LeonMire

Plato's character Euthyphro presents a classic problem: Does God approve of something because it is good, or is something good because God approves of it? Many Christians have offered confounded solutions to it, such as that God approves of things because they are good, and they are good because they are expressions of His goodness. Their arguments don't really hold any water, though, since it just shifts the question to God's character: is it good because it is God's character or is God's character good because it possesses good attributes (love, mercy, etc.)? In any case, atheists typically use this argument as leverage to objective morality without God. While I am an atheist, and also a proponent of objective morality, I do not think the argument made by atheists is watertight. Atheists argue - and rightly so - that if things were good because God commanded them so, then God could not be called good in any meaningful sense, because God could command rape and murder and it would still be "good." But, on the other hand, they say, if good is something independent of God, then the theist is admitting that there is an objective moral standard outside of God, and so atheists contend that they are in no worse a position than the theist, since, by the theist's own admission, morals are independent of God. This is where I would say that the atheists (and possibly the theists) have overlooked an important argument. Although it is true that, if God's decree does not determine what morality is, then morality is independent of God, it is a jump of logic to say that this means that atheism is at least as good off as theism. I believe there is a third option for the theist. One could make the argument that, while morality is not simply a matter of what God says, the existence of morality is still dependent on His existence. The only analogy I can think of would be that of a mother to her son. The mother cannot simply say, "Son, you will grow 5 feet today" or magically decide what her son will look like just because she is the child's mother (I know, the analogy is poor, since she can, to a limited degree, decide what her child looks like, but I think the analogy can still be understood). But at the same time, the existence of the child is dependent on the existence of the mother. Much in the same way, the theist could argue that God recognizes things as moral or immoral because they objectively are, and cannot change that by His decree, but morals are still dependent on His existence. This would appear to solve the problem of arbitrary morality inherent in the Divine Command Theory of Morality, but allows the theist to maintain that atheists still have no basis for objective morality. I would be interested to hear any thoughts on or critiques of my view, since I have never heard it argued before.

-Leon

kctan

Why should morals depends on this mystical creature's existence if it's independent of it in the first place ?

The ability of this mystical creature in recognising objective morals does not meant that these objective morals need this mystical creature to be in existence.

If objective morals are independent of this mystical being, changing it is out of the question with or without it's decree. It's unchangable, otherwise it won't be objective.

In essence, if morals are objective & independent of mystical beings, whether such mystical beings exist or not will not have any effect on these morals.

Cretinist

If someone killed my mother, I wouldn't cease to exist.

Dominus Paradoxum

They could claim that goodness in some way depends upon his nature rather then his will. But the claim that goodness depends upon his nature is still dubious. For *why* should God be essentially good? And just what is the precise character of this "goodness"?

Philosoft

Indeed. I'd say moral objectivity means something more than, "standards of human ought-behavior directly accessible only by God."

long winded fool

If it is an independent creation (like the mother's son) then it can't exist without mother having existed at some point in time, yet it exists independently of mother. This isn't a logical neccessity for morality, but it still solves the dilemma which I think was LeonMire's point.

Not neccessarily. The son is entirely independent of the mother, yet he cannot exist if she never existed. Merely extend the analogy to an ageless immortal mother and it's apt. (In other words, what if you can't kill mother? Then she exists alongside son, son is independent of mother, but he could never have come into being without her.) Again, I don't think LeonMire is trying to prove anything. He's merely giving a reasonable solution to the problem. If you grant God for the sake of argument, (as most atheists are willing to do in order to point out that many theistic conclusions do not follow from theistic premises) then the Euthyphro problem with regards to morality doesn't neccessarily present a contradiction.

kctan

Why must it be a creation of god then ? Since it can be shown to be independent, why the need to associate it with god in the first place ? Think Occam's Razor.

Why the need of a 'mother' when the 'son' can be in existence independent of a 'mother' ? Does objectivity requires a 'mother' for that matter ? If theists argued 'yes' then who's the mother of god then ?

Until some one can provide a sound arguement as to how & why objective morality needs a god or god he/she/itself appears to clarify this, the dilemma will stand.

long winded fool

Not the Euthyphro dilemma. This is solved. Good is an objective, independent thing that God created. The Euthyphro problem has an "If God, then...?" format. If we accept God for the sake of argument, then we can sort out the problem. Why accept God for the sake of argument? So we can sort out the problem. This doesn't prove God created morality. This shows that the existence of God can't be disproved using this particular line of reasoning. It simply shows that there really isn't a paradox. Objective morality doesn't need a god, (as far as I can tell) but it can have one and not present a paradox.

Wiploc

I don't see what you are shooting for here. What is the goal? I'll spin out a scenario, and you can tell me where I went off the track:

Suppose god created a group of angels, and empaneled them to determine what was good. The angels magically arranged that rape would make more people unhappy than it made happy. Therefore, god and atheists both recognize that rape is objectively wrong.

How does this put atheists at a disadvantage?

crc

Nom

Solved? Not really. You're still stuck with morality being subjective: something is wrong/right because God said it was when he created good/evil. If God created morality, it cannot be objective.
Quite right. However, the Christan theist is then faced with a God who has violated this objective morality, according to their own teachings (slaying the first born of Egypt, for example), and thus isn't omnibenevolent.