How do moral realists respond to the evolutionary Euthyphro dilemma?
The only properly philosophical answer to this question is to suggest that following moral principles means conforming to the true essence of human nature; that being moral means being a fully evolved human. But that will not make sense to anyone who does not understand and accept that the conventional human behavior we see around us does not constitute the true essence of humanity. Someone who believes that the human ideal is the selfish, reactive, animalistic behavior that most of us consider ‘normal’ — who believes that humans should best retreat to primitive primate life, grasping and snuffling after personal gains, and throwing poop at each other whenever we get frightened or frustrated — such a person cannot rise to moral discussion.It doesn’t really matter to me how one conceives this, and it has been conceived in myriad different ways:The Jewish/Christian/Muslim model that imagines a unique human soul that must be idealized and protected and elevatedThe Hindu model, that imagines a godhead we all strive to attainThe Buddhist/daoist model that tries to convince people to release and relax into ‘natural’ behaviorThe model of Liberal philosophy that imagines reason as the ultimate force for constructing a moral worldThe Nietzschean/existentialist/phenomenologist model that looks for moral truth in full individual authenticityThe various developmental approaches of academic psychology that try to outline the correct trajectory of cognitive evolutionThe modern social theoretical approaches that see individuals as enmeshed in social communities, and sees the moral advancement of the individual as synonymous with the moral advancement of the social contextWhatever case you want to choose, the idea that there is a human ideal built into our very nature, and that we have to reach for it and develop it in order to access it. The only real sin (to borrow a term from the Abrahamic faiths) in all of these cases is to fail to reach: to fail to have ideals, or to seek out development, but to collapse into a valueless, meaningless nihilism. The only human sin is to not try to be human. Take it as you will…
Is this a decent solution to the Euthyphro dilemma?
For those unfamiliar with the question that raises the dilemma: "Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?" A dilemma arises where God is subject to a moral law beyond himself, or that the law is moral not objectively but because he arbitrarily decided it was moral. (If God decided that killing people for fun was moral, then it would be moral.) My solution: The moral law as we know it is moral because God willed it, and it's good because God willed it, for God is goodness itself. If God had willed a moral law that was the reverse of the moral law we know, it too would be bring about the good, but the good fruits of it could not be known or properly executed within the parameters of this particular creation. Killing people for fun has bad fruits here, but killing people for fun could be moral and have good fruits in another creation unlike our own where it would be possible and morally necessary to kill people for fun. We can't comprehend how it would be moral to kill people for fun, and we can't imagine a world where killing people for fun is part of the moral law that results in fruits, and the good, for a society to function. But with God all things are possible, and the moral law relative to this universe/world isn't necessarily the moral law relative to other universes/worlds. Please feel free to critique or fine-tune my solution.
Explain the divine command theory. Explain the Euthyphro dilemma argument.?
This is whole question Explain the divine command theory. Explain the Euthyphro dilemma argument. What does the Euthyphro dilemma argument show about the relationship between morality and religion? Is there any other important way in which morality depends on religion?
Questions about Plato and the Euthyphro dialogue?
Hi, I'm in a philosophy class and have to write an essay. Honestly, I don't understand it at all. The essay has to be 3 pages in length. I AM NOT ASKING FOR YOU TO WRITE IT FOR ME. I don't want to plagiarize. Anyway, here's the essay topic: How and why does Plato argue against the divine command theory of morality? How does Plato's critique of the Olympian deities pave the way for the later fusion of Greek philosophy and Judaic-Christianity? Show how the dialogue, the Euthyphro, embodies Plato's conception of philosophy in terms of the allegory of the cave and the divided line. For the first part, I believe it has something to do with the Euthyphro dilemma. The second part has something to do with how Plato criticized the gods for not being perfect or something. The third part has to do with connecting the Euthyphro to Plato's other ideas from The Republic Books V-VII. Sorry if that's not much help. I'm not trying to cheat or anything, I'm just really having a hard time understanding this. Philosophy isn't really my subject. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Why do Atheists believe a benevolent God could not allow evil in the world?
Would you think a person who callously watched as his friend was helplessly slaughtered by an oncoming train, was a benevolent person?If God exists and is guilty of “crimes”, he’d be charged with much more than “crimes of passivity”. Oh no. He’d be charged with direct crimes against humanity, a label befitting for “godly” acts such as the creation of pediatric cancer and the sanctioning of genocides.I am not versed at all with the fancy lexicon used in theological circles, but let me describe an argument I believe many (if not most) theists make: God is an all-knowing parent. If a parent took away a kid’s toy, the kid would accuse his parent of being “mean” (or in our analogy, “evil”). However, God knows what is best for us in the long run, just like a father/mother knows what’s best for his/her child.Reading a bit about philosophy, we see the famous Euthyphro dilemma (see Euthyphro dilemma) which asks whether morals objectively exist regardless of the existence of a God, or whether morals are objective as a result of God’s existence itself. Theists usually state that the latter is true, arguing about the glory of divine command theory, which in essence states that if an act is commanded by God, it is moral, and vice versa. The problem with such a framework is that it begins with the assumption that God exists, and then uses such an assumption to set up an arbitrary moral code which completely devalues human empathy as it exists today.In a logical scenario which assumes God’s nature to be a rapist, rape would be completely morally sanctionable (if you argue that God’s nature is against rape, understand that this implies that morality is separate from God, and alas theists fall into this circular trap all too often). In a logical scenario where God was a terrorist, human empathy would either have to reflect a predisposition for terror, or be completely counterproductive in that a “Golden rule-reflecting” empathy would directly resist this God’s nature. According to the theistic world view, human empathy is completely irrelevant.The assumption that God is inherently benevolent is just as dogmatic, if not more so, than the assumption that nihilism must dictate how our society functions. Theists love to bash the latter, but they refuse to acknowledge the barbarity of the former.
Why are the New Atheists so confident about their ability to derive "ought" from "is"?
Why are the New Atheists so confident about their ability to derive "ought" from "is"?In my experience, the fallacy is much more common among the religious, at least Christians.Most atheists, New or not, probably don't spend time considering Hume's guillotine and hence have no explicit position. I suspect that they, and indeed most people, proceed by vaguely utilitarian logic from certain moral principles of fairness and so forth, which I also accept though I, being more explicit, can pompously label them moral axioms.A few atheists, à la Harris, have thought about it but fail to acknowledge that taking the axioms as objective is a violation of Hume's guillotine. (I haven't read Harris's notorious book, so I'm not sure if he himself explicitly commits this fallacy.)Among theists...well, as I said, I think most, including rank-and-file Christians, proceed from similar grounds as mine -- but among Christians who write about it, violating the distinction seems to be de rigeur if not outright required. In spite of having the Euthyphro dilemma to point out the basic problem since before their religion was invented, they insist that morality based in their god is objective yet somehow avoids the guillotine, usually arguing either ad baculum or by mere assertion.A less luminous Christian position combines the worst of both approaches by adding a selfish utilitarianism by saying that the reason you ought to do the objectively good their god wants is to avoid punishment and gain reward.Again, I want to emphasise that I don't necessarily think that this represents most Christians. I think that apologists who address the topic of moral absolutism probably have a different position from most believers, because they have an ideological need to give their god ontological primacy no matter what. (I wouldn't be surprised to find many Christians thinking that their god does recognise an extrinsic standard for goodness and perfectly meets it, for instance, rather than define it. This would make more sense to me, anyway...)But I do think that among atheists and theists who publish arguments and opinions on moral absolutism, New Atheists are the group most likely to deny the existence of absolute morality, and Christians are by far the most likely to violate Hume's guillotine.
Is something pious because it is loved by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is pious?
It's trivial to note that societies disagree with each other about what is virtuous. On those matter, they can't all be correct, and at least one of them must be objectively wrong. Therefore it's clear that society can't have any special position with respect to what is objectively good or objectively evil.That was the whole point of Plato ascribing this to "gods". They don't suffer the same problem. Instead, you just got the fact that everybody was pretty damn vague on exactly what it was those gods thought was virtuous.There are things that societies more or less universally agree on as "good" and "evil", but it's worth noting that those things are exactly those things that make it possible to function in a society. So that's just self-serving and circular; it isn't proven that society itself is "good" in any particular sense.As far as I'm concerned the Euthyphro problem made it obvious that there was no point in trying to discuss "objective good", but since rehashing it is more fun than thinking, I expect armchair philosophers to waste at least another thousand years on it. Why stop now, just when we're having fun?