A few thoughts on the Euthyphro dilemma

[FallentoReason]

Is there a reason or justification for God's nature being the way that it is or is it simply arbitrary? In this case, I would say that God's nature must be arbitrary and this isn't a problem

If it's true that God's nature is arbitary, then how can you actually tell that something is morally good because it's in God's nature as opposed to because God commands it? They both look the same; an arbitrary selection of good and bad morals.

[Kayenneh]

My biggest problem with this one would be that morals are not the same around the globe. If indeed there was ONE god, from where all morality came and all the people of the world would follow this, wouldn't it be absolutely unnecessary to even debate this? “Is something moral because God commands" makes me think of a certain story in the bible, where a man is commanded to kill his son, to please his god. The god commands, therefore it must be moral, even though the bible clearly states that "thou shalt not kill". I don't see the morality here.

If morality is independent of God, then you don't need theism for morality.

Bingo! Take god out of the equation and it'll make more sense.

[toro]

Your substitution of the phrase "in God's nature" for "God says so" is a simple regress that leaves us in the same position with a second question:

"Is it in God's nature Because God says so, or does God say so because it is in his nature."

If the latter, then, as before, God is not omnipotent and there are higher laws/powers directing it. If the former, then, again, God is arbitrarily choosing what his nature will be so it is moral and the morality is arbitrary. We now have the same dilemma. This cannot be ignored because it is an assertion you are making to answer the question, and therefore you need to explain all aspects of your assertion.

[shinydarkrai94]

I will actually try to respond to the content of what you wrote instead of being lazy like the other atheists here.

Thanks .

I don't understand why you're not bothered by the problem of infinite regress of objective morality. I would think that would be a major blow to the concept of objective morality. God is supposedly suppose to be the source of everything, but in this case, you seem to be saying you're fine with morality not actually coming from him. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding you.

Slight misunderstanding. I think infinite regress is a problem, but I don't think that stopping with some standard is a problem. If objective morality exists, it is arbitrary in this sense, but there don't appear to be any inherent problems with this.

I don't think that morality is coming from a different standard. I would propose that the standard at which we stop is God's nature.

You posted it on an Atheist forum. You are lost.

Buy a GPS.

I'm responding to an atheistic argument. That's fairly appropriate for an atheistic forum.

If it's true that God's nature is arbitary, then how can you actually tell that something is morally good because it's in God's nature as opposed to because God commands it? They both look the same; an arbitrary selection of good and bad morals.

You might not be able to. But there are arguments (used by atheists and theists alike) defending moral intuition, which would be one way to get at least some idea of what is moral and immoral.

My biggest problem with this one would be that morals are not the same around the globe. If indeed there was ONE god, from where all morality came and all the people of the world would follow this, wouldn't it be absolutely unnecessary to even debate this? “Is something moral because God commands" makes me think of a certain story in the bible, where a man is commanded to kill his son, to please his god. The god commands, therefore it must be moral, even though the bible clearly states that "thou shalt not kill". I don't see the morality here.

Not really. Moral facts need not influence how we behave. The view that there are objective moral facts that are only descriptive and do not influence us at all is called descriptivism. I don't really think that this is an accurate view and I don't know how on earth it would be defended philosophically though.

Most people who accept objectivism (objective moral facts exist) would not accept descriptivism. They would argue that we are influenced by moral facts. However, it still does not follow that we will not see large differences in moral behavior. Moral influence does not mean moral requirement. We might feel bad after doing something wrong but that does not mean that we wont do wrong things.

Your substitution of the phrase "in God's nature" for "God says so" is a simple regress that leaves us in the same position with a second question:

"Is it in God's nature Because God says so, or does God say so because it is in his nature."

If the latter, then, as before, God is not omnipotent and there are higher laws/powers directing it. If the former, then, again, God is arbitrarily choosing what his nature will be so it is moral and the morality is arbitrary. We now have the same dilemma. This cannot be ignored because it is an assertion you are making to answer the question, and therefore you need to explain all aspects of your assertion.

I am asserting that God is the ultimate moral standard. This means there is essentially no reason behind his nature. If anyone asserts that objective morality exists, there must either be an arbitrary standard or we have the problem of infinite regress. Like I responded to teaearl though, there don't seem to be any inherent problems with this.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

My biggest problem with this one would be that morals are not the same around the globe.

That's called 'moral relativism'. PLUS morality changes.Have a look at Mosaic law. OK, Christians claim Jesus abrogated Mosaic law. However,orthodox Jews disagree,and claim to keep the commandments,all 613 of them,but they do not.EG people are no longer killed for breaking the sabbath nor do father skill recalcitrant or disrespectful children.

A Christian example ;for CENTURIES the word 'usury 'meant 'lending money at [any] interest ,and was forbidden to Christians. This was very inconvenient, so over time, self interest triumphed and the meaning changed to its present meaning; "to lend money at UNREASONABLE interest". To their credit,the Muslims have avoided that hypocrisy. (and I think the Amish,but I'm not sure)

I am asserting that God is the ultimate moral standard.

Well of course you are,that's the standard theist position.

That assertion is also a positive claim, attracting the burden of proof.Let's see it.

[genkaus]

I've been thinking about the Euthyphro dilemma lately and I made a response a few days ago to an atheist on YouTube named TheoreticalBS and his comments on the Euthyphro dilemma (if you want to watch it, it's here: /watch?v=IO0iVxIXnPk). In this thread I'd like to elaborate on some of those ideas and discuss my solution to the dilemma.

Ok, let's play.


The Euthyphro dilemma is as follows:

“Is something moral because God commands it or does God command it because it is moral?”

It is asserted that both of these possibilities are problematic. One objection to the first possibility is that this opens up the possibility of abhorrent commands. In one possible world, God would command that we should love our neighbor, but what is to prevent him from commanding that we should torture innocent babies for our pleasure?

It is said that the second possibility would be problematic because that would mean that morality is independent of God. If morality is independent of God, then you don't need theism for morality.

The typical apologetic response to this is that neither of these options are accurate. Instead, something is moral because it is in God's nature. I would agree that this is more accurate. If we were to say that something is moral BECAUSE God commands it, that would imply that God's commands are the ultimate standard of morality. But from a Christian worldview, God bases his commands from his nature.

Some have claimed that this does not free us from the Euthyphro dilemma. They have argued that a new Euthyphro dilemma can be proposed:

“Is something moral because it is in God's nature or is it in God's nature because it is moral?”

Of these two, I accept the first option. Things are moral because they are in God's nature. This option is still subject to the objections raised against the proposal that things are moral because they are commanded by God, but I don't any of them convincing problems.

In this thread, I will mainly cover one objection, the one that I previously mentioned. That is, if things are good solely because they are in God's nature, then why couldn't God have had a different nature, one which would obligate us to torture innocent babies, for instance?

You picked a bad example here. Apparently, killing innocent babies is perfectly within god's nature, since he was the one who commanded their extermination in the bible. Therefore, according to you, it must mean that killing babies is the moral thing to do.

Arbitrary morality in different worlds

I have two problems with the claim that the first option of the Euthyphro dilemma leads to arbitrary morality (in this sense).

My first problem is that this claim relies upon the assertion that moral facts remain the same in every possible world. If this assertion is false, then a world in which we are morally obligated to torture innocent babies for fun would be possible, and thus choosing this first possibility of the Euthyphro dilemma would not really be problematic. Personally, I don't see a lot of problems with moral facts varying in hypothetical possible worlds, except that we may feel that this couldn't be true.

The second problem that I have is that this makes morality arbitrary only in the case of a God who has a nature that could vary in different worlds. In other words, this first option wouldn't be a problem for Christian morality because if Yahweh's nature was different, then we simply wouldn't define him as Yahweh. In every possible world in which morality is dependent upon Yahweh's nature, moral facts will stay the same.

So let's say that Yahweh's nature is the same in every possible world in which he exists. Another potential objection would be that if this were the case, then God's nature wouldn't really be the ultimate source of morality, but it would be the things that God's nature is based upon (like love, forgiveness, etc). If this were the case, then God wouldn't be necessary for morality. This is a bad argument though. Yes, you can describe God's nature in a different way by figuring out what the criteria are for 'being in God's nature', but if God's nature were different or if God didn't exist, then those criteria would be meaningless. It would no longer be true that love, forgiveness, etc are objectively moral (unless we're considering a Platonistic world with the same moral facts). The only reason why love, forgiveness, etc are considered moral is because that's what God's nature is.

While providing lip-service to the dilemma, you still make the same error that Christians do. If god's nature was determined by love, forgiveness etc. and objective morality depended on god's nature, then morality would depend upon and be determined by those emotions. You cannot turn around and say that the only reason we consider these things moral is because they are in god's nature - that would be circular reasoning. Since these things are neither inherent to nor unique to your god, they can still be used as a basis for objective morality. In fact, because your god so often acts against the very concept of those things that he has been judged to be highly immoral.

Arbitrary standard

Is there a reason or justification for God's nature being the way that it is or is it simply arbitrary? In this case, I would say that God's nature must be arbitrary and this isn't a problem. Any objective moral standard must be arbitrary, actually. If there was a further explanation of the ultimate standard for morality, then we would have to ask what the reason for that standard is...on and on into infinite regress. It has to stop somewhere and no matter what, the standard will be arbitrary in this sense. This is true regardless of whether we hold a Christian view of morality, a Platonistic view of morality or whether we simply reject the idea of objective morality altogether. In Christianity, the ultimate standard would be God's nature. In Platonism, the ultimate standard would be whatever moral facts happen to exist eternally. Without objective morality, the standard is whatever the person decides it to be (least amount of suffering, for example). The main difference between objective morality and subjective morality is that if we lived in a world with objective morality, it would actually be true that our actions were morally right or wrong.

Except, under Christian standards, god is determines his nature as well. Thus, in the end, it still is "because god says so". So, by those standards, morality is still subjective.

[FallentoReason]

You might not be able to. But there are arguments (used by atheists and theists alike) defending moral intuition, which would be one way to get at least some idea of what is moral and immoral.

There's a whole branch of philosophy dedicated to morals, but my point was that modifying the Dilemma to 'is it in God's nature or not' doesn't do much to give us an answer. As I said, being his nature or because he commanded it both look the same.

[shinydarkrai94]

I've changed my views on some of my previous statements. I still think that DCT is defensible but not going to respond to the criticisms right now. I'll probably make a new thread on this subject later.

[simplexity]

What if God is an "idea" and is the embodiment of "morality" itself. A third option which solves everything.

[Reforged]

What if God is an "idea" and is the embodiment of "morality" itself. A third option which solves everything.

That would imply that the 'God" presented to us as an idea has any provable basis in morality. Which God were you thinking of?