Good points. Plato's attack on religion in "Euthyphro" caused the crumbling of polytheistic religion and its replacement by monotheism. Unfortunately, conglomerating all the Gods into one God doesn't solve the dilemma. It was a way of avoiding the dilemma. Having one God instead of many gods just solves the earlier problem in "Euthryphro" that the Gods disagree with each other. Having one God, especially the contradictory and ever-evolving Christian God, doesn't deal with the other problem.
@jayraskin What 'problem'? The problem is simply that having God as the ground of morality makes moral norms arbitrary. But this is a) a problem that every metaethical theory has, and thus it cannot - without prejudice - be a reason to reject divine command theory in favour of a rival view. b) it can be dealt with anyway - like this. The criticism only has bite because we sense that moral norms cannot be otherwise. So that is to sense that God's commands cannot be otherwise. Problem solved.
@Clear404 Agreed. I am looking at the dialogue historically. Celsus, I think, said that Christians were Platonists who didn't understand Plato. We find the truth of this in "Euthyphro" where Plato separates the concept of goodness from the concept of Gods. Plato essentially said that the Gods are not the good. Christians took this to mean that the arbitrariness was in the polytheistic nature of the Gods. Substituting God for Gods and saying God is Good/Great/Perfect doesn't solve E.D..
@jayraskin I see. But I'm not so sure - for surely the kind of reply I have given wouldn't work if there were multiple Gods, or Gods with different natures. For then it is possible for them to issue conflicting commands. So the intuition that my argument draws upon - the intuition that moral commands are what they are necessarily - has to be dismissed. And then my kind of reply cannot be given and one is fully exposed to the arbitrariness objection.
@jayraskin So, I suppose I don't think that the Christians were wrong in thinking that the real problem arises from having multiple Gods - that this conflicts with the character of morality.
I'm not a christian, I hasten to point out, but once one has 'one' God, I do see the problem as evaportating. Seems to me that those who continue to make the Euthyphro argument are the ones who are confused.
After thinking about this a lot more, I don't think the Euthyphro dilemma even applies to "God" as monotheists speak of him. The ancient Greeks are notorious for deifying abstract words and talking about them as Gods. So instead, I think the Euthyphro dilemma addresses more of a Kantian deontology, that promotes objective morality without any referent to the good of the subjects. In this respect, it does refute DCT, but I think a naive DCT is an untenable position in philosophy and theology.
The reason the Trilemma collapses back into the Dilemma is that any other option outside the original Dilemma is useless to us in terms of prescribing human behavior. Defining good as God's nature, divorced from a quality of his actions or a universal standard does nothing to help human beings know what to do. God's nature is good. Great, can you see it in his actions? Not necessarily. Is goodness some absolute standard that God is aware of and we should adhere to? We can't know that.
@ThieleM How does it raise the 'dilemma' again? Let's say I say that God could not have willed differently because of his nature. He is essentially benevolent, say. How does the dilemma re-arise? Does one wonder 'is benevolence good because God has it, or is it good and so God has it'? Well, in that case the answer is simple: benevlolence is good because God has it. What's the problem with that?
You completely miss the point. It doesn't matter if he is benevolent or malevolent. It is the source that is the issue. The same points you make can also be twisted to make god a completely evil monster. Your entire point is pretty much a failure in my eyes but since its off topic I don't care one way or another.
SR covers this in his video and that is MUCH better than I can or am willing to do in a series of short text replies.
@ThieleM No, you are missing the point. God can't be an evil monster unless you just assume Divine Command Theory is false (which would be question begging in this context). The evidence that he is not an evil monster is morality itself.
What do you mean the 'source is the issue'? I address precisely this issue. God's nature is 'good' because it is his nature, rather than the other way around. SR and you seem to think that you're entitled to say it is the reverse. Why?
Point 3 is a complete non sequitur and goes back to my earlier point that the same argument can be made for your god being evil. You aren't helping your case.
1. Moral good and moral bad are determined by what God approves/disapproves of
2. God approves of his own nature (his nature causes him to - a nature that he has essentially)
3. Therefore God's nature is good.
Sorry pal. 3 doesn't really follow from the others. It is an unsupported assertion.
WHERE DOES GOD GET HIS NATURE. If you won't answer that logically then you lose. I have asked this time and time again and you continue to dance around answering the question.
@ThieleM It was the conclusion of a deductively valid argument, you total idiot. It was the EXACT OPPOSITE of a non sequitur. You were as wrong as it is possible to be. 100% wrong. Wrong. You should be hanging your head in shame. You should be beating yourself with a branch. You're an idiot 'pal'. A thicky thick thick. I cannot argue with someone who does not respect reason. You will believe whatever you want to believe. Me and my reasonings have no power over you. Good luck to you.
@ThieleM Well, you're not interested in reasoned argument (you no doubt consider it a form of trickery - like electricity). But anyway, here's what the moral argument shows:
1. God's willings determine what is right and wrong/good and bad.
2. God's willings are determined by his nature
3. Moral truths are necessary truths
4. Therefore God's nature is what it is necessarily, and God exists necessarily
If something exists necessarily it is incoherent to ask where it came from
@Clear404 It is true that the moral argument does indeed attempt to show the conclusion, but P1 and P3 are in contradiction. Moral truths (being necessary) cannot have their values be contingent. Yet, P1 says that those values ARE contingent upon "God's willings." Hence, your argument is fighting with itself and is logically inconsistent.
@balanceseeker Re moral truths being ‘contingent’ upon God’s willings. For the sake of argument (because the ‘arbitrariness objection presupposes it) I accept that moral truths, whatever they turn out to be, cannot be otherwise. That was premise 2 in my argument. Premise 1 does make moral truths contingent upon God’s willings, but that doesn’t make them contingent truths unless God’s willings are contingent, and that’s something I deny.
@Clear404 But it is, contingent upon God's nature. And God's nature is dependent upon what? If it is dependent upon nothing, then God's nature is arbitrary and in another possible universe, God could have a different nature, and I wonder if you would call each set of possible natures the standard of Good. If it is dependent upon something, then it is contingent. Just how far back do you wish to go?
@balanceseeker Why are you asking what God’s nature is dependent upon? This is no different to asking ‘where did God’s nature come from’ – a question I’ve already dealt with when dealing with the person we both agree was an idiot.
If God has his/her nature necessarily, then it is not ‘arbitrary’. It could not have been otherwise.
What are your ‘objective’ morals ‘dependent’ upon? And why isn’t that arbitrary too? See?
@Clear404 And so God's nature is necessitated by what? You need to understand what it means to be necessary in this context. To be necessary means it could not be any other way. That is to say that if it were not true, that there would be some logical contradiction. So, what would be illogical if God's nature was something other than you assert it is? That is what I mean, not "where did God's nature come from?" which is a different (and wrong) question to ask.
@balanceseeker Your question is absurd and just betrays a failure to grasp what has been said. You’re every bit as much of an idiot as that other guy, for you’re asking the same goddamn question.
He has his nature necessarily. Disagree, but don’t ask ‘by what’! Anything I suggested would raise the same question. And what do YOU think ‘necessitates’ moral truths then? Don’t you see? You’re in the same boat, you idiot.
And if this were true, there would be some logical contradiction to the statement, "God's nature is one of NOT X."
Show me how that is the case. That's all. It is not asking you "from what" or "by what" in the sense you seem to take it. It is asking what the logical contradiction of saying that God's nature is something other than you suggest is.
If there is no logical contradiction, then the nature you ascribe to God is not necessary.
@balanceseeker First, if you don’t think moral truths are necessary truths, you can’t think arbitrariness is a problem. If DCT has as an implication that if God’s nature had been different, moral truths would have been too, you cannot hold this to be a problem. You’d have to reject DCT on some other grounds.
But you clearly do think that arbitrariness is a problem (don’t you?). So you must assume that moral truths are necessary truths.
@Clear404 Also, lay off the name calling. It is you who is not understanding me, when I expressly stated that I was not asking you for what you continue to think I am asking you. If I am failing to convey this to you, that is one thing, but stop trying to make it something that it is not. I am asking you to simply justify the claim of necessity. That's all. There is a clear test to make on that ground, and if it is not met, necessity does not apply. Easy, okay?
@Clear404 And finally, as far as us being in the same boat, no we are not. "What do YOU think 'necessitates' moral truths then?"
I never said moral truths were necessary, per say, only objective. But perhaps that is a difference without a distinction in your eyes. I am not really interested in getting off on a tangent too far, but just to give you an idea where I am going here, ethics is like economics in many respects. Know the goal, and you can evaluate potential actions objectively
@balanceseeker So, either you take moral truths to be necessary, or you don’t. If you don’t, what the hell is your problem? If you do, then why do you think it needs ‘explaining’? Only contingent truths require explanation – for then we want to know why things are as they are rather than otherwise. But if something could not have been otherwise, then there’s nothing to explain and to request an explanation (as you keep doing) is to fundamentally misunderstand what has been claimed.
@Clear404 "If you do, then why do you think it needs explaining?"
I am not asking for the necessity of moral truths to be explained. I am asking for the necessity of God's nature to be explained. You are fallaciously swapping the two terms around.
"Only contingent truths require explanation"
Oh? It is necessarily true that I am God. Kind of underwhelming, I know, but it is what is necessarily true and I need not explain why that is, do I?
@balanceseeker This is ridiculous. I provided a goddamn argument for the necessity of God’s commands. I inferred it from the necessity of moral truths. If you were halfway competent you’d accuse me of question begging. But my reply would be that you’d be question begging by ruling it out. And thus we’d be at an impasse and the battle would have to move to other ground.
But no, you just ignore the argument, you tedious twerp.
@balanceseeker But even if one does insist that it needs ‘explaining’ (and note, you’d need to explain it too) it would be completely pointless to try. For the only way one could satisfactorily explain the necessity in question is to show how it follows from some more basic necessity which we accept does not require explanation. So at some point you’re going to have to appeal to a necessity which one cannot explain. The necessity of morality seems to me to be precisely that.
@balanceseeker There's no circle, for I provided an argument for the necessity of God's commands that did not mention their necessity in any of the premises.
@ThieleM Oh, and it isn't 'whatever I want to say' or 'blah di blah di blah'. You were completely and utterly wrong. No dispute. Completely wrong. Illogical, not logical. Irrational, not rational. Stupid, not clever. Tattoo those on your face. You have demonstrated your own incompetence when it comes to thinking clearly. You should now be humble and submit to my authority.
@ThieleM I did. He exists necessarily and has the nature he has necessarily. Answered. Not to your satisfaction, of course - but nothing would do that as you've already decided God doesn't exist.
Ah, yes. The cop out answer "I gave you an answer but you don't like it" you must have been watch ing Togetherforpeace's videos.
I haven't decided that there is no god. I actually haven't said anything about my beliefs. I am asking a question that you can't answer, even though you think you did.
"god exists and has a nature necessarily' is not an answer as to where that nature comes from.
So I ask you again. Where does god get his nature.
@ThieleM To ask 'where does X come from' when X has been shown to exist necessarily is to ask a stupid question. Any answer to a 'where does X come from' question just invites the question again UNTIL one arrives at a necessary truth. At that point to ask 'where does the necessarily existing thing come from' betrays a failure to grasp what has just been said, namely that it exists necessarily.
By all means challenge that God exists necessarily, but at least grasp what it means, thicky.
@Clear404 Unlike the idiot that is doing such a poor job arguing with you on this, I will jump in and tell you why this fails. It is not because it is circular, but because the first premise points to exactly what the Euthyrpho dilemma hints at: things are moral in divine command theory simply by divine fiat. It is no surprise that God (or anyone else) would approve on his/her own nature. If I defined good as that which I approved of, would you accept that my nature is good?
@balanceseeker Do I accept ‘good’ as ‘that which you approve of’. No. I don’t think there’s any evidence for it. Let's test it. It generally assumed that our moral sense is to some degree responsive to what is actually right and wrong. I currently sense that there’s nothing wrong with homosexual intercourse. Kindly disapprove of them and let’s see if I start to sense it. I don’t wish to prejudge the results, but methinks they’re not going to confirm your thesis.
@Clear404 So, when God disapproves of an act, you will sense it and thus you know that God's nature is good? Is that your justification of the special pleading you are making by rejecting my version of your argument? Please don't tell me that is the case. I had high hopes for this conversation.
@balanceseeker I said if my moral sense is to SOME DEGREE responsive to how things actually are, morally. Unless u r a moral sceptic you think your moral sense gives you some insight into how objective morality actually is. But no-one thinks their moral sense is infallible. Please realise that when it comes to figuring out what is ‘actually’ right and wrong, I use the same methods as you.
@Clear404 "Unless u r a moral sceptic you think your moral sense gives you some insight..."
Insight? Perhaps. But our internal sense of what is right and wrong about the universe is often a poor measure for what is, and in any case, let me return back to what I challenged you before.
If, by my argument, my nature is Good, and you and I disagree, you could be wrong, and thus you cannot rely on my ability to change that moral sense to know if it is true. You need to find a better means
@balanceseeker So you’re a moral sceptic now? Fine – be one of those then. Moral scepticism isn’t a special problem for DCT. If there’s reason to think our moral sense is totally unreliable, then the moral truth by be anything for all we can tell – and that’s the case regardless of whether DCT is true. Can’t you see this? How thick are you?
Ethics are not simple and so it is going to take more than one's hunch to justify. Go figure, given the 1000's of years of philosophy on the subject, but that is very much a red herring. I am challenging your logic here, and I am trying to see why you get to engage in special pleading on behalf of God.
@balanceseeker Why do you keep saying I'm engaged in 'special pleading'? I'm presenting arguments. If you disagree with them, highlight a premise you disagree with (or locate a fallacious inference) and we'll take it from there. There's no special pleading anywhere. This is just wishful thinking on your part.
The notion that god's nature is necessary because god is necessary is a circular argument. For one he hasn't demonstrated necessity and he hasn't seen that necessity has nothing to do with his origin.
I want him to actually answer where god gets his nature...something he can't answer
@ThieleM No, you didn't, or if you intended to say what I was saying, you were doing so in a rather poor manner. Take your pick. Plus, I do not exactly follow how you think what I wrote is the same as saying "god's nature is necessary because god is necessary is a circular argument."
Saying that gods nature is necessary because god is necessary is as circular as saying the bible is true because the bible says the bible is true.
That isn't all I wrote, the problem with his points 1 2 and 3 weren't all about circularity. 1 is an unfounded assertion. 2 and 3 fail as a result....I made that point and that has nothing to do with circularity.
@Clear404 "God can't be an evil monster unless you just assume Divine Command Theory is false (which would be question begging in this context)."
Actually, it would not be question begging, because what you are doing is hijacking the word "good", which usually refers to subjective value judgments on part of agents. You can't simply declare that it is in something's nature to be good. That's up to each and every one of us to decide, depending on how its nature impacts us.
@Clear404 I would simply declare that divine command theory is incoherent drivel as long as it uses the word good. I also happen to think that if you made up a new word for whatever it is you're talking about, you'd also see how worthless your arguments are. You're not doing anything but repeatedly claiming that a hypothetical agent "God" can not be anything other than what it is. We agree. This does not mean it exists or can invalidate people's opinion about what's beneficial for them
@Gnomefro Look, I presented some arguments. Just point to a premise you disagree with and give your reasons and we'll take it from there. Just blandly stating that my arguments are worthless etc, is just hot air.
Be open minded. Don't decide ahead of time that an argument is 'worthless' just becasue you dislike its conclusion. That's bad philosophy. Fault the argument or accept the conclusion or go boil your head.
@Clear404 "The evidence that he is not an evil monster is morality itself."
I assume that by "morality" you are talking about our logically necessary obligations to murder witches, homosexuals, adulterers and unruly children, as well as burning priest daughters who have sex before marriage?
@Gnomefro What our moral obligations 'are' is a different matter: a normative matter and not a metaethical matter.
Oh, and don't tar me with the Christian brush. I'm not religious. I loathe religious people, I loathe their stupidity, I loathe 'faith', and so on. I believe in God but it is not a matter of faith and I consider all religious texts to be utterly barmy, and their moral messages utterly disgusting.
But Divine Command Theory is actually MORE plausible than any of the other metaethical views. It is the only view that can combine both the objectivity and the prescriptivity of morality.
Whether you like it or not, Divine Command Theory is an incredibly plausible metaethical view. And thus it generates a very powerful argument for God - the moral argument.
So I say again, the Euthyphro Dilemma is simply no obstacle to the moral argument for God's existence.
So, the arbitrariness objection simply does not get one a quick and easily dismissal of Divine Command Theory. And, as I already mentioned, it applies to ALL vindicatory metaethical views, and thus if you think it is a good objection, you must think morality fundamentally incoherent.
If you're going to dismiss DCT, you need to find other grounds.
@Clear404 DCT volunteerism, which is what you are accepting by accepting the arbitrary (and hence subjective) nature of DCT, does undermine the moral argument because the moral argument is about objective moral facts. Suppose that Islamic terrorists are right and Allah approves of thier actions. You would have to accept that 9/11 was a moral, righteous act, along with every other action justified by their reading of the Qur'an. Is that where you wish to go?
@balanceseeker My moral sense and normative moral theorising suggests that 9/11 was very wrong indeed. Are you suggesting this is incompatible with DCT?
Ii is ‘possible’ that my moral sense is completely unreliable and thus that it is ‘possible’ that such deeds are right. But this possibility must be accepted by everyone, regardless of whether they accept DCT or not. So I’m afraid this criticism simply does not work, unless you’re arguing for metaethical nihilism.
@Clear404 What I am suggesting is that your moral sense may be at odds with God's, and I wanted to know what you think DCT would demand. So, take the dive, suppose that God exists as the 9/11 attackers believed, and that God rewards such "righteous" actions. Does this mean that the 9/11 attacks were moral?
Simple question. My understanding of your position, you would have to accept it as moral, but feel free to say tell me how this would not follow.
@balanceseeker Of course my moral sense may be at odds with what God wants. But my moral sense also may be at odds with an objective moral dimension, should one of those be the ground of morality instead. So, just substitute the word ‘God’ in your 9/11 qusetion with ‘objective moral dimension’ and give me your answer. Your answer will be my answer too.
@Clear404 And for the record, I am not a nihilist. I'm an objectivist when it comes to ethics. I just think that ethics cannot be grounded in the nature of God, nor any other individual. They have to be grounded elsewhere.
@balanceseeker I’m an objectivist too, if we understand that term to mean that the moral truth is not determined by our feelings or opinions. What God actually wills is an objective matter and is not determined by how I feel.
The difficulty u have (and I don’t) is to explain the prescriptivity of morality. To sense that something is wrong, is to sense that it is ‘not to be done’. Only agents can prescribe. U have to posit the existence of prescribing objective properties.
@Clear404 "The difficulty u have ... is to explain the [sense] of morality."
That is a silly statement. The sense of morality is simply a reaction to evolutionary forces. Individuals with a moral sense are more likely to work together, and thus pass on their genes, and those without are not as likely. So, as long as there are tendencies to work together, we will develop a morality that assists that.
That is the origin of the sense. Now, moving on...
@balanceseeker Oh, so this is your new strategy – just misquote your opponent. I said that the difficulty you have is to explain the PRESCRIPTIVITY of morality. I did not say you’d have a problem explaining how we come to have a moral sense, or how we come to be disposed to make the moral judgements we do. The problem is those causal explanations of our moral beliefs DEBUNKS them. Our moral sense turns out to be a sense of something illusory that conferred an advantage on those who had it.
No, I did not think I was misquoting you. I was paraphrasing what you called prescriptivity given the sentences that followed. If you want to give a better accounting of what it is you are asking me to justify, then I think we might be in business.
If, instead, you wish to continue this accusation of intellectual dishonesty, then I'm done with this conversation.
Perhaps he would reject 1 because if God determines what is right and wrong, then right and wrong could have been different because God could have willed differently.
But what is the basis for that claim? I think we have evidence that God could not have willed anything different, namely the fact taht moral truths could not have been different. He might claim that is question begging, but I'll make the same charge against him.
Saying that God "does not have control over his nature" means that he cannot change his essential attributes. That's certainly not a mark against omnipotence anymore than saying "God cannot make himself not God" is a mark against omnipotence. Similarly, since these attributes are essential to God, it is incorrect to say that it is something *outside of* God dictating what his nature is.
@AgApE010 It depends on your definition of 'omnipotence.' Martin Luther, for example, would say that God can do literally anything--even things that violate the laws of logic. So for him any sentence of the form "God cannot..." must be false.
And yes, the term 'outside' here should be understood metaphorically, not literally. The better phrase would be 'are his attributes subject to his control, or not?'
I think most of us would disagree with Luther regarding omnipotence than.
I understand you meant the term metaphorically. But the point is that since these attributes (i.e., omnipotence, benevolence, etc) are essential to God, they are not subject to change or alteration anymore than God can make himself not God (for if God can "control" these attributes and make himself malevolent or powerless, he would cease to be God).
@AgApE010 So there is something that he can't control that is 'forcing him' (so to speak) to be perfectly good (I suppose this would be the laws of logic?) If that's the case, then it's that 'force' (the laws of logic) that are ultimately dictating the standard of goodness, not God.
It's not the laws of logic that are dictating the goodness; the laws of logic, in our discussion, are simply stating that God cannot make himself not God/cannot make himself malevolent. Benevolence is still necessarily his nature. Basically, all you can say here is that it is logically impossible for God to be malevolent, with which I would happily agree.
Perhaps what you're meaning to do here is reformulate Euthyphro's Dilemma by replacing "good" with "logical." Is that it?
@AgApE010 "Basically, all you can say here is that it is logically impossible for God to be malevolent, with which I would happily agree."
Which God would this be? Surely not the Abrahamic god commanding the burning of little girls, genocides and murder for a whole range of imaginary crimes? As far as I'm concerned, all apologetics that make this claim come across as violent contradictions. They are typically followed up with claims that I can't identify good if I see it anyway.
If you don't mind, I was having an intelligent discussion with SisyphusRedeemed and was rather enjoying it. I have no desire to respond to your little rantings.
@AgApE010 Anyway, what you can say is not that it's logically impossible for God to be malevolent, but that it's logically impossible for God to not be God, that you have no idea why God has the nature that he has, and you'd claim it is inherently impossible to find out.
However, it is meaningless to insist that "God is the foundation of goodness". That's just a dishonest attempt to hijack a word usually used to refer to all kinds of positive emotions in humans.
@AgApE010 In all cases where we know that the word "good" means anything at all, it refers to agents making value judgments, and not any kind of objective standard that somehow. Of course, it doesn't help here that theists can't even demonstrate that this being exists. IMO, Euthyphro's dilemma is way too accommodating to what really is just nonsensical drivel on part of the theists.
@AgApE010 he dilemma also succeeds as a dilemma. Saying "God does X because it's his nature" and "It's God's opinion that X" really is the same thing. The main point of the Euthyphro dilemma is not that the standard can change, but rather that it sets up a tie to the nature of some agent that is not you. Which begs the questions: "Why should I care what this other guy thinks?" and "Why should I value what he values?".
@SisyphusRedeemed I don't think this is right. If there were laws of logic but no God for them to describe, the theist would probably say that there would be no moral duties and values, since the laws of logic don't prescribe anything. Even if logic is a necessary constraint on God'sown necessary will, in other words, it's still not the sufficient condition for duties and values. You still need a God with a will to act as the ground of the prescriptive quality of moral values and duties.
@mhssu "Even if logic is a necessary constraint on God's own necessary will... it's still not the sufficient condition for duties and values."
I like this reply. Several possible responses: (1) if God is logically necessary, as many theists hold, this reply fails. (2) At a minimum, it shows that God, too, is not sufficient, which most theists would want to deny. (3) It seems like logic is actually doing the work, providing the basis for God's dictate, he's just adding 'make it so.'
@SisyphusRedeemed I suppose it turns on your metaphysics of logic. On my understanding of both the nominalistic and Platonic views, the laws of logic "constrain" God's nature in the sense that they describe its limits. The "work" seems to be done entirely by the necessary qualities of the instantiated nature itself and that prescriptive will that emerges from it. God's nature is a feature of God himself, so it's not like there's anything "external" to God that's making him do anything.
@SisyphusRedeemed "Luther, for example, would say that God can do literally anything--even things that violate the laws of logic. So for him any sentence of the form "God cannot..." must be false"
Why? On this account of omnipotence God can do even that which He cannot do. That this is logically self-contradictory is of no consequence--God is not bound by logic.
My point exactly: that's why any sentence that beings with "God cannot..." must be false, because there is absolutely nothing that God cannot do. He can even do things that he cannot do, and things that are logically impossible. You answered your own question.
I don't understand how claiming that God's morality is not subjective because the morality sources from his "nature".
It is fair to say is many cases that a murderer is a murderer by nature. That is to say, it is in murderers nature to murder. Would anyone even attempt to claim that the murderer is a source and foundation of an objective morality?
God's nature sets the tone of his subjectivity; his nature is his subjectivity in an unbindable way.
I suppose I am asking how folk are seperating subjectivity and nature like they are unrelated. Would it be coherent to have a "nature" (i.e. moral preferences etc) and also be objective? Does having a nature not immediately entail subjectivity? Are they not one in the same thing?
I hope that is a tad clearer.
Also, if you believe the two are seperate I would be grateful for your thoughts on the distinctions between the two.
Have I not undermined the Euthyphro dilemma? Yes, methinks I have. there's simply no dilemma. Option 2 (God wills what he wills 'because' it is good) is just to abandon Divine command theory. Option 1 just describes Divine Command theory. Er, so how on earth can that be a 'dilemma'?
@Clear404 I will respond with the words of G.W. Leibniz from his Discourse on Metaphysics: "In saying that things are not good by any rule of goodness, but sheerly by the will of God, it seems to me that one destroys, without realizing it, all the love of God and all his glory. For why praise him for what he has done if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing exactly the contrary?"
@SisyphusRedeemed But that's just the arbitariness objection repackaged - and that's easily dealt with: everyone faces it, plus the only evidence that morality cannot be arbitrary is a powerful intution to that effect, in which case I, as a Divine Command Theorist, just help myself to it and conclude that as moral truths are truths about what God wills, and as moral truths cannot be otheriwse, therefore whatever God wills, he could not have willed otherwise. Done.
@Clear404 Then you loose all normative force. If 'good' in your mouth simply means 'what God wills' then what reason do I have to be 'good'? Why should 'good' be attractive, if that's all it means? You've eviscerated normativity that way. If you bite the bullet on morality being arbitrary, then why have a foundation in the 1st place? You're right that 'why be good?' has to be answered regardless, but your theory can't possibly answer it, whereas other theories at least have a chance.
@SisyphusRedeemed a) I don't bite the bullet on morality being arbitrary. I'm saying it is a problem for everyone and thus cannot be a reason to reject DCT. b) I'm actually doing what others do and taking the normativity of morality as fixed point and then arguing from that to the conclusion that whatever God wills, he wills necessarily. So I'm not somehow getting the normativity out of God, I'm doing things the other way around.
@Clear404 "I'm saying it is a problem for everyone and thus cannot be a reason to reject DCT."
It is if others can answer the problem, but DCT can't.
"whatever God wills, he wills necessarily."
This leads you right back to the trilemma: WHY is it necessary that he wills it? What makes it so? Any answer that you give will either be arbitrary or ground ethics in something other than God. You cannot escape this.
@SisyphusRedeemed Well until others answer the problem (and they haven't) it is completely arbitrary to reject DCT on those grounds. And it is also just wishful thinking to say that there is the 'possibility' of an answer with alternative views.
TO ask 'why' is it necessary that he wills it is to misunderstand the way the argument is being run. The necessity of moral truths is taken as a given, as it would have to be if one were arguing for any other view. So the question is misplaced.
@Clear404 "Well until others answer the problem (and they haven't) it is completely arbitrary to reject DCT on those grounds."
Actually, quite the opposite: it is arbitrary to ACCEPT DCT if you're conceding that it fails. I don't need a better account to reject an argument that you're admitting doesn't work. You're engaging in what's known as the 'tu quo que' fallacy.
But moreover, others HAVE answered the problem: Plato, Aristotle, Mill, Kant, & Darwin among others all give superior accounts.
@SisyphusRedeemed But I'm not conceding that it fails. I'm saying that there's a problem here but it is no more of a problem for DCT than it is for anyone else, and thus it cannot provide a good reason to reject DCT (in favour of a rival account). Where arbitrariness is concerned DCT is no better or worse off than anyone else.
But I said that it had OTHER advantages over rivals.
@Clear404 "it cannot provide a good reason to reject DCT (in favour of a rival account)."
But I'm not arguing for an alternative account (at least not here). We don't need to know whether or not any other theory succeeds to know this one fails. If you're right, and that all other theories of metaethics are just as bad as DCT then we should reject all metaethical theories.
@SisyphusRedeemed How have I committed a fallacy? I was not saying arbitrariness is not a problem becasue everyone has it. I was saying that everyone has this problem and thus it cannot be a reason to reject DCT (unless you ae going to reject all metaethical views and argue that our conception of morality is incoherent).
No fallacy at all. Just a partners in crime move, which is perfectly legitimate.
@SisyphusRedeemed So if moral truths are just 'truths' rather than necessary truths, then there's no problem with saying that in this, the actual world, the best evidence is that God disapproves of rape, but there's a possible world in which he doesn't.
@SisyphusRedeemed Well that's flagrantly question begging! Two can play at that game. There is NO possible world in which rape is morally o.k. and thus there is no possible world in which God does not exist.
@SisyphusRedeemed Cont'd...so it seems to me that you, like others, are simply arbitrarily not allowing the DCT to make moves that you will have to allow other positions to make (unless you're some sort of nihilist who thinks morality is thoroughly incoherent).
It is taken to be a conceptual truth about morality that there cannot be a moral difference without a difference in natural properties: the so-called 'supervenience thesis'. It is solely by appeal to the truth of this thesis that....
@SisyphusRedeemed Cont'd...that, say, the intuitionist glues their moral properties to natural properties. They can provide no account of 'why' this is so - they just have to help themselves to it. Well, I can do that too.
To ask 'why' moral truths are necessary truths (and thus why, if DCT is true, God wills what he wills) is to ask for the necessity of morality to be explained by appeal to some more basic, more obvious, necessity. But that's mad. There isn't one - it doesn't get clearer
@Clear404 "They can provide no account of 'why' this is so - they just have to help themselves to it."
Of course they can give an account. The supervience of the moral on the natural isn't simply a bald assumption; there are whole volumes arguing for this. Anscombe, Foot and Hursthouse (just to name the Aristotelians) have built entire careers on making such accounts. They may fail, but it's simply false to say they're just ASSUMING their conclusion.
@SisyphusRedeemed But Anscombe, Foot, and Hursthouse are all naturalists. So the supervenience thesis is trivially true for them. I said that an 'INTUITIONIST', so a non-naturalist, has to assume the supervenience thesis in order to stop it being arbitrary that a particular action has the moral properties it does.
@Clear404 "the supervenience thesis is trivially true for them."
It most certainly is not. If it were they wouldn't be writing books trying to ESTABLISH it as true. They'd just assume it and say 'okay, what's next?'
@SisyphusRedeemed The supervenience thesis says 'no moral difference without a difference in natural properties'. If someone is a naturalist then moral properties are identical with some set of natural properties and thus it is by definition true that there cannot be a difference in moral properties without a difference in natural properties, for moral properties ARE natural properties.
Their books are spent trying to establish naturalism, not the truth of the supervenience thesis.
@SisyphusRedeemed I shall. But let me anticipate the standard response to my 'option 1' way of dealing with the Euthyprhro. The standard response is that this renders morality arbitrary. If God had willed us to rape one another, then rape would be right and so on. I will sketch my reply and make it more 'fully' should you make the objection in question. My first move: partners in crime. All metaethical views face this problem and face it equally. It cannot be a reason to reject DCT.
@SisyphusRedeemed Cont'd, my second response (sketched). What evidence is there that morality cannot be arbitrary? Presumably a powerful intuition that it cannot be. Well, o.k. then unless you're going to beg the question against DCT, I take that powerful intuition to be evidence that whatever God wills, he wills necessarily and that there is no possible world in which God wants us to rape an innocent in normal circs.
Am I begging the question? Not if there are independent reasons 4 DCT
@SisyphusRedeemed Cont'd, needless to say, I think there ARE independent reasons for favouring Divine Command Theory over rival metaethical views, namely it is the only view that can adequately account for both the objectivity and the prescriptivity of moral claims.
But even if there aren't, I've still defanged the Euthyphro dilemma.
@Clear404 So you are saying that whatever a deity claims is right, is by definition right, solely because the deity claims it is right. However, you are also saying that such objectivity also lives alongside prescriptive morality. Can I ask, if a deity decided that raping an innocent was ''right'' then it would be right?
@asianlife53 Everyone faces the arbitrariness objection. For instance, some moral theorists argue that moral properties are irreducible. So goodness is goodness, and that's that. Pain has the property of being bad, but it is not identical with badness. Now, this view faces the arbitrariness objection. For while in the actual world rape (most rapes) have the property of being bad, if - 'if' - rape had the obective moral property of being good, then it would be good....cont'd
@asianlife53 Cont'd...and the same goes for any other view you mention (if you're a subjectivist and believe that 'good' just means 'I approve of' then if you didn't approve of it, it'd be bad - and so on). So EVERY VIEW faces the arbitrariness objection and NONE OF THEM can solve it. So to single out DCT and reject it BECAUSE IT FACES THE ARBITRARINESS OBJECTION is, er, ARBITRARY.
If you're so anti being arbitrary, find a NON ARBITRARY reason to reject DCT.
@asianlife53 Cont'd...most of those who criticise the moral argument for God fundamentally misunderstand how it works. This is partly because most of those who make it don't believe in God on the basis of the moral argument, but have 'faith' that God exists.
I'm quite different. I have no faith in the existence of God whatsoever. I believe in a God solely and entirely on the basis of two arguments, one of which is the moral argument.
And I see the moral argument as powerful....cont'd
@asianlife53 Cont'd...I see the moral argument as powerful precisely because I take the reality of morality to be surer than the existence of God. It is THAT way around. Morality exists and has a certain character. I am more sure of this, than I ever am of the existence of a God. Now, one of the features of the moral dimension - a feature you're acutely aware of because it is the ground for your objection - is that moral truths cannot be arbitrary. If X is wrong, it is necessarily wrong....
@asianlife53 Cont'd....I'm as sure as you are that moral truths are necessary truths - so I'm as confident as you are that if rape is wrong in circumstances X, then it is always wrong in circmstances X.
But no account of morality can 'explain' this. It just has to be taken as a given. Now, if the best account of what our moral beliefs are beliefs 'about' is DCT (and I think it is), then we can conclude that what God wills he wills necessarily. Our evidence? Morality itself.
@Clear404 You really seem to be struggling with this, in that you cannot answer even simple questions- which I suspected.You are not exactly the sharpest knife in the box are you? Did you want to have a proper go at the question, or would you prefer to waffle again? BTW- congratulating yourself on you own brilliance is not smart.
You're wrong. You are arguing for a created God. The Theist believes in an uncreated God. Thus, His nature is neither controlled or uncontrolled by Him - it merely is.
@JAGsoccer Saying 'it merely is' sounds a lot like saying 'he has no control over it.' This has nothing to do with being created or uncreated; of any X that exists, it is either the case that it has (at least some) control over any Y, or it is not the case that it has (at least some) control over any Y. That 's as close to a universal and exhaustive statement as I can muster. You can't avoid the question by throwing up chaff about an irrelevant question of 'created or uncreated'.
I've always seen fate as the sole controller of god and his antithesis, but that only brings further problems and it certainly makes god more of a pawn like us.
Xian philosophers would agree, and I think it's not detrimental to theism.
Nature in philosophy is defined as an essential property. To ask if something can change it's essential property is to make it NOT an essential property. It makes no sense. It's like asking:
"Can a square make it's angles add to 180 degrees?"
@linuxisbetter0 I don't think the theist can be comfortable with this. If God cannot control his nature, then we have to ask what dictates God's nature to him. Whatever it is (laws of logic, etc.), let's call it 'X.' If X dictates his nature, and his nature in turn dictates what is good and evil, then really God is just a middle-man; He plays no crucial role in the grounding of ethics at all. We can just cut him out and say that X is what is the real foundation of ethics.
That's my issue w your argument. I don't think anything 'dictates' nature/essential properties. To say a square has angles adding to 360 and 4 sides is because thats it's essential properties.
Nothing dictates 'nature' or essential properties by definition. It's a characteristic that makes it 'it.'
I mean, I agree that God does not ground moral facts but thats obviously true since im an atheist; I just don't think the E.D. or E.T. shows it.
@linuxisbetter0 I don't think anything 'dictates' nature/essential properties."
Sure there is. To use your own example, what dictates a square having 360* is Euclidean geometry. In non-euclidean systems they can have more or fewer *.
But even if this weren't the case, the classical theist can't take your strategy, since it entails denying the principle of sufficient reason, which they need for the Cosmological argument. I don't mind giving up PSR, but I doubt they'd be comfortable with it.
I just cant seem to wrap my head around your argument. Descriptive and prescriptive facts are different. 2+2=4 need not Math dictate that it is so, it's just so (description). Similarly, a square need not euclidean geometry dictate that it has 4 sides, it's just an axiomatic feature of a square.
I dont think the theist gives up PSR; God is a necessary entity, not a contingent one. Why do you think they have to give up PSR?
@linuxisbetter0 "Descriptive and prescriptive facts are different."
This is a common position, often attributed to Hume, but it's one that I think has proven untenable since the work of Quine. At any rate, this is a very controversial position that requires a defense.
"it's just an axiomatic feature"
This seems to be a Platonic position: squares and numbers exist on their own, independent of minds. I reject this position, too.
@linuxisbetter0 (The word 'axiom' literally means 'to deem worthy' or 'to require'. Etymology does not define concept, of course, but it is worth nothing the original sense of the term.)
I think your move requires abandoning the PSR because there are a whole set of facts that have no 'sufficient reason: mathematical facts, logical facts, theological facts, etc. If there is no reason for these facts, then (at least one major version of) PSR is out the window.
@linuxisbetter0 "So why is it that an essential property needs further grounding in your mind again?"
I don't think it's necessarily grounded in my mind, but it does have to be grounded (or perhaps 'entwined' would be a better term) in SOMETHING. No concept, property or entity exists all on it's own in a vacuum. Meaning, value and truth come from the relationships between components, not from axiomatic, isolated 'atoms' that hold in and of themselves.
hmm I see your point now. I just somehow don't agree. Im not a philosopher I just graduated as an engineer. To me it makes complete sense to assert that there are 'brute facts' that don't need any further grounding, and that these facts are independent of ourselves or at least its possible.
For instance, I think, 2+2=4 even if no humans evolved to discover this.
So, in order for your ET to work, you have believe:
(1) essential properties of x(variable) are contingent?
@linuxisbetter0 Well, we've dug pretty deep here. This is at least one way of developing the argument, but I don't think it's the only way. There are other ways of responding to your concern, I just took the tact that jives best with my general Quinean ideas about meaning and metaphysics. Alternatively, you could challenge the idea that defining God as good is meaningless, but for other reasons (question begging, uninformative, etc.)
I don't go the ED/ET route since it'll contradict my other views. I usually just state that theists can't justify or support p(1) if god exists, then OM exist or p(2) OM exist.
You'll be surprised how they can't justify their premises. I state that they have to show that OM is IMPOSSIBLE naturalistically, which is too big of task. Moreover theists Ive spoken to can't justify (2) either. So, I really try to stray from explaining any ethical theory I believe to be true lol.
This is an amazing video. Well done.
donaldinasweater 1 week ago
Good points. Plato's attack on religion in "Euthyphro" caused the crumbling of polytheistic religion and its replacement by monotheism. Unfortunately, conglomerating all the Gods into one God doesn't solve the dilemma. It was a way of avoiding the dilemma. Having one God instead of many gods just solves the earlier problem in "Euthryphro" that the Gods disagree with each other. Having one God, especially the contradictory and ever-evolving Christian God, doesn't deal with the other problem.
jayraskin 3 weeks ago
@jayraskin What 'problem'? The problem is simply that having God as the ground of morality makes moral norms arbitrary. But this is a) a problem that every metaethical theory has, and thus it cannot - without prejudice - be a reason to reject divine command theory in favour of a rival view. b) it can be dealt with anyway - like this. The criticism only has bite because we sense that moral norms cannot be otherwise. So that is to sense that God's commands cannot be otherwise. Problem solved.
Clear404 2 weeks ago
@Clear404 Agreed. I am looking at the dialogue historically. Celsus, I think, said that Christians were Platonists who didn't understand Plato. We find the truth of this in "Euthyphro" where Plato separates the concept of goodness from the concept of Gods. Plato essentially said that the Gods are not the good. Christians took this to mean that the arbitrariness was in the polytheistic nature of the Gods. Substituting God for Gods and saying God is Good/Great/Perfect doesn't solve E.D..
jayraskin 2 weeks ago
@jayraskin I see. But I'm not so sure - for surely the kind of reply I have given wouldn't work if there were multiple Gods, or Gods with different natures. For then it is possible for them to issue conflicting commands. So the intuition that my argument draws upon - the intuition that moral commands are what they are necessarily - has to be dismissed. And then my kind of reply cannot be given and one is fully exposed to the arbitrariness objection.
Clear404 2 weeks ago
@jayraskin So, I suppose I don't think that the Christians were wrong in thinking that the real problem arises from having multiple Gods - that this conflicts with the character of morality.
I'm not a christian, I hasten to point out, but once one has 'one' God, I do see the problem as evaportating. Seems to me that those who continue to make the Euthyphro argument are the ones who are confused.
Clear404 2 weeks ago
After thinking about this a lot more, I don't think the Euthyphro dilemma even applies to "God" as monotheists speak of him. The ancient Greeks are notorious for deifying abstract words and talking about them as Gods. So instead, I think the Euthyphro dilemma addresses more of a Kantian deontology, that promotes objective morality without any referent to the good of the subjects. In this respect, it does refute DCT, but I think a naive DCT is an untenable position in philosophy and theology.
insidetrip101 1 month ago
There should be a double thumbs up button...
DrSpooglemon 2 months ago
The reason the Trilemma collapses back into the Dilemma is that any other option outside the original Dilemma is useless to us in terms of prescribing human behavior. Defining good as God's nature, divorced from a quality of his actions or a universal standard does nothing to help human beings know what to do. God's nature is good. Great, can you see it in his actions? Not necessarily. Is goodness some absolute standard that God is aware of and we should adhere to? We can't know that.
kikosemmek 2 months ago
"A still born monstrosity that they have hoisted by it's putrid umbilical chord."
That is why I love you. That, and I also had the EXACT debate with someone earlier this week.
Nervousification 2 months ago
I haven't finished the video yet so forgive me if this is addressed but the "Morality is part of his nature' seems rather weak.
Where does god get his nature? To me it is merely a rephrase of the original argument that is addressed by Euthyphro's Dilemma
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM
Strike my point...
Cheers SR
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM How does it raise the 'dilemma' again? Let's say I say that God could not have willed differently because of his nature. He is essentially benevolent, say. How does the dilemma re-arise? Does one wonder 'is benevolence good because God has it, or is it good and so God has it'? Well, in that case the answer is simple: benevlolence is good because God has it. What's the problem with that?
Clear404 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Clear404
Did you watch this video? It turns out that the questions you are asking me can be covered in under 6 minutes.
ThieleM 2 months ago
@Clear404
You completely miss the point. It doesn't matter if he is benevolent or malevolent. It is the source that is the issue. The same points you make can also be twisted to make god a completely evil monster. Your entire point is pretty much a failure in my eyes but since its off topic I don't care one way or another.
SR covers this in his video and that is MUCH better than I can or am willing to do in a series of short text replies.
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM No, you are missing the point. God can't be an evil monster unless you just assume Divine Command Theory is false (which would be question begging in this context). The evidence that he is not an evil monster is morality itself.
What do you mean the 'source is the issue'? I address precisely this issue. God's nature is 'good' because it is his nature, rather than the other way around. SR and you seem to think that you're entitled to say it is the reverse. Why?
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404
No you really didn't. Where does God get his nature? You are dancing and desperately trying to avoid an actual answer.
Divine command theory fails AND does not implicitly imply good over evil.
Did you watch this video?
ThieleM 2 months ago
@Clear404
"God's nature is 'good' because it is his nature"
And that, my friend, is perfectly circular reasoning.
You lose
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM How? Here's the argument:
1. Moral good and moral bad are determined by what God approves/disapproves of
2. God approves of his own nature (his nature causes him to - a nature that he has essentially)
3. Therefore God's nature is good.
The fact that God is caused to approve of his own nature 'by' his nature, doesn't mean that the argument is circular.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404
Blah blah blah.
Point 3 is a complete non sequitur and goes back to my earlier point that the same argument can be made for your god being evil. You aren't helping your case.
Answer the question.
Where does God get his nature?
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM Go and look up non sequitur and then tell me how 3 is one.
Actually, don't bother - you're a tedious idiot and you're not in the slightest bit interested in reasoned argument.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404
1. Moral good and moral bad are determined by what God approves/disapproves of
2. God approves of his own nature (his nature causes him to - a nature that he has essentially)
3. Therefore God's nature is good.
Sorry pal. 3 doesn't really follow from the others. It is an unsupported assertion.
WHERE DOES GOD GET HIS NATURE. If you won't answer that logically then you lose. I have asked this time and time again and you continue to dance around answering the question.
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM Er, 3 follows deductively from 1 and 2.
YOU lose.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404
No it is an unsupported assertion based on unsupportable assertions that ignore the question of where God gets his nature from.
Are you going to try to answer the question or just play around?
Wait....I know the answer......
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM It was the conclusion of a deductively valid argument, you total idiot. It was the EXACT OPPOSITE of a non sequitur. You were as wrong as it is possible to be. 100% wrong. Wrong. You should be hanging your head in shame. You should be beating yourself with a branch. You're an idiot 'pal'. A thicky thick thick. I cannot argue with someone who does not respect reason. You will believe whatever you want to believe. Me and my reasonings have no power over you. Good luck to you.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404
Sure, whatever you want to say.
But you don't get to avoid the actual issue here....nice try at deflection though.
Where does god get his nature?
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM Well, you're not interested in reasoned argument (you no doubt consider it a form of trickery - like electricity). But anyway, here's what the moral argument shows:
1. God's willings determine what is right and wrong/good and bad.
2. God's willings are determined by his nature
3. Moral truths are necessary truths
4. Therefore God's nature is what it is necessarily, and God exists necessarily
If something exists necessarily it is incoherent to ask where it came from
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 It is true that the moral argument does indeed attempt to show the conclusion, but P1 and P3 are in contradiction. Moral truths (being necessary) cannot have their values be contingent. Yet, P1 says that those values ARE contingent upon "God's willings." Hence, your argument is fighting with itself and is logically inconsistent.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker Re moral truths being ‘contingent’ upon God’s willings. For the sake of argument (because the ‘arbitrariness objection presupposes it) I accept that moral truths, whatever they turn out to be, cannot be otherwise. That was premise 2 in my argument. Premise 1 does make moral truths contingent upon God’s willings, but that doesn’t make them contingent truths unless God’s willings are contingent, and that’s something I deny.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 But it is, contingent upon God's nature. And God's nature is dependent upon what? If it is dependent upon nothing, then God's nature is arbitrary and in another possible universe, God could have a different nature, and I wonder if you would call each set of possible natures the standard of Good. If it is dependent upon something, then it is contingent. Just how far back do you wish to go?
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker Why are you asking what God’s nature is dependent upon? This is no different to asking ‘where did God’s nature come from’ – a question I’ve already dealt with when dealing with the person we both agree was an idiot.
If God has his/her nature necessarily, then it is not ‘arbitrary’. It could not have been otherwise.
What are your ‘objective’ morals ‘dependent’ upon? And why isn’t that arbitrary too? See?
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 And so God's nature is necessitated by what? You need to understand what it means to be necessary in this context. To be necessary means it could not be any other way. That is to say that if it were not true, that there would be some logical contradiction. So, what would be illogical if God's nature was something other than you assert it is? That is what I mean, not "where did God's nature come from?" which is a different (and wrong) question to ask.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker Your question is absurd and just betrays a failure to grasp what has been said. You’re every bit as much of an idiot as that other guy, for you’re asking the same goddamn question.
He has his nature necessarily. Disagree, but don’t ask ‘by what’! Anything I suggested would raise the same question. And what do YOU think ‘necessitates’ moral truths then? Don’t you see? You’re in the same boat, you idiot.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "He has his nature necessarily."
And if this were true, there would be some logical contradiction to the statement, "God's nature is one of NOT X."
Show me how that is the case. That's all. It is not asking you "from what" or "by what" in the sense you seem to take it. It is asking what the logical contradiction of saying that God's nature is something other than you suggest is.
If there is no logical contradiction, then the nature you ascribe to God is not necessary.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker First, if you don’t think moral truths are necessary truths, you can’t think arbitrariness is a problem. If DCT has as an implication that if God’s nature had been different, moral truths would have been too, you cannot hold this to be a problem. You’d have to reject DCT on some other grounds.
But you clearly do think that arbitrariness is a problem (don’t you?). So you must assume that moral truths are necessary truths.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 Also, lay off the name calling. It is you who is not understanding me, when I expressly stated that I was not asking you for what you continue to think I am asking you. If I am failing to convey this to you, that is one thing, but stop trying to make it something that it is not. I am asking you to simply justify the claim of necessity. That's all. There is a clear test to make on that ground, and if it is not met, necessity does not apply. Easy, okay?
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@Clear404 And finally, as far as us being in the same boat, no we are not. "What do YOU think 'necessitates' moral truths then?"
I never said moral truths were necessary, per say, only objective. But perhaps that is a difference without a distinction in your eyes. I am not really interested in getting off on a tangent too far, but just to give you an idea where I am going here, ethics is like economics in many respects. Know the goal, and you can evaluate potential actions objectively
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker So, either you take moral truths to be necessary, or you don’t. If you don’t, what the hell is your problem? If you do, then why do you think it needs ‘explaining’? Only contingent truths require explanation – for then we want to know why things are as they are rather than otherwise. But if something could not have been otherwise, then there’s nothing to explain and to request an explanation (as you keep doing) is to fundamentally misunderstand what has been claimed.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "If you do, then why do you think it needs explaining?"
I am not asking for the necessity of moral truths to be explained. I am asking for the necessity of God's nature to be explained. You are fallaciously swapping the two terms around.
"Only contingent truths require explanation"
Oh? It is necessarily true that I am God. Kind of underwhelming, I know, but it is what is necessarily true and I need not explain why that is, do I?
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker This is ridiculous. I provided a goddamn argument for the necessity of God’s commands. I inferred it from the necessity of moral truths. If you were halfway competent you’d accuse me of question begging. But my reply would be that you’d be question begging by ruling it out. And thus we’d be at an impasse and the battle would have to move to other ground.
But no, you just ignore the argument, you tedious twerp.
Clear404 2 months ago
@balanceseeker But even if one does insist that it needs ‘explaining’ (and note, you’d need to explain it too) it would be completely pointless to try. For the only way one could satisfactorily explain the necessity in question is to show how it follows from some more basic necessity which we accept does not require explanation. So at some point you’re going to have to appeal to a necessity which one cannot explain. The necessity of morality seems to me to be precisely that.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "The necessity of morality seems to me to be perciesely that"
And there your argument about morality becomes circular.
Morality is grounded to God's nature.
God's nature is necessary and thus not arbitrary.
The reason God's nature is necessary is that it is required for Morality to be grounded.
And no, I would not need some infinite regress to prove the necessity of something.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker There's no circle, for I provided an argument for the necessity of God's commands that did not mention their necessity in any of the premises.
Clear404 2 months ago
@ThieleM Oh, and it isn't 'whatever I want to say' or 'blah di blah di blah'. You were completely and utterly wrong. No dispute. Completely wrong. Illogical, not logical. Irrational, not rational. Stupid, not clever. Tattoo those on your face. You have demonstrated your own incompetence when it comes to thinking clearly. You should now be humble and submit to my authority.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404
Keep telling yourself that.
By the way. Where does god get his nature? Your second point STILL contains the problem that you don't seem able or willing to address.
If you can't answer the nature question your assertions fail.
So for the last time. Where does he get his nature? Answer the question....of go away.
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM I did. He exists necessarily and has the nature he has necessarily. Answered. Not to your satisfaction, of course - but nothing would do that as you've already decided God doesn't exist.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404
Ah, yes. The cop out answer "I gave you an answer but you don't like it" you must have been watch ing Togetherforpeace's videos.
I haven't decided that there is no god. I actually haven't said anything about my beliefs. I am asking a question that you can't answer, even though you think you did.
"god exists and has a nature necessarily' is not an answer as to where that nature comes from.
So I ask you again. Where does god get his nature.
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM To ask 'where does X come from' when X has been shown to exist necessarily is to ask a stupid question. Any answer to a 'where does X come from' question just invites the question again UNTIL one arrives at a necessary truth. At that point to ask 'where does the necessarily existing thing come from' betrays a failure to grasp what has just been said, namely that it exists necessarily.
By all means challenge that God exists necessarily, but at least grasp what it means, thicky.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404
You haven't shown that X is necessary. You have asserted it.
ThieleM 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Clear404
1. Moral good and moral bad are determined by what Odin approves/disapproves of
2. Odin approves of his own nature (his nature causes him to - a nature that he has essentially)
3. Therefore Odin's nature is good.
Your argument can work for anyone. Since it is unsupported it works just as well for all god. You haven't demonstrated a thing.
So. Where does god get his nature anyway?
ThieleM 2 months ago
@Clear404 Unlike the idiot that is doing such a poor job arguing with you on this, I will jump in and tell you why this fails. It is not because it is circular, but because the first premise points to exactly what the Euthyrpho dilemma hints at: things are moral in divine command theory simply by divine fiat. It is no surprise that God (or anyone else) would approve on his/her own nature. If I defined good as that which I approved of, would you accept that my nature is good?
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker Do I accept ‘good’ as ‘that which you approve of’. No. I don’t think there’s any evidence for it. Let's test it. It generally assumed that our moral sense is to some degree responsive to what is actually right and wrong. I currently sense that there’s nothing wrong with homosexual intercourse. Kindly disapprove of them and let’s see if I start to sense it. I don’t wish to prejudge the results, but methinks they’re not going to confirm your thesis.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 So, when God disapproves of an act, you will sense it and thus you know that God's nature is good? Is that your justification of the special pleading you are making by rejecting my version of your argument? Please don't tell me that is the case. I had high hopes for this conversation.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker I said if my moral sense is to SOME DEGREE responsive to how things actually are, morally. Unless u r a moral sceptic you think your moral sense gives you some insight into how objective morality actually is. But no-one thinks their moral sense is infallible. Please realise that when it comes to figuring out what is ‘actually’ right and wrong, I use the same methods as you.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "Unless u r a moral sceptic you think your moral sense gives you some insight..."
Insight? Perhaps. But our internal sense of what is right and wrong about the universe is often a poor measure for what is, and in any case, let me return back to what I challenged you before.
If, by my argument, my nature is Good, and you and I disagree, you could be wrong, and thus you cannot rely on my ability to change that moral sense to know if it is true. You need to find a better means
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker So you’re a moral sceptic now? Fine – be one of those then. Moral scepticism isn’t a special problem for DCT. If there’s reason to think our moral sense is totally unreliable, then the moral truth by be anything for all we can tell – and that’s the case regardless of whether DCT is true. Can’t you see this? How thick are you?
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "How think are you?"
Ad hom attacks will get you nowhere.
Ethics are not simple and so it is going to take more than one's hunch to justify. Go figure, given the 1000's of years of philosophy on the subject, but that is very much a red herring. I am challenging your logic here, and I am trying to see why you get to engage in special pleading on behalf of God.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker Why do you keep saying I'm engaged in 'special pleading'? I'm presenting arguments. If you disagree with them, highlight a premise you disagree with (or locate a fallacious inference) and we'll take it from there. There's no special pleading anywhere. This is just wishful thinking on your part.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 It is special pleading when the logic you use in defense of your God cannot be used for any other actor, for no reason whatsoever.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker No, that's not the definition of special pleading. Anyway, support the claim you just made.
Clear404 2 months ago
@balanceseeker
Fuck you.
I have already said what you said.
The notion that god's nature is necessary because god is necessary is a circular argument. For one he hasn't demonstrated necessity and he hasn't seen that necessity has nothing to do with his origin.
I want him to actually answer where god gets his nature...something he can't answer
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM No, you didn't, or if you intended to say what I was saying, you were doing so in a rather poor manner. Take your pick. Plus, I do not exactly follow how you think what I wrote is the same as saying "god's nature is necessary because god is necessary is a circular argument."
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker
Saying that gods nature is necessary because god is necessary is as circular as saying the bible is true because the bible says the bible is true.
That isn't all I wrote, the problem with his points 1 2 and 3 weren't all about circularity. 1 is an unfounded assertion. 2 and 3 fail as a result....I made that point and that has nothing to do with circularity.
ThieleM 2 months ago
@ThieleM And in case you think that God's nature could be different from what it is, here's an argument against that:
1. Moral goodness and moral badness are determined by what God approves/disapproves of.
2. It is a conceptual truth that whatever is morally good cannot be morally bad in the same circs.
3. Therefore God cannot approve/dissapprove of anything other than what he does approve/disapprove of
Clear404 2 months ago
@ThieleM Silence, came the loud reply
Clear404 2 months ago
Comment removed
ThieleM 2 months ago
@Clear404 "God can't be an evil monster unless you just assume Divine Command Theory is false (which would be question begging in this context)."
Actually, it would not be question begging, because what you are doing is hijacking the word "good", which usually refers to subjective value judgments on part of agents. You can't simply declare that it is in something's nature to be good. That's up to each and every one of us to decide, depending on how its nature impacts us.
Gnomefro 2 months ago
@Clear404 I would simply declare that divine command theory is incoherent drivel as long as it uses the word good. I also happen to think that if you made up a new word for whatever it is you're talking about, you'd also see how worthless your arguments are. You're not doing anything but repeatedly claiming that a hypothetical agent "God" can not be anything other than what it is. We agree. This does not mean it exists or can invalidate people's opinion about what's beneficial for them
Gnomefro 2 months ago
@Gnomefro Look, I presented some arguments. Just point to a premise you disagree with and give your reasons and we'll take it from there. Just blandly stating that my arguments are worthless etc, is just hot air.
Be open minded. Don't decide ahead of time that an argument is 'worthless' just becasue you dislike its conclusion. That's bad philosophy. Fault the argument or accept the conclusion or go boil your head.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "The evidence that he is not an evil monster is morality itself."
I assume that by "morality" you are talking about our logically necessary obligations to murder witches, homosexuals, adulterers and unruly children, as well as burning priest daughters who have sex before marriage?
Gnomefro 2 months ago
@Gnomefro What our moral obligations 'are' is a different matter: a normative matter and not a metaethical matter.
Oh, and don't tar me with the Christian brush. I'm not religious. I loathe religious people, I loathe their stupidity, I loathe 'faith', and so on. I believe in God but it is not a matter of faith and I consider all religious texts to be utterly barmy, and their moral messages utterly disgusting.
Clear404 2 months ago
But Divine Command Theory is actually MORE plausible than any of the other metaethical views. It is the only view that can combine both the objectivity and the prescriptivity of morality.
Whether you like it or not, Divine Command Theory is an incredibly plausible metaethical view. And thus it generates a very powerful argument for God - the moral argument.
So I say again, the Euthyphro Dilemma is simply no obstacle to the moral argument for God's existence.
Clear404 2 months ago
So, the arbitrariness objection simply does not get one a quick and easily dismissal of Divine Command Theory. And, as I already mentioned, it applies to ALL vindicatory metaethical views, and thus if you think it is a good objection, you must think morality fundamentally incoherent.
If you're going to dismiss DCT, you need to find other grounds.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 DCT volunteerism, which is what you are accepting by accepting the arbitrary (and hence subjective) nature of DCT, does undermine the moral argument because the moral argument is about objective moral facts. Suppose that Islamic terrorists are right and Allah approves of thier actions. You would have to accept that 9/11 was a moral, righteous act, along with every other action justified by their reading of the Qur'an. Is that where you wish to go?
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker My moral sense and normative moral theorising suggests that 9/11 was very wrong indeed. Are you suggesting this is incompatible with DCT?
Ii is ‘possible’ that my moral sense is completely unreliable and thus that it is ‘possible’ that such deeds are right. But this possibility must be accepted by everyone, regardless of whether they accept DCT or not. So I’m afraid this criticism simply does not work, unless you’re arguing for metaethical nihilism.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 What I am suggesting is that your moral sense may be at odds with God's, and I wanted to know what you think DCT would demand. So, take the dive, suppose that God exists as the 9/11 attackers believed, and that God rewards such "righteous" actions. Does this mean that the 9/11 attacks were moral?
Simple question. My understanding of your position, you would have to accept it as moral, but feel free to say tell me how this would not follow.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker Of course my moral sense may be at odds with what God wants. But my moral sense also may be at odds with an objective moral dimension, should one of those be the ground of morality instead. So, just substitute the word ‘God’ in your 9/11 qusetion with ‘objective moral dimension’ and give me your answer. Your answer will be my answer too.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 And for the record, I am not a nihilist. I'm an objectivist when it comes to ethics. I just think that ethics cannot be grounded in the nature of God, nor any other individual. They have to be grounded elsewhere.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker I’m an objectivist too, if we understand that term to mean that the moral truth is not determined by our feelings or opinions. What God actually wills is an objective matter and is not determined by how I feel.
The difficulty u have (and I don’t) is to explain the prescriptivity of morality. To sense that something is wrong, is to sense that it is ‘not to be done’. Only agents can prescribe. U have to posit the existence of prescribing objective properties.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "The difficulty u have ... is to explain the [sense] of morality."
That is a silly statement. The sense of morality is simply a reaction to evolutionary forces. Individuals with a moral sense are more likely to work together, and thus pass on their genes, and those without are not as likely. So, as long as there are tendencies to work together, we will develop a morality that assists that.
That is the origin of the sense. Now, moving on...
balanceseeker 2 months ago
@balanceseeker Oh, so this is your new strategy – just misquote your opponent. I said that the difficulty you have is to explain the PRESCRIPTIVITY of morality. I did not say you’d have a problem explaining how we come to have a moral sense, or how we come to be disposed to make the moral judgements we do. The problem is those causal explanations of our moral beliefs DEBUNKS them. Our moral sense turns out to be a sense of something illusory that conferred an advantage on those who had it.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "just misquote your opponent."
No, I did not think I was misquoting you. I was paraphrasing what you called prescriptivity given the sentences that followed. If you want to give a better accounting of what it is you are asking me to justify, then I think we might be in business.
If, instead, you wish to continue this accusation of intellectual dishonesty, then I'm done with this conversation.
balanceseeker 2 months ago
Perhaps he would reject 1 because if God determines what is right and wrong, then right and wrong could have been different because God could have willed differently.
But what is the basis for that claim? I think we have evidence that God could not have willed anything different, namely the fact taht moral truths could not have been different. He might claim that is question begging, but I'll make the same charge against him.
Result: impasse on arbitrariness.
Clear404 2 months ago
1. God’s commands determine what is right and wrong
2. There is no possible world in which moral truths are different from what they are in the actual world
3. There is no possible world in which God commands anything different from what he commands in the actual world
Anyone who makes the 'arbitrariness' objection against Divine Command Theory (such as Sisyphus) must accept 2. So, he must question premise 1.
Clear404 2 months ago
I think God is waiting for your nature.
rollingcube 2 months ago
Sisyphus,
Saying that God "does not have control over his nature" means that he cannot change his essential attributes. That's certainly not a mark against omnipotence anymore than saying "God cannot make himself not God" is a mark against omnipotence. Similarly, since these attributes are essential to God, it is incorrect to say that it is something *outside of* God dictating what his nature is.
Looking forward to your response.
AgApE010 2 months ago
@AgApE010 It depends on your definition of 'omnipotence.' Martin Luther, for example, would say that God can do literally anything--even things that violate the laws of logic. So for him any sentence of the form "God cannot..." must be false.
And yes, the term 'outside' here should be understood metaphorically, not literally. The better phrase would be 'are his attributes subject to his control, or not?'
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed
I think most of us would disagree with Luther regarding omnipotence than.
I understand you meant the term metaphorically. But the point is that since these attributes (i.e., omnipotence, benevolence, etc) are essential to God, they are not subject to change or alteration anymore than God can make himself not God (for if God can "control" these attributes and make himself malevolent or powerless, he would cease to be God).
What do you think?
AgApE010 2 months ago
@AgApE010 So there is something that he can't control that is 'forcing him' (so to speak) to be perfectly good (I suppose this would be the laws of logic?) If that's the case, then it's that 'force' (the laws of logic) that are ultimately dictating the standard of goodness, not God.
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed
It's not the laws of logic that are dictating the goodness; the laws of logic, in our discussion, are simply stating that God cannot make himself not God/cannot make himself malevolent. Benevolence is still necessarily his nature. Basically, all you can say here is that it is logically impossible for God to be malevolent, with which I would happily agree.
Perhaps what you're meaning to do here is reformulate Euthyphro's Dilemma by replacing "good" with "logical." Is that it?
AgApE010 2 months ago
@AgApE010 "Basically, all you can say here is that it is logically impossible for God to be malevolent, with which I would happily agree."
Which God would this be? Surely not the Abrahamic god commanding the burning of little girls, genocides and murder for a whole range of imaginary crimes? As far as I'm concerned, all apologetics that make this claim come across as violent contradictions. They are typically followed up with claims that I can't identify good if I see it anyway.
Gnomefro 2 months ago
@Gnomefro
If you don't mind, I was having an intelligent discussion with SisyphusRedeemed and was rather enjoying it. I have no desire to respond to your little rantings.
AgApE010 2 months ago
@AgApE010 Anyway, what you can say is not that it's logically impossible for God to be malevolent, but that it's logically impossible for God to not be God, that you have no idea why God has the nature that he has, and you'd claim it is inherently impossible to find out.
However, it is meaningless to insist that "God is the foundation of goodness". That's just a dishonest attempt to hijack a word usually used to refer to all kinds of positive emotions in humans.
Gnomefro 2 months ago
@AgApE010 In all cases where we know that the word "good" means anything at all, it refers to agents making value judgments, and not any kind of objective standard that somehow. Of course, it doesn't help here that theists can't even demonstrate that this being exists. IMO, Euthyphro's dilemma is way too accommodating to what really is just nonsensical drivel on part of the theists.
Gnomefro 2 months ago
@AgApE010 he dilemma also succeeds as a dilemma. Saying "God does X because it's his nature" and "It's God's opinion that X" really is the same thing. The main point of the Euthyphro dilemma is not that the standard can change, but rather that it sets up a tie to the nature of some agent that is not you. Which begs the questions: "Why should I care what this other guy thinks?" and "Why should I value what he values?".
Gnomefro 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed I don't think this is right. If there were laws of logic but no God for them to describe, the theist would probably say that there would be no moral duties and values, since the laws of logic don't prescribe anything. Even if logic is a necessary constraint on God'sown necessary will, in other words, it's still not the sufficient condition for duties and values. You still need a God with a will to act as the ground of the prescriptive quality of moral values and duties.
mhssu 2 months ago
@mhssu "Even if logic is a necessary constraint on God's own necessary will... it's still not the sufficient condition for duties and values."
I like this reply. Several possible responses: (1) if God is logically necessary, as many theists hold, this reply fails. (2) At a minimum, it shows that God, too, is not sufficient, which most theists would want to deny. (3) It seems like logic is actually doing the work, providing the basis for God's dictate, he's just adding 'make it so.'
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed I suppose it turns on your metaphysics of logic. On my understanding of both the nominalistic and Platonic views, the laws of logic "constrain" God's nature in the sense that they describe its limits. The "work" seems to be done entirely by the necessary qualities of the instantiated nature itself and that prescriptive will that emerges from it. God's nature is a feature of God himself, so it's not like there's anything "external" to God that's making him do anything.
mhssu 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed "Luther, for example, would say that God can do literally anything--even things that violate the laws of logic. So for him any sentence of the form "God cannot..." must be false"
Why? On this account of omnipotence God can do even that which He cannot do. That this is logically self-contradictory is of no consequence--God is not bound by logic.
fylosofer 2 months ago
@fylosofer "God is not bound by logic."
My point exactly: that's why any sentence that beings with "God cannot..." must be false, because there is absolutely nothing that God cannot do. He can even do things that he cannot do, and things that are logically impossible. You answered your own question.
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@fylosofer "God is not bound by logic". Okay, so I guess that's pretty much the end of the conversation here.
Knr911 2 months ago
Holy shit that ending.
IAmTheScum13 2 months ago
I don't understand how claiming that God's morality is not subjective because the morality sources from his "nature".
It is fair to say is many cases that a murderer is a murderer by nature. That is to say, it is in murderers nature to murder. Would anyone even attempt to claim that the murderer is a source and foundation of an objective morality?
God's nature sets the tone of his subjectivity; his nature is his subjectivity in an unbindable way.
Christ I am shit at explaining myself!!!
TheCelticChimp 2 months ago
@TheCelticChimp Sense, your post has none. Would you care to re-state?
adam3251 2 months ago
@adam3251
ha! I was afraid of that.
I suppose I am asking how folk are seperating subjectivity and nature like they are unrelated. Would it be coherent to have a "nature" (i.e. moral preferences etc) and also be objective? Does having a nature not immediately entail subjectivity? Are they not one in the same thing?
I hope that is a tad clearer.
Also, if you believe the two are seperate I would be grateful for your thoughts on the distinctions between the two.
Cheers.
TheCelticChimp 2 months ago
Lol.
Uhlbelk 2 months ago
Have I not undermined the Euthyphro dilemma? Yes, methinks I have. there's simply no dilemma. Option 2 (God wills what he wills 'because' it is good) is just to abandon Divine command theory. Option 1 just describes Divine Command theory. Er, so how on earth can that be a 'dilemma'?
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 I will respond with the words of G.W. Leibniz from his Discourse on Metaphysics: "In saying that things are not good by any rule of goodness, but sheerly by the will of God, it seems to me that one destroys, without realizing it, all the love of God and all his glory. For why praise him for what he has done if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing exactly the contrary?"
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed But that's just the arbitariness objection repackaged - and that's easily dealt with: everyone faces it, plus the only evidence that morality cannot be arbitrary is a powerful intution to that effect, in which case I, as a Divine Command Theorist, just help myself to it and conclude that as moral truths are truths about what God wills, and as moral truths cannot be otheriwse, therefore whatever God wills, he could not have willed otherwise. Done.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 Then you loose all normative force. If 'good' in your mouth simply means 'what God wills' then what reason do I have to be 'good'? Why should 'good' be attractive, if that's all it means? You've eviscerated normativity that way. If you bite the bullet on morality being arbitrary, then why have a foundation in the 1st place? You're right that 'why be good?' has to be answered regardless, but your theory can't possibly answer it, whereas other theories at least have a chance.
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed a) I don't bite the bullet on morality being arbitrary. I'm saying it is a problem for everyone and thus cannot be a reason to reject DCT. b) I'm actually doing what others do and taking the normativity of morality as fixed point and then arguing from that to the conclusion that whatever God wills, he wills necessarily. So I'm not somehow getting the normativity out of God, I'm doing things the other way around.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "I'm saying it is a problem for everyone and thus cannot be a reason to reject DCT."
It is if others can answer the problem, but DCT can't.
"whatever God wills, he wills necessarily."
This leads you right back to the trilemma: WHY is it necessary that he wills it? What makes it so? Any answer that you give will either be arbitrary or ground ethics in something other than God. You cannot escape this.
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed Well until others answer the problem (and they haven't) it is completely arbitrary to reject DCT on those grounds. And it is also just wishful thinking to say that there is the 'possibility' of an answer with alternative views.
TO ask 'why' is it necessary that he wills it is to misunderstand the way the argument is being run. The necessity of moral truths is taken as a given, as it would have to be if one were arguing for any other view. So the question is misplaced.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "Well until others answer the problem (and they haven't) it is completely arbitrary to reject DCT on those grounds."
Actually, quite the opposite: it is arbitrary to ACCEPT DCT if you're conceding that it fails. I don't need a better account to reject an argument that you're admitting doesn't work. You're engaging in what's known as the 'tu quo que' fallacy.
But moreover, others HAVE answered the problem: Plato, Aristotle, Mill, Kant, & Darwin among others all give superior accounts.
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed But I'm not conceding that it fails. I'm saying that there's a problem here but it is no more of a problem for DCT than it is for anyone else, and thus it cannot provide a good reason to reject DCT (in favour of a rival account). Where arbitrariness is concerned DCT is no better or worse off than anyone else.
But I said that it had OTHER advantages over rivals.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "it cannot provide a good reason to reject DCT (in favour of a rival account)."
But I'm not arguing for an alternative account (at least not here). We don't need to know whether or not any other theory succeeds to know this one fails. If you're right, and that all other theories of metaethics are just as bad as DCT then we should reject all metaethical theories.
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed How have I committed a fallacy? I was not saying arbitrariness is not a problem becasue everyone has it. I was saying that everyone has this problem and thus it cannot be a reason to reject DCT (unless you ae going to reject all metaethical views and argue that our conception of morality is incoherent).
No fallacy at all. Just a partners in crime move, which is perfectly legitimate.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 These views are not without their problems, but at least they're not obvious failures, as yours is.
"The necessity of moral truths is taken as a given, as it would have to be if one were arguing for any other view."
Nonsense. It's not requires that moral truths be necessary truths; it more than suffices to establish that they are truths.
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed So if moral truths are just 'truths' rather than necessary truths, then there's no problem with saying that in this, the actual world, the best evidence is that God disapproves of rape, but there's a possible world in which he doesn't.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "God disapproves of rape, but there's a possible world in which he doesn't."
Of course there's a possible world in which God doesn't approve of rape: any world in which he doesn't exist (such as this one, for example.)
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed Well that's flagrantly question begging! Two can play at that game. There is NO possible world in which rape is morally o.k. and thus there is no possible world in which God does not exist.
Clear404 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed Cont'd...so it seems to me that you, like others, are simply arbitrarily not allowing the DCT to make moves that you will have to allow other positions to make (unless you're some sort of nihilist who thinks morality is thoroughly incoherent).
It is taken to be a conceptual truth about morality that there cannot be a moral difference without a difference in natural properties: the so-called 'supervenience thesis'. It is solely by appeal to the truth of this thesis that....
Clear404 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed Cont'd...that, say, the intuitionist glues their moral properties to natural properties. They can provide no account of 'why' this is so - they just have to help themselves to it. Well, I can do that too.
To ask 'why' moral truths are necessary truths (and thus why, if DCT is true, God wills what he wills) is to ask for the necessity of morality to be explained by appeal to some more basic, more obvious, necessity. But that's mad. There isn't one - it doesn't get clearer
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "They can provide no account of 'why' this is so - they just have to help themselves to it."
Of course they can give an account. The supervience of the moral on the natural isn't simply a bald assumption; there are whole volumes arguing for this. Anscombe, Foot and Hursthouse (just to name the Aristotelians) have built entire careers on making such accounts. They may fail, but it's simply false to say they're just ASSUMING their conclusion.
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed But Anscombe, Foot, and Hursthouse are all naturalists. So the supervenience thesis is trivially true for them. I said that an 'INTUITIONIST', so a non-naturalist, has to assume the supervenience thesis in order to stop it being arbitrary that a particular action has the moral properties it does.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 "the supervenience thesis is trivially true for them."
It most certainly is not. If it were they wouldn't be writing books trying to ESTABLISH it as true. They'd just assume it and say 'okay, what's next?'
SisyphusRedeemed 2 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed The supervenience thesis says 'no moral difference without a difference in natural properties'. If someone is a naturalist then moral properties are identical with some set of natural properties and thus it is by definition true that there cannot be a difference in moral properties without a difference in natural properties, for moral properties ARE natural properties.
Their books are spent trying to establish naturalism, not the truth of the supervenience thesis.
Clear404 2 months ago
I think the moral argument for God's existence is a good argument. Stunningly good, in fact.
As for the euthyphro dilemma, that's easy. Option 1. God determines what is right and wrong, because 'right' is best understood as 'commanded by God'.
Clear404 3 months ago
@Clear404 Stay tuned to my channel.
SisyphusRedeemed 3 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed I shall. But let me anticipate the standard response to my 'option 1' way of dealing with the Euthyprhro. The standard response is that this renders morality arbitrary. If God had willed us to rape one another, then rape would be right and so on. I will sketch my reply and make it more 'fully' should you make the objection in question. My first move: partners in crime. All metaethical views face this problem and face it equally. It cannot be a reason to reject DCT.
Clear404 3 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed Cont'd, my second response (sketched). What evidence is there that morality cannot be arbitrary? Presumably a powerful intuition that it cannot be. Well, o.k. then unless you're going to beg the question against DCT, I take that powerful intuition to be evidence that whatever God wills, he wills necessarily and that there is no possible world in which God wants us to rape an innocent in normal circs.
Am I begging the question? Not if there are independent reasons 4 DCT
Clear404 3 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed Cont'd, needless to say, I think there ARE independent reasons for favouring Divine Command Theory over rival metaethical views, namely it is the only view that can adequately account for both the objectivity and the prescriptivity of moral claims.
But even if there aren't, I've still defanged the Euthyphro dilemma.
Clear404 3 months ago
@Clear404 So you are saying that whatever a deity claims is right, is by definition right, solely because the deity claims it is right. However, you are also saying that such objectivity also lives alongside prescriptive morality. Can I ask, if a deity decided that raping an innocent was ''right'' then it would be right?
asianlife53 2 months ago
@asianlife53 Everyone faces the arbitrariness objection. For instance, some moral theorists argue that moral properties are irreducible. So goodness is goodness, and that's that. Pain has the property of being bad, but it is not identical with badness. Now, this view faces the arbitrariness objection. For while in the actual world rape (most rapes) have the property of being bad, if - 'if' - rape had the obective moral property of being good, then it would be good....cont'd
Clear404 2 months ago
@asianlife53 Cont'd...and the same goes for any other view you mention (if you're a subjectivist and believe that 'good' just means 'I approve of' then if you didn't approve of it, it'd be bad - and so on). So EVERY VIEW faces the arbitrariness objection and NONE OF THEM can solve it. So to single out DCT and reject it BECAUSE IT FACES THE ARBITRARINESS OBJECTION is, er, ARBITRARY.
If you're so anti being arbitrary, find a NON ARBITRARY reason to reject DCT.
Clear404 2 months ago
@asianlife53 Cont'd...most of those who criticise the moral argument for God fundamentally misunderstand how it works. This is partly because most of those who make it don't believe in God on the basis of the moral argument, but have 'faith' that God exists.
I'm quite different. I have no faith in the existence of God whatsoever. I believe in a God solely and entirely on the basis of two arguments, one of which is the moral argument.
And I see the moral argument as powerful....cont'd
Clear404 2 months ago
@asianlife53 Cont'd...I see the moral argument as powerful precisely because I take the reality of morality to be surer than the existence of God. It is THAT way around. Morality exists and has a certain character. I am more sure of this, than I ever am of the existence of a God. Now, one of the features of the moral dimension - a feature you're acutely aware of because it is the ground for your objection - is that moral truths cannot be arbitrary. If X is wrong, it is necessarily wrong....
Clear404 2 months ago
@asianlife53 Cont'd....I'm as sure as you are that moral truths are necessary truths - so I'm as confident as you are that if rape is wrong in circumstances X, then it is always wrong in circmstances X.
But no account of morality can 'explain' this. It just has to be taken as a given. Now, if the best account of what our moral beliefs are beliefs 'about' is DCT (and I think it is), then we can conclude that what God wills he wills necessarily. Our evidence? Morality itself.
Clear404 2 months ago
@Clear404 You really seem to be struggling with this, in that you cannot answer even simple questions- which I suspected.You are not exactly the sharpest knife in the box are you? Did you want to have a proper go at the question, or would you prefer to waffle again? BTW- congratulating yourself on you own brilliance is not smart.
asianlife53 2 months ago
@asianlife53 Yes, absolutely right - I'm very stupid and you're very clever. Well done.
Clear404 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Clear404 " Yes, absolutely right - I'm very stupid and you're very clever. Well done. "
- That must have hurt to admit... well done on being honest.
Roper122 2 months ago
You're wrong. You are arguing for a created God. The Theist believes in an uncreated God. Thus, His nature is neither controlled or uncontrolled by Him - it merely is.
JAGsoccer 3 months ago
@JAGsoccer Saying 'it merely is' sounds a lot like saying 'he has no control over it.' This has nothing to do with being created or uncreated; of any X that exists, it is either the case that it has (at least some) control over any Y, or it is not the case that it has (at least some) control over any Y. That 's as close to a universal and exhaustive statement as I can muster. You can't avoid the question by throwing up chaff about an irrelevant question of 'created or uncreated'.
SisyphusRedeemed 3 months ago
Lol, even Richard Swinburne doesn't think the moral argument for god is a sound argument, give it up theists :)
ABARANOWSKISKI 3 months ago
I've always seen fate as the sole controller of god and his antithesis, but that only brings further problems and it certainly makes god more of a pawn like us.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 4 months ago
you should make a vid where you support the notion that nature needs to be dictated.
doesnt seem right 2me
idky1349 4 months ago
(2) Does God NOT have control over his nature
Xian philosophers would agree, and I think it's not detrimental to theism.
Nature in philosophy is defined as an essential property. To ask if something can change it's essential property is to make it NOT an essential property. It makes no sense. It's like asking:
"Can a square make it's angles add to 180 degrees?"
(1) if yes then its properties are arbitrary!
(2) if no, then the square is not omnipotent
both silly responses
-an atheist
linuxisbetter0 4 months ago
@linuxisbetter0 I don't think the theist can be comfortable with this. If God cannot control his nature, then we have to ask what dictates God's nature to him. Whatever it is (laws of logic, etc.), let's call it 'X.' If X dictates his nature, and his nature in turn dictates what is good and evil, then really God is just a middle-man; He plays no crucial role in the grounding of ethics at all. We can just cut him out and say that X is what is the real foundation of ethics.
SisyphusRedeemed 4 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed
That's my issue w your argument. I don't think anything 'dictates' nature/essential properties. To say a square has angles adding to 360 and 4 sides is because thats it's essential properties.
Nothing dictates 'nature' or essential properties by definition. It's a characteristic that makes it 'it.'
I mean, I agree that God does not ground moral facts but thats obviously true since im an atheist; I just don't think the E.D. or E.T. shows it.
linuxisbetter0 4 months ago
@linuxisbetter0 I don't think anything 'dictates' nature/essential properties."
Sure there is. To use your own example, what dictates a square having 360* is Euclidean geometry. In non-euclidean systems they can have more or fewer *.
But even if this weren't the case, the classical theist can't take your strategy, since it entails denying the principle of sufficient reason, which they need for the Cosmological argument. I don't mind giving up PSR, but I doubt they'd be comfortable with it.
SisyphusRedeemed 4 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed
I just cant seem to wrap my head around your argument. Descriptive and prescriptive facts are different. 2+2=4 need not Math dictate that it is so, it's just so (description). Similarly, a square need not euclidean geometry dictate that it has 4 sides, it's just an axiomatic feature of a square.
I dont think the theist gives up PSR; God is a necessary entity, not a contingent one. Why do you think they have to give up PSR?
linuxisbetter0 4 months ago
@linuxisbetter0 "Descriptive and prescriptive facts are different."
This is a common position, often attributed to Hume, but it's one that I think has proven untenable since the work of Quine. At any rate, this is a very controversial position that requires a defense.
"it's just an axiomatic feature"
This seems to be a Platonic position: squares and numbers exist on their own, independent of minds. I reject this position, too.
SisyphusRedeemed 4 months ago
@linuxisbetter0 (The word 'axiom' literally means 'to deem worthy' or 'to require'. Etymology does not define concept, of course, but it is worth nothing the original sense of the term.)
I think your move requires abandoning the PSR because there are a whole set of facts that have no 'sufficient reason: mathematical facts, logical facts, theological facts, etc. If there is no reason for these facts, then (at least one major version of) PSR is out the window.
SisyphusRedeemed 4 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed
So why is it that an essential property needs further grounding in your mind again?
God is a necessary entity whose very nature is good.
I think thats my main issue.
Why do you feel Gods nature to be dictated for it to be so?
It seems, not be rude, a nonsensical question.
linuxisbetter0 4 months ago
@linuxisbetter0 "So why is it that an essential property needs further grounding in your mind again?"
I don't think it's necessarily grounded in my mind, but it does have to be grounded (or perhaps 'entwined' would be a better term) in SOMETHING. No concept, property or entity exists all on it's own in a vacuum. Meaning, value and truth come from the relationships between components, not from axiomatic, isolated 'atoms' that hold in and of themselves.
SisyphusRedeemed 4 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed
hmm I see your point now. I just somehow don't agree. Im not a philosopher I just graduated as an engineer. To me it makes complete sense to assert that there are 'brute facts' that don't need any further grounding, and that these facts are independent of ourselves or at least its possible.
For instance, I think, 2+2=4 even if no humans evolved to discover this.
So, in order for your ET to work, you have believe:
(1) essential properties of x(variable) are contingent?
linuxisbetter0 4 months ago
@linuxisbetter0 Well, we've dug pretty deep here. This is at least one way of developing the argument, but I don't think it's the only way. There are other ways of responding to your concern, I just took the tact that jives best with my general Quinean ideas about meaning and metaphysics. Alternatively, you could challenge the idea that defining God as good is meaningless, but for other reasons (question begging, uninformative, etc.)
SisyphusRedeemed 4 months ago
@SisyphusRedeemed
I don't go the ED/ET route since it'll contradict my other views. I usually just state that theists can't justify or support p(1) if god exists, then OM exist or p(2) OM exist.
You'll be surprised how they can't justify their premises. I state that they have to show that OM is IMPOSSIBLE naturalistically, which is too big of task. Moreover theists Ive spoken to can't justify (2) either. So, I really try to stray from explaining any ethical theory I believe to be true lol.