Possible resolutions of the Euthyphro dilemma

[Crandaddy]

I read your entire post - I'm just quoting the summary due to the length. I would have taken you for Catholic if not for the Anglican icon - you speak the Aristotelian language of my (former) people.

Well, that may be because I am Catholic. Or at least I believe that I'm Catholic. I've even been known to refer to myself as “Anglo-Catholic” (although I now prefer “traditional Anglican” or “Continuing Anglican&#8221. A traditional Roman Catholic would deny my full catholicity, however, because I don't accept their distinctive papal ecclesiology. But that's just about the only difference between me and Rome. It's the deal breaker, to be sure.

And like so many of my Roman brethren, I'm also a big fan of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, so you're right on that count as well!

My main issue with the idea of objective forms from which we can derive our moral oughts, is WHY we ought to adhere to such forms. If those forms are immutable, eternal attributes that have not been chosen for any purpose, but that simply exist as the by-products of God's own existence, what duty could we possible have to adhering to them? They're like gravity: they simply exist as brute facts of the universe, and if I can find a way to defy them, why oughtn't I? The only reason for adhering to them would be if they benefit me in some way (which you no doubt believe that they do). But in that case, they're not REALLY good by definition. They're good relative to their benefits to conscious creatures like myself. And this, I think, is the only coherent way to talk about morality: that morality maps to the good of conscious creatures. Yes this is subjective (what is good for us is relative to us, not fixed mystically somewhere in the universe), like the concept of health is subjective, but once accepted it becomes immediately clear (as with health) what actions and beliefs constitute morality, and we can make objective proclamations about what is and is not moral.

As I see it, there are only two ultimate goods, two ultimate ends for every possible volitional activity that may be undertaken: 1) the subjective good, which is identical to some form of our subjective pleasure, and 2) the objective Good, which is the ultimate final cause, or telos, of all of creation (which would be God himself). Outside of these two contexts, I don't think that the term “good” retains any meaningful content. To be “good,” as I see it, just is to be ordered to some telos, and of these there are only two.

And yes, you might say that the Good, because it's intrinsic to God's very nature, is something not unlike a “brute fact.” But the Good is the gold standard of all possible goodness. It's not like God might be an abusive tyrant, and thus a bad god, as if he could be better or worse according to some ideal standard of godhood. Such talk is nonsense, and it betrays a serious misunderstanding what theists refer to when we speak of “God.” God necessarily wills goodness because he is the Good. To speak of a good higher than God (as traditional Christian theists understand the term “God&#8221 is simply utter nonsense.

So, I say that you can only possibly act--volitionally, willfully act, that is--in one of the two ways I've mentioned. You can act to appease yourself in some way (which would be the subjective good), or you can act according to Goodness as you see it objectively reflected in the goodness of the world. To choose the latter course is good for you, not because it's conducive to your appeasement in some way or other, either in the short or long term, but because it is conducive to the fulfillment of your human nature as a person.

But if morality simply maps to immutable forms, it becomes arbitrary. For instance, what if God's nature or the forms of the universe were such that the perfection of personhood was to have dominance over as many other persons as possible? The actions of dictators and bullies would become objectively moral. But there's no reason why this couldn't have been the way the world works any more than the more benevolent moral forms that you are advocating. In other words, forms in and of themselves lack moral content.

But if morality maps to immutable forms, then how can it be arbitrary? Immutable means not capable of change. God is omnipotent, but even he can't make it true that 1+1=3. Likewise, the form of personhood (as it exists in us) is the created image of God, himself. But God's own uncreated personhood is proper to his nature, and even he can't change his nature any more than he can make 1+1=3.

God is perfectly free, and because he is perfectly free, he can (and does) perfectly love himself for the absolute and perfect Good that he is. I don't think this necessarily entails that he chooses to create, but I think it does necessarily entail that should he choose to create, his creation will necessarily reflect his immutable perfect Goodness and seek to return to him as its Source.

Skavau,

I see your comment, and I'll respond when I find time. Right now it's just too late to get into it.

 

[Marcvs]

As I see it, there are only two ultimate goods, two ultimate ends for every possible volitional activity that may be undertaken: 1) the subjective good, which is identical to some form of our subjective pleasure, and 2) the objective Good, which is the ultimate final cause, or telos, of all of creation (which would be God himself). Outside of these two contexts, I don't think that the term “good” retains any meaningful content. To be “good,” as I see it, just is to be ordered to some telos, and of these there are only two.

And yes, you might say that the Good, because it's intrinsic to God's very nature, is something not unlike a “brute fact.” But the Good is the gold standard of all possible goodness. It's not like God might be an abusive tyrant, and thus a bad god, as if he could be better or worse according to some ideal standard of godhood. Such talk is nonsense, and it betrays a serious misunderstanding what theists refer to when we speak of “God.” God necessarily wills goodness because he is the Good. To speak of a good higher than God (as traditional Christian theists understand the term “God&#8221 is simply utter nonsense.

So, I say that you can only possibly act--volitionally, willfully act, that is--in one of the two ways I've mentioned. You can act to appease yourself in some way (which would be the subjective good), or you can act according to Goodness as you see it objectively reflected in the goodness of the world. To choose the latter course is good for you, not because it's conducive to your appeasement in some way or other, either in the short or long term, but because it is conducive to the fulfillment of your human nature as a person.

If acting according to the goodness reflected in the universe could be guaranteed to result in a bad end for me, ought I to do it?

But if morality maps to immutable forms, then how can it be arbitrary? Immutable means not capable of change. God is omnipotent, but even he can't make it true that 1+1=3. Likewise, the form of personhood (as it exists in us) is the created image of God, himself. But God's own uncreated personhood is proper to his nature, and even he can't change his nature any more than he can make 1+1=3.

I think we're getting close to understanding each other here. How does a brute fact of the universe (like mathematics) or God's attributes imply any moral duty on our part? Is there a reason that I should care to align myself to the unchanging good, other than that it would be subjectively good for me (i.e. it would be in the best interest of my well being)? You see how we are using two definitions of good here?

God is perfectly free, and because he is perfectly free, he can (and does) perfectly love himself for the absolute and perfect Good that he is. I don't think this necessarily entails that he chooses to create, but I think it does necessarily entail that should he choose to create, his creation will necessarily reflect his immutable perfect Goodness and seek to return to him as its Source.

Skavau,

I see your comment, and I'll respond when I find time. Right now it's just too late to get into it.

I don't think it's possible for God to be free in the contra-causal sense, but even if that were true, what reason do we have to seek to return to him, except for our own well-being? It makes no sense for us to seek him unless it is ultimately in our best interest, and thus our well being is really the good we seek.

 

[Crandaddy]

Yes. No-one should be directed by force or coerced to act against their own interests in life.

Well then, how do you make sense of that “should”? That is, what do you think it means to say that one should do this or that in a moral sense?

As I see it, to say that one (morally) should do something is to say that such behavior is in accordance with the ideal form of human personhood as I've defined it above in my lengthy reply to Marcvs (third paragraph, last sentence). To be a human person, as I argued in that post, is to be a created reflection of God's own uncreated personhood, and we become more complete and actualized as persons the more we love what is good and worthy of love in the world.

God would be supremely worthy of love because he would be the ultimate Source of everything else that is good. It is impossible for God to be evil as I understand the term “God.” Everything in the entire cosmos that we have the ability to understand as intrinsically good is good precisely because it reflects or imitates its ultimate creative Source.

So the question is then: to you what is "good" and how does pursuing the good equate to worship of God?

With all due respect, I've written a good bit in this thread already trying to explain what I think goodness is, and although I do sometimes repeat myself, I prefer not to when I think it unnecessary. But since I haven't directly addressed the subject of Divine worship, I'll say that to worship God is to understand and love him for what he is as the ultimate Good from whom comes all else that is good.

This comes across as newspeak and rather dystopian to me. You are saying that to be truly free that one must emancipate themselves from their own "selfish" interests and passions. I don't see how that makes any logical sense.

I'll elaborate a bit on what I wrote in my last reply to Marcvs:

As I explained to him, there are exactly two ultimate ends for every possible behavior that you might undertake: You might act to appease your own subjective impulses in some way or to some degree. Thus, you might seek to attain some sort of pleasure. You might seek to avoid some sort of pain. You might have short or long-term goals. But ultimately, your actions are intended to return to yourself as some form of your own satisfaction.

Or, you might act so as to effect some good as you see that it exists apart from the appeasement of your subjective impulses. Thus, you might give some money to a beggar on the street, or you might help with the relief effort in the wake of some disaster. Whatever it is you do, the terminus of this sort of volitional action is not your own satisfaction, but the objective good, itself. That is, you can understand and act for the sake of an intrinsic good that is other than your own satisfaction. To be sure, you will feel some pleasure about what you've done, but this isn't primarily why you've done it.

I've given names to these two types of volitional activities: The former I call selfish motions, and the latter I call selfless motions. As I see it, because we are moral agents, we have the ability to cognize both subjective (selfish) and objective (selfless) goods in competition with each other, and we can choose whether to move selfishly (in opposition to the objective good) or selflessly (in opposition to the subjective good). The former constitutes immoral behavior, and the latter, moral behavior.

Now, as I see it, our freedom as personal beings consists in our selflessly choosing to terminate our volitional actions in some objective good. But we don't instinctively, “naturally” do this. Even as newborn infants, we experience subjective pleasures and pains, and we instinctively move to appease them. Only later on in our development do we discover objective goods, and almost immediately we find our subjective impulses to be in conflict with them.

The hedonistic, subjective impulses that we find within ourselves arise from the baser, more animalistic part of our nature. Absent our ability to cognize objective goodness as it stands opposed to these impulses, we would be led about by them as slaves. We would be powerless to do anything but obey the strongest impulse that might present itself to us. But because we are personal beings, and not mere animals, we can cognize goods apart from ourselves and choose to pursue them. Thus, we can break free from enslavement to our selfish passions and pursue the course which leads to our perfection as full persons.

 

[Crandaddy]

If acting according to the goodness reflected in the universe could be guaranteed to result in a bad end for me, ought I to do it?

The morally virtuous act is by its very essence self-denying. The greater the denial of self for the sake of the objective good, the more virtuous the act. This is why martyrs are so beloved. This is why the gospel is the greatest story ever told. This is the Great Irony:

“Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.” - Luke 17:33

So yes, you ought to do it.

I think we're getting close to understanding each other here. How does a brute fact of the universe (like mathematics) or God's attributes imply any moral duty on our part? Is there a reason that I should care to align myself to the unchanging good, other than that it would be subjectively good for me (i.e. it would be in the best interest of my well being)? You see how we are using two definitions of good here?

I don't think it's possible for God to be free in the contra-causal sense, but even if that were true, what reason do we have to seek to return to him, except for our own well-being? It makes no sense for us to seek him unless it is ultimately in our best interest, and thus our well being is really the good we seek.

It seems to me that you recognize goodness only in my subjective sense. Nevertheless, I maintain that objective goodness does indeed exist, and that we can see it and choose to pursue it.

I should perhaps say that in order to call anything at all “good,” it must influence our appetites, and it must present itself to us as desirable. This is true for both subjective and objective goods. The difference between them is that when we move selfishly (you might have to read a bit of my latest reply to Skavau, sorry), we cognize being both intellectively and appetitively (under the transcendental aspects of verum (true) and bonum (good) in Aristotelico-scholastic jargon), but we attempt to divorce the truth of being from its intrinsic, objective goodness. We notice that being whets our subjective appetites, but we erroneously call the appeasement of those appetites, insofar as our appetitive impulses are subjectively presented to us, the ultimate “good” to be sought, and attempt to order being (to the extent that we know it as true) that end, instead of its proper telos.

By contrast, when we move selflessly (again, see my above to Skavau), we attempt no such divorce. Rather, we normatively understand the whettings of our appetites to be signs which direct us to order ourselves to being insofar as we see its truth. That is, given that our moral faculties are functioning properly, we understand the formal perfection of being as normatively-imposing upon our appetites. By choosing to order ourselves to being's formal perfection (i.e. personhood), we ourselves are moved toward being by choosing to allow its goodness to draw us to itself, rather than we trying (futilely) to pull it away from its intrinsic goodness toward ourselves.

So, both subjective and objective senses of goodness involve the presentation of desirable objects to the appetites. But whereas (immoral) selfish motions ultimately direct (or futilely attempt to direct, more properly) being toward the appeasement of the subjective impulses underlying our desires, (moral) selfless motions take cognized goodness for a sign whereby we ourselves are moved toward being (and ultimately to Being, i.e. God, himself) insofar as we see its truth. Therefore, it is by moving selflessly that we truly move toward the actual attainment of the true Object of our desires.

Ultimately, God himself, as the supreme Good, is the one and only perfect satisfaction of our deepest desires. As St. Augustine writes, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” The problem is that in our weakened, sinful condition, we are unable to see this clearly. We don't naturally pursue God with all our strength because sin has deformed our nature and impaired our vision. Therefore, objective goodness must be taught to us, and moral virtue must be cultivated within us. The objective Good is infinitely better (even to our own enjoyment) than the subjective good, but our ability to see it must be repaired. This requires that we move in faith toward what objective goodness we are able see.

And I say that we are able move toward it even if we are just barely able to make it out; it needn't be the strongest impulse we experience. To do so is to exercise true freedom--freedom from our selfish passions en route to full personhood.

 

[Marcvs]

The morally virtuous act is by its very essence self-denying. The greater the denial of self for the sake of the objective good, the more virtuous the act. This is why martyrs are so beloved. This is why the gospel is the greatest story ever told. This is the Great Irony:

“Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.” - Luke 17:33

So yes, you ought to do it.

But the martyrs and saints, according to Christian doctrine, received a greater reward for their acts of self denial. What if being a martyr gained you nothing, yet it was in accordance with what one ought to do according to the objective good? Ought I still to do it? Your definition of the objective good just so happens to coincide what is ultimately in our best interests. Why bother with a more complicated explanation when well-being is still the reason we would ultimately act according to the greatest good?

I am assuming here, and perhaps this is presumptuous of me, that if there were no heavenly reward, no spiritual delight, no grace, you would not align yourself with God. It is because you believe serving him is, in the end, of the most benefit to you that you choose to do so. You may succeed in divorcing yourself from this rather mercenary position to a large degree in your mind, but it can never be wholly excised.

 

[Crandaddy]

But the martyrs and saints, according to Christian doctrine, received a greater reward for their acts of self denial. What if being a martyr gained you nothing, yet it was in accordance with what one ought to do according to the objective good? Ought I still to do it? Your definition of the objective good just so happens to coincide what is ultimately in our best interests. Why bother with a more complicated explanation when well-being is still the reason we would ultimately act according to the greatest good?

I am assuming here, and perhaps this is presumptuous of me, that if there were no heavenly reward, no spiritual delight, no grace, you would not align yourself with God. It is because you believe serving him is, in the end, of the most benefit to you that you choose to do so. You may succeed in divorcing yourself from this rather mercenary position to a large degree in your mind, but it can never be wholly excised.

To volitionally act at all is to do so for some good. Without some good of some sort, it is impossible to will anything. When we move selflessly toward the objective good, we move for the sake of the intrinsic goodness of being itself. But when we do so, our focus is not upon ourselves, but upon the objective good, which is the proper object of our desires.

Yes, I suppose we might say that our selfless motion would be for the attainment of "well-being," and even for "what is ultimately in our best interests" in a very loose sense, but I should strongly caution that these terms must be understood properly. They should emphatically not be understood in the sense that our selfless motion would be directed toward the appeasement of our subjective desires as they happen to be presented to us. We would not be seeking reward for ourselves as an extrinsic mercenary payment. We would be seeking the good (and ultimately the Good) for itself as intrinsically desirable.

If there were no heavenly reward, etc., then God (as I understand the term "God") would not exist, and there could be no question of alignment with God in the first place. There could be no objective good, and thus no possibility for selfless motion, at all.

 

[Marcvs]

To volitionally act at all is to do so for some good. Without some good of some sort, it is impossible to will anything. When we move selflessly toward the objective good, we move for the sake of the intrinsic goodness of being itself. But when we do so, our focus is not upon ourselves, but upon the objective good, which is the proper object of our desires.

Yes, I suppose we might say that our selfless motion would be for the attainment of "well-being," and even for "what is ultimately in our best interests" in a very loose sense, but I should strongly caution that these terms must be understood properly. They should emphatically not be understood in the sense that our selfless motion would be directed toward the appeasement of our subjective desires as they happen to be presented to us. We would not be seeking reward for ourselves as an extrinsic mercenary payment. We would be seeking the good (and ultimately the Good) for itself as intrinsically desirable.

If there were no heavenly reward, etc., then God (as I understand the term "God") would not exist, and there could be no question of alignment with God in the first place. There could be no objective good, and thus no possibility for selfless motion, at all.

Do you not believe that there is a possible world where God exists but people are not resurrected upon death? Do all possible worlds contain an afterlife for persons?

 

[Crandaddy]

Do you not believe that there is a possible world where God exists but people are not resurrected upon death? Do all possible worlds contain an afterlife for persons?

I distinguish what I call really possible worlds from (logically) possible worlds simpliciter. Really possible worlds are a subset of all possible worlds. For example, there seems to be at least one possible world in which all people would be forced to endure hellish torment forever with no hope at all of escape, as it seems that such a world might be free of logical impossibilities, but such a world would not really be possible, since it would be contrary to God's nature to create a world with personal beings only to subject all of them to eternal torment.

To answer your questions, I'm not sure that every really possible world contains created persons, and for those really possible worlds that do contain created persons, I'm not sure that in all of them people die. But I do think that in every really possible world that contains created personal beings, at least some of them attain the Blessed Vision of God (which, as I'm sure you know, is heaven), and in those really possible worlds in which at least some personal beings die, I do think that at least some (and I lean toward all) of those dead are resurrected.