Philosophy of Religion - Euthyphro Dilemma - Summary Revision Notes
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Course
Philosophy of Religion
Institution
University Of Oxford
These revision notes formed part of the revision booklet I compiled to achieve a 1st class Philosophy and Theology Degree.
This particular document contains the main arguments for this topic including the objections and replies.
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• The Euthyphro dilemma is raised in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro.
• Euthyphro talks to Socrates about why he is convicting his own father for the
murder of one of his slaves. Socrates questions Euthyphro on where he receives
the moral authority to make such a decision and Euthyphro concludes that holy
decisions are ones that the gods love, and unholy decisions are ones that the gods
hate. Socrates then asks Euthyphro to consider the following: “Is the pious
loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because it is loved by the
gods?”.
• Gottfried Leibniz asked whether good and just “is good and just because God
wills it or whether God wills it because it is good and just”.
Argument
• Why God wills what God wills:
1) Either, something is good because God wills it,
2) Or, God wills something because it is good.
• One of the above options must be the case if morality is dependent on God, but
it is a dilemma because both options seem to have unfavourable
consequences for theism.
Something is Good because God wills it.
God could will what has been previously immoral
• If the first option is true; that morality is whatever God wills, then could God make
what is previously wrong be right or make what is good be bad?
• If morality really is (identical to) whatever God says it is, then he could decide
morality is something else, something we might previously have thought to be
, immoral. In theory, God could decide that torturing puppies for fun is the right
thing to do, and then it would become the right thing to do, since morality is
whatever God wills.
Morality becomes arbitrary
• The implications of this, is that morality seems to become arbitrary.
• Morality for theists and non-theists is more than something random or
subjective, we like to think that we believe the things we do for a reason, and if
that reason is simply because God says so, it seems arbitrary.
Issue for Divine Command Theorists
• This is not good for theism, or divine command theists at least, because they
want to believe that God’s moral rules are the ones we ought to follow, but if
they are arbitrary, why don’t we just follow our own or disagree with some of
God’s moral rules.
• Some may argue that we should obey Gods moral rules even if we do disagree
because we will go to hell if we don’t obey them; like in the story of Abraham
where God is said to have told him to kill his son, obviously Abraham was
conflicted but chose to obey God anyway. This is an equally bad conclusion for
theists to arrive at: that they only do what is moral because they are afraid of hell.
There appears to be another reason for why we care about what is moral, or at
least, appears there should be another reason why we find things moral or
immoral.
• Therefore, the first option, that something is Good because God wills it, is not
favourable.
God wills something because it is Good.
• The other ‘horn’ of the dilemma explains that God does not just ‘make up’ moral
rules arbitrarily, but instead, God is referring to some external standard of what
is good.
• If this is the case, God cannot make what is wrong be right e.g., torturing
puppies for fun will always be wrong whatever God commands. However, this
means that God must conform his will to something independent of him.
• We can argue that this places a constraint on God. If morality is independent of
God, and God is supremely good, there is something God cannot do, namely
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