MandM » Euthyphro Dilemma

Skepticule Extra – A Podcast on the Euthyphro Dilemma Feat. Matthew Flannagan

Madeleine — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:13:08 +0000

Recently Matt did a podcast on Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Dilemma for Skepticule Extra, aka the “Pauls to the Power of Three Podcast” hosted by Paul Baird, Paul Thompson (“Sinbad”) and Paul S. Jenkins.

You can listen to that podcast here.

Visit Skepticule for more listening options.

Ethical Naturalism and the Euthyphro Dilemma

Matt — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:10:23 +0000

Some people argue that moral obligations can be grounded in scientifically verifiable facts about human wellbeing and flourishing. This view is a form of ethical naturalism. For these people moral rightness is just the property of promoting or enhancing human flourishing.

Plato refuted this argument over 2,000 years ago in his famous dialogue The Euthyphro. The Euthyphro argument is commonly appropriated in the form of a dilemma: “is an action right because it promotes human flourishing or does it promote human flourishing because it is right?

If ethical naturalists take the second horn of this dilemma and claim that something promotes human flourishing because it is right then things are right prior to, and hence independently of, whether they promote human welfare; so the ethical naturalists’ position here is false.

If the ethical naturalists take the former horn then morality is arbitrary. If rape or murder or cruelty for fun had the natural property of promoting happiness then rape and murder and cruelty for fun would be morally required but it is impossible for these things to be morally required; so ethical naturalism is clearly absurd.

Moreover, if things are right because they have natural properties, like promoting human flourishing, then one cannot meaningfully say that human flourishing is good. To say “human flourishing” is good is just to say that ”human flourishing is human flourishing,” which is just an empty tautology.

So in short, Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma refuted ethical naturalism 2,000 years ago. Contemporary ethical naturalists who say otherwise just have not read Plato and have never come across this argument before.

In any event, ethical naturalism is deeply problematic. Throughout history people have appealed to human flourishing and forms of ethical naturalism to justify atrocities. The Inquisition, for example, was often justified by Dominican Theologians on the basis that it was in accord with natural law, and natural law was understood to be grounded in human flourishing. Similarly, wars have been justified on the basis of moral theories based on human flourishing. Stalin and Lenin wanted to bring about human flourishing through a communist utopia and murdered millions in their pursuit of that. And the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Japan because they wanted to promote the flourishing of American soldiers that were going to invade.

Finally, it is obviously insulting to suggest that right and wrong are grounded in scientifically verifiable properties like this. There are a large number of people who live morally upright lives who do not believe in ethical naturalism. The suggestion that these people are all immoral is obviously false. Name me one moral action a person who is not an ethical naturalist cannot do? This unanswerable question shows that ethical naturalism is clearly false.

Contra Mundum: Secular Smoke Screens and Plato’s Euthyphro

Matt — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:50:11 +0000

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 again I came back to the same thing: religion.” Clarke explained that “the fallacy of grounding morality upon religion was pointed out by Plato over two thousand years ago.” [1]

Clarke was appealing to a famous argument that purports to show that ethics (what is right and wrong) is independent of religion. This argument is known by professional ethicists as “The Euthyphro Dilemma” or “Plato’s Euthyphro” and is named after a dialogue Plato wrote. The current version used against mono-theistic religions, such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism, is an adaptation (the original applied to poly-theistic religions, those religions that believe in many gods).

The argument is usually framed in terms of a rhetorical question ‘are actions wrong because God prohibits them or does God prohibit them because they are wrong?’ As the question is framed, there are only two possible answers a person can offer.

The first is to contend that actions are wrong because God prohibits them. This answer is said to suffer a debilitating problem, it makes morality arbitrary – anything at all could be deemed ‘right’ as long as God commanded it. Philosopher Michael Tooley has suggested this, “if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible, then it would follow that that action was obligatory. … many people, including many religious thinkers, are very unhappy with that consequence.” Therefore, the critics conclude, actions are not wrong just because God issues commands against them.

The failure of the first answer means that the only possible way out is to claim that God prohibits actions because they are wrong; they are not wrong just because he prohibits them. This answer does not have the problems of the former. However, as Clarke points out, it entails that “there are independent standards for what we should do, independent that is of the dictates of religion.” Actions are wrong before God prohibits them. His commands simply tell us what is already wrong, quite independently of what he prohibits.

This argument is something of a cliché in contemporary secular ethics and is found in almost every secular text book I have read (and will undoubtedly make its way into the Ethics section of the new NCEA Philosophy course). Typically “religious ethics” is mentioned and then dismissed with a short rendition of Plato’s Euthyphro. When I studied Philosophy Plato’s Euthyphro was one of the first things I was taught in first year Ethics. The lecturer spelled out the argument, contended that it showed “religious ethics” was mistaken/confused/ muddle-headed/whatever and from there would went on with the serious business of offering secular perspectives on topics such as abortion, affirmative action, euthanasia, homosexual rights and so on.

Philosopher Peter Geach noted “In modern ethical treatises we find hardly any mention of God; and the idea that if there really is a God, his commandments might be morally relevant is wont to be dismissed by a short and simple argument that is generally regarded as irrefutable.” The short, simple argument he mentioned was, of course, Plato’s Euthyphro.

Given this backdrop it is perhaps not so surprising that Clarke, after mentioning Plato’s argument, stated “… Plato’s pretty convincing demonstration has been ignored by the vast majority of people in the intervening millennia. Why are appeals to religion so common?”

Despite the popularity of making claims like this, I still find them somewhat puzzling. Perhaps secular ethicists assume that theological ethicists have never read Plato or that, if they have, they have ignored him. In fact, the opposite is true. The last 40 years, in fact, has seen sustained defences of theological ethics including thorough refutations of Plato’s Euthyphro. These have been published in the philosophical literature at the highest levels – off the top of my head I can rattle off over 22 different articles and monographs which have offered rebuttals to Plato’s Euthyphro – yet secular ethicists and many textbooks blithely continue as though these answers had never been offered.

I maintain that there is an answer to the Euthyphro dilemma, one that many have pointed out; it is to adopt the first of the answers I mentioned above, to contend that an action is wrong because God prohibits it. Contrary to popular claims, this option can succeed. The objections raised against it are not as debilitating as they are made out to be.

The primary objection is that morality is made arbitrary; anything at all could be deemed ‘right’ as long as God commanded it – even atrocious commands. What is important to note here is that the objector assumes that it is possible that God could command atrocious things like ‘torturing people as much as possible.’ This assumption, however, seems very dubious. We need to remember that we are not taking about right or wrong as being based on the commands of just anyone, we are talking about these things being based on the commands of God. In the mono-theistic tradition that this line of argument seeks to criticise, God is typically defined as a being who is all knowing, all powerful, and is morally perfect.

So, as the terms are defined, the claim that it is possible for God to command people to “torture one another as much as possible” is true only if it is possible for a morally perfect person to command such an atrocious thing. But this is unlikely. The very reason critics cite examples such as “torturing others as much as possible,” is because these actions are paradigms of conduct that no morally good person could ever entertain or endorse. The situation the critic envisages then is a situation which is impossible.

Of course the critic could contend that he or she does not accept the existence of a being who is all knowing, all powerful, and is morally perfect. However, because those the critic is criticising do believe in such a being and also if the dismissal of theological ethics is to be based on an accurate understanding of what the various theological traditions actually believe and teach, and is not based on a caricature, then the sceptic must address what these traditions actually affirm.

This answer typically generates a rejoinder. If some action is right or wrong because God permits or prohibits it then God cannot be said to be good in any meaningful sense. This answer renders the claim ‘God is good’ into no more than the claim that God obeys his own commands, if this is so, can God be said to have any duties at all?

Philosopher William Lane Craig argues that “[duties] are not independent of God nor, plausibly, is God bound by moral duties, since He does not issue commands to Himself.” William Alston drew the same conclusion, “we can hardly suppose that God is obliged to love his creatures because he commands himself to do so!” William Wainwright suggests “the notion of commanding oneself to do something … is incoherent.”

The rejoinder that, if God has no duties then he cannot be said to be good in any meaningful sense, has a grain of truth to it. If we are going to understand God’s goodness in terms of God having duties or obligations that he consistently fulfils then theological ethics, of the sort envisaged, has problems. However, it is not clear to me why the phrase ‘God is good’ should be explicated in terms of God having duties that He follows.

Many theologians have suggested that one should not understand God’s goodness in this way. When God’s goodness is explicated in sacred texts like the Psalms or in official creedal statements such as the Westminster Confession of Faith it is often explicated in terms of God having certain character traits. To claim God is good is to claim that He is truthful, benevolent, loving, gracious, merciful, that He is opposed to certain actions such as adultery, murder and rape and so on. Now, even if God does not have duties, it does not follow that he cannot have character traits such as these. It is true that God may not be under any obligation to love others or to tell the truth or what have you, but that does not mean that He cannot love others or tell the truth. God does not have to have a duty to do something in order to do it.

So there seems, on the face of it, nothing incoherent about contending that God is good, that he has certain attributes like being truthful, benevolent, loving and so on. It is not that theological ethicists have never read Plato or that they have ignored him – they have read him, found his arguments wanting and published responses explaining why – it is that some sceptics have never read the responses or they have chosen to ignore them.

Perhaps these rebuttals do not work (though I think that they do) but even if I am wrong the onus is surely on the sceptic to demonstrate why. Simply ignoring them, misrepresenting the situation and then dismissing religion “as a barrier to clear thinking” is simply not good enough.

[1] Clarke’s series “Clear Thinking” was awarded the Australasian Association of Philosophy Media prize in 2006.

I write a monthly column for Investigate Magazine entitled Contra Mundum. This blog post was published in the March 10 issue and is reproduced here with permission. Contra Mundum is Latin for ‘against the world;’ the phrase is usually attributed to Athanasius who was exiled for defending Christian orthodoxy.

Letters to the editor should be sent to: editorial@investigatemagazine.DELETE.com

Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands: Part II

Matt — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:05:00 +0000

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 it would be obligatory to torture one another as much as possible, and makes the claim that this conditional is false. I argued that the arguments for the claim the conditional is false fail.

In the second half of the post I criticised Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s claim;

Moreover, even if God in fact never would or could command us to rape, the divine command theory still implies the counter-factual that, if God did command us to rape, then we would have a moral obligation to rape. That is absurd.[1] [Emphasis added]

As I noted, Armstrong’s suggestion that the conditional is obviously false is far from obvious and in fact, runs contrary to the standard view of such conditionals in modal logic.

In this post, I want to examine a defence of Armstrong’s position, that proposed by Louise Anthony in her article “Atheism as Perfect Piety.” I will argue Anthony’s defence also fails. I will then offer some reasons for thinking that the conditional Tooley cites is not false but true.

Louise Anthony’s Defence of Armstrong’s Argument
Louise Anthony suggests a repair to Armstrong’s argument. She notes,

In standard modal logics, any counterfactual with an impossible antecedent is true. … Results like this are widely regarded as regrettable, in so far as one looks to formal modal logic to reconstruct ordinary reasoning with counterfactuals. I am going with ordinary intuitions, which do not treat all counterfactuals with impossible antecedents as true. [2]

Anthony, here, claims that the standard view of modal logic is mistaken. Not all counterfactuals with impossible antecedents are true. An obvious problem here is that even if this is the case, it does not follow that the particular counterfactual being discussed here is false. The fact that some counterfactuals with impossible antecedents are false does not entail that this particular one is false.

Suppose, however, one puts this argument to one side and grants that the counterfactual is false. What follows? I am inclined to think not much.

Consider the structure of Anthony’s argument. She notes that the claim that right and wrong is coextensive with divine commands entails that if, per impossible, God commands torturing people as much as possible then it is obligatory to do so. The problem is that an analogous line of reasoning applies to any ethical theory. Three examples will demonstrate this.

First, consider utilitarianism, the theory that an action is obligatory if it maximises the balance of good consequences over bad consequences. It follows from this that if torturing people as much as possible maximises good consequences over bad then torturing people as much as possible is obligatory. The utilitarian’s protestation that such a situation is impossible is unsuccessful because even if this situation is impossible the conditional is, according to Anthony, still absurd and hence, discredits the theory.

Similar things apply with Kantianism, the view that an action is obligatory if and only if it treats rational creatures with respect; that is, treats them always as ends and never merely as means. It follows that if torturing people as much as possible treats them with respect then it is obligatory to torture people as much as possible. Of course, the Kantian would object that torturing people as much as possible is never something that constitutes respect but again, that does not matter. Even if the antecedent is impossible, Anthony maintains that the conditional is false and for this reason the theory should be rejected.

The same is true with virtue ethics, the view that an action is obligatory if and only if, it would be performed by a virtuous person. It follows that if a virtuous person would torture people as much as possible then torturing people as much as possible is obligatory. Again, the virtue ethicist will protest that a virtuous person would never want to do that but again, if Anthony is correct, this is irrelevant. Her whole point is that even if the antecedent is impossible, an ethical theory with this implication is absurd.

I maintain the same is true of any meta-ethical theory. Let P be any property one considers to be logically equivalent to the property of being obligatory. It will be true that this meta-ethical theory entails that if P is possessed by the action of torturing one another as much as possible then torturing other people as much as possible will be obligatory.

Anthony’s argument is essentially that if we postulate logically impossible situations, absurd and false implications follow. Questions about what God would do in impossible situations is, as Craig points out, “is like wondering whether, if there were a round square, its area would equal the square of one of its sides. And what would it matter how one answered, since what is imagined is logically incoherent?”[3]

Reasons for Thinking that the Conditional is True
I have argued that attempts to show that the conditional, if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible then it would be obligatory to torture one another as much as possible, is false all fail. I am inclined to go one step further and maintain not just that there is no reason for thinking that the conditional is false but that it is, on reflection, obviously true.

The conditional states that torturing one another as much as possible is obligatory, in a particular situation; that is, a situation where a perfectly good omniscient being commands it. Now it seems inconceivable to me that any action, torture included, could be wrong under such circumstances. If torturing one another as much as possible is gratuitously evil and could never be obligatory then an informed perfectly good being would not command it. On the other hand, if torturing one another as much as possible had certain features that would lead a perfectly good being to overlook the evils the action contains and commend it then it would seem that torturing people in these circumstances would not be wrong. The reason we are inclined to take the counterfactual as absurd is because we think it is absurd that a perfectly good being would command anything of the sort.

[1] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics Eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 106.
[2] Louise Anthony “Atheism as Perfect Piety” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, Eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 82.
[3] William Lane Craig “This Most Gruesome of Guests” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics Eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 172.

Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands: Part I

Matt — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:14:00 +0000

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. And an action is obligatory because and only because God demands it. If that theory were right, then there would be an argument in support of the claim that Dr. Craig has advanced. But that theory is quite a hopeless theory because of its implications. One of its implications, for example, is that if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible, then it would follow that that action was obligatory. Perhaps Dr. Craig would be happy with that consequence. But many people, including many religious thinkers, are very unhappy with that consequence, and so have rejected the divine command theory of morality.[1]

Tooley here appeals to a version of the Euthyphro dilemma; his argument contains two premises.

First, that a divine command theory has a certain implication; it implies the following conditional, if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible then it would be obligatory to torture one another as much as possible.

Second, Tooley thinks many people would be unhappy with this implication. Now I think Tooley is correct that the aforementioned conditional is an implication of the divine command theory. His phrasing of the second premise, however, is problematic; his stated reason is that many people are not happy with this implication but it is unclear why this is an objection. The fact that some people do not like an implication is hardly an objection against it. What is relevant is whether the conditional is true. For this reason, I take it Tooley is engaging in a rhetorical flourish and actually contends that this conditional is false.

The crucial contention of Tooley’s critique, then, is that the conditional, if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible then it would be obligatory to torture one another as much as possible,is false. There are some problems with this contention. There are no reasons for thinking the conditional is false and there are good reasons for thinking the conditional is true. In the next two blogs I will defend these claims.

Reasons for Thinking the Conditional is False
The crucial contention of Tooley’s critique then is that the conditional if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible then it would be obligatory to torture one another as much as possible, is false.

Unfortunately Tooley provides no argument for this conclusion, he simply asserts it. An examination of the literature suggests that typically two lines of argument are offered for this contention. Given Tooley offers no new reasons of his own, I will assume that he has one of these in mind.

David Brink’s Argument against the Conditional
The first is mentioned by Robert K. Garcia and Nathan L. King

DCT [divine command theory] implies that it is possible for any kind of action, such as rape, to not be wrong. But it seems intuitively impossible for rape not to be wrong. So, DCT is at odds with our commonsense intuitions about rape.[2]

A similar line of argument is made by David Brink who states,

We might also notice a counter intuitive implication of voluntarism. Voluntarism implies that all moral truths are contingent on what God happens to approve. … Thus, for example, had God had not condemned genocide and rape, these things would not have been wrong, or, if God were to approve these things they would become morally acceptable. But these are awkward commitments, inasmuch as this sort of conduct seems necessarily wrong.[3]

Brink here uses the examples of genocide and rape; however, I suggest that he would say the same thing about Tooley’s example of ‘commanding people to torture each other;’ hence, for clarity I will stick with Tooley’s example.

Brink’s inference here has two premises; the first [1] is that the conditional, if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible then it would be obligatory to torture one another as much as possible, implies that it is possible for the act of ‘torturing people as much as possible’ to be obligatory. The second premise [2] is that it is impossible for the act of ‘torturing people as much as possible’ to be obligatory; such things are necessarily wrong, that is, wrong in all logically possible worlds. If [1] and [2] hold, the conditional Tooley refers to is false.

The problem with this inference is that [1] is false. The conditional uses the term “if”, if God had … but this does not by itself imply that there is a logically possible world where such an action is obligatory. To get this conclusion one needs the additional premise that there exists a possible world where God issues such a command. Brink does not offer any reason for thinking this is the case; he seems simply to take it for granted.

It seems dubious, however, that this assumption is true. Tooley defines God as “omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect”.[4][Emphasis added] Similarly, in his debate with Craig he states,

I want to begin by briefly indicating how I’m going to understand the term ‘God’ in this next discussion. My view is that the question one should ask is, “What characteristics should an object possess in order to be an appropriate object of religious attitudes?”

I think that the answer to that is that a being, to be characterizable as God in that sense, should be a personal being, should be a being that is morally perfect, a being that is omnipotent, and a being that is omniscient..[5][Emphasis added]

So, as Tooley defines his terms, the claim that there is a possible world where God commands people to ‘torture one another as much as possible’ is true only if there is a possible world where a morally perfect omniscient person would command this action.

This is unlikely. The very reason Tooley cites the example, of ‘torturing others as much as possible,’ is because he views it as a paradigm of an action which can never be obligatory. Similarly, Brink mentions actions like rape and genocide because he thinks it’s impossible that such actions could be permissible. However, if this is the case then a morally perfect being would never command such actions. The argument by Brink, therefore, is unsound.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s Argument
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong suggests a second line of argument for the falsity of the conditional, if God had commanded mankind to torture one another as much as possible then it would be obligatory to torture one another as much as possible. Armstrong states,

Moreover, even if God in fact never would or could command us to rape, the divine command theory still implies the counter-factual that, if God did command us to rape, then we would have a moral obligation to rape. That is absurd.[6] [Emphasis added]

Armstrong uses the example of rape in place of Tooley’s ‘torturing one another as much as possible’. He claims that “even if God in fact never would or could command” such actions, the relevant counterfactual still follows and “that is absurd.”

Armstrong gives no argument for the claim that the counterfactual is absurd, he simply asserts it as obvious. The problem is that it is not obvious. If there is no logically possible world where God issues such a command (and Armstrong concedes for the sake of argument that this is the case) then the conditional (which Armstrong refers to as the counterfactual) has a logically impossible antecedent; it is equivalent to statements like “if there were a round square, its area would equal the square of one of its sides.”[7] Whether statements like this are true or false is a difficult issue in contemporary modal logic. In fact, according to the standard view of modal logic, a conditional with a logically impossible antecedent is always true.

Armstrong’s suggestion, then, that the conditional is obviously true is far from obvious and in fact, runs contrary to the standard view of such conditionals in modal logic.

In my next post, Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands: Part II, I will look at attempts to overcome this.

[1] Michael Tooley and William Lane Craig A Classic Debate on the Existence of God held at the University of Colorado at Boulder, November 1994, transcript accessed on March 21st 2009.
[2] Robert K. Garcia and Nathan L. King “Introduction” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, Eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 11.
[3] David O Brink “The Autonomy of Ethics” The Cambridge Companion to Atheism ed Michael Martin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 152.
[4] Michael Tooley “Does God Exist,” in Knowledge of God Ed. Alvin Plantinga & Michael Tooley (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2008) 72.
[5] Tooley and Craig A Classic Debate on the Existence of God.
[6] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics Eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 106.
[7] William Lane Craig “This Most Gruesome of Guests” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics, Eds. Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 172

On the Meta-Euthyphro Objection

Matt — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:36:00 +0000

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 is false. The former (i), however, is said to be problematic for two reasons: [a] if things are morally-required because God prohibits them, then God’s commands are arbitrary; if God commanded gratuitous torture then gratuitous torture would be morally-required. Moreover [b], the claim that God is good is emptied of any substantive content; to say God is good is simply to say God does what He wills.

I am unimpressed with this argument. In previous posts I have argued why. Despite the popularity of this line of argument (seen by its repetition in almost every first year ethics text book I have read) I think these two arguments are not powerful at all. On a Judeo-Christian concept of God, God is understood to have a certain type of character and to possess certain virtues. As the Westminister Confession states, God is:

[M]ost loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

Once this is realised, one can take (i) and avoid the problems [a] and [b] that are supposed to afflict the affirmation of this horn of the dilemma that the Euthyphro Objection raises. One can avoid [a] because it is not coherent to claim that a being with certain virtues would command actions like gratuitous torture. Likewise, one can avoid [b] because claiming God possesses certain character traits does not commit one to the claim that his goodness consists merely in doing as he wills, and these traits provide substantive content to the claim that God is good.

In the discussion here Mark V posted an astute response:

“You say that God is good because he posseses certain character traits that we regard as good. But why do we regard them as good? Is it because God possesses these traits or because they conform to some external standard of goodness?”

If I understand Mark’s objection here, he is suggesting that even if my solution to the Euthyphro Objection is successful, the same problem arises again on another level, now we are faced with the same dilemma all over again with regard to the goodness of God’s character traits. Either they are good because God possesses them or God possesses them because they are good.

Although Mark doesn’t say so, I think he means to suggest that the same problems with each option of the Euthyphro Objection also apply to this new issue. If a person claims that God possesses these traits because they are good then goodness exists independently of, and prior to God, which appears to compromise the doctrine of divine aseity. However, if a person claims that God’s traits are good because he possesses them then analogues to the arbitrariness [a] and emptiness [b] objections apply. Let’s call this line of argument the Meta-Euthyphro Objection.

I want to suggest that neither option Mark suggests is quite right. It is not the case that God’s character traits are good because he possesses them, neither is it the case that they are possessed by God because they are good. Instead I want to suggest that these traits are good because God prefers himself to have them.

An obvious rejoinder to this claim is that it really avoids the issue. Whether God’s character is good because he prefers himself to have it instead of it being good because he possesses it does not make an iota of difference. I am still faced with analogues of [a] the arbitrariness and [b] the emptiness objections aren’t I?

Actually I think the answer to this is no. To see why, note that when Mark asks:

“You say that God is good because he posseses certain character traits that we
regard as good. But why do we regard them as good?”

He grants there is nothing problematic about God having these traits but rather that the question is what makes Him having them a good thing? But this fact disarms both the arbitrariness [a] and emptiness [b] objections.

Turning to [a], the arbitrariness objection, when this objection is applied to the claim that God’s character traits are good because God prefers to have them, the [a] contends that God’s preference of the traits in question is arbitrary; after all, he could just as well have preferred to be vicious and cruel, and if he did, it would be good to be vicious and cruel.

The problem is that this is based on a false assumption. If God has the character traits in question then it is not true that he could have preferred just any traits; a person who has the following traits will not desire to be a vicious or cruel person “loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in … truth, forgiving…” Holding these traits means that there are certain things that one does not desire or want to see happen. That is part of what having such traits means.

Similar things apply to the emptiness charge [b]. Just as before, one could say that when we say that God is good, we mean that he possesses certain character traits which are normally recognised as paradigmatic examples of goodness. Now the suggestion that a trait is good because a being who displays paradigmatically good character traits prefers it does not seem trivial at all.

I conclude then that the Meta-Euthyphro Objection does not fair any better than its predecessor; one can meaningfully attribute goodness to God and say that God’s duties constitute our obligations, and we can do so without making goodness independent of God. I maintain then that the standard textbook objections remain unsound.

The Euthyphro Objection Part III: The Redundancy of God is Good

Matt — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 01:30:00 +0000

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 to the line of response sketched.

Some modern theists have attempted to extricate themselves from this type of dilemma by maintaining that God is good and so could not possibly approve of torture; but these theists are caught in a trap of their own making, for what can they possibly mean by the assertion that God is good? That God is approved by God?[i]

The problems with this response have already been demonstrated. Singer suggests that the modern theists who propose this response hold that ‘good’ means approved by God. However, this is not what they propose. Some, like Quinn and Weirenga, suggest that what makes actions right or wrong are the commands of God. Adams holds that wrongness is the property of being contrary to God’s commands. Neither of these views entails that ‘God is good’ means ‘God is approved’ by God.

In order for Singer’s objection to be something other than a straw man, it needs to be reformulated to deal with theories like the ones actually proposed by defenders of divine command theory. One such formulation is suggested, though not endorsed, by Edward Weirenga.

[I]f to be morally good is to do no wrong, and if what is wrong is what is forbidden by God, then to say that God is good is just to say that he never does what he forbids himself to do. But there is no moral value in never doing what one forbids oneself to do.[ii]

This objection is problematic. Firstly, the last premise affirms that there is no moral value in never doing what one forbids oneself to do; i.e. there is no moral value in living by the standards you set yourself, so to speak. This is false. There very clearly is moral value in avoiding hypocrisy and hypocrisy involves, in part, not following the standards one lays down for one’s own behaviour. Moreover, the very notion at the heart of much contemporary, ethical theory is that of autonomy. Autonomy refers to the act of regulating one’s own behaviour in light of the laws or principles of which one approves.

Finally, note that Weirenga’s objection begins with “if to be morally good is to do no wrong … then”. [Emphasis added]. The argument assumes that goodness is defined purely in terms of doing one’s duty. This was not claimed in the theory proposed and this assumption is at best controversial. Many ethical theories define ‘right’ in terms of a relationship to what is good and others see rightness as involving side constraints upon the quest for good. At best, what is needed is an argument as to why a theist must accept such a definition and none has been offered.

Paul Faber notes that within Presbyterian tradition there are strong precedents for not characterising goodness this way. He notes how God’s goodness is characterised in the Westminster Confession.[iii]

[M]ost loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.[iv]

Here God’s goodness is not defined so much in terms of conformity to duties but in terms of various character traits or excellence. Virtues such as being loving, truthful, forgiving, etc, hating actions that are wrong, praising and rewarding what is right. Nothing in divine command theory entails that God cannot have such attributes. The theory might have this implication if it also maintained that God has such traits because he is required to or if the virtues mentioned cannot be attributed to God without defining them in terms of various commands he has issued. However, none of this is necessary. God does not have to have a duty to have something in order to have it and such things as being loving, truthful, forgiving, etc. can all be understood without specifying any divine command.

[i] Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 3-4.
[ii] Edward Weirenga, The Nature of God, 222.
[iii] Paul Faber, “The Euthyphro Objection to Divine Normative Theories: A Response” Religious Studies 21 (1985): 564-567.
[iv] Westminster Confession of Faith, Ch. 2, Article 1, 145.

The Euthyphro Objection Part II: Arbitrariness

Matt — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:08:00 +0000

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 that if the gods approve of some actions it must be because those actions are good, in which case it cannot be the gods’ approval that makes them good. The alternative view makes God’s approval entirely arbitrary: if the gods had happened to approve of torture and disapprove of helping our neighbours, torture would be good and helping our neighbours bad.[i]

In my previous post, The Euthyphro Objection Part I: Against Divine Commands & Avoiding Strawmen, pointed out that his version of the Euthyphro argument relies upon a straw man. Divine command theory is not typically proposed as a theory about what is good but is usually restricted to deontic properties such as right and wrong. Its worth noting however that, this fact is not fatal to Singer’s position; it is possible to develop analogies to the Euthyphro that do not rely on this straw man. James Rachels is an example, in The Elements of Moral Philosophy he suggests that an action is right either because God commands it or he commands it because it is right. He then offers the same arguments Singer does to suggest that only by embracing the second horn of the dilemma which amounts to giving up divine command theory, can one escape absurdity.[ii]

The key argument Singer raises against divine command theory is, “if the gods had happened to approve of torture and disapprove of helping our neighbours, torture would be good and helping our neighbours bad”.[iii] Singer couches this objection in terms of goodness and badness but the same objection can be raised with regards to claims that Gods commands constitutes what is right and wrong. Rachels for example states that divine command theory “leads to trouble” because “it represents Gods commands as arbitrary. It means God could have given different commands just as easily. He could have commanded us to be liars, and then lying, not truthfulness would be right.”[iv]

The objection is that divine command theory entails a certain counter-factual conditional; to use Singer’s example, if God commanded torture then torture would not be wrong. While Singer does not state that this conditional is false, he appears to take it for granted that it is. After all, if the conditional were true then the fact that divine command theory entails it would not constitute an objection to the theory. Unfortunately Singer provides no reason for thinking this conditional is false. He appears to think that it is obvious.

Phillip Quinn has given reasons for questioning this assumption. Quinn notes that a counter-factual conditional such as ‘If God commands torture then torture is not wrong’ is false only if the antecedent is true and the consequent false.[v] In other words, the conditional is only false in a situation where God in fact does command torture and torture in that situation is wrong. In order for Singer’s objection to be sound there needs to be a logically-possible situation in which God does offer the command in question and the action he commands is wrong. Is such a scenario logically possible?

It is doubtful it is. God is perfectly and maximally good. Hence, the first premise is true only if a perfectly-good being would command an action such as the torture of children. This is unlikely. The claim that a perfectly-good being would command something morally abhorrent is on the face of it incoherent. Hence, it is unlikely that such a situation is possible.

A former teacher of mine, Mane Hajdin, suggested to me that this assertion is too hasty a few years ago he offered me the following criticism,

[I]t is assumed that being good involves being loving, forgiving, etc, in all possible worlds. But why should we assume that? Why aren’t there worlds in which being good involves being cruel, ruthless, etc? To simply assume that, in this context, may leave the impression of begging the question.

Roy Perrett suggested to me that that there are possible states of affairs where the contingent and factual structure of the world would be so different that what we take as paradigms of virtue in fact are not. In such a world, torture may be conducive to human flourishing or be, in fact, a virtuous activity.There may be something to this response. The problem with this response is that it still fails to provide reasons for thinking that the above-mentioned conditional is false. In order for this conditional to be false it must be logically possible not just for God to command an action but for that action to be wrong in the given situation. Perrett and Hajdin provide us reasons for thinking that it is possible for a perfectly-good being to command actions such as torture or cruelty. However, the situations envisaged are ones in which torture is not, in fact, wrong. In the situation Perrett envisages, torture is, in fact, virtuous and in Hajdin’s torture is good. In such examples it is the virtuous nature of torture that makes it plausible to assume that a perfectly-good being could command it.

It remains doubtful whether a logically-possible situation in which God commands an action and that action is wrong could exist. This is because a perfectly-good being would not command wrongdoing. To the extent that we think a perfectly-good being could command a particular action, we have reasons for thinking the action permissible. On the other hand, to the extent that we think it is impossible for the action to be wrong we find it impossible to envisage how a perfectly-good being could command it.

In Part III I will look at the emptiness objection.

[i] Singer, Practical Ethics, 3.
[ii] James Rachels, Elements of Moral Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) 42.
[iii] Singer, Practical Ethics, 3.
[iv] Rachels The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 42
[v] Phillip Quinn, “Divine Command Theory,” in Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, ed. H Lafollette (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 2000) 70.

The Euthyphro Objection Part I: Against Divine Commands & Avoiding Strawmen

Matt — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:13:00 +0000

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, Singer offers the following argument.

[E]thics is not something intelligible only in the context of religion. I shall treat ethics entirely independent of religion. 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 that if the gods approve of some actions it must be because those actions are good, in which case it cannot be the gods’ approval that makes them good. The alternative view makes God’s approval entirely arbitrary: if the gods had happened to approve of torture and disapprove of helping our neighbours, torture would be good and helping our neighbours bad.[i]

Several features of this critique are noteworthy. Singer identifies a position known as the divine command theory of ethics. He construes this position as the view that “the very meaning of “good” is nothing other than “what God approves.” He bases this on the testimony of “some theists”. Singer’s argument here consists of three stages. He proposes the famous dilemma proposed by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue, Euthyphro. He then claims that divine command theory makes God’s commands arbitrary. He asserts that acceptance of divine command theory entails that paradigmatically-evil actions such as torture could be good. He concludes that divine command theory makes God’s goodness redundant,

Some modern theists have attempted to extricate themselves from this type of dilemma by maintaining that God is good and so could not possibly approve of torture; but these theists are caught in a trap of their own making, for what can they possibly mean by the assertion that God is good? That God is approved by God?[ii]

In this three part blog series I will respond to the Euthyphro dilemma. In this post I will comment upon Singer’s description of his opponents’ position and suggest it is a straw-man. In the next two posts I will assess the arguments he proposes and argue they are unsuccessful. Contrary to what is commonly asserted in ethics textbooks and first year philosophy lectures, I do not think the Euthyphro dilemma is sound.

As I stated above, Singer’s argument is an attack upon a position known in the literature as divine command theory or voluntarism. Schneewind notes that in the late Middle Ages two schools emerged as to the relationship between God and the existence of an objective law. The first and older position is known as Intellectualism. In this view, God does not create morality; rather, God’s will is guided by his intellectual knowledge of eternal moral standards. The second position is divine command theory. This position grounded the moral law not so much in God’s intellect but in his will. God himself creates the moral law.[iii]

It is worth noting at this juncture that divine command theory is only one possible way of construing the nature of divine law and since Singer only offers an argument against this position, even if his argument is sound it fails to establish that the idea of divine law is problematic. Nevertheless, even as a critique of this theory the argument appears to attack a straw man.

Singer construes divine command theory as claiming “the very meaning of ‘good’ is nothing other than ‘what God approves.’” It appears then that Singer characterises divine command theory as a theory about the meaning of the evaluative term “good”; however, this is a caricature.

Few, if any, notable defenders of divine command theory propose it as a theory about the meaning of the term ‘good’. This is demonstrated by examining the literature of those contemporary theists who do defend versions of the theory. A notable, contemporary defender of divine command theory is Robert Adams. In Divine Command Ethics Modified Again and later in his monograph Finite and Infinite Good, Adams puts forward the view that “ethical wrongness is (i.e., is identical with) the property of being contrary to the commands of a loving God”.[iv] [Emphasis original]

Note two things here; firstly, Adams does not offer a theory about ‘the good’ but explicitly limits his theory to deontological properties such as wrongness. Secondly, his theory is not about the meaning of terms; rather it is a metaphysical claim about identity.

This last distinction is important. Contemporary philosophy of language offers several examples of this distinction between two terms having the same meaning and two things being identical. One of the most famous is the relationship between water and H20. Water is H20. This is a claim of identity. The liquid on earth that we call water is hydrogen hydroxide. However, this is not a claim of meaning. The claim that water is H20 is not an analytic truth that is true in virtue of the meaning of the words, rather it is a claim discovered by empirical investigation. Moreover, a competent language user could refer to water and understand the meaning of this term without needing to know about the atomic structure H20. Similar examples are available with such claims as ‘the morning star is the evening star’ or ‘Superman is Clark Kent.’ In each case, we have a statement of identity that is distinct from the claim that two words have the same meaning. Adams then explicitly denies he is proposing the position Singer attributes to modern theists.

Similar things can be said about the other major defenders of divine command theory. William Alston holds that divine commands are constitutive of deontological properties and notes Adam’s identity claim as a paradigm of the type of relationship he is defending.[v]

Philip Quinn defends a version of divine command theory that is limited to the deontological status of actions.

In speaking of the deontological status of an action, I mean to refer to whether it has such properties as being morally permitted, being morally forbidden or prohibited, and being morally obligatory or required.[vi]

Quinn argues that God’s commands cause or bring about these properties. He specifically denies that he is offering a theory of ‘the good’ in general or that the relationship between God’s commands and moral properties is one of meaning. In fact, he argues against such a view.[vii]

Edward Weirenga defends a similar theory proposing that divine commands are those properties of actions that make them possess deontic properties such as right and wrong. He does not affirm that the word ‘good’ means commanded by God.[viii] Similarly, John Hare argues, “that what makes something obligatory for us is that God commands it”.[ix]

This is not just true of contemporary defenders of divine command theory. In a survey of the historical literature, Janine Marie Idziak notes that, historically, divine command theory was usually understood as a theory about what makes actions right and wrong and not a theory about the meaning of moral terms.[x] Moreover, historically, divine command theorists such as Locke[xi] and Puffendorf limited it to deontological properties and not to broader axiological properties such as goodness.

Robert Adams did defend a semantic theory in some of his earlier writings but, as noted, he later rejected his theory in favour of the one I sketched above. Moreover, the semantic theory Adams did initially defend bears little resemblance to the interpretation of divine command theory made by Singer. Adams explicitly asserted that his theory was limited to analysing the meaning of the word wrong and not broader notions such as goodness. Moreover, it was limited to an analysis of what the word means in Judeo-Christian discourse not what the word meant in general.[xii]

It is difficult then to ascertain to whom exactly Singer is referring when he states “Some theists” hold this view and he fails to provide any citations as to whom he is referring. He appears to attack a straw man that has little resemblance to the theory as it has usually been articulated and defended in both historical and contemporary literature.

Not only does Singer attack a straw man but attention to the arguments he uses reveals that in the very next sentence he changes his interpretation from a theory of meaning to a dependence or causal theory. Immediately after stating, “the very meaning of “good” [is nothing other than] what God approves”, Singer follows Plato in suggesting that either something is good because God approves of it or God approves of it because it is good.[xiii] However, this presupposes that the relationship between divine approval and goodness is some kind of asymmetrical relationship where one entity in the relationship is temporally or ontologically prior to the other.

If, as Singer maintains, divine command theory is the claim that “the very meaning of ‘good’ is nothing other than ‘what God approves’,” then the relationship between divine approval and goodness is not an asymmetrical relationship but rather a relationship of meaning so this dilemma simply does not apply.

Consider the following example. A person tells you that a bachelor is an unmarried man because the word bachelor means unmarried man. It would not make sense to respond to this claim ‘yes, but is he a bachelor because he is unmarried or is he unmarried because he is a bachelor?’ A person’s unmarried-ness is not prior to or the cause of his bachelorhood nor is his bachelorhood the cause of his being unmarried. His being unmarried is just a different way of referring to his bachelorhood. The relationship between a bachelor and an unmarried man is not causal; the relationship is one of meaning.

Immediately after stating that divine command theory is a theory about the meaning of terms, Singer offers an objection that presupposes it is not a semantic theory but a causal one. However, only a few lines later he offers the following objection to the theory “what can they [theists] possibly mean by the assertion that God is good? That God is approved by God?”[xiv] Here Singer’s objection relies on the claim that good means approved by God in order to generate the trap he refers to. Not only does Singer attack a straw man but also his target appears to change throughout the discussion. In fact, it appears to change in order to fit the objections raised.

In Part II I look at arbitrariness.

[i] Singer, Practical Ethics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 3.
[ii] Ibid., 3-4.
[iii] Jerome Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 8-9.
[iv] Robert Adams, “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again,” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979): 76.
[v] William Alston, “Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists,” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy, ed. Michael Beaty (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 303-304.
[vi] Phillip Quinn, “An Argument for Divine Command Theory,” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy, ed. Michael Beaty (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 291.
[vii] Ibid., 293.
[viii] Edward Weirenga, The Nature of God: An Inquiry into the Divine Attributes, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), 215-27. See also “Utilitarianism and the Divine Command Theory,” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984): 311-318 and “A Defensible Divine Command Theory,” Nous 17 (1983): 387-408.
[ix] John Hare, God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands and Human Autonomy, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), 49.
[x] Janine Maree Idziak, “In Search of Good Positive Reasons for an Ethics of Divine Commands: A Catalogue of Arguments,” Faith and Philosophy 6:1 (1989): 60.
[xi] For a defence of the claim that Locke was a voluntarist see Francis Oakley & Elliot W. Urdang, “Locke, Natural Law and God,” Natural Law Forum, 11 (1966): 92-109.
[xii] Robert Adams, “A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness” In Divine Commands and Morality, ed. Paul Helm (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 83-108.
[xiii] Singer, Practical Ethics, 4.
[xiv] Ibid., 3-4.
[xv] Ibid.
[xvi] Ibid., 40.