenn Peoples
* [http://www.beretta-online.com/articles/philosophy/new_euthyphro.pdf Apologetic essay entitled "A New Euthyphro"] by New Zealand Christian philosopher Glenn Peoples
 
* ''[http://www.nishma.org/articles/commentary/euthyphro.html The Euthyphro Argument: A Philosophical Dinosaur]'' by Rabbi Moshe Averick
http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/euthyphro_dilemma/
* [http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/euthyphro_dilemma/]


{{Arguments against god}}
{{Arguments against god}}

Revision as of 12:27, 18 February 2011

The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's Euthyphro dialogue, in which Socrates asks the question, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" In layman's terms this would be, "Is that which is good commanded by God because it's good, or is it good because God commands it?"

The dilemma

It is common amongst Christians to claim that God's omnibenevolence necessitates the goodness of his actions and commands, a view called "Divine Command Theory". The Euthyphro dilemma is one demonstration of an incompatibility between the perfection of God and his commands. For one, Divine Command theory claims that morality is meaningless unless it is derived from God yet fails to answer who made God moral and whether his moral commands could be considered objective rather than arbitrary.

Put in the context of Divine Command Theory, the Euthyphro Dilemma results in two unpalatable conclusions:

1) God is not the greatest, as he must call upon a standard of good greater than himself. 2) God's commands are arbitrary, ground on his whims, and thus could be commands that we ourselves find morally abhorrent.

The first conclusion results in the view that God cannot change what is right and wrong. Killing and stealing are inherently bad, so God, being inherently good, cannot command them. Yet if right and wrong are inherent to the action, regardless of God's decree, then God has nothing to do with the process. God doesn't set moral standards; he follows them, and is therefore only indirectly related to moral commands.

The second conclusion shows that God is free to decide what is good, and it is good by virtue of his decree. If this is the case, then God has no higher standard to answer to, and therefore his will may be seen as genuinely arbitrary. Although God once decreed that murder and theft are morally wrong, he might have declared the opposite just as easily, so then murder and theft would be right.

Another way to state the argument is in the form of a constructive dilemma:

I. Is something good because God commands it so or does God command it so because it is good?

II. If something is good because the God commands that it is so, then what is morally reprehensible to us can be good.

III. If God commands that it is good because it is good, then the good is greater than God.

IV. So, either the good is arbitrary or good is greater than God.


Much atheist literature has borrowed from the Euthyphro dilemma, even when not referring to it by name. For instance, Bertrand Russell wrote:

"The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good."

Why I Am Not a Christian

Counter-apologetics

False dilemma

There are several responses possible against the Euthyphro dilemma, but the sharpest criticism it falls under is that it is a false dilemma (i.e., commits the Bifurcation fallacy by presenting only two alternatives when there are actually more than two). The two cases presented are that (i) God commands something because it is good, and that (ii) something is good because God commands it. In the first instance, moral order is grounded outside God; in the second instance, moral order is grounded in God's arbitrary fiat.

The Bifurcation fallacy is proved by the existence of a third alternative, which it fails to present or account for; namely, (iii) that moral order is grounded in the very nature of God and expressed prescriptively in his commands. In this case God's commands are not arbitrary; they are, rather, an expression consistent with his essential nature. Under this view, "God is good" is not a moral valuation (God has goodness) but an ontological statement (God is goodness); as a logical consequence, good is that which conforms to the nature and will of God, while evil is a privative term or that which does not conform to the nature and will of God.

This supplies the reason behind why "an all-loving God would never command evil." Under the Euthyphro bifurcation, the Christian theist has no reason to believe that God would never command evil on the one horn, or that God will not change his mind about what is evil on the other. However, under the third alternative the Christian theist does have good reason for his belief, that God commanding evil would amount to a logical contradiction: God wills what he does not will, an empty nonsense statement.

God would never command immoral acts

Firstly, God does command rape and murder several times in the Old Testament. For example, in Numbers 31:1-54 Bible-icon.png God commands Moses and his army to "Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." The army comes back with 32,000 virgins after doing God's will.

The Qur'an, chapter 4 (An-Nisa), verse 34: “ Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.


Secondly, saying that God would never command evil in itself shows that God gets his morals from an outside source. If God would never command rape and murder because they're evil then where did he get the determination that they were evil?

This counter-apologetic contains certain risks, however, which a canny apologist may exploit. The theist may contend, sincerely or otherwise, that yes, because God commanded all of the ostensibly immoral acts contained within both Old and New Testament, they are therefore good. The theist can then shift the burden of proof to the counterapologist and demand that he or she justify why such acts are objectively immoral, opening the door to endless picayune objections, diversions, and moving of the goalposts.

God's nature

The claim that God would not command evil because it goes against God's nature does not actually change the problem, but only reorganizes it. The question might then be reasonably asked, "Where does God's nature come from?" Did God create it himself? If so then God's whims are still behind what he considers right and wrong, and the dilemma still applies. If, on the other hand, God did not create his own nature, then either someone else created it (in which case the dilemma applies to the creator of God's nature) or the morality contained in God's nature is inherent in some way (in which case God is not truly the author of right and wrong).

Michael Martin has argued that theistic objections to the dilemma solve nothing, because it can easily be reformulated in terms of God's character: "Is God's character the way it is because it is good or is God's character good simply because it is God's character?" The structure of this modified dilemma is exactly the same as before, and it appears to be if anything harder to escape.

If we identify the ultimate standard for goodness with God's nature, then it seems we are identifying it with certain of God's properties (e.g., being loving, being just). If so, then the dilemma resurfaces: is God good because he has those properties, or are those properties good because God has them?

God provides a standard to emulate

In The Euthyphro Argument: A Philosophical Dinosaur, Rabbi Moshe Averick argues that God represents the ideal of goodness, and that the more we emulate him, the closer our relationship with him.

This does not solve the problem: he proposes a variant on the Euthyphro dilemma:

"Does The Incredible Hulk command us because it is good, or is it good because The Incredible Hulk commands it?"

but does not give a reason to prefer God over the Hulk. In other words, we must use some criterion to decide that God is good, but the Hulk is not. If that criterion is "God says so", then God arbitrarily decides what is good; if the criterion is something else, then we do not need God to decide what is good.

Can you be good without God?

The issue of secular morality is a complex topic and is further explored in the related article.

External link


v · d Arguments against the existence of god
Existential arguments   Argument from nonbelief · Problem of Evil (logical) . Who created God? · Turtles all the way down · Problem of non-God objects · Argument from incompatible attributes · No-reason argument · Santa Claus argument · Can God create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it? · Outsider test
Arguments from the Bible   Failed prophecy in the Bible · Biblical contradictions
Evidentiary arguments   Problem of evil (evidential) · Inefficacy of prayer
Reasonableness arguments   Occam's Razor · Outsider test · Argument from locality · Argument from inconsistent revelations
Other arguments   Emotional pleas