Euthyphro's Trilemma

My riposte to a standard attempt to avoid the Euthyphro problem by splitting the horns of the dilemma. In short, the problem is just as vexing, whether it's a dilemma or a trilemma.

Please forgive the 'dark poetry' at the end, but I've been holding my tongue on this one for far too long, and I really want to put a fine point on it.

Epydemic2020's video that I'm responding to (you can trace back the exchange with Schwanderd from there, if you like): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfIThFpy1c

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Apologetics
• Plato
• philosophy
• of
• religion
• divine
• command
• theory
• arguments
• that
• should
• have
• been
• discarded
• millennia

[donaldinasweater]

This is an amazing video. Well done.

[Clear404]

@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]

@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]

@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..

[Clear404]

@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.

[jayraskin]

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.

[insidetrip101]

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.

[Clear404]

@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]

@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]

@balanceseeker No, that's not the definition of special pleading. Anyway, support the claim you just made.