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Socrates

The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro, "Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (10a)

Although it was originally applied to the ancient Greek pantheon, the dilemma has implications for modern monotheistic religions. Gottfried Leibniz asked whether the good and just "is good and just because God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good and just".[1] Ever since Plato's original discussion, this question has presented a problem for some theists, though others have thought it a false dilemma, and it continues to be an object of theological and philosophical discussion today.

The dilemma

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Socrates and Euthyphro discuss the nature of piety in Plato's Euthyphro. Euthyphro proposes (6e) that the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) is the same thing as that which is loved by the gods (τὸ θεοφιλές), but Socrates finds a problem with this proposal: the gods may disagree among themselves (7e). Euthyphro then revises his definition, so that piety is only that which is loved by all of the gods unanimously (9e).

At this point the dilemma surfaces. Socrates asks whether the gods love the pious because it is the pious, or whether the pious is pious only because it is loved by the gods (10a). Socrates and Euthyphro both contemplate the first option: surely the gods love the pious because it is the pious. But this means, Socrates argues, that we are forced to reject the second option: the fact that the gods love something cannot explain why the pious is the pious (10d). Socrates points out that if both options were true, they would yield a vicious circle, with the gods loving the pious because it is the pious, and the pious being the pious because the gods love it. And this, in turn, means Socrates argues, that the pious is not the same as the god-beloved, for what makes the pious the pious is not what makes the god-beloved the god-beloved. After all, what makes the god-beloved the god-beloved is that the gods love it, whereas what makes the pious the pious is something else (9d-11a). Thus Euthyphro's theory does not give us the very nature of the pious, but at most a quality of the pious (11ab).

The dilemma can be modified to apply to philosophical theism, where it is still the object of theological and philosophical discussion, largely within the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. As German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz presented this version of the dilemma: "It is generally agreed that whatever God wills is good and just. But there remains the question whether it is good and just because God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good and just; in other words, whether justice and goodness are arbitrary or whether they belong to the necessary and eternal truths about the nature of things."[2] Many philosophers and theologians have addressed the Euthyphro dilemma since the time of Plato, though not always with reference to the Platonic dialogue. According to scholar Terence Irwin, the issue and its connection with Plato was revived by Ralph Cudworth and Samuel Clarke in the 17th and 18th centuries.[3] More recently, it has received a great deal of attention from contemporary philosophers working in metaethics and the philosophy of religion. Philosophers and theologians aiming to defend theism against the threat of the dilemma have developed a variety of responses.

Solution: God commands it because it is right

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Supporters

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The first horn of the dilemma (i.e. that which is right is commanded by God because it is right) goes by a variety of names, including intellectualism, rationalism, realism, naturalism, and objectivism. Roughly, it is the view that there are independent moral standards: some actions are right or wrong in themselves, independent of God's commands. This is the view accepted by Socrates and Euthyphro in Plato's dialogue. The Mu'tazilah school of Islamic theology also defended the view (with, for example, Nazzam maintaining that God is powerless to engage in injustice or lying),[4] as did the Islamic philosopher Averroes.[5] Thomas Aquinas never explicitly addresses the Euthyphro dilemma, but Aquinas scholars often put him on this side of the issue.[6][7] Aquinas draws a distinction between what is good or evil in itself and what is good or evil because of God's commands,[8] with unchangeable moral standards forming the bulk of natural law.[9] Thus he contends that not even God can change the Ten Commandments (adding, however, that God can change what individuals deserve in particular cases, in what might look like special dispensations to murder or stealing).[10] Among later Scholastics, Gabriel Vásquez is particularly clear-cut about obligations existing prior to anyone's will, even God's.[11][12] Modern natural law theory saw Grotius and Leibniz also putting morality prior to God's will, comparing moral truths to unchangeable mathematical truths, and engaging voluntarists like Pufendorf in philosophical controversy.[13] Cambridge Platonists like Benjamin Whichcote and Ralph Cudworth mounted seminal attacks on voluntarist theories, paving the way for the later rationalist metaethics of Samuel Clarke and Richard Price;[14][15][16] what emerged was a view on which eternal moral standards, though dependent on God in some way, exist independently of God's will and prior to God's commands. Contemporary philosophers of religion who embrace this horn of the Euthyphro dilemma include Richard Swinburne[17][18] and T. J. Mawson[19] (though see below for complications).

Criticisms

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  • Sovereignty: If there are moral standards independent of God's will, then "[t]here is something over which God is not sovereign. God is bound by the laws of morality instead of being their establisher. Moreover, God depends for his goodness on the extent to which he conforms to an independent moral standard. Thus, God is not absolutely independent."[20] 18th-century philosopher Richard Price, who takes the first horn and thus sees morality as "necessary and immutable", sets out the objection as follows: "It may seem that this is setting up something distinct from God, which is independent of him, and equally eternal and necessary."[21]
  • Omnipotence: These moral standards would limit God's power: not even God could oppose them by commanding what is evil and thereby making it good. This point was influential in Islamic theology: "In relation to God, objective values appeared as a limiting factor to His power to do as He wills... Ash'ari got rid of the whole problem by denying the existence of objective values which might act as a standard for God's action."[22] Similar concerns drove the medieval voluntarists Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.[23] As modern philosopher Richard Swinburne puts the point, this horn "seems to place a restriction on God's power if he cannot make any action which he chooses obligatory... [and also] it seems to limit what God can command us to do. God, if he is to be God, cannot command us to do what, independently of his will, is wrong."[24]
  • Freedom of the will: Moreover, these moral standards would limit God's freedom of will: God could not command anything opposed to them, and perhaps would have no choice but to command in accordance with them.[25] As Mark Murphy puts the point, "if moral requirements existed prior to God's willing them, requirements that an impeccable God could not violate, God's liberty would be compromised."[26]
  • Morality without God: If there are moral standards independent of God, then morality would retain its authority even if God did not exist. This conclusion was explicitly (and notoriously) drawn by early modern political theorist Hugo Grotius: "What we have been saying [about the natural law] would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God, or that the affairs of men are of no concern to him"[27] On such a view, God is no longer a "law-giver" but at most a "law-transmitter" who plays no vital role in the foundations of morality.[28] Nontheists have capitalized on this point, largely as a way of disarming moral arguments for God's existence: if morality does not depend on God in the first place, such arguments stumble at the starting gate.[29]

Responses to criticisms

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Contemporary philosophers Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz take the first horn of the dilemma, branding divine command theory a "subjective theory of value" that makes morality arbitrary.[30] They accept a theory of morality on which, "right and wrong, good and bad, are in a sense independent of what anyone believes, wants, or prefers."[31] They do not address the problems mentioned above with the first horn, but do consider a related problem concerning God's omnipotence: namely, that it might be handicapped by his inability to bring about what is independently evil. To this they reply that God is omnipotent, even though there are states of affairs he cannot bring about: omnipotence is a matter of "maximal power", not an ability to bring about all possible states of affairs. And supposing that it is impossible for God not to exist, then since there cannot be more than one omnipotent being, it is therefore impossible for any being to have more power than God (e.g., a being who is omnipotent but not omnibenevolent). Thus God's omnipotence remains intact.[32]

Richard Swinburne and T. J. Mawson have a slightly more complicated view. They both take the first horn of the dilemma when it comes to necessary moral truths. But divine commands are not totally irrelevant, for God and his will can still effect contingent moral truths.[33][34][18][19] On the one hand, the most fundamental moral truths hold true regardless of whether God exists or what God has commanded: "Genocide and torturing children are wrong and would remain so whatever commands any person issued."[24] This is because, according to Swinburne, such truths are true as a matter of logical necessity: like the laws of logic, one cannot deny them without contradiction.[35] This parallel offers a solution to the aforementioned problems of God's sovereignty, omnipotence, and freedom: namely, that these necessary truths of morality pose no more of a threat than the laws of logic.[36][37][38] On the other hand, there is still an important role for God's will. First, there are some divine commands that can directly create moral obligations: e.g., the command to worship on Sundays instead of on Tuesdays.[39] Notably, not even these commands, for which Swinburne and Mawson take the second horn of the dilemma, have ultimate, underived authority. Rather, they create obligations only because of God's role as creator and sustainer and indeed owner of the universe, together with the necessary moral truth that we owe some limited consideration to benefactors and owners.[40][41] Second, God can make an indirect moral difference by deciding what sort of universe to create. For example, whether a public policy is morally good might indirectly depend on God's creative acts: the policy's goodness or badness might depend on its effects, and those effects would in turn depend on the sort of universe God has decided to create.[42][43]

Solution: It is right because God commands it

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Supporters

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The second horn of the dilemma (i.e. that which is right is right because it is commanded by God) is sometimes known as divine command theory or voluntarism. Roughly, it is the view that there are no moral standards other than God's will: without God's commands, nothing would be right or wrong. This view was partially defended by Duns Scotus, who argued that not all Ten Commandments belong to the Natural Law in the strictest sense.[44] Scotus held that while our duties to God (the first three commandments, traditionally thought of as the First Tablet) are self-evident, true by definition, and unchangeable even by God, our duties to others (found on the second tablet) were arbitrarily willed by God and are within his power to revoke and replace (although, the third commandment, to honour the Sabbath and keep it holy, has a little of both, as we are absolutely obliged to render worship to God, but there is no obligation in natural law to do it on this day or that). Scotus does note, however that the last seven commandments "are highly consonant with [the natural law], though they do not follow necessarily from first practical principles that are known in virtue of their terms and are necessarily known by any intellect [that understands their terms. And it is certain that all the precepts of the second table belong to the natural law in this second way, since their rectitude is highly consonant with first practical principles that are known necessarily".[45][46][47][48] Scotus justifies this position with the example of a peaceful society, noting that the possession of private property is not necessary to have a peaceful society, but that "those of weak character" would be more easily made peaceful with private property than without.

William of Ockham went further, contending that (since there is no contradiction in it) God could command us not to love God[49] and even to hate God.[50] Later Scholastics like Pierre D'Ailly and his student Jean de Gerson explicitly confronted the Euthyphro dilemma, taking the voluntarist position that God does not "command good actions because they are good or prohibit evil ones because they are evil; but... these are therefore good because they are commanded and evil because prohibited."[51] Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin both stressed the absolute sovereignty of God's will, with Luther writing that "for [God's] will there is no cause or reason that can be laid down as a rule or measure for it",[52] and Calvin writing that "everything which [God] wills must be held to be righteous by the mere fact of his willing it."[53] The voluntarist emphasis on God's absolute power was carried further by Descartes, who notoriously held that God had freely created the eternal truths of logic and mathematics, and that God was therefore capable of giving circles unequal radii,[54] giving triangles other than 180 internal degrees, and even making contradictions true.[55] Descartes explicitly seconded Ockham: "why should [God] not have been able to give this command [i.e., the command to hate God] to one of his creatures?"[56] Thomas Hobbes notoriously reduced the justice of God to "irresistible power"[57] (drawing the complaint of Bishop Bramhall that this "overturns... all law").[58] And William Paley held that all moral obligations bottom out in the self-interested "urge" to avoid Hell and enter Heaven by acting in accord with God's commands.[59] Islam's Ash'arite theologians, al-Ghazali foremost among them, embraced voluntarism: scholar George Hourani writes that the view "was probably more prominent and widespread in Islam than in any other civilization."[60][61] Wittgenstein said that of "the two interpretations of the Essence of the Good", that which holds that "the Good is good, in virtue of the fact that God wills it" is "the deeper", while that which holds that "God wills the good, because it is good" is "the shallow, rationalistic one, in that it behaves 'as though' that which is good could be given some further foundation".[62] Today, divine command theory is defended by many philosophers of religion, though typically in a restricted form (see below).

Criticisms

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This horn of the dilemma also faces several problems:

  • No reasons for morality: If there is no moral standard other than God's will, then God's commands are arbitrary (i.e., based on pure whimsy or caprice). This would mean that morality is ultimately not based on reasons: "if theological voluntarism is true, then God's commands/intentions must be arbitrary; [but] it cannot be that morality could wholly depend on something arbitrary... [for] when we say that some moral state of affairs obtains, we take it that there is a reason for that moral state of affairs obtaining rather than another."[63] And as Michael J. Murray and Michael Rea put it, this would also "cas[t] doubt on the notion that morality is genuinely objective."[64] An additional problem is that it is difficult to explain how true moral actions can exist if one acts only out of fear of God or in an attempt to be rewarded by him.[65]
  • No reasons for God: This arbitrariness would also jeopardize God's status as a wise and rational being, one who always acts on good reasons. As Leibniz writes: "Where will be his justice and his wisdom if he has only a certain despotic power, if arbitrary will takes the place of reasonableness, and if in accord with the definition of tyrants, justice consists in that which is pleasing to the most powerful? Besides it seems that every act of willing supposes some reason for the willing and this reason, of course, must precede the act."[66]
  • Anything goes:[67] This arbitrariness would also mean that anything could become good, and anything could become bad, merely upon God's command. Thus if God commanded us "to gratuitously inflict pain on each other"[68] or to engage in "cruelty for its own sake"[69] or to hold an "annual sacrifice of randomly selected ten-year-olds in a particularly gruesome ritual that involves excruciating and prolonged suffering for its victims",[70] then we would be morally obligated to do so. As 17th-century philosopher Ralph Cudworth put it: "nothing can be imagined so grossly wicked, or so foully unjust or dishonest, but if it were supposed to be commanded by this omnipotent Deity, must needs upon that hypothesis forthwith become holy, just, and righteous."[71]
  • Moral contingency: If morality depends on the perfectly free will of God, morality would lose its necessity: "If nothing prevents God from loving things that are different from what God actually loves, then goodness can change from world to world or time to time. This is obviously objectionable to those who believe that claims about morality are, if true, necessarily true."[67] In other words, no action is necessarily moral: any right action could have easily been wrong, if God had so decided, and an action which is right today could easily become wrong tomorrow, if God so decides. Indeed, some have argued that divine command theory is incompatible with ordinary conceptions of moral supervenience.[72]
  • Why do God's commands obligate?: Mere commands do not create obligations unless the commander has some commanding authority. But this commanding authority cannot itself be based on those very commands (i.e., a command to obey commands), otherwise a vicious circle results. So, in order for God's commands to obligate us, he must derive commanding authority from some source other than his own will. As Cudworth put it: "For it was never heard of, that any one founded all his authority of commanding others, and others [sic] obligation or duty to obey his commands, in a law of his own making, that men should be required, obliged, or bound to obey him. Wherefore since the thing willed in all laws is not that men should be bound or obliged to obey; this thing cannot be the product of the meer [sic] will of the commander, but it must proceed from something else; namely, the right or authority of the commander."[73] To avoid the circle, one might say our obligation comes from gratitude to God for creating us. But this presupposes some sort of independent moral standard obligating us to be grateful to our benefactors. As 18th-century philosopher Francis Hutcheson writes: "Is the Reason exciting to concur with the Deity this, 'The Deity is our Benefactor?' Then what Reason excites to concur with Benefactors?"[74] Or finally, one might resort to Hobbes's view: "The right of nature whereby God reigneth over men, and punisheth those that break his laws, is to be derived, not from his creating them (as if he required obedience, as of gratitude for his benefits), but from his irresistible power."[75] In other words, might makes right.
  • God's goodness: If all goodness is a matter of God's will, then what shall become of God's goodness? Thus William P. Alston writes, "since the standards of moral goodness are set by divine commands, to say that God is morally good is just to say that he obeys his own commands... that God practises what he preaches, whatever that might be;"[68] Hutcheson deems such a view "an insignificant tautology, amounting to no more than this, 'That God wills what he wills.'"[76] Alternatively, as Leibniz puts it, divine command theorists "deprive God of the designation good: for what cause could one have to praise him for what he does, if in doing something quite different he would have done equally well?"[77] A related point is raised by C. S. Lewis: "if good is to be defined as what God commands, then the goodness of God Himself is emptied of meaning and the commands of an omnipotent fiend would have the same claim on us as those of the 'righteous Lord.'"[78] Or again Leibniz: "this opinion would hardly distinguish God from the devil."[79] That is, since divine command theory trivializes God's goodness, it is incapable of explaining the difference between God and an all-powerful demon.
  • The is-ought problem and the naturalistic fallacy: According to David Hume, it is hard to see how moral propositions featuring the relation ought could ever be deduced from ordinary is propositions, such as "the being of a God."[80] Divine command theory is thus guilty of deducing moral oughts from ordinary ises about God's commands.[81] In a similar vein, G. E. Moore argued (with his open question argument) that the notion good is indefinable, and any attempts to analyze it in naturalistic or metaphysical terms are guilty of the so-called "naturalistic fallacy."[82] This would block any theory which analyzes morality in terms of God's will: and indeed, in a later discussion of divine command theory, Moore concluded that "when we assert any action to be right or wrong, we are not merely making an assertion about the attitude of mind towards it of any being or set of beings whatever."[83]
  • No morality without God: If all morality is a matter of God's will, then if God does not exist, there is no morality. This is the thought captured in the slogan (often attributed to Dostoevsky) "If God does not exist, everything is permitted." Divine command theorists disagree over whether this is a problem for their view or a virtue of their view. Many argue that morality does indeed require God's existence, and that this is in fact a problem for atheism. But divine command theorist Robert Merrihew Adams contends that this idea ("that no actions would be ethically wrong if there were not a loving God") is one that "will seem (at least initially) implausible to many", and that his theory must "dispel [an] air of paradox."[84]

Solution: Restricted divine command theory

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One common response to the Euthyphro dilemma centers on a distinction between value and obligation. Obligation, which concerns rightness and wrongness (or what is required, forbidden, or permissible), is given a voluntarist treatment. But value, which concerns goodness and badness, is treated as independent of divine commands. The result is a restricted divine command theory that applies only to a specific region of morality: the deontic region of obligation. This response is found in Francisco Suárez's discussion of natural law and voluntarism in De legibus[85] and has been prominent in contemporary philosophy of religion, appearing in the work of Robert M. Adams,[86] Philip L. Quinn,[87] and William P. Alston.[88]

A significant attraction of such a view is that, since it allows for a non-voluntarist treatment of goodness and badness, and therefore of God's own moral attributes, some of the aforementioned problems with voluntarism can perhaps be answered. God's commands are not arbitrary: there are reasons which guide his commands based ultimately on this goodness and badness.[89] God could not issue horrible commands: God's own essential goodness[81][90][91] or loving character[92] would keep him from issuing any unsuitable commands. Our obligation to obey God's commands does not result in circular reasoning; it might instead be based on a gratitude whose appropriateness is itself independent of divine commands.[93] These proposed solutions are controversial,[94] and some steer the view back into problems associated with the first horn.[95]

One problem remains for such views: if God's own essential goodness does not depend on divine commands, then the question regards what it does depend on. Perhaps something other than God. Here the restricted divine command theory is commonly combined with a view reminiscent of Plato: God is identical to the ultimate standard for goodness.[96] Alston offers the analogy of the standard meter bar in France. Something is a meter long inasmuch as it is the same length as the standard meter bar, and likewise, something is good inasmuch as it approximates God. If one asks why God is identified as the ultimate standard for goodness, Alston replies that this is "the end of the line," with no further explanation available, but adds that this is no more arbitrary than a view that invokes a fundamental moral standard.[97] On this view, then, even though goodness is independent of God's will, it still depends on God, and thus God's sovereignty remains intact.

This solution has been criticized by Wes Morriston. If we identify the ultimate standard for goodness with God's nature, then it seems we are identifying it with certain properties of God (e.g., being loving, being just). If so, then the dilemma resurfaces: God is either good because he has those properties, or those properties are good because God has them.[98] Nevertheless, Morriston concludes that the appeal to God's essential goodness is the divine-command theorist's best bet. To produce a satisfying result, however, it would have to give an account of God's goodness that does not trivialize it and does not make God subject to an independent standard of goodness.[99]

Moral philosopher Peter Singer, disputing the perspective that "God is good" and could never advocate something like torture, states that those who propose this 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 of by God?"[100]

Solution: False dilemma

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Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas all wrote about the problems raised by the Euthyphro dilemma, although, like William James[101] and Wittgenstein[62] later, they did not mention it by name. As philosopher and Anselm scholar Katherin A. Rogers observes, many contemporary philosophers of religion suppose that there are true propositions which exist as platonic abstracta independently of God.[102] Among these are propositions constituting a moral order, to which God must conform in order to be good.[103] Classical Judaeo-Christian theism, however, rejects such a view as inconsistent with God's omnipotence, which requires that God and what he has made is all that there is.[102] "The classical tradition," Rogers notes, "also steers clear of the other horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, divine command theory."[104] From a classical theistic perspective, therefore, the Euthyphro dilemma is false. As Rogers puts it, "Anselm, like Augustine before him and Aquinas later, rejects both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. God neither conforms to nor invents the moral order. Rather His very nature is the standard for value."[102] Another criticism raised by Peter Geach is that the dilemma implies you must search for a definition that fits piety rather than work backwards by deciding pious acts (i.e. you must know what piety is before you can list acts which are pious).[105] It also implies something can not be pious if it is only intended to serve the Gods without actually fulfilling any useful purpose. Pronomian theologian Gregory Scott McKenzie postulates that the Euthyphro dilemma can only be considered a false dilemma if the Christian speaker believes in the eternal continuity of the Torah.[106]

Jewish thought

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The basis of the false dilemma response—God's nature is the standard for value—predates the dilemma itself, appearing first in the thought of the eighth-century BC Hebrew prophets, Amos, Hosea, Micah and Isaiah. (Amos lived some three centuries before Socrates and two before Thales, traditionally regarded as the first Greek philosopher.) "Their message," writes British scholar Norman H. Snaith, "is recognized by all as marking a considerable advance on all previous ideas,"[107] not least in its "special consideration for the poor and down-trodden."[108] As Snaith observes, tsedeq, the Hebrew word for righteousness, "actually stands for the establishment of God's will in the land." This includes justice, but goes beyond it, "because God's will is wider than justice. He has a particular regard for the helpless ones on earth."[109] Tsedeq "is the norm by which all must be judged" and it "depends entirely upon the Nature of God."[110]

Hebrew has few abstract nouns. What the Greeks thought of as ideas or abstractions, the Hebrews thought of as activities.[111] In contrast to the Greek dikaiosune (justice) of the philosophers, tsedeq is not an idea abstracted from this world of affairs. As Snaith writes:

Tsedeq is something that happens here, and can be seen, and recognized, and known. It follows, therefore, that when the Hebrew thought of tsedeq (righteousness), he did not think of Righteousness in general, or of Righteousness as an Idea. On the contrary, he thought of a particular righteous act, an action, concrete, capable of exact description, fixed in time and space.... If the word had anything like a general meaning for him, then it was as it was represented by a whole series of events, the sum-total of a number of particular happenings.[110]

The Hebrew stance on what came to be called the problem of universals, as on much else, was very different from that of Plato and precluded anything like the Euthyphro dilemma.[112] This has not changed. In 2005, Jonathan Sacks wrote, "In Judaism, the Euthyphro dilemma does not exist."[113] Jewish philosophers Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman criticized the Euthyphro dilemma as "misleading" because "it is not exhaustive": it leaves out a third option, namely that God "acts only out of His nature."[114]

Thomas Aquinas

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In Aquinas' view, to speak of abstractions not only as existent, but as more perfect exemplars than fully designated particulars, is to put a premium on generality and vagueness.[115] On this analysis, the abstract "good" in the first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma is an unnecessary obfuscation. Aquinas frequently quoted with approval Aristotle's definition, "Good is what all desire."[116][117] As he clarified, "When we say that good is what all desire, it is not to be understood that every kind of good thing is desired by all, but that whatever is desired has the nature of good."[118] In other words, even those who desire evil desire it "only under the aspect of good," i.e., of what is desirable.[119] The difference between desiring good and desiring evil is that in the former, will and reason are in harmony, whereas in the latter, they are in discord.[120]

Aquinas's discussion of sin provides a good point of entry to his philosophical explanation of why the nature of God is the standard for value. "Every sin," he writes, "consists in the longing for a passing [i.e., ultimately unreal or false] good."[121] Thus, "in a certain sense it is true what Socrates says, namely that no one sins with full knowledge."[122] "No sin in the will happens without an ignorance of the understanding."[123] God, however, has full knowledge (omniscience) and therefore by definition (that of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as well as Aquinas) can never will anything other than what is good. It has been claimed – for instance, by Nicolai Hartmann, who wrote: "There is no freedom for the good that would not be at the same time freedom for evil"[124] – that this would limit God's freedom, and therefore his omnipotence. Josef Pieper, however, replies that such arguments rest upon an impermissibly anthropomorphic conception of God.[125] In the case of humans, as Aquinas says, to be able to sin is indeed a consequence,[126] or even a sign, of freedom (quodam libertatis signum).[127] Humans, in other words, are not puppets manipulated by God so that they always do what is right. However, "it does not belong to the essence of the free will to be able to decide for evil."[128] "To will evil is neither freedom nor a part of freedom."[127] It is precisely humans' creatureliness – that is, their not being God and therefore omniscient – that makes them capable of sinning.[129] Consequently, writes Pieper, "the inability to sin should be looked on as the very signature of a higher freedom – contrary to the usual way of conceiving the issue."[125] Pieper concludes: "Only the will [i.e., God's] can be the right standard of its own willing and must will what is right necessarily, from within itself, and always. A deviation from the norm would not even be thinkable. And obviously only the absolute divine will is the right standard of its own act"[130][131] – and consequently of all human acts. Thus the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, divine command theory, is also disposed of.

Thomist philosopher Edward Feser writes, "Divine simplicity [entails] that God's will just is God's goodness which just is His immutable and necessary existence. That means that what is objectively good and what God wills for us as morally obligatory are really the same thing considered under different descriptions, and that neither could have been other than they are. There can be no question then, either of God's having arbitrarily commanded something different for us (torturing babies for fun, or whatever) or of there being a standard of goodness apart from Him. Again, the Euthyphro dilemma is a false one; the third option that it fails to consider is that what is morally obligatory is what God commands in accordance with a non-arbitrary and unchanging standard of goodness that is not independent of Him... He is not under the moral law precisely because He is the moral law."[132]

William James

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William James, in his essay "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life", dismisses the first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma and stays clear of the second. He writes: "Our ordinary attitude of regarding ourselves as subject to an overarching system of moral relations, true 'in themselves,' is ... either an out-and-out superstition, or else it must be treated as a merely provisional abstraction from that real Thinker ... to whom the existence of the universe is due."[133] Moral obligations are created by "personal demands," whether these demands[134] come from the weakest creatures, from the most insignificant persons, or from God. It follows that "ethics have as genuine a foothold in a universe where the highest consciousness is human, as in a universe where there is a God as well." However, whether "the purely human system" works "as well as the other is a different question."[133]

For James, the deepest practical difference in the moral life is between what he calls "the easy-going and the strenuous mood."[135] In a purely human moral system, it is hard to rise above the easy-going mood, since the thinker's "various ideals, known to him to be mere preferences of his own, are too nearly of the same denominational value;[136] he can play fast and loose with them at will. This too is why, in a merely human world without a God, the appeal to our moral energy falls short of its maximum stimulating power." Our attitude is "entirely different" in a world where there are none but "finite demanders" from that in a world where there is also "an infinite demander." This is because "the stable and systematic moral universe for which the ethical philosopher asks is fully possible only in a world where there is a divine thinker with all-enveloping demands", for in that case, "actualized in his thought already must be that ethical philosophy which we seek as the pattern which our own must evermore approach." Even though "exactly what the thought of this infinite thinker may be is hidden from us", our postulation of him serves "to let loose in us the strenuous mood"[135] and confront us with an existential[137] "challenge" in which "our total character and personal genius ... are on trial; and if we invoke any so-called philosophy, our choice and use of that also are but revelations of our personal aptitude or incapacity for moral life. From this unsparing practical ordeal no professor's lectures and no array of books can save us."[135] In the words of Richard M. Gale, "God inspires us to lead the morally strenuous life in virtue of our conceiving of him as unsurpassably good. This supplies James with an adequate answer to the underlying question of the Euthyphro."[138]

Other formulations

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In philosophical atheism

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Alexander Rosenberg uses a version of the Euthyphro dilemma to argue that objective morality cannot exist and hence an acceptance of moral nihilism is warranted.[139] He asks, is objective morality correct because evolution discovered it or did evolution discover objective morality because it is correct? If the first horn of the dilemma is true then our current morality cannot be objectively correct by accident because if evolution had given us another type of morality then that would have been objectively correct. If the second horn of dilemma is true then one must account for how the random process of evolution managed to only select for objectively correct moral traits while ignoring the wrong moral traits. Given the knowledge that evolution has given us tendencies to be xenophobic and sexist it is mistaken to claim that evolution has only selected for objective morality as evidently it did not. Because both horns of the dilemma do not give an adequate account for how the evolutionary process instantiated objective morality in humans, a position of Moral nihilism is warranted.

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Yale Law School Professor Myres S. McDougal, formerly a classicist, later a scholar of property law, posed the question, "Do we protect it because it's a property right, or is it a property right because we protect it?"[140] The dilemma has also been restated in legal terms by Geoffrey Hodgson, who asked: "Does a state make a law because it is a customary rule, or does law become a customary rule because it is approved by the state?"[141]

See also

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Notes

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References

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Further reading

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Euthyphro dilemma

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The Euthyphro dilemma is a foundational problem in moral philosophy, articulated by Socrates in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, which poses the question: Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? This query, set against the backdrop of Socrates' impending trial for impiety and corruption of the youth, examines the essence of piety (or holiness) through a series of failed definitions proposed by Euthyphro, ultimately highlighting a tension between divine will and independent moral standards. In its modern formulation, the dilemma challenges divine command theory—the view that moral rightness consists in conformity to God's commands—by presenting two unpalatable alternatives: either morality is arbitrary, dependent solely on divine fiat without intrinsic goodness, rendering ethical norms potentially capricious; or moral truths exist independently of God, suggesting that divine commands merely recognize rather than constitute obligation. The dilemma has persisted as a key objection to theistic ethics, prompting responses such as grounding morality in God's unchanging nature rather than mere volitions, though critics argue this merely relocates the problem without resolving the logical structure. Despite its ancient origins, the Euthyphro dilemma continues to influence contemporary debates in metaethics and philosophy of religion, underscoring the challenge of deriving normative ethics from ontology without circularity or arbitrariness.

Origins and Historical Context

Plato's Euthyphro Dialogue

Plato's Euthyphro is a Socratic dialogue that dramatizes a conversation between Socrates and Euthyphro, set on the porch of the King Archon (basileus) in Athens, where both men have business related to legal proceedings. Socrates has been summoned to face indictment for impiety and corrupting the youth, brought by Meletus of Pitthus, while Euthyphro, a young soothsayer and self-proclaimed expert on divine matters, intends to prosecute his own father for manslaughter after the father bound and neglected a laborer who had killed another under the influence of drunkenness, leading to the laborer's death from exposure. Euthyphro asserts his action exemplifies piety (eusebeia), as it mirrors the gods' conduct in mythological tales, such as Zeus binding Cronus and Ouranus castrating his father, insisting that relatives should be prosecuted for wrongdoing to uphold justice. Socrates, seeking to refine his defense against the impiety charge, questions on the essence of , employing his elenctic method to test definitions and expose inconsistencies. 's initial attempt to define as "what I am doing now" is rejected by as merely an instance rather than a universal form (idea), prompting to propose that is "the pursuit of what one owes to the gods" or a form of service (therapeia) akin to a slave's to a master. probes further, analogizing it to crafts like horse-training that benefit their objects, but concedes that gods, being self-sufficient, do not gain advantage from human ; instead, produces gifts like honor and reverence for the gods, though this risks portraying as a mere (emporikē technē). The dialogue pivots to the core question when Euthyphro suggests piety is "what all the gods love" (ta theophilē), in an attempt to harmonize amid divine disagreements depicted in myths. Importantly, Plato's Euthyphro contains no direct statement that the gods change their minds over time, change minds too often, or are fickle; the dialogue's argument relies instead on the gods disagreeing, quarreling, or having discord over the same actions (as depicted in myths), which creates inconsistency if piety is defined as what all gods love. Socrates then poses the pivotal dilemma: "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (to hosion estin theōn agapōmenon hoti hosion estin, ē hosion on agapōmenon?). Euthyphro affirms the latter—that piety derives from divine approbation—but Socrates counters that this implies a posterior relation: things are loved (agapōmenon) because they possess a prior quality of being lovable (philēton), suggesting circularity or that divine love does not ground piety independently. Attempts to refine this, such as piety as the part of concerned with divine service for the gods' stewardship of humanity, falter as Euthyphro struggles to distinguish it from other virtues or avoid implying gods require human aid. The exchange concludes aporetically, with Euthyphro excusing himself mid-argument and lamenting the lack of a stable definition, underscoring the elusiveness of piety's form amid shifting proposals. This early Platonic work, likely composed soon after ' execution in 399 BCE, exemplifies the Socratic quest for essential definitions through dialectical refutation, without resolving into doctrine.

Ancient Greek Polytheistic Framework

In , dominated, characterized by a pantheon of anthropomorphic deities such as , , and Apollo, each governing specific domains like sky, wisdom, and prophecy, respectively, with interactions depicted in Homeric epics dating to around the 8th century BCE. These gods possessed human-like traits, including emotions, rivalries, and moral ambiguities, as evidenced in myths where deities engaged in disputes, such as the conflicts in the , where gods took opposing sides in human affairs. This framework lacked a singular divine authority, allowing for divergent divine preferences and judgments, which underpinned religious practices aimed at appeasing multiple powers through reciprocity. Piety, or eusebeia, referred primarily to ritual actions—sacrifices, libations, festivals, and oracles—intended to secure divine favor and maintain cosmic , rather than adherence to doctrinal beliefs or ethical absolutes. In practice, individuals like priests and seers interpreted divine will variably, often invoking specific gods for particular outcomes, as seen in state cults like the Athenian honoring . Such variability reflected the decentralized of , where was pragmatic and contextual, tied to observable reciprocity (kharis) between humans and gods, without a unified imposed by the divine collective. Within this polytheistic context, Plato's dialogue, set circa 399 BCE amid Socrates' impending trial for , exposes tensions in defining relative to divine approval. , a self-proclaimed religious expert prosecuting his father for unintentional murder to uphold , proposes that the pious is what all gods love. Socrates counters by citing mythological precedents of godly discord—such as debates over in the —arguing that if gods disagree on an act's value, it could be deemed pious by some and impious by others, rendering divine love an unreliable standard for . The dialogue's argument relies on these simultaneous disagreements and quarrels among the gods (as depicted in myths) rather than any temporal fickleness or the gods changing their minds over time. Modern study guides, quizzes, and commentaries sometimes extend this to portray the gods as fickle or prone to changing their minds over time to illustrate the instability of divine command morality, but such extensions are interpretive rather than directly textual. This highlights how polytheism's fragmented divine consensus complicates grounding or religious norms in godly endorsement, setting the stage for the dilemma's horns: whether precedes or derives from divine preference. The absence of infallible divine unity in Greek polytheism thus amplifies philosophical scrutiny, as human interpreters like navigated conflicting oracles and myths without a supreme arbiter, often leading to accusations of against innovators like , who questioned traditional rituals in favor of rational inquiry. This framework prioritized —correct practice—over , yet exposed vulnerabilities when divine wills appeared at odds, influencing later monotheistic adaptations of the dilemma by emphasizing a singular God's coherence.

Core Formulation of the Dilemma

The Two Proposed Horns

The Euthyphro dilemma, as formulated in Plato's dialogue, presents two alternative explanations for the relationship between piety (or, in theistic adaptations, moral goodness) and divine approval, each leading to significant philosophical difficulties. The first option posits that something is pious (or good) because it is loved or commanded by the gods (or God). This view implies that divine will constitutes the essence of piety or goodness, making moral standards dependent on what the divine chooses to endorse. In the original polytheistic context, this raises issues of inconsistency, as the gods' conflicting preferences could render the same act both pious and impious; in monotheistic terms, it suggests that goodness lacks an intrinsic foundation beyond arbitrary decree, potentially allowing divine endorsement of any action, however abhorrent by human standards. The second option reverses the causal direction, holding that the gods (or ) love or command something because it is inherently (or good). Under this horn, or goodness exists as an objective standard prior to and independent of divine endorsement, with the divine merely recognizing and aligning with it. This preserves a non-arbitrary basis for but challenges the completeness of divine sovereignty, as it positions an external moral order that constrains or precedes God's actions, potentially reducing divine commands to descriptive rather than constitutive of ethical truth.

Philosophical Assumptions and Initial Implications

The Euthyphro dilemma presupposes the existence of objective standards of or goodness that transcend human convention, necessitating a divine or authoritative basis to explain why certain actions qualify as such. In Plato's , this assumes that the gods (or , in monotheistic adaptations) engage with through approval, love, or command, creating a relational dependency where is defined as "what all the gods love" to resolve potential divine disagreements. The dilemma further relies on a binary logical structure: either divine will constitutes goodness, or goodness exists antecedently to divine endorsement, excluding hybrid or non-reductive alternatives at the outset. These assumptions imply an initial challenge to authoritarian ethical systems, generalizing beyond to question whether any authority's can ground normative truth without circularity or external constraint. For theistic , the first horn—goodness deriving solely from divine command—suggests potential arbitrariness, as an omnipotent could theoretically contradictions like obligating harm without intrinsic justification, undermining moral stability. The second horn—divine command tracking pre-existing goodness—implies a limit on divine sovereignty, positing moral facts as metaphysically prior and potentially constraining to God, which conflicts with classical attributes like and unqualified . Initially, the dilemma thus exposes tensions in grounding objective morality within , prompting scrutiny of whether ethical realism requires independence from divine volition or risks to will. In the context, it highlighted inconsistencies in polytheistic amid godly discord, but its adaptation to amplifies implications for God's role as ultimate explanatory ground, forcing proponents to defend against charges of either moral voluntarism or Platonistic dualism. This binary pressures theistic frameworks to reconcile divine necessity with moral necessity without reducing one to the other.

Traditional Theistic Resolutions

Independent Goods Prior to Divine Will

In this resolution to the Euthyphro dilemma, theists maintain that certain moral goods constitute necessary truths that exist independently of 's will, such that commands actions because they align with these inherent goods rather than arbitrarily decreeing them good. Philosopher articulates this position by distinguishing between necessary moral truths—such as the obligation to promote well-being or avoid gratuitous harm—and contingent ones, arguing that the former are analytically necessary, akin to logical or mathematical necessities that apprehends through perfect reason and cannot coherently violate. For Swinburne, 's omnipotence excludes logical impossibilities, so commanding against these truths would be self-contradictory, preserving divine sovereignty without subordinating to an external authority; instead, these truths reflect the rational structure of reality that eternally knows. This intellectualist framework avoids the arbitrariness of pure by grounding ethics in objective, mind-independent standards that freely endorses, while affirming through 's role as creator of a moral order where such truths apply to finite beings. Swinburne contends that without 's , contingent moral obligations (e.g., duties arising from human relationships) might not obtain, but necessary truths like the wrongness of pointless persist as brute facts of , which actualizes in creation without authoring. Critics of this view, including some divine command theorists, argue it risks elevating abstract necessities above , potentially implying a Platonic realm constraining the divine, though proponents counter that such necessities are not "higher" but intrinsic to coherent , which exemplifies perfectly. Historically, echoes of this approach appear in medieval thinkers like , who linked goodness to being (ens et bonum convertuntur) as a metaphysical necessity that understands preeminently, though Aquinas ultimately integrates it with divine essence rather than strict independence. In modern theistic ethics, this resolution supports by ensuring ethical facts are non-contingent and discoverable via reason, aligning divine will with eternal verities without implying moral dualism or limiting 's creative freedom—God could abstain from moral creation altogether but chooses a where necessary goods govern rational agents. Empirical alignment is seen in cross-cultural intuitions of basic wrongs, such as torturing innocents, posited as reflections of these necessities rather than cultural artifacts or fiat.

Divine Commands as the Source of Goodness

Divine command theory posits that moral goodness and obligation arise solely from God's commands, such that an action is right if and only if it is divinely mandated. This approach directly affirms the first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, asserting that what is good is so because God wills or commands it, thereby establishing divine will as the ultimate source of ethical norms rather than an independent standard. Proponents argue that this dependency ensures morality's objectivity by anchoring it in a transcendent, authoritative will, avoiding the subordination of God to external principles that could imply a higher power or impersonal form dictating divine action. In , (c. 1287–1347) advanced a rigorous form of this theory, contending that moral status is contingent upon 's decrees; for instance, acts like or would be obligatory if God so commanded, as right reason aligns with divine legislation rather than innate essences. Ockham maintained that intentions conform to morality through obedience to these commands, with actions themselves morally neutral absent divine specification, thus emphasizing 's absolute over ethical categories. This framework resolves the dilemma by rejecting independent of God, positioning divine commands as creatively constitutive of goodness while preserving God's freedom from logical contradiction in willing opposites. Defenders of this position highlight its preservation of divine omnipotence, as it precludes any norm binding God externally, and its provision of motivational force for obedience through accountability to a personal deity capable of reward and punishment. Unlike secular ethics, it offers a metaphysical foundation where moral truths are eternal yet volitional, rooted in God's consistent decrees rather than human convention or abstract ideals. Critics within theistic traditions note implications of contingency—such that morality could theoretically differ under alternate divine volitions—but adherents counter that God's rational and benevolent nature ensures non-capricious commands in actuality, without necessitating independence.

Advanced Theistic Frameworks

Morality Grounded in God's Nature

In divine nature theory, a prominent resolution to the Euthyphro dilemma, moral goodness is identified with or necessarily grounded in the essential attributes of God's immutable , which is itself paradigmatically and necessarily good. This approach posits that actions are morally good because they reflect or conform to properties inherent to God's eternal character—such as holiness, , and benevolence—rather than deriving from arbitrary decrees or preexisting standards external to God. Proponents argue that this framework sidesteps the dilemma's horns: goodness does not precede God's commands independently, as the ultimate moral standard resides within God's essence, nor is it arbitrary, since divine commands necessarily align with this fixed, non-contingent nature. Philosopher William P. Alston, in his 1990 essay "What Euthyphro Should Have Said," defends a version of this view by contending that the dilemma presupposes a false separation between God's commands and his ; instead, moral obligations stem from commands that express God's relational stance toward creation, rooted in his loving and just essence. Similarly, theologian articulates that objective moral values exist necessarily in God's mind or character, which serves as their ontological foundation, ensuring that God's will is never capricious but eternally consistent with moral perfection. This position draws on classical theistic traditions, such as Thomas Aquinas's assertion in the Summa Theologica (c. 1270) that God's will is not opposed to his intellect or but acts in harmony with it, preserving where God's goodness is not a quality added to his being but identical to it. Critics of purely command-based theories, such as Alston and Craig, favor grounding values in God's nature to maintain moral realism without reducing ethics to voluntarism, as evidenced by the necessity of attributes like benevolence explaining why God commands benevolence rather than its opposite. Empirical alignment with theistic ethics is seen in scriptural depictions, such as Psalm 145:9 (c. 1000 BCE), which states "The Lord is good to all," portraying goodness as intrinsic to divine identity rather than decreed. This theory thus integrates ontological necessity with normative force, positing that human moral knowledge accesses these standards through reason and revelation attuned to God's character.

Restricted or Modified Divine Command Theories

Restricted divine command theories limit the scope of divine commands to moral obligations or deontic (such as rightness and wrongness), while grounding evaluative (such as goodness and badness) in God's nature or eternal character, thereby distinguishing between value and moral requirement to evade the Euthyphro dilemma's horns. Under this approach, an action's intrinsic goodness is not arbitrarily decreed but reflects God's unchanging , with divine commands then imposing obligations upon those preexisting values; for instance, benevolence is valuable because it aligns with divine benevolence, and God's command not to obligates humans because murder contravenes that value. This restriction avoids the arbitrariness of equating all with fiat commands, as obligations depend on both divine will and objective goods rooted in God, while sidestepping independence by subordinating values to the divine rather than an external standard. Proponents like argue that positing as the supreme standard of goodness terminates the regress without arbitrariness, as provides the paradigmatic instance of from which commands flow non-contingently. Similarly, restricted theories maintain that commands only what is consistent with His rational and benevolent , ensuring commands are not whimsical but expressive of eternal truths inherent to ; critics note, however, that this still risks subordinating if constrains commands, though defenders counter that and are unified in . Modified divine command theories, such as Robert Adams' formulation, further refine this by equating moral wrongness with contrariety to the commands of a loving , where "loving" specifies the divine to preclude arbitrary edicts. Adams posits that ethical terms like "wrong" are analyzable as references to divine prohibitions, but since is essentially omnibenevolent, these prohibitions necessarily align with what a perfectly loving being would require, resolving by identifying goodness with similarity to rather than external or capricious sources. This modification preserves divine sovereignty—morality originates from —while embedding commands within the necessity of divine character, as an action is obligatory it is good in light of God's eternal attributes and explicitly commanded. Empirical alignment with theistic , such as biblical prohibitions against , is cited as that commands reflect non-arbitrary benevolence, though ongoing debates question whether this fully escapes vacuity if "loving" presupposes independent moral intuitions.

Criticisms of Theistic Positions

Arguments for Arbitrariness in Divine Commands

The arbitrariness objection to (DCT) maintains that if moral goodness consists solely in what God commands, then ethical standards lack any rational foundation independent of divine whim, rendering morality capricious rather than principled. In Plato's , challenges the view that (and by extension, goodness) is determined by divine approval, arguing that gods might approve conflicting actions—such as warring over names or vengeance—implying no inherent reason distinguishes moral from immoral acts beyond arbitrary preference. This horn of the dilemma suggests that without pre-existing moral truths, divine commands could endorse opposites, undermining any claim to objective rationality in ethics. Philosophers critiquing DCT, such as Kai Nielsen, extend this by asserting that equating moral obligation with divine fiat eliminates normative reasons altogether; for instance, prohibitions against cruelty would hold not due to harm's intrinsic wrongness but merely because God decreed it, allowing hypothetically for commands to reverse such verdicts without justification. Wes Morriston reinforces this in his analysis, contending that if God's commands ground morality, they cannot be constrained by reasons appealing to God's own goodness—since that goodness is itself command-dependent—thus exposing a loop where commands appear unmotivated by anything beyond volition. Critics like Nielsen further note that this voluntarism conflicts with intuitive moral realism, where acts like gratuitous torture are deemed wrong irrespective of hypothetical divine endorsement, as rationality demands explanations rooted in consistent principles rather than unilateral decree. A related concern is the implications for divine consistency: under strict DCT, God's unchanging nature does not preclude arbitrary selection among possible commands, as no external standard binds the content of ; for example, biblical narratives of sanctioned (e.g., conquests in Deuteronomy) could theoretically extend to endorsing any atrocity if willed, highlighting the theory's vulnerability to charges of masked as absolutism. Proponents of the objection, including modern secular ethicists, argue this arbitrariness erodes trust in theistic morality's , as it fails to account for why certain commands align with human reason while others might not, absent an appeal to independent goods—which DCT explicitly rejects. Empirical observations of convergence across cultures on basics like reciprocity further suggest standards transcend mere command, challenging the notion that ethics originates purely from divine volition without deeper grounding.

Claims of Moral Standards Independent of God

Philosophers defending secular moral realism assert that objective moral standards exist as mind-independent facts, ungrounded in any divine essence or command. Russ Shafer-Landau, in Moral Realism: A Defence (2003), contends that moral truths—such as the wrongness of torturing innocents—are stance-independent, holding irrespective of human opinions, cultural norms, or supernatural decrees, and are discerned through rational ethical intuition akin to perceiving logical necessities. This framework posits moral properties as non-natural and irreducible to empirical facts, thereby claiming a foundation for normative bindingness without invoking God, as moral realism's ontological commitments suffice to explain their universality and inescapability. Evolutionary accounts further claim that moral standards emerge from biological adaptations favoring cooperation and reciprocity, predating and operating independently of religious systems. argued in The Descent of Man (1871) that the moral sense derives from inherited social instincts, observable in herd animals and refined in humans through and approbation, yielding behaviors like that enhance species survival without theological input. Empirical studies corroborate this, demonstrating that infants as young as exhibit preferences for prosocial over antisocial agents, and display fairness and in experimental settings, indicating innate moral dispositions shaped by rather than divine imposition. Proponents of these views, including researchers in psychological science, maintain that secular cooperation mechanisms—such as reputational concerns and mutualism—sustain moral compliance in large-scale societies as effectively as religious ones, with data from diverse cultures showing no between religiosity and prosociality when controlling for socioeconomic factors. For instance, of 67 countries in the 2008 revealed that belief in God does not predict charitable giving or honesty after accounting for and , supporting the claim that standards derive from evolved human and rational deliberation, not theistic . These arguments challenge theistic dependence by emphasizing causal origins in empirical processes, where intuitions function as reliable guides to human flourishing independent of validation.

Atheistic and Secular Perspectives

Uses of the Dilemma Against

The Euthyphro dilemma serves as a primary philosophical challenge to (DCT), a framework in theistic asserting that obligations derive directly from 's commands. Critics argue that the dilemma's two horns expose an irresolvable tension: either actions are morally good because God commands them, rendering morality potentially arbitrary since God could command any act, including those intuitively repugnant like gratuitous cruelty; or God commands actions because they are independently good, implying a moral standard external to and constraining divine will. Atheistic thinkers deploy the first horn to contend that DCT equates ethical truth with divine fiat, which fails to explain why certain commands align with human moral intuitions rather than contradicting them; for instance, if God decreed rape as obligatory, DCT would deem it morally required absent any non-arbitrary rationale beyond sheer volition. This arbitrariness, opponents claim, undermines theism's aspiration to ground objective morality, as it reduces ethical norms to unpredictable decrees rather than stable principles discoverable through reason or observation. The second horn is leveraged to argue that theism adds no explanatory power to morality, as an independent good—prior to divine endorsement—would suffice for ethical realism without invoking God, rendering theistic accounts superfluous or circular. Philosophers like Richard Joyce maintain that this option severs morality's purported dependence on God, allowing secular metaethics to posit moral facts as brute or emergent from natural properties, unburdened by theological commitments. Such critiques portray the dilemma as demonstrating that theism cannot uniquely secure moral objectivity, prompting assertions that nontheistic systems better avoid the posited inconsistencies.

Challenges to Objective Morality Without God

Secular frameworks attempting to establish objective morality without invoking a divine foundation encounter significant philosophical hurdles, primarily in providing a non-arbitrary ground for moral facts that bind all rational agents independently of subjective preferences or contingent evolutionary processes. Proponents of secular , such as ethical non-naturalists, posit the existence of moral properties or facts, yet these views struggle to explain their ontological status and epistemic accessibility within a naturalistic . Without a transcendent source, moral objectivity risks reducing to brute assertions that lack over why such facts compel action across diverse contexts. A foundational issue is the "is-ought" gap, articulated by in his (1739), which observes that descriptive statements about the world ("is") cannot logically entail prescriptive moral obligations ("ought") without smuggling in an unargued normative premise. In , where empirical science supplies only factual descriptions of , , or , deriving universal moral imperatives—such as the inherent wrongness of gratuitous —remains problematic, as attempts to bridge the gap often rely on contested assumptions like the intrinsic value of pleasure or rationality. This gap persists in utilitarian or contractarian theories, which prioritize outcomes or agreements but fail to justify why rational agents must adhere to them beyond . Evolutionary debunking arguments further undermine secular by questioning the reliability of moral intuitions as trackers of objective truth. Sharon Street, in her paper "A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value," contends that would shape moral beliefs primarily for adaptive fitness in social environments, not for alignment with independent moral facts; thus, widespread convictions against or may enhance survival in ancestral groups but offer no warrant for their putative objectivity in a modern, pluralistic world. Empirical data on cross-cultural moral variation, such as differing norms on honor killings or property rights documented in anthropological studies since the , supports this by illustrating how evolutionary pressures yield divergent ethical systems rather than convergence on universal truths. Additionally, J.L. Mackie's argument from queerness (1977) highlights the metaphysical oddity of objective values in a secular : such entities would need to exist as non-natural, intrinsically prescriptive properties—impervious to empirical detection yet capable of motivating action—contradicting the of the physical world posited by naturalistic science. Mackie argues this "queerness" renders untenable, as no analogous faculties or objects exist for perceiving these values, unlike sensory of phenomena. Persistent disagreements among secular philosophers on issues like the status of embryos or animal , evident in debates tracked by metaethical surveys since the , exemplify the practical epistemic challenges, suggesting no reliable method for adjudicating objective claims without deferring to or consensus, both vulnerable to .

Contemporary Developments and Debates

Responses in Christian Apologetics

Christian apologists, such as William Lane Craig, contend that the Euthyphro dilemma presupposes a false dichotomy by overlooking a third alternative: moral goodness is neither arbitrarily willed by God nor independent of him, but grounded in God's unchanging, essential nature, which is itself the paradigmatic standard of goodness. According to this view, God's commands reflect his holy, just, and loving character rather than imposing arbitrary decrees; for instance, God prohibits murder not by fiat but because such acts contradict his inherently life-affirming essence. This position maintains divine sovereignty while avoiding voluntarism, as God's nature precludes him from commanding moral contradictions, rendering certain acts—like gratuitous cruelty—logically impossible for him to endorse. Proponents argue that this framework resolves the dilemma's horns: the first (goodness as God's arbitrary will) is rejected because divine commands are necessitated by God's nature, not whim; the second (independent standards binding God) is dismissed since no external moral order precedes or constrains the necessarily good God, whose existence and attributes are metaphysically prior to creation. Apologists like those at Stand to Reason emphasize that equating goodness with God's character aligns with biblical depictions of God as unchanging (e.g., Malachi 3:6) and the source of all perfections, thus providing an axiomatic foundation for objective morality without regress. Influential formulations include Robert Adams's modified , which posits that moral wrongness consists in contrariety to the commands of a loving , where "loving" qualifies the commands to exclude arbitrariness and ensure they exemplify supreme goodness. Adams refines traditional by tying obligations to God's actual will as expressed in scripture and tradition, while his theory's reliance on God's nature as the good avoids by making properties identical to divine attributes in a non-contingent manner. This approach, adopted in Christian , underscores that God's —self-existence without dependence—ensures morality's ontological grounding in him alone. Critics within acknowledge potential objections, such as whether God's nature itself requires justification, but counter that demanding a standard beyond the maximally great being leads to or brute facts, both less parsimonious than theism's unified explanation. Empirical alignment is drawn from observed intuitions—universal revulsion at , for example—mirroring attributes ascribed to God in texts like :9, where he is proclaimed good to all. Thus, this response integrates philosophical reasoning with theological commitments, positioning God's nature as the causal locus of .

Recent Metaethical Analyses

In contemporary , the Euthyphro dilemma has prompted analyses emphasizing hybrid accounts that integrate divine commands with independent normative features to evade the traditional horns. Atle Ottesen Søvik argues in 2023 that the dilemma presents a false , as moral goodness requires both God's omniscient and empathetic will to establish objective truthmakers and preferences to supply personal , making divine volitions identical to the good without or independence. This view posits goodness as alignment with the best , valuated broadly yet grounded in divine knowledge, compatible with theistic frameworks while not presupposing God's existence for atheists. Katja Maria Vogt's reinterpretation of Plato's dialogue highlights a nuanced metaphysics of value, distinguishing realist goods (independent of attitudes), anti-realist ones (constituted by divine favor in consensus domains), and mixed pious values blending both, thereby critiquing oversimplified modern reconstructions that force a binary between command and . She contends this structure refutes through divine disagreement's normative instability, paralleling ongoing metaethical tensions between robust realism and constructivist or response-dependent theories. Analyses since the 2010s have also refined divine command variants, as surveyed by Marco Damonte in 2017, where Robert Adams proposes moral goodness as imitation of God's nature—neither arbitrarily commanded nor fully independent—thus anchoring obligations in essential divine attributes while addressing emptiness objections. Similarly, Linda Zagzebski's shifts focus to God's virtuous as the source of rightness, bypassing volitional arbitrariness by deriving norms from affective goodness inherent to divine . Critics like accept independent moral standards, prioritizing realism over sovereignty, which underscores persistent debates on whether necessitates command-dependence for moral objectivity. These positions reflect broader metaethical scrutiny of how the dilemma tests the ontological priority of norms versus attitudes, often favoring essentialist theistic reductions over strict .

References

  1. https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html
  2. https://philolibrary.crc.nd.edu/article/what-does-god-want/
  3. https://iep.utm.edu/divine-command-theory/
  4. https://users.wfu.edu/millerc/Euthyphro.pdf
  5. https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=cedar_ethics_online
  6. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-shorter/
  7. https://www.worldhistory.org/Greek_Religion/
  8. https://www.thoughtco.com/platos-euthyphro-2670341
  9. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/warwickclassicsnetwork/events/cc23/teacherresources/muir_piety_socrates.pdf
  10. https://europe.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-173.html
  11. https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/cedarethics/vol7/iss2/4/
  12. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1642/1642-h/1642-h.htm
  13. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3635566/
  14. https://academic.oup.com/book/7563/chapter/152548295
  15. https://www.siue.edu/~wlarkin/teaching/PHIL111/euthyphro.html
  16. https://www.str.org/w/euthyphro-s-dilemma-1
  17. https://alevelphilosophyandreligion.com/euthyphro-dilemma-divine-command-theory/
  18. https://philpapers.org/rec/RAHSOT
  19. https://royalinstitutephilosophy.org/article/god-and-morality/
  20. https://forumphilosophicum.ignatianum.edu.pl/1665-swinburne-on-the-euthyphro-dilemma-can-supervenience-save-him.html
  21. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/
  22. https://andrewmbailey.com/wpa/Euthyphro.pdf
  23. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/the-euthyphro-dilemma-once-again
  24. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/reasons-for-divine-commands
  25. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voluntarism-theological/
  26. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religious-studies/article/way-out-of-the-euthyphro-dilemma/8DF1A09F9EB8D8E8C2C859119A71557E
  27. https://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2012/04/morriston-on-god-and-ontological.html
  28. https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/03/31/because-god-says-so/
  29. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/moral-realism-9780199259755
  30. https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/moral-realism-a-defense/
  31. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4345965/
  32. https://philarchive.org/rec/MILETG
  33. https://philpapers.org/archive/JOYTEA.pdf
  34. https://philpapers.org/rec/STRADD
  35. http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/06/mackies-argument-from-queerness.html
  36. https://philosophynow.org/issues/83/Hume_on_Is_and_Ought
  37. https://philosophyalevel.com/posts/mackies-argument-from-queerness/
  38. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P80/euthyphro-dilemma
  39. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/interviews-panels/what-is-the-euthyphro-dilemma-bobby-conway
  40. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/the-return-of-the-euthyphro
  41. https://christianapologeticsalliance.com/2013/03/25/the-euthyphro-dilemma/
  42. http://people.whitman.edu/~frierspr/A%2520Modified%2520Divine%2520Command%2520Theory%2520of%2520Ethical%2520Wrongness.pdf
  43. https://www.equip.org/articles/euthyphro-dilemma/
  44. https://apologeticspress.org/why-is-good-good-3601/
  45. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/thinking-through-euthyphros-and-the-atheists-dilemma/
  46. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/8/1038
  47. https://katjavogt.github.io/wp-content/uploads/paper-vogt-euthyphro-problem.pdf
  48. https://mondodomani.org/dialegesthai/articoli/marco-damonte-03
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