RE: Objective morality as a proper basic belief
July 5, 2017 at 2:30 pm
(This post was last modified: July 5, 2017 at 2:57 pm by Angrboda.)
(July 4, 2017 at 10:10 pm)Little Henry Wrote:(July 2, 2017 at 1:30 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: I never said God's nature is arbitrarily good. What I did say was that the standard of goodness which God's nature meets must come from himself, or it must come from somewhere else. Those are the two horns of the dilemma, and they are inescapable. Saying that God's nature is "necessary" adds nothing to the question. It is a non-answer. Either the standard of goodness comes from God himself, in which case it's arbitrary, or it comes from somewhere else, obviating God. It's irrelevant whether it "necessarily" comes from God or not. Contingency and necessity have nothing to do with it.
By saying it can come from somewhere then you are saying that it is contingent. That is to say it is a property that he could have lacked. This is incorrect. Gods moral character is ESSENTIAL to him. That is why i said it is a part of his nature. That is, there is no possible world in which God could have existed without those attributes. God didn't come to being loving, holy etc by accident or by luck.
Also his nature doesnt come from himself. He didnt decide his own nature.
You are confusing a logical dependency with a temporal/physical dependency. The good is contingent upon having a certain relationship to God's nature in order for it to qualify as the good. You've simply asserted that God is good and has always been good. In order for God to qualify as the source of morals, he must be good in a particular way; not simply be good. In order for God to be the source of morals, the question is not whether or not God is good, but what logical relationship God has to the good. If he simply is good by virtue of his properties, whatever they are, then that is indeed an arbitrary logical relationship. In order for God to be the source of morals, he must have the right sort of relationship to the good. You've simply dodged the question. Whether or not God is the source of morals depends upon his relationship to the good. If the good exists independent of God, and the relationship is that God is good because he meets that standard, then God is not the source of morals. The question is not "Is God considered good?" but rather "Why is God considered good?" You've completely failed to answer that question and it is that question which defines the logical relationship between God and the good. That is the substance of the dilemma, and you've once again failed to meet it.
(July 4, 2017 at 10:10 pm)Little Henry Wrote:(July 2, 2017 at 1:30 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: I did no such thing. I posed a dilemma with two horns. Either God's nature is good because the standard of goodness comes from himself, or because the standard of goodness comes from somewhere else. There is no third option. Claiming I assumed something I didn't assume is just more waffling on your part. You can't refute the dilemma, so you're just throwing out arbitrary answers.
Both horns have been refuted.
Not even close. You confused logical with temporal/physical dependency and simply dodged the question by asserting that God is good. In order for God to be the source of morals, he must have the right sort of relationship to the good. You didn't address his relationship to the good at all. You merely offered a definitional argument that God is good by definition. That doesn't answer the dilemma.