Ethical Naturalism and Value Systems: The Euthyphro Dilemma (part 3,final)

Joseph Fletcher: Situation Ethics,
episcopal priest, pioneer in bio ethics.

The Euthyphro Dilemma

            Christian values have been assailed by modernity since the enlightenment. One of the major forms that attack takes is through the “Euthyphro dilemma.” This dilemma is aimed at the assumption that the only form of Christian ethics is divine command theory,[1] that God makes something good just because he says it, and his saying is an arbitrary whim. According to Baggett and Walls account of Louise Antony version is “are morally good actions morally Good simply in virtue of the gods favoring them or does God favor them because they are—independently of his favoring them—morally good?[2] Antony replaces “the gods” with “God” indicating that the God of monotheism is her intended target of rhetorical analysis, as Baggett and Walls point out. Yet the dilemma was orinally cast with Greek gods in mind. Bagget and Walls’s take on the dilemma is very detailed and complex, it’s one of the best in recent years. I won’t be going into it with that kind of complexity. The basic upshot of the dilemma is that either God is subject to an independent standard outside himself, and thus he is not God and secular thought might find that standard so we don’t need religion, or morality is just an arbitrary whim on God’s part. Yet the dilemma is based upon the Greek gods not the Christian, and as noted, Antony shifts form the Greek to the God of the Christian tradition with no justification. The Greek gods were continent beings, they had parents they were not eternal they were not the creators. The dilemma really doesn’t apply to the God of the Christian tradition who is eternal and the basis of all that is. That means there’s a closer relationship between the good God than just God’s commands. That connection  closer than divine command theory would have it; it’s not just a matter of “good is what God says it is,” although it is dependent upon God, but not just on his commands.[3]

            The relationship between God and the good is not merely based upon voluntarism, that God demans X therefore is good. Rather, it is that God is the basis of the good. Goodness is God’s character and without God there would be no concept of the good. God depends upon God but not just upon his commands. It’s not merely that there would be no big bully on the block to tell us what is good, but that there would be no good itself because God is the good itself. The good is derived form God’s character and God’s character is love, love is the background of the moral universe (Augustine) and thus goodness is derived form love. That brings up several problems. For example, J.L. Mackie argues that once one affirms the existence of unchangeable moral good then God becomes unnecessary and secular thinkers might find those principles without God.[4] The concept of unchangeable moral good that is detachable form God is an impossibly. It might be that thinkers could come to conclusions that coincide with truths implicit upon God’s character and not know it. That’s hardly the same as saying God is “unnecessary.” If there’s any relation between what’s good and what’s true and if good is based upon God’s character there’s no true ontological separation between those two. In discussions with atheists when I say that morality is based upon love and love is God’s character they usually balk at both aspects of that statement: they figure love is a reaction of chemicals in the brain that just produces little sentimental or romantic feelings, and moral good is derived from behavior not from love. Usually they don’t observe the implicit value that would make a behavior good or bad. There’s more to it than just saying good is based upon God’s character. It’s also a matter of God’s judgment. God’s power, knowledge and goodness underwrite his moral authority.[5]God not only creates all that is, including planning its purpose, but also knows the truth and is the only mind that can figure the complexities of all existing relationships between moral concepts and human behavior, and the only truly objective judge who knows the subjects of moral behavior better than they know themselves, and in addition to all that has the forthrightness and loving concern to explicate moral judgments fairly. When I say “love” is behind the good I don’t mean romantic love or sentimentality but the Greek term agape.  The idea that love is the basis of he good may be a problem for some Christians because there is a concept in the Christian tradition that love and moral goodness are two counterpoising forces that have to keep each other in balance. I suggest that is nonsense if we are talking about Gods’ love, the love that is the basis of God’s character. “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8).

What is the good?

            Agape is used of God’s love through the New Testament. It is translated as “charity” at times.[6] The word is linked with good will and benevolence. The King James translation renders it “charity” (1 Corinthians 13:1). There’s more to it than that. It’s also linked to “preference” to prefer the other. The word is used for the love of God for man and man for God, the love humans for each other, and the love of God for Christ.[7] Agape is the basis of the good. What is good evaluated as what is agapic (loving). Other moral precepts and axioms such as justice, fairness and reciprocity would all be meaningful only in relation to agape. In fact one major theological ethicist came to that conclusion back in the 1960s, that was Joseph Fletcher. A lot of Christians were outraged by his view of “situation ethics,” and his book by the same title.[8] It was controversial and it drew lots of fire including the charge of “new morality.” Nevertheless he was a top notch ethicist. Fletcher argues that love and justice are the same. Justice is the distributive aspect of love.[9] He calls upon Augustine and argues that love must be prudent. He argues that this view forces us to pull back from the notion that love is sentimental and “mushy” and non intellectual. This is the intellectual side of love; today we call it “tough love.” Literally the argument is how do we manae to supply the beneficiaries of love when there are so many? The answer is by turning the problem into a question of justice. We make sure that justice is done at the same time making sure that love is distributed and doing it in such a way that we exclude one for he sake of the other.[10] Thus we can see how the other aspects of moral axioms indeed stem form love. Love is the background of the moral universe.

            Christian ethics certainly revolve around love. The value system that we use to inform that choice is the one through which Augustine re-valued the values of the Roman Empire. That value system plays out upon the eternal scale of values. We love the eternal we use the temporal. Human beings are eternal, created in the image of God, thus each human being is an end in himself/herself. Temporal things are means to ends. Thus temporal things are to be used and put aside but human beings matter. If science was the basis of ethics, nature never tells us that humans are valuable, there would be no basis for valuing humans except the cultural, and that is relative and can be discarded. Ethical naturalists might kid themselves about the alleged “objective basis” for ethics, they sound like persupositionalist Christian apologists trying to explain what that means. Without the arbitrary assumption already built in regarding the value of human worth, without appeal to a transcendent value system such as Christian agape there is no basis that science could ever give us for not using humans and valuing things. One finds scientistic thinkers such as atheists, especially on the popular level, expressing the sentiments that “humans are not so special.” We don’t have souls, there’s no God, we are just bags of chemicals or jumped up apes so why should we think we are special? Steve Paulson is an example from the popular level. Although he has an advanced science degree and works in science, obliquely. He’s a producer for public radio and an author. He expresses the idea that humans are just “cosmopolitan apes.” Again the idea is not to find fault with evolution. We can accept evolution as scientific fact and accept ethics as philosophical fact and accept The Bible as spiritual fact all at the same time and value humanity. Paulson says:

Most assume that humans are fundamentally different form the rest of the animal world…many people believe that but to biologists we are animals. It’s hard to believe that we are fundamentally different because there is no part of the human brain that is not present in the monkey’s brain. Our brains are bigger and we certainly have more powerful computer than any other animal, but the computer is not fundamentally different. So there’s no fundamental divide between humans and Chimpanzees? no…if you were to ask what the big difference is I would probably say it’s language but like all capacities once you break them down you are going to find some of these part sin other species.[11]

He argues that chimps have morality, “they have a sense of fairness.” Is it really a concept of fairness or just behavior would be fair if they really understood it, but perhaps they don’t? He finds that chimps respond to the needs of others, they seem to share food with those who don’t have enough. Is this really ethical thinking or just a instinctive sense of love that might pervade all creatures? He’s talking about cooperation in hunting. That’s not proof that they value each other. It could just be a practical matter that helps them all. It is evidence of outcome oriented thinking that doesn’t necessarily recognize a moral dimension but a practical survival dimension. Isn’t that what Harris and Churchland and Wilson are reducing ethics to?

            More examination of how this thinking plays out at the popular level, even though this is not scientific, we find bloggers expressed some odd sentiments. The blog “Think Atheist” urges that we should be “ridding ourselves of humanities self centrality: The Importance of Inclusively.”[12]

Humanity thought the universe spun around the Earth as if it were the purpose of the universe. Likewise, the sun.

Another way we think we are special is amongst the rest of the life forms on the planet. We like to believe that there are animals... and there are humans. We seem to have a hard time admitting to ourselves that we are animals. But we are. I'd like to take this idea one step further though. We are all LIFE. We are all BIOLOGY. And the separations between us that seem so important, identifiable and distinctive. Are actually not all that different in the end. All life on this planet evolved IS RELATED. FAMILY. By quantifiable amounts. 99% of our DNA is that of a chimpanzees and 50% of our DNA is that of a banana. ALL LIFE is CLOSELY related. We all come from the same place and we're all going in the same direction. We are procreating and spreading the seed of life, adapting to new environments by all means necessary, even if we must evolve.[13]

If we are animals and we are life and we are no better than any other animals or life would it really matter if we don’t get the quinine to the children dying of malaria? After all there’s lots more life where that life comes from and no one is special. Or that we have to allow dying or even killing off some group so the rest will have more to go around? After all a good outcome is all that matters, we are not special so we can be a means to an end. How are they going to decide this in the clash of such values? Neither the nature from which they take their ethical axioms, nor the science they prize so highly tells us to value humanity or to make humans ends in themselves. How will they resolve such conflicts?            

            These ideas can be put into a positive version. Yet if we assume that we are now coasting on Christian memories and the culture has lots of ideas left over from a time when we valued humanity, what’s going to happen in a couple of generations when those ideas are all gone and we are just seen as “some examples of life among other life,” no better than any other animal and not more than a means to an end; the end being an outcome considered “moral” by those who don’t see a difference in marmoset values and human values. Out come is not totally divorced from deontology. Just because a deontologist doesn’t use outcome as the basis for ethical “ought” doesn’t mean we don’t care about having good outcomes. It seems that if there is no ethical deliberation along the lines of basic value system there is no ethical thought. If there is no ethical thought there is no ethical action. Reducing meta ethical theory (the theory of what makes a thing good or not) to behavior is not the answer. Valuing human individuals as ends in themselves and worthy of preserving rights and ends seems like a good place to start thinking about the sorts of outcomes we desire.

---

[1] David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, 32.

[2] Ibid., 32.

[3] Ibid., 84.

[4] Ibid., 85.

[5] Ibid., 123.

[6] Bible Hub website, Thayers Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Bible soft, 2002, 2011.  http://biblesuite.com/greek/26.htm  accessed 5/30/13.

[7] Ibid.

[8] James F. Childress, “Introduction,” Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: the New Morality. Louisville Kentucky: Westminster, John Knox Press, originally published 1966. 1.

[9] Ibid., 87. Not only did Fletcher receive a lot of criticism, “situation ethics” was the title of the book and the name of the ethical theory, the subtitle was “the new morality.” Both became dirty words, so the actual title of the book was like a charge leveled against him. I am not supporting situation ethics but I do support Fletcher’s reading of love and justice.

[10] Ibid.,  88.

[11] Steve Paulson, The Cosmopolitan Ape: primatology, empathy, morality, community, culture.” Website: http://nautil.us/issue/1/what-makes-you-so-special/the-cosmopolitan-ape  accessed 6/3/13.

[12] Dragontorn, Think Atheist, “Ridding ourselves of Humanities Self Centrality: the Importance of Inclusively.” Blog: http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/ridding-ourselves-of-humanity-s-self-centrality-the-importance-of  accessed 6/3/13.

[13] Ibid.

Ethical Naturalism and Value Systems: part 3, The Euthyphro Dilemma (final)

Joseph Fletcher: Situation Ethics,
episcopal priest, pioneer in bio ethics.

The Euthyphro Dilemma

            Christian values have been assailed by modernity since the enlightenment. One of the major forms that attack takes is through the “Euthyphro dilemma.” This dilemma is aimed at the assumption that the only form of Christian ethics is divine command theory,[1] that God makes something good just because he says it, and his saying is an arbitrary whim. According to Baggett and Walls account of Louise Antony version is “are morally good actions morally Good simply in virtue of the gods favoring them or does God favor them because they are—independently of his favoring them—morally good?[2] Antony replaces “the gods” with “God” indicating that the God of monotheism is her intended target of rhetorical analysis, as Baggett and Walls point out. Yet the dilemma was orinally cast with Greek gods in mind. Bagget and Walls’s take on the dilemma is very detailed and complex, it’s one of the best in recent years. I won’t be going into it with that kind of complexity. The basic upshot of the dilemma is that either God is subject to an independent standard outside himself, and thus he is not God and secular thought might find that standard so we don’t need religion, or morality is just an arbitrary whim on God’s part. Yet the dilemma is based upon the Greek gods not the Christian, and as noted, Antony shifts form the Greek to the God of the Christian tradition with no justification. The Greek gods were continent beings, they had parents they were not eternal they were not the creators. The dilemma really doesn’t apply to the God of the Christian tradition who is eternal and the basis of all that is. That means there’s a closer relationship between the good God than just God’s commands. That connection  closer than divine command theory would have it; it’s not just a matter of “good is what God says it is,” although it is dependent upon God, but not just on his commands.[3]

            The relationship between God and the good is not merely based upon voluntarism, that God demans X therefore is good. Rather, it is that God is the basis of the good. Goodness is God’s character and without God there would be no concept of the good. God depends upon God but not just upon his commands. It’s not merely that there would be no big bully on the block to tell us what is good, but that there would be no good itself because God is the good itself. The good is derived form God’s character and God’s character is love, love is the background of the moral universe (Augustine) and thus goodness is derived form love. That brings up several problems. For example, J.L. Mackie argues that once one affirms the existence of unchangeable moral good then God becomes unnecessary and secular thinkers might find those principles without God.[4] The concept of unchangeable moral good that is detachable form God is an impossibly. It might be that thinkers could come to conclusions that coincide with truths implicit upon God’s character and not know it. That’s hardly the same as saying God is “unnecessary.” If there’s any relation between what’s good and what’s true and if good is based upon God’s character there’s no true ontological separation between those two. In discussions with atheists when I say that morality is based upon love and love is God’s character they usually balk at both aspects of that statement: they figure love is a reaction of chemicals in the brain that just produces little sentimental or romantic feelings, and moral good is derived from behavior not from love. Usually they don’t observe the implicit value that would make a behavior good or bad. There’s more to it than just saying good is based upon God’s character. It’s also a matter of God’s judgment. God’s power, knowledge and goodness underwrite his moral authority.[5] God not only creates all that is, including planning its purpose, but also knows the truth and is the only mind that can figure the complexities of all existing relationships between moral concepts and human behavior, and the only truly objective judge who knows the subjects of moral behavior better than they know themselves, and in addition to all that has the forthrightness and loving concern to explicate moral judgments fairly. When I say “love” is behind the good I don’t mean romantic love or sentimentality but the Greek term agape.  The idea that love is the basis of he good may be a problem for some Christians because there is a concept in the Christian tradition that love and moral goodness are two counterpoising forces that have to keep each other in balance. I suggest that is nonsense if we are talking about Gods’ love, the love that is the basis of God’s character. “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8).

What is the good?

            Agape is used of God’s love through the New Testament. It is translated as “charity” at times.[6] The word is linked with good will and benevolence. The King James translation renders it “charity” (1 Corinthians 13:1). There’s more to it than that. It’s also linked to “preference” to prefer the other. The word is used for the love of God for man and man for God, the love humans for each other, and the love of God for Christ.[7] Agape is the basis of the good. What is good evaluated as what is agapic (loving). Other moral precepts and axioms such as justice, fairness and reciprocity would all be meaningful only in relation to agape. In fact one major theological ethicist came to that conclusion back in the 1960s, that was Joseph Fletcher. A lot of Christians were outraged by his view of “situation ethics,” and his book by the same title.[8] It was controversial and it drew lots of fire including the charge of “new morality.” Nevertheless he was a top notch ethicist. Fletcher argues that love and justice are the same. Justice is the distributive aspect of love.[9] He calls upon Augustine and argues that love must be prudent. He argues that this view forces us to pull back from the notion that love is sentimental and “mushy” and non intellectual. This is the intellectual side of love; today we call it “tough love.” Literally the argument is how do we manae to supply the beneficiaries of love when there are so many? The answer is by turning the problem into a question of justice. We make sure that justice is done at the same time making sure that love is distributed and doing it in such a way that we exclude one for he sake of the other.[10] Thus we can see how the other aspects of moral axioms indeed stem form love. Love is the background of the moral universe.

            Christian ethics certainly revolve around love. The value system that we use to inform that choice is the one through which Augustine re-valued the values of the Roman Empire. That value system plays out upon the eternal scale of values. We love the eternal we use the temporal. Human beings are eternal, created in the image of God, thus each human being is an end in himself/herself. Temporal things are means to ends. Thus temporal things are to be used and put aside but human beings matter. If science was the basis of ethics, nature never tells us that humans are valuable, there would be no basis for valuing humans except the cultural, and that is relative and can be discarded. Ethical naturalists might kid themselves about the alleged “objective basis” for ethics, they sound like persupositionalist Christian apologists trying to explain what that means. Without the arbitrary assumption already built in regarding the value of human worth, without appeal to a transcendent value system such as Christian agape there is no basis that science could ever give us for not using humans and valuing things. One finds scientistic thinkers such as atheists, especially on the popular level, expressing the sentiments that “humans are not so special.” We don’t have souls, there’s no God, we are just bags of chemicals or jumped up apes so why should we think we are special? Steve Paulson is an example from the popular level. Although he has an advanced science degree and works in science, obliquely. He’s a producer for public radio and an author. He expresses the idea that humans are just “cosmopolitan apes.” Again the idea is not to find fault with evolution. We can accept evolution as scientific fact and accept ethics as philosophical fact and accept The Bible as spiritual fact all at the same time and value humanity. Paulson says:

Most assume that humans are fundamentally different form the rest of the animal world…many people believe that but to biologists we are animals. It’s hard to believe that we are fundamentally different because there is no part of the human brain that is not present in the monkey’s brain. Our brains are bigger and we certainly have more powerful computer than any other animal, but the computer is not fundamentally different. So there’s no fundamental divide between humans and Chimpanzees? no…if you were to ask what the big difference is I would probably say it’s language but like all capacities once you break them down you are going to find some of these part sin other species.[11]

He argues that chimps have morality, “they have a sense of fairness.” Is it really a concept of fairness or just behavior would be fair if they really understood it, but perhaps they don’t? He finds that chimps respond to the needs of others, they seem to share food with those who don’t have enough. Is this really ethical thinking or just a instinctive sense of love that might pervade all creatures? He’s talking about cooperation in hunting. That’s not proof that they value each other. It could just be a practical matter that helps them all. It is evidence of outcome oriented thinking that doesn’t necessarily recognize a moral dimension but a practical survival dimension. Isn’t that what Harris and Churchland and Wilson are reducing ethics to?

            More examination of how this thinking plays out at the popular level, even though this is not scientific, we find bloggers expressed some odd sentiments. The blog “Think Atheist” urges that we should be “ridding ourselves of humanities self centrality: The Importance of Inclusively.”[12]

Humanity thought the universe spun around the Earth as if it were the purpose of the universe. Likewise, the sun.

Another way we think we are special is amongst the rest of the life forms on the planet. We like to believe that there are animals... and there are humans. We seem to have a hard time admitting to ourselves that we are animals. But we are. I'd like to take this idea one step further though. We are all LIFE. We are all BIOLOGY. And the separations between us that seem so important, identifiable and distinctive. Are actually not all that different in the end. All life on this planet evolved IS RELATED. FAMILY. By quantifiable amounts. 99% of our DNA is that of a chimpanzees and 50% of our DNA is that of a banana. ALL LIFE is CLOSELY related. We all come from the same place and we're all going in the same direction. We are procreating and spreading the seed of life, adapting to new environments by all means necessary, even if we must evolve.[13]

If we are animals and we are life and we are no better than any other animals or life would it really matter if we don’t get the quinine to the children dying of malaria? After all there’s lots more life where that life comes from and no one is special. Or that we have to allow dying or even killing off some group so the rest will have more to go around? After all a good outcome is all that matters, we are not special so we can be a means to an end. How are they going to decide this in the clash of such values? Neither the nature from which they take their ethical axioms, nor the science they prize so highly tells us to value humanity or to make humans ends in themselves. How will they resolve such conflicts?            

            These ideas can be put into a positive version. Yet if we assume that we are now coasting on Christian memories and the culture has lots of ideas left over from a time when we valued humanity, what’s going to happen in a couple of generations when those ideas are all gone and we are just seen as “some examples of life among other life,” no better than any other animal and not more than a means to an end; the end being an outcome considered “moral” by those who don’t see a difference in marmoset values and human values. Out come is not totally divorced from deontology. Just because a deontologist doesn’t use outcome as the basis for ethical “ought” doesn’t mean we don’t care about having good outcomes. It seems that if there is no ethical deliberation along the lines of basic value system there is no ethical thought. If there is no ethical thought there is no ethical action. Reducing meta ethical theory (the theory of what makes a thing good or not) to behavior is not the answer. Valuing human individuals as ends in themselves and worthy of preserving rights and ends seems like a good place to start thinking about the sorts of outcomes we desire.

---

[1] David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, 32.

[2] Ibid., 32.

[3] Ibid., 84.

[4] Ibid., 85.

[5] Ibid., 123.

[6] Bible Hub website, Thayers Greek Lexicon, Electronic Database. Bible soft, 2002, 2011.  http://biblesuite.com/greek/26.htm  accessed 5/30/13.

[7] Ibid.

[8] James F. Childress, “Introduction,” Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: the New Morality. Louisville Kentucky: Westminster, John Knox Press, originally published 1966. 1.

[9] Ibid., 87. Not only did Fletcher receive a lot of criticism, “situation ethics” was the title of the book and the name of the ethical theory, the subtitle was “the new morality.” Both became dirty words, so the actual title of the book was like a charge leveled against him. I am not supporting situation ethics but I do support Fletcher’s reading of love and justice.

[10] Ibid.,  88.

[11] Steve Paulson, The Cosmopolitan Ape: primatology, empathy, morality, community, culture.” Website: http://nautil.us/issue/1/what-makes-you-so-special/the-cosmopolitan-ape  accessed 6/3/13.

[12] Dragontorn, Think Atheist, “Ridding ourselves of Humanities Self Centrality: the Importance of Inclusively.” Blog: http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/ridding-ourselves-of-humanity-s-self-centrality-the-importance-of  accessed 6/3/13.

[13] Ibid.

Anatomy of Argument: A Well Trod Atheist Fallacy

 


 The other day on CARM we were having a discussion about the Euthephro Dilemma. This is the question about is there a higher standard to which God must adhere in shaping morality, or in other wrodsd, is it Good because God says it or does God say it because it's good. The Atheist will shape the question so that the only available answers are either that God manufactures good based upon arbitrary whims, or he has to follow an higher standard and thus is not the highest reality. Out this discussion came the comments below:

Originally Posted by NoctambulantJoycean

No, not really. There is empirical evidence that theists simply (unconsciously) project their moral beliefs onto God, as opposed to God communicating anything to them. They also more easily project their feelings onto God since religious experience involves a breakdown on the "self/other" distinction.

Meta:
 The assumptions you make about religious experience are per conceived by reductionist premise. The sense of the numinous is empirical and embodied sense of God's love and goodness. that in itself is reason enough to assume it.

Noctam:

Here's a sampling of the relevant data:
"Believers' Estimates of God's Beliefs are More Egocentric than Estimates of Other People's Beliefs."
"Was He Happy? Cultural Difference in Conceptions of Jesus."
"Creating God in Our Image: The Role of Self-Projection in Estimating God’s Beliefs."
"How Christians Reconcile Their Personal Political Views and the Teachings of Their Faith: Projection as a Means of Dissonance Reduction."
page 1001 of "The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology."

And if you prefer video to text:
Youtube, AntiCitizenX’s “Psychology of Belief” series
Youtube, KnownNoMore’s video “Against Religious Experience…”

Meta:

that doesn't really prove anything. If humans are made in God's image than that probably pertains to consciousness. lots of reasons to assume God is the source of consciousnesses. essentially any argument for panpsychism is an argument for God's consciousness.


Noctam:

I've noticed that a lot of theists on CARM (especially you) start screaming out buzz-words like "scientism!" and "reductionism!" whenever your views are criticized. It's tiresome. It basically amounts to a defense-mechanism you employ so your beliefs don't have to meet the same epistemic standards as everything else. That's not going to fly anymore (by the way, I'm a property dualist regarding qualia, so your charge of a "reductionist premise" I'm using is laughable. Please stop assuming stuff.)

Meta:

That could be a valid complaint that I speak over your head and I should be more considerate. It doesn't really damage my arguments taht youa re unread and don'tknow the termenology in the field. Maybe you should be more humble and seek to learn more before eneter into discussion.

Noctam:

Moving on, I really don't care what possible scenarios you can make up (ex: we're made in God's image, panpsychism implies God's conscious, numinous, blah blah blah). No. As Duhem's thesis in philosophy of science shows, one can make up any number of ad hoc, unfounded, possible explanations to protect one's pet idea. But if you resort to that, no one would and should take you seriously. So instead of just giving me possible explanations theists made up, give me plausible ones supported by evidence and not just your bare assertions. I'm getting tired of some theists like you acting as if the same epistemic standards that apply in philosophy and science in general don't apply to you.

 Meta:

 There are couple of things wrong with this particular display of ignorance.I must say I more enjoy your scientist schtick. First of all, to characterize well known ancient doctrinal potions in Christianity as "ad hoc" makes you look so unread. anyone exhibiting the knowledge I see in your arguments would be well enough read to know that image dei is an ancient doctrine. calling it ad hock well that's like saying "waiter! this Gazpacho soup is cold, send it back!"

Secondly, you didn't answer the argument. instead you merely mock and ridicule my beliefs. that is not an answer. I told you honestly and directly why I think you are wrong. the answer to that cant' be "well your ideas are silly and I don't bleieve them." I know you don't bleieve it that's kind of like betting the question! calling my beliefs names is not disproving them.


 Noctam:

So stop dodging empircal data by saying "that doesn't prove anything" (I hear that same line from AIDS denialists or other such sorts of people who are unwilling to change their beliefs regardless of the evidence you present them; yes, I'm comparing you to them). Stop accusing people who use scientific evidence to reach conclusions of being "reductionists." And start providing evidence for your claims and not just using implicit reference to properly basic beliefs, or "embodied sense of God's love and goodness," or ... as epistemic cop-outs (or really just ad hoc methods of begging the question and reducing the burden of proof for you and increasing it for everyone else) so you don't ever have to revise your beliefs.

 Meta:

 That sounds like an argument but it's not. the bit about "made up" is question betting. All you are really saying is 'I dont' believe that so it must be wrong." I didn't make it up it's an ancinet doctrine It's not just made up it's a valid bleief within a larger belief system and it answers the issue.

All scinece can do is offer explanations. Science is about proving things. So for you to gain say the notion of offering explanations is silly. You have no empirical data that disproves God or that proves morality is an independent standard. Just refusing to allow me to defend my beliefs by referencing what they are neither logical nor empirical. The experiences of the sense of the numinous are empirical, that is the mystical sense of God's reality is experienced directly. To the extent that it is always linked with the sense of God's reality it can be regarded as the co-determinate of God, that is the trace, the track the footprint of God in the snow of human experience. Thus we can regard mystical experience as experience of the divine and we can regard that as empirical.



 Noctam:

Sorry I had to be so firm. But I'm getting sick-and-tired of these tactics some theists like you employ. If you're not willing to revise your beliefs in light of new evidence and find ad hoc methods of disregardig evidence, don't expect people to take you seriously.

Meta:

I don't take atheist ridicule seriously, and since you are not willing to try and understand my bleiefs in terms of their inner logic there is basis for discussion.


What started all of this is the Euthyphro dilemma. That's not something science can prove empirically. in fact it pertains to a theistic system. The dilemma basic boils down to this: are the gods good becuase they are gods, or are they gods becuase they are good? In other words do they follow a higher standard to which they must submit. If so then something is higher than the gods.Of course Euthyphro was Socrates major foil that's why its set in the metaphysical system of Greek Mythology, and the fates are the weavers of the higher standard. it makes sense to ask questions of this sort in a Polytheistic system where the gods are contingent and not ultimate basis of all reality. It makes no sense to even consider it in a Christian system where "God" is the term we give to the basis of all that is. In that case there cannot be a higher standard.

The answer that I have brought to this question in terms of the Christian God has always been that the "higher standard" is actually God's own character, which is love. Thus I see love as the background of th moral universe. There is no standard higher than God because the moral standard to which he adheres is his own character and that all boils down to love as the basis of ethics.

Now looking at his specific claims. In terms of the anatomy of discussion he's doing the following

(1) substituting mockdry and reidicle for refuation

(2) He's begging the question and calling it "emprical evidence."

(3) He's trying to privilege his position with reference to the fortress of facts.

On the surface this all appears like he's given reasoned comments but in reality he's merely evoking ideology. He doesn't actually present any evidence he only presents the threat of evidence. We don't have to prove every detail of our belief system. We only have to show that belief is warranted by sound and valid arguemnts.

The Euthyphro Dilemma

The Euthyphro Dilemma

have theology: Will Argue

Originally Posted (on CARM) by MikeWC

This is a long post. The final paragraph is a summary of the argument, if you wish to just straight to it.

The Euthyphro dilemma can be briefly stated this way: either morality comes entirely from God, in which case it is changeable according to his will, or it comes from outside God, in which case God is unnecessary.

Actually I think he stated it wrong. I don't think the second horn of the dilemma is that if it comes from out of God morality is "unnecessary," but that God is not supreme. One thing that's going to figure big in my answer is this fact: The Euthyphro dilemma was applicable to the Greek gods only becuase they were not God in the sense that the Bible God is God, nor were they God in the sense that the God of Aquinas or Anslem is God or. Greek gods were contingent beings, they were not eternal, they were products of prior beings. God in the Christian sense is the eternal necessary aspect of all being. Thus That God is necessary and not contingent, and is not the produce of prior condition.

That makes a big difference because it is only the contingency of the Greek gods that gives them their relative nature and thus enables the Fates to outrank them in terms of power. That's where the entire dilemma stems from, that Zeus was subject to the fates. The God of Abraham, of Issac and of Jacob is not subject to any fates. The God of Christianity freed humanity from the cruelty of fate, and still frees us form determinism. This is so becuase the eternal necessary aspect of all being, is bigger than any deterministic aspect of being, which is only a contingency HE created in the first place.

Mike WC says:

There is an increasingly popular refutation of the old Euthyphro dilemma among apologists. It is an attempt to split the horns of the dilemma by creating a third alternative. The alternative is to identity the Good wholly with God's nature: being Good is one of God's essential attributes.

Without meaning to boast I think I really do I am the person who started that answer. I don't remember ever seeing it on the net before I gave it. Once I argued it a few times on prominent atheist boards people began to talk about it. In any case, "being good" is not a mere attribute of God as though it's on a par with being short or tall, fat or thin, it's based upon the nature of God. That is certainly no exaggeration; in the Christian tradition God is the basis of the good which stems from God's nature as love. St. Augustine said love is the background of the moral universe, and by that meant that God, as truth itself, as being itself is the basis upon which the good has meaning. Augustine put the forms in the mind of God, so anything like "the good" that under Plato would be a product of the forums would be a product of the Mind of God.

Mike WC: "This idea is meant to dissolve the dilemma by taking the pros of each horn, while eliminating the cons. Morality is not changeable according to God's will, because it lies eternally in his nature. And it is not outside God for the same reason." Here he more or less gets it right. What it really does is bring out the distinction between eternal necessary being vs. contingent beings. The contingent beings who are called "gods" only because they are more powerful than mortals and last longer (although they can die and hey have origins so they are not eternal), can't supply the ultimate basis for philosophical grounding that eternal necessary being does supply.

In answer to this point Mike says:

My argument is that this just creates a new dilemma. This refutation of Euthyphro depends on God having both a will and a nature. This may seem trivial, but let's draw out the consequences.In order for the refutation to stand, there must be a clear division between God's will and God's nature. If no such division exists, then then all this refutation has done is accept the first horn: God could change morality through his will.

I don't think there has to be a "clear division." There seems to be no problem with asserting that a consciousness has both a will and a nature. They are clearly two separate things, but one would be in line with the other as a nature would always govern the limits and capacity of a will. How could on demand something apart form one's own nature? Will is usually thought of as an expression of a nature. He is certainly going to have to furnish a reason for us to think this would be the case.

The problem with this atheist position is, ironically, it's Calvinistic-like implications. Calvin emphasized the will of God over and above creative wisdom (creative wisdom is God's nature). Like the good little fundies that atheists are they want o split off the will from nature when in reality will is just an aspect of nature. Think about it. The nature of a thing is the way it is. Now how can will be part of the way God is without being part of his nature?

Mike WC:

However, if this division is too rigid, then it falls to the second horn: you are positing a God that is, in effect, split. There is a divine will, and then there is a divine nature. The divine will answers wholly to the divine nature, which has no will of its own. When God issues a moral command, there is a gap between the decision to issue the command and the source of the command.

This is merely a false dilemma. The will of any being is part of that being's nature and works according to that nature. The nature of God is primarily love, so the will of God is based upon love. Are we ever given a reson to think that God's will is out of line with his nature? I think not. Ah but Mike shoots back with this classic assertion:

If God's nature has no will of its own, then it is it not collapsible into a Good outside and above God's will? And then, why can't humans just by pass God's will and just talk about the Good? In other words, the gap between will and nature is just a different version of the second horn of Euthyphro.Notice, he has not yet expalined by God can't have a will of his own as part of his nature?

This is what we call "begging the question." He's merely asserting a conclusion which he basis his premise, the conclusion that he wants to come to, then uses it as a premise to justify coming to it. In this classic move of circular reasoning he asserts the very point under contention as though it's a proof of his position (thus begging the question). If God's nature has no will of it own, he asserts. The problem there is it does, that's the whole point I've been making. Moreover, he can give us no other reason to assume this is the case except that "If this was the case. I would be right." God's nature has a will of it's own, it's called "God's will." That's what will is, it's an expression of our nature. There's no point in asserting that the nature has a second will that's in contradiction to the first will? Why assert that? He gives us no reason.

He asserts that the "gap between will and nature is just a different version of the second horn of the" dilemma. No it's not. Why would that be? The second horn is that there's a standard independent of God. Since that standard is God himself, it's not separate; WC is trying to turn that into a whole seperate person with real reason for doing so, there's no assume it. He asserts that this second is the gap but what gap? He has to first suggest why there would be a gap and has no done so.

Mike WC:

Perhaps you could say that God's nature is unknowable for humans, outside of God's willing revelation of himself. This does not solve the problem, however. If God has exclusive and exhaustive knowledge of his own nature, we must accept one of two interpretations of this.

We know God's nature; it's love. We know this through God's self revelation to us and our empirical experience of God's presence. It's a false dilemma. There is no dilemma. God moves to bring people into the sphere of his love. God is about love; this furnishes the background of the moral universe. He doesn't just hand down laws from on high,they are not arbitrary whims. The real problem of the dilemma is that on the one hand if good is just God's command with no independent standard then God is arbitrary and good is just a whim. If God is independent of the standard then he's not fully in charge and so is not God. The position I have taken resolves the problem because it says God's commands are not independent of Go but neither are they arbitrary whims, they are manifestations of purpose and wisdom in creation which harken form God's loving nature, that is the basis of the good. That is an answer we could not get from the Geek gods.

The rule keeping aspect of morality didn't work, and God tells us it didn't work (of he knew it wouldn't it was only a a ruse to show us why we have to internalize the values of the good--see Jer. 31/Heb 1:1). We employ the moral law placed inside us and we filter it through cultural constructs. That's what makes ethical and the morality of a culture, but the background against which all ethical moves are played out is God's divine love, aka agape. 2) God's nature is an object separate from his will,
conjecture not in evidence. That is merely the upshot of the subject/object dichotomy. He needs to learn some phenomenology becuase that just reduces God to an object. We can experience God's nature. We may not understand it intellectually but we can experience and we can intuit it. That's what mystics are about.

Mike asserts: "This is perhaps the only way out for the apologist, to claim that the Good is essentially unknowable for humans." God is beyond our understanding but that doesn't mean he's unknowable. you are confusing experiential knowledge with book learning and facts.

Mike WC

This does not solve the logical problem of there being a gap between God's commands and the source of those commands, however. Humans would be incapable of bypassing God's commands and revelation, but this is not because of a logical impossibility, but rather the infinitude of humanity.

Again he asserts a gap without giving us any reason to think there is one. He can imagine one based upon skepticism that is a far cry from proving there is one. It's just a product of his hermeneutic of skepticism. Logically linking God's commands to his nature f love resolves the problem complete because it means the standards is not separate from God nor is it an arbitrary whim, and there is basic reason ever given to imagine a gap. What I've said aboe about love as the background of the moral universe shows that a gap is not really possible becuase the whole concept of the moral apart form God's love is impossible. It would have no meaning as a moral universe. The moral law that God has placed upon our hearts is God's command in line with God's nature, God is not forging a moral law as a subject of higher power but is translating what is in his heart. speaking metaphorically of "heart."

The knowability issue is not really much of an issue. God is beyond our understanding intellectually but that's kind of knowledge we need to live morally. The kind of knolwedge we need is empirical knowledge of God's love and revelation knowledge of god's commands, although that is placed on the heart is available though natural theology. There are many theological methods and systems that would answer this arguemnt. One of them majors is the Eastern orthodox concept of mystical union which turns upon apoplectic theology (negative--don't say that it is but what ti's not).

Euthyphro dilemma is only an issue where God is contingent and there is a higher power. There is no higher power than the eternal necesasry aspect of being. In the OT he's called "I Am." In the NT he's called "Our father who art in Heaven."

The Euthephro Dilemma

 The Euthyphro  Dilemma
 
 have theology: Will Argue

Originally Posted (on CARM) by MikeWC

This is a long post. The final paragraph is a summary of the argument, if you wish to just straight to it.

The Euthyphro dilemma can be briefly stated this way: either morality comes entirely from God, in which case it is changeable according to his will, or it comes from outside God, in which case God is unnecessary.

 Actually I think he stated it wrong. I don't think the second horn of the dilemma is that if it comes from out of God morality is "unnecessary," but that God is not supreme. One thing that's going to figure big in my answer is this fact: The Euthyphro dilemma was applicable to the Greek gods only becuase they were not God in the sense that the Bible God is God, nor were they God in the sense that the God of Aquinas or Anslem is God or. Greek gods were contingent beings, they were not eternal, they were products of prior beings. God in the Christian sense is the eternal necessary aspect of all being. Thus That God is necessary and not contingent, and is not the produce of prior condition.

That makes a big difference because it is only the contingency of the Greek gods that gives them their relative nature and thus enables the Fates to outrank them in terms of power. That's where the entire dilemma stems from, that Zeus was subject to the fates. The God of Abraham, of Issac and of Jacob is not subject to any fates. The God of Christianity freed humanity from the cruelty of fate, and still frees us form determinism. This is so becuase the eternal necessary aspect of all being, is bigger than any deterministic aspect of being, which is only a contingency HE created in the first place.

Mike WC says:

There is an increasingly popular refutation of the old Euthyphro dilemma among apologists. It is an attempt to split the horns of the dilemma by creating a third alternative. The alternative is to identity the Good wholly with God's nature: being Good is one of God's essential attributes.

Without meaning to boast I think I really do I am the person who started that answer. I don't remember ever seeing it on the net before I gave it. Once I argued it a few times on prominent atheist boards people began to talk about it. In any case, "being good" is not a mere attribute of God as though it's on a par with being short or tall, fat or thin, it's based upon the nature of God. That is certainly no exaggeration; in the Christian tradition God is the basis of the good which stems from God's nature as love. St. Augustine said love is the background of the moral universe, and by that meant that God, as truth itself, as being itself is the basis upon which the good has meaning. Augustine put the forms in the mind of God, so anything like "the good" that under Plato would be a product of the forums would be a product of the Mind of God.

Mike WC: "This idea is meant to dissolve the dilemma by taking the pros of each horn, while eliminating the cons. Morality is not changeable according to God's will, because it lies eternally in his nature. And it is not outside God for the same reason." Here he more or less gets it right. What it really does is bring out the distinction between eternal necessary being vs. contingent beings. The contingent beings who are called "gods" only because they are more powerful than mortals and last longer (although they can die and hey have origins so they are not eternal), can't supply the ultimate basis for philosophical grounding that eternal necessary being does supply.

In answer to this point Mike says:

My argument is that this just creates a new dilemma. This refutation of Euthyphro depends on God having both a will and a nature. This may seem trivial, but let's draw out the consequences.In order for the refutation to stand, there must be a clear division between God's will and God's nature. If no such division exists, then then all this refutation has done is accept the first horn: God could change morality through his will. 

 I don't think there has to be a "clear division." There seems to be no problem with asserting that a consciousness has both a  will and a nature. They are clearly two separate things, but one would be in line with the other as a nature would always govern the limits and capacity of a will. How could on demand something apart form one's own nature?  Will is usually thought of as an expression of a nature. He is certainly going to have to furnish a reason for us to think this would be the case.

The problem with this atheist position  is, ironically, it's Calvinistic-like implications. Calvin emphasized the will of God over and above creative wisdom (creative wisdom is God's nature). Like the good little fundies that atheists are they want o split off the will from nature when in reality will is just an aspect of nature. Think about it. The nature of a thing is the way it is. Now how can will be part of the way God is without being part of his nature?

Mike WC:

However, if this division is too rigid, then it falls to the second horn: you are positing a God that is, in effect, split. There is a divine will, and then there is a divine nature. The divine will answers wholly to the divine nature, which has no will of its own. When God issues a moral command, there is a gap between the decision to issue the command and the source of the command.

This is merely a false dilemma. The will of any being is part of that being's nature and works according to that nature. The nature of God is primarily love, so the will of God is based upon love. Are we ever given a reson to think that God's will is out of line with his nature? I think not. Ah but Mike shoots back with this classic assertion:

If God's nature has no will of its own, then it is it not collapsible into a Good outside and above God's will? And then, why can't humans just by pass God's will and just talk about the Good? In other words, the gap between will and nature is just a different version of the second horn of Euthyphro.Notice, he has not yet expalined by God can't have a will of his own as part of his nature?

This is what we call "begging the question." He's merely asserting a conclusion which he basis his premise, the conclusion that he wants to come to, then uses it as a premise to justify coming to it. In this classic move of circular reasoning he asserts the very point under contention as though it's a proof of his position (thus begging the question). If God's nature has no will of it own, he asserts. The problem there is it does, that's the whole point I've been making. Moreover, he can give us no other reason to assume this is the case except that "If this was the case. I would be right." God's nature has a will of it's own, it's called "God's will." That's what will is, it's an expression of our nature. There's no point in asserting that the nature has a second will that's in contradiction to the first will? Why assert that? He gives us no reason.

He asserts that the "gap  between will and nature is just a different version of the second horn of the" dilemma. No it's not. Why would that be? The second horn is that there's a standard independent of God. Since that standard is God himself, it's not separate; WC is trying to turn that into a whole seperate person with real reason for doing so, there's no assume it.  He asserts that this second is the gap but what gap? He has to first suggest why there would be a gap and has no done so.

Mike WC:

Perhaps you could say that God's nature is unknowable for humans, outside of God's willing revelation of himself. This does not solve the problem, however. If God has exclusive and exhaustive knowledge of his own nature, we must accept one of two interpretations of this.

 We know God's nature; it's love. We know this through God's self revelation to us and our empirical experience of God's presence. It's a false dilemma. There is no dilemma. God moves to bring people into the sphere of his love. God is about love; this furnishes the background of the moral universe. He doesn't just hand down laws from on high,they are not arbitrary whims. The real problem of the dilemma is that on the one hand if good is just God's command with no independent standard then God is arbitrary and good is just a whim. If God is independent of the standard then he's not fully in charge and so is not God. The position I have taken resolves the problem because it says God's commands are not independent of Go but neither are they arbitrary whims, they are manifestations of purpose and wisdom in creation which harken form God's loving nature, that is the basis of the good. That is an answer we could not get from the Geek gods.

The rule keeping aspect of morality didn't work, and God tells us it didn't work (of he knew it wouldn't it was only a a ruse to show us why we have to internalize the values of the good--see Jer. 31/Heb 1:1). We employ the moral law placed inside us and we filter it through cultural constructs. That's what makes ethical and the morality of a culture, but the background against which all ethical moves are played out is God's divine love, aka agape. 2) God's nature is an object separate from his will,
conjecture not in evidence. That is merely the upshot of the subject/object dichotomy. He needs to learn some phenomenology becuase that just reduces God to an object. We can experience God's nature. We may not understand it intellectually  but we can experience and we can intuit it. That's what mystics are about.

Mike asserts: "This is perhaps the only way out for the apologist, to claim that the Good is essentially unknowable for humans."  God is beyond our understanding but that doesn't mean he's unknowable. you are confusing experiential knowledge with book learning and facts.

Mike WC

This does not solve the logical problem of there being a gap between God's commands and the source of those commands, however. Humans would be incapable of bypassing God's commands and revelation, but this is not because of a logical impossibility, but rather the infinitude of humanity.

Again he asserts a gap without giving us any reason to think there is one. He can imagine one based upon skepticism that is a far cry from proving there is one. It's just a product of his hermeneutic of skepticism. Logically linking God's commands to his nature f love resolves the problem complete because it means the standards is not separate from God nor is it an arbitrary whim, and there is basic  reason ever given to imagine a gap. What I've said aboe about love as the background of the moral universe shows that a gap is not really possible becuase the whole concept of the moral apart form God's love is impossible. It would have no meaning as a moral universe. The moral law that God has placed upon our hearts is God's command in line with God's nature, God is not forging a moral law as a subject of higher power but is translating what is in his heart. speaking metaphorically of "heart."

The knowability issue is not really much of an issue. God is beyond our understanding intellectually but that's kind of knowledge we need to live morally. The kind of knolwedge we need is empirical knowledge of God's love and revelation knowledge of god's commands, although that is placed on the heart is available though natural  theology. There are many theological methods and systems that would answer this arguemnt. One of them majors is the Eastern orthodox concept of mystical union which turns upon apoplectic theology (negative--don't say that it is but what ti's not).

Euthyphro  dilemma is only an issue where God is contingent and there is a higher power. There is no higher power than the eternal necesasry aspect of being. In the OT he's called "I Am." In the NT he's called "Our father who art in Heaven."