Talk:Euthyphro dilemma

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See Talk:Divine command theory --Tagishsimon 10:33, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am not a wikipedia person, so I don't know the right format for submitting this, but someone needs to look at this article -- it is REALLY incoherently written in parts. This is really unacceptable.

Contents

[edit] Accidentalism

Has anyone suggested accidentalism as a solution for this dilemma? That that the gods love what is pious is simply a happy coincidence? Pmurray bigpond.com 04:08, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't that imply that piety is independent of the gods? Hairouna 02:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Text moved from article

4.240.108.8 (talk • contribs) has been making extensive changes to the article. Some of them changed clear and precise to less clear and precise language (such as "implies that" to "leads to the view that"), some changed one stylistic approach to another, and some turned U.K. in to U.S. English, but the main section is this:

"The second horn of the dilemma (known as divine command theory) runs into five main problems. First, it implies that the moral status of things is wildly contingent—if he had wanted to, God could have made rape, murder, and torture morally right. Secondly, it threatens the normative force of the claim that God is good—it turns into the mere claim that God is consistent, or that God approves of himself. Thirdly, it commits the naturalistic fallacy; to analyze evaluative claims (e.g., that murder is wrong) in terms of what God has or hasn't said is to reduce evaluative claims to mere descriptions of God's activity. Fourthly, it seems to make morality subjective, with moral truths determined by the mere attitudes of an individual. Fifthly, it threatens the conception of God as a rational being. For, supposing God had a reason for forbidding rape, this reason should also be the reason that rape is wrong. Otherwise, God's decision would have been based on the wrong reason. But if the reason rape is wrong is that God has forbidden it, then it can't be God's reason for forbidding it, on pains of circularity. So God's moral decisions were based either on the wrong reason, or on no reason at all."

Some of this can usefully added, but some isn't really acceptable: "is wildly contingent" is not only unencyclopædic style, but is less clear than "is arbitrary, based merely upon god's whim". It also introduces technical terms where they're not needed (as does "normative force" which, in addition, surely misses the target; it's not the normativity of "god is good" that's at issue, but its status as a meaningful evaluation). His or her fourth point isn't very commonly raised, and is surely implicit in the other points. The final point contains material that could be made use of, but is in fact a discussion of the article's first point. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:42, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

In Euthyphro discussions "arbitrary" means based on no reason, which is quite different from "contingent" meaning could have been different—the current article conflates the two. As far as normative force goes, I take it that's exactly what distinguishes evaluations from mere descriptions—would "evaluative force" make it clearer? In any case, the problem isn't that divine command theory makes "God is good" meaningless. Far from it. The problem is that it gives it the wrong kind of meaning, by construing it as a neutral description of God's activity or nature. The point regarding reasons is arguably the main point of the discussion in the Euthyphro and is found in, e.g., Francis Snare's Nature of Moral Thinking. The fourth point on the current page badly misconstrues divine command theory ("what is wrong is simply to disobey god"), thereby missing the point that, if God gives things their moral status, then he can easily give things different moral statuses. If you know of a better way to fix these misrepresentations and confusions, then please let me know.
  1. In this context, "arbitrary" means (as usual) something like "subject to pesonal whims", which is what the problem is; "contingent", however, raises further and different problems (if god is a necessary being, then his decisions and actions are necessary, but that might not make them less arbitrary). Moreover, while arbitrariness is an immediate and obvious problem for the foundation of morality, contingency isn't.
  2. Normativity is certainly at the heart of discussions of the concept of morality, but I don't see that it's particularly relevant here; indeed, I know of no discussion of the dilemma that focusses on normativity.
  3. You say: "the problem isn't that divine command theory makes 'God is good' meaningless"; well, it's a problem that is frequently cited, and in those terms. If "good" means no more than "whatever god commands", then in what sense can god be said to be good? As "good" is essentially evaluative, then a use involving no evaluation is a misuse, and the result is nonsense.
  4. The fourth point is again to be found in much of the literature, and is the way that many writers have construed (and developed) DCT. Moreover, many writers would deny that the fact that god gives things moral status means that he can change that status (for that would involve changing his mind, and that would imply imperfection). perhaps you mean (which is widely accepted by Divine Command Theorists) that he could have given them a different status.
  5. Your most recent edit adds the unnecessary and uninformative qualification: "In the relevant passage" (where else?), and makes some stylistic changes that involve no clarification (in fact, to my eye, make the text slightly less clear). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:40, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


I'll try to be clearer:

  1. We agree about the meaning of "arbitrary" as applied to decisions or attitudes: not based on reason, but instead based on (what else?) whimsy or caprice. But I insist that the current article is conflating two distinct problems. "First, it implies that what is good is arbitrary, based merely upon god's whim" concerns the problem of arbitrariness, whereas "if god had created the world to include the values that rape, murder, and torture were virtues, while mercy and charity were vices, then they would have been" concerns the problem of contingency. Arbitrariness has to do with the absence of any good reason behind God's decisions or attitudes. It threatens the traditional conception of God as a rational being (see e.g. Cudworth), and it also threatens the objective status of morality—so the arbitrariness problem encompasses two worries, one about God's rationality and the other about the status of morality. Contingency has to do with the modal status of moral truths. It seems very odd to say that rape just happens to be morally wrong, that it could have been morally required if things had just gone differently. But DCT seems to entail just that (though, of course, many theists want to deny this entailment). And that's the contingency worry. If you still think they are not distinct, notice that contingency doesn't entail arbitrariness—there is no contradiction in the claim that, though God had a good reason for giving things their moral statuses, he could have given them different moral statuses.
    I disagree, I'm afraid (which goes to show that we're not concerned with expressing the argument clearly, but with philosophical questions). The claim: "if god had created the world to include the values that rape, murder, and torture were virtues, while mercy and charity were vices, then they would have been" of course involves contingency, but the problem – the reason that believers find it uncomfortable – isn't contingency but arbitrariness. Note also that the claim isn't that rape would have been morally required "if things had just gone differently" – that would be outright contingency, I agree – but if god had chosen or commanded differently.
    Having said all that, there's certainly room for adding something to bring out the contingency issue; perhaps we could hammer out an extra sentence or two here?
  2. I'd say that Cudworth's discussion (which is an absolute classic on the topic) focuses on normativity. His main point (IIRC; I could go look it up) is something like "God's commands give reasons only with the assumption that we have reason to obey God's commands", which is all about the reason-giving force of morality. In any case, your claim that, "[a]s "good" is essentially evaluative, then a use involving no evaluation is a misuse" seems to be knee-deep in issues of normativity.
    I don't think much of Cudworth's discussion, to be honest (as I remember, my reasons are those of Brad Hooker, given in the Analysis paper in the article's references). Again, though, we're trying to give an overview of the problem, and the views of a particular Cambridge Platonist, however interesting, are those of only one person.
  3. I think you're generating the result of meaninglessness only by building in a category mistake, in a way no DCT'er worth his salt would accept. God's commands (like any commands) can only have a reference to actions; so naturally his commands can't ground any evaluative conclusions regarding the goodness of God the individual. The goodness of individuals is presumably a matter for God's approval, just like the goodness of states of affairs is presumably a matter for God's valuing. So a DCT'er can simply say "God is good" means the same thing as "God approves of himself". And however unsatisfactory this might be as an analysis, it doesn't make for meaninglessness—a misconstrual doesn't annihilate meaning, it merely gives the wrong meaning. (Also, I should point out that DCT'ers don't have to give the meaning of evaluative claims, they only need to give the grounds of evaluative claims; this follows the strategy of Cornell realists and non-reductive materialists. This vitiates the charge of naturalistic fallacy, though the charge is common enough that I thought it should remain).
    Again, you're assuming certain philosophical positions, and the outcomes of certain philosophical disagreements; we can't do that here. The meaninglessness point might be put more clearly, but it's been advanced too often for us to omit it merely because you think that it can be met satisfactorily. That discussion might go in the section of responses, of course (made suitably NPoV).
  4. Here you've just accidentally misread me. My point was that God has more than two moral statuses at his disposal. He's got more in his quiver than just forbidden and required. He can give things different degrees of moral wrongness. Or at least from the premise that God gives things their moral statuses it does not follow that he is limited to only two fixed-degree moral statuses.
    Perhaps — but again, it belongs in the responses section, and shouldn't affect how the problem is presented.
  5. The reason I added "in the relevant passage" is that I don't want to suggest that the Euthyphro is entirely about this issue, or that the small summary in the article covers the entirety of the dialogue.
    To be honest I think that that can be taken as read (though, of course, the Euthyphro is (unusually for Plato's dialogues) focussed on this one problem). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The "False-dilemma Response"

This approach is, however, essentially a rejection of the Divine Command Theory in favour of the other horn; that is, it depends upon the notion that goodness is a property of god, and thus not under god's control.

It isn't clear how this is a rejection of one horn in favour of the other. Doesn't this solution do what it is supposed to: that is, it chose neither the option that morality is independent of God nor that morality is solely dependent on God's dictates? In that case, then wouldn't the criticism that goodness is not under God's control, regardless of how valid it may be, be a different argument altogether. That is, wouldn't that be a criticism regarding God's omnipotence rather than whether good is independent of Him or a whim of His? Hairouna 02:42, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

well, a less-than-omnipotent God is the other horn. Few Christians would accept that their God is just a magical superhero type, rather than an omnipotent creator type. dab (ᛏ) 08:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. In some formulations the other horn is that good and evil (morality) is independent of God; the omnipotence of God is not the dilemma's direct concern. In fact, in this article that is partially the case, for it says "The first horn of the dilemma implies that morality is independent of god and, indeed, that god is bound by morality just as his creatures are." Perhaps it can be mentioned that He is still bound by morality, stating that this raises some questions regarding the omnipotence of a good God, but that is not directly the dilemma's concern. Hairouna 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Feel free to edit it further, but I think the way I've currently got it worded makes both points. If the first horn is framed so that morality depends on anything besides God's active choice, then Aquinas' view does turn out to be within the scope of the first horn. But then the biggest problem with the first horn doesn't follow. Most theists who don't like the first horn see the problem as an external limitation on God. But if God's nature determines morality, then there's no external limit on God. It's God's nature that determines God's being bound by morality.
On the other hand, if you think of the first horn as it's often portrayed (e.g. in James Rachels' introductory ethics text), then it is indeed a false dilemma. The standard presentation of the dilemma as I've seen it contrasts a morality based on God's commands, whatever they happen to be, and a morality based on something independent of God. Aquinas' response then indeed does count as a third view. So it all depends on how the dilemma is presented, but if it's presented so that Aquinas' view falls under the first option then what many see as the only undesirable aspect of the first option simply doesn't follow. Parableman 13:27, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it seems that your edit does the job. I think it needs to be clarified though, because it's somewhat confusing as is. I'll try to get around to doing it if you don't by the time I can. Hairouna 02:54, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization of Proper Names

Why does this article fail to capitalize the proper name 'God'? I realize that some people don't want to capitalize pronouns for God for various reasons, but the name 'God' in English is a proper name, and we capitalize proper names in English. That's a standard rule of written English. If we were using it as a common noun by talking about gods in plural or a god or the god with articles, that would be another story, but this article uses the proper name and fails to capitalize it. That's simply poor English. Parableman 13:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

  1. It's by no means agreed that "god" is a proper name (indeed, that's a very non-standard view, and difficult to argue for, either on theological or on etymological grounds).
  2. The use of "god" without the capital is very common in (especially) academic writing.
  3. Wikipedia has (wrongly, in my view, but that's another matter) generally decided that the word should be capitalised when talking about the deity of monotheistic, especially the Abrahamic, religions. That's not the case here, though.
  4. When an article has been written by someone using the capital, I don't remove it (a similar approach to that used with regard to regional varieties of English); I expect the same courtesy from others. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Two questions. Firstly, what/who is the word "god" referring to in this article? Secondly, is there a particular reason you also reverted the changes I made to Parableman's wording of the second part of the False-dilemma response? Hairouna 03:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
  1. It doesn't refer to any specific god.
  2. Because you changed what seemed to me to be a correct (and accepted) view into what seemdd to me to be an incorrect (and at best uncommon) view. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
1. So what does it refer to?
2. It seems to me that my change was formal, not substantial. So I don't see how it could be any less correct or common than what it was based on. Hairouna 18:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
  1. To whichever notion of god is in play in the context in which it's used; in Plato, the reference was to the gods, in modern discussions it's often to the god of the Abrahamic religions, but in philosophy it's to any god or gods thought to be the origin of morality.
  2. Your change (though I suppose that it might have been meant to have been merely formal) substantially changed the meaning. The original text pointed out that claiming that there's in fact no dilemma boils down to choosing one horn; your text claimed that it doesn't boil down to that. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay then. Thanks for the explanations. Hairouna 23:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Mel is right - thee are lots of philosophers out there who refuse to capitalize god because they think it changes his ontological status. This is as silly as the BC-AD/BCE-CE debate and is just a timesink.. like a lot of other "debates" on Wikipedia. FranksValli 01:29, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

That wasn't in fact my point. There are a number of reasons for not capitalising "god", some more important than others. If the reason for capitalising the word is that it's a proper name, however, that's just a mistake. "Jahweh" is a proper name, "Allah" is a proper name, "Jesus" is a proper name — "god" isn't. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I know that wasn't your point, I was wording rhetorically more than anything else. The seriousness of all this is pretty funny. FranksValli 01:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
If it's not a proper name, then it needs an article. You need to talk about the god or a god or use the plural. Common nouns are not capitalized, but they also take articles when singular. The fact that you aren't doing that is extremely strong evidence that you are using it as a proper name. I still contend that this is extremely poor English. You could discuss this issue without using that word at all, using 'Joe' to refer to whatever the source of morality is supposed to be. It would be wrong to use lower case simply because you're using the name as a placeholder. Yet that seems to be exactly what you're doing here with the word 'god'. Parableman 16:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Not all common nouns demand articles (mass nouns, for example, including names of abstractions like "rudeness" and "arrogance"); moreover this usage is very common, especially in academic works. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this part of the E. dilemma?

From the article:

"Thirdly, it commits the naturalistic fallacy; to explain the evaluative claim that murder is wrong (or the prescription that one should not commit murder) in terms of what god has or hasn't said is to argue from a putative fact about the world to a value (to argue to an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’)."

This is covered in divine command theory, and I don't think it necessarily applies. Saying that morality is defined as God's will does not necessarily mean to be a motivation for acting morally. After all, some people would say we should follow God's will simply because he will reward us for it. This does not commit the fallacy, and neither do other possible responses. The fallacy only pertains if someone says, "we should be moral because God wants us to", without providing further explanation. --Catquas 04:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that you're wrong, but more importantly, your claim is "original research". The article states what is a common argument. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I guess you are right I was just checking to see what people thought. But I might include a response to that point at the end because divine command theory need not commit the naturalistic fallacy, it depends on how it is phrased.--Catquas 13:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Divine command theory is the theory that what is good just is what god commands; that has nothing to do with motivation (a different argument has been offered with regard to that). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Islam

There was a lot of discussion of this issue in Islamic philosophy/theology... AnonMoos 15:48, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I know something of it (though I don't recall anything very distinctive), but if you're up on the area, why not add it? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-existence of problem

For the sake of logical completeness I have added that the problem rest on the assumption that God both exists and is good. If you think either of these are not true, when the problem does not exist.

[edit] "All of these dilemmas have been solved"??

With all imaginable respect, I submit that Ezzi386's edits of 9 November are at best less than encyclopedic in style and at worst shallow and circular. He has deleted the point about the naturalistic fallacy and then goes on to commit that very fallacy. The paragraph that begins with the word "Alterability" is not even readable.

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