Possible resolutions of the Euthyphro dilemma

[Gadarene]

It's a classic - is something moral because it is commanded by God, or does God command it because it is moral?

The usual dilemma imposed is that if the former, morality is arbitrary; if the latter, then morality occurs independent of God.

The typical attempt at a resolution is to say that morality is an outworking of God's nature, which is good, and is thus not arbitrary while remaining the paradigm of goodness.

What I would like to know is - has anyone ever attempted to harmonise the initial dilemma, using something like utilitarianism - things are wrong because of the negative, harmful consequences of a particular act, but this is so because of how God created the world? I.e. naturalistic consequences are part of his design and thus his intended morals?

I don't think that would entirely absolve you of the accusation of arbitrariness - but it seems similar enough to the resolution. I'm also interested in this idea because it wouldn't be a resolution of the original ancient Greek Euthyphro diilemma (as the Greek creator goddess Nyx was not in the business of dishing out morality, as I understand it) but it would work with a monotheistic religion like Christianity, where the one god has to create and moralise.

(ok, bad phrasing, I think someone already has tried this idea before and it was on this board - oldwiseguy - should link him in, but if a philosopher had attempted this also I would also be interested)

Comment away if I'm not making any sense at all, I've been dancing pretty hard most of tonight. Derp.

 

[If Not For Grace]

the error for me is in separating moral from God.

God is Love-all morality stems from love like branches from a tree. It is like asking does the sun provide light or warmth? Morality is man's attempt to be godlike.

 

[jayem]

I know this raises a different issue, but the Euthypro problem begs the question. What is the proof that God is associated with goodness in the first place?

 

[Resha Caner]

It's a classic - is something moral because it is commanded by God, or does God command it because it is moral?

I don't know that I've specifically seen utilitarianism invoked as a solution for this, but the way you phrase it seems very similar to the other resolution you gave immediately prior.

My take on this is the same as Bonhoeffer's. The only reason the question ever enters in the first place is because we are separated from God. We weren't meant to be making decisions of good and evil. The original design was simply to follow God's will. In a world that hasn't fallen, if one does what God asks, it simply follows that everything would go well. Yes, the alternative could be that God simply enjoys torturing his creations. If that's true, I don't see that there's much we can do about it given the power he possesses.

 

[variant]

There is no dilemma.

God creates the entire universe so it is free to dictate what the "good" is since good is contextual.

Arbitrary is not an issue when you can create any kind of universe you want.

An all powerful God means that everything is arbitrary.

 

[elopez]

It's a classic - is something moral because it is commanded by God, or does God command it because it is moral?

The usual dilemma imposed is that if the former, morality is arbitrary; if the latter, then morality occurs independent of God.

The typical attempt at a resolution is to say that morality is an outworking of God's nature, which is good, and is thus not arbitrary while remaining the paradigm of goodness.

God's moral character is essential to Him. That means there is no possible world in which God isn't or couldn't be good. God did not just happen to be good, but has always been that way again due to His nature.

What I would like to know is - has anyone ever attempted to harmonise the initial dilemma, using something like utilitarianism - things are wrong because of the negative, harmful consequences of a particular act, but this is so because of how God created the world? I.e. naturalistic consequences are part of his design and thus his intended morals?

The question, to me at least, is a little confusing. "Harmful consequences of a particular act" seems to imply a human action, where as the last part of the question, "naturalistic consequences" seems to involve nature. So, do you mean human actions or natural occurrences or both? Or did you mean something else?

Either way, when I read the question it just reminds me of the problem of evil in some form or the other. That said, I don't really see how it directly ties in with the Euthyphro dilemma, especially since that has already been addressed.

How did God create the world? When we refer back to when God created, all was deemed very good. So God created the world and everything else inherently good. It wasn't until man first sinned that things went wrong because harmful consequences of a particular act.

I don't think that would entirely absolve you of the accusation of arbitrariness - but it seems similar enough to the resolution. I'm also interested in this idea because it wouldn't be a resolution of the original ancient Greek Euthyphro diilemma (as the Greek creator goddess Nyx was not in the business of dishing out morality, as I understand it) but it would work with a monotheistic religion like Christianity, where the one god has to create and moralise.

How so? The initial dilemma is solved, and the the existence of evil is not incompatible with the existence of a good God.

 

[Marcvs]

The typical attempt at a resolution is to say that morality is an outworking of God's nature, which is good, and is thus not arbitrary while remaining the paradigm of goodness.

What does it mean for God's nature to be good? Good relative to what, good in what sense? This is actually no better than the second horn of Euthyphro's Dilemma, which implies that goodness is some sort of eternal, brute truth of the universe. God has no control over his qualities; they are innate, eternally existent. They were not created by an act of will or accepted by an act of reason: they just are. What makes them good, then?

What I would like to know is - has anyone ever attempted to harmonise the initial dilemma, using something like utilitarianism - things are wrong because of the negative, harmful consequences of a particular act, but this is so because of how God created the world? I.e. naturalistic consequences are part of his design and thus his intended morals?

How is this different than God establishing morality by his fiat? Whether he simply says "X is good" or he creates a universe that supports that statement, he is still establishing what is good through his will, and thus the good is arbitrary.


This dilemma (and other problems with trying to make morality objective) are, I think, symptomatic of a very confused definition of morality. "Morality" has become such an esoteric term in philosophical thinking. Why not tether it to what we all really mean when we talk about good and bad: the well being of conscious creatures?

 

[juvenissun]

It's a classic - is something moral because it is commanded by God, or does God command it because it is moral?

The usual dilemma imposed is that if the former, morality is arbitrary; if the latter, then morality occurs independent of God.

God is not anyone arbitrary.

 

[Crandaddy]

What does it mean for God's nature to be good? Good relative to what, good in what sense? This is actually no better than the second horn of Euthyphro's Dilemma, which implies that goodness is some sort of eternal, brute truth of the universe. God has no control over his qualities; they are innate, eternally existent. They were not created by an act of will or accepted by an act of reason: they just are. What makes them good, then?

God is the end of all ends in this and every other possible world. All good things are good insofar as they have being, and they have being insofar as they are creatures of God. As creatures made in the image of God, we are good to the degree that we reflect the image of God, and we reflect the image of God to the degree that we seek to attain our ultimate beatitude in him as the ultimate Good.

 

[Marcvs]

God is the end of all ends in this and every other possible world. All good things are good insofar as they have being, and they have being insofar as they are creatures of God. As creatures made in the image of God, we are good to the degree that we reflect the image of God, and we reflect the image of God to the degree that we seek to attain our ultimate beatitude in him as the ultimate Good.

But could you define good for me? What does it mean for a thing to be good? If it simply means reflecting God, what does it mean for God to be good? So far, it doesn't seem that the word "good" has much content to it. What quality does the attribute describe?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I would say tgat god has a spiritual cogbitive essence which is qualitatively benign or positive to be. We share in that spirit in potentia. When god commands something it is both horns of the Euyphythro dilemma at once. The dilemma is false. The prfect being cannot a mistake in and within the cognitive domain of value comportment viz being a rational spiritual axiological being. Somethong is good bacause god commands, yet he commands because it is in line with his infallible essence. So for me religion is a part of humanism as gods essence is reflected in me to some degree. A rational moral ahent in a non ethically volintarist predicament. So i am against divine command theory in that sense and also that would be God Sartre. Whom I think saw morality as somehow made up rather than reflected in and throuugh a subsisting axiological - cognitive domain we are sensitive to and have little power to alter the elementary nature of. Being human. Satre was wrong to say existentialism was a humanism and tgat we have no essence. Ratger we have an axiological essence that can find value in being according to specific involitaristic principles we are not free to invent but only free to discover. But god is infallible so his command is in principle righteous and rationally benign. In this sense I believe authentic humsnism to be holy even if it is based on secular principles. And a sacred one ought to augment or harmpnise ratger than negate this. In humanism we are working on discoverung the holy and good within us as it were. Welfare is sacred and gods law eg words ogf wisdom bringing life as suggested in the psals iirc

 

[Crandaddy]

But could you define good for me? What does it mean for a thing to be good? If it simply means reflecting God, what does it mean for God to be good? So far, it doesn't seem that the word "good" has much content to it. What quality does the attribute describe?

As I see it, you and I and everything else that occupies the spatiotemporal world (with perhaps some qualifications that I won't get into) have ideal, normative natures. These natures are not mere descriptions of beings as they just happen to be. Rather, they're ontological constituents of beings which prescribe how they ought to be. Thus, a being may be objectively better or worse to the degree that it exemplifies the nature according to which it is an individual being.

As personal beings, we humans have the ability to cognize objective goodness. This means that we have the ability to look out at the world and see that certain beings are better or worse in different ways according to their natures. We have the ability to see, for example, that a dog with three legs imperfectly exemplifies the (normative) nature of caninity, for according to its nature, a dog ought to have four legs and not three. We also have the ability to look at and evaluate ourselves in different ways, but most importantly, we have the ability to evaluate ourselves as personal beings. We humans may be better or worse according to different natural attributes. We may be in better or worse physical health. We may be more or less intelligent. But our highest perfective attribute, i.e. that part of our human nature which is more important than any other, is our personhood, and it is the perfection of our personal nature which consummates our nature as human beings.

But then, you might ask, what is our personhood? And what is it to be a better or worse person? Well, as I've said, we have the ability to look out at the world and see that beings therein may be better or worse in some way or other according to their natures. I now go a bit further: We have the ability to rank beings, if you will, in different ways, both according to degrees of privation from certain natural perfective capacities they have, and according to a hierarchy of perfective attributes (i.e. attibutes that it is better to have than not, for some creatures at least) that they naturally possess. Thus, a person with stage four cancer suffers a greater degree of privation from the natural perfection of physical health than a person who merely has a common cold, and the perfective attribute of having vegetative faculties occupies a lower position on the hierarchy than either that of having sensory or that of having intellective faculties. I would say that our personhood consists in the degree to which we not only act benevolently toward the world in due measure according to its hierarchy of perfective attributes and degrees of natural privation, but also (and more importantly) in the degree to which we love all beings insofar as we can see that they are objectively worthy of being loved--i.e. to the degree that they possess a naturally-inherent capacity for perfection absolutely, insofar as we are able to understand it.

I'd say that personhood is in fact the highest of all perfective attributes, whatsoever, and that the supreme perfection of personhood (and thus the supreme perfection outright) is perfect love of all beings insofar as they are objectively worthy of being loved. I'd say, furthermore, that the other hierarchically-ordered perfective attributes are so ordered according to the degree to which they approximate the highest perfective attribute of personhood. Thus, I would say that all beings are good, primarily, to the degree to which their naturally-inherent perfective attributes approximate the highest perfective attribute of personhood, and secondarily, to the degree that those attributes are free of privation from their naturally-inherent capacities.

The supremely perfect personal being, and therefore the supremely perfect being altogether, is God, himself. Because of this, God (rightly) loves himself more than he loves any creature. He loves his creatures, too, of course, but he loves them insofar as they have the capacity to reflect his personal nature (i.e. insofar as their naturally-inherent perfective attributes approximate the highest perfective attribute of personhood) and to the degree that they do so (i.e. to the degree that those attributes are free of privation from their naturally-inherent capacities). We humans are made in the image of God because we are created with the capacity to partake, in created form, of God's own personal nature. Because of this, we humans are more beloved of God than any sub-personal creature. (He loves them too, of course, just not as much as personal creatures such as ourselves.) And as we develop as persons--i.e. as our right and proper love, both of the goodness in the world, and a fortiori of God as its supremely perfect Source, increases--we become objectively better individuals outright, and God's love for us increases, since we more perfectly reflect his personal image.

Basically, I would summarize all this as follows: God is supremely perfect and the absolute source of all goodness because he is the ultimate paradigm and supreme perfection of personhood. Personhood consists in love of all things insofar as they are objectively worthy of being loved. Beings are objectively better the closer they approximate personhood.


I apologize for the inordinate lengthiness and technicality of this reply, but I don't see how I could have done reasonable justice to your questions with anything shorter or less technical.

 

[Skavau]

The underlying sentiment of permanent servitude towards God being described as the ultimate good, or objective of humans in this thread disturbs me.

 

[Crandaddy]

The underlying sentiment of permanent servitude towards God being described as the ultimate good, or objective of humans in this thread disturbs me.

What do you propose we should do instead? What do you think is our ultimate good? Do you even think we have an ultimate good?

 

[Gadarene]

"Is something moral because it is commanded by God, or does God command it because it is moral?"

Ok, I can see how my initial post didn't express what I was really thinking.

The introduction of utilitarianism to the dilemma was to bring in the best way I can think of something "being" moral when the notion of divine fiat is off the table - its harmful consequences. In this sense, it removes the dilemma because the notion of something "being" moral and being commanded by God become synonymous.

 

[Skavau]

What do you propose we should do instead? What do you think is our ultimate good? Do you even think we have an ultimate good?

Not in purpose.

Each of us should be free to carve our own fate out. No obligation to act as permanent servants to a deity and be told to be thankful for it. No threat of retribution for refusing such an 'offer' as well.

 

[Crandaddy]

Not in purpose.

Each of us should be free to carve our own fate out. No obligation to act as permanent servants to a deity and be told to be thankful for it. No threat of retribution for refusing such an 'offer' as well.

But do you think that we have any obligations at all? If, as you say, we should be free to carve out our own fate, then it seems you would have to say that those who might have the power to coerce us to do their bidding in opposition to our freedom would have a (moral?) obligation to not do so.

I don't see obedience to God as some sort of enslavement. Quite the opposite. To obey God just is to behave morally. And to behave morally is to act selflessly, in love. It is to exercise freedom from enslavement to our selfish passions and pursue the Good as it exists apart from ourselves.

We fancy ourselves free. We say what we want. We worship (or not) as we choose. But in truth we don't even know what real freedom is. To be truly free is not to be free of physical bondage or coercion. It is to be free of enslavement to our own selfish passions. Ironically, it is the martyr who suffers persecution and death for his cause who demonstrates the exercise of true freedom most fully, and I believe that this is precisely why he is rightly celebrated.

 

[Marcvs]

Basically, I would summarize all this as follows: God is supremely perfect and the absolute source of all goodness because he is the ultimate paradigm and supreme perfection of personhood. Personhood consists in love of all things insofar as they are objectively worthy of being loved. Beings are objectively better the closer they approximate personhood.

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.

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.

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.

 

[Skavau]

But do you think that we have any obligations at all? If, as you say, we should be free to carve out our own fate, then it seems you would have to say that those who might have the power to coerce us to do their bidding in opposition to our freedom would have a (moral?) obligation to not do so.

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

I don't see obedience to God as some sort of enslavement. Quite the opposite. To obey God just is to behave morally.And to behave morally is to act selflessly, in love. It is to exercise freedom from enslavement to our selfish passions and pursue the Good as it exists apart from ourselves.

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

We fancy ourselves free. We say what we want. We worship (or not) as we choose. But in truth we don't even know what real freedom is.

We ought to be free to pursue our own interests, if we aren't.

To be truly free is not to be free of physical bondage or coercion. It is to be free of enslavement to our own selfish passions.

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.

Ironically, it is the martyr who suffers persecution and death for his cause who demonstrates the exercise of true freedom most fully, and I believe that this is precisely why he is rightly celebrated.

A martyr who sacrifices his well-being and ultimately his life for his convictions is almost always advancing a cause of freedom, and he is to be admired for doing so but never forget that in doing so, in advancing freedom you are advancing the right of people to pursue their own interest.

Dying for the right for you (and others) to speak certain opinions, hold certain beliefs, have certain sexual relations etc is defending their right to self-interest.

 

[Skavau]

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.

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.

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.

This.

Objective morality negates morality into white noise, where moral edicts bare no relevance to consequences of their application.