Shall we take apart the Euthyphro Dilemma piece by piece?

[stevevw]

Yes, we shall.

So, I'll start. I'll start with a simple affirmation:

The Euthyphro Dilemma is firmly contingent upon, and originated from, and can only be applied to, an ethical analysis involving the concept of POLY-THEISM at its core.

Note: For those who are new to the idea, the Euthryphro Dilemma is an ontological and axiological problem entailed in an answer to the following Socratic/Platonic inquiry: "Is the pious [the Moral Good] loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"​

Thus, Christianity---a MONO-THEISTIC religion---is not included in any application of ethical analysis that comes by way of reference to the overly used Socratic dilemma.

Offer your rebuttals, complaints, or other misgivings with my affirmation above, below ...

As far as I understand in the original dilemma this was dealing with POLY-THEISM. The Greek gods were like extensions of humans, given human and supernatural qualities. In that sense, there was this issue of as you say "Is the pious [the Moral Good] loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

But Socrates was searching for a good beyond this. Something he calls 'the Good' which was like some independent entity that was not subject to the whims of the gods or qualified by the gods. Under the Euthyphro Dilemma 'good' can be determined by the gods making it arbitrary. Or it comes from some other source apart from the gods which then diminishes the god's truth of what is good and creates a never-ending questioning of what is true 'goodness'.

But with the Christian God who is a single and only God whose nature is good then this becomes 'the Good' that Socrates was looking for. It becomes the stoppage where the truth of goodness can be laid. The 'good is not derived from some other source nor is it arbitrarily determined as the 'good' is Gods nature which is not an entity in itself but rather a state of being that is reflected upon us.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

As far as I understand in the original dilemma this was dealing with POLY-THEISM. The Greek gods were like extensions of humans, given human and supernatural qualities. In that sense, there was this issue of as you say "Is the pious [the Moral Good] loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

But Socrates was searching for a good beyond this. Something he calls 'the Good' which was like some independent entity that was not subject to the whims of the gods or qualified by the gods. Under the Euthyphro Dilemma 'good' can be determined by the gods making it arbitrary. Or it comes from some other source apart from the gods which then diminishes the god's truth of what is good and creates a never-ending questioning of what is true 'goodness'.

But with the Christian God who is a single and only God whose nature is good then this becomes 'the Good' that Socrates was looking for. It becomes the stoppage where the truth of goodness can be laid. The 'good is not derived from some other source nor is it arbitrarily determined as the 'good' is Gods nature which is not an entity in itself but rather a state of being that is reflected upon us.

Yes, I'd say that this is what I generally think, too, brother Stevevw!

 

[muichimotsu]

You'll have to excuse muichimotsu. I think he's confused as to whether he's addressing what you've said or.....(what he was perhaps actually doing) was addressing what I was saying and disagreeing with it. He has me confused with you, I think.

I responded to zippy, you can see that, don't play dumb like I meant to quote you or anything so blunt as you seem to accuse me of yet again.

Caliban can respond to me without it being about him, it's a discussion forum, not a debate forum

 

[muichimotsu]

As far as I understand in the original dilemma this was dealing with POLY-THEISM. The Greek gods were like extensions of humans, given human and supernatural qualities. In that sense, there was this issue of as you say "Is the pious [the Moral Good] loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

But Socrates was searching for a good beyond this. Something he calls 'the Good' which was like some independent entity that was not subject to the whims of the gods or qualified by the gods. Under the Euthyphro Dilemma 'good' can be determined by the gods making it arbitrary. Or it comes from some other source apart from the gods which then diminishes the god's truth of what is good and creates a never-ending questioning of what is true 'goodness'.

But with the Christian God who is a single and only God whose nature is good then this becomes 'the Good' that Socrates was looking for. It becomes the stoppage where the truth of goodness can be laid. The 'good is not derived from some other source nor is it arbitrarily determined as the 'good' is Gods nature which is not an entity in itself but rather a state of being that is reflected upon us.

Not everyone agrees with your notion that a single God or even the Christian God's nature itself is good, even if it may be a common assertion. The question of moral semantics and moral ontology are arguably separate even in their interrelated problems of meta ethics.

Seems to me you're just asserting ethical subjectivism and moral realism in the same breath instead of acknowledging the blatant contradiction if the idea is that God says what is good, but God itself is also goodness, even though goodness is not a property we remotely apply to people in terms of moral assessments, but more accurately to actions that people do. Moral character and moral quality are not the same thing, even if we can use good to refer to a person in the former sense and to an action in the latter sense.

 

[muichimotsu]

Now I'm ..... "dishonest"? Are you kidding me? You're going to show up out of the blue and just spout the same garbage at me without hearing me out and without vetting out any further developments of explanation I might have yet to give? You've done this before to me, and I'm not going to stomach it for much longer, muichimotsu!

I've seen your arguments in the thread; they're reductionist and historically myopic, as if the mere usage of the argument in a context that is more polytheistic, even in the language, means it cannot ever refer to or be applied to a monotheistic context. The concept is not nearly so constrained as you claim even while quoting a text you seem to only want to divorce from any possible application to criticizing divine command theory or related notions that get into fundamental meta ethical questions that God as a concept just throws out the window because things just keep tying back to it in an obsessive fixation that's, frankly, disturbing

You purport all this scholarship, yet you never seem to have the intellectual humility to consider your position could be mistaken and that someone doesn't have to cite a paper, but simply make a valid and sound argument in regards to the line of thought presented to bring the idea's truth into question or an inconsistency. Basic philosophy

If you just want to generalize me and think you know how I will behave in regards to a discussion from past experience, then feel free to ignore me, because it shows you're projecting the same problems you accuse me of that you suffer from. Fundamentally unwilling to have a mature discussion regarding abstract concepts: that is, to acknowledge from the get go you cannot make absolute statements in regards to things that are not of such a fundamental nature that debating them would be getting into utter insanity and anarchy of thought. Forgive my skepticism, but I'd rather not present myself as being intelligent rather than wise and being able to suss out that I cannot say I truly know things in their fullness, but am aware of things at present and could change my understanding in the future.

And I hope you don't think this victim attitude you're copping is helping things either, because it's showing that you keep taking things personally instead of addressing the content of my argument rather than making it about some personal insult to you. Intellectual dishonesty is not the same as dishonesty and if you remotely cared about reading comprehension, you'd have already realized that and maybe not assumed you know what the definition is.

And quoting the word doesn't help when dishonesty has a pretty clear cut definition when used without the qualifier regarding intellectual, which, one could just substitute intellectually dishonest with something like disingenuous

 

[muichimotsu]

If the discussion can't even agree on what holy is or whether it's something that connects to the good, methinks things can't really proceed to the idea that the holy and the good are the same or even related in the first place, unless we just ignore that potential objection because it somehow would make things more "difficult"

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I've seen your arguments in the thread; they're reductionist and historically myopic, as if the mere usage of the argument in a context that is more polytheistic, even in the language, means it cannot ever refer to or be applied to a monotheistic context. The concept is not nearly so constrained as you claim even while quoting a text you seem to only want to divorce from any possible application to criticizing divine command theory or related notions that get into fundamental meta ethical questions that God as a concept just throws out the window because things just keep tying back to it in an obsessive fixation that's, frankly, disturbing

You purport all this scholarship, yet you never seem to have the intellectual humility to consider your position could be mistaken and that someone doesn't have to cite a paper, but simply make a valid and sound argument in regards to the line of thought presented to bring the idea's truth into question or an inconsistency. Basic philosophy

If you just want to generalize me and think you know how I will behave in regards to a discussion from past experience, then feel free to ignore me, because it shows you're projecting the same problems you accuse me of that you suffer from. Fundamentally unwilling to have a mature discussion regarding abstract concepts: that is, to acknowledge from the get go you cannot make absolute statements in regards to things that are not of such a fundamental nature that debating them would be getting into utter insanity and anarchy of thought. Forgive my skepticism, but I'd rather not present myself as being intelligent rather than wise and being able to suss out that I cannot say I truly know things in their fullness, but am aware of things at present and could change my understanding in the future.

And I hope you don't think this victim attitude you're copping is helping things either, because it's showing that you keep taking things personally instead of addressing the content of my argument rather than making it about some personal insult to you. Intellectual dishonesty is not the same as dishonesty and if you remotely cared about reading comprehension, you'd have already realized that and maybe not assumed you know what the definition is.

And quoting the word doesn't help when dishonesty has a pretty clear cut definition when used without the qualifier regarding intellectual, which, one could just substitute intellectually dishonest with something like disingenuous

.........................................................

 

[jardiniere]

This is an aside I had while reading this thread. I just thought it interesting enough to share. Please don't reply to derail this thread.

What is also interesting is the overarching realization that contemplations of the nature of actions and intentions cannot occur without multiple levels of understanding - metalevel arguments are the only means we seem to have to tackle these concepts. The Socratic arguments seem to me to be a way of addressing such levels without having to be explicit that any explanation we have must attempt to employ these levels to be on sound argumentative ground.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

This is an aside I had while reading this thread. I just thought it interesting enough to share. Please don't reply to derail this thread.

What is also interesting is the overarching realization that contemplations of the nature of actions and intentions cannot occur without multiple levels of understanding - metalevel arguments are the only means we seem to have to tackle these concepts. The Socratic arguments seem to me to be a way of addressing such levels without having to be explicit that any explanation we have must attempt to employ these levels to be on sound argumentative ground.

Oh, I don't know that what you've offered here is a 'mere' aside, jardiniere. In fact, it might even be a stepping stone to add to what may be a 2nd step on an indirect a journey through reading, assessing and attempting to not only understand, but to also reconsider the ways in which we find ourselves applying Plato's arguments in his Euthyphro work (via his avatar, Socrates).

So, since you've done us the honor of bringing this to our notice, I'll add to what you've already opened with by providing a link to the following article, one that everyone here is welcome to read and, in the process of reading it, perhaps adding it to their own ongoing heremeneutical considerations about the nature of Plato's Socratic work, Euthyphro, and where it's locus of concern [in dilemma] may fully be ...

Beyond Euthyphro: The Socratic Irony with Continual Reference to Kierkegaard
by Michael Szul on 2008-04-30 09:27:48​

 

[jardiniere]

Oh, I don't know that what you've offered here is a 'mere' aside, jardiniere. In fact, it might even be a stepping stone to add to what may be a 2nd step on an indirect a journey through reading, assessing and attempting to not only understand, but to also reconsider the ways in which we find ourselves applying Plato's arguments in his Euthyphro work (via his avatar, Socrates).

So, since you've done us the honor of bringing this to our notice, I'll add to what you've already opened with by providing a link to the following article, one that everyone here is welcome to read and, in the process of reading it, perhaps adding it to their own ongoing heremeneutical considerations about the nature of Plato's Socratic work, Euthyphro, and where it's locus of concern [in dilemma] may fully be ...

Beyond Euthyphro: The Socratic Irony with Continual Reference to Kierkegaard
by Michael Szul on 2008-04-30 09:27:48​

I'm an old existential pragmaticist, care of Spinoza and Peirce, so conversations of the type Plato has are a bit of "not where I'm at, at the moment', but still enjoyable reading.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm an old existential pragmaticist, care of Spinoza and Peirce, so conversations of the type Plato has are a bit of "not where I'm at, at the moment', but still enjoyable reading.

That's understandable, but I hope you do realize, too, that Kierkegaard is also classified as an 'Existentialist,' even if not of the brand that you more or less gravitate toward. And to some extent, so am I; and therefore I am.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

And "Boom,".....there was LIGHT!!!!

It's always so awesome when it happens like that, ain't it?