Question Has anyone come up with an adequate or nearly adequate reply to the Euthyphro Dilemma or has it so far proved the nail in the coffin to the Divine Command Theory? Thanks.

Accepted:
April 5, 2006

Comments

I take it that the Euthyphro dilemma against divine command theory involves the choice between saying that something is right because God says it is right and saying that God says something is right because it is right. The former claim seems false, since it seems to entail the falsehood that if God simply said torturing kittens was right, that would make it right to torture kittens. And the latter claim does not seem strong enough for divine command theory, since it does not make God's command the source of moral value.

I'm no expert on this topic, but there seem to be two obvious rejoinders. One would be to bite the bullet and allow that God is the source of morality, so the first horn of the dilemma is correct. If God commanded kitten torture, then that would in fact be the right thing to do. Our strong initial intuition to the contrary is just due to the fact that we have been brought up on the basis of what God actually commands, which (let's suppose) includes a command to be kind to animals. On this view, Abraham was right to try to follow God's command, even when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. But this is a tough line to accept.

The other obvious rejoinder is to go with the second horn but reconfigure divine command theory so that it is enough that God is a perfectly reliable authority on moral matters, even though value is not simply created by God's command. But while having such an authority would be fantastic, it would leave unanswered the big question of the source of moral value, since while God would be perfectly responsive to that source, He would not be that source.

So on balance, Socrates' brilliant question does seem to deal divine command theory a very serious blow. The theory is in trouble, even if God exists.

Although I agree with Peter Lipton (having actually recently made such arguments in a commentary I did with Thomas Brickhouse on the Euthyphro itself, in the Routledge Guidebook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates, I think it is also fair to mention that some theistic philosophers have recently attempted to defend the Divine Command Theory (DCT), by arguing that it makes sense to think that something might become morally required as a result of God commanding it. Have a look at Philip Quinn's Divine Commands and Moral Requirements (Oxford, 1978), 30-52.

I personally do not think this avoids the problem (because we can still ask why God would command it in the first place, in which case, the only available options seem to be "because it is good," which seems to defeat the DCT, "for no reason," which seem to make divine commands completely arbitrary, or "for some reason other than that it is good," which would seem to there being some non-good reason for God's commands, or perhaps that something other than the command itself makes things good). However, as far as I can tell, Quinn's is probably the most sophisticated defense of the DCT I know of, and so if you are interested in this question, it is good to attend to both sides of the debate.

Question Has anyone come up with an adequate or nearly adequate reply to the Euthyphro Dilemma or has it so far proved the nail in the coffin to the Divine Command Theory? Thanks. Accepted:April 5, 2006

Question Has anyone come up with an adequate or nearly adequate reply to the Euthyphro Dilemma or has it so far proved the nail in the coffin to the Divine Command Theory? Thanks.

Accepted:
April 5, 2006