Euthypro Dilemna

I would have responded sooner, but it took a while for me to organize my thoughts on this. Some of the content on this thread has been helpful in that regard, although a fair bit of it strikes me as missing something important about the OP's original question: As I understand it, this can be paraphrased as: Do we assert that a deity is the primary and sole source for creating / defining / authorizing "what is moral?" Or is there instead some independent source of morality, in terms of logical necessity, natural entailment or whatever, such that any deity, properly receiving our worship and devotion, would inescapably express support for some particular set of human behaviors, and/or express firm disfavor for certain other behaviors?Most of the discussion seems to circle around the relationship between the deity and morality, but I think this evades a more important aspect of Socrates' initial query. His question was posed to a person who was about to pursue a course of action on the basis of some moral criterion, so the force of the question, it seems to me, was: How do you, Euthyphro, declare and confirm your pursuit to be a morally correct one?This fellow is about to plead his case before a tribunal, seeking a particular outcome -- that his own father be convicted of manslaughter, because the father, in effect, killed someone without justification -- and in order to get this outcome, Euthyphro must convince other people (the judges) that his cause is right.At this point we leave the original Greek story, because we're talking now about how morality relates to a monotheistic deity -- or, more to the point, how believers in such a deity establish their basis for moral behavior.The key problem for the believers, as I see it, is the very property that they themselves attribute so routinely to the deity: no matter what else we may know about God, He is unknowable.Of course, believers can (and generally do) claim that they know enough to base their moral code on what God has revealed in one way or another. Still, the crux of the problem is in how they know these things -- how they actually figure out what the "truth" is. In a nutshell, the possibilities are:

• Personal revelation: a single believer has a sense of personal communication with or from God. This is the most problematic, both for the individual and for the society within which s/he behaves, when the personal commitment to "obeying God" runs counter to the dominant religious or political rules currently in effect. Is the resulting conflict a matter of personal insanity or societal injustice? There can be no absolute religious basis for resolving the matter, because there is no shared religious experience between the individual and the larger group.
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• Group consensus: whether through egalitarian discussion or general agreement with a leader's proposal, a group of like-minded believers accepts a position based on whatever factors they consider necessary and/or sufficient. The factors may include scripture (N.B.: as interpreted by this group), someone's recent dream, some seemingly relevant "omen", etc, taken alone or in combination. No problem here, until this group comes into conflict with some other group (or individual) that has taken an incompatible position, at which point there is generally no common religious basis for resolving a dispute.
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• Hierarchical authority over a group: regardless of possibly differing opinions or inequitable effects among a governed population, some autocratic body (individual or committee) is able to claim and exercise the authority to interpret and enforce God's moral code. As with group consensus, the basis for a given decision may be the "resident interpretation" of scripture, dreams, omens, etc. However, the conflation of "moral" authority with the economic and political power wielded by this same body cannot be ignored as a possible (in fact frequent) corrupting factor, when it comes to establishing a "religious" basis for a chosen "moral code."

We can describe it as a problem of communication, where the decisive party in the exchange is immaterial, leaving no overt evidence of a message available to anyone who was not directly involved in the exchange. Each of the alternatives above is susceptible to the kinds of scenarios discussed earlier in this thread -- such as this one from Arphy's Message 33: and this one from iano's Message 52: Does it come as any sort of surprise that divine authority has been invoked in various cases by individuals, consenting groups and autocracies, for rape and murder?Believers can say whatever they want about the "constancy" of God as moral foundation. The limits of this "constancy" are amply revealed in the profusion of sectarian differences about what "the one true God" commands people to do or not do.In fact, when you look at the overall situation in an objective way, it turns out that the "constancy" of any religious foundation for morality is effectively limited to the set of "morals" that all religions and sects seem to agree on -- that is, the set for which there must be some objective basis that extends across all human cultures, the set that are commonly associated with religious doctrine simply because they are intrinsic to the human condition.To cite just this commonality as "proof" of the existence of a Creator, who also happens to reveal his active interest and intent for mankind through revelation, is a specious argument, unless you further assert that this Creator is really "agnostic" about how It should be worshipped by the people It created. Hindu? Buddhist? Jew? Muslim? Catholic? Baptist? Mormon? 7th Day Adventist? Makes no difference, so long as you follow the Golden Rule. {AbE: -- Oh yeah, and don't forget: This Creator really does care equally and personally about all of you, even when one of you prays for, or carries out, the elimination of another. If that seems crazy or meaningless, well now, you just don't really know much about this Creator, do you?} That would be a very interesting deity, indeed.Edited by Otto Tellick, : added to last paragraph, as indicated

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Hi iano,I wonder: did you happen to read my one previous post in this thread? Do you consider the issues I raise there to be off-topic, or simply unworthy of a response? That post speaks directly to something that would pull us out of this circle you seem to be stuck in. Other "practical examples" of "flavours" I've seen attributed to "what God finds good" include: killing Jews, killing Moslems, killing Christians, killing apostates (from whatever faith), killing "witches", killing doctors who perform abortions, limiting the rights and education of women, discriminating against gays (or perhaps imprisoning or killing them), allowing child molesters to remain priests (with continuing access to children), destruction of cities by means that most people consider to be "natural disasters", convincing poor people via television and radio broadcasts to send their money to a "ministry" that only enriches the "ministers", ...Do you see the problem in your notion of "practical application" based on "God's will" (or "command" or "flavour" or whatever you want to call it)? There is this unavoidable question of how to resolve the conflicting claims about "what does God want / will / command", "what would Jesus do", "what does the Bible say about...", and so on. If we are left only to the resources provided by faith, it boils down to having to choose which human-mediated interpretation to accept.Then, having accepted a given interpretation (by whatever rationale), it's possible to assert divine authority as the basis for subsequent actions. The fact that such an assertion carries any weight at all is especially problematic, especially for non-believers. Or it might mean that "pulling the plug" is okay. It really just depends on whose interpretation of God's will you listen to. For example, someone might cause the death of the suffering person, whether intentionally or not, and anyone (the causer or someone else) can readily declare after the fact that "this was God's will." Well, if not, why not? Likewise "premature death" (aka killing). Likewise, God permitting (or instructing) one person to kill another shouldn't automatically be seen as a negative thing -- again, it depends on who you ask. The problem is that two or more different believers are prone to find different and mutually irreconcilable routes, leading to divergent decisions for one particular situation. It's an affliction that besets non-believers as well, obviously, but the non-believers at least can make some appeal to broader considerations: previous evidence, supportable predictions of outcomes, inalienable rights of individuals, etc. When the situation allows, these considerations can be openly discussed by the affected parties for the sake of establishing an informed consensus {AbE: or at least an objective basis for imposing/submitting to undesirable consequences, as is commonly done in courts of law}.Such considerations might be ignored or deliberately discarded by some God-bound believers in some situations, and the notion of building consensus can only be construed as acknowledging and submitting to authority. (At best, a true consensus becomes a matter of finding agreement on which of the competing interpretations best represents the authority.) {AbE: At worst, the differing parties are incapable of finding consensus, and the inevitable outcome is schism: they part ways, and each proceeds to act according to their own choices. Rather an odd property of God's will, don't you think?}Edited by Otto Tellick, : addition as noted in next-to-last paragraphEdited by Otto Tellick, : addition as noted in last paragraph

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Ah -- that makes it quite plain and clear, then?I'm not sure it would help to ask or speculate about the internal state of someone who believes that his/her action aligns with God's will when it actually does not. I'm sure it must be a regrettable situation indeed for an individual to be in such a state, even though (or perhaps especially because) the person may be completely unaware of it. You would apparently agree that a person could arrive at an incorrect belief about God and what His will is, and act wrongly, though sincerely, as a result.But what I can't help wondering is: how do others, when considering such an individual's behavior, know the difference between that which does and that which does not align with God's will? I suspect that for a variety of situations and behaviors, sincere believers in God could disagree in this regard. And each skeptical agnostic and atheist has access to principles that are explicitly stated, culturally ingrained and/or logically, naturally entailed -- things like: treat others as you would like to be treated, all individuals are entitled to respect, when choosing your own course of action the better choice is one that does not impinge on others' ability to choose their course of action, all individuals must accept constraints on their actions to sustain social order or face punitive consequences, and so on.The access to these considerations does not depend on belief in an immaterial being whose true nature and intent is acknowledged to be unknowable. There is no need to appeal to conclusions that can only be reached and attested on the basis of internal, subjective notions that may be different for each person.These open, rational, objective considerations do not exclude or forbid belief in immaterial beings. People still can, if they wish, attribute good behaviors to inspiration from God, and bad behaviors to influence by Satan. Empirical research may well show such notions to be demonstrably false, by finding the material/natural causes of these behaviors. (If/when that happens, "mainstream" believers will no doubt continue to find room for immaterial causation, and fundamentalist believers will include "The Origin of Morals" with "The Origin of Species" as the target of their fallacious rants.)But when any given believer ends up with a wrong idea about what God's will is (as this will inevitably happen), and the resulting actions violate the objective standards of behavior in the ambient society, it will be the objective standards that make it clear how this believer is in error.

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Thanks, iano. Your responses do clarify things. Okay, so Christians alone can rightfully claim sole possession of the imprimatur of moral behavior and knowledge of God's will. Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, etc, are all simply without morals, while Jews and Muslims, in addition to having no proper basis of morality, are also excluded from knowing God's will, given their false view of the Abrahamic God.Well, that's clear enough, if we just skip the question about which denomination(s) of Christianity we should include, and which ones we should exclude, as the true holders of this distinction.No doubt the Jews and Muslims would make equally well-founded arguments that all Christians would be excluded, though they would perhaps make reference to different consequences for the Christians, compared to the consequences you invoke for the Jews and Muslims. (And what difference does that make, I wonder?) Great. Now, if only I could be certain that you yourself are not one of these people being used as a mouthpiece for Satan. What basis do I have for this, other than your own words?Oh, I know: I just need to be a believer like you, and believe exactly what you believe. Of course, I do have the option of holding some "flavour" of belief different from yours, for whatever reason (alternate interpretation of scripture, etc), making you the mouthpiece for Satan. Then it's just your belief against mine. That's perfectly solid. I can help clarify that a bit for you: for the non-believer, there most likely is no God, hence nothing having a will in that sense. There really is nothing to give a hoot about. It's one's own intentions, and the intentions of other people, and ways to resolve conflicts among them all in a manner that yields the most desirable outcome in the broadest possible sense, that are the proper focus of attention. ... after the damage is done, and after it's too late for an offender to make amends to the parties who suffered from the damage. You'll forgive me if I say that raising issues about immaterial consequences imposed by an imaginary being is a waste of time merely for the sake of creating obfuscation. Really, what God decides after a person's death regarding that person's sins in life is a matter of no practical importance, and it baffles me that believers devote so much time, energy and verbiage to promote so many variations of this vague and mystifying system of belief.(I wonder if you'll conclude that this is Satan talking through me. Do you find that Satan has a way of interfering often when it comes to people expressing viewpoints you do not share?) And what do you have that is "concrete"? Oh, right: nothing... unless you want to count your particular interpretation of 2000-year-old scripture as "concrete", in contrast to all the others who use different interpretations of the same text as "concrete" for their own purposes. That's some pretty malleable concrete you have there.So, you don't actually want to admit to being as much "at sea" as I am? Well, at least you acknowledge that I do suppose you are "at sea" in your stance on morality. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you are not trying to threaten me. Let's not hold our breath in any case, eh?But you may be right that there is no absolute resolution of this debate. Actually, though, I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to here. If it's the debate between "God-given morality" vs. "naturally evolved/induced/agreed-upon morality", there is another exit point for closing the debate: when people finally give up obsolete superstitions and meaningless notions about being manipulated imaginary entities.If it's the debate about what really is vs. what really is not "moral behavior", that's an evolving issue, which humans will be working on (and arguing about) continuously until one of two things happen: (a) we become extinct, or (b) we evolve to acquire some resolution that is as inconceivable to us now as winged flight was to the first reptiles. Nothing to forgive on that point, friend. "Bootstrap by nature" is actually a very good way of referring what I've been trying to explain. What I would find hard to forgive is your unwillingness to see this as a sufficient basis for understanding moral behavior.Edited by Otto Tellick, : No reason given.

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Hi iano,The following leaves me quite baffled -- or leads me to think you are confused: So, to start with, you do accept the notion that there is some "basic set" of behaviors / attitudes / emotions that humans will generally agree to as "good", regardless of the absence, presence or particular variety of religious beliefs in their various cultural environs (granting that cultures, and individuals within a given culture, can vary from the "norm", for whatever reasons and to whatever extent).Then you say that this basic set comprising goodness has been defined and established in advance by your particular deity (putting aside all the obfuscating details involving the Trinity). It stands to reason that any religious believer of any Abrahamic faith, or any other religion, would hold the view that some deity is the ultimate creator of goodness, if only by virtue of needing to posit a deity in the first place, to fill the role of "creator".But I really don't understand your use of the phrase "one objective summit." To say there is something "objective" about invoking any deity as a creator of anything is to misuse the term "objective". I see no reason to argue with the definition provided by the Wiktionary:

quote:

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1. Of or relating to a material object, actual existence or reality.
2. Not influenced by the emotions or prejudices.
3. Based on observed facts.

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So, observing the fact that religions and ethical codes across human cultures tend to share a common set of values for "good" and "bad" things is objective. Observing the fact that many cultures attribute the source of "goodness" to be one or more specific deities (and many also attribute "badness" to specific other deities) is also objective. But these observations in themselves do not convey any sense of objectivity to the deities -- the deities remain immaterial and unobservable in any objective sense (as well as being mutually irreconcilable to any single entity).Given these facts, there seems to be no basis, outside of one's personal decision to adopt your specific religious faith, for accepting your assertion that your God is the one sole and true source of goodness. There's nothing at all objective about your assertion, unless you want the term "objective" to mean the opposite of it's established definition.

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Thanks, iano. Things do seem to be clearing up a bit -- at least in regards to pinpointing where you go wrong in your use of the term "objective". Perhaps you'll say that I'm just being too picky about lexical semantics here, and we'll end up agreeing to disagree on this point -- though I can't help concluding that there would be little or no support for you among competent speakers of English, because yours is still an incorrect usage of the term.When a thing is "presumed to exist for the sake of argument", this does not qualify the thing as a material object, or as having any reality or actual existence. It is simply acknowledged as something that can be talked about; it is accepted as an "operand" in the various syntactic "formulas" of assertions that make up a discussion; it's a mental construct whose attributes can only be established by linguistic expression, never by direct and sharable sensory experience.As something "presumed to exist for the sake of argument", the entity you call God is entirely equivalent to things like "the square root of negative one", "the edge of the universe", "the pillars of the earth", and so on. The possibility that this or that person in a discussion is willing to assert a profound and unshakeable belief that such an entity exists does not make a whit of difference as to the absence of objectivity.But this really is just a minor point after all, and I apologize if it's been a distraction or divergence from the thread topic. I guess I'm just requesting, as clearly as I can, that you not use the word "objective" in reference to God, because the word just doesn't work that way. (You got a problem with that? )Edited by Otto Tellick, : changed "-1" to "negative one"

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

None that I know of. Do you know anyone who has had God turn up 'at their door'? Is that something that my neighbors would notice if it happened to me? What would this sort of event look/sound/smell like? What measurable phenomena would it produce (air movement, ionization, visible form and/or shadow, change of temperature, humidity, etc)? I have no clue what "those parenthesis" is supposed to refer to, let alone what was between them. But never mind. No. Objectivity cannot be attained or ascribed by presumption, but only by observation. That's my point. I would grant that when you tell the story of Captain Ahab, then the Great White Whale could be referred to as an objective entity within the context of the story ("for the sake of" that "discussion"). But it's still also entirely imaginary because the story, the contextual frame for that notion of "objectiveness", is a work of fiction. Only as a relationship among arbitrary symbols that have an agreed-upon meaning in the language of mathematics. It has no independent, observable existence as a "real-world" entity. Yes, I'm already aware, from seeing some of your posts over the years, that you tend to fall back on solipsism. Oh well, no need for us to pursue that any further. Not at all -- that's silly. There's certainly no point trying to make English (or any other natural human language) scientifically rigorous in its entirety, if only because things like metaphors, similes, double-entendres and so on are far too valuable to give up, but especially because these languages of ours (whichever ones we use) are the most effective means for communicating our imaginations, which is vitally essential. But their effectiveness depends crucially on some degree of conventional agreement about the meanings of the words.I simply mean that in order to use the term "objective" in its conventional sense, you can't be using it as an attribute of a deity, unless/until there is actually some material, commonly observable manifestation such that anyone, upon witnessing it, would conclude "yep, that's your deity, right there!" Short of that, it's rather like using "brightness" to refer to the absence of light.I can usually grasp and appreciate poetic or other artful usage as well as the next person, but "objective" is not a term that lends itself easily to such usage, and you didn't seem to be trying for a poetic or other artful effect.But I suppose that if your intention matched whatever Iblis tried to explain in his reply, then something of that sort would only make sense as being somehow poetic or artful (and essentially imaginary). If I understood correctly: "assuming that God exists, there is some set of things that exist as 'objective' from His viewpoint" -- which of course we can't possibly perceive objectively ourselves, as we are not God, but if we truly believe in Him, then we can somehow share in the 'objectivity' of His entire system of ethics, etc.That all sounds like it could be profound and richly evocative, I'm sure -- indeed, perhaps Iblis's idea of "transcendent" is darn near on the mark -- but it's only "objective" in a purely imaginative, metaphorical or other "poetic, artful" sense. Okay, fine. Have fun with that.Again, apologies if this has strayed too far from the topic.Edited by Otto Tellick, : minor grammar repair

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.