In “Religion: A Barrier to Clear Thinking,” the final article in the award winning series of lay philosophy articles published in the Christchurch Press, Canterbury based Philosopher Simon Clarke addressed the question, “what is the biggest obstacle to thinking clearly about social and political issues?” Predictably he answered “Several answers suggested themselves but time and [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Euthyphro Dilemma'
Contra Mundum: Secular Smoke Screens and Plato’s Euthyphro
March 2nd, 2010 31 Comments
Tags: Contra Mundum · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Investigate Magazine · Peter Geach · Plato · Simon Clarke · William Lane Craig
Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands: Part II
March 25th, 2009 8 Comments
In my last post, Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands: Part I, I made some critical remarks on Michael Tooley’s critique of William Lane Craig’s version of the divine command theory. Tooley contends that this theory implies the conditional that if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible then [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Ethics · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Philosophy of Religion · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands: Part I
March 23rd, 2009 12 Comments
In a debate with William Lane Craig at the University of Colorado, Michael Tooley stated,
There is a theory which has the consequence that there cannot be objective moral laws unless God exists—that’s the so-called ‘divine command theory of morality’. What it says is that an action is wrong because and only because God forbids it. [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Ethics · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Philosophy of Religion · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
On the Meta-Euthyphro Objection
October 18th, 2008 6 Comments
According to proponents of the Euthyphro Objection, defenders of a Divine Command Theory of Ethics face a dilemma, actions are morally-required either because:
(i) God commands them;
or,
(ii) God commands them because they are morally-required.
The latter (ii) entails that actions are right and wrong independently of God’s commands and as such, a Divine Command Theory of Ethics [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Ethics · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Philosophy of Religion
Euthyphro Objection III: The Redundancy of God is Good
November 1st, 2007 8 Comments
My first post in this series, The Euthyphro Objection Part I: Against Divine Commands & Avoiding Strawmen, I examined Peter Singer’s version of the Euthyphro argument and demonstrated that it relies upon a strawman. In my Part II I criticised Singer’s utilisation of the arbitrariness objection against divine command theory. Singer’s last objection comes as a rejoinder [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Edward Weirenga · Ethics · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Paul Faber · Peter Singer · Philosophy of Religion
The Euthyphro Objection Part II: Arbitrariness
October 31st, 2007 2 Comments
In his work Practical Ethics Singer proposes a version of the Euthyphro dilemma to criticise a divine command theory of ethics,
Some theists say that ethics cannot do without religion because the very meaning of “good” is nothing other than “what God approves”. Plato refuted a similar view more than two thousand years ago by arguing [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Ethics · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · James Rachels · Mane Hajdin · Peter Singer · Philosophy of Religion · Roy Perrett
The Euthyphro Objection Part I: Against Divine Commands & Avoiding Strawmen
October 28th, 2007 2 Comments
Perhaps the most common argument against an appeal to divine commands in ethical reasoning is the Euthyphro dilemma, first articulated by Plato and utilised by numerous critics of divine commands ever since. A representative example of this line of argument occurs in Peter Singer’s widely-acclaimed monograph Practical Ethics. In the first chapter of Practical Ethics, [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Edward Weirenga · Ethics · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · John Hare · Peter Singer · Philip Quinn · Philosophy of Religion · Robert Adams · William Alston
